“So you are way ahead of me, General. You tell me.”
“It’s simple. We are going home. To the States. We are going to restore our country, restore freedom, and give everybody a fair shake. We might have to kill a lot of double-dyed sons of bitches, but we are going to give it a good try. It is what needs doing, and we are going to do it.” Hodges never swears. Unless he really means it.
“Or die trying.”
“Dying will not help our suffering people, Miles, so just get that idea out of your head. You hear me?” His voice may be mild, but his blue eyes can pierce you to the bone.
“Sir. Yes, sir. I’ll do my best. Tell me what to do, and I will do it.”
“First and foremost, keep up the good work on the radio monitoring. It is highest priority that we know as much about the world as we can. You need anything for that, just ask. Secondly, I have read your plan to create a musical morale corps. Do that. We need that. We are all sorts of people, most of them naturally at odds with each other. Get them singing and dancing together, make them hug each other, smell each other’s sweat, talk to each other, have a few drinks, and that will help us grow back together. That’s what we need. Can you do that for me?”
“General, I can.”
“Dismissed. Thank you, Colonel Kapusta, I knew I could count on you.”
>>>>>>
What could be easier? I went back to the train, gave the plan without the background. They could figure it out soon enough, without making it official. I got Woody and Weeks and Alde together, gave them the word, and what gold I had on hand, told them to get practicing. It was Wednesday, I decreed a show Friday night, told them to find a place, improvise a stage or something, and get a band practiced up. Right the hell now. They just took my money and set to work. Good crew. I went back to bed.
>>>>>>
Babs made me take it easy Thursday, I tried, but the clang and rattle of constant train-switching made it difficult. I made it with liberal applications of female voodoo. How I suffer. Friday, late and gloomy, I got my uniform on, found I could move around like a person only twice my age, and went back to work. Peaches had the radio logs, and an interesting bit of news; “Bobby-O is finding what you might call “outlaw” stations in New England. In Portuguese. Some of the stations are being picked up and rebroadcast from the Azores. Looks like low-power hobbyist shortwave to the Azores, then to the Portuguese stations worldwide. Who knows?”
“The Portuguese have a lot of fishing boats, some of them must have radios; Morse code in Portuguese would be very hard for John Hoover to stop. I don’t know, but if their fishing boats flew a neutral flag, the Germans would not want to sink them, maybe. But good, what have you got?”
“I got a load of shit. The war in New England is going very badly. Quebec is solidly German, the froggies have been pushed north into the snow. Burlington is gone, the Brits and Krauts are down to someplace called Northfield, Mass, and Albany is under siege. Boston is in revolt, but nobody seems to know who, what, or why?”
“Sounds like the fucking Micks. They can be counted on to do the worst thing possible.”
“At exactly the worst time. Agreed. My name is Donovan, I’m from Southie, but sure. A bunch of dickheads.”
“Guaranteed to think with the wrong ends of their spines, a fact. So, I’ll boil it down and type it up. What about Mexico?”
“Lupo says there is so much mierda, bullshit, flying around, nobody knows anything. It’s easy to see that we are not winning, we have not won, and we are not going to win. A morass. He says the locals are calling it ‘el lodazal,’ the mud.”
“A swamp of bullshit. Charming. Fucking Patton could fuck up a wet dream.”
Babs chimed in from across the table; “You build your life on falsehoods, then you can’t be surprised when those falsehoods prove false.”
Peaches agreed. “Reality is a bitch. Fact.”
“Carry on. You see Alde or one of them, I need an update on that concert deal tonight.”
“They said to give you this…” This was a crude flyer, looked like a woodcut print.
Concert and Dance!
Come one, come all!
Two Bits Admission
At the Grange Hall Friday, March 6th, 1931
Behind the Depot
BYOB
8:00 Sharp!
“And what is this so-called Grange Hall?”
“It’s an old warehouse, what they call a godown. It’s rough as a rat’s ass, but it’s big enough, the roof might keep the rain off, if it doesn’t rain too hard. Weeks and his boys are whipping it into shape. Fur is flying.”
