From The Brothers Under The Bridge Series- Watch Out, Watch Way Out For Two-Timing Dames-Glenn Fallon’s Story

 

From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin:

In the first installment of this series of sketches space provided courtesy of my old 1960s yellow brick road magical mystery tour merry prankster fellow traveler, Peter Paul Markin, I mentioned, in grabbing an old Bruce Springsteen CD compilation from 1998 to download into my iPod, that I had come across a song that stopped me in my tracks, Brothers Under The Bridge. I had not listened to or thought about that song for a long time but it brought back many memories from the late 1970s when I did a series of articles for the now defunct East Bay Eye (Frisco town, California East Bay, naturally) on the fate of some troubled Vietnam veterans who, for one reason or another, could not come to grips with “going back to the real world” and took, like those a Great Depression generation or two before them, to the “jungle”-the hobo, bum, tramp camps located along the abandoned railroad sidings, the ravines and crevices, and under the bridges of California, mainly down in Los Angeles, and created their own “society.”

The editor of the East Bay Eye, Owen Anderson, gave me that long ago assignment after I had done a smaller series for the paper on the treatment, the poor treatment, of Vietnam veterans by the Veterans Administration in San Francisco and in the course of that series had found out about this band of brothers roaming the countryside trying to do the best they could, but mainly trying to keep themselves in one piece. My qualifications for the assignment other than empathy, since I had not been in the military during the Vietnam War period, were based simply on the fact that back East I had been involved, along with several other radicals, in running an anti-war GI coffeehouse near Fort Devens in Massachusetts and another down near Fort Dix in New Jersey. During that period I had run into many soldiers of my 1960s generation who had clued me in on the psychic cost of the war so I had a running start.

After making connections with some Vietnam Veterans Against The War (VVAW) guys down in L.A. who knew where to point me I was on my way. I gathered many stories, published some of them in the Eye, and put the rest in my helter-skelter files. A while back, after having no success in retrieving the old Eye archives, I went up into my attic and rummaged through what was left of those early files. I could find no newsprint articles that I had written but I did find a batch of notes, specifically notes from stories that I didn’t file because the Eye went under before I could round them into shape.

The ground rules of those long ago stories was that I would basically let the guy I was talking to give his spiel, spill what he wanted the world to hear, and I would write it up without too much editing (mainly for foul language). I, like with the others in this current series, have reconstructed this story at two removes as best I can although at this far remove it is hard to get the feel of the voice and how things were said.

Not every guy I interviewed, came across, swapped lies with, or just snatched some midnight phrase out of the air from was from hunger. Most were, yes, in one way or another but some had no real desire to advertise their own hunger but just wanted to get something off their chest about some lost buddy, or some event they had witnessed. I have presented enough of these sketches both back in the day and here to not make a generalization about what a guy might be hiding in the deep recesses of his mind.

Some wanted to give a blow by blow description of every firefight (and every hut torched) they were involved in, others wanted to blank out ‘Nam completely and talk of before or after times, or talk about the fate of some buddy, some ‘Nam buddy, who maybe made it back the “real world” but got caught up with stuff he couldn’t handle, or got caught up in some stuff himself that he couldn’t handle, couldn’t handle because his whole blessed life pointed the other way. Glenn Fallon’s story, like a recent one on Soldier Johnson, is slightly different since it is not based on my Eye notes but on a story that Frank Jackman, a growing up friend of my friend Peter Paul Markin, who related Glenn’s to him and that Peter then related to me when he heard that I was again putting together an occasional series on guys, Vietnam War guys, who found themselves under the “bridge.” Glenn spent time under the “bridge” in the early 1970s no question although the story that he related to Frank was from two periods, one in the early 1960s and the other the late 1970s after the time of the interviews in my original series. Take this third-hand account with that in mind. I like to finish up these introductions by placing these sketches under a particular sign; no question Glenn Fallon’s sign was that of those two-timing dames that he could not get enough of.

**************
There is a funny thing about guys, at least guys who take a serious interest in women. You would think they would kind of figure things out about dames, about their wanting habits large and small early on. Maybe not after some heart to heart talk from their fathers, fathers at least in Glenn Fallon’s generation of ’68, fathers from that generation who went through the Great Depression of the 1930s and fought, rifle on their shoulder, through the farm fields of Europe and quicksand islands of the Pacific, for they were mainly absent, responsibly absent at work and so no factor in the dame figuring out equation.  And maybe not from their corner boys hanging out in the 1950s night bragging about this or that conquest, this or that one night stand, or, mainly, what they would do and for how long and in what matter with that dish that got away, flashed by in a second.  But somewhere along the way somebody, some woman even, should have given them the ABC’s of two-timing women. So Glenn Fallon got stuck. got stuck bad when the deal went down, went down twice, and that twice is what got to Frank Jackman when he got the whole story from Glenn.        

