by Frank Capra
During this quiet moment, the confused supervisor folded and unfolded his white little hands, while his weather vane swung wildly seeking a favorable breeze. It came from an unexpected source—Kyle Sommes, the commissioner whom the Italian kidded about owning half the county and trying to steal the other half. Sommes cleared his throat and rose shyly to his feet.
“Guy?” he asked dryly. “Could an innocent bystander have a word?”
“Innocent bystander, he says,” breathed the relieved supervisor. “Only the head man of the commission… Can he have a word?… Oh, you’re a riot, Kyle… Yes, sir…you may have a word.”
“Well, my first word is, will somebody pull that curtain on those spooky stiffs hanging there? They’re bugging the hell
good here. I admire you. Funny thing…forgive me fellas, this is off the subject for a moment…I say funny thing, Frank, because I voted against you…I mean, a few of us old-timers have organized a land investment syndicate, and my partners wanted me to ask you to join us…and I said, ‘NO!’…and as Fiorello LaGuardia said: ‘I don’t make many mistakes. But when I do, it’s a beauty.’ So Frank, my apologies, and if you’d care to share in the prosperity of the fastest rising land values in the state, I’m personally inviting you to join us…and your grandchildren will be very happy you did.”
“Why, thanks, Kyle. Very generous of you.”
Was he holding out a golden carrot, this wheeler-dealer with the Midas touch? But why? Couldn’t really be a bribe…too big for the occasion. Besides, what was I being bribed about? These thoughts chased each other through my head as Sommes resumed talking.
“Now…as to the small matter before us…and I say small because we’re blowing up an anthill into Mount Whitney. Incompatibility…that’s all it is. Incompatibility between subordinates and superiors. I, myself, have fired many a good man I couldn’t get along with, and they walk across the street and get better jobs. Happens all the time.
“Now with the permission of my two compadres here, I’d like to present a solution that will be good for everybody. We separate…and I emphasize separate; we separate Lefty Wakefield from the sheriff’s office… Reason? Incompatibility. Safe. No stigma to anybody. Millions of husbands and wives have been separated by incompatibility…”
I looked around the room. Each face stared open-mouthed in admiration of the Solomon-like words. All but Lefty. He had yet to move an eyebrow.
“But here’s the best part,” continued “Solomon” Sommes, “with no loss of pension time or fringe benefits, we place friend Lefty with another county agency…Highway, Tax Office, Building permits…whatever he likes…and…and a slight increase in salary. Now who’s the loser? Nobody. Who’s the winner? Everybody. Fair enough, Frank?”
His question caught me in the middle of mulling over his solution.
“Huh?… Well, maybe, Kyle. That’s up to your commission…and certainly up to Lefty, himself…”
“Quite right, Frank.” He turned to Lefty, “Lefty, my boy? Could you ask for anything fairer than that?”
Unnoticed, the central figure of the hassle had sat there, a hulking, frozen statue. Now he was squarely in the spotlight. One word from him and all the shouting would be over. The room was so quiet you could’ve heard a subpoena drop.
Slowly, Lefty pulled his clenched hand out of his massive red face, leaving a bloodless fist-print as big as a mule track. Without looking up, he gave his quiet answer.
“Gentlemen, I didn’t ask for this hearing to get my job back…or any other job. All right, I disobeyed an order and got fired. Fine. The sheriff was right. All I ask is that my wife and kids and friends and everybody else know the reason I disobeyed the order. I couldn’t make myself arrest two peaceful nobodies, charge them with vagrancy, and run ’em out of the county. That’s all I want everybody to know.”
There was actual consternation at the unadorned simplicity of this ox-like man. Kyle Sommes recovered first.
“My boy…I admire your loyalty to those two unfortunates. Admirable. But there’s a hundred million acres of woods right out of Mono County they can move into. We’ve got a cleanup program going on… Millions of visitors from all over the world will be coming here…”
“Those two unfortunates,” quietly countered rocklike Lefty, “They were here long before the ski lifts and the shiny Las Vegas motels…living alone, no more trouble’n a couple of chipmunks. They ain’t got money, they ain’t even got names, but damn it all, they got rights…and I’m gonna fight for ’em if I have to go to the governor, the president, or to who the hell ever you gotta go to…” And, putting his fist back in his face, he solidified into a statue again.
ruling as more than fair. Representing the people of Mono County, I move this hearing be adjourned and closed…”
“Mr. Chairman,” I yelled, “you adjourn this meeting now, and I’ll tell the press the whole hearing was phony…”
The DA turned on me with venom in his eyes.
