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"Hill Country"
Chapter
1 of a novel by Claude Hall
Special thanks to Joe Nick Patoski who wrote a letter
mentioning the Hill Country and thus, weirdly,
triggered this novel and to Jay Blackburn who has been
known to frequent the Bluebonnet Cafe and knows about
both buzzards and eagles.
People have been known to go down into the Hill
Country of deep central Texas and never come back out
alive. Oh, they may leave, eventually, some of them
dragged out or boxed out, but they're no longer the
people they used to be. One way or the other. The
air is never quite as fresh or clear again for them
nor as sweet in their lungs and anywhere else there's
always a haze before their eyes--clouds, too--and you
can take it for granted that if they leave the Hill
Country, dead or alive, they'll always long to get
back.
This, of course, is mere fantasy.
Me? Born and raised in Brady, Texas, on the north
edge of the Hill Country. Mason, Junction, Kerrville,
Cherry Spring, Fredericksburg were mythical when I was
a kid. Even though Brady was a pleasant little town
with a picturesque stone courthouse in the square,
those towns scattered down there in the rolling hills
amidst the mesquites, the prickly pear cactus, the
scrub oaks and the live oaks seemed like pictures in a
Sears Roebuck catalog. Dreams. I always thought the
people down there, too, were like an old hound dog.
Comfortable. Friendly. This is also fantasy.
However, I awoke one day in New York City, a concrete
outhouse, and found myself in a job I didn't really
like anymore and maybe never had, living with a wife
who didn't love me, shaking martinis out of my head
from the night before. I had a daughter, a pretty
little thing just stumbling into her teens, but I
don't think she loved me either. Even the family toy
poodle growled at me if I came near.
Friends? Maybe. Maybe not.
When Mystere Adams, that was my wife's name before we
married as well as her professional name and the name
her friends called her, asked me for a divorce because
she was making more money than I was, I couldn't think
of a reason to refuse and a couple of weeks later I
walked into the trade magazine where I worked and also
said, "To hell with it."
Looking back, I think that's when I began to
disappear...those two or three weeks when my life was
both nebulous and chaotic.
That's why I ended up in the fabled Hill Country of
Texas. I didn't go down fast. I went slow. Took the
train and stared out of the window a lot. There
wasn't much to see. The backside of small towns
whipping past. Flat landscapes moving behind me with
occasional trees far away that also vanished, but more
slowly, all drifting away. I watched everything with
a mind that was more or less blank. There just wasn't
a whole lot for me to think about. And even less, I
suppose, that I cared to think about.
I left the train in Dallas with the vague idea that I
would go the rest of the distance by bus, but on a
whim bought a pickup truck. This was an extreme act
of bravado, capricious and arbitrary, that was totally
different from anything I'd done in years and years.
Always wanted one. Never had the guts before to buy
one. Any car is almost superfluous in Manhattan when
you can raise your hand and eventually a taxi stops.
You flow to work in a river of taxi cabs, you drift
back to your apartment in another river of taxi cabs.
Lunch is in walking distance of wherever you work.
Dinner may entail another taxi trip, but most often
not. Life becomes one taxi trip and another. You
don't see very many people you really know in
Manhattan; it is a city of strangers. You don't dare
say "hello" to these strangers on the street. To tell
the truth, they don't want to know you. No one wants
to know anyone. Whether you realize it or not, you're
immediately discarded by Manhattan as soon as you
arrive; thereafter it only tolerates you. I found it
easy to also discard Manhattan. Finally.
My pickup was a used blue GMC Sierra with a swooping
white cover on back and I drove down Interstate 35,
these towns, too, falling off of me like old clothes.
Waxahachie, Hillsboro, Waco.
Like the pickup, I was used. I was almost 40 years
old, fed up with writing "news" stories about
fictitious people who thought they were real,
disgusted with what I used to be and wondering what I
was, hungry for barbeque with a side order of frijoles
under the mistaken impression that these things would
fix me.
Regardless, memories of Manhattan had fallen almost to
a whisper--along with the bruises from myriad elbows
passing on the street and bruises left from rampant
egos at office and at home--by the time I got to Llano
and Cooper's.
Cooper's, I discovered after I parked down the street
and walked back, had slipped a bit over the years.
Some president claimed it was his favorite and it
became a place for tourists. So I walked over to
Kenneth Laird's, which started as a roadside pit, but
had grown into one of the best things that ever
happened to a man seeking something real and honest in
his life. You have places like that in this part of
the world although some say that if you haven't eaten
at the Bluebonnet Cafe in Marble Falls, you're still a
stranger in the Hill Country. I guess I was still a
stranger when I went into Kenneth Laird's, but a
waitress poured me a cup of coffee because she saw
that I needed coffee, and then I ordered my ribs and
beans and waited in a dull stupor until these things
were brought to me. Afterwards, I thought I was
something approaching human. It was hard to really
tell.
But I drove on over to Mason, another whim, and found
someone who'd sell me a piece of land a few miles
beyond the edge of town at a price I could afford. He
seemed eager to get rid of it. There was a pile of
scattered wood that had been a farm house and beyond
that an outhouse, single seat, that was still usable.
