lling news
stands tried to keep their fronts open and sell horse-race tips and sheets
to the people ducking head-down in the rain, and pool halls stunk to high
heaven with tobacco smoke, spit and piles of dirty men yelling over their
bets. Hock-shop windows all piled and hanging full of every article known to
man, and hocked there by the men that needed them most; tools, shovels,
carpenter kits, paint sets, compasses, brass faucets, plumbers tools, saws,
axes, big watches that hadn't run since the last war, and canvas tents and
bedrolls taken from the fruit tramps. Coffee joints, slippery stool dives,
hash counters with open fronts was lined with men swallowing and chewing and
hoping the rain would wash something like a job down along the Skid. The
garbage is along the street stones and the curbing, a shale and a slush that
washes down the hill from the nicer parts of town, the papers crumpled and
rotten, the straw, manure, and silt, that comes down from the high places,
like the Cisco Kid and me, and like several thousand other rounders, to land
and to clog, and to get caught along the Skid Row.
This is where the working people come to try to squeeze a little fun
and rest out of a buffalo nickel; these three or four blocks of old wobbling
flop houses and buildings.
I know you people I see here on the Skid. The hats pulled down over the
faces I can't see. You know my name and you call me a guitar busker, a joint
hopper, tip canary, kittybox man.
Movie people, boss wranglers, dead enders, stew bums; stealers,
dealers, sidewalk spielers; con men, sly flies, flat foots, reefer riders;
dopers, smokers, boiler stokers; sailors, whalers, bar flies, brass railers;
spittoon tuners, fruit-tree pruners; cobbers, spiders, three-way riders;
honest people, fakes, vamps and bleeders; saviors, saved, and side-street
singers; whore-house hunters, door-bell ringers; footloosers, rod riders,
caboosers, outsiders; honky tonk and whiskey setters, tight-wads,
spendthrifts, race-horse betters; blackmailers, gin soaks, comers, goers;
good girls, bad girls, teasers, whores; buskers, com huskers, dust bowlers,
dust panners; waddlers, toddlers, dose packers, syph carriers; money men,
honey men, sad men, funny men; ramblers, gamblers, highway anklers; cowards,
brave guys, stools and snitches; nice people, bastards, sonsabitches; fair,
square, and honest folks; low, sneaking greedy people; and somewhere, in
amongst all of these Skid Row skidders--Cisco and me sung for our chips.
This December night was bad for singing from joint to joint. The rain
had washed some of the trash along the streets, but had chased most of the
cash customers on home. Our system was to walk into a saloon and ask the
regular musicians if they would like to rest a few minutes, and they usually
was glad to stretch their legs and grab a coffee or a burger. Then we took
their places on the little platform and sung our songs and asked the
customers what they would like to hear next. Each joint was good for thirty
or forty cents, if things went just right, and we usually hit five or six
bars every night. But this was an off night. Men and women filled the
booths, talking about Hitler and Japan and the Russian Red Army. A few
soldiers and sailors and men in uniform scattered along the bar nodding to
longshoremen, and tanker men, and freighter men, and dock workers, and
factory men, and talking about the war. Cops ducking in and out of the rain
stood around and took a good look to see if there was any trouble cooking.
The Cisco Kid was saying, "It looks like most of these old buildings
had ought to be jacked up and a new one run under them." He was on the go
from door to door, trying to keep his guitar out of the rain.
"Purty old, all right, some of these flop houses. I think th' Spaniards
found 'em here when they first chased th' Indians outta this country." I
dodged along behind him.
"Wanta drop in here at th' Ace High?"
I followed him in the door. "It'll be a cinch ta git ta play here, I
don't know about makin' any money."
The Ace High crowd looked pretty low. We nodded at Charlie the Chinaman
and he nodded back toward the music platform. The whole joint was painted a
light funny blue that sort of made your head spin whether you was drinking
or not. All kinds of ropes and corks and big fishing nets hung around over
the walls and down from the ceiling. Cisco turned a nickel machine around
with its face to the wall, while I flipped the strings of his guitar hanging
on his back and tuned mine up to his. Then I waved at Charlie the Chinaman
and he reached above the bar and turned on the loud speaker. I pulled the
mike up to where it would be level with our mouths and we started in
singing:
Well, I come here, to work, I didn't come to hang around
Yes, I come here to work, I didn't come to hang around
And if I don't find me a woman, I'll just roll on out of town.
"Hey there, slim boy," a fast-talking little bald-headed man wearing a
right new suit of gray clothes told us, handing Cisco a phone book at the
same time, "turn in here and find me a name and a number to call."
