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Volume 1483a

ONLY THE STRONG SURVIVE
 Part II
Into The Mysteries
by R. E. Prindle
Continued from ERBzine 1483

     Burroughs does a good job in the Holmesian sense in this book enclosing mysteries within mysteries.  The central mystery is who is committing the crime wave in Oakdale.  Having learned from his mentor, Conan Doyle, Burroughs skillfully withholds details to enhance the suspense then disclosing them to reveal the mysteries.  The organization of the scheme of crimes gradually unfolds to show that the real Oskaloosa Kid is one of the perpetrators.  So we have a clever doubling of a sweet girl posing as the vicious criminal the Oskaloosa Kid.

     The girl who was seen with the criminals could have been Gail since she has disappeared without a trace never having arrived at her destination.  Gail was not the girl seen with Reginald Paynter who was robbed and murdered and the crooks it was Hettie Penning who was ejected from the car speeding past the Squibbs place by the real Oskaloosa Kid.

     As indicated Hettie Penning represents the dead early Anima of Burroughs who has here been resurrected.  As in all cases of Burroughs representations of his failed Anima she appears to be a 'bad' girl but in reality is merely misunderstood.

     Bridge himself is a mystery man and double.  He is a hobo but with great manners and an excellent education.  He is definitely a member of the Might Have Seen Better Days Club.  The real club was organized by Burroughs when he served as an enlisted man in the Army in 1896.

     In this case Bridge is in actuality the son of a wealthy Virginia aristocrat who has left home because he prefers a life on the road.  In reality Burroughs was declassed at eight or nine by John the Bully and by his father's subsequent shuffling of him from school to school finally sending him to a bad boy school which Burroughs describes as little more than a reformatory for rich kids.

     If one looks at his career he was on the move quite a bit.  During his marriage he seldom lived in one house for more than a year or two then moved on.
     Just as Bridge will assume his proper identity at the end of the novel so through his writing Burroughs has abandoned the shame of his hard scrabble years from 1905-13.  In a sense he is assuming his proper identity with this novel.

     Bridge and the Kid having joined together at the fork in the road, one is reminded of Yogi Berra's quip:  When you come to a fork in the road, take it. take the less traveled dirt road.

     I read word for word frequently dwelling on the scenes created.  Burroughs is a very visual writer.  Standing at the fork in a driving midwest summer lightning, thunder and deluge storm they can hear the pursuing hoboes shouting down the road.  Ahead of them is a dark unknown and a house haunted by the victims of a sextuple murder.

     Indeed, Burroughs describes almost a descent into hell, or at least, the hell of the subconscious:

     Over a low hill they followed the muddy road and down into a dark and gloomy ravine.  In a little open space to the right of the road a flash of lightning (followed one imagines by either the crash or the deep loud rumbling of the thunder) revealed the outline of a building a hundred yards (that's three hundred feet, a very large front yard) from the rickety and decaying fence which bordered the Squibb farm and separated it from the road.

    There are those who say Burroughs doesn't write well but in a short paragraph he has economically drawn a verbal picture which is quite astonishing in its detail.  The house is a hundred yards from the road.  In the rain and muck that might be a walk of two or three minutes.

     A clump of trees surrounded the house, their shade adding to the utter blackness of the night

     That's what one calls inspissating gloom.   One might well ask how any shade can add to utter blackness but one gets the idea.  There is some intense writing thoroughly reminiscent of Poe but nothing like him.

     The two had reached the verandah when Bridge, turning, saw a brilliant light glaring through the night above the crest of the hill they had just topped in their descent into the ravine, or, to be more explicit, the small valley, where stood the crumbling house of the Squibbs.  The purr of a rapidly moving motor car rose above the rain, the light rose, fell, swerved to the right and to the left.
     "Someone must be in a hurry."  commented Bridge.

     There isn't any better writing than that.  Another writer can say it differently but he can't say it better.  Just imagine the movies' Frankenstein or Wolf Man when you're reading it.  Burroughs did as well in less than the time it takes to show it.

     A body is thrown from the speeding car a shot following after it.  Bridge goes to pick up the body.

     Thus the mystery and horror and terror of the stormy night has been building.  Bridge carrying the body which may or may not be alive asks the Kid to open the door.

     Behind him came Bridge as the youth entered the dark interior.  A half dozen steps he took when his foot struck against a soft yielding mass.  Stumbling he tried to regain his equilibrium only to drop fully upon the thing beneath him.  One open palm extended to ease his fall, fell upon the uplifted features of a cold and clammy face.

     Yipes!  What more do you need?  Cold and dripping, half crazed with fear, overwhelmed by the thought that he might be a murderer the Kid's hand falls on cold and clammy dead flesh.  He is also aware that the murderous hoboes are hot on his trail.

