| ACE | | | | water, and so forth. They even got to breaking into |
| (or, The Big Bopper) | | | | trains down by the steel company, in back of Roger's |
| ((Part five) (concerning Ace or the Big Bopper, and the | | | | father's apartment, breaking the Federal seals, off the |
| boys, summer of, 1958-68) | | | | cars, and taking a weekend supply of beer, finding a |
| Jerry Bird was a large man of pert-near, six foot six | | | | hole to drink it in, and that was the weekend. |
| inches tall, with a drooping mouth, no teeth, broad | | | | Jerry Bird liked women, like everyone else in the |
| shoulders, weighted perhaps two-hundred and twenty | | | | neighborhood (if there was anyone to the contrary, no |
| pounds. He always wore wrinkled cloths-so it | | | | one knew about it), but seldom found a lasting |
| appeared dirty waistcoats, hidden in his pockets | | | | relationship, he was not the most handsome guy in |
| sticking out were cheap cigars when he moved about | | | | town, and had reached the age of thirty. He imagined |
| they showed-known as stogies. His false teeth were | | | | one of the neighborhood girls to have fallen in love with |
| seldom around when he needed them, he'd forget | | | | him, in which she didn't, but it renewed the youth in him. |
| them, have Roger Landsmen drive him home, pick | | | | Mary Aldrich most sensualist, she enjoyed talking to |
| them up, so he could eat, although his gums were as | | | | men, and was not all that honorable with keeping a |
| hard as nails: he had irregular eyes also, something | | | | relationship, and for a season for hours at a time, she |
| strange about his eyes. The lids of the eyes twitched, | | | | lingered about at parties and at those two local bars, |
| more often than not, perhaps too often; it would close, | | | | playing up to Dan Wright, and-you got it, Big Bopper. |
| tightly down and snap back up as if mechanical; it was | | | | The saloon keeper was a short, broad-shouldered |
| exactly as though the lid of the eye were sunken | | | | Italian with peculiarities, and would slip you Mickey into |
| headlights, window shades. | | | | your drink (LSD or something of that nature) if you got |
| Ace, had a liking for the boys, I mean, hanging around | | | | too mouthy. That flaming kind of sense of humor got |
| with the boys, he was ten-year Chick Evens' senior. | | | | him shot one evening, when he opened up the |
| Actually, he was everyone's in the neighborhood | | | | backdoor to sell a six-pack of beer. |
| senior. It began when Chick had become one of the | | | | In any case, Mary was playing one against the other, |
| boys, and started his drinking, I can't put an exact date | | | | she liked men fighting over her, and as I said, sensualist |
| on it, but it was around 1960, when Chick started his | | | | she was, but plain looking. As they (Mary, Ace, Dan |
| light drinking, and Ace, Big Bopper, was buying booze | | | | and David Rye) stood outside an apartment having a |
| for the boys, and getting drunk with them: at which | | | | party with several other guys and girls, arguing and |
| time, Jerry was an acquaintance with most of the self | | | | fighting over Mary-David trying to calm the situation |
| ruled gang, but it was simply a matter of time, in the | | | | down-rubbing his hands together from the cool fall air. |
| making, before he'd be one of them. He was, for the | | | | Dan grew more and more excited it was as though |
| most part, short witted, that is to say, slow minded, or | | | | his mind had been dipped in blood that had dried and |
| slightly backward. A good ole boy though. Often at up | | | | washed out, he wanted more, and it was called |
| at Rice School, when the boys were drinking, behind it, | | | | revenge for being pushed aside by David Rye, and |
| he'd dance and sing "Twenty-four black birds...baked in | | | | Mary for telling him to go his own way, and it was Ace |
| a pie," and he'd dramatize it, and it was a hoot. | | | | he was mad at. Dan was a small plumb man, often |
| In the late afternoons, Roger Landsmen, or Doug | | | | called "Crazy Dan," and thus Crazy Dan, went home, |
| Swords, would drive Ace to the liquor store on Rice | | | | and pulled out of his father's closet, a shot gun, ran |
| Street; Cayuga Street was off of Jackson, a main | | | | back to the party, and aimed it at Ace. |
| street in St. Paul, across from the Oakland Cemetery. | | | | As David Rye stood by looking at the red faced Dan |
| And Rice Street was parallel, but on the other side of | | | | Wright, as Dan tried to talk to his woman Mary Aldrich, |
| the cemetery. Roger, lived across the street from | | | | who really was not his woman, she wasn't anybody's |
| Evens, and his brother Ronny was the same age as | | | | woman, and she sat looking out the apartment |
| Evens, Roger being three years older than his brother. | | | | window, frightened. And the shotgun went off, but it |
| In any case, the owner of the liquor store got to know | | | | wasn't Ace who got shot, it was David Rye. |
| Ace pretty well in those days, and when the booze | | | | The police appeared immediately after the death of |
| was gone the boys went to the two corner bars off | | | | David, and Dan who had disappeared, was captured |
| Jackson and Sycamore, saloons some of the boys | | | | by the Highway Patrolman, four hours later, hitching to |
| would spend their whole lives in. And when the place | | | | Wisconsin. His lawyer somehow convinced the jury, or |
| closed up at 1:00 p.m., Ace would slip in at the | | | | judge the intent to kill wasn't there, he was so |
| backdoor of the saloon and buy a number of | | | | convincing, so much so, that Dan got only four-years in |
| six-packs for the boys, of course with their money, | | | | prison. It seemed to the neighborhood boys, if you had |
| Ace seldom had money, but he had the assets to buy | | | | your eyes open, you got life in prison for killing, and if |
| it, and so he was always welcome to come along and | | | | you closed them you got a much lighter sentence. |
| drink it, and he surely did drink his share of drinking. | | | | There of course is reason for that: a blackout, an |
| Ace, and a few of the other boys, began drinking wine | | | | accident of the finger. The reason does not justify the |
| and at times combinations, with sloe gin and soda | | | | act, but in fact, it matters in the long run-amusing, eh? |