P.S. (10 page)

At times, music was playing. On the other end of the phone, Vince was curious.

Nor shall I ever forget the rainy night we wandered into the hotel where I lived as a boy. As I sat in the lobby, talking into engineer Roger Hanson’s mike, nostalgic, wistful, remembering the men long gone, Vince was moist eyed. “Ah, Studs, if these walls could only talk . . .”

“Yeah, Vince . . . ? ” mumbled I, gulping.

“Ah, Studs, how many votes this place could carry . . .”

And when Johnny Groth, star outfielder of the Tigers (and Chicago Latin School alumnus), was seriously beaned by a wayward pitch from Billy Pierce, it was headline news. That very night, the injured Groth called in from his hospital bed. “Everything’s fine, Studs. Tell everybody I’m okay.” It was thoughtful of Johnny to call, but I was bewildered. He was in the intensive care unit.

I had never in my life met Johnny Groth.

Vince explained it all the next day. Nobody was allowed to see the ballplayer; it was serious.

Do you still doubt that Vincent De Paul Garrity deserved all the kudos won by the others in ’52? Yeah, that was Vince. But it wasn’t all of him.

One night—was it one o’clock in the morning?—Vince called in from somewhere on West Lake Street. He was phoning in a conversation with a seven-year-old black boy. I remember, word for word, how it went.

I liked it fine, Vince. Yeah.

That was some time ago. Vince was some time ago. I miss him.

FRANK TULLER DIED. So they say. He was an engineer at WFMT. He was the one I saw each day, behind the glass window of the control room, fooling around with all sorts of dials, buttons, and reels of tape. The birth certificate says he was forty-one years old. The hell with the birth certificate. No damn piece of paper is going to tell me how old he was. Old? Let me tell you something: He was no older than Huck Finn. I’ll let you in on something else: He
was
Huck.

He was one of those rare beings in whom the young boy never died. In the great many of us, the boy is murdered all too soon and we become “responsible men,” solemn, important, and dull. In Frank, the spirit of irrepressible delight was never crushed. Always, he was filled with wonder. It was as though each day he were newly born. Something terribly exciting was happening. Something good. While the others of us groused and mumbled under our breaths about one stupid thing or another, he saw the sun. And it was warming. “Gee!”

At times, one or the other of us would get so
mad
at him. “Frank, get with it, for God’s sake! People are rotten!” He’d just stand in that damn doorway, freckles and all, the country boy from Kalamazoo. Playing around with the ring of a million and a half keys that dangled from his belt, janitor fashion. Or goofily mussing up his shock of red hair. “You really think so?” He’d look at you in the manner of a small boy, quizzically, with the intimation of a crooked grin. You’d furiously fumble with some of the junk piled high on your desk, hoping he’d go away. No, he’d just stand there, talking about some crazy thing that had nothing to do with what we were talking about. An
encounter on his way to work. There were
always
encounters on his way to work. Or going up in the elevator. Or in the hallway. Something wondrous.

The funny thing is, his non-sequiturial anecdotes turned out to be
exactly
what we were talking about. Somebody or other was helping somebody else or other out of some jam or other. It was his way of telling you people weren’t that rotten, after all. There was no stopping him. Wearily, you’d lay your head against your hand and look at him. “You should’ve been there, Studs. It was really funny. This old lady was hollering at this poor guy, only she wasn’t mad or anything like that. It just seemed that way, you know what I mean?” You’d mumble inaudibly, get up, and head for the studio, where we had much work to do. He’d follow, his story continuing without pause. “For Chrissake, Frank, let’s get the tape rolling or we’ll be here all night!” “Wait,” he’d say, “lemme finish. You ain’t heard the best part.”

My guests had arrived, but that didn’t stop Frank. He included them in on his marvelous tale, italicizing it with a wink or a light jab. “Watch out for that Studs, know what I mean?” Hand cupped at mouth, a mumble, a conspirational whisper. The Swedish playwright or welfare mother or Hungarian scientist was befuddled, of course. A sudden, astonished audience. Though these guests had no idea what the hell he was talking about, they were entranced as well as mystified. One thing I know: He made them feel more at home than I ever could in a million years. You see, there were no strangers in Frank’s world. No one was alien to him. He was not only full of wonder; he was wonder
ful
.

Take what happened in the elevator. Always. It never failed. You know how people are at the end of a workday, or for that matter any time, cooped in, going up, going down. Silence, the
glum sort. Deadpan. Enter Frank. A light laugh is heard. The elderly secretary, the dour one, is now smiling. I have no idea what he mumbled as he gently nudged her. Neither did she. A tap on my shoulder. The whisper. “Know what I mean?” I hadn’t the faintest idea what he meant. But it worked every time.

Down below is the loading platform. The underground. Nobody is allowed to park his car there. Nobody but Frank. There are hotshots all over the place. Now and then one of them tries to get cute and park his Jaguar or Toyota up against the building. It
is
very convenient. “Beat it, mister.” The maintenance men and janitors, displaced Hungarians, Yugoslavs, Poles, and Appalachians, are adamant. They were impervious to a bribe of any sort when it came to this. But Frank’s Volkswagen was something else. And the only thing he ever gave any of them was his presence. But that was more than enough. On days when he parked elsewhere for some reason or another, they showed their hurt. “Wassamatter, Frank? You don’t like us anymore?”

