Funnymen (33 page)

Early in 1944 I, for the first time, accompanied General Woodling to New Mexico. Miss Cunningham was also on the plane, which was a violation of protocol . . . I'd had to refer to her as “Army Nurse Cunningham” in order to procure her passage. I sat by myself on the transport plane and the two of them sat in front of me, alternating between infantile giggling and stern silences. It was just we three. At one point in the flight, General Woodling fell asleep and I noticed that Miss Cunningham began looking through his kit bag, but he awoke and admonished her. She nibbled on his
ear and the matter was quickly settled. He fell asleep again and she turned around to me and made a flirtatious “kissy gesture” to me, not the first time she had done so. At another juncture in the flight, the general came over to me and, his breath reeking of bourbon, said, “Reynolds, I know that the past two years haven't been easy for you, that you haven't appreciated being kept in the dark. But very soon you're going to learn what this is all about and why it had to be that way.” As I was telling him that I understood the need for complete confidentiality, I espied Betsy Cunningham applying a glistening red lipstick and looking back at the two of us. “How's Mrs. Woodling doing?” the general asked me. “I spend far too little time with Lucinda nowadays.” I told the general that she was doing well, that her teas, social functions, and canasta games kept her busy. Miss Cunningham at this juncture crossed her legs and tugged at her skirt slightly. There was a brief flash of skin, the skin between the upper rim of her stocking and the hem of the skirt. Unbeknownst to General Woodling, she saw me see this flash of skin and then made a crude yet alluring tongue gesture.

Los Alamos, which General Groves and Dr. Oppenheimer had selected as the laboratory and test site, was the ideal location. It is unimaginable that any other place would have sufficed. The scenery was awe-inspiring. The sky stretched out forever in all directions; hills and mountains rose and fell with unbearable majesty, and the play of colors was almost unendurable: umbers, ochres, puces, and the pale blue sky arcing overhead . . . truly an awesome vista. Miles and miles of desolation, of isolation, an endless, broken terrain of terrible emptiness. It was as harrowingly lonely a place as I have ever been to in my life.

And that was the problem.

ARNIE LATCHKEY:
See, you had all these highbrow E=MC2 types, these chemists and engineers and physicists, and you had some army guys, and some of the wives there too . . .
but there wasn't anything to do!
Take the most exciting two hundred people in the world and plop them down right smack in the middle of Death Valley. Things would get pretty dead pretty quick, wouldn't it? But this was worse. Because these people were not exciting. A scintillating time for them was getting a new piece of chalk to write a formula with.

That's why we were there. Sure, they had their chess games and their little parties before Fountain and Bliss arrived. There were square dances and Enrico Fermi used to play the piano and I think Edward Teller used to even play the fiddle. But, you know, even a physicist who's designing the most powerful weapon in the history of mankind at the most crucial moment in history wants to get up and swing once in a while! That's what General Woodling told us: This was for morale. We were to play one show
and then get the hell out of here. I had no idea, Vic and Ziggy had no idea, that they were working on an atomic bomb.

On our first day there we were taken to a small dusty barracks to meet Woody and Oppenheimer, who was as skinny as a lollipop stick. I said to him, “Oppie,
bubeleh,
eat something!!!” I don't care how much a guy knows about the cosmos and uranium and neutrons, I don't care if he
has
become Death, shatterer of worlds, just
eat something!
Ziggy even said he was going to call Sally and have her send him ten pounds of
rugelach
. . . but Oppenheimer reminded Ziggy that we were not allowed to use the phones. Vic said, “No phones? Doc, this place is deader than last week's beer!” “Yes, it is,” Oppie said. Boy, you couldn't get a giggle or a smile out of that guy.

“You're going to perform one show,” Woody told us. “It will be the night of July fifteenth. It will be at an undisclosed location on the base . . . you'll be informed hours before the show.”

“Jesus, I hope we're flying Billy Ross in,” Vic said.

“Who's Billy Ross?” Oppie asked.

“My arranger and bandleader. I ain't going on with some nickel-and-dime army band.”

While Oppie and Woody now confabbed in a corner for a second, Ziggy, Vic, and I took the opportunity to similarly huddle together.

“This place is death,” Vic said. “I want out.”

“This is important, guys,” I said.

“Vic's right, Latch,” Ziggy chimed in. “I'd rather play a prison full of condemned deaf mutes than this joint.”

“Look, we do one show, we do two hours, then we get going. The Astor canceled on us because of Vic's toes. The Hippodrome dropped us in Baltimore too. I promise you, I give you my word, that this thing is going to fix that.
We need this!”

“And I need a drink,” Vic said.

General Woodling and Oppenheimer came back and Woody said, “We're not flying Billy Ross in. I'm sorry. We have several people here who play musical instruments. I'm sure that they would love to provide accompaniment for you.”

“Hey, who's the dish?” Vic said. Out the barracks window we saw some blond doll in a jeep with a figure like Linda Darnell's. She was looking in the rearview mirror, fixing her hair.

“Back to this music problem,” Woody said. “Do you have any—”

“Yeah!” I said. “I got the charts!” I opened up my suitcase, which those Army security
momzers
at the gate had thoroughly searched—Vic and Ziggy were chuckling to no end about my polka-dot boxers—and I handed Woody the charts.

“What are you guys working on here, Doc, “Vic asked Oppenheimer,
“some sort of super-deluxe martini shaker to get the Nips so bagged we can just waltz into Tokyo?”

“Perhaps we should devote ourselves to that, Mr. Fountain,” Oppie said to him.

“Lieutenant Catledge will show you to your quarters,” Woody said.

“Is there any booze in this operation?” Vic asked. “I'm parched.”

