Roughneck - An Autobiography Part 10

18.

I had less than no pull in Oklahoma political circles, and as chief editor of the state writers' project I did not endear myself at Was.h.i.+ngton headquarters. I went out of my way to be unaccommodating to politically "right people." I would not accept a foolish directive simply because it came from Was.h.i.+ngton. I got my directors.h.i.+p by hard work-and because (or so a Was.h.i.+ngton official informally informed me) it would have shrieked of misfeasance to appoint another.

I soon began to wish that someone else had got the appointment.

To begin with, I did not, for a long time, draw a director's salary. The former inc.u.mbent had acc.u.mulated months of annual leave, and he continued to draw his pay throughout those months. Since the budget allowed for only one director, I was stuck with my relatively meager editor's salary. It was an irksome and embarra.s.sing situation.

It was bad enough to be doing an executive's work at a subordinate's pay. But the struggle to meet my increased expenses, the newly imposed obligations to entertain, became downright maddening. I had practically given up free-lance writing to devote myself to the project. Our third child had just been born, and we were head over heels in debt. Several times, in order to finance an unavoidable dinner party, my wife and I p.a.w.ned everything but the clothes we were wearing.

I got back into free-lance writing fast, and finally worked my way out of the financial mess. But the holding of two full-time jobs, which was what it amounted to, was beginning to tell on me. And finances were only part of my troubles.

My predecessor had been left relatively free of political interference, and so had I for the first few months. There were hints-some pretty strong ones-that it might be well to favor this person or that group, but there was never an outright demand followed up by retaliation if one refused. The national administration felt itself too strongly entrenched. It saw little need anywhere to curry political favor, and it saw none at all in the "Solid South." Now, however, the situation changed.

A national election was not far off. There were signs that the administration might have trouble achieving a third term. So it began making up to the local boys, giving in to their hitherto evaded demands. In effect the actual control of the various projects pa.s.sed from Was.h.i.+ngton to the states.

Well, I was and am a long way from puritanism, but I could not stomach the squandering of relief moneys for political purposes. Also, I could not (and cannot) be shoved very far along a course which I believe to be wrong. So I resisted the pressure, and was promptly punished.

Travel orders and expense accounts were held up. Requisitions for supplies were delayed interminably. My worker quota and the quota of available workers s.h.i.+fted swiftly from month to month. I couldn't get the people I needed, or I was in danger of employing workers without authorization, having to pay their wages out of my own pocket.

Interested as I was in the job, it seemed foolish and futile to stick with it. I sent in my resignation to Was.h.i.+ngton.

Was.h.i.+ngton refused to accept the resignation. It was pointed out to me-with considerable truth-that I held the threads of the various project endeavors and that they would become hopelessly snarled if I should let go. Much time and work would be lost if a new man had to take over. As for my complaints, well, I was doubtless "looking on the dark side" and had unwittingly "exaggerated the situation" but perhaps something could be done about it.

Apparently, Was.h.i.+ngton did protest to the state officials, and the latter thought it wise to ease up a little. Then gradually they reapplied the pressure, and I fired in another resignation.

This one was also refused with much the same sort of letter as the first. Again the pressure went off and on, and again I resigned.

In all, I sent in four resignations before I finally got an acceptance, but it is not yet time to relate the tragi-comic circ.u.mstances surrounding that event. Moreover, in rus.h.i.+ng ahead, I am giving the impression that the job was an unrelieved headache. It was not at all.

The phrase "big happy family" has become so abused as to be ridiculous. But, in the main, it accurately describes my project. My people knew that I was fighting to protect their jobs. They knew that they could advance themselves with good work-and in no other way-and the knowledge gave them a dignity and pride that was far from common among relief-roll workers. Many were poorly educated, while others had had no previous work experience. I set up after-hours cla.s.ses in a number of such subjects as spelling, typing, shorthand and business etiquette. And, as a result, any number of hitherto "unemployables" found jobs in private industry.

This was no more than I should have done, of course, and I don't mean to hold myself up as a model of virtue. It is only that, in relating so much that is ribald and unflattering about myself, I feel compelled to show something of my better, or at least more socially acceptable, side.

And, now, having done this...

One Sat.u.r.day, I and one of my editors-I'll call him Tom-drove down to a town in southwestern Oklahoma. An Indian celebration was being held there which we intended to cover. Our travel authorization being held up as usual, we went on our own time and at our own expense.

We took in the afternoon events of the "celebration," and they proved to be pretty poor stuff. As long as we were there, however, we decided to stay through the next day. So we checked in at a hotel, had dinner and started to drive around the town.

