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By the way, all material on this site is copyrighted James Ciano over the years |
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Father’s Rules
“Jacky, you know you have two weddings this week end?” “Yes Mike, Tony gave me the spec sheets, both are in East Boston.” “Yeah Mike, Saturday's is at Golino's Restaurant on Bennington Street.” “Yeah, Tony, has Jacky ever worked there before?” “I don't know, have you Jacky?” “No, Tony, but what's the big deal it's a restaurant with a hall right?” “Well actually it has a back yard they use for the formals. It's one of the reason Brides like Golino's that back yard is large for East Boston, and with all the trees and shrubs it has the best background for formals.”
“Make sure you have an extra strobe unit, they want a lot of pictures and the strobe has been acting up. It's fully charged but you never know if it will last.” “OK, anything else special about either of these weddings?” “No, the other wedding is at Franklin's Grotto on Route one and you've been there a dozen times before.” “OK, I think I'm all set, if anything comes up let me know.” “Good Luck!”
At this Jacky left the studio heading home to change. He has a date tonight then, tomorrow, Saturday, his wedding is at 11:00 AM and the reception is at 4:00 PM At Golino's Restaurant. He's thinking about the date tonight. He and his father have been arguing because, since Jacky's last birthday where he turned 18, he expects to be able to stay out later than midnight, but his father has said the door will be locked if he gets in one minute after 12:00, even though the show doesn't get out until 12:45. If they stay though the entire feature and then Jacky drives Barbara home Jacky will get home after 1:30 tonight.
Arriving home, Jacky kissed his mother and went up to his room to change for his date. He's not sure what he should take with him, Barbara might want to neck but that's it. Jacky doesn't like to look to eager for sex, and then he won't get it for sure. Jacky's beard is very sparse, at 18; he doesn't need to shave more than every other day at the most. He thinks there's something wrong with him about that. Slacks, a nice shirt clean and shaved, he is ready to conquer the world, or this girl tonight, whichever comes first. Actually, Jacky is looking forward to this date with Barbara, they've been going out for a while and he really likes her.
With $45.00 in cash he has enough to get gas for the car, $10.00, a flower for the girl $2.50, the show tickets, at 3.00 each and some food at intermission another 8.00 or more will leave him with $15.00 for the rest of the week end. Both his weddings are in the area so he won't need more gas, he should have enough until he gets paid Monday for the weddings. He still doesn't know what he’ll do if his father locks him out. He wants to move out, but his mother is against it. His father couldn't care less. One less mouth to feed is how he looks at it.
Now to pick up Barbara and take her to the show, gees, his father is really getting to him now with this curfew. This is just one more thing to get him going.
“Get out of the way you fucking asshole!”
Jacky yells at another driver as he hurries to pick up Barbara.
Gees, I better calm down before I pick up Barbara or she'll go ape shit if I yell at any one like that when she's in the car.
Jacky's girlfriend Barbara Driscoll is one of those girls that turn heads when they walk by and Barbara has an added quality she is smart and fun to be with. At 5' 4” she is just the right height for Jack and at 110 lbs she is also just the right weight. Barbara likes Jack and it shows the way the act together. This is a very typical Boston Romance. Barbara Driscoll is from a very Irish family and Jacky is from a very Italian Family. Again, typical Boston. Jack is at a disadvantage this week. Last week end they double dated with another couple and as they were picking up the other girl Jack was introducing Barbara to his friend Steve. Well, for some reason Jack got nervous and forgot Barbara's name and did this trick stammer to make a joke out of it, but it bothered him because he likes Barbara so much. Barbara poked him and acted like she accepted his excuse of a joke, but, still Jack was mortified. Sometimes, the more mature Jack tries to be the more juvenile he becomes.
“Hi, Mrs. Driscoll, is Barbara home?” “Hi, Jack, sure come in, she'll be ready in a minute.” “Thank you”
Walking into the house, Jacky is very respectful, Barbara's mother and father are home and he wants to make a good impression. Barbara's father asks Jacky:
“Where are you two going tonight?” “The Revere Theater, right on Broadway Revere their showing the movie Dracula with Bella Lugosi and we heard it was great.” “Bela Lugosi is a great actor.” “Yeah, he sure is. Barbara loves him.” “Well don't get home too late, what time does the show get out?” “It's over at 12:45 so we should be back here before 1:30.” “OK, just be careful, at that hour you never know what you're going to run into.”
As Jacky walked Barbara out of the house to the car she's saying, you look nice tonight Jack, how was your week.
“Well the week was alright until last night, my father got on my case, he's giving me a hard time about getting in after midnight. We'll see tonight the show doesn't get out until 12:45 and by the time I get home it will be well after 2:00 AM.” “Will he really lock the door?” “I don't know, my father is not a nice guy, he could do anything. I don't know what he really wants. I told him I would move out if that's what he wants, but he says no, then he says he'll lock me out. I'll see tonight.”
“Don't let him get you mad, just do what he says.” “Honey, I'm not dragging you out of the show at 11:30 to get home by midnight, he can go to hell.”
