The animals had vanished, and the birds had ducked into secure places. The trees cracked and shivered, and the war against animals had almost started once more on the reservation. The sound echoed in the cold shadows, bounced on the boughs of snow, and the deviant sound of the explosion tormented my brother that night in the cabin. That single sound of a gunshot reminded us of the war, and we decided we could never again live as hunters. We could never declare war on animals. The fur trade wars had decimated animals and weakened native totems. We could never overcome by stories the miserable memories of war, and endure the tormented visions of bloody animals.
Aloysius started to paint and carve blue ravens. I wrote stories about the fur trade war against totems and animals, but we could not survive on native art and stories. The obvious choice that winter was to either hunt or perish, but we decided to resist the actual traditions of the hunter.
Misaabe invited us to supper many times, and he was worried about our torment, but not our resistance. We learned that even the most original and ironic stories alone could not overcome the bloody scenes of hunters. Naturally, we could not continue to depend on his generosity. So, one early morning we ran with the mongrels near the lake, packed our bundles in the afternoon, and returned to live with our parents for a few weeks.
› 20 ‹
ORPHEUM THEATRE
— — — — — — — 1920 — — — — — — —
Patch Zhimaaganish had been invited to audition as a singer and trumpet player for the vaudeville orchestra at the Orpheum Theatre in Minneapolis. Baron Davidson, a friend and fellow bugle player from the First Pioneer Infantry, had arranged the audition. Baron worked on the stage crew at the theater.
Aloysius was ready to paint again, but he was determined to live in a city. He wanted to meet with other artists, and encounter a new world of chance. I continued to write about our tricky memories of the war, and mostly about our experiences as veterans. Wary of native traditions, the vengeance of nature, and politics of federal dominion, we decided that first cold week of January to leave the reservation and search for work in Minneapolis.
Patch had waited five months for the Soo Line Railroad to consider his application for a position as an assistant conductor. So, our decision to leave the reservation encouraged our friend to accept the invitation to try out as a singer and trumpet player. Patch was admired as a soldier and good citizen, and the station agent was bothered that the company had not yet hired our friend.
Aloysius wondered how difficult it would be to play a musical instrument. He was moved by the sound of the saxophone, but we quickly dismissed his speculation, and with the reminder that he was recognized as a brilliant painter not a musician. The generous station agent gave us, three veterans of the war, free tickets on the train to Minneapolis. Naturally, he was worried that we would never return to the reservation.
The train pulled into the Ogema Station on time that morning. We quickly boarded, turned, and saluted the station agent. Twelve years earlier we had hawked the Tomahawk to the passengers on the very same train.
I had written ahead to reserve a large room with three beds at the Waverly Hotel near the Minneapolis Public Library. Augustus had been a close friend of the manager, and we stayed at the same residence hotel ten years earlier when we visited the city for the first time.
No one was surprised, not even our parents, when we decided to leave because veterans could not find work on the reservation or in nearby small towns. Many native families bought war bonds, but the money was never used for native veterans. The Liberty Bonds were issued in several series that earned three to four percent, but bonds were not redeemable for at least ten years.
The reservation had changed since the war, of course, and the arguments were more about machines than any sense of native presence. Native veterans and others were moving almost every day to find work in cities. Since the war the reservation had been taken over by motor cars. The new politicians had no sense of tradition, and no sense of chance, memorable stories, or irony. Yes, we had returned to the mere echo of native traditions, and, for my brother and me, the reservation would never be enough to cope with the world or to envision the new and wild cosmopolitan world of exotic art, literature, music, and vaudeville at the Orpheum Theatre.
Augustus had been sharply critical of the pretenders, native and otherwise, and exposed the scoundrels in the Tomahawk, but since the death of our uncle the federal bunko boys have dominated the politics of the reservation. We honored the traditional elders, the healers, and the natives who celebrated totems, and told stories of presence, but the reservation was overrun with invaders, pretenders, patchwork shamans, and timber grifters.
Patch had never visited Minneapolis. His only experience was between trains to and from the war. We arrived early on a cold and sunny afternoon, and walked directly to the Waverly Hotel. Pickel, the manager, that was his last name, remembered us from ten years earlier. He commented on our brave service in the infantry, and then he talked about the war, the struggle of veterans, especially native veterans, and after two years continued to mourn the sudden death of our uncle and his good friend, Augustus. Pickel, my uncle told me, had been abandoned as a child, and then adopted, but he had no connections or memory of his blood relatives on the White Earth Reservation.
Aloysius steered us directly to the nearby Minneapolis Public Library. Gratia Alta Countryman, the head librarian, invited us to her office with the curved windows, and we teased her about the first time we visited and she served cookies to the children. Gratia was delighted to meet us again, and praised our courage as soldiers.
Patch carried his trumpet and naturally that became a cue to discuss our combat service in France and the occupation of Koblenz, Germany. Gratia was deeply moved by the number of soldiers who had been killed in the war, and those who had returned wounded and disabled. She had organized special programs for veterans at several libraries in the city. Patch, she insisted, must play military taps in the main reading room of the library. Many veterans who could not find work gathered for the day in the library.
