Brubaker

Ralph Maxwell, who was in the Army Air Force with my grandfather Amos Brubaker, wrote up his recollection of how he came to own the Brubaker painting “Dancing Figure”


On a delightful Sunday afternoon in the spring of 1945, I was happily basking in the sun on the Santa Monica beach. Next to me was Jenny. She was a young, glamorous blonde who worked as a civilian secretary at the 1030th AAFBU where your granddad and I were stationed.

Jenny was from Ohio. She had won a local beauty contest back there, and as was inevitable, she was showered with congratulations and suggestions that she should go to Hollywood and become a movie star. The idea appealed to her and she headed west.

The problem, she soon learned, was that Los Angeles was flooded with attractive young women who had come there with the same goal. And like practically all of them, even though Jenny had exceptional personal attributes, she had no acting background or any insider film-industry contacts. Her dreams of stardom soon faded, and facing up to reality, she settled for a job with the Air Force, where I got to know her.

We weren’t exactly on a date. The previous day I had suggested that we meet on the beach in front of the Grand Hotel to “soak up a few rays”.

Well, anyhow, there we were reclining side by side on the sand – me a dumb, skinny, buck sergeant from North Dakota, and she a pulchritudinous beauty queen. I was in seventh heaven.

Then an acquaintance of mine suddenly strides up and says to me, “Did you hear about Brubaker?”

I said, “No, what about him?”

He said, “He’s in the city jail.”

Well, that really got my attention, because, as you know, Brubaker was a good buddy of mine. “What the heck for?” I ask.

“He beat up a guy last night in a hamburger joint.”

“Really? Doesn’t sound like Brubaker. What’s he charged with?”

“I don’t know. All I know is he’s in jail.”

The guy leaves, and I am pretty upset. My pal, Brubaker, in jail! What to do? Go see if I can somehow help him out? Leave this idyllic setting and the glamorous Jenny?

Jenny sees I’m agitated. She says, “Do you think you ought to go see him?”

I hesitate. Brubaker or Jenny. Jenny or Brubaker. It’s a Hobson’s choice. But then thoughts of a lonely and despondent Brubaker sitting there behind bars, cut off from the world, finally tipped the scale.

“I think I should go,” I say.

“It’s okay,” she says. “I understand.”

At the time I felt that was real nice of her. My kind of gal, I thought. But some resentment over my choice must have lodged in her mind, because in the aftermath she had nothing but “cold-shoulder” for me.

I showered, put on my uniform, and went to the Santa Monica jail. It was a small facility – in those days Santa Monica was a much smaller municipality than it is now. The jail consisted of an office with one police officer sitting at a desk and several cells in the rear. The policeman was quite friendly and accommodating, probably because in WWII men in military uniform were highly regarded by civilians. He told me Brubaker was being held on an assault and battery charge, and showed me a copy of the criminal complaint. It said the “defendant” had attacked the “complainant” and struck him repeatedly about the head and shoulders with his hands and fists.

The policeman conducted me to the stark cell where my downcast friend sat on a cot. It was plain that he welcomed the sight of me, and as we shook hands through the bars he visibly brightened.

What happened, Brubaker told me, was he had stopped the previous evening at the small hamburger shop of a fellow whose name I have forgotten, but who, for present purposes will call Bob. While Bob was frying the hamburger Brubaker had ordered, he started regaling the other customers with a string of abusive remarks about the quality of Brubaker’s abstract and impressionistic art work. Brubaker endured the insults for a while, but as the calumny persisted he became annoyed. And when Bob pointed at the Brubaker painting “Embryo” hanging on the wall, and blurted, “Doesn’t that picture make you want to puke?” Brubaker’s patience reached its limits. He dashed around the counter and swatted Bob soundly several times with an open hand. “Like I was punishing a kid for unacceptable behavior,” Brubaker told me.

After we visited for a while, I went back to see if the policeman knew if there was any possibility of getting your granddaddy out. He suggested I go see Bob and find out if he would withdraw his complaint. So I went to the hamburger shop and pleaded with the guy to drop the charges. He was in a surly, unforgiving mood, and adamantly refused. “I never backpedal,” he announced with finality.

So back to the jail go I. To the same policeman I suggested that the case was probably pretty weak in that Bob didn’t have a scratch on him. He agreed. And then he offered another suggestion – one that did bear fruit. He said I should contact the 1030th AAFBU Provost Marshal, and that perhaps the military might successfully intervene.

I knew that Brubaker had a good relationship with his commanding officer, so I went to see him first. That strategy proved excellent, because the good Captain immediately sprang into action. He corralled the Provost Marshal and together they went to the jail. Within the hour they had returned, Brubaker in tow. They had persuaded the powers-that-be that Brubaker should be transferred to military authorities for “appropriate disciplinary action.”

Well, that was the end of the case. The “military authorities” had no interest whatsoever in further pursuing the matter.

For my help in getting him sprung, Brubaker said I could have my pick of any of the dozen or so framed pictures he had for sale. And that is how I ended up with “Dancing Figure” which still adds a touch of class to one of the walls of my Minnesota home.

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