Bill Bailey

by The Kid from Hoboken- An Autobiography (epub)

  Chapter XXII: Somewhere in Spain . . .

  SOMEWHERE IN SPAIN

  IN THE EVENT OF MY DEATH, WILL THE FINDER PLEASE MAIL THIS LETTER TO MY MOTHER

  Dear Mom:

  I wish I could be near you to hold your hand and explain in some detail the reasons for my death. I know at this point that it has fallen upon you in a way that I wish would not have happened. I wanted to explain to you the night before I left New York that I was really going to Spain, and the reasons why. But I knew that no matter what I might have told you, it would never have made sense to you. I found that trying to explain was an impossibility. I am sorry for that.

  But, you see, Mom, there are things that one must do in this life that are just a little more than living. I could never be satisfied with just going through life knowing that there are millions of people all over the world who are being stepped on and pushed around by bullies.

  I can recall the first time I missed your presence at home and discovered that you were out hunting for a job scrubbing floors in order to bring home some food for the family. I knew that something was very wrong with life, but I had no idea what to do about it to make it any different. It was only when I grew up and I too had to go around begging for work to live that I realized the wrongs had to be corrected.

  In Spain there are countless thousands of mothers like yourself who never had a fair shake in life. Their whole existence has been one of trying to get enough food to stay alive for another day. One day these people did something about that. They got together and elected a government that really gave some meaning to their lives and promised to make it so that the millions of mothers like you would never again have to bend their knees and beg to exist in a world that had plenty for everyone.

  But it didn't work out the way the poor people expected. A group of bullies decided to crush and wipe out this wonderful thing the poor people had accomplished and drive them back to the old way of life.

  That's why I went to Spain, Mom--to help these poor people win this battle so one day it would be easier for you and the mothers of the future. I am not alone. Many of the men I associated myself with have mothers who have gone through much of the same hard times and misery you suffered.

  Don't let anyone mislead you, Mom, by telling you that all this had something to do with Communism. The Hitlers and Mussolinis of the world are killing Spanish people who don't know the difference between Communism and rheumatism. And it's not to set up some Communist government, either. The only thing the Communists did here was show the people how to fight and win what is rightfully theirs.

  You should be proud that you have a son whose heart, soul and energy were directed toward helping the poor people of the world get back what was taken from them. When the horrible conditions of this world are eventually made right, you can look with pride at those who will be here to enjoy it and say, "My son gave his life to help make things better, and for that I am grateful."

  If it will make my departure from the world of the living a little easier for you, just remember this, Mom: I love you dearly and warmly, and there was never a moment when I didn't feel that way. I was always grateful and proud that you were my mom.

  Your son,

  Will

  I never had to have this letter mailed, although there were plenty of times when I thought I would have to.

  I realized that I had not recognized my mother's understanding of what was taking place when I heard that she had joined a contingent of mothers who proudly marched up Fifth Avenue in New York City in a May Day parade. She walked behind a banner that read, "Support our sons who are fighting in the Lincoln-Washington Battalion, trying to keep Spain free."

  Chapter I: The Lonesome Ride Home

  The trip back to San Francisco from New York was not too exciting. The Veteran's Committee had made some sort of deal with the American Bus Lines that ran to most major towns and cities. In my case the fare from New York to San Francisco was $35. This also included a breakfast valued at 25 cents, a lunch at 35 cents and a dinner valued at 45 cents. The trip took five days and five nights.

  I sat next to a woman as we left the Chicago area. We got to talking. I told her I had been in Spain for the past year and a half fighting against Franco as a member of the Spanish People's Army. "My," she blurted out, "why are you riding a bus with all the money you made as a mercenary?"

  If she was representative of the thinking of the American people, then I knew I had a tough job ahead of me trying to explain my presence in Spain.

  I was lucky upon my return to San Francisco. Some people were waiting for me at the depot. I stayed with a Swedish longshoremen and his wife. For the next two weeks I was well-fed and rested and gained back some of the 23 pounds I had lost in Spain. While I was fattening up I checked with my union, the Marine's Firemen's Union, about shipping out. I had not paid any dues during my absence. Dues were $75, a large sum in those days. I was given a shipping card with permission to make a trip and pay off the debt on my first voyage.

  I had heard a rumor that one of our veterans, Stanley Postek, could not be processed to leave Spain when most of the Internationals did because of his wounds. He had to go across the Pyrenees into France and ended up in a French concentration camp. He was able to escape with the help of some French Communists and was now hiding out in the seaport town of Marseilles, trying to stow away on an American ship for the United States.

  Stanley was one of the young organizers that had been attracted to organize seaman into the Marine Workers Industrial Union. Most of his work had been done in and around New Orleans and Gulf ports. He was also an aspiring boxer and fought his way pretty high up in the ranks of the heavyweights. In fact, just a few months before he took off for Spain he had achieved the title of heavyweight champ of the Pacific Coast. He gave up his boxing career and set out to join the Lincoln Brigade in Spain.

