Rope Burns

If there was one constant in James Daveggio’s life, it was that he was always drifting somewhere. Drifting from town to town. Drifting from girlfriend to girlfriend. Drifting from job to job. As his relationship with Lizzy Bingenheimer deteriorated in the mid-1990s, he drifted farther down Stockton Boulevard in Sacramento to a roadhouse called Bobby Joe’s. The exterior walls of the unpretentious tavern were painted with whimsical cartoon characters of Pepe LePew, Hekyll and Jekyll, and Andy Capp, the tippling Cockney, beer mug in hand, being chased by his irate wife with a rolling pin. Andy wore a smug smile on his face, always just one step ahead of his incensed mate. Perhaps it was a feeling more than one patron of Bobby Joe’s knew all too well after returning home late from the tavern.

Just like Daveggio, there had been waves of other drifters moving through South Sacramento—immigrants looking for the first rung on the ladder of the American Dream. Mexicans, Filipinos, East Indians, Vietnamese, they all washed through South Sac like a flowing and ebbing tide. Each group created their own taverns and cocktail lounges to ease their nerves after a hard day’s work, often for minimum wages. They sought a convivial place to forget the harsh realities of life for a while, a place to escape the Boulevard.

Predating all the others was the initial wave of drifters who had washed ashore here in the 1930s—the Dust Bowl Okies. Looking for a place to just barely stay alive, they camped out in what had once been the orchards and farms of the area, eking out a bare existence by knocking almonds, picking tomatoes and tending to ranches. Slowly as conditions improved, they moved into shacks around the area that would become South Sacramento. In 1948 when the Campbell’s Soup Company opened on Franklin Boulevard, they rushed in to fill the jobs, creating the first real stability in their lives. The work was still hard, but now they could at least put down roots and obtain the foundation of their dreams, a house of their own with a small front lawn and an automobile in the driveway. The orchards of South Sac slowly gave way to their modest but pleasant homes, as new waves of immigrants washed all around them, with different-colored skins and strange languages.

Like all the others, the Dust Bowlers, and their children when they grew up, needed a place to relax and unwind over a drink. Bobby Joe’s became their place. Entering through windowless heavy front doors, they were greeted by a long, low rectangular room with curving dark-oak bar, cushioned bar stools, concrete dance floor, green-topped pool table and jukebox. Soft, glowing neon signs advertised various beers, and a few posters of country-and-western singers adorned the walls. Nothing fancy, but then they would have been put off by something fancy. This was their place, just as rough-hewn and simple as themselves.

The main bartender in the 1990s certainly fit the image. Ted Williams (no relation to the famous baseball slugger) was an unpretentious, stocky man with a friendly face, graying hair and walrus mustache. Not given to flamboyant speech or actions, he nonetheless would serve up a drink with an ease that most patrons found reassuring. They weren’t in Bobby Joe’s to discuss the trends of Wall Street, California cuisine, or the latest art film. They were there to feel relaxed and be at home. Williams was their kind of bartender.

Janet Williams, Ted’s wife and occasional bartender, on the other hand, was an effusive and extroverted blonde with a gift of gab and a friendly smile. Able to spin stories with the best of them, she could hold her own with anyone. She knew all the regulars by name and it wasn’t long that anyone remained a stranger with Janet. Like her husband, she had seen just about everything in Bobby Joe’s over the years, and nothing was too wild to startle her. After all, their tavern wasn’t a monastery, and on an occasion or two, customers might find themselves heading for the parking lot to settle “their differences.” But nothing in their wildest imaginations could have prepared the Williamses for what James Daveggio would eventually bring into their establishment and their lives.

It certainly started innocently enough. Daveggio drifted into Bobby Joe’s one day in 1995 and ordered a few drinks. He was polite and talkative, speaking of his own days in bartending. He hit it off quite well with Ted and Janet and they immediately liked the young man. Although he looked pretty rough with his tattoos and motorcycle paraphernalia, he had such deep blue eyes and a polite manner that they couldn’t help but like him. The very contrast of his looks and manner made him interesting.

One visit by Daveggio led to another, and before long he was asking the Williamses for a job at Bobby Joe’s. There were no positions open for a bartender at that time, but they took one look at his six-foot, 220-pound frame and offered him a job as a bouncer. He took it without hesitation. He was still living with Bingenheimer and hanging out at Lizzy B’s bar, but as time went on, he found Bobby Joe’s to be his kind of place. It catered to an even “rougher” crowd than Lizzy B’s, perfect for bikers such as The Devil’s Horsemen.

