Illustrated by ASHMANSEE?
By EDWARD G. ROBLES, JR.
analyst—see the Commission—
if it doesn't find you first!
Well, there was thissong a few years back.You know the one. PhilHarris singing about a thing thatyou couldn't get rid of, no matterwhat you did, a thing so repulsiveit made you a social outcast.Never thought I'd see one,though. Dirty Pete found it.
Don't rush me. I'll tell youabout it.
We're hobos, understand? Nowa hobo is a different breed of catthan you think. Oh, people aregetting educated to the idea thata hobo will work and move on,whereas a tramp will mooch andmove on, and a bum will moochand hang around, but you stillfind folks who are ignorantenough to call us bums.
We're aristocrats, yes sir. Ifit wasn't for us, you wouldn'tenjoy half the little luxuries youdo. Oh, don't believe me—talk toyour experts. They know that,without the migratory worker,most of the crops wouldn't getharvested. And, if I talk highfalutin'once in a while, don'tblame me. Associating with theProfessor improves any man'svocabulary, in spite of themselves.
There was the four of us,see? We'd been kickingaround together for longer thanI care to think about. There wasthe Professor and Dirty Pete andSacks and Eddie. I'm Eddie.Nicknames are funny things.Take the Professor—he was areal professor once, until he beganhitting the bottle. Well, helost his job, his home, his family,and his rep.
One morning, he wakes up onSkid Row without a nickel in hisjeans and the great-granddaddyof all hangovers. He comes to adecision. Either he could makea man out of hisself, or he coulddie. Right then, dying looked likethe easiest thing to do, but ittook more guts that he had tojump off a bridge, so he went onthe Road instead.
After he got over his shakes—andhe sure had 'em bad—hedecided that, if he never tookanother drink, it'd be the bestthing for him. So he didn't. Hehad a kind of dignity, though,and he could really talk, so heand I teamed up during the wheatharvest in South Dakota. Wemade all the stops and, whenwe hit the peaches in Californiawe picked up Sacks and DirtyPete.
Sacks got his monicker becausehe never wore shoes. He claimedthat gunny-sacks, wrappedaround his feet and shins, gaveas much protection and morefreedom, and they were morecomfortable, besides costing nix.Since we mostly bought our shoesat the dumps, at four bits a pair,you might say he was stretchinga point, but that's one of thelaws of the Road. You don't stepon the other guy's corns, and hedon't step on yours.
So guess why Dirty Pete wascalled that. Yeah. He hadn'ttaken a bath since 'forty-six,when he got out of the army, andhe didn't figure on ever takin'another. He was a damn' goodworker, though, and nobody'dever try anything with himaround. He wasn't any biggerthan a Mack truck. Besides, hewas quiet.
Oh, sure. You wanna knowwhy I'm on the Road. Well, ithappens I like whiskers. Troubleis, they're not fashionable, unlessyou're some kind of an artist,which I'm not. You know, socialdisapproval. I didn't have theguts to face it, so I lit out. Nobodycares on the Road whatyou do, so I was okay with mybelt-length beard.
A beard's an enjoyable thing,too. There's a certain kind ofthrill you get from stroking it,an