At any rate, by the time Saturday rolled around, Joey was sure that everyone in Concordia and surroundings had been put on notice that Bronson’s Low-Priced Store would be open for business from 8:30 A.M. sharp until 11:30 P.M.
My mother had selected the souvenirs. For the men there were paper roses for the lapels of their Sunday suits; for the women, floral handkerchiefs; for the children celluloid pinwheels roughly resembling oversized, bicolored chrysanthemums.
On the target Saturday—the Saturday after the factory had opened on Monday—the long days of hauling and shelving and fixing were over, and the store stood ready.
All the furnishings had come from the store in Oliphant that had gone bust. Miss Brookie had taken my father to the place where the bank was selling at rock-bottom prices the foreclosed furnishings, and in the pile of stuff, he had unearthed a lot of useful things, even a cash register. It was an impressive thing, with elaborate silvery scrollwork along the sides, and two wide drawers, one of which was for checks. This particular drawer would have to be assigned to other duty, as there would be no checks at Bronson’s. The pay of the factory hands would be in cash, and they would pay Bronson’s the same way. Farmers dealt in cash as well. Still, my father said, even then he was contemplating a future day when he might institute a charge system. Whenever he had this thought, he always added, “if the store goes” so as not to jinx anything, and knocked on wood (as if he were superstitious, which he was not, but “could it hurt?”)
He set up the register on a tall table against a side wall. It overlooked the floor, which was crowded with counters and tables loaded high with pants and bolts of fabric and other soft goods. Even the ceiling was pressed into service: Bunches of handkerchiefs dangled down from it on strings.
Men’s suits were upstairs in a cupboard behind tarlatan curtains that my mother had hemmed. She had done this by hand, sitting night after night enveloped in the dark gray stuff, like a small boat holding on in stormy seas, as my father described it. Upstairs also was a single dressing room, with a door, and by the window a three-way mirror with a narrow strip of rubber matting on the floor in front of it.
The rest of the upstairs floor, like the downstairs one, was carpetless, rugless, linoleumless, just its dark wood self. The downstairs was dominated by the women’s department, which had the two dressing rooms my father had dreamed of—wood-partitioned ones made extraprivate with doors. Spivey had given in to my father’s requests, though each concession was punctuated by a yelp of outrage. “You’re just set on driving me to the poorhouse, ain’t you, Bronson?” he would say.
Like the floors, the stairs were bare. Still, the mahogany banister had been sanded and varnished so that what had been pocked and pimply was now almost smooth.
Under the steps my father had managed something resembling a shoe department. In Oliphant he had come upon another find—a bench with shared arms, which he positioned as an area definer. It sat now in a welcoming mode, stools for clerks squatting at either side, and wooden foot-measurers hanging from the shelves above it.
The store’s crowning glory was, of course, on the two front windows; each had BRONSON’S LOW-PRICED STORE spelled out in big gold letters. The name could be seen up and down the street, and on this opening day, in the sunny weather, the letters shone brightly. And, as my father had seen when he had gone to the store night after night before the opening, the gold letters gave off glints in the dark.
To wait on trade besides my father, there was my mother, Mrs. MacAllister (Billy Sunday with her), and Vedra Broome.
Vedra Broome was a former saleswoman of Spivey’s. Spivey had recommended her, mainly because her husband worked at the plant. “She’ll give you a one-two punch,” he said to my father.
My father agreed, silently hoping he wouldn’t also need a three-four.
My mother and Mrs. MacAllister were to take turns holding Billy Sunday, and if both got busy—when they said this, they exchanged something that passed for a smile—Billy Sunday would go into the feather-pillow bin.
On opening day my brother was to respond speedily to a summons from anyone; my sister, if she could be induced to take leave of the three-way mirror, was to hand out the souvenirs.
My father walked the store doing last-minute checking, moving from place to place, inspecting, tidying—picking up a flannel shirt here, a woman’s hat there. He looked to see that price tags were correct, and readable.
