Father Divine's Bikes

by Steve Bassett

  “I went back at eleven. Know what that lyin’ sonofabitch Callahan said? He said, ‘Sorry, Bancik. I didn’t know, but the people upstairs already had a guy hired. Never even told me. Like I said, I gotta boss too. Sorry.’ I din’t say a word, just walked out. That jig got the job over me!”

  Late that night, Joey heard his parents talking in Croatian. His father was crying and his mother seemed to be trying to comfort him with soft words.

  Why are they doing this to us, Joey thought. The niggers. If it ain’t them, who is it? He rolled over, buried his head in his pillow and sobbed himself to sleep.

  “Nigger meat.”

  “Nigger meat?” asked Catherine Bancik. “What’s that?”

  “You don’t want those hot dogs, Mrs. Bancik,” explained Abe Fishbein. “Hardly any meat in ’em, and what there is ain’t worth eatin’.”

  Joey and his mother walked to the far end of the meat display case, past all the prime cuts. In three clearly marked trays were ox tails, 11¢; pig’s feet, 9¢; cow brains, 12¢ lb. They had never seen them on display before.

  “I got a deal down at the slaughterhouse for this kind of stuff,” said Fishbein, leaning across the display case.

  “I can’t cook that,” Catherine said.

  “Look, Mrs. Bancik, you’re one of my old customers. I don’t want to pass this stuff off on ya. I feel I gotta warn ya. But I gotta start stockin’ this stuff. All the other markets been selling it for months now. I gotta make a living.”

  “Okay, gimme eight of the twenty-cent hot dogs. ’N grind up a half pound of pork ’n half of chuck. It’s for stuffed cabbage.”

  While they waited, Joey noticed that three of the ten customers in the store were Negroes. He couldn’t remember ever seeing more than one at a time before.

  “Here ya are, Mrs. Bancik. That all?”

  “That’s it. On the bill, okay? We’ll catch up on it next week.”

  “Sure. Hey, by the way, how’s Josef doin’?”

  “Still lookin’.”

  “Yeh, I know. Things’re really tight. No more war work. Hardly anybody at the shipyards anymore. Even Ronson is cutting back,” the pale butcher said, nodding his head toward the three Negroes. “Tell him ‘Good Luck’ for me.”

  “Thanks.”

  As they walked out of the shop, his mother said, “It don’t seem right.”

  Joey was silent. He carried the package of meat, along with two other bags. One contained marked-down fruit and vegetables from the “Ripe but still Dee-licious” produce counter at the A&P. The other held day-old bread and week-old cake from Fischer’s.

  “I hope your father don’t mind that cake. Maybe I can heat it up. You know how he gets.”

  “It’ll be okay, Mom. Don’t worry.”

  One day after school, Joey came home and put his books on the kitchen table, next to a newspaper.

  “Where’s Dad?”

  “Out with your grandfather. You want something to eat?”

  “Nope, I’m okay.” He sat at the table and glanced at the open newspaper his mother had been reading.

  THE NEW DAY

  National & International

  The Works of Father Divine

  36 pages — 5¢

  “Hey, Mom, what’s this?”

  “What’s what?” Catherine turned from the sink. “I picked it up at the store.”

  “Store? What store?”

  “The Peace Store down the street.”

  Joey rolled up the paper and moved toward his mother. Frightened that her son was about to strike her, she stepped aside as he repeatedly slammed the newspaper against the lip of the sink. Tears of rage covered his face as he fell back into a kitchen chair.

  “The Peace Store! The Peace Store! You went to one of that god damn nigger crook’s stores? Why … why in hell d’ya do that? Sonofabitch!” Joey shredded the paper into tiny pieces. “Sonofabitch, Father Divine’s Peace Store!”

  “I was told about it by Mrs. Criola. I don’t like goin’ there, but we got it tough. We gotta take advantage. Ev’rythin’s cheaper there. Even hard-to-get stuff. Margarine’s five cents less. I been going there for a few weeks now.”

  “Gotta take advantage? Ya know what they’re callin’ us? D’ya know?” Joey got up from the chair and blasphemed through his tears. “White niggers! That’s right! White niggers! And that was even before you started going to that god damn store.”

