Bacon & Beans

Location: The Mid-west/south.
Time: Depression/20’s.
Who: Robert Redford/Paul Newman. David and Paul, Bacon & Beans.

Story: Overcast, dust blowing, and two hours before the sun set, a family of five wait by the side of a dirt road. Small trees off in the distance bend from the relentless dry wind. Fence posts marking long lost boundaries defiantly lean into the searing misery attacking from all sides. Two young brothers stand together as pickets to block the wind from their mother who is holding a baby. With a torn long sleeved shirt, their fathers bends over and huddles them all together for protection from the heat. Days have passed since there was food. An old truck came over the rise and lumbered towards the waiting destitution. Dark, gray figures waited impatiently off in the distance. Finally, the flatbed truck arrived and stopped just past where the exhausted family stood. They moved towards the cab as a dirty window came down and a large woman yelled out “put them in the back, put them in the back!”. The filthy pane moved up and obscured dark figures moving in the cab. The confused parents hugged the two boys for one last time and motioned them to climb onto the bed of the truck. Paul hugged both his parents and using the bumper, raised himself to the wooden bed of the big truck. David stood defiantly erect in the driving sand storm and while the sand and dirt pelted his face, held his hand out for his father to shake it. His father in disbelief, and knowing he would never see his favorite again, put his hand in the little boys and shook it. He pulled the boy to his bosom and squeezed him for the last time. With failing strength, David’s father lifted him to the bed of the truck. The boys scrambled to the rear of the cab to garner some protection from the wind. Even in the howling, they could hear the gears grind just before the truck lurched forward and started to pull away. The two of them watched as their family moved farther and farther down the road; they both remember their father standing erect in the wind with his arm raised and his hand waving until they were consumed in the brown dust of the depression. As the two boys huddled next to the cab, they could see dark figures talking and gesturing through the sand blasted rear window. The old truck sliced through the wind while rocking the exhausted boys to sleep. Their dreams reflected the events of the previous night. How they all stayed awake in an abandoned farm house while fighting hunger. They remembered the cracking noises coming from the attic as the wind ripped boards from the roof! They remembered hearing their parents lamenting over the thought of sending the two boys to a work farm so they could eat. And how it would break up the family. And that all they had left was the family. They remember hearing their mother’s muffled whimpering as

she cried while their father tried to console her as the baby wailed for lack of moisture. Their parents talked about how work farms took in small boys to work for their meals and shelter. Stories of abuse and neglect. The boys remembered this morning when their mother told them they had to go. Everyone cried except David. He just listened with clenched fists, and hated every word of it. Not able to face the boys and fearing the boys would see the pain in his eyes and think the worse, their father stood across the room showing only his back. They remember their mother telling them they had to take care of each other. Protect your brother Paul she said to David, protect your brother!
After arriving at the work farm, Paul couldn't resist pausing for a moment before jumping down from the flat bed truck to watch the sky turn beautiful hues of brown, orange, and yellow as the sun came up.
During the night, the old truck had made three more stops and picked up seven more kids. They all huddled as one behind the faded green cab of the truck. One of the kids was a young girl who David liked right from the start. She pushed her way to the middle of the huddle where it was sure to be the warmest and never said a word. As the troupe jumped off the bed of the truck, David extended a hand to help her to the ground; he can still remember her laugh as she jumped to the ground unassisted. She stirred up the dust further from the truck than all of them. He liked that too. A tall, skinny black man named Joshua herded the group into the barn and gave them instructions to get in the horse stalls, and “strip to the bone!” The boys watched as the new girl ran to the nearest stall and closed the gate. The two boys entered another, and the rest did the same. Joshua barked out another order, “after your but naked, take turns getting under the hose and use plenty of soap!” “I’ll have clean clothes for you hanging on the rail!” The two boys darted to the center of the room. David held the hose for Paul, who quickly washed the dust off. “Damn that waters cold!”. David was startled, he had never heard Paul use cuss words before. Paul then ran to the miss-matched clothes hanging on the rail to the stall they were in. He watched as David finished washing himself and rinsing. Then David dropped the hose and ran to the dry clothes. They took turns helping the smaller children wash by holding the hose, they took charge! The last one to wash was the new girl. She was afraid to come out of the stall. David saw the problem and herded the others into an empty stall and closed the gate. “It’s OK he yelled to the girl. We won’t watch, I promise!” “you better not!” came the reply. David could hear the squeaks as the old gate opened. He turned away to keep his promise. She was the quickest of all, because after a moment she was standing at their stall gate saying “are you boys going to stay in there all morning?” David and Paul turned slowly, not sure of what they would see. There she was, fully dressed to their surprise. “Man you’re quick” David said with a smile. “you’ve got to be around men” she said.
