A Summer’s Tale

In Hollywood too, evidence of life is everywhere. Two-legged mammals jam the streets and all around them rise their strange constructions.

George Gaylord Simpson

It was Summer, 1965, and people were wondering if LBJ should have sent troops to the Dominican Republic and what the hell was the matter with the Yankees.

I was using one of the pay toilets at the old L.A. Greyhound depot at 6th and Los Angeles. The paper on the roller was all used up and, as I reached for the spare roll, I knocked it over into the next stall. Then, from the stall, came a large, hairy hand, with a big scar near the wrist. The roll was clutched firmly between a thumb and two extraordinarily long and bumpy fingers.

The Hand put the paper down on the floor of my stall. “Thank you very much, sir,” I responded gratefully. “Mind if I take a look at that bag, son?” the Hand said. “Sure,” I replied, slipping him my green Navy bag that my Dad used in the Pacific during the War. The Hand took it, kept it a couple of seconds, then put it back. “Do you like hunting?” the Hand asked, changing the subject for apparently no reason. “Yessir,” I answered. The Hand said if he had time he’d have told me about his safari in Kenya, but the bus was leaving in five minutes and it was nice to have met me.

I was going to invent a huge cake with tons of yeast, which would get larger with every piece you cut off, so everybody could have their cake and eat it, too.

And I was actually going away. I must have waited a whole year for it but, right then, I was really depressed. If you could have seen it around my place last night you’d know what I mean. Everybody thought I’d never come back. Nobody came right out and said it, but my oldest sister, Jeannie, kept telling me how sad my hat looked. It was muddy grey with a chewed-up black band with two silver buckles and a grey and red feather on the side. I found it on the sidewalk near Main Street. It was a nice hat, which I wore all the time. I told Jeannie I wouldn’t take it if it made her depressed to think of me in it, but she said it would be even worse if I left it around the house — so I sailed it into the Navy bag.

My kid sister, Feeb, kept asking me to take her down to the pet shop to get her another bunny rabbit. We had one named “Ism,” but one night he crept out of the cage Feeb had made for him and got run over. Afterwards, I promised to take her down to the pet shop and get another one just like “Ism.” I wanted to, but never got around to it. It gives you a bad feeling, leaving without doing something you really wanted to do.

By sundown, I was in Phoenix. I went into a market which had a huge, stuffed brown bear in the fruit section. Underneath the bear, in red letters, was written, “Davie Crockett shot at this bear.” I asked the clerk if Davie really shot at him. “I dunno, man, maybe,” he said. “What do you mean? Did he hit it, did it die of old age, or what? I thought Crockett never got west of the Alamo.” He was hard pressed. “Man, I told you, I just work here. If you really wanta know, come back Monday and see the manager.”

After leaving the market, I came across a Little League game. I was the only spectator afoot; the park was laid out so people could park their cars along the baselines. So everybody just stayed in their cars and watched. The Blues were winning 3-2 in the bottom of the sixth, so I went over and sat in the section where all the Reds’ cars were. I’ve always rooted for the underdogs even though, when you stop to think, they’re probably underdogs because, when they were younger, they were lazy and didn’t practice hard enough. But I still root for them.

When the Reds came in for their last ups, I asked old #13, this freckly-faced kid with short curly hair, if anybody good was coming up. He said, “Yeah, everybody except me.” I told him he was going to get a hit. With two strikes on him, and two outs, he managed to hit this measly ground ball. But it somehow went through the infield and drove in the tying run. It was nice watching him break out into this wide grin out there on first base.

Anyway, when the game went into extra innings, things began to get pretty tense — particularly when an argument broke out between the umpire and a lady in a ’63 Impala over whether one of the Blue baserunners should take one base or two on an overthrow. Then the managers got into it and almost came to blows. Most of the kids tried to get them to quit fighting and get the game going again, but you could tell that this was now a matter of PRINCIPLE for them, and far more important than getting some crummy baseball game started again. The fight between the managers never ended, so I headed into town.