Patch stood at attention and played taps that afternoon, and each new note on his trumpet was more poignant than the last. I was moved by the emotive sound, and the music delivered me back to the pride and courage of my military service. When taps ended, the librarian was in tears, and many veterans stood at attention near the reading tables and saluted our good friend. That was a memorable moment, and the best way to start our search for work in the city.
Aloysius was told that the Minneapolis School of Arts had moved five years earlier from the Minneapolis Public Library to the new Julia Morrison Memorial Building on Stevens Avenue South. My brother was determined to meet once more the artist Yamada Baske, or Fukawa Jin Basuke, who had praised his blue ravens and suggested a trace of rouge in each portrayal.
Patch had an audition scheduled late that afternoon with the manager of the Orpheum Theatre. The holiday decorations, strings of colored lights, giant imitation bells, and bright stars over the streetcar tracks had not been removed on Hennepin Avenue. We walked three blocks, turned right and there, across the street from the Hotel Majestic, was the Orpheum Theatre. The enormous marquee covered the entire sidewalk at the entrance on Seventh Street.
Baron Davidson met us at the door, and we followed him into the theater. The huge auditorium was marvelous, and my brother once again heard murmurs and the hushed voices of actors on stage. We sat in the balcony and imagined the whispers, sighs, titters, and cackles of the audience.
Baron introduced us to G. E. Raymond, the resident manager of the Orpheum Theatre, a stern, stout man with a vest and watch chain, in his office above the marquee. Patch was not prepared for a sudden audition, but he was directed to play both classical and popular music then and there. He did so, and after the third trumpet recital the manager declared that he was hired to play in the orchestra, and would be paid for twenty hours a week. The manager explained that the orchestra provided the m
usic for circuit vaudeville shows, two performances a day and every day of the week. That would have been about thirty hours a week, but the manager contended that musicians never play every hour of the performances.
We learned later that the unions had protested the policy but were not able to change the pay or hours for temporary musicians and stagehands. We were introduced that afternoon to the rough politics of the theater. A new Orpheum Theatre was under construction at the time on Hennepin Avenue near the Minneapolis Public Library.
Baron was a veteran and lucky to have a good but temporary job with the stage crew. Naturally, we inquired about work at the theater, and he promised to let us know if there were any vacant positions there. Aloysius had started to paint again, but he was eager to become a stagehand with me. We could not wait, of course, and had to find work immediately.
Patch was curious about the initials AOUW on the three-story stone building next to the Orpheum Theatre. The Ancient Order of United Workman, we learned later, was the name of an organization that supported the interests of labor, employers, and owners. That seemed to be the perfect place to find work.
The Taylor and Watson wallpaper store on the ground floor displayed original patterns in the window, but the sales clerk was not familiar with either the owner of the building or the Ancient Order.
The F. J. Willimann Art Store next door to the theater exhibited formal styles of landscape scenes, but the manager was not interested in our questions about employment. He sold art but would never consider an amateur artist or veterans as employees.
Hennepin Avenue was lively late that afternoon. The sun had almost set and the decorative street lamps, five globes on a single post, were lighted along the street. Dryers Bowling and Billiards was smoky, busy, and noisy. The players shouted over the crash of pins in the alleys, and teased each other over the steady crack of billiard balls. The Winter Garden ballroom next door was ready for an evening of dancers.
Patch marveled at the Masonic Temple, and then he reached out with both hands and touched the massive sandstone blocks of the eight-story building. Aloysius studied the windows, and the curved reflections of the streetcars in motion. Black motor cars were parked on both sides of the street, a radical change of transportation from our first visit to the city. I remembered the familiar sound of horse-drawn wagons on the cobblestones, and the police used horses and wagons at the time. Ten years later the same city streets were crowded with new Liberty Taxi Cabs.
The West Hotel on Hennepin and Fifth Street was grand, classy, and luxurious. My brother pointed out the gabled roof and bay windows. The lobby had not changed since our first visit ten years earlier. We sat in the same blue cushy settees. I talked about famous visitors at the hotel, and the blue ravens my brother had painted that summer. The doorman was impressed at the time that our uncle was the editor and publisher of a newspaper. Patch had read stories by Mark Twain, but he had never heard of Winston Churchill, who stayed at the hotel and lectured on “The Boer War” almost twenty years earlier at the Lyceum Theater. The Tomahawk had published a story about Winston Churchill when he was First Lord of the Admiralty.
We crossed the busy streetcar tracks and walked back on the other side of the street. The wind was cold, and we could see the breath of every person on the busy street. Aloysius walked into the Busy Bee, a tailor shop, to have a button sewn on his winter coat. We decided to eat an early supper at the nearby New Grand Lunch. John Leecy had given me twenty dollars to buy our meals for a few days in Minneapolis.
Patch could hardly sleep that night, and he was out early the next morning to meet with Albert Rudd the music director of the Orpheum Theatre Orchestra. Patch told us later at supper that he was hired to play dramatic movie music and concert programs scheduled twice a day, early in the afternoon, and in the evening.
