The Studs Terkel Reader_My American Century

by Studs Terkel

  This is what would happen at work. Instead of sending a card: Mrs. Jefferson, come to school to see about your son...they’d call up. When the phone would ring, honest to God, you know what? My blood pressure would rise, because now I was so afraid. “Lucy!” Whenever a call came in, I knew something was wrong. And when this truant officer would phone, one of the girls would answer.

  Boy, oh boy, here I go. I didn’t like this, see? I was furious, because I thought this was invading my private life. The way I raise my children was my own private business. Let’s say I was ashamed. This would be a better word. I wouldn’t have admitted it then, but I can admit it now. Because, you see, the stigma of all Negro children are lazy, they don’t do this, they don’t do that, you know. See, I didn’t want anybody to think my children wasn’t up to par, or wasn’t up to the white man’s standards. Well, I blowed that long ago. [Laughs.]

  I couldn’t afford to go to the PTA meetings. They don’t do a damn thing but drink coffee anyway. I like coffee and I like to drink it in the morning, but I have to go to work, and they had PTA meetings at one o’clock in the day. I couldn’t lay off my job to go down there to chitchat with them. I think they had PTA meetings twice in the last ten years at night. They’re no damn good anyway.

  Melvin was doing very poorly and I was getting letters. You know, they send you all these little items. Come to see me, come to school, because your child is not working up to his capacity. I don’t know why they just don’t tell you the truth about it, instead of using all these vague, false phrases. I thought he was just being lazy, but the child couldn’t read. He couldn’t spell. He was at Crane High, out there in the ghetto. I laid off from work the next day. I got up, cocked my hat up Miss Johnny Aside...I wanted to let him know I was plenty mad then. Oh yeah, I visited Crane. Melvin was having three study periods in a row. Gee, this is kind of crazy, studying what? I went to see this study hall. And this is the auditorium. It has a false ceiling, and there’s very few lights, and there’s children everywhere, male and female, and about the only thing they can do there is make love. Most of the kids can’t read anyway, but if they could, they wouldn’t be able to see. So I went to the counselor and he said, “It costs $10,000 to put up this business of putting lights in and the school system doesn’t have the money” and blah, blah, blah. I said, “But in the meantime, what are you going to do about all these children in there, these boys and girls, these young men and women?” I said, “Maybe they can’t read but they can do other things in there, such as getting babies.” He said, “Well, well...we don’t have anywhere else to put ’em.”

  You’re talking about teachers. I bet he never had the same teacher twice in two weeks in two years. It’s a disgrace to keep on calling these places schools. I think the best thing we can say about them, these are meeting places where people get up every morning, give their children a dollar, seventy-five cents, or whatever the heck they give ’em, and these kids go off. Schools you learn in. They could take a store front on Roosevelt Road or anywhere and clean it up, put some seats in there, and put some books in. But see, you can’t learn anything where there is no books. Melvin went a whole half year at Crane, didn’t have a book. If I woke up in a house that didn’t have a book in, I’d just burn it down, it wouldn’t be any good. To me, they’re my life blood. Types of caps, gowns, all that crap, it don’t mean nothing.

  Oh, what am I really looking for? For my daughter to have her baby. This is her first. Her marriage turned out bad. I would like for her to finish her college education. She’s gonna need it to help her child, to rear her child. The only thrill left for me is to see my grandchild come and see what I can do about him. Won’t that be fun? You know, I’ll be able to afford things that would give him incentive to paint, music, literature, all these things that would free his little soul. Other than that, no bother. Melvin? Am I going to give him a chance to be a man or not? I took that chance when I let him go to Selma. I was scared to death. And I was very proud. I was afraid he was too young, because he was only sixteen, to know what was really happening. But I couldn’t afford to tell him. I wouldn’t have given him a chance to be a man. This was his chance. And I didn’t want to steal it.

  Let’s face it. What counts is knowledge. And feeling. You see, there’s such a thing as a feeling tone. One is friendly and one is hostile. And if you don’t have this, baby, you’ve had it. You’re dead.

  KID PHARAOH

  He was standing outside his hot-dog shop, somewhere on the North Side of the city. He was observing the sky. “Think it’ll rain?” I asked. “I’m looking at them high rises,” he replied. “Wish they were mine.” During the conversation, I was rewarded with three fifty-cent cigars.

