Maggie Now

by Betty Smith

in the whole damned Borough of Brooklyn!"

  That was Denny's version of his father's far-flung

  challenge to the world: "I'll bury youse all! "

  5< CHAl'TER FIFTY-SIX ~

  To DENNY'S disappointment, he wasn't allowed to cut

  meat right away. Winer said he had to work his way up

  from the bottom and he meant it literally. Winer, like

  many a lonely person, was scrupulously neat about himself

  and the store and first Denny had to learn to carry out

  Winer's ideas of neatness.

  Each night, after the store closed, the sawdust had to be

  swept out and fresh sawdust sprinkled on the floor. Each

  day, the marble block that was the store window's floor

  had to be scoured and rubbed with a cut lemon; the

  cutting block had to be cleaned daily, with salt and a wire

  brush; the knives had to be washed and honed daily. The

  meat-grinding machine had to be taken apart and washed

  after each usage, and it was used ten or fifteen times a

  day. The counter scrubbed; the store window washed once

  a week; the walls swabbed down every so often. Clean,

  scrub, polish . . . Winer was fanatically neat.

  Winer tossed all fat scraps into a barrel. Winer sold the

  fat to a soap manufacturer. Once a week, Denny risked

  getting a double hernia carrying that barrel Otlt to the

  curb to be picked up by the soap people.

  And Denny loved e very bit of w ork connected with the

  butcher shop.

  The second week, Winer let him cut meat from bones

  and cut up scrap meat and grind it into hamburger, which

  was called

  1,''7~1

 

  chopmeat in the neighborhood. It fell to Denny to place

  the sprig of parsley in the center of the artistically

  arranged swirls of ground meat on the grey agate platter.

  Winer let him sell soup bones: a marrow bone, a knuckle

  bone and a straight bone, all for a nickel. He let him slice

  bologna. He let him give away dog meat and dog bones

  free -hut only if the customer made other meat

  purchases.

  "When they ask for dog meat," instructed Winer, "you

  must say should you wrap it or do they want to eat it

  here."

  "But that gag's got hair on it," said Denny. "It's that old."

  "Just the same, the customers like it. It belongs with

  giving away dog meat."

  Now Denny knew that hamburger was one hundred per

  cent profit; being made from meat that couldn't be used

  any other way. He asked Winer wouldn't it be better to

  urge the already ground hamburger on a customer when

  she asked for a pound of chuck or round ground to order.

  "That's out of date," said Winer. "Here's how you sell

  chopmeat off the plate. A lady wants a pound of round

  ground. You make out like you're very happy to do this.

  You grind it right in front of her. When you put it on the

  scale, you look mad like you grind too much meat. You

  take a lumper off and throw it on the choprneat in the

  showcase like vou don't care. The lady and any other

  ladies in the store will tell theirselves: I should pay thirty

  cents for ground round when I can get the same off the

  plate for eighteen cents. And I know it's the same. I saw

  the butcher put some on the plate from my

  thirty-cents-a-pound ground round."

  The bane of Winer's life was a woman coming in and

  asking for half a pound of sirloin or one lamb chop or any

  other quality meat which meant cutting into a whole side

  of meat for little profit. Winer instructed Denny.

  "A lady comes in and wants only half pound sirloin, it

  should be cut thick. You then go in icebox and come out

  and you are carrying a side of beef on your shoulder. You

  make your legs bend like is the beef very heavy. You put

  it on block and put hand over your heart like it hurts a

  little from carrying. Then is the lady so ashamed, all that

  trouble for half a pound, she says she may as well take

  whole pound steak."

  ~ 3~3 ]

 

  Winer instructed further. "People buy kidneys and

  hearts and pigs' feet. Maybe they is shamed they buy such.

  They all make the same fun about it but all thinks he

  made up the fun in the first place. Like a lady says: 'You

  got kidneys?' "

  "So I tell her," said Denny, "not to get personal?"

  "No. That's fresh. Y on say, like this: 'I hope sot' then

  you smile and make a wink. They think, ain't he fresh!