Patch was seated at the back of the orchestra pit at the ready to play his trumpet but the music that night was only background with strings and the piano. We bought cheap twenty-five cent tickets in the balcony and attended the program that evening. The Kinogram newsreels were very interesting, travel and politics, scenes of the United States Capitol in Washington, but the short stage plays were mannered, and the vaudeville impersonators were rather tedious, and not memorable.
Aloysius told the employment director at Dayton’s Dry Goods Company, the giant department store on Nicollet Avenue near the Orpheum Theatre, that he had worked on a farm as a laborer, and as a painter. He did not specify artistic painter, and would have named houses, or at least the Tomahawk newspaper building, but there were no jobs open for veterans or anyone. We were natives from a reservation, needless to say, and much too old to be considered as stock boys.
We visited dozens of companies and inquired about work, any kind of work, but by late that afternoon we were convinced there were no jobs open in the entire city. Actually, there were jobs but we did not understand at the time that no one was hired without some personal connection, association, and recommendation. We learned later that most companies were wary of new employees because of union sympathizers. We had no direct experiences with any unions, but the more we tried to find work the more convinced we became of the need for union representation.
The Allen Motor Car Company on Hennepin Avenue had no job openings. The production and sale of motor cars had declined since the end of the war. Wyman and Partridge, a wholesale dry goods company on Fourth Street and First Avenue North, would consider occasional laborers, but only with local references.
The owner of Pioneer Printers on South Sixth Street supported veterans and was impressed that we had worked for the Tomahawk, but he needed experienced typesetters.
The Wonderland Theatre was a serious and ironic introduction to the struggles of unions and the political power of employers in the city. The theater was a narrow building at 27 South Washington Avenue, near the train stations and Gateway Park. The employment director at Dayton’s Dry Goods Company suggested that we might find work at the theater. The director was being deceptive because the only work there was on the union picket line, an ironic reversal, but we were ready to consider anything.
The Wonderland Theatre had been picketed by the Motion Picture Machine Operators Union for more than three years. We could not understand at the time why anyone would protest for so many years against a small theater. The banners carried by the picketers declared in giant words, “This Theatre Unfair to Organized Labor.” We decided not to enter the theater, of course, and instead walked with the picketers and listened to the union stories. The wind was cold so we warmed our hands over a fire in a barrel and talked about the war. Some of the picketers were veterans. They were paid by the union and had never been employed at the theater.
John Campbell, the owner of the Wonderland Theatre, decided to run the movies himself and laid off two motion picture operators to save money. The theater actually lost money because of the daily picketers. I learned later that the owner of the theater had been paid to stay in business by the Minneapolis Citizen’s Alliance, a group of business owners and employers who strongly opposed the unions.
Aloysius carried a union banner for an hour in front of the theater that cold afternoon. No doubt there were private spies there to report on the picketers. We ate lunch at a local cafeteria with several picketers, and then returned to the hotel to search the classified sections of the Minneapolis Journal and the Minneapolis Times. That was a total waste of time because the only jobs listed were for technicians and union trades.
Jews, natives, newcomers, veterans, and socialists were hardly ever hired without connections in the city. We needed the union to find a job, but the economy had weakened, and there was a recession at the end of the war. Production, wages, and work hours were down, too many veterans were looking for work, and labor unions had lost their power. The end of the war was not a good time to look for work.
I read three books of The Odyssey that night at the hotel, and a selection from book fourteen was a particularly relevant metaphor. T
hese men hatched a plot against me that would have reduced me to the very extreme of misery, for when the ship had got some way out from land they resolved on selling me as a slave.
The next day we tried to find work as temporary laborers in produce, dry goods, and other companies near Washington Avenue and Hennepin. Jews owned most of the business in the area, and the merchandise was customary. We talked to the managers and owners of warehouses, and businesses that sold clothing, leather goods, and supplies for lumberjacks. We were immediately hired for two hours to unload bundles of leather, and later the owner of a scrap metal company near the river paid us a flat rate to move and stack used pipes. That was hard work, and very cold. My hands were frozen. The owner invited us to the company shack, and we warmed our hands over the kerosene stove.
Jacob Schwartz was curious about our family and how natives lived on the reservation. We told him about our father who was a lumberjack, about the federal agent, and the newspaper published by our uncle. He was interested in our experiences, and compared our family to his own before the war in the German Empire. The Jews under the emperor encountered a double burden of discrimination during the First World War. Germany was an enemy name only six months earlier, but hardly relevant because the Schwartz family had escaped the empire wars and emigrated first to New York City, and then to Minneapolis.
The Schwartz family had lived in the city for more than twenty years. Jacob could not find a job after high school, so he continued his studies and graduated from the university but still could not find a job. He continued in the scrap metal business that his father had established as an immigrant. He paid us for our time and told us to return in a few days for two or three more hours of work.
Later that week we were hired as temporary stagehands at the Orpheum Theatre. Patch had impressed the music director and the resident manager with his great baritone voice, and we were hired for the season. Patch sang La Marseillaise at every performance and the audience cheered and applauded wildly. Aloysius was so excited that he painted an enormous blue raven at the entrance to the theater. I was reassured to see my brother paint again, and we were both delighted to work in the sentimental murmurs and traditions of the theater.
Blue Ravens: Historical Novel Page 24