  I recall the morning that he caught up with our company. We were stationed not too far from the Rio Ebro. Our outfit was in a preparedness position and spending a lot of time training for the assault we were soon to make across the Ebro. Our ranks needed some reinforcements. In fact, we needed more than that. We needed food and a change of clothing. We needed tobacco and letters from home. The truth was, things were going badly for our side. Franco and his generals were winning more and more territory and with that the food supply. We were hungry and many things pissed us off which, if we had been well fed, would not have bothered us.

  Here we were on a hot day, no idea of what tomorrow would bring, when we noticed far off down the road a truck approaching. A food truck, we hoped, since this was the way food was brought to us, in barrels aboard an open truck. It was also the way new men and replacements were brought to our battalion. We were in luck. It was our food truck and holding onto the side panels were several replacements. Among them were two that I recognized immediately, Archie Brown from San Francisco and Stanley Postek. Of course there were handshakes and hugs and greetings. Among the ranks of the vets we had a few characters who loved the excitement of making any newcomer feel that he was finding himself among a pack of weirdos. One such character was Johnnie Coons, a sailor from the West Coast. He started to sing a World War I song; I think it was called "I Want to Go Home" and one of its passages was "The bullets do whistle, the cannons they roar. I don't want to go to the front anymore. Ma, Ma, I'm too young to die. I want to go home." When our new arrivals heard this they looked at each other in disbelief. Archie seemed completely flabbergasted, but Stanley quickly sensed that it was all seamen's humor, that we were not brought over by the enemy.

  About a week before we were assigned to go into action by recrossing the Ebro and routing the fascists on several fronts, something happened to Stanley and he ended up in the hospital. After a week of chasing the fascists back toward their home base of Salamanca, we found ourselves relieving the Lister Battalion atop Hill 666 in the Sierra Pandols. Hill 666 was a high spot atop a mean, rugged, arid, rocky ridge that overlooked the main entranc
e toward the city of Gandesa, which we had our sights on. It was on this mountain ridge that the fascists had dug in when they learned that the republicans had forded the Ebro. Their positions were immensely fortified, making it almost impossible for us to move them one foot, forcing us to become exposed. While we could see our objective, Gandesa, in the distance, there was no way we could get near it, let alone capture it, unless we broke through the lines atop this mountain.

  Each hour that passed made this possibility less realistic. One day the fascists mounted an artillery barrage against us; it lasted from daybreak until seven o'clock that evening. At least one shell a minute hit the ridge we were on.

  Perhaps it was the shape of the mountain ridge or indecisive aiming, but the attack did not do the damage the enemy expected. A few of our men were killed, some wounded. But we managed to maintain our positions and not cede one foot.

  Many of the shells lobbed at us would slap the rocky ridge of the mountain, then ricochet to the rear of our position where they either exploded or spent themselves. It was one such shell that bounced off our position, then whirled itself down through the valley at our rear which connected with the road that carried our supplies to the front. As luck would have it that day, Stanley was once again riding to the front in a food truck. He had just come out of the hospital. With one hand on the truck's side panel and the other hand holding onto the food barrel, Stanley was expecting to join his comrades in the next few minutes. As the truck rounded the bend in the road, the ricocheting shell landed on the cab of the truck. It killed the driver and his helper immediately. The blast of the shell demolished the truck as well as blowing Stanley high in the air, slamming him against the mountainside some 30 feet away. He was picked up by the medics, bleeding and unconscious, and rushed back across the Ebro to the nearest hospital. His arm was smashed and the blast of the shell played havoc with other parts of his body, too.

  I decided to rescue him. With this mission in mind, I joined the SS President Monroe, an American President Lines ship, for a trip around the world. One of her main ports in the Mediterranean would be Marseilles, where I expected to locate Stanley and stow him away. When we pulled into the dock, my eyes were trying to search him out. I spent a good part of the day looking for him, and it was only when I checked with some longshore members of the Communist Party that I learned that "the tall American with the wound in his arm" was safely stowed on board an American vessel bound for New York. I felt relieved that he was safe. As our vessel moved on down the Mediterranean, we passed the coastline of Spain. The war was still raging. While Barcelona and many other principal cities had fallen, Madrid was still holding out. Our radios were picking up broadcasts from both sides. The Madrid radio exhorted the republicans to continue the fight, while the fascist Franco stations were telling the people to throw down their guns and give up. It was sad. Very sad.

  Chapter II: Go East

  The smell of war seemed to dominate the air. More military-clad men and women were appearing on the streets in our city. It appeared to be just a matter of time before we would be up to our ears in it. Still, America seemed to be aloof from it.

  Nominations for officers in the Firemen's Union were the topic on the waterfront. At a meeting of a small group of our Party members, it was decided that I should run for Port Agent of the New York branch. I would sooner have made a bid for Honolulu port agent, but Honolulu already had a halfway-decent guy there who was planning to run. For the New York position, a half-assed reactionary character was running for reelection. The complaint about him from the rank and file was that he was not paying attention to the job; he spent most of his time redbaiting anything and everything while conditions went down the drain. Yet, this guy had some qualities that some of the rank and file liked. I would have to work hard to beat him.

