by Linda Ellen
Billy stuck his head through the black curtain doorway of his room and greeted Vic before disappearing back inside.
“I heard you whistling as you came up the walk. You got the job, didn’t you?” Louise asked brightly, a happy smile lighting her face. “I’m so excited about tomorrow I can hardly stand it. I’ve been going around all day thanking God. But tell me, when do you start your new job?” she asked excitedly.
“Well…” he began; pausing as he gazed at her, standing there in the lavender dress he loved so much. She looked lovely as always, those hazel eyes gleaming with happiness and expectation as she unconsciously fingered the amethyst necklace lying against her skin. It warmed him that she loved his gift that much, and he had noticed in the weeks since they had been back together that she had a habit of toying with it. He knew she probably didn’t even realize she was doing it.
“Yeah?” she prompted.
“Well, um…” he paused as he glanced around the room. “Can we sit?”
“Sure,” Louise replied as they both turned toward the settee. At that moment, little Tommy came running in from the kitchen where he had been pestering Lilly as she finished up supper.
“Misser Vic!” the child exclaimed, not breaking stride, but heading straight for his new friend. Vic grinned as he turned just in time to catch the boy as he flung himself into his arms.
“Whoa, boy!” Vic chuckled as the child wiggled into place on his lap.
“We havin’ po’ chops an’ mass…” he paused, trying to remember how to say the words. He turned big questioning eyes to his mother, who patiently coached, “Mashed po-ta-toes.”
“Yeah!” the toddler agreed as he vigorously nodded. “And cweam peas!” Then spotting the edge of a green card in Vic’s shirt pocket, he asked as he reached out to try and tug it free, “Whas dis?”
Vic chuckled again, reaching to pull the item out and let the boy hold it. Louise leaned closer to look, noticing it had Vic’s photo attached to it.
Pointing to the picture, Tommy exclaimed, “Is you!”
“Yep. That’s me alright.”
“Department of Public Safety…what is that, Vic?” asked Louise, wide-eyed with confusion.
“It’s my permit…to drive a taxi.”
Louise’s mouth dropped open. She hadn’t been expecting that. When he had dropped her off earlier, he had been on the way down to Brown & Williamson… “But…” she paused, meeting his eyes. It was then that she saw the disappointment he had been trying to hide. “Oh Vic…you didn’t get the B&W job…”
He pursed his lips and shrugged. “Only missed out by one.” Tommy soon became restless and began to fidget, trying to slither off Vic’s lap. Vic barely had time to rescue his permit from the tiny fist before the boy ran back into the kitchen. They could hear him announce to his grandmother that Misser Vic was here.
Vic turned to meet Louise’s eyes. “I was bummed. For a minute I wanted to smash that Mr. Segal in the mouth, except he was bein’ so nice about it,” he admitted sheepishly. “But, oh well. Guess it wasn’t ‘meant to be’. Anyway…guess who I ran into?”
Louise shook her head as she took the small license card from him, noticing it was with the B-Line Cab Company. He wasn’t smiling in the photo, and was wearing a white shirt and dark tie. It listed his full name, and an unfamiliar address. Before she could ask him about that, he continued his tale.
“Remember old Ger’?” he asked, speaking of the friend he had met during the Flood, his B-13 rescue boat pal. Louise nodded with a grin, remembering the night of her fifteenth birthday, when silly, fun-loving Gerald had made up verses to the Happy Birthday song for her. “He’s drivin’ a cab for B-Line now and makin’ pretty good. We talked for a while. He and Delores are doin’ good. They got two kids now,” he added, shaking his head with a chuckle. “Anyway, he said the company is always lookin’ for drivers, so he got on the horn and put in a good word for me. I got the job.”
Louise looked up at him, studying his face and trying to gauge his true feelings about it. He had once told her he’d never resort to being a ‘two-bit hack’.
Lovingly, she laid a hand gently on his arm. “I’m sorry Mr. Segal gave the job to someone else. I was sure you would get it…you deserved it,” she murmured softly.
