The Man Who Walked Backward

by Ben Montgomery

  Mix would marry a fifth wife, appear in a few talkies, buy his own circus, and claw his way back. That circus would fail and he’d blame his own daughter and cut her out of his will. He would visit a friend on a fine October evening, then head north on Highway 80 under a persimmon sky in his Cord 812 Phaeton, toward a washed-out bridge south of Florence, Arizona. He would swerve, slide, and not be able to stop, and an aluminum briefcase containing $6,000 cash, $1,500 in traveler’s checks, and several valuable jewels would dislodge from a package shelf behind him, fly forward, and strike him in the back of the head, breaking his neck and killing Tom Mix, king of the cowboys.

  Plennie went to sleep that night in Fort Wayne knowing nothing of what would become of Tom Mix, just that he was a man people recognized from fifth-floor hotel windows, a man who had found fame and fortune, and Plennie wanted that, too, all of it.

  * * *

  By the time he reached Van Wert, Ohio, it dawned on him that he had to move faster if he was going to make New York by September and England by October. He hustled down the Lincoln Highway through Delphos, Lima, Beaver Dam, and Williamstown, and carried a sack lunch out of Kirby on advice that it was a good walk to the next café.

  Plennie backed through Bucyrus, Mansfield, Wooster, and little towns in between, stopping only to eat or sleep or when motorists pulled onto the shoulder to inquire about his behavior. He took down their names dutifully, in careful penmanship.

  Sometimes he made notes for himself in the margins. Miss Donna Seiz of Lima, Ohio, for instance, “MAY WANT MY BOOK.” Mr. John Bosch of St. Louis: “Will help if I need it.” Tom Clark of Jeromesville, Ohio: “WISE CRACKER. We had a cuss Fight.”

  W. W. Alexander of Waxahachie, Texas, met Plennie way back in April, on the second day of his journey, then spotted him again outside Chicago and stopped to congratulate him. C. G. Warrick rode a high-wheel bicycle for Plennie’s amusement. “The bike was purchased in 1890 by him,” Plennie wrote. T. M. Forrester of Wanatah, Indiana, was a “Farmer” with whom Plennie had a “Tree discussion.” Thomas McGorvey of Hanoverton, Ohio, had evidently been “Convicted for manslaughter.” He met Carl O. James from Frankfort, Indiana, and was surprised to learn he personally knew the Abilene doctor who had brought Plennie into this small, small world.

  He reached Canton and planned to stay a night or two with an aunt and uncle he had not seen since he was six years old. They welcomed him as though the past thirty years had been a day, and he was glad, but times were difficult for them. They were living paycheck to paycheck and Plennie didn’t want to be a burden, so he hoped to land some work in Canton. He took advantage of the downtime to send a letter back to Abilene.

  Canton, Ohio

  July 24

  Dear mother and all,

  I will write you tonite. I am at Aunt Nola and Uncle Warner’s. They both are natural to me. I recognized Aunt Nola and spoke to her calling her Aunt Nola and she sure was supprised to see me. She is real heavy and Uncle Warner is still slim as ever. I am going to stay over until Monday. I am going to advertise for a picture show here Monday. I feel a lotts better about every thing some how.

  Seems like I am getting better publicity up here.

  How is every one? Fine I hope. I got a good letter from Aunt Marie today. They sure are interested in my stunt now and want to see me do good. I bought me a new pencil today. It is a good one. Maybe I won’t mind writing now. I didn’t hear from Della in the last week. I guess they are getting along allright. I hope so. The people are all so much better up here than in Missouri. I sure am glad too. I am only about 487 miles from N.Y. City now. Just think. I will be sailing in less than two months for Europe if everything turns out right.

  Mama, I have decided I will write a book on my trip when I get back. It will be called Around the World Backwards and I will continue my stunt walking backwards in cities selling my books so if my plan works I will have a long job, won’t I? I think I will have a good book when I get through also.

  I don’t think it will be long until I can send the kids some money along. I sure hope I can.

