Ronnie Dee--Double, Double, Toil and Trouble

Double, Double, Toil and Trouble

Ronnie Dee

Photo by Perry Wunderlich at Pexels.

This is a series of unfortunate incidents in which I was involved. I don't even remember the name of the people, so I'll call them the Joneses, a couple who lived a block down the street from our liquor store, pool hall, burger joint hangout area. They were very mean people and were always bitching about something. They lived next door to a family of five, the Lewises, who were blind, save one. The father, mother and two boys were totally blind and the eldest son, John, was the only sighted person in the family. We all knew him and he was a good guy.

The Joneses would throw trash and other junk in the Lewises' yard and would do other unkind things. They were constantly calling the police and the whole neighborhood genuinely disliked the Joneses. Some of the guys egged their house (not me) one Halloween and I thought they were going to call the FBI, but nobody got caught.

It came to pass that Mrs. Jones commited suicide and soon after, Jake Jones moved into the apartment over their garage. For some reason, officials ransacked the house and found, it was rumored, $250,000 in cash behind the wallpaper, in the ceiling and various other places in the house. This was in the late 50's. That would be millions by today's standards.

My pal Dan and I broke into the house and it was indeed a wreck. It was literally a shambles. We decided there wasn't a dollar left undiscovered. It seems that Mr. Jones had worked for the telephone company in a very unique position. He was the telephone installer and maintenance man for numerous bookies in the Louisville area.

Well, I don't know how, but Dan had become acquainted with old Jake and he confided in me; "Jake gets his pension check on the twentieth of every month. We need to visit him then."

Now, since his wife died, I never saw Jake when he was not staggering, blubbering drunk.

For the sake of decency I won't attempt to describe his apartment. It was pretty ratty, as was Jake, but it was warm, the TV worked, and it was somewhere safe to drink beer in the winter, so it was alright with me. We would walk in and before long he would start his mantra: "Oh, maw, why'd you do it? Why'd you do it?" He would wail, and then with barely a pause, "Aww, you old bitch, I'm glad you're dead. I'm glad I finally got rid of you."

Dan would say, "Hey Jake, you need some whiskey or something?"

Jake would reply, "Yeah, whiskey."

Then he would take out his wallet and fumble around and sometimes drop it and Dan would grab it and say, "Here, let me get that. Look I'm going to take a twenty and get your whiskey and we'll get a case of beer, too. OK?"

And he would hand Jake his wallet. What Jake didn't know was that Dan had slipped two twenties out of the wallet and handed them behind his back to me before making a big display of giving the wallet back. His keys were always on the table and we drove his car, a new Ford, around for a while listening to the radio and looking for girls. Not many girls enjoyed going up to Jake's apartment and I can't blame them. I found it pretty creepy myself. We would return in two hours or so and Jake would be angry and we'd always tell him, "Hell Jake, we're underage, you know, so it takes us a while to find a place that'll sell us this stuff."

And Dan would make another display: "Here's your change Jake. Okay now, put it back in your wallet."

We never knew how much money Jake got, but it seemed like a lot, Sometimes Dan would ask him if he wanted us to gas up his car so we could cop a few extra bucks. I guess the guy was sober in the mornings or afternoon sometime, I don't know. We kept this up for several months, our own little secret, until some other guys found out about him and it became harder to get to him.

We had not been greedy. We figured that we could touch him like this for a long time, but it was like blood in the water around there and it was too big of a deal to be kept secret for very long.

A few times another guy would show up looking to get in on the action and we would run him off or include him in, depending on who he was. You can't keep things like that under wraps for too long before somebody finds out about it and then everybody wants in on it.

One day Dan called me up and said, "Man, we better get over to Jake's early today because he just got paid and there are some other guys who know about it, too."

I rang off and drove immediately over to Jake's. I stopped at a four-way at the corner by Jake's place at about the same time as a police car. I let them go first and as they pulled to a stop in front of Jake's house, I continued on down the street. I circled the block and stopped down the alley, with a view of Jakes' place. The cops came out a little later, leading a bunch of people to a growing line of police cars. I read about it in the paper the next day.

Some thugs had flat out mugged and robbed him. They just burst into his place and took all the money he had and rolled him up in a rug while they partied. They arrested five guys and two girls.

We naturally didn't bother to see him for a spell, but after a month or so, Dan suggested we go see if we could worm our way back into his good graces. So Dan, Randy and I drove over to see him.

It was a frosty night and pitch black, as I parked in the alley behind his garage apartment. The air was damp and misty as we went up the stairs and when we walked in, there was Jake with a couple of visitors sitting on the couch. We sat down and exchanged polite conversation for a few minutes and the two strangers got up and left.

We glanced at each other knowingly. Dan and Randy were not amateurs in dealing with cops either, so we talked for a few more minutes and we too, departed. When we reached the car, the two strangers suddenly appeared out of the darkness and fog, right out of some film noir. They flashed some badges and invited us to go back upstairs. We willingly obliged and we all settled in again. They informed us that they were some kind of federal agents affiliated with Southern Bell and they were investigating the outrage recently perpetrated on poor Mr. Jones.

They proceeded to lift Jake's leg and extract a large wad of bills that had been wrapped around his ankle. It was a "Michigan Bankroll;" A twenty on top of a bunch of ones to give the appearance of a large sum of money. They examined it and determined it was all there. They then relaxed noticeably and told us all about it: Mr. Jones had been taken terrible advantage of and bilked out a lot of dough in the past few months and these guys were here to put a stop to it. They told us that they could see that we were some good guys who were justly concerned about Mr. Jones' welfare and they appreciated it. We stayed a little longer and then excused ourselves and disappeared into the night.

Unfortunately, that gravy train had ground to a halt. We didn't mess around with Mr. Jones anymore since he had acquired some dangerous new friends.

The bunch that had robbed him were convicted and imprisoned. I was so glad that I let that police car go ahead of me. Another lucky break that saved me a lot of grief.

Maybe a year later I saw Jake one more time. It was in jail. I had been arrested for, I think, a hit and run, (no, a parked car) and when I got to my cell there were three other guys already in there. I sat down on a bunk and looked around. Lo and behold, who was sitting on the toilet, but Mr. Jones. He didn't give me a hint of recognition, thank God, and I spent the night talking to a vagrant named George O'Brien, an erudite and interesting man. By the time I was bailed out the next day, we had solved many of the world's problems, so I left him with half of what money I had and a few cigarettes.

For several years after I started my singing career, I would often sing the Kingston Trio favorite about Charlie on "The MTA." The last verse asks us to "vote for George O'Brian, get poor Charlie off the MTA." I would then exhort my audience, "If you ever encounter a panhandler on the street, ask him his name. If it is George O'Brien, give him what you can and tell him I said hello. I will reimburse you the next time I see you."

Sadly, but not surprisingly, I never had to reimburse anyone.