  Guys like me are the nucleus of the street. All the newcomers are the real Johnny-come-latelies, are not familiar with the location, of what it stands for, of what it is. I been in Chicago all my life, was born and raised here. My dad was a speculator on the market, sometimes successful, most of his life not. I’m an ex-prize fighter by profession.

  I never graduated high school, and I missed absolutely nothing. You learn nothing in school, nothing. The truth of the matter is you learn it on the outside. A guy goes to school, what does he want to be? A doctor? A lawyer? These are the two biggest thieves in our society. One steals legitimate, the other kills legitimate. Charge you what they want. They never pay the Uncle what he’s entitled to. Guys like me they want to put in jail. Because I’m dedicated to one principle: taking money away from unqualified dilettantes who earn it through nepotism. I work at this and I’m good at my trade. I don’t labor. Outside of being a prize fighter, I took an oath to God I would never again labor. But there’s a million people on the street that want to be taken and should be taken, and they’re gonna be taken.

  Me and my brothers have the same philosophy. We set a snare, we trap these guys who come in. They’re all either biologically or physically insecure. They believe what they read in the papers and everyone reads fiction and they’re all scared. We sell two things: we sell the item of fear and we give them the security they never had in their life. And whatever they have, we take from them. They’re more than willing to give it.

  How did they get it? Did they earn it? Did they inherit it? Did they marry the boss’s daughter? What’s their qualifications? Half of one percent of America is qualified. You walk into any department store, for example, and you want to change a hat. He says, wait a minute, we’ll send you to so-and-so. So-and-so sends you to the second floor, he’s not qualified. By the time it’s through, the whole afternoon is shot. Who’s an authority? Who’s really an authority that you know today? You can’t name one.

  During the Depression when I was a little boy, and I was hustling, selling newspapers or shining shoes or setting pins, or stealing ginger ale bottles off the Lake Shore Drive area, someone was the boss. Today there’s no such thing as the boss. He’s not really qualified.

  My dad worked as a WPA man. We were on relief. I could see me and my kid brother going down to the Fair Store to get shoes on government stamps. I can see myself hustling food, luggin’ oranges home and potatoes home. And this is the greatest thing that ever happened to guys like me. I mean, I loved it. This is what the system calls for, this is where you pick yourself up and go. Without money, you’re a bum on the park, you’re nothing. Who are you? You can’t get yourself in an icebox. You can’t get your hand out of one. You can’t get your hand in one. What’s the measuring stick of our system? He’s a money guy, respect ’im. What do you do with a bum? Extend the evening felicitations. Is it a woman? She’ll offer you a biological reward. If you’ve got currency, you’ll offer her some luxury. The other mooch who got everything from his dad, the hell with him. Take it away from him. Hook, crook, slingshot, canoe, we must shaft this guy, got to take it away from him. But don’t hurt him.

  Now how do I survive? I live at the Belden Stratford, I manage a new car every year, I take my steam baths three times a week, I take a manicure, a pedi
cure. Now how do I get it? I don’t break the law. If you steal it, you go to jail. You’re in a trick bag. Now there are people on the street that have money, they don’t know what to do with it. How do I take this money away from these guys? I play the Freudian theory, long may Freud live.

  It’s amazing, my reputation. People telling how qualified you are as Tom the Tough Guy and Pistol Pete. I got some good publicity as a prize fighter in the newspapers and I’ve gotten some bad publicity. People believe what they read. So then leave them think that way. My brother was in trouble recently. All the papers had him on the front page. He was on television. He was scared. I said, “Fool, you’ll go out and raise all the money in the world.” He came back in a week, he says, “You know, I made fourteen thousand?” “Double it. People want to help people, especially tough guys. They need you. They believe what they read. We know you’re innocent, but let’s take it from ’em.” And we did. He was a celebrity. They worship celebrities. Tom the Tough Guy and Pistol Pete. This is the giant of their society. Who else is a giant? Some faggot movie star that puts powder on his face? What qualifies him? The entire country today moves on physiogomy If you’re attractive, it’ll open the door. I can’t get in. What’s my best shot? The arm. I use it.