If you want to call it magic, that’s okay with me. But that wasn’t it at all. Take that cold, dark night somewhere in the West Side ghetto. There was a meeting in the church basement of the Contract Buyers’ League. Frank and I pulled up in a truck loaded with expensive and heavy recording equipment. There was a gathering of young men on the corner, quite close to us. Were they members of the Vice Lords, or what? They appeared to be glaring at us. Or was it the stuff in the truck? As I ambled into the church to see the people in charge, I heard Frank casually call out, “Hey, will you guys give me a hand?”

The tough-appearing young blacks were busy. Each was carrying something into the church. Frank was telling them where to put the stuff. He and they were giggling. They appeared
to be sharing some kind of secret to which nobody else was privy. So help me, I heard one of them address him as Frank, though at no time did he give his name.

The meeting, an exhilarating one, was over. As I was talking to the chairman, I noticed some of the young men hurrying off with the equipment. They were whispering something to one another and laughing softly. As I said, it was very expensive stuff. I excused myself and shuffled after. “Hey, uh, guys . . .” It wasn’t very loud. I doubt whether they heard me. But somebody did. It was Frank, who had reentered to pick up another piece.

“What’s up, Studs?”

“Uh—nothin’. Nothing at all.”

“Oh, I thought I heard you say something.”

“No, I just—forget it.”

Frank’s eyes widened. As though something quite remarkable had occurred to him. He looked at me with just the hint of a funny smile. I looked away.

“Hey, Studs, you didn’t think—did ya?”

“Nah, nah, nah. You kiddin’?” I was staring hard at the design behind the altar. In other days, this Baptist church had been a synagogue. The six-cornered star was hardly visible, but even if it were I’d have had a hard time making it out. Damn! Why doesn’t that Frank go away? I heard a light laugh behind me.

“Oh, man, for a minute you had me goin’, Studs. For a minute I thought you were scared the guys were rippin’ us off. Geez!” I kicked at the chair. More violently than I had intended. I bruised my shin. Damn that Frank!

Outside, Frank was shaking hands with the street guys. They were patting him on the back, as the last piece of equipment was shoved into the truck. Frank mumbled something
wholly unintelligible, at least to me, but the others thought it was terribly funny. They howled with delight. Frank nudged me. “You know what I mean?”

I think so, Frank. Knowing what you mean and have meant all along. I wish old Barry Byrne had met you. I think he’d have felt more hopeful about things. “We’re caught in a treadmill we created,” said Barry. “There isn’t too much any human being can do to change it. If we, as St. Francis of Assisi, were of that simplicity of spirit, it might change. But that is not the way the world is, see?”

“And yet, in the individual must lie the way out, because he is society. It can’t be ordered. It must be achieved. This achievement is so simple. It probably will not be done. Everybody looks for miracles, wonders. We live in an age of wonders. You look for something not wonderful, for something that is simple, yet
yours
. You get tired of wonders. In the simplehearted person, finally, is the solution. A society so pervaded will make it. Not the doctrine of the announced idea. The man must listen to man himself talking.”

In Frank was all that Barry was talking about. In Frank was all that Mark Twain was writing about when he created Huck Finn. In Frank was that irrepressible spirit that would not die. Let’s face it; in Frank is the hope of the world and the light of life.

Frank Tuller is dead. So they say. Maybe he is. And then again, maybe he’s not. True, his kind doesn’t grow on trees. But if you look around hard enough and listen hard enough, who can tell? Know what I mean?

CHESTER KOLAR, a technician at an electronics plant. There were glory days. Once, he had conducted a program over a foreign-language radio station. He was celebrated in his community then.

“I’m cold to it, these Vietnam photos. And most of my friends, the technicians, are cold to it. The only thing is their remark: ‘What do you know about that?’ If you’re gonna worry about that . . . and today we got so many people that are so easy to falling on this category of worrying, that’s actually what makes a lot of people sick. Some people can’t stand this. They shut the TV off. You heard of the guy who kicked the TV tube and took a pistol and shot into the—I mean, he was off his nut. I don’t know if you ran across some of these people;
they’re very nervous-type people. As a matter of fact, if someone shouts, they jump. I’m cold to it.

“These people sit around this radio and TV and they listen to all these broadcasts. I think this news we’re having is doing us more harm than good. I’m speaking of those that are disinterested and it’s being crammed down their throats. Over the radio comes a message. Special bulletin: so many people killed. I mean, what are they trying to fire up? This poor man that’s trying to get his eight hours of work done to keep his family going, pay his rent, and buy his food, which is so high today, he gets all excited about what’s going to happen. What does John Q. Public know what should happen? Let’s not stick our nose into something we know nothing about.

“Why should he worry about these things? We should know once a month; let’s have a review of the news: what will happen and what has happened. These people are worried about something they shouldn’t be worried about. They should be worried about painting their rooms and fixing something up where they could become industrious.”
²