personal worsts: "everything my kid touches turns to shit"
BY DELL FRANKLIN
My father, after playing professional baseball from 1937 until 1953 (he lost three years during the war) started a wholesale leather and shoe findings business in Compton, California. He had a small warehouse near the downtown and by 1955 had the place going pretty strong and was dropping hints that I might want to go to work for him so as to learn a “work ethic while helping him out.”
I had no desire to work. I did such a poor job mowing the lawn that dad called me a “goddam butcher.” But, most loathsome, I was forced to go to work due to some “malicious mischief.”
It started not long after my friend Rex Cutler and I were coerced into the Boy Scouts. All we wanted to do was play baseball. We were just 12 that summer, and we had to go on this big camping trip to lake Arrowhead with about 100 other scouts from neighboring cities. Rex and I hated tying knots and bending to conformity among aspiring outdoorsmen and goody-goody scoutmasters. We hated these pricks. We made fun of them. We didn't like the idea of wiping our asses with bark or pine cones after taking a shit in the woods.
So, dreading a nature hike, after which we would set up camp and have to deal with prowling bears ransacking trash cans while we quivered in our pup tents, Rex and I decided to desert and find a highway below the mountains and hitchhike home to Compton, where we could return to our hooliganism and play ball.
On our way off the beaten trail, Rex and I discovered a cabin with aluminum roof, inside of which were adults, whose shiny sedans were parked outside. We heard them partying to cornball modern classics by Rosemary Clooney and Perry Como like “Don't Let the Stars Get In Your Eyes.”
“What a buncha dorks,' Rex concluded. “Let's bomb their asses.”
At first, we lightly scattered their roof with a hailstorm of pebbles, drawing the dorks and their ladies outside, where they peered about as we hid on the high ground behind foliage. When they went back in, we immediately bombarded the roof with jawbreaker-sized rocks, provoking the heroic male dorks to beat the brush in search of us, all of them muttering about about “goddam delinquents.” By this time we had clamored deeper into the woods behind thicker foliage, and again they retreated to their cabin.
We waited a while, let them get going again with their Hit Parade tunes, and hoisted football-size boulders on our shoulders and, on the run, shot-putted them at the cabin for direct hits that exploded like sonic booms, tearing jagged holes through the the roof and crashing into the cabin.
While terrorized women squealed and scurried outside, the dorks set to chasing us through the woods. Little athletes made of wire, we lost them. Skirted the village of Arrowhead half a mile away and crept through the woods just off the main road which was now patrolled by a squad car and those driven by the dorks. We darted back into the woods, walked miles and miles and finally, exhausted, hitched a ride down the mountainside to Rosemead, where Rex called his mother and explained we were homesick and hated Boy Scouts. She came and took us home.
That evening, of course, the victims of our tyranny contacted the scoutmaster, a too earnest and humorless man, who was aware of our absence and made a special trip down the mountain to show up at our doorstep, where, when confronted by my father, I, like a good boy scout, confessed my sins. Dad, after apologizing and promising to cover any damage to the cabin (along with Rex's mother), informed my mother he was taking charge of me, and putting me to work in his store, where I would toil the rest of the summer “like a slave jumping at my every command,” until I repaid my debt for my vandalism and mayhem. No more ball, and a whipping.
********
Dad opened his store at 7:30 in the morning so his shoemakers could get in early and buy supplies before opening up their shops. I was introduced to them (mostly Italians) as “my kid, Snaggletooth,” since I'd fallen off my bike earlier that summer and busted off a front tooth, “everything he touches turns to shit.”
“Why yah got him here then, Murray?” asked Sal Rammalini.
“Because if he does damage here, I can keep an eye on him. I don't know what the kid's gonna do out in the streets. If he keeps breakin' up other people's property I'm liable to get sued and end up in the poorhouse and my family starves. You gotta keep your enemies close, Sal?”
What he had me doing at first was sweeping the aisles and front floor and stocking shelves. Once in a while, if he was waiting on a customer up front on the long table, where he stacked and boxed items and wrote out invoices, he'd shout out, “Meathead! Get me six 11/11 half heels.”
Dad blew his top at me in front of his customers from time to time, especially when I put half heels on the whole heel shelf, so he relegated me to sweeping and fetching items and carrying boxes of merchandise to the cars of his shoemakers, all of whom were understanding of me and told me they looked forward to the day when I ran the business like my dad.
Dad's right-hand man, uncle Russ, married to my mother's sister, was an out-of-work musician who had made a lot of money before the war and been a big time bandleader in Chicago, but was now down on his luck and serving time in Dad's store. He had a delivery route in Orange County, where he had a home with my aunt and cousins. Dad told my mother that Russ was “worthless and one of the laziest, undependable, irresponsible Irishman he'd ever come across.”
All true, but a great charmer and story teller. Dad, a crazed hustler, always moving and busy, lightning quick, tried to push Russ, but without success. He had one speed—slow. Among other things, dad informed me that the lovable Russ was a “chronic complainer, hypochondriac, and the biggest goddam prima donna I've ever seen in my life, and believe me, playing pro ball 17 years, I've seen 'em all, Dell.” Then he'd wink at me.
“You're not gonna end up like your uncle Russ, are you?”
“Nah, dad. I wanna end up like you.”
