Baa Baa Black Sheep (51 page)

One evening when we fellows were drinking toasts to this, that, and the other thing Ray said: “I would like to give a toast.”

“Okay, what to?”

“I would like to toast to the luckiest unlucky man I know. Here’s to Rats, may his luck continue forever.”

We all drank; I did too, even though they were toasting me. Most people miss all the fun, for they just take everything at face value, or would probably know why somebody gave them a toast. But I had to wonder. I asked, “What do you mean, Ray?”

“Simple,” he said. “You are forever losing your wallet, somebody takes your car and bangs it up, and the C.O.s always seem to choose you when they have a mad on and want to chew somebody out. We feel sorry for you and stick up for you. But I sometimes wonder why, because, if anything important happens—like a wing coming off or your car rolling over a dozen times—you seem to always fall into the proverbial backhouse—and come out smelling like a rose.”

Maybe the same thing Ray spoke about was the reason I had decided to end up in Los Angeles instead of somewhere else. For here is where I met the right girl for me, although it was doubtful whether it was vice versa for a long, long time. This lucky thing happened while I was in the naval hospital.

As a patient I was granted special permission to go within a certain radius of the hospital as long as I kept in touch. And this is the time my friends and I drove down to Rosarita Beach, about eighteen miles below the border. We went down for the evening for dinner.

Our little party consisted of Frank Walton, who had been with me on the tour, his wife, her sister and her husband, and a beautiful friend of theirs to whom they previously had introduced me. I had not known her before the war, or even for very long, as measured by weeks. But for some reason, whenever we had been together in the group, she of all persons seemed to make me forget that there were troubles in this world of ours. So again this evening, while at Rosarita, and with Mexican music going on, I suddenly felt happier than I had felt for years and years.

The word “love” has been thrown around so carelessly in songs and stories that it has come to mean very little any more. In fact, it is almost better to avoid the word. But whatever the feeling is, or whatever word it has come to be known by, all I can say is this: that while we were talking or just listening to the Mexican music, I knew now for sure that this girl, with her slightly pug nose, and blue eyes with blond hair, her quick little way of laughing—I now knew for sure that she was the one somebody I should have known from the very beginning. I wanted to tell her so, but I didn’t know how, and I didn’t dare, although ordinarily I am not particularly reticent around women. But this seemed—for the first time in my life—altogether too right and too real.

Anyhow, rather than risk shooting off my mouth about what I was thinking, I guided her over to the bar and ordered two drinks from the little Mexican bartender, who, without my knowing it, had been watching us all the time. For what he did right then is the reason the girl is now my wife. And he did it all so simply. With laughing eyes he merely said: “For two people who have the look you two have, I’ll break out the crystal glasses.” And immediately that little bartender, with all the wisdom of the Latins, began to polish up two of his most beautiful glasses. With his words and his gesture he broke down what seemed a barrier, and Franny and I both suddenly found ourselves sort of crying and laughing at the same time, and we found ourselves suddenly telling each
other about each other, and we were on Cloud Thirty-six, and the little bartender had put us there.

Further to celebrate the occasion, this sudden new feeling, I immediately changed the order to champagne, and the little bartender happily drank with us. And there were no troubles anywhere in the world any more. There was no other world. There was only Rosarita, and it was the world.

Home from roaming the globe, I had at last found my mate, but I had yet to ask that all-important question. It is not an easy matter to ask a girl to take, not only a husband, but three children in the bargain—nice children, as I know they are.

To add to my dilemma, as I sat squashing out cigarette butts in an already-overflowing ash tray, listening to the radio, my friends, the press, were telling the whole world about me. Everything except that it was all caused by my own personal drinking past. No question but what Franny was listening, I was positive.

It sounded to me like the Voice of America. Naturally it wasn’t, but it was just as loud as far as I was concerned. I happened to be newspaper copy, the war was over, and they were short of news. So they were spicing up every utterance that came from the lips of a woman who wanted her next husband waiting outside the doors of a divorce court while she shed the one she already had.

