Up in the Old Hotel (Vintage Classics) (29 page)

‘Then there is a type of woman who has caused many a lip reader to think of murder. She will sigh and say, “Sometimes I get so tired of the noise in the city, I think deafness would be a blessing.” All lip readers have had to put up with this remark scores of times. My friend upstairs, the fellow who asked you for a cigarette, is very meek and mild, but it always infuriates him. The last time a woman handed him this line, he gritted his teeth and said, “Lady, please forgive me, but you sure are a god-damn fool.”’

(1941)

Santa Claus Smith

A RAGGED, WHITE-BEARDED
old man who tells people he is John S. Smith of Riga, Latvia, Europe, began hitchhiking aimlessly on the highways of the United States early in 1934. He has been seen as far north as Clinton, Connecticut, but he spends most of his time in the South and Southwest. He wanders from Louisiana to California and back again about twice a year. He is approximately seventy years old. People who have had dealings with him say he has a kind, honest face, speaks broken English, smokes a pipe, wears an overcoat winter and summer, loves cats, and keeps a supply of brown wrapping paper, cut into oblong slips, in a pack he carries on his back. His behavior has puzzled waitresses, tourist-camp proprietors, and housewives in at least twenty-three states, and he is frequently a subject of conversation in highway lunchrooms at which drivers of cross-country trucks pull up for hamburgers and coffee.

On the night of October 23, 1936, for example, he strayed into a lunchroom on a highway near Columbus, Texas, told the waitress he had no money, and asked for a cup of coffee. She took him into the kitchen and gave him a bowl of stew, a jelly roll, and coffee. When he finished eating he took a grimy slip of brown paper out of his pack and scribbled on it with an indelible pencil. He slid the paper under his plate and hurried out into the night. When the waitress picked it up she found that it was an improvised check for $27,000, written on the Irving National Bank of New York and signed ‘John S. Smith of Riga, Latvia, Europe.’ On the back of the check was a note, ‘Fill your name in, send to bank.’ Four days later he turned up at a diner on the outskirts of Yuma, Arizona, and asked the counterman for coffee. After Smith departed, a similar check, for $2,000, was found beside his cup. On October 30th he was wandering along a highway near Indianola, Mississippi. He asked a farmer’s wife for something to eat and was so pleased
with
the flapjacks and molasses she gave him that he handed her two checks, one for $25,000 and the other for $1,000. On November 9th he asked the proprietor of a tourist camp near Denver if he could come in out of the cold for a few minutes. He sat beside the stove and filled his pipe with tobacco salvaged from a handful of cigarette stubs he took from his overcoat pocket. The proprietor made him a present of a dime can of tobacco. He wrote a check for $16,000, handed it to the proprietor, and went on his way. Five days later a housewife in Baldwin Park, California, gave him some scrambled eggs; he left a check for $12,000 beside the plate. Next day he gave checks aggregating $52,000 to waitresses in two cafés in Los Angeles. A month later he was back in Texas. On December 12th, on a street in Fort Worth, he asked a young woman sitting in a parked automobile for a nickel. She gave him a dime. Using a fender for a desk, he wrote her a check for $950. She laughed and thanked him. Then he took the check back, tore it up, and wrote another for $26,000. ‘That’s for your sweet smile,’ he said.

All these checks, like the one he gave the waitress in Columbus, Texas, were written on the Irving National Bank of New York. This bank went out of existence on January 6, 1923, eleven years before John S. Smith of Riga, Latvia, Europe, began writing checks on it. Mail addressed to the Irving National Bank is eventually delivered to its successor, the Irving Trust Company, and in the last six years two hundred and forty letters, most of them enclosing checks, have turned up at the Irving Trust from beneficiaries of John S. Smith’s generosity.

The old man wrote his first check on the Irving National on January 15, 1934. He handed it to a housewife in Dallas who had given him coffee. It was for $2,000. The housewife kept the check a few days, wondering if ‘it was just an old man’s fancy.’ Then she mailed it to the Irving National, and the Post Office delivered it to the Irving Trust. The teller who got the letter was startled. He went into a vault in which the Irving National’s books are still kept and searched through them, finding no trace of a Latvian Smith. There had been John S. Smiths among the depositors, but
it
did not take long to ascertain that none of them could be this one. The perplexed teller wrote the woman in Dallas, asking for more information about the unusual transaction. While he waited for her answer, a letter arrived from a housewife in Los Angeles, inquiring if Mr John S. Smith of Riga, Latvia, Europe, had an account in the Irving National Bank of New York, N.Y. She wrote that after she gave him something to eat he left her a check for $3,700. ‘This old man may not have good sense,’ she added.

