STEWART AND HESS went over to Mighty Mo ’s, a drive-in with car-side service at the intersection of New Hampshire Avenue and 410. It had been built in ’58 and was the hangout for their crew and others. This was where they went to plot out the action for the rest of the night. Hot rods and lowriders with names like “Little Dipper,” “Little Sleeper,” and “Also Ran” were scattered about the lot. Rock and roll came from the open windows of the rides, their freshly waxed bodies gleaming under the lights.
Stewart and Hess hooked up with their friends. They ordered the signature burgers and onion rings through speakers, and were served by waitresses who ran the food from the kitchens out to the cars. The young men and women washed it down with beer. The night went on like that, engine talk and boasts and eye contact with the girlfriends of others, and soon enough the buzz of alcohol and deep night had come. It was time to go out and run the cars.
Hess and several others began to drive out of Mo’s. In a corner of the lot, apart from the younger ones, stood Billy Griffith, Mike Anastasi, and Tommy Hancock, all leaning on their cars. These were the most feared, badass white boys in the area. For sport they frequently went into D.C. and picked fights with groups of coloreds. The most famous fight had started at the Hot Shoppes down at Georgia and Hamilton and continued on to the Little Tavern across the street. It was said that Griffith, Anastasi, and Hancock took on ten coloreds and beat the living shit out of them. As the story got around, the coloreds numbered twenty.
Stewart nodded at Billy Griffith, the most demented of the three, as he and Hess drove by. Griffith had a legendary rep. Men of all ages talked about him in bars and quieted when he walked into a room. Buzz Stewart could only hope that people would someday see him that way, too.
STEWART AND HESS drove out Route 29 to the area around Fairland Road. It was not far from downtown Silver Spring, maybe five miles on the odometer, but it was country. By ten o’clock there was little traffic, and those who were parked along the shoulders were there for fun.
A quarter mile had been marked off. Small bets had been made back at Mo’s and at other area hangouts. Hess pulled over near a group of their friends and watched a race between a Chevy and a Dodge. Then a guy arrived towing a trailer holding a ’31 Ford sedan without tags.
“Man claims it’s got a five-twelve rear, dad,” said Hess.
“What he claims,” said Stewart.
The driver of the Ford dragged a hopped-up ’50 Studebaker and blew its doors off.
“Whew,” said Hess. “He wasn’t braggin’.”
They watched more races and drank more beer. Stewart saw a peroxide blonde named Suzie who he had dry-fucked one time in the back of his car when both of them were falling down on gin and Coke. He couldn’t remember nothin’ about her except the smell she’d left in his car. He started toward her but changed his mind. He could have that any old day, he wanted it. What he wanted tonight was a different kind of action. Three beers had been whispering to him, and now four talked in his ear, telling him to kick somebody’s ass.
But Hess wanted to take a run at some snatch, so they went over and talked to a couple of tough girls they recognized, one who was okay, one who looked like a pimply duck. Both of them were wearing tight jeans. They got the girls into the car and after they’d switched to boy-girl and he’d gotten everyone to take off their shoes, Hess drove them through some farmer’s cornfield for laughs. The girls were as drunk as they were, and soon they found a place to park. Stewart took a walk with the okay girl while Hess stayed in the car with the pimply duck. Later, after they had dropped the girls at a field party off Peach Orchard Road, Stewart admitted that he hadn’t gotten anything off his girl, not even tit. Hess claimed he got his fingers wet and with an outstretched hand offered Stewart a smell.
“Get that shit outta my face, Shorty,” said Stewart.
Hess cackled like a witch. “You ready to go sportin’, Buzz?”
“Yeah. Let’s pick up my ride.”
They switched cars at the doughnut shop, bought more beer down below the line, and drove into the District, looking for something or someone to fuck up.
Their next stop was the Rendezvous, down on 10th Street in Northwest. The bar was jammed with rough old boys, bikers, and women who liked their type. The place smelled like alcohol and sweat. Link Wray and his Raymen were up on the bandstand. Link was wearing leather and rocking the house.
Stewart and Hess stepped up to the bar and ordered a couple of drafts. Stewart got a man’s size and Hess ordered a fifteen-center. It looked like a girl’s glass, but Hess didn’t care. The fifteen-cent glass was tall, fragile, and skinny. You could break the head off it easy, if you had to, and use the jagged edge to open up some joker’s face. Hess had a sip and put his back to the bar.
The band did a number with sometime vocalist Bobby Howard, then another. The Raymen were at their most raucous on their instrumentals, but Howard had a good voice for this kind of rock. It was known that Link couldn’t sing. He had caught TB overseas when he was in the service, and the doctors had removed one of his lungs.
“Here he goes,” said Stewart happily, and they watched Link use a pen to punch a couple of holes in the bands’ speakers. It was how he got that fuzz tone out of his ax, and it was a signal that the band was about to lift off.
Which is how it went as the band kicked into “The Swag” and then an extended version of “Rawhide.” It was a sound that no one else could seem to get, a primal, blood-kicking kind of rock and roll, and it energized the room. People were dancing into one another, and soon punches were thrown, and many of the people who were fighting still had smiles on their faces. Link himself was said to be a peaceable man, but sometimes his music incited righteous violence.
“You in?” said Hess, his eyes on a fight that was building in numbers on the edge of the room.
“Nah,” said Stewart, who just wanted to enjoy the music for now. “I’m good.”
Hess put his glass down on the bar, made his way into the crowd, and started swinging. His first punch met the temple of some guy who turned his head right into it, knocking him clean off his feet. Hess thinking, Some nights you just get luckier than shit, right before some other guy, looked like Richard Boone, up and split his lip with a straight right.
AN HOUR LATER they were parked up on 14th Street, way north of Columbia Road, drinking beers and huffing cigarettes. “The Girl Can’t Help It” was playing on the radio, and Stewart was tapping his finger in time on the steering wheel.
Both of them were drunk stupid but still adrenalized from the fight. Stewart had waded in after Hess had caught that right and they had cleaned house from there on in. The most prideful thing about it was they weren’t even tossed. In fact, they had walked out on their own two feet as the band played “Rumble” to their backs. Stewart would always remember the way that felt, like Link was playing that song for him. They should have been satisfied, but they still had energy to burn and felt that the night was not yet done.
“What you figure he’s doin’?” said Hess, looking down the street to where a young colored guy stood by himself.
“Pretty obvious he’s waitin’ on a bus,” said Stewart, thinking, as he did sometimes, that someone had taken a scalpel to Shorty’s brain. Hell, the boy was right there at the D.C. Transit stop.
Hess touched at his lip. The blood had congealed some, but it still seeped out occasionally, as the split was deep. He put his cigarette in the other side of his mouth and had a drag.
“What you gonna do?” said Hess.
“What you mean?”
“Like, with your life?”
“
“I’m thinking of enlisting in the Corps.”
“Think they’ll take you, huh?”
“Why wouldn’t they?”
“Ain’t you never heard of a Section Eight?”
Hess rubbed at his crotch, thinking of the duck-looking girl he’d had. She’d fought him
