Three telephones rang at once. Charles C. Flanagan picked up the one nearest him and jammed it to his ear. “Ham on rye!” he shouted. “I said two ham on rye!” He slammed the phone back on its rest and flopped back into his armchair.
The bedroom was a wilderness of telephones, press clippings, ticker-tapes, half-eaten sandwiches and cold cups of coffee. Flanagan stood in his flowery blue silk dressing-gown, his long, knobbly hands on his hips, his great thin toes poking out of open slippers. He was in his mid-forties, with lank hair, already prematurely grey, that constantly sprayed across his forehead; yet it was his teeth, great broad tombstones, white and shining, that dominated his face.
He picked up another phone on its first ring. “Willard!” he roared, turning towards the bathroom. “Willard! No, not you, ma’am,” he cooed back into the telephone.
There was the flutter of a female voice in the receiver. Flanagan’s voice continued in low key. “Yes, ma’am. Milwaukee Ladies Home Journal? Yes, we have” – he thumbed through a hash of papers on the floor – “at the last count, one hundred and twenty-one ladies in the Trans-America race . . . Chaperones?” He put his hand over the phone and whirled round on Willard Clay, a small, plump, bespectacled man who had just emerged from the toilet in red striped pyjamas, and who was brushing his face with shaving soap.
“She’s asking for chaperones for the girls,” hissed Flanagan.
He removed his hand and again spoke into the phone, his great white teeth flashing.
“Of course, Miss . . . Miss McGregor.” He grimaced at Willard, who was now unconcernedly scraping his chin with an open razor. “Three ladies from the San Francisco Ladies Seminary have kindly donated their services as chaperones. Yes, San Francisco Ladies Seminary.”
He slowly spelled the title out, nodding the while and smiling into the telephone. “Yes, I can guarantee that strictly non-denominational services will be held every Sunday. Thank you kindly, ma’am.”
He put down the phone and glared at his assistant. “Why didn’t you think of chaperones?” he snapped.
Willard began to scrape soap from beneath his chin, rinsed the razor in his shaving mug and shook his head, soap dripping to the floor. “We didn’t even know some of them were women till they started to arrive a couple of days back,” said Willard plaintively. “Anyhow, they sure as hell won’t last long.”
Flanagan threw himself back on to an armchair swathed in ticker-tape, a pile of which he immediately hurled on to the carpet. “How do you know? Could be there’s some female Nurmi lurking out there amongst all those fat broads.”
“Sure make a good story if there were,” chuckled Willard, turning back into the toilet to lay down his shaving bowl, at the same time announcing over his shoulder, “Miss America – she challenges the greatest foot-racers in the world.”
Flanagan stroked his unshaven chin. “Willard, baby, you are one hundred per cent right.” He lifted both hands to frame an imaginary headline. “Miss America in the Trans-America. We could dress her up in Stars and Stripes, tour her across the whole country after the race.” He sat back, pondering, his eyes distant.
Two phones rang. Flanagan pulled himself away from his reverie and picked up the one balanced precariously on the edge of his armchair. “Charles C. Flanagan,” he said cautiously, then, on hearing who his caller was, exclaimed, “Paramount Pictures!” He sat bolt upright and beckoned the half-shaven Willard close to the telephone. He cupped his hand over the speaker and listened for several minutes. “Paramount,” he whispered. “They want us to move the start of the race into the Coliseum stadium.”
His voice dropped an octave as he resumed his conversation. “You must realise the difficulties, Mr Schenck. We have two thousand runners here, the largest field in the history of professional sport. A quarter-mile running track is hardly an appropriate starting place for a race of such magnitude.”
Some of Willard’s shaving soap had smeared the speaker of the telephone. Flanagan brushed it off and scowled at Willard.
“What sort of financial compensation?” he asked, his eyes lighting up. Willard, undeterred, again pressed close.
“Ten thousand dollars? Absolutely impossible. Fifteen? No, there is no way in which I could possibly compromise the start of the Trans-America . . .” his voice trailed off, and he again covered the speaker as Willard pulled at his sleeve.
“Take it, boss,” whispered Willard. “For Christ’s sake, take it.”
