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A Salute From The Black
Aces
William
Wayne Weems
©
2014
by
William Wayne Weems
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Here
is a Tennessee tale from the mid-1950's. At the time of this account
there was a road intersection on the South side of Nashville called
"Five Points". It was and is a complex interchange for
ordinary city streets, and the source of a depressing number of
traffic accidents. Rosedale Avenue plunges off a hill and joins
Bransford Avenue in a “T” intersection just prior
to
Bransford’s northward crossing of the twin railroad tracks of
the Nashville and Eastern Railway. Almost immediately thereafter
Craighead Street crosses Bransford Avenue at nearly right angles, a
broad intersection today controlled by a traffic light.
Now
let us turn back the clock fifty eight years. Both Craighead and
Bransford narrow appreciably, and the traffic signals disappear from
above their intersection. Stop signs warn Bransford traffic to stop,
no such limitations obstruct the rapid transit of cars and eighteen
wheelers on Craighead. The number of businesses westward on Craighead
and southward on Bransford dramatically decline, and the size of
their buildings shrink. However, an astounding change comes over the
empty lot on the northwest corner of the intersection.. It sprouts a
1950's Gulf service station, with two broad service bays and large
plate glass windows. Jumpsuited attendants scurry around the brightly
painted pumps, ready to check oil and tire pressure, wipe
windshields, and put gasoline in the vehicles of valued customers at
prices certain to bring tears to the eyes of modern readers. The
master mechanic and station owner who ran this blast from the past
kept a curious assortment of gear in the corner of his office. There
was a hefty wooden pole some eight feet long with a two foot yellow
flag that sternly demanded "STOP" in bold black letters on
one end. Dangling from a hanger swinging at the end of a rack which
held his own outerwear was a brilliant yellow full-length raincoat in
an adult size. Sent off with his own jumpsuits for professional
cleaning were white belts with a shoulder strap to wear over the
raincoat. The vivid colors and snowy whiteness of the belts were
intended to maximize visibility. A chrome police-style badge
completed the outfit of a school crossing guard for the "Five
points" intersection, and that outfit was worn summer or winter,
rain or shine, whenever the crossing guard was on duty. The station
owner was happy to keep the gear and provide a place for the crossing
guard to shelter during inclement weather as a public service, but he
had more lucrative purposes for his own employees and could not have
them shepherding children four hours a day. That job was reserved for
older children.
So
that crossing guard job was mine for almost two years,1956 to 1958,
the last two years I attended nearby Julia Andrews elementary school
(since converted into an annex of the Board of Education).. This was
an important task. Despite county school buses being serviced nearby
and parked at the Fairgrounds during the summer, there were never
enough of them, and they were used only on long routes. For a
considerable period Julia Andrews elementary students used Nashville
city buses under a special arrangement, and where city buses did not
run the students walked. Notable among those who walked were the
children from the Vine Hill housing projects. It was the task of the
"Five points" crossing guard to corral these boys and girls
at the Gulf service station, wait until the traffic died down
somewhat and take a position in the middle of Craighead Street with
the "STOP" pole extended, thus hopefully halting all
traffic until the gaggle of children passed. Then the guard had to
walk with the group to insure they made it safely past the railroad
tracks (no stopping traffic there!) and did not wander across
Bransford Avenue to block the intersection for vehicles descending
Rosedale Avenue. Then it was back to the Gulf station for the next
batch of kids. I had been tapped for this job because I lived in a
nearby residential area of Berry Hill considerably removed from the
suburbs surrounding Julia Andrews, I had experienced an early growth
spurt that allowed me to fill out the adult sized crossing guard
gear, and there were no parents who volunteered for that task. It
could be dangerous. Fixed in my memory is the image of a eighteen
wheeler Mack truck coming directly at me, its brakes locked and
squealing. I glanced over my shoulder and saw my charges strung out
behind me in a straggling line as I stood with the pole extended, the
"STOP" flag on its end a warning the truck driver had
apparently seen too late. Closer and closer the behemoth came, until
it came to a shuddering halt three feet away. I could see every
detail of the bugs caught in its radiator, and I looked up past the
chrome bulldog hood ornament to the gap-toothed grin of the driver
behind the windshield. Yes, there was a reason it was hard to get
volunteers for that job.
But
most of the time it was a grind, getting up far earlier than most
students and bicycling down to "Five points" every day, no
matter what the weather, then changing into what passed for "high
visibility" gear in the 1950's. As I recall it some parent on an
early shift took over the afternoon guard duties for a while, leaving
me only the morning watch. I had always observed considerable car
traffic with teenage occupants heading north to Central High School
for the day, and there was something different about a few of the
vehicles that came down the hill on Rosedale Avenue. The exhaust of
those cars sounded loud, their hood ornaments had been removed, and
they had novel hubcaps, primarily Oldsmobile three pronged spinners
and the smooth "moon" covers. Many of the male occupants
wore black leather jackets. I enquired about these unusual cars to
one of the service station attendants, a recent Central High dropout.