Not everything had a price tag. The more expensive items, like suits and better dresses, would depend for prices on the clerk’s knowledge of the markup and on his ability to hold his own in the early bargaining. In Jew stores, if the negotiations got hot, the owner would be called in: “Say, boss, Mr. Callcott here ’clares this suit is just what he had in mind, but he don’t care too much for the price. I done told him the price is to the bone as ’tis. He says anythin’ more you can do for him would surely be appreciated.”
Everything my father had ordered had come, plus a few things he hadn’t. Spanish combs, for example, had been sent by the wholesaler with a note scrawled on a magazine picture of a girl crowned with the long-toothed, elaborately crested ornament. “Latest craze, hot seller,” the note said. “Try them on your yokels.” St. Louis people always felt St. Louis served as the sophistication capital for several states, and maybe it did.
My mother was anxiously running language samples through her head. Pin and pen were pronounced the same, she already knew that. And kindly? Oh, yes. It meant not “considerately” but “sort of,” so that a dress that was “kindly long” was not designed to hide leg defects but was “sort of” long; in other words, it needed shortening.
As eight-thirty came closer, the salespeople began to move about the floor. Conversation ceased; silence, tense silence, was all there was.
Suddenly there was a clatter at the back, and T burst in. Beside Erv there was with him a tall, skinny youth with the remnants of the telltale farmer’s sunburn around his neck and forehead.
My father took his watch out of his vest pocket. Ten minutes. He walked over to the boys.
T introduced the boy with him. He was another “cudden,” one named Nathan, who was “near nineteen years old” and who, according to T, had “never seen a Jew person in all his life” and, despite T’s insistence to the contrary, was convinced that Jews had horns.
My father stood very still, hands at his sides, feet planted, and offered himself up. “Here I am, sonny. Here’s your Jew,” he said to Nathan.
Nathan stared. In a moment anguish surfaced. “But by golly, Mr. Bronson,” he cried out, “you won’t do atall!” Jews were supposed to have horns. The Bible said so.
Hadn’t Nathan noticed that Jew peddlers didn’t have horns?
But Nathan had never seen a Jew peddler either. Every time a Jew peddler came to town, he said in a very aggrieved voice, by the time the news came out to where he lived way out in the country, the Jew peddler was on his way out again.
My father took out his watch, saw that there were seven minutes to go. In spite of it all, he was still able to banter. “I sure am sorry about the horns,” he said to Nathan. “I got to tell you them kind of Jews have gone out of style. None of the new kind have horns.”
My father thought to make it up to Nathan by giving the boys a little gift. Socks? What kind of treat was that for boys who wore shoes only when strictly necessary? As he mulled over possibilities, he told himself to be grateful for these little boys and this little problem, for this one moment of respite.
He reached behind a table, from a box pulled out three polka-dotted bow ties on elastic strings, and handed them around.
T took one, placed it around his neck, snapped it together, stretched it out with a forefinger, and let it pop back. Erv and Nathan did the same.
T said it “sure beats the fool” out of any tie he’d ever seen; Nathan said, “I reckon you could pure slap the tar out of your neck if you put your mind to it.” Erv said his usual nothing, just left with the boys,
all of them pop-popping away.
At the register Carrie MacAllister, whose white skin was growing whiter by the minute, made a stiff little speech about when to expect the factory trade. “Not till after six,” she said. “The whistle don’t blow till six.” She turned to Vedra Broome for confirmation. “Ain’t that a fact, Miz Broome?”
Vedra Broome was just entering the circle around the register. “Mercy, I have no idea,” she said, touching her headful of curls. It could not be missed that no matter how Vedra Broome moved, her headful of curls remained stationary. Closely resembling sausages confined in a sausage box, they were called—what could be more expected?—sausage curls.
Vedra Broome had never before worked in dry goods. All her experience had been in furniture. “But I do know one thing,” she said to the group, repinning the fake camellia on the jacket of her dress, “and that is, don’t look for quality trade. They wouldn’t want anyone to see them over here.”
