AN ARDUOUS JOURNEY TO NOWHERE
                                                                                        by
                                                                JAMES E. TRACY copyright 1968                                 32 chapters



                                                                              CHAPTER 1

                                                                              By All Means

    There were two events in my life that made me different from anyone else in the world. One was at the age of twelve when the doctors at the Shriners Crippled Children's Hospital in St. Louis told my parents that of the twelve worst crippled children in the world, I was number one. The experts gave me just a few days to live, a few weeks at the most; beyond that I would make medical history.
    The other was a bizarre twist of fate that resulted in my being befriended by the most notorious gangsters in American history. They would teach me the art of surviving in a tough world. In the early 1800s the Scotch-Irish clans from the hills of Tennessee and Kentucky once again began their restless migration westward, crossing over the Ohio River and entering this land of gently rolling hills and fertile valleys.
    In the years 1830-1831 the weather was unusually harsh and there followed one crop failure after another. The ensuing famine was so severe and lasted so long that the settlers were forced to appeal to the southern counties for food. It was then that the settlers recalled the Biblical story of a famine in which the people in the north appealed for food from the Pharaoh of Egypt, to the south. To this day the descendants of the pioneers still refer to southern Illinois as "Little Egypt."
    My parents lived in southern Illinois, on that section of land which lies in an irregular "V" carved out by the merging of the Mississippi, Ohio, and Wabash Rivers. There I was born, Glendell Gene Bybee (I go by the name of Gene.), on the first day of May 1926, in the little town of Harrisburg, at a time when the state of Illinois was controlled by three notorious gangs: the Charlie Birger gang, the three Shelton brothers, and Al Capone.
    Al Capone lived in Chicago and literally ruled that city. The Shelton boys lived in East St. Louis and controlled the rest of the state of Illinois. Charlie Birger was in partnership with the Sheltons and lived in Little Egypt...in Harrisburg. He lived on the other side of town in a home surprisingly modest for a gangster of his stature; but then, everyone in Harrisburg lived in a surprisingly modest home.
    Our paths might never have crossed had it not been for an old man who had a sometimes brilliant mind and likable personality. But more often, he was ranting and raving with delusions brought on by years of alcoholism. He was my Grandpa Bybee.
    The home that Mom and Dad lived in was given to them by Grandpa with the understanding that he would live with them until he died. Grandpa Bybee was a lawyer by profession--Charlie Birger's lawyer due to circumstances. He needed money for alcohol, alimony, and child support for five kids. His constant need for money forced Grandpa to take clients that any respectable lawyer would refuse. In short, he was Charlie Birger's type of lawyer.
    Naturally, Grandpa was free to bring anyone to the house that he wanted. Charlie Birger (pronounced Burger) was Grandpa's biggest client. Considering the kind of work Charlie was in, he was constantly needing legal advice--he needed it right now and not on the next business day. So, Charlie had the habit of dropping by the house whenever he wanted, whether it be during the day or the middle of the night.
    It wasn't just Charlie Birger who visited our house at all hours. Strange men came from all over southern Illinois, northern Kentucky, and Missouri. They all came to see my Grandpa Bybee, because he would do things that other lawyers would not do.
    It was in this house of questionable ethics that I was born. Doctor Jones delivered me. He was the worst doctor in town. He was also the cheapest, which is why my parents chose him.
    As I was growing up, I got to know Dr. Jones very well; and, honestly, I wouldn't let him be the doctor to my chickens. One time I was at another doctor's office when Dr. Jones' nurse came over and told him, "I don't know what to do. Dr. Jones just told a patient to take some medicine, but I know it will kill him." She was right. The patient died that night. Dr. Jones made a lot of mistakes.
    That gives you an idea of the competence of the doctor that would deliver me. Mom was almost thirty when I was born. Actually, she hadn't planned on getting married at all. She didn't meet Dad until she was twenty-six. By the customs of the time, she was considered an old maid, past the age of child bearing. Mom never did talk about it, but my birth almost killed her. The doctor said she waited too long to have her first child.
    From the start of my birth things went wrong. The doctor gave Mom a shot to speed up the delivery; but she started having a hard time, so he gave her another shot to slow her down. He just kept going back and forth, speeding her up and slowing her down.
    When I was finally delivered, it wasn't much relief for her. I was born without life. I wasn't breathing and had no heart beat. The doctor turned me upside down and slapped me on the back. It worked; but when he put me down, my breathing and heart stopped. He held me upside down again and started slapping me around. (Mom said he was really rough with me.) Again, it worked. Then, he put me down and I stopped. Up in the air, slap, slap; down, I died. Up and down, alive and dead, the doctor kept at it for one solid hour.
    I think Dr. Jones might have known, in the long run, more than we gave him credit for. He finally turned to Dad and said, "Are you sure you want the baby to live?"
    Dad was shocked and shot back, "By all means!" If Dad hadn't said that, I wouldn't be here today.
    So, Dr. Jones kept working on me. He had me going up and down for another hour. Finally, I stabilized. He stayed for another two hours just to make sure that I wasn't going to die again. He told Dad that it had been a very close call. He had been afraid that he was going to lose both the mother and the baby. But everything had worked out all right. "Not to worry," he said, as he walked out the door.
    I didn't eat for the first few few days. I lived off baby fat. Dr. Jones said that I had a very traumatic birth. My body was so exhausted, I just didn't have enough energy to eat. Mom tried to feed me, but I refused everything. Aunt Urtus, Mom's sister, insisted that I must eat. She took over and force fed me, relentlessly shoving a bottle into my mouth until I started swallowing on my own.
    On the day I started to eat, everyone rejoiced. "He should be a normal baby," Dr. Jones said. And everyone believed him...for a while.
    It was actually Charlie Birger who first told my mother that there was something wrong with me, but not right away. For a while, no one noticed anything unusual about me.
    Charlie Birger was an extraordinarily handsome man who carried himself ramrod straight. His coal black hair and swarthy completion made him look much younger than his forty-five years. Everyone who met Charlie (with some notable exceptions), said that he was the friendliest, most polite, well-mannered man that you would ever want to meet. And that he was, but not all the time. Sometimes Charlie could be awfully mean.
    To place Charlie Birger in the proper historical perspective, you need to understand a little history of the area. Harrisburg lies in Saline County. To the west a few miles is the Williamson County line. "Bloody Williamson" it had been called ever since the bloody vendettas of the 1870s. Remember, these people were from the hills of Kentucky. Their violent feuds were carried on from generation to generation. These vendettas lasted for years and scores died. Even now, fifty years later, you still have to talk about them in whispers, because some of the participants are still alive and holding a grudge. Those feuds created the name "Bloody Williamson."
    Four years before I was born there was a coal miners' strike in Williamson County. Two dozen men died, literally massacred, and the infamous title "Bloody Williamson" was splashed across the front page of every newspaper in America. Newspaper reporters throughout the country came pouring into Williamson right on the heels of the National Guard. In due time this infamous title would have died of its own accord...if it hadn't been for Charlie Birger. By the time Charlie Birger got through with Williamson County, more than one hundred people would lie dead, the National Guard would wonder if they would have to spend the rest of their military careers putting down insurrections, and the title "Bloody Williamson" would be revived in the minds of the citizenry for another fifty years.
    It is not surprising, then, that whenever Charlie walked through the door of our house, it scared Mom and Dad to death. They were always careful around him. He was too unpredictable. You just never knew how he was going to react. Eight weeks after my birth Mom found out just how unpredictable Charlie could be.
    Charlie had become infatuated with me and announced to Mom that he wanted to take me with him to work. Mom was appalled! She was afraid to let Charlie take me, but even more afraid to tell him so. She asked Grandpa to talk with him and see if he could change Charlie's mind. Grandpa told Mom, "Don't worry about the baby. He will be safe with Charlie Birger." And then he took another drink from his ever-present bottle.
    The next day Charlie came by the house and picked me up. He lovingly cradled me in one arm, while cradling his machine gun in the other, and walked out the door. Mom was near hysteria. Being the good Baptist woman that she was, Mom didn't stop pacing the floor or praying, until Charlie returned me safely.
    Sometimes Charlie would drop by two or three days in a row, always without prior notice. Whenever Mom opened the door and saw Charlie standing there, her blood would freeze. With a big grin on his face, Charlie would say, "How are you today, ma'am? I've come to get my little rascal and show him a real good time." She would hand me over and then her ordeal would start all over again. Day by day, Mom was getting closer to having a nervous breakdown.
    Dad told Mom that he wasn't going to put up with it any longer. They were both convinced that I was going to get killed, caught in the cross fire of some gangland shootout. They had good reason to fear: Charlie was always getting into gunfights. So Dad went to Grandpa and told him that he was going to tell Charlie that he couldn't take me any more.
    "Go ahead and tell Charlie if you want to," Grandpa warned, "but you know Charlie. You never know how he is going to react." They both sat down and had a drink. Dad decided to keep his mouth shut.
    While Mom and Dad were enduring a nightmare from which there was no awakening, I was having a ball. I looked forward with excitement to "my day out." Charlie took me everywhere: to his speakeasies and gambling joints, over to see the Sheltons, to the movies and ice cream parlors. He showered me with presents, clothes, toys, money and, of course, lots of toy guns. He didn't like blue, so he bought me a pink blanket. He would only buy colors that he liked.
    You may wonder why Charlie Birger became so infatuated with me. There was simply one peculiar thing about me which set me apart from other babies: I never cried. I mean that I never cried. Aunt Urtus told me that she didn't hear me cry until I was seven years old; and, even then it wasn't really a cry, just a kind of whimper. I was the happiest baby that anyone ever saw, always smiling, giggling, laughing. You know how everyone likes a happy baby. So, Charlie had to show off his happy baby to all his friends. And everyone who lived in Little Egypt was either Charlie Birger's friend...or dead.
    The Shelton gang took a liking to me. They told Charlie to make sure to bring the baby whenever he came over. I had become the mascot for all the gangsters. You would think that life could not possibly get any worse for my mother. But her little baby was about to bring her even greater challenges. The bell was about to ring for Round Two.
    It wasn't long after I was born that Charlie Birger and the Shelton gang broke up and started warring among themselves, knocking off each other's speakeasies and killing each other's men.
    The Shelton boys all went to church when they were kids, but there was always some question as to whether the religion took. The issue was finally settled when they blew up a church. They got meaner as they grew up. Even Al Capone's gunmen agreed that the Shelton brothers were the meanest gangsters that they ever saw. High praise indeed!
    Not long after the outbreak of the infamous Charlie Birger-Shelton War, Mom heard a firm knock on the door. Opening the door she saw several men on the lawn, none of whom she recognized. "Yes, may I help you?"
    One of the men stepped forward and politely asked, "How are you today, ma'am? You don't know us. May I introduce ourselves? We are the Shelton boys."
    Mom was taken completely by surprise. She knew who the Shelton boys were--everyone in southern Illinois knew who the Shelton boys were, but why were they knocking on her door?
    "The reason we are here is because, well...a...now that Charlie Birger and ourselves are on the outs with one another, well...ah...we would like to take the baby out, too."
    Mom was thunderstruck. Would this nightmare ever end? You didn't say no to the Shelton boys. They were as unpredictable as Charlie Birger, perhaps even more so. Her mind started racing desperately as she tried to figure a way out of this dilemma. If she let the Shelton boys have me, how would Charlie Birger react? If she said no, then how would the Sheltons react? Either way I was sure to get killed, caught in the cross fire of the two warring gangs.
    Mom needed time to think, so she took a chance and tried to stall. Taking a deep breath, and speaking quite calmly and naturally, she replied, "Well, if you don't mind, I would like to think about it." She took another deep breath and paused to see if it would be her last breath on this earth. It worked. The Sheltons told her, again politely, that they would be back in a few days for her answer.
    This turned out to be one of Mom's lucky days. Like Charlie Birger, sometimes the Shelton brothers could be very polite and well mannered. ("...the friendliest, most polite, well-mannered brothers that you ever want to meet.") As fate would have it, Mom met the Shelton boys on one of their polite days.
    When she knew they had gone, Mom raced downtown and frantically searched the different bars until she found Grandpa. With a trembling voice she told him what had just happened and begged Grandpa to talk to the Sheltons.
"Don't worry," Grandpa reassured her. "Leave it up to me. I'll take care of everything."
    Mom breathed a sigh of relief. She knew Grandpa was respected by the gangsters and they would listen to him.
Now Grandpa was pretty tough himself and intimidated by no one, including gangsters. One time Grandpa borrowed a gun from Charlie Birger and went out and killed a man himself. According to the custom of the time, he claimed self-defense. Nobody ever asked questions.
    "I will personally give the baby to the Shelton boys," Grandpa said as an afterthought, "with the understanding that under no circumstances, and I mean no circumstances, is the baby to get killed!" Mom fainted. Grandpa had another drink.
From the bar Mom went directly to the church and talked with the pastor. He told her to pray. And that is exactly what she did, one agonizing hour after another, day after day, until the time drew near for the return of the Shelton boys. It wasn't long before the dreaded knock was heard at the door.
    When I was older and could understand, my mother told me the story of what happened that day:
Standing before her was a stranger. She was overcome with an immediate sense of relief, for the Shelton boys were nowhere in sight. The gangsters would not get her baby on this day.
    The stranger was so resplendently dressed that the first thought that flashed through her mind was that this man must be of royalty. He wore a suit of the latest fashion, made of the finest material that money could buy. Parked at the curb was the largest automobile she had ever seen in her life.
    The smiling stranger tipped his hat and gave a slight bow in the manner of the aristocracy to which he most obviously was born. "How are you today, ma'am?" he asked with the utmost sophistication, gazing warmly and appreciatively into her eyes. Mother was instantly captivated by this strange and charming man. She had never before received such admiring attention from so distinguished a gentleman. She knew he was flattering her, and she loved it.
    She allowed her vanity to run wild. Now here is a man, she said to herself, of my caliber and station in life. (After all, Mother was a school teacher.) He must be a high government official, she thought. But what is he doing here? He must have the wrong house.
    "I am fine, thank you," she replied with a schoolgirl blush.
    "We haven't met before," he continued in his highly sophisticated style of speech. (He was obviously well educated, probably Harvard.) "Please allow me to introduce myself."
Mother blushed even more. Holding herself erect, with all the poise and charm that a woman could acquire growing up in a small, coal-mining town, she smiled graciously and awaited the introduction.
    "My name is Al Capone. I am here because..."