"Yeah, " he said, "They come down Rosedale, they are
likely from Woodbine, or 'Flatrock' some call it. Lots of guys there
hot rod their cars, put on glasspack mufflers. You say they wear
black jackets? I been too busy to notice." Yes, I was often
close to the passing hot rods. Although their occupants ignored me,
my job was to keep a wary eye on all vehicles, and I did notice that
many of the males wore black jackets. The attendant fixed me with a
curious look. "Ever see every
guy in a car wearing black
leather jackets?" I thought I had. "Then you have probably
seen some of the 'Black Aces' " he replied. I cocked an eyebrow,
and asked "They a gang?" "Not really" the
attendant said, "more like a club". His employer drawing
near, his voice quickly descended to a whisper as he added "a
sex
club."
After
that revelation I cornered the attendant as often as I could to get
additional information about the "Black Aces". One forgets
at this remove in time just how puritanical that era was. Sexual
matters were seldom discussed in public, and never in the media or in
front of children, although allusions were everywhere. Children were
often left woefully ignorant of the "facts of life" by
their parents, though girls were usually informed better than boys,
lest they freak out by their natural transitions at puberty or
(horror of the pre-"pill" era) blunder into teen pregnancy.
Boys were left clueless as long as possible, lest they try to share
what knowledge they had with the opposite sex. A tall and gangly only
child, I had found very few girls who considered me worth a second
look, so ... like many males of the era ... I got most of my
knowledge and misinformation from conversations with my peers. The
attendant confirmed the "Black Aces" seemed to have the
requisite number of female members, so obviously not all girls were
the chaste and dainty creatures my Mother told me about. I could
forget about joining the "Black Aces" when I got to
Central; the guys were mostly good looking upperclassmen and I would
be too plain a freshman. He wasn't a Burt Lancaster himself, so he
had no personal experience with such things; the only detail he had
heard was that on say, a Friday, a girl club member would sport a
striking piece of clothing of a vivid color and her male counterpart
would do the same. Then on the following Monday, if they had achieved
intimacy during the weekend (not his exact words) the girl would wear
a color he had worn on the previous Friday and he would halfway stuff
in a pocket of black clothing or a black jacket a piece of women's
attire (say, a scarf) of the color she had worn. The membership of
the "Black Aces" would then spend an enjoyable start of the
school week trying to figure out who did what with whom. I observed
that sounded like a woman's game, and I had thought a group of male
hoods with a name like "Black Aces" might seek less
involved paths to shared pleasure with the opposite sex. Perhaps in
other areas they were over the top, mused the Attendant. Not being a
club member, he wouldn't know. But they needed the girls for a sex
club, and I should remember when it came to relations between the
sexes, the females almost always set the rules of the game, and I
would see he was right. And how right he was.
Musing
over these matters I was walking back toward the Gulf station on my
last crossing guard run of a bright spring morning. I stopped at the
railroad tracks to roll up my "STOP" sign and fasten it to
the pole with the rubber bands I always kept in the raincoat pocket
for that purpose. Then I caught a glimpse of something on the
railroad track. It was a single woman's nylon stocking of the
pre-pantyhose era, complete with black seam running down the back. I
eyed it cautiously, but it appeared to be clean and complete, with
only a few marks from a garter belt fastener near the top. It was a
long size ... the girl who had worn it was probably as tall as I was.
I wondered if she were a member of the "Black Aces". Then
inspiration struck. I picked up the hose and tied it at the top to
the end of my pole, so It draped down like a pennant. Slinging the
pole over my shoulder I began to walk back to the service station,
whistling a tune. At that point I heard a familiar rumble, and turned
to see three hot rods in trail rapidly descending Rosedale Avenue. It
appeared each of these autos had male occupants in both the front and
rear seats ... and it looked like all of them were wearing black
leather jackets. I had never seen such a convoy of likely
“Black
Aces”.
