The train was spotted on the Southern Pacific tracks east of downtown Los Angeles. I counted three open spaces large enough for the show before I arrived at the designated lot on Crenshaw near Wilshire Blvd. I drove the team past the corner of Hill and Washington which, I had been told, was the traditional site for circuses over the years. A building was under construction. A sign on the site pronounced “The Beginning of West Los Angeles.” What the sign did not say was that West Los Angeles was the home of movie stars and their spectacular mansions.
In the cookhouse at lunch, there was plenty of speculation about which actors would attend the show. One fellow, who had been on the Rawlings show for a long time, said he was sure that the actor, Wallace Beery, would attend and visit his friends on the show. Beery had been an elephant handler at the turn of the century and still loved the Rawlings circus. Someone else sitting at the dinner table said he hoped that our boss, Charles Rawlings, knew Rudolph Valentino. He was the rage among the young women who went to the movies.
It was common knowledge that Charles Rawlings and his brother, John, had been in Los Angeles well before we arrived. In Fresno, I saw their private coaches being pulled away by a Southern Pacific switch engine and hooked to a regularly scheduled passenger train.. I liked the movies and hoped that the circus owners really hobnobbed with the Beery, Fairbanks, Lloyd, and Mary Pickford. One old guy said many of the movie stars started working in the circus before coming to California.
After we set up on the lot, teamsters and assistants were summoned to the red wagon before the afternoon performance. One hundred or so men, Negro and white, gathered to hear Wells, the circus treasurer, say that Rawlings was giving us a small bonus because we had a strong season. He said that each teamster would be given two dollars while assistants and grooms would get a dollar. That was his way of saying that most white guys would get more than the Negroes, but no one objected.
Williams also told us we could stay in a hotel or take the Pacific Electric streetcars to the sleeping cars that were parked near the spot where we unloaded. With the wide sweep of his hand, Williams motioned in the direction of rooming houses and hotels and gave assignments as to which men were to be on the lot on each of the three scheduled days of the stand. He also gave each man two passes to the performance. He stressed that this benefit would allow us to see the new act that would open with the first Los Angeles performance. The act would replace the von Leuvenfelds. Most of the men would sell their tickets since most had seen the show many times before. It was a way to give us more money without acknowledging the paltry wages they paid us.
As he spoke, Williams waved a list of hotels and rooming houses in his hand. He tacked it to a board on the side of the red wagon. He told the Negro workers that they could stay in only three of the places he checked on the list. They seemed unconcerned and pressed ahead with the rest of us to see the list. He also told the Negroes that if that got drunk and rowdy they would be fired. I thought that was strange. I knew there was a better chance that whites would get drunk because black people preferred dope to booze when both were available.
“Is the cookhouse going to be open?” a big roustabout named Heavy asked. Everyone laughed.
Williams glared at him. “Of course, Heavy, but it appears to me that you could live off your fat for several weeks. What are you worried about?”
I liked Williams most of the time, but he had a quick, sarcastic tongue that could be insulting and cutting when men irritated him. Williams, a short man, was precise and neat in his appearance. I could not understand how he kept so clean with all the dust and mud that we encountered. His black English riding boots were spit-shined, and he wore white-starched shirts with short collars. He carried himself straight as he wheeled the pinto pony from place to place. His eyes were his most distinctive feature. They were deep and piercing like a copperhead snake. After putting Heavy in his place, he moved onto the top step of the red wagon.
“Teamsters after this meeting get your teams ready. I want only the eights and the sixs. How many will that be?” he asked.
“Mr. Williams, there are fourteen sixes,” I answered.
“Seth, you pick the best eights and sixes for a street parade.”
An audible groan rose from the men, and old-timers especially seemed put off by the news. Street parades had been discontinued more than five years ago, but I was excited at the thought of participating in one. I didn’t understand the response. “Get over to wardrobe for your uniforms,” Williams said. “They know you are coming. We step off at one o’clock.”