"Which number?" Cisco asked him.
"Just any number," he said; "just read one off. I never could read
those phone numbers very good."
I listened to Cisco call out a number. The man handed Cisco a dime and
then Cisco and me heard him talking.
"Miss Sue Perfalus? How are you? I'm Mister Upjohn Smith, with the
Happy Hearth and Home Roofing Company. I was fixing your next-door
neighbor's roof today. While I was on top of her house, I looked over on top
of your house. The rainy season is here, you know. Your roof is in a
terrible condition. I wouldn't be surprised to see the whole thing go any
minute. The water will cause the plaster to fall off your laths and ruin
your piano and your furniture. It might fail down and hit you in the face
some night while you're in bed. What? Sure? Sure, I'm sure! I got your phone
number, didn't I? The price? Oh, I'm afraid it's going to run you somewhere
around two hundred dollars. What's that? Oh, I see. You haven't got a roof?
Apartment house? Oh, I see. Well, goodbye, lady."
"Wrong number?" I asked him when he hung up.
"No. Here, you take this phone book and try calling me off one." He
took the book from Cisco and handed it to me.
"Who is this? Oh, Judge V. A. Grant? Your plaster is falling off your
roof. This is the Happy Hearth and Home Roofing Company. Sure? Sure, I'm
sure! The plaster might fall on your wife while she's in bed. Sure, I can
fix it. That's my business. Price? Oh, it's going to run you right at three
hundred dollars. Fine. Come around in the morning? I'll be there with bells
on!" He took his phone book and handed me another dime and walked out.
Cisco laughed and said, "People do any dam thing under th' sun these
days ta make a livin'! Huckle an' buck!"
"Git ta singin'. There's some live ones comin' in th' door. Boy howdy,
this is our first catch tonight. I hope we can git three more dimes out of
this Navy bunch. Sail on, sailor boys, sail on! Step up an' give us yer
request!"
"Let's sing 'em one first," Cisco told me, "so they'll know it ain't
juke-box stuff. What'Il we sing? Sailor boys are really wet. Got caught out
in the rain."
I nodded and started singing:
Well, it's rainin' on th' Skid Row
Stormin' down in Birmin'ham
Rainin' on th' Skid Row
Stormin' down in Birmin' ham
But there ain't no stormy weather
Gonna stop these boys of Uncle Sam!
"You tell 'em, back there, bud!"
"Let 'er reel! Let 'em ramble!"
"Hey! Hey!"
Lord, it's stormy on that ocean
Windy on th' deep blue sea
Boys, it's stormy on the ocean
Windy on th' deep blue sea
I'm gonna bake them Nazis a chicken
Loaded full of TNT!
"Hey, Bud! I ain't got no money, 'cept just a little here to get me a
'burger an' a beer. I'd give you a dime if I had it. But just keep on
singing that song, huh?" A big broad sailor was leaning his head over my
guitar, talking.
"He's just now makin' that song up, aren't you, friend?"
I woke up this mornin'
Seen what the papers said
Yes, boys, I woke up this mornin',
Seen what the papers said
Them Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor
And war had been declared.
I didn't boil myself no coffee
I didn't boil no tea
I didn't boil myself no coffee
I didn't boil no tea
I made a run for that recruitin' office
Uncle Sam, make room for me!
We stopped singing and the whole bunch of sailors got around the
platform. They all leaned on the rail and listened.
"You boys ought to sing those two verses first every time,'' one sailor
told us.
"Anybody know the latest news from Pearl Harbor?" I asked them.
They all talked at the same time. "It's worse than we figured." "Japs
done a lot of damage." "First I heard it was twelve hundred," "Yeah, but
they say now it's closer to fifteen." "I'm just askin' one dam thing, boys,
an' that's a Goddam close crack at them Jap bastards'" "Why, th' sneak-in'
skunk buzzards to hell, anyway, I hope to God that Uncle Sam puts me where I
can do those Japs the most damage!"
A lone soldier walked in through the door and yelled, "Well, sailors,
I'll be on a troopship the first thing in the morning! And you'll be out
there keeping me company! C'mon! Beer's on me!"
"Hi, soldier! Come on back here! Charlie will send us some beer. Five
of us! Oh, seven! Two of th' best Goddam singers you ever did cock your ear
at! On your way to camp?"
"Gotta be there in about an hour," the soldier said. "Knock me off a
tune! This is my last greenback! Seven dam beers, there, Charlie!" He waved
the dollar bill.
Five or six couples walked in the door and took seats m some booths.