I
knew these vehicles would turn on Bransford and bounce across the
railroad tracks before me at a relatively slow speed due to the
approaching stop sign at Craighead. In the same whimsical mood that
led me to lash up my novel banner, I quickly came to attention, did a
smart right face, and raised my pole high. With a smooth motion I
bought the pole into a horizontal position so that the stocking
dangled at windshield level of the oncoming hot rods, but over the
opposing lane. I remained at attention, my expression blank. I more
than half expected the occupants of the oncoming vehicles to ignore
me, as they always had before. I was wrong. The driver of the first
vehicle gave a snappy hand salute, and the others in his car quickly
followed suit. They all held the salute as their gaze remained fixed
on the stocking during a slow "eyes left", never saying a
word. Then the second hot rod rumbled by, the occupants performing
the same saluting ritual. Finally the third auto slid past, as before
everyone within holding the hand salute during a "eyes left"
until they were abreast of the stocking, then dropping the salute and
snapping their heads back to the front. As the hot rods crossed
Craighead I raised the pole, slung it back over my shoulder, and
continued my trek. None of the participants in that curious ritual
had said a word or as much as cracked a smile, and I was sure I had
just met at least a few members of the "Black Aces". I
never recognized any of them again. Looking back over a twenty year
involvement with the US Military I would have to say the stocking
salute described herein was as precise as any such ritual I witnessed
later.
Of
course, by the time I finally got to Central High School the "Black
Aces" were said to be a thing of the past, although I noted that
upperclassmen wouldn't talk very much about the matter. And in
certain circles there definitely seemed to be echoes of that group's
...er, "different" views about privacy in intimate matters.
One particular incident comes to mind. Study hall was in those times
a daily use for the large auditorium at Central High School. I was
sitting under the balcony in that auditorium in one of the hard back
wooden chairs, trying to make some sense out of a homework sheet of
algebraic equations (and failing miserably), when I caught snippets
of a far more interesting conversation a couple of rows up. Three
football players were standing in the aisle talking to a tall and
very statuesque young lady with a platinum blonde beehive hairdo. She
was seated with three other girls and appeared annoyed, twirling her
pencil compulsively. But you promised, urged one of the guys,
promised once you tried us all you would let us know who was the
better lover. Bitter personal experience led me to suspect he was
"cruising for a bruising" by calling this girl out in front
of her friends, but this was one of the dudes who often wandered the
halls with we lesser beings wearing a perpetual sneer on his face, so
it seemed obvious he expected her to reluctantly conclude he was the
best she ever had. Instead she pointed to a quiet junior across the
aisle and said "XXXX is by far the best lover I ever had".
The reaction of the guy so named was astounding; his face turned beet
red and he slumped in his chair, almost as if he wished he could
disappear. What's he got that I don't have? wondered the questioner,
walking right in to the next zinger. The girl testily replied he had
better tools and he knew how to use them, which set off a ripple of
laughter across the auditorium. Suddenly the speakers appeared to
realize every eye in the auditorium was on them, and they quickly
scattered before a monitor could report them, the questioning
football player departing with a face as red as the slumped down
junior they left behind. I cannot now be sure whether this was the
same day a unknown individual hurled a 30 pound sack of lime (used
for marking the football field) from the auditorium balcony to the
rows of seats below, but I think it was. The sack hit the hard back
of a seat at least a row away from the closest individual who might
have been an intended target, bursting asunder and spreading a large
cloud of lime dust that forced the evacuation of the study hall.
"So",
readers may muse, "is that it?" "You mention a
scandalous sex club, and all you can offer in the way of exposition
as to what you actually
witnessed is that bit of
bizarre
mummery with the salute?" Hey, in the 1950's such things all too
often were
it. Remember, back then we were agog over 15 inch
black and white televisions, and boys of my age were universally
encouraged to channel their primal energies into constructive hobbies
like carving raised relief with wood burning tools. Heaven knows for
homely young men such as myself there were few enough opportunities
to explore their sensual horizons, and my Mother threw away my wood
burning kit after I carelessly laid down the hot burning iron while
it was still plugged in, almost (she claimed) burning the house down.
But somewhere out there is a male reader even older than I whose high
school photos might have rated him an audition at a Hollywood studio.
If he reads the submission above it will be with derisive snorts,
musing “ What does this clueless fool know about the Back
Aces?
I was there when the old Black Knights gang started this co-ed play
group, and it is obvious he is entirely ignorant of its more
notorious activities. There is no mention of the drunken revels, the
illicit sexual stimulants, the frenzied nude dancing until dawn that
prominent adults paid us so much just to watch?" Ah, good
reader, you are the true and intended audience of this piece. Recall
your own mortality, how many of your contemporaries whom might have
been made uncomfortable by your own memoirs are now beyond such
embarrassments, and contemplate what a true tragedy it would be to
carry such titillating memories with you into the grave. Set pen to
paper, and you need not name names ... except your own. Worried about
the hereafter? Confession is good for the soul. Set fingers to your
keyboard and share your secrets with eager and sympathetic readers.
As a prominent tabloid paper ceaselessly reminds us, enquiring minds
want to know.
Contact
William
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