It was now pitch-dark, and the thousands of women — housewives, grandmothers, bobby-soxers and teenagers who, only a few hours ago had ruled the streets with their mad scampering between Mary Jane Shoes, Parklane Hosiery, and L&N Handbags — had disappeared. Saturday night. I think no matter how old you get, you never feel quite right unless you’ve got a date or are invited to one of those parties. You could be a hundred years old and STILL think something’s the matter if you weren’t doing something. Right then, I wouldn’t have minded being with somebody myself. In fact, I would have given a million bucks to be with somebody that’s nice and has a soft voice and doesn’t give you a lot of crap. If only Jeannie or Feeb were here.

On the main drag, thousands of high school guys were cruising up and down in their bad ’chines trying to pick up, or at least yell something stupid, to every woman in sight. One even tried to pick up this mannikin in a department store window. I walked into the tail end of MR. MOSES, and I suddenly wanted to lead people somewhere, sometime, to something. The world had better do something about me soon, because I’m dangerous.

Well, it was a sad evening. There are lots of times when you go to bed thinking the world’s going to hell, but that night I’d have sworn we’d already made it. I hopped on the bus and headed for Oklahoma.

On My Honor, I Will Do My Best,
To Do My Duty To God and My Country.
(what if these duties don’t coincide?)
To Be Square,
(what if there are too many squares already?)
And to Obey the Law of the Pack.
(obey some laws designed for 8-year-olds?)

The Cub Scout Oath
(as challenged by Nyle Frank)

The sun comes out early when you’re rolling along the wide open spaces, and I could make out the instructions plastered above the front window of the bus about not talking to the driver or smoking in the front seats. To the left of these were the words, “Mr. Dinelli” and, underneath, “Safe, reliable, courteous” and, next to that, the mirror where you got a good shot of Mr. Dinelli. It looked like Mr. Dinelli had a rough night.

You adjust all the levers on the seats. You can’t really get comfortable, but, at this hour, at least it’s something to do. Others had tried, sticking their grubby shoes all over the white vinyl seats — almost completely blotting out the “Step Down To Aisle.” I thought about asking Greyhound if, until they could get somebody to clean their seats, they’d like to hire a “Step-Down-To-Aislist.” I’d sit way in the back, in a white dinner jacket, and yell “Step-Down-To-Aisle” every time somebody started to get up from his seat.

At Amarillo, an old auto mechanic boarded the bus and sat beside me. He complained that nobody did an honest day’s work nowadays. At the shop he worked in, he was instructed to always put in all new bearings. The old ones were intentionally nicked, then sent to Detroit to collect money under the company’s warranty. The customer was charged as well. I asked him what percent of the people he worked with were honest. “Not many,” he said. “About ten per cent?” “You’re an optimist, son,” he replied.

That night, I dreamt I was in my white dinner jacket, the Step-Down-To-Aislist in the back of a huge bus taking a bunch of kids into town for the Saturday matinee. In the front of the bus, however, was another guy in a BLACK dinner jacket with a couple of dozen six-packs of beer hanging from his arms, legs, and button-holes. When a kid got up to go to the john, I’d yell, “Step-Down-To-Aisle!” But when they’d come out, the guy in the black dinner jacket would say, “Step-Up-To-Schlitz,” and pass out a free beer. With the whole bunch stinking drunk and marching off to johns faster than I could keep up, I was furious. When we arrived at the next town, I sent in my letter of resignation to Greyhound, noting that every time you try to do something constructive, there’s always somebody on the other side cancelling you out.

Contradictions do not exist. Whenever you think that you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong.

Ayn Rand

On the bus for Fort Smith, I sat next to a guy wearing a Ventura College sweatshirt. He said he doesn’t sleep because he doesn’t trust his roommate, called every town we passed “Tooleyville,” and bragged about all the “honeys” he’d just laid — “proving” it by pulling out his used rubbers. “In summer, I’m like a dog in heat,” he said.