A lady waved a handkerchief from a booth and said, "Hey boys! Sing some
more!"
"You jingle a nickel there on th' platform, lady," Cisco told her,
"that'll sound like back where I come from!"
A nickel hit the platform. A sailor or two laughed and said, "Sing one
about th' war. Got any?"
I scratched my head and told him, "Well, not to brag about. We've
scribbled one or two."
"Le's hear 'em.''
"Ain't learnt 'em so good yet." I pulled a piece of paper out of my
pocket and handed it to one of the men. "You be my music rack. Hold this up
in th' light where I can see it. I don't even know if I can read my own
writin' or not."
Our planes will down these buzzards
Before this war has past,
For they have fired the first, folks,
But we will fire the last!
Charlie laughed out from behind the bar, "Plenty quick! Song come
fast!"
The people in the booths clapped their hands, and the sailors and
soldier boy reached across the rail and slapped us on the shoulders.
"Whew! That's gittin' songs out fast!" The soldier drained his beer
glass.
"You guys oughtta move up to th' Circle Bar! You'd pick up some real
tips up there!" A wild-looking cowboy turned around from the bar and told
us.
"Keep mouth shut!" Charlie hollered and waved a slick glass. "These boy
know Cholly Chinee. Like Cholly Chinee! Girly! Take two beer back to sing
man."
"I'd set 'em up again, if I could, guys," the soldier said, "but that
was my last lone dollar."
"Cholly!" I yelled. "Did you say two free beers fer us?"
"Yes. I say girly bring. Two free beer," he said.
"Make it seven!" I told him.
"Seven free beer?"
"If ya don't, we're gonna move th' singin' up to th' Circle Bar!" Cisco
put in.
"Seven?" Charlie looked up quick. Then he held up his finger and said,
"Cholly good man. Cholly bring."
"By God, we gotta treat our soldiers an' sailors like earls an' dukes
from here on out," Cisco laughed. We'd both tried that morning to ship
aboard a freighter headed for Murmansk. They'd turned us down for some damn
health reason and now Cisco and me was hot and crazy and laughing and mad
clear through.
"Well, men!" One of the sailors held up his new glass of beer off of
Charlie's tray. "I got th' prettiest gal in Los Angeles. Got a
good uniform on. Got a free glass of beer. Got some real honest music. Got a
great big war to fight I'm satisfied. I'm ready. So here's to beatin' th'
Japs!" He drained his glass at one pull.
"Beat 'em down!" another one said.
"And quick!"
"I'm in!"
"Gimme a ship!"
"I ain't no talker. I'm a fighter! Wow!"
One of the biggest and toughest of the civilian bunch downed a double
drink of hard cold liquor and washed it down with a glass of beer, then he
stood right in the middle of the floor and said, "Well, people! Soldier's!
Sailors! Wimmen an' gals! I'm not physical fit ta be in th' navy er th'
army, but I'll promise ya I'll beat th' livin' hell outta ever' Goddam
livin' Jap in this town!"
"If you ain't got no more sense than that, big shot, you just better
pull your head in your hole and keep it there!" a long, tall sailor yelled
back at him. "None of your wild talk in here!"
"Cholly got plentee good friend. Japonee. You say more, Cholly bust
bottle. Your head!" The boss was shaking a towel over the bar.
"We no fight Japonee people!" Charlie's waitress talked up at the far
end of the bar by the door. "We fight big-shot Japonee crook. Big lie! Big
steal! You not got no good sense! Try start Japonee fight here! Me China
girl. Plentee Japonee friend!"
The soldier boy walked across the floor with his fists doubled up,
shoving his glass empty along the counter, and saying in the tough boy's
face, "Beat it, mister. Start walkin'. We ain't fightin' these Japs just
because they happen to be Japs."
The big man backed out through the door into a crowd of fifteen or
twenty people. He ducked off up the street in the dark.
"Hell!" The soldier walked back through the saloon saying, "That guy
won't last a dam week talking that kind of stuff.
"Far as that goes," Cisco was bending over, talking in my ear, "this
Imperial Saloon right next door here is run by a whole family of Japanese
folks. I know all of them. Sung in there a hundred times. They always help
me to get tips. They're just as good as I am!" He started a song on his
guitar.
"Music! Play, boys, play!" The sailors grabbed each other and danced
around in the floor, doing the jitterbug, sticking their fingers up in the
air, making all sorts of goofy faces. and yelling, "Yippee! Cut th' rug!"
