Published by Newsstand Library in 1962 with good girl art cover illustration by Robert Bonfils, No Experience Necessary was “mostly” written by Charles Willeford. Collectors of Willeford already know that the author “disclaimed” the novel because someone reportedly at Newsstand Library added two bonus chapters without his permission. Why? Likely they wanted to expand the novel or make the opening chapter more sensational. If the original manuscript exists, I’d sure love to compare it against the printed novel. According to Willeford, he did not write that first opening chapter. Well hell, he might not have, but it sure as hell is a saucy, and dangerous piece of literature. Even as a work of fiction, I wonder if legally he could have been in hot water had he acknowledged the book, with his name clearly on the cover, as 100% his own hand? Would friends and family reading it be mortified?
!!! SPOILER AND LITERARY WARNING ALERT !!!
Do NOT read this article if you are against sexual content,
specifically where children are explicitly involved.
The precise location of where our protagonist resides is the fictional coastal town of Seagrape, Florida. The word “seagrape” is actually a fruit-bearing plant found along the coastal shores of Florida; it is edible. Other places noted include the Whiting women’s reformatory, located 10 miles away. No such place exists. Flagler Park is mentioned, but this could be a vague reference to Flagler County, or Flagler Beach, even. Two clever yell-outs to Michigan crop up, in the form of Sheriff J. D. Dearborn and a reference to the lawlessness in 1930s Hamtranck. Later, we find Willeford stating a family lives in Saint Augustine and her husband hates taking the bus to Jacksonville.
Without further undo examination, let’s proceed with the story.
The novel opens with our protagonist (Adams) in a hotel room, on the bed. He seems confused as to his surroundings. Where is his wife? Is this the hotel where they honeymooned? It all slowly comes back to him. He’s not sure what day of the honeymoon it is, but his wife is in the bath, getting clean. She comes out wearing nothing but the towel. Adams is content with this. He moves to get out of bed and carry her to the bed when suddenly she simply is already there. How did she move so fast?
The whole romantic scenario is snapped when nine-year-old Becky, a neighbor’s daughter, hollers “Mr. Adams” at him nonstop. He awakens from his outdoor slumber in the Florida sun. He’s annoyed at having his sex-dream interrupted. He thinks she is looking for his wife, Maya, but Becky nixes that thought. She playfully assures Pop Adams she was looking to see him, then landing in his lap she proceeds to kiss him and force her tongue into his mouth. He’s shocked and eventually learns a strange man in the park has been teaching her to kiss, talk, and allowing him to touch her, for 10 pennies each time. She has a nice bag in her hands, filled with all those pennies. Adams is mortified to discover the sexual abuse by the park stranger, who gave her only the name of Uncle Bob. He’s of no relation, obviously. Adams convinces her to explain what else Uncle Bob has been doing or instructing. So, Becky drops her shorts and exposes herself to Adams and then demands 10 cents from him for “looking.” Now truly horrified, Adams instructs her to put on her shorts, that they are going to see her parents. She freaks out and jumps at him and screams and cries. Unfortunately, his wife chooses that moment to walk in. She sees her 76-year-old husband holding a little girl, her pants down, screaming and crying.
What would you think?
Well, Maya Adams doesn’t give her husband any airtime to confess his innocence. Leading the girl into the bedroom, she locks the door. Time passes, and the pair then go to the girl’s home. Time passes, and now the sheriff and the girl’s father are walking to the house. The father is a big, huge, strong man, with military experience. Panicking, the aged Adams runs out the back door but is immediately caught by Becky’s father and punched hard in the mouth. Adams is lucky his dentures didn’t shatter on impact. Another fist forthcoming is forestalled by the sheriff, to the rescue.
