By Hook or By Crook
Page 25
That was the same night that poor old Percival Dunning disappeared, and Henry von Eisen had apparently had all he could take of small town, small college, campus life and lit out for parts unknown, deserting his classes in mid-semester. What a guy! If I hadn’t disliked him before that, I surely would have then.
Meow, Cats, Meow!
Robert “Bobcat” O’Brien
• • •
Keweenaw Bay Gazette
Keweenaw Bay, Michigan
August 12, 1940
Mr. Zachary Grand
Editor-in-Chief
Grand Publications
143 West 43rd Street New York, 16, New York
Dear Izz,
Don’t know if I ever mentioned Charlie Potts to you. Nice kid, finished high school last June, always wanted to be a big-time news hound. Used to cover Keweenaw Bay High news for the Gazette. Sports mainly, but class elections, dances, amateur plays, whatever would fill space around the ads. Anyway, Tim Holcomb, our editorin-chief, took him on as an office boy and cub reporter and he’s working out fine.
Brought a little radio to work and set it up on the desk we let him use, and he turned on a Detroit Tigers ball game. They were playing the Philadelphia Athletics. Made me think of our old pal Tony and the North Cheshire baseball team, and all the trouble there was over Coach von Eisen.
Young Potts is not just a baseball fan, he’s a real scholar, studies up the old records, can give you every player’s batting average since the game got started. The Tigers had a new pitcher this season, young right-hander named Dickie Conger, and Potts up and says the kid reminded him of Heinie von Eisen.
That made me perk up my ears. “Heinie Who?” I said.
“Von Eisen. Pennsylvania farm kid named Heinrich von Eisen. Lefty. He was supposed to have the wickedest curve anybody ever saw. Was a star in the bush leagues. Came up to the Tigers in twenty-six. No, twenty-five.”
As if anybody in the Gazette office was going to catch him on that!
Well, Charlie Potts told the story to anybody who would listen, which meant Jack Miller, Tim Holcomb, and yours truly, Izzy. Seems like this von Eisen kid was a drinker and a brawler and something of a womanizer. Made it all the way up through the minors, got his first start with the Tigers and beat the St. Louis Browns one to nothing. Threw a three-hitter. Phenomenal.
Went out to a bar that night and a young lady he spotted there caught his eye and he tried to pick her up. Seems she already had an escort who took exception to Heinie’s remarks. They got into a brawl and somebody pulled a knife. There are different versions of the story. One of ’em, Potts said, is that this all happened in darktown. Anyhow, the knife man swings, Eisen puts up his hand to defend himself and the knife slices right across the palm of his hand. He wound up in the hospital and got his hand stitched back together, but he could never throw that curve again. Never made it back into the lineup. Before long he was out of baseball and he completely disappeared.
Izzy, do you think Heinie von Eisen is our Henry von Eisen? You think he was baseball coach when you and Tony and I were at North Cheshire Central College? It makes sense, doesn’t it? He seemed to know so much about baseball, at least Tony said, and yet all the players hated him because they felt as if he hated them.
What do you think, Izzy?
Say, I don’t mean to bother you with this rambling. I’d better close this letter and get some shut-eye, tomorrow it’s back to the old salt mine for yours truly.
Oh, before I close, I do want to thank you again for the magazines. I’m lying here on my bed, my feet propped up, watching the moths bang against the glass and wondering if it’s ever going to cool down again. I’ll tell you something about this part of Michigan, it so cold in winter you’d think those New England freezes we used to have were days on the beach in Havana. But then it gets so hot in July and August, you can’t believe that you were ever cold. I swear, even the moths must be sweating on a night like this!
Going through the other magazines you sent, I find that a lot of stories seem to have continuing characters. I guess there’s nothing new about that, Izzy, all the way back to the Three Musketeers and that Poe detective, what was his name, and then of course Sherlock Holmes. For that matter, didn’t Mark Twain bring Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn back for a couple of encores?