    If that doesn't get you then somehow I think you can't be got.

     Not finished yet Burroughs builds the tension.  Striking a match from the specially lined water proof pocket of Bridge's coat they find a dead man wearing golden earrings.  Obviously a gypsy but while staring in unsimulated horror they hear from the base of the stairs of a dark dank cellar the clank of a slowly drawn chain as a heavy weight makes the stairs creak.

     This is too much for the nerves of the Kid.  Burroughs brilliantly contrasts the terror of the unknown in the basement with the fear of the dark at the top of the stairs.  You know where that's at, I'm sure, I sure do.  In a flash the Kid chooses the unknown at the top of the stairs to the horror in the cellar.

     What do you want?

     The hoboes are still slipping and sliding down the descent into the ravine of the subconscious.  Horror in front, terror behind.  There is absolutely no place to hide.  Nightmare City, don't you think?  How could anyone do it better?  What do you mean he can't write?  Put the scenes in a movie and everyone in the theatre would be covering their eyes.  It would be that Beast With Five Fingers all over again.  Maybe worse.  Never saw that one?  Check it out.  Peter Lorre.  Terrifying.  Of  course, I was a kid.

     The clanking of the chain recreates an incident in Burroughs' own life when he had a job collecting for an ice company.  He called on a house and while he was waiting he heard the clanking of a chain coming slowly up the driveway.  Waiting with a fair amount of trepidation he saw a huge dog dragging the chain appear.  ERB backing slowly away forgot about the delinquent ice bill.

     In this case the chain is attached to Beppo the dancing bear but Bridge and the Kid won't know that until the next day.

     They retreat into an upstairs bedroom where what Burroughs describes in capitalized letters as THE THING and IT pursues them.  I remember two movies one called the Thing and the other IT.

     Just when the thing retreats the murderous gang of hoboes enters the house.  Wow! Out of the frying pan and into the fire in this night of terrors as the lightning continues to flash and the thunder crash.

     Discovering the dead man and as the bear begins moving again four of the hoboes flee while two who were on the staircase being trapped in the house flee into the same bedroom as Bridge, the Kid and the girl.  Shortly thereafter a woman's scream pierces the lightning and thunder then silences as the storm settles into a steady drizzle.

     The rest of the night is one tense affair between the murderous hoboes, Bridge and the girls.  Not a moment to catch your breath.

     In the morning when they go downstairs the mystery increases when they find the dead man gone and nothing in the cellar.  If they'd had Tarzan there he could have smelled whether it was a brown or a white bear.

     After a brief confrontation Dopey Charlie and the General are driven off.  Bridge's relationship with the Kid is then deepened.  Even though all the Kid's reactions are repulsive to Bridge yet he feels his attraction to the seeming boy growing stronger.

     Not since he had followed the open road with Byrne, had Bridge met one with whom he might care to "pal" before.

     This brings up an interesting hint of latent homosexuality.  My fellow writer, David Adams, has objected that in my analysis of Emasculation as applied to ERB is that he should have been a homosexual which he wasn't.

     There are degrees of emasculation and there are various degrees of psychotic reaction to it.  I don't say and I don't believe that ERB was a homosexual but there was a degree of ambiguity introduced into his personality by his emasculation.  I have touched on this in my 'Emasculation, Hermaphroditism and Excretion.'

     Here we have another example of it as Bridge is experiencing some homoerotic  emotion which is very confusing to him as he has never wanted a 'pal' before.

     If Burroughs took his 'inside' information on hoboes from Jack London's 'The Road' then Bridge is the sort of hobo London describes as the 'profesh', the hobo highest in the hierarchy of hobodom.  London always thought of himself as a quick learner, so one doesn't have to award his statements too much credibility but Burroughs apparently took him at face value.

     As London describes the 'profesh' he has been on the road so long that he knows all the ropes.  Unlike the unkempt bums he realizes the importance of a good front and always dresses neatly.  But he is hardened and capable of committing any crime.

     While Bridge is obviously intended to be a 'profesh' he is neither a criminal nor does he dress to put up a good front.

     Another category of hobo London lists is the 'road kid.'  These are young people just starting on the life of the road.  The 'profesh' would often take one or more of these road kids under his wing as his fag, as the British would say, or in 'Americanese' a 'pal'.  In other words in a homosexual relationship.  Thus this displays ERB's sexual ambiguity which David couldn't locate in my psychological analysis of ERB's emasculation.  In this case the ambiguity will be resolved and explained when we learn that the Kid is the beautiful young woman, Abigail Prim and both Bridge and Burroughs heave a sigh of relief.