For the next several days, I slept in the back of the
pickup under a live oak tree on an overcoat, the same
one that I wore during the quite brutal Manhattan
winters, my head pillowed by a floppy suitcase
containing my clothes. When hungry, I drove into town
or over to Menard or Junction and grabbed a plate of
eggs and bacon or ate sausage gravy and biscuits.
They say that sausage gravy and biscuits are bad for
you; I really didn't think it mattered much. When
thirsty, I sipped a Diet Pepsi; it was usually warm,
but it was wet. Every couple of days, I drove south
to the Llano River and swam. Well, actually; usually
I just waded and splashed. Even without soap, I felt
cleaner than I had in years.
No newspaper, no radio, no television. I didn't read
anything although, out of some strange quirk, I'd
purchased a copy of "Tarzan" by Edgar Rice Burroughs
in paperback. It remained on the dashboard of the
pickup. I intended to read it one day.
However, my view was pleasant; I honestly didn't know
where my property began nor where it ended because
there was no fence except the one that ran along the
main road more than a hundred yards away. No, that
fence was almost two hundred yards off out there to my
left. There was a gap and in the gap was the
proverbial cattle guard which rumbled beneath the
tires when you drove over it. Ugly thing.
The view before me, however, sloped away hinder or
helped, depending on your mood at the moment, by trees
and over yonder a gathering of prickly pear cactus and
out yonder in the distance some rolling hills. My
daily activities were limited mostly to watching
rabbits come to nibble on whatever grass they could
find; most of the grass had turned brown, but a
thunderhead came up one afternoon and it rained and
the grass flashed green for a few days and the number
of rabbits increased for a while, then tapered off
again as the grass faded to brown. I also watched
squirrels scamper throughout the large oak tree,
shouting off a crow that came whirling by from time to
time. A deer strolled into view one evening and
stared at me from beyond the brush.
Then a man, tall but with the kind of muscles you grow
in a gym, came by one day in the late evening. He was
dressed in a dark suit and wore sunshades. I think he
wore a mustache, but I really don't know because he
was so far away. He nodded slightly, although I'm not
quite sure about that either, then turned and walked
off toward the dirt road, crawled through the barbwire
fence and crawled into a dark car and turned around
and drove off. I hadn't seen him come up. I don't
know what he wanted.
When I grew bored with watching rabbits, I
occasionally roamed through the distant hills in my
pickup, around Buchanan Dam, down to Enchanted Rock,
back to Camp San Saba. I stopped once at a cafe near
the dam and had a cup of coffee. But I didn't really
talk to anyone. I said the word "coffee" and later
"thanks" when I paid.
Enchanted Rock is interesting. It is one of the
geological wonders of the world. First earth. I
parked and climbed to the top. It's like half a
grapefruit face down on the earth rising out of the
low hills. Quite large. Up at the top is a small
basin and there's a sign. Some cavalry officers
fought off Indians here.
A guy I met somewhere, I couldn't see his face in
memory and his name, too, had vanished on me, once
said, "There are two places I have to touch every few
years or I'll go insane. I have to get to salt water
and I've got to get to that place where the limestone
meets the granite. There is something magic about the
Llano uplift. That big chunk of the earth's crust just
bursting through to blue sky. Hill Country is good."
I didn't know if the Hill Country was good or not, but
I was here and it felt funny to be walking on granite
that had been around long before people and even
before dinosaurs. I didn't want to leave. I guess
one always has to leave whatever and wherever at some
point. I left Enchanted Rock, though, with regret.
By now, I'd purchased a folding chair and a small
folding table and a very comfortable sleeping bag
during one of my myriad visits into one town or
another. Menard, I liked a lot; very peaceful and
quiet. Junction had grown almost too big. I did go
over to Brady, but it had changed; they'd cut down the
pecan trees along the Brady Creek and the town wasn't
the same anymore.
A visit to a local grocery store was a big deal for
me. Mostly I just bought some cans of chili and cans
of soups. And Diet Pepsi, of course. The clerk
looked at me funny because I was buying so much Diet
Pepsi. Several cases, in fact.
One day, like a surprise, I realized that winter was
getting near. It was rainy and chilly that morning.
So I drove down to Kerrville and bought a small
propane stove and a propane heater, along with a
winter coat with a hood and a pair of Levis and a good
leather belt. After that, I would sometimes scramble
eggs for breakfast and open up a can of Wolf Brand
chili or some soup for supper. Thus, I found myself
going into town less and less. I walked a great deal.
Otherwise, I just sat in the pickup on cold days and
watched the leaves fall from the old oak tree. My
days were quiet. My wristwatch had stopped. I didn't
need it. I went to bed with the setting of the sun
and when it came up in the morning, the sun woke me
up. If it was cloudy, I slept late. At night, I
would build a small fire in a circle of rocks and sit
with my coat on and watch the flames dance and an
occasional spark fly into the dark. There was enough
weathered firewood from the old farm house to last the
entire winter and next winter, too.