  But they like it ail the same. Also on all the old ladies

  and middle ones, you should smile and make a wink even

  without the kidneys."

  "Yeah. But I don't see you winking, Otto."

  "That I cannot do. They think I got dirty feelings

  because I am a widder man living by myself in the back.

  But for you what is so young and nice-looking, it is a

  present, the wink, to the ladies what ain't so young no

  more."

  Just then, Denny saw Maggie-Now turning in to the

  store. He knew that Winer did not know Maggie-Now. He

  said, "Otto, let me try the wink and the smile on this

  customer." Otto gave permission.

  Denny gave his sister a big wink. To Otto's

  consternation, the lady winked back. "What can I do for

  you, Tootsie?" asked Denny.

  Otto, shocked, whispered: "Say 'Missus.'"

  "Missus Tootsie." said Denny. "What's yours?"

  "Do you have spareribs?" she asked.

  He made a great to-do about clutching his ribs and

  feeling his back. "I thought I had some," he said. "But I

  must have left them home, hanging up in the closet."

  That was better, thought Otto. He beamed. Denny

  weighed and wrapped the ribs and Maggie-Now asked,

  "How much?"

  "I'll let you have them for a nickel," said Denny, "if

  you'll give me a big hug and a big kiss."

  "You go too far!" shouted Otto. "Excuse, lady," he said

  to Maggie-Now, "but the boy is new here."

  "That's all right," smiled Maggie-Now. "I'm his sister."

  "No! "

  "This is Maggie-No~v. I'm her baby brother."

  "He is lucky baby, Missus Now," said Winer gallantly.

  Denny laughed. "Mrs. Bassett. We just call her

  Maggie-Now.'

  "By me," said Winer, "she is always Missus Now."

  [ 354 ]

 

  Winer had never come across the word "lagniappe." Yet

  he and many other storekeepers observed the custom. The

  bulk of the shopping was done by children sent to the

  store by their mothers. The kids patronized those

  shopkeepers who gave them little treats. The Chinese

  laundry man gave a lichee nut, the baker, a cookie, the

  druggist a sweetwood stick to suck on, the butcher a slice

  of bologna and so on.

  "Every kid what buys gets piece of bologna," Winer told

  Denny. "A kid what comes in the first time, you know, she

  did not come here before? She gets click slice worst to

  knush on. She comes in again, it should
be dimly."

  Denny asked about the alleged custom of weighing the

  thumb with the meat. Winer was indignant.

  "The thumb, it is not meat. We don't weigh that. You

  only weigh the thumb when you don't want the customer

  to come back no more."

  "I don't get it, Otto."

  "Like that lady. You see how she comes in yesterday?

  She says: 'Take back this weal stew what you sold me this

  morning. It ain't fit a dog should eat it, especially my

  husband. So now give me one pound without no bones or

  gritzel or fat.' So I put the meat on the scale and I make

  out I don't see so good and I look near to see how much

  it says on the scale and I put my hand on the scale, it

  should stand still, then I press the thumb down. Hard."

  "Didn't she get wise?"

  "I wish so. Then she don't come here no more." Ele

  made a rationalization. "A lady what likes to be snotty, is

  right she pays extra for the thumb."

  It was these things that Otto knew and that he wanted

  to be known by someone before he died. Ele stopped

  worrying that the knowledge would be lost with his death,

  now that he had Denny to teach these things to.

  In time, he taught Denny how to cut meat. Denny

  learned fast. He had a great aptitude for meat. Denny

  became very popular with the customers. Mothers told

  their children: "When you go by Winer's ask that Denny

  should wait on you. He don't skin people."

  Winer called Denny "I)inny," because Den-iss was too

  difficult for him to say and the name Dinny was like an

  affectionate

  ~ 38S 1

 

  souvenir of the fate that had sent Denny to his store that

  day.

  Winer depended a lot on Denny. Winer found he could

  take things a little easier now. He experimented with new

  combinations of food, because Dennv ate lunch with him

  now and Winer liked to surprise him. Winer took walks in

  the morning and naps in the afternoon while Denny tended

  the store alone.

