Me

By Steve Stroble

It's been said, "If you can remember the 60s, you weren't there."
The saying "If you can remember the 70s, you were there" is even more true.
On the eve of 1970, four former bandmates of the rock group The Aspirations have their lives changed forever by the war in Vietnam and draft lottery. All of that is only a prelude to what they will encounter during the turbulent decade when the Me Generation seemed to say: "Ask not what you can do for anyone else. Ask what they can do for you."

"Me" is Book 2 in the Americana Series, which takes a look at America during different phases of its history. Each book in the series can be read as a stand alone.
Book 1 is "Bakersfield."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Steve Stroble
• Release date: Feb 10, 2018
• ISBN: 9781370220908

Steve Stroble

Steve Stroble grew up as a military brat, which took him from South Dakota to South Carolina to Germany to Ohio to Southern California to Alabama to the Philippines to Northern California. Drafted into the Army, he returned to Germany.His stories classified as historical fiction often weave historical events, people, and data into them.His science fiction stories try to present feasible even if not yet known technology.His dystopian and futuristic stories feature ordinary heroes and heroines placed into extraordinary situations and ordinary villains who drain the life out of others' souls (their minds, wills, and emotions) by any means available.

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ME

Steve Stroble

ME, copyright © 2017 Stroble Family Trust. All rights reserved.

This book is a work of fiction. All people, places, events, and situations are the product of the writer’s imagination. Any resemblance of them to actual persons, living or dead, places, events, and situations is purely coincidental.

Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved. The NIV and New International Version trademarks are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by International Bible Society. Use of either trademark requires the permission of International Bible Society.

Table of Contents

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Afterword and Acknowledgments

1

The windup alarm clock clanged on and on until a smack to its Off button landed it on the floor. But silence sounded worse. To escape it, Ralph Gilbert turned on his closest distraction, a portable transistor radio imported from Japan.

Within a minute, KRLA’s DJ reminded Ralph of what he had tried for months to forget. Well, today’s the big day for all you boys out there. Good luck. I hope you end up being fortunate sons, the kind that CCR are so jealous of.

As the opening chords to Creedence Clearwater Revival’s Fortunate Son thrashed through the radio’s tiny speaker and lead singer John Fogarty wailed and whined about sons of senators, the wealthy, and military personnel not getting drafted and sent to fight and die in Vietnam, Ralph groaned.

His sweaty palm slapped his forehead.

Oh no. The draft lottery’s today. Please, Jesus. Give me a really high number. If You do, I promise to quit doing dope and straighten my life out. For the first time in years, one of Ralph’s prayers sounded sincere.

A steamy shower hot and long enough to clear his sinus cavities revived Ralph. After dressing in a pair of frayed baggie shorts and sweat shirt with the sleeves lopped off to ventilate his hairy armpits and stepping into a worn pair of rubber flip flops, he ate a bowl of corn flakes topped with as much sugar as milk. Then he hopped into his 1964 VW Beetle and took the 405 freeway southward toward a meeting he had thought would never happen, a reunion of his band.

The Aspirations had been good, good enough so its four members had averaged at least $50 each weekly as they played dances, weddings, parties. Sure, they should have paid taxes to the state and feds and royalties to the songwriters or owners to the copyrights of the songs they played to earn the money.

But who cared?

It had all looked like The Beach Boys’ magical endless summer. Then The Aspirations tried LSD for the first time and their lead guitarist/lead singer/band leader freaked out, beyond redemption in Ralph Gilbert’s estimation. And their rhythm guitarist also had been damaged by his bad trip.

All of which had left Ralph wondering for the last three and a half years what might have been.

2

Ralph’s L.A. suburb changed from neat little homes with tidy green yards and concrete block fences high enough to ensure private backyards to grittier neighborhoods of large parking lots in front of strip malls and cracked sidewalks and less privacy and vegetation as he exited the 110 Freeway onto Sepulveda Boulevard and drove through the center of Torrance. He parked in front of an apartment complex where Chris Fernandez, the former drummer of The Aspirations, existed more than lived.

After hearing Ralph’s knocks, a yawning, skinny, light brown skinned, five-foot six-inch tall male opened his door. Lifeless eyes betrayed experiences others either could not or refused to understand.

