Graczyk nodded tediously.
“So I keep hearing.”
He raised his chin toward the array of incoming holiday ornaments and decorations.
“You in a rush for Christmas? Not even Halloween yet. Kids’re barely back in school.”
Art answered, returning to the stockroom.
“Gotta make hay while the sun shines.”
Joe trailed after. The place was already stacked with boxes of artificial garland and wreaths. Beyond, Art’s nephews unloaded a delivery van of its tree stands and colored lights. Among all the new holiday freight something still seemed lacking to Joe. Then it struck him.
“Hey Art, I see everything except the good stuff.”
The storeowner glanced about.
“How’s that?”
“‘Lectric trains, man! I don’t see no American Flyer sets in your load. That’s the real sign of Christmas.”
Art pointed to a dim and bowed ledge above the double showroom doors.
“This year you won’t.”
A clutch of rectangular boxes rested there in shadow. Quietly gathering dust, their proud blue and yellow labels bore the Connecticut based, A.C. Gilbert Company, logo. Among them Joe could make out a couple stenciled set numbers of 5306T and K5434T.
“Got four left over from last year,” said Art. “Three from the year before.”
The notion staggered Joe.
“You sayin’ kids don’t want trains for Christmas no more?”
Art shrugged.
“Things’re changing there, too. Still sell Erector Sets. But mostly, these days it’s all outer space and science fiction; rocket ships, jet planes, and those damned ray guns. Kids don’t seem to much care about trains.”
Graczyk bunched his lips to a personal analogy.
“Yeah. Guess not.”
The old friends shared a quiet moment of lost zeitgeist. Reconsidering the dust-gathering cartons, Art hiked a genial shoulder.
“You know, maybe I could still run a small loop in the front window. Might not hurt as a holiday eye catcher. Maybe help move this old stock, too.”
Graczyk offered a dry smile.
“Yeah.”
CHAPTER 13
Joe’s final stop was Poulson’s grocery.
An obligatory gumball machine stood front door sentry as he entered and Joe smiled at the solitary gold and brown-striped tiger eye visible among the other penny colors. A luscious, free, Hershey bar awaited whatever lucky youngster might eventually claim it. But, Joe noticed that the gum level didn’t seem to be going down as fast as it once had.
The limited commodities stocked here leaned toward small neighborhood spot-buys. A few varieties of canned goods, dry cereal, tobacco, and candy were offered, along with a modest selection of fresh-sliced lunch meats.
At the time, Joe was the tiny shop’s only customer and with Sarah’s list in hand, quickly gathered up a tin of coffee, bread loaf, packages of bacon, eggs, carrots, and a carton of new-week smokes.
The store’s proprietor was Les Jr. As with other ventures about town, he’d taken it over from his retired parents. Today, the normally cheery shop owner sat quietly behind his small cash register. His gaze was distant and he only reeled it in when Joe brought up his gathered list.
“Hi Les.”
A sliver of smile returned.
“Hey Joe. Anything else?”
“Yeah, there is. I know it’s not the holiday season, yet. But, do you have any bottles of old country wine? Sarah wondered about maybe a raspberry flavor.”
Les bent down for a peek beneath the counter.
“I should. Always keep a couple on hand for baptisms and such. Yeah, right here.”
The ornate label of a Slavic brand appeared in his hand.
“This okay? Two bucks.”
Les dictated mechanically as he rang up a familiar litany of goods.
“Two pounds of bacon; 58 cents each. Five pounds coffee; three dollars. A dozen eggs; 27 cents. One loaf of bread; 17 cents. One bunch of carrots; 12 cents. Plum wine; two dollars. And a carton of smokes; one dollar, twenty. Seven dollars and ninety-two cents. With two percent tax, makes eight dollars and eight cents, total.”
Joe slid some wrinkled bills and loose change into the grocer’s hand.
“Wish it earned as quick as it spends.”
“Don’t I know it,” Les agreed.
Reaching for his groceries, Joe scanned the younger man.