  Came the time when he left Denny in charge of the store

  for a whole day. Winer was going over to Yorkville to

  spend the day with a Landsmann, also a butcher. Denny

  had long since been promoted to sweater, straw cuffs and

  white bib apron. On this day, he got his stripes--a straw hat

  to wear in the store.

  "There," said Winer, placing it on Denny's head with two

  hands as though it were a crown. "Today you are full

  butcher. Now I go to Yorkville and I would not stay all dav

  if I did not trust you, Dinny."

  Denny was so accustomed to being mistrusted that he

  didn't know whether Winer's remark was a compliment or

  a warning. Denny tipped his nev. straw hat over one eye.

  Winer frowned and set it straight on his head. Denny

  always wore it straight after that.

  Denny had always wanted to know why butchers wore

  straw hats in the store even in winter. At first, he thought

  it was to prevent dandruff from falling on the meat. Then

  he decided it Noms to prevent a butcher from running

  bloody hands through his hair. Now he had a chance to

  find out the truth.

  "Otto," he asked, "why do butchers always wear straw

  hats in the store?"

  "So people should know they're butchers," said Otto Winer.

  ~ CHAPTER ~ IFTY-SE VEN ~

  THE neighbors who once eagerly discussed Denny's bad

  ways,

  because they had to talk about so1~et~ing, IIOW discussed

  his

  success just as eagerly because they still had to talk about

  some

  t/'i~zg. They used to warn their boys not to be like that

  Dennv

  ~'86'1

 

  Moore, now. Now they asked their kids, why couldn't they

  be like Denny Moore? Once it had been agreed that he'd

  end up in Sing Sing. Now it was agre. d that he'd own his

  own butcher shop before too long.

  Mothers of marriageable daughters put off buying meat

  until the daughter came home from work. Then it was:

  "Go to Winer's before they close and tell Denny you want

  four loin pork chops." At six each evening, there was

  always a rush of girls in the store. Each time a girl came

  in, Denny hoped it wasn't "That" Tessie and when it

  wasn't Tessie he was disappointed.

  Maggie-Now and Wine r laid the foundation for a

  teasing friendship. She bought all her meat at Winer's

  now, and brought her foster children along A hen she

  shopped.

  Nearly every Saturday night, Winer gave Denny some

  delicacy to take home to Missus Now: a couple of veal

  kidneys or a sweetbread or a Delmonico steak. She was

  touched and grateful. And she told Winer so.

  He said: "I ain't so dumb like I look. If I give Dinny

  meat to take home, how can he ask me for a raise?" And

  he knew MaggieNow didn't believe that.

  She said: "Why, Mr. Winer! You're just terrible!" And

  she knew Winer didn't believe that.

  Pat, of course, had to take a dark view of Denny's

  profession. "Do you know, me boy," he said, "that when

  you went in the butcher business, you gave up your great

  right as far as the constitution is concerned?"

  "No, I didn't. I can still vote when I'm twenty-one."

  "I mean the right to serve on a jury. In a murder trial,

  they don't take butchers on the jury, because a butcher is

  use' to blood and chopping off bones."

  "Were you ever on a jury, Papa-"

  "No. I had better things to do with me time."

  "Gee, Papa," said Denny "if I live until I'm a hundred,

  I'll never understand how you figure thUlos out."

  "I'm deep," explained Pat.

  One Sunday morning, Denny just happened to wander

  over to the church on llontrose Avenue. He wanted to

  see Tessie, he convinced himself, to drum up business for

  Winer. He planned

  1'38-, 1

 

  to say that they had just gotten a side of prime beef and,

  if she'd like to stop in after her work, he'd give her a

  good cut of steak.

  Tessie came out Title a young man. She saw Denny and

  smiled all over. "Hello, Dennis," she said. "Hello, Tessie,"

  he answered and started to walk an ay. Tessie spoke to

  the man she was with and the man tipped his hat and left

  her. Tessie started after Denny, then decided that she v.

  as not the sort of girl who ran after a man.

