Rules of '48

by Jack Cady

  The little spots of sun still threw patterns across the ground. The roof had held up better than the building. Spots of sun cut through gloom. It ought to have been pretty and restful, but wasn't.

  Wilted, sorta rotten flowers were arranged like they covered a grave, but the shape was of a man lying down. Little pieces of ribbon, and longer paper ribbons twined in the flowers, red and white. Paper ribbons hung from where they were stuck on the walls. A photograph lay at the head of the flowers. As near as he could tell, it was a picture of Mrs. Samuels' dead son, the tall, weakish one.

  On the wall hung a bigger picture, mostly colored in red and gold. It showed the same man, but young and healthy; dressed in a foreign looking uniform. It was bordered in black, like the Victorian mourning pictures that came through the auction.

  If the dead flowers were arranged to make a man, then the photograph was the man's head. The ribbons looked almost ragged as the flowers. Little spotlights showed dry ground around the flowers, the ground almost dusty.

  The picture on the wall looked down on everything. Beside the picture hung a funny-looking old jacket. It was like a soldier-coat, but longer, and had some kind of medal sticking on its top pocket. A weird looking brass kettle sat beneath the jacket. The place looked like an abandoned cemetery, or maybe a junk yard.

  Little dishes sat beside the kettle but they were empty. Maybe they were always empty. Or, maybe, rats.

  What Jim felt was foreignness, weird, scary. Everything he knew pointed away from what he saw. It looked like a tea party in a graveyard, two pictures having tea; both dead.

  His mom had said Mrs. Samuels' son, the alive one, was strange. She said to stay away. Jim suddenly felt truly afraid, and felt he must do something; maybe run, or something. He stepped away, down the alley, toward the drugstore and the pinball that jingle-jangle-jingled. The store and pinball weren't much but they were what he knew. Even the chewing-out he would later get from his sister would be a comfort. Anything normal would help.

  Wednesday, September 3rd

  At the Furniture Factory

  Sunrise shone faded orange as Lester and Alfonzo and Zeke drove across Clark Bridge into Indiana. Orange light touched the river and painted gray water with a sheen of gold. The floating Coast Guard station, to their left and nearly under the bridge, had no boat moored. Boat crews did morning patrols. On the Indiana side where shipyards had built LSTs during the war, there was no longer much hustle and bustle. Traffic on the two-lane bridge ran sparse but quick.

  "You got a handhold on what we're doin'," Zeke said to Lester. It wasn't a question. "What the hell have we been doin'?"

  "It's not like a regular job," Lester told him. "All kinds of different stuff has got to work together."

  "Not just push 'n carry."

  "When you stack boxes keep the piles sharp," Lester told Zeke. "Sloppy stack, and the boss gets his balls bouncin'."

  Forty-mile-an-hour speed caused coolish wind to rise through rusted floorboards. The truck rattled along like the old ship of Zion.

  "His truck ain't real sharp." Alfonzo had his elbow draped over the window ledge, like he tried to keep the door from falling off.

  "Country boys understand baling wire."

  "He seems reasonable smart for a country boy." Alfonzo watched the river. A tug with coal barges beat its way upstream. "Seems kinda nervous."

  "I get along," Lester told him. "He's an asshole but he ain't exactly a mean asshole." Lester sounded almost protective. Then he seemed like he'd startled himself. What'n'the world was he doing protecting Wade? "He's not used to workin' with colored. I gotta teach him something ever' day." Lester's voice still sounded protective. That protectiveness caused all three men to discover that they were almost, sorta, embarrassed.

  The factory, when they arrived, stood three wooden stories with dusty windows and one whale of a pile of sawdust sitting a good piece away from the building; because sawdust can heat up. Spontaneous combustion.

  Wade and the factory owner stood in the front office. Wade looked impatient with the factory owner, but tolerant. The owner looked scrawny and confused. Lester walked right on past with Zeke and Alfonzo in tow.

  Ground floor of the factory held front office, shipping, and storage. Second floor held packaging and glue room. Third floor held production tools. Big factory. It measured, anyway, eighty by a hundred-twenty.

  "Sob story," Wade told them after he got rid of the owner. "Let it be a lesson. Screw with big companies, and guess who gets knocked up."

