CHAPTER FOUR
Don
decided he didn’t want to go back right away. He stayed on in Pronghorn
with me and Marge and Clu and Ben while the other Vanguarders and Committee
people went back - squeezed a little tight because they were one car less.
You ask what a bunch of radicals do to occupy their time while waiting
for somebody to show up in a bar in eight hours? There is a whole universe
to be discussed! I have seen such a group get into discussing the social
class implications of Spider Man as opposed to other Marvel Comics heroes.
And we had far more urgent and immediate matters to discuss - but with
many wanderings far afield. And whatever else you say about Don and Ben,
they were both authorities in many fields of knowledge, some of them pretty
strange.
Marge, so far,
has just been a shadow figure, who irritates Clu, but she had been to Cuba
three times - a month each time. That means we were all ears for anything
she had to say. Clu was questioning Marge as eagerly as anyone. For us,
sexual jealousy could not begin to compare with the Cuban Revolution as
a focus of intense concern - when we weren’t discussing the appeal for
Will’s court martial, Pete Yoder’s up coming court martial and such side
topics as the sociology of the Impact Area - the area in downtown Pronghorn
full of bars, greasy spoon cafes, strip joints, pawn shops, brothels, tattoo
parlors, and you name it, that lived off the G.I.’s at Fort Clay. I knew
something about this and Will knew more when he showed up at the Barrage
after getting off duty at five.
All these hours of discussion, I had only had four glasses of beer
from the pitchers, which Don and Ben were buying and for me that was quite
a buzz. Don had really been working his way through those pitchers. At
one point he was showing everybody how he could manipulate his armpit to
make noises like a chicken. He even tried to play the opening phrases of
"Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" moving his armpit and the others all claimed
they could hear it, but I couldn’t. Clu applauded with a sad, nostalgic
smile, remembering how once he had played it just for her. But when Will
showed up, Don navigated back to seriousness and purposefulness, faster
than you could believe. He seemed just about sober as he guided the discussion
- but with many excursions on side paths, as is common among radicals.
Shortly after
Will came in, Hattie Saulienas showed up in the bar for the night. She
was co-owner of the place with her husband Frog - real name - Frolis Saulienas,
son of Lithuanian refugees.
Hattie’s father
was a retired 20-year sergeant, but her mother was the daughter of a famous
Indian Chief. The chief’s mother was Hattie Parsons, a white woman, who
had been captured by the Indians when she was five years old. Her name
sake, the Hattie who was taking charge behind the bar, was a tall, gaunt
woman with a prominent Indian nose. She had a long pony tail of brownish-blonde
hair down her back and her skin had a hint of brown. She belted her skirt
at the waist with a chain of silver conchas and the skirt hung down below
her knees. She came over to our table to greet me when she finished making
calculations at the cash register.
I introduced
her to everybody and Ben asked, "Do you have a TV set here?"
"Oh, just a
little bitty thing we keep under the bar," Hattie said. "It’s never out
unless Frog wants to watch a football game."
"We’d like to watch the six o’clock local news, please," Ben said.
Underneath all the facial hair, I could see he still had that persuasive
expression. I had seen black people open up with him who had never said
a candid word to a white man before in their lives.
"Oh, I guess
so," Hattie said. "It’s just kind of strange." She brought the small portable
TV from behind the bar.
I was like Hattie
in those days - almost a non-TV watcher. In 1967, those of us in the movement
very seldom watched network TV news because we knew the networks were for
the war and we assumed everything on TV news was a lie. We just watched
the local news when we had a demonstration to see how they covered it.
At six
o’clock Ben turned on the evening news and soon we could see our line of
people in the glare of TV camera lights going in single file through a
churning mob of reporters and MP’s. Clu was in the lead with her arm raised
in a gesture like "forward troops!" I was holding my notebook over my head
and a couple of Vanguarders held up clenched fists. For the first time
in the voice-over of a TV announcer, I heard a note of surprise and uncertainty,
like something had happened that he couldn’t sum up easily.