Just then one of the tall barn doors creaked open. The kids watched as Joshua and a much larger white man entered the barn. The big, sweaty man spoke first. My name is Mr. Mason. When you talk to me you say “yes sir Mr. Mason”. Let’s all try it once! He motions with his arms to start. Everyone chimed in, “yes sir, Mr. Mason!”. That was good, now let’s try it so I can hear you! Again, the kids chimed in, “yes sir, Mr. Mason” only this time as loud as they could. That was much better, don’t you think? Not a sound. I’m waiting! “yes sir, Mr. Mason” came the reply from all the kids but David. Not wanting to push it, Mason started in. “OK kids, there’s just a few rules: Rule number one, no fooling around. We got the strap for that! Rule number two, no stealing. We got a strap for that too! Rule number three, we work from before sun up, to after the sun sets, and god help the ones who don’t do their share! We have special straps for them! Rule number four, I’m the boss here. Anybody who don’t do what I say, and I mean everything I say without sass, gets thrown out! I mean right now! And you guessed it, we have straps for them to remember us by! Rule number five, I any of you run off, that’s the last time. I won’t let you come back! God help you if them starving people out there get a hold of you, they’ll sell you to some slaver! I won’t have anything to do with you! Don’t be coming back here expecting to get fed, it ain't gonna happen! Do you kids hear what I’m saying? I’m awaiting! In unison everyone except David and the criers answered, “yes sir, Mr. Mason”, we do! The little ones were crying loud; David just looked at the big man and said nothing. The big man caught David's stare, “ you’re going to be trouble, I can see it!”. And believe me you little bastard, I got a real special strap for trouble makers! All the kids turned towards David, he was smiling back at the barker. Paul recognized the ‘catch me if you can’ look David had on his face, but the big guy didn’t know David yet. I’m leaving now, you do what Joshua tells you or I’ll know! Before he left, he walked over to the new girl and reached up and squeezed her cheeks. “You’re a pretty one” he said as he smiled at her. “you all remember what I said, about no sass!”
Joshua told the kids to line up. He raised a clip board to his face so he could see it. “What's your names? David said his name first, then Paul, then the new girl, Jenny, and so on. The little ones were crying so much no one could make out their names, much less write them down. Joshua said, Ok, your #1, #2, #3, and so on! ‘And so on’ was the kid with flaming red hair, he stayed real close to David and Paul. They liked him, he kind of looked up to them, and tried to mimic what they did. From then on they called him ‘Aso’ instead of ‘and so on’! If you said it fast it sounded funny, but he didn’t care. The little guy would smile and punch you in the leg for saying it fast. He was one of them!
They were hearded to the main house and upstairs to the ‘dorm’ rooms. They were very large, long rooms with four rows of small beds. One row against each wall, and two rows evenly spaced down the middle of the room. Most of the beds already had signs of being slept in by other kids. The new comers were shuttled to the last beds on the outside wall. They found out later, the best beds were the ones in the middle of the room where it was warmer. There was no heat upstairs. The only warmth was the heat that came up from below. Since there were two floors between them and the main kitchen, fat chance any heat reached them at all. Joshua told them to pick their beds and come downstairs to the kitchen when they were done. After Joshua left the room, they all listened as he made his way down the creeky steps to each floor. When they figured he was on the bottom floor they all smiled at each other and picked their beds. Paul and David bunked next to each other. The new girl saw an empty bed near the front of the room and grabbed that one. David mused, “just about as far away from us as she could get”. He acted as if he didn’t care and laid down until the rest of the kids settled down. The younger kids watched him for direction. When they were all laying down, he jumped to his feet and called out “ Ok kids, let’s do what the man said, let’s get down to the kitchen!” The kids scampered to a line behind the two boys as Jenny made it to the stairwell first. They all followed her from floor to floor. They finally made it to the kitchen. Jenny stopped at the