The CTR Anthology Read online

  Husband: Come on in John, but you can’t share the wife.

  Neighbour: Brought some of my homemade singing juice.

  Boy: Better watch out, Mr Carver, the police has been around.

  Neighbour: Looking for trouble eh?

  Husband: No, just curious.

  Neighbour: Well, shoot! No wonder. I think you could show an Eskimo a thing or two.

  SCENE SIXTEEN: JOE LOUIS AND THE BUM-OF-THE-MONTH CLUB

  (The company becomes listeners in different times and places.)

  Farmer: Radio was the big thing and boxing was radio.

  Announcer: Fight #1: Bill Braddock.

  Farmer: The sports pages were full of Joe Jouis and what they called his Bum-of-the-month club.

  Announcer: Fight #2: Tony Galento.

  Farmer: We know now that Joe never threw that many punches, but the announcer threw a lot for him to make the fight more exciting and sell more Gillette Blue Blades.

  Announcer: Fight #3: Max Schmelling.

  Farmer: Joe wasn’t a thinker you know. But he’d been taught well; left hooks, jabs, combinations and he knew how to go in for the kill. But old Tommy Farr baffled him.

  Announcer: Farr fight, round #3.

  Farmer: In my opinion Farr couldn’t hit worth a damn. The thing was, though he wasn’t winning, he was still standing up and fighting.

  Announcer: Farr fight, round #9.

  Farmer: Louis won as he knew he would but Tommy the Welshman sure put up a big fight.

  Announcer: Farr fight over – round #15.

  SCENE SEVENTEEN: OLD MAN MARSHALL’S

  Strong woman: There was this little old man living next door to us named Marshall. He’d been a butcher for a Red and White store and got let go and he had no money put away, none. His wife was dead and he was lonely. He was about 50, I think, but to a kid of 12, well, that’s pretty old. One night he came over to play cribbage with my old man and he was feeling low and when he left he said, “Harry, I’ve been feeling poorly the past while. If you don’t see smoke coming out my chimney, would you drop over? See how I’m doing and” – he put his hand up to his heart as if to emphasize his point. My Dad said, “Joe, I never knew you had a bum ticker” and he said, “I haven’t. It’s just busted right in two.” About a month later my mother said she hadn’t seen anything doing around the Marshall house for a couple of days and she sent me over. The front and back doors were locked, but there was a basement door and I got in that way. I didn’t know where the light switch was and it was black as hell so I started feeling my way up the stairs when I felt two bumps on my chest, as if I’d run into two objects, and you know, I guess my brain wasn’t working because it took me a few seconds, in fact until I felt the ankles, and then I knew they were shoes. Feet. Old Man Marshall was hanging there. He’d tied a rope around the beam, put the noose over his head, and just jumped into space.

  SCENE EIGHTEEN: THE CALL TO OTHER PLACES

  Song: Other Places

  Girls: I love the long whistle of a train at night,

  Moving down the valley, a call, to other places where things might be right

  As I lay in my bed, I loved the sound of that train

  Telling me escape, get away through the mountains,

  A passenger train, going to Vancouver

  Or to Winnipeg, then on to Toronto …

  Young girl: Maybe romance, if you really think so. But to get away. I was 20 and I had teacher’s training and I’d have taught for free just to be given the chance, but no, there was dear, sweet Margaret at home again with a family that was dying. I used to think that if the rest of Canada was like us, lost and dying on 320 acres of Saskatchewan land, then Canada was finished. But there was always that train going to Vancouver, through the Rockies and then the Selkirks and the Purcell mountains and then through the Monashee – oh, what a lovely name – and down to the sea and I would take off my shoes and walk along the sand and let every wave wash around me and I would write my sad thoughts with a stick in the sand and the waves would wash away the letters and those sad times would be gone forever.

  Girls: I love the long whistle of a train at night going to Vancouver,

  Telling me escape, get away through the mountains.

  Boys: Or to Winnipeg, then on to Toronto.

  SCENE NINETEEN: BOX CAR

  Quiet man (Bum): If they wanted you to pick fruit in a hurry, you were an economic saviour, the rest of the time you were shit.

  (Sound effect: train.)