Since then hardly a week has gone by that the Irving Trust has not received a hopeful letter from someone who has given food, tobacco, transportation, lodging, small change, or a sweet smile to Mr John S. Smith, getting a check for a substantial amount in return. The checks contained in the letters have ranged from $90 to $600,000. He handed the biggest check to a waitress in New Iberia, Louisiana, who had given him a hamburger sandwich. The $90 check was received by a minister’s wife in Terre Haute who gave him what she describes as ‘a good hot lunch’; evidently he did not think much of her cooking. The checks are always written on slips of brown wrapping paper and many are spotted with grease. Occasionally the old man writes the name of the recipient on a check. He gave a farmer’s wife a check for $8,000 bearing her name, and when she asked him how he knew it, he pointed to the R.F.D. mailbox in front of her house. Most often, however, he leaves a space on the check in which the recipient may write his or her name. He always misspells ‘thousand,’ writing it ‘tousand.’ His handwriting is vaguely Gothic and is often difficult to read. He decorates many of his checks with a symbol. It is a crude face with a smile on it. There are two pencil dots for eyes, a dot for a nose, and a line turned up at both ends for a mouth. This symbol, evidently his trademark, appears in the upper right-hand corner of some checks; on others it follows directly after the signature.

Just why he picked the Irving National Bank always has been a mystery. At first it was thought that he might once have worked for the bank as a janitor or guard, but personnel lists have been vainly checked for a clue. Tellers and stenographers at the Irving Trust have been put to a lot of trouble by the old man’s
check-writing
, but the trust company has never attempted to have him arrested, since no forgery is involved. So far as can be learned, he has never tried to cash a check or purchase anything with one. Irving Trust officials believe that John S. Smith is a simple-minded, goodhearted old man who feels that he should reward those treating him with kindness. The bank people call him Santa Claus Smith and wish that he had millions of dollars on deposit. Sometimes, for amusement, an official will get out the file of letters and, from postmarks, trace the old man’s crazy progress back and forth across the continent. However, the relationship between the old man and the bank has long since become a routine matter. The bank used to send lengthy replies to people who wrote letters, enclosing checks; now, when such a letter comes in, it is handed to a stenographer who types out this unvarying reply: ‘We are sorry we have to disillusion you, but we have no record that John S. Smith of Riga, Latvia, Europe, has ever maintained an account with the Irving Trust Company, or its predecessor, the Irving National Bank of New York. From numerous inquiries we have received from various sections of the country, it appears that this individual, in return for gratuitous meals or lodging, has given what purport to be drafts for large amounts drawn on the Irving National Bank. Sincerely yours, Irving Trust Company.’

One afternoon not long ago an official of the bank gave me permission to go through the file of letters written by John S. Smith’s deluded beneficiaries. The file is kept in the company’s main office at 1 Wall Street. First, however, I had to promise that I would not mention any of the names signed to the letters; the official feared that such mention might in some cases expose the writers to ridicule.

The first letter I read was from a waitress in a café at a tourist camp on U.S. Highway 11, near Gadsden, Alabama. It was written in pencil on two sheets of ruled tablet paper and dated March 27, 1936. She wrote that a few nights ago she had given a ham-and-egg sandwich to ‘a raggedy old man in his sixties or seventies with a pack on his back.’ Just before he left he handed her two slips of paper. One was a check for $25,000 and the other was a check
for
$1,000. This combination of checks turned up often. Possibly the check for $1,000 was Santa Claus Smith’s idea of a tip.

‘I naturally thought the old man was a nut going through the country,’ the waitress wrote, ‘but I studied the matter over, and it got my curiosity up, and I want to know has he got any money in your bank. As you know, strange things happen. If these checks are O.K., please send the money as I sure can use it to advantage. If not, please return same, as I desire to keep them for souvenirs.’

The next letter I pulled out of the file was from a farmer’s wife on Route 1, Metamora, Indiana. She also enclosed a check for $25,000 and one for $1,000.

