The woman was trying to say that she was not English but Canadian, but she couldn’t make herself heard above the din. The octogenarian, who was now sampling the champagne, was talking about the automobile accident. Nobody was paying any attention to him. Automobile accidents were too common—every one at the table had been in a smash-up at one time or another. One doesn’t make a point about such things unless one is feeble-minded.
The hostess was clapping her hands frantically—she wanted to tell us a little story about an experience she had had in Africa once, on one of her safaris.
“Oh, can that!” shouted the football player. “I want to find out why this great country of ours, in the most crucial moment . . .”
“Shut up!” screamed the hostess. “You’re drunk.”
“That makes no difference,” came his booming voice. “I want to know if we’re all hundred percent Americans—and if not why not. I suspect that we have some traitors in our midst,” and because I hadn’t been taking part in any of the conversation he gave me a fixed, drunken look which was intended to make me declare myself. All I could do was smile. That seemed to infuriate him. His eyes roved about the table challengingly and finally, sensing an antagonist worthy of his mettle, rested on the aged, Florida-baked strike-breaker. The latter was at that moment quietly talking to the person beside him about his good friend, Cardinal So-and-so. He, the Cardinal, was always very good to the poor, I heard him say. A very gentle hard-working man, but he would tolerate no nonsense from the dirty labor agitators who were stirring up revolution, fomenting class hatred, preaching anarchy. The more he talked about his holy eminence, the Cardinal, the more he foamed at the mouth. But his rage in no way affected his appetite. He was carnivorous, bibulous, querulous, cantankerous and poisonous as a snake. One could almost see the bile spreading through his varicose veins. He was a man who had spent millions of dollars of the public’s money to help the needy, as he put it. What he meant was to prevent the poor from organizing and fighting for their rights. Had he not been dressed like a banker he would have passed for a hod carrier. When he grew angry he not only became flushed but his whole body quivered like guava. He became so intoxicated by his own venom that finally he overstepped the bounds and began denouncing President Roosevelt as a crook and a traitor, among other things. One of the guests, a woman, protested. That brought the football hero to his feet. He said that no man could insult the President of the United States in his presence. The whole table was soon in an uproar. The flunkey at my elbow had just filled the huge liquor glass with some marvelous cognac. I took a sip and sat back with a grin, wondering how it would all end. The louder the altercation the more peaceful I became. “How do you like your new boarding house, Mr. Smith?” I heard President McKinley saying to his secretary. Every night Mr. Smith, the president’s private secretary, used to visit Mr. McKinley at his home and read aloud to him the amusing letters which he had selected from the daily correspondence. The president, who was overburdened with affairs of state, used to listen silently from his big armchair by the fire: it was his sole recreation. At the end he would always ask “How do you like your new boarding house, Mr. Smith?” So worn out by his duties he was that he couldn’t think of anything else to say at the close of these séances. Even after Mr. Smith had left his boarding house and taken a room at a hotel President McKinley continued to say “How do you like your new boarding house, Mr Smith?” Then came the Exposition and Csolgosz, who had no idea what a simpleton the president was, assassinated him. There was something wretched and incongruous about murdering a man like McKinley. I remember the incident only because that same day the horse that my aunt was using for a buggy ride got the blind staggers and ran into a lamp post and when I was going to the hospital to see my aunt the extras were out already and young as I was I understood that a great tragedy had befallen the nation. At the same time I felt sorry for Csolgosz—that’s the strange thing about the incident. I don’t know why I felt sorry for him, except that in some vague way I realized that the punishment meted out to him would be greater than the crime merited. Even at that tender age I felt that punishment was criminal. I couldn’t understand why people should be punished—I don’t yet. I couldn’t even understand why God had the right to punish us for our sins. And of course, as I later realized, God doesn’t punish us—we punish ourselves.