“Maybe we shouldn't go to the show, maybe we could do something else?”
At this Jack is not paying close attention to Barbara and he thinks that he will disappoint her if they miss the show. If he was paying more attention he might have asked her what else she has in mind, and the answer might have made him very happy, after all they've been going out for about 2 months now and she likes him a lot so who knows what other things they might do.
“The hell with him, if he locks the door I'm moving out tonight.” “But where will you go?” “There are plenty places I could go and I have lots of friends that will let me stay with them for a few days.”
Now Jack is getting hard headed and at this Barbara backs off. She thinks it's better to let him think it through than get him so angry he'll just react.
The show was fantastic. Bela Lugosi is the best actor in history, no one can play Dracula the way he can, and they both love him in the part. Barbara hugged Jack through all the scary parts and they both felt a little sorry but relieved when, in the end, the sunlight made him turn to dust.
Now the race was on. Barbara made Jack hurry because it was so late. They barely had time to kiss when, in front of her house he got out and opened the car door for her. She made he go right back and drive home as she walked to her front door. When he got home the front door was double locked and Jack could not get in. Not sure what to do, he decided to climb up to the roof of the house and over to the back to his bedroom window. This was a little tricky because he would then have to walk on his father's bedroom roof. As he walked along the roof he remembered that he would have to be very quiet on his father's roof and took off his shoes. Opening the screen from his bedroom window he got his leg in the room and put down his shoes so he could balance himself with one hand as he held the window up with the other hand he slid the rest of the way into the room. With his heart beating a million miles an hour he stopped and sat on the window sill while he decided what else he would do. He began assembling his stuff on the bed, including everything he could think of. First, he needed his dress clothes for the weddings this week end. He would need all his photography equipment because he wasn't coming back home again. He would also need work clothes in case he had to work on his car, which made him decide to take all his clothes and put them in suit cases. His photography equipment, included two spare cameras and two strobes with chargers plus about 50 film slide holders and some speed pack holders for 12 packs, as well as the new 120 back for the camera that let him convert his 2 ¼ by 3 ¼ single sheet speed graphic to a roll film camera which gave him much more speed for weddings and even allowed him to use color film.
Working very quietly and as fast as possible, he assembled his belongings on his bed, and then one by one he carried the luggage and boxes down the stairs near the front door to transfer to his car. Still without shoes he went out the front door to the street carrying his camera equipment and moved his car up by the door. Leaving the car running he went back up the front stairs to get some clothes. Coming back in the front door. As soon as he opened the screen door his father was there to grab him. The front doorway had a small hall that was entered from the house by the heavy house door, but to exit to the street you went through a screen door. As soon as Jacky entered the little hallway through the screen door his father tried to grab hold of him. Jack's father was never a very gentle man and this maneuver he was attempting was not designed to be gentle. The idea was to grab hold of him and hold him forcibly.
Jacky however, had other ideas. As soon as he realized his father had a hold of him, he pushed his father back away from him and ran into the house, which is the opposite direction that his father expected. However, the screen door opened in and once inside it was impossible to open with someone, in this case his father, standing with his back to the screen door. The way the doors opened trapped Jack in the entry hall and running through the house really was his only option. Immediately his father came after him running through the house. Being a lot younger and faster Jacky ran through the entire house and out the back door before his father had made it half way.
Jacky, once he got outside, ran for his car and reaching it unaccosted, he drove away. Now he was in real trouble. Shoeless and all his clothes in the hallway ready to be loaded into his car he had a pair of black slacks on and a white shirt he was wearing but he was in his stocking feet and very little else. At least he had his working camera and basic equipment in the trunk. Now, driving away he didn't have a clue where to go. None of his friends had their own places and their parents would never let him stay if they knew he ran out on his father.
With $17.00 left over from his date in cash in his pocket he decided to drive to Salem New Hampshire, where the family cottage was. It was March and they never went near it until the 30th of May anyway. As he was turning off route 1 north to Route 114 in Danvers Massachusetts, which led to the cottage he was going to , a car coming the other way was fully in his lane and by some quick dangerous maneuvers they both managed to only lightly strike each other.
When Jacky stopped his car, his outside driver's side door handle was broken off and hanging by a small piece of metal. Jacky headed over to the other car to find out what had happened to them. As he got about 50 feet from the car the other driver got out of the car and was screaming bloody murder.
“I'll kill you, you son of a bitch why couldn't you stay on your own side of the road?”
And as this fellow is staggering out of his car he is waving a gun as he screamed. As Jacky saw what was happening he ran around the back of the other car trying to put the other guy’s car between them. In the mean time, the other guy was shooting at Jacky and two of the bullets went through his own car and hit his passenger. Jacky saw the passenger, a young woman, get him in the head and blood splattered all over the dashboard and side passenger window of the car. The guy is still screaming and still shooting. It didn't take long for him to run out of bullets, but the damage was already done. As Jacky kept the car between himself and the nutcase shooting at him people began coming out their front doors. All the time the nut case is screaming that Jacky killed his girlfriend and is now trying to run away.
