The Bomb Dance

 Nobody ever did the “bomb dance” like Stephen J. Persons did the “bomb dance” but, then again, I don’t think anyone else ever tried to do the “bomb dance”. Of course you might not know what the “bomb dance” was so I will try to explain but there is a very good chance that even if I do a good job of describing it it will not come close to the actual event. I can try…

The first floor of 507 South Street (what is now a not-so-hot Greek restaurant)was a storefront laboratory of art, music, strange smells-resulting from the decaying building and Tommy’s dog’s excrement-and it was the lower floor of our home. Above was two floors of bedrooms, kitchen and baths where I lived along with the Pott’s (Tommy and Kathy), Steven, and Saint Looie (David Nicholson). The comings and goings of the residents of 507 were unpredictable. At any hour of the day or night Kathy might decide to play the piano or Tommy might be banging around with his bicycles or his movie camera or his paints. Steven might be coming in from who-knows-where after a night prowling Philly with his latest female fascination. Saint Looie might be banging on his poorly tuned electric guitar and I was probably trying to sleep. From time to time, though, all of us (plus a number of people who didn’t live at 507 but seemed to be there much of the time anyway) would coagulate down on the first floor and a party would emerge and spontaneously explode. Pipes and joints would be passed. Music would blast from a radio. The people passing on the street would duck in and join. The party would naturally spill out onto the street occupying the line of ancient theater seats lined up under the storefront windows. The windows were Tommy’s art gallery. He filled them with his paintings and found objects like a thousand baby bottle nipples. Once the crowd hit critical mass, the room was full, and Stephen J. Persons got high enough he might perform the “Bomb Dance”.

Memory is an unreliable thing. I don’t know for sure if my memories are accurate recollection or greatly embellished by time. There is certainly a kernel of truth around which my memories are spun but I couldn’t swear to the accuracy of any of the details. Here is what I remember. Let me paint a picture with my words.

 Whippets. Pot. Quaaludes. A torpedo-like object hanging from the cracked plaster walls of the store-front first floor of 507 South Street. The bomb was hollow and made of painted metal. It had handles. The precipitating stimulus for the dance seemed to be when Steven caught a snippet of the Moody Blues coming from the radio and ran to turn it up full blast. Perhaps he sucked up a lung full of nitrous oxide just before he pulled the “bomb” off of the wall. Grasping the missile by the handles, and clutching closely to him he began to pirouette. Steven was wearing his usual uniform of tight black jeans and a pea coat and a fake fur Russian hat. His thick glasses reflect the candles and the lights as he hoists the bomb to his chest and begins to spin like a clumsy ballerina. His black boots spin and clunk on the splintery wooden floor, faster and faster until the centrifugal force of his motion allows him to extend his arms and the bomb out away from his body. He has to lean backwards to balance the weight of the flying bomb. He is a model of balance. He is moving just fast enough and leaning back far enough that the bomb is flying in a perfect circle around his spinning body level with the floor. The spinning seems to be in perfect time with the pounding music. The crowd is as close as it can be to the path of the bomb and everyone in the crowd is thinking the same thing, “what happens if/when he lets go of that missile?” and “how long can he keep this insane spinning up?”

Steven never let the bomb go, at least I never remember him doing that. No one, in my memory, ever got hit or hurt. I do recall Steven collapsing to the floor clutching the bomb and dropping it as he sank  spent and exhausted. We cheered. The party continued but nothing could match the “bomb dance”.

Some of my friends from back then are dead. After all it has been fifty years since we lived and worked and partied in that tiny portion of cityscape in that tiny portion of time. Even the youngest ones are now collecting Social Security. It has been so long that I can’t even remember some of their names. I can see their faces though and the memories of them and what they meant to me are still strong. It was a powerful time in our lives.

 Dead and gone- Jennifer Barker, David Nicholson, Kathy Potts, E.S. Eddie, Alan the “mola man”, Sharon and Gene, Thomas Rowland Marshall IV, Patti Spring….

Still living as far as I know- Me, Steven J. Persons, Tommy, Heshie, Sandy, Fran, Randy, Joel, Stanley, Cowboy Tom, Anne, Paul, Octavia, Grove, Bob, Bill, Dale, Charlie, Isaiah and Julia…I’m sure there are others to put into each of these lists but, as I’ve said, my memory is not the best. To those who I’ve not included, my apology. The people of South Street were special. Like Stephen J. Persons and the “bomb dance”. Each person I came to know on South Street was interesting and in the time I spent there I never had a serious argument or made and enemy. Recalling them each is my “love letter” to South Street.