THE NIGHT OF THE CRASH

by Judith M. Creighton, PhD

Not the one that did in the stock market

This is NOT a medical article - it's a story from the typewriter of a graduate student in a Creative Writing class. The author is our sister, and this story is true. It is also timely - and we all hope, not likely to be the model for our near and distant future - since it deals with human behavior during the Big Depression. Some behavior was good, some not so good, just like always.

Our house was less than a mile from the main line of the Southern Pacific railroad coming into Tucson. The tracks ran through several miles of desert thinly settled with shanties, Indian huts, and modest houses before entering the yards which stretched out from the heart of town to accommodate boxcars, engines in need of repair, and the mixed paraphernalia that accompanies the operation of a large railroad yard. The trains traveled through the outskirts of town at a reduced speed, and the noise of their whistles as they crossed one street after another was the heartbeat of our childhood. In the depression era of the 1930’s hundreds of people looking for a place to begin again dropped off the trains before they reached the yards and the scrutiny of railroad employees.

We saw some of them every day, trudging the back way into town, carrying belongings wrapped in blankets and blue denim, stuffed into gunny sacks or old market bags. Oftenest we saw a man alone – frequently a young man, who wore his entire wardrobe as the safest means of carrying it – a costume that was seldom clean or whole. Less often there were two transients, or an old man, but these too were a fairly common sight. It happened now and then that a woman walked beside her man, and we children sensed without being told that this was not an adventure, but a tragedy being lived through.

Mother fed two or three of these destitute people every week without question. Her standards were simple. There was always an odd job available for the transient who asked to exchange work for food. There was hot water from the teakettle and a bar of laundry soap for washing off the dirt of travel, and a clean towel to dry on. There was the back step to sit on, and the traveler received the same food she served her family.

Mother believed in the goodness of people, and we were always permitted to visit with the guest after the meal was finished. It was usually a time of mutual pleasure, though sometimes a visitor became suspiciously shiny-eyed as we probed to find out about his hometown and his plans for the future. Now and then there was a report of thievery near the railroad tracks, but Mother and Dad were matter of fact about the risks involved.

Once we four children watched horror-struck as a man reached into his pocket, pulled out a portion of cellophane-wrapped cigar, looked at it briefly, bit off a chunk – cellophane, label and all – and proceeded to chew. It turned out that his ‘thank you’ to us was a demonstration of accuracy with a stream of brown tobacco juice. Jerry summoned the courage to ask the question we all wanted answered, “What does it taste like?”

The man was in no hurry to reply. He chewed as he considered, took aim and fired at a fly that sat in the winter sunshine. “Tastes just fine, sonny. I been chewin’ since I was about your size.”

Another visitor was a vagabond minstrel. We saw him at intervals during the depression years, and if his transient lot was a burden to him, we never knew it. He visited points of interest along the rails picking up jobs here and there. His biggest attraction for us was the battered guitar he carried, and a wire contraption that held a mouth organ so he could be a two-piece band. He told us his name was Oley, and we talked about him during the intervals between his visits in wistful, envious tones.

We did a lot of talking at night after we were in bed. All four of us slept in the same room, John and I on bunk beds, and Jerry and Tom sharing a fold-up double bed that filled most of the rest of the room when it was open. By the time John was almost eleven Mother and Dad occasionally left us at home by ourselves in the evening, and we enjoyed the freedom and responsibility it gave us.

But one night the fun of taking care of ourselves turned into a challenge. It was well after dark on a February night – late enough that we should have been asleep, and perhaps Tom was. I know that I had dropped into that semi-conscious state when the mind registers impressions but the body is unwilling to respond to them.

Out of the stillness there came the sharp thwack of something hitting a window, followed by the unmistakable tinkle of falling glass. Instantly I was wide awake – and petrified with fear. “Johnny,” I quavered, “What is it?”

My voice must have been barely audible, but in the absolute silence following the shocking sounds I felt that I was now completely exposed to whatever was out there.

“It’s a burglar. I better scare him away.” John’s voice quavered almost as much as mine, but I trusted him and felt safe right away. In the darkness between us I could not see him, but I could see a shadowy figure moving outside the French doors that led from our bedroom to the backyard. I could hear John filling his lungs with air. It was an unsteady, gulping sound.

“YOU GET OUT OF HERE BEFORE I GET MY SHOTGUN AND CALL THE POLICE!”

John produced a marvelous full-throated roar that started out a deep man’s voice and stayed that way. When he stopped we could hear moving feet, and two shadowy shapes scuttled past the French doors and moved with increasing speed out of sight and hearing. For a few moments we lay in silence.

“Johnny,” I whispered, “what shall we do now?”

“Let’s go across the street and ask them to call the police. We can crawl out the window.”

Only a ten plus-year-old boy would have seen a necessity for that; only a nine-year-old girl would have accepted it without question. But that’s just what we four did. Encouraging the wakened and upset little (ages seven and four) boys out of their bed, John and I wrapped us all up in bedding, ignoring the fact of jackets hanging in the closet, took off the window screen, climbed one-by-one onto the sill and tumbled over it. We were in deep shadow, with a cold winter moon lighting up the backyard and the street which we had to cross to get to the neighbor with the phone. What a relief it was to see lights on in the house where we were headed. With John clutching Tom’s hand and me holding Jerry’s we ran toward that welcome proof of somebody at home.

The next hour was a medley of sights and sounds I’ll always remember: the concerned neighbor lady who wrapped me up in her fur coat and offered me a pair of spike heeled shoes to cover my chilly bare feet, the plainclothesman who loomed over me asking questions, and my insistence that he believe it was John’s wonderful threatening voice which saved us all, the sleepy little boys who only wanted a quiet dark corner so they could go back to sleep. Mother and Dad arrived when I was getting tired and ready to let somebody else have the excitement for a change.

We went home. There was a monkey wrench on the floor inside the service porch. It was Dad’s monkey wrench – an effrontery that really angered him, and it was surrounded by splintered bits of the broken window. John was the hero of the night, and we were helped back into bed to the accompaniment of expressions of praise and wonder – an altogether heady sensation.

But it was short-lived. Combing through the newspaper next day for news of John’s gallant rescue we found, “Children’s Screams Frighten Burglar.” Screams? Never! Children? It was John alone! That was my first disillusionment with the press.

(Editor's Note: Since publication, we have learned from the oldest, most famous sibling, that the "vagabond" minstrel was actually an unemployed man from the neighborhood, who possessed other talents; he once carved a golf-club from a mesquite branch. No, he did NOT then proceed to win the US Open with it.)