     Nevertheless ERB is discussing homosexuality in an open and natural way which may be unique for its times.  But then, remember that one of ERB's hats in this story is that of the Alienist, so that in these pages we are deep in the psychological abstractions and Doyle's mystery stories as influences.

     Now comes the time for breakfast.  Someone has to 'rustle' grub.  We have already learned in 'Out There Somewhere' that Bridge doesn't rustle food, he rustles rhyme.  Nothing has changed.   The Kid goes out to get breakfast and when she comes back with the goods, true to form Bridge bursts forth with several snatches from H.H. Knibbs which surprisingly the demure Miss Prim recognizes.  What's she been reading?

     How might this apply to Burroughs' own life?  Let's look at it.  Burroughs was enamored of How To books but in his heart he must have considered them a fraud.  Willie Case will soon pick up his copy of How To Be A Detective which he finds completely unapplicable to his circumstances.  He also has the good sense to throw the book away reverting to his native intelligence which may be a subtle comment of the topic of How To books by Burroughs.

     ERB always considered himself of the executive class.  After his humiliating experience trying to sell door to door he never again attempted it.  Instead as a master salesman he wrote sales manuals for others to use as they went door to door selling pencil sharpeners or whatever while he sat in the office waiting for orders.  Hence in his own life he was the 'rustler of poetry' or manuals while others rustled grub in the door to door humiliation of the actual selling.  ERB always makes me smile.

     In this case in what may be a joke the Kid just buys the goods from the homeowner reversing the roles.

     There are those who insist Burroughs can't write but I find his stuff wonderfully condensed  getting more mileage out of each word than anyone else I've read.  Just see how he describes breakfast:

     Shortly after, the water coming to a boil, Bridge lowered three eggs into it, glanced at his watch (an affluent hobo) greased one of the new cleaned stove lids with a piece of bacon rind and laid out as many strips of bacon as the lid would accommodate.  Instantly the room was filled with the delicious odor of frying bacon.

     "M-m-m-m! gloated the Oskaloosa Kid.  "I wish I had bo- asked for more.  My!  but I never smelled anything so good in all my life.  Are you going to boil only three eggs?  I could eat a dozen."

     "The can'll only hold three at a time," explained Bridge.  "We'll have some boiling while we are eating these."  He borrowed the knife from the girl, who was slicing and buttering bread with it, and turned the bacon swiftly and deftly with the point, then he glanced at his watch.  "Three minutes are up."  He announced and, with a couple small flat sticks saved for the purpose from the kindling wood, withdrew the eggs one at a time from the can.

     "But we have no cups!" exclaimed the Oskaloosa Kid, in sudden despair.

     Bridge laughed.  "Knock an end off your egg and the shell will answer in place of a cup.  Got a knife?'

     The Kid didn't.  Bridge eyed him quizically.  "You must have done most of your burgling near home," he commented.

     The description of the breakfast between the time Bridge looked at his watch and when the three minutes were up was delightfully done.  I could smell the bacon myself while I especially like the detail of swiftly and deftly turning the bacon with the knife point.

     Nice details aren't they?  You'd almost think Burroughs had actually done things like this for years.  There's enough blank spots in his life that he may have had more experiences of this sort than we know about.  Take for instance the three days in Michigan between the writing of' Out There Somewhere' and 'Bridge And The Oskaloosa Kid.  He says it took him twelve hours by train on four different lines to return to Coldwater from Alma.  It is not impossible that he was hoboing back for the experience.  He knew that he was going to write Bridge And The Kid next; might he not have been picking up local color?

     Likewise in 'Bridge And The Kid' he mentions the road from Berdoo to Barstow with seeming familiarity.  Had he met Knibbs and the two embarked on a few days road trip as the expert Knibbs showed him some of the ropes?

     I don't know but there is something happening in his life which has not been explained.

     Perhaps also the hoboism which appears in 1915-17 in his work when by all rights his success should have permitted him entry into more exalted social circles symbolized a rejection by so-called polite society.  If so, why?  Certainly the serialization of Tarzan Of The Apes in the Chicago paper must have raised eyebrows when people said something like: Is that the same Edgar Rice Burroughs who's been tramping around town for the last several years?

     After all people live in a town where a reputation is attached to them whether earned or not. In reviewing the jobs Burroughs had after he left Sears, Roebuck there is a certain unsavory character to them.  Indeed, one employer, a patent medicine purveyor was shut down by the authorities while ERB then formed a partnership with this disgraced person.  Where was Burroughs when the authorities showed up to shut the business down?  I make no moral judgments.  I'm of the Pretty Boy Floyd school of morality:  Some will rob you with a six-gun, some use a fountain pen.  Emasculation is the name of the game.