Flanagan returned to the phone, his face impassive. “Yes, I know we have an agreement, but not, sir, to start the race from the Coliseum. Twenty-five thousand? Make it thirty and I think we may have ourselves a deal.” Willard could hear the raised tones of the voice at the other end of the line. Flanagan paused dramatically.
“Thirty thousand? Have it in writing in a contract here by noon at the Plaza Hotel and it’s a deal. Yes, indeed, a pleasure and privilege to do business with you, Mr Schenck.”
He put down the phone and leaned back in his chair, his hands linked across his stomach.
“Willard,” he said. “I truly think we’re sitting on a pot of gold.”
“But the Coliseum, boss? Two thousand men on a quarter-mile track?”
“No real problem,” said Flanagan. “We can start some from outside the stadium, have them all run a couple of laps inside the Coliseum, then off they go into the boondocks towards Pomona. Look at it this way. It’s better than starting out on the road. We can charge admission. And think of the catering concessions – hot dogs, Coke, popcorn . . . Why didn’t I think of that before? And Willard, why didn’t you?”
Willard shrugged and waddled off into the bathroom.
The phone rang again. “City police?” Flanagan’s face dropped. He listened intently for a few moments, then said, “Let me get this quite clear, Commissioner Flaherty. Are you seriously telling me that my Chinese runners are urinating in your streets? Any particular streets? Oh, I see. Any street. Commissioner, I promise you that I will speak strongly to them. Confidentially, I think it may be some kind of religious observance, so I must be careful not to offend. While you are with me, I would consider it a great honour if you and your good wife would be with us at the opening ceremony. I might mention that Miss Mary Pickford and Mr Douglas Fairbanks have made a particular request to meet you both. Delighted you can make it, sir.”
He put down the phone. “Like hell they have,” he said as Willard shambled through the ticker-tape, patting after-shave on his smooth round face. “That mick had fifty of our boys in the can in the first week for infesting the public highways. Took me a hundred dollars to sweeten him.”
Flanagan looked around him wearily, picked up a pile of ticker-tape and held it out in front of him. “Willard, must we live in this squalor? Mother of Mary, we’re paying fifty dollars a day.” He grabbed the phone. “Room service? For God’s sake send someone to clean up this place. Pronto!”
Another phone rang. This time Willard picked it up. He listened for a few moments then put the phone down with a dazed expression.
“Boss,” he said. “A Mr Seidlitz said to tell you, the midgets are booked. A hundred midgets. What are we doing with a hundred midgets?”
Flanagan looked at his assistant with scorn. “Didn’t I tell you? We finish the race indoors in Madison Square Garden on 6 June. Before the runners arrive we have a little floor show. You know, some acrobats, a strong man. I’ve got a Turk who can lift an elephant. Not much of an elephant, but hell, an elephant’s an elephant. The big finale, before the runners arrive, is midgets racing round the track on ponies. It’s never been done before. First time in the history of sport.”
Before the speech could develop further there was a knock on the door and a bell-boy’s head appeared.
“Mr Flanagan, sir. Your press conference in the Coolidge Room – in an hour.”
Flanagan waved over his shoulder. “I’ll be ready. Willard,” he said. “Let me have another look at the press list before you set it all up. In an hour we meet the gentlemen of the world’s press.”
Flanagan scanned the list Willard gave him and scowled. One hundred and eighty journalists from all over the world, many of whom had been at every Olympics since Athens, every World Series since the beginning of the century. From the moment in I930 when he had first proposed the Trans-America the press had ranged through the whole gamut of opinion, from incredulity to derision. There would, of course, be those dear, innocent souls who took the Trans-America at face value, seeing it as a means of padding out expense accounts for three months or more: those he would take in his stride. But there would be others, case-hardened journalists who were not sports reporters at all, who would see the race as simply another junk sport of the thirties, in the same class as Bronx bull-fighting or underwater baseball. Such men would require careful handling.
The press were essential to the Trans-America. They must be used, they must be amused, all the way from Los Angeles to New York. He crumpled the press list into a ball, aimed it at the wastepaper-bin and flipped it across the room. It hit the outside of the bin and bounced off into a corner.
