Rules of '48

by Jack Cady

  A lot of airmen from all nations got blown up. Some of them survived, but with burns or bodies torn by shrapnel. David carried a small sliver of steel the docs missed. It would eventually turn into a killing machine as it inched through his brain, and would cause agony. All David could think of, after the war, was that he must try to find Isaac.

  Miracles happen. The two men made it to Louisville through Mexico, because while Mexico was not crazy about Jews, it was less restrictive and less organized. The two men entered illegally because there wasn't a chance of legal immigration. Thus, no one at the auction knew anything about the Samuels for two reasons. First, no one had time to inquire. And, second, even if someone had inquired, the Samuels could not have answered since the sons were illegal. The misfortunes of war.

  * * *

  Such large war had required materiel on a level that stripped the U.S. of metal, rubber, cement and cloth. Metal toys disappeared, along with new automobiles and appliances. Construction companies played catch-as-catch-can for building materials. A large market in used lumber and pipe appeared. No possibly functional item got cast aside. The slogan went, "Use it up and make it do."

  When war ended, construction guys went happily overboard because the nation embarked on a building frenzy. As new stuff came to market, construction companies over-bought for at least two reasons. One: The smart money figured there was gonna be a war with Russia, thus more shortages. Two: There was gonna be inflation, so stock up at lower prices, and charge through the snoot later on.

  "The dumbest numbnut could sell to this crowd," Wade told the boys. "But numbnuts don't know how to milk the cow." He said this in a low voice as kids and Lester watched the crowd form at the plumbing supply. Not a woman in sight. The men were mostly dressed in surplus tans or khakis, shirt sleeves rolled, smoke from cigars. Here and there a householder appeared wearing a short sleeve shirt and slacks; the householder valuable because he didn't need much.

  "We're gonna sell small, then bigger, then biggest. Why?" Wade looked not at Jim, but at Howard. For the first time since meeting Wade, Howard found himself on the spot. "I have to study this." Howard spoke right up. "It must have something to do with price. By small, then big, do you mean quantity or merchandise?"

  "I swear to god I'm gonna adopt this kid," Wade told Lester. To Jim he said, "If quantity, which it is, why?"

  Jim stood silent, not knowing the answer, and not giving a purple damn.

  "Because people who buy small pay a higher price." Howard looked like a little old man pulling at his beard, even though his chin was naturally hairless. "I have it. The small sale sets the price. That price structure stays in the crowd's mind." He looked surprised, but pleased.

  "People call it psychology," Wade said, "which is a college way of saying nothin'. It's using your common sense."

  "Which means," Lester added, "when you sell something like lumber, you sell by the board foot, or the square foot, not by the piece."

  "Construction guys are good," Wade said about the crowd, "but most of them don't bring slide rules. A bin of parts is like a sheet of plywood. You go for one-quarter cent bids because, if you sell fast, these boys have a pig's own time figuring something like three-and-three-quarters cents times thirty-two.

  "I," said Howard, "will certainly become rich." Howard was completely sincere. "I thought I liked retail best, but . . . ." He stopped, not wishing any disloyalty to Lucky.

  "Retail is just fine," Wade told him, "but retailers take title to merchandise. Auctions work with the other's guy's money. Capital investment for the auctioneer is zilch."

  When the sale started Howard and Jim found themselves nearly out of work. Their only task was to run a clerk's sheet to Jim's mom, or check out purchases. Jim dawdled. Howard watched. Wade sold fittings so-much-a-piece in lots of ten. "Take as many lots as you want." Then in lots of fifty. Then, "Let's shoot off the balance."

  "I think," said Howard, after a small sale, "that the price just approached retail."

  "I think," Jim said, "that school starts awful soon." He turned from the gloom of the building toward the sunstruck street. "Grab clerk sheets, willya?"

  On the street sunlight lay across old warehouses, some ramshackle, and all of them frame. The street sloped toward the river. Cars and trucks parked up tight, with some trucks backed into loading docks. As he walked he felt the misery of confusion, and could not even understand it was confusion. This world was the only one he knew, and it must make sense; but if people hated bull, why did they do it so much?