     It is certainly true that many, perhaps most, of the patent medicines of the time were based on alcohol and drugs therefore either addictive or harmful to the health.  Samuel Hopkins Adams was commissioned by Norman Hapgood of Collier's magazine to write a series of articles exposing the patent medicine business in 1906. http://www.mtn.org/quack/ephemera/oct7.htm   A consequence of the articles may very well have been the shutting down of Dr. Stace.  I think it remarkable that Burroughs didn't distance himself from Stace at that time.

     Even as Adams was presenting his research on patent medicines Upton Sinclair was exposing the hazards of the Chicago meat packing industry whose products were no less hazardous to the public health than patent medicines.  Sinclair's book 'The Jungle' as well as perhaps Adams' articles resulted in the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906.

     The products of the meatpackers were so bad the British wouldn't even feed them to Tommys.  That's pretty bad.

     So, if the Staces of the world were criminal and ought to be put out of business then by logic so should have the Armours and Swifts but what in our day would be multi-billion dollar industries don't get shut down for the minor offence of damaging the health of millions.

    One can't be sure of Burroughs' reasoning but his writing indicates that he was keenly aware of the hypocrisy of legalities.  Perhaps for that reason he stuck by Dr. Stace.

     However Stace was put out of business and the Armours and Swifts weren't.  While I applaud ERB's steadfastness I deplore his lack of judgment for surely his reputation was tarred with the same brush as Dr. Stace.

     When society figures may have asked who this Edgar Rice Burroughs was they were given, perhaps, a rundown on Dr. Stace and patent medicines as well as other employments that are a little murky to us at present.  I'm sure that ERB was seen as socially unacceptable.  Thus Bridge who has lived among the hoboes has never partaken of their crimes so there is no reason for society to reject him especially as he is the son of a multi-millionaire.

     In any event ERB left Chicago for the Coast returning in 1917 then leaving for good at the beginning of 1919.  Life ain't easy.  Ask me.

     As Bridge, the Kid and the putative Abigail Prim were finishing breakfast the great detective Burton pulls up in front of the Squibbs place.  Burton is obviously a combination of Sherlock Holmes and Allan Pinkerton.  We have been advised of the Holmes connection in the opening paragraphs of the book.  ERB describes Burton thusly:

     Burton made no reply.  He was not a man to jump to conclusions.  His success was largely due to the fact that he assumed nothing; but merely ran down each clew quickly yet painstakingly until he had a foundation of fact upon which to operate.  His theory was that the simplest way is always the best way.  And so he never befogged the main issue with any elaborate system of deductive reasoning based on guesswork.  Burton never guessed.  He assumed that it was his business to know; nor was he on any case long before he did know.  He was employed now to find Abigail Prim.  Each of the several crimes committed the previous night might or might not prove a clew to her whereabouts; but each must be run down in the process of elimination before Burton could feel safe in abandoning it.

     That's a pretty good understanding of Doyle's presentation of Holmes.  ERB did leave out Holmes' dictum that it was necessary to read all the literature on the subject to understand the mentality of one's subjects.  Burton did demonstrate some acumen in his arrest of Dopey Charlie and the General.  He deployed an agent fifty yards below and fifty yards above to converge on the two criminals while he approached from the front.  Either Burroughs had been doing some reading or he picked up some experience or information from somewhere.
Another keen point was when Burton went back to where the hoboes had been hiding to dig up the evidence they had concealed that would lead to their conviction for the Baggs murder.

     It's little details like these that always make me wonder where Burroughs picked up this stuff.  He does it all so naturally but one can't write what one doesn't know.  He must have been a very curious man, good memory.

     So Burroughs has a pretty good understanding of Doyle's  presentation of Holmes.  It  must be remembered that ERB was reading these stories as they first appeared not as we do as part of literature.  Holmes, O. Henry, Jack London, E.W. Hornung these were all fresh new and extremely stimulating with a great many references and inferences which undoubtedly are lost on us.  Even in 'Bridge And The Kid'  ERB's reference to the Kid's 'bringing home the bacon' is a direct reference to a quip the mother of the ex-heavyweight champion of the world Jack Johnson made just after he won the championship.  I don't doubt if many caught it then but I'm sure the phrase has become such a commonplace today that only a very few catch the reference.

     Stories like A Study In Scarlet dealing with the Mormons and The Valley Of Fear dealing with the Molly Maguires would have had much more thrilling immediacy for ERB than they do for us.  Also Burroughs has caught the essence of Holmes which was not so much the stories as the method of Holmes.

