Chapter 1

Elmer Glue Fixes Rednecks

April 20, 1983.

It was the first time I had ever seen tears well up in my brother's eyes.

"I don't know what I'll do without you around to keep me from going crazy, Mark."

Davey hugged me and for the first time, I also felt like his peer. With adults, four years is not much of a difference in age, but when we were children growing up, it had seemed like a whole generation.

Davey, or "Freebird," as his fellow block layers used to call him after a popular rock song by Lynnnard Skynnard, stood a lanky six and a half feet. I was slightly taller, but still looked up to him.

Of my parents' five boys, it seemed odd that the youngest and oldest would turn out to be the closest. But we were so much alike—not just in appearance, but our personalities as well. We were overly rebellious and, as the only bachelors left, would snub our noses at the slightest suggestion by anyone that we settle down and raise a family.

It was a few minutes after Seven and the sweltering Southwest Florida sun began to dip below a small island of sabal palms on the horizon. Dusk and a cool breeze brought out thousands of blood-thirsty mosquitoes, humming and darting about my exposed areas of skin like tiny fighter planes. I was anxious to get started.

Lenny, a family friend and my ride half way to Nashville, finished checking the tire pressure on his four-wheel drive Suburban International. He was heading to North Carolina to visit his folks.

"Okay, let's git!" he said, sliding behind the wheel and cranking up the motor. I climbed in on the passenger side and threw my vinyl handbag onto the back seat.

"Well Davey, I'll see ya' when I see ya'!"

"Take care, Mark."

There was enough time for a quick handshake through the open window and we were off into the night, pulling out onto State Road 80 in Alva, just east of Fort Myers. I glanced in the side mirror as the silhouette of Davey and the plant nursery he and my mother had just purchased were momentarily spotlighted by a car a quarter mile behind us. It would be a long time before I would see him again.

In Fort Myers, we picked up I-75 North, pushed the gas pedal to 60, and settled in for the 10 hour drive to Atlanta. Lenny lit up a joint and I popped open my second can of Old Milwaukee.

"Here," he said, waving the queer-smelling cigarette in my face. I declined. Pot didn't appeal to me. Ever since I had tried it over a year ago with a big, one-eyed friend we all called 'Bull Chet,' I knew it wasn't for me. I got so stoned that I flirted with his wife—right under his nose. She pretended to be flattered. He was as high as I was and thought it was hilarious—thank God. We both rolled around on the ground laughing our butts off. With beer, I knew when to say enough. With pot, there was no warning when I crossed the line of self control.

The first time I met Lenny, we were roller skating at Raymond's Rollerland in East Fort Myers. When my grandfather had owned it years earler, it was called Em's Rollerland. The two of us were cutting up on skates to a fast disco number, moving our feet in and out, and spinning around backwards—trying to stay in time with the music. I was 26 and though he was 37, I had trouble keeping up. Lenny was in top physical condition.

We hit it off immediately. I liked him because he laughed a lot (even without the pot) and wasn't embarrassed to be himself in public.

Lenny was an all-around entertainer who didn't have to venture far from his home to perform. He lived in a small cottage Em built on a seven-acre island the two of them shared in the middle of the Caloosahatchee River east of Fort Myers.

Caloosahatchee River. M.R. photo.

During the winter months, a large cruise ship called the Bay Queen would leave the Fort Myers yacht Basin and make its way 11 miles up the river to the island. It was usually loaded with a few hundred golden-aged tourists seeking relief from the cold, snowy north. When the vessel arrived at the island, the passengers would disembark and board a 150 foot long barge converted into an auditorium. Lenny's job was to keep the passengers entertained for an hour and then the ship would return to Fort Myers.

I had watched him perform several times and was envious of his talent, versatility and ability to wing it. Besides his proficiency as a comedian, magician and musician, he was also a convincing ventriloquist. With his own hands, he had built a small army of bizarre puppets that told jokes and conversed with his audiences.

Lenny and Elmer. Photo courtesy of Lenny.

Of all his puppets, Lenny's pride and joy was Elmer Glue. He built Elmer out of balsam wood and gave him the features and dark color of a hip soul man from the Sixties. Elmer wore a white dinner jacket with a bow tie and held a fake joint firmly between his fingers. Like an earlier controversial comedian by the same name, Lenny was always pushing his brand of humor to the edge of good taste.

Like the night I accompanied the two of them to the Empire Lounge, a rowdy country music hotspot in East Fort Myers. The club featured an open mike for the night. Throughout the evening, individuals and groups got up and crooned for the overly-intoxicated natives. By the time Lenny and Elmer hit the stage, the crowd was well past drunk and a little shy on manners.

With his back to the audience, Lenny opened up what appeared to be a small fiddle case. A sea of cowboy hats bobbed back and forth, their occupants straining to see just what it was he was removing. When everyone realized that Elmer was not a stringed instrument, a confused silence filled the place. It was broken swiftly by a loud-mouth good ole' boy in the back who belted out, "COUNTRY MUSIC!"

In seconds, the entire mob was caught up in a Deep South tribal chant, shouting, "COUNTRY MUSIC! COUNTRY MUSIC! COUNTRY MUSIC!"

My mamma didn't raise no dummy. I made it to a nearby exit with the speed one normally travels while escaping a fire, wondering if anyone had noticed that Lenny and I came in together. But before I opened the door, I looked over my shoulders to see Elmer raising his joint-filled hand, motioning the crowd to hold it down. It got so quiet, I could have sworn I heard the sound of tobacco juice splattering on the concrete floor.

But this time, before anyone could get unruly, Elmer turned his head, raised his arm and pointed at different people in the crowd, saying calmly, "Up yours, up yours and up yours!"

