Roughneck Read Free

lousy, heartbreaking, backbreaking Ford! And they thought I'd lay out dough to get it back! They thought 'I' was crazy! They thought 'I' was!
           And maybe I was. After ten days and a thousand miles in that car, it wouldn't have been surprising.

3

    I worked that day and the next two as a soda and sandwich man. Relatively flush then, and well nourished with free meals, I quit the job and visited the university. I presented the letter of introduction from my editor friend in Texas. The recipient, a member of the administrative staff, was very cordial but was unable to offer me any assistance. He could not make me a loan himself. The university could not extend aid except to students with outstanding scholastic records. Perhaps if I appealed to another writer...some faculty member who was interested in writing...
           At this time, the assistant chancellor of the university was Robert Platt Crawford, a big-name writer for 'The Saturday Evening Post' and other large-circulation magazines. I knew him only by reputation and he, of course, did not know me at all. But I went to see him. I showed him some of my stories from regional periodicals, and requested a loan—one sufficient to pay a semester's tuition and buy textbooks, plus, if he had it to spare, a few dollars extra.
           Dr. Crawford looked somewhat startled. After a moment of deep silence, he asked that I repeat my request. I did so. The good doctor looked relieved. The acoustics of his office were very poor, he murmured, and he had feared momentarily that a complete remodeling of it might be necessary...Would I mind telling him a little about myself? Something about my background? Obviously, I had been out of high school for a number of years. Why was I starting college now and why had I chosen to come to this one?
           I told him, rather brusquely at first, out of nervousness, and then, as he beamed and nodded at me, with increasing ease. I talked on and on, so interested and amiable did he seem, and so intertwined were the various events of my life. To describe my hasty exit from the hotel world, it was necessary to describe my entrance. And that led to an account of the burlesque houses and Allie Ivers, the whores' nemesis; and that, in turn, led back to other things...Newspaper work, and my adventures as a dairyman, and the time I had almost cornered the French postcard market, and my abysmal failure to maintain the high standards of a millionaire's son...
           Dr. Crawford smiled. He chuckled. He leaned back in his chair and roared. Recovering himself, he declared that he had great faith in my talents as a writer, and that, moreover, I was obviously scholastic material of the very highest type. He would consider it a privilege, he said, to finance me. And taking out his wallet, he proceeded to do so.
           I took the money, gratefully but a little incredulously, for I had been afraid that in being completely frank with him I might have prejudiced my case. Now, having achieved the seemingly impossible, I realized that it could not have been achieved in any other way. The last man in the world to deceive is the man you hope to get money from. If he has it and you don't, the odds are that he is at least as shrewd as you and probably a hell of a lot shrewder.
           Dr. Crawford refused my offer to give him a note for the money. "Now why would I want that?" he said; and thus another simple truth was pointed up to me...why 'would' he want it? When a man's sole collateral is his word, why bother with his signature?
           With my tuition taken care of, I applied at the newspapers for part-time work; I applied at the radio stations, the advertising agencies, the publicity firms—at every place which conceivably might be in need of literary talent. I was expensively dressed. The fast-money circles in which I had moved had compelled a fine head-to-foot wardrobe, and my attire represented an original