General Woodling told us that there was alcohol and that he would have some sent over to our quarters after Catledge filled out the proper requisition papers.

“Jeez, I go to Jack Dempsey's bar, I don't have to fill out any requisition papers,” Vic said.

We walked out and Lieutenant Catledge walked us over to a little Quonset-hut setup, about a mile's walk. Ziggy was huffing and puffing as we walked and Vic kept saying, “Where's our hotel room in? Fuckin' Brazil?”

The hut was so bare I almost blushed out of embarrassment. Three cots and a toilet. And a window with a breathtaking view of absolutely nothing.

“What kinda design style is this? Early igloo?” Ziggy said.

“No phone, huh?” Vic chimed in. “How'm I supposed to call my bookie?”

Catledge told us that there were phones but that we did not have clearance to use them. Vic said, “Look, pal, if
you've
got clearance, do me a favor. Put a fin on the Red Sox today.”

“I wouldn't know who to call for that, Mr. Fountain,” Cat said.

“I was only kiddin' ya,” Vic said. “And it's Vic, not Mr. Fountain.”

Catledge left and we
plotzed
as one on our respective cots.

“Where the hell's our next show after this, Latch? We playing for some bedouins at the Club Sahara?” Ziggy said.

“Yeah, Zig,” I said. “I'll try to line that one up for us.”

REYNOLDS CATLEDGE IV:
I'd been at the base a few weeks before Fountain and Bliss arrived and was on the verge of losing my sanity. There were square dances on weekends and there was even a low-watt radio station, but I really did feel as though I was at the very edge of the world. The food was not bad—Edward Teller's veal
paprikosh
was splendid. But the place needed a jolt, a shot in the arm.

My only source of diversion was Betsy Cunningham. One day she came into General Woodling's office. She wanted to use the phone, she told me, and I told her this was impossible. She sat on my desk, crossed her legs. She ran her fingers through my hair, told me what a handsome boy I was. “Poor wittle Reynolds,” she said, pinching my lips together with her hands, “wittle, wittle baby boy who works for big, big strong general but wants to fuck the general's girl and who's got this wittle, wittle hard-on right now.”

She told me that I should wait up for her that night, that she would tap on my window at three in the morning and, like a fool, I did.

ARNIE LATCHKEY:
They wouldn't let us do anything! We wanted to walk around, get the feel of the place, but everywhere we went, someone told us we couldn't go here, we couldn't go there. Ziggy was sweating up a storm . . . the place was like being inside an oven. I said to Catledge, “You gotta give us a jeep, Cat,” and he said he'd do what he could. We got the jeep. Vic went to the mess hall on our second day and “liberated” some gin and vermouth and some bourbon and seltzer. Meanwhile Ziggy's clothes are sopping wet with his constant
shvitz
. “Can you get this guy some new duds?” I say to Catledge and boom, ten minutes later Ziggy, me, and Vic are all decked out in army fatigues. (Boy, did Vic ever get a big kick out of walking around in an army uniform for a few days!)

That night we're back in our hut and just shooting the shit. Tellin' stories, reliving some of the good times we've had. You know, Vic and Ziggy were now sort of becoming pals. The Detroit shows had gone really well. We'd gone out to dinner and lunch there every night, all of us together. Their rapport was improving. They had all that chemistry on the stage and now they were getting it offstage too. And that was the first time we ever started insisting on things. And we did it just for the hell of it. In the hotel in Chi, Ziggy called down to the front desk and said he wanted ruby red sheets and pillow cases, to match his hair.
Ruby
he wants! And they did it. Then he calls Vic's room to crow about that, and Vic now one-ups him . . . he says he wants turquoise, to match his eyes. And they did that too.

So we're in the hut drinking martinis and Catledge comes in, just to check on us.

“Any broads around here, Cat?” Vic says to him.

“There are indeed,” Catledge told us. There were the wives, there were some lady scientists, and so on, he told us.

“Nah, you know what I mean,” Vic said. “Where can a fella get some action in this one-ghost town? Mr. Baciagaloop needs to whet his whistle.”

After we assured Cat that we hadn't snuck [
sic
] anyone named Mr. Baciagaloop onto the grounds, he said to us, “There are some girls if you're really interested.”

Vic perked up, offered Catledge a drink. Vic said, “I'm a two-a-day man and I ain't even had my first yet. You and me, Cat, whattaya say?”

Catledge—he was a small, serious crewcut guy who wouldn't smile if you stretched his lips with pliers—blushed, and Vic looked over to me and Ziggy. Ziggy said, “I'm game for some broad action—you know me.” Vic said, “You stay here and keep Latch company, Zig. Me and the lootie have some reconnoitering to do, ain't that, right, Lieutenant Catledge?” Vic
slapped Cat on the back and then he and this bashful lieutenant go driving off into the darkness.

Two days later who shows up? Hunny Gannett!

Vic said that he would not go on, would not do the show, would in fact leave the whole area, if Hunny was not on the premises. He made this abundantly clear to Catledge, who in turn made that known to the top pooh-bahs at Los Alamos. Turns out that the two pin-striped FBI guys had already cleared Hunny. Too dumb to be a spy, I guess. They flew Hunny in, dragged in another cot, and now it was the four of us, swilling martinis, goofing off and swapping stories.

Boxers back then would do exhibitions. You go from this base to that, you strip to your trunks and strap on the Everlasts and shuffle and jab, and you've done your duty. Keep the boys entertained, keep your
tuches
in one piece. Vic's idea was to have Hunny maybe take on some of the army guys on the base. “It'd really loosen up the place, Arn,” he said. The army bought it.