Most of the girls got up out of the booths and walked across the floor
smiling and saying, "No two men allowed to dance together in this place
tonight." "No sailors are allowed to dance unless it's with an awful pretty
girl." And a sailor cracked back when he danced his girl around, "It never
was this a-way back home! Yow!"
Somebody else yelled, "I hope it stays this a-way fer th' doorashun!
Yeah, man!"
Cisco and me played a whipped-up version of the old One Dime Blues,
fast enough to keep up with the jitterbugs. Everybody was wheeling and
whirling, waving their hands and shuffling along like a gang of circus
clowns dancing in the sawdust.
"Mama, don't treat yore daughter mean!" I joked over the loud speaker.
"Meanest thing that a man most ever seen!" Cisco threw in.
The music rolled from the sound holes of the guitars and floated out
through the loud speaker. Everybody at the bar tapped their glasses in time
with the music. One man was tapping a nickel against the rim of his beer
glass and grinning at his face in the big looking-glass. The joint boomed
with music and dancing. Charlie stood behind the bar and smiled like a full
moon. Music turned a pretty bad old night outside into a good, friendly,
warm shindig on the inside. Sailors bowed their necks and humped their backs
and made goo-goo eyes and clown faces. Girls slung their hair through the
air and spun like tops. Whoops and hollers. "Spin 'er!'' "That
sailor ain't no slouch!" "Hold 'er, boy!" "Hey! Hey! I thought I had 'er,
but she got away!"
And then just out on the street there came a clattering of glass
breaking on the sidewalk. I quit the music and listened. People were running
past the door, darting around in big bunches, cussing and hollering.
The girls and the sailors stopped dancing and walked to the door.
"What is it?" I spoke over the microphone.
"Big fight! Looks like!" the fat sailor was saying.
"Let's go see, boys!" another sailor said. He pushed off out the door.
"All time fight. Me not bother." Charlie kept swabbing the bar down
with a wet rag. "Me got work."
I slung my guitar across my shoulder and run out the door with Cisco
right in after me saying, "Must be a young war!"
A bunch of men that had the looks of being pool-hall gamblers and
horse-race bookies stood on the curb across the street hooting and heaving
and cussing and pointing. The sailors and working men from our saloon
stepped out and walked in front of the Imperial Bar next door. Already plate
glass lay at our feet in the dark. Out of all of the milling and loud
talking something whizzed over our heads and smashed a second window. Glass
flew like chipped ice all around us. A slice cracked one of Cisco's guitar
strings, and the music bonged.
"Who throwed that can of corn?" a lady yelled from right at my elbow.
"Was that a can of corn?" I asked her.
"Yes. Two cans," she told me. "Who throwed them two cans of corn, and
broke them windows? I've a good notion to bust my parasol over his head when
I find out!"
Two men in the middle of the street argued and pushed each other all
around.
"You're th' man I want, all right!" the biggest one said.
"You won't want me very long!"
A soldier with a brown overcoat on was pushing the big man back to the
curb. I elbowed near and saw it was the same soldier that had just bought us
the seven beers. I looked a little closer in the night and seen the face of
the big pug-ugly that had said he was going to beat hell out of all of the
Japs in Los Angeles.
About ten of his thug friends chewed on old cigars, smoked snipe
cigarets, and backed him up with tough talk when he said anything. "We come
ta git 'em, an' dam me, we're gonna git 'em! Japs is Japs!" "I'm da guy wot
t'rew dat corn, lady, whataya gonna do wid me?"
"I'll show you, you big bully!" She waved the can in the air to throw
it at him, and her man right behind her said, "No, don't. We don't want to
start no trouble. What's this all about, anyhow?" He took the can of corn
away from her in the air.
"We're at war with them yeller-belly Japs! An' we come down ta git our
share of 'em!" A big man with a lost voice was talking on the curb. "We're
'Meric'ns!"
"You ain't nuthin', but th' worst dam scum of th Skid Row! Two-bit
gambler!" A big half-Indian truck driver was trying to push his way across
the street to get the man.
"Jap rats!" another tough one said.
"Spies! They tipped off th' Goddam Jap army! These yeller snakes knew
to a split second when Pearl Harbor was gonna be blowed up. Git 'em! Jail
'em! Kill 'em!" He started to cross from the other side of the street.
A couple of sailors edged their way toward him saying, "You're not
going to hurt anybody, Mister Blowoff!"
"Where is th' cops?" a girl was asking her boy friend.
"I guess they're on th' way," Cisco told her.
"Cops ain'ta gonna put no stop ta us, neither!" one of the mob yelled
across at us.