                                                                        CHAPTER 2

                                                                            Al and I

    Let me leave Al Capone standing at the door for a moment while I explain something. Everyone knew who Al Capone was. But if you lived outside southern Illinois, you were probably saying to yourself, I have never heard of Charlie Birger or the Shelton brothers. Al Capone's bloodthirsty killers knew who the Sheltons were...and they trembled.
    The Sheltons ruled longer than any gang in American history and struck terror even in the heart of the terrorist. It was all a matter of cultural differences, really. Al Capone and his team were Big City Gangsters. The Big City Gangsters considered themselves to be sophisticated professionals--cultured and living by their own twisted code of honor. The Sheltons were more primitive.
    When the Big City Gangsters killed someone, they did so as a matter of business and professional pride. They didn't have to know the person they were killing, nor have a personal grudge against them. It was a job they were sent out to do--nothing personal.
    When the Big City Boys had their territorial wars they would kill one another; but when the war was over and the truce made, all was forgiven and everyone was friends again.
    That wasn't so with the Shelton boys. The Shelton boys were descendants of the Kentucky hills' pioneers. If they figured you had slighted them (You didn't have to slight them, they only had to feel that you did.), they would follow you to the ends of the earth and never, never give up until they killed you. They took their killing "real personal."
    This never-wavering philosophy of vengeance scared Capone's gunmen out of their wits. They always felt uneasy around the Shelton brothers. If you asked their opinion of the Sheltons, they would always give the same answer: "They are just too unpredictable."
    The Shelton clan was so big that, if they wanted to, they could have fielded an army made up of just blood relatives. The whole bunch of them were in trouble with the law at one time or another. Eventually most of them learned crime didn't pay and turned to more acceptable professions.
    The history and infamy of the Shelton gang would be written in blood by the three brothers who decided to make crime a life-long profession: Carl, Earl, and Bernie. All were big, powerful-looking men. (Mom always described them as being robust.)
    Carl, the eldest, was the leader of the gang. Highly educated, sophisticated and sociable, he was the natural choice. (Rumor has it that he finished the seventh grade. To the Kentucky hillbillies that was considered highly educated.) Carl dressed well, yet conservatively. He was always mild mannered and friendly, never boisterous. Everyone who met him liked him instantly. The impression he gave was that of a successful banker. It was Carl who developed and cultivated the necessary contacts with the right people (the politicians and police) and arranged for the bribes.
    Carl Shelton's entrepreneurial ability enabled him to develop the gang into a formidable force. Like Charlie Birger, Carl Shelton could charm anyone he wished to use, misuse, abuse, or kill. With just a few gunmen he was able to control all crime in the state of Illinois outside of Al Capone's territory in Chicago. And I mean all crimes. If a little old lady was mugged in some small town, with or without the Sheltons' prior approval, the Sheltons were sure to get their cut.
    Bernie was the youngest of the three. He was just plain crude and mean. Bernie would stand around on the street corners of East St. Louis and wait for a fashionably dressed lady and her gentleman escort to walk by. Then Bernie would insult the lady with crude remarks. When her gentleman escort objected, Bernie would beat him up. I think that is all that needs to be said about Bernie Shelton.
    The third brother, Earl, was a big oaf who was so dumb that many considered him harmless...except the men he killed.
Like Charlie Birger, when the three Shelton brothers weren't killing people, they could be awfully kind to them.
    The legends of the generosities and good deeds of the Shelton brothers are still told to this day throughout Little Egypt. Their parents held split opinions about the boys. After the Shelton brothers became notorious, their father refused to talk to them; whereas, their mother always said they were good boys.
    Now don't misunderstand me. Not everyone was scared of the Sheltons. The Shelton gang would vary, depending on who got killed, between twenty and thirty members. Charlie Birger's gang, even counting the dead, had less. Although Al Capone's gunmen got nervous at the sound of the Shelton name, Capone did not. At his peak Al Capone had nearly one thousand gunmen as his right arm. Al Capone was Number One and everyone knew it, including the Sheltons and Charlie Birger. When  Al Capone told Charlie Birger or the Sheltons to do something, they did it.
    Before the gangland war, Charlie, the Sheltons, and Al Capone were all good friends. It was this friendship which brought Al Capone to our door on this particular day. Now with this background, let's go back to Al Capone standing at the door, introducing himself to my mother.
    "Yes?"
    "I am Al Capone...from Chicago."
    "Yes?" Mother said again. She did not comprehend who was standing in front of her, still thinking Al Capone was a high-ranking, government official. (You must realize that the average housewife in Harrisburg did not expect Al Capone to knock on her door.)
    Mom tried to make a connection. Quickly her mind searched through all the names of relatives and friends, but none of them lived in Chicago. John Miller lived in Chicago, but he had moved back to Harrisburg. No matter how hard she concentrated, she simply could not remember anyone living in Chicago. Maybe he was there to see Grandpa Bybee, the lawyer.
    "Do you have a son?"
    "Are you sure you have the right address? My son is just a baby."
    "I might have the wrong address. But I don't think so. Are you the one who has an unusual infant son?"
    "Yes. We have a son who is unusual, but we have not been able to establish what is wrong with him."
    "I have the right house then."
    Being a gracious hostess, Mom opened the door and invited the gentleman into her home. Al Capone took the wooden rocker near the door, while Mother sat in the wicker chair directly across from him.
    "I did not meet your son down here in Harrisburg. I met him when he was with Charlie Birger in Chicago."
It finally dawned on my mother who was sitting across from her. One thought raced through her mind: When is this ever going to stop? She wished she had never answered the door.
    Let me explain, at this point, that Al and I were old friends. Charlie Birger was in the habit of taking me to Chicago for several days at a time. In Chicago we always stayed with Al Capone. Capone liked the other gangsters and entertained them lavishly in his city. Mom knew that Charlie was taking me to stay with Al Capone in Chicago, but she had never met Capone face to face.
    Sometimes Charlie would order his business supplies through the mail and have them delivered to Harrisburg, but usually he preferred to drive up to Chicago and take delivery personally. Charlie liked to inspect and test the merchandise before he took delivery. It gave him a chance to see what was new in the killing business.
    The first time Charlie took me to Chicago was on one of his trips to buy business equipment: machine guns, ammunition, and a bulletproof vest; and the other normal equipment necessary to run a successful, specialized business. Chicago had the most modern armament in the world at that time. (Bulletproof glass was first invented for use by the Chicago gangsters.) It was certainly the world's most famous battleground. Naturally, Mom was not too excited about Charlie taking me to Chicago and staying with Al Capone; but as I explained before, there was nothing she could do about it.
    Two years before I was born, nobody had heard of Al Capone. Now he was at the height of his power and known throughout the world. He was valued at more than one hundred million dollars and making fifty million a year. There wasn't an insurance company in the world that would give him a policy on his life. (Don't laugh, he tried.)
    Al Capone was the undisputed ruler of the second largest city in America. He consolidated all of the rival gangs in the Chicago area under his leadership and had enough crooked politicians on his payroll to control the local government. To lock things up, he had half the police force on his payroll to the tune of thirty million dollars per year. And, at this point in time, Al Capone was only twenty-seven years old.
    The first time I was introduced to Al Capone, Charlie Birger had me all bundled up in his favorite blanket. Al Capone took one look at the pink blanket and informed Charlie, "Pink blankets are for girls. Blue blankets are for boys." With that enlightenment, Al ordered Charlie and me into his car and told the driver to head for Chicago's largest department store. There he bought me the bluest, blue blanket they had.
    From the department store, we went to dinner at Chicago's most lavish restaurant. Al sent the waiter out to the nearest delicatessen to buy my favorite baby food and vitamins. I dined royally that evening, although there was no dessert. That was because in the middle of the dinner Charlie showed Al the toy gun he had bought for me. That is not something that you brag about to another gangster. Al told the waiters to skip dessert and gave them his standard tip (one hundred dollars).
    He ordered us into the car for a trip back to the department store. Al bought me a toy cannon that made an even bigger bang than Charlie's toy gun. While we were on the way out the door, Al spotted a little steamboat that ran off candle power. He bought it for me and put it in my bath that night. We both had a grand time watching it fly around the bathtub.
    The biggest thrill was when he drove me around in his bulletproof car. He drove us all over Chicago in a car filled with bodyguards in front and another behind. He loved to show off in front of the other gangsters in his city. So we drove through the streets of Chicago for hours. Sometimes Al and Charlie would sing me a nursery rhyme, "This is the way we go to work, go to work, go to work..."
    Like Charlie Birger, Al Capone loved kids. He played Santa Claus for the local school every Christmas, always taking along a car filled with presents for everyone.
    It was the same when Charlie and I left for home. Al sent along a boxful of baby food and some more vitamins. While we were loading up Charlie's car, Al turned to him and said, "Something is wrong with this kid. Doesn't he ever cry? He has been here for five days and I haven't heard him cry once. All babies cry. This kid just isn't normal."
    As Charlie started to drive away, Al yelled after him, "This kid is mine not yours! Make sure that you bring the baby with you whenever you come up to Chicago." That command from Al Capone would assure me many more trips to Chicago.
Charlie could hardly wait to get back to Harrisburg and tell Mom the good news: Her son had found favor in the eyes of the King. You have to realize how excited Charlie was. The other gangsters just worshipped Al Capone.
    Charlie gave Mom strict instructions to have my blue blanket ready whenever I was going to Chicago. When we returned, she was ordered to put the blue blanket away and give me the pink blanket again. I just never could stand that pink blanket and I let Charlie know it too. Finally, Charlie told me that if I wanted to ride with him, I had to shut up and accept his pink blanket. The truth was, he didn't like my favoring Al Capone's blanket over his.
    There was one side to Al Capone that has never been written about and no one knows. He had a scientific mind, though not in the intellectual sense of an M.I.T. graduate. His scientific mind was more in the area of practical observation, like Thomas Edison's. He would spend hours observing things and trying to figure out what made them work.
    Mom told me that he would combine odd colors in his clothing; but somehow, it looked right on him. She didn't know of any other person who had this talent. Clothes with mismatched colors came into vogue only with the depression which is still in the future of this story. Al Capone was ahead of his time.
    His car weighed seven tons, with double sheets of bulletproof glass one half inch thick. The rear window was actually a concealed gun turret so he could fire at pursuing enemies. He tried to have his bulletproof car built in such a way that the bullets would hit the armored plating at an angle and bounce away. I don't know if it worked or not, but Capone was never killed in his bulletproof car.
    His different headquarters were designed with ingenious escape hatches and hidden chambers. One headquarters was built with twelve-inch thick, reinforced concrete that was bulletproof. They even had bulletproof shutters on the windows.
    His plans were usually well organized and well thought out. It is interesting to note that of all the crimes committed by Al Capone, including the murders of hundreds, that when it came time for him to go to prison, all the government could convict him of was income tax evasion.
    He had gone to prison once before for the possession of an unregistered weapon. But Capone was cheerful when he was caught. In fact, he had a personal friend, who was a cop, make the actual arrest. He had planned it in advance. There were a lot of people trying to kill him right at that particular time and he figured that prison would be the safest place that he could be.   He figured that his enemies would prefer to stay away from prison. He was right.
    Al was always telling Charlie Birger to never act on emotion and always think things through before he did anything. It was advice which Charlie would one day wish he had taken.
    One photograph of Al Capone that you will never see is one that reveals his handicap. He had a disfigured face. When he was a young man, he got into a fight with another hoodlum who slashed him with a razor. The razor left a vicious scar on the left side of his face. It looked like lightning had struck! For the rest of his life, Al Capone was more than overly sensitive about his disfigurement. When he became Warlord and someone to reckon with, he let it be known that all photographs were to be taken of his right profile only. That is why even today it is rare to see a photograph of Al Capone's disfigurement. Even the newspapers, Al Capone's avowed enemies, were sure to print only photos of his right side. Thus the nickname "Scarface" Al Capone. But the nickname "Scarface" would throw Al Capone into a rage, and no one ever called him "Scarface" to his...ah...scarface and lived.
    Capone would have soon lost interest in me if I had not been handicapped. People with handicaps have their own camaraderie, so "Scarface" Al Capone took me under his wing. He told my mother that society would never accept gangsters, nor would society ever accept a severely handicapped child.
    Each trip to Chicago found me a little older and Al Capone would try more complicated games. One day Al was dangling a toy in front of my face. Instead of reaching out and grasping the toy, which was the natural reaction for a baby of my age, I did just the opposite and placed my hands behind my head. Al took the toy away for a moment and then moved it back over my face again. My eyes fixed on the toy as I giggled with delight, but again my arms wrapped behind my neck. What had started out as a game for Al Capone, now became a scientific quest.
    Al paused for a moment deep in thought. Then he picked up a feather and started to tickle my face to see if my hands would come up and push the feather away. Instantly my head jerked back, but I made no attempt to push the feather away with my hands. Over and over, Al dangled different objects in front of my face to see if I would reach out and try to grasp the object. But each time my reactions were the same.
    Then he grabbed me under the arms and stood me up on my legs. Even though babies can't stand, they make an effort to stand by stiffening their legs. But I made no effort to stiffen my legs whatsoever.
    During all of this time, Al was experimenting with me, Charlie had been partying with Al's team. (Al always referred to his gang as his team whenever he talked with Mother. He was always trying to impress Mom with sophisticated words. Now team may not seem like a sophisticated word to you, but the gangsters certainly thought it was.)
    Finally, Al took Charlie aside and said, "There's something wrong with this kid." Charlie came over and Al went through the same experiments once more so Charlie could see. When Al was through, Charlie said, "I told Mrs. Bybee that something was wrong with the baby. He always lies on one side and never moves onto his back or the other side. That is just not natural. All babies toss around. But this baby never tosses." Charlie then demonstrated this by laying me on my left side. I didn't move a muscle.
    Al and Charlie discussed my odd reaction (actually non-reaction) for awhile. Charlie was afraid that I would get brain damage by lying in one position for long periods of time. Al agreed. Al told Charlie to tell my mother of their concern and have her move me into different positions from time to time so that I was not always lying in one position. Charlie carried the message to Mom as he was told, and, of course, Mother did as she was told.
    Now Al Capone was sitting directly in front of my mother carrying the message himself. It seems that Charlie had bought some supplies in Chicago. This time Al Capone decided that he would take the war material down to Harrisburg himself. On the way he decided to drop by and talk to my mother personally. That is why he had knocked on our door, unexpectedly, this day.
    Al sat across from my terrified mother. She tried to act calm as Al discussed the different experiments that he had run on me and my rather unorthodox reactions.
    "The baby's eyes follow things, but his hands won't respond to his wants," Al explained. "The last time I fed him I put the spoon down in front of the baby. He smiled and expected me to feed him. I pointed to the baby's arms and told him that he had hands and he had to feed himself. He understood, then his head went forward and his arms shot behind his back. He hit the bowl of food with his head and knocked it off the table. It destroyed everything.
    "It seems like the baby is wired up backwards." Capone went on, "He is not paralyzed. He can make every movement in the world. He just can't make the right movements."
    Mom replied that she was aware of my unusual responses, but she didn't know what to do about it. "The doctors always tell me that he is just a big, chubby, lazy baby and he will eventually grow out of it."
    Al then asked if she would mind if he took me to a specialist in Chicago to be examined. Mom agreed. On my next trip to Chicago, Al Capone could take me to the doctor of his choice.
    Al chatted with Mom for about forty-five minutes, then as he got up to leave, he swooped me up in his arms and told her, "I'm going out to deliver some supplies to Charlie Birger now. I'm going to take the baby with me and give Charlie his favorite treat. Charlie will bring the baby back later."
    When Al reached the car, he turned to Mom and said, "Oh, by the way, say hello to Gene's granddad for me. His granddad is a real good lawyer."
    Now what I am going to tell you is confidential. I don't want this in the book either. But I think my Granddad Bybee was a bit of a crook.
 