  How is dad getting along with his trucking? Well I have just got up so will finish my letter. I am going over to another town today and see about some advertising so I have to wait until Monday to advertise in Canton. Aunt Nola said she would write you after I am gone and am in a hurry to mail this one. I don’t know anymore news. Will write again later. I hope I hear from you before I leave Canton.

  Lots of love to all from Plennie.

  He planned to stay only a few days, but found a little work advertising toasted sandwiches, waffles, and plate dinners for D&E Sandwich Shop on Tuscarawas Street West, where proprietor Bill Steiner was so savvy he fit four mottos on the same business card: BEST COFFEE IN CANTON, WE MAKE OUR OWN PASTRY, A MEAL A MINUTE, and YOUR TIME TO EAT IS OUR TIME TO SERVE. Plennie thought he’d stick around for a bit and see if there was more work.

  A vicious bilious attack came on, and the headache and constipation immobilized him for two days longer than he’d planned. He had not received a letter from his mother nor Della since leaving Bucyrus, Ohio, ten days before, and the anxiety was eating at him. He sent one more letter to Texas letting them know that he’d kindly like to hear how things were going back home, and that he’d likely be in New York by the end of August, barring unforeseen challenges. He wrote that he was enjoying Canton and the company of Aunt Nola and Uncle Warner, and he listed the cities through which he expected to pass next: Pittsburgh, Greensburg, Bedford, Chambersburgh, Gettysburg, Lancaster, Philadelphia.

  He set out again on Monday, August 3, and it felt good to stretch out his legs after the rest. He was booking backward over rolling hills covered by curly dock and horse nettle, and by noon he had reached Robertsville, ten and a half miles from Canton, full of energy and confidence. He ate lunch in a roadside café, then picked up at the spot where he’d left Highway 30. His eyes were up, watching for traffic, as he took a step backward and plunged his foot into a sizable hole. It sounded like a limb breaking off a Texas ironwood in a strong wind.

  Plennie saw stars. Not like in the cartoons; his eyes went dark but for little pinprick flashes of light. So much ran through his mind all at once. He knew his ankle was broken, but how would he get to a hospital? And what would this mean for his trip? He had a few bucks and Pete Mazza’s mysterious envelope, but he couldn’t afford a doctor bill right now. Maybe he could advertise for the hospital?

  He felt confident, lying on his back under the Ohio sky, that his adventure was over.

  He heard voices above his head, the folks from the café. They’d rushed over when they saw him fall. A man asked Plennie what hurt, and if he’d like to call an ambulance. Plennie told them he had no money, so maybe they should leave him on the roadside to fend for himself. The man said he was going to call the sheriff, and a government car pulled up a few minutes later and carried Plennie the ten miles back to Canton in severe pain and feeling every bump in the road.

  When the nurses informed the doctor what had happened, the doctor shook his head.

  “Well,” he said, “he ought to have broken his ankle then, if he was doing that.”

  The only redeeming elements of the experience were that his treatment and stay were free of charge, courtesy of Mercy Hospital, which was run by Sisters of Charity of St. Augustine; that he enjoyed conversing with Carl McCauley, his roommate at Mercy for much of his stay; and that the downtime gave him a chance to catch up on correspondence with people he’d met so far.

  He spent the next three weeks at Mercy, and got a kick out of the fact that the hospital was built where former president William McKinley’s home once stood. McKinley was the first president Plennie could remember, taking office when Plennie was two years old. He led America to war in 1898 against Spain, which had been trying to repress revolution in Cuba, and after three months claimed the spoils of victory: Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippine Islands, the westernmost land under the American flag. Critics called him an i
mperialist, but he cruised to a second term and was cheered by thousands on a tour after inauguration in 1901. At the end of the tour, in Buffalo, New York, he was standing in a receiving line when an unemployed Detroit mill worker and anarchist named Leon Czolgosz fired two bullets into his chest from a .32-caliber revolver hidden under a handkerchief. McKinley died eight days later, joining Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, and James Garfield on the list of presidents shot or shot at. The nation mourned, named roads and public buildings in his honor, arrested anarchists in cities across the country, and put Leon Czolgosz to death. His revolver, made by Iver Johnson, a company that also built bicycles, went to a museum.