“What do you mean, phony? Do you know the import of what you’re saying?”
“Yes, I know what I’m saying. The issue here is Lefty’s concern for human rights…not his disobedience of the sheriff’s order. What Lefty disobeyed was the pressure that was put on the sheriff to give that order…”
The sheriff came at me like a wounded grizzly.
“Goddam your soul, that’s slander! I’ll sue you for every dime you got in the world, you loudmouth Hollywood show-off…”
“Sue and be damned!” I yelled at him, nose-to-nose like Leo the Lip to an umpire, “and I’ll sue you all right back for conspiracy…yes, conspiracy…to slander my character to save your own necks. The DA made that statement right in this room…”
“Order!… Gentlemen… Order!” cried Weather Vane. Order, hell. I was wound up. Everybody was yapping something, but I yapped louder.
“Who’s got the notes? I want the notes… I want a copy of what everybody said…!” I cried out.
“No notes, no notes…” the anguished supervisor wailed.
“You all heard him,” barked the sheriff at everybody, spraying sweat with every wild move, “he slandered me… I want you all as witnesses…”
“Tom, Tom,” the supervisor pleaded, “we gave our word not to repeat…” but the DA had yanked the sheriff off to a corner.
I rushed up to the supervisor and shook a finger right under his frightened nose.
“Mr. Chairman…as a taxpaying citizen who pays your salary, I demand you recess this meeting until you get a court reporter in here to take notes, so I can repeat everything I’ve said here officially…so the sheriff can really have something to sue me about!”
With that for closure, I made for the door. Wild with excitement I was, yes. But not really sure what the devil I’d been saying or doing. The deputy barred my way at the door.
“Open that door, Buster…or I’ll add unlawful detainment to my other charges.” The deputy looked to the supervisor for orders. “Yes! Yes!” shouted Weather Vane over the hubbub. “Recess granted! One hour, everybody! One hour—”
The door opened—just a crack big enough for me to squeeze through into the hall. It nearly cost me a foot, but I kept the door ajar just long enough for those inside to hear me shout: “Reporter! Jake! Jake, over here!” The door banged shut. But I had played my ace…or had I?
Chapter Four
Jake, the eager-beaver reporter, rushed up to me panting for news. But he wasn’t alone. Right behind him was “Hoppy” Hopkins, his boss. Hoppy Hopkins…an ex-publisher of one suburban LA paper, who retired to Bishop to get rid of the ink in his veins…and ended up publishing five weekly tabloids serving Inyo-Mono Counties.
“Hoppy,” I greeted him warmly. “What are you doing here?”
“Hi, Frank… Well,” indicating his reporter, “my fifth Beatle here called in with a song and dance about you being in the hearing,
so I came up to cover the Hollywood social angle. Got any juicy items?”
“Yeah,” butted in Jake, “what went on? I heard a lotta yelling…”
“And how… I’m still a little deaf. I need some coffee, Hoppy…”
“Across the street.”
“Come on… I’ve got plenty of social news…”
The three of us clattered hurriedly down the creaky stairs to the front door. As I opened the massive door, I collided heavily with a slovenly dressed fisherman, hip boots turned down, battered hat stuck full of colored flies.
“Excuse me, sir,” I apologized and tried to go by him.
“Wait a minute, Frank… Steve Gorski,” he said merrily, as he turned to greet the other two. “Jake… Hoppy… Someone’s in bad company here, but I don’t know who…”
Steve Gorski…eccentric, rich, witty, and an avid fisherman. Between fishing dates he was the “name” lawyer of the Eastern Sierras; the legal messiah for cattlemen, motels, ski lifts, resorts—and anyone else with money. “Boatcourt Steve,” they call him affectionately and unaffectionately, because instead of trying lawsuits in the courts, he takes his opposition out fly-fishing in a boat. By the time they get back, they’ve usually arrived at a settlement. It’s because “fish make the smartest juries,”
he tells everybody, “and a pint of bourbon doesn’t hurt none, either.”
