Chapter 4
I Found Heaven
All my life, I was bored with, quote un quote, with normal everyday people! I love characters, and was Ave M Bowl ever filled with them. I found my heaven at a very early age. There were people like Bernie Bananas, old man Al, Iggy Russo, Sal the Plumber, the list goes on and on. One of the guys that lived on Ave M had written a big hit song, Poetry In Motion, sung by Johnny Tillitson, It was constantly being played on the bowling alley juke box. Another guy from the neighborhood Neil Sedacca was constantly riding up and down Kings Hi-way in his red convertible playing his own hit songs. It was a great time, I wish everyone could experience what I did.
One of the things I learned early was the importance of getting on the good side of the people that ran the snack counters at the alleys. My favorite food at Ave M was a Tuna sandwich on rye, heavy on the mayo, potato chips and a cherry coke, it was really Tuna mixed with Bonita, I loved it. Charlie was the main counter man at night and would hang out after his shift was up at 2am, he would bet on some of the bowlers. That was the magical hour when most of the action bowling began, all the straight people were home sleeping, and we, the night people took over. Charlie was in his forties, short, balding, a little pudgy and very low keyed. Charlie had power, he controlled the food, and how much some one like myself would get for free? It all depended on how well Charlie did betting on you. I got lots of food.
Then there was the big money backers, the lawyers, shylocks, business men, they all had there own stable of bowlers, like race horses, this was there hobby. They would negotiate matches for their bowlers, when, where, and for how much. The bowler would usually have nothing to loose and get a percentage of the winnings. Some bowlers would get greedy and dump their backers and the people betting on them, (loose on purpose, while an accomplice was betting on his opponent) this can be very dangerous to say the least. It is also looked down at by almost all of the bowlers.
One person famous for dumping was Iggy Russso. Iggy was legititmally one of the best bowlers in the Country, and that was his problem. He was a true clown, he talked like he had a horn stuck in his throat, carried 3 balls in one big bag at a time when everyone had only one ball, his pants were clipped up above his socks, and he loved to taunt his opponents. It got to a point that Iggy had to dump games in order to get matches. It didn't always work out so well for him, like the time he found his brand new car busted up and burning outside in the street, not to mention all the times he had a gun put to his head