  A week into his hospital stay, Plennie received a letter postmarked Plano, Texas. His little friend Tom Robbins had read in the paper that Plennie’s trip was delayed. “I heard that a car had ran over you and we all was worried to death for they said you was killed and we had no way of finding out whether it was true or not,” he wrote. “And I sure was glad to get your letter because that showed that you were still alive.” Tom was over the mumps, as was his brother Bill. He was also excited to be promoted to the fourth grade. He wished Plennie good health and good luck and asked him to write more, promising to save his letters so his friends could see them.

  To know that an eight-year-old in Texas cared and was paying attention made Plennie feel good.

  When his leg was properly mended, he tied his brogans tight and told the sisters goodbye, being sure to write their names and addresses in his journal so he could thank them properly when his trip was finished. Most he entered with the simple description: “Mercy Hospital, Canton, Ohio, Nurse.” Miss L. G. Christie, however, was “blond nurse,” and Miss Virginia Parker was “Red Headed Nurse,” so he would remember.

  He caught a ride to Robertsville, and the small-town residents remembered him. Betty Devaux gave Plennie a sack lunch to take along. L. E. Glasser repainted his sign for no charge. He walked to the café and the hole in front that had nearly done him in. He put his foot into the hole, turned his back toward the Atlantic Ocean, and started again.

  * * *

  Just three miles of the Lincoln Highway ran through rural West Virginia, but it was the most treacherous three miles of Plennie’s trip so far. He crossed the Ohio River into his seventh state and stopped for traffic at an intersection in a town called Chester. Two cars came to a stop beside him, one behind the other. Plennie watched the man in the back car climb out, run forward, and drag the other driver from his vehicle by the hair. Then the two went at it, fists and feet flying, right there on the highway. They tore each other’s shirts off and continued fighting bare-chested. Bystanders filed out of buildings nearby as the fight wore on, and soon there was a small crowd watching the two pummel each other. A patrolman pulled up and tried with difficulty to pull the men apart. The two were panting by the time the officer wedged himself between them and got them separated. “That’ll teach you to run people off the road,” shouted the man from the rear car. Plennie thought that was funny, because the man doing the shouting seemed to be the bloodier. They finally calmed down and both took a ticket from the cop for disturbing the peace. Welcome to West Virginia.

  Plennie walked the next three miles along a narrow two-lane highway with gravel shoulders that squirmed through foothills on the Allegheny Plateau. The walk was quite pretty, but replete with insults and vulgarity from drivers, many of whom drove so close to Plennie that he was forced off the paved portion of roadway. “What the hell are you doing?” one man shouted. “Get off the road!” hollered another. “Are you crazy?”

  He couldn’t stop thinking about Della. He still had not heard from her. As he walked, he imagined scenarios as a way to prepare for what might come.

  He checked into a roadside hotel, his only stop in West Virginia, and woke the next morning covered in bites from bedbugs. He was glad to be on his way.

  16.

  Mopery in the Second Degree

  He thought he’d seen people on hard times, but nothing so far compared to the human misery clustered roadside in the western mountains of Pennsylvania. Ten thousand miners were on unofficial strike and the number was growing by the day. It was unofficial because the unions hadn’t yet called it a strike, but the elements were there. A big darkness had crept across the soft-coal and coke region, up and down the Monongahela River, and the shafts had stopped smoking, the steam shovels were idle, the trains and coal wagons stood at rest, and the blood of miners was spilling in the streets. By the time Plennie walked through, the strikers numbered ten thousand, arguing for shorter hours, better conditions, and more pay. Their numbers would grow to seven times that. Many were so ill paid that they had to go on government relief, and shopkeepers in coal towns told reporters about miners handing over sixty-nine-cent pay envelopes—all they got for a week’s work. Any kind of economy in Pennsylvania’s coal patches was grinding to a halt.