Over a period of a few days, I picked up the pieces of
wood from the ruins of the old farm house and
organized the planks into a large pile on the other
side of the remains of the fireplace. What I
discovered was a cellar door leading under the old
building which still had a very good floor of heavy,
solid wood timbers. Someone had varnished the wood
floor; it was almost as good as the day it was built
in spite of being exposed to the weather for I don't
know how many years. The cellar door was still in
fairly good shape, but needed some repairs. The
cellar needed clearing out of debris as well as a good
sweeping. Overall, the foundation of the farm house
was still in pretty good shape, too. As for the
fireplace, it had been built of stone and the chimney
reached several yards into the sky like a small square
tower. I found that I could still build a fire in the
fireplace and soon I moved my folding chair over there
and not only basked in the heat, but occasionally
cooked something over the flames on a stick.
I was planning to either buy a small trailer or
perhaps build some kind of one-room shack. I thought
I could build a shack, but realized I would probably
have to settle for the trailer or maybe a prefab shed.
Come spring, I thought I would plant some pinto beans
and maybe some corn over there beyond the ruins of the
old farm house. It would be great to have roast'ears
like my grandfather C.C. Smith cooked every July
Fourth back when I was a kid in Brady. They called
them that, yet the ears of corn were actually boiled a
few minutes and you ate them slopped in butter. Real
butter. A little salt. Pepper. I almost grew hungry
thinking about the corn. The entire family would
congregate in Brady from everywhere and everyone would
pigout on corn, ham, and pecan pies. I hadn't eaten a
pecan pie in years. Wonder if I could find one in
Kerrville next time I drove over there? Surely, they
still cooked pies like that somewhere.
The idea of planting and growing my own food appealed
to me. I wasn't quite sure that I could do it. Raise
a crop. However, instinctively I felt some strange
need to get down on my knees and place my hands in the
soil and see if there was a possibility that I could
grow corn, beans, potatoes. It occurred to me that a
man wasn't really human until he could survive on his
own...sans A&P or Safeway, sans Dairy Queen. There
was an old well behind the ruins of the house.
Probably full of debris. I would have to check it
out. See if the water from the well was okay.
Surely, someone in the town would be able to tell me.
In mind's eye, I could see a small pleasant house with
a small verandah, vines growing on a trellis.
Honeysuckle. A rocking chair on that verandah where I
could sit in the shade on a nice afternoon and look
out over my farm. A good rug with lots of yellows and
greens on the floor in front of the fireplace where I
would place my rocking chair on a winter's day just so
I could watch the flames dance in the fireplace.
One day, strictly out of impulse, I walked over to the
farm house cellar and began cleaning it out. This
took several days. I don't know why I did all of this
work because I wasn't bored or restless. Nothing like
that. I just decided that it ought to be done. Maybe
instead of buying a trailer or a small shed, I really
would just build me a one-room house on that
foundation.
That cellar was an odd place, I discovered as I
cleaned it out. Previous owners from I don't know how
many years ago had forgotten a trunk. One of those
large wooden trunks with steel bands and a huge lock
to keep out people like me. I broke the lock with a
rock. Took a few minutes. It didn't contain many
items for such a large trunk. A few tintypes of
people, one a rather ferocious man in a long beard
sitting in a chair with his arms crossed, an old
pistol that used a ball and cap along with several
small iron balls, caps, a flask of gunpowder that
appeared to still be good, stuff for cleaning the gun.
The gun and everything was in pretty good condition
because it had been wrapped in oil paper. There were
some old coins, some of them evidently gold, in a
small wooden box in the corner of the trunk. A hat
with a floppy brim on one side. A rather ridiculous
uniform of some kind; I really couldn't tell much
about it. A couple of odd books. What looked to me
like a military belt. A military sword. A few other
odds of a man's life.
I was amused by the things I found in the trunk. The
person long ago had placed these items here, souvenirs
of his life. I had no souvenirs of my own life. No
trunk of my own. Except these things now that used to
belong to someone else. Had he placed them there just
for me? Curious thought.
When the three men came out to arrest me a few days
later it was evening. Growing dark. I was sitting in
my canvas chair in front of the fireplace thinking
about pecan pie. They drove up in a dark new Ford and
got out and crawled through the barbwire fence along
the road and walk over and stood in front me. Two of
them were carrying rifles. The rifles, however, were
pointed at the ground. The light from the my campfire
carved shadows in their faces.
"Come with us," one of them said in a voice that was
both biting and tart, like a sour grape. Difficult to
understand the words, they were so clipped.
I thought for a moment that someone was playing a
joke, but I didn't know who it was. And I couldn't
figure out why. I protested. I can't imagine I
raised much of a fuss. All of the fat of New York
City was gone. I was thin, weathered almost to the
point of being gaunt and probably trembled in any
strong breeze that came up. A man in a suit as dark
as the others, his eyes also hidden behind dark
sunshades, hit me alongside the head with the butt of
a pistol. I regained consciousness much later in a
dimly lighted jail cell with several men standing on
the other side the bars staring at me as if I were
some kind of criminal. The cell wasn't lighted very
well. I realized the only light seeped from a red
bulb somewhere behind the men; the weak light threw
the men into shadows.
Two of the men left through a door as soon as I shook
my head--not to clear martinis but a grey, pervading
fog--and tried to sit up. The other three didn't say
anything. They just watched me. At first, I thought
they were reeds in a lake. Then I realized they were
more like herons. Silent. Aloof. All three, like
the two men who'd left, wore dark suits and sunshades.
