Tale 15

How Yvette Got Out on the Road

(the First Time)

Mj lorenzo’s hilarious friends, Hercules the monster-queller and Demeter the earth goddess, as he saw them now and then, lured him with stories, while Fred the winegod Dionysus tried to impress him with song. The pull of the stories, he explained later, won each time over the pull of Fred’s songs, even though the stories upset him and the music enchanted him. Fred, a known perfectionist determined to be seen as the excellent musician he was, and determined to protect his moral reputation despite peccadilloes, could not hide his true self behind the perfect beauty of his enchanting musical art as well as he had done at one time, it seemed, and it was sad to watch.

...How dry I am...

A chorus of usually highly regarded Pennsylvanians seen in the mirror from where mj sat, leaned into a sweat-streaked kind of Pete Seeger folk concert singalong, belting their song. Their shiny foreheads stretched forward and upward as if toward the realization of the ultimate mystery, even though the only thing to be seen out that way was an impeccably dressed musical conductor.

How dry I ammmmmmmmmmmm...[1]

Fred Waring and the Pennsylvanians

as portrayed by the American cartoonist Mel Casson

in a cartoon he gave Waring around 1955

when ‘Hear! Hear!’ was a Waring music review on Broadway

and a Decca Waring album of the same name was released [2]

"Well," said Bill, "the funny story is Tommy Cullen. Tommy Cullen has a bar over here now."

Bill’s story airplane was ready for takeoff and mj was expected to be ready and willing to climb aboard.

"Yeh," said the poor ex-interviewer. He was climbing on board, alright, willing to crash-land on booze stories if it called for that. He would have gotten up and gone to the bathroom a long time ago, and gone and mixed himself a martini, if he had been reading such stories in a book at home, as he said later. But Bill Blackburn was taking off, and he had to climb aboard. For some reason it didn’t feel right to say, “Let’s take a break,” or "If you don’t tell me the story I came for, I might go home." Did the Cretan bull tell Hercules what to do? No. The bull trusted Hercules, because the man demonstrated instinct for difficult situations with confused animals. And so, somehow, without even wanting to at times, mj, a confused animal, usually trusted Bill Blackburn’s lead; for Bill had managed to conquer most of his doubt and win most of his trust a long time before, back during the early part of their friendship.

‘"Tommy was a clarinetist," Bill started. "And – heh – he was playin' with all these funky little bands around here. And he's a very good clarinetist, ranked in the top ten maybe. But Fred needed a trumpet player for the Hallelujah Chorus; and Battle Hymn. And Fred Waring was the big thing that happened around this area. That was it! And you gotta know Tommy. Fred is his idol. When he heard Fred needed a trumpet he went and got a trumpet and learned to play real quick and said, ‘I play trum­pet!’ and went out with the band, like number three trumpet or somethin'. And when he went out, Fred needed somebody he could trust to room with Poley."

"Oh yeh!" Betty Ann giggled, finally seeing where this crazy storytelling plane was headed, with both propellers.

"So he puts Tommy Cullen in with Poley. Now wait till you hear this. Tommy at one point in his life got so bad drinking that he owned a bar, and at five o'clock in the morning –; you should know this," Bill looked at his Monroe County Drug and Alcohol Program doc.

Mj looked back.

"Alcoholics after awhile can't even sleep. Tommy usta crawl up the stairs, heh, and try to go to sleep, lay around for an hour, crawl back downstairs to his bar, and drink the rest of the day. Now remember: Fred Waring thinks this Tommy Cullen's a sweet young man. He's a ‘very religious Catholic boy’. So he puts him in the room with Poley."

Bill had been in the Air Force in Korea, and now he adjusted his flight instruments for takeoff, as it were, by switching to a soft, spooky tone: "Tommy says, 'Man, I thought I was a boozer, but this man made me look like –.' He said, 'One time I opened up his bag and there were five fifths of liquor. I picked up a lamp one day in the room'." Bill took off, and his story plane got noisier and louder: "He picked up a lamp and ‘Here's a fifth’, he says. 'Everywhere I looked in that room, man, there was a fifth hidden away’! He said, 'I'd see a waste basket filled with stuff after the place has been cleaned and there'd be a fifth hidden in there’!" Bill whispered like Tommy, awed: "He said, 'Well, this guy has gotta be the biggest drunk in the WORLD!' He said, 'I'm a light sleeper, 'cause I'm a boozer, and I hear Poley goin' to the bathroom like twenty times a night! One night I tiptoe in there and Poley's in there pourin' another drink. All night long this goes on'!"

Bill leveled into a glide. "One night he got so bombed he didn't know where he was: Poley. And Tommy Cullen was makin' all this big money with the Pennsylvanians for the first time and went out and bought a yellow cashmere sweater." Bill chuckled. "Heh; he said: 'This ended it for me’. He said, 'I waited a little bit 'cause I was a drunk too’.”

Bill's tone changed. “Tommy hasn't touched a drop in seven years; or Poley.

“Poley walked up to his –, y'know these things that you put your suitcases on?"

"Luggage rack," said mj.

"And his suitcase was open," Bill said softly: "and peed all over this new sweater.

"Tommy said, 'That did it for me’! He says, 'So I went to Fred and I says’," Bill sounded young, "'"We've got a problem, Mr. Waring, I can't room with that man any more, he just ruined my sweater ”’.”

Mj was laughing.

Betty Ann too; and demurely.

"And he said," Bill portrayed a good, conscientious Catholic school boy: "'"I tried to save him and I didn't wanna come to you about this, but it's really a bad problem".' And he told Fred about all the booze in the room, and Fred sent Poley home."

Bill sped up, speaking excitedly as if the storytelling plane was crash diving: "And the next time Poley came out was the first time Yvette came out and the only way Fred would bring Poley back out was if Yvette GUARANTEED Poley wouldn't drink any more;” he slowed the plane down finally: “and  would  come   out   WITH   him!"^[3]

Bill leveled out six feet from the ground. "And that's how Yvette got out on the road the first time." He looked satisfied with his stunt.

...How dry I aaaammm...

The quest for bliss in the corner had fizzled. Waring devotees stood in a circle like Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters, looking and feeling helpless. They waited for Ultimate Truth to strike.

...How dry I aaaammm...

But they waited in vain, like Jews in Babylon, and mj could neither laugh nor cry.