   I have read the canon four times and while I could not reconstruct any of the stories without difficulty, if at all, maxims like- When you eliminate the impossible whatever remains no matter how improbable must be the truth.- have lodged in my mind since I was fourteen organizing my intellect.  So also the dictum to read all the literature.  Not easy or even possible, but the more one has read or read again the more things just fall in place without any real effort.  You have to be able to remember, of course.  Holmes has been like a god to me.

     If you wish to learn a  source of Burroughs' stories then all you have to do is apply the above methods.  It will all become clear.

     Burton moves the story forward as his appearance causes Bridge who isn't sure what the status of the Kid and the putative Gail Prim is elects to avoid the great detective even though they are friends.

     The trio slip out the back into the woods following a track leading to 'Anywhere.'  Burroughs in a masterful telling catches the feel of a Spring day on a recently wetted trail littered with the leaves of yesteryear.  Ou sont les neiges d'antan?

     They come upon a clearing where a gypsy woman is burying a body.  By this time Bridge has solved all the mysteries of the previous evening.

      The girls make noises upon hearing the clank of a chain in the hovel causing the gypsy woman to look around.  Rather than spotting the trio she spots Willie Case hiding in the bushes who she drags out.

     The gypsy woman, Giova, is as good a character as Bridge, the Kid, Burton and the hoboes, but my favorite of the story is little Willie Case, the fourteen year old detective.  While to my mind ERB presents Willie as a thoroughly admirable character he vents a suppressed mean streak not only on Willie but on the whole Case family.

     ERB doesn't let his mean streak show very often, it lurks in the background, but he lets it loose in this book.  He must have been under personal stress.

     He describes Willie as having no forehead and no chin, the face literally beginning with the eyebrows and ending with the lips.  A freak of nature, a real grotesque.  that means that Willie was a real 'low brow' even a no brow.  Is it a coincidence that Emma called ERB a low brow or that the literati thought ERB wrote 'low brow' literature?

    In point of fact Willie strikes me as an intelligent boy.  He analyzes the situation always being in the right place at the right time.  Burton himself pays him a high but sneering compliment then cheats him out of the promised reward of a hundred dollars, half of which he personally pledged.  So much for the ethics of detectives.

     How might that be a 'highly fictionalized' account of Burroughs life.  Everyone calls him a low brow, he manages to write astonishing and very successful stories but in the manner McClurg's  published his books Burroughs was cheated out of his reward.

     I don't say it's so but the facts fit the case.

     In any event ERB treats the Case family meanly; they might almost be negative prototypes of Ma and Pa Kettle of the Egg and I or the meanly portrayed characters of Erskine Caldwell in Tobacco Road.  Jeb Case behaves very reprehensibly at the lynching although once again he merely reported the facts that the Kid gave Willie.  The Kid did tell Willie that he had burgled a house and killed a man.  So, perhaps ERB created some characters he could kick around as he felt himself being kicked.

     And then we have the gypsy woman, Giova,.  She and her father are not only pariahs in general society as gypsies but because of her father they have even been cast out by the gypsies.  Her father was a thief from both general and gypsy society.  The former may have been laudable in gypsy terms but the latter wasn't.  They make, or made, their living by thieving and cadging coins with Beppo their dancing bear.  Beppo of the evil eye.

     Burroughs presents her as being sexually attractive with lips that were made for kissing in echo of the refrain from 'Out There Somewhere.'  Here we may have a first inference that Emma was in trouble; the kind of trouble that would have ERB leaving her for another woman a decade or so hence.  There are numerous rumblings indicating the trend not least of which was ERB's fascination with Samuel Hopkins Adams' novel Flaming Youth of a few years hence and the subsequent movie of the same name starring Colleen Moore.

     Bridge is now on the run with three women and a bear and he hasn't done anything wrong to get into such hot water.  One woman his emergent Anima, one his rejected Anima and the last a longing for a woman with lips made for kissing.  Wow!  This is all taking place in a ravine that opens into a small valley too.

     All this has been accomplished in a compact one hundred pages.  One third of the book is left for the denouement which Burroughs scamps as he commonly does.

     Giova decks them all out as gypsies which must have been an amusing sight to the Paysonites as this troop of madcaps with dancing bear in tow troop inconspicuously through town.  Surprised they didn't call out the national guard just for that.

     As the story draws to a close ERB contributes a wonderful vignette of low brow Willie dining out at a 'high brow' restaurant called The Elite in Payson.  The idea of Willie being conspicuous in a burg like Payson which we big city people would refer to as a hick town good only for laughs is amusing in itself.  You know, it all depends on your perspective.