My head hurt. I felt faint; it was difficult to focus
my eyes. It took several attempts before I finally
managed to sit on the edge of the bunk. That's when I
noticed that I was completely naked. It was very
strange, but I distinctly had an impression that I'd
been unconscious before. Maybe several times. I do
not know where this impression came from. Everything
was extremely vague. I couldn't think very well.
I sat for a while on the edge of the bunk in the cell
and stared at them. They didn't say anything. They
didn't even move. After a minute or two, because of
the pain in my head, I lay back down on my side and
closed my eyes. I knew that I needed to rest. Sleep.
Even then, I realized that questions could wait. I
don't know why I knew this.
The men were gone when I came to again and sat up on
the edge of the bunk. I found it easier to sit up,
but not without some difficulty. My side hurt. At
first, I thought that I'd pulled a muscle, then I
realized I'd probably been kicked. Maybe even
stomped. Like a horse might stomp you when you're
down.
Someone had placed a small bowl of what appeared to be
food on the other side of the row of bars. I wasn't
hungry, but I was thirsty. I said the word "water"
fairly loud. Nothing happened. No one showed up with
water. Some of the pain in my head was gone. Not all
of it. My fingers could feel a swelling on the back
of my head.
When I got up and staggered over to eat, I found only
some rocks in the bowl on the floor. With a fork. I
stared at the bowl. There was a message here. They
were trying to tell me something. I managed to get
back to my bunk and collapsed on the edge.
There was only one cell. The hallway, if you wanted
to call it that, on the other side of the bars. The
door. My cell did not have a window. I was sitting
on a solid brick bench with a thin cotton pad thrown
across it. The walls were of brick. There was a
toilet without a lid. A galvanized tin wash basin
sitting empty by the wall. Nothing else. The only
light was that red bulb hanging on a cord from the
ceiling and it was on the other side of the bars out
of reach. Everything was dim.
With some difficulty, I staggered to my feet again and
went to the cell door and shook it. It was locked. I
shouted, "Help!" Nothing happened. I stumbled back
to my bed and lay down again on my side. Every muscle
in my body hurt. Evidently, I'd been kicked several
times. Or hit with something. The odor of sulfur was
quite strong. I thought that was strange. After a
while, I became used to it. I didn't go back to sleep
though I tried. I sprawled there, eyes open, resting
for more than an hour. Since my wristwatch had been
taken, I actually don't know how much time passed.
More than an hour, though. Maybe longer. I listened
for noises. I heard only silence. No music, no
distant voices, no whisper of wind outside my cell.
Nothing. I was neither cold nor warm. No, it was
slightly cool in the cell. Maybe. I found it
difficult to decide.
A man finally came in. Dark suit. Sunshades. I
wondered if this was some kind of uniform.
"I'm thirsty," I said.
"Tough. What's your name?"
I had trouble understanding his question because his
words were so clipped, as if abbreviations. My head
hurt.
"Jon Beery," I finally said.
"Proof?"
Proof? What did he meant by that? Proof?
"It's on my driver's license," I said. I had
difficulty saying the words and probably stumbled over
them.
"You had no driver's license," he said.
That was difficult to believe. I'd carried my
billfold in the same left hip pocket, day in and day
out, for years. Since days in the army, in fact. It
contained my driver's license, a couple of credit
cards, maybe three hundred dollars in cash. I'd taken
out the picture of my ex-wife and tossed it in the
trash somewhere. The snapshot of my daughter was
still there, though the last time I glanced at it, I
wondered if she were really my daughter; we didn't
look much alike. But I didn't want to think about
something like that. And I didn't want to think about
my ex-wife at all.
"Billfold?" I asked. If they'd taken my clothes, they
obviously had my billfold. I felt uncomfortable
without clothes. Without my billfold, I realized that
I had little proof of who I was. There had to be a
birth certificate over in the courthouse at Brady, I
guess. Military records? Someone said there'd been a
fire at a depot in St. Louis and a lot of military
records had been destroyed. But I didn't know how
you'd go about getting that kind of information.
"No," he said, his arms crossed.
"Someone took it then when they took my clothes," I
said. "My name is Jon. Jon Beery. I would like to
phone a lawyer."
"You have a lawyer?"
"No. That is, none specifically. Must be a lawyer in
this town I could phone."
"No phone call," the man said and he turned and walked
toward the door at the end of the hallway.
"What about bail?" I shouted after him.
He stopped and turned.
"You have some money for bail?"
"I can get some," I said, thinking that if I could get
to a phone I could call Mystere. Surely she would
send me some money for bail.
He seemed to be thinking.
"No bail," he said--his words like gunshots--and
continued out the door.
It was very quiet then. After an hour or so, I began
to wish the man would return. But when he did return,
I quickly wished he had stayed away. He came in the
doorway and approached the bars and stood there
glaring angrily at me. I thought about sitting up,
but decided against it. Sitting up caused me to feel
faint.
"There's no Jon Beery on the list," he said.
"What list?" I asked.
