1919 (20 page)

 

Czolgocz made him president.

 

T.R. drove like a fiend in a buckboard over the muddy roads through the driving rain from Mt. Marcy in the Adirondacks to catch the train to Buffalo where McKinley was dying.

As President

he moved Sagamore Hill, the healthy happy normal American home, to the White House, took foreign diplomats and fat armyof-ficers out walking in Rock Creek Park where he led them a terrible dance through brambles, hopping across the creek on steppingstones, wading the fords, scrambling up the shaly banks,

and shook the Big Stick at malefactors of great wealth.

Things were bully.

He engineered the Panama revolution under the shadow of which took place the famous hocuspocus of juggling the old and new canal companies by which forty million dollars vanished into the pockets of the international bankers,

but Old Glory floated over the Canal Zone

and the canal was cut through.

He busted a few trusts,

had Booker Washington to lunch at the White House,

and urged the conservation of wild life.

He got the Nobel Peace Prize for patching up the Peace of Portsmouth that ended the Russo-Japanese war,

and sent the Atlantic Fleet round the world for everybody to see that America was a firstclass power. He left the presidency to Taft after his second term leaving to that elephantine lawyer the congenial task of pouring judicial oil on the hurt feelings of the moneymasters

and went to Africa to hunt big game.

Big game hunting was bully.

Every time a lion or an elephant went crashing down into the jungle underbrush, under the impact of a wellplaced mushroom bullety

the papers lit up with headlines;

when he talked with the Kaiser on horseback

the world was not ignorant of what he said, or when he lectured the Nationalists at Cairo telling them that this was a white man's world.

He went to Brazil where he travelled through the Matto Grosso in a dugout over waters infested with the tiny maneating fish, the piranha,

shot tapirs,

jaguars,

specimens of the whitelipped peccary.

He ran the rapids of the River of Doubt

down to the Amazon frontiers where he arrived sick, an infected abscess in his leg, stretched out under an awning in a dugout with a tame trumpeterbird beside him.

 

Back in the States he fought his last fight when he came out for the republican nomination in 1912 a progressive, champion of the Square Deal, crusader for the Plain People; the Bull Moose bolted out from under the Taft steamroller and formed the Progressive Party for righteousness' sake at the Chicago Colosseum while the delegates who were going to restore democratic government rocked with tears in their eyes as they sang

 

On      ward Christian so      old      gers

March      ing as to war

 

Perhaps the River of Doubt had been too much for a man of his age; perhaps things weren't so bully any more; T.R. lost his voice during the triangular campaign. In Duluth a maniac shot him in the chest, his life was saved only by the thick bundle of manuscript of the speech he was going to deliver. T.R. delivered the speech with the bullet still in him, heard the scared applause, felt the plain people praying for his recovery but the spell was broken somehow.

The Democrats swept in, the world war drowned out the righteous voice of the Happy Warrior in the roar of exploding lyddite.

Wilson wouldn't let T.R. lead a division, this was no amateur's war (perhaps the regulars remembered the round robin at Santiago). All he could do was write magazine articles against the Huns, send his sons; Quentin was killed.

It wasn't the bully amateur's world any more. Nobody knew that on armistice day, Theodore Roosevelt, happy amateur warrior with the grinning teeth, the shaking forefinger, naturalist, explorer, magazinewriter, Sundayschool teacher, cowpuncher, moralist, politician, righteous orator with a short memory, fond of denouncing liars (the Ananias Club) and having pillowfights with his children, was taken to the Roosevelt hospital gravely ill with inflammatory rheumatism.

Things weren't bully any more;

T.R. had grit;

he bore the pain, the obscurity, the sense of being forgotten as he had borne the grilling portages when he was exploring the River of Doubt, the heat, the fetid jungle mud, the infected abscess in his leg,

and died quietly in his sleep

at Sagamore Hill

on January 6, 1919

and left on the shoulders of his sons

the white man's burden.