  “But Joey, ev’rythin’s cheaper. ’N they got nice canned goods.”

  Joey reeled from the room and into the hall. “White niggers they’re calling us,” he mumbled, “and they’re right!”

  Joey and Billy talked about the changes in the neighborhood one morning while sitting on the stairs of the Exeter Apartments. “What the hell’s goin’ on?” agonized Joey. “Everything’s changing around here.”

  “Yeah, ain’t no room for whites anymore.”

  “I don’t mean that, the fuckin’ coons an’ all. It ain’t that. But everything. Ya kin feel it. It’s all changed.”

  “What the hell ya talkin’ ’bout?”

  “I don’t know. All I know is … it makes me feel … hell … it … well it’s like once on the Number 8 from downtown. One day I really busted my ass to catch it at Broad and Market so I could get a seat. No luck. I gotta stand in the back. Ya know, once the bus starts up the hill, yer ass is grass. Everyone pushes back and you get crushed. You can push back, but it ain’t no use. They still keep squeezing you.”

  “You’re nuts. What’s a bus got to do with anything? Crowds are crowds.”

  “That ain’t the point, you dumb ass. We’re getting pushed out. All of us. And how about we now got a cop walking in the neighborhood. No more squad car cruisin’ by without stopping. What’s that tell you?”

  “You tell me why don’tcha.”

  “More coons, more crime. Everybody knows that.”

  “I don’t. Besides, the cop they put on the beat is hardly Dick Tracy,” Billy said. “He’s kinda old. Saw him in Milt’s the other day freeloading a coffee. Name’s Gazzi.”

  “Can’t be much of a cop, should have some stripes on his sleeve but he don’t.”

  “Sure does nose around a lot. Saw him poking into the Jew’s pawnshop more than once.”

  “Yeah, and he’s been kicking some voodoo ass as well. Came down hard on those fake priests when he caught them peddling guaranteed numbers winners and chicken bones over on Montgomery,” Joey said.

  “Not touching the numbers runners or banks though,” Billy said. “Probably too hot for him to handle.”

  “Beacon paper boys are more his speed. I was over at Marsucci’s office last week when they walked out buddy-buddy like, all smiles.”

  “Still waiting for a route, how many months…?”

  “Just forget it.”

  “Oh yeah, guess ya heard, Father Schneider is lookin’ into the rent thing,” Billy said.

  “So what? No way he’s going to stop that big son of a bitch from collecting.”

  “If Father Schneider can’t do anything, nobody can,” Billy said.

  “I hear he’s turned the job over to pretty boy Father Nolan. If that’s right, kiss it off.”

  “At least he comes around,” Billy said. “Even popped for some sodas at Milt’s last week. Shot the shit with the gang. It was the longest I can remember that the Pump had to button her lip.”

  “Yeah, guess you’re right. He’s a big change from Father Koestler, and he’s young, won’t keel over and die on the sidewalk like the old guy, not for a while anyway,” Joey said.

  “Come on, let’s get a soda,” Billy was tired of talk that didn’t concern him. “It’s on me.”

  Joey’s trips to the hated Peace Store became inevitable. He would not go to the Father Divine establishment on Baldwin. That was out of the question. Instead, he hiked the extra four blocks to Mercer and Howard, always sizing up the area from both sides of the street before going into the store. Was he really fooling anybody?

>   Joey had to admit that shopping at the Peace Store was a hell of a lot nicer than being pushed around in the other markets. It was that way right from the start.

  “Peace, little brother, what can we do for you?”

  Joey studied the black man who came from behind the front counter. He was probably about his father’s age, more or less. Joey took in the starched, white, open-collared shirt, the spotless white trousers, and the worn, but clean, black shoes.

  “I gotta list,” said Joey, looking about the store as he fumbled for his mother’s shopping list and the rationing books. The market, formerly McMillan’s “Hardware and Anything Else You Can Think Of,” was large. Everything had a scrubbed look.

  “I don’t recall seein’ you here before, little brother,” the man said. “I hope this will be the first of many visits. Oh, this is a fine list.”

