I looked up at him the first time I heard him say it. Carl spoke with such conviction and a twinkle in his eye, you had to believe him. Now, I'm not just saying about the twinkle, he really twinkled like a fire burning in his eyes. Carl would tilt his head and smile and something in the way he talked about Harry made me think he saw him when he came in that morning. On several occasions Carl mentioned Harry in that same manner as if he was waiting in the front office. That made me feel I should look around. It was Sunday, I thought it was just the two of us here.
When I heard him talking about Harry I went across the hall to the coffee machine to deliberately glance into the front room to see if his pal sat out there waiting by Carl's desk. No one there. A couple of weeks later I talked to Dickie Shot the night time guy. I learned the Harry Carl talked about was President Harry Truman.
"No kidding? It sounded like he just talked to him."
"Carl was a member of the Press Corps during the Truman Administration," Dickie said.
"I thought he was waiting for him in the other room."
He nodded, "I know, but Harry has been out of office twenty-five years. This is 1972."
Following my discharge from the Navy I returned home and got this announcing job at the local radio station. It was good timing, they had an opening and I needed the job. I worked six A.M. until noon, but with a wife and infant daughter to care for I needed to take a second job. I tended bar from twelve-thirty until six Pm at my dad's tavern. He needed to fill a spot so everything worked out. Thus, with work at the radio station and the bar, I had a workday that took me into two different worlds.
At the radio station there were three other young announcers like me and only one older worker who had been there a while an took on the responsibility for the needs of the station; consequently Carl was News Director, Chief Announcer and Program Director at WLEC. When I was growing up in the 1950s I heard Carl read the news everyday. Now, Twenty years later and he's still on the job. Unchanging Carl: Thin and tall, dressed in suits from years ago, stood straight and presented himself well. The impression he made would have been stronger if he wore something other than his suits from the Truman Administration. From my vantage point in the control room I watched him read the news. I engineered the start of his news broadcast, then my relief, the afternoon man, took over and I slipped away. The announcers all sat at the console and ran our own audio board, except Carl, who preferred to stand in front of a mic in the large studio, holding the copy in one hand, his other hand clasped behind his ear. He held a poise of distinction, from a bygone era.
"It is twelve noon and here is the news...Carl Bates reporting," he began. To see Carl and to hear him read the news opened the door of time to rediscover the 1940s. An anachronism transported from one era, deposited into another.
My day at the radio station wrapped up when Carl began his news at noon. I slipped out when another guy took over as Carl read the news. No change of clothes necessary, I had a five minute drive to my afternoon job, downtown on the corner overlooking the Bay. Street parking always available a minute walk away. The place brought me in contact with another world and other persons transplanted through time.
The echo bar catered to an older crowd, the very old. A bus stop ended where the door into the Echo began. A bus brought the ancient warriors living out their golden days at the soldiers and sailors home who came to relieve their boredom and relive their military exploits in the protective confines of the Echo bar. They came religiously each day, in attendance better than they ever achieved in school, and their women-friends who lived in the neighborhood came too.
I remember in particular one old Polish woman, a short one, who wore a scarf over her head, a babushka, just like in the old country; and when some one put a coin in the jukebox and a polka played she would get up and dance and clap hands to the music.
"Look, May is dancing," someone called and others would get up and dance, while the rest would clap and cheer with her happiness, forgetting themselves, it became a momentary celebration for all. Some of them, like the old Polish woman and her friends always sat in the booths. Others would choose stools at the bar. Practically taking assigned seats as in school days.
None of them had money, they drank sparingly, and were there to put in their hours of the day with friends. They nursed draft beers and occasional shots of the least expensive bar whiskey. On paydays, and for a few days after, they drank more. When they were waiting for their pension checks they drank less. A few of them drank wine or sherry, these being the least expensive drinks available. For their cheap drinks they paid the highest price. Whiskey and beer will give you a large stomach. Wine will sooth and keep you trim, but sherry will destroy your brain. Happy drank sherry. He came into the Echo everyday and sat on a stool right in the middle of the bar. After a few sips of sherry Happy would be very happy. He would laugh a hearty silent laugh with his body rocking and one hand waving. It was the sound of one hand laughing. I don't think he could hear well, and he hardly spoke a word, but he would laugh and others would notice and laugh with him. At least once a day Happy would laugh so hard that he would fall off his stool. Friends would help him back up to his stool and they would be laughing with him. Happy would settle down for a moment before starting up again. All this occurred in four hours and perhaps three small thirty-five cent juice glasses of sherry per day.