Pop Adams is brought to jail. Bearing in mind the era in which this novel is written, we are given to understand the jail has two separate cells: one for whites, and a much larger one for Negroes. Here Adams meets another cellmate, who gave his name to the sheriff as being John Smith. Now, the sheriff isn’t stupid. He realizes the name is a load of bull; he doesn’t care. He’s taken the man’s prints and sent them to Charleston. They’ll come back with nothing on file in the South, but then they’ll be sent on to Washington D. C., where they’ll discover John Smith’s real identity is Freddy Lenard with a laundry list of offences. Most of them out west, in California. He’s served plenty of time, been psychologically examined, and labelled as a pathological criminal, meaning that he understands right from wrong, but doesn’t care either which way.
Freddy gets Adams calmed down and to explain just why he is in jail. Adams relates his entire woeful tale, at the end of which he’s informed that with no prior history nor actual proof of the charge, Adams will be set free. Adams can hardly believe his cellmate’s self-assurance but is hopeful he is right. Adams’ cellmate relates to him why he’s in jail. Seems he hitched a ride with a trucker, then pulled a gun on the man, wishing to kick him out and steal the wheels. The driver (Collins) wrecked the vehicle and Freddy tossed the pistol out the window into the swampy muck. He assures Adams neither the sheriff nor the deputy would ever look for it. They might ask a Negro to look, but he knows the law themselves won’t bother to search for the weapon.
Well, in exchange, he’d like Adams on the “outside” to do him a favor. Pulling apart his shoe, he extracts some newspaper clippings. Handing one to Adams, he reads it twice in confusion. It concerns an unidentified man and a crime. He wants Adams to hand the clipping to Collins and explain that if he doesn’t drop all charges, soon as he gets out of jail, he’s going to kill him. Adams is gobsmacked but agrees to the request. Released from jail, Adams is brought home by Becky’s father, who feels guilt over assaulting Adams. He learned his daughter had lied to them. Despite this knowledge, he’s baffled as to why Adams’ wife still maintains his own guilt. In the end, Adams tells off Becky’s father, telling him essentially to go to hell.
I found the reaction surprising. How did Adams really think Becky’s father should react to her supposedly being diddled and fiddled by old-man Adams? He is a man who likely has never had to apologize in his life and yet he breaks down while driving and sobs and bears his soul to Adams, only to be silently rebuffed the entire drive, until he’s home. It’s not the reaction I was expecting, which only shows the road that Adams is mentally traveling down.
Now home, Adams discovers his wife (Maya) is missing. Maybe she went to the precinct to pick him up and they missed each other. He phones the precinct. No, she hasn’t been there. Maybe she is with the elderly bitch of a neighbor. He checks there and learns that she took a flight from Seagrape, Florida up to Detroit, where their son lives. Well, good riddance. He’s better off without her anyway. He hasn’t touched her in decades, sexually, and now she is either certain of his guilt or using it as a reason to jump ship.
Recollecting he’d agreed to deliver Freddy’s message to the man pressing charges, he takes a bus out to Saint Augustine. Locating the house, he finds outside the man’s wife and two toddlers. We’re privy to her thoughts and worries preceding his arrival, and that without a vehicle, her husband hates it but will have to ride the bus into Jacksonville. Relaying the message to her, because she refuses to wake her husband, she’s shocked to hear that a man in jail is threatening to kill her husband. Adams pretends he is a court judge and using professional courtesy to relay the facts in the case and that the man is a psychopath and they tend to fulfill their desires. But he’ll be locked away in prison. Ah yes, but every day in prison he serves, every single day, he’ll be waiting and planning to murder your husband. And he’ll probably get out early, for good behavior. She’s mortified, but we know she obviously relayed the message, as next we know, Freddy is in a taxicab, having just arrived at Adams’ home.
Adams greets him as one would a long-lost best friend. He’s been rather lonely and lost in his own world. Plus, he’d earlier discovered the entire town learned of his plight, the charges brought against him, etc. Despite the fact the charges were dropped, and the true facts are known, gossip has destroyed any shred of innocence. Freddy takes to the kitchen and whips up a stellar meal. Turns out that besides being pathological, he’s well read and while serving previously in prison for many years, he bounced from various “shops” and learned many a trade. Cooking was one of them. He absorbed the cookbooks and is quite proficient.