11,000 registered harlots said the Red Cross Publicity Man infest the streets of Marseilles

the Ford stalled three times in the Rue de Rivoli      in Fontainebleau we had our café au lait in bed      the Forest was so achingly red yellow novemberbrown under the tiny lavender rain      beyond the road climbed through dovecolored hills      the air smelt of apples

Nevers (Dumas nom de dieu) Athos Porthos and d'Artagnan had ordered a bisque at the inn      we wound down slowly into red Macon that smelt of wineless and the vintage      fais ce que voudras      saute Bourgignon in the Rhone valley the first straw-colored sunlight streaked the white road with shadows of skeleton poplars      at every stop we drank wine strong as beefsteaks rich as the palace of François Premier bouquet of the last sleetlashed roses      we didn't cross the river to Lyon where Jean-Jacques suffered from greensickness as a youngster      the landscapes of Provence were all out of the Gallic Wars the towns were dictionaries of latin roots Orange Tarascon Arles where Van Gogh cut off his ears      the convoy became less of a conducted tour      we stopped to play craps in the estaminets      boys we're going south      to drink the red wine the popes loved best      to eat fat meals in oliveoil and garlic      bound south      cêpes provençale the north wind was shrilling over the plains of the Camargue hustling us into Marseilles where the eleven thousand were dandling themselves in the fogged mirrors of the promenoir at the Apollo

oysters and vin de Cassis petite fille tellement brune tête de lune qui amait les veentair sports      in the end they were all slot machines undressed as Phocean figurines posted with their legs apart around the scummy edges of the oldest port

the Riviera was a letdown but there was a candy-colored church with a pointed steeple on every hill beyond San Remo      Porto Maurizio blue seltzerbottles standing in the cinzanocolored sunlight beside a glass of VERMOUTH TORINO      Savona was set for the Merchant of Venice painted by Veronese Ponte Decimo      in Ponte Decimo ambulances were parked in a moonlit square of bleak stone workingpeople's houses      hoarfrost covered everything      in the little bar the Successful Story Writer taught us to drink cognac and maraschino half and half

havanuzzerone

it turned out he was not writing what he felt he wanted to be writing What can you tell them at home about the war? it turned out he was not wanting what he wrote he wanted to be feeling      cognac and maraschino      was no longer young      (It made us damn sore we greedy for what we felt we wanted tell 'em all they lied see new towns go to Genoa)      havanuzzerone?      it turned out that he wished he was a naked brown shepherd boy sitting on a hillside playing a flute in the sunlight

going to Genoa was easy enough the streetcar went there Genoa the new town we'd never seen full of marble doges and breakneck stairs marble lions in the moonlight      Genoa      was the ancient ducal city burning? all the marble palaces and the square stone houses and the campaniles topping hills had one marble wall on fire

bonfire under the moon

the bars were full of Britishers overdressed civilians strolling under porticoes outside the harbor under the Genoa moon the sea was on fire the member of His Majesty's Intelligence Service said it was a Yankee tanker had struck a mine? been torpedoed? why don't they scuttle her?

Genoa      eyes      flared      with      the      light      of      the      burning tanker      Genoa      what are you looking for? the flare in the blood under the moon down the midnight streets in boys' and girls' face      Genoa      eyes the question in their eyes

through the crumbling stone courts under the Genoa moon up and down the breakneck stairs eyes on fire under the moon round the next corner full in your face the flare of the bonfire on the sea

11,000 registered harlots said the Red Cross Publicity Man infest the streets of Marseilles

It was a lousy trip. Joe was worried all the time about Del and about not making good and the deckcrew was a bunch of soreheads. The engines kept breaking down. The
Higginbotham
was built like a cheesebox and so slow there were days when they didn't make more'n thirty or forty miles against moderate head winds. The only good times he had was taking boxing lessons from the second engineer, a fellow named Glen Hardwick. He was a little wiry guy, who was a pretty good amateur boxer, though he must have been forty years old. By the time they got to Bordeaux Joe was able to give him a good workout. He was heavier and had a better reach and Glen said he'd a straight natural right that would take him far as a lightweight.