‘Just a word of information please,’ she wrote. ‘Is there a man by the name of John S. Smith of Riga, Latvia, Europe, that has dealings with your bank? I will explain to you. Late one evening last July about the 18th [1935] there was an old man with a long beard and a very kind face turned in our lawn. He seemed to be a tramp. It was almost dusk. He asked if there was a chance to get a piece of bread. It has always been my custom to give to tramps if I have anything I can handy give. He was carrying a pack on his back so I told him to set down on the lawn. I had a nice warm supper cooked so I served him on the lawn. He seemed to be very hungry. I gave him a second serving. When he finished he took from his pack two checks copied on brown paper looked like they were cut from paper bags. He came forward and handed these to me with his plate. His face was so kind it is hard to believe he meant anything false.’

A similar confidence in the old man was displayed by a farmer of Silsbee, Texas, who wrote, ‘I received these checks from an old gentleman who ate breakfast at our home and I asked the bank here to handle same for me, and they seemed to think they were no good. I am different. This man had no reason to give us these checks knowing they were no good. So I still believe he wanted us to have this amount of money and we sure need it. Wishing you a merry Christmas and a happy New Year.’ The letter was dated December 20, 1937.

* * *

The majority of the letter-writers, however, are not so confident. They are suspicious but hopeful. Their letters follow a pattern. First the writers indicate that they are far too worldly-wise to believe that the checks are good; then in the next sentence they give the bank explicit instructions for forwarding the money. A waitress in San Antonio sent in a check for $7,000 and wrote, ‘I know this is just a joke, but a girl friend dared me to send it to you, so here it is. If he has an account with you, please send me the money by registered mail.’ A rather snippety waitress in a truck-drivers’ café in Muncie, Indiana, wrote, ‘Enclosed you will find one cheque for $1,000 given me by an uncouth beggar on your bank. If it has any value to it, open an account for me in your bank and deposit amount of check.’ A waitress in a restaurant on South Halsted Street, Chicago, was blunter. To a check for $270,000 she attached a note: ‘I guess the old nut who gave me this is fresh out of the nut house, but send me the money if true.’ A woman in Alabama City, Alabama, sent in a check for $21,000 via air mail and special delivery. Her letter contained an interesting description of old John S. ‘He was baldheaded wearing an overcoat and whiskers all over his face and I could not understand anything much he said, and he also had a walking stick,’ she wrote.

Some of the correspondents were not only suspicious of John S. Smith; they also showed that they did not entirely trust the Irving National Bank of New York. I found seven letters from people who sent photostatic copies of checks and said they would deposit the originals in their local banks if John S. Smith was sufficiently solvent. Also in the file were letters from banks in which people had tried to cash or deposit his checks. A bank in Kansas City wrote, ‘A customer of ours has high hopes that the enclosed paper is an order on your bank for the payment of $15,000. We have looked it over and our foreign-exchange teller has examined it, but none of us have quite figured it out. If you can throw any light on the matter, we will appreciate it.’

John S. Smith is far more generous to waitresses and housewives than he is to the motorists and truck-drivers with whom he hitches daylong rides. Evidently he places little value on transportation.
He
has never given a check exceeding $1,000 for an automobile ride; for a hamburger he has gone as high as $600,000.

The old straggler is a cat-lover. On July 6, 1934, he went into a café in Groton, South Dakota, and asked the wife of the proprietor to care for a cat he was carrying. She said she would. Then he wrote out two checks. One, for $4,000, was made payable ‘to person who upkeep the black and white cat name Smiles from John S. Smith of Riga, Latvia, Europe.’ On the other, which was for $1,000, he wrote, ‘Pay to anyone assisting care of cat.’

The letters do not throw much light on the mystery of John S. Smith’s past. He told a woman in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, that he left home in 1934 and began to wander because the depression got on his mind. This woman expressed a belief that ‘there is something wrong with the old man’s head.’ ‘I think he got loose from an institution and has been lost ever since,’ she wrote. He built up a romantic picture of himself for a young woman in San Antonio. She wrote, ‘I befriended a poorly dressed man who insisted upon writing me the attached order for $6,000. I put this paper away and attached no importance to it until recently when it occurred to me that so many strange things do happen that this might possibly be another instance. He stated that he purposely wore ragged clothes and rewarded those who helped him when he asked for help only through such an instrument as the attached as arrangements had been made with your bank to honor these and no others.’