                                                                            CHAPTER 3

                                                                           Little Leapworm

    True to his word, on my next trip to Chicago, Al Capone took me to the best doctor in the city. The specialist diagnosed my problem as mild, spastic paralysis. (Years later the term spastic paralysis was changed to cerebral palsy. We call ourselves CPs.) That was the reason I was reacting in such a peculiar way.
    "He is just a big, chubby, lazy baby and will soon grow out of it," the best doctor in Chicago told Mr. Capone. "Not to worry."
There was never any bill for the best doctor's service. It seems that everybody in Chicago was Al Capone's friend, and they just couldn't do enough for him.
    When the time came that a baby should learn to crawl, I started to crawl...but, in my own way. I did not crawl on my hands and knees. I still had no control over my arms and hands, anyway. They would just go wherever they wanted. So, the arms would go behind my back and I crawled like a snake in a leapworm style of twisting and squirming forward. It is not unusual for a CP baby to crawl backwards.
    Lying on my stomach, I would bring one knee under my body and grip the floor with my toes. Then, I pushed as hard as I could and stretched as far forward as possible with the shoulder on the same side. Then I would repeat the process on the opposite side.
    My body would slither across the floor as I twisted and squirmed from side to side, eventually learning to propel myself forward at a literal breakneck speed. I have to admit it was different, but it was effective.
    All of Mom's friends were calling their babies by cute names: Cuddles, Darling, Happy, etc. One day Mom realized that all she called me was her Little Leapworm. She decided that it was time to talk with Dr. Andrews, my new doctor in Harrisburg.
Dr. Andrews examined me and then told Mom that I was just a big, chubby, lazy baby who didn't want to crawl right now. When I did, I would come out of it. Whenever Mom expressed her concern to Dr. Andrews, she would always get the same answer, "Not to worry."
    Not only did I crawl in a peculiar way, but I also turned over strangely. When I wanted to turn over, I would lie on my back and raise one leg into the air. Then I would push against the floor with my other leg flipping my body over in the direction of the raised leg. That's when my arms would go to work. They would fly out to both sides. One arm would slam against the floor and stop the roll. As this happened, I would have to push extra hard with my foot to put enough pressure on the arm to force it to collapse. Half of my body was working as hard as it could to roll me over, while the other half was working just as hard to stop it.
    "Not to worry," the doctor said.
    Al Capone and Charlie Birger were the first to realize that there was something wrong with me and that I was not going to "just grow out of it." They did not trust the doctors. In their line of business you could not afford to trust anyone.
    They were right.
    Charlie and Al decided on a plan of action. The first thing they did, which I have already mentioned, was to tell my mother not to let me lay on my one side for long periods of time. Then, they set me up on a strict program which consisted of a good diet, fresh air, plenty of exercise, and a good social environment.
    Every month Al shipped a box of special baby food that he picked out himself. You couldn't buy this brand in Harrisburg and even if you could, Mom couldn't have afforded it. Al sent so much that Mom didn't have to buy any baby food for me at all. In every box he included bottles of vitamins and minerals. He wanted me to have all the odds in my favor. The vitamins and minerals would make me healthy. He reasoned that a healthy baby would have a better chance of overcoming my medical problems.
    Opening Al's boxes was like opening a weird Christmas present. They were packed with all sorts of herbs, juices, and dried fruit. Mom told me that the dried fruit was candy. Al even sent down jars of carrot juice, but Mom didn't know what to do with them. Nobody in those days drank carrot juice!
    When you look at a photograph of Al Capone you see the stereotyped Italian gangster: 5' 10½", two hundred fifty-five pounds, looking years older than his actual age. The last thing in the world you would ever figure him for was a health nut, but that is exactly what he was. He converted several rooms in his headquarters building into a gymnasium. It was filled with exercise equipment--weights, rowing machines, punching bags, etc. He told me that vitamins were part of his equipment.
He constantly demanded prime physical fitness in his men, requiring them to go on a strict, daily regime of exercise. He even tried to get them to take vitamins. "I want to improve their brain power!"
    So the first part of Al and Charlie's program, a good diet, had been accomplished. The second part of the program was to get plenty of fresh air. It was decided that Charlie would take me out on his runs whenever he could. I would wait for Charlie to come by each day, whether he showed up or not. Whenever Charlie's car stopped outside our house, I would start leaping up and down, like leapworms do, and yelled excitedly at Mom, "My day out! My day out!"
    I think you can see why my mother dreaded the sound of a knock on the door in those days. Charlie would just drop by, scoop me up and I was gone.
    Charlie knew that Mom's greatest fear was that I would get killed while I was with him. So Charlie made a promise to my mother. If he ever got into a situation which might be dangerous, he would immediately take me home. Then, he would go back and kill the person!
    Charlie had his own code of honor and kept his word. He only killed one person when I was with him. (Only one that we know of.) You have to understand--to Charlie that was keeping his word. (Remember, Charlie had his own code of honor.)
Charlie had one peculiar thing about him. He always wanted people to agree with him. If they didn't, he would make a believer out of them, or kill them. So every once in a while Charlie would bring me back to the house early and hand me over to Mom. He proudly told her, "I've kept my promise to you, just like I said I would. I've brought the baby back safe. Now I have to go settle an argument." Mom went out of her mind everytime Charlie did that.
    Mother had the unresolved problem of the Shelton boys wanting to take me out. Finally she talked to Charlie about her dilemma. Charlie was always sensitive towards my mother's feelings and, in his own way, tried to assure her that there was nothing to worry about.
    "If the baby wants to go out with the Sheltons, then that is alright with me," he told her. "I will phone the Sheltons and both sides will agree not to kill anyone while the baby is with one of the gangs."
    Mom didn't have that much faith in the phone company. The Sheltons kept their headquarters a tight secret. Even the best newspaper reporters couldn't find it, let alone their avowed enemy who would blow them to pieces whenever and wherever he could find a Shelton.
    Mom finally got up enough courage and told the Sheltons, "I have decided to give Charlie Birger first priority on the baby." The Sheltons were real nice about Mom not letting me go out with them. They even let her live.
And so, it fell upon Charlie and not the Shelton brothers to see to it that I got plenty of fresh air.
    As for the third part of my program, exercise, Charlie hired a middle aged woman to give me exercise three times a day. (They called it exercise, but it was actually physical therapy.) Actually, they were exercises that Al Capone got from the doctor in Chicago. He passed them on to Charlie, who then told the woman what to do with me.
    She tried to re-educate me--reteach me how to crawl and move and do things that normal babies should do. She would say, "This is the way you bend your arms." As she was talking, she would bend my arms at the elbows. Then she would say, "Now you try to bend your arms." And my arms would go behind my back.
    She would try to shock my system back into normalcy by dipping me into a tub of warm water and then directly into another tub of cold water. I was shocked, but not into normalcy.
    If I did one of the exercises right then, I would get a reward; a little candy sucker or a big candy sucker, depending on whether I did the exercise real good or not so good.
    I didn't get many suckers.
    My best exercise, the one I always got a big sucker for, was getting a sun tan. I was placed in the sun and told to hold real still. I would lie there as quiet as a mouse until I was all brown.
    When I got sick, Charlie told Mom to choose any doctor in town. Then, he called the doctor and sent him over to the house to take care of me. The doctors always did it for free. Nobody ever asked Charlie for money.
    Once both Mom and Dad got sick and neither one of them could work. Charlie sent the doctor over to the house and saw to it that we had food. He paid the mortgage and utilities, and gave Mom cash for our other needs. If Mom and Dad couldn't afford to pay for something that Charlie thought that I needed, he would buy it for me.
    It wasn't just me that Charlie was always helping. If someone in town got sick and couldn't afford to pay for a doctor, Charlie would send one to their house. If necessary, he would send a nurse and, sometimes, his own men to take care of the person in need.
    Charlie would never allow anyone to go hungry. If he found out that anyone was out of food, he called the grocery store and had food delivered immediately. Sometimes Charlie bought groceries, warm clothes, or whatever they needed and delivered them himself. He would place the charitable box on the door steps and leave quietly. He didn't want to embarrass people.
    There were some contradictions in the way he did things. If he sent a doctor or lawyer to help someone; the doctor and lawyer served without pay. Charlie figured that they were just providing a service, so they didn't need to be paid. But, if Charlie sent over food or a nurse, he would pay for the groceries and the nurse out of his own pocket. In his mind he thought that these people were poor working folks who needed the money.
    But that was just like Charlie, always helping people. When the poor parents of Harrisburg couldn't afford to buy school books, Charlie would buy the books for the kids. One bad winter he rounded up all the coal that he could find and had it delivered to the destitute families. Charlie envisioned himself a modern-day Robin Hood. He loved to help people. He robbed from the rich and gave to the poor, keeping some of the money for himself as a service charge.
    There was a contrast to the way he treated people, too. He was really quite kind to them, but he didn't respect human life. When explaining Charlie's personality, Grandpa would always say that people with good points always had weak points, that it was only human.
    And so it was that the first three points of my gangster program were taken care of: a good diet, plenty of fresh air, lots of exercise. As for the fourth part of my program, the right social environment, that was easy. Both Al and Charlie wanted me to associate with the best. That meant Al Capone's team in Chicago and Charlie Birger's team...at Shady Rest.
 