Thoughts like these were floating through my head when suddenly I became aware that people were leaving the table. The meal wasn’t over yet, but the guests were departing. Something had happened while I was reminiscing. Pre-civil war days, I thought to myself. Infantilism rampant again. And if Roosevelt is assassinated they will make another Lincoln of him. Only this time the slaves will still be slaves. Meanwhile I overhear some one saying what a wonderful president Melvyn Douglas would make. I prick up my ears. I wonder do they mean Melvyn Douglas, the movie star? Yes, that’s who they mean. He has a great mind, the woman is saying. And character. And savoir faire. Thinks I to myself “and who will the vice-president be, may I ask? Shure and it’s not Jimmy Cagney you’re thinkin’ of?” But the woman is not worried about the vice-presidency. She had been to a palmist the other day and learned some interesting things about herself. Her life line was broken. “Think of it,” she said, “all these years and I never knew it was broken. What do you suppose is going to happen? Does it mean war? Or do you think it means an accident?”
The hostess was running about like a wet hen. Trying to rustle up enough hands for a game of bridge. A desperate soul, surrounded by the booty of a thousand battles. “I understand you’re a writer,” she said, as she tried to carom from my corner of the room to the bar. “Won’t you have something to drink—a highball or something? Dear me, I don’t know what’s come over everbody this evening. I do hate to hear these political discussions. That young man is positively rude. Of course I don’t approve of insulting the President of the United States in public but just the same he might have used a little more tact. After all, Mr. So-and-so is an elderly man. He’s entitled to some respect, don’t you think? Oh, there’s So-and-so!” and she dashed off to greet a cinema star who had just dropped in.
The old geezer who was still tottering about handed me a highball. I tried to tell him that I didn’t want any but he insisted that I take it anyway. He wanted to have a word with me, he said, winking at me as though he had something very confidential to impart.
“My name is Harrison,” he said. “H-a-r-r-i-s-o-n,” spelling it out as if it were a difficult name to remember.
“Now what is your name, may I ask?”
“My name is Miller—M-i-l-l-e-r,” I answered, spelling it out in Morse for him.
“Miller! Why, that’s a very easy name to remember. We had a druggist on our block by that name. Of course. Miller. Yes, a very common name.”
“So it is,” I said.
“And what are you doing out here, Mr. Miller? You’re a stranger, I take it?”
“Yes,” I said, “I’m just a visitor.”
“You’re in business, are you?”
“No, hardly. I’m just visiting California.”
“I see. Well, where do you come from—the Middle West?”
“No, from New York.”
“From New York City? Or from up State?”
“From the city.”
“And have you been here very long?”
“No, just a few hours.”
“A few hours? My, my . . . well, that’s interesting. Very interesting. And will you be staying long, Mr. Miller?”
“I don’t know. It depends.”
“I see. Depends on how you like it here, is that it?”
“Yes, exactly.”
“Well, it’s a grand part of the world, I can tell you that. No place like California, I always say. Of course I’m not a native. But I’ve been out here almost thirty years now. Wonderful climate. And wonderful people, too.”
“I suppose so,” I said, just to string him along. I was curious to see how long the idiot
would keep up his infernal nonsense.
“You’re not in business you say?”
“No, I’m not.”
“On a vacation, is that it?”
“No, not precisely. I’m an ornithologist, you see.”
“A what? Well, that’s interesting.”
“Very,” I said, with great solemnity.
“Then you may be staying with us for a while, is that it?”
“That’s hard to say. I may stay a week and I may stay a year. It all depends. Depends on what specimens I find.”
“I see. Interesting work, no doubt.”
“Very!”
“Have you ever been to California before, Mr. Miller?”
“Yes, twenty-five years ago.”
“Well, well, is that so? Twenty-five years ago! And now you’re back again.”
“Yes, back again.”
“Were you doing the same thing when you were here before?”
“You mean ornithology?”
“Yes, that’s it.”
“No, I was digging ditches then.”
“Digging ditches? You mean you were—digging ditches?”
“Yes, that’s it, Mr. Harrison. It was either dig ditches or starve to death.”
“Well, I’m glad you don’t have to dig ditches any more. It’s not much fun—digging ditches, is it?”
“No, especially if the ground is hard. Or if your back is weak. Or vice versa. Or let’s say your mother has just been put in the mad house and the alarm goes off too soon.”