It was much more colorful than the ceremonies had been. Reservation Indians were everywhere. Many of them appeared to have been drinking, and were having a h.e.l.l of a time for themselves. But no one interfered. The Federal law, ordinarily unbending in the matter of whiskey and Indians, seemed to have been temporarily-if unofficially-suspended.

Tom and I were stopped at a street light, when two slangy female voices hailed us: "Hey, you writer fellows-where you going?" and "How about giving us a ride?"

Startled, we looked toward the curb.

Two reservation squaws stood there, grinning at us. Blankets were draped around their beaded dresses, their hair hung in long black braids. They were about fifty years of age, I imagine. One was some six feet tall and extremely thin. Her companion was around five feet, and must have weighed a full three hundred pounds.

I pulled in at the curb. They peered through the car window, and I got a whiff of very good bourbon.

"How about that ride?" the thin one asked. "You guys got nothing else to do."

"I'm afraid we do have," I said. "We're here to write up your celebration, and-"

"Nuts!" Fatty scoffed. "We saw you out there this afternoon-just wastin' your time. That's missionary stuff. We don't do any real dancing for those yokels. You want to see the genuine article, we'll show you where to go."

Tom murmured that it might be a good idea; it was probably the only way we could see any truly authentic dances.

I hesitated, glancing at the large, suspiciously bulging handbag which each of the squaws was carrying.

"What about the whiskey? You're not supposed to have it, are you?"

"What do you care?" said Skinny on a note of belligerence. "I figure we're old enough to drink if we want to."

"Well, of course you are but-"

"So, what's the argument?" said Fatty comfortably. "You didn't sell it to us or give it to us, so there's no need to worry. Just open the door and let's get going."

The car springs groaned as she climbed into the back seat. Skinny joined her and, rather uneasily, I drove on.

We were quite a while in reaching our destination, an isolated section of the river bottoms. The ladies liked their drinks mixed-their bags contained several bottles of pop-and it was necessary to stop for the mixing. Naturally, we took a drink out of courtesy. Naturally-after that first one-we took a great many more. When we finally rolled up at the dance site, we were all four the warmest of friends and in a state of high hilarity.

About twenty-five or thirty Indians, male and female, were gathered there. The women were dressed as our friends were; the men wore breechclouts and paint. Tom and I waited in the car while our erstwhile companions conferred with their tribesmen. They beckoned to us after a moment; we had pa.s.sed muster. We got out, shook hands all around and were presented with tin cups of a potent beverage which one of the squaws dipped from a large iron pot.

I can't recall the name of the stuff now. But it was made, I learned later, from a base of corn and saliva. The squaws chewed corn to a pulp and spit it into the pot. When they had a sufficient quant.i.ty of this mash, they filled the pot with water, added sugar and allowed it to ferment. That was all there was to it, except for an occasional skimming. In a few weeks the stuff had a kick like an army mule.

Things began to get a little fuzzy after our first few drinks. But somehow or another we were divested of our clothes and equipped with breechclouts, and someone-or several someones-decorated us from head to foot with bright clay paint. Tom and I preened and strutted. The braves shouted their approval. Then the fire was built up and the squaws formed in two opposite lines, creating an aisle to the flames. The men arranged themselves single-file at the head of this lane. Tom and I fell in at the end of the line.

There was a wild war whoop; the squaws began a rhythmic stamping and clapping and the dance was on.

Whooping, weaving and bobbing, the Indian at the head of our line danced down the aisle and made a whirling leap over the flames. He started back around to the end of the line, and the next man did his dance and leap. Then, the next, and the next, until everyone had performed but Tom and me. We decided to do a duet.

I wish someone could have gotten a picture of us, for we must have been one of the prize comedy bits of all time. Every time we revolved in the dance one of us socked or kicked the other, and when the crucial moment of our leap arrived we were off-balance and groggy. We leaped, anyway, whirling and whooping.

Tom's flailing feet booted me in the back. I clutched at them instinctively. Thus entangled we soared up and above the fire. We hung poised over it for a moment; then, our forward momentum lost, we dropped smack down into the middle of the flames.

Our friends had been prepared, I suspect, for some such fiasco; otherwise, there would have been a couple of barbecued writers. As it was, however, we were s.n.a.t.c.hed out and rolled in the dust before we could even be singed. And we suffered nothing more than a slight and temporary tingling in our painted hides.

An intermission was declared for refreshments and to allow us to recover. The dance resumed then, and Tom and I resumed our places in the line. But you may be sure that we did no more double acts.