He didn't answer. He turned and went out the doorway
again and I was left in the silence staring at the
bars. I wondered if I'd been drugged. Drugged and
beaten. Maybe I was just hungry. Hunger will make
you feel lousy. I felt very lousy. And thirsty. But
also very sore. I had definitely been beaten when I
was unconscious.
"Clothes!" I shouted. "I want my clothes."
There was no answer. But perhaps half an hour later,
the same man came in and pushed a small bundle through
the bars of my cell, turned and left again.
When I managed to stumble across the small space to
the bundle, it turned out to be a ragged pair of
trousers and a faded denim shirt. Both needed
washing. I set on the edge of the bunk and after a
while, deciding I had almost no choice at the moment,
dragged the trousers over my feet, then stood up and
pulled the trousers to my waist. They were much too
large and I had not been given a belt. When I let go,
the trousers slumped to the floor of the cell. I
pulled the trousers up to my waist again and sat down
on the bunk. The shirt was also too large. But I
felt much better with the clothes.
"Water!" I yelled. Shouting had resulted in clothes.
Maybe it would work again. But it didn't. No one
came even though I shouted several times.
In spite of the thirst and various aches, I was
beginning to think again. To be able to think. I
really hadn't done much thinking in a long time. I
noticed my head was bald. All of my hair had been
shaved off! And my mustache was gone. It had been
shaved off, too. Why? What was really going on?
Holding my trousers up with one hand, I stumbled
across the cell floor in my bare feet and shook the
cell door. Tried to. It didn't move. Very solid,
very heavy, and very locked. I shouted again for
water. Then listened. There was no sound except my
own hoarse breathing. I think I could even hear my
heartbeat, but I couldn't be sure.
Finally, I stumbled back to my bunk. Walking was
painful. By now, I was conscious enough to realize
that someone had stepped on my foot. Hard. My right
foot hurt and it hurt more when I tried to walk,
causing me to stumble.
To keep my pants from falling down, I finally tore off
a piece of my shirt and used the long strip as a belt,
inserting it in the loops and knotting it in front.
Took several minutes for me to figure this out. It
worked okay. My trousers stayed up.
This time when the man appeared I was more alert.
He stood almost at attention on the other side of the
bars.
"What is your name? What name do you use?"
"My name is Jon Beery, I told you."
"To me, you're just a number," he said without
smiling. "Number A473. That's all."
"Water," I said.
"Your name?" This time, his voice was almost like a
bark from a large dog. "You're not going to die
without water."
"Water. And I want to know why I've been arrested.
What's the charge?"
His face revealed no emotion. I could not see his
eyes because of those dark sunshades. I thought that
if I could see his eyes, I might discover what was
going on. Why I was here. I could tell nothing from
his face or his hands.
"You haven't been arrested," he finally said as if
that explained everything.
Finally, he turned and left again. And that damned
silence came back. No, not damned silence. I was
grateful for the quiet and the peace. That was it.
It was pleasant to be able to rest. The silence was
nice.
With my hands cupped behind my head, I lay on my back
and stared at the ceiling. My pickup would be there,
I thought. Back at my place. My farm. I'd began to
think of those few acres as a farm. It wasn't even
close to a farm at the moment. Maybe next year I
could plant some stuff and have a real and proper
farm.
Driver's license? I could get another driver's
license...write the New York motor vehicle division.
I should be able to track down the address somewhere.
My money and credit cards had been stolen. I surmised
this. I didn't know anything for sure, but the idea
was logical; your billfold is taken, usually they take
everything. First thing to do when I got out of here
would be to drive over to Brady and pick up another
copy of my birth certificate. I didn't have a copy.
Hadn't had one in maybe a dozen years so far as I
knew. Like my marriage license to Mystere, it had
drifted away. Maybe she'd kept a copy of the marriage
license. I don't know.
I would have to cancel those credit cards. I only had
a couple of them. Always considered them a necessity,
but once we purchased the condo on West End there had
been a flood of credit cards. Too many. The number
had grown confusing years ago and I'd narrowed down to
only two. American Express and Visa. How could I
cancel those cards? I didn't know the numbers and I
didn't have phone numbers I could call about them.
Maybe information. Maybe there would be an American
Express office in San Antonio. Visa? I hadn't the
slightest idea!
Money? Obviously, I would need some money. Where
could I get some cash? Did I leave any money in that
bank in New York City? I couldn't remember. Mystere
had taken almost everything. The condo on West End,
the stock we'd owned. But I had maintained a separate
banking account in Manhattan Chase a few blocks from
the trade magazine where I worked. That is, if I
still had an account. I couldn't remember. That had
been months ago. Maybe Mystere would send me some
money. For bail, if I needed bail. Since I hadn't
yet been notified of why I'd been arrested, I didn't
know if I could even get bail. For food for a while.
Surely she would do that.
Then I realized that I didn't know exactly what
Mystere would do. I really had no idea whether she
would send me money or not! Strange. I'd been
married to the woman for almost a dozen and a half
years and I didn't really know if she would help me.
You always figure that a wife will come to your
rescue. An ex-wife? I didn't know.