I couldn’t say that I hadn’t been warned, because I had—in no uncertain words. Also, I knew that this party would stop at nothing, and counted upon my being in such a position that I wouldn’t take a chance with the threat of bad publicity. But my tour in prison camp had sobered me sufficiently to decide upon the correct move, and to hell with the threats.

The press didn’t know the real reason, and didn’t give a damn, but it was money. My old drinking buddy somehow figured that the Medal of Honor brought in a good deal of loot, and under no circumstances wished to have anything like that taken away. This is understandable, however, because very few people know that this honor brings in ten dollars per month, but the catch is—you have to reach your sixty-fifth birthday before it starts coming in.

Anyhow, they didn’t ask me my side for two reasons: the stories wouldn’t have been nearly so interesting, and besides I was too hard to locate. But somebody had dared me, and apparently no one has ever had much success choosing this method on me. Switching off my radio tormentor, I decided to take the bull by the horns.

“Operator. Please get me Hempstead 0872—in Los Angeles. Hello. Hello. Franny—is that you?

“Now that you know all the gory details, I want to ask you a question. Will you marry me?

“Oh, Franny, say it once again. I want to be certain that my ears aren’t just ringing, Honey. Pack your bag, because we’re leaving in two hours for Las Vegas.”

The connections by plane were rough, but there we were in Las Vegas in the bare cold room of the justice of the peace, which seemed to grow warm and bright in its wintry surroundings. A Western-appearing gent in cowboy boots was on hand to stand up as best man.

There are weddings and weddings, but when it is your own, well, it is just your own. We know things only by our own feelings and experiences, as I have mentioned before. But a sense of rightness and sincereness took place about our wedding, as though it were being held in a huge cathedral filled with white roses instead of in the tiny office of the justice of the peace in Las Vegas—in the desert.

My bride wore one lone orchid in bright shining hair. No other flowers were needed, for indeed we had all the happiness any two people were entitled to.

As the amiable little justice congratulated us after the ceremony, he told us how he would like to be in for another term, as business was great. He had no idea that Franny and I were eloping, for both of us were past that tender age. But we were eloping—from the press.

And as time has gone on, I can see more and more evidence of what Ray Emerson was toasting to: “The luckiest, unlucky man I know.”

Shortly after the war the glamour was gone and there was nothing in my life but turbulence for nearly ten years.

To start with, the Medical Department of the Navy recommended that I be retired because of injuries received during the war. For this, I was thankful: it saved the Marine Corps the trouble. Or, I probably should say, a few people in the Corps were robbed of the pleasure.

The outlook ahead appeared to be getting darker instead of lighter, and somehow I sensed that I was eventually going to get “socked” in tight and run out of gas. For as time went on I seemed to be on some one-way street on which the buildings were becoming closer and closer together as I moved along.

To add to my problems, I found that it was next to impossible to obtain employment. Nobody seemed to want any part of me. There had been so much notoriety printed about me that I can hardly blame anyone for not wanting to hire me. Any hopes that had been entertained at intervals were always smashed just about the time I thought I was going to work for some top-notch company. I was lucky to get any kind of a job.

But one can always do something, and so did I. For four years I had one job after another, but I remained with each until it became evident that I couldn’t make my salt. These were all selling something, and the things I tried to sell varied from soup to nuts: air freight, clothing, jewelry, stamps and insurance. Every one of these companies had one thing in common, though, in that they were having so much difficulty in selling their different specialities that they would have hired Satan himself if there had been the slightest possibility that he could sell their particular lines. All except
one had something else in common too: they have been out of business for a long time.

If it hadn’t been for a money-making hobby of mine, my family would have had some mighty slim pickings, the way things were going. This hobby took very little of my time, maybe two nights a week, sometimes three. These nights were spent inside of a squared circle surrounded by a pack of howling idiots who fouled up the air with smoke and words while I was busy refereeing professional wrestling.

