Rules of '48

by Jack Cady

  "Hymie bastard."

  "Too rich for you, boy. Me, I gone open a store. Sell shit to you niggers."

  "Screw by a Jew."

  "Lucky okay. Lucky ain't afraid to touch a man."

  "No work fo' colored."

  "Jew-boys stick together."

  Heat from the summer sidewalk diminished in twilight. There came no cool of evening, but scorch and burn of afternoon went shimmering. The best time at Sapphire Top Spot was early time.

  When a man stepped inside, what he saw was a short bar with fourteen stools set close. The bar, front and top, was made of painted piney-wood. The backbar the same, with flaking mirror and whiskey bottles, draft beer glasses, a little gin; beer in the cooler, and champagne in case somebody hit a number, or backed the right horse.

  Behind the bar a peroxide blonde, a pearl-skin girl, worked serious; kind of skinny but the stuff of dreams. "Best lookin' woman in this damn town." Name of Blue.

  At the end of the counter nearest the door sat Albert, old, obese, silent, well-dressed and watching Blue's moves at the cash register. He mostly worried because he owned the joint. Early evening was danger time. Transition from mixed to colored.

  The joint sat next to Lucky's. White booze-hounds sometimes hocked stuff, and, needing a drink, couldn't wait to get to a place where they were wanted. Their presence was all right during sunlight, but not after dark. Still, booze-hounds generally were no worry. They mostly just stood at the bar with a beer, until they got tired of being ignored. They always moved on.

  Other white boys showed up. Among the whites who picked up men at the Clark bridge, a few drove their help home after work. It wasn't common, but it wasn't rare, for a white to drop in and buy beer for his crew. As long as he left before dark, all right. As long as he didn't get lonesome and show up Saturday night, all right.

  If he did show up he could bring a storm. Because, no matter how much or how often a man paid the cops, a hurt or dead white man would close the joint; and it was jail or worse for Albert. To the best of Albert's knowledge, cops could shoot a colored man all to hell with nothin' happening.

  And badness was forevermore coming to pass. Ever since the war colored men were changing, and didn't even know it. They still backed down before whites. They still said "yassuh," but now with more sullen lines on wrinkled brows. Albert couldn't put a finger on the change, but he had a bar owner's antenna. What used to be known as New-York-Shit was becoming common. More angry talk. More loud voices. More men sinking into silence and danger. More knives and razors. More damn fights. More men cut.

  Around the rest of the large room sat a mixture of tables and chairs; none matched. Toward the back end of the joint sat the jukebox, and in the middle of the joint was a space where tables could be pushed back for dancing.

  And when Lester entered, half of those tables were still empty. The joint held collections of men, with a couple women at the bar. Jukebox sitting silent. Women waiting, just waiting. See what happens.

  "I stroll all around this town," Lester said to a hustler named Jolly. "Everybody tell me you doin' Pittsburgh."

  "Seat your ass," Jolly told him. "I done Pitt and Detroit and missus Chicago. Nobody hellos you up there. Nobody smiles."

  Jolly leaned back in his chair, casual as a rich man at peace. He looked to be early thirties. He sometimes handled horse or reefers, but was mostly a gamble-man. His skin shone a little less than coffee color, his build stocky and square. He looked like a man designed to handle heavy loads, but his hands were smooth, so he surely wasn't gonna.

  "Still usin' your own dice?" Lester said it funny, and that's how it was taken.

  Two other men chuckled. Jolly was dressed all flashy, but the other two looked like men just off work.

  Alfonso sat tired and just plain whipped. He was elderly, old, anyway nigh sixty, tough, chocolate and skinny—ropy biceps, day labor for life, goddamn little hope. Too old and too tired to dress up Saturday night.

  Zeke still seemed pretty fresh. He could be no more than mid-twenties, color like medium toast; a man still not convinced that nothin' good was gonna happen, ever.

  * * *

  Louisville, on Saturday nights in early August was a place for murders. Still is.

  If one approached in an airplane, the city would lay beneath like a plump guinea hen sitting on the curving nest of the Ohio river. Along that river low hills on the Indiana side are verdant in summer, skeletal in winter. In spring the river rises, does its dance, flooding basements with mud and pike and channel cat; houses afloat, second stories rising above muddy waters.