door and waited. They all watched as a really large black woman moved about the kitchen, doing this and that. She finally turned to see the kids huddled in the doorway, “well come on you little ones!”, with a big smile. “foods going to get cold and we can’t have you men working hard on an empty stomach!” There was a long, wide, wooden table in the center of the kitchen, and the kids wasted no time running to the benches to sit down. The kitchen was like a wonderland. The room was warm from the stoves, filled with the aromas of fresh baking. Large, metal pots sat atop the big, black stoves with steam pouring out the tops. The smell of fresh bacon and beans almost made us cry. Loaves of bread sat on big wooden boards cooling. And even with the sun rising high in the sky, the moisture on the windows told us the frigid cold was still trying to get us. We all sat perfectly still. Not one of us made a sound while the big woman moved from pot to pot. We came to know her as Momma. She was Joshua’s wife and they both loved kids. To hear him tell it, they were both lucky to have the job. Momma walked to the table and put large bowls in front of each one of us. Joshua came behind her with large, worn spoons. The Momma returned with a great pot filled with bacon and beans. We were giddy as she ladled the sweet, magic potion from the caldron. None of us touched our spoons until the last bowl was filled; whereas, Momma turned and said “Ok you little ones, we have to say Grace”. We all bowed our heads except David, while Joshua stood at the end of the table and recited the gospel. After ‘Amen’ we dove in! It was too much to take. The food was hot and the beans, molasses and tender chunks of bacon melted in our mouths. Joshua and Momma watched on as if they had never seen it before. Come to find out, they have seen years of starvation and want. It was just that they could never get use to little ones so hungry it made them cry. “Slow down, slow down, there's more!” I’ll never forget that woman. As the weeks turned into months, we found out later she and her husband would be fired and out in the dust if they were caught filling a second bowl! She never said a word to us. We also found out the food was weighed each day by Mr. Mason, to make sure none was stolen or eaten. It was simple arithmetic, Joshua and his wife were giving us theirs! We use to hear her laughing with him when no one else was in the room, “didn’t you know we were dieting” she would say, then we would hear the two of them laughing at each other. It was great fun seeing them each day. Momma nick-named David and I, Bacon and Beans! She would say she never saw one without the other. She would say, the two of you go together like Bacon and Beans! David and I would walk into the kitchen and she would smile and say, “here they come, Bacon & Beans”; whereas Joshua would smile and say, “looks more like Two Troubles to me!”. The work out in the fields was grueling. We were digging potatoes by hand. The dust choked us all day. We never really saw each other during the day. Only nameless, small, dark, figures moving in a thick, brown, clouds of dust in one hundred degree heat were out in the fields with us. Sometimes our small, dark figures would disappear from view all together. We would see a much larger figure whipping the earth until the exhausted figures returned. We dared not stop for fear of the same attention. Pink shirts with dried dust on their backs were the penalty for stopping. The kids would leave their shirts on for days without washing to stop the pain of opening encrusted wounds by pulling them off. The dried blood on the fabric would be like tearing a scab from our flesh. We got stronger. As the weeks went by, we noticed fewer and fewer of the same kids in the fields. It was if some vanished, and others took their places. There never was too many workers at the farm. Jenny became very quiet and never talked to David or myself. She just stayed to herself most of the time. One night David crawled out of bed to see if she was all right. He slowly crawled on his stomach across the creaky, wooden floors towards her bed. When he was half way there, he heard Mr. Mason whispering for her to “be nice”. David watched as Mr. Mason used her again, and again. David wasn’t the same after that. And a funny thing happened, Mr. Mason ran off! That’s what they say anyway. Here one day and gone the next. We were all happy, but we never stopped working, we never stopped chocking in the dust. We never stopped.