You’ve got some good ones. I like that Crimson Wizard fellow that Arl Felton writes about, and the Golden Saint. And of course you’ve got those cowboys and detectives and that spook-busting crew in Grand Ghost Stories. Tell you what, I’ve scratched a few notes and if you don’t mind I’ll type ’em up on the old Blick Ninety down at the Gazette office and mail ’em off to you soon as I get a chance. I hope you’ll find some ideas you like there. Let me know, hey, old roomie?
Meow, Cats, Meow!
Robert “Bobcat” O’Brien
• • •
Keweenaw Bay Gazette
Keweenaw Bay, Michigan
August 19, 1940
Mr. Zachary Grand
Editor-in-Chief
Grand Publications
143 West 43rd Street New York, 16, New York
Dear Izzy,
That sure is exciting news, that you’re starting up a comic book line there at Grand Publications. Of course I won’t breathe a word about it, not that there’s much of anybody to breathe it to here in Keweenaw Bay. But sometimes we stop in at the Tip Top Tavern for a couple of wee ones after we close up shop for the day and people do talk. “We” being Jack and Tim and myself. Charlie Potts keeps trying to invite himself along but Marty O’Hara runs a tight ship down at the Tip Top and he says he can’t have any minors in there or he’d risk losing his liquor license.
Funny, Percival Dunning didn’t worry about people being over twenty-one to join his Friday night soirees and nobody ever said a word. But then I think the whole campus, from Prexy on down, felt sorry for old Percival and wouldn’t say boo at anything he did, so long as he was quiet about it.
Everybody except Henry von Eisen, that is. I’m not just saying this because I know there was bad blood between von Eisen and you, Izzy. The man was a brass-plated son of a sea cook, if you know what I mean. I think Charlie Potts had the key to von Eisen. If he really was the same Heinie von Eisen who pitched that game against St. Louis and then got his hand sliced open and lost his curveball, that would explain a lot about him and why he was always so sour and so ready to jump down anybody’s throat.
I think he especially hated Percival Dunning because Dunning was English and had been in the King’s Fusiliers during the Great War. Von Eisen was a few years younger than Dunning and he couldn’t have been in the war himself, and besides, we were on the same side as the English, weren’t we? But von Eisen was Pennsylvania Dutch, not really Dutch, you know, Deutsch, German, and there was a lot of pro-Kaiser sentiment out there in western Pennsylvania during the war.
Oh, you know this as well as I do. We used to sit in the same row in Professor Trowbridge’s modern history class, just Carolyn Deering between us to help us not concentrate on Professor Trowbridge’s lectures. Wasn’t that girl something, with those sweaters of hers and those plaid skirts she used to wear! You’d think she’d freeze herself half to death in those Cheshire County winters, but I don’t think she ever did.
Anyway, I never heard von Eisen say a kind word about Percival Dunning. Used to mock the way he walked, hunched over as if his chest was killing him, and talked, in that soft, almost whisper of his. Well, his chest was killing him. He never got over that gas attack in France. And as for the whisper, I just don’t think he had the breath to do any more than that. But von Eisen loved to parade back and forth in his classroom, all hunched over like Dunning, and whispering so you couldn’t make out what he was saying.
One sweet guy despite all his suffering, one brass-plated s.o.b. who brought his trouble on himself. I guess it takes all kinds.
Enough for now, Izzy. I hope you’re well and happy. Take a look at those little ideas that I sent you last we
ek and let me know if you think I could write for one of your magazines. It’s getting a little bit dull here on the production side.
Meow, Cats, Meow!
Robert “Bobcat” O’Brien
• • •
Keweenaw Bay Gazette
Keweenaw Bay, Michigan
August 28, 1940
Mr. Zachary Grand
Editor-in-Chief
Grand Publications
143 West 43rd Street New York, 16, New York
Dear Izzy,
Well of course I know about comic books. Jumping Jehosophat, old roomie, Keweenaw Bay isn’t exactly New York or Boston but it’s still on this planet. We even heard about that invasion from Mars a couple of years back, we have radios out here and running water and everything.