I said good-bye to Ventura at Fort Smith, and began hiking my way up to Fayetteville. I was picked up by these Gospel singers who said they’d each given their lives to Jesus when they were eleven. They cautioned me to quit being confused and accept the Lamb. I told them I hoped eventually to find myself, but they said that life has no guarantees and, when St. Peter calls, I’d better be ready.

It was late at night when I arrived at the Ozarks. While I was walking along the main drag of Springdale, looking for a place to stay, a white police car crept up behind me. The officers got out and asked me what I’d been doing. “Oh . . . ah . . . nothing really . . . thought I’d come up here and see if I couldn’t get a job. Perhaps pick a few beans, you know. Just looking for a place to stay for tonight.” “Well, Mr. Frank,” they said, “we’ll tell you what. Since you pretty much match the description of a guy wanted for Grand Theft Auto, we’ll let you sleep down in the station tonight.” I told them they didn’t have to, but they insisted. Hospitable guys, those Arkansas police.

Down at the station, my bag and everything in my pockets was confiscated, and I was thrown into what they call the bullpen. It was a greenish room with about twenty bunks and fifteen grubby-looking guys on cots. All were silent, but none sleeping. In fact, I noticed they were looking at me with beady eyes — as if waiting a long time for some young blood.

I tried to get some sleep, but the lights were on and all the stuffing had fallen out of the mattresses. I really didn’t feel much like sleeping anyway. Once those iron gates close on you, you just don’t KNOW they’ll ever open. I’d asked the jailer to be sure and have my toothbrush sent in. When nobody came with it, I thought they’d forgotten I was there.

Finally, the gates opened and a deep voice boomed, “NYLE FRANK.” I stormed out, shouting, “Sure am glad to get out of THERE!” “It’s only for a little while,” they replied. They took me into a side room and questioned me for half an hour. One officer knew a guy I used to play baseball with back in California, so they decided I was OK and drove me to a nearby hotel.

Men, consciously . . . have rushed headlong to meet peril and danger, compelled to this course by nobody and nothing, but, as it were, simply disliking the beaten track, and have obstinately, willfully, struck out another difficult, absurd way, seeking it almost in the darkness.

Fyodor Dostovesky

In the hills of Eureka Springs, I met the inscrutable L. D. Galley. He was wearing an off-white sun visor and hearing aid whose cord ran along the side of his neck — into one of the pockets of his olive Eisenhower jacket. In fact, when he smiled, his mouth would turn up in a way that made him resemble the great general himself. He said he’d published quite a few songs in his day for Jimmie Rodgers and had also written the world’s best autobiography. I asked him if he had a copy nearby. “Sure, right here in my head!” he exclaimed. He proceeded to recite the entire work. When he found out I was Jewish, he asked me if I couldn’t get one of those rich Jew publishers to do something with it when I got to New York. I told him I’d try to use my pull. As I was about to leave, he called me back. “Just two things to remember, son,” he said. “First of all, the Four Horses of Apocalypse are the four races of the earth — pale, red, black, and white — and should always be kept separate. And remember, never copulate while your wife’s pregnant, or your baby will hate you its whole life for pounding it on the head!”

Living substance at the time of its coming to life was torn apart into small particles, which ever since have endeavored to reunite through sexual instincts.

Plato’s “Fantastic Hypothesis”

Wearing my black and white striped sox, I went down to Foster’s Morgue and landed a job as a janitor, and, in the evening, went on a hayride with a waitress at McBride’s restaurant named Cynthia. The Ozarks stood still and pretty as we moved slowly through them to a place called Beaver Dam. We gathered firewood and began roasting weanies to the sounds of two vibrasonic Pontiac radios. The ride home was something you just sit and dream about for years — Cynthia and I really hit it off. After the hayride, we went up to the local Dairy Queen for catfish sandwiches. Cynthia’s tartar sauce drooped down over the sides when she bit into it. After each bite, she stuck out her tongue and lapped up the sauce around the sides and then inspected it to make sure she hadn’t missed any. Every time I think of her, she’s eating catfish sandwiches. She said she’d meet me at five tomorrow by the biggest of the sixty-three springs in town, and I slowly and dreamily walked back to my room.

