Hooverville

by J. B. Hogan

conclusion

* * *

From the position of the hot sun above, Stephen guessed it was sometime about noon when the train began to slow down again. Fields of crops he couldn’t identify rolled by and had been doing so for the last couple of hours as Buster and the handful of hobos in this car had dozed or talked quietly among themselves.

Stephen peered out the part-way open railroad car door and tried to determine where the heck they were and where they might be going. Just as he was about to risk showing how dumb he was again and ask Buster where they were, another jolt shook the car and the train began to slow. A couple of the hobos moved up by the door of the railroad car.

“Get ready, boy,” Buster said, sliding up next to Stephen.

“Ready for what?” Stephen asked, immediately regretting it.

“We gotta jump, son,” Buster replied, surprising Stephen by not reminding him of either his stupidity or lack of experience.

“Jump?” Stephen said doubtfully.

“Stop your jabberin’, Buster,” one of the other hobos said, as the train slowed up enough for the men to bail out, “you’re givin’ me the heebie-jeebies.” Buster looked over at Stephen and shrugged his shoulders.

“Jump!” the old man cried, piling out of the train car with the rest of the hobos right behind. Stephen stood at the door, uncertain. “Jump, son,” Buster called back, “now. Hurry.”

Stephen took a deep breath, edged to the doorway, and with eyes closed launched himself out of the car and onto the ground beyond the tracks. To the amusement of Buster, Stephen hit hard, rolling across the rocky soil in a dusty whirlwind.

“Whooee,” Buster howled, “nice job.”

“Crap,” Stephen said, picking himself up and slapping the dirt off his clothes.

“Bulls!” one of the other hobos hollered. “Run for it.”

“Bulls?” Stephen asked.

“Railroad bulls,” Buster explained, as he and Stephen took off after the other hobos. “Railroad police. They’ll bust our heads with their clubs if they catch us. Hurry, boy, run.”

“I’m running,” Stephen exclaimed breathlessly, “I’m running.”

Hustling through a nearby lettuce field, the rail riders evaded the bulls, and in just a few minutes Buster and Stephen found themselves temporarily safe in the field, and alone — the other hobos having split off in several directions.

“Where are we going?” Stephen asked when he and Buster had reached a narrow, paved road beyond the big lettuce field. The sun was high in the sky now and it was getting pretty hot.

“I know a place,” Buster told his young charge, “not so far from here. If we can get a ride on this road it’s probably not an hour from here.”

“What kind of place?” Stephen wondered.

“You’ll see,” Buster said, “you’ll see.”

After about forty-five sweltering minutes walking along the one-lane blacktop road, a big flatbed truck came by with several men riding in back. They slowed up to let Buster onboard and Stephen leapt up alongside his new mentor.

“You’ll like this place we’re goin’ to,” Buster said to Stephen when the truck continued on down the road. “Food, water, good people. It’s alright.”

“Who you talkin’ to, old man,” one of the other men in the bed of the truck said to Buster.

“Don’t mind him,” another man offered, “that’s just old Buster. Everybody knows he’s crazy. Don’t pay him no mind.”

“Hmmph,” Buster snorted. “Crazy my eye.”

Stephen curled up against the wood sideboards of the truck and tried to get some rest. He didn’t have any doubt that there was a crazy person there in the back of that truck — he just wasn’t so sure it was old Buster.

* * *

“Here we are,” Stephen heard Buster say maybe an hour after they had begun their hitched truck ride.

“Here we are where?” Stephen asked, opening his eyes to take in his new surroundings. Buster held both his own arms out as if he were presenting some great wonder of the world.

Stephen was amazed to see the number of people along the side of the road as the truck slowed up, moving maybe five miles an hour. And beyond the road on either side, shacks and more people. Shacks made of scrap wood, and pieces of metal, strung together with bailing wire or nailed loosely together.

Stephen heard laughter and talk and singing. It was a busy, bustling, convivial-seeming place. There were children running around, threadbare clothes hung on makeshift wire lines strung between trees or vehicles, fires over which sat large black pots from which steam rose into the air above the haphazardly thrown together living spaces. Stephen was sure he smelled beans, and maybe bacon, cooking. It made his mouth water, but he realized for the first time that, oddly enough, he was neither hungry nor thirsty.

“What is this place?” he asked Buster. The old man smiled his snaggle-toothed smile.

“Hooverville, son,” the old man said. “Welcome to Hooverville.”

When they had dropped off the back of the truck as it slowed to a stop near the heart of the thrown-together town of Okie, Arkie, and Texas refugees, and old Buster had gotten himself a handout of hot beans, bread, and a tall glass of water, Stephen followed the old man to a clearing beside a small creek that ran on the west side of the Hooverville.

“How come there are so many people here, Buster?” Stephen asked after the old man had settled himself on an old bucket turned upside down for a seat.