"But, brother, we are!" I answered him back.
"You mangy little honky-tonk guitar-playin' sot, I'll come over there
an' bust that music box over yore bastardly head!"
'I'll furnish th' guitar, mister," I talked back, "but you'll hafta
furnish th' head!"
Everybody squeezed around me and laughed back at the rioters. Cursing
flew in the air and fists waved above the crowd in the rain and in the dark.
The people on our side of the street formed two or three lines in front of
the Imperial's door. Several Japanese men and women stood inside picking up
glass from the floor. "That's it, folks," Cisco told everybody, "squeeze
together. Stand right where you are. Don't let that crazy mob get through!"
"Wonder why they threw two cans of corn?" I was looking around asking
people.
Then I listened across the street and a wild man mounted the running
board of a car and hollered out, "Listen people! I know! Why, just this
morning, right here in this neighborhood, a housewife went into a Japanese
grocery store. She asked him how much for a can of corn. He told her it was
fifteen cents. Then she said that was too much. And so he said when his
Goddam country took th' U.S.A. over, that she would be doing the work in the
store, and the corn would cost her thirty-five cents! She hit him over the
head with that can of corn! Ha! A good patriotic American mother! That's why
we smashed that Goddam window with th' cans of corn! Nobody can stop us,
men! Go on, fight! Get 'em!"
"Listen, folks," Cisco climbed up on the wheel of a little vegetable
cart at our curb. "These little Japanese farmers that you see up and down
the country here, and these Japanese people that run the little old cafes
and gin joints, they can't help it because they happen to be Japanese.
Nine-tenths of them hate their Rising Sun robbers just as much as I do, or
you do."
"Lyin' coward! Git down from dere!" a guy with hairs sticking out from
his shirt collar bawled at Cisco.
"Pipe down, brother. l'll take care of you later. But this dam story
about the can of corn is a rotten, black and dirty lie! Made up to be used
by killers that never hit a day's honest work in their whole life. I know
it's a lie, this can-of-corn story, because even two years ago, I heard this
same tale, word for word! Somebody right here in our country is spreading
all kinds of just such lies to keep us battling against each other!" Cisco
said.
"Rave on, you silly galoon!"
"You're righter than hell, boy! Pour it on!"
"You're a sneakin' fifth column sonofabitch! Tryin' ta pertect them
skunk Japs agin' native-borned American citizens!"
The crowd started slow across from the other side. We stood there ready
to keep them back. The whole air was full of a funny, still feeling, like
all of hell's angels was just about to break loose.
Just then an electric train, loaded down with men and railroad tools,
pulled past in front of them. The railroad workers hollered a few cracks at
the two sides. "What goes on here?" "Gangfight?" "Keep back there, ya'll git
run over!" "Listen ta these ratheads bark!"
Cisco dropped down fast off of the hub of the wheel. "Me, I'm going to
stand right here," he hollered, "right here on this curb. I just ain't
moving."
"I'm with yuh, brother!" A lady walked up with a big black purse and a
gallon jug of wine, ready to be broke over somebody's head.
"I ain't a-movin', neither!" A little old skinny man was flipping his
belt buckle. "Let 'em come!"
As the last two or three flat cars of men rolled down the street and
kept the wild mob back for a minute, I grabbed my guitar up and started
singing:
We will fight together
We shall not be moved
We will fight together
We shall not be moved
Just like a tree
That's planted by the water
We
Shall not
Be moved.
"Everybody sing!" Cisco grabbed his guitar and hollered out.
"All together! Sing! Give it all ya got!" I told them.
So as the last car of the train went on down the middle or the street,
everybody was singing like church bells ringing up and down the grand canyon
of the old Skid Row:
Just like
A treeeee
Standing by
The waterrr
We
Shall not
Be
Moooooved!
The whole bunch of thugs made a big run at us sailing cuss words of a
million filthy, low-down, ratty kind. Gritting their teeth and biting their
cigar butts and frothing at the mouth. Everybody on our side kept singing.
They made a dive to bust into our line. Everyone stood there singing as loud
and as clear and as rough-sounding as a war factory hammering.
Sailors threw out their chests and sung it out. Soldiers drifted in.
Truck drivers laid their heads back and cotton pickers slung their arms
along with the cowboys and ranch hands and bartenders from other saloons
around.