At two-thirty precisely Charles C. Flanagan adjusted his pearl tie pin, straightened the handkerchief in the jacket pocket of his immaculate grey double-breasted suit and looked at the journalists buzzing and scribbling below him. The Calvin Coolidge Room was a veritable league of nations of the world of sports journalism. For the Trans-America had brought together reporters from all over the world, men who rarely met between Olympics. Now they jostled and hailed each other, scribbled and chattered, all waiting for the moment when the Trans-America would spring into life. The room itself had a sober, imposing quality: chairs topped with brown leather, the oak-lined walls hung with the oil portraits of past presidents. On the wall behind the platform on which he stood hung a portrait of Coolidge himself, poring over a massive tome which, on closer inspection, revealed itself to be a telephone directory.
On Flanagan’s left sat Willard and the pretty young blonde, Dixie Williams, poised with pencil and pad. On his right was a tanned bald man in a pin-striped suit.
Flanagan knew many of these journalists well, and they knew him. He placed both hands in a splayed tripod on the table in front of him, then stood back and stretched himself to his full height. Flash bulbs exploded and cameras whirred around him. “This way, Mr Flanagan,” shouted a group of photographers, and Flanagan turned to the right and flashed his white teeth in a frozen grin. In response to a request from the left he turned and, for variety, lifted his arms to the side, palms up: Flanagan the human cornucopia, the source of all good things.
“Gentlemen, gentlemen,” he said, beckoning away the photographers and sitting down. “We must proceed with the business of the day.” He banged a heavy wooden gavel on the table in front of him, but it was fully a minute before the babble was stilled. “Could I have the first question, please?”
“How far is the race?” shouted a journalist towards the front of the room.
“Three thousand, one hundred and forty-six miles, two hundred and twenty yards,” replied Flanagan smoothly.
“You dead sure about them yards?” shouted a man whom Flanagan recognised as Frank Pollard of the St Louis Star, a veteran of American sports journalism.
“Not dead certain, Frank. But we’ll get our consultant surveyor to check it out, every yard of it if you have any doubts, first thing in the morning.” Through the laughter Flanagan pointed to another questioner in the middle of the room.
“Charles Rae, Washington Post. What’s the money for first prize?”
“One hundred and fifty thousand golden dollars, guaranteed by the National Bank of America,” said Flanagan.
“And the other prizes?” asked Rae, staying on his feet.
“Fifty thousand dollars for second, going down to two hundred dollars for hundredth place. The total is three hundred and sixty thousand dollars. Fancy pickings.”
There was an immediate babble of discussion as the prize money was translated into pounds, marks and francs by the foreign press.
Flanagan again hammered on the table for silence.
“Can we say that this is the richest foot-race of all time?” pursued Rae.
“You sure as hell can,” said Flanagan, grinning. “Indeed, I insist on it.”
“What is the entry fee?” asked Pollard.
“Two hundred dollars per man.”
Pollard poked his pencil at Flanagan. “Isn’t that a little high in the present economic conditions?”
Flanagan put both hands flat on the table. “These are hard times, gentlemen. You must realise that we provide three square meals a day for nearly three months. Boys, you’ll soon find out it’s worth coming just for the food!”
He raised his hand to silence the hubbub.
“Seriously, gentlemen, I had to have some evidence of good faith on the part of each competitor, most of whom are sponsored by states or nations, and the two hundred dollar entry fee provided the best evidence of that. Next question, please.”
He pointed into the forest of raised hands.
“How many miles will they cover each day?” shouted an unidentified voice from the back of the hall.
“An average of fifty, usually divided into two stages. The minimum is thirty, the maximum sixty-one. May I ask you to identify yourselves, gentlemen? Let’s keep it formal.”
“James Ferris, The Times of London. Has any man ever covered such distances daily?”
Flanagan had been expecting the question, and promptly stood up. “I think that there’s a man sitting beside me who is better qualified than I am to answer that. Doc Cole, the father of American distance-running, is with us on the platform. All of you who have followed track over the years will know Doc. He ran marathon for Uncle Sam in the Olympics of I904 and I908 and has run pro ever since. Could you deal with that question, Doc?”