  The man moved effortlessly about the store, taking a can of beans here, a package of spaghetti there, a two-pound bag of flour, two pounds of potatoes, a head of cabbage, two loaves of fresh bread (cheaper than the day-old stuff at Fisher’s Outlet), a pound of margarine, oatmeal and dry skim milk.

  Directly behind the counter, in large gold letters, was an emblazoned “Peace,” and an inscription.

  God and Country

  Peace for All

  The Divine Father Will Lead You

  “Yes, it is a beautiful testimonial, isn’t it, little brother?” said a startlingly beautiful woman’s voice from behind Joey. “The Divine Father is never far from our thoughts.”

  Joey was awed by the light-skinned Negro woman. She was as beautiful as her voice.

  “Oh, I see you’ve met Sweetness Charity,” the man said.

  “I haven’t been formally introduced,” said the beautiful woman. “Well then, little brother, won’t you tell me your name?”

  “Joey Bancik and I’m Catholic,” he stammered.

  “Well now, little brother, that certainly is a strange kind of introduction,” said the man. “Sweetness Charity operates this store. She is the one who makes this fine food available to you, with the Divine Father’s blessings, of course.”

  “His blessings? Sister Immaculata says Father Divine is a heathen who took a verse from the bible and screwed it up to make it look like he was God’s messenger.”

  “Sister Immaculata? Then you must be a student over at St. Mark’s,” said Sweetness Charity, her mouth now frozen in a hard smile.

  “Did the good sister also inform you, oh yes, she must have done so, that there are many people, good people, who call the Catholic Church the ‘whore of Rome’? Certainly she told you that. But no, we won’t go into that, little brother. It is slander of the worst kind. Father Divine exacts a harsh retribution from those who slander another soul, or another church.

  “Instead let me, as a servant of the Divine Father, welcome you to this store,” she said, placing the nine food items in a paper bag.

  Joey placed four quarters in the woman’s hand. Sweetness Charity rang up the sale, then put the ten cents change in Joey’s hand, gently closing his fingers around a dime.

  “Peace, little brother. We hope you’ll return,” she intoned.

  Joey’s mother sent him to the Peace Store at least once a week. Catherine Bancik unpacked the groceries when Joey got home that first time. Attached to the cash register receipt was a wallet-size card, obviously placed there by Sweetness Charity. On one side of the card was a picture of Father Divine, on the other:

  Father Divine is my Father

  He is walking in the land.

  Got the world in a jug

  And the cork in his hand.

  PEACE!

  No doubt about it, Joey thought, I’m screwed. Sure be easier if I could get a Beacon route. Don’t pay much, but a lot more than the pennies Sister Joan hands out. No sense trying for the Clarion, that’s sewed up tight by the kids from St. Mike’s, half of them dropouts. Al Sweeney, Christ how old is he? Bet he’s already shaving. Mean son of a bitch. Says he’ll kick our asses if we come looking for work. He ain’t gonna get a piece of me, that’s for sure.

  Joey and Sweeney had no way of knowing that trouble was brewing. Sweeney’s boss, Jim McDuffie, got the word a month earlier that the Beacon was moving into Clarion territory, and that his district with its ritzy apartments, Riviera Hotel and stately homes was a prime target. It was two years earlier when one of McDuffie’s kids got sick and he had to take over his route. This was no easy thing for him. Classified 4-F because of two bum knees, already turning arthritic at the age of twenty-four, climbing apartment stairs had become a painful ordeal.

  “Ain’t you kinda old to be tossing newspapers around?” a short stocky man with a left cauliflower ear and bent nose asked from the open door of Zwillman’s spacious Riviera Hotel apartment. “What happened to the kid? Got used to seeing him. Longy ain’t much for strange faces around here.”

  “He’s sick, so I’m filling in,” McDuffie said. He handed the man, who was obviously one of Longy’s prize fighters, the early edition of the Evening Clarion wrapped around a New York Mirror. Longy let it be known that when he was in town he couldn’t live without his daily dose of Walter Winchell.