“There’s a famous union man comin’ in after while,” Buster said. “Leastways that’s what I gathered from some of the talk around the food pots.”

“They build this place for that?” Stephen inquired.

“No, boy,” Buster sighed, “you don’t know nothin’ a’tall, do ya?”

“I’m sorry,” Stephen said.

“Well, heck,” the old man said more gently, “these here places are all over the country. It’s where all the out of work folks gather together to try and survive. Most of the men, and sometimes some of the women, are here to try and find work in these fields for the rich farmers that own them. They’re just tryin’ to survive. Get enough food to stay alive. Together they figure they can make it. By themselves there ain’t no chance.”

“This union guy coming in,” Stephen asked, “did they say who he was.”

“He’s a famous singer, too, here tell,” Buster said. “He has to move in and out of these places fast ’cause the bosses are after him and maybe the G-Men, too.”

“Wow,” Stephen whistled, the hint of something familiar about this strange new situation lightly piqueing his thoughts. “He must be some kind of guy.”

“I reckon we’re gonna find out soon enough,” Buster said, pointing back out to the road that split the Hooverville in two.

“How do you mean?” Stephen questioned.

“Because,” Buster replied, “here he comes right now.”

In a moment, people were gathering all around, laughing, talking, craning their necks for some sight of the singing union man. The entire Hooverville was suddenly ablaze with excitement.

“There he is,” someone cried out.

“It’s Sonny Jacobs,” another voice chimed in.

Then, in a cloud of rolling dust, a rattletrap pickup truck rumbled into the makeshift town. The crowd ran towards the truck as one, Buster and Stephen hurtling forward with them. Buster wove in and out of the crowd, trying to make it to the front.

Stephen, ever mindful of being discovered, followed closely but took great pains not to touch anyone else. It was a difficult task that suddenly became very simple, when the crowd parted — as if this Sonny were Moses and the people the Red Sea — and the great man appeared in the midst of the throng.

“Howdy, folks,” Sonny addressed the crowd with a wave. He wore his guitar slung over one shoulder like it were a weapon of some sort. “Ready for some old fashioned union building, some comrade to comrade solidarity?” The crowd roared its approval.

“Yee haw,” Buster hollered, not five feet from the legendary Sonny, “it’s you. It’s you for sure.”

“It’s me, pops,” Sonny laughed at the old man’s exuberance. “Here I am.”

“I’ll be dadblamed,” the old man said, reminding Stephen for all the world of the old western sidekicks he’d seen or heard about from the old cowboy movies. Guys with names like Frosty, Smiley, Dusty, Gabby, and ... Buster.

“C’mon, pops,” Sonny said to Buster, “help me get ever’body all rounded up over here by the creek. I’ll sing ‘em a song or two and then get to some union work.”

“You betcha, Sonny,” Buster said, happily displaying his gap-toothed smile.

With the old man’s help, Sonny soon had the crowd circled around him on the side of the Hooverville nearest the creek that served as both the community’s source of drinking water and, less wholesomely, its cleaning area and waste dump.

Stephen, now not even noticed by Buster any longer, stood back at the fringes of the crowd and listened raptly to the organizer’s mixture of union propaganda and folksy humor and music.

Stephen found the man and his message altogether captivating. Momentarily he was even more captivated by a young woman who was maybe two rows up in the crowd. She had wavy brown hair, a thin body with a surprisingly round bottom, and when she turned around briefly — light, green eyes. Lisa, Stephen thought, she looks like Lisa, or her mom — grandma?

While he was focused on the young girl, Stephen missed most of what Sonny was saying and singing but a loud surge in the crowd noise brought him back to the man and his message.

“This country,” the singer was telling the crowd, “belongs to us, not them. To each and everyone of us. We built it. We worked for it. It’s yours and it’s mine. From out here in the west all the way to New York City. This land is ours.”

The crowd applauded and yelled again and then the sound rose even higher as Sonny swung his guitar around from behind his back and, pulling a pick out of his shirt pocket, started playing and singing one of his songs — an upbeat folksy tune about, naturally enough, workers and unions.

During this latest upsurge, Stephen managed to slip up closer to the pretty Lisa look-alike and stood to one side admiring her lovely profile. He froze in place for a moment when, for just a second, she seemed to act as if she knew she were being watched.

Afraid to move and lost in the thrill of the moment, with the elated crowd singing and laughing and swaying back and forth and with the beautiful girl right before him, Stephen did not hear or see the first signs of trouble. They came fast and furious.

Out on the road to the left of the gathering, maybe a half dozen trucks loaded with men armed with sticks and clubs came roaring up. Caught, like Stephen, almost completely off guard, the Hooverville residents had barely begun to realize what was going on before the armed men piled out of the trucks and began to batter anyone in their way — male or female, young or old.