  Then summer blows in with humid breath. Even from a plane the city would seem overheated. Should east-coast people, or west-coast people find themselves flying along the great course of the Ohio they would feel 'just right' until a Louisville-landing. Then they would suck air like fish suck water. Outlanders cannot hit a lick in such weather. Louisvillians, acclimated, can work their hearts out.

  The air carries water, and water inflates the heat. Louisville turns into a giant sauna. Take a shower, put on a fresh shirt, walk from an air-conditioned house, and by the end of the block you need a fresh shirt. In 1948, though, almost nobody had air conditioning; certainly not the beer joints.

  Take a group of men, tired, some busted up, wearing their lives out working nowhere jobs—jobs they don't even talk about, because everybody knows those jobs are nowhere—men who've left their women, or been kicked out; or if at home, not paid enough to support their kids . . . .

  Then add a week of work no man can respect. Then add payday. Then add beer. Add almost any catalyst: a woman worth fighting over, or a chance for theft. White men, colored men, all the same.

  Then add all-embracing heat, a knife, a razor, a Saturday-night special, a Louisville Slugger. August Saturdays, prime for murder.

  * * *

  By eight o'clock the joint jumped, though by ten it would sit slack. Men with money would go on the town, hitting the colored clubs. Men with sorrow would drink too quick and too much, then sit with bowed heads above tables.

  At eight, though, the juke box choked with nickels, dancers danced, and Lester moved graceful, fluid, smooth as a running stream. Barlight shone off Lester's skin, and he looked like he was supposed to be the evening's entertainment.

  The dancers were mostly men dancing alone. They were so busy they didn't feel or hear whispers running through the joint. A mistake had been made, a matter for comment. Something mighty stupid.

  Jolly acted showy, impressing Blue and trying to take that sweet girl home, despite she belonged to a man who was mean. Name of Ozzie. Due out of jail any minute.

  Jolly cashed a hundred dollar bill. He did it stylish, like it didn't count for nothin'. Showboating . . . one of the serious flaws of gamble-men.

  And Albert, slow of body but with a bar owner's quickness of mind, went to the beer-storage room pretending he had to dial a safe to get that much change. Jolly stood at the bar sweet-talking Blue.

  "That boy better not try that elsewhere. Get by with it here. Maybe." Alfonzo watched Jolly. Other men watched the hundred dollar bill disappear to the back room. The bill might be in a safe, but the change was in Jolly's pocket. Alfonzo, who was old and terrible tired, could feel the evil-eye looking Jolly's direction.

  Zeke sat across the table. "Didn't think Jolly that stupid. Nobody mess with Ozzie."

  Zeke turned to watch Lester dance. Lester showed loose arms. Nothin' tight about Lester. Lester had shoulders moving like Mr. Arthur Murray couldn't. Lester had sweat in his hair, sweat in his shirt, sweat coming off his eyebrows, sweat just raining.

  "I gone take that man on the road," Zeke said about Lester. "Be his manager." He turned from watching Lester to look at Jolly. "Blue not stupid."

  Alfonzo watched Lester. The Duke did piano on the jukebox. "I used to shake pretty good."

  "Good as that?"

  "Pretty good." Alfonzo looked at a half-full glass of beer, looked at his hands gnarled and scarred. T
he jukebox rattled "Harlem Air Shaft." "A man dances to clean out the shit. You know that."

  Late Saturday Night, August 9th

  Lester

  Saturday night lonesome. Streets near empty. A few men sitting drunk and silent at the Sapphire. Blue, tired and fussy, sweeping floors against tomorrow. Albert yawning and counting the till. Jukebox quiet. High-rollers out on the town. Lester tired as a week's work and a night's dancing can make a man. He sits with a warm beer, Lester. Having sweated abundant, he sits damn near sober.

  Looks at Blue, how smooth, how sweet, but bartender sassy. Tells himself "wants none of that." Tells himself, "what a liar" wants some of that, but don't want much. Wants a woman all his own. Wants to Belong to somebody.

  Lonesome. Stand up. Tap the table twice for something to do. Step away into the hot night and empty street, with pants full of lonesome, and carrying a head full of memory.