                                                                        CHAPTER 4

                                                                          Shady Rest

    Everyone in Egypt knew where Shady Rest was. They also know what it was--the headquarters for the Charlie Birger gang. The police stayed away from the place.
    Shady Rest was located across the county line, over in Williamson County. Charlie's base of operation used to be in Harrisburg. How his headquarters came to be in Williamson County is an interesting story which displays Charlie's quasi honesty and sometimes cavalier personality.
    Charlie was born in Russia. His family was all a bunch of Jews. Everybody in Harrisburg hated Jews. Nobody really knew why. It was just the custom, I think. During the depression it seemed that the Jews were the only ones who had money; so they were still hated, but hated to a lesser degree. People figured that it was best to stay on the good side of those who still had some money.
    It was the Catholics that we were taught to formally hate. There were a lot of Italians that had immigrated into our part of the country over the years to work in the coal mines. They were all Catholics, every one of them. They brought with them their strange and false Gods, hundreds of them. They called them Saints. This was an affront to the rest of us in Egypt who always have, still do, and always will worship the true God.
    All of the Catholics drank wine, which meant they were all bootleggers. They worshipped the Pope in Rome who was the biggest bootlegger of them all. I know this to be true, because I have seen photographs of the Pope drinking wine on Sundays.
In Egypt, we were taught to hate the Catholics from the moment of birth. It was all right, because the Catholics were taught to hate us Protestants just as much.
    But the most hated group were the hillbillies. The hillbillies were hated because they were so dumb. They didn't even know that they were supposed to hate the Jews and the Catholics, so those dumb hillbillies didn't hate any one. That made the rest of us furious, because not only did we have to hate the Jews and the Catholics for ourselves, but we also had to hate them for the hillbillies--and the Scotch-Irish hated doing other people's work.
    But back to Jew Charlie who was born in Russia. Charlie's family came to the United States when Charlie was still a kid. He couldn't have spent too much of his youth in Russia, because he never spoke with any accent. He had one of those funny Russian names that nobody can pronounce, Shachna Itzik Birger. Not only is it hard to pronounce, but those Russians have a funny way of writing too.
    His family moved on to St. Louis and Charlie eventually made his way up into Harrisburg. Somewhere along the line he had dropped the funny Russian name and everybody knew him as Charlie Birger (pronounced Burger).
Charlie really liked living in Harrisburg. You will remember how I told you that Charlie wanted everybody to agree with him. Everyone in Harrisburg (those that were still living) loved, respected, and totally agreed with everything that Charlie Birger said and did. In Harrisburg Charlie found that one thing that all men strive for, but never achieve. He found his Utopia, his one spot on earth where he could live the idyllic life.
    Nothing could make Charlie leave Harrisburg. One former resident of Harrisburg had done pretty well for himself. (This was unusual as most people from Harrisburg rarely did well for themselves.) This guy wound up state's attorney for one of the counties across the river in Missouri. He invited Charlie to move to his county and run his business wide open. Not only would the law not interfere, but the state's attorney promised Charlie that the law would help in any way that he wanted.
    But Charlie liked Harrisburg, where he, his wife, and children could live in respectability. (That was Charlie's current wife. He had so many that nobody really knew how many he had. I don't think Charlie knew how many he had. Everybody just called them Mrs. Birger and that seemed to take care of the problem of identification.)
    Charlie saw to it that his family went to church, however, he didn't go with them. His wives were all gentiles and he was a Jew. Once in a while he would go to the synagogue down in St. Louis, because there were no Jewish synagogues in Harrisburg.
    Charlie worked hard, extra hard, to make Harrisburg a fine community where he could raise his family decently. He would not allow any lawlessness in Harrisburg, outside of his own. He assumed the role of public protector for his fellow townsmen. No criminals were allowed to enter Harrisburg without first obtaining Charlie Birger's permission. Once a criminal entered Harrisburg he was not allowed to commit any crimes within the city limits--no robbery, no murder, nor even mayhem--outside of Charlie's, of course. Many times Charlie singlehandedly apprehended those who broke this unwritten code and personally delivered the fool to the sheriff.
    Three months after I was born, three men robbed Bill Unsell, a mailman living in Harrisburg. Mom and Dad knew Bill Unsell really well and later bought a home from his son. The ring leader of the gang was afraid of being identified and a few days later went back and murdered the poor, old man. The murderer was arrested the next day.
    Charlie was furious. Charlie went right down to the jail and had the sheriff put him into the same cell as the murderer. Then Charlie went to work. He told the murderer that he himself was in jail (a very plausible story) and proceeded to scare the murderer to death by telling him that a mob was gathering outside to lynch him. Charlie convinced the now-trembling murderer that if he would confess he would personally see to it that his life was spared. Actually, Charlie went on to offer a little more than he could deliver. He also convinced the man that he would personally see to it that he went scot-free. The man signed the confession and Charlie saw to it that he was hung.
     Charlie even went so far as to refuse to allow any citizen of Harrisburg to patronize his gambling tables. He warned the people that they could not win betting against the professional gamblers and gangsters in the county roadhouses. "The games are fixed," he warned. He should know, he owned them.
    Charlie was always strict about who he allowed into his home. Most of the scum of the gangster world was forbidden to enter his house upon penalty of death.
    Cecil Knighton was an exception to this rule. He was one of Charlie's bartenders. Cecil was an affable, young man that Charlie liked instantly. Cecil was always welcome at the house on Poplar Street. Naturally, Charlie later killed him. It was a funny killing. Well, I don't mean that the killing itself was funny. It was just a regular, old, run-of-the-mill kind of gunfight; the kind Charlie was always getting into. Cecil fired first and Charlie fired back. Charlie won. It's what happened afterwards that's so funny.
    It seems that Cecil and Charlie both had the same taste in clothes. In fact, they both patronized the same clothing store, Rathbone and Brown. Both Charlie and Cecil liked fancy, silk shirts with their initial "C" monogrammed on the pockets. For Rathbone and Brown this meant a special order from Chicago.
    It seems that before he was killed, Cecil had ordered a bunch of these special, silk shirts with "C" for Cecil monogrammed on the pocket. (He didn't have time to pick them up before Charlie killed him.) As soon as he hit the dirt, everybody in Harrisburg knew that Cecil Knighton was dead, including Mr. Rathbone and Mr. Brown. They were now stuck with a large custom order of expensive silk shirts, which they could not return to sender or purchaser. So Rathbone looked at Brown. They both realized that they had a supply and demand problem.
    About this time, Charlie came walking through the door and told the proprietors that he needed a special order...of you know what! Brown looked at Rathbone and a smile came over the two partners' faces. Brown said to Charlie, "We were expecting you to come in pretty soon and make another order. We didn't want you to have to wait, so we placed it for you ahead of time. There they are all ready for you. Of course, your very own initial 'C' for Charlie, is monogrammed on the pocket." Charlie thanked them for being so thoughtful and bought them all.
    And so you see, Charlie Birger was leading an idyllic life in Harrisburg. But that was all about to change. You see, the idyllic life of a gangster in those days (and even in these days) depends upon how well you get along with the law enforcement officials. They could be your friends or they could be your enemies. If they were your enemies, they could cause you an awful lot of trouble.
    Now into the picture steps the newly elected sheriff of Saline County, John Small. It was the custom in those times that newly elected government officials in the state of Illinois would hold a meeting with the local gangsters. It was a convention of war, in which the articles of war were drawn up and agreed upon by both sides--the good guys and the bad guys. As soon as Sheriff Small was elected, the Harrisburg Convention of War was held. Charlie offered Sheriff Small a lot of money to stop being a good guy, go on Charlie's payroll, and become a bad buy.
    But, unfortunately for Charlie, Sheriff Small was one of the few honest policemen in Illinois at that time. He refused the bribe and immediately made a counter offer. Charlie could continue to operate as he always had, illegally. The sheriff would do everything he could to catch Charlie, but he would stay within the law. Charlie would not have to worry about blackmail or being illegally set up. But if Charlie got caught, fair and square, he would pay the price. Charlie agreed to the sheriff's terms of war.
    The manner in which Charlie attempted to bribe Sheriff Small was quite different from the way Charlie operated with the other police. Legend has it that Charlie offered John Small seventy-five thousand dollars to look the other way. That was a staggering amount of money for those days. But for the other cops, Charlie would just hold up a box with money in it and tell them to take what they wanted. They would reach in and take just a few dollars. Charlie would ask them if it was enough and they would reply, "Oh, that's all we need today, Charlie." The funny thing is that when Charlie allowed the police to set the amount of the bribes themselves, they didn't take much. But Sheriff Small, seventy-five thousand dollars! Wow! That was more bribe money than he gave all the other police, combined.
    It took Sheriff Small three years, but he finally caught Charlie and put him in jail. He served his jail term right there in Harrisburg.
    While Charlie was finishing off his sentence in the Harrisburg jail, one of the disgruntled prisoners set a mattress on fire. Smoke quickly filled the small jail and everyone behind bars, including Citizen Charlie, was about to suffocate.
At the time of this incident Sheriff Small was out of town and the sheriff's wife was left to run the jail all by herself. She didn't know what to do. If she left the prisoners in their cells, they would soon be dead; but if she released them, they would start running and never come back. Charlie told her to release all of the prisoners with his personal guarantee that no one would escape. She let everyone out and, true to his word, Charlie delivered all the prisoners safely back to their cells once the fire was out.
    Whenever Charlie was put in jail, it was always with regret. The Harrisburg newspaper usually ran an article by the editor apologizing for Charlie Birger being in jail again. The article explained that they expected things to be cleared up quickly and assured the community that he would be out soon.
    No matter whose jail Charlie was in, he was always liked and admired by the guards. There wasn't one of them who did not praise him for his exemplary behavior. The first thing Charlie did when he was temporarily placed in custody (until the misunderstanding could be straightened out) was to donate money to the local charities; and of course, make sure that the families of the jail guards and warden were taken care of. In return, they let Charlie have anything that he wanted while he was in jail: booze, broads, drugs. Oh, and one more thing, they also let him keep his loaded machine gun in his cell.
    Charlie never forgot to take care of the poor judges either. Many times the judge and juries would give Charlie a light sentence because he had been so good to everyone. Remember, these were the same liberal juries that found the defendants in the massacre innocent. Charlie just couldn't ask for better juries than in Little Egypt.
    Charlie was even gracious to the judge who sentenced him to a year at the federal penitentiary in Danville. With the naive look of a child, Charlie told the judge that he was innocent of all charges. He explained that he had learned his lesson and would never do it again.
    While he served his sentence, Danville's warden never bothered to lock him up. He even gave Charlie his own apartment, and...oh...also, "Anything you want, Charlie." When Charlie had business to take care of, they just let him loose for a few days. He always came back. Charlie Birger was a model prisoner indeed!
    Charlie Birger was just one of those rare individuals who was a legend in his own time. There was hardly a man, woman, or child in Little Egypt who Charlie Birger had not helped in their time of need. If not helped themselves, they at least knew someone whom Charlie had helped. It was not uncommon for Charlie to be secretly supporting more than a dozen destitute families all at the same time. He certainly helped the police earn extra income.
    But back to the story of how Charlie Birger came to move his headquarters to Williamson County. When Charlie finished his jail sentence, he asked for another counsel of war with Sheriff Small. The two men had been locked in combat for three years. The terms of war had been agreed upon ahead of time. Both being honest men, Charlie and Sheriff Small had fought their battles according to the prescribed rules of war. Charlie Birger had lost. Charlie decided to accept defeat gracefully. He now made a magnanimous offer to Sheriff Small. He told the Sheriff that he would commit no more crimes in Saline County.     Not only would Charlie commit no more crimes in the county, but he would see to it that none of his men committed crimes there either. He even went so far as to promise that he and his gang would no longer practice their favorite sport in the country. They would not kill any more people in Saline County. (Remember, killing people to Charlie was not a crime. That was sport, or self-defense, depending on what mood Charlie was in that day.)
    Saline County would be whistle clean.
    Charlie kept his word. He never killed another man in Saline County...well, not very many. Although he continued to live there, as explained before, he would allow no crimes to be committed in Harrisburg--not by his gang, or any other gang, or any individual. And it was this promise which eventually brought about one of the bloodiest chapters in American history.
He then packed up his operations and moved his headquarters to the next county over, to Bloody Williamson ...and built Shady Rest.
    Shady Rest was located north of Highway 13, half-way between Marion and Harrisburg on the old Marion-Harrisburg Road. Here Charlie purchased forty acres. Oak and hickory trees abounded in the area giving off welcome shade in the sultry heat of summer, earning the headquarters its name Shady Rest.
    When you turned into Shady Rest, the first structure was a barbecue stand which catered to the travelers between Harrisburg and Marion. The stand served sandwiches, snacks, and cold drinks.
More than a hundred yards beyond the stand was a log cabin. The end walls of the cabin were decorated with numerous trophies of the hunt--mostly elk and deer heads with their impressive racks of antlers. (That was all that was left of the poor critters after they got hit with a machine gun blast.)
    This log cabin was unlike any you have ever seen. The logs were a foot thick, designed to stop any bullets in use at that time. The inside looked like an armory. The basement was actually a fortified bunker, weapons were everywhere. Case upon case of food and ammunition were stacked as far as the eye could see. Shady Rest had its own electrical generators in case the main electric line was cut. Floodlights were set up to thwart any night attack. Shady Rest had been built for one purpose, to withstand a siege.
    Armed men were posted throughout the forty acres and even beyond. Anyone wishing to go from the stand to the cabin had to be escorted by one of Charlie's heavily armed men. Anyone attempting to go to the cabin without an authorized escort would be gunned down immediately, without warning.
    Charlie had built an impenetrable fortress. He had not missed a single point in the defense plans. The only way that Shady Rest could be destroyed would be to drop a bomb down its chimney from an airplane.
    Now you see why the police never came near the place.
    And this is where I spent my days at play.
 

