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Elephant Walk

      I mentioned earlier George's brief foray into the construction and demolition business when as a youth he salvaged building materials from an old Army barracks.  Later his path fell in with some carnival and circus troupes - with whom he traveled awhile.  Mostly, his experiences here seemed to have left him with many engaging names in his address book - from wizards to clowns and India rubber men, any one of whom might ultimately prove useful along Life's troubled byways.  I shall interrupt myself here to insert a brief anecdote about one "Meat String" - a negro who worked for him in  the later construction phase of his life. 

      "Meat String" kept the tool crib for the workers and was general factotum around his construction company warehouse.  At noon, the numerous "Eye-talian" workers would sit here in the shade and eat their guinea-grinder sandwiches, pulling off the "meat strings" or salami wrappings their sleepy spouses had failed to notice when making their lunches at five in the morning.  Poor old "Meat String" - in  a time before Equal Opportunity Job Work - whatever - alas! he had no spouse to pack his lunch - he had in fact - no lunch!  But he could hambone, and he could clog, and he could shuffle.  Sometimes serially, sometimes simultaneously.  George often related how "Meat String" - for the privilege of chewing on the discarded Italian meat strings, whence his name, of course - often entertained his fellow workers with song and dance through the noontime hour.  That's the way things were back then.  If "PC" is so-construed as to prevent even their telling - then I say so much the less for "PC".  

      Then there was the "Professor".   This worthy had been a magician and sleight-of-hand artist back in the circus - and George had just the spot for him on the payroll: he was made... Paymaster!  

      "Bernie", the gravel would rattle, "once in a while you'd get an uppity negro... one who questioned his pay."   (They were paid in cash). 

      "You couldn't let this get out of hand."

      So George would have the Professor count the money back into the complaintant's (sp?) hands - slowly - to prove it was all there!  He might have to count it several times for the more malevolent or slow-witted (less "nifty") but he could eventually satisfy even the most doubting among the workers.  And the line would shuffle forward again.  Only later, would the Professor drop in the "cash fund" the extra bills he had pulled back each time he counted back the disputed amounts... 

      Once, one of the workers had taken to "airs" and  begun to ask for cigarettes openly from the white overseers.  This somehow conferred special status on him with his fellows.  Then he began to ask for a light for his cigarettes.  Time for the Professor... 

      They put a saucer of gasoline in the desk drawer.  When they saw this Social Climber approaching, they  stuck the end of a cigarette in the saucer - then quickly put it back in the pack.  When he asked for his usual smoke - someone shook out the intended cigarette.  As he put it in his mouth, a light was offered and ...Boom!  Many of these people were very superstitious, especially the ones from the Sea Islands.  Such displays convinced them their white overseers were in league with the Devil.  One morning George arrived to find his grave, with a dead chicken thereon, nicely mounded up before the warehouse door... 

      But enough (perhaps too much) of these digressions.  To our story, now, without further delay.

      George had by this time organized a multi-thousand worker construction and general demolition company in Washington.  His  "connections"  have previously been alluded to, so it is understandable how he received many contractual "plums".  One was a large multiple story government building right on Connecticut Avenue itself, and his contract stipulated it was to be torn down and removed - let us say - within the next 30 days.  This building featured reinforced concrete floors, each held aloft by the supporting concrete piers on the level beneath.  In no time, George's crews had gutted the building and stripped its exterior walls, leaving only the intervening floors (I think there were nine of them).  He was way ahead of schedule. 

      So, the showman in his temperament sneaked out.  Starting with the piers between floors eight and nine, and continuing downward., he had his demolition crews blast them away simultaneously - thus dropping each floor intact down upon the one below.  When at last he had them all stacked tight, one on another, on the last remaining floor - the second floor - he then had his crews cut only part-way through the remaining piers on the first floor which were by now supporting the entire pile overhead. 

      They then wove a great iron cable in and out, in and out roundabout through these remaining pillars, with the two cable ends terminating together on the front plaza of the building, and to which they fastened a very large and stout harness! Now you should know that at this time the circus - the very one George had worked for in his earlier days - was in town, and one of his old cronies was the Elephant Keeper! 

      Soon, George had talked this former pal into loaning him a brace (or maybe two brace...) of his best elephant bulls - and in less time than it takes to write this - they were snapped into the harness.  Then George appeared on the scene (all this had been planned beforehand), dressed for some unknown reason as  a Roman Senator in a toga!  In his hand a large whip - and Crack! - "...the leader sprung..." as the old song has it, and the elephants leaned into their burden.  All this mind you, had been hyped in the paper the day before and a large crowd was on hand to view the proceedings.  Plus Movietone Film News and Lowell Thomas to narrate (and if you ask "who's that?" you are too young to be reading this chronicle.  Off to bed with you now!). 

      But then things came unstuck, as they say.  Several piers collapsed in lead of the others.   The ruin tottered and swayed - and then began to  move in a great sliding motion.   The noise and dust startled the elephants, who broke free of their harness and charged trumpeting into the crowd.  In his retelling of this adventure, George, who certainly had the right vantage point from which to verify what he reported, said,

      "Bernie - you would never have believed it!  All I could see was dust and commotion and the rear ends of about three or four elephants disappearing into the dust ahead - while they shot turds the size of cannonballs out upon the folks running to get out from under their feet...". 

      Now you tell me -  does anything the "Inside-the-Beltway" crowd does today hold a candle to this?  And I am not making any of this up!  I have from time to time, in fact,  verified this tale, and others, from old press clippings and accounts in George's scrapbook... 
 
      But the end was not quite yet.  With a thunderous roar, down came the whole works.  But instead of breaking up into a mound of easily-shoveled rubble, the whole thing slide sideways "like a stack of saucers" was the way George described it - right out across Connecticut Avenue!

      When the dust had settled, the elephants been recaptured, the crowds dispersed and all - then George in torn toga surveyed the scene: there before his eyes was a solid, reinforced concrete wall of slabs locked joint to joint - maybe 40 feet high and as much wide blocking one of the nation's most important  roadways! 

      The performance bond was forfeit on that one, and before the "wall" disappeared, every hobo in Washington had been hired to swing a sledgehammer on it...