“It’s the farmers’ goons,” a man near Stephen yelled into the general confusion and melee.

While Stephen remained rooted to his spot in the midst of the throng, the pretty girl and everyone else in sight took off running in any direction they could to avoid the truncheon-bearing goons who stormed through the mob bashing bodies and heads with a gleeful lack of discrimination.

The union singer man, Sonny, had bolted late and he was harried by goons as he raced to catch up and try and lose himself in the dispersing crowd. As he fled, Sonny’s path took him right toward Stephen, who was lock-step riveted to the spot he had been in when the ruckus started.

Stephen looked up wide-eyed as Sonny came barreling down on him and at the last second before they would have occupied the same position, Sonny saw Stephen and shifted his body to avoid a collision. As the two men stared into each other’s eyes for the briefest of seconds, Stephen in complete shock, Sonny with a mischievous smile on his face, the singer spoke to Stephen.

“Here you go, buddy,” Sonny said, flipping something at Stephen as he tore past.

“You can see me?” Stephen called after Sonny, grabbing at the object the singer had thrown. It fell to the ground at Stephen’s feet.

“Good luck, kid,” Sonny yelled back without looking around

Amazed at all that was happening, Stephen bent down to pick up the small object by his shoes. He felt in the dirt, felt something kind of hard, but flexible. He started to put the object in his pocket but as he did he looked up just in time to see one of the goons coming right at him with wooden truncheon upraised.

“You’re gonna get it, commie,” the man was shrieking.

“Yieee!” Stephen squealed, putting both hands up to block the oncoming blow.

It was too late, the weapon came down straight for the top of his head. And then all was black.

* * *

Stephen knew he was alive but he was in a very dark place. A place that was shaking. Or a place where something or someone was shaking him. An image of people running all around was fresh in his mind, as was the image of some old man. That was it, the old man.

“Stop it, Buster,” Stephen said, fighting the darkness up to light. “Quit shaking me.”

“Buster,” a very familiar voice spoke into Stephen’s return to consciousness, “who the hell is Buster?”

“What?”

“I said, ‘Who’s Buster?”

“Dad?” Stephen asked, slowly opening his eyes. His head ached and his neck was sore.

“Well, I sure ain’t this Buster guy,” Mr. White growled down at his son who was supine on the couch in the little apartment that the elder White found so cramped and uncomfortable. “Who are you talking about?”

Stephen took a moment to let his head clear and his eyes focus. The headache and soreness in his neck were quickly dissipating. He thought he might feel alright again in a minute or two. Stretching backwards he felt something small fall onto the front of his pants. Reaching down slowly for the unseen object, for sure trying to keep his dad from seeing what he was up to, Stephen came up with the object —a guitar pick, old and broken along one edge.

“Sonny Jacobs,” he said out loud.

“Good lord,” Mr. White said, “now what, or who? Who are you talking about now?”

“No one, dad, forget about it,” Stephen answered quickly, pocketing the pick surreptitiously.

His dad didn’t need to know anymore about the odd things that happened to Stephen. He already thought Stephen was about the weirdest child a human being could have. No reason to give him any more empirical evidence for that point of view. Not today anyway. Maybe never.

“I tell you,” Mr. White said, shaking his head, “I don’t understand you sometimes.”

“How long was I out?” Stephen asked, in a redirect.

“I don’t know,” Mr. White said with a sigh, “maybe five, ten minutes. I wasn’t keeping track.”

“But you stayed.”

“Yeah, I stayed. And now I’m going.”

“Not yet, pop,” Stephen said, “please.”

“I gotta get back,” Mr. White said, not looking at his son. “What happened to you, anyway?”

“I don’t know, dad,” Stephen said earnestly. “I have these little spells from time to time.”

“No wonder,” Mr. White said, pointing down at the books he’d criticized before on the messy coffee table by the couch. “This commie crap will ruin your mind.”

Stephen started to work up a counter argument in his head but then thought better of it. There was no point in getting into useless fights with his dad. The old man had his ways and he, Stephen, had his. It was up to one of them to find a way past their differences without tearing each other up in the process.

“Can you hang with me for just a few more minutes?” Stephen asked quietly. His dad gave him a funny look and shuffled around uncomfortably.

“You’re an awfully strange boy, Stephen,” Mr. White spoke after a pause, “did you know that?”

“Yeah,” Stephen said with a little laugh, “I know that, pop.”

“Hmm,” Mr. White vocalized.

“I’d appreciate it,” Stephen added.

“Well,” Mr. White said somewhat doubtfully, “there’s probably nothing going on at home but hen stuff anyway. What the hay.”

“Thanks, dad,” Stephen said, smiling up at his father, “that’s great. Thanks.”

“Yeah, sure,” Mr. White muttered, looking around the apartment as if he didn’t know where the doors were through which he could escape if need be, “you bet. Okay.”