Tale 35

personal gift to Fred Waring from American cartoonist Chon Day

(some of whose cartoon gifts to Fred reveal a deeper

or darker

comprehension of the real Fred Waring

than the average cartoon gift)

"A petty tyrant is a tormentor....  Someone who either holds the power of life and death over warriors or simply annoys them to distraction."[1]

Someone was playing piano like a harp, going down the strings then up, then sad to wistful, to romantic, and tensely so and full of incidentals, lingering diminisheds, and moving major sevenths. The key slipped from major to minor and slipped back, then back again, afettuoso, with great feeling, all of it, so that anyone with a sixth sense for music might suspect at once that about to begin was a drama of significance and gravity; and they would prepare their mood with respect, accordingly.

Even when an adoptive [Huron] family condemned a prisoner to die, they continued to treat him with courtesy and an outward show of affection and for a time provided him with every physical comfort....[2]

Bill was sure of his understanding of things. He felt no need for help to comprehend anything. But he was not sure how to get that understanding across to his young interviewer, as difficult as he was proving to be. He tried so hard to think of the best way, that it showed on his face. He paced mentally, up and down the moonlit inland beach where they had pulled their lost explorers’ rowboat ashore finally; and he ventilated aloud one more time as he had been doing all night, for mj’s sake, not his own, for he needed no help. He wanted Fred Waring out of his life, and talking about him kept Fred there longer. But his crazy friend, mj lorenzo, was desperate to understand.

"Another thing y'see,” Bill said, “I'm being quite honest with you, –...”

Full chorus in exquisite harmony was added to the piano now. The words sung were deliberate and clear as brightly sunlit day, because of the Waring tone-syllables, the system Fred had discovered for enunciating sung words so well that listeners in the last seats of the farthest corner heard every single word sung and enunciated clearly, a very unusual thing, and it was all done sempre legatissimo, smooth as a buttery mantra.

Yeeeeeeh-ster-daaaaaaaaaaays!        (Yesterdays!....)

 Yeeeeeeh-ster-daaaaaaaaaaays!...     (Yesterdays!....)

"...I learned in dealing with Fred: if I present a proposal to him, and ah –," he sighed. "He's a brilliant man, and if you've got thirty-four answers figured out to the only questions he could ask, he'll come up with thirty-five questions. And you've got to respect him for it. I mean, he just off the top of his head –. You can catch him unawares, and he can come up with this yet."

By treating the prisoner as the incarnation of their murdered relative, the [Huron] family was able to work up greater enthusiasm to avenge the latter's death.[3]

"And I, I start spouting off statistics that are untrue nteuhhhh!" Bill laughed. "And this always catches him unawares and puts him in a position, 'This man, the guy really knows what the hell he's talkin' about'."

Mj gulped a chuckle.

The Pennsylvanians' tone-syllables crescendo-ed:

Daaay sI kneoo waa shaa- ppeey swee tsee-

Queeeeeeeh- steh reddaaaaaaaaays...

(Days I knew as happy sweet sequestered days...)

"We were tryin' to sell him on nostalgia. We were talkin' about, what was the film in New York? Two, three years ago, it was a big thing, a nostalgia show. Well anyway, he said,--"

Oooooooh- ldeh ndaaaaaaaaaays...        (Olden days!...)

"I said, 'I think the college kids would really relate to that. That's the only way you're going to get them to relate to it, they can go there and say, "Hey, I could see what it was like in the twenties, or the thirties, or forties." And it's proven itself out,' I said."

Goooooooh- ldeeh ndaaaaaaaays...        (Golden days!....)

"I said, 'I would guarantee, at this time I would guarantee that some of those songs that were hits in the forties, those stupid songs, are gonna be hits again.' And the Andrews Sisters thing came out, you know. It's been proven, so Fred knows these things."

Before his final torment [the prisoner's undergoing ritual torture], a farewell feast was given, similar to that celebrated by a Huron who knew himself to be on the point of death.[4]

"So he was sayin' to me at the time, 'How –? That's ri-DICK-ulous. How, how can you say college kids would like this’?!"

Daaaaaaaay soh fmaa dro- maa- ncea- ndlaaaaaaaaho- ve.

Theeehnnn gaaaaay...          (Days of mad romance and love. Then gay....)

"And I said, 'Do you know during the summer that forty-three per-cent of the people going to see this show were of college age'?"