Connie Jackson, another bartender at Bobby Joe’s, was less sure about Daveggio. She was at a biker party in Sacramento where he was obviously drunk. He was rowdy and waving his sex offender paperwork above his head as if it were a winning lottery ticket.

She later told Contra Costa Times reporter David Holbrook, “He was flashing it around and I thought, ‘Do we really want to hire this guy?’ ”

She also saw how he treated his women once he was past the “nice gentleman” stage. “He used his women like slaves, ordering them to clean his house and do his bidding.”

Jackson did admit, however, that “James did have a nice bike. He was in a club and that’s what women liked about him.”

James Daveggio swiftly became a viable part of Bobby Joe’s scene, taking on the more familiar name “Froggie” to those who knew him best. They were fascinated by his association with The Devil’s Horsemen and his unexpectedly polite and quiet manner. Young women especially found it endearing. It was just such a contrast. Expecting some filthy language to come pouring out of his mouth, they instead were treated to a courtly kind of flattery. In echoes of Janet Stokes’s comments, just before she was raped, they, too, thought, “He was a nice gentleman.”

He even burnished his “nice guy beneath the rough exterior” image more by playing Santa Claus at a local hospital during the Christmas season and riding his bike on toy drives.

Although Daveggio was still living with Lizzy, he began taking out women from Bobby Joe’s bar. His status improved even more when a bartender position came open and he was able to serve the ladies drinks. Two waitresses in particular, Anna and Jean, from a nearby restaurant called Eppie’s, remembered him well. They often stopped by Bobby Joe’s after work for a few drinks. Jean Sidener, a cute, dark-eyed, petite woman, remembered, “Frog used to always come by Eppie’s for some food. He’d joke around and cut up with me. Nothing ever dirty. He was fun to be around. He was very soft-spoken and actually polite. He did have kind of a raspy voice, but that just added to his charm. It was funny, though, if you ever complimented him he would become all embarrassed. He just didn’t know how to handle it. Especially from women. He was like a big, shy teddy bear.”

Anna, a reflective young woman, agreed. “Froggie was as nice as he could be. Even though he looked pretty rough, he was usually pretty quiet. You never got the sense that he would hurt anyone. He was just this gentle giant. But then I guess you never know. He must have had a Jekyll and Hyde personality. Because there was this one incident around Christmas in 1995. It’s something I can’t be sure of. But when I think of it now . . .”

What she remembered was Daveggio being overly nice to her and Sidener. He had bought them stuffed animals for the holidays and they were touched by his thoughtfulness. Just around New Year’s Eve at Bobby Joe’s, she remembered getting quite tipsy and the bar slowly emptying of customers near closing time. Frog seemed to be pouring very little orange juice and a lot of vodka into her mixed drinks. She was beginning to feel very woozy. To the left of the bar was a walled-off patio area, now totally deserted of other customers. She barely remembered being lured toward the patio by Daveggio.

Luckily for Anna, her friend Jean was there that night. Intrinsically more skeptical and wary than Anna, Jean felt there was something wrong. She quietly, but insistently, steered Anna away from Frog and out the front door. In doing so, she probably saved Anna from becoming Daveggio’s next rape victim.

But as time passed, that incident was forgotten, and Daveggio’s tenure as bartender at Bobby Joe’s proceeded without further incident. Even to Anna and Jean, Frog seemed to return to his old, friendly, polite self in the new year. Plenty of other women and girls went out with him and one in particular caught his eye. He was now thirty-five years old and she was still a teenager, but they started dating, even though he was still living with Lizzy. Everything went fine until he had a few drinks too many and he slapped her one evening in the presence of others. She was young and small and he probably thought he could get away with it. But it wasn’t the girl he had to be worried about, it was her mother.

In the words of Janet Williams, “That teenager had a big lesbian for a mom. A real bull dyke. When she found out what Frog had done to her kid,” Janet chuckled, “she hauled him outside of Bobby Joe’s into the parking lot and kicked his ass. It was one of the funniest damned things you ever saw.”

For perhaps the first time in his life, Daveggio found out what it was like to be on the receiving end from an enraged woman.

But as 1996 progressed, bull dykes would become the least of James Daveggio’s problems. An exotic redhead in her midthirties was about to walk through the doors of Bobby Joe’s and nothing in her life or James’s was ever going to be the same again.