Brando, Songs My Mother Taught Me Read online

  7

  AFTER TWO SEMESTERS at Shattuck, I went on the bum for a summer, riding the rails, living in hobo camps and hanging out with tramps. My traveling companions were drifters from all over America—professional full-time hoboes—and I learned that they had a social system of rules, customs and traditions as rigid and well defined as those of any culture I ever encountered later. The first thing I learned was never to ask a stranger about his previous life. Many were on the run from a wife, the police or a life they no longer wanted, and when you asked what they did, more often than not, they’d answer, “Just wasting time.” I learned their lingo, jargon and secret codes: a certain sign marked with chalk in an alley meant that a vicious dog lived nearby; a different symbol indicated that residents of the nearest house were generous. Around noon, everyone who lived in the camps had to contribute something to the mulligan stew. We returned to the camp with our respective contribution and dumped it into a common pot, then ate together—from a tin plate if we had one or right out of the pot if we didn’t. The camps were democratic, with a prescribed pecking order like most cultures: younger, greener hoboes like me were expected to pay a certain respect to those with more miles under their belt; often an unelected senior hobo was regarded as a kind of de facto headman who could arbitrate disputes, although it wasn’t unusual for disagreements to be settled with fists. A fire blazed in the camp all day, usually with a charred, steaming pot of coffee perched on a rusty steel grate. The hoboes simply dumped the coffee grounds straight into the pot. Everyone drank the coffee black because that was the way they did it—no sugar, no cream.

  A small Jewish man named Hasso befriended me. He was an itinerant scissor sharpener who went door-to-door selling needles and offering to fix things in exchange for a meal, and he taught me a lot: who to trust and who to avoid, how to get supper for a little sweat, how to avoid the railroad dicks who prowled the railroad yards with oak clubs that they smashed on your head if they caught you on a freight. Hasso told me to jump off the train a mile or so before the train arrived at a freight yard, walk a mile or so past it, then hop aboard another train after it had left the yard. He taught me to avoid empty boxcars whenever I could because they bounced up and down at least eight inches, and rattled so much that you couldn’t sleep. Find a loaded boxcar, he said, and make your bed on a stack of cardboard boxes if you can. If you can’t, ride the rods—the steel bars stretching beneath the boxcars a foot or two above the tracks. The safest way to do it, he said, was to place a piece of wood across the rods and stretch out on it. It was safe enough to ride that way, he said, but you had to be wary of gravel bouncing up from the track bed when the train moved at high speed. When it got cold, Hasso taught me, wood was a poor insulator, but newspapers could keep you warm. Three or four sheets of newsprint on damp ground, he said, kept you dry and, stuffed under your shirt, they kept you warm in a high wind. I remembered this trick later when I started riding motorcycles.

  If I didn’t spend the night in a hobo camp, I’d stay with a stranger or friend I had met along the way. There was usually a note on each freight car instructing the switching crews where to direct it. At one point I traveled across Wisconsin with the intention of going to harvest time in Minnesota. I got sick and didn’t make it and wound up at Jimmy Ferguson’s—my dear friend—in Rice Lake, Wisconsin.

  In those days people were generous, and if they had it to spare, they’d give you a meal in exchange for a little work. There wasn’t much crime, and my only real worry was the yard dicks. At one farmer’s house, I knocked on the door and offered, as usual, to work for my supper.

  “Well, what can you do to earn it?” the man asked.

  “Anything.”

  When he asked me if I knew anything about farming, I said that I lived on a farm, so he took me out to his barn and I milked the cows and fed the pigs. Then I went into the kitchen and sat down with his family for supper. After dinner he sent me upstairs to sleep in his daughter’s bedroom. It was the old traveling salesman’s dream come true. She was very pretty, and after the lights went out, I had a few urges to get into her bed, but then I thought to myself, After they’ve been so nice to me, how could I do it?

  I’ve never repeated that stupidity.

  When I returned to Shattuck that fall, the freedom I’d enjoyed all summer quickly evaporated. It was uniforms, formations, close-order drills, inspections and rigidly enforced conformity again, and I resumed my old tricks.

  I didn’t like studying or attending classes at Shattuck any more than I had at other schools. Whether it had something to do with my dyslexia or for other reasons, I’ll never know, but I never did well in school and was constantly searching for ways to avoid it. Like the other cadets, I began each semester with five classes, but it wasn’t long before I’d fail one and drop it, then another and another, so that by the end of the semester I usually had only one or two classes left.

  Sometimes I faked an illness to get out of going to class. One nurse at Shattuck named Mahalia (we called her Mahoola) was a kind woman, although years of looking after rowdy adolescents had left her looking exhausted. When I told her I was sick, she always felt my forehead and said, “Well, you don’t feel hot. Let’s take your temperature.” Then she would stick a thermometer in my mouth and leave to go look after someone else; then I would take it out, vigorously rub it on my pants and put it back. When she returned to check, the thermometer indicated that my temperature was 103 or 104. Mahoola always gave me a compassionate look and said, “That’s high. You don’t feel that hot, but you’d better go to bed right now.” Then I would say, “Do I have to?” For three or four days I didn’t have to go to class, and a couple of weeks later I’d do it again.