I met Mystere at a party in Manhattan. One of those
parties that everyone throws now and then and everyone
goes now and then and you always go late and you never
stay too long because most of the time the parties are
boring. People you don't want to know or people who
don't want to know you attend those parties. I'd
taken a date to a party tossed by Claudia Mulholy-Nagy
and got lucky and bumped into someone who was actually
interesting. She was a really beautiful woman there
in a black velvet dress that clung to her body. She
looked like a receptionist. She was amused--even
flattered--by the idea because in Manhattan all
receptionists are beautiful and sometimes get paid an
awful lot for their ability to tell everyone, "He's
not in."
I spent most of the evening talking with her. She
wrote for Dr. Joyce Brothers at NBC. Naturally, I got
her phone number. I don't know what happened to my
date. I guess she left with someone else.
The first thing I know, I'm married. There's a baby
on the way. I don't know how all of this happened.
Yes, I know it sounds a little silly. But almost
every job in Manhattan, especially those in any kind
of media, are high-pressure situations. Actually, I'm
fairly bright. At least, I've always thought so.
They gave you a sort of I.Q. test in those days when I
went into the army. The AFQT. I made a perfect score
on the test. Finished early, too. I don't remember
the army very well. A first sergeant who was a royal
pain in the ass. Or thought he was. I served
overseas at a military base in Germany. None of us
carried a weapon. The closest any of us got to combat
was perhaps a scuffle in some German gasthaus. Two
years later, the army let me out and I spent the next
three and a half years in college on the G.I. Bill. I
took courses year around because the G.I. Bill
provided you with just enough money to almost avoid
starvation. My college grades actually weren't all
that good and that's totally understandable. I didn't
go after grades, I went after skills and capabilities.
I worked on the college daily newspaper, the college
magazine, and even wrote two or three articles for the
college alumni magazine. In May at the end of a
semester, I realized I might as well get a degree so I
took six courses that summer. In August of that year,
I told the university to mail the degree to my parents
and hitchhiked to New York City. Two weeks later, I
landed a job on a trade magazine published by Hearst
and discovered that I could compete with anyone...even
the guys who attended Colgate or Yale.
Trade magazines usually paid well. In a while I was
earning more money than the graduates of Bennington
who worked for Random House or A.A. Knopf, more than
the graduates of Columbia who worked on the consumer
publications such as Time and even Sports Illustrated.
Those jobs had more prestige. To those who worked at
them. My job paid more, but had absolutely no
prestige to anyone whatsoever.
In the long run, as I gathered the bits and pieces of
my life, sprawled here on my back in a cell, confined
for a crime I knew I didn't commit, whatever it was,
all of those things--career, wife, home--didn't matter
much. I was literally the chaff of life. Not a hell
of a lot gained during all of those years when you
came right down to it and not a hell of a lot lost,
when you considered everything. But, and perhaps this
is what life is really all about, I didn't have the
slightest intention of giving up. The world might
consider me chaff. Even treat me as chaff. However,
I don't think I was whipped. I might have been
beaten. In fact, I was more than likely beaten. On
the other hand, I wasn't whipped.
All that mattered this very moment was water. I
needed water. My mouth was dry. There was no water
in the galvanized basin. There was no water in the
toilet.
Surely a man of my intellect, my acumen, my
perseverance could obtain water! I realized that I
needed water. Soon. Without water, I would soon grow
weaker.
I had to do something.
A few minutes later...maybe it was an hour later
because time had become nebulous to me and I neither
knew if it was day or night...I killed my first man.
(continued next week)
e-mail claude@claudehallonline.com
|
October 24, 2005
Commentary
by
Claude Hall
Andy
Russell, the great Latin American singer..."Tico, Tico, Tick,"
"Bessa Me Mucho," etc., performing at a new nightclub in
Manhattan in
the 60s. Mike Gross, talent editor of Billboard, and I caught
Andy's
act. Quite good. No, better than that. Sensational! So pleasant.
Such a great voice. And he astonished me by insisting that
people
dance while he sang. At this point, I was in love with all kinds
of
music and especially Latin American music.
Gary Allyn,
gallyn@adelphia.net: "Once again, Claude,
you managed to open up some of those forgotten
'canyons of my mind' with your writing about Radio.
Particularly about that nebulous 'heyday' period of
which I was (and am) proud to be a part of and a
participant in. When I think of the people I have
been fortunate enough to work with, for, or just be
associated with...how blessed indeed! Just some of
the names: Lee Baby Simms, Jimmy Rabbitt, Frank Ward,
George Wilson, Robert L. Collins, Hap Hopkins, Jim
Runyon, Hal Baby Moore, Stan Richards, K.O. Bayley,
Neil Ross, Tom Clay, Paul Oscar Anderson, Robert E.