>>>>>>
An understatement. I hacked out my report, headlining the Azores connection, and took a taxi to HQ. The Yards were noticeably emptier, but freight trains were still rolling in. I was happy to see tank cars of gasoline. I supposed that if Eppi was selling salvaged ships in job-lots to the Japanese, our credit might be pretty damn good. How much do ships cost? Never mind. A lot. It looked like most of the troops were headed northwest, into Kazakhstan, while the motorized forces were northeast, into Kumul, and hopefully on to the Republic of Khakassia. Big doings.
We delivered our summary, signed for a bag of gold, and dropped up a list of requisitions that Bob Weeks had clipped to the flyer. Flyers, there had been a stack of them, I gave them to an aide, he promised to have them copied and distributed to Mess Halls and Officers Clubs as fast as it could be done. I was not expecting a big turnout tonight, this was more of a trial run, a dress rehearsal. Do what you can with what you have. That’s the road to success. Or disaster. Same road. It all depends on how you travel it, and who you bring with you.
>>>>>>>
There was still nothing from the various official radio stations, the American stations were suddenly all part of the Victory Broadcasting Network, VBS, they didn’t even try to pretend to give the news, it was all patriotic music and Patton’s poetry set to anthems. “A Soldier’s Prayer” was high in the rotation. Großdeutschen Rundfunk and the BBC were all glory all the time, with even worse music. I began to think there was a music gap, and we might be able to do something about that… Make a note.
NKH, Japanese State Radio in English was a little more open, but not open enough to make good copy. There was a brief mention of a diplomatic mission to Geneva to “Normalize Borders in the Central Asia Area,” but that was all. I supposed that if they went by Zeppelin, they could be there in a week or so, and then a deal could be struck for us lowly types to hammer out on the ground. And I do mean hammer. But that got me thinking; if Eppi, Commander Epstein was making money salvaging ships and metals for the Imperial Navy, then who was paying us for all the miles of railroad we were building? Okay, it might be their track, but the timber for the cross ties and the ballast had to come from somewhere, probably Siberia. Bradley had to be getting a cut of that, didn’t he? If the track was rolled out of our Port Arthur salvaged steel, then we had to be getting a cut of that action too.
Japan had no iron mines, no coal. Those were volcanic islands, even I knew that much geology. So, if the coal the locomotives ran on came from China, somebody was paying the miners, unless the Japs were using slave labor. Not that I would put it past them for a minute, but free men work harder and smarter.
Oblenski had told me about the Hoovers clearing out the Pennsylvania coal country, so all those people, at least the survivors, were over here. Who thinks about coal miners anyway? Out of sight, out of mind, and nobody is more out of sight than the poor coal miners.
I needed to do some research. People like to think wars are all about patriotism and courage, but they are really about coal and iron and chemicals. Copper and brass. Wool and cotton. And somebody has to pay for all that, pay for the poor slobs who have to move all that crap around, pay for the coal to run the engines, and all that unromantic shit.
So, that meant wheels within wheels and deals within deals. And Hodges was a master of logistics. As was Bradley. And that meant that I had been m
issing half of the story. Probably the big half at that. Dumb-ass.
>>>>>>
We all dutifully traipsed off to the Grange to catch the show, not expecting very much, but were pleasantly surprised. They had found another piano, and somebody to tune it, some black guy was tinkling the ivories, one of the Railroad troops, from his insignia. There was even a little hand-printed sign on the piano, “Leroy Carr.” I had no idea who he might have been in the States, but he was smooth and competent, got the job done, as we filed in and tried to find places to sit. The place was packed; people must have been entertainment starved. Well, of course they were. There hadn’t been any for a year and more.
One of the ushers, I thought I recognized one of Bob Weeks’ men, took mercy on us, and led us to reserved seats right up front. They were old battered folding chairs, but probably the best in the house. A lot of people had to make do with crates, barrels, plank benches, and the like. It didn’t seem to bother them much. It didn’t even bother anybody that seating was first come, first serve, blacks and whites, Chinese and Yankees, men and women, cheek to jowl, or something like that.