  Bum: You didn’t just jump on a boxcar and away you went. No sirree, saw too many bodies cut in two, legs off, heads off. You had to run a quarter of the speed of the train on slippery grade, sloping gravel. When you’re going your best lick, you figure how fast it’s going. One car goes by, get ready for next and then jump for the ladder. Quick up to the top and lie flat, make sure the bulls aren’t checking. The cars were full, or empty but locked. Riding on top on a sunny spring day was a real joy; in fall, raining, snow, it was bad. And in winter, there was a quick way to die. You can always tell the professionals: dirty, lice, crabs, fleas, always needed a shave, a three-day beard, never a one-day beard. A young man’s business; older men over 40 couldn’t stand the gaff. The cold, poor food, the tension; anyone who survived a year riding freights never had much respect for police.

  (Salesman, hobo, farmer and young man run for the boxcar. The quiet man is already riding. Each one in turn joins chain to help next bum onto car. The boxcar door is closed, sound effects stop.)

  Young man: There was this uncle, Dad’s brother in Winnipeg, so I thought I’d hop over there. I didn’t know where it was, how far, no nothing. But I’ll you one thing: I soon found out. Halfway around the world riding in freight cars.

  Balladeer: Here’s the garage, boy.

  Young man: Hm, funny setup … big cars … only a driver’s side!

  Balladeer: No room for passengers. Frank, you think you can handle one of these?

  Young man: You’ve got a Graham Paige engine here big enough to drive the Queen Mary!

  Balladeer: Three cars go together and load up the commodity at the warehouse.

  Young man: Commodity?

  Balladeer: Scotch, Frank, for the Prohibition. You just head for that border 60 miles away and if somebody tries to stop you, you just bang on through. If anyone chases you, just outrun them and if you get caught … tough luck.

  Young man: Farewell, so to speak.

  Balladeer: Isn’t much chance of being caught cause it ain’t the Mounties’ business and the Americans are paid off but some times …

  Young man: What do you mean?

  Balladeer: Well, some times a cop wants to be a hero. Then it takes a month or so to get him transferred.

  Young man: That still sounds risky.

  Balladeer: It pays 50 bucks a week, Frank.

  Young man: You’re on.

  (Sound effects: piano & kazoo car chase begin.)

  Young man: I worked for a year and one month, until they knocked down Prohibition. Until booze became legal again. $50 a week and later $60. I smashed up two cars. I got shot in the leg once. A friend double-crossed me and stole a load and I often wonder what happened to him. I had a girl friend I kept in an apartment in St Boniface and I had another girl friend in Grand Forks, North Dakota. I made three runs a week. I risked my life every trip and I never saved a cent. But I had fun.

  (Sound effects: car chase crossfades to train again.)

  Hobo: I was born on a farm south of Regina in the Maxton area. I don’t believe anyone who wasn’t there in 1934, 35, 36 can believe how bad it was. The wind blew hurricane force and it was colder each winter than the Yukon. In 1936 I was 16 and there was no point hanging around. I was just another belly to feed and there were three kids younger. I left and worked my way east. Just a dumb farm kid. There were an awful lot of dumb farm kids around those days. I got down into the Niagara Peninsula for the picking but there were no jobs and I decided to turn myself in as a vagrant.

>   (Sound effects: cut)

  Balladeer: “Boondoggles” – that’s what the Chicago Trib called them – boondoggles, makework projects to justify the dole – like tidying up back lane, picking rocks, digging dandelions. Sure, digging dandelions. Ain’t you never heard of the Great Dandelion Offensive of 1931?

  Farmer: Men: When we leave here, we’re going to walk over to the top of Niagara Street and start cleaning the dandelions off the boulevard. Now, if everybody will co-operate, we’ll get along just fine. Nobody expects you to bust a gut on this job but, if you set yourself some kind of a goal, time is bound to go quicker. There’s only one rule: you can kneel down, sit down, or lie down; but I don’t want you standing up. Standing up will attract the attention of the people on the street and, if they see you standing around doing bugger all, some of these dames will be phoning in to raise hell. Then I get hell and, if I do, then I’ll sure as hell dish out some myself.

  Balladeer: We kneeled and jabbed dandelions, we sat down and jabbed dandelions, we lolled full length and jabbed dandelions. We sharpened the blades of our knives. We watched housewives going shopping.