Without overdoing the moralizing I agree with Frank that Glenn Fallon really should have known better, should have realized that going down that road twice was treacherous. After all he had been down that road once before, that what they called the deadly man-trap women road in the old film noir movies he watched incessantly at the Bijou Theater in his Lancaster, Kansas youth. But would he listen. No. No he had to play out the hand his way. Maybe he thought his small town good looks, his small town good manners and charm would shield him when the going got rough, would protect him when some femme fatale gave him that come hither look. Maybe he just plain thought he was lucky, hell he had survived to manhood and then some hadn’t he. And maybe it was just plain ordinary vanilla hubris that drove him to take up with some women who had hellishness written all over them. Yeah, Glenn Fallon should have known better, but let’s get to the details and stop trying to figure out what a guy will do when that come hither look (and that slight whiff of intoxicating perfume) catches him flat-footed. 

Let’s get to that Glenn had been down that road before part. Frank knew it cold since he spent a lot of time with Glenn when he first knew him, knew him after he got back from ‘Nam and he was assigned to Frank’s  stateside unit at Fort Ord out in California in order to finish out his time before being discharged. Glenn would talk endlessly about that time before the service when he had hooked up with a live one, a real heartbreaker, a what did he call her, yeah, a femme, femme fatale. Yeah, all he could talk about was Rita, Rita Hayes, and how she had left him so high and dry that when they called his number to go into the service he was ready to face whatever Charlie had to throw at him, big guns, little guns, just to get away, and keep away from her.        

Here’s the way Glenn pitched his story, although Frank told Peter Paul it had been a long while back and that maybe he have forgotten a point or two but mainly it was like Glenn told it, told it then enough times that he thought he was part of it. He had met this Rita down on the Santa Monica Beach near the pier one summer day when she was sunning herself, or whatever femmes do in the daytime. He was there, new to California, without a job, looking out at the ocean which amazed him a boy brought up and bred on the prairies of Kansas and he spied her looking all beautiful, red hair, nice shape, long legs and he thought, what the hell he would take a chance on making a play. As he approached her he noticed she was probably a couple of years older than him but she had this smile, this come hither smile and that was that.

He was nineteen, had been out of high school a year or so he figured she was maybe twenty, twenty-one, a fresh-minted twenty, twenty-one. So as guys and dames will do they talked, talked some more, and kind of hit it off, hit it off nicely. And nicely meant that later on toward evening as the sun set over the Pacific on a day when you could it touch the horizon they headed for one of the motels, the Dee Drop Inn, or some such name, a Mom and Pop operation which catered to young love, that dotted the heights above the beach.

Just your average boy meets girl story until Rita lowered the boom a few weeks later after many a night in some version of the Dew Drop Inn. She had “forgotten” to tell Glenn that she was married, married to some older guy, older then meaning maybe forty something, who was a financial speculator and who had plenty of dough. The way Glenn found out about her being married was weird. One sunny Los Angeles afternoon, no smog around, she brought him around to her old hubby, Bart, and without telling Glenn who the old guy was or the old guy who Glenn was she told Bart to offer Glenn a job, pretty please for Rita offer him a job, a job for an old friend from back home she called it. Glenn needing dough, having practically run out of what savings he had brought West with him, eagerly played along with the request.

Anyone could see, anyone with eyes, even Glenn that Rita had Bart tied around her finger and so Bart did offer Glenn a job working with the head gardener and then left the pair. It was only after that episode that Rita told Glenn who Bart was. He had thought the guy was her father, or something. Her idea she said was that with him working for Bart it would keep him around her without too much suspicion.

When Frank heard that statement he blurted out to Glenn that that should have been the signal when he reached for the door. But see she had her hooks into him by then, had them in bad, had him ready to accept any fate just to be around her, her and that come hither look. Frank had (hell, I have too) been around dames and their looks enough to know what he meant so he didn’t press the issue. But he could read trouble ahead without Glenn having to say another word.              

And that trouble came, came fast and furious, came bad enough for him in the end to face Charlie’s guns without complaint. For a couple of months Glenn worked hard for Bart, liked the guy and the way he operated (although that like did not keep Glenn from playing around with his wife) and got wrapped up in talking about his financial dealings. It seemed that Bart was trying to corner the copper market and thus control the world- wide price and make a killing. That was fair enough, Glenn had no trouble with that although some of Bart’s “partners” in the scheme seemed kind of weird, kind of slimy. That part was okay but Rita was then amping up her own plan (while driving Glenn crazy with all kinds of new, new to farm boy Glenn, and enticing little tricks in bed). Her plan, frankly, involved murder as it usually does with these femmes, although murder dressed up as an accident. And Glenn was the accident-maker, was the guy who was to do the heavy work. Frank could see where that whole line of talk was leading, how she was just using him to dump hubby and take the dough and run, run with or without Glenn he wasn’t sure at that point but he let him run out his story.            

Naturally this “accident” thing should been obvious to the cops when they came to investigate the death of old Bart. He had driven down a ravine too fast they said and having alcohol on his breathe must have maneuvered the wrong way. All they did after a perfunctory investigation was to charge the thing up to faulty brakes and let it go at that. Strangely Glenn had not touched the brakes as that was too obvious but had messed with the steering mechanism which was not even close to the brake system. Nobody even had to show for a coroner’s inquest though.