“I beg your pardon! What did you say?”
“If things are not just right, I said. You know what I mean— bunions, lumbago, scrofula. It’s different now, of course. I have my birds and other pets. Mornings I used to watch the sun rise. Then I would saddle the jackasses—I had two and the other fellow had three. . . .”
“This was in California, Mr. Miller?”
“Yes, twenty-five years ago. I had just done a stretch in San Quentin. . . .”
“San Quentin?”
“Yes, attempted suicide. I was really gaga but that didn’t make any difference to them. You see, when my father set the house afire one of the horses kicked me in the temple. I used to get fainting fits and then after a time I got homicidal spells and finally I became suicidal. Of course I didn’t know that the revolver was loaded. I took a pot shot at my sister, just for fun, and luckily I missed her. I tried to explain it to the judge but he wouldn’t listen to me. I never carry a revolver any more. If I have to defend myself I use a jack-knife. The best thing, of course, is to use your knee. . . .”
“Excuse me, Mr. Miller, I have to speak to Mrs. So-and-so a moment. Very interesting what you say. Very interesting indeed. We must talk some more. Excuse me just a moment. . . .”
I slipped out of the house unnoticed and started to walk towards the foot of the hill. The highballs, the red and the white wines, the champagne, the cognac were gurgling inside me like a sewer. I had no idea where I was, whose house I had been in or whom I had been introduced to. Perhaps the boiled thug was an ex-Governor of the State. Perhaps the hostess was an ex-movie star, a light that had gone out forever. I remembered that some one had whispered in my ear that So-and-so had made a fortune in the opium traffic in China. Lord Haw-Haw probably. The Englishwoman with the horse face may have been a prominent novelist—or just a charity worker. I thought of my friend Fred, now Private Alfred Perlès, No. 13802023 in the 137th Pioneer Corps or something like that. Fred would have sung the Lorelei at the dinner table or asked for a better brand of cognac or made grimaces at the hostess. Or he might have gone to the telephone and called up Gloria Swanson, pretending to be Aldous Huxley or Chatto & Windus of Wimbledon. Fred would never have permitted the dinner to become a fiasco. Everything else failing he would have slipped his silky paw in some one’s bosom, saying as he always did—“The left one is better. Fish it out, won’t you please?”
I think frequently of Fred in moving about the country. He was always so damned eager to see America. His picture of America was something like Kafka’s. It would be a pity to disillusion him. And yet who can say? He might enjoy it hugely. He might not see anything but what he chose to see. I remember my visit to his own Vienna. Certainly it was not the Vienna I had dreamed of. And yet today, when I think of Vienna, I see the Vienna of my dreams and not the one with bed bugs and broken zithers and stinking drains.
I wobble down the canyon road. It’s very Californian somehow. I like the scrubby hills, the weeping trees, the desert coolness. I had expected more fragrance in the air.
The stars are out in full strength. Turning a bend in the road I catch a glimpse of the city below. The illumination is more faërique than in other American cities. The red seems to predominate. A few hours ago, towards dusk, I had a glimpse of it from the bedroom window of the woman on the hill. Looking at it through the mirror on her dressing table it seemed even more magical. It was like looking into the future from the narrow window of an oubliette. Imagine the Marquis de Sade looking at the city of Paris through the bars of his cell in the Bastille. Los Angeles gives one the feeling of the future more strongly than any city I know of. A bad future, too, like something out of Fritz Lang’s feeble imagination. Good-bye, Mr. Chips!
Walking along one of the Neon-lit streets. A shop window with Nylon stockings. Nothing in the window but a glass leg filled with water and a sea horse rising and falling like a feather sailing through heavy air. Thus we see how Surrealism penetrates to every nook and corner of the world. Dali meanwhile is in Bowling Green, Va., thinking up a loaf of bread 30 feet high by 125 feet long, to be removed from the oven stealthily while every one sleeps and placed very circumspectly in the main square of a big city, say Chicago or San Francisco. Just a loaf of bread, enormous of course. No raison d’être. No propaganda. And tomorrow night two loaves of bread, placed simultaneously in two big cities, say New York and New Orleans. Nobody knows who brought them or why they are there. And the next night three loaves of bread—one in Berlin or Bucharest this time. And so on, ad infinitum. Tremendous, no? Would push the war news off the front page. That’s what Dali thinks, at any rate. Very interesting. Very interesting, indeed. Excuse me now, I have to talk to a lady over in the corner. . . .