I just sat around the next day, waiting for five to come. It was raining, and I grabbed my hat and coat and made my way down to the spring. I arrived fifteen minutes early but, as soon as I got there, I knew she wasn’t going to show. I waited a half hour and called her house. Her Mom said that Cynthia was at her girlfriend’s — her boyfriend was out of town and wouldn’t like Cynthia even TALKING to another guy while he was away.

Very funny. I’d been turned down for about the zillionth time. But each time it stings and you never get used to it. I felt like a real ass. Suddenly, though, I thought about an old lady I met a few years ago marching for nuclear disarmament. She said, “Everybody out here — in fact, everybody with true feeling for people — has been hurt, and hurt deeply, at some time during their lives.” I know she wasn’t referring to getting turned down by some stupid blond, but I still felt a little better. Sometimes, though, I wonder how she knew everybody out there had been hurt deeply?

Well, here I was with a whole night and nothing to do. I’d told everybody about my big date, and would feel funny hanging around. How big a date can you pretend to have had in forty-five minutes? Besides, I didn’t want to worry about running into Cynthia. Also, it had just rained and, for some reason, the whole town smelled like Clorox.

So I decided to take in the Rodeo of the Ozarks back in Springdale, but the guy who drove me out there said it was phony — there weren’t any cowboys in the Ozarks. They had to import them from Texas. He talked me into going back into Eureka Springs. But I decided to leave the next morning. I’d worn out my stay here. It’s funny how you can tell without anybody having to say anything to you.

When You Get Married; And Get Divorced;
Come To My Stable; And Marry My Horse.
                                   Good Luck in Junior High —

Gabrielle Chung

Down at the morgue, I told Mr. Foster I’d be leaving for Memphis. Then, as I was on my way to the market to cash his check, Cynthia came running out of McBride’s, right up to me, told me how sorry she was about last night, that she’d heard what her Mom had told me, how she hated her Mom for it, and to come by McBride’s around two if I would!

No doubt about it, I muttered to myself, women are a scheming pack of wolves.

I said I’d be there.

In fact, I hurried down to McBride’s expecting the best. Maybe she’d plead for me to stay just one more lustful night. Maybe she’d be packed and ready to follow wherever I went. Maybe anything!

Maybe nothing. When I entered McBride’s, Cynthia was busy waiting on a bunch of people. We sort of ignored each other, each probably expecting something miraculous to happen before I left, but not knowing exactly what. You just assumed that, like in the movies, everything would turn out OK — except that you forgot that they turned out OK in the movies because the lovers knew exactly the right thing to say beforehand and, if they messed up the lines, they just shot the scene over. Well, to make matters worse, Fernando, this guy I’d met on the hayride, spotted me and sat down next to me. I ordered a big dish of ice cream and ate it at a snail’s pace, in hopes of outlasting Fernando which, sure enough, I did. With Fernando out of the way, Cynthia came over and said, “So you’re really going to Memphis?” “Yip,” I replied — sounding, I’m sure, like a real dude.

Well, you can probably guess what happened next. Silence. Crummy Goddam Absolute Silence. We’d been going at it like parrots on the hayride, but now, when the chips were down — nothing.

After what seemed like an hour or so, I realized it was now or never. So I blurted, “Wanna come with me?” I said it like a big joke, but she knew I meant it.

I’d been turned down for about the zillionth time. But each time it stings and you never get used to it.

Cynthia just stood there and laughed. Then came a real cynical “sure,” and a couple of You-Crazy-Boy-You type pats on the head. Actually, she didn’t pat it so much as merely stick her hand on it, then run it through my hair like she was squeezing oranges. Then a family of about ten entered McBride’s, and Cynthia left to wait on them.