Hattie watched
with her mouth hanging open. Just then, Jim Ed walked in - early, unlike
so much that went on in the Organization. He was with two women. In an
Organization that had so many skinny people, he was one of the skinniest,
but he had a huge grin that lit up that dim bar room.
"Hey Dale, what
the fuck?" He hollered in greeting. "Yeah, what the fuck!" he said in surprise
at the table surrounded by people watching the TV set. The image of us
at the court martial was finished, so I flicked off the TV and got up and
went over to Jim Ed and we hugged. He had a thick, stiff crown of brownish
hair on top but not long in back. You didn’t even think long hair at Southwest
State, where Jim Ed was a student. Two years after ROTC had been made voluntary
at the big university a few blocks from Clu’s house, it was still compulsory
at Southwest State in Pronghorn. The only reason Jim Ed didn’t have to
take it was that he had already been in the Marines. He got out before
Vietnam got big and used the pay he had saved to start at Southwest State,
which was very cheap then but...
Now a big introduction
scene started. I had met one of the women once before, Jim Ed’s girl friend
Lori Youngblood. She had the dark good looks, sort of a combination of
Mediterranean and Oriental that are so common among the many people in
our state who have some Indian ancestry. The other woman had dark hair
and a lively face with lots of freckles. She extended her hand and shook
mine and said, "I’m Jan Welles. Until this spring I was secretary of the
Young Republicans at Southwest State." She laughed and everyone at the
table laughed. "Well," she added, "the Democrats are for the war and Young
Republicans was a place to learn how to conduct a meeting and give out
literature. We sure couldn’t have a chapter of the Organization at Southwest
State."
"So you were
part of the great beatnik affair," I asked.
"What’s that?"
Ben asked from the table.
"Oh, this guy
showed up on the Southwest State campus with long hair, a beard, and sandals,"
Jan said. "He was just coming to visit a friend and the Southwest State
administration called the Pronghorn cops and had him put in jail."
"Yeah," Jim
Ed said. "And I went to the President of the college with the chairman
of campus young Republicans. We asked the President to please get the dude
released and he threatened to expel us both from Southwest State."
"Oh yeah," Hattie
put in, "then Jim Ed came here to the bar with the Young Republican guy
and got me and Frog to help raise money from the people hanging out here
to bail the guy out of jail."
"So the chairman
of the Young Republicans quit and the vice chairman quit and I quit as
secretary," Jan said. "Now the only groups that can hold meetings on campus
are the Baptists and ROTC."
"No shit!" Ben
called from the other side of the table. By now everybody was shaking hands
across the table and giving names and Jim Ed was pulling up chairs for
himself and Lou and Jan.
"Say - what
is the TV here for anyways?" Jim Ed asked. Will and Ben did most of the
talking now, telling about the court martial and its aftermath.
"How long have
you been around here, man?" Jim Ed asked Will.
"Oh, almost
three months," Will said.
"Well, have
you learned how things work here in the Impact Area?" Jim Ed asked.
"He’s been telling
us about that for the last half hour," Don said. "He’d make a good anthropologist."
"Then you know
that all these old retired lifer farts..."
"Hey, you watch
out about that, Jim Ed!" Hattie said sharply. "My dad was a retired lifer."
"So was mine!"
Jan said.
"All right,"
Jim Ed said, "anyways, the retired officers and sergeants who own stores
here in the Impact Area that gouge the G.I.’s out of every nickel - before
tonight’s over they’re gonna all know about all that revolution and shit
you all pulled off at the court martial and they’re gonna be super down
on y’all, because the Impact area merchants will be scared and scared people
are dangerous."
"Why would they
be scared?" Clu asked.
"Don’t you ever read any of your left wing stuff about union organizers
fighting bosses?" Jim Ed went on. "The Impact Area merchants have had it
dicked for sixty years. Anytime a G.I. gets behind on payments for the
overpriced bullshit they sell, they contact his commanding officer - like
maybe they were old Army buddies together. Well, the CO passes the word
down to the poor fucker’s sergeant and he gives all kinds of shit until
the G.I. pays. Hell, there are businesses in the Impact Area that have
a contract with the Army that they can confiscate money from the dude’s
paycheck if he falls behind in his payments. So you..." and Jim Ed grinned
even more and pointed at Will.