“Steve Gorski!” I greeted him, pumping his hand, “am I glad to see you. I need a lawyer, quick… Oh, not you, Boatcourt, you’re an institution. I mean a…you know, just a lawyer…”
“Caught you with more than ten fish, huh?” he kidded, lighting his beat-up pipe. “Put him on the front page, Hoppy…”
“No, no, serious… They’re tying a can to a wonderful deputy sheriff…for being a human being. Know a struggling beginner that’ll take a case for a bag of peanuts and a…a carload of principles?”
“Tried the Salvation Army?” he quipped.
“Okay, I’ll laugh later, Steve…so long. Come on fellas…”
We were halfway down the walk when Gorski called after us. “Hey, where’re you going, you guys?”
“For some coffee. Join us?”
“Make it brandy and I’ll tell you a fish story…”
Hoppy, the publisher, grabbed my arm as Steve Gorski joined us.
“Frank…sure you want to talk in front of old Boatcourt here? He’s the mouthpiece for all the big money boys…could end up your opposition, you know.”
“Good…then I’ll take him fly-fishing in my boat…”
Over coffee and brandy, at an isolated back table in the coffee shop, I told lawyer Steve Gorski, publisher Hoppy Hopkins, and reporter Jake Ziffren everything that happened, word for word, from the skinning of the deer to the sheriff bellowing he’d sue me. When it was all over, Boatcourt looked squarely at me with a sly grin.
“Frankie, my boy…now level with me. What’s been your interest in this two-bit squabble?”
“Two-bit squabble?” I cried, climbing on my soapbox. “Steve…can’t you see? Human rights are involved…the rights of little people…Bear Bait and Dry Rot are symbols…”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa… Save that bleeding heart stuff for Hollywood. Come on, now… What? Stirring up a movie out of this? Want to be another Truman Capote?”
“You may have an idea…”
“You know this, don’t you, dreamer boy… The sheriff’s got you over a barrel. You did slander him. Right, Hoppy?”
“I’d say so,” said Hoppy as he leaned back and swayed on the hind legs of his chair. “You can’t go round accusing public officials just on flimsy rumors, Frank.”
“But nobody in that room can talk… They made an agreement…”
“Oh, boy,” sighed Steve in disgust. “How’d you live so long without being run over? A court order will make ’em talk fast in a libel suit, stupid, and under oath! You need a lawyer more than Lefty does.”
“Wow!” popped in eager-beaver Jake. “Can I quote you directly in my story, Mister Gorski?”
“No!” snapped his boss Hoppy.
“But, Boss…aren’t we covering this?”
“SHUT UP!”
That made us all shut up and begin thinking. Steve sipped brandy with one hand and twiddled flies on his hat with the other. Hoppy tipped back and forth on his chair, pulling his lower lip into grotesque shapes. Outwardly, I drummed out a rhythm with my fingertips on the table, but inwardly, the word “libel” was beginning to drum up a panic.
“Fellas,” said Boatcourt, breaking the silence, “I got to tell you a story about Dry Rot…you’ll die. All of you know how nobody’s ever found his hideout. So the subject came up at a Lion’s Club luncheon, when up jumps that little fat banker… What’s his name, Hoppy? Gruber, that’s the guy, with those thick glasses, like beer bottle bottoms. Well, Gruber had had a gin or two, and he up and says: ‘I’ll lay eight to five my two hound dogs can find Dry Rot’s diggings. Any takers?’ Well, there were lots of takers, so fifteen smart businessmen pile into their cars, follow Gruber to his kennels where he picks up his pooches, and up we go to Deadman’s Summit, to the hollow log where Dry Rot trades grubs for things.
“Well, little fat Gruber unloads two powerful hounds that could pull a truck, and they’re rarin’ to go. But he holds them back, a leash in each hand, looking like Ben Hur driving a chariot, only he’s got no chariot and no waistline like Ben Hur, either. His little potbelly does all right holding up his pants when he’s sitting in the bank, but not when he’s hanging on to a seventy-pound hound with each hand. But he’s game, this Gruber.