Hey, just pulling your leg, old friend. But you really don’t need to explain comic books to me. The kids in this town are as addicted to the things as they are anywhere. The schoolteachers are outraged, the town librarian has banned ’em from her sacred precincts, but Bud Campbell, owner, manager, stock boy, cashier, and chief cook and bottle washer over at Pine Street News and Magazines, loves ’em. Says they’ve cut into his pulp magazine sales a little but more than made up for it by bringing every six- through twelve-year-old in town through his door day after day. Once school starts again in a few weeks that may cut down a little, but right now Bud is as happy as a clam.
Favorite scene these days: two kids standing outside Pine Street News and Magazines arguing to beat the band. Resolved: Superman could beat up Captain Marvel in a fair fight. Sometimes the kids get so carried away they decide to knuckle it out themselves. One of those muscle men wears red tights and the other one wears blue tights and I can never remember which is which, but I don’t suppose it matters, I’m a few years too old to get involved. But I’ve even seen young Charlie Potts sneaking a read along with a sandwich when it’s his lunch time down at the Gazette. Says his favorite is a fellow who can set fire to himself, fly around, throw fireballs at his enemies, and then come home without so much as a blister on his nose. Okay with me.
Seems to me, Izzy, these comic book heroes aren’t anything different from the good old pulp heroes we used to read about back in Warren Hall when we didn’t have our noses buried in chemistry or calculus texts or Shakespeare. The rough preliminary for Captain Grand Comics looks good, I didn’t mean to take any shots at it.
Let’s see if I have this one right.
Gary Grant is exploring in Antarctica when he discovers a lost race of wizards from Atlantis. They decide to initiate him into their sacred rites, which include walking through the hot lava of an active volcano right there at the South Pole. They’ve given him a magical cloak that will protect him as long as he exercises total will power and concentration; otherwise, he’s a toasted marshmallow.
After a couple of years of study and discipline, the chief wizard decides that Gary’s ready to give it a try. So off he goes, he passes the test, and he emerges as Captain Grand, Master of Mysticism.
Okay, pal. I guess the kids will go for it. Not so different from some of the pulp stories we used to read. Or the ones you publish, if you don’t mind my saying so. Tell you what. I know you want to keep Captain Grand Comics under the rose for now, but when you’re ready I’ll bounce this thing off Charlie Potts or maybe some of the town kids if I can pry ’em away from Superman and Captain Marvel for a few minutes. I’ll let you know what they have to say.
We could have used somebody like Captain Grand, Master of Mysticism, back at Central Cheshire, couldn’t we? Somebody like Captain Grand could have saved poor old Percival Dunning’s life. I’ll never forget the way his disappearance hit the campus. Nobody knew where he’d gone or what had happened to him. Personally, I thought he’d gone back to England or at least up to Canada to try and enlist in the Army. Nobody on campus took this fellow Hitler seriously except for Dunning. You have to give him credit for that. Soon as Hitler announced he was going to run for President of Germany, Dunning predicted what was going to happen. And look at Europe now!
Then when his car turned up in Big Star Pond — Izzy, I still can’t get over it. It must have been there since November of ’32. Dunning must have driven that funny Pullman coupé of his onto the ice and it cracked under the car and the car sank with Dunning in it. Imagine being trapped in that little car, icy water coming in, and you can’t get out.
And then we had our ice skating parties that winter, the annual Founder’s Day Bonfire and all, and all that time poor old Percival Dunning’s body lying there in his car on the bottom of the pond until the spring thaw. There were the Three Graces, Carolyn Deering, Annie Mayfield, and Jennie Lipton, out for a picnic by the pond and they spotted something in the water that scared the bejesus out of them.
Yep, it poor old Dunning, still trapped in that little car of his.
Did I say that Dunning was the only one who knew what Hitler was up to in the old days? I shouldn’t have left out Henry von Eisen. You’d think von Eisen had a direct line to Berlin, the way he spouted the Hitler line every chance he got. Heck, Izzy, it was really annoying. I know nobody stood up to von Eisen. That was cowardly of us, and I apologize.
Tony LoPresto and Jack Remington and Roland Stephenson and some of the gang used to sit around in one of the Double You Dorms — Warren or Winston or Watson or Wellington — and talk about it. We could all see what von Eisen was doing to you, Izz, but everybody was afraid of the son of a sea cook. We should have got together and made a petition to Prexy about it. We really should have.