"The court martial
was only about literature against the war," Will said.
"Don’t matter
what it was about!" Jim Ed said. "Anybody who organizes anybody about anything
here in Pronghorn is a threat to the people who run things - like the Young
Republican guy was a threat! Fuck, man, they don’t know what the G.I.’s
will do if they get started - and they don’t want to find out."
"Look, man,
I gotta wind this up cause I gotta boogie," Jim Ed said as he stood up.
"Yeah, we’re
in school this summer so we can get out of that dump soon." Lou, his girlfriend,
put in, "and we both have tests tomorrow."
"But here, gimme
a pencil Dale," Jim Ed said, "and I know you got a notebook." I handed
Jim Ed a pencil and tore a sheet of paper out of my notebook and gave it
to him and Jim Ed scribbled down his address.
"And the only phone I can put down is the Barrage here." Jim Ed went
on writing it down.
"Yeah, just
call me or come in here if you need to pass messages," Hattie said.
"You know, I
was born 30 miles from here in Holston, same town Dale comes from," Jim
Ed said pointing at me. "I been coming over here to the Impact Area since
I was twelve years old."
"And he brought
me over here to the Barrage to meet Frog and Hattie when I was sixteen,"
I added.
"Anyway," Jim
Ed said, "I know every wall in the Impact Area and I’ve made enough enemies
around here and I might as well go out like a rocket. So if you need my
help man..." He handed Will the sheet of paper. Will folded it up and put
it in his pocket. Jim Ed grabbed Will’s right hand with both hands and
Will put his left hand on top of Jim Ed’s hand. Will stood up and they
looked each other in the eye for a couple of minutes. Then they let go.
Jim Ed and Lou waved and went out of the bar.
"What about
Frog?" I ask Hattie. When I first got back from the South in the fall of
1965 I had come down to the Barrage with an armload of anti-war literature
and Frog told me to never bring that kind of stuff in again. He was a Korean
War Vet with a big scar from Chinese shrapnel on his belly as well as being
the son of anti-Communist refugees from Lithuania. I had honored his wish
and never brought the literature into the Barrage after that. I always
took it to Jim Ed’s place and stashed it under a cedar bush by his door
and Jim Ed would see that it got around.
"Well Frog -
he’s changing," Hattie said. "The more he hears the guys talk about Nam,
well - it gets to him."
We didn’t have
long to find out. About nine Frog came in, a man with a long, dark-brown
beard and dark brown hair hanging down his back. He’d worn it that way
since before he heard of the Beatles, back when there were beatniks and
no hippies. Frog wore old fatigue pants and an old blue denim shirt. He
had a big beer belly, but his chest and his shoulders were bigger.
"So Dale!" he
called out. "Every place I go around here, there’s people standing in front
of their stores, in front of their bars asking me if I’d heard about it."
He had a strong voice, but not too deep, with a slight foreign accent.
"So I come in my own bar and here’s the revolution, here’s the commies!"
"Yup," I and
stood up and held out my hand. He shook it. Will stood up and held out
his hand. He still had on his uniform.
"So it’s you,
huh?" Frog asked Will.
"Yeah," Will
said.
"And you’ve
been to Nam?"
"Yeah."
He shook Will’s
hand and looked straight in Will’s eyes with his own intense blue eyes.
"Yeah, all the
commies and here’s our own Young Republican," Frog said, looking down at
Jan, who hadn’t left with Steve and Lou.
"We’re growing a strange crop now -lifer’s kids like you with these people?"
"Yeah, I guess
I am," Jan said.
"I guess you
are," Frog said. He just stood there and looked at us, not hostile,
but not exactly overjoyed. It was like a mountain thinking. All of a sudden
Frog spoke, "Say, I got a spare guitar in that closet where I keep mops.
Dale you just take it and get on the stage and give us a song."
|