  I was considered strong among West Coast firemen, but there were lots of men sailing out of the New York branch that needed to be contacted and won over. "Go east," I was told, "and campaign back there."

  I joined the Columbian, an American Hawaiian Line freighter on the intercoastal trade, as an oiler. I quit the ship in New York. It was my responsibility to visit or make contact with any West Coast ships that came into any East Coast port while balloting was in progress. That meant, of course, dashing up to Boston or down to Philadelphia or across to Newark or to any little nook and corner a Marine Firemen's Union contracted ship might pull into.

  Boarding a ship, I generally tried to catch the men at the messroom table when they were all together. I'd introduce myself, say a few words about what I was running for and my intentions when elected. In most cases I would run into some shipmate I had sailed with. That always made the job easier, since the crew member picked up the gauntlet and gave the crew the assurance that they were about to vote for the right man.

  Our membership used the "Australian system" for voting a ballot handed each member with two envelopes, one blank. The voter was to mark the ballot, put it in the blank envelope, and place it in the other stamped envelope which carried the address and vault number of the bank. After a six or seven week period of voting, long enough to make sure that all the membership had a chance to vote, the ballots would be counted and the winners declared.

  I decided to stay around New York until the ballots were counted. If I won, then I was right there for the job. If I lost I would grab a ship back to San Francisco and resume shipping off the West Coast.

  One of the first things I did when I arrived in New York was contact my mother. Since my main purpose in New York was to visit ships and meet union members, requiring my being up late at night and on the move, I decided it would be best to find a furnished room where I would not be burdensome to my mom. I found one on the East Side. I promised Mom that I would drop in to see her as often as possible.

  She lived in an old three-story tenement house on 11th Avenue and the corner of 24th Street. From her front window she could see the 23rd Street ferry slip and a few piers on the West Side. Her's was the only house of its kind in that area; many of the tenement houses had been razed years before to make room for industrial enterprises like one-story mechanic shops, a dairy delivery substation, a restaurant and a small service station. On the ground floor was a firm that specialized in valves of all kinds for small water craft and home plumbing. She lived in a two-room flat just above the valve shop. There was a long flight of stairs to get to her floor from the street. At the top of her stairs was a door that opened to a passageway that separated the rear flat from the front one. This door had a stained-glass panel where one could detect someone on the other side of it without making out who it was.

  I came up the stairs one day and knocked on the glass-paneled door. I knocked and knocked some more, maybe four or five times. Getting no response, I called out to her loudly enough for her to hear me even if she was in another room. I detected some activity and finally her form emerged at the door. When she was assured that it was me, she unlocked the door. When it opened I could see tears in her eyes and fear in her face. "Son," she blurted out, "who did you kill? The FBI has been here looking for you and they said they'll be back to get you and they'll break down the door if necessary." She then dropped to the floor in a faint. I picked her up and carried her into the house, set her down on the bed, then dashed to the sink for water. A wet towel to her face and a sip of water brought her around.

  Slowly I coaxed the story out of her, asking her on several occasions to backtrack for more details. She had heard a knock. While getting ready to answer it, she heard it repeated, this time louder and more rapid, becoming a banging which instilled her with fear since she thought it may have been some drunk who wandered up the stairs.

  "Who is it?" she asked.

  "It's the FBI. I'm looking for Bill Bailey and you better open this door."

  Now my mother became more excited, afraid, nervous.

  "What do you want with my son?" she asked.

  "Never mind what we want him for. Where is he?"

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sp; "I don't know where he is."

  "Yes you do. We know you know where he is. You better tell us. Now open this door so we can have a look."

  "No, I won't," she replied. "I don't open my door for anyone."

  "Lady, I'm gonna come back here tomorrow looking for him and you better produce him. If you don't open the door then, we'll put the axe to it."

  She cooled down after assurance that I had done nothing wrong, especially anything that would require the FBI to be on my tail. I tried to hide my rage over what had happened. I excused myself and said I was going out for a pack of cigarettes and would be back a little later.

  Out in the street I raced for the phone. When I reached the operator at FBI headquarters I said, "Lady, I want you to get this down pat. My name is Bill Bailey, spelled B-A-I-L-E-Y, and I want to tell you now, loud and clear, that if you ever again send an FBI man around to my mother's house and get her so unraveled and nervous, I promise you I'll put a hatchet into the skull of the dumb bastard you sent around. I will not stand by and see anyone upset my mother. Do I make myself clear?"

  The operator was beside herself. "Sir, Mr. Bailey, please stay on the line. Easy, Mr. Bailey." I could hear the clicking of lines and a male voice came on. "Yes, Mr. Bailey, this is Agent Morgan. Now, what is it that's getting you all excited?"

  I repeated what I had told the operator, this time slightly more excited than before. I even promised to take commit mayhem on not just one agent, but two if two should be sent. I was assured that the FBI had not sent anyone out looking for me, and they added that it was never their intention, now or ever, to harass an old woman. However, they did tell me they were anxious to find out what really happened. They proposed that I take a cab at their expense and ride downtown to their headquarters to explain once again, while they "checked other sources."