  Everybody is really scared because they watch all this nonsense on television. No such thing as a tough guy, they’re all dead. Now these people come in, say in the Old Town section where I bum in the late hours after I close this shop. We have a reputation of being some tough guys, but we’re really not. We’re very gracious gentlemen, we extend the utmost courtesies to everyone. But we don’t tip our hand. As long as they believe it, leave them believe it. ’Cause their currency, we want to take it away from them, not by heisting them, but by encouraging them to do what they want. This boy who killed himself in Arizona, this MacDonald boy of Zenith. Now why couldn’t I grab someone like him. We’ve often discussed it. He was insecure. Psychiatrists couldn’t cure him, but we woulda cured him. We’d put a dent in him a little. Given him courage he never had. He had a Freudian complex of rejection. It was a broken-up family. And we’d of explained to him what to do with this type of money.

  Why shouldn’t we take it from them? Legally, with the semi-muscle. It can get you killed, but if you work it right, the greatest thing in the world is the semi-muscle. You put that fear in ‘em that’ll help them. I work on contracts, like in business. It’s an oral contract. Now if they give me a contract, they come to me with some trouble. If called upon to perform, I perform. If not, I subcontract. Example. They’re usually in debt. Or someone owes them money. Or they’re extremely fond of women. Someone’s cutting in on their girl. Their wife is an infidelist. There’s all kinds of conditions. They’re afraid, everybody’s scared. I give them security. If their wife is an infidelist, I muscle the guy she’s makin’ love with. I run him off. If somebody owes him money, somebody’s after him, I chase him away. See? Now this guy’s in debt to me. The biggest mistake of his life. He should really paid ’em, because I’ve got him for the rest of his life. I’ll always noodge him for some currency or another. I’ll always go into him. You just can’t imagine how many insecure people we have in this country. Say, in the Cuban crisis, remember? I was getting a manicure that day and my manicurist was so scared she didn’t know if she was gonna have a heart attack. And I said, “Look, Louise, don’t be afraid, sweetheart. They’re gonna turn back the minute they get there, they’re gonna make a U-turn.” You know what happened? They got no chance with the Uncle. Everybody’s scared—of something.

  Are you scared of anything?

  Absolutely nothing. And this is a dangerous society. People like to hurt people. Why do people go to Indianapolis Speed Race, two, three hundred thousand? To see the little guys run around in a car? Hell, no. They go to see people killed. If a man’s brains can put a plane in the sky, why can’t a man’s brain kill ya? He does, he can use it, he’s on the streets right now. Killers are stalking all day long, faggots are on the streets, peeking Toms are on the streets, teenagers are on the streets, you gotta use a baseball bat on ’em, guys like myself from the 43rd Ward, here in the Metropolitan area of Chicago. We don’t believe in contaminating the morals. We run these guys off.

  We don’t want ‘em around. If they come in a restaurant where we bum, or some faggot starts congregatin’ around, they assemble—we run ‘em off. We don’t like ’em. I certainly have to protect my nieces and nephews. The law isn’t qualified. The law protects these dilettantes and degenerates.

  If I was a dictator, I would exercise genocide for all degenerates. I would slay them. Take most of these educated guys. Think they know what to do? You put them in Lincoln Park for three-quarters of an hour, and you’d have to take one of our little boy scouts who have to go in and take them out again. They wouldn’t know how to get out. How does a man survive in a capitalistic system? Say you work twenty years on a job, you’ve lost it. What would you do now? My element can survive. Heaven forbid, we should live with a bomb, a fire, a flood, we’ll survive.

  How?

  The mongrel and the pedigree. The pedigree will run across the street, is it not so, he’ll get hit by the car? The mongrel will survive. He has the cunning to duck the car.

  A dog, a mongrel?

  Yeah, put me down as a dog, yeah.... You must be sincere in my element. Like Sam Giancana. Momo.45 Now they’ve got this man in a trick bag, in a penal institution. They’ve taken his right away. It’s unfair. It’s not the way the American system works. The aggravation of putting this man away for no reason at all. He’s my element. I don’t prefer a lot of them because they’re prejudiced toward their element of nationality. The same as the rise and fall of the Roman Empire. A one-way street cannot survive. He’s fair with his money. He didn’t forget people. Everybody who came out of jail he helped them, he made money for them, and he put them in power. He was qualified. Martin Luther King, put him away. What’s he good for?