“Doc” Cole slowly got to his feet. The arc lights reflected on his bald brown head. In his neat pin-striped suit he looked more like a clerk than an athlete. “Could you repeat the question?” he asked in a light mid-Western voice.
“Has anyone ever covered fifty miles a day, Doc?”
“Not for long,” said Doc. There was a ripple of laughter. “My pap told me of a fellow, a Yankee called Edmund Payson Weston, round about 1880. He could walk five miles an hour from here till Judgment Day. Couldn’t walk any faster, mind. He walked about three thousand miles across America once, about forty miles a day, back about 1885. Then there were the old six-day walkers when I was a boy. The best of them walked about a hundred miles a day, indoors in armouries back East for six days at a time.”
“A hundred miles a day?” asked a reporter, scribbling furiously.
“Yep. They called the six-day races ‘wobbles’, on account of most of the boys spent a lot of the time wobbling about the track.”
“But it would be true to say that no one has ever raced fifty miles a day across America?” the journalist persisted.
“Not to my knowledge or recollection,” replied Doc.
There was a bubble of discussion and a rustling of paper as the journalists compared notes.
“Thank you, Doc,” said Flanagan, taking advantage of the pause in the questioning. “May I say at this point that Doc, because of his unique knowledge of distance-running, will hold his own press conference tomorrow. Next question, please.”
“Forrest, Chicago Tribune.” The man who had asked the earlier, unidentified question stood up at the back of the crowded room. “What medical provision will there be for the runners?”
“Ten fully qualified doctors headed by Dr Maurice Falconer of Los Angeles City Hospital, plus twenty masseurs. You must also remember, gentlemen, that many competitors will have their own doctors and masseurs with them.”
“What happens if someone drops out? How does he make it home?” pursued Forrest.
“The best way he can,” said Flanagan. “Gentlemen, this is the land of opportunity. There are no handouts in the Trans-America. These athletes have come from sixty-one nations, from all over the world, to get here. Some are unemployed, some have sold up their houses, some have left wives and sweethearts to compete in this race. These are men, gentlemen. They know it’s a gamble, because no man in history has covered three thousand miles across these here United States of America. These men are athletes – they are also gamblers. They’re gambling that their bodies can hold out for three months at fifty miles a day.”
“But are you gambling, Flanagan?” asked a voice from the middle of the room.
“I’m gambling, yes – that there’ll be at least someone still on his feet at the end!”
“Campbell, Glasgow Herald. We have considerable knowledge of professional running in my country and our experience is that it is usually corrupt. How do you prevent cheating?”
Flanagan pursed his lips. “A dozen officials will follow each stage of the race. Anyone caught hopping on trucks or cars will be immediately disqualified.”
“Glenda Farrell, Woman’s Home journal. How many women are in the race, Mr Flanagan?”
“One hundred and twenty-one.”
“Are there any separate prizes for women?”
“No,” said Flanagan. “I reckon women are always trying to prove they’re man’s equal. Here’s their chance to prove it.”
“What is the longest distance a woman has ever covered, Mr Flanagan?”
Flanagan looked down at his notes. “The longest Olympic distance is eight hundred metres. About half a mile.”
“And weren’t there protests after the Amsterdam Olympics about the dreadful finishing condition of the female competitors in the eight hundred metres?”
Flanagan looked nonplussed and whispered for a moment with Willard. Then he said, “It is our view that the ladies in the race will have prepared themselves thoroughly for the Trans-America. Only time will tell if their preparations have been thorough enough. Next question.”
“Are the ladies being provided with chaperones?” asked Miss Farrell.
“Five ladies from a well-known seminary are acting as chaperones, led by Miss Dixie Williams.” He nodded to his left to the girl whom Hugh McPhail had earlier met at the reception area.
“Who’s chaperoning her, Flanagan?” asked a voice.
“I will treat that question with the contempt it deserves, Mr Grose,” said Flanagan with a smile, scanning the room for further questions.
“Howard, Chicago Star.” The top baseball reporter of the Eastern Seaboard stood up at the front of the hall, sucking his pencil. “I have reviewed the route, Mr Flanagan. There seems to me to be no rhyme or reason to much of it. Why have you failed to choose a direct route across the continent?”