  Some mornings when I didn’t feel like studying, I got up early, stuck a paper clip in the lock on the classroom door and worked it back and forth till it broke off. By the time the locksmith would be summoned from town, everybody would be locked out, and there would be no class that day. I ruined lots of locks that way. Then I found out it was just as easy to lock the masters into their apartments so they couldn’t get to class. They lived across from each other along a hallway, and I discovered that by tying a rope to the door knobs of two opposing apartments the occupants of neither of them could open their doors, which swung inside. Since they usually lived on the second floor, they couldn’t get out a window, so they would be prisoners in their own rooms and there would be no class that day.

  Because I flunked or dropped out of so many classes, I ended up spending a lot of time in study hall, which is where you were sent if you were kicked out of a class. I made a list of 125 or so of the songs my mother had taught me, and every time I went to study hall, I’d pull out the list, pick a song and whistle it softly into my cupped hands.

  One of the few classes I liked was English, which was taught by Earle Wagner, a master known to everyone as Duke. Through him, I discovered Shakespeare, whose marvelous use of language transported me into a new universe. In the study hall, I had many hours to read Shakespeare, memorizing lines that I remember to this day. I also liked to riffle through the pages of the National Geographic, where I made another wonderful discovery, Tahiti. I was entranced by the beauty of its beaches and the customs of the Tahitians, but most of all by the expressions on their faces. They were happy, unmanaged faces. No manicured expressions, just kind, open maps of contentment. To a captive on what seemed like Devil’s Island, Tahiti appeared to me at least a sanctuary, and at best nirvana.

  8

  DUKE WAGNER WORE an old battered hat at an improbable angle and thought of himself as a debonair, rakish figure, although I think he was too frightened of the world ever really to be a rake. He had a slanted smile and a devil-may-care mustache, and walked around the campus with his dog, an English bulldog, a few steps behind him, his trench coat worn off the shoulders, dashing and capelike. He was cavalier and regal in his bearing and theatrical in his style—a duke, I suppose, in his own mind.

  Besides heading th
e English department, Duke was in charge of the Dramatic Association of Shattuck School. He invited me to try out for a part in A Message from Khufu, a one-act play inspired by the King Tut legend. I got the part of a character named Ben. When my friends said that I had done well and Duke did too, I felt good. Except for sports, it was the first time since my shop teacher at Julius C. Lathrop Junior High in Santa Ana had said he liked my work that anyone had ever told me I did anything well. When tryouts for other plays came up, I went after them, too. “I am learning lots of new words and am studying Hamlet in English class,” I wrote Frannie. “The way Wagner teaches things you are smart when it’s over.” In a letter to my parents, I said, “English is very hard but very interesting because we are studying plays. We are doing Shakespeare. What a man Duke!”

  In my second year at Shattuck, I made the drill team, which was called the Crack Squad. It was considered one of the best in the country and was a prestigious assignment. In parades and competitions with other schools, we marched in close-order formation, threw our rifles into the air and did complicated drills with everything synchronized and coordinated. We were never defeated in competition, but it was hard work; for every minute of our performance, we probably spent ten hours practicing.

  In my letters home that year, I kept appealing to my parents to visit or write. “Which one of you died and which one of you has broken your right arm?” I asked in one letter. In another that autumn, I told my father:

  We had our last football practice Thursday and the team is going to play the last game of the season at Culver on Saturday. We’ve got about a four-to-one chance of winning, although it should be a good game with all the rivalry and what not. The coach gave me consolation in saying that I would have been first-string material had I not been hurt and lost those three weeks of important practice. Next year though. I got my dress uniform and am the “king dude.” Boy, will I wow ’em. It’s tailored perfectly and really looks very military and snappy.…

  I never realized how much I didn’t know about things until I came up here. It’s astounding. I certainly hope you get here soon. I’ve surely missed you and Mom. My God, but she’s a sweet woman. When you come you will find yourself at very gala activities. First of all, it is Thanksgiving; secondly, we are having plays (one of which I am in). Then we have a big dance. About girls, I find myself entirely indifferent. I don’t give one damn if I never see one again. I’m glad I’ve passed the “girlie” stage of this adolescence stuff at least. And would you believe it, I’d rather not go to any dances?

  Love, Bud

  Dear Folks:

  Time is moving too slowly. It seems as though I’ve been up here for eight months. Everybody hates the coach. So do I. The Crack Squad deal is shaping up good for me. The captain said that I would make it … the campus is just ablaze with autumn colors. It is a knockout. Duke becomes in my estimation smarter and smarter every day. What a guy. English is very hard for me now because we are doing grammar, but I’m at it.

  Love you both very much Bud

  Every Sunday we had to go to the chapel for a service, where most of the cadets fell asleep, and Duke, who was very religious, and the other masters peered down the pews trying to catch us snoozing. Like everyone else, I was bored by it all. There was always a lot of elbowing in the ribs to break the boredom, and occasionally a farting contest would develop. As adolescents, we were capable of high-compression expulsions, which bounced off the boards of the wooden pews and produced loud, satisfying reports. Once a cadet released his bomb, the trick was for him to stare accusingly at his neighbor. If his neighbor laughed, it was all the better because it could be construed as an admission of guilt, and once guilt was established, everyone looked at the culprit with disgust. Then it was someone else’s turn to try to fart louder.