Vic met her eyes, marveling at how she could tell what he was feeling, she knew him so well he would never be able to hide anything from her. He shrugged one shoulder. “Ah well, there’s more jobs out there. And hey, who knows but maybe I’ll pick up a fare in my cab and it’ll be the hirin’ boss of a big company, huh?” he teased with a chuckle.
Louise couldn’t resist when he gave her that grin. She tilted her face toward his, hoping for a kiss. He instantly complied, pressing his lips to hers for a long moment as they melted blissfully together. It seemed to make all of the tension of the day dissolve and he was left without a care in the world.
When finally they pulled back, Louise murmured, “What’s that address on the card?”
He snorted as he took his permit and stashed it back in his pocket. “Remember I told you about that greaseball I had to share a room with at the Y?” She nodded, leaning close as they settled back into the settee. “I’d had enough of that creep, so I mentioned to Ger’ that I might be up for a place and he clued me in to a few. Now, I got me a room above the Louis Ellis Café at Twentieth and Portland. It ain’t much, but it beats a blank. And it sure beats the Y.”
Smiling into his eyes, Louise raised her eyebrows teasingly. “I think I might like you driving a cab. If I miss the streetcar coming home, all I’ll have to do is call B-Line and request driver number…” she paused as she pulled the card from his pocket enough to see and read the number aloud.
He grinned, raising a hand to cup her face as he murmured, “For you I work cheap…just a hundred kisses and maybe…” he paused, wiggling his eyebrows as he leaned to whisper something risqué in her ear. Shocked, she giggled and playfully smacked his arm, gasping, “Victor Herbert!”
He chuckled mischievously and leaned to capture her lips with his for a firm, deep, quite intimate kiss, which they both were aggravated about having to interrupt when Lilly stuck her head around the dining room doorway and called down the hall, “Billy! Louise! Everyone come get it while it’s hot!”
Vic snickered and whispered in Louise’s ear, “If she only knew.”
Billy joined them from his hallway room, glancing at the sweethearts in puzzlement and wondering why his sister seemed to be blushing as they laughingly made their way down the hall to the kitchen together.
*
Although Vic had expressed concern over Louise having to be at her new job so early, she had insisted that she would be all right and for him not to come all the way from his new place to take her to work; that she could take the streetcar. Besides, she reminded him, it was his first day on the job, too.
So at six-thirty the next morning, dressed in a short sleeve button up shirt and a plain blue skirt, she bent over the rails of the baby bed and kissed Tommy’s forehead, whispering, “See you tonight, sweetheart.”
Her mother had arisen to see her off for her first day, making her a sack lunch and fussing that it was dangerous for a young woman to be out so early, as it was still dark outside. That fact was a little disconcerting, but Louise put on a brave face and kissed her mother’s cheek.
“Thanks for looking after Tommy. I’ll see you tonight. Wish me luck!”
She crossed over to First Street and quickly caught a bus that took her the six blocks up to Chestnut, barely making it in time to catch the streetcar as it stopped at the intersection. With standing room only, she had to precariously hang onto a leather strap the entire thirty blocks, which left her with walking one block north to Madison. With all of the stops the conveyance had made along the way, she got there right at seven. By then, Louise’s heart was racing with anticipation and the fear of being late on her first day.
The instant she walked through the door, she found
herself among a small group of young women who were also there for their first day of work. Mr. Greenwell immediately instructed the four girls to follow him through the large building. Louise was shaking with nerves, but she pushed on, walking with the others as he quickly spelled out what time their lunch break would be.
They passed the first floor lunchroom and she glanced through the doorway at dozens of empty tables. Then he guided them up a large wide stairway, past the second floor, which the three girls glanced into and could see the cavernous space was already busy with men and women at various sorting type stations. Bags and bales of various shades of tobacco seemed to be everywhere and Louise could see a massive amount of it lying in piles around the huge work area. She was immediately hit with a variety of odors. Some she recognized as the smell of leaf tobacco, which wasn’t entirely unpleasant, merely potent, but the harsher scents were a mystery. She hurried on up the steps with the others.
They arrived at the third floor of the massive building and entered an open space between two large areas filled with machines. In the center of the open place was a large white porcelain apparatus completely ringed by a shiny metal bar. Louise would learn later that this was a water machine, a huge industrial sink, used for washing up various items used in the making of the cigars.