“Two reasons, sir. One is that I wished competitors to see every aspect of our beautiful nation. The second is that several cities have expressed a particular desire to host the runners of the Trans-America.”
“Isn’t there another reason, Flanagan?” asked Howard. “Isn’t it true that each major town on the route has to pay what you call an ‘assessment’?”
Flanagan flushed. “If you mean that certain cities are paying sums to have the Trans-America pass through, then that’s perfectly true. Their mayors believe that the Trans-America will be good for trade, and I have given them the complete franchise on race programmes. That has meant that the race is sometimes less than direct, but it puts more money into the pot for stage prizes.”
“Tell us a little more about the stage prizes, Flanagan,” said Howard.
Flanagan visibly relaxed. For the moment he was off the hook. “Stage prizes of between three hundred dollars and one thousand dollars have been offered at certain points along the route. For instance, Coca-Cola are offering a three-hundred-dollar stage prize in the Mojave and General Motors a prize of one thousand dollars for the King of the Mountains, in the Rockies. But remember, gentlemen, that the Trans-America winner will be the man – or woman – with the lowest aggregate time over the full distance, like your Tour de France bike race.”
Carl Liebnitz, of the New York Times, rose to his feet. Liebnitz, lean, tanned and white-haired, had earned his reputation as the seeker out of all that was false or phoney. He was not, strictly speaking, a sports reporter, enjoying the rare freedom to comment on what he pleased in his weekly column of national and international gossip. “Is it true that you are also featuring a circus, involving” – he picked up a press release – “Madame La Zonga, the Samoan snake woman, Fritz the talking donkey, and the mummified head of the Mexican bandit, Emiliano Zapata?”
“Correct,” said Flanagan. “And you might also note the jungle Dodgers, the first baseball-playing chimpanzees.”
Liebnitz could not completely mask a grimace. “May I respectfully ask you what in the name of tarnation a troupe of freaks has got to do with a serious foot-race?”
“What we are taking from here to New York is entertainment,” said Flanagan. “Everywhere we go, every minute of the way, I aim to put on a show. When the runners are tired, then it’s up to Madame La Zonga to do her stuff. This isn’t college track and field, gentlemen; this is the world of entertainment.”
Liebnitz resumed his seat, shaking his head.
Albert Kowalski, of the Philadelphia Globe, burly and crew-cut, stood up. “Sir, in a year Los Angeles will host the 1932 Olympic Games, which is an amateur meet. Won’t your professional Trans-America race therefore deprive the United States of possible Olympic gold medals?”
Flanagan placed the knuckles of both hands on the table and the cameras exploded. “A good question,” he said evenly, flashing his great teeth. “First, it’s a free world. Olympic medals pay no rent, and if an American boy chooses to take a chance on setting himself up for life by running in the Trans-America rather than going for an Olympic gold medal then surely that is up to him. Second, when did America last win gold in a marathon Olympic event?”
There was no answer.
“I’ll tell you. 1908, when Johnny Hayes beat Dorando in the London Olympics. That’s one helluva long time to wait, gentlemen. Let’s face it. Here in the USA we’re sprinters and jumpers and throwers, not marathon runners. I don’t see a three-thousand-mile race losing us any goddam sprinters or shot putters. Do you?”
There was silence; Flanagan had made his point.
Liebnitz was on his feet again. “Carl Liebnitz. I see you have a nineteen-year-old Mexican, Juan Martinez, entered. We have no athletic record for Mr Martinez. Have you any background on him?”
Flanagan leant to his right to whisper to Willard.
“I’m afraid I can’t help you there, Carl. We know that he is the only Mexican entered and that he has been sponsored by his village, Quanto.”
“Pollard here. I can help you there, Flanagan, though . . .” he turned to face the reporters behind him. “I ain’t certain I should be helping my learned colleagues. Quanto is right in the middle of a famine area. I’ve talked with young Martinez. My information is that he is running in the Trans-America to save his village from starvation.”
Flanagan glanced quickly round the room. “There’s your story, gentlemen,” he smiled.
“Kowalski again. What are the living facilities for the athletes like?”