I cringed as it sunk in what he said to me. I was supposed to select the teamsters to pull wagons and cages in the parade. Why did I open my mouth in the first place? I wanted to keep a low profile. Now I had to say yes and no to people.
“What’s wrong?” George asked.
“Why did he do that to me?”
“Who?” George asked as men moved in my direction.
“Mr. Williams!”
“Cauz you can friggen get the job done. Who’ya goin’ pick?”
Teamsters pressed closer to me waiting for their assignment.
“How many teams in all?” I yelled toward Williams. He turned away smirking.
“Figure it out, kid!”
I had never organized a circus street parade. How was I supposed to know? Williams was testing me, and I was determined to get the job done for him. Ralph stood nearby. I decided to include him to avoid damaging his ego and keep him from getting mad. I could hear Mr. McCann’s words ringing in my ears: “Don’t smart off to the boss; just do it better than he expected.” I wiped my brow with my crumpled handkerchief.
“Ralph, how many cage wagons are there?
He paused and thought.
“Fuckin’ farm boy, don’t you know? Eighteen. The monkey cages are too small for a six or an eight.”
Unruffled, I asked him another question.
“What about carriages?”
“Four in the spec, and there is an extra. We got the Columbia and the Bell wagon.”
“Anything else?” I called across the crowd.
“What about 123, the new ticket wagon?”
I agreed that might be a good wagon to end the parade.
We were still short of having enough wagons and carriages for each teamster to pull. Everyone wanted to drive.
“Where you goin’ line this thing up?” Ralph asked. “Which way are we going anyway?”
He spoke as if I had already planned the parade. Since I didn’t know the answer and decided that he didn’t have to know everything I changed the subject.
“Ralph, aren’t there seat planks on top of 86 and 87. Maybe the sideshow band can sit on one. Maybe some performers on the other.”
“Yeah, asshole!” he sneered.
I had succeeded in diverting his attention from the real issue - my selection as parade organizer. Ralph changed his tone and got to his real mission.
“Seth,” he said softy, “can Shorty pull the Columbia with McCann’s team?”
“If you can get them washed, shined, and find a reasonable replacement for Buster. She’s still lame, isn’t she?”
“I want eight on that wagon,” I said.
“Shorty will do you, I mean us, proud,” Ralph said.
My head spun as multiple questions flew in my direction. I found Williams standing on the top step of the red wagon. He had his thumbs locked behind his brown and yellow striped suspenders as I approached him.
“Boy, I’ve been watching you. You caught the pitch. Mr. Rawlings said you would.”
“Sir, I’ll give you a fine parade, but I need a few details.”
I didn’t notice Rawlings standing at the end of the wagon. He turned and spoke before Williams could answer.
“Seth, step over here.”
I managed to keep my mouth from falling open as Rawlings introduced me to Wallace Beery and Rudolph Valentino. Beery was a big man dressed in an expensive but rumpled suit with a white silk cravat at his throat. A bushy mustache completely covered his upper lip. Valentino, like Rawlings, was nattily dressed. Valentino wore white trousers and a white billowy shirt that was hardly contained by a black double-breasted black sport coat. Instead of a tie, Valentino wore a burgundy scarf around his neck.
“Seth,” Rawlings said, “what do you have for us?”
“We have five open carriages, sixteen cages, the Columbia bandwagon, the Bell wagon, and two freshly painted baggage wagons that have plank seats on top. We could also pull the new ticket wagon if Mr. Wells can use the silver one for the first performance.”
“You’ve got it,” he said. “I’ve got one more wagon for the parade.”
With his hand on my shoulder, he guided me toward the front of the wagon. He pointed across the street and down about half a block.
“See that garage over there. There’s a wagon in there, and I want twelve horses pulling it.”
He rejoined Beery and Valentino and walked away. I had a hundred more questions, but I just stood there thinking about the garage when George nudged me.
“Who’s that man with the white scarf?
“Wallace Beery, a movie star.” George shrugged unknowingly. “Let’s go see what’s in that garage.”