Looking back, I guess that’s all she really could have done, but I didn’t think so then. I just nervously gulped down the rest of the ice cream and, when she took my thirty-five cents, all she said was to be sure and send her a picture of myself and something else about Memphis that I didn’t hear too well.

Memphis. Feeling lonely, walking into dumpy downtown motels looking for a place to stay. No matter how dilapidated, all assured me they were the best around. One guy said, “Besides, you can count on me to turn my head at quite a bit of what you’ll want to do.” “I’ll let you do anything you want, as long as you keep it quiet,” said another.

Picked the old Tennessee Hotel. The girl in the next room had on the local rock ’n’ roll station. Rock ’n’ roll can really get on your nerves if you’re not in the right mood for it — so I was forced to put the palms of my hands flat against my ears — just long and hard enough to get that squeaky sound of ’em, and somehow managed to fall asleep.

Jump into water over your head, level off and swim 45 feet, turn over on your back and rest in floating position for 15 seconds, then swim back to starting point. Do this with an adult who swims well.

Lion Cubscout Handbook

Everybody has goose-pimply experiences, like watching girls with long fingernails scratching on blackboards, or scraping porcelain dishes with your fork in cafeterias, but most don’t come until you’ve walked out the front door. Not today. Right off the bat, while I was squeezing Stripe toothpaste onto my brush, I must have pinched a little too hard. The paste jumped completely over the brush and onto the back of a huge black beetle crawling on the floor. I followed him around awhile to see if he minded, but I think he was rather proud of it. He began heading toward the other beetles, who were now all gathered around him.

Out of Memphis, I got a ride clear to Nashville from the best driver I’d ever seen. You could tell just from watching his eyes. He had a six-year-old daughter named Linda, who had a long brown pony tail and great big smile. As soon as she found out I liked to play with dolls, we became buddies. But we soon had problems. She didn’t like the way I kept waking up her dolls by standing them upright, and then she insisted that I be the grandpa while she and one of her boy dolls be the mommy and daddy. After awhile she confessed she’d only marry somebody rich.

It looked like the kind of place where. . . . you should sit down and plan what to do with your life. . . . I tried. . . .

Saturday evening. Millions of men, women, kids waiting in line for the Grand Ole Opry, even though it’s only seven and the show doesn’t begin until ten. Things are jumping. A policeman chases a little kid through the crowd, and I make my way across the street to call the Blanchettes. I’d become friends with their son, Dwight, when I visited Yale last summer.

When I arrived at the Blanchettes, Dwight was out. Mrs. Blanchette and “Sister” Blanchette tried to entertain me by dragging out the Blanchette Family Albums. The rest of the time I prowled through Dwight’s bookshelves.

Finally Dwight came in, looking almost naked without his mustache. He wasn’t in a very good mood, complaining about his recently-pulled wisdom tooth and the kids up at the University of Kentucky, where he teaches English. They couldn’t care less about anything — school, religion, civil rights, football, or even SEX! I made a note to be sure and visit the University of Kentucky. You can be sure SOMETHING’S going on up there.

Dwight had some visiting to do, so I spent the morning down at Vanderbilt, where I met Jeff, Mike, and the Bearded Sausage. I’d like to tell you we accomplished something, but we spent the whole day in one of these stupid political arguments — the kind where the liberals peel off lines they’d heard from their professors or one of these big intellectuals, while the conservatives swipe theirs from their parents or somebody. Finally, we decided to march down to Colonel Sanders’ for a carton of chicken.

When we opened it up back at Vandy, there were thirteen pieces for the four of us — three apiece and one left over. I HAD to get the last piece. I could actually feel it in my BLOOD. I just sat there watching us each down our three pieces. Then Jeff bit into his fourth. The greedy sonofabitch.