“For the next couple of days they’re living high on the hog in hotels. En route they live in twenty specially-constructed tents, a hundred bunks to a tent.”
“And press facilities?” queried Kowalski.
“Six thirty-seater press buses are being provided, courtesy of Ford Motors. I know that you fellas are making your own accommodation arrangements at each town.” He sensed that questions were slowing up, and a few reporters were drifting towards the back of the packed hall as deadlines approached
“Rae. What provision is being made for food for the competitors?”
Flanagan rifled through a file of papers and selected one. “The culinary arrangements are in the hands of international chefs specially brought over from Europe,” he said. “Dr Maurice Falconer, our medical director, one of America’s leading nutritionists, is also acting as our nutritional adviser.”
“What about drinks?” asked Liebnitz.
“No question that adequate supplies of fluids will be essential, particularly in the desert areas,” said Flanagan. “Maxwell House are supplying all the hot drinks and will follow us all the way to New York in a specially constructed refreshment caravan, the Maxwell House Coffee Pot. Cold drinks will be supplied by Sport Ade, the sensational new sports drink.”
“Do you have any knowledge of the Williams’ All-Americans?”
Flanagan held up a sheet of paper and read from it. “The All-Americans are one of fifteen teams, most of which are company or state teams. For instance, Oklahoma and Arizona both have strong teams entered.”
“What’s the point of teams, Mr Flanagan? You’ve got no team competition,” Ferris, The Times reporter, asked belligerently.
“That is correct,” replied Flanagan. “The object of the teams is to gain prestige for the organizations which sponsor them. Each man earns a wage, with bonuses if they finish in leading positions.”
“What do you know about the German team?” It was Liebnitz again.
One further time Flanagan filed through his pile of notes. “The team is a young one,” he said finally. “From a group which calls itself the Hitler Youth Movement. It’s a five-man team of boys aged nineteen to twenty-one, headed by a team manager, Herr von Moltke, and a team doctor, Eric Nett.”
“Have they any track record?” asked Ferris.
“Only the one hundred-kilometre trial – that’s about sixty-two miles – they held to choose the team.”
“Can this be called a German national team, Flanagan?”
“Strictly speaking, no. Herr Hitler is an aspiring politician. His Youth Movement is part of his political push.”
“Rae again. How many Olympic medallists do you have entered?”
Flanagan made a show of shuffling his papers.
“At the last count, twenty.”
“Fair enough, but how many can you guarantee will start?” asked Howard from the back of the room.
“As many as are willing to take a chance,” said Flanagan, leaning forward. For a moment his mask of geniality dropped. “Let’s face it. This amateur set-up is a can of worms. The reason why some of these so-called amateurs are afraid to run in the Trans-America is because they can pick up two or three thousand bucks a year, steady money, no tax, year in year out as amateurs. They get that not for winning but just, for God’s sake, for appearing! With me, they’ll have to run hard for every buck they earn. No play, no pay.”
“Munaur, Paris Match. Is there any truth in the rumour that Paavo Nurmi, the Flying Finn, will run in the Trans-America?”
Flanagan pursed his lips. “Fellas, all I can say is that Mr Nurmi is at present in San Francisco with his manager, Mr Quist, considering the possibility of entering. He has just finished an exhausting American tour and is also embarking upon his preparation for the 1932 Olympics. All that can be said for the moment is that he’s giving the matter considerable thought.”
“Are you saying, Flanagan, that as an amateur Nurmi might not be able to afford to enter the Trans-America?” shouted a reporter.
Flanagan grinned. “No comment.”
“Kevin Maguire, Irish Times.” A thick-set, tweed-suited man stood up. The strong Irish brogue made many of the departing journalists turn round to listen. “Mr Flanagan, is it true that Lord Peter Thurleigh, the British Olympic athlete, has entered the Trans-America?”
There was a hush in the room. Flanagan took his time, teasing out every moment.
“Yesterday,” he said, “it was my pleasure to meet for the first time Lord Peter Thurleigh, British Olympian in 1924 and 1928. Lord Peter has been given special dispensation to stay with the British Consul, rather than being exposed to the publicity which he would have to endure at our final training camp.”
