Note: No dissertation, just politics as lived by one man, right now.
You'd know Frank in a minute from the moment you entered the barroom door. People paid deference to him. He wasn't threatening - but you knew he could do serious damage in a fight. He wouldn't start a fight (well, when he was younger and got flipped over the wall in the jalopy races, sure), but he would sure as hell finish it.
His son, Bill, inherited that quality, or maybe learned it by observation. He was average height and build, no more, but he gave the 100% impression that he would kill you and render you into pieces, then piss on them - at age 15. Of course, he's turned out to be a very gentle father, an old man like me (54/53), and my wife laughs at the idea that little Bill could have scared anyone. But in 1969, in upstate New York and everywhere else, there was talk of Revolution, and the farm kids and townies were battling the longhairs full force. Beatings with fists, combat boots, clubs; "haircuts" with imitation Bowie knives; threats to hold your head onto the railroad tracks at just the right time. And to this day, I'm not quite sure what it was about us that they hated so much. Freedom? More sex than them? (I wish!) The drugs? LSD was still new to most of us, and there were some who said, oh man, I will never take that shit! Of course, on the other hand, you have John M., a scary tough kid but a longhair and therefore a comrade. Heroin OD, 1970. Oh yes, you'd look around the room when you entered just about anywhere and see how many potential friends you'd have in a fistfight, and just how pissed the rednecks looked. That Bob Seger song, "Turn the Page": "is that a woman or a man?" is true. It really was the same old clichés. I think these men and their sons were afraid of US defining the U.S., not them. A force for good that could easily feed and clothe the world by ditching its defense funds - whoa! Way too far out.
Frank was one of them, but not. He was a Teamster, and had been since about 20. He was the most solid, shining example of what I would consider the real Democratic ideal: an extremely hard-working man (six kids!) who knows what's right and stands up for it. He didn't stand on a street-corner and wave at people to "honk if you want to fuck Bush up the ass!"; he talked to his friends, and basically just put it out plainly: we've been screwed by every single Republican President ever. We've gotten better (money, schools, help) with every Democratic President. He's 75 now, so he's seen a lot of Presidents come and go. But he would defend this simple thesis with down-home logic, no "drama," and just show that the proposition was a no-brainer.
He would be amused to think that he was a "political" man, but being a Teamster means you're in the thick of it, no matter what. His parents were one generation removed from Germany, and believed not in just using the belt on him as needed, but beating him into the ground with it. He carried this trait with him, and a lot of resentment. Bill "got the belt" for acting up every now and then, and this made him resolve even harder to deserve the belt once Frank got home from his road trips. By the time "Satisfaction" hit the "500 watt mama" that was the local radio station, Frank had gone several million miles, and earned enough to buy a truck, a slightly used (200,000 miles) Brockway cab-over - an ideal playing ground for the easily tempted child, like Bill and me. The sleeper section was the coolest thing ever. Imagine being able to sleep anytime, anywhere. Damn! Of course he kept it locked.
Driving a long-distance truck hauling dozens of tons of godknowswhatall takes guts, brains, and stamina. Cars will cut across your lane, slam on the brakes, and assume you can haul down the equivalent of an M1A1 in 25 feet. No, it just doesn't work that way. This happened maybe 10,000 times over his career, and in two instances, he had to drive off the road, or crush a little 7-year old kid waving his baseball cap from the back of dad's station wagon (1961), or ram a car stopped in the road at night, with no lights (1963). Unfortunately, this also meant going over a cliff in both cases. He came out of a 200-foot rollover in 1961 without a bone broken. In 1963 he hit a tree - a tree! - that almost snapped both his arms. He was out of it for a while until they mended, and although it must have been pretty painful, he never complained. He bitched a whole lot about the loss of income, though.
Cora had had quite enough of this shit back in the old days. She was born in 1931, and married in 1949; he was two years older, and quite the stud. There he is on my VCR. Cora had Sears transfer all her home movies to VCR cassettes - just one. There's my dad - look at that tie! He was at IBM during the war, doing heat treats for some of the Navy's big guns. After the war, he worked on the first computer they made - well, actually, in those days "computers" were the people that ran these contraptions. His hands are in a photo in an electricians' trade magazine, showing how they connected up a jillion vacuum tubes. Watson had them crate it up and ship it to New York City for a demo. He expected it to goddamn well better run when he was talking, and by the Lord Harry it did, right out of the box. I have a Mitsubishi VCR. Four years before this movie being shown was created, the Mitsubishi folks were trying their best to build more aircraft to replace the shattered Nippon air forces, and always more ships, of course. Politics.
