Cry Wilderness

by Frank Capra

  Cheers and applause from the women. They were with her now.

  “And I’d like you to know that I don’t think my husband got the worst of the deal when he traded Boatcourt for me. Mr. Gorski may have a great talent for law—but I’ve got talents he’s never heard of.”

  “Oh, man! Has she!” added Tony with exaggerated leering looks. “Like dishwashing,” she quickly added. The laughs got bigger. “And don’t you guys in pants howl too loud, because this gorgeous ‘monster,’ here, is more gung ho on women’s rights than I am. You elect him to the assembly and he’ll use all his talents, wit, and charisma (and who has more?) in seeing that women get treated as the equals of men—in wages, promotions, politics, and sex.”

  She threw up both arms and shouted, “ARRIBA THE WOMEN!”

  En masse they rose.

  The gloom in Boatcourt’s corner thickened. It was a route, a walkway, a piece of cake.

  I leaned over to whisper into Boatcourt’s ear. “Do you still think your Wonder Boy has terminal cancer?”

  His eyes closed, his head drooped sadly into his hands. “Yes, Frank. I’m sure of it now.”

  I shivered. Tony had beaten him to a frazzle, but Boatcourt still believed his Wonder Boy had terminal cancer; that he was “pure diamond.”

  Lu had been intensely following the now—to me—nonsensical proceedings.

  “Lu, my head’s spinning. If Tony’s got terminal cancer, what difference does it make if he wins the election? Win or lose he’ll soon be dead. And they all know it. So why doesn’t someone get up and say it?”

  “Because both sides are running scared,” said Lu.

  “Scared of what?”

  “Scared of mentioning the word ‘cancer’ to that hooch-filled audience.”

  “Boy, is this an ad lib script. I haven’t the faintest notion of what’s going to happen next, or why? Do you?”

  “Don’t worry about it, Frank. Maybe that’s the way they write scripts up here. You know. The Chinese way. Make ’em guess.”

  An unusually big crowd reaction brought him back to earth. Beauteous Grace was still pouring it on.

  “Now, ladies, just listen to this for kookiness. Know what old Boatcourt did when Tony told him to ‘get lost’? He waddled breathlessly to the courthouse and filed to run against Tony for assemblyman. To ‘SAVE AMERICA FROM A MONSTER!’ he shouted. (Aside to Tony, ‘Oh, you beautiful monster!’) So the Clarence Darrow of the Sierra, and his dear friend, Publisher Hopkins, and a crackpot film guy, together with a deputy sheriff who had received ‘the call direct from God,’ conspired to blow up a routine occurrence into the ‘Second Coming.’

  “And what was the routine occurrence? Well, new families moving into Mono County got panicky when they heard that two slimy, drunken hermits were running loose. Just the kind that rape and kill little girls. So they complained to the sheriff. A softheaded deputy refused to bother the drunken bums because he said they were angels with wings. He got fired.

  “Well, of all the bleeding heart caterwauling! Boatcourt had found an issue to beat Tony with; police brutality. And get this. Not brutality against the possible victims or even against the two bums. No. It was brutality against the kind-hearted deputy!

  “The cry went out. Save the deputy’s job. Sign petitions. Hold a public hearing. What stupidity. They lost, of course. But my ‘monster’ husband here felt sorry for the dumb deputy. So here we are—joined together to hear the crybaby complaints of a ‘born-again’ lawman, and, God help us (indicating Boatcourt) the heartrending wails of a jilted queer.”

  The applause was deafening. And there was much stomping and whistling. The day was darkening, and the snow was coming down thicker than ever, but the Monoites were drunker than ever. This was their day to howl in the sacred sanctums of their leaders. But they howled and yowled at the oddest times. But who cared? They booed, bellowed, and applauded as the spirits moved them.

  But two men and a wife cared. For them it was all or nothing. They aimed each thrust for the other’s jugular.

  The first one in our group to lose his cool was the publisher, Hopkins. He ran to the nearest mike. It was dead. To another. It was dead.

  “Give me a mike, somebody!” he roared. “You, there, beautiful. Give me that walkie-talkie.”

  Grace tried to hold it back but he jerked it from her hand.

