A Solo Song: For Doc - Book Report/Review Example

Doc’s Song In rewriting “A Solo Song: For Doc,” my intention was to keep the language and tone of the story as true to the original as I could while retelling the story from Doc’s inner perspective. Rather than being told about, I wanted to capture the feelings and impressions of the man who had so affected his peers, which could only be done from within his own head. Doc is a black man who has known what it is like to be a black man in the segregated and still very restrictive world of America in the early 1900s. On the train, he finds work, food, respect and a certain degree of power and self-control he’s never had elsewhere. He is finally free in a way that black men were not allowed to be free, moving where he wished, never stopping long enough for anyone to give him much grief for the color of his skin, the depth of his knowledge or the leisure activities he chose to participate in. More than simply feeling in control of his own destiny, Doc is aware of his abilities to wield this power over white people, as he is taught how to manipulate the women for larger tips and learns how to barter and partner with others for the express purpose of stealing money from out of the pockets of white men. Soldiers obey his orders and women are forced to do his bidding, leaving him alone when he’s finally had enough. It is this concept of freedom associated with constant movement that I wanted to bring out in sharper focus in the story by presenting Doc’s version of events in his life. Seeing things through his eyes allows the reader to get a sense of what is important to him as well as why it’s important, instead of guessing these motivations through the narrative of an outsider well after his death. For these men, being a Waiter’s Waiter was a position of extreme status, pride and honor, things that were denied to the black man in every town in which the train stopped, but was provided in abundant quantity upon the train. Although they had to follow specific rules, which continued to become stricter as time went on, the pride and the freedom remained. It was all Doc had to cling to in his world as without it he was little more than the town drunk and had no desire to be anything more. By working to keep the narrative style the same, I hoped to provide the same kind of free, conversational perspective on the story that invited another in while still imparting a specific moral lesson that could be learned or not depending upon the attitude of the listener. Placing the story in Doc’s perspective necessitated a voice speaking as if from heaven. Rather than becoming a deterrent to the story, I felt it added an additional weight. A voice speaking from beyond the grave to tell a simple story of a man who liked to ride trains doesn’t make much sense unless one understands there is a deeper truth to be gleaned from the tale. We were the last of the old school. The ones who could dance around the Pantry and the cars without spilling a drop, keeping the paddies in line and the customers happy. We were the ones who came up with the rules in your rulebook, invented all the tricks to get that extra tip and work your way around the inspectors. We were Waiter’s Waiters of the Old School, the Old School that they say died with me on that train. It all started one day when I decided I was just tired of being hungry. It was December of 1916 and I was walking over by the train yards with this gnawing hunger snarling in my belly when I saw a kitchen car getting ready to be hooked up to one of the big trains, running from Chicago to San Francisco. There was a big Swede standing inside the car, I took him to be the chef, putting away all kinds of food for the trip, so I walked up to him and told him I was hungry. Just like that. “What do you want me to do about it?” he asked me. “I’ll work,” I said. And just like that, I had a job on board the train. The chef’s name was Chips Magnussen and he told me I could eat all I wanted, but I had to work all he wanted and put me to work rolling out dough for apple pies. The work wasn’t bad, I always had enough food to eat and I loved the feel of the train under my feet. After that first trip, when I got the rhythm of the steel in my feet and the trick of how to move and roll with the clickety clack of the track, I never felt right on the ground again. I worked in that kitchen for six years, doing everything there was to be done, until I made second cook. Then, just when they saw that I was ready to be first cook, a job they always held up for the Swedes, they put me over to waiting. By this time, I was nearly 30 years old, but I learned quick enough. I had the best in the business to teach me even though they were mostly younger than me. Pantryman was Sheik Beasley who kept pretty much out of our way and let us steal anything we wanted as long as we didn’t disturb his reefers. His second was Danny Jackson, another black boy like me, Len Dickey was third and Reverend Hendricks was fourth with Uncle T. Boone fifth. I was the mule and they weren’t too happy about getting a boy from out of the kitchen to work with them on the tables. At first, they did everything they could to try to get me to run back to the kitchen. They stole my tips, they switched my plates, they messed up my orders and they made me do all of the dirty work. But through it all, I just kept remembering how I didn’t want to go hungry again and kept working at it and working at it. When they finally saw that I meant to be a waiter, they decided they’d better go ahead and teach me how to do it right. It was from those guys that I came to be known as Doc Craft. My real name was Leroy Johnson, but when those guys saw me moving through the cars, dancing on my toes and being all cool and slick with my moves, they started calling me ‘the Doctor.’ That’s how I got my first name. My second name was a longer story. One day when I noticed that Sheik hadn’t made it to the lunch service, I took over his tables for him. When the crackers asked about him, I told them he’d had a heart attack on down the line and had had to get off. I told the crackers at the dinner service the same thing when Sheik hadn’t made it back by then. Those crackers were great and gave me a lot of big tips that day, maybe because they felt bad for Sheik, but I think it was more because they were happy to learn that a black boy had died in his service to them. I think it makes them feel more important. When Sheik finally came down from his high enough to notice what I’d done, he seemed real pleased that I knew what was what, but he still expected me to share my tips with him. Just why he should think I should do that I don’t know. I did all the work and I was the one who made up the heart attack. I decided those tips were mine and I was holding onto them. Sheik was mad about it at first, but he came over later and called me a crafty one and told me he liked me. Then Reverend Hendricks, who always listened to everything Sheik said, came over and told me I was Doc Craft, and that’s who I’ve been ever since. During the second World War, we were busy feeding the soldiers who were going off to fight. I wanted no part of that, but I could be safe and happy taking them