The rain come down harder and we all got wetter than wharf rats. Our
singing hit the mob of rioters like a cyclone tearing into a haystack. They
stopped--fell back on their heels like you had poked them in the teeth with
a ball bat. Fumbled for words. Spewed between their teeth and rubbed their
fingers across their eyes. Scratched their heads and smeared rainwater down
across their cheeks. I saw three or four in the front row coming toward us
that grinned like monkeys up a grapevine. The bunch backing them up split
off and stopped there in the rain for a little bit, then mostly slunk off in
twos and threes in different directions. Four or five walked like gorillas
and waved their arms and fists in the faces of the soldiers and sailors
standing along the curb singing. I thought for a minute that the battle was
on, but nobody touched each other.
And then, after some howling and screeching that didn't halfway match
with our singing, there whined through the clouds that old familiar siren
that tinhorn pimps, horse betters, and gamblers get to knowing so good, the
moan of the police patrol wagon a block away. In a second, the toughs bent
over and skidded away in between the cars, and got lost in the crowds along
the walk, and hit the alleys and disappeared.
A big long black hoodlum wagon drove up and fifteen or twenty big cops
fell out with all of the guns and sticks and clubs it would take to win a
war. They made a step or two at us, and then stopped and listened to the
raindrops and the wind in the sky and the singing echoing around over the
old skiddy row. They shook their heads, looked at their address books,
flashed searchlights around.
"The chief said this was where the riot was." A cop pointed his
flashlight onto his address sheet.
"Jest a buncha people singnin'." Another big copper shook his head.
"Hhmmmm."
"Sing with us, officer?" Cisco laughed out in the crowd.
"How does it go?" the big chief asked him back.
"Listen."
"Yeah. Dat's it. Tum. Tum. Tum. Tum. Dat's planted by de water, we
shall not--be--moved!"
All of the cops stood around smiling and swinging their clubs. The
patted their feet and hands. They watched and hummed and they listened.
"Okay! Dat's all!" the head officer told them. "Back on da wagon, men!
Back on!"
And when it drove off down the street-car tracks to fade away into the
night rain, that old patrol wagon was singing:
Just like a treeee
Planted by th' waterrr
We
Shall not
Be
Mooooved!
Chapter ÕVII
EXTRY SELECTS
"You look like one of these here pretty boys that tries to get out of
all th' hard work you can!" a nice pretty girl, about eighteen, was saying
to me as we rode along.
It was about a 1929 sedan, the kind of used car salesmen call lemons.
No two wires quite connected like they ought to; there was a gap of daylight
between every two moving parts, and every part was moving.
''I got jest as many callouses on my hands as you!" I hollered at her
above the racket. "Take a look at th' ends of my fingers!"
She set her eyes on the ends of my guitar fingers. Then she told me,
"Well, I reckon I was wrong."
"That's about th' only place ya get stuck pickin' cotton, too!" I told
her. I pulled my hand back. I sung a little song and made my old guitar talk
about it, too:
I worked in your farm
I worked in your town
My hands is blistered
From the elbows down
Ride around little doggies
Ride around them slow
They're fiery, they're snuffy,
And rarin' to go.
A middle-size lady in the front seat, with streaks of gray hair sailing
in the wind, grinned at her husband beside her and said, "Well, I don't know
if that guitar boy back there hits any of th' heavy work or not, but he can
dang shore sing about it!"
"Mighty near make work sound like fun, cain't he?" Her husband kept his
eyes running along the road ahead, and all I seen of him was just an old
slouch hat jammed on the back of his head.
"Long ye been runnin' around playin' an' singin'?" the mama asked me.
"Round about eight years," I said.
"That's a pretty good little spell" she told me. She was watching out
the broke window at the scenery jumping past.
"California's mortally loaded down with stuff to ride along an' look
at, ain't it?"
"Long on climate out here! But still, It costs ya like th' devil ta
soak up any of it!" the boy who was driving said.
"All you folks one family?" I asked them.
"All one family. This is me'n my husband, an' these is all th' kids we
got left! Four of us now. Used to be eight "
"Where's th' other four?" I asked her. The trees got so thick and green
along the river bottom that the leaves blotted out the sunlight.
"They just went," I heard the lady say.
The girl in the back seat with me said, "You know where they go," and
she didn't take her eyes off of the loaded orchard all along out through the
window. She had gray eyes and her black hair sort of curled down to her
shoulders
"Yeah," I told her, "I know all right."
And just about that time there was a big racket and a tire right under
where I was setting went out, Keeeeblam! The car got out of gallop with the
trailer and jumped along like a sick frog. I could feel the tire tearing
itself to pieces between the iron rim and the pavement, and we all had to
hold what we had till everything bounced to a stop.