As usual, George followed me as I walked up to the doors of the faded one-story wooden structure with “Watson’s Garage” painted over the threshold. I looked into the dimly lit space and my mouth fell open. A grubby man in dirty overalls with his oversized belly pushing against the bib approached me.
“Where’s your horses? he asked. “She’s washed.”
George and I gawked at the magnificent wagon. Even in the dim light, I saw a giant half-globe protruding from the right side. Bigger than life-size lions and bears seemed ready to jump off the other side of the wagon.
“Boy, yaw goin’ pull it by hand?”
I turned toward the man. “I’ll have a team here in fifteen or twenty minutes Just sit tight.”
The glorious red and gold bandwagon was ready for a parade. As we walked back to the lot, I told George to tell six-up drivers to hook to the cages in the menagerie. The first person I saw on the lot was Victor Corona. He trained and presented the liberty horse act and the ladies horse troupe.
I spoke with deference because I didn’t think he knew me at all.
“Mr. Corona, my name is…”
“Me know, me know,” he said in a heavy Italian accent. “So you vant me girls to ride. They fried their own horses?”
I looked longingly at a beautiful bay mare tied nearby.
“Mr. Corona, do you have a horse that I can borrow for a while?”
He sensed my situation.
“Good rider, you? Take Sergia over there. About my girls and my horses?”
I realized that I was making decisions about horses, wagons, and performers.
“How many harnesses do you have?”
“Nuf, four carriages.”
“OK, we’ll hitch all of them if its OK with you. Please, put the best team on the maroon vis-à-vis. I would suggest that you drive that carriage and take the other three carriages to the wardrobe tent.”
I mounted the bay and surveyed the situation as the magnificent animal turned nervously. Corona was pleased that I could handle the animal. Sitting astride her I decided we would line up on the lot rather than on the street. I told Shorty, who was already hitched to Columbia bandwagon, to move toward wardrobe so we could load the band.
Questions hit at me from all directions as I looked over the lot. I made decisions as fast as I could, and several times I noticed Williams watching me from the periphery. He never moved in. I would succeed or fail without his assistance. I told George to harness our horses and hook to 86, a wagon few wanted. Then I spotted Rawlings coming toward me. I didn’t dismount. My heart pounded because I feared that I had done something wrong.
“You have a carriage for me and Rudy?”
“Yes, sir,” I quickly responded. “It’s the maroon vis-à-vis that is in the spec with two of Corona’s horses. Mr. Corona will be driving. Where would you like him?
“No, son, where do you want us?” he answered pleasantly.
“Everyone is loading the carriages near wardrobe,” I said.
“We’ll be there in forty-five minutes.”
“Excuse me, sir. Mr. Rawling, I need you to answer one question for me.” He turned back.
“Which way are we going after we leave the lot. The lot’s very tight, and I want the big teams to pull straight out.”
“We’re going to Hollywood.”
I didn’t have the faintest idea where Hollywood was. I asked a few people, and they didn’t know. One guy said he thought that is where they made moving pictures. When I got to Shorty and Ralph, I told them to line up with the leads pointed toward downtown Los Angeles.
I still had a big decision to make. Which two teams would I put together to pull the Two Hemispheres wagon?
At the harness tent, I asked Ole Barney if we had four-abreast eveners.
“Why?” he asked, spitting a wad of tobacco juice to the ground.
“I need them for the Two Hemispheres.”
“Ya what?”
“Do you have’em?” I snapped.
“Hell no. But we use’ta always carri’em on top of the wagon when we were doin’prades,” he said. “Where is she?”
“Down the street,” I said.
“Sonny, led me go’in check fer you. Tell me where she is,” Barney said.
I pointed toward the street and described the building.
“You’ll know when you’re there, and I’ll join you in a few minutes. The doors are wide open.” The old man ran with the energy of a teenager. His voice and his eyes could not disguise his excitement.
A few minutes later, I dismounted in front of the garage and watched as Ole Barney opened the trap door on top of Two Hemispheres and peered inside.
“Thay’r hair!”
