When I Looked Death in the Eye and Saw that It Was Brown:

The names have been changed, but not to protect anyone because none of us were innocent. (A true story as best I can remember it.)

My first summer out of high school I was pretty cocky and full of myself, and so were my friends. We got in the habit of going to East St. Louis on a regular basis. There were a couple of Rhythm & Blues joints there where we could get in for a nominal fee, i.e. there was a $5 cover charge, but if you were smart enough to put 2 of them together you were considered smart enough to be 21. We went whenever we could afford it. You had to bring your own refreshments – so we did, but you could get high from the fumes that came off whatever was being passed around almost every table except ours of course.

One Saturday night when we left the Blue Note Club we decided to get something to eat at an all night B-B-Q place down the street. We had been there before during the daytime and never had any trouble. Anyway we were 4 bad assed white boys from up over the hill. We placed our order and were sitting at the counter… Bob, Bobby, Robert, and me. The rest of the place was empty except for a couple of workers and their guests in the back and the boss at the cash register. Passing the time just looking around I checked out the workers and friends in the back and saw that they were checking us out as well. I saw one cook running his thumb over his knife, which was about as long as a Samarra sword, reading his lips I saw him say, “That white headed mother (something or other) is mine.” I was the only sun bleached fair-haired one in the place. Nudging Bob, I drew his attention to the back room. It took him a few seconds to get the drift, but he acted smoothly and with dispatch saying to the cash register man, “Could we get those sandwiches to go?” The man said,” Good idea!”

We got em and we did go, in fact we went so fast we broke the sound barrier getting our bad assed little white boy selves back up and over that hill.

The two heads series was prepared all on one page for a Mad Magazine spread. It was part of several concepts I sent back in the 70s.. They sent them back. Mad was a hard nut to crack.

Books by Lou Bradshaw available on Amazon Kindle

 A Fine Kettle of Fish – Hickory Jack – Blue – Ace High…and now… Blue Norther

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