When Vedra Broome said this, my mother understood Vedra felt she had gone down in the world. Clerking in furniture was superior to clerking in dry goods, because divans—as sofas were called in Concordia—were a more prestigious item than, say, work pants.
“So who does that leave?” my mother asked of anyone who might answer. “Will somebody please tell me that?”
My father picked up the pinwheel lying next to the register. He blew hard on it, making it whirl madly. “That leaves plenty,” he said, and since everyone was staring at him, he produced a smile. “We wasn’t counting too much on the quality people anyways.”
“So who’s left?” my mother persisted, anxiety turning her voice up a notch or two.
My father said who was left were the farmers and the coloreds. “They’ll keep us plenty busy till the shoe people come in.” My father turned to the others. “Don’t everybody agree?”
Only Mrs. MacAllister answered, and all she said was, “Let’s hope so.”
The conversation tapered off. It died altogether. And then my father’s watch said eight-thirty. He gave a last glance at the counters and moved to the front door.
When he lifted the shade over the glass, he had a moment of doubt as to what he was seeing. Then there they clearly were—a crowd of people, a blur of faces, some pressed against the glass.
He unlocked the door. In no time the crowd was swarming all over the store. My mother left the cash register. Mrs. MacAllister put Billy Sunday into the pillow bin. Everyone was rushing toward a customer.
My mother approached someone—a man. She pushed out the unfamiliar words “Can I help you?” The man shook his head and said he was just looking. When she turned to find another customer, she saw only children. Everywhere children—children running up and down the aisles, hiding under the counters, playing peekaboo in the dressing rooms.
In God’s name what did it mean? The farmers were supposed to be there, so where were they? And everyone had said the coloreds would come, so where were they? There were not even any dark children in the store. The smiling faces next to the fluttering pinwheels were pale and freckled, and their smiles seemed to my mother to hold a secret.
She looked for my father and the others. They too were surrounded only by children.
My father called to Joey. He wanted him to go outside to see where everyone was. Maybe by some careless reckoning, no one had realized today was a holiday. “Go. Go now,” he said to him. “See if there are people in town.”
In a few moments Joey came running back. The town was full of people, he reported. “Even Dalrymple-Eaton’s!”
Close to panic, my mother rushed up, to question Joey, to challenge him. She always said it was like her life depended on what Joey answered. She asked, as if angry with him, “So? So? And what did you see there? A few rich ladies? So tell me. You saw a few rich ladies?”
“Yes, Mama, yes! A few rich ladies!” The rich ladies had been in the coat department.
“Buying coats?”
Joey tried his best. “I didn’t say buying, Mama! Maybe they weren’t buying! Maybe they were just trying on!”
My mother’s eyes gripped my brother’s, willing him. “The other stores don’t have no customers? Like ours?”
“No, no, you don’t understand!” Joey has remembered being near to tears. How could everything have gone so wrong? But he knew he had to tell my mother the truth, and the truth was there were plenty of customers everywhere—everywhere but in our store.
My mother looked frantically around to find something comforting, something to tell her all was not lost. Everything only mocked her. As she said later, everything was telling her they had been fools. The tables so carefully laid out, the sizes meticulously in order so that no one would waste time, not the customer, not the clerk—why had they taken so many pains? The register with the beautiful silver sides—who needed anything so fancy? The handkerchiefs that my father insisted be fresh and white and arranged on their strings just so—who was there to notice them?
She walked to the front door and looked out. The register did not need her.
And then T was back in the store, come to see if Joey and Miriam could go with them to the picture show.
My mother had no patience for him. A reasoned decision was beyond her. It was easier to say, “No, T, no. We need them.”
“Yes, ma’m,” T said to her. And then his eyes flicked up in the way they did when you knew, my mother said, that he “couldn’t believe nothing what you were saying.” “You need them now?” he asked her.
Mrs. MacAllister came forward. She reported that the children were finally leaving. “Maybe now we can have some peace and quiet,” she said.