He climbed inside and began to retrieve the spreaders and eveners that would be needed for the twenty-four horses that traditionally been used to pull the wagon. I yelled that we were only using twelve. He seemed disappointed and shrugged his shoulders as he returned some of the heavy clanking gear. He proceeded to hand the essential pieces down to George, who had now joined us. He stroked the giant beak of the golden eagle as he climbed over the drivers perch. Once on the ground, he spat an unusually large wad and told us the story of this greatest of all circus bandwagons.
“I hitch’em evry day when we was in Erop. Mr. Bailey sisted that her be ready thirty minutes early 'fore the prade. She weighs ten tons, ya know… pulled’er with forty in 1917 'n 18. Big Jake Posey always drove’em.”
With his eyes wet with emotion, he told us the wagon had been built in 1898 for Phineas T. Barnum in New York City before the Barnum and Bailey Circus traveled to Europe for several years beginning in 1900.
“She cost forty thousand!”
His reaction to this magnificent rolling gem made me realize that I was about to give someone a special gift. I conceived of plan and rode straight to Mr. Corson, dean of the big team drivers. I stopped in front of him and dismounted.
“Mr. Corson, I need a team of twelve to drive four-abreast.”
He looked at me and responded with soft, stuttering words.
“If, if…if ya got th’eveners 'n spreaders I, I … I got th’team”
He knew or suspected what I knew.
“Wur do ya want’em?”
“Please take a team of four down the street, hitch to the Two Hemispheres, and bring it up by the wardrobe tent to finish hitching. The eveners and spreaders are on top of the wagon.”
His eyes danced with excitement.
There was plenty of activity especially around the wardrobe tent as performers changed their normal routine to prepare for this event. Drivers still had to be assigned to wagons, and I had some unhappy people especially among the eight-up drivers.
The maroon vis-à-vis with Rawlings, Beery, and Valentino pulled off the lot shortly after one. The men beamed as the streets around the lot were lined with people. I surmised that there must have been some publicity because there were many people lining Wilshire Boulevard. The carriage was followed by the Columbia bandwagon with the side show band playing Barnum and Bailey’s Favorite.
Ralph touched his hat as I sat astride Sergia. Williams rode up to me as the cages fell in line. He spoke, but I turned to make sure the Bell Wagon pulled by eight black Percherons got in place right behind the tiger cages. The other carriages followed, carrying performers as did the top of 86 and 87. I had given my team to an eight driver. George, wearing a red uniform, smiled and waved as he passed. He held the brake stick like a baton. Six of Corson’s riders preceded more animal cages. Finally, twelve spectacular black Percheons pulled the magnificent Two Hemispheres. The big top band sounded better than usual as the first notes of the “John Robinson’s Grand Entry” march came from their instruments. Six more of Corona’s riders followed the big wagon. The last unit was eight matched Percherons pulling the new red ticket wagon.
I turned and faced Williams.
“Looks pretty good,” I said with pride squeezing out of my voice.
“I told Mr. Rawlings that you’d get it done. You got’em on the street, now we have to get’em back. Seth, this is a big ego thing for the Rawlings family. They want to show off for their movie star friends.”
“Should we follow’em?”
“No. Let’s meet’em. I know the route,” Williams said as he laid the left rein against the pinto’s neck. I followed him as the strain of music from the band atop the Two Hemisphere faded away.
We rode onto Wilshire past the garage. We passed a group of women holding parasols over their squealing children. We turned south. We rode a mile, stopped, and dismounted.
“We’ll turn them here in a few minutes,” he spoke knowingly.
We looked down the street.
“Seth, you able to work through the winter?” Williams asked.
“I guess so. Why?”
“I want’a make you my assistant hostler in Bridgeport.”
“Does that mean I won’t be able to go home at all?”
“No, just means you’ll live in Bridgeport and get the teams ready for next season. Your pay will double. If you want to do it, we won’t say anything 'bout it until the season is over.”
