The
late Gary Smith loved Wilmington musicians. To prove it, he habitually
wandered the IceHouse beer garden in that venue’s glory days, passing the
hat for whoever was playing. He also started the Thursday acoustic
jam series the faint legacy of which is still with us today. For
better or worse, he taught Mike “Burnt Toast” Fowler his first two guitar
chords.
Down on his luck and debilitated from pneumonia acquired while riding from Wilmington to Philadelphia in an open truck bed in winter, Gary succumbed to a brain aneurysm and passed away several years ago. Spearheaded by Bill Strickland and backed by the Blues Society of the Lower Cape Fear, a group of IceHouse musicians produced an anthology cassette the proceeds of which became a college scholarship for Gary’s daughter.
Gary had a rough childhood. Born, to put it bluntly, in poverty and ignorance, further handicapped by an extra skin flap anchoring his tongue and hampering speech in his early years, he was, to a great extent, feral. Yet Gary was an ingenious survivor who loved life, and his deserved sense of self worth made him a help, rather than a hindrance, to all those who didn’t cross the line in his black and white, eye-for-an-eye world. Those who crossed that line were hindered to a great extent indeed.
Cats are no respecters of boundaries, and Gary at one time had a cat that sometimes crossed over to an adjoining neighbor’s second floor balcony. Finally, the neighbor kicked the cat to the sidewalk, which led to a broken feline leg. Shortly thereafter, the neighbor found Gary waiting for him in the alley with a baseball bat, which led to a broken neighbor leg.
Back when the Blues Society electric jams were held at the second Front Street News, someone walked off with an electric bass guitar, which Mike Fowler had helpfully purchased and begun to play to deal with that era’s chronic lack of bassists. Discovering his loss, Mike immediately reported it to club owner Perry Fisher, who showed no sympathy whatsoever, thus offending Mike, who mentioned it to Gary Smith, who pretty much ordered Mike to steal a microphone from the Front Street News house P.A. system so that Perry would learn what theft felt like.
Like everyone else, Mike feared Gary Smith as much as he knew him, so he took the mic. Being an equipment nut, he tried it out a few days later and found that it didn’t work. As he was not a vocalist and wasn’t familiar with the concept of “phantom power,” which some microphones require but which some P.A.s and all instrument amps fail to provide, he took it to a neighborhood electronics repair shop, Sneeden’s TV Repair. Sneeden’s happened to be a subcontract repair place for Finkelstein’s, from which Front Street News had purchased its house sound system and to which Perry had delivered a notice about the missing microphone.
Sneeden’s told Fink’s about Mike’s visit, Fink’s told me, knowing that I got along with both Front Street News and the Blues Society (those were the days!) and I told then-BSLCF President George Melita. George and I met with Mike, who was extremely hesitant to go against the wishes of Gary Smith, believing that doing so would put him in actual physical danger. After a good bit of haggling, we arranged for the microphone to mysteriously turn up under the pile of BSLCF tee shirts that were stored in the organization’s bass drum, which was stored under the Front Street News stage.
This came to pass, and we all huzzahed and whooped earnestly and convincingly to make the transaction a smooth one. It worked, getting the jams and Front Street News back on track, but Gary Smith was, by God, going to teach Perry Fisher that lesson. This time, he, not Mike, took the microphone, and to make sure it didn’t find its way back to FSN, he dropped it in a deep fryer before burying it in his back yard. I don’t know whether Perry gained insight into the feelings of theft victims or not, but Rex, the small dog bequeathed to Gary Smith by Frank Nemec, sniffed out the cooking odors, dug it up from the yard and brought it to Gary for one last appearance before a final, deeper burial.
Ah, Rex …
Rex was a good little mixed breed dog. He was quiet, he had a good disposition, he was obedient, and he had that curled, ever-raised tail and springy step that make some small dogs almost tolerable, even to me. Without question, that dog was Frank Nemec’s best friend, but when Frank felt another manic episode coming on, he passed Rex along to Gary Smith, who quickly learned about THE OTHER SIDE of Rex.
That dog would eat anything except dog food. To paraphrase Twain’s The Case Of The Missing White Elephant, Rex would bypass dog food to eat cassette tapes, he would bypass cassette tapes to eat guitar picks, he would bypass guitar picks to eat twine, he would bypass twine to eat hats, he would bypass hats to eat shoes, he would bypass shoes to eat vinyl record albums, he would bypass vinyl record albums to eat door frames, he would bypass door frames to eat gas stove lines, he would bypass gas stove lines to eat maracas, he would bypass maracas to eat unwashed paint brushes, and he would bypass unwashed paint brushes to eat toilet paper off the roll, a favorite delicacy with Rex, but one which his humans always found it difficult to acclimate themselves to.