But Frank missed the war by a couple of years, and was good enough in high school ball to be encouraged to try out for semi-pro. While the broads and exercise may have been appealing, he was persuaded to join IBM by my dad and sister. Set for life, Frank. Set for life. And the cliché is true. You would stay there for the rest of your goddamn life, which had its repercussions. For example, Bob Whitley [fake name] from Receivables was eating roast beef and mashed potatoes as usual in the lunchroom, then started spooning the potatoes into his bright, crisp, mandatory white shirt's pocket, and wouldn't stop. He went to The State Hospital, set for life. Now, Frank is nothing if not practical (like my brother, he could fix anything), and the idea of spending 28 years in what actually was a closed institution run by an insane old man lost its appeal when they carted Bob off in a straightjacket, siren blaring. Watson, Sr. delighted in riding the huge freight elevators up, then quietly standing behind someone's shoulder. Usually, they'd start and/or get flustered, but some wouldn't even notice, intent on their work. These people were remembered. Yes, it's all true: white shirt, blue suit, no smoking, no swearing, and of course no drugs or drinking. Anywhere. Not across the street at the bar & grille. Not out to eat on weekends, in any place in town. Not even at home. Most Teamsters seem to have a healthy vocabulary, but Frank was very polite when he told my father that he just couldn't stand indoor work. And it was true. He loved the fresh air, the space all around him, didn't matter what. Hunting, haulin pigiron to Philly or deadheadin back home. He took me on that Philly run when I was 10, runnin cinderblock down and lumber back. We got up at 2, went to a huge barn, and warmed up the truck for a good 20 minutes. It was masterful watching him work the dual gearshifts in the Poconos. They're multiplicative, like derailleurs: 2 up front and 5 in back = 10 speeds. But you also need to doubleclutch a non-synchromesh transmission at the same time that both your hands are off the wheel, hitting 90 mph with that M1A1 weight behind you, so you can make 30 going up the next hill. It was a masterful performance, and not much traffic at 5 AM.
I never saw him cry except when his father died, but he came close when Bobby got it in 1968. He didn't accept it, but he had realized while others were still speculating that he would be next. "You watch," he said. "They'll get Teddy next." And he didn't believe the bridge story. It didn't add up, and Ted Kennedy just wasn't a coward. And he knew about drowning. I learned 50 years after the fact that he had a twin brother who drowned in their pond. He saw and heard him, ran about 50 yards and dove in, but he was gone already, just like that. Bam.
Hard life? Hell, yeah, but it was what it was, and couldn't be undone. The only time I saw real hatred in him was when my brother was murdered. We sat around the kitchen table. He wanted him hanged, and he would have the balls to do it. Yes, I know it's not nice. I told them I would do the best I could at the trial. I had been talking with the ADA in Daytona, and he floated the idea of accepting a plea bargain: LWOP with no chance of appeal. No way, I said; no way. I had received the ME's report, and the brutality and savagery of this attack made that an absurdity. I mailed copies to all my nieces and nephews. No photos, of course. Listen: you post warnings for scenes of Iraq or Vietnam dead. That's chickenshit, Frank would say, compared to Jim's slaughter. My sister will never see the report. The ADA figured it was best to show just the one most gruesome photo, instead of passing out a bunch to the jury. When he turned the easel around to show a photo about 4 square feet, Cora collapsed. She would not come back for the sentencing phase. And of course, Frank had to work.
Throughout the course of my life, I have never known a day that Frank wasn't working. He is self-taught on any kind of monster machinery, most of which is old, creaky, unsafe, and just about to fall apart. If you spent $250,000 to buy your Mexican Beetle, you'd try to keep it going as long as you could, too. He knows about warming grease up when it's 20 below (not worth your time). Think of a piece of construction equipment, and he can run it expertly, deftly, solidly. He has a race drivers' touch, naturally. Which brings us back to the jalopies. He was great friends with A and B. They would get some old junker and pop a decent engine it, then go to Shangri-La Speedway for Saturday and Sunday. This was before "Suuuuuuuuunday!" Shangri-La in those days was an outlaw track, i.e., no sanctioning body governed it. Now NASCAR does. Wait a minute! What you see on TV are the super high end of NASCAR series, the "Grand National" cars. NASCAR enforces safety rules, inspections, and a common set of rules (like, when is a violation bad enough to pull a guy out of the race with a black flag?) on a whole set of levels, and people with talent, luck, and enough money can advance themselves into the bigs - maybe. People have the idea that racing is jerky moves, slides, a loud discordant soundtrack, and cars bursting into flame at every corner. Mmm, no. Not any more, but back then, let's say 1949 technology wasn't very advanced. CAD was something an Englishman would say. You get a sturdy body, hot motor, and go, Jackson.