  Farm wife: By God! This is it. The last outrage.

  Quiet woman: Here’s what I sweat and slave to pay taxes for.

  Young man: To pay all the lazy bums in Winnipeg to sit around on the boulevard.

  Strong woman: Well, by God, I’ve had it! I’m going to the mayor!

  Farm wife: I’m going to the newspapers!

  Quiet woman: Me, too.

  Balladeer: The next thing any of us knew, one of our gang was over by this taxpayer’s car, and he had grabbed the taxpayer’s tie, and pulled his head out the open window of his car. Their noses were about six inches apart and a dandelion knife was pointed at the taxpayer’s chin.

  Hobo: I’m not a bum. I am a railroad fireman. But because this country is being run by stupid people like you, I can’t hold a wiper’s job in the shops. And we are not being paid for this job, not one dime. We take jobs like this because we’re afraid of getting cut off the relief. And you are not going to report anyone to anyone. You are going to get the hell off the street. And if you so much as let out a peep to anyone, there are 20 guys here who have your licence number and who have all the spare time required to make you live to regret it.

  Balladeer: He released the taxpayer and gave his face a vigorous assist back through the open window. And, as it moved past him, he held the screaming point of his dandelion knife against the side of that taxpayer’s car.

  (Sound effects: Boxcar begins again.)

  SCENE TWENTY: THE JUNGLE

  Salesman: Boy, you’re in for a treat. Other side of town is the Glencoe Country Club of jungles.

  Young man: But I want to get off and into town first to get my mail.

  Farmer: Well, better teach you a few tricks of the road.

  Salesman: You could be in for a rough time if you look like a real bum; dirty, ragged, you know what I mean. Well, a lot of them houses have big dogs.

  Farmer: Never try bumming anything within five blocks of the rail yards.

  Salesman: Commonsense; these people have had their doors knocked on for years – even before the Depression.

  Farmer: Remember, you don’t have to commit a criminal act to get into trouble.

  Salesman: You just have to be you, without money.

  Quiet man: Kid, you jump when I yell three.

  Balladeer: What was the jungle like? Well, the jungle was where the hoboes gathered and it was a place where the cops didn’t bother you. You’d find them easily at night, spring, fall, summer because of the fires. Cooking fires mainly. There was always a stew pot going – one of those gallon tomato tins.

  Young man: I’ll tell you about the famous Calgary omelette. I made it myself. There was a cutbank on the Bow River, on a curve, and there was a kind of jungle there. It was about five miles into Calgary and that was one place, Winnipeg and Sioux Lookout and Vancouver were others, where my dear old mother would send me mail, general delivery. So I went in and sure enough, there was a letter and I’ll be damned if two $1 bills didn’t drop out.

  Hobo: Cows we eat. They eat grass, grain, Russian thistle. What’s the difference between a gopher and a red squirrel? Squirrels are a delicacy, ain’t they? Paris sort of delicacy. You get a casserole dish and you line it and then you lay down about eight strips of gopher because you get two strips of sides and bellymeat off of one of them. Then you lay a thin layer of sliced potatoes and so on, and then you fold the dough over the top and put it in the oven.

  Quiet woman: Ever heard of ketchup soup? Or catsup stew? O.K. Well, these here fellows would come into my place … “Hi Lily,” they’d say. “Hi fellows,” I’d say. So they’d buy a glass of milk: five cents. Then they’d scoop up a big handful of them oyster biscuits. They’re free. They’d go over to the boiling water urn and take a bowl and fill it up. You still with me? There was sort of a cabinet where I kept all the sauces and stuff. They’d grab up a bottle of ketchup and go over there to a booth. Now, here’s how you do it. You dump as much ketchup as you figure you can get away with into the hot water, there, then you unload your crackers and you crumple them up, like so, in your hand and let ’em go in the ketchup and water. Then you stir it around, add some salt and pepper and you’ve got, mister, right there you’ve got something that tasted pretty damn good in those days.