  “Who do you two bunco artists think you’re playing with?” he yelled into the walkie-talkie. “Hey, you Marine punks. You open up all the mikes in this room or I’ll expose your whole crappy deal in my next issue. You got it? Or should I go to the colonel?” A Marine officer rose in the back and ran out.

  Hoppy roared back to our table mike. It was alive. Hoppy sizzled. “The DA’s wife,” he shouted, “and some scurvy Marine have been screwing around with the chips. Up and down with the volume when it suited them. Pretty cheap trick for a Rhodes scholar. But I’m not here to make a speech. Only to correct an error of fact. Despite the innuendos, Stephen Gorski, here, is not a queer. Not a homosexual.

  “What is he? First of all, he’s royalty, not scum. His father descended from Polish kings. And his mother, adored by Picasso, was a niece of the murdered Romanov Czar.

  “And when the commies took over Saint Petersburg, and began shooting and hanging anyone who could read or write, Steve’s mother took her two children—Stephen, ten, and Ludmilla, twelve, and their governess, and tried to escape to Finland at night, during snowstorms. They almost made it, when a commie ski patrol spotted them and opened fire. The mother was killed, the daughter was killed, the governess was wounded, and little Steve got an exploding bullet in his rectum that blew out all his sex organs. The wounded governess dragged him as she would a wheelbarrow. Ugly loops of torn intestines began slipping out of his crotch, leaving a trail of blood and stench. But Anitchka, pulling her heart out, dragged our boy across the border—and fainted.

  “Miraculously he lived. They came to America. He went to USC Law School, graduated, and became one of the most brilliant lawyers in California, a feat that matches anything Ulysses had to do.

  “That’s all I’ve got to say. Just wanted to correct a factual error. Boatcourt is no queer. He is a eunuch, he has no sex.

  “But he has courage. And he has a heart. Big enough to make him the most charitable man I know. Big enough to send many Mono kids through college. Big enough to create a Mr. Wonderful—like the DA here. Thank you.” He sat down.

  The commanding authoritative voice of Hoppy Hopkins had cowed the slaphappy crowd. The word “eunuch” disarranged their already befogged brains. During the momentary silence, Stephen (Boatcourt) Gorski, head held high, walked majestically to the center of the podium, stood erect for all to see, and slowly scanned the crowd. He was the aristocrat facing down the hoi polloi. Not with the contemptuous snarl of a Coriolanus, but with the gentle, good-natured smile of an Einstein.

  Necks in the hallways craned to get a better look. Unbelief was the prevailing expression. But on Tony—eyes wide, startled, and riveted on Boatcourt—a strange mixture of disbelief, awe, and wonder played across his handsome face. And underneath them all, one could sense the bitter pig boy’s horror—looking at another boy lying in a pool of warm living blood smoking on the cold, white snow—his writhing innards, shredded and ripped, oozing out of a ghastly hole in the little boy’s body. And here he was…a great man, a great, good man.

  But the compressed silence needed but a spark to explode. And who sparked it? Tony’s wife. She had been intently watching her husband’s face. And when she saw a tiny glimmer of wetness in one eye, she grabbed the mike and shouted: “All right, I’ll bite. What the hell is a eunuch?”

  Yahoo! Course howls and bawdy jokes rattled the old courthouse. Amazing the volume of corny gags a word like eunuch can spawn in seconds. Grace kept the laughs going. “Anyone want to buy a slightly used eunuch?” she shouted over the mike. “
Guaranteed to be a perfect partner on a honeymoon!”

  The head supervisor (Weather Vane) banged and banged his gavel. In between bangs, he leaned over to a fellow supervisor and asked out of the corner of his mouth, “What the devil is a eunuch?”

  “Don’t know. Think it’s like when they castrate a bull.”

  “Oh, poor fellow.”

  He got a signal from Boatcourt. Weather Vane banged and shouted over the mike, “Mr. Eunuch has the floor.” The crowd howled. Weather Vane could bite his tongue. He made many “forgive me” gestures to Boatcourt. But Boatcourt laughed hardest of all at the gaffe.

  The audience laughed with him, now. Tony and his wife exchanged worried glances.

  “I don’t blame you for laughing,” said Boatcourt. “Eunuchs are funny. They used to be the watchdogs of the harems, you know.