     Willie Case had been taken to Payson to testify before the coroner's jury investigating the death of Giova's father, and with the dollar which the Oskaloosa Kid had given him in the morning burning in his pocket had proceeded to indulge in an orgy of dissipation the moment that he had been freed from the inquest.  Ice cream, red pop, peanuts, candy, and soda water may have diminished his appetite but not his pride and self-satisfaction as he sat down and by night for the first time in a public eatery place Willie was now a man of the world, a bon vivant, as he ordered ham and eggs from the pretty waitress of The Elite Restaurant on Broadway; but at heart he was not happy for never before had he realized what a great proportion of his anatomy was made up of hands and feet.  As he glanced fearfully at the former, silhouetted against the white of the table cloth, he flushed scarlet, assured as he was that the waitress who had just turned away toward the kitchen with his order was convulsed with laughter and that every other eye in the establishment was glued upon him.  To assume an air of nonchalance and thereby impress and disarm his critics Willie reached for a toothpick in the little glass holder near the center of the table and upset the sugar bowl.  Immediately Willie snatched back the offending hand and glared ferociously at the ceiling.  He could feel the roots of his hair being consumed in the heat of his skin.  A quick side glance that required all his will power to consummate showed him that no one appeared to have noticed his faux pas and Willie was again slowly returning to normal when the proprietor of the restaurant came up from behind and asked him to remove his hat.

     Never had Willie Case spent so frightful a half hour as that within the brilliant interior of the Elite Restaurant.  Twenty-three minutes of this eternity was consumed in waiting for his order to be served and seven minutes in disposing of the meal and paying his check.  Willie's method of eating was in itself a sermon on efficiency- there was no waste motion- no waste of time.  He placed his mouth within two inches of his plate after cutting his ham and eggs into pieces of a size that would permit each mouthful to enter without wedging; then he mixed his mashed potatoes in with the result and working his knife and fork alternatively with bewildering rapidity shot a continuous stream of food into his gaping maw.

     In addition to the meat and potatoes there was one vegetable in a side-dish and as dessert four prunes.  The meat course gone Willie placed the vegetable dish on the empty plate, seized a spoon in lieu of a knife and fork and- presto! the side dish was empty.  Where upon the prune dish was set in the empty side-dish- four deft motions and there were no prunes in the dish.  The entire feat had been accomplished in 6:34 1/2, setting a new world's record for red headed farm boys with one splay foot.

     In the remaining twenty-five and one half seconds Willie walked what seemed to him a mile from his seat to the cashier's desk and at the last instant bumped into a waitress with a trayful of dishes.  Clutched tightly in Willie's hand was thirty-five cents and his check with a like amount written upon it.  Amid the crash of crockery  which followed the collision Willie slammed check and money upon the cashier's desk and fled.  Nor did he pause until in the reassuring seclusion of a dark side street.  There Willie sank upon the curb alternately cold with fear and hot with shame, weak and panting, and into his heart entered the iron of class hatred, searing it to the core.

    The above passage has many charms.  First it is an excellent piece of nostalgia now although at the time it represented the actuality, thus, as a period piece it is an accurate picture of the times.  And then it is excellent comedy as well as a parody or two as I will attempt to show.

     One has to wonder if ERB really thought the Elite was a pretty fine restaurant.  If so, one wonders where he took Emma and kids for a night out.  Not too many gourmet Chicago restaurants served breakfast for dinner.  Ham and eggs with mashed potatoes?  reminds me of the Galt House Hotel in Louisville where a 'starch' is served as a side-dish.  What exactly was this side-dish Willie wolfed- stewed tomatoes?  The dessert prunes- dessert prunes?- was nice touch too.  Dessert for breakfast?  Another nice quality touch at the Elite was the cup of toothpicks.  Of course, those were the days cuspidors were de rigeur so what do I know, maybe the Palmer House had a cup of toothpicks too, I know they had cuspidors.

     It does seem clear that little Willie was far down the social scale of little rural Payson.  They had electric street lights, though.  I'm not even from New York City but I would find the Elite, how shall I say, quaint and charming?  Of course, New York City is not what it used to be either.  Can't fool me in either case; I've dined out in Hannibal.  Good prices.  Bountiful.

     I'm sure I've been in Willie's shoes, or would have been if he'd chosen to wear them,  too so I have a great deal of sympathy for the lad.  A man with a dollar has the right to spend it where and as he chooses.  Damn social hypocrisy!

     In addition to the charm and light comedy ERB interjects a little parody of Taylorism and mass production into the mix.