Gary chained the dog up in the back yard with dishes of water and dog food, and the dog withered until well meaning neighbors and friends began to slip him leftovers, discounted, expired pastries from Sneeden’s Grocery, and other such truck, on which Rex waxed pudgy. Gary made a sign and posted it on the side of the house, reading, “Do not feid thes dog. I am trieing to taech him to eat dog food.” Rex ate the sign.
I think Frank took Rex back after his release from Cherry Hospital, and it was at about that time that Gary began sharing his house with Mike Fowler. The Rex and Mike eras couldn’t have intersected by much, because I know that Mike used to hide the honey buns, pecan rolls, etc. in Sneeden’s Grocery behind canned goods, pork rinds and shoe polish so that they’d be there long enough to expire, at the same time keeping track of the expiration dates so that he could then thriftily go haggle for bargains with the shopkeepers. Therefore, those pastries wouldn’t have been available to Rex had Mike been onsite consecutive with the dog’s stay at Gary’s place.
One summer day, I went over to Gary’s house, knocked on the door and was admitted by Mike, who was, I think, experiencing some sort of illicit yet mild euphoria. We chatted in the living room for a few minutes, and then Gary came out and said, “It’s kinda hot in here. I think I’ll bring out the hurricane.”
Mellow Mike said something to the effect of, “Whatever,” and Gary lugged a huge, homemade fan into the doorway. It had cockeyed plywood blades, a chicken wire front and a huge motor, which Gary proudly explained that he’d removed from a washing machine. After propping the contraption up with lumber and cinder blocks, he plugged it in. Slowly at first because of their weight and less than perfect aerodynamic balance, the fan blades began to churn the air. The power that had spun so many pairs of jeans applied itself to mere warm, smoky air in the room. Cigarette butts began to stir in ashtrays. Window screens began to push outward against increasing strain. In scant seconds, the room was a maelstrom of flying papers, ashes, dog hair, carpet lint, newspapers, socks and part of a bag of dope from under the couch and other debris better left unidentified. Mike’s hair blew straight back like something out of an old Memorex ad. Finally, with a scream of surprise, embarrassment and rage, the cat flew off the back of the couch, the clutch of its claws availing naught, and was pressed flat against the window screen behind it by the gale. After a few minutes, Gary, who’d stood impassively out of harm’s way behind the hurricane fan throughout the carnage, said, “That’s enough to get the air circulating for awhile,” and unplugged his homemade instrument of destruction.
A few days later, I again knocked on the door at stately Smith / Fowler Manor. A voice from down the hall beckoned me to come on in, so I entered and followed the sound of the voice to the kitchen. There was Gary, with his arm in a washing machine, manually rotating a load of clothes with the machine’s mechanism still handling all other laundry functions. “Well, I’ll be a ring-tailed son of a bitch,” I marveled, “that must be where you got the motor for that damn fan, and it still works.”
“Yeah, it still works” panted Gary, continuing to rotate the heavy, wet laundry, “but that hot rinse cycle is a bitch!”
He was hell and gone on theory concerning other appliances, too. Picking up from somewhere the scientific tidbit that heat and humidity were one and the same thing, Gary swore off his kerosene heater in favor of an electric skillet set just high enough to simmer away a quart of water into the apartment air each night. I facetiously suggested that filling the skillet with leftover kerosene instead of water would add even more efficiency to his new heating system, and then had some difficulty talking him out of trying it. Actually, the skillet thing didn’t work worth a damn; it just put enough moisture in the frigid air to form ice on the inside of the kitchen windows, but Gary’s faith in his invention kept him contentedly warm for a couple of weeks.
Winter was long past, and I was sitting at the IceHouse bar talking to Gary one day when Mike Fowler strolled in, casually mentioning as he joined us that he’d seen a large snake in the alley right next to the bar. Attached electrodes and sophisticated monitors would register barely a blip upon most adult test subjects being given this information, but Gary was a long way from most adults. “Where is he,” he excitedly queried Mike, leaping off the barstool that was a little too high for his diminutive frame.
“Man, you ought to leave that snake alone,” advised Mike, who had really come to the bar to drink beer, catch up with friends and flirt with barmaids rather than to wrestle reptiles, but with the trepidation we all felt during one of Gary’s calls to action, he sighed and went back into the alley with Gary to serve as guide.
“Man, you ought to leave that snake alone,” he suggested again, but Gary assured him, “I just want to look at him.” Mike pointed out the patch of weeds into which the snake had slithered, which Gary immediately began poking with a rotten stick. Out came the disturbed snake, which Gary adroitly captured beneath the forks at the end of his ersatz tool. Just as he was about to grab his trophy, the rotten stick broke, and the snake reared up and bit Gary on the arm.