There were any number of occasions during these ten years when the newspapers carried my name far and wide—just like the war publicity—but none of it was good. Sometimes I had the feeling that nobody was ever going to print anything about me again—unless it happened to be bad.

On these occasions either the sheriff’s boys in tan or the chief of police’s boys in blue would meet me coming out of some bar, first. Then, I would be driven to their place of business, where I would be booked, photographed, and fingerprinted for their records. Then they would leave me to sit behind barred doors and windows for the mandatory five hours. While I was cooling my heels someone on the force invariably was thoughtful enough to call the press and to inform them that I had been picked up.

The pattern was always the same; first I would pay my twenty-dollar bail, which I had no intention of fighting for, then I would see the story appear in the local papers the following day; after a week or so I would receive press releases on the same thing from disinterested parties in other cities, and finally I would get honorable mention in both
Time
and
Newsweek.

While waiting one night at a sheriff’s substation, it took the photographer quite a while to get there, so they decided to hold me until he arrived. When he finally did and they let me out, this photographer asked: “Now, then, where are the two arresting officers?”

A deputy said: “They have both gone home, probably in bed by now.”

The photographer said: “That’s too bad, but I have to have somebody. Would a couple of you fellows mind standing in for a picture?”

Before the guy snapped the picture, seven deputy sheriffs
were standing around me. One would have thought that these boys were all necessary to capture Public Enemy Number One.

As for refereeing, there were many occasions when I entered the dressing rooms half blind from vodka just before the first match. I told myself that I had to get this way so the crowd wouldn’t bother me, but before the night was over I usually had the crowd screaming for my blood.

During the first match I usually had some difficulty in keeping out of the way of the wrestlers. But as each match would come along I would be sweating it out, so by the time the main event arrived I was in rare form. The shows were regulated so that the preliminaries were dull, gradually working up to a climax in the main event. My actions fitted the program perfectly.

In case I forget it, or anybody wonders how on earth I arrived at these arenas that were spread all over Southern California, my wife usually drove me. My troubles were mild compared to what they could have been without her help.

On several occasions when I couldn’t even stagger into the ring one of the wrestlers had to referee the first match—and sometimes the second match—to protect me. The wrestlers were all big, good-natured fellows who wouldn’t hurt a fly, and they must have liked me because they did their best to help keep me out of trouble. The State Athletic Commission had its hands full checking on fixed boxing and crooked promoters without having to carry me—and they did look the other way. I might add that infuriating crowds is not healthy, for they can become uncontrollable, even though they are only watching an exhibition. The referee’s duty is to see that the hero-villain act doesn’t get too gruesome. It was small wonder that I wasn’t hurt or even killed, the way I conducted myself a few times. I imagine that a psychiatrist would claim this form of amusement took the place of my combat flying.

Wrestling, as well as other professions, has a language all its own. In fact, even if people heard us talking above the clamor, they weren’t able to understand what we were talking about. For examples: wrestle is “work”; fall is “going over”; “finish” is the routine just before the deciding fall; hero is “baby-face”; villain is “heel”; and building a hysterical crowd up to a climax is called “heat.”

But to get back to my darling and very capable wife, and the part she played in my wrestling career. Sometimes help arrives from sources where one would least expect it. The fact that Franny has always been an outdoor girl, and remains in good physical condition by playing golf several times a week, came in right handy one night while we were putting on a show at Southgate, where there was usually a rough crowd. Some of these audiences were rough, some were gentle, but we thought we knew just how far to go with each before they became violent.

As I mentioned, it was up to the referee to control the “heat,” but I had disregarded this, as I had on other occasions. This time I had made up my mind to wait for a particular wrestler to make the decision himself. In the past he had repeatedly coaxed me to permit the “heat” to build up a little longer. The idea behind all this was to excite the cash-paying customers sufficiently so that they would pay for a ticket the following week. When this wrestler realized that I wasn’t going to say anything if the fans tore the place apart, he became worried and said: “Pappy, we’d better turn off the heat, this crowd is going crazy.”