  In the Army he met some sad bastards, Louisiana crackers, Florida crackers, Georgia shitheads, but mostly not. Mostly in the Army he talked to men who looked him in the eye and talked straight across. Maybe they saw color, and maybe didn't like it, but they were used to it.

  So things didn't have to be the way things were. And a man didn't have to fall ass-over-appetite for a bartending woman. Not if a man was fitted out for something better.

  When he got back from Europe with money in his pocket, he wandered north to Boston and found himself offended. Everybody there must hate each other, talking short, sometimes nasty. To a southern man, Mr. Boston Yankee, be he colored or white, was nothing but a sonovabitch.

  So Lester took a train across, over to Chicago, and fell in crazy love. White girl. Mona. Communist. Union. Said her prayers to the honored ghost of Mr. Eugene V. Debs.

  Crazy love, and it still hurt as he walked empty old Jackson St. When he lay beside her, her brownish nipples rising from breasts like Miss Snow White, all kinds of feelings came and went. When she lay with him, enclosing him, he felt like he walked across the face of every white man who ever hollered nigger.

  Turned out that was the least of it. They did bedroom a lot, her moving warm and sometimes nigh frantic against him, like she tried to be inside of him, and not the other way around. But after bedroom came other stuff . . . just as hot if not as ruckus. Lots of talking, walking around; him protective of her in the mean-talking streets of South Side. She, protective of him when white men muttered, spit on sidewalk, stood looking.

  He came to understood that this woman was the one, the right one; but how the hell could they make it in the U.S.A.? They couldn't even make it in Chicago which was fenced-off worse than any southern city. Maybe move to Sweden. In Sweden nobody gave a damn.

  He got a job in a warehouse. Carried a temporary union card, while Mr. Dave Beck straddled the Teamsters Union like the two-bit hooker he was. Colored men kept carrying that temporary card, but kept paying full time permanent dues. Never get a permanent card. Never get permanent pay.

  "Give it time," Mona told him. "It's Chicago, not unions. We gotta change Chicago." In the mornings, still yawning, she was cute as a baby duck. Wouldn't let him see her walking around each day 'til she brushed her hair. Funny little duck. Serious as all hell. Pretty in that skinny Snow-White-way.

  When truck drivers unloaded at the warehouse they were made to hire union help. The foreman used the temps for unloading, charged full rates to the drivers, kicked a nickel or two back to management and kept the rest. If a driver refused union help and brought his own, even members of his own family; wait until night and cut his tires.

  "Workers," Mona said. "Management has got to wake up."

  "He's a worker," Lester told her. "He only owns one goddamn truck. They tell me to slash his tires. I ain't gonna."

  "There's gotta be rules." Mona could get sniffy when she wanted.

  Lester could see how a union would help, but he couldn't get past the hinder. "Seems," he said, "like you get told what to do, no matter."

  During the war unions held all the power and got corrupted. Now the working man was union-screwed. Make that double for the Teamsters. Make that triple for the working man in missus Chicago. Mona couldn't see it.

  And so it came to pass that Mr. Eugene V. Debs, not color, was the Who that broke them up.

  He loved her more, maybe, than she loved him. She loved a cause. Sometimes he felt like his color was her revolution. Then he felt the wrong of that. But, he just couldn't understand loving a cause, when the cause kept a man holding a temporary card . . . .

  After all got said and done, a man came home. The south was the south, and Louisville was the best of the south. He moved back to Jackson St., and Jackson St. had not changed much. Lucky's hockshop had a new coat of paint.

  When he ventured back to Charlie Weaver's auction house he had a shock. The war had worked its will on Charlie. Charlie had gone gray, and walked a little stooped. His hand trembled just a bit when he patted Lester on the shoulder. "Looks like I owe saint Jude a candle," he said, and smiled at himself. "One can indulge that kind of foolishness when one is Episcopalian."

  After all got said and done, a man came home.

  And so now Lester walked old worn-out Jackson St. Louisville no longer had Charlie, but it had communists and unions. Sometimes, like after beer, and riding a pack of lonesome, he thought of calling Mona. Forget it. She wanted 'equity', whatever the hell that meant. He wanted a wife and house and kids he could raise respectful.