Beautiful, beautiful except old Bart kind of had the last laugh. Two ways. First after the “accident” something soured a little between Glenn and Rita, a little unspoken thing on Rita’s part like maybe she was ready to cut him loose after using him to pull off the dastardly deed Glenn thought in the back of his mind. But that thought only lingered a minute once she started in on him with her wiles and remember he was hooked, hooked bad on her. Second it seems that Bart had put up all his dough in the copper speculation and when he died the whole thing kind of imploded and the price of copper shares went through the floor. That is the real reason why Rita was cool to Glenn. He was a no dough guy and thus expendable. And he was. One night, one steamy summer night, she tried to shot poor Glenn over some dispute, some nothing dispute. She missed but a couple of days later she was gone, taking everything including some jewelry she had given to Glenn when their love was in bloom. A couple of days after that, after trying to pick up her trail without success he began to realize, realize just a little that he had been a fool. The next day he enlisted in the Army. Later , when he was over in ‘Nam he had heard from some source that she had married a big time criminal lawyer, rich as hell, up in Frisco. He had chuckled at that, at the gallows’ humor of it, she had her lawyer already set up in place for her next caper.              

Yeah, so Glenn had been down that road, had been beaten like a gong as only a woman can do to a guy. Frank figured after that he had learned his lesson about wild dames and their wanting habits. Glenn said ‘Nam was a piece of cake compared to that and he believed him. Frank and Glenn kept in touch for a while after he got out and things seemed to be going his way, with a little detour under the "bridge," nothing serious but like a lot of 'Nam guys falling through the cracks for a while. After thta he had gone back to small town Kansas, had gotten a good job at a bank, and had a sweet fiancée, Betsy, a high school sweetheart of sorts, and they were to be married as soon as they had gathered enough money for a little house. Then she came through the door.   

Gloria came sashaying through the door of the bank all blonde, all shape, all flaming red lips, looking, well, looking for trouble except Glenn couldn’t see it. Frank guessed that it was okay to speak of it now that the coast was clear, now that Glenn was in parts unknown, or unknown to the coppers. They will never get anything from Frank since he didn’t know where Glenn was, and wouldn’t say if he did. Frank looked at it this way (me too). See if a guy takes one tumble with one femme well that’s a rookie error but twice the guy needs help, and not any slammer help that some gun-toting copper would be glad to provide. Besides Frank was not sure that Glenn did anything wrong, legally wrong anyway, although he would not win any prizes from Betsy on that score. Let me lay it out for you, lay out how Frank pieced most of it together and you figure it out. 

Naturally in a small town like Lancaster the femme fatale traffic is going to be light, or that’s what a guy should figure. Those femmes from the sticks are moving to the big city to show their stuff. Well this Gloria seemed to be stuck in Podunk, nobody knew the details why really, and Glenn didn’t have time to fill anybody in. Or want to. That sashaying day at the bank Gloria was looking for a loan, a small loan to get a car she said. Mainly her eyes gave her the loan as Glenn bought her hard luck story and she seemed okay. Of course part of the okay was that she sweet-talked him into meeting her after work for a drink. Maybe he was restless that day, maybe it was the perfume, maybe humankind, or mankind, is incapable of learning a lesson but he went. And they had a drink, a drink or six and you can fill in the details of what Glenn and Gloria did after the bar closed.  

And so they saw each other quietly on the sly at her apartment on the outskirts of town, quietly for a couple of months although he had not broken it off with Betsy at that point. Then Gloria’s husband came to town. (Jesus aren’t there any single femmes, or if married just leave guys alone-JLB). This guy, a big gruff beefy guy, Biff, who was a big railroad superintendent which explained his absences, had heard that wifey was not on the square. He beat her trying to find out who the lover was. She, finally, coped to a confession after he nearly beat her to death. But see she named a rich older lover, Larry, from Tulsa whom she had left for Biff. One night a few weeks later they found Larry, beaten to death, in a pool of blood in his Tulsa apartment.

Gloria freaked out, went crazy when Biff told her what he had done and he then beat her into submission. She would never tell she swore. When Glenn saw her condition he freaked too and that is when she was able to enlist Glenn in her plot to kill her husband. There would be no accident this time, this time it was strictly murder, murder one, and the chair if they got caught. The plan was for Gloria to get Biff drunk, she would take a little beating after she refused his besotted advances and Glenn would come by, grab a convenient gun and shoot him, place the gun in her hand, knock her out and leave. She would claim self-defense and the beating marks would be her alibi. Nice.

But it never got to that, never came close. Something had happened earlier in the evening, Gloria had shot Biff dead herself and had split, leaving no forwarding address. None. Glenn, figuring he would be the fall guy, or close to it, also split with no forwarding address. Except he wrote a letter later with no return address on the envelope to Frank that if he heard anything about Gloria to send her a message that he said hello. That was the last Frank heard from him. As Frank finished up he reflected and Peter Paul quoted him word for word on it-“Jesus. Jesus learn something from this tale guys and stay away, far away, from two-timing dames even if they have that come hither look or wear that damn fragrance.” Enough said.