Liebnitz stood up. “Flanagan, can you give us any good reason why an English aristocrat should lose his amateur status and spend three months plodding across America with a couple of thousand tramps and a freak show?”
Flanagan paused, “It is my understanding,” he said, putting on what he imagined to be an English accent, “that Lord Peter has wagered a hundred thousand pounds with a group of English aristocrats that he will finish in the first six places.”
“A hundred thousand pounds? What’s that in US dollars?” asked Kowalski.
“At yesterday’s rate of exchange, I reckon about four hundred thousand dollars,” answered Flanagan. “The biggest wager in the history of foot-racing.”
The reporters at last had their lead story. There was a general rush for the lobby telephones, leaving a trail of upturned chairs in their wake. The conference was at an end.
Flanagan bit off the end of his cigar and spat it towards the waste-bin. This time it landed in the bin, plumb centre. He leant forward, surveyed the chaos of upturned chairs and discarded papers, and beamed. The first hurdle had been cleared and cleared in some style.
Carl Liebnitz sat on his bed, propped against his pillows. He wore red silk polka-dot pyjamas and sat, legs crossed, his Trans-America report on a clipboard on his knees. He was sucking the tip of his pencil.
Liebnitz had been with Clarence Darrow at the Scopes “monkey” trial, with Lindbergh in Paris, and in Washington when Douglas MacArthur had scattered the Hooverville rioters. His brief from his editor was to treat the Trans-America for the carnival that it was, and that meant three hundred words, crisp and sharp, twice weekly. Flanagan he couldn’t yet place. That the Irishman was a flim-flam man he had little doubt; what the chances were of him getting his ragged crew across America Liebnitz did not know, but the odds were against it. And that was exactly what he was going to tell the American public. He adjusted his pillow, bent his knees, and slowly started to write.
AMERICANA DATELINE 19 MARCH 1931 LOS ANGELES
Your columnist has known of Charles C. Flanagan for some time, but his qualifications for running an enterprise of the complexity of the Trans-America foot-race are unknown to him. Flanagan is a forty-five-year-old Irish-American whose father, for thirty years, pounded the beat on New York’s East Side. Mr Flanagan first came to our attention in 1919, at the time of the Red Sox scandal, when he tried, as he put it at the time, “to bring some dignity back to baseball” by starting a women’s baseball team, the Tallahassee Tigerbelles. Alas, many of his Tigerbelles showed more talent for maternity than for the baseball diamond and the team folded in 1921, with Mr Flanagan saddled with at least two paternity suits.
Mr Flanagan surfaced again in New Orleans in 1923, with a team of midget mud-wrestlers, which he eventually sold to a circus. For a time he managed a boxer rejoicing in the name of the “Young John L. Sullivan”, but not, alas, also rejoicing in Sullivan’s talents. The “Young John L.” went down to the first firm blow which he received from a Milwaukee bank clerk and was last heard of in the chorus of a male burlesque show called “Swain Lake”.
Mr Flanagan’s fortunes took a turn for the better in 1927 when he briefly managed the delightful tennis player, Miss Suzanne Lamarr, but plummeted again when he attempted to import the European game of soccer to the American continent. Soccer, indeed! Undaunted by the disasters of the past, Charles C. Flanagan has now bobbed up again, with his Trans-America foot-race, in which two thousand runners will attempt to cover on foot the distance between Los Angeles and New York for prize money of $360,000.
He has certainly gathered about him a motley crew. His band of two thousand athletes does, it is true, contain some of the finest long-distance runners in the world. It also contains twenty-one women, a Hindu fakir, sixteen blind men, three men without arms, twenty grandfathers, sixty-one vegetarians, and a spiritualist who claims to be advised by the long-dead Indian runner, Deerfoot. And this is to say nothing of Madame La Zonga, Fritz the talking mule and a baseball team composed, we are told, entirely of chimpanzees, all of whom are to accompany the runners on their trek to New York.
It would therefore be true to say that nothing of its like has been seen since Peter the Hermit and his Children’s Crusade. Let us hope that Mr Flanagan proves to be better qualified than his illustrious predecessor.
CARL C. LIEBNITZ