After a couple weeks, dad accused me of being a “clock-watcher and day dreamer,” because I repeatedly “cocked up orders.” But his exasperation with Russ was so overwhelming that it placed me temporarily in the background. Nobody could compare to uncle Russ in being a worthless human being, not even me.
Finally, one afternoon Russ left early to beat traffic while dad was out delivering, and left me alone to fend for myself—all hell broke loose.
One of dad's biggest accounts, who owned four shoe repair shops, came in for a massive order, and there I was, a 12 year old kid, all by myself, not knowing the stock or prices. Together, I and this crusty, gnarled old shoemaker, loaded him up as best we could, writing down on a notebook what he took out, and when the guy called dad and told him what happened, dad fired poor old Russ.
While dad looked for a new employee, he took me aside. “Now that your buddy Russ is gone, your corking off days are over. I know it was you distracting him, getting him to tell you stories all afternoon instead of stocking while I'm out making deliveries. I can look around and see you didn't do a goddam thing while I was gone but sit in the office drinking cokes and getting that goddam freeloader to tell you his bullshit stories. I'm on to you, boy”
The kid taking Russ's place (Russ found a gig playing piano, singing and telling jokes and stories at an Anaheim nightclub) was the son of one of dad's customers who needed to get his kid a job. Ludy. I took one look at this guy (he was around 20) and tabbed him “Ludy the Loony.” Ludy was fairly strong and eager. But, since he was visibly simple, dad started him out stocking, sweeping, and carrying out orders to cars, while I had advanced to actually fetching items and packing orders at the big table, a show of trust and added responsibility. He told mother I was actually improving a little, while mother chastised him for hiring Ludy, claiming the “poor thing was retarded.”
“You gotta have flunkies,” dad explained to her.
Dad managed, through kindness and patience, to turn Ludy into a robot, politely asking him to fetch such and such an item, and Ludy, only able to do one thing at a time, was like a remote control toy. If the pace in the store got frantic and demanding, and Dad gave Ludy too much too quickly, it was disaster. Still, dad reacted to Ludy's fucking up with rare understanding. Ludy wore new baggy jeans crumpled up on black Keds, and a white T shirt. Sometimes his mouth hung open. I couldn't talk to him.
I began lurking among shelves and hurling, from long distances, little ladies toplift heels at Ludy, nipping him on the flank, and the poor kid yelped and jumped as if stung by a bee, dropped the item he was fetching for dad and dashed up front, squealing and jerking himself around like a dog trying to bite his flea-bitten ass. Customers recoiled with distaste while dad took me straight to the office and threatened to “break me into a thousand bloody pieces” if I did not stop tormenting poor unfortunate Ludy.
I took my ass-chewing like the miscreant I was, behaved like he wanted me to and then some for over a week, before sailing with some zing a large leather heel at Ludy's flank, and this time he went berserk, drooling all over himself, his eyes wild, as he grunted animal sounds. He grabbed a broom and came after me, and I dashed out the front door and outran him down Compton Boulevard while dad wrested the broom away from Ludy and stood cursing me, shaking his fist, threatening to break me into a thousand bloody pieces. He fired me that night after a whipping.
********
But he rehired me a day later after a discussion with mother, who felt I was “really too young for a serious job.”
“Bullshit,” exclaimed dad, as I listened at the keyhole to them arguing about me. “Listen, the kid's only paid half of what he destroyed. We can't let him skate, Rose, or he'll skate on every goddam thing he does the rest of his life. And believe me, deep down, I wanna cut my losses and get rid of him before he cocks up something else, because everything he touches turns to shit, believe me, but he owes me, and the smartass, he knows exactly what he's doing, the devious little bastard knows goddam well I'll fire him, he wants me to, and I probably should, before he sabotages our goddam livelihood, but it's a matter of principle with me, so the worthless kid goes back to work.”
So I returned to work. Immediately I decided to toss a curveball at my ex major leaguer dad. Instead of being a perennial fuckup, I picked up the slack for Ludy, who mercifully quit, nearly losing dad a customer (Ludy's dad). I conscientiously went out of my way to not only do things right, to work hard and fast and learn quickly, but to trade in my wise-guy attitude for a Boy Scout impersonation, so that many of dad's customers complimented him on my work ethic and maturity.
Dad hired another shoemaker's son, a 25 year old dud, a fruitcake, Don, but I left him totally alone.
And everything would have probably worked out the remainder of the summer if it had not been for Augie (Big Schnozz) Pazzioli. Augie was this very short guy with a long body and huge head of curly dark hair and a monstrous hooked beak and two crazy darting black eyes. The size of a jockey, he was married to a fat woman at least twice his size who had hatched ten kids and never stopped carping at Augie, who had a shop in Culver City and played and lost at the horse races.
Dad referred to Augie as a “Sad Sack.” Always whining. Always looking like his dog just got run over. Business was always bad. Poor Augie. A talented shoemaker who, said dad, when requested, made beautiful shoes and boots for rich folks. Augie even complained to me, “Little Murray, you're such a good boy, workin' for your dad. My boys, they won't work for me, little Murray...”
“My name's Dell, Augie.”
“Little Dell, my kids, they hate me. They don't do nothin' Augie tells 'em to do. My wife, she turned 'em against me. Your daddy, he's my best friend. I wish I had a brother like your wonderful dad, little Murray, but