“You look down in the mouth, kid. Things okay?”
The storeowner nodded.
“Yeah, sure. Just been thinking. That’s all.”
“If it ever starts hurting me that much, I’d give it up.”
Joe offered an encouraging grin. But his quip fell short of its mark.
“Thinking about what?” He continued.
“Maybe closing the store.”
Joe went stiff.
“Closing?”
“Uh-huh. I might put an application in for that big grocery opening at the new plaza and get out from under all this. Put my union meat cutter’s card to real full-time work on someone else’s payroll.”
Joe’s brow knotted. Plaza - that unfamiliar word again.
“Your dad would turn over in his grave if he knew you’d close his store.”
Les gazed over.
“My store now, Joe.”
“Yeah, right. But why?”
Les motioned about.
“Times’re changing and this little place can’t keep up. People don’t much buy a full week’s groceries in shops like this, anymore. I can’t carry the bigger selection or really fresh stuff that they want. And more people are getting cars. So, they can go farther out than just walking here.
“Most of my sales only amount to what you bought; a few odds and ends before home. Can’t make a living on that. Working for a chain store you just do your job and get a check. Someone else worries about the bills and taxes and profits.”
Joe lifted the stiff paper bag, its normal crinkling turned garish and intrusive.
“Sorry to hear that, Les. Hope you change your mind. But either way, good luck.”
“Yeah. See you later.”
The young man went back to his ruminating and Joe walked off, even more burdened. This store’s closing would end a huge volume of local history. In the old days, long established, family owned places like Poulson’s made them kin to their community. When times were tough entire neighborhoods lived on tabs offered by such local mom-n-pop groceries. And every week during those same tough times, you walked there and proudly paid what you could, toward your bill.
It might not have ever been much at once. But, you worked at it and every so often you might catch up and be rewarded with a few pieces of candy for your kids or a sample box of laundry soap flakes as a sign of appreciation from a grateful shop owner. Would those plaza chain stores offer that kind of consideration if really bad times ever hit again?
Groceries in arm, Joe began the brief, final leg of his cheerless trip home. Though, even so close, it wasn’t to be without a last reminder of changing times.
Slowly overtaking him from behind, came the low, seasoned ring of hollow gongs and syncopated clop of weary horseshoes. It was a melody that Joe immediately recognized as the knife sharpener’s wagon. With it came an old Polish Jew. From dim places downtown a few of those like him yet ventured out, the 20th Century’s last vestige of old world craftsmen.
Part of the destitute, displaced persons allowed entrance into the U.S. after World War II, a few itinerant knife sharpeners, cobblers, and vegetable peddlers still wandered through from time to time, hawking their outdated continental skills and fresh produce from the open backs of decrepit, horse drawn lorries or tired box trucks.
In this developing throwaway age, theirs was a mostly
ignored offer. Expertly dressed blades and long wearing, resoled shoes were finding less and less of an audience anymore. Only thinning clusters of old Polish babcias awaited the discordant tool heaps and stacked vegetable bushels, ferreting out the best options for their families’ repaired footwear, cutlery, stews, and pies.
Joe, though, made a point of stopping curbside to await the old DP, his wagon, and ancient, chestnut mare.
A hefty, foot-powered grinding wheel set bolted to the wagon’s splintered tailgate. Its perfectly balanced blue stone rocked in gentle anticipation of any tired sewing shears or dull kitchen knives that might happen along for a surgically precise dressing. The wheel’s sway kept a somber tempo with the mournful string of ding, ding, ding - dong - ding notes resonating from an axle-tripped gong, announcing the wagon master’s approach and keeping time with the plodding horse as its blinkered head nodded in idle cadence.
Having grown up penniless himself, Joe had a soft spot for fellow, down on their luck, creatures. He knew well what it was like to do without and held a special regard for those who silently bore their cross, not expecting pity or handouts, just some honest work. So, whenever he heard the wagon’s approach, Joe would grab up a handful of blades that might not really need any dressing, just to help keep the old timer’s day from being a total loss.