But that’s all past now. Percival Dunning is in his grave and Henry von Eisen is — wherever he is. You have to wonder, don’t you, what ever became of von Eisen.
You know what I regret more than anything else that ever happened at Cheshire Central? It was dedicating our yearbook, the Cheshire Cheese, to von Eisen our senior year. How the heck did that ever happen, Izzy?
No, you don’t have to tell me. That was just a rhetorical question. Von Eisen took over the job of faculty advisor for the yearbook when old what-was-his-name retired. Dr. Standish. That was the old gent’s name, David Donald Standish, Ph.D. Must have been the head of the English Department from the day the college opened its doors. I’ve never seen anybody so old.
Dr. Standish must have been faculty advisor for the Cheshire Cheese as well as the North Cheshire Literary Quarterly since McKinley was shot. When he finally packed his bags and retired to sunny Florida, Hermione Zeller took on the job at the quarterly and von Eisen took it at the yearbook. Nobody was surprised that Miss Zeller got involved with the quarterly. She was already college librarian, she fit right in, and remember the fun we used to have with her? But nobody expected von Eisen to take on the yearbook.
Nobody except his personal toady, Gene Stullmeier.
I’m sorry, Izzy. I’m raking up too many old embers. And I’m going on too long anyway. You still haven’t commented on the ideas I sent you. I could write those stories for Grand Adventures or some of the other pulps, or I suppose I could turn ’em into stories for some of your new comic books.
Let me know when it’s okay to show the dummy Captain Grand Comics to Charlie Potts and the local urchin brigade and I’ll send you back some comments. And let me know when you want me to start writing for you. I’m starting to get the itch.
Meow, Cats, Meow!
Robert “Bobcat” O’Brien
• • •
Keweenaw Bay Gazette
Keweenaw Bay, Michigan
August 31, 1940
Mr. Zachary Grand
Editor-in-Chief
Grand Publications
143 West 43rd Street New York, 16, New York
Dear Izzy,
I couldn’t believe my eyes when I got your wedding announcement. You and Carolyn Deering. I still don’t believe it! Well, congratulations, roomie. Carolyn was one of the prettiest gals on campus, but of course you know that. And smart, and sweet. I envy you, Izzy. How the heck did you ever
catch her? You must have been studying hypnosis.
Just kidding, Izz. Thinking about you and Carolyn makes me think about the six of us — you and Tony and me in the Three Cheshire Cats and Carolyn Deering and Annie Mayfield and Jennie Lipton, the Three Graces. Didn’t we have great times together! And now Isaac Goldberg and Carolyn Deering are Mister and Missus Zachary Grand.
You know that Tony LoPresto and Jennie Lipton are married, don’t you? Living there in Bayou Richelieu and raising a house full of bambinos, that’s what Tony tells me. I never pictured Tony as a lawman or Jennie as a mater familias but that just goes to show you, doesn’t it?
Where did Annie Mayfield go after graduation? Maybe I ought to look her up, see if the old spark is still smoldering. I’ll tell you, Izz, there isn’t much social life in a town like Keweenaw Bay. Not that I’m knocking this burg. I’m pretty comfortable here, I’ve got a decent job and I make a living. But I think I could use a dose of the bright lights every now and then.
Since you said it was all right to show the dummy Captain Grand Comics to Charlie Potts and some of the local kids, I’ve got some reactions to share with you. Everybody likes Captain Grand, but they think he needs a good enemy. A guy who can do all the things Captain Grand can do is wasted on kidnappers and bank robbers. One of the local kids suggested a mad scientist for an enemy. Another kid says he’d like to see a beautiful, evil woman in the strip. Charlie Potts says he’s starting to outgrow some of these wild stories. He’s getting very literary, thinks you should read Steinbeck or Hemingway for inspiration.
Ho, ho, ho.
I was thinking of another character myself. So many of these heroes are musclemen, what about somebody who uses his brains to fight crime? I was thinking of a strip called “The Scholar.” Something like Sherlock Holmes. He tackles crimes that the police can’t solve because they’re just not smart enough.
What would you think of that, Izzy? Do let me know.