     For those not familiar with Frederick W. Taylor and his methods I quote from: http://instruct1.cit.cornell.edu/courses/dea453-653/ideabook1/thompson-jones/Taylorism.htm

     Frederick Taylor wrote 'The Principles of Scientific Management in 1911, these principles became known as Taylorism.  Some of the principles of Taylorism include (Management for Productivity, John R. Schermerhorn, Jr. (1993)):
• Develop a 'science' for every job, including rules motion, standardized work implements, and proper working conditions.
• Carefully select workers with the right abilities for the job.
• Carefully train these workers to do the job, and give them proper incentives to cooperate with the job science.
• Support these workers by planning their work and by smoothing the way as they go about their jobs.

     Taylorism which led to maximum efficiency also gives the lie to the unconscious of Sigmund Freud, or at least, puts it into perspective.  If the twentieth century has been the history of the devil of Freud's unconscious it has also the been the century of the triumph of the god of conscious intelligence.  The question only remains  which will triumph.

     One of the recurring themes in ERB's writing of the period is efficiency.  Indeed, a couple years hence he would write a book entitled The Efficiency Expert.

     It was the age of efficient mass production which required standardized motions and produced terrific results where applied as at Henry Ford's marvelously efficient factories. Ford brought the task to the worker in well lighted clean factory spaces at a level which required no time consuming, fatiguing and unnecessary lifting or bending.  Plus Henry Ford blew the industrial world away by doubling the going wage for this unskilled labor.  He changed the course of economic history singlehanded.  He achieved more than the Communists or IWW could have accomplished in a million years  earning their undying enmity.  He may have in one fell swoop defeated the Reds.

     But, go back and review how Willie organizes his repast for consumption.  Taylor like he eliminated all non-essential motions then with maximum assembly line speed up he gets production into one continuous stream.

     A comic effect to be sure but there is even more comedy in the parody of the assembly line and Taylorism.  I'm sure ERB intended it just that way.

     Willie may be a joke but there is a certain flavor to be obtained by filling a continuum of food, mouth and time.  Such an opportunity for enjoyment may present itself once in ten years or so.  Willie saw his opportunity and seized it which he does throughout the story.  Willie's OK by me.

     I have eaten that way but I now reserve the method for Ice cream and highly recommend it.  My last opportunity, they present themselves but rarely and can't be forced, was several years ago when I was insultingly offered a half melted Cherries Jubilee.  The dish was perfect for assembly line consumption.  I saw my chance and like Willie I took it.  I kind of distributed cherries and ice cream chunks in the creamy stew, got my mouth in the right position and cleaned the bowl in 60 seconds flat, reared back gripping the bridge of my nose, honked a couple times as the freeze seized my brain then took a few minutes for consciousness to return.  I tell ya, fellas, they was all lookin' at me but I am much beyond the iron of class hatred.

     The Elite may have made a socialist of Willie but Wilf's made a sneering elitist out of me.  Superior, boys, superior, that's what I became, one of Nietsche's and London's great Blond Beasts.  I had to get a peroxide job to look to the part but wotth'ell no sacrifice is too great for my art.  Besides, consider, I've forgotten Wilf's, never went back, and the people I was with, but I'll always, always remember those Cherries Jubilee.

     So, I think Willie Case did the right thing.

     Clumsy waitress to get in his way anyway.  Fourteen hours on the job was no excuse.

     Willie didn't feel guilt for too long though, for what ERB calls his faux pas, it put him in the right place at the right time to see Giova and her dancing bear fresh from Beppo's own slops.  How could ERB be so cruel to a dumb animal- the bear, not Willie-, one that was going to save his heroine's life- both the bear and Willie.

     After having had dinner and refreshments Willie still had 20 cents left from a dollar of which he spent 10 cents for a detective movie and had ten cents left over for a long distance telephone call to Burton in Oakdale after he spotted Giova and her dancing bear when he came out of the movie theatre.

    He followed Giova to Bridge and the girls, fixed their location then called Burton.  Not only did Willie spot the fugitives but so did the dour leftover bums.  Dopey Charlie and the General were impounded for the Baggs murder while we will learn that the real Oskaloosa Kid and his 'pal' cracked up Paynter's car in Toledo, whether Ohio or Illinois we aren't told.

     All the mysteries are being concluded.  The last two, who is the faux Oskaloosa Kid and the putative Gail Prim remain as well perhaps as the true identity of L. Bridge.

     Burroughs is full of interesting details.  The hoboes are gathered in an abandoned electrical generating plant which had formerly served Payson but had been discontinued for a larger plant servicing Payson from a hundred miles away.  We don't know when that might have happened but electrical generation and distribution was relatively new.  The consolidation into larger generating units was even newer.  Samuel Insull, whose electrical empire crashed about 1938 had begun organizing distribution in 1912 when he formed Mid-West Utilities from Chicago absorbing all the smaller companies such as this one in Payson, obviously.

     I find details like this the exiting part of reading Burroughs.