If none were at hand, a beckoning wave and some old country, curbside pleasantries were in order, with an offer of cool drinking water for both man and animal. A few dollars would be stuffed discretely in the driver’s frayed shirt pocket - always done under the guise that it wasn’t any charity money being given - just a little benefaction, so the horse might enjoy some sugar cubes as a reward for her hard day’s work. And comically, while other neighbors grumbled with the wagon’s passage, about having to clean up a loose heap of steamy road apples left at their address, the street front of the Graczyk house never seemed to get soiled.
As with so many other once familiar sights, Joe saw the man, wagon, and horse less often these days. So, he now made a special point of setting his grocery bag down to await them. Withdrawing its longest carrot, he also readied a couple loose dollars.
Joe motioned the wagon over and nodded a respectful hello to its driver. He first asked the man’s permission by exhibiting the carrot, then hand fed it slowly to the aged mare, gently stroking her withers as she peaceably studied him, munching the treat with worn and age-yellowed teeth.
Her owner quietly looked on from his buggy seat, a noble study of tarnished self-esteem. Even in hot weather, the old-world refugee wore long sleeve shirts and a shabby suit coat. Partly done to maintain a degree of pride in his abject poverty, they equally worked to conceal his injurious past. For on occasion, the frayed and grimy cuffs of both coat and shirt pulled away as the man gently wielded his horse reins and Joe saw the line of ragged blue numerals tattooed on his withered inner forearm. Numbers inked there a decade earlier and a continent away by Nazi death camp administrators. Numbers forever labeling him as a survivor of the most horrendous treatment that one human being might ever levy upon another.
Under the guise of shaking hands, today Joe once more, slipped the few wrinkled dollars into the DP’s palm. The man offered a weak, superficial protest. But Graczyk waved him off, gesturing, as always, toward the horse, as he stepped away. Then, with a conceding nod, weary driver and his resigned old nag were off, continuing on, in the futile, plodding quest of more unlikely business.
Arrived home, Joe was starting up his front steps as a garish new sound invaded his already soured morning. From far overhead came the synchronized churning of high-powered aircraft engines. There, unhindered by track or terrain, he spied the unique, triple-tail of a brilliantly polished TWA Constellation.
The Connie’s four twirling propellers seemed to flicker down mocking and defiant from its sapphire perch. As Joe watched, Spike’s recent comment again filled his ears.
“. . . and soon, jets.”
For a moment, departing plane and exiting wagon simultaneously filled Joe’s field of vision. The thinning drone of aircraft engines and fading wagon gongs became one, their separate old and new world melodies fused in the requiem of a passing age. Backlit by the sun, Joe was also confronted by the many new sprouts of chromed television antennas glinting on rooftops in between.
Rockets. Artificial moons. Shopping plazas and kids who didn’t want ‘lectric trains for Christmas. All of Joe Graczyk’s long-honored totems were being elbowed aside by the burgeoning tide of a new and alien world. He tightened his grip on the grocery bag, continuing up the steps.
At their top, Joe saw that longtime mailman, Casimir Rosco Voss, had already been through the neighborhood. Today’s normal clutch of bills and flyers were crowded by one large manila envelope. Even folded in half, the straw colored packet stood out from the other correspondence like a defiant fist and required some work to dislodge.
It took only a glance at the freed nuisance for Joe to grit his teeth. Barely nine o’clock and already a foul day had just been topped off. He looked to his son’s dormered room above and clenching the packet, began a curt pace inside the house.
CHAPTER 14
It took a special woman to endure all of the odd hour, last minute, and prolonged separations demanded by railroad life - and her name was Sarah. Though of a petite build and dignified reserve, the graying beauty was as tough as brine-cured leather, a survivor to decades of hard times, scare dollars, and a long standing widowship to the altar of high iron.
She was a woman of simple eloquence, who, though lacking in formal education, could speak in her native, Polish tongue, as well as analogous Russian. She also knew enough German and Yiddish to have been called upon many times over the years, to act as a translator in various marketplace confusions.