                                                                            CHAPTER 5

                                                                         My Days at Play

    Charlie kept several pets at Shady Rest, including an eagle and a monkey. I got to be friends with the monkey and we played together a lot. But the eagle was aloof. He just sat there all day on his perch with a rope tied to his leg. You could tell that he wasn't too happy being a pet. Not only had he been used to a life of freedom, but had been ruler of the skies. He would soar a mile above the ground waiting to pounce on any unsuspecting prey below. Then he would dive with such force that its prey never knew what hit them. Now he just sat there all day, looking defiant and haughty. The two of us were never friends.
He was lucky that Charlie had taken a liking to him and decided to keep him as a pet. He could have just as easily wound up like the other animals whose heads decorated the cabin, only there is even less left when an eagle gets hit by a machine gun blast.
    I also got to be friends with one of the dogs, Jack. He was Charlie's favorite dog. He had spent his whole life fighting to the death in the pits. In his last fight Jack was severely wounded. Although beaten, he continued to fight on so bravely that his opponent was unable to kill him. Charlie admired his fighting spirit and kept him as a pet. The fight left Jack severely crippled, his front and rear legs on his right side were almost useless; and, like me, he now spent his days crawling and lunging forward. We were the best of friends.
    Every day Jack and I would wiggle and lunge off to a day of adventure in the fields of Shady Rest. I always thought that I was roaming about alone. In truth, I was always within sight of Charlie Birger or one of his men. I never realized that they could always see me and naturally assumed that I was by myself. That mistaken belief helped me develop a great deal of independence.
    Let me explain: I did not live in the same world that you live in. If you stand in the middle of a field of tall grass, what do you see? The grass may come as high as your knees, or perhaps your waist; but it does not come so high as to cover your eyes and block your vision.
    From your position you see everything: the distant mountains, the surrounding fences, hills, gullies, ponds. But that is not the same world that I saw. Instead of standing, now lie down in that same field, flat on your stomach. Now what do you see? The mountains, fences, hills, gullies, ponds--everything suddenly disappears. All you see now are the grass, ridges, and rocks immediately in front of you. Your vision, which a moment ago allowed you to look into infinity, now is reduced to just a few inches, a few feet at the most. You only see what is directly in front of you. That is the world in which I lived. That is why the guards could look down and see me, but I was unable to look up and see them.
    Whenever I wiggled away in search of adventure, nobody ever said 'No.' A great deal of independence for a growing child indeed!
    My education and training were a dilemma to my mother. She was an elementary school teacher, a teacher of small children. From her professional training, she knew that a child should not be overly protected from life, that a child can only learn and grow and mature by doing things. He can only find out where his limits in life are by finding out what he can and cannot do successfully. Along the way the child is bound to get hurt, both emotionally and physically. That is what life is all about.
    In spite of the fact that the doctors kept telling her "Not to worry," she was beginning to worry. She was beginning to worry that she had a handicapped child. She had the natural instinct of all mothers to protect their young, but she was also beginning to acquire the very strong and irrational instinct of all mothers of handicapped children to overprotect their child.
    All parents of handicapped children feel that they are the cause of the child's handicap: If only they hadn't tried to save money by getting the cheapest doctor in town. If only they hadn't done this. If only they hadn't done that. If only....If only....Because the mother is at fault, then the rationale goes, it is the responsibility of the mother to protect, protect, protect. So what was she to do? Listen to her instincts? Listen to her professional training? Or listen to the gangsters? She had no choice in the matter.
    My father was a totally different problem. Long before I was born, he said that he hoped he would never have a cripple in his family. It was an opinion that he voiced quite strongly and quite often. Everyone knew it. It was almost as though it was a premonition, because a cripple is exactly what he got--and, oh, so much more.
    Whereas Mom had a college education, Dad quit school in the eighth grade and worked on local farms until he was seventeen. Then, he started working in the oil fields and later switched to the coal mines around Harrisburg.
Status was important to my mother. Dad didn't even know what status was. The two of them were totally incompatible. Why they ever got married in the first place, I will never know.
    Dad had a hard life as a child. When his father, Grandpa Bybee, got divorced, his mother didn't want him. So he was raised by Grandpa Bybee, the alcoholic. The dwelling he grew up in wasn't much to brag about. It was thrown together with this and that; it even had a dirt floor. In the winter, the snow would blow through the cracks onto Dad's bed. Grandpa Bybee worked late in the evening and didn't come home until midnight, that is if he came home at all. Sometimes he didn't come home for several days at a time. Dad was ignored, semi-abandoned, misused, and abused. He was left to raise himself and survive on his own. Understandably, Dad developed a hatred for the world and everything in it.
    Mom had a hard upbringing also. She was five years old the first time she ran away from home. But, instead of turning against the world like Dad, she did just the opposite and dedicated her life to helping people and society. She went to college so she could be a teacher and develop the minds of the children of her community. She became deeply involved in community activities and the Baptist Church.
    Dad developed a very eccentric philosophy about life. Because of his hard upbringing, he wanted to be totally independent and self-supporting. He insisted that his family be totally independent also. He would not allow Mom or me to accept favors or help from anyone. My friends could play with me, but they were not allowed to help me in any physical way with my handicap. They could not feed me or assist me in any way. One time a neighbor built some crutches for me, so I could try to stand and walk. Dad made me give them back. Another time I accepted a present of a handkerchief. Dad threw the handkerchief away, then gave me a whipping.
    If Mom or I got hurt, he would become furious. In a rage of paranoia he would accuse us of getting hurt on purpose, due to our own stupid fault. Mom dislocated her ankle once and Dad would barely speak to her for four months.
However, if he got injured, or had even the slightest headache, he expected us to feel sorry for him. He wanted us to treat him like a baby and wait on him hand and foot.
    Dad could be very sociable. He was kind and friendly to people; until they hurt his feelings. (The hurts were almost always imaginary.) Then he would become violent, dangerously so. The slightest thing could throw him into a rage: If Mom spent too much money on groceries, or if I bumped into the furniture. (Which for me was very easy to do.) He would start screaming and yelling. He threw anything he could get his hands on: tables, chairs, the radio, and, of course, me. He would slam Mom against the wall again and again, trying to knock her out. Sometimes he succeeded. Then he would throw me into the wall. I would hit the floor, and if still conscious I would try to wiggle into the bedroom and get under the bed as quickly as possible. I believed in the old theory, 'out of sight, out of mind.' If I made it, I was safe. If not, I would get slammed into the wall again and again until Dad's rage subsided. Since I was already brain damaged from birth (That the doctors would determine later.), being bounced off the walls certainly didn't help my brain any.
    Mom would fight to protect me. Although she was a stocky five foot six, she was no match for Dad who was six feet tall. When she was dating my father, Mom knew that he had a temper. But she had no idea how violent he could be until after they were married.
    When he was not in a violent mood, Dad could be awfully friendly. (The friendliest, most polite, well-mannered man that you would ever want to meet.)
    He was a hard worker and a good provider. He was strict, but basically a good father. When he wasn't bouncing me off the walls, Dad would do everything possible to make me happy. He just didn't want people to see me wiggling around all day like a snake. He wanted to hide me in the house all of the time. He wanted to keep me away from people and shield me from the world. Somehow in his own mind, he believed that no one would know I existed.
    With this type of personality you would think that Charlie Birger would want to hire my dad for his gang. Charlie offered and Dad wanted to accept. The only reason he didn't go with Charlie Birger is because Granddad Bybee threatened to kill him if he did.
    You may wonder why my mother didn't just leave Dad, divorce him and be free of all the abuse that both she and I received at his hand. She had a job, so she had an income. But you must remember that these days were not those days. In the 1920s, in southern Illinois, a divorced woman was considered a whore. So she stayed through it all.
    So you see, it wasn't just Shady Rest that was my only battleground in life. Mom and Dad fought continuously over how I should be raised, neither having the vaguest idea what to do with a handicapped child. Maybe my parents could have molded me differently, my mother in her way and my father in his. But that was not possible after Shady Rest and Al Capone. He had his own ideas about how I should be raised and Al Capone was used to having his own way.
    More than anything--more than their women, fancy clothes and cars, more than the money and power--the gangsters wanted to be accepted by society. Al Capone considered himself to be a respectful businessman, only going into businesses for which there was great popular demand: women, gambling, and booze. He wouldn't touch narcotics. Being a good family man, he would have nothing to do with any business that he felt would harm the children of society.
    He became eminently successful at supplying the people of Chicago with what they wanted. When Al Capone walked into the race track or ballpark, the crowds would stand and cheer. They swarmed around him to shake hands.
    Sure, Al Capone and the other gangsters wanted the adulation of the crowds and their money, even sometimes their wives and lives. But more than all that, they wanted people to invite them into their homes. But the doors were always locked.
    "Why?" they kept asking themselves. The gangsters conducted themselves politely. They had wealth. Big cars. All that money could buy. Why wouldn't the husbands, wives, and children of society open their doors wide. Why wouldn't they welcome the gangsters with opened arms as they walked through their doors with a gorgeous, lavishly dressed, jewelry-bedecked whore on each arm? They were always trying to figure out where they fit in, only to discover that they didn't fit in anywhere.
    Al Capone laid out a survival plan for me and insisted that my parents follow it. I was to be allowed to try to do anything I wanted. I was to be allowed as much responsibility as possible. I was not to be over-restricted or overprotected. Capone believed that only through trial and error, success and failure, would I be able to learn how to get through life. If I got injured along the way, then that was just part of my learning process.