  Young girl: That goddamned cod liver oil my old man, when he wasn’t drunk, would brew out of fish guts the captains would give him. If we were acting up, raising hell, my mother would threaten us with another tablespoon of cod liver oil. One thing, though, we were the healthiest kids within twenty miles. Rosy cheeks, bright blue eyes, tough as nails, and stinking of cod liver oil.

  Hobo: There’s nothing wrong with the meat, it is just the thought of it. But what is wrong with a gopher? Just the thought, that’s it.

  Salesman: I heard of farm families eating gophers, but I don’t believe it. But if you were to eat a barn rat in a stew, unwittingly, now that could be another matter altogether. Those rats are plump and grain-fed around the barn. Why, back in Toronto, they’re just about the best-looking livestock they’ve got around the place.

  Farmer: Hey! It’s the kid!

  Salesman: Been out stealing?

  Young man: No, gentlemen, just to the post-office and back.

  Salesman: You got all this in the mail?

  Young man: No, just a wee tiny letter from me wee tiny mother, with a wee, tiny $2 bill inside.

  Farmer: Jesus, it pays to write home.

  Young man: So what’s the first thing I do?

  Salesman: Faint.

  Young man: Then what?

  Quiet man: Get a couple of drinks.

  Young man: Right, four beer to be exact, gentlemen.

  Farmer: So now you’re tipsy.

  Young man: Remember how it feels? So I start for home to be back with you boys, and I pass this farm and there’s a sign –

  Strong woman: Eggs for Sale! Don’t crush them son.

  Young man: What else you got around?

  Strong woman: Butter? Cheese? Onions and celery.

  Young man: Give you 50 cents for the lot.

  Strong woman: Sold.

  Young man: They jumped at it.

  Salesman: Would’ve give you the farm for the whole $2. Barbecue dinners for them Yankee oil barons will have nothing absolutely goddamned nothing on Rupert Gill’s Great Omelette of 1936.

  Farm wife: Anybody who says people wasn’t going hungry, why he was a little wacky. I come down to Vancouver for December and January and I seen lots of starving. I seen bodies in doorways down on the waterfront, Cordova, Skid Row, east of Main. At the hospital they’d have a fancy name for it, you know, malnutrition, but a dead body was still a dead body.

  Farmer: I was not a hobo. A hobo is a regular bum, a professional bum. Hoboism is a state of mind. I was a wanderer. One of the unfortunates. A victim of the economic situation? Perhaps. Certainly, most certainly,
a casualty in the battle between ignorant men who were running this country. Once I got 30 days in jail for riding a freight car long ago into a Godforsaken little Saskatchewan city which, thank God, the economic ebbs and flow of the past two decades have served to reduce to a position of impotence. I refer to the metropolis of Moose Jaw. But I do have a criminal record; and to me, as one who survived what we call the Great Depression, that is a badge of honour.

  Quiet man: Excuse me, sir, I’m a poor lad from the Minas Basin down in Nova Scotia and my father is a war veteran, and my mother has just written to tell me that he’s dying from his old wounds. I wonder, sir, can you help me just a little bit, sir, to get home to stroke that old white head before he passes on? That would have elicited tears from Cathedral Mountain, especially outside the door of a Canadian Legion hall on a Friday night.

  Balladeer: Each man had his own nickname and his own set of stories, and they used to tell them around the fires in the jungles, and you knew damn well they had made them up or stolen them from somebody else.

  Quiet man: I’d improvise my story, I’d elaborate on parts, I’d turn on the steam.

  Quiet woman: He was a great liar. And, as a consequence, he was never short of money.

  Quiet man: I never paid for a ride, even a five-cent streetcar ride, to get me out on the highway. I always had a little story, a tale of woe.

  Quiet woman: And he had a voice that could sing to the angels.

  Quiet man: I never paid for a meal, even in Chinese restaurants with sloping floors and stove-grease caked on the ceilings. Fancy restaurants I’d get taken to by important gentlemen who’d picked me up on the highway. Thank you, sir, thank you.

  Balladeer: And I’d think I’d heard that same story in Brandon or Winnipeg or Toronto, and I’d get up and, sure enough, there would be the same hobo telling his same little pack of stories.

  Quiet man: I never worked. During the Depression a lovely woman befriended me in her little home in Regina.

  Quiet woman: I used to look at his hands and say they were the hands of a concert pianist.