  "What's the lesson?" Lester gave a business-type grin.

  "He made medium good bedroom stuff. Then a Kresge guy showed up wanting junk for his dime stores. Coffee and end table sets. Guaranteed ten thousand units a month. This guy retools and starts pumping out dreck. Kresge sells and sells. When sales slowed Kresge dumped the contract."

  "Go back to bedroom stuff?"

  "Damn fool didn't look ahead. Those customers went somewhere else."

  "And now he takes a beating. You reckon he knows how much?"

  Wade looked at hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of tables, boxed and ready to ship. He actually chuckled. "The sad sack is lucky he got me, and not some jack-leg. Come sale day I'll show him somethin'."

  When factories go broke there is almost always tons of unfinished product lying around. It makes no difference whether it's furniture, tire re-capping, or brick-making; the place will be full of stuff caught in a halfway stage.

  If the owner had brains he would continue production until stuff in process was complete. People will buy a finished table, a finished tire, a finished brick. But, what does anyone do with a junk coffee table sporting three screw inserts for legs, when the thing needs four?

  There are reasons, some sad, some nasty. Owners of small factories do not have large crews. Owners know all their guys, and they know the guys will lose their jobs. The owner hangs on, minute to minute, hoping for a miracle. The miracle doesn't happen.

  Or, the owner figures himself for savvy. If he tells his guys he's shutting down, they will lag on production so the job lasts longer. Cost will go up on finished product. It's a game of money-balance, cost of production opposed to "how much do I lose on half-finished . . . ."

  And, sadly, some factory owners (and this is true of small business in general) take their entire identities from the business. They watch a drooping sales curve, and instead of shutting down, mortgage their houses to keep a dying business alive. They keep coming to work. They keep smiling. Eventually they lose everything. A few kill themselves.

  "So what we're gonna do today," Wade told Lester, "is sort parts. Parts will sell. Legs, rails, tops, all good. Save back about two percent."

  "Salt," Lester said to Zeke, and Zeke looked as confused as any man could possibly get. To Wade, Lester said, "Uh, huh."

  Industry is messy. No way out of it. Too much material flows in and out. There's too much scrap, left-overs, and stuff that got mismatched or flawed: glue joints cockeyed, pieces of laminate too small for use and too big to throw away, pieces of wood with splits, and little cut-offs of wood. It doesn't look like much when sprinkled across a large factory floor. Then a man arrives with a push broom.

  "Make one big pile," Lester told Zeke. "Sweep one side, then salt good parts in with half-finished. Then sweep the other side. We toss in more parts. Then sweep the middle. We top it off with a few parts. People just love to dig in piles."

  "He's gonna sell a pile of junk?" Alfonzo sounded like a man who couldn't decide did he want to be disgusted or impressed.

  "He'll even sell that pile of sawdust outside." Lester gave a little hop, happy-dance, and looked at Zeke. "Push fast, my man, before that country sonovabitch sells your broom."

  Wednesday, September 3rd

  At Lucky's

  On Monday Jim had checked in loads, and on Tuesday shoved furniture this-way'n-that as Miss Pushy directed. His sister already knew how to set up a sale. She shoulda been a boy.

  Also on Tuesday, a loa
d of hotel stuff arrived, heavy as a wagonload of rocks. Mattresses came with beds. Illegal to sell a used mattress, but you could sell the bed and say you gave the mattress to the guy who bought the bed. The back room looked like overflow.

  Wednesday morning found a full auction house and no time to do a thing with it. Flyers for the factory sale, eleven days away, had to go in the mail. Jim folded flyers. His mother addressed envelopes. His sister stuffed envelopes and licked stamps.

  When he left for Lucky's at noon he felt guilty. A kid couldn't be in two places at once, but what difference did that make when it came to feeling guilty? None. Actually.

  The bus carried older ladies who dressed nice and headed for a couple hours' shopping. They pointed toward Fourth and Broadway, the absolute center of town.

  As the bus rattled along he had time to miss Lester. Because of Lester, who he hadn't seen since Monday, the auction had turned brighter. He took time to think how he missed Howard. Then he worried about Lucky. He hadn't seen Lucky in over two weeks. Maybe Lucky forgot all about him.