One man I remember came into the bar every few weeks, a comedian. A construction worker by trade, and would come in on pay day and always had two or three friends with him. This guy had a gift, he was funny. This man would sit at the end of the bar with his friends and tell jokes, non-stop. For an hour or two he would tell joke after joke, story after story. Each one a gem that no one had heard before. He never repeated a gag, and he was, honest to God, very, very funny. He might have been the greatest comedian I have ever heard. I've never seen any one like him. Clean jokes, good jokes and he could tell them all, and make everyone practically fall down laughing every time. Every time. For a regular guy who walks into a bar, he was very funny. When anyone ever referred to him he was always "the guy who tells jokes."
Mornings I worked at the radio station with Carl Bates, an astute, proper, rigid man of absolute, untiring dedication to duty and the community. Afternoons I served beer to the other side...the carnival of humanity, men and women who served their country, then filled their time as rousing comrades in wistfulness.
In the course of a day many characters filtered through the bar. There was one who choose the Echo as his spot for departure from this world. It was Happy, sitting there on his stool one minute, then tumbled and fell over dead. He died on the spot and thereby obstructed the merrymaking of his comrades for more than a half hour until the ambulance came and his body was removed. Quiet words were spoken until he was taken away. I served small glasses of draft beer, few words were spoken. Gradually a crescendo of voices until all resumed as before. Not a tear. This is life for the living.
After a few months several of these people had names, all became familiar faces, and some had histories I knew. I relived episodes of their lives with them as they told pieces of memories, some in joy, some in sorrow. We had one regular to the bar, an outsider from this group. They all knew the legend of Honest John. I saw the scene played many times. It would be the middle of the day with the jukebox playing an old song, we only had old songs and polkas. The bar would be well attended, as it often seemed to be when a voice out of the crowd cried, "I need a clock. My clock broke."
"Why don't you get it fixed?" another suggested.
"It ain't worth it," the first voice would say, and add, "I can't afford a new one."
"See Honest John," came a suggestion.
”Who's Honest john?"
"Honest John?" Another voice would inquire, "Who's looking for Honest John?"
"He is." someone would point.
Then seemingly out of the dark from the end of the bar a man would lean closer, cautiously size up the man in need, and when satisfied with what he saw, would finally comment, "Why I'm Honest John," as if discovering it himself. "What is your need?" Honest John was the worst, lying, thieving varmint on the waterfront. He also had a boyish smile and easy manner that encouraged everyone to like him immediately. Don't be deceived, he looked like hell: tall, thin, unshaven, half-toothless, but somehow neatly dressed in second-hand clothes that poorly fit. I turned to stare at him.
"In my line of work I can't look like a bum. The cops would pick me up," he said.
"What do you do?" I asked him.
"Oh, this and that." After a pause, "What do you want me to do?" Then a grin would surface. He always appeared the same way. He would attempt to slick back his hair with a hand and uplift his posture before saying, "Honest John? Who's looking for him?" And always the smile. It was contagious. If the man needed a clock then Honest John would acquire one for him, usually in less then half an hour. It may be a new one or an old one, but it would be a clock; and it would appear to work, at least while honest John demonstrated it for his customer.
Honest John was a real wino. The first I'd ever met. Like all serious drunks John would fall upon hard times.
"Where are you staying?" one time I asked him...I didn't say living because that sounded too permanent.
"Nowhere right now," he answered somewhat embarrassed, but honestly.
"I thought were you sleeping in someon3e's truck," I replied.
"I was, down by the canary...but they moved it."
My dealings at the radio station with Carl were the same, day after day. The rules were made and would never change. I'm sure it was the same for all those before and after me. With Honest John I had to watch the deals very carefully.
"Want some shorts?" he asked on day. Honest John would often have something like a watch or lamp, or some decorative household item that he wished me to buy for a few dollars, or to trade for a drink. This day he was looking particularly bad. I could tell by his haggard face and blooddshot eyes that he had been drinking hard. He hadn't been around for a few days, that was always an indicator.
"What kind of shorts?" I asked
"Boxer shorts." Honest John replied in a tone that told me that boxer shorts were the only kind of shorts any man would possess.
"I don't wear boxer shorts," I said in my vain attempt to thwart his sale.
"Why look at these. They're pure silk, and they're brand new. See?" He produced the goods from under his coat.
"They look new," I said.
"They're still in the package." He showed me the plastic.
"Where did you get them?"
"Why across the street. Cross my heart," Honest John said, pointing to the department store across the street.
"Did you pay for them?" I asked.
"Honest John can not tell a lie," he replied with one hand in the air as if taking an oath. "No." Then the big smile. I took a deep breath and shook my head admonishingly. "I only want two dollars for 'em ... and there's three pair." he said, pointing to the package.
"Okay," I said, giving in. "Here's my two bucks."
I was amused by Honest John. He had various offers of goods for me to purchase during the six months I worked at the Echo Tavern. Finally it was in my last week tending bar I bought something from him. When I got home I showed my wife the boxer shorts. She thought they looked nice in the package, but said they weren't silk. We held them up and found out they were all size forty-four. Exactly ten sizes too large.
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