In a panic, Jacky managed to keep the nut case’s car between them until the nutcase lost sight of him. Very quietly and sneakily Jacky made it to his car and jumped in. When the accident happened the two cars got turned around and when Jacky started off he was headed back to Revere. Making a quick decision, Jacky headed to Revere Beach and his friend Markie's father's motel, which was on the corner of Revere Street and Beach Boulevard. Jacky figured the cops would check the drunken guy's gun and find that it was him who shot the girl in the car and would not be after him.
The next morning Jacky woke to find he had to get ready for a wedding and had to spend his last 15 dollars to get a pair of shoes he could do the wedding in. His friend Marky let him wash his clothes in the motel's commercial washers and Jacky was ready to do his 11:00 AM wedding.
Arriving at the groom's house as usual at 9:00 he quickly shot the Groomsmen and moved on to the brides house. Jacky got his shots and then moved on to the church where everyone was waiting. The wedding went almost on automatic pilot. Everyone smiled on cue and the Bride and Groom rode off into the sunset at 7:30 PM as scheduled.
Jacky called Mike at home and told him he would need some money so mike told him to come on over, he would give him gas money until Jacky could cash the wedding check Monday.
Picking up the gas money Jacky did his Sunday wedding almost like the day before. Both were easy and the people were great to deal with. On Monday, Jacky was at the studio telling them about his Friday night mishap when Tony heard on the radio that the police were looking for a red Pontiac Tempest 326, that was involved in a murder Friday night on Route 114. According to the report a couple driving in a Chrysler Dasher were attacked by a crazed drunk driving the Pontiac and the Pontiac driver started shooting and killed the girl in the Chrysler, then escaped with all the neighbors searching for him. The police report said the Pontiac driver was Armed and Dangerous and would be shot on sight.
Not knowing what to do Jacky called a friend of his from high school who worked for the Record American News Paper in Boston. Steven Franklin had won a Pulitzer Prize for his photograph of a woman falling out of the window of a burning house. When Jacky called him, Steven told him to turn himself in to the state police, it was the only thing to do. But, Jacky was afraid that they might not believe him, he wanted Steven to call the police with his story. Steven told him that if he called the cops, they would make him tell them who did it and he would not be able to protect Jacky after that. Not knowing what to do, Jacky called a police friend he knew from Revere, Pauly, who was a sergeant on the force, and explained what, had happened. Pauly said they couldn't find the gun that killed the girl and wanted Jacky to give himself up so they could clear it up. Jacky told Pauly if the cops didn't search the woods close by where the incident happened they would never clear it because they would never find the gun.
During the search for the killer in Danvers Massachusetts, Jacky's mother saw him walking on Broadway in Revere coming out of Rosa's submarine shop and told him to come by the house and get his clothes, which he did. However, Jacky told his mother he couldn't move back in again. It was too much trouble to follow his father's rules. That midnight curfew was the last straw. He would find a place to live and let his mother know, as long as she didn't tell his father, which she agreed. Now he had all his clothes and the rest of his photographic equipment. Now it was time to find a place to leave everything while he cleared up this shooting problem. Marky suggested he take a long term room at her father's motel and Jacky liked that idea. Jack called Pauly again and agreed to give himself up to the police. Pauly believed what Jack said and went to Danvers to search for the gun. Pauly had a friend on the Danvers force and they worked together. Jack had told Pauly that the guy doing the shooting had gone completely crazy the other night and he might try anything to get out of it now. He had no remorse for killing his girlfriend.
Pauly and his friend Mark Stanford spent all day looking and gave up at around 4:00 PM. As they walked back to their car they saw someone crashing through the underbrush not far from them. Stopping they walked quietly over to where they could see who this person was and found him picking up a gun and hiding it in his belt around his back covered with his jacket. They watched him from a distance and when he went back to his car and drove away they followed. He drove to a small pond about a mile down the road and got out of his car. The two cops watched as he threw the gun as far as he could into the pond. While Pauly and Mark were following the guy that picked up the gun they called in to the station and got a pair of detectives to come out to where they were. The detectives were on hand to see the gun flying into the lake as witnesses. As soon as the guy threw the gun into the pond Pauly and Mark pulled up behind him and blocked his car in place. The two detectives they called pulled up to the front of his car and got out of their car. It was the two detectives that arrested this guy and later in the day they had a diver recover the discarded gun. It didn't take long the next day in the police lab, to prove the gun was the murder weapon and they had the right man. It might have been an accident but it was still murder and the guy lied to the police about it. He would do some time for his drunken stupidity. Jacky, on the other hand couldn't believe all this happened because his father locked him out of the house. This will make a clean break from his father, something that has been coming for a long time. The two detectives wanted to file charges against Jacky for running away the other night without reporting to them, but, Pauly and Mark said Jacky was working with them to get the real culprit and he was the only reason it got solved right away. In the end no charges were filed against Jacky.
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