     The murderous hoboes set out to rob and kill Bridge and the Kid while Sky Pilot and Dirty Eddie elect themselves to return the putative Gail Prim who we will learn is actually Hettie Penning, a wayward, but not a bad girl.

     One is put in mind of the Hettie of H.G. Wells' novel In The Days Of The Comet.  Both Hetties exhibit the same traits.  While it may seem a slender connection, still ERB has so many references to other authors and their works the connection is not improbable.  For obvious reasons ERB always insisted he had never read H.G. Wells, Wells who?, but how could he not have?

     Bridge and the girls would have met their end except that Willie Case's call brought Burton on the run who arrives in time to save their lives. Unfortunately Beppo of the evil eye meets his end after having done Burton's job for him much as Willie always did.

     In between the girls, the 'boes, Bridge and the coppers Burton has a full load so he drops Bridge and the Kid at the Payson jail.  Willie Case had not only solved the case for the ingrate Burton but saved the life of Gail Prim as the Oskaloosa Kid.  In a heart wrenching scene little Willie seeking his just reward is cruelly rejected by the Great Detective.  I don't know, maybe I read too closely and get too involved.  Or, just maybe, ERB is a great writer.

     It was all over but the shouting and along came the mob howling from Oakdale for the blood of Bridge and the Kid.  I tells ya, boys, it was close.  Burton arrived in time but not before Bridge with a well aimed blow broke Jeb Case's jaw.  What did those Case's ever do to ERB, I wonder.

     In the end Hettie Penning is identified, clearing up that mystery.  Burton is able to tell Bridge's dad who has spent $20,000 looking for him that he is found.  It may even have cost less for Stanley to find Livingston.  Of course there was a lousy rail system in the Congo in Livingston's time.  Bridge is united with Gail obviously prepared to renounce the roving life.  Thus the promise of 'Out There Somewhere' is redeemed.  Bridge found his woman.

      Thus on paper, at least, Burroughs is reunited with his Anima in gorgeous female attire, no more men in women's clothes or women in men's clothes.

    Bridge And The Kid is a very short book, only 152 pages in my Charter paper back edition of 1979 (Septimius Favonius, BB #24.  Charter didn't see fit to include a date.)  Although issued in book form so late as 1937, it was reprinted in 1938 and 1940 there must have been some early readers however when reprinted in 1974 there could have been few who remembered it.

     My fellow writer, David Adams wrote a short review in the same issue #24 of BB, October 1995, in which he also recognized the importance of this book to the corpus:

     It may come as a surprise that anyone could possibly think of calling the novelette, THE OAKDALE AFFAIR, a major work of such a prolific writer as Edgar Rice Burroughs, but I found it be such an animal...

     I am unaware that any other than Mr. Adams and myself who have reviewed the book.  To sum up:

     There seems to be an obvious connection to Jack London in the Bridge Trilogy (I prefer Bridge to Mucker because the latter draws reproving stares and no one today knows what a mucker is.)

     Mr. Adams, who is more of an authority on Jack London than myself, I've only begun to read London as a result of Bill Hillman's series of articles in the ERBzine which posits a strong connection between Burroughs and London, and not the other way around,  feels the novels have a great deal to do with London.  The connection seems to be there but I have only begun to read London's relevant or major works.

     What ERB's  attitude towards London may be which seems ambiguous isn't clear.  Burroughs never wrote about London and never mentions him explicitly.  There are many points of disagreement between the two politically and socially.  Burroughs does seem to have liked London and his work although what he read or when he read it isn't clear.  There were no London titles in his library.

     The second major influence in the novel is the problem of hoboism connected with the IWW and labor unrest.

     In the background Burroughs is working out his Anima/Animus problem.

     The whole is framed in the form of a rather magnificent detective story patterned after Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories with a dash, perhaps a soupcon, of E.W. Hornung thrown in.

     Attention should be paid to the psychological aspects.

     Many of ERB's favorite themes such as the efficiency expert are also thrown in.  Nifty historical details like Samuel Insull's electrical empire are added to the mix.

     If anything ERB was too efficient, too economical in his use of words.  The book could easily have been fleshed out another sixty or a hundred pages with no loss in the marvelous immediacy of the telling.  If anything the story is too condensed.  I found myself pausing over each description to recreate a mental image of the depiction.  I was willing to do so and the personal reward was great.  How much ERB was the creator of my vision of the story and how much my own as collaborator isn't clear to me.  Perhaps ERB just outlined the story 'suggesting' the scenario, expecting the reader to 'customize' the story as he reads along.  This may be the first 'inter-active' novel.  If so, Burroughs may be an even more innovative and greater writer than he is commonly thought to be.