“Man, I said you ought to leave that snake alone,” pointed out a vindicated Mike, but now they had to capture the damn thing to determine its toxicity, a crucial factor in treating the bite now welling blood on Gary’s arm. Mike’s injunctions continued as Gary rooted through the underbrush, gravel, dog shit and broken glass, finally apprehending the elusive serpent. Too angry to identify its breed, he trotted straight down to the river and flung the snake as far as he could. Gary and Mike, or, as the late Thornton “Sonny” Johnson used to refer to them, “Itch and Scratch,” then ambled, a little flush from exertion and sun, back into the bar to recount their adventure.
Love, unfortunately for Gary Smith, could not be flung away so easily. He proposed to Crazy Susan once, with interesting consequences. You see, all the IceHouse regulars had their eyes on Crazy Susan. That's because if you didn't watch her carefully, she'd snake out the arm that wasn't in a cast that week and snatch the beer bottle right out from in front of you. At one time, she'd been the lively, pretty manager of Compton's, the bar in the Wilmington Hilton, and many men had eyed her with different intent, but she'd long since lost that job and been banned from the Hilton for disturbing tourists in one way or another. And she always had an arm in a sling for some reason. I think she fell down a lot.
Gary bought her a few beers and talked to her. Gary could talk the tinsel off the World's Largest Living Christmas Tree (a major misnomer, as the e coli -evocative evergreen is actually quite dead, spraypainted green, and much smaller than plenty of pines worldwide that any jackass with an excess of holiday spirit could festoon with twinkling lights if he absolutely couldn't stop himself) down at Riverfront Park. He used to say that he knew he talked too much, but was trying to make up for lost time from when that extra skin flap attaching his tongue to his mouth had prevented speech. When Crazy Susan was down on her luck, she even stayed at Gary's house, the unofficial mayoral mansion of the community unofficially known as "Sneedenville."
It is almost inevitable that proximity between a man and a woman will eventually interest that man in that woman romantically and/or carnally and one day, Gary proposed to Crazy Susan. Pragmatic as always, however, he attached one proviso to his offer of marriage. "You've got to quit giving my groceries to that old man with the shopping cart you've been running the streets with," he stipulated.
Offended by this restriction on her dispensation of Gary's groceries, Crazy Susan took off down the street, disappearing for the better part of the afternoon but eventually returning with a wine bottle in one hand and a raw chicken leg tied to a length of fishing line in the other, which was for this occasion unslung. Recognizing the implications of these particular items in sudden horror, Gary barricaded the door and shouted through a locked window, "Get back! Go away! You're not coming in here with those things!"
It was common knowledge in old Sneedenville that a powerful curse could be inflicted with the very items Crazy Susan had armed herself with if they were used properly, and she was already beginning to use them thus when Gary implored her to leave his yard. She began to spin the chicken leg above her head faster and faster while shrieking arcane, chilling vowel combinations. When she sensed that her poultry 'pendage had reached maximal velocity, she released it, aiming right for Gary's frightened face, frozen in the window. As it rattled the glass and greasily slid down the wall, she smashed the wine bottle against the front steps, said, "Have a nice day," in a less-than-sincere tone, and staggered off down the street again.
Gary knew all about the wine-and-chicken-leg curse, but he was philosophical about the consequences which he knew would get him one day. He even started a song about it -- "I tried to make Crazy Susan mine / She came after me with a bottle of wine / I really thought that she was fine / 'Til the chicken leg swung on the fishin' line ..."
We thought of Gary as being more auxiliary to the music scene than inside of it, yet he did his time on bandstands, both paid and unpaid. Though he owned and occasionally played guitars and keyboards, he usually limited himself to homemade percussion instruments at jam sessions. For the series of paid gigs he put together for the Whispering Pines nudist camp and for the blues talent contest in which he placed second(along with Stuttering Larry Wayne Wishon), he played whatever was necessary to make each song work. The bare truth is that I wasn’t at Whispering Pines … Gary might have even sung “Heart of Gold” there, for all I know.
It was for the aforementioned contest that he began to use the “Reverend Gary Smith” stage handle. Unlike some people I’ve known who have actually been ordained, Gary was the kind of guy who thought that “Rev.” in front of his name placed obligations of more upright behavior on him. At extreme need, the pragmatic survivor might have lied, stolen, or committed murder after that contest, but he did make a conscious effort to settle down. He was always there to help haul equipment at Blues Society events and was particularly active at benefit shows. He felt strongly about community causes like the Yahweh Center For Abused Children, which he identified with to a great extent even though he always mistakenly called that facility "The Yee-hah Center.”
When Gary told me the story of breaking his neighbor’s leg, I was sitting with a woman who was the product of suburbs, private schools, educated parents and the arts. As he swayed off to the bar after narrating his tale of justice, she watched the back of his shabby denim jacket retreat, then turned to me and observed, “He’s the real thing, isn’t he?”
He was. Gary Smith was as real as anyone that much larger than life could be.