Lee, Chuck Brinkman, Harry Martin (Happy Hare), Chuck
Buell, Don Burden, Jack Roth, Ken Palmer, Mike Scott,
Ted Atkins, Jay Cook, Kent Burkhart, Chuck Dunaway,
Ron Britain, Perry Allen, Ted Randal, Bill Watson,
Gene Taylor, Morton (Doc) Downey Jr., Tom Murphy,
Richard Mock, Johnny Mitchell, Roby Yonge, Ken Levine,
Tom Lyons, Bobby Lyons, Gene (By Golly) Barry, Howard
Edwards, Tom Ellis, Doc Holliday, Johnny Solo, Lee
Marshall, Sid Knight, B. Bailey Brown, Lou Swanson,
Jim Smith, Joe LIght, John Driscoll, Dex Allen, Ed
Bonner, China Smith (I gave this air name to him) ,and
even the original 'Sleepy Time Gal'...plus other
'Wizards Of The Air Waves'. Much of what I was and
am, I owe to these great Radio pros. And, let's not
forget those wonderful Record Company promotion
people. You mentioned some, like Jan Basham, but there
were scores who were as much a part of Radio as a
turntable and/or microphone. Both local, regional &
national; record promotion was an 'art'. Juggy Gales,
Abe Glaser, Barry Freeman, Joe Smith, Ben Scotti, Ray
Hill, Tony Richland, Huey Meaux, Steve Tyrell, Joe
Fine, Rich Paladino, Chuck Thaggard, Morris
Diamond...it goes on and on. Without the work of
Record Promotion people and their relationship with
those of us in Radio, many a record or artist may not
have achieved 'Number One With A Bullet'. It
distresses me that this part of the record and radio
business has all but been eliminated. Like you said:
It's people relating to people that makes this
business what it's all about--on every level. How does
a small town Ohio boy get into this business? I
listened to Radio. Radio then, was the creaking door
on 'Inner Sanctum', Mrs. Nussbaum opening the door on
Fred Allen's 'Allen's Alley' segment, Bill Stern
closing his Sports Show with 'That's the three-oh mark
for tonight', The Grand Ole Opry, John R out of
WLAC...one could hear radio stations in 25 to 35
states in Ohio at night. Then I heard a music show
from the Hotel Roosevelt on WWL in New Orleans one
night. It was Dick 'Moonglow with' Martin. What a
voice! He was preceded by Bob Poole and 'Poole's
Paradise'. It was then, I decided Radio was what I
wanted to do. I entered Radio quite early at WING in
Dayton, Ohio at age 17, and it's been a 50-year love
affair since. A lot of talented people forged the
framework to Radio's 'heyday', something for those
today to aim for and shoot at. Unfortunately, today's
crop of Radio talent is falling way short of the
target that was set up many years ago. Keep the Vox
Jox coming, Claude. All the best."
True, Gary. It's the people I miss the most. And
although, yes, the heyday radio meant a lot to me and
I've had the great luck to hear some wonderful radio,
I remember the people as much as the songs.
Just FYI, Cain Derenzy,
kainkitizen@yahoo.com, reports
that China Smith died about 2:30 p.m. Monday, Aug, 22,
sitting at his computer. He wasn't presently on the
air. Don Barrett,
db@thevine.net, did a tape of the
service and can provide further information if anyone
needs it. Ah, China. Me and Jimmy Rabbitt will miss
you!
Ken Levine,
bossjock@dslextreme.com, the quite famous
writer and television director and sometimes sports
announcer, won't let me reprint his sporadic satirical
emails, so if you ain't on his list, tough. But his
latest email features a few paragraphs by his daughter
Annie, so it's obvious where Ken, alias Beaver
Cleaver, gets his wit. One cute bit: Ken, visiting
Chicago, got up one morning to listen to Annie's radio
show on WNUR, the campus radio station at
Northwestern. "Breakfast With Broadway" airs 6-9 a.m.
Saturdays. Way to go, Annie Cleaver! Bet ol' Pappy
Cleaver don't get up that early that often! Musta
been a great radio show.
Someone
waiting to go to the restroom at the top of the stairs in the
Cafe au Go Go in Greenwich Village in New York City in the 60s.
If I
shot this picture, he must have been somebody. As I look at the
guy
now, I wonder if perhaps it was a young Larry Douglas. I also
shot a
color slide of Jac Holzman, founder of Elektra Records, with his
hand
on the doorknob up there. I musta had a rather depraved
mind...shooting pictures of guys about to go to the restroom.
Uniquely, about as much was going on backstage at the Cafe au Go
Go as
out front.
Burt Sherwood,
bohica1@comcast.net: "Hi, Claude and
Barbara: I look forward to seeing you next Tuesday
afternoon in Las Vegas...as you said this was open to
all who were going to around, George Williams will be
coming with me...I am sure you remember him from his
days at Southern, WTRY, Kent Burkhart's networks,
etc...he saw I was going to see you and wants to be
there...so I will stop by the Paris Hotel and grab him
and we will all visit for a bit...hope all is well and
that this is OK. I am leaving Friday ahead of the
hurricane and spending some time in New York...and
flying in Sunday from there...this hurricane that is
brewing looks like the worst yet! See you Tuesday,
God willing!"