One day it happened. David and I awoke one morning to a commotion outside the window. To our amazement we looked down and saw Jenny standing by a running bus. We got dressed and both ran down the stairs to the porch. As we came out of the house, Momma turned in our direction and as she turned she said “you mean these two?”. The man next to the bus said, “yea, their the ones!” Momma took both of us by the arms and led us into the house. “Now I want both of you to listen to Momma real good!” Both of you are going away from this place. Your going with Jenny to San Francisco to be adopted! Now get your clothes! We couldn’t believe our ears. Without a second thought, we ran to the top floor, crammed our clothes under our shirts and ran back down to the waiting bus. Mamma and Joshua were standing at the busses accordion door. We cried and hugged them before Mamma shoved us both through the doors. She cried out, “and don’t you come back!” “Joshua, there goes my Bacon and Beans, there goes my babies!”. David and I watched them both through the dirty rear windows. We watched them waving as the dust engulfed them both. In what seemed like an instant, two of the most compassionate people in our lives were gone. We both sank into the torn seats and stared at the brown windows. Jenny was in the front looking back. David stared back at the broken girl. I could tell he still liked her a lot. David was the first to speak, “why don’t you come and sit back here with us?” Jenny looked down and started to cry. She turned to face the front of the bus, but David would have none of it! He got up and walked to the front of the bus were Jenny sat and pushed her over in the seat and sat next to her. The two of them whispered for what seemed like an hour before returning to were I sat. Jenny was smiling and David had a hold of her hand. I think it was only the second time I had ever seen her smile since we jumped from the bed of that old truck, two years ago. I forgot how pretty she was. It was not long before the three of us fell fast asleep as the buss bounced down the road.
We don’t know how much time passed, but we were awakened by the loud voice of a dispatcher. All aboard! We had pulled into a bus station in the middle of the night. It was time for us to get off this bus and get on another for San Francisco. It was exciting. The driver handed three tickets to David and pointed to a bus next to ours. “you kids get on that bus, someone will meet you in the Frisco”. We didn’t say a word as we got off the old bus. All three of us looked in amazement at the bus we were suppose to board. It was beautiful. None of us had ever seen such a truck. To think there was a seat on it for us was almost too much. We walked around the front of it to the waiting doorway. The friendly driver called to us to board. “come on kids, lets have those tickets!” “Are you the three bound for San Francisco?” David answered for us, “yes Mr. Bus Driver”. The bus driver said “you don’t have to call me sir, big man, I’m just a bus driver!” David smiled back to the driver and motioned for Jenny and I to go sit down. We sat directly behind the driver, all three of us on one seat.
The next day we pulled into San Francisco, California! There were two men at the station to pick us up. There were four other children from another farm waiting also. The seven of us got in a small bus and drove to a large, four story house near the waterfront. We could smell the ocean for the first time. The house was beautiful. The three of us had never seen such a house. It was hard forus to believe one family lived in such a place. The men didn’t talk much and told us to get up the stairs.

Bacon & Beans: cont.

The boys and Jenny arrive at the adoption center in SanFran and find out the old guy running the place was selling the young girls who came to be adopted to the brothels on the water front. The boys were sold as labor to ships leaving ports.
David sneaks out almost every night and walks the streets down by the docks. He sees the ‘old guy’ down there drinking almost every night; sometimes drinking too much.
Paul knows David is sneaking out and warns him, that he may be sent back to the farm! David doesn’t care “I’m not going back!”
David and Paul overhear the old guy telling the two big men that he has a new girl, and she is very pretty. She will make them a lot of money. The men say they will come back tomorrow night to get her. It’s a deal.
David sneaks out that night and finds the old guy dead in an alley by the back door of a bar. He runs home and says nothing to Paul.
The two men come back that night and wait. No old guy to talk to. They leave.
David tells Paul of the dead man. Between the two of them, they decide to run the half way house “why not” says Paul to David? What the hell do you know? Nothing, but no one ever came to see the old guy, no one has to know.
Paul is sitting behind the desk when the two men show back up. “who the hell are you suppose to be, they ask? Paul's tells them he is running the place and if they say anything to anyone, they are going to jail. He tells them he and his brother know what has been going on and they will tell the police if there is any problems. The two men leave, never to be seen again.
Six months go by and two more large men show up. They want to know if anyone knows Ben Stiller (the old guy) because he was found murdered in the bottoms. (they are detectives). David and Paul say they know nothing.
Long story short, David is arrested for the death. The case of neglect and child abuse by Stiller makes all the papers. And how two young men operated the half way house all that time without no one knowing. It sheds unwanted light on the slave industry involving children no one wanted or could feed. A seedy, vial industry of child abuse was spawn in the wake of the depression.
In the court room, moments before David is to be sentenced, a tall, skinny, young man stands to his feet and admits the crime. He tells the court he swore he would come back and ‘get him’. Come to find out, this young man was sold by Stiller to a trading company and was made to work for food the last six years aboard a sailing ship. It took six years for him to get back to the San Fran port and find Stiller.  RJ

Back