    Capone's orders were firm: He wanted me to make my own decisions and do as I wished, as long as I didn't bother people. If I crawled over to a neighbor's yard and they accepted me, then let me be. If I had enough energy to go as far as two or three different yards, then let me go. If I tried something that seemed foolish to my parents, then let me try anyway. If I couldn't do things the way other people did them, then let me do things my own way. If I moved along the ground like a leapworm, while the other kids were toddling, then that was just the way I got around.
    Al Capone simply accepted me for what I was. (But then, the gangsters were all oddballs themselves.) He would say, "I think the kid knows what he is doing, so let him find his own way." He was trying to prepare me for the real world. But remember, Al Capone's real world was much different from the real world's, real world. He made some predictions about the real world that would come true. He said that the day would come when society would not understand me, know what to do with me, or want me. As he said, "It's a cruel world."
    Now you see why Charlie Birger gave me such freedom at Shady Rest; freedom to do what I want, where and when I wanted to do it. He was just following Al Capone's orders.
    As I mentioned before, it is the natural instinct of all parents to protect their children. It is also the natural instinct of all parents of crippled children to want to overprotect them. But this is not a natural instinct for gangsters. Parents are constantly watching and protecting their babies from getting hurt. But gangsters are always hurting others and getting hurt themselves. It is no big deal to them. Maybe the gangsters would have treated me differently, protected me more, been more concerned, if I had cried when I got hurt...but I never cried.
    My parents tried to overprotect me. The gangsters succeeded in underprotecting me, and I spent more time with the gangsters as a baby than I did with my own parents. Being raised by the gangsters would be the one thing that would make me, my personality, abilities, dreams and ambitions totally different from all other crippled children.
    At Shady Rest I learned by the school of hard knocks, by trial and error. If I took a little leap and smashed my head into a rock, I learned to avoid rocks in the future. If I brushed against certain plants that ripped my skin open, I stayed way from those plants in the future. I learned to keep my eyes open for bees and wasps. They have their own territories and will defend that territory to the death; theirs and mine. I stayed away from the fighting roosters. They were trained to fight to the death and as soon as they see you, they will peck you to death. And, most of all, I stayed away from crowds. It is too easy to get stepped on.
    Each day I leapwormed off to new adventures, learning about life at a fast clip. I got used to getting hurt and took it in stride. Like a puppy dog, I followed the gang members around as they went about their duties at Shady Rest. If a fence blocked my way, no one picked me up and helped me over. Instead, they said, "You're going to have to learn to get by on your own. We're not going to be here forever to help you." So, I devised a way of getting through, or around the fence on my own. If I got stuck in a hole or tangled in a bush, then Jack was always there to haul me out.
    The gangsters would not do anything for me that I could not do for myself. They made me go over rocks, and through fields, streams, and irrigation ditches. Whenever I asked for help, they said, "Life is tough, Gene, and you better learn how to be tough, too. You need to learn to do things for yourself or you will never survive." I took to the independent way of life and never let go. I was free to roam all over the Shady Rest fields, of course, accompanied by an armed guard.
    While my parents did nothing and had no game plan for me, the gangsters taught me to do everything and had a plan for my survival. While other babies were growing fat and had soft skin, I was getting tough as nails. My body was being pounded all day as I leaped around Shady Rest. My skin was heavily callused and my muscles, firm with great strength.
    There was never a dull moment at Shady Rest. Something was always happening. Charlie had a specially built arena behind the cabin. In the evenings there were cock fights and, sometimes, dog fights. People would pour in from the surrounding states to watch these animals fight to the death.
    That was not the only entertainment. Charlie was quite a showman, and like I told you before, he liked to show me off. During the intermission, Charlie would parade me out into the arena, just like the other animals, and show the crowd what tricks he had taught me. Charlie constructed a wooden pole, anchoring it to a base, so that the pole stood straight up into the air. I would wiggle over to the pole, put my head against the base, then inch my way up, until I was finally standing erect. One thing Charlie and Al could never figure out was why I could work my way up that pole and stand erect, yet I could not stand or walk by myself.
    After my pole trick, I did my jump-rope trick. Charlie took one end of the rope and one of his men, the other. They would swing the rope while I hopped up and down on my stomach, skipping the rope. Next, Charlie strung a piece of barbed wire six inches above the ground. I would slither up to it then leap over the barbed wire. He used barbed wire instead of rope because it looked more dangerous. However, Charlie always held one end of the barbed wire himself. If I missed, he could jerk it out of the way so; I wouldn't get hurt. He also made a hoop out of barbed wire and I followed the dogs as they jumped through the hoop.
    Charlie's favorite trick was one of deception, naturally. He put soda in a beer bottle and beer in a soda bottle. I hated the taste of beer and loved the taste of soda. Naturally, I learned very quickly to go for the beer bottle whenever I wanted a soda. Once Charlie had me properly trained, I was ready to go before the public with his favorite trick.
    Charlie would casually stroll out into the middle of the arena with a big smirk on his face. He would place a beer bottle and a soda bottle next to each other. Casually strolling back to where I was, Charlie picked me up and placed me at the edge of the arena. Then he let go. I would wiggle over to the bottles as fast as my legs would propel me, grasp the beer bottle between my feet, roll over on my back, and drink the soda from the beer bottle like a circus bear. The crowd roared their approval as Charlie beamed proudly. Remember, this was during prohibition and Charlie made his living as a bootlegger, and the reason the crowd was at Shady Rest wasn't just because of the pit fights, but because it was also a place to get illegal liquor.
Charlie built a little roller coaster for me. To end the show one of his men put me in the cart and let go. I would roar down the roller coaster laughing and giggling all of the way. At the end of the tracks the cart came to an abrupt halt and I flew out of the cart into Charlie's arms.
    Every time I did a trick the crowd would throw coins into the arena. Charlie collected the coins and gave them to my mother for safe keeping. It wasn't a bad business to be in. One night I made a hundred dollars. I was soon the richest baby in Harrisburg, but I wasn't spoiled. I had to work hard for every penny of it.
    Sometimes the arena would double for live gladiatorial combat. Once, one of the Shelton brothers, Earl, goaded Charlie into a fight between their respective dogs. Charlie asked Earl how much his dog weighed. Earl kept a poker face and lied, understating his dog's weight by quite a few pounds. Charlie took Earl's word and his bet. The Shelton dog tore Charlie's to pieces. After the fight, Charlie got mighty suspicious and asked that the Shelton dog be weighed. The victorious dog was placed on the scale and Charlie watched as the indicator went quite a ways beyond where it should have. Without saying a word, he sauntered into the middle of the arena, leveled his machine gun at Earl Shelton, and cut loose. Earl returned the fire. It was the gunfight at the O.K. Corral all over again, only this time with machine guns. It all happened so quickly that no one had time to place bets.
    Once the spectators entered the pit area, they were packed in like sardines. It was mighty difficult to get out of there in a hurry. Charlie Birger and Earl Shelton took out almost half the population of Illinois, Kentucky, and Missouri that time. At that time the Sheltons and Charlie Birger were still friends and partners. As time went on, the relationship became even more strained.
    After that the Sheltons came to visit Shady Rest with their machine guns blazing, morning, noon, and night. Time after time, the Sheltons would roar past the barbecue stand and riddle it with machine gun fire. This became so routine that Charlie fortified the stand with steel sheets. It was the only barbecue stand in the state which could second as a machine gun bunker.
It happened the same way with every visit from the Sheltons. Everything would be peaceful. The tourist would be sipping a soda and munching on a sandwich, when all of a sudden someone would sound the alarm, "The Sheltons! The Sheltons!" Everyone dove for cover. As soon as I heard everyone yelling the names of my friends, the Sheltons, I would stop whatever I was doing and leap down to the barbecue stand as fast as I could. But I was always too late. As quickly as you can empty the canister on a Thompson submachine gun, the Sheltons were gone. My friends, always came and went without having time to stop and play with me. I would get cuts and bruises from my journey over the gravel road, but I didn't care; because I was always rewarded with a soda when I reached the stand. The rest of the day I spent sitting around listening to Charlie's gang talk about my friends the Sheltons in very excited tones.
    Charlie now had three goals in life: to keep the Sheltons from blowing up his chain of speakeasies, to keep the Sheltons from blowing up Shady rest, and to keep the Sheltons from blowing up Charlie Birger.
    Target practice was now mandatory each afternoon. Charlie marched his men down to the gunnery range while I leaped by his side. When the gang members had finished machine gun practice, one by one they stepped up to me and slammed one more canister into the weapon. They held up the machine gun while I pulled the triggers with my toe. Rat-a-tat-tat, I blasted away until the canister was empty. Then it was the next man's turn. My favorite target was a nude lady that spun around when you blasted her. I got so much practice that it wasn't long before I could hit the target every time. Soon word went throughout the land that I had the fastest toe in Little Egypt.
    Charlie didn't like to sit around Shady Rest killing time, when he could be killing people. He took the offensive. Charlie and his men now spent their evenings prowling the dark roads of Egypt looking for Sheltons. He tried to catch Shelton roadhouses by surprise, holding them up and then blowing them up. It now became a war of attrition to see which side could reduce his enemies' resources to nothing the fastest.
    But the Sheltons had one advantage, they kept their headquarters moving, letting no one know where they were. This made it impossible for Charlie Birger to hit their headquarters in one bold stroke and wipe out the entire gang once and for all. And that is exactly what Charlie had in mind. Charlie had an elaborate spy network throughout Egypt and he knew that it was just a matter of time before he located the headquarters of the Sheltons. And when he did find out, the Charlie Birger gang was prepared to launch a bold, swift strike.
    Time after time the Sheltons tried to penetrate the outer defenses of Shady Rest and get to the main cabin. Each time they failed...until, one day I looked up into the sky and saw an airplane circling overhead. It made a sharp bank and headed straight for the cabin. Then...one...two... three bombs were dropped. They were heading straight for the...chimney.
    The eagle continued to sit proudly in his typical invincible manner as the bombs continued their fall. The cabin was not hit, nor were any of the men injured. But the eagle learned that nature has its own pecking order--an airplane soars higher and is mightier than even an eagle. He was killed instantly. The poor eagle never knew what hit him.