As was her kind, Sarah’s hands comprised as much of that speech as her words. They were always in motion, continually accenting key points of her delivery with sweeps or thrusts. Though firm and strong from hard, manual demands, those same hands were equally at home, either in wielding a pickaxe or comforting a colicky baby.
Scores of rending events were tallied behind the gentle green eyes that missed nothing and housed so many secrets. Yet, despite their long witness to pain and grief, all evidence of any personal battle damage was smothered beneath a pure light of honesty, warmth, and compassion that radiated out.
Born in the poor, hilly, Polish backcountry of Zakopane, all that young Savera Macuski had known early on was a life of manual labor. Along with her parents and two brothers, she’d tended a few anemic milk cows and some scrawny laying hens, struggling to make do with the flinty East European high ground.
Coaxing a meager harvest of root crops looked to be her lot in life; first with her family and later, possibly deeded over in some marriage of convenience. But, an ailing economy and mounting First World War kept the land’s country folk on edge. And as the saber rattling drew closer to home, Sarah’s parents finally bought in, to the heavily shaded reality of steamship leaflets circulating about - the ones with their tales of mythical wealth just waiting to be scooped from the streets of a land called America.
Cashing in all they owned gave the household barely enough fare for passage. With little more than the clothes they wore, Sarah’s family began their twelve-day journey, across the broad and indifferent Atlantic.
Their existence as bottom rung travelers was one of crowded quarters, poor sanitation, and little privacy. Wedged deep in the clammy, stifling bowels of a plodding old cargo/passenger ship, they were plagued with the misery of sporadic seasickness that all aboard shared. Yet, the family buoyed their spirits with plans for the better and easier lives they would soon lead.
They were farmers, so farming is what they’d do in their new home. Much richer dairy land was rumored to be waiting in places with the exotic names of Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Iowa. And affording it only meant spending a short time working the h
igh paying factories of cities like New York and Chicago.
But, a harbinger of the realities actually waiting ahead came with their witness to the tragic passing and mid-sea burial of a little boy from their village. After lingering in fevered anguish from a burst appendix and with no passing ships able to offer anything more in the way of medical aid than the deficient amount already aboard his own vessel, the youngster finally and mercifully expired.
Little was available for a dignified burial. So, the child was placed inside a grease stained equipment crate. Laid atop a bed of rusty scrap iron hunks meant to weigh things down, a wilted flower was set in the lapel of his only presentable shirt and the worn beads of an old rosary, strung about the cold folds of his lifeless young hands.
After a brief prayer service, the pauper coffin was lowered by rope from the paused ship’s stern. But the drilled box didn’t oblige the tragedy with a quick, dignified sinking. It instead, rode the bitter swells like some kind of horrid fishing bobber, prolonging the doleful moment and finally only settled in when a humane burst of the ship’s propellers mercifully swamped the grimy crate, commending the child and its scrap iron bier to the ocean depths.
Until then, the boy’s mother had stood numbly by. But with their departure the reality of her lost son finally struck home. The pained woman shrieked her grief in a ghastly wail that cursed both the trip and the place called America. Breaking free of her family, she charged the ship’s railing, wanting only to follow after her son.
Among those gathered, Sarah was the closest and first to grab and help restrain the woman. When finally spent, she collapsed and was carried off by her husband, remaining hidden for the rest of their trip.
The incident spread as a kind of superstitious wildfire among the other women. It was enough for Sarah’s own peasant mother to begin spouting a torrent of prayers against evil, suddenly wanting only to return home, as well.
Again, it was Sarah who comforted and calmed, using unfounded promises of life being so much better just over the horizon. But the groundless pledge left a bland taste in her own mouth and afterward, Sarah found herself standing alone at the ship’s aft railing. Gazing far out into the empty, uncaring ocean, she vowed to heaven itself, that this fabled America had damned well better be worth their price of admission.
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