According to my father, if there was one thing they didn’t need at that moment, it was peace and quiet.
Joey asked T if he couldn’t stay and then go to the next show. T said he couldn’t and tried to explain the Saturday picture-show routine. How it worked, he said, was “you kindly eases yourself in” and see the serial while the others were out buying with their folks. “The others see it first,” he said, “and it takes the fire pure out of it.”
Mrs. MacAllister, listening to T, suddenly knew why the farmers hadn’t been in. The answer was that they were out buying their important stuff—their feed, seed, “their living, other words,” she said. And they did their “personal shopping” in the afternoons.
“I ain’t sure I’m on the same page as you, Mrs. Mac,” said my father, “but I sure hope you’re reading the words right.”
A few people trickled in. My father took out his watch: four minutes to twelve. And here came Miss Brookie, a basket lifted high and saying, “I brought some lunch, but I wouldn’t complain a speck if y’all were too busy to eat it.”
My father said customers weren’t exactly knocking them down. He took a chicken leg and napkin and asked if Carrie MacAllister had it right, and Miss Brookie agreed. After the farmers bought their “necessities,” they’d eat their dinners in the courthouse park, and then, she said, “You might look for them to come in.”
Might. My father took notice of the word.
My mother came over and refused a deviled egg. “On such a day, how can I eat?” she asked of nobody in particular. Among her worries were the “coloreds.” None had been in.
Easy to explain, Miss Brookie said. They were waiting on the Klan, hanging around on First Street to see what the Klan was up to. If a Kluxer walked into Bronson’s with his family, the Negroes would take this as the sign that they could do the same.
This consoled my mother not at all. She used to say she rubbed her hands so much on this day, she thought both skin and bones would disappear. “Oyoyoy,” she said to Miss Brookie. “So much worry before somebody comes in to buy something.”
“But what if the Klan don’t put its okay?” My father’s nervousness had turned the word into the long-discarded “hokay.”
Miss Brookie said that “without the hokay,” the Klan would take action long about suppertime. “Just drape themselves in muslin
and march,” she said.
“March?” My mother, in her innocence, was slightly buoyed by the idea of a march. In 1909 she and her family had attended a parade to commemorate Henry Hudson’s discovery of the Hudson River, and it had been through the years one of her proudest memories. How glorious the celebrated Goldman band had been, with sunlight glinting off tubas, and white uniforms sparkling as the men stepped smartly down Fifth Avenue, playing with gusto, aware they were thrilling the crowd. “There’ll be a parade?” she asked Miss Brookie.
Miss Brookie, as if reading my mother’s mind, said this was not going to be like any parade my mother might have seen. No, this one would be men in grubby sheets shuffling down First Street. And for music, only whoops and hollers from the crowd.
Where they would march to was to our store. My father always said that at these words he could feel his face go pale, and when Miss Brookie said they’d want to paint a cross on the store’s window, since they wouldn’t want to burn one on First Street, he felt his whole body go pale. And here was this lady, this Miss Brookie, being so unexcited, so calm, so … goyish.
My father wondered if there wasn’t something they could do, somebody they could talk to, and Miss Brookie, in her unruffled way, said no, there wasn’t, and that my father should “disabuse” himself of the idea that they would listen to her, whom they trusted, she said, “about as much as a goat in the gladiolas.”
As predicted, the farmers came in. They came in a surge; everyone had work to do. The farmers were eager to buy. The children needed shoes, the women needed yard goods, the men needed work pants and shirts. They needed, they needed; and since times were good, they bought. Joey was moving quickly to replenish, and Miriam was busy with her souvenirs.
It was clear the farmers were delighted to have such a store to trade in. One man, eyes squinting as if he were still in the field under a glaring sun, told my father, “Lord help us if Miz Turnpaugh ain’t been as excited as a pup. I reckoned if you didn’t open up soon, I’d have to ice her down.”
Jew Store Page 12