I acknowledged his request. We saw the lead carriage move down a wide avenue with palm branches swaying in time with the trumpet flourishes.. Children ran along as the procession returned.
“Seth, once were back on the lot make sure Corona parks the carriage where Mr. Rawlings, Mr. Beery, and Mr. Valentino can be seen by the performers. Second,” he said with insulting directness, “get some friggen new clothes. Only pants with belts and white or light blue shirts.”
His voice trailed away as rode toward the lead carriage. I rode a respectful distance ahead of the carriage, stopping near the silver ticket wagon. When Rawlings hailed me, I rode forward, dismounted, and stepped toward Corona and his passengers.
“Seth, Mr. Beery and Mr. Valentino would like to speak to you.”
My heart thundered as I stood next to Valentino. He patted my shoulder as Beery grabbed my hand.
“This young man produced your parade with little more than an hour’s notice,” Rawlings said.
“Nice job,” Beery said in a detached tone. “When you get tired of the circus like I did come to Hollywood. We need people who can get things done.”
He smiled as I stepped back. The carriage was suddenly surrounded by a throng of performers wanting to meet the actors.
Performers and teamsters also thanked me for the parade. A few minutes later, Corson approached me.
“Se..Se..Seth, than’ya for givin’ me the opportunity to drive’er. How’d we look?”
“George, they looked fantastic. Whose blacks did you use?”
“Oh, Maa…aanike offered four if he could ride second.”
That meant that one more displaced eight driver got to ride. I walked toward the horse tent with the bay’s reins in my right hand looking for George. He rode with our team, which I had given to Hackett.
The trumpet sounded. People flooded onto the lot for the three o’clock show. I was drained. Two Hemispheres had to be moved out of the main traffic area. It was in the way. I mounted and rode Corona’s bay back to her tent. Corona was not there, so I carefully unsaddled and wiped the beautiful animal. I told myself that I had to remember to thank him for his gracious gesture.
As I walked toward the cookhouse, George found me and was smiling from ear to ear.
“Ole 86 looked good, didn’t you think?” he said.
“George, you looked great up there.”
“Seth, the team performed like champions. Kept their heads up. Have you ever seen so many people?”
My mind was wandering as George babbled on about the parade and I interrupted him.
“Now we have to drive Two Hemispheres.”His eyes almost left his head.
“Not in a parade. Mr. Rawlings wants it moved. It can’t just sit where it is for three days,” I said, pointing to its position in front of the performer’s entrance to the main tent.
George and I walked toward the horse line as the grand entry march blared in the background. The grounds were almost void of people. The crew went to find rented rooms or to catch a streetcar back to the train. I walked toward the red wagon with the hope of finding Williams. I spotted him talking to Ralph in a particularly personal way. His hand gently rested on Ralph’s shoulder.
“Mr. Williams, ”I said trying to avoid an intrusion.
What made the scene so unusual was the fact that I had never seen Williams talk to Ralph or anyone in such a personal way.
“Mr. Williams,” I said again.
“Yeah, farm boy, hellava parade,” Ralph whined. “I wish we could do one everyday.”
He appeared to wink with his perpetually tired left eye and walked away.
“See you there,” Williams said.
I had been told Ralph had worked on the circus for ten years. Few people realized that he had no real home. He ran away from an orphanage at the age of fifteen and wandered for a few months, stealing food before stumbling into the Rawlings show in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. Someone told him that he could get a hot meal if he worked setting up the tent. He did that job and asked one of the bosses, Williams, for a job. From the beginning, Ralph bullied people. He seemed angry at the world and chose to take it out on anyone who stepped in front of him.
His loud, whiny voice and crude language was always heard across the lot. He cursed foreign performers and Negro workers, whom he described as “lazy coon bastards.” He had frequent fisticuffs with workers. Even if Ralph provoked the fight, the other guy got fired. Haskins told me that Ralph had been approached by grifters to hustle townies to their games of chance. According to Haskins, Ralph was too loud and too aggressive for the grifters, but he connected with the card game organizers who once asked him to unload wooden crates from a truck and into a circus wagon. He asked no questions and worked along side men he had never seen. He accepted their money and was asked if he wanted to make a few extra dollars occasionally. That took place in 1921, a year after the prohibition started.