  The American Negro not only has everything, now he’s tampering with our white women. Women today seem to prefer pigmentation. I have two nieces, I’m worried about that. That some colored guy—and I’m the last guy in the world to be prejudiced—this guy comes to the big city and has a comb job on his head. They bust out in these attractive suits and they seem to have some sort of education about them. Most of the girls who prefer pigmentation are not metropolitanites. They’re from Ohio, Iowa, Indiana, or some of them buck towns.

  Some war veterans who are laying in some basket in a hospital, they’ll never go to him to arouse his biological urge or pat him on the back or give him a vote of confidence, a note of thanks, nonsense. What about the American soldier who went off to war? Who came back, who’s in trouble with automation over his vocation? He’s entitled to nothing, he’s a mooch. What about the average layman who has labored hard and long in this country without an education, raised a family, sent boys off to war? He’s in his vintage years. All of a sudden his building is worth thirty-five thousand dollars and he goes to bed feeling secure. In the morning, a Negro moves next door and his building is worth seventeen thousand. They’ve destroyed everything they’ve ever moved in. There’s a revolt in the making, let me suggest it to you. When it will come, I don’t know. How it will come, I don’t know. Who will organize this revolt...but it’ll come.

  The best people for communities are the Japanese. They’re never above a whisper. Their homes are immaculate. Show me a Japanese on the street after ten o‘clock. Show me one, I’ll offer a universal challenge to all. Did you ever see one arrested? Did you ever see one under the influence of an intoxicated beverage? Did you ever see ’em pregnant, Japanese girls who are not married? Of course not, there’s love in the home. Say for the Negroes, they’re animals. There’s no love in the home. Not only wants to move the white man over, he wants to be there with him. They have a long-range plan of dissolving this pigmentation through intermarriage.

  I thought you admired aggressiveness?

  Yeah, but y
ou ain’t gonna muscle me. I’m a capitalist and they’re gonna have to fight me and I ain’t gonna lose. There’s a lot of legitimate people like myself. My system may be outdated. I might have been a success at the turn of the century. Today with all the laws and Supreme Court rulings, I haven’t even got a chance. If I was born forty years ago, I believe I would have been a multimillionaire. I shoot the same shot that Rockefeller shot while somebody was tapping an oil well that was competitive to him. He put guys in trick bags. Got ’em in jail. There’s a history written about these guys. John Astor, with his trapping, with his furs. Hitting guys. This is the way the system works. What else is there? These new laws are holding them back, destroying incentive. Our enemies are calling us capitalistic. We’re not.

  Capitalism ideally is for any bum in the park to come with an idea or be aggressive enough to find a place in the sun for himself, can go as high as he wants and as long as he wants.

  Even if he has to step on others?

  He must, he must. In our society, you must do it. It doesn’t work any other way. People will hurt you, kill you.

  To me the most important thing is helping someone who is in need. Financially, if I have the currency or anyway shape or form, I can help people. And I do. Taking an oath before a high court and before God, we, we do it.

  You believe in God?

  I really don’t. I’m a dedicated agnostic. Who was Jesus Christ? He was an excellent, I would say a con man. He learned hypnotism in India. When He lammed out of Israel, they wanted to shaft Him because He was causing all this nonsense and riots, He said He was the Son of God. Today they wouldn’t kill Him. They would have offered Him psychiatric supervision, because the dear boy was in need of this. When He fed the multitude the fish, He hypnotized a half a dozen. They carried on the word. Who did He feed? He fed nobody. Who did He cure of leprosy? He hypnotized the people. They got up and they walked. He got Himself killed at thirty-two years of age. He couldn’t keep His big bazoo shut. Did you know that Pontius Pilate offered to give this man a number? He said, “Now look, Jesus, you’re a marvelous boy. Why don’t you go off in the wilderness and cut this nonsense out, and go about your business. Quit causing all these riots.” This man wanted to be killed. And he told Him, “If you want to be killed, I gotta hang up two criminals. So be it.” Hit his hand on the table and they strung Him up. He was a rabble rouser.