Pretty soon, it didn’t matter that there was no heat in this place. It was jammed full of people, including a lot of Chinese or whatever kind of locals they had here. Urum-chians, I guess. Bob Weeks was the MC, he had found a tux someplace, and a microphone that sort of worked, some of the time. All those backstage boys crave the footlights. They only had lanterns with tin can reflectors, but close enough for a Gobi Desert.
He waved the piano player to a halt, waited for the ending flourish, and said; “Ladies and Gentlemen, Members of the Black Bear Expeditionary Force. Airmen and Soldiers; allow me to welcome you to the first ever Gobi Freedom Concert. What you might call the Hoedown in the Godown.” He waited for a laugh, and got an attempt at one. “You have been listening to the blues piano compositions of Leroy Carr, late of Indianapolis. Corporal Carr is attached to the Railroad Troops, and is a baggage master. Let’s show our appreciation with a big round of applause for Corporal Carr!” There was a generous amount of hand-clapping, a few cheers and whistles from the black soldiers in the seats. “And for our first act, the Retread Brass Band will swing you a few John Phillips Sousa songs.”
The crowd was not overjoyed to hear a program of patriotic music, there was some muttering, but the sight of the band made them perk up and take notice. They all had their regular uniforms on, but their brimmed caps were as odd an assortment of styles as could be found in any Central Asian thieves’ market. They all had the word “Retread” picked out in gold paint on the front flares, but that was as uniform as they got. There were men of all colors, a few women, more than a couple of the men were missing legs, or hobbled on crutches, the trumpeter, who looked Jewish, had only one arm. Our accomplice Alde was there, in her flight suit, saxophone in hand. Her hat had more gold leaf than any of the others. Of course. They launched into “The Stars and Stripes Forever,” and from the first note it was obvious that something out of the ordinary was happening. And I was about to learn what that word “Swing” meant. The rhythm was raggy and draggy, chords sounded like they had a few extra notes in them, it was a throwback to that “Hot Jazzy” music they had played for a few years in the late teens before the war started going so badly, Prohibition kicked in, and the Attorney General and all his little Grundies had declared war on all things mongrel and unamerican. Negro music had been one of the first things to get the ax. But here it was, in full feather, headed for the stars above.
I never was much concerned with music, I just wanted to write, but this was something else. It made your feet itch and your butt want to shake. A lot of the standees in the back and along the walls needed no further invitation. They were dancing in place by the first chorus. Even my uneducated feet were tapping. Babs was dancing sitting down, I caught her catching my eye, as if she expected me to ask her to dance, I leaned over and said, no need to whisper, “I don’t dance, I inflict injuries with my feet.” She smooked my cheek, and grinned.
The music got wilder and wilder, they never repeated a chorus, every time around it was different, and a little crazier. I had never heard anything like it before. But I liked it. It was fun. Watching people have fun is fun. And if they know what they are doing, all the better.
The next song was another old chestnut, “The Washington Post March,” but there was not going to be a whole lot of marching done to it at that tempo. Fornication? Sure. Just not marching. They gave up even the faintest pretense of Sousa with the next song, I guessed it was called “Tiger Rag,” at least they shouted “hold that tiger” in ragged unison every once in a while. I had heard that one before, when I was a kid, and such subversive stuff was allowed.
People were flat-out dancing, some people clambered up on the low stage to have room to gyrate, an older black couple showed us some steps that were surely illegal back in the States. When the band saw what the two of them were doing, they backed up a few steps, and let them have room for even wilder gyrations. It went on for quite a few minutes, people were shedding their coats and mufflers, it was getting downright tropical in there.
That song wore the band right down, it was easy to see they only knew a few songs, and they had not played in a long time. Bob Weeks came back out, patted the audience down, and announced, “Now for a change of pace, ladies and gentlemen, our own Major Alde Johannsen, will sing you a tender ballad of young love.”