Indicating for the other three girls to wait there, he mumbled to Louise, “You’ll be starting on the rights,” as he turned in that direction. She wondered what he meant by ‘rights’.
Mr. Greenwell was a tall, long-legged man who walked quite briskly and Louise struggled to keep up, resorting to nearly running. She wondered what the hurry was and why this man seemed to do and say everything in a rush. They soon intercepted a short, pudgy older man by the name of Clarence Bigsby, who was standing with a clipboard in his hand at the head of a row of machines. Mr. Greenwell quickly introduced Louise to him and turned to go, but paused to stick his finger up to Louise’s face with the reminder, “Remember, if you’re not here at the machine at precisely seven-fifteen each morning, you’ll forfeit your spot for that day. No work, no pay. Remember that.” And then he turned to retrace his steps.
Mr. Bigsby met her eyes with a friendly smile and motioned for her to accompany him down one of the rows of machines. As they passed by the first station, she was afforded a strong whiff of something that smelled disgustingly like cat urine, and she wondered if there were stray cats in the building. They arrived at a cigar-rolling machine and three other women were already in place and prepared to start the day.
“Ladies, this is your new fourth, Louise Blankenbaker,” he announced to the women. They each nodded as he said their names. “That’s Agnes up there on the Feeder, Wanda on the Binder, and Stella on the Wrapper. Ladies, I’ll leave you to it.”
Feeling quite intimidated, Louise swallowed nervously and turned to the other ladies. They each smiled at her to try and ease her nervousness, remembering when they, themselves, were new to the job.
“Don’t worry, honey,” the one called Stella assured. “You’ll catch on. We’ll put you on Finishing. Here, you sit next to me there on that chair,” she instructed, and Louise quickly circled the machine to the seat. “Now, I do the wrapping,” Stella began as she explained the detailed process of creating perfectly rolled cigars. “Agnes up there, she feeds the loose tobacco into the trough in the machine. That claw comes down,” she pointed upward, “and picks up the right amount of filler and puts it into that trench there. Wanda lays a binder piece on, and the machine cuts it to size and then rolls it around the filler into the shape of a cigar. Then the machine picks it up and swings it over to me and I pick out a thin piece of good smelling tobacco to be the wrapper. The machine rolls the wrapper on and puts it over in the knurler there,” she pointed, “and it rolls it back and forth to get it smooth before it releases it for the finisher,” she indicated the bottom of the machine. “The finisher looks at each one to see if it’s perfect or if it’s got holes. If it’s perfect, you put it in that box there on the scale, cause they’ve all got to weigh the right amount, not too fat, not too skinny. If it’s got any holes, you’ll patch it.”
“Patch it?” Louise asked, wide-eyed. Cigars were patched? She couldn’t picture such a thing, vaguely imagining a patchwork quilt or a rubber tube.
“That’s right,” Stella continued. “See this stuff here?” she pointed to a container of a clear substance on the workstation. “That’s the glue. You’ll reach in this box,” she gestured to a box fixed down low between them, “and get out bits of tobacco left from when I put on the wrapper, and you’ll match the color around the hole. You’ll smear a little of the glue on and put on the patch. Make sure it’s smooth and looks good. But you gotta work fast. Remember, it’s piecework, and our pay depends on how many cigars all of us on this machine can make per day. On a good day, we can make four thousand,” she added proudly.
Louise stared at the woman like a deer in the headlights. Four thousand cigars…in ONE day? Stella smiled and reached to give her a pat on the back. “Don’t worry, you’ll get the hang of it. Before long, you’ll learn every station on this machine, and be making cigars in your sleep.”
Louise swallowed again, her mind racing with details and hoping she could remember everything. Suddenly, she jumped, startled, as a loud bell rang and all of the machines started up, significantly louder than she had anticipated.
Agnes climbed back up onto a high stool and began carefully loading the moving trough in the machine with loose shredded tobacco. The claw came down and grabbed the right amount of filler for the first cigar of the day. Glancing over at Louise, she hollered over the noise of the room full of machines with a grin, “Here we go!”