He's suicidal, I said to myself, still ready at the door. But then I heard laughter. Lots of it. And to make sure the audience knew it was Elmer and not Lenny who had just insulted them, Lenny looked shockingly at Elmer and exclaimed, "Elmer, those are decent folks out there!"

But Elmer wasn't finished. Swiveling his head toward Lenny, he appeared to shout, "They look like a bunch of damned rednecks to me!" Forty-five minutes later he still had them laughing.

We stopped south of Tampa where I-75 temporarily ended. I had to make room for a second beer and Lenny wanted to check out a funny noise his engine was making. After both problems were remedied we continued on our way.

"My snake finally died," Lenny said mournfully, cracking his window to let in some of the cool night air. "I knew she was sick when I found her, but I thought I could nurse her back into good health."

I had seen and held his snake—a beautiful five-foot long, black indigo with shades of dark blue showing through like a customized paint job. He had found it one morning on Em's island and kept it in his cottage, mostly feeding it mice and large grasshoppers that were abundant in the tall grass surrounding the back side of the island.

Lenny was always harboring some strange creature as his house guest. After the snake died, he adopted a three-foot long iguana that would sit on the back of his sofa and look out at the river, or rest on Lenny's shoulders while he practiced his fiddle or wrote a new song. After that it was a baby alligator that had ventured too far from its mother.

As we drove along, I began butchering the tune from a song he and his sister had written about the river and the island, and Lenny joined in:

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Cruisin' Down the Caloosahatchee River

I took me a little trip
near the Southwest Florida tip
To a place where time never fades
There was bright sun shiny weather
straight roads that ran forever
Lots of cabbage palms and Everglades

Sometimes I'd go at night
when the moon and stars were bright
And the river looked like an endless mirror
The frogs would sing their song
the crickets joined along
In a symphony for everyone to hear

Cruisin' down the Caloosahatchee River
seein' things most people never see
Birds swim under water, turtles sit in trees
and gators swim along as they please.

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A year earlier, Lenny and I had worked on a song together, based on a true story. I had met up with a wild and lovely woman while skating one night, and somehow convinced her that it would be romantic for the two of us to skate 78 miles across Alligator Alley . To make it more of a challenge—and to avoid being seen by the Highway Patrol—we started out at 2:00 a.m., under the cover of darkness. A six-pack of beer helped ease any fear of cottonmouths that might go slithering across the road, or alligators that may be up for a late night snack.

Another friend dropped the two of us off at the Alley's entrance. If all went as planned, we should hit the Eastern edge of the Glades 10 hours later at high noon.

With our guide vehicle waiting several miles in front of us, we raced through the early miles like Olympic speed skaters. I really didn't foresee any problem. After all, we were experienced skaters and it wasn't like we had any steep hills to climb, or 90 degree temperatures to endure.

Gripped in my hand was a large, powerful flashlight that I used to constantly scan the pavement in front of us and on both sides of the road. Off in the swaying sawgrass, we saw hundreds of red, green, white, and yellow glowing marbles. Every now and then the flat, smooth surface of the road would be interrupted by what appeared to be a blown tractor trailer tire. But once we were on top of the object we recognized it as a thunder lizard, or American alligator.

Marisa Renz illustration

What we hadn't counted on were the blisters—and the beer wearing off. So about the same time the highway patrol found us 37 miles later, we were ready to call it quits.

The song we wrote was no award winner, but it did get cut by a popular southwest Florida country-rock group called Foxfire, who borrowed the tune to Fleetwood Mac's "Tusk". I don't know if it had anything to do with the poor examples we were setting, but the group eventually went gospel. I never did see any royalties.

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Alligator Alley

You've heard the legend of Boggy Creek
Bigfoot and ole' Loch Ness
The tale of the Woolly Swamp
Marie Laveaux and yes,
This one's true and like the rest
It could happen to me or you
This is the Alley Gator tale.

No happier couple were Bob and Jean
to leave Minnesota snow
And take a break in the sunshine state
a paradise you know
Haulin' their trailer with a GMC
across the River of Grass
They set up camp in a place so damp
birds swim with bass.

Alligator Alley, Alligator Alley
ain't no place to be
It's hotter'n hell in the day time
and at night you just can't see
The spooky sounds'll make your hair stand up
but don't you dare slow down
'Cause at nighttime on the Alley
all the gators come around

Bob grabbed his pole and pushed through the reeds
to catch a meal for the night
Jean set the plates for fresh fish steaks
and couldn't wait to bite
Bob hooked a lunker he couldn't see
his pole bent straight to the ground
And he fought for an hour a sheer raw power
in waters swirling and brown
When the fight was over down reached Bob
to pull the fish on in
But to his surprise faced two big eyes
and a toothy Southern grin.

Alligator Alley, Alligator Alley
ain't no place to be
It's hotter'n hell in the day time
and at night you just can't see
The spooky sounds'll make your hair stand up
but don't you dare slow down
'Cause at nighttime on the Alley
all the gators come around

Jean got worried when he didn't show
and set off into the night
To find the place near a sawgrass lake
where Bob lost his fight.
She followed his tracks to the water's edge
a pale moon lighting her way
A limpkin cried and a big toad sighed
But Bob had nothing to say.
Then her eye caught a gator smiling and fat,
with babies scratching the dirt,
And she could have sworn that one newborn
said "Momma, what's for desert?"

Alligator Alley, Alligator Alley
ain't no place to be
It's hotter'n hell in the day time
and at night you just can't see
The spooky sounds'll make your hair stand up
but don't you dare slow down
'Cause at nighttime on the Alley
all the gators come around

Well, there's no place like the Everglades
where everything creepy hides
From snakes to bug to things unseen
things small and things of size
There's a long and lonely highway
across those Everglades
No house or soul for seventy miles
where many a gator wades
Alligator alley, ain't no place to be

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