  The pug took the papers and turned to go back inside, then hesitated, “What did you say your name was?”

  “I didn’t, but it’s McDuffie. Jim McDuffie, and I’m the kid’s boss.”

  “The boss, huh. What kinda boss is that?”

  “Circulation manager for the Clarion. I handle fifteen kids working this part of the Ward. Your kid is Tommy Spencer, a tough cookie who’s been supporting his widow mom.”

  “Not just a boss, but a manager. Are all your kids tough cookies?”

  “Gotta be,” McDuffie said. “Some of them the only ones putting bread and butter on the table. You ask a lot of questions. Any reason, or you just curious? What’s your name?”

  “You a fight fan?”

  “Yeah, kinda. Take in the amateur bouts at the YMHA, and the downtown AC. Can’t afford the Laurel.”

  “I’m Benny Switzer. My name ring a bell?”

  “Hell yes, damn good lightweight. Held your own against some really good ones. Word was out that Ike Williams was ducking you.”

  “Ike is one of Blinky Palermo’s pugs out of Philly. Blinky handpicks every fight. Grooming Ike for the title. He’ll get it okay. No way a dago mobster is going to take chances that a Jew boxer out of Newark is going to beat his boy.”

  Switzer lowered his gaze to his right hand, then raised it so McDuffie could see the three deformed middle knuckles. “That was then, Mr. Manager, and this is now,” Switzer said.

  “How’d you bust it up?”

  “Against a second rate palooka in a six-rounder in Elizabeth. Felt the bones snapping in the second, kept my mouth shut and kept going. Got so swollen they had to cut the glove off. Washed me up.”

  “Too bad,” McDuffie said, suddenly at a loss for words. “Anyway, I’ll see you around, at least until Tommy’s back.”

  McDuffie was amazed at the speed everything tumbled into place. He often wondered if the Spencer kid wasn’t sick that week, would it have happened at all. It began on Friday when Switzer was waiting for him in the hall. After taking the newspapers from him, he got right to the point.

  “You gotta record McDuffie?” the pug’s heavy lidded eyes bored in. “No bullshit now, you got a sheet or don’t you?”

  “Nothing serious, boosted cars twice when I was seventeen. Slap on the wrist each time, so there’s no record. That’s it.”

  “Good you don’t have a rap sheet. The numbers, ever play them? Know how the racket works?”

  I wonder where the hell all this is going, McDuffie thought. God damn this ain’t a street punk grilling me. It’s one of Longy’s bodyguards. Here goes nothing.

  “Hell everyone knows the numbers. I drop a quarter every now and then. So, you gonna tell me what this is all about?”

  “Come on inside. Longy’s at his home in East Orange and w
e’ll be alone. He only comes here for business meetings. I’ve told him about this talk we’ll be having. He’ll want to know how I size you up.”

  McDuffie followed Switzer into a large, thick carpeted living room. He was motioned to one of two stuffed club chairs that shared a coffee table, and Switzer took the other.

  “Got a family?” Switzer asked, making eye contact while massaging the broken knuckles of his right hand.

  “A wife, no kids.”

  “No other folks?”

  “Mom and dad, don’t see much of them anymore. Two older brothers, both overseas. The last I heard they were in North Africa.”

  “Your wife, I don’t know her name, have anything against the numbers racket?”

  “Maureen, but she answers to Mo. Never talk much about it. If I’m right about where you’re going with this, I think she’ll be all for it.”

  Their meeting lasted almost two hours. McDuffie explained his circulation territory to the mobster, the fancy apartments, the big homes, and how it was one of the blue chip districts in the city. Switzer was pleasantly surprised how much he knew about the numbers. How the runners, the writers and banks worked, and how the banks laid off their losses on big payoffs.

  “Ain’t much I got to tell you then,” Switzer said. “Sink in yet what we’re talking about?”

  “You’re asking me if I want in. If I’m right, the answer is yes.”

  “Okay, you’ll be hearing from us. What we just talked about doesn’t get out of this room, got it?”

  “Sure.”

  “Any questions?” Switzer said. “If you do, get ‘em off your chest now.”