But again, he’s a pathological criminal, but one that leads his life how he wants to, not according to the rules that dictate everyone else. He proceeds to inform Adams that the man has never lived. He’s worked and slaved his entire life for a job he didn’t really like, an unhealthy life with his wife, no sex life to speak of, no excitement, etc. Adams refuses to believe everything negative about his own life, but in the end, when Freddy announces that he’s headed south to Miami to pull a job, Adams suddenly asks if it is too late to change. Freddy assures Adams it’s never too late to change, to better oneself. Adams asks if he can go south with Freddy to Miami, and Freddy readily accepts.
Chapter 8 is a short one. Pop Adams is having another wet dream. He’s on the beaches of Miami and a buxom, topless beauty rushes into his arms. He tries to take advantage, only to wake up. If Willeford didn’t write much of the saucy details from Chapter 1, he certainly didn’t author these few pages.
We are later introduced to Jay Plouden-Reynolds, a Barbados-born man who looks decidedly white though he is 1/16th Negro. He’s the stereotypical “starving artist.” He paints what he likes. Nobody buys it. Unfortunately for him, he knows Freddy Lenard, and it is Jay that Freddy is heading to Miami to meet, to pull off a job. We’re given Jay’s life-history, and the shame he felt when in New Orleans at a restaurant and they refused to serve him because they recognized that he might be part Negro. Jay is certain he could have called their bluff but was off-guard by the unexpected accusation, that he just up and quit the premises. Now he’s returned to Miami and soon to associate with Freddy and another guy he’s bringing along, a Mr. Adams who cracks safes. (That’s a laugh, ain’t it? that Freddy lied about Adams?) What if the heist failed and they were arrested? Would local authorities recognize the Negro strain in him? It meant a huge difference in treatment: a white prison vs a Negro prison. Yet, he’s confident the Golden Pines Supermarket deserves to be robbed, because they fired him. Granted, he was stealing from them. Freddy cases the market and decides they are ripe for robbery.
Here we are introduced to a scar-faced and brutally battered young lady by the name of Dale. While at a bar, acting as a prostitute, she had hit on Freddy. He got her life story and learned she once was an up-and-coming model. She had been screwing her manager. But she had also fallen in love with a college kid / cabbie. The manager in a drunken rage disfigured her face but left her with her body. Freddy bizarrely decides she is a project. He wants to rob the market and fly her to Haiti, where a rumored Nazi surgeon is in hiding. Freddy also wants part of the money to go to Jay, to send him to an art institute in New York to be properly trained.
Pop Adams agrees to assist Freddy in his illegal activities but only after Freddy assures him he intends to go straight thereafter and become a consultant, albeit with a fake doctoral degree, courtesy of another con capable of faking documents. So, Pop hands Freddy the cash to obtain guns, ammo, etc. Jay and Freddy take the MG out for a spin, to steal a car. They come back with Freddy madly angered and having physically assaulted Jay for screwing up. Seems he stole a car while a child was asleep in the back seat. She woke, screamed; he jumped out and ran. He drew too much attention to himself, a second mistake. Freddy orders everyone to remain behind and goes out to obtain wheels. Pop learns from the pair that they are scared to death of Freddy, but he placates them by reminding them that Freddy is doing everything for them. Jay off to art school; Dale to Haiti to have her face fixed.
Freddy returns with a Buick. What the trio don’t know is that he murdered the female driving it and stuffed her in the trunk. Now that they’ve all gone inside to sleep, half hour or so later he drags her body out of the trunk and dumps her in a backyard shed. With wheels and guns ready, the plan moves forward.
Dale is to drive the trio in the Buick. Pop goes into the supermarket first. Get a basket, shop for expensive items. That’ll buy time. He must be the last customer shopping when the market closes and locks up. Pop informs Freddy he won’t do anything illegal and Freddy assures him that he won’t be. Freddy and Jay are to enter after the market closes. Freddy will have a gun, safety off. He explains to them that only he will do any shooting. Jay is to have the other gun, but the safety remains on at all times. Merely wave it around menacingly.