Mj giggled at such a mischievous trick to play on an old man, even if he was an ornery and nasty old man. But it was harmless and done to help, and more funny for that.

“‘Where do you get a figure like that’?"

Bill laughed at the Fred he was playing.

Yooooooooou thwah smaaaaaahinnne!...      (...youth was mine!....)

And I said, "From BILLBOARD, ah VARIETY!"

Trooooooou thwah smaaaaaaaahinnne!...      (Truth was mine!....)

Bill's Fred: "'Oh.... Well that's still not fifty per-cent'!"

"No! Ho! Irascible....!" mj reacted. He got the point of Bill’s story immediately this time. The man was irascible, impossible to please or satisfy, and he added those words to the growing mental list of words describing the impossible old man who used to be thought of as America’s saint, Fred Waring.

"You know," said Bill, agreeing with the response.

"....is the word for that," mj finished.

Jo- youh sfree aa ndfla- mi nglaahi fefor-

Sooooooo thwah smaaaaaaaaaahine...     (Joyous free and flaming life for-sooth was mine!....)

"You see, that's the only way you can deal with the man. You've gotta hit him. You've gotta thoroughly convince him that you're so well prepared that there's nothing he can do to fight you. And he will still fight you, mj!!"

"Mmm....!" Mj had never seen Bill Blackburn as serious as right now. He had become much more intently and intensely prosecutorial after Betty Ann left for the night.

Everyone was welcome to attend this feast and the prisoner was expected to show his courage by inviting those [Huron] present to amuse themselves killing him.[5]

"So I said to him, 'So it shows that you should do this’.

“He says, 'Whether I should or not, I don't wanna’!”

Saaaaaaaaa da maaaaaaaaaaahI,...        (Sad am I!....)

"Ohh!!" Mj checked the tape recorder and sipped martini, acting distracted briefly, as if uncomfortable with Bill’s direction and hoping to lighten the mood.

"How ya gonna deal with it, mj?!" Bill's frustration was palpable.

Glaaaaaaaaa da maaaaaaaaaaahI,...        (Glad am I!....)

It was also his duty to sing and dance with the Huron at this time.[6]

Bill remained largely untouched by any of mj’s theories after all of his hard work formulating them; and mj decided to haul down the psychiatric flag. He felt like they’d been in a different world since they’d started pulling together, and in this new world any reverence for Fred Waring that anyone might find still lying around somewhere, in mj lorenzo or anywhere else, would obviously have to be expressed in a new and different way, and in a way that included giving Fred up, sacrificing him for the sake of a larger good.

"I don't know," he said. "It sounds like the only way to deal with it and feel good about yourself, and respect yourself, is to quit working with him." He looked at Bill. Maybe agreeing with him would knock him off course.

Mj had just given up on the old man.

But that just made him want to save him again!

The boy was as impossible as the old man sometimes. They were two of a kind, almost, as some pundits complained, not long after knowledge of the book spread among his following in the early 80s.

Fooooooooh rto- daaay I' mdreeea- mi ngaaaaaaaaho-...

(For today I’m dreaming of...)

"You know," mj continued, weary of the agony, "I think I'm getting used to your quitting!" He could let go of defending Fred more easily if he told himself he had only been defending the man so as to preserve a fairy tale. He had been defending Fred for selfish reasons, in other words, more than for any kind of undying love felt for Fred. He’d defended him not for truth’s sake, but because he hadn’t wanted anything in his life to change. He liked everything the way it was and wanted the four of them to go on feeling like family, the way they had for two years now. Not a one of the four of them had close family around for hundreds of miles. Was that it? How could he explain it to himself or anyone else? He thought he must have feared their friendship might weaken, or the quality of their lives together would decrease somehow without the presence of Fred Waring. Was that it? What exactly had he feared might result from Bill’s not working for Fred? He wasn’t sure any more, and if he had ever had a reason for thinking any thoughts like these, he couldn’t remember what that reason had been. He was confused. It felt something like a nightmare at times, what he was going through this night.

...fYeeeeeeeeeh- steeeh- rdaaaaaaaaaaays!           (Yesterdays!....)[7]

Strings plucked. The piano flowed restlessly, then with longing. It hesitated, and finally it dripped with exhaustion.

Now, and throughout the gruesome ordeal that followed a prisoner was expected to display the primary virtues of a warrior: courage and the ability to suffer without complaining. If the Huron could not make a prisoner weep and plead for mercy, this was believed to indicate misfortune for them in future wars.[8]