In Bordeaux the first port official that came on board tried to kiss Cap'n Perry on both cheeks. President Wilson had just declared war on Germany. All over the town nothing was too good for Les Americains. Evenings when they were off Joe and Glen Hardwick cruised around together. The Bordeaux girls were damn pretty. They met up with a couple one afternoon in the public garden that weren't hookers at all. They were nicely dressed and looked like they came of good families, what the hell it was wartime. At first Joe thought he ought to lay off that stuff now that he was married, but hell, hadn't Del held out on him. What did she think he was, a plaster saint? They ended by going to a little hotel the girls knew and eating supper and drinking a beaucoup wine and champagne and having a big party. Joe had never had such a good time with a girl in his life. His girl's name was Marceline and when they woke up in the morning the help at the hotel brought them in coffee and rolls and they ate breakfast, both of 'em sitting up in bed and Joe's French began to pick up and he learned how to say C'est la guerre and On les aura and Je m'en fiche and Marceline said she'd always be his sweetie when he was in Bordeaux and called him petit lapin.

They only stayed in Bordeaux the four days it took 'em to wait their turn to go up to the dock and unload, but they drank wine and cognac all the time and the food was swell and nobody could do enough for them on account of America having come into the war and it was a great old four days.

On the trip home the
Higginbotham
sprung leaks so bad the old man stopped worrying about submarines altogether. It was nip and tuck if they'd make Halifax. The ship was light and rolled like a log so that even with fiddles on they couldn't keep dishes on the messtable. One dirty night of driving fog somewhere south of Cape Race, Joe with his chin in his peajacket was taking a turn on the deck amidship when he was suddenly thrown flat. They never knew what hit 'em, a mine or a torpedo. It was only that the boats were in darn good order and the sea was smooth that they got off at all. As it was the four boats got separated. The
Higginbotham
faded into the fog and they never saw her sink, though the last they could make out her maindeck was awash.

They were cold and wet. In Joe's boat nobody said much. The men at the oars had to work hard to keep her bow into the little chop that came up. Each sea a little bigger than the others drenched them with spray. They had on wool sweaters and lifepreservers but the cold seeped through. At last the fog greyed a little and it was day. Joe's boat and the captain's boat managed to keep together until late that afternoon they were picked up by a big fishing schooner, a banker bound for Boston.

When they were picked up old Cap'n Perry was in a bad way. The master of the fishing schooner did everything he could for him, but he was unconscious when they reached Boston four days later and died on the way to the hospital. The doctors said it was pneumonia.

Next morning Joe and the mate went to the office of the agent of Perkins and Ellerman, the owners, to see about getting themselves and the crew paid off. There was some kind of damn monkeydoodle business about the vessel's having changed owners in midAtlantic, a man named Rosenberg had bought her on a speculation and now he couldn't be found and the Chase National Bank was claiming ownership and the underwriters were raising cain. The agent said he was sure they'd be paid all right, because Rosenberg had posted bond, but it would be some time. “And what the hell do they expect us to do all that time, eat grass?” The clerk said he was sorry but they'd have to take it up direct with Mr. Rosenberg.

Joe and the first mate stood side by side on the curb outside the office and cursed for a while, then the mate went over to South Boston to break the news to the chief who lived there.

It was a warm June afternoon. Joe started to go around the shipping offices to see what he could do in the way of a berth. He got tired of that and went and sat on a bench on the Common, staring at the sparrows and the gobs loafing around and the shop girls coming home from work, their little heels clattering on the asphalt paths.

Joe hung around Boston broke for a couple of weeks. The Salvation Army took care of the survivors, serving 'em beans and watery soup and a lot of hymns off key that didn't appeal to Joe the way he felt just then. He was crazy to get enough jack to go to Norfolk and see Del. He wrote her every day but the letters he got back to General Delivery seemed kinder cool. She was worried about the rent and wanted some spring clothes and was afraid they wouldn't like it at the office if they found out about her being married.