The band backed up a few steps, Alde doffed her cap, handed off her sax, and Leroy Carr came in from the wings… Well, the side of the stage, there were no curtains. The stage had been hammered together out of scrap crates and railroad ties, but it was still standing, so far. It had had a workout, that was for sure. Alde struck a pose next to the piano, the one-armed trumpet player came forward, and Leroy cut right into another nasty down beat, Alde opened her mouth, and pure sex came out. Something about “Hard-Hearted Hannah, the Vamp of Savannah, G A.”
Whoa. Babs poked me in the ribs and whispered, “You’re drooling.” I barely had enough sense to close my mouth and keep it shut. My god. Who knows what evil lurks in the heart of woman? She tore a big sweaty hole in that song, and stitched it back together with sinews of lust. The crowd was thunderstruck. They sure had not allowed anything like that under the Hoovers. The epic wound its way to its chilling ending, the trumpeter jacked it up a couple more notches with a lascivious solo, and Alde finished off the slaughter with Hannah “With a great big pan, pouring water on a drowning man, Hard-Hearted Hannah, the Vamp of Savannah Gee Ayyyy!” Yowser. Everybody went nuts. She took three bows, blew kisses at the audience, and said, “Thank you so much, you lovely people. We only had time to practice the one song, but next Friday we are going to do this again, better, stronger and longer. Any of you want to make music with us, there is a meeting here, Sunday afternoon at three, if the war lets us, and we will have even more fun.”
More applause. The rafters rang. Hooting and hollering. Unrestrained demonstrations in the cheap seats. It looked like it was working. She went on. “For the final segment of our program, we need you to move the seats and benches back against the walls. We promised you a hoedown, and we mean to deliver.” She waited patiently, while the center of the room was cleared, it was only a dirt floor, but hard packed, like clay. Once that was done, the brass band, all but the tuba player and Leroy left the stage, she announced, “And now, for your dancing pleasure, Woody and the Lost Gobi Ramblers. Take it away, Woody!”
He shambled on stage like a farmer waiting for a bus, diffidently, as if in a strange station far from home. My heart sank. Was he lost? Shy? Behind him, out of range of the footlights, four or five shadowy figures grouped up, adjusted instruments, touched a string or two. Woody scanned the audience, seeming to make contact with every eye, casually, then said, “Howdy folks. My name is Woody. I was named after the president, but I feel the name of the man who got us into this great war is too heavy a burden for a skinny little runt like me, so just Woody will have to d
o.” His voice was thin but clear, carried well. Not a pleasant voice, but perhaps an important one. I found myself caring about the next words to come out of his mouth. The crowd fell silent to hear his words, delivered in that dusty twang.
“We, me and the boys are going to let you hoot and holler in a minute or two, but we thought we would sing you a little old song first, a song that most all of us know, and even if we don’t know it, we have all lived it.” He half-turned and waved to the band, they stepped up closer, into the lights. Two of those Russian guitars, most of an upright bass that had been to more than one war, a mandolin, a balalaika, and somebody with a comb and tissue paper. Our boy Lupo was one of the guitarists. We waved, he nodded.
Alde came out from the back, she had set aside her sax, and now carried a violin. Wonders never cease. She stood like she had held one before. Woody produced a harmonica from a pocket, tooted a note, and off they went. It was one of those songs that sounded familiar, and I don’t even like music like that. I like soft music. Harps and Bach piano things, but that’s about all I know about music. I can recognize the types; this was akin to that hillbilly stuff from down south. Crude but energetic.
Then he cut loose with that dry, penetrating voice, and everything else was irrelevant.
“Goin’ down that road, feelin’ bad,
Goin’ down that road, feelin’ bad,
Goin’ down that road, feelin’ bad,
And I ain’t goin’ to be treated this-a-way.”
As simple as a song could get, I suppose. Most of a thousand people here, and nobody made a sound. They might have stopped breathing.
“I’m ten thousand miles from my home,
I’m ten thousand miles from my home,
I’m ten thousand miles from my home,
And I ain’t goin’ to be treated this-a-way.”
Fuck me. People say all sorts of things about art, but art is the truth. Not even capital “T” truth. Just truth.
Black Bear Blues Page 20