Dwight and I headed for Kentucky on one of the prettiest afternoons I’d ever seen. The sky was very blue and the birds were singing and it was a great trip all the way — except when we climbed one very steep hill in his VW bug. “I should have taken it faster,” Dwight said. In all the commotion, we nearly rammed right into the back of a huge milk truck — but we made it. Dwight was relieved. “I could have seen tomorrow’s headlines, ‘TWO STUDENTS IN VW DROWNED INSIDE MILK TRUCK!’ ”

By four we were at the Trappist Monastery in Gethsemane. We passed a sign reading, “Any women who enter this door will be excommunicated.” These guys don’t mess around! I went into their guest shop and spoke to the man wearing a long black robe. He turned out to the Guest Master, Friar Felix. I told him how much I needed a retreat. He said I could stay as long as I wished, provided I obeyed the Abbey’s two rules: “Silence” and “Alone With God.”

Friar Felix gave me a room on the second floor. There weren’t any locks or long lists of rules. There wasn’t anybody to get permission from when you wanted to take a library book or leave the Abbey. Just complete trust in you merely for being a child of God and nothing asked in return! This was it! I’d really found it!

At dinner, everyone ate and listened to a taped voice describing how heroic were men like Daniel Boone, Abe Lincoln, and the American cowboy — and how the Trappist Monks had the determination, honesty, and solitude of all three. The dinner was also a bit different from the night before. At my table of four, they served twelve meatballs. But, for some reason, each person only took two. I was really impressed, and didn’t even feel like eating my share. Of course, when everybody else left the table, I ate the four remaining meatballs. But just so they wouldn’t go to waste.

I heard the monks sing Vespers, then walked out to a small lake near the Abbey. Except for the mosquitos, it was very serene. It looked like the kind of place where, when you finally get to it, you should sit down and plan what to do with your life — or something very high-minded. I tried, but to tell the truth, I could have sat there forever and nothing would have come. It seemed as if all my knowledge and thoughts had combined, then vanished into thin air — leaving my mind blank as I lay gazing thoughtlessly at the sky. All I could think of for Human Betterment was that, when I grew up, I was going to invent a huge cake with tons of yeast, which would get even larger with every piece you cut off, so everybody could have their cake and eat it, too. And, while walking back to the Abbey, I also thought about inventing a better mosquito repellent.

Five years ago there had still been important differences in the national character, from one state to the next, between the way people lived and felt in various sections of the country. Now I wasn’t so sure.

Clancy Sigal

I’d been in the monastery a whole day and was bored to tears. I told Friar Felix I was leaving, and was out into the world again.

While you’re standing atop the rich, damp Kentucky soil, alongside the road with your right arm pointed towards the blue sky and the wild odors of early summer rushing up your nostrils, you don’t really bother to stop and think how wonderful it is to be alive and free, but I guess you don’t have to, since you just FEEL it all over. And, as I was jumping up to see if I could catch one of the cirrus clouds, an old Ford pick-up screeched to a halt. A red-headed farmer, with a briarwood pipe shoved up between the spaces in his teeth, asked me to get in. He’d just bought a cow, and she was riding with us in the back of the truck. He said she was guaranteed to give four gallons a day, and she’d be squeezed until he got it. He revealed his tactics by using the floor shift — grabbing hold of it from the bottom and slowly working upwards. “Just like on Elsie, except in reverse.”

That night, in Berea, I went looking for a used car to finish the trip. An old art teacher had warned me to watch out for the New Car Smell, which she said they’d now synthesized and were putting in all the used ones. I saw an old Dodge I liked pretty well, but it was $300. So I just sat down right there on the railroad tracks and watched the Louisville & Nashville haul coal up from Harlan County, and thought about all the stuff in my history books about John L. Lewis and the great strikes of the ’30’s and the abandoned tipples and all the hill kids the sociologists say are now in Detroit, Chicago, and Oakland. It would really be great if there was something for them to do around here, so they could come home.

For “A Summer’s Tale (Part Two),” click here.