"Good-bye, little trailer hitch!" The driver boy was talking to his
self as he piled out of the front door and trotted around to the back.
"Shot to hell," the papa said.
"Tire ration's on, top of all this," the mama was telling us.
"Rubber's rubber, old 'er new. Uncle Sammy says, 'Gotta save that
rubber ta haul soldiers 'n' guns, 'n' cannons." The driver was talking while
he wired some old wire around the bolt that kept up the friendship between
the car and trailer.
"I'd shore hate to see a soldier ridin' aroun' with a hungry gut,
myself." The old man was running a couple of fingers down over his chin and
smacking his lips over the fence at the orchard.
"Now, Mister Papa, just tell me, what has this old rotten tire got to
do with a hungry soldier?" the girl asked her dad.
"Well, if we could git on down th' country just a little bit further,
'y God, I could pick enuff fruit an' stuff ta feed three er four soldiers,
heavy eaters." I seen a light strike fire in the old man's eyes. '' 'Bout
all I'm good fer, I reckon. I can pick more fruit with both hands over my
eyes than most of these new pickers fioodin' out here."
"Don't go to braggin'," the old lady told him. "You was th' best
blacksmith back in Johnson County, all right, but I ain't seen you break no
pickin' records yet. That's one mighty fine-lookin' orchard right in through
there. Wonder what it is?"
"Apercots," the girl spoke up.
"Nice even rows," the old man told us; "trees all just 'bout th' same
size. Limbs just achin' full wantin' us to come over that old fence an' pick
'em clean. I suppose a soldier wouldn't smack his goozler over a good big
hot apercot pie right about now!"
"How we gonna get another tire?" I asked the bunch, "Anybody got any
money in their clothes?"
"Ain't a-packin' nothin' that jingles," one of them said.
" 'Er folds either," another one talked up.
I heard the slick drone of an easy motor oozing down the line. Before I
could center my eyes on it good, there was a Ssssss Swish. And a
Zzooommmm--a blue gray sedan lit up in the sun like a truckload of diamonds
sailing past. The heavy tread on the new tires sung a sad-sounding song off
down the highway.
A truck come angling down the highway, no two wheels running in the
same direction. This truck just wasn't quite politically clear. But it had a
big bunch of men, women, and kids on it, and stopped on the shoulder just
ahead of us. Five or six people yelled back, but one big raw-boned lady
drowned most of the others out. "Need some help, or just lost?"
"Both!" the mama of our little bunch hollered back.
"Tire blowed off!"
"Can't you fix it up?" the big lady asked us.
"Not this 'un! It'd take th' Badyear Rubber Outfit three months to make
this thing ever hold air again!" the lady in our bunch said.
'Tire ration got us!"
"Wanta pick?" the lady asked us.
"Pickin' around here? Where 'bouts? What?"
"We ain't got no time to waste! But if ya wanta work, foller us! First
gate here! Crank up and roll on that bad tire! Ya cain't hurt it no worse!"
Our bunch piled back into the seats. I was riding right on top of the
bad tire and the girl asked me, "What kind of a song would you make up now,
to sing about this?" I let out with:
Tell me, mama, is your tread thin as mine?
Hey! Hey! Woman, is your tread thin as mine?
Work and roll, is your tread thin as mine?
Every old tire's gonna blow its side sometime!
'Wheel 'em an' deal 'em!" the driver laughed out.
Say, Lord Godamighty, roll them wheels around!
Hey! Good gal, you gotta roll them wheels around!
Workin' woman, roll your wheels around!
I'll find me a job or roll California down!
"Where 'bouts ye hear that ther song? 'At's a mighty good 'un," the old
man asked me from the front seat.
'That ain't even no song. I just made it up," I told him. There was a
big orchard passing us up on both sides.
The young girl by me in the back seat said, "Boy, you sure can sing
about work, whether you get any done or not."
'Time ya sing six hours or eight or ten, right straight hand runnin',
in some of these saloons or places, like I do, you'll say music runs inta
work!" I told her.
"Sing that long every night?" she asked.
"General thing. Get started out about eight o'clock, sing till 'bout
two or three, sometimes daylight in th' mornin'."
"Make how much?" she asked.
"Dollar, dollar an' a half," I said.
"Just about an orchard day." She glanced out the window at a stinging
bee trying to carry a big load of honey and keep up with our car. "Looky!
This poor little old bee. He's a havin' a hard time tryin' to fly with too
much honey!"
"Looks like even that little old bee's all lined up workin'
fer Uncle Sam Deeefense!" her papa said, bending his neck and head
around to see the bee.
