de Palma did a beautiful job of rounding out the myth. On all the front pages it said that Lonesome’s death was due to collapsing on the stairs from overwork on his way to deliver a message of tremendous importance to his vast radio-TV audience. “We begged him to slow down, but as long as his great heart kept pumping he had to keep pitching for his fellow-Americans,” Tommy was quoted. Tommy had found the suicide note and without mentioning the window business he had used the sure-fire stuff about grieving and sorrowing for the fine American boys and his fellow countrymen. “I was with him at the end and I will remember his last words as long as I live,” Tommy said. I’ll remember those words too, but not quite the way Tommy reported them. He used that “great country of ours is just Riddle multiplied” line and wound up with the “bless you and keep you, my beloved kinfolk and neighbors” bit.
Tommy announced that the Lonesome Rhodes Foundation would continue as a lasting memorial to this simple American. Immediately thousands of dollars poured in from all over the country to keep up the good works. Plans were drawn up for a monument to Lonesome in Riddle with his famous last words inscribed at the base of a vast likeness in bronze. Well, Tommy can have his last words. They’re a little more fit for public examination than what the man really said when he was chasing me down those steps.
The funeral was the most impressive thing of its kind I have ever seen. Traffic was suspended on Fifth Avenue and the great thoroughfare was jammed for twenty blocks. Half a million people tried to pass the bier. Women grew hysterical and fainted. The Mayor was there, and General MacArthur, and a Marine Honor Guard and Ike sent personal condolences. The entire population of Riddle, Arkansas, was flown in by the publicity department of our TV network. A cowhand from Arkansas sang, “Oh Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie.” A bishop spoke on the spiritual essence in Lonesome Rhodes. “He was a man of the people,” said the bishop, “because he was, in the simplest and deepest and best sense, a man of God.”
It was a shame Lonesome Rhodes couldn’t have been there. He would have loved it. It was his kind of stuff, exactly as if it had been written for him and directed by him. He was an influence, there is no doubt of that. Look at the half-dozen minor imitators already trying to fill his boots. The film companies have started bidding for the movie rights. Already columnists are speculating as to who could play it. John Wayne? Will Rogers, Jr.? Paul Douglas? The Lonesome Rhodes Foundation is to have a considerable share of the profits. As Tommy de Palma would say, “Dat’s how legends are born.”
After the funeral, I walked around the corner to a bar and went in to think it over. While I had never given myself to Lonesome Rhodes, I had belonged to him. I had had a hand in shaping that legend. How could I disown it now without having to answer for myself?
A SHORT DIGEST OF A LONG NOVEL
H ER LEGS WERE SHAPELY and firm and when she crossed them and smiled with the self-assurance that always delighted him, he thought she was the only person he knew in the world who was unblemished. Not lifelike but an improvement on life, as a work of art, her delicate features were chiseled from a solid block. The wood-sculpture image came easy to him because her particular shade of blonde always suggested maple polished to a golden grain. As it had been from the moment he stood in awe and amazement in front of the glass window where she was first exhibited, the sight of her made him philosophical. Some of us appear in beautiful colors, too, or with beautiful grains, but we develop imperfections. Inspect us very closely and you find we’re damaged by the elements. Sometimes we’re only nicked with cynicism.
Sometimes we’re cracked with disillusionment. Or we’re split with fear.
When she began to speak, he leaned forward, eager for
Tommy announced that the Lonesome Rhodes Foundation would continue as a lasting memorial to this simple American. Immediately thousands of dollars poured in from all over the country to keep up the good works. Plans were drawn up for a monument to Lonesome in Riddle with his famous last words inscribed at the base of a vast likeness in bronze. Well, Tommy can have his last words. They’re a little more fit for public examination than what the man really said when he was chasing me down those steps.
The funeral was the most impressive thing of its kind I have ever seen. Traffic was suspended on Fifth Avenue and the great thoroughfare was jammed for twenty blocks. Half a million people tried to pass the bier. Women grew hysterical and fainted. The Mayor was there, and General MacArthur, and a Marine Honor Guard and Ike sent personal condolences. The entire population of Riddle, Arkansas, was flown in by the publicity department of our TV network. A cowhand from Arkansas sang, “Oh Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie.” A bishop spoke on the spiritual essence in Lonesome Rhodes. “He was a man of the people,” said the bishop, “because he was, in the simplest and deepest and best sense, a man of God.”
It was a shame Lonesome Rhodes couldn’t have been there. He would have loved it. It was his kind of stuff, exactly as if it had been written for him and directed by him. He was an influence, there is no doubt of that. Look at the half-dozen minor imitators already trying to fill his boots. The film companies have started bidding for the movie rights. Already columnists are speculating as to who could play it. John Wayne? Will Rogers, Jr.? Paul Douglas? The Lonesome Rhodes Foundation is to have a considerable share of the profits. As Tommy de Palma would say, “Dat’s how legends are born.”
After the funeral, I walked around the corner to a bar and went in to think it over. While I had never given myself to Lonesome Rhodes, I had belonged to him. I had had a hand in shaping that legend. How could I disown it now without having to answer for myself?
A SHORT DIGEST OF A LONG NOVEL
H ER LEGS WERE SHAPELY and firm and when she crossed them and smiled with the self-assurance that always delighted him, he thought she was the only person he knew in the world who was unblemished. Not lifelike but an improvement on life, as a work of art, her delicate features were chiseled from a solid block. The wood-sculpture image came easy to him because her particular shade of blonde always suggested maple polished to a golden grain. As it had been from the moment he stood in awe and amazement in front of the glass window where she was first exhibited, the sight of her made him philosophical. Some of us appear in beautiful colors, too, or with beautiful grains, but we develop imperfections. Inspect us very closely and you find we’re damaged by the elements. Sometimes we’re only nicked with cynicism.
Sometimes we’re cracked with disillusionment. Or we’re split with fear.
When she began to speak, he leaned forward, eager for
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