Louise watched, fascinated, as the ladies worked together with much practiced precision, and in no time at all, a cigar came rolling out of the bottom of the machine, soon followed by another, and another.
“Go on, pick one up,” Stella instructed as she positioned a wrapper for another cigar. “Look it over. Here,” she offered, turning the first cigar slowly around, close so that Louise could see it. “This one’s perfect. Put it in that box on the scale. Pick up another.” Louise repeated the process and two more perfect specimens were placed in their container.
The fourth, however, had a defect. “Oh, this one has a hole, right here,” Louise showed her tutor.
“Ok, it needs patching. Reach in here and get a scrap that matches the color,” she indicated the box between them as Louise nodded. “Tear off a little piece, get some of the glue on your finger and smear it on, and stick the patch over the hole,” she coached, all while expertly setting another wrapper for the next cigar. “Now when that glue dries, you won’t be able to tell there was ever a hole.”
Louise nodded, moistening her nervously dry lips. Just then, a woman walked up and stood next to Louise, introducing herself as Miss Clazby, the Floor Lady.
“You must be fast. Put that one in there,” Miss Clazby ordered, pointing to a separate box for “patched” cigars, which Louise found out later sold for less money. “No dawdling. Check the next ones.” Louise did, finding two perfect specimens, but the third had several tiny jagged holes. Under Miss Clazby’s eagle eye, she managed to get them patched and in the carton. The woman made her nervous watching over her shoulder, and the sharp tone of her voice didn’t help. Something about the woman unnerved Louise. She kept expecting this Floor Lady to suddenly declare that she wasn’t cut out for the work. At first, Louise would have agreed with that wholeheartedly.
However, Stella nodded at her with a satisfied smile and assured, “You’ve got it. Just keep that up. Try to go as fast as you can – but don’t skimp on quality.” As Miss Clazby moved on to the next machine in the row, Stella leaned near Louise and said, “Don’t let her get to ya. Her bark is worse than her bite.”
Louise chuckled softly; inwardly thankful she had been put with nice, friendly, helpful ladies.
And so it went – all day, except for a twenty-minute lunch break
at noon – she examined cigars, patched holes, and tried to work as fast as she possibly could.
Once she had filled two wooden boxes with two hundred and fifty cigars each, Louise found out that the finisher also had the job of carrying the boxes down the row of machines to a man in charge of keeping up with the count. At the start of the week, each employee had been given a card with his or her name at the top, and Louise had to take the four cards with her, watching while the man at the counting station punched each one with the amount of cigars from that machine. This was extremely important, as it would determine what they would all be paid on Friday.
Several times during the day, she unthinkingly reached up to rub her nose with the back of one hand, and nearly gagged at the smell of the binder clinging to her fingers. Just like cat pee! She was sure by the end of the day her clothes and hair would reek of the stuff.
As the day progressed, her excitement over her new job changed to dogged determination to just keep going and get through the hours until it was time to go home.
But she did keep forging on, for a very important reason – her and Vic’s future. With the result being that amount of hoped for passion, joy, and happiness, she told herself she could endure just about anything.
*
Vic pulled over to the curb outside of a market to allow his passenger to disembark, with the request that she needed to pick up a few items before they continued on their way to her destination. The woman had asked him to wait, promising no more than ten minutes.
As he sat there, his left arm braced on the doorframe, his fingers drumming on the taxi’s roof, he casually watched the people walking and driving past as they went about their day.
One young woman strolled by, gently tugging along what looked to be a two-year-old little boy. Vic’s eyes immediately went to the pair, as they instantly reminded him of Louise and Tommy. The little boy had curly light brown hair, much like Tommy’s. The girl was dark haired and fair skinned, although in his opinion, not nearly as lovely as Louise. When the little boy plopped himself down onto the sidewalk in protest, the girl bent to scoop him up. Dusting off his bare legs and cute little sailor shorts, she admonished him not to soil his clothing as she continued on down the sidewalk with him in her arms. Glancing Vic’s way, she acknowledged his stare with a small nod before she disappeared out of his view.