  “Can you imagine men walking through roomfuls of naked beauties without giving them a second look? But really, being a eunuch is not all bad.

  “No, I’ve never experienced the carnal exaltation of sex. And since I don’t know it, I don’t miss it. But I have experienced the spiritual exaltation of love—in good measure, pressed down, and running over. And as when one arm is cut off, the other arm doubles in strength, so has my love of friends increased. You see, my love is the love of brother for brother, of father for son; the love that Jonathan had for David; the love that Christ had for his Apostles—‘greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.’

  “So you see, it comes natural for me to love things and people. It is one way we are recompensed for our loss of sexual love. Of course, just as Christ had his favorite Apostle, I, too, had found my favorite—a young orphan boy who rose to prominence like a shooting star. To me, he was my son, my dearest love. But he was also my cross. He detested me as a boy. Hated me as a man.

  “And here we are today, running against each other for the state assembly job. We stand at opposite poles. With him it’s all black and white—no compromise. Yet black is but the compromise of blue, green, and orange; and white is a compromise of all colors.

  “My love for him cries out, ‘Elect my Wonder Boy…the marvel of our times…young…unafraid…knowledgeable about atoms and galaxies…. He is the hope of tomorrow…’

  “But my love for my adopted country warns me to cry out, ‘No! Don’t vote for him. He’s for one-man rule… No compromise… He makes sport of the importance and freedom of each individual. He’s all brain and no heart; doesn’t believe in compassion, pity, or mercy. He believes in power! Personal power. Now. Tomorrow. The survival of the fittest. His genius can and will fool enough people who will give him enough time to remold our democracy to his liking.

  “I know these are big words. But I must plead, implore, and shout to you that this tiny election, in the smallest assembly district of our state, can shape the future of our America. If Tony Caldwell goes to Sacramento with a huge majority, he has the brains, the savvy, the guts, and the backing to take him to the White House without a hitch.

  “This election gives you, the people of Mono County, a clear choice: Tony Caldwell…genius…superman…power-seeking, hard-nosed hell-raiser with a healthy slice of Fort Knox behind him. Or you can vote for a soft-nosed eunuch—but a helluva good lawyer. Yes, you can vote for an elitist who thinks of himself as a God-sent messiah—sent down to rule us, the huddled masses. Or you can vote for one of us huddled masses who thinks of Tony as a treasonable jackass who has already been conned into spearheading a hate-oriented secret political party, a party of the super rich who privately call themselves ‘The Takeovers.’

  “And get this; Tony’s father-in-law is their leader. Their führer. Can I make it any plainer to you why it would be catastrophic to vote for Tony Caldwell? Oh, yes. Tony will hobnob with tycoons who light their cigars with ten-dollar bills, but I’ll have to sit in the last seat of the last row. So much for the political importance of this election.

  “Now for the emotional importance that will affect your gut decision: I am old, a eunuch. But I believe in the self-evolution of our democracy—giving all Americans of all colors, or climes, or creeds equal opportunities to dream, create, achieve, and to enjoy all the personal liberties guaranteed by our Bill of Rights. I stand with Walt Whitman’s statement to every man, woman, and child: ‘The sum of all known reverences I add up in you whoever you are.’

  “I believe my precocious opponent would prefer George Orwell’s famous statement: ‘All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.’

  “And so, my friends of Mono County, with all the passion I can conjure up, I ask for your vote in the name of the America we all love and revere; the America our forefathers built with hard work and free, independent minds. The America I love—and would die for. My opponent does not love this America. He loves himself. I thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for the opportunity to stress to you the national, yes, the world importance of your vote.

  “Well, so much for politics. And so little for the reason we called this public meeting.” He walked over to where Lefty had been sitting in the witness chair all this time. “There is a rather large man here, larger than Job, but just as patient, who, with his tiny but very precious wife, and his six darling daughters all in a row, has been waiting to tell us his hard choice between conscience and comfort.”

  Boatcourt: “Now, Lefty. Remember, you are under oath. How long have you known Bear Bait and Dry Rot?”

  Lefty: “Eighteen years. I met them during my first year as a deputy.”

  Boatcourt: “Did you investigate them thoroughly?”