  The bus poked along. When it stopped before Charlie Weaver's place, everybody on the bus came to attention. Whispers started. A woman exclaimed, "Lordy," another woman, "Lord have mercy."

  Windows lay in shattered pieces. Hunks of glass still hung around the edges, and some of the pieces wore curlicues of pink paint. A man wearing heavy gloves used a chisel to pull hunks from the window frame. Inside Charlie Weaver's place, restaurant tables and chairs sat amid fragments of glass. Lots of pictures lined the walls.

  "Whatever in the world. What happened?" An elderly lady looked to the bus driver.

  "Somebody didn't like somebody else." The bus driver checked his mirrors, ready to pull away. A car passed. Then another. "A fellow came poking in here from back east." The driver entered traffic. He didn't say more, like he was embarrassed.

  " . . . no reason to break windows."

  " . . .drives a pink car." The driver muttered. As far as he was concerned, there was the end of it.

  Silence in the bus. Something had just been said that, in those days, nobody with any politeness ever talked about. It was even-steven half the ladies didn't know a thing more than Jim, and Jim didn't know peanuts.

  If Charlie Weaver brooded over the scene, which would be more than understandable, he probably told himself that the world had tried to pass him by; and failed. He would most likely have taken no satisfaction.

  When Jim got off the bus, Jackson St. felt like the safest and most comfortable place in town. He found himself dawdling when he should be in a hurry. He really did fear Lucky had forgotten him.

  Afternoon sun struck brilliant on red bricks. The old lady with the kerchief raised it in hello. By now he knew her name, Miz Sally; and nigh a hundred years old. A plantation lady, three or four wars back. She didn't say nothin' but made him welcome.

  A little bit along, an old man sat on another stoop. He hardly ever did a thing but stare. His mouth hung medium-open. He still had two teeth. His hands trembled. Name of Mr. Rufus James Whiteman. Almost as old as Miz Sally.

  From a room above a woman sang. Church song, and here it was only Wednesday. The song sailed like a mockingbird above the dusty street and worn-out cars.

  On the corner near Sapphire Top Spot, Ozzie stood with some other men. Jim stopped for a minute to think about it. Ozzie seemed different, even if he didn't look different.

  Was it worse to go ahead, or worse to cross the street and make a point of it? No good either way. Might go around the block and get to Lucky's from the other direction. That wouldn't work, either.

  Walk straight ahead like a kid going to work.

  "White meat," Ozzie said to the men as Jim walked past. To Jim he said, "Boy, stop your ass."

  "Leave it be," one of the other men said. "Some shit ain't worth startin'."

  "Going to work," Jim whispered. "Going to work for Lucky. Working with Howard."

  "Howie's a little pisser," Ozzie told him. "How come you fool with a boy who pisses his pants."

  "Leave it, Ozzie." One man backed away, looked around for cops, and seemed ready to run.

  "Get along, boy, get along. Your day is comin'." Ozzie turned back to the men like he'd done nothing more than stomp a bug.

  When Jim stepped into Lucky's it was old-home-week at the hockshop. Lucky and Howard stood behind the front counter. Mrs. Lucky sat at her desk. A sad-looking white couple stood toward the middle of the store. They murmured to each other.

  "Leave them alone for now," Lucky explained in a low voice. "Gauge your customer. Watch his clothes and how he moves. Can you tell why I know those folks just came to town?"

  Howard, excited, seemed ready to bounce. "They look at small appliances."

  "Tired," Lucky said. "The man is beat. The woman is weary to the point of tears. They just rented a bad room somewhere close. There's no stove. She's gotta cook."

  The moment the woman looked toward the front of the store Lucky moved.

  "How's it goin'?" Jim nudged Howard.

  "Shssh." Howard put a hand on Jim's shoulder, like friends, but also like, "shut up and pay attention." Howard, whether the world knew it or not, was on the road to owning his own store. "We must learn."

  Lucky smooth, not oily. Conventional chit-chat, "Welcome to the neighborhood."

  " . . .we come from down to Bowlin' Green . . . ."

  " . . .long trip, Bowling Green."

