High Risk - The Adventures of Gene Trent

During the sixties I was a kid growing up in Birmingham.  And downtown was the center of my universe.  I’m sure it’s difficult for millennials to comprehend a world without malls or upscale strip centers.  But back then that was the reality. Air conditioned food courts, fountains, indoor merry go rounds, and  Cinnabons were unimaginable.  The suburbs did have a few shopping centers with grocery stores, drug stores, and five & dimes, but to do any serious shopping you went to downtown Birmingham.  Of course that involved visiting the two retail icons of that era:  Loveman’s and Pizitz.  

These department stores had everything. We always bought my annual Easter outfit here.  I got my hair cut at Loveman’s.  Both stores had great sporting goods departments, restaurants, and their toy sections were unmatched. If Pizitz or Loveman’s didn’t have it, you didn’t need it. 

Our family made a pilgrimage to Loveman’s every Christmas season just to see the decorations.  The entire store was  decked out with holiday attire, including a throne room where Santa met the children.  According to my Mom, this was The Real St. Nick.  The so-called Santas in the other stores were just his helpers.  

Loveman’s also had the most amazing holiday window displays this side of Macy’s.  For the whole month of December, the sidewalks in front of the store swelled with people watching the dancing reindeer, elves, and snowmen.  At the time it was cutting edge technology.

I was drawn to downtown like a mosquito to a blood bank.  Amazingly, when I was 12 years old, my Mom would give me bus fare, a couple of dollars for lunch, and send me on my way downtown - without any supervision.  So in the summer my friend Dennis and I would catch a bus and head to the land of big buildings, retail stores, and in my case, the land of trouble.  

Aside from all the normal attractions, downtown was a mischief magnet for me.  There were countless ways for a kid to get in trouble. Alleys, stairways, back rooms, elevators, rooftops - they all cried out for exploration.  And I was the child to do it. 

We began our urban sojourns by going to the penthouse suite of the City Federal Building.  It was home to WSGN, a popular top 40 radio station. We always made a quick stop there to pick up weekly sheets of the top tunes.  It was ironic that the number one song in 1965 was I Can’t Help Myself, because I couldn’t.  I would grab a handful of the newsletters, go down to the 26th floor, fold them into airplanes and launch them out of the bathroom window. By the way, 50 years later, I did the same thing off the 38th floor of the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York City.  Immaturity is ageless.  

Like so many buildings built in the early 20th century, City Federal had mail chutes on every floor. Occasionally we would see letters zip by, free falling to a bin many stories below. Unfortunately for the postal service, I discovered that a paper solo cup half filled with water would easily fit in the letter slot. As a result, I’m sure a lot of mail deliveries looked like they had been left out in the rain all day. 

After a quick lunch, we made our way to a novelty and magic shop on 2nd Avenue.  It was Nirvana for a 12 year old - a whole store filled with gags like hand buzzers, whoopee cushions, and flies in plastic ice cubes.  One of my regular purchases was itching powder.  It was probably nothing but finely ground insulation; however, it was the perfect product to torture my little sister.  They also sold bags of small party balloons - which we bought for a nefarious use later in the day. 

During one of my many explorations of the Pizitz and Loveman’s stores, I discovered that rooftop access was easily attained by using one of the stairwells.  As a result, on every trip downtown we headed to the roof, armed with water balloons. Within minutes, Dennis and I were bombing the workers who were unloading trucks in the alley. This was great fun until one Saturday after dropping a couple of balloons, something whizzed past us.  Apparently one of the workers who was tired of our antics  brought a slingshot to work.  He was returning fire with glass marbles!  

It didn’t  slow us down - we only changed tactics.  Now it was  gorilla warfare. We would get to the roof, peek down, and if the men were working, we would drop our entire payload on them before they could counter attack. 

Our shenanigans at Loveman’s ended one day when the wind blew the rooftop door shut. To our collective horror, we were locked out!  I thought we were doomed.  I just knew that one day a worker would find a couple of dead bodies with our flesh picked clean by a flock of pigeons.  We frantically beat on that door until someone came to the rescue. 

Such a traumatic event should’ve ended our rooftop escapades.  But a 12 year old with ADD?  Nope!  We just moved our operation to the new Pizitz parking deck.  It was six stories high with open stairwells at each corner.  And no locking doors!   An added bonus was that one corner overlooked a busy street. Now sidewalk pedestrians and cars became targets of our weekly balloon antics. 

On what was to be my last trip to the parking deck, I was accompanied by a rookie from my neighborhood, Mark.  What I found funny terrorized him. He just stood behind me and nervously fed me water balloons that I lobbed to the street six stories below. Finally, there was only one balloon left and I insisted that he man up and throw it. He complied. Without looking, Mark flicked a plump red balloon through the opening.  I leaned over the rail and saw a scene right out of the Three Stooges.  The red balloon, full of water, on a collision course with a policeman’s head. 

I recoiled in terror and  ran up the stairs yelling,” You idiot!  You hit a cop!  You hit a cop!”  Before I could say another word, I stopped cold. Standing in front of us was the Pizitz store detective who had obviously been watching us for a while.  

“What are you boys doing up here?”, he asked sternly. 

“Nothing much”, I  responded. 

It was obvious I was going to do all the talking because Mark wasn’t going to say anything.  He was frozen with his hand clamped on my arm like a wrench on a rusted bolt. 

“What’s your name?”, he asked me. 

I responded smoothly and quickly. “Gene Trent.”  

Several months before,  Dennis and I decided it would be a good idea to have aliases in case something like this ever happened.  I picked Gene Trent because it was short and easy to remember.  I guess I had seen too many Man From UNCLE episodes. No matter, today it worked perfectly. 

Almost.  Mark hadn’t been to that meeting with me and Dennis.  So I felt his grip tighten when the detective turned to him and said, “What about you?”

“Huh?”

”What -is -your -name -boy?”, he asked pointedly. 

“Uh uh,uh… ummm … uh… Joe Hobby.”

“What did that idiot say?”,  I thought. I clenched my teeth. Of all the stupid things!  If I hadn’t been standing in front of that store detective, I would have thrown him over the rails. He deserved it. 

The detective said,” You boys don’t go anywhere.”  Then he began walking towards the elevator. After about 75 feet, he  turned and checked on us.  I was casually leaning against a wall with my arms folded. However, when he turned his back on us, we ran as fast as our 12 year old legs would take us, flying down two flights of stairs, then cutting diagonally across the parking deck to another set of stairs where we finished our descent.  I don’t know if he ran after us, and it didn’t matter. We power walked about four blocks to a bus stop, looking over our shoulders every step of the way.  When we finally were in the safety of the bus, I spent the entire 30 minute ride cussing Mark with every swear word in my 12 year old vocabulary. That was his last trip downtown with me. 

It was a few weeks before I went back to town, and well over a month before I mustered the courage to go to Pizitz.  As you might expect, the incidents at Loveman’s and Pizitz pretty much ended our tomfoolery downtown.  It didn’t stop my high jinks, but I stuck closer to home. 

 

My wife thinks all of this behavior occurred because I’m ADD, and risk taking was stimulating some portion of my brain. I suppose that’s a credible theory because I continued doing  risky, stupid things throughout my whole life. Maybe I was just trying to self medicate.  That’s probably what drew me to standup comedy.  It’s a big time risk, but at the same time can be incredibly stimulating. 

Don’t believe me?  Just ask Gene Trent. 

Best regards, 

Gene