Now Shangri-La is a typical small oval track, but with a decent banking at the corners, so the cars can hug the road better. But if you do it just .... erf ... right! you can slam some poor son-of-a-bitch over the wall with your tail. This leads to (again) a fall, but only about 20 feet. You either hit the top of the trees (good) or the ground (bad). Now, A, B, and Frank were extremely good buddies, and if one was set up, the others might conspire to arrange an off-course diversion. Which led to the target's buddies' retaliation, etc. The second time Frank went over the wall, Cora was pregnant with Nancy, and that was that. They say she used language never used by her or anyone else, after they rolled Frank out. Turns out he and his buds were getting drunk before the race as well as after. No more. A and B both became famous drunks. B was said to go through the S curve at 95 mph, completely drunk. I don't know - maybe. I'm not going to try it. He's now rich as hell, with trucks, equipment, gravel pits, all over the US. I'm guessing $300 mill, based on a similar situation out here.
Frank tried pot once during the war years, but didn't care for it. He did love to "stop in and have a beer at The Hotel," a rundown old inn that smelled of sawdust, beer, and cigarette/cigar/pipe smoke. That stop could be for 30 minutes, or 3 hours. At one point, he was getting so blasted he ran into the ditch. Three times. I'll never know what was on his mind then, but Cora threatened divorce after wreck #3. He actually quit almost altogether, but of course he's smoked since age 12. And that of course tells you that this tale is near the end.
Yes, he's dying of lung cancer. His father started the same way, skin cancer on his face and scalp, only in this case, a burn covered it up for a while. You see, Cora heard a crackling noise inside the front closet - what could that be? - and was thrown back by smoke and flame when she opened the door. The wood furnace had built up too much creosote in the chimney; Frank hadn't had time to clean it. While Cora called 911, he grabbed the garden hose and went down to fight the fire alone. This was a Smart Thing, because getting a fire engine and pumper up our hill would take about 25 minutes, and the volunteer firemen are a little similar to the Hooterville F.D. The house would have surely gone up in those 25 minutes. But the burn on his scalp required a trip to Syracuse. Let me explain: we don't do helicopters in my family because it costs $5000 just to spin up the rotors. His trip was by 1999 Probe.
It started slowly. Little patches, treated and gone. The doctor wanted a full set of X-rays. Nah, I don't wanna do any of that horseshit, he said. I'm okay. But he was wheezing more and more. Finally, after 6 months, he agreed. The doctor didn't like the look of things. Now, he's in an unfamiliar hospital because the river flooded out the old one. [Estimated $350 million in damages so far; miles of belongings dragged out to the street; many many utterly ruined homes, lives, retirements.] He can't keep anything inside his body, can't even digest water. Cora expresses frustration over the phone. We talk about details that she assumes I knows because I should be home instead of in Michigan. I want to hold her, but can't. I want to fix him, but can't. But I can do a little writing. Listen:
Frank Brown is why I am proud to be an American. He's a tireless patriot without ever thinking the word. A man who's yes indeed made mistakes, admitted it, and accepts the consequences. A guy who knows bullshit when he smells it, and can tell you why you're eating horseshit instead of news. He's taken chances. He was a football star, handsome, the world of upstate New York at his feet. He went to the edge to see if he could, then came back to his family. No doubt he's done many bad things; I sure have. But he was a MAN, and he's "not dead yet, motherfucker," to quote the late, great Richie Pryor.
My favorite Frank story. Frank and friends all swear by it. No, wait - next best story: Frank comes home drunk as hell, opens the washer, and steps in to go to sleep. Swear to God! Okay, here goes:
Way back when, Indian [which has recently been revived] made the coolest motorcycles around. Harleys were, eh, okay, but a little too popular, and besides, cops had Harleys. Who wants a cop bike? The Indian was slightly lower slung, which made a big difference in the handling. Lowering a car half an inch transforms it. The Indian also had more power - can't beat that - and looked snazzier. Frank indulged in a slightly used one, and hopped it up with whatever bucks he could scrape together. He would be about 22 at this time. He bet A and B that he could go down The Creek Road, a hilly, abrupt, and winding two lane (more like 1.5 lane, really) at 120 mph, before he reached The Corners. A and B thought this hilarious, and he edged them higher and higher up the betting scale. When the magic $100 figure was reached, he was ready, the Indian off to the side of the road going slightly more - hear that? - it's a little more rumpa rumpa than before, ain't it? One thing, says Frank. We go now. Too many cops in the daytime. You're nuts! You'll DIE driving that thing out here in the dark! You two get in a car and watch your speedometer.
And off he goes, rather smartly. Hey, what'd he do to that thing? I don't know, catch up! OK, OK. There he is - I see the taillight. 70, 90, 119, 120 and he shuts down before The Corners, at the streetlight. You can see the heat waves radiating off the engine's fins, kind of like ghosts in the semidark. All right, wiseass, what'd you do to that clunker? Me to know/you to find out, he says. Pony up. And they do.
One thing though, says A, you should get your taillight fixed. What do you mean? The light's fine. No, we saw it flickering on and off trying to catch you. Oh, that, says Frank. Those were my feet.
I swear to God.