suspicious minds

well, it seems the only way i'm inspired to write something is by reading something. this morning, dawnkeyoties entry kinda reminded me of this story, and then later in the afternoon, kirbys just brought it all back.

thanks guys.

first a little local history. just a few blocks from my parents house in quincy, right on the beach, is the beachcomber. when this story took place, it was nostalgia, as it had been as long as i could remember. i can't remember all that far back. the beachcomber was the original name of the place, and they changed it when there was a stabbing death in the parking lot. i have no clue as to when this was, sometime in the 70's probably? i guess the negative press was keeping people away, so they they changed the name, and nostalgia it became.

better known as nastys, if you're ms. jackson or anyone who drinks there on a regular basis, this place is the definition of a local watering hole. if anyone knew your name, it was still early and there was a lot of drinking yet to be done. back when i could drink more than a few beers a night, this was usually where i would do it. my friend jay and i became regulars pretty quickly, and spent at least 3 or 4 nights a week there. yeah, i know. i do miss it now though. nothing like pulling yer own guinness when the place is dead on a monday night, believe me! we got in good with one of the doormen/bartenders, P.D., who was a singer and guitar player as well, and we started jamming with him. (another benefit of dead monday nights... free rehearsal stage complete with drunk regulars who would have enjoyed themselves even if tiny tim had been screeching 'tiptoe thru the tulips')

we got asked, or we asked, to play their closed door christmas party... free food, booze, and again, playing in front of people that were plenty soused and plenty easy to please. we were in. we started rehearsing a couple weeks beforehand, and one of the drunk regulars there wanted to sing some elvis. what the hell. i'm pretty sure his name was joe, weird, eh kirby?
joe was a nice guy, a pretty friendly drunk, probably in his mid 30s. he was an illegal irish immigrant that would work the door or barback there occasionally. anyway, we worked it out with him and it sounded pretty good. the gig came and we rocked, he popped up on stage for his tune and it went over really well. we all had a great night.

now for the kicker. a few months later i'm watching the news, and there's been a murder a few towns over. the guy had beat his girlfriend to death, then put the body under her car in the driveway to make it look like some type of accident. they flashed his picture and said his name, and it was the friendly drunk irish dude that had sung suspicious minds with us. apparently not as friendly a drunk as i had thought previously. i walked down to nastys and hung at the bar with P.D. for a while, while the phone rang off the hook. P.D. must have said, 'yeah, i'm pretty sure it was him' a thousand times that night. i don't really know what happened after, i'd assume he's in a cell somewhere now.

...and that's not the only person i've jammed with that's been put away for murder.

i can't even rap, for chrissakes!


posted by scott 3:25 PM