“‘Stand back, everybody,’ he tells us, sneaking a hoist at his pants, ‘give Greenie and Brownie a fair chance… There’s money on this… Stand back… Don’t confuse the smells.’
“Well, us scoffing Lions stand back, while Greenie and Brownie sniff and slobber and make asthmatic noises all over the hollow log and Dry Rot’s grubs, with Gruber ordering them, ‘Smell, Greenie… Smell, Brownie’…when Greenie suddenly lifts a leg against the hollow log and destroys every other smell within the radius of a mile…
“The Lions snickered and laughed…and when the other pooch, Brownie, lifts his leg on the same spot, the Lions howled…they knew they had a pigeon now… ‘Gruber, twenty more they don’t find Dry Rot.’ The odds go down… ‘Two to one, Gruber…’ ‘Three to one…’ But Gruber’s game. ‘Name your poison, fools. I’ll cover anything…Remember your bets…’
“With that he aims the tugging hounds into the woods and yells, ‘FETCH!’
“Well, they fetched with such a jerk they nearly yanked Gruber off his feet…and off they go, with Gruber leaping and stumbling, hanging on for dear life to the leashes and his pants. And off we trot after him, whoopin’ and hollerin’…fifteen smart businessmen, full of lunch and liquor.
“We hadn’t gone a hundred feet before Gruber stumbles on a root, and off fly his glasses. Now he’s blind…but he’s got a bigger problem…his pants. But he’s game, old Gruber. He just keeps shouting, ‘Fetch! Fetch!’…and the hounds answer him with yowls that would wake the dead.
“Round and round we race through the pines, with brave Lions collapsing right and left what with the altitude and the hooch—and there they sprawl on the ground, laughing and panting like beached dolphins…until there’s only about six of us stalwarts left to urge old Gruber on with horn noises, and ‘Yoicks! Yoicks!’…’On Donder!’…’On Blitzen!’… ‘On Greenie!’…’On Brownie!’
“The poor hounds hadn’t the slightest notion of what anybody wanted them to do, so they ran in all directions at once, and it had to happen. One runs this way, the other runs that way, leaving poor Gruber spread-eagled between them, his arms pulled out of his sockets. Well, that made him a little thinner…and down came his pants…down to his ankles…and he yells for help…
“So we rush to the rescue. We
hang on to the dogs while we try to pull his pants up, but he says: ‘Pull ’em off, pull ’em off!’ So we pull his pants off and try to get him to call the whole silly thing off. But not old Gruber. ‘Quit? ME? We’ve just started…’ So he puts his arms around the panting pooches and talks to ’em. ‘Greenie, Brownie…sweethearts…Don’t let me down…I got money on you… Find Dry Rot…’ And the hounds slobber all over his face while he kisses them back.
“Then he lines them up again, yells ‘FETCH!’ and the hounds race right toward a big pine tree, with blind Gruber on the leashes. One dog takes the left side of the tree, the other the right side, leaving poor Gruber with no place to go except right at the tree…which he smashes into with such a whomp, it starts raining pine cones around us.
“Gruber is knocked cold. He slides down the tree like a rag doll. Well, there’s no more laughing. We turn poor Gruber over. He’s out, and his face is a mess, and his manhood a bigger mess. So while we’re slapping him around trying to bring him to…we hear a voice behind us: ‘Gentlemen…can I help you?’”
Cutting off his tale right there, Steve Gorski stood up from the table, yawned, and said: “Well, Frank, thanks for the drink…”
“Wait a minute,” said Hoppy, “who was the voice? Dry Rot?”
“Yep,” answered Steve, “there he was, not twenty feet away from us…Dry Rot…skinnier and whiter than ever. And not only that…the two hounds were stretched out at his feet…panting with their tongues out a mile…” He drained the last drops from his glass. “And when old Gruber came to at the Bishop Hospital, and we told him what had happened, he sat up and yelled: ‘Aha! I win all the bets. Told you my hounds would track him down! Pay up, you dopes, all of you!’
“Well, on account he had a hospital bill, we all paid off…then went to the nearest saloon to laugh it up…”
Then Steve yawned again and waved to us: “Hoppy…Jake…I got fish to clean. See you, Frank…”
He started out but I grabbed his arm. “Hey…Steve. You said I needed a lawyer, remember?”