  The Pittsburgh Coal Company bosses gave strikers a deadline to vacate company-owned housing at the Montour No. 10 line near Library. The sheriff used tear gas to break up a union meeting at Cedar Grove, and women were arrested for having the audacity to stand beside their husbands on the picket line. Strikers outside the Warden mine threw stones at a truck full of strikebreakers that sped perilously close. In Arnold City, sheriff’s deputies and mine police opened fire after a little boy threw an egg at strikebreakers. Their bullets injured four miners and killed a shopkeeper who was trying to break up the fight.

  Little clusters of men stood outside the entrances to mines across Fayette, Washington, Westmoreland, Greene, and Allegheny Counties, and lines of the rank and file unspooled along roadside shoulders all over the blue and brown and green hills, the pinkish mist of the mountains on the horizon. They aimed to live like human beings.

  Plennie noticed that the names on the mailboxes were mostly Dutch and German, and he was happy to see a farmer and his wife sitting on the front porch of a large farmhouse west of Pittsburgh. The two watched as their dog snarled at Plennie, then made a wild charge across the yard. The dog got bigger in Plennie’s mirrors until he finally raised his cane as if to strike, and the dog tucked tail and ran, disappearing under the house. The farmer walked out to greet Plennie. “You know, that’s the first time I ever saw my dog scare for anybody,” he said.

  The farmer was W. H. Werkheiser, and Plennie was soon sharing supper, his first real German meal, at the Werkheiser table with seven Werkheiser children. He walked out of the house backward for their amusement and the old dog saw him coming again and ran, again, and everyone laughed.

  In Pittsburgh, he got a room in the moderately priced American House on Liberty Street, paid thirty-five cents for a haircut, and wrote his mother again, letting her know he had decided to change his route to visit Washington, DC, before heading to New York. He wanted to get President Hoover’s autograph while he had the chance. The way people in coal country talked about Hoover made hard the fact that he wouldn’t be in the White House much longer. Plennie advised his mother to send future correspondence to Greensburg, Pennsylvania, as he’d decided to stay on Route 30 eastbound.

  Pittsburgh, Penna

  Aug. 27, 1931

  Dear Mother and all.

  I got your letter today. Was glad to hear from you all. I am well and my foot is doing fine. I didn’t hear from Della. Was disappointed too. But I guess she is like me, don’t have good news to write and hates to write. But I may have good news some of these days.

  I am working hard to get hold of some way to make good. This is a large city and pretty, too. It sure is hilly and has a large river near it also. Will write again later.

  Lots of love as ever,

  Plennie

  He was running low on money after three nights at the American House with no favors. He called on the friends he had met at a roadside park in Missouri, beside whose names he’d jotted “colored.” He was expecting nothing more than to tell them hello, but when he called the Trumond home, Mrs. Trumond told him to st
ay put and her husband would be by on his lunch break to pick him up. When George Trumond arrived, he invited Plennie to be his guest while in Pittsburgh rather than wasting money on a hotel. So that’s what he did. The Trumonds and Walkers lived side by side in beautiful two-story homes on Monticello Street, in a majority-black neighborhood called Homestead.

  The city’s racial dynamics were fascinating to Plennie. A renaissance had shot forth from the massive migration of African-Americans, who had come from the South for jobs in the mines or steel industry during and after the war. They smelted with other immigrant groups already established, and while there were sometimes raw spots, the tribes fed off one another in a great give-and-take. Before the end of the year, there would be mob lynchings in places like Salisbury, Maryland, and Lewisburg, West Virginia, but never had there been nor would there ever be unhinged racial violence of that kind in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

  Smoketown, the black folks called their section, and it was home to a bumping art and theater scene. The city’s jazz had even more tickle and pang than the sound coming out of New Orleans. Everybody read the Pittsburgh Courier, the black newspaper, and believed it and followed its advice, and the ladies taking turns bringing Plennie his chicken and biscuits were two of the darlings of the Courier’s women’s pages. He spent a few happy days being doted upon. “I can’t remember having a better visit and being made to feel more at home,” Plennie told them. He meant it, and he would correspond with both couples for the rest of his trip.