                                                                            CHAPTER 6

                                                               A Strange Thing upon the Land

    Whereas other babies grew and developed vertically, standing upright and toddling, I continued to grow through life horizontally. I gradually outgrew my wiggleworm way of getting about and developed a new and far more spectacular way of maneuvering.
    As my muscles developed and grew more agile, my legs soon became strong enough to raise my body off the ground, just slightly at first, but enough to eliminate the drag of my body against the ground. Instead of wiggling on the ground, I was now taking small, but quick lunges forward, over the ground. These lunges eventually progressed into leaps.
    As a leaper, I became quite spectacular, but not at first. When I first started leaping, my movements were awkward and uncoordinated. To observe me hopping up and down, one would think that I was accomplishing nothing; but with daily practice, ever-so-gradually my movements became more refined. As I grew, so did my ability to leap. Eventually, I was better at leaping than a championship bullfrog.
    To leap, I snapped both knees under my chest. My toes instinctively dug into the ground as every muscle in my body thrust power downwards into my legs and feet. As the balls of my feet pushed against the ground, I began to rise into the air. At the finish of the thrust, my entire body leaped into the air, both arms flying straight out to my sides. Like a chubby little airplane I was off and flying.
    In the beginning stages my leaps covered only a few inches, then my flight was over. Like any weighty object flying through the air losing its power of propulsion, I had to come back to the earth. So I would say good-bye to my bird friends and look for a landing spot. Of course, my arms and hands would have been quite helpful for landing, but they continued to do their own thing and just flapped out to both sides. When I picked out a landing spot, I ducked my head down and hit the ground square on my forehead, Instantly I dropped onto my chest and shoulders to absorb the full shock of the plunge back to the ground. I hit the ground so hard that my body would bounce. (Al Capone insisted that I wear aviation goggles to protect my eyes. I was always breaking the goggles.) I took advantage of the bounce. As my body rebounded upwards, I snapped both knees under my chest thrusting my body once more into the air.
    Anyone who saw me bounding over the ground would swear that I was leaping on my head. The truth of the matter is that I was leaping on my chest. I used my head as a stabilizer. The glancing blow of my forehead hitting the ground positioned the rest of my body for proper alignment when it hit. It was like a cat being dropped upside down and spinning in mid-air so it can land on all four feet.
    After the glancing blow with my forehead, I would continue the fall. I landed on my chest first, allowing the force of the fall to be absorbed across the entire chest and shoulder areas. You might think that this would hurt, but the chest and shoulders provide a very large area over which to cushion the shock. It's certainly a much larger area than the soles of one's feet.
    You might also think that this is a strange way for anyone to get around; but, it is all a matter of perspective. From your point of view it might seem unusual; but from mine, it is quite logical, even normal.
    Let me explain. All handicapped children automatically compensate for their disabilities. Since I was unable to use my hands, I instinctively used my feet as if they were hands. I couldn't stand or toddle like other babies, so I automatically started wiggling and from there I graduated to leaping. My first leaps were little hops up and down. I progressed over a period of time to higher and higher, longer and longer leaps. It was just as natural as a normal baby's progression from crawling, to toddling, to walking, to running. Leaping was a normal and natural way of getting around--normal and natural, to me.
    My only concern was that I got where I wanted to go. It made no difference that my friends could walk and run, and I could not. I just figured that it was their normal way of getting somewhere. It was just as normal as my leaping. Besides, leaping was obviously a superior way to traveling. My little playmates could not run as fast as I could leap. Even Mom was not as fast a walker as I was a leaper.
    Mom started calling me a praying mantis. She worried about my getting hurt and tried everything she could to protect me. She wrapped all kinds of things around my forehead: towels, elastic bandages, sponges, leather bands. She tried to strap on a football helmet, then a strong leather cap, even Dad's steel coal-miner's hat. She tried to protect my chest and shoulders with football shoulder pads...and everything else you can imagine. Nothing worked. They took such a terrific beating that they ripped off after only a few minutes of leaping.
    Finally, Mom gave up trying to protect me. My body became one tough callous. I even developed one on my forehead. In the middle of that callous I had a big black spot. That black spot really bothered Mom; because no matter how hard she tried, she could never wash it off.
    Every day I would go scooting down the stairs and leap next door to Eddie Smith's house. We were the best of friends. Eddie and I played together all day and night. We did everything together. We would dig mud together; he, with a spoon in his hand and I, with a spoon between my toes. We would play hide-and-seek with the other kids. (The weeping willow tree was the best place to hide.) But tag was my favorite game. I would leap along side the other kids and kick them with my foot to count as a tag.
    But leaping was not without its hazards. You know how kids like to imitate. The first time Eddie saw me leaping, he tried to imitate me. He leaped straight up into the air with his arms straight out like a perfect little airplane and smiled. Then he came straight down, still smiling, and busted his head open!
    His mother had to take him to the hospital to have his head stitched up. She came over one afternoon and told my mother that she thought I was setting a bad example for the other kids. In fact, I panicked all of the other mothers. But it wasn't as serious as they thought. Even though all the other kids tried to imitate me, they only tried it once. After the first leap, they would use their hands for landing, instead of their heads.
    And that is how I now spent my days at play--leaping over the ground, finding a landing spot, tucking my head down, bump with my forehead, thump with my chest, and bounce! The pattern developed a rhythm: thrust, bump, thump, bounce; thrust, bump, thump, bounce. The rhythm continued as I spent hour after hour leaping across the ground.
    And this is the way I moved upon the face of the land until I was five years old.