Tomorrow I will discover Sunset Boulevard. Eurythmic dancing, ball room dancing, tap dancing, artistic photography, ordinary photography, lousy photography, electro-fever treatment, internal douche treatment, ultra-violet ray treatment, elocution lessons, psychic readings, institutes of religion, astrological demonstrations, hands read, feet manicured, elbows massaged, faces lifted, warts removed, fat reduced, insteps raised, corsets fitted, busts vibrated, corns removed, hair dyed, glasses fitted, soda jerked, hangovers cured, headaches driven away, flatulence dissipated, business improved, limousines rented, the future made clear, the war made comprehensible, octane made higher and butane lower, drive in and get indigestion, flush the kidneys, get a cheap car wash, stay awake pills and go to sleep pills, Chinese herbs are very good for you and without a Coca-cola life is unthinkable. From the car window it’s like a strip teaser doing the St. Vitus dance—a corny one.
The Air-Conditioned Nightmare, 1945
Babs Gonzales
(1919–1980)
The self-styled “creator of the bebop language” was a grandmaster of jive talk and an inventor of vocalese or bop scat singing. Born Lee Brown, he took the name Gonzales to penetrate segregated hotels and once worked as Errol Flynn’s chauffeur. Babs Gonzales hustled his way around the world as a musician, manager, and DJ. Here are two chapters from his self-published autobiography, I Paid My Dues, celebrating the improv nature of life as well as music in the early days of bop, and explaining how he became a singer to seduce girls. His idiosyncratic punctuation is preserved from the original edition.
from I Paid My Dues
JANUARY OF 1945 I was out of bread and I hadn’t scored musically so I had to find me another day gig. I talked to two clothiers (F&F) and they gave me a salesma
n’s job. This was really sweet. I started at ten and worked until five with an hour for lunch.
As part of my job, I had to stay sharp, so I got seven vines (suits) right away. In three months I had twenty bands buying their uniforms there. Whenever I wanted to hang out on Fifty-Second Street, I would tell the bosses I was courting a new account and they’d give me expense money. I’d been working four months before I noticed there were no Negro tailors, cutters, etc. I asked the bosses and they said it was because none had ever asked for jobs. I spoke to a friend and he came down one day and applied. When the ten “Jewish” employees found out this “Negro” tailor was even “LOOKING” for a job, they threatened to walk out. Finally the bosses broke down and told me. “Look, Babsie, It’s not us, we’re not prejudice but if we hired one we wouldn’t be able to get any linings, buttons, or anything, plus the help would all leave.” They also said they had a lot of pressure on them for having “ME” as a salesman.
By this time, the happenings had all moved to Fifty-Second Street. “Coleman Hawkins” and “Lady Day” were the king and queen. Dizzy and Oscar Pettiford had a band in the “Deuces”, and “Clark Monroe” the only colored owner had his joint and was featuring “Bud Powell” and “Max Roach”. “Miles Davis” had just come to study at “Juilliard” and was the envy of everyone because his father sent him seventy-five ($75) dollars a week which was as much as the guys working were getting. The new sound got to me so I found myself there every night. I began to get gigs on weekends going up to “Bridgeport” and “New Haven”.
The street was really something in those days. The war was on and there were always loads of sailors and soldiers who wanted to and did fight every time they saw a Negro musician with a white girl. I’d seen a whore uptown beating her man with her shoe heel and him just holding his eyes screaming. When it was all over I asked her why the guy didn’t fight back? She answered, “Just get a box of “red pepper” for a dime and throw it in his eyes and you’ll win.”
The Cool School Page 5