  He stepped along red brick streets, and, toward the river saw cobblestones shining silver beneath the sun. Working trucks parked all around, positive in red and green and orange. Dust lay like sheen on the front of warehouses. Dust-coated windows glowed dull in sunlight, the windows not washed since before the war. He thought about Howard and how Howard handled bull. Howard fit right in. He could listen to Wade spread bull, ignore it, or maybe use it for his own plans.

  School would start soon. It would be a relief. He could still do two or three hours twice-a-week with Lucky, and Lucky was due back from vacation tomorrow, Sunday.

  He saw the truck trundling along like one old horse pulling a two-horse wagon. Painted blue, it was, with remains of orange paint on the stakes; and so much over-loaded that any cop should write a ticket. Green canvas covered the load. The truck sat on flattened helpers with the front end slightly elevated. It was a tire-busting load, a forty mile-per-hour and don't-go-a-cent's-worth-faster load. The truck moved slow, then slower as it passed the auction. The country boy's face was red, like a drinking man.

  The truck jiggled, like the guy was about to release his clutch. Then it stopped jiggling. Jim looked up and down the street. A colored driver stood on a warehouse dock. He stood short but stocky, dark as worked leather. He wore Wellington boots, gray work clothes.

  "Goddamn nigger lovers." The country boy's yell sounded raspy. Definitely a drinker. Definitely as tight as the curl in a little pig's tail.

  The colored driver stiffened, turned. "That's me," he hollered. "Love each and every darky. Walk this way you sonovabitch." The driver was obviously a man who owned his own truck. Nobody colored, who didn't drive north, and who was not independent, would talk that way. The driver walked toward the cab of his truck. Pistol behind the seat, sure as stink.

  The country boy may have been snockered, but he had enough sense to keep moving. He drove steady enough. A-course, he drove slow. The truck traveled a couple of blocks, then hung a left and disappeared.

  The colored driver looked at Jim, sneered, shrugged, and turned away. Jim turned back to the auction. This was serious.

  * * *

  "He might not be after me," Lester said after the sale. "He might be set on badness to the auction." He stood beside Wade who was awash in sweat. Even Wade's short hair was wet. Lester glistened black and sweaty, like a Nubian statue in the rain. The two men had more going between them than either would admit. If Jim and Howard had a club, so did Wade and Lester. Almost.

  "He's a backshooter," Wade said. "I was raised with those bastards. Indiana is full of 'em." He turned to Jim. "He had a full load? A real full load?"

  "Spring buster," Jim spoke to Lester.

  "Could be coincidence. Could be he just happened by."

  "He was drinkin' heavy," Jim told Lester.

  Lester looked to Wade, and Wade to Lester. Both grinned. "I'm not about to worry," Lester told Jim. "If he's already got his load, and if he's drinking it means he's headed home or to a cathouse."

  "The bastard is stupid as drainwater," Wade said, "but how stupid do you have to be to come after a man when you're drinking? Cowboy crap."

  "Pure and simple," Lester said, "cowboy picture show."

  "Excuse me," Howard told them, and he looked at Lester. "Drunken men act stupidly."

  Lester paused. "You got a point. I expect we'll watch our backs."

  Saturday Night, August 30th

  Lester

  From the h
igh shelf in Lucky's store the stuffed chickens, Thomas the Plymouth Rock rooster, and Lola the Guinea Hen, stared glassy-eyed into the gloaming along Jackson St. A group of men stood before Sapphire Top Spot, as other men eased along the sidewalk toward a night of drink. From the juke in Sapphire Top Spot came the bluesy beat of "I Wonder," early rock by Mr. Cecil Grant.

  Two blocks farther up stood Jackson Colored Junior High, its principal Mr. Thomas Law; a man well-named and not a little strict. The school sat among brick Victorian houses, and in those houses lived a great variety of people and their dreams: and one dream of many (including Lester) was to move the hell away from Jackson St.

  Which, in 1948, seemed like it might could-be gonna happen. As men drifted toward Sapphire Top Spot, a few of them knew that the Supreme Court of the United States, in April of that year, had reversed its previous opinions. In Shelly vs. Kraemer, the court ruled that restrictive covenants were unenforceable.

  In theory, any colored man or any Jew could now live anywhere in Louisville he could afford. Lots of luck, buddy. Still, at least one chip had been knocked off the hard wall of segregation. Even experienced cynics, and they were legion, recognized a flutter of hope. Not, though, on hot Saturday nights.