  One Sunday, after several cadets approached the altar to receive communion, my curiosity got the better of me and I decided to find out what they were experiencing. I had been told they were being given something to eat and maybe even wine, so I went up and knelt. When it was my turn, the priest put a wafer in my mouth, but instead of swallowing it, I stuck it in my cheek and rolled it around with my tongue to investigate it. When he offered wine, I gulped and held onto the cup so tightly that he had to put his foot on the railing to gain enough leverage to take it away from me. Back at my seat, I pulled the communion bread out of my mouth and studied it carefully. Peripherally I spotted Duke looking down at me darkly from the opposite end of the pew, and after the service he called me to his chambers and said, “My boy, you were toying with the most profound power in the universe. God help you. You must never insult the Lord again as you did today. Never again.”

  “What did I do?”

  “I saw you playing with the Holy Sacrament. You have to treat it with the greatest respect because if you don’t, you are tempting the Devil.”

  I felt awful for having offended Duke. This man who was so dear to me seemed frightened by what I’d done. I told him I was sorry, but that I had no idea what the ceremony meant.

  “It’s the body of Christ,” he said, “and the blood of Christ.”

  My first thought was, “That sounds cannibalistic,” but I didn’t say it because I didn’t want to hurt Duke.

  Despite my failures in the classroom, some of the masters still thought they could make an officer out of me. As a stimulant, or perhaps as a way of inspiring me to agree with them that I had a talent for leadership, they gave me a stripe of Private First Class and put me in charge of a floor. I immediately used my authority to blackmail cadets for food and candy; I said I would not put them on report after the Sunday inspection if they gave me just a taste of what they had; it was a variation of the gangster’s protection racket, but I only picked on the kids I knew to be my enemies and who were squealers. I was soon relieved of my command, needless to say.

  Periodically the army sent inspection teams to Shattuck, as it did to other military schools subsidized by the government, to review how we were doing. They were looking for military talent, and could offer Shattuck graduates a lieutenant’s or captain’s commission. A few days before each inspection, the cadet corps was summoned to a formation, and we would be informed about how important the inspection would be, not only for Shattuck but for our futures as army officers. It was vital, we were told, to pay deference and respect to the inspectors while doing our utmost to show them how much we had learned about such things as map reading, tactics and general military discipline.

  That second year, a tough-as-nails colonel got the assignment to come to Shattuck, and one of the masters told him about me. He said I’d been something of a troublemaker, but I must have some of the qualities of a leader because I always managed to get other cadets involved in my mischief, and also, when the bell tower clapper disappeared, I’d been the only cadet with enough sense of honor and duty to demand punishment of the perpetrators.

  We were ordered into the woods on extended-order drill with rifles and other paraphernalia. I was the officer in charge of the blue team, which was supposed to outmaneuver the red team. The colonel came up to me and said, “Soldier, your battalion leader has been killed. What do you do?”

  “Sir,” I said, “I’d ask the company commander.”

  “He’s been killed, too. What would you do then?”

  “Well, I’d ask the squad leader,” I said.

  “He’s been killed, too,” the colonel answered. “What would you do then?”

  “Sir,” I answered, “I guess I’d run like hell.”

  It was not the answer he expected, and it was viewed as insubordination. I was put on probation and confined to my room, which delighted me because it meant I wouldn’t have to take part in the extended close-order drill scheduled later in the day. But after an hour or so of being alone in my room, I got bored and decided to go into town. Unfortunately, my unauthorized absence was quickly discovered, and since I was on probation I was expelled.

  “Marlon, this school is not meant for
a person like you,” Nuba the Tuba told me when he broke the news. “We can’t put up with you anymore.”

  Sadly I went from room to room saying good-bye to all my friends. When I got to Duke, he surprised me by saying, “Don’t worry, Marlon, everything will be all right. I know the world is going to hear from you.”

  I’ll never forget his words.

  My eyes suddenly filled with tears as he embraced me. I put my head on his shoulder and couldn’t stop sobbing. I hadn’t realized that I had been holding back a desire to be loved and reaffirmed. I guess I didn’t even realize it then. It was the only time anyone had ever been so loving and so directly encouraging and concerned about me. I looked into Duke’s eyes and saw that he really meant it. Even now, as I recall that moment, I am moved and touched by how much he meant to me.

  When I got home, I looked at the faces of my mother and my father and sensed their hopelessness and disappointment. But I was used to it by then.

  About two weeks later a letter arrived from Shattuck: “Dear Cadet Brando,” it said. “The Student Body and all the officers in the entire battalion have been on strike because we feel you were unfairly treated. We declared we will not go back to class until and unless you are reinstated.…” After describing the strike, the letter concluded: “We are happy to inform you that we have succeeded in winning your reinstatement. The administration have agreed to let you return to Shattuck and make up the time you lost in summer school.” The letter was signed by every cadet in the battalion.