Pop goes in and performs his task. Eventually, he is the last person inside. The manager leaves early, leaving the male assistant, a red-haired female cashier, and a kid that handles the odd jobs of bagging and cleaning, etc. The assistant sends the boy to check on the old man, reminding him they are closed. Ringing him up at the register, the front door rattles. Freddy is outside. The assistant tells the boy to tell the man outside they are closed, but Pop informs them that Freddy is his son, there to help him with the groceries. Freddy is admitted and Jay slips in behind. They pull their guns, and Freddy hollers that they are robbing them.
And, everything goes wrong.
The cashier sees Jay’s face and faints. The assistant manager pops a drawer, draws a gun, a wild shot flies and incredibly, it finds a home to roost in Jay’s skull. He’s dead. Gun goes sliding away. Freddy pumps rounds into the assistant, killing him. The boy freaks out and runs towards the back of the store. Freddy moves adroitly into position and shoots him twice, dead. Then he walks over to the fainted girl, pushes his pistol into her hair against her skull, and pumps out two rounds. Then he strides into the office and works on the money.
All the while, Pop is standing in shock, having witnessed a trio murdered and Jay dead at his feet. Freddy orders Pop to empty the drawer. Moving mechanically, in shock, Pop acknowledges and goes to empty the register. The girl is in his way, on her back, looking up, an eyeball exploded out, dangling. And it finally hits Pop that Freddy is a monster, just as the others saw him, and must be stopped. Picking up Jay’s discarded gun, he walks towards Freddy in the office, scooping out wads of cash.
Freddy sees Pop approaching with the gun and warns him not to point it at him and that the safety is on. Pop thanks him for the reminder, flips it off, and empties the handgun into Freddy. The last couple shots go wild, but the first ones all sail unerringly into Freddy, extinguishing his criminous career.
Pop scoops up the cash into a cardboard box and exits the store. No cops are heard to approach. Dale and the Buick are gone. He realizes she likely panicked and took off. She did. But fear of Freddy forces her to make a U-turn. She finds Pop standing outside, and tells him to get in. He doesn’t. He dumps the cash in the car, and orders her to take off, fulfill her mission and fly to Haiti with the cash, get her face fixed. She drives away, frightened, but maintains her composure and speed limit, as originally ordered by Freddy.
Pop walks away in the rain, in the opposite direction, finds a covered bus stop. He eventually finds a taxicab and asks how much to drive to Seagrape. The driver hasn’t a clue but knows it’s a good hundred or so miles north of Miami on the coast. He agrees to drive Pop and see what the tally is upon arrival. Pop climbs in and falls asleep in the back seat.
Surprisingly enough (to me) Pop turns himself in to Seagrape’s sheriff, Dearborn. Provides a full confession but supplies one that leaves Dale entirely out of the picture. He later mentally remarks that Dale isn’t too bright and will likely one day be captured, but hopefully by then with a new face. Dearborn surrenders Pop over to Dade County authorities. They bring him south and brutally interrogate him, going so far as to beat him once about the face. Some loose ends are revealed during the interrogation, but I won’t divulge anything here. His lawyer gets a female psychiatrist to see him, and Pop breaks down after her competent questioning. Her evaluation is to submit Pop to the senility ward. Pop doesn’t like this. So, while he was permitted to bring some basic necessities into the jail, the cops didn’t realize the pills he brought were home-made potassium cyanide. He pops 3 in his mouth.
Now, having finished the novel, I ask myself if the publisher’s editor, the one that added the bonus chapter(s) of text, really was warranted in padding out the novel with the sensationally saucy material. I say, Yes and No. The first chapter really caught me off-guard and set the tone for the rest of the novel. The second added chapter was entirely unnecessary, although, admittedly, the reader may have been falling asleep by then. I enjoyed reading Charles Willeford’s No Experience Necessary and didn’t feel that it was a waste of my time.