  "Lucky closed. Off to Miami spending our money."

  "Give the hebe credit. He hired Miz Esther's Howie."

  "And a white bread."

  "I doubt Miami. Folks don't head to Miami in summer."

  "Alaska. North Pole. Do I give a shit?"

  From a second floor apartment, two rooms with its own toilet, Lester stood near-naked and looked onto the street. His hair had been washed under the tap, was lightly oiled, and a sponge bath took care of the rest. He watched the drift of men toward Sapphire Top Spot. Slow motion. Men had moved toward the joints on Saturday night before the war, probably during the war, and now, after the war. Things just kept keepin' on.

  "Time you was settling down," he told himself. "Get a place. Find a decent woman."

  Beneath his window the auction truck sat between a rusty LaSalle and a busted '38 Buick. The truck looked right at home. "And in the bank," Lester told himself, "you own nigh eight hundred dollars. 'Nough for a down payment."

  It seemed this job was gonna last. Maybe it was time to think of buying. He watched the street and worried the worry of every working man. Would the job hold up? If the job did not hold up, was there some good direction to jump? "A man could get in over his head real fast," he said to the empty room. He pulled on a shirt and kept looking out the window.

  The cluster of men still stood outside Sapphire Top Spot. And, down the sidewalk, strutting like the damn fool he was, came Jolly dressed in white suit with white fedora, all for Saturday night; Jolly looking like a goddamn pimp and not a gamble-man. Lester watched as Jolly passed the men, Jolly acting bored; like the men were not even there. Jolly strolled his flashy ass into Sapphire Top Spot.

  "Looks like our man rolled with the punch," Lester told the empty room. "Gamble-men are storefronts. But maybe they got nothin' on the shelves."

  He seriously asked himself if Sapphire Top Spot was the best place to be. He reminded himself about 'curiosity killing that old cat', and then he told himself he just had to watch the show. A man only needed to stay back, stay low, stay mostly out of sight.

  In the rich and dusty summer-Saturday, with nightshade falling, Jackson St. ran fulsome as memories of home. Lester stepped past folks relaxing on stoops, kids playing along sidewalks, old folks sitting together tracing kinships and spinning tales. The wealthy smell of fish-fry came from ground floor rooms. People laughed, and old women hummed hymns. Jackson St. had its hold on folks, even did they want to move.

  Ozzie stood among the group of men on the corner, and Ozzie was 'oh, yes' for Saturday night. Silk shirt even grayer than his color. Hellos all around, as men greeted Lester.

  "Dancer," Ozzie said. "I hear you chargin' for the show."

  "Slow dance tonight." Lester helloed him. "Slow and sleepy." He drifted right on in to Sapphire Top Spot.

  Alfonzo and Zeke sat at the same table, like they didn't move from one Saturday night to the next. Jolly leaned against the far end of the bar away from Albert who watched Blue handle the cash register. Albert had that 'cautious-bar-owner' look, and he was looking Jolly's direction.

  "We discussing," Alfonzo said, "which is worst. Wheelbarrow with a soft tire, or wheelbarrow with a iron wheel." His ropy muscles were a-sweat, and he was dusty. "Lime all day," he said, "'bout a million bags. Goddamn lime." He looked older than old, and completely done up.

  "Lemmie buy you gentlemen a beer." Lester looked toward Jolly. "Shit storm starting?"

  "I put my faith in Albert." Zeke, with medium-toasty skin, was light enough he had freckles. His freckles were kind of big, just like Mr. Trummy Young's, who even then played trombone on the jukebox; but Zeke's ears didn't stick out as good as Trummy's. "Albert owns thirty-eight caliber of bad news. Keeps it back of the bar."

  "Blue ain't stupid," Alfonzo said. "Except she's tied up with Ozzie, which actually is more'n a little stupid."

  Jolly leaned across the bar, saying something confidential to Blue. She gave him a look sharp as fishhooks. Started to argue. Thought better of it. Then Blue looked around the joint, checking everybody's drink, and started pulling bottles.

  "He bought the bar," Zeke said. "Free beer for all. More showboat."

  "Blue checkin' to make sure nobody doubles up." Alfonzo chuckled. "Some of these gents will claim they been sipping Jack-y Daniels all along."

