All Is True: The Naked Girl in the Treehouse

Chapter 5: Want to Know a Secret

A Serial Novel by Mark Howell

 

Along the driver’s side of our metallic blue Plymouth Savoy were scrawled, in white paint and capital letters, “The Rolling Stones, London to Los Angeles!”

This message had just led to the launch of David Carpenter and your narrator, Thom One, as entertainers. Just as David’s arrogance at the wheel — “We have to teach these Americans how to drive!” — had led directly to our first encounter with the highway police.

Which led to the sheriff nudging us gently off the road so he could take us home to his wife and daughter and all his neighbors so he could show off what he’d just caught on the fresh tarmac of the brand new interstate.

“You danced like Fred Astaire last night, leaping down that haystack with Sally,” David said to me the next morning.

“And you sounded like Django Reinhardt on your guitar,” I said. And on we sped to Ohio.

It had changed everything, last night, bringing both of our lives to their moment. And here we are now on our way to the Ohio lake shore to meet up with those 20 coeds from Lake Erie College in Painesville we’d met aboard the S.S. America on our way to the States.

The unspoken purpose for our visit to the girls had changed since last night. What we were really seeking now was permission to keep on singing for our supper. The sheriff had let us sleep in our car in his yard the overnight, and sleeping in the car was our intended way to cross the whole country in order to afford our daily dose of unfiltered Pall Mall cigarettes. Would the girls let us practice our act so we could make this thing real?

But something else had happened since last night, too. It was announced over the radio on the news. “In an achievement unlikely to ever be equaled,” intoned a somber voice, “for the week of the 4th of April 1964, The Beatles, on six record labels, have occupied the top five positions in all the Hot-100 record charts in the nation.”

According to the report, the Liverpool lads now held 12 places on U.S. charts, starting with “Can’t Buy Me Love,” “Twist and Shout,” ”She Loves You,” “I Want To Hold Your Hand,” “Please Please Me,” “I Saw Her Standing There,” “From Me To You,” “Do You Want To Know A Secret,” “All My Loving,” “You Can’t Do That,” “Roll Over Beethoven” and “Thank You Girl.”

Thank you, Beatles!” yelled David at the wheel.

I knew what he meant. The Rolling Stones had a measly four hits back in Britain and David and I hardly knew them: “Come On,” “I Wanna Be Your Man,” “Not Fade Away,” “It’s All Over Now.” None of them were yet hits here in the States.

Beatlemania was becoming an epidemic in America and that took us by surprise. Meanwhile, my favorite pop music came from the Shangri-Las — so operatic! — played late at night in Britain on Radio Luxembourg, a station for U.S. troops in Europe. David’s favorite group was the Dave Clark Five, powder kegs of energy whose “Glad All Over” and other hits were selling six million records a month back home.

Another pop star I fancied with almost religious devotion was a British hit-maker called Sandy Shaw, a true friend of the Beatles and as shortsighted as John Lennon. Like him, she had a gaze so intense it was attractive and intriguing. She also featured bare feet in her performances.

Which became the first topic of our conversation that second night, as we separately settled down on the wide front and back seats of our sedan while dusk settled about us. On the miles we’d covered thus far we’d encountered so many individuals, boys and girls both, hitchhiking on the highway that we felt no fear in driving to a remote spot a ways from the roadway to park ourselves in a field for the night. The only scary things we’d been warned about in the United States were the old guys of the House Committee of Un-American Activities.

“You want to put Sandy Shaw’s toes in your mouth,” David   declared from the front seat, the stubs of Pall Mall cigarettes smoldering in the front and rear ashtrays. “You’re a foot fetishist.”

“Oh for God’s sake,” I said.

“Let me remind you,” he said, “that my goal on this trip is to invade America and deliver you from evil.”

“Let me remind you,” I said, “that true love comes from the suppression of sexual intercourse.”

“”Are you kidding? Let me tell you this,” he said. “America is still wild, they shoot their presidents, but in the wild is truth.”

“ David, you and I are as different as JFK and LBJ,” I said.

On that we slept like kings.

The next day, after a full day’s drive, we were on the outskirts of Painesville. David called ahead from a phone both and let me have the wheel on the way in so he could greet the welcoming party personally. And so he did.

“Hello Shirley!” “Hello Paula!” “Hello Beverley!” “Hello Elaine!” “Hello Irene!” “Hello Kathleen!” “Hello Gail!” “Hello Donna! “Hello Lois!” “Hello Darlene!”

They were all born in the 1950s and we were right about our Painesville girls. They couldn’t wait for the real 1960s.

Especially the Rolling Stones.

More next week.

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