and feeding them and stealing from them. There were no rules then about what you could do and what you couldn’t do. Everybody stole from everybody else and everybody knew it. It’s just the way things were then. Those soldiers, boy, they were just looking for ways to spend their money before they got shipped out to places where it wasn’t any good. So we found them ways. Sheik got to selling them his reefers out of the skullcaps they made us wear to keep hair out of their food. My specialty was getting them bootlegged booze. I had redcaps that I paid back at the station who would tell the soldiers who to ask for on the train and I had to pay a cut to the steward, but that was all part of the business. I was making good money and that was all that mattered. They have to like you if you’re making money for them. That’s the real rules of the game. It was great to be a waiter on the train because it was a whole different world from the world we got on the outside. On the train, we could make good money, we served the crackers, but we did it on our terms and in our way. We knew how to hustle them for bigger tips, we could order the white soldiers around and we were in control of the white farm girls who jumped on the trains at night. We were free, I mean really free, to do what we wanted when we wanted and how we wanted and that’s just the way it was on the road. But after a while, I got a little tired of it all, to where I didn’t really know what I wanted any more. I liked the freedom of the road, it was important to me to be on the move and anything that tried to keep me in one place got on my nerves real fast. Like women, they always wanted more and they always wanted you to stay. I got tired of women. I guess I had my last one when I was about 50. I just didn’t want to listen to their whining anymore. Then the war ended and the money stopped. Those soldier boys coming home were worried about saving their money to impress the farm girls back home and the farm girls didn’t want to go riding at night anymore, instead decided to settle down with those farm boys or to make it to the city and turn pro. The Commissary started putting together rulebooks we was supposed to follow and told us not to steal anymore because they were losing too much money to the airplanes. And then they started sending those inspectors along on the trains and secret spotters, too. They busted Casper the steward and they caught the Sheik out of his linen closet one day. To my mind, we got the Union just in time. It was when we got the Union that we really stopped stealing all that much and got organized and that really made the Commissary mad because now they couldn’t touch us anymore. So they started working on that there rule book, making up the rules that we’d been working for so many years. At first, there was nothing wrong with that. Those of us in the Old School had nothing left to learn because that rule book was written according to the service that we made up. But after a while, when they couldn’t get to us anymore, they started changing the rule book, making little changes that were hard to remember, especially when we’d been doing it a different way for such a long time. We knew it was just a matter of time before they figured out how to break up the Old School and get rid of all of us. For some reason, they had decided to go after me first, maybe because I loved the road so much. I had really cleaned up by then, I didn’t steal anymore and I only drank when we were not on the road because I just wanted to get moving again so much. They tried to warn me, those other waiters. They tried to tell me about the Commissary trying to get rid of all the Old School waiters and they tried to warn me about the hipsters jiving me to get my money for more drinks during our layovers, but I knew I was the best waiter there was and I knew how much I could get in tips and money never mattered much to me anyway. I was past 65 by then and I knew without the road, I wasn’t much of anything. Then the company men called me in and the doctors told me I had lumbago and a bad heart and that I was weak from drinking too much and would have to leave the road, but I told them no. Then they told me they’d give me a big pension and the company would pay for a big retirement party since I’d been working the road for so long and I was the oldest waiter working, but still I said no. I needed the road and I knew it. Without the road, I knew I would die and I knew the Union would have to back me as long as I could make it to the train on time and as long as I knew the service. But the word went out to the crews and everyone. They knew what they were supposed to do. Get Doc. That was the order. Most of my crew had worked with me for a long time and weren’t about to try to get me, but the steward Crouse, just couldn’t help himself. No matter what I did, it wasn’t good enough, fast enough, slow enough, or something. He’d yell at me, but it usually backfired on him when the passengers saw I knew my business and they’d get made at Crouse instead. And every time I won, I still knew I was going to lose. They’d get me in the end and nothing I did, even the best service I could give, would not save me. I was 73 and I was feeling it. My health was bad and I knew it, but I had to keep riding. That was the night before Jerry Ewald got on the train. I knew who he was, this inspector. He was sly and crafty and I knew he’d come on board with the order. He didn’t go after the two roughnecks who were stealing a nap on company time because he had come on to get me. I gave him art. I didn’t just serve him, I was a part of the service, everything flowed together as if it was just an extension of my own arm. I knew I’d given good service and I knew there was nothing he could fault me for. But then he mentioned the lemon wedge. The rules for how to serve the lemon wedge had changed in the last week and I hadn’t read the book. I knew he’d caught me and he knew it too. It was like something inside me had just snapped. They’d finally got me. I’d been waiting for it all along. I knew they couldn’t let a black man run free forever, but I kept on running as long as I could and I had a pretty good run I think. I just sat down and let it wash over me. It was over, I was done. When Uncle T. came over to apologize for me for sitting down, I couldn’t take it anymore. All I wanted to do was serve and ride the train, but they couldn’t even let me have that anymore. I just got up and went back to the waiters car. Left my tray and everything and just went back to my room, the only home I ever felt home. That was the night I died, lying there on that bunk staring up at the ceiling and knowing I was dead. My body stayed alive for some time after that. They made me retire and gave me the pension they’d talked about, but none of that mattered anymore. What mattered was the train was not moving under my feet, I was trapped, stuck in one place and wasn’t moving anywhere ever again. I drank to pass the time until my body realized my soul was dead and it didn’t take it long. Five months after I’d hit the ground, I wandered out to the old yard one last time and that’s where they found me, reunited body and soul at last and on the move again. Read More