Williams watched Ralph intently as he walked away.
“Where’s there?” I asked.
Williams hiked up his pants, tucked his shirt, and buttoned his vest.
“None of your goddamn business.”
“What should I do with Two Hemispheres?”
“Pull it up front by the side show. We’ll deal with her when we load the train.”
George and I hitched four horses to the eveners, but took our time as we moved around the big tent just as the sold-out crowd began to flood out. We inched our way to an opening next to the side show banners. There we unhooked the magnificent lady, the greatest bandwagon of them all.
The shadows of the tents swallowed the wagons and people as we walked across the lot toward Wilshire Boulevard. A Pacific Electric streetcar slipped by without sound over the slivery rails embedded in the ballast stones parallel to the street. George and I stood together without words as we waited for a train that would take us to the Pacific Ocean.
“George, we’re off until tomorrow. Want to see the Pacific Ocean?”
He nodded affirmatively.
We boarded a car marked “Santa Monica” at the corner of Wilshire and Crenshaw. The conductor assured us that the train would go to the ocean. After we had slipped a dime each into the fare box, we walked about halfway back and sat down on the left hand side of the swaying cream-colored car. The train was different than the circus train because it glided from stop to start without lurching. George lowered the window from the top. The ride was civilized and quiet, and the excitement of the parade and the pressure of the afternoon faded away.
“Is the ocean very far away?” George asked.
“We will stay on this train until the end of the tracks, and then we should be close to the ocean.”
George nudged me as we came over the top of a ridge, pointing out construction of new houses. There was still plenty of open space, but it was filling up fast. The sun sunk lower on the western horizon as we rolled to a stop in Santa Monica.
“Last stop,” the conductor said. “Everybody out.”
As we disembarked, I noticed the clock on the corner in front of a building that looked like a bank. I figured that the trip took us about forty minutes. The turnaround was about one block from a painted wooden barricade that protected a set of wooden stairs. We immediately and instinctively walked toward the setting sun. At the end of Wilshire Boulevard, we walked to the top of the stairs and down eighty feet to a wide sandy beach. The air was much cooler near the water. At the bottom, we stood motionless as the huge orange disk slipped into its pouch underneath the sea. The clouds above turned from white to gray, orange to pink, and deep purple to black. Being outside with only the moon and 86 over our heads was normal for us. But this was different because of the sounds.
“George, I don’t want to sleep out. Let’s find a room with a real bed if we can.”
He had no objections, so we turned toward the stairs. We realized that we were not alone on the beach. Several dozen people sat on the beach with us. A glance up and down the embankment revealed twinkling lights of houses on top of the bluff and in nearby hills.
We sauntered across the sand and stepped onto the broad boardwalk that separated the cliff from the sand. We heard a bell as a train pulled onto Wilshire Boulevard for a return trip. We climbed the stairs and strolled toward the lights of town. Many couples, some young and some older, walked along with us. There were couples where the women held hands and the men had their arms draped around each other like buddies.
After George and I had crossed a couple of streets that ran perpendicular to Wilshire, we came to a corner that was cluttered. The white picket fence that defined the corner was covered with signs advertising automobile repairs and restaurants. Neatly painted arrows pointed in every direction. One arrow larger than the others advertised rooms. We walked slowly for two blocks, passing one large Victorian after another. Many had long, sagging porches and torn screens. We stopped in front of one giant house with a light on a post. A picket fence ran in both directions from the closed gate. As I stood there trying to decide what to do next, I felt eyes fixed on us. I didn’t see anyone but knew we were being watched. I motioned to George to follow me through the gate, which had a squeaky spring that shattered the silence when it snapped closed.
I slowly stepped up the five wide steps to a screen door. High-back wicker chairs lined the porch. Their massive backs obscured the faces of the occupants. I was aware of music from a distant Victrola. No one moved for what seemed like a long time. I heard hushed words coming from the porch as I pushed open the door. George followed me through, and we stopped.