  Sunday, August 10th

  Jim

  Back during WWII, Calvary Lutheran Church on Bardstown Road went through a holy conniption of the type that makes Jesus weep. A family belonging to the congregation carried the last name of Rommel. Rumor held the family as distant relatives of The Desert Fox, Irwin Rommel, Hitler's most adroit general. It was proposed by no small number that the Rommels must be kicked out, excommunicated; and churchless, set on the smooth and easy road to everlasting fire.

  The uneasy proposition caused wiser heads to prevail. About half of the congregation had some German blood. The holy barbecue got squelched, though indignation reigned.

  Calvary Lutheran still stands firm in piled stone. Its stained glass windows are quietly flashy. Martin Luther, were he alive, could do something with it. During 1948, though, a conventional man named Robertson bullied that pulpit. He explained about the love of God, and he understood the social order. He knew enough not to use the word 'darkies' in front of the colored janitor. He, and some of his congregation, suffered not so much from hypocrisy as obtuseness.

  On the other hand, he once joked that if the Jews ever celebrated Christmas, it would come after the Christian Christmas, because of January white sales.

  And to this church, each Sunday, came Wade's wife with Wade and kids in tow. Wade could pout, and Wade could cuss, and Wade could complain about work that needed doing; but the mother was in charge.

  She was a country girl. Her name was Viola and she was as lovely as a stringed instrument played pianissimo at the throne of God. When it came to church she had her reasons which were mighty. She had lived through The Great Depression and seen families torn asunder. To most American women of the day church was the tie that binds. Some years later, someone (probably a preacher on the take) coined the sentence, "The family that prays together stays together." Wade's wife, and most American women, had thought that since forever.

  Thus, on Sundays, Wade sat at home with a newspaper and read classified ads, giving not a holy heck or a sweet Jesus-H-Christ for the news. Classified told him directions in which money flowed, and let him know if there were any upstart auctioneers in town. He hid behind the paper, like a child under a bed praying not to be noticed. He had, after all, been the youngest of five kids, which most likely meant something.

  "We don't want to be late." The mother always said that. Quiet, firm, and even though her kids were 13 and 14, she still checked to see if they'd washed behind their ears. (They always had, because if not, those ears were due for a scraping).

>   Wade would look up, look lost, then lay down his paper. "They need the money," he'd say about the church. "You got a comb?" he'd say to his kid. "You look like a goddamn Ubangi." And then he would reluctantly get dressed.

  At church kids sometimes wiggled loose from parents. When that happened they headed for the balcony of the church, where, if they did not giggle and carry on, they were allowed to stay during service. The colored janitor, Mr. James, always sat up there in the back row: nigger heaven among the Lutherans, and only one nigger allowed. Mr. James, a colored gentleman, watched kids play quiet games of blackjack with small cards hidden within hymnals, and probably thought well of them.

  Some kids paid attention. It was from the balcony that Wade's kid learned more confusion as he heard unkind words about socialism, uneasy words about unions, and words that decried the philosophy of an old-time heretic named Ralph Waldo Emerson; a guy who, according to the saintly pastor Robertson, had displayed the depraved ideas of an atheistic mind.

  August 11th

  Warehouse

  On Monday morning Wade's kid noticed that boards were gone from the door of Mrs. Samuels' house. When he told his dad, Wade made nothing of it. If Mrs. Samuels' last remaining son had returned home it was his own business. Or, maybe the detective had come back. Let the cops figure it out. Nobody had time for spicks or pollacks. The warehouse sale was only half set up.

  The kid imagined he saw movement from behind partly drawn curtains of Mrs. Samuels' house. The windows shouldn't be shut. It was one of those dog days of mid August that start with an orange dawn, and with sleepers waking without covers on sweated sheets; a day beginning with temp in the mid 80s and climbing. The inside of Mrs. Samuels' small house would be worse than a hotbox. Anyone in there would be barely able to breathe.

  Wade and his kid stood at the front window of the auction and watched the street. Lester got off the bus.

  "Damndest thing," Wade said to his kid. "I never before knew any blackbird worth a plug nickel. You tell me now, how is Lester different?"