Ralph pushed past Chris into his studio apartment. You ready yet?

"It doesn’t start until tonight, East Coast time. You in that much of a hurry to get drafted? You woke me up. I’ve been working graveyards, pinoy."

Being called pinoy meant he belonged to Christopher Fernandez’s Filipino culture, adopted by a people friendlier than any other Ralph had ever met. That means we got some time to burn. Let’s hit the beach.

Chris rubbed his flat stomach. Let’s eat first. I’m starving.

* * *

Neither bass guitarist Ralph nor drummer Chris cared much for Top 40 radio. But because Ralph’s VW bug’s radio only received AM stations and none of what they considered the cool FM ones, they listened to the current hot songs of the day and lots of commercials. A DJ’s patter interrupted every two to three minutes. The nostalgic lyrics of a golden oldie from a year old number one hit, Those Were the Days by Mary Hopkin, primed Chris’ thoughts into words.

Remember how bad we wanted to make it as a band? he asked.

Ralph thought of when The Aspirations recorded demo songs in a studio a record producer had built in his garage. The demo had been shopped around to many record labels in L.A. by their lead guitarist’s father because he claimed to have connections. But none of them wanted to connect with The Aspirations.

Yeah, Ralph said. We were so damn jealous of the bands that got their records onto the radio, even the one-hit wonders who just copied the songs that The Beatles or Beach Boys or the Rolling Stones or The Mamas and Papas sang.

You think we might have made it if Frank hadn’t made us take that acid? That was the beginning of the end of our band.

Who knows? You were the only one who didn’t have a bad trip that night and get real bummed out afterwards.

That’s only because I pretended to swallow that barrel tab of orange sunshine. I really kept it hidden in my palm and flushed it down the toilet.

What?

I had always heard that when people take LSD there has to be at least one person around who stays straight and babysits everyone else. Otherwise someone can get hurt or killed.

You always put other people ahead of yourself.

But that doesn’t mean I still don’t need some help from mellower drugs once in a while. I need to stimulate my appetite before we get to my mom’s house because of my ulcer.

Chris lit the large joint he had pulled from his T-shirt’s pocket. Like Ralph, he wore the younger generation’s uniform: for boys, baggy shorts or jeans, rubber flip flops, sockless tennis shoes or sandals, and sunglasses to be really hip. Girls were unpredictable, with their uniforms ranging from Hollywood/Beverly Hills chic to surfer girl cool.

Only his olive drab green hat saved from his army days set Chris apart.

What kind of grass is it? Ralph took the joint from Chris and inhaled until hot THC-laced gasses made his lungs scream for air, even if it meant breathing the thick grayish smog smothering L.A.

Acapulco Gold, Chris said after he blew out the pungent smoke he had held within his body for almost a minute. Only the best for my former bass man, the only one I ever met who kept a different beat than the one I beat out on my drums.

* * *

The Fernandez home sat in a neighborhood Ralph judged to be mainly lower-class Orientals, Mexicans, Negroes, and Oakies who had migrated to Southern California in the 1930s and 1940s, when California became their promised land from a Midwest Dust Bowl.

Catholic, Ralph and Chris shared the experience of having to share bedrooms and clothes with siblings. But Filipinos must take religion more seriously, Ralph thought, because while he had two sisters and a brother, Chris had four of each. Already hungry within an hour of his sugar heavy breakfasts, Ralph feared his bigger than normal appetite caused by the pot would turn him into a pig after he smelled Mrs. Fernandez’s lunch preparations.

She used all four burners on her stove at once after placing the main dish into the oven. On one burner, she fried lumpia in peanut oil, what looked like egg rolls: rice papers stuffed with an exotic blend of meat and vegetables. Next to the lumpia sat another with simmering pansit, thin noodles topped with orange shrimp sauce, green onions, garlic, and pork. The two back burners held Ralph’s favorites, fried rice and fried bananas.

To blame their stoned conditions on alcohol, Chris grabbed two San Miguel beers from the refrigerator. His was half finished before Ralph had stopped fumbling with the bottle opener and removed the metal cap from his.

Mrs. Fernandez reminded Ralph of a priest, her stove her altar, the food she poured love into Communion for a pair of