  Lefty: “I saw them almost daily for a while. Not a mark against them, except one against Bear Bait. And that was… Well, a call came in from a very frightened woman that a terrible-looking man had seized her six-year-old daughter and ran with her. But she screamed so loud he dropped the little girl and disappeared.

  “I was assigned to the call. I knew right away it had to be Bear Bait. So I went to his hideout to question him. He said, ‘Oh, no, no, Mr. Lefty. The little girl was walking right into… Come, I’ll show you.’ And he took me where he had picked up the little girl. She was heading right for a nest of rattlesnakes. I saw them myself. So he picked her up, took her away from the rattlesnakes, and dropped her, then ran away from the screaming mother.”

  Boatcourt: “Would you recognize the mother if you saw her?”

  Lefty: “Oh, yes. She’s sitting right over there. Her name is Mrs. Boyle.”

  Boatcourt: “Mrs. Boyle, would you mind standing up?”

  A middle aged, good-looking lady stood up.

  Boatcourt: “Mrs. Boyle, is Mr. Wakefield telling the truth?”

  Mrs. Boyle: “Exactly. I’m sorry I never saw Mr. Bear Bait again to thank him personally.”

  Boatcourt: “Thank you, Mrs. Boyle. Is your presence here in answer to a subpoena that was served you?”

  Mrs. Boyle: “Yes, sir.”

  Boatcourt: “Who subpoenaed you?”

  Mrs. Boyle: “The district attorney.”

  A loud guffaw swept the crowd. Tony gave his busty secretary a withering look. She broke into tears.

  Most speakers who address large gatherings know and fear the unpredictable mood-changing of their audiences. Like a chameleon’s hues, a gathering can capriciously fluctuate up and down from an assemblage to a crowd to a mob to a vulgar herd almost instantaneously. Many famous names have tabbed crowds with pithy monikers; Horace Greeley said a crowd is “one immense ass.” Max Grlnik said they were “monkeys outside the cage.” And Machiavelli called them “a wild beast.” Mark Twain said a mob “is merely a multiplied me.”

  Anyway, the Mono County cold, whiskey-smelling, yahoo mob yoyoed their cheers and boos between Wonder Boy and a smart, fun-loving, wide-track eunuch. There was much betting, of course. Reporter Jake Ziffren was my runner and tout. The odds started at thirt
y to one against Boatcourt. They shot up to fifty to one when Tony and his wife wowed them with their old-world curtsying and hand-kissing. You couldn’t give away a hundred to one after the crowd heard Boatcourt was a eunuch. But strangely enough, the odds shot back down to twenty to one after Boatcourt made his humorous remarks about eunuchs. Jake said, “move in now.” I gave him two tens—one for him—and said, “Lay it on Boatcourt.”

  “Your witness, Mr. Caldwell,” Boatcourt said to Tony.

  The crowd shifted around and murmured. The pints of hooch were upended. They all expected—and wanted—excitement. Wonder Boy would murder Lefty.

  Tony approached Lefty, taking his time, knowing his prey was on edge. Then, suddenly—

  Caldwell: “What did you say your name was?”

  Lefty: “I didn’t say.”

  Caldwell: “Better cooperate, Lefty. You’re under oath. One lie can mean five years in the pen. Understand?”

  Lefty: “Yes, I understand you’re full of shit. Is that a lie?”

  A boffo from the audience. More drinks and hoopla.

  Tony turned to the audience and feigned surprise. Then he bowed low to Lefty. He had the great trick of turning away points against him with laughs.

  Caldwell: “He must be a Don Rickles fan. Now, Mr. Comic, will you tell me why you chose to testify under oath?”

  Lefty: “That’s none of your goddamn business.”

  Caldwell: “Ah! But my next question is my business. Because your answer will be a lie. A felony, remember?”

  A uniformed deputy handed him a long rectangular piece of bark with writing scribbled on it. Tony showed the writing to the audience. It read: “Lefty in trouble—Courthouse.” The words were clumsily scratched with blackened burnt wood. Then he showed the sign to Lefty and asked, “How many of these signs did you nail on trees along Highway 395? Think before you answer. I want the exact number.”

  Lefty: “The exact number is zero. I never saw that sign before.”

  Caldwell: “Do you know who made and nailed them to trees?”