The awkwardness was uncomfortable. Finally, a beefy, bare-chested man rose from a chair and stepped toward us.
“Yes?”
He was maybe fifty, wearing sandals and tan shorts. I noticed significant tattoos through his thick white hair. He wore horn-rimmed glasses and several silver rings.
“Do you have a room we could rent?”
“Well, son, we just rent by the week,” he firmly responded.
“Sir, we’re only in town…”
“I know who you are. I saw you on horseback at the circus parade today. Right?”
“Yes, sir. I put that parade together for Mr. Rawlings.”
He began to expound on the richness of the sound from the bells on the bell wagon. Then he said circus parades gave him faith in America. In a frustrated tone, he asked a question.
“Why’d Rawlings stop doing parades?”
I didn’t know the answer and told him that if he’d let us stay I’d find out for him when we went to work tomorrow.
“Better yet, I’ll come with you to the circus tomorrow. Got any free passes?”
I didn’t because I hadn’t taken them when they were passed out. Luckily, George had two and gave them to him.
“We have a room. It’s not very big but has two beds. It has a wash basin in the room, and the tub is at the end of the second floor hall. You share a balcony with a couple of other rooms. Don’t be surprised if you see men in the halls without clothes. There are only men in the house so we are pretty free about modesty. You should know that the basement has a gymnasium for boxers and weight-lifters.” The last statement puzzled me and I wasn’t quite sure why he told us that. I would check that out later.
“Where are your bags?” he asked.
“They’re on the train in East Los Angeles,” George explained.
“OK,” the clerk said.“That’ll be three dollar for three nights. Paid in advance. Towels are ten cents, and breakfast is ten cents. It’s served from seven to eight.” He turned toward the door that led inside the house. We followed him.
“We’ll take the room and two towels,” I said.
We stopped at a high standup desk in the entry foyer. He opened the second drawer and pulled out a cigar box. He took the five dollars that I had pulled from my shirt pocket. He took it, gave me two dollars and moved to a closet door that he opened. He grabbed two threadbare towels and handed them to me before pointing to the stairs.
“It’s Room 6. We have a swimming pool in the back. You’ll see it from your window.”
The stale smell of cigars hung in the air. The wide oak floor boards squeaked with every step that we took. We followed an old Persian carpet runner down a long dimly lit hall that abruptly turned right near our door. The door groaned as I opened it. Our room was barely larger than a closet. It had a floor to ceiling window at the end of the room that opened onto the balcony.
More important to me at that moment was the door next to ours. It was the men’s shower. My hand tried the knob, and it opened. A naked, muscled guy stood at the sink brushing his teeth.
“Excuse me,” I said as I pulled the door closed.
“No problem. Shower is available.”
“I’ll be right back.”
It had been only a week since George and I climbed out of the bathtubs in Modesto. It felt like it was more like a year. I was layered with San Fernando Valley dust and wanted a shower before I did anything else. I looked at George as he stripped off his trousers and union suit with short pants and sleeves. George followed me into the shower room like a puppy. We were not bold enough to go without towels.
I let him go first. When I got back to our room, he had washed and hung out to dry his own union suit and my underwear. He was in bed softly snoring. I stepped over to a chair and straightened my trousers remembering what Mr. Williams had said about my clothes. Covered with my towel, I stepped through the open window-door onto the roof that was surrounded by a low wooden rail. The night air was cool. I didn’t retreat inside. I stayed and pulled my towel up to my shoulders. I heard voices to my right side and thought I recognized one.
Then someone stepped into the darkness from the next room. ”Beautiful night,” he said.
I jumped six inches off the floor and scrambled to cover myself.
“That’s what nice about this balcony, it’s ours,” he added “Modesty is your choice around here. We’re pretty open on this balcony.”
We exchanged a few more pleasantries before I excused myself, and I finally understood what the hotel clerk meant about the balcony.