In my years at Billboard, I once printed something
about George Williams being honored by WTRY in Albany,
NY, with a dinner. Only I made a mistake in Vox Jox
and wrote George Wilson. When George Williams showed
up at the restaurant, the neon sign greeted him with
the name George Wilson. That, to me, reflects on what
radio was all about in the 50s, 60s, and 70s.fun. Tom
Clay doing his radio show from atop a sign in Buffalo,
L. David Moorhead taking coffee and donuts out to the
engineers who were striking KMET in Los Angeles (he
was the general manager and knew them all), Steve
Bellinger kicking a turkey out of his airplane one
Thanksgiving as a promotion and it plunging through
the roof of a dry cleaning store in Decatur, IL (he
didn't know that domestic turkeys couldn't fly.for
years and years Steve would introduce himself to other
radio guys as "Yeah, I'm the one").
Where did the fun go?
I'd contracted Bill Hennes,
BHennes105@aol, for a
favor and got a note back with the favor and the
information that AllAboutCountry is doing quite well.
"We get over 3.6 million hits per month and have
24,876 members." Very, very impressive, Bill.
Another Bill I know, Bill Bailey,
bbailey@msn.com, is
also doing well. He was a legend on KIKK in Houston.
A god among country radio personalities. I remember
us shooting the bull once and laughing about how the
people who produced radio and television commercials
would hire an actor to do a Texas accent and there we
were, ready, but overlooked, and neither of us would
have to fake the accent either! Now the elected
Constable of Harris County Precinct 8 in
Houston/Pasadena for the past 23 years, Bill wrote me
and I wrote back and received this: "How great it is
to get your reply. A wonderful page from my past. You
were the most respected authority on country radio of
our time and you once wrote a very nice piece in your
column about me. I have never and will never forget
the thrill. We were a lot younger and were having a
ball in the Houston market and did not really
understand just what an impact we were having on the
whole industry. We did a lot of package shows at the
Sam Houston Coliseum and worked all the big dance hall
venues almost every night. It took a lot of going but
we truly did dominate the market for a long time. The
market is so splintered now and all the stations are
cookie cutter formats being run by remote
'consultants' who haven't a clue about the local
listeners. Faron Young used to tell me how important
it was to get out and 'Hug the drunks' and let them
'Spit in your face' while they told you how much they
love your show. He was right. KIKK along with WPLO in
Atlanta were breakout markets and if a record got on
either play list it went nationally. When KIKK sold
the rival KENR offered me $1,800. a month to move over
and I took it. It was a good time but not the magic of
KIKK. I got out in 1982 when the local constable died
and I ran for his unexpired term and won over seven
others. Been here ever since. I have a staff of 77 and
an annual budget of $5.5 million. NASA is in the
district and I continue with my association with them.
Remember that I sent country music to the moon on
Apollo XII, XIV and XVI back in the early 70's. Check
out my web site at
www.co.harris.tx.us/ptc8. I still
live in Pasadena and just passed 66 and no thoughts of
retirement. I had a personal tragedy last December
when my only son was killed in a hunting accident down
in South Texas. My three girls and many grandchildren
help fill the void. All good things to you, Claude,
and I hope to talk to you soon. I think that I may be
in LV in December for the Wrangler National Finals
Rodeo. Tilman Fertitta of Houston just bought the
Golden Nugget. Perhaps we can have lunch."
For many,
border radio was a special and quite magical radio world.
Huge signals. One night, courtesy of Bruce Miller Earle, shown
here
with one of the original water-cooled tubes used by 150,000-watt
XEROK,
Juarez, Mexico, I went on the air and that show was heard in
some
ungodly parts of the world as well, of course, as most of Texas
and
Mexico. Like many in Texas, I listened many a night to CLINT,
Texas,
as a kid. "That's C-L-I-N-T, Texas." I used to joke that format
radio
really originated on the border stations, not at Bernice Judas'
WNEW in
New York City with "Make Believe Ballroom" hosted by Martin
Block. The
border stations would play a Hank Williams record, then sell
baby
chicks or "autographed pictures of Jesus Christ" for 15 minutes
and
then play another Hank Williams record...yes, the Hank Williams
format,
folks! Just FYI, when I ran across this slide and had it
transferred
to CD, I also found a couple of slides with neon tubes glowing
strangely in the dark like Star Wars weapons. That was when me
and
Bruce Miller Earle and someone else on the XEROX staff walked
out in
the dark with neon tubes in our hands; they were charged by the
radiation from the ground signal of the station. Eerie!
Alex Webb,
Slimguy469@aol.com, sent me a flyer on the
Internet for his club Synergy. Ah! Nice to know that
some of us don't just fade away. Some of us operate
strip clubs!
I asked Scott Burton,
sgb831@orbitelcom.com, for an
update regarding his new email address. "Hi, Claude,
my update of my current life is not very interesting.
I retired after 40 years in broadcasting and 7 years
running my consulting firm and love it. I'm keeping
busy with some Internet gift sites my wife operates
through her business. I guess you could say I now
work for my wife. We'll be leaving Scottsdale after 26
years and are in progress of building a new home in
the middle of the Arizona desert, on the old John
Wayne Ranch (Rancho Eldorado). Keep up with most of
the old WHK & WDGY gangs thru email and phone, also a
lot of Jocks, Programmers and record people I've known
thru the years. My wife and I enjoy life and watching
our grand kids grow up."
I think Bobby and Karen Vee have a second home in
Arizona somewhere. Horses. Horse trail. That
sort
of thing.
e-mail claude@claudehallonline.com
|