A sudden downpour of rain put an end to the festivities. I had gotten a little too close to the fire on some of my leaps, with a consequent mild toasting of my feet. But the furious exercise had been an antidote for the drink, and except for my smarting soles I was about as near normal as I ever am. Still, Tom insisted that I was in no condition to drive. He would take over, he said, with Skinny to give him directions. The fat squaw and I should sit in the back.

I let him have his way. We started off. In the blinding rain, Skinny became confused; and an hour later we were still wandering around the narrow trails of the back country.

The better to see, Tom rolled down the window and leaned out. He yelled and swung the wheel. He was too late. In the instant that his eyes were off the road, the car had slid onto the rain-caved shoulder.

It lurched, wobbled, and toppled. Then it was lying on its top in the bottom of the ditch, and three hundred pounds of squaw were lying on top of me.

Neither of us was injured, but she had pa.s.sed out from the booze and all her avoirdupois was so much dead weight. I couldn't move. I could hardly breathe. Tom and Skinny climbed out and tried to pull her off of me, but they could get no leverage, due to the position of the car, and with that much to heft they needed a chain hoist. They tickled her feet, pinched her-did everything they could to revive her. She remained inert, snoring peacefully, and I remained pinned down.

I told them for G.o.d's sake to get into town; doubtless they could find their way on foot. "Send out a tow car! And 'hurry!' I can't take much of this!"

They set off for town. The hours pa.s.sed and they didn't come back, and there was no sign of a wrecking car. I squirmed and struggled to free myself. All it got me was exhaustion. Finally, breathless and numb and worn out, I gave up the futile struggle.

It was around dawn when I heard the creak of harness and wagon wheels. I shouted and there was an answering hail. The sounds quickened and came nearer. They ceased, and a grizzled face appeared at the car window.

It was a farmer, on his way to town with a wagonload of corn. He stared in at me and the squaw, eyes widening incredulously. Then, guffawing and slapping his knees, helpless with merriment, he collapsed against the embankment.

I could see nothing at all funny about the situation. But my profane remarks to that effect seemed only to make him laugh the harder. Finally, upon my angry statement that he was laughing at a dying man, he got himself under a modic.u.m of control.

He unhitched his mules and hitched them onto my car. It came easily upright, and back onto the road.

The farmer refused payment for his help. Gasping, tears of amus.e.m.e.nt streaming down his face, he claimed that he was actually in my debt.

"Ain't-'haw, haw, haw!-'ain't laughed like that since I don't know when. How in the heck did you get in such a dagnabbed fix?"

"Never mind," I said grimly. "Just never mind."

I drove off. The last I saw him he was hugging the neck of one of the mules-haw-hawing hilariously while the animal hee-hawed.

A few hundred yards down the road I encountered the tow truck, Tom and Skinny riding with the driver. They had been confused about the location of my car and had toured the countryside all night attempting to find it.

We got Fatty revived. The driver agreed to take her and the other squaw to wherever they wanted to go. He also made us a present of a gallon can of gasoline, which, he mysteriously insisted, we were "cert'n'y gonna need."

He was right. Tom and I sneaked in the side door of the hotel, and reached our room un.o.bserved. And we remained there, with the shades drawn, for the next twelve hours. We had to. It took us that long to remove the warpaint, and we didn't quite get it all off then. There were certain areas of our anatomy which were just too tender for the brush and gasoline treatment.

Fortunately, their location was such as to make public exposure unnecessary.

19.

In the fall of 1938, I received a visit from two old-timers in the Oklahoma labor movement. They were pioneers in the state, and men of some substance. They bore warm letters of introduction from several members of the Oklahoma congressional delegation. They wanted the writers' project to do a history of labor in the state.

Well, I liked these gentlemen very much, and I was personally sympathetic to their plan. But it was inadvisable on a great many counts. I explained this to my callers and they left-quite friendly, but intimating that the matter would be carried over my head. I immediately sent a long letter to Was.h.i.+ngton.

I wrote that we would undoubtedly be politically pressured to do the book, but that we should and must withstand it. Labor was sensitive about its mistakes. It would consider unfriendly a book that was merely accurate and complete. Then, there were the various inter-union quarrels-long-standing jurisdictional disputes, for example. We could hardly ignore them in the proposed history, but the skimpiest mention was certain to offend some organization. Before the book was finished, we would have pleased no one and angered everyone.

I did not believe (I wrote) that labor was yet sure enough of itself to accept an honest, factual history. And even if this were not the case, there was an excellent reason for steering clear of the job. Federal expenditures were intended to benefit all the public. The one contemplated would not. If we did a history of labor we would lay ourselves open to demands from other segments of the population. We could be asked for a history of the state chamber of commerce, or some other such group, and we would have no legitimate grounds for refusing.