  Denny hung around the house all that afternoon and

  was short-tempered with everybody. He told his sister: "So

  her mother wouldn't let her go out with me! And you

  ought to see the bum that Tessie's going out with now."

  A few nights later, after Denny had had supper,

  Maggie-Now said: "Denny, will yolk do something for

  me?"

  "Sure. What?"

  "I pressed your good suit today and polished your other

  shoes...."

  "Gee, Maggie-l!Tow, I don't want you shining my sh
oes."

  "Oh, I love to do it. I want you to get all dressed up and

  go over to see Annie."

  "Do you think I'm crazy or something?" he asked in

  sheer astonishment.

  "I want her to see how very nice you turned out to be."

  "Who cares what she thinks of me, one way or the other."

  "I was over to see Annie a couple of Sundays ago and

  Tessie asked all about you. She said that every Sunday

  when she comes out of church she alvv:lys hopes you'll be

  waiting for her . . ."

  ". . . when your sister brought you here. How old was

  she then? Yes, she had eighteen years, and you was a

  baby, Denty, and Tessie was in my arms yet and Albie

  wasn't even here yet."

  "I hardly remember that," said Denny, and Tessie smiled

  as though he had said something very significant.

  "My, think on it!" said Annie. "And now you are such a

  big man."

  She s.w that Denny wasn't listening. He sat there

  looking at Tessie and Tessie sat there looking at him.

  "I talk too much," said Annie, suddenly embarrassed.

  "Mrs. Vernacht," said Denny suddenly, "would you mind

  if took your daughter out?"

  ~ ,8Y 1

  "Take my Tessie out?"

  "Yes. Take Tessie out."

  "She has the say of that," said Annie.

  "Well, what do you say, Tessie?" he asked.

  "When:" she asked right back.

  In this way was the pact between them made and it

  would endure for all of Tessie's life.

  Annie knew the inevitable. She sighed as she thought:

  He ain't rich, but he has a good trade and now he is a good

  plan. What more could a mother ask from God, only that

  her daughter gets a good man?

  A two-year courtship started with that first date. In that

  more leisurely era, courtship was considered the happiest

  time of a young girl's life. It was a tender interlude of

  man and girl adoring each other; of presenting their best

  aspects to each other; of considerate attentions given and

  received; presents given each other that would be kept

  and cherished and handed down to the children.

  It was the growing excitement of getting to know each

  other well; it was the delight of kissing and

  embracing the drawn-out prelude to the ultimate

  physical togetherness that came with mar

  riage.

  Too soon after marriage, things would get tough. The

  children would come along pretty soon one after

  another, because in their religion children wele the

  objective of marriage. There would never be enough

  money. There would be sickness and debts and work and

  worry and little time for acts of tenderness. The bright

  articulation of courtship Could dribble away into mono-

  syllabic communication. The essential love between them

  would seem lost. But it would be there. It would be there

  in their memories of their loving and wonderful courtship.

  "We'll be different," they told each other.

  "I won't be like some women," said Tessie, "and get

  sloppy as soon as I have you for good. No matter how

  much housework there is how many children there

  are I'll have my hair curled and my nails manicured

  when you come home from work and I'll treat you as

  though you were company."

  "And 1," said Denny, "will be just as polite to you as

  though

  1 359 1

 

  you were a girl I'd jtiSt met and was anxious to make a

  little time with."

  "And," said Tessie, "we'll have dates, pretending we're

  not married but just going steady. And we'll get dressed

  up and go out on Saturday night to a show or a dance or

  a nice dinner someplace like we do now."

  "And I will respect your mother," he said.

  "And I will keep on loving your sister the way I do now

  and I will be nice to your father."

  "Yes," they agreed. "We'll he different."

  .~N CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT ~

  AT ~ lIE turn of the century, Winer had bought two

  acres of farm land in a sparsely settled place out on the

  Island, called Hempstead. He had only paid a hundred

  dollars for the land. But now Hempstead was growing into