" Tain't deefense!" she told him.
"Deeefense. Beeeefense. Some kind of a fence,'' the old man said.
She screwed her eyes up a little bit and told him, " 'Tain't deefense.
Not no more, it ain't!"
"What is it?"
"War."
"Same thing, war's defense, ain't it?" her papa asked her.
''Not by a dam sight!" the girl talked back at him.
"What's th' diff'rence?"
"If Hitler made a run at me with a big club, an' I took a step
backwards to get fixed, that'd be defense," she said.
"So what?"
"Then if I reached and got me a hell of a lot bigger club," she made a
grab for the tire pump on the floor, "that'd be changin' my belt line!"
"Yeah?"
'Then when I hauled off an' beat old Hitler plumb into th' ground,
that'd be war!"
" 'Y God, 'at's right, sis," the old man backed her up. "Only you don't
hafta swing that there pump aroun' so much here in th' car. You don't want
to konk none of yer own soldiers out, do you?"
"No." She smiled a little and dropped the pump back down onto the
floorboards. "Gotta not hurt none of my own soldiers here.''
The mama spit out her front window and said, "Reckon all of us is
soldiers these days. Look like th' gate where we turn."
The car turned through a big swinging gate into an orchard of trees set
out in a deep sandy land.
"Truck stopped on ahead yonder," I heard the old man say.
People piled down off th' truck bed, men in their overhalls and khaki
britches, shirts two or three colors where a new patch had been sewed, and
the blue and brownish color sweated out a lot of times. Some tied
handkerchiefs around their necks and slipped on their gloves. Tobacco cans
flew out and men rolled the makin's. You could see a snuff can shine like it
was polished in the sun. Hoppers and bugs and all kinds of critters with
wings wheeled through the air, and spider webs ran from tree limbs to the
clods of orchard dirt.
The tall lady from the truck jumped on our running board and said,
"Keep drivin'. Careful, don't run over none of our pickers. Lucky to get 'em
these days to come out in the fields with this gas and rubber cut down like
it is." I could see her arm and hand stuck through the window, holding onto
the door handle inside. She had fair skin with light freckles and I took her
to be a Swedish lady. "See that bunch of cars and trailers through yonder?
Pull on ahead!"
The Swedish lady stepped down on the ground and the car stopped. I got
out and brushed some of the dust out of my duds, and everybody was standing
there waiting for her to tell us something about something.
"You folks pick for a living?"
"Yes'm." Everybody nodded.
"Know about apricots then, I suppose?"
We all nodded that we knew.
"Do you know how we grade the apricots?"
"Grade 'em?"
"No'm."
"I don't reckon."
"Three grades of apricots, you know. Just plain ones. Then, next best
are called Selects. Very best, Extra Selects."
"Plain ones."
"Selects."
"Extry Seelects."
We nodded our heads up and down.
"Now, the plain ones ripen last in the warm weather; anybody can pick
the plain ones. Pay so much a box. Selects ripen earlier. Better taste,
better shape, less of them. You get a little more money for picking them,
about twice as much a box as the plain ones."
"Is th' Seelects on now?" the old man in our bunch asked her.
"No," the lady said to us. "Too early. The Extra Selects are on now."
The young girl nodded her head. "Oh, yes ma'm. They're th' very
earliest ones, aren't they?" The sun was hitting down in her face and I saw
her hair was going to curl up awful pretty when she washed the dirt out in
river water.
"First to ripen. Moneyed folks want the very best they can get, and the
best is the Extra Selects. Now, here, I'll give you an idea how you pick
them, so when the orchard boss gets here in a minute, you'll already know
the answers. See those limbs over there?"
"Loaded plumb down."
"Man alive, look at them apercots!"
'Trees got a lot of patience, ain't they?"
"Oooooooozin' in juice."
"You've got to be able to tell an Extra Select when you run onto one,"
the Swede lady told us. "Here's one. See? Clear bright color. Nice gold
look."
"Makes my mouth run water," the old man said.
"I won't even have time to dip my snuff, I'll be eatin' so many of them
there yeller outfits." The old lady was laughing and winking at all of us.
"I'm sure we see what you mean," the young girl told the lady. "We've
picked lots of other fruit where they graded them just about the same way.
They're pretty, aren't they?"
"One little thing," the lady talked so quiet I had to step closer to
hear, "I'll tell you to save the field boss from tangling horns with you. If
he catches you eating the Extra Selects, he takes it out of your day's pay,
so don't say I didn't warn you. He's walking over toward us now. You'll make
out all righ