I got no reply to my letter; no acknowledgment of it. Was.h.i.+ngton simply wrote me, a couple of weeks later, to proceed with the labor history.

I did so.

All the problems that I had foreseen, and then some, arose. I could never get the different labor leaders together without the danger of a knock-down, drag-out brawl. Any unfavorable mention of a union was invariably "a G.o.dd.a.m.ned lie" and "that guy sittin' over there" (the leader of an opposition union) should be compelled to admit it. As for me, I was charged with everything from stupidity to personal prejudice to taking pay from the National a.s.sociation of Manufacturers.

I was fortunate in having the confidence of Pat Murphy and Jim Hughes, respectively the state commissioner and a.s.sistant commissioner of labor. Their help in oiling the troubled waters was invaluable. Oddly enough, however, I received the most a.s.sistance from a man who had profanely declined to appear at publication committee meetings and who had threatened to kick me out of his office if I ever walked into it.

I called on him. He didn't give me the promised booting, but I did get an ear-blistering cursing out. He had "heard all about" the way his union had been slandered; an acquaintance of his on the committee had tipped him off. Well, if I let one word of it get into print, all h.e.l.l was going to pop in Congress. And if I thought he couldn't make it pop, I was a bigger d.a.m.ned fool than I looked.

I asked him why he thought I would want to injure his union. He grumbled that he didn't know, but he knew d.a.m.ned well that I had. Laying the ma.n.u.script before him, I asked him to look at a portion dealing with another union.

The section was not flattering to the organization involved, and as he read he began to nod approvingly. I had those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds dead to rights, he said. Someone had at last told the truth about them, and about time, too. I pointed out some other sections to him-likewise unflattering and dealing with other unions. He read through them beaming.

"Could have made it a little stronger, though," he said. "I could tell you things about those sons-of-b.i.t.c.hes that would make your hair curl."

"I imagine we'll have to tone it down a lot," I said. "They've been kicking about it."

"Naturally, they're kickin'," he declared. "The truth always hurts."

He nodded to me, piously. Then, after a moment, a slow flush spread over his face, and he cleared his throat uncomfortably.

"Of course," he said, "we shouldn't be too hard on people. Now, I got just about the biggest union in the state, and there's bound to've been a few times when-we-uh-got out of line a little, but-"

I looked at him, torn between the desire to laugh and blow my top. Suddenly, I stood up and reached for the ma.n.u.script.

"Let's have it," I said. "I thought I could talk sense to a man as big as you are, but you're even worse than the others."

"Now, wait a minute. All I said was-"

"At least they don't insist on a brag-book. That's what you want. You're good at dis.h.i.+ng it out, and when it comes to taking a little you start crying. Everyone's picking on you and you're going to raise h.e.l.l in Congress, and-"

"Sit down," he said firmly. "Maybe I had you all wrong and maybe you've got me a little wrong. Let's start all over again."

I sat down, and we went through the ma.n.u.script together. He was by no means pleased with some of the references to his union, but he felt impelled to prove his fairness-to show me and the other labor organizations how a 'big' man operated. And with his example to point to, I was able to swing the others into line.

I don't mean to say that we, the writers' project, got everything into the ma.n.u.script that should have been in it. But this was as much due to the lack of publis.h.i.+ng funds as it was to the att.i.tude of the unionists. We published as comprehensive a book as we could for the money we had.

I should mention here that the government furnished no funds for publis.h.i.+ng, 'per se;' only for the actual preparation of the ma.n.u.script. So, at the beginning, I had set up an apparatus among the unions for soliciting and handling money. It did not function; there were too many conflicts among its members. Too much distrust. In the end, or rather, long before the end, I became the treasurer-solicitor.

By late summer of 1939, we had the funds to publish a modest volume and the ma.n.u.script was finished. Was.h.i.+ngton approved it, I sent it to the printer. A few days later, with the type already set, I was called into state headquarters of the various work projects. They flatly ordered me to kill the book.

Flabbergasted, I wanted to know why. If there was any part of the book which they had justifiable objection to I would gladly cut it out. So much had been cut already that a little more wouldn't be missed. I was told that they "had not had time" to read the ma.n.u.script (they had had a copy for days), and the matter was not pertinent. The book simply should not be published 'period.'

I said it would be published 'period.'

I returned to my office...and found a long-distance call from Was.h.i.+ngton awaiting me. They had just talked with the state officials. They agreed with the latter that the book should be killed.