  " . . .goddamn long trip . . . ."

  "Don't cuss. I can't stand it when you cuss." The woman looked to her husband.

  "I have three ways to go." Lucky softened his voice but did not look at the woman. "Gas plate, two kinds of electric." He looked at the man. "Temporary place?"

  "Gone from there," the man said, "soonest I get a job."

  "Then I got two ways to go. Got a two burner electric for six, three burner for fourteen. Which one do you think?"

  "Six?" The man looked to his wife.

  "Not as heavy duty," Lucky said. "But ought to work for a good while."

  "Take the six," the man said, and he talked like a man damn-determined to get a job come the morrow.

  "The other would last." The woman could not hide her discouragement. Fatigue crowded all through her voice.

  "Take the fourteen," the man said.

  When the couple left, Lucky turned to the boys. "The kind of job he's going to find, he'll be in that room 'til the house collapses. Did him a favor. Sold him something for long wear." Lucky looked directly to Howard. "Keep any deal as straight as you can. You not only feel better, you don't get as many kickbacks." To Jim he said, "Make friends with the customer, but keep a distance. Never offer a choice of one or nothing. Always offer a choice between two. It gives less space to say 'no'.

  "Who was the customer?" Howard asked a question that, never in the world, would have occurred to Jim.

  "The woman." Lucky looked toward Mrs. Lucky who sat far enough away she could not hear. "When you sell to a couple, talk to the woman but act like you're talking to the man. If you talk straight to the woman, or look at her, you'll lose the man. He thinks you're running a number on his wife."

  Then he said, "I have a hand of work for you gentlemen."

  * * *

  Sitting together polishing residue from somebody's failed store; greenish brass elephants, camels, and lions.

  "Lester says Jolly got murdered. You feelin' bad?"

  "Lester say anything else?" Howard, glad as anything to see Jim, spoke subdued about Jolly.

  "Lester's working in Indiana this week. So, no. Except Jolly is killed."

  Howard told the story as best he could. When he came to the part about the blood he didn't do so well.

  "You think Ozzie?"

  "Don't you ever say a word." Howard sounded more resigned than angry. "Mother says Ozzie isn't right in his head."

  "The police will get him."

  "It doesn't work that way," Howard said. "What happens if you tell, and the police do not get him?"
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  Tangy stink of brass polish—dink of a cash register as Lucky made a sale—sound of a police siren a long way off; Jim stopped polishing an elephant, whispered, "He wouldn't."

  "He would," Howard said. "You dare not think he wouldn't."

  "What's gonna happen?"

  "I expect," Howard said, "for now, nothing will happen. Then, one day, Ozzie will get crazy with drink."

  "He maybe already did." Jim told about broken windows at Charlie Weaver's auction. He told what the bus driver said. Pink car.

  "That was not Ozzie." Howard's voice turned teacherly. "Colored would not do that. That was a white." Howard looked toward the front of the store, a look of longing. "I waited on three customers yesterday. I did well on one." Howard watched Lucky, like Lucky might suddenly decide to sprout wings and fly. Above Lucky on a high shelf, Lola the Guinea hen seemed ready to cluck, and Thomas, the Plymouth Rock looked totally nutsy. "I think I'll get another chance today."

  "Why white?" Jim figured that one of the mysteries of Jackson St. stood ready to unfold. There was definitely a difference between Jackson St. bull and the brand on Bardstown Road.

  "I can't say," Howard told him. "I can tell you that colored are more live-and-let-live about homo-sexuals. White men won't put up with it." To a disbelieving, then believing Jim, Howard explained all he knew about homosexuals; the blind more-or-less leading the blind. "There are men who do sex things with each other."

  Silence. Lucky's voice low as he dealt with a dark-skin lady—sound of pages turned from Mrs. Lucky's desk. "Makes me wanta urp," Jim whispered. He could no more talk about sex-things than Lucky could fly, or Thomas could do arithmetic. "I gotta tell you," Jim said, "about that other dead man. The one in the garage."

  Monday September 8th

  Love and Music

  School began, and life for two boys changed as new feelings erupted in minds and hearts. The minds and hearts were not exactly connected (not quite yet) with loins.