  "Company coming," Lester told them. "Looks like Jolly drifts this way." The three men watched Jolly ease toward them.

  From out front, out on the sidewalk, a couple of men stepped into the bar. A free beer is a free beer.

  "Ozzie ain't bitin'," Alfonzo said. "Ozzie standing there just thinkin."

  Jolly seated himself about the time Blue brought the beer. "You could make more money if you was in jail," Blue told him. Blue sounded nervous.

  Up close, Jolly looked more nervous than Blue.

  "Why you doin' this?" Alfonzo asked.

  "Do you know how to shoot that thing?" Lester watched the doorway, watching for Ozzie.

  "What?"

  "Don't bullshit. Do you know how to handle what you got?"

  Jolly went all bristly. "A man's got a right . . . ." He looked toward the sidewalk. He touched the side pocket of his jacket where a pistol hung heavy. "Everybody knows who did what. Let us see who's a jackass now."

  "And with that," Zeke said, "I bid you the hell a-doo." He stood, grabbed the fresh bottle of beer, and left; discretion being the better part of valor.

  "That'll vex Albert," Jolly said, and said it prim. "He could lose a license letting an open bottle walk outside." (So much bull, and Jolly knew it.) In spite of his nervousness Jolly seemed almost happy.

  When the jukebox changed records, silence in the joint seemed remarkable. Ordinarily, the silence wasn't even noticed because men were talking. Now, as the juke changed records, men sat quiet. Yelps and cheers and foolish-ing of playing kids came from the street. Ozzie stood outside like a gray shadow in the early dark; Ozzie making up his mind what to do.

  The jukebox clicked, clicked, kids yelled happy through the night, and the gray shadow disappeared.

  "I will be goddamn," Alfonzo said. "He's walkin' away."

  "Wolverine Blues" on the juke. Music just pouring.

  "Now who's the jackass?" Jolly said.

  "I wouldn't like to say," Lester told him. "You just crossed a real bad man." Lester stood.

  Slow dance. Lester's week had been better than most. Hard work, but good pay. Hardly any bullshit. A man could ease himself through the hot night when there was hardly any bullshit.

  Sunday, August 31st

  The Fourth Death

  Louisville, sunstruck and dusty between storms, lay snuggled in the nest of its great river and to its credit was not at all content. Change drifted slow as an old hound along a sunlit pat
h, but change could not be denied. Too many new people drifted in during the war. Too many industries expanded. Too many women, and old men, and colored folk worked at high wages, only to be laid off when the soldier boys came home. Too many foreigners were even now arriving in town.

  No surprise, then, that all colors and kinds of folk were restless. No surprise, then, that many ambitions were on the rise. No surprise, then, that Miz Esther's Howard stepped from rooms on Jackson St. properly wearing summer jacket, white shirt and tie; Howard not strictly in a mood for church.

  A very few young people, and Howard was one, seem to know right from the cradle in which direction they are headed. There's a calmness about such children. Questions of 'if then, what?' carry little meaning for them. They know where their noses point. They are generally not excitable, except during times when the world endorses their aims.

  Howard (and he knew it) was the pet of the ladies of Jackson St. Men found him pride-y, stuck-up; but they honored Miz Esther.

  She was a North Carolina lady, born just outside of Asheville from a Cherokee mother by a colored father. As a girl she worked in the snooty homes of Asheville where southern ethics said 'Treat your darkies firm but nice'. Miz Esther took advantage. She learned the styles of Asheville culture. She learned dress, and the graces. She studied her world, satisfied she could play its games, and then picked up and moved away to better herself. She tried Chicago, found it scant and wanting. She drifted back south, back where people smiled and said "good day to you Miz Esther." She married an itinerant preacher, got Howard off of him, and last heard of him; gone to his reward with pneumonia while missionary-ing in Tennessee.

  Good looking women (and Miz Esther was beautiful in a most stately manner) can get by with a lot. Color does not make that much difference. Good looking women with mother-wit can make their ways. Miz Esther was neighborhood cornerstone of the church. From her kitchen, Miz Esther kept books for colored proprietors, and for some whites. In this way, she knew people and she knew business. And, she taught Howard that he must not ever demean himself. He was a cut above other folks. That is why, this Sunday morning, Howard wore that white shirt and tie.