                                                                            CHAPTER 7
                                                                       
                                                                       Still a Praying Mantis

    As my mother stood at the door and watched me leaping off for a day of play, somehow, I don't think that this is what she had in mind when she wanted to have a baby. She planned on having four sons: one was to be a writer, another a sculptor, a musician, and an artist. She never planned on having a praying mantis. But, really, how many women think about have a praying mantis?
    By the time I was two years old, I was still a praying mantis. Mom just didn't know what to do about me, and then, one day she read in the newspaper that the Saline County Fair was having a baby contest. The judge was to be prominent lady pediatrician from the State Department of Health.
    If Mom could only get some time alone with the lady judge, she reasoned, it would be a good opportunity to talk to another specialist. She contacted the people who were sponsoring the baby contest and explained to them my problems. She made it clear that she was not interested in entering me in the baby contest, only having the pediatrician from the State Department of Health look at me and give her opinion.
    The people on the contest committee told Mom to bring me to the fair and they would arrange for the pediatrician to look at me. Two weeks later I went to the fair and the pediatrician took a look at me during a break in the contest. After the examination, she announced to my mother that I had spastic paralysis; but she did not believe it to be a severe case. "He will grow out of it. Not to worry," the prominent pediatrician said.
    The lady doctor then asked Mom to enter me in the baby contest. Mom felt obligated because of the free examination; so without having her heart in it, she filled out the entrance form.
    I wiggled and squirmed all over the place like a leapworm. I hopped around on my head like a praying mantis. All the time I was laughing, giggling, and smiling. I won first prize hands down. I even got my picture on the front page of the paper.
    Mom came away from the fair happy that day. She had been assured that there was nothing seriously wrong with me and her baby had won the blue ribbon.
    Within six months Mother's concern returned. I was not making the progress that the doctors predicted. My parents decided to try a different approach.
    Dad was a member of the Masonic Lodge; and because of his membership, he was able to talk to one of the top Shriners in our area about sponsoring me at the Shriners Crippled Children's Hospital in St. Louis. Mom and Dad wanted me to be examined by the best doctors in the world and Shriners had the best. Unfortunately, Dad was turned down, because our family had enough money to pay for a private doctor.
    While all of my friends were growing up to be children, I was still growing up to be a praying mantis. I became a three-year-old praying mantis, and then a four-year-old praying mantis. I still had no control over my arms; my legs were good for leaping, but not for walking. Although I could walk if I was supported between two people, I could never walk by myself. Someone always had to get me out of bed, dress, feed, and bathe; then put me to bed again at night. I was growing up, yet still had to be handled like a baby.
    One day, when I was four years old, Mom and I were walking past Dr. Andrews' house. Dr. Andrews looked out the window and saw me leaping by and said, "There's something wrong with that kid!"
    He decided to do some research and started delving into his medical books, trying to find some ideas for a treatment. Finally, he came up with the diagnosis that my nerves were dead and that they needed to be reactivated. He went to work and built his own electrical machine. It had an electrical wire coming out of one side with wire bristles attached to the end of it. He ran a low current of electricity through the bristles and brushed them over my body. It had the intended effect and activated my nerves. The problem was that I was already hyper and overly sensitive. My nerves were more alive than he could imagine. The electrical treatment only made me more hyper and more sensitive. The treatment only magnified my problem, but the doctor was determined. He continued the treatments for several months before finally giving up.
    As you can see, my handicap was quite rare. It certainly had all of the doctors stumped. It was even rarer that my doctor had another patient, a little girl, also my age, who was also diagnosed as having spastic paralysis. To have two people in the same county with the same rare handicap was quite unusual. To have them both going to the same doctor was a million in one chance.
    One day I was at Dr. Andrews' office and my mother said, "Gene, I want you to meet this little girl. She has the same thing that you have."
    The other mother said, "Teresa, I want you to meet this little boy. He has the same thing that you have."
    "I look like that!" I screamed.
    At the same moment the little girl shrieked, "I look like that!"
    We both spun around and ran away from each other as fast as we could, screaming at the top of our lungs. While Teresa and I were screaming, our parents thought that it was a good opportunity to compare notes.
    From that time on, Mom would always try to search out other parents in the surrounding communities who had children with the same condition. The parents would keep in touch with one another to pass on any information they learned about new doctors, medicines, treatments, and so on. Whenever one set of parents went to a new doctor or tried a new medication or treatment, they would immediately inform the other parents.
    Each week one family would take care of the other's handicapped child for the day. This allowed the parents some time to themselves and one day's rest every two weeks from the constant strain of taking care of a handicapped child.
    That's how I got to know Leah. She was my age, had spastic paralysis, and lived ten miles away in Liberty. Our two families would eventually become good friends.
    When I went to Leah's house, her older sister Maggie would usually drive over and pick me up. Maggie would take care of both of us at the same time. For years Maggie was a big sister to me. She took us swimming and drove us to picnics and movies. (I clapped with my feet.) We did all the things kids like to do.
    As I explained before, my mother was a devout Baptist. She was an active church goer and participated in all of the church activities. But her strongest interest was in music. She played the piano and was active in the church choir. She was also involved in all of the music festivals in the county. She had the habit of taking me with her when she went to these activities. I was never any bother. Remember, I never cried.
    One day, when I was three or four years old, I hooked my toes around the leg of my high chair and wiggled over to the piano, dragging the chair behind me. I told my mother to sit me in the high chair. After I was situated, I told her to adjust my body so that my legs were level to the keyboard and asked her to teach me to play the piano. And she did. I would pound away for hours on the keys with my feet and toes acting as my hands and fingers. Although seeing a child play the piano with his toes may seem strange to you, it was as natural to me as using my hands and fingers.
    I managed the basics within six months and had to teach myself from that point on. I found the different cords to be interesting and by the time I was five or six I started to learn how to blend keys. Most of the songs I learned were from church, because those were the ones I heard the most. I also liked to compose my own tunes by blending and combining one tune with another.
    The first song I mastered was "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star."
 

                                                                          
                                                                            CHAPTER 8

                                                                        My-Get-A-Round

    For five years everyone had been concerned about my crawling on the ground, fearful that I would get contaminated with all of the germs of the earth. Of course, I was always getting cuts and bruises...and a whole lot of other injuries too numerous to describe.
    Al Capone was always trying to devise some means of keeping me off the ground. Everytime he came down to visit me he would have some new contraption that he had built. He started off by wrapping my entire body in lamb's wool. It worked really well cushioning the bounce and avoiding scratches and bruises; but it wore out too quickly and besides it was too hot.     After a few weeks, the lamb's wool idea was discarded. Next he strapped sponges around my body. Again, it was good protection, but they killed my bounce. Scratch that idea. Then he came up with the idea of gluing a lot of rubber balls together and strapping them to my body. They worked real well and increased my bounce considerably, but the glue wouldn't hold very long. The balls flew apart and bounced every which way.
    Al Capone just wouldn't give up. I became his pet project and every time he came down into Egyptland he would drop by the house and take me out for another day of experiments.
    When Al Capone took me out for the day, I would find myself surrounded by bodyguards. He never had less than a dozen bodyguards with him, each handpicked by Capone personally. In fact, each was a mirror image of Al Capone. They were Al Capone's alter ego, his perception of the perfect gangster. Each was immaculately dressed. Each had a sophisticated accent. Each was extremely polite, always replying with a "Yes, sir" or "No, sir." I don't need to tell you this, but--they were the friendliest, most polite, well-mannered bodyguards that you would ever want to meet; even more so than Charlie Birger and the Shelton brothers.
    Like Al Capone, each bodyguard could gun down a man without flinching. Their job was to surround Al (and me) with a shield of human bodies. The ring they threw around us was never less than two men deep. Each man was willing to die using his body to stop any bullets meant for the king. Like I said before, the gangsters worshipped Al Capone. Whenever I was with him I was better protected than the President of the United States.
    Al liked to carry me in his arms, but sometimes I fussed until he let me down. Then I wiggled or hopped by his side. I never liked the bodyguards though, because they were always stepping on me. Shady Rest made me gun shy and I was injured more than once by some drunk stepping on me. When Al Capone stepped on you, it was like being stepped on by an elephant.
    Anyway, Al kept coming up with new inventions--one failure after another. Until one day he hit on the idea of using springs. The next time he came down into Egypt he had a car filled with springs. They were all different sizes and anchored to solid leather harnesses with straps. Al strapped one spring to my forehead, like a unicorn. (The smaller base of the spring went against my head and got wider as it went outward.) Two more springs were strapped under each shoulder. Next came a triangular frame made out of copper, which fit across my chest and stomach. One point of the triangle was below each shoulder and the third point under my stomach. Springs were attached all the way around the frame and canvas was glued to the top of the metal frame that made contact with my body. Still more springs were attached to my legs and feet.
    Now I could really bounce!
    The springs would bounce me high and far, but they were almost impossible to control. For the springs to work right, I would have to land absolutely straight down. If the springs landed at an off angle, then my next bounce would be at an angle. That meant I would land at an ever-greater off angle the next time. It just kept getting worse until I was completely out of control, bouncing every which way but the direction I wanted to go. I had to come to a dead stop to regain control and then start all over again.
    Al worked on the stabilizing problem by adding two more springs, one on each hip at an inverted "V" angling outwards. This helped. But as long as I used the springs, instability would always be a problem.
    There was one other serious drawback to the springs. It took a tremendous amount of time to put them on properly and make the necessary adjustments. After they were strapped on, I bounced around for a couple of minutes to see if they felt secure. Then I needed someone to make readjustments and I tested the springs again. There were more adjustments and more tests, and so on, and so on. Scratch the springs.
    Al kept trying to solve the problem of instability and eventually came up with the idea of using inner tubes instead of springs. The theory was to let the air in the inner tubes cushion the blow. It was a great idea. The spring came off my forehead and in its place Al put a small inner tube that fit around my head like a headband. Another inner tube was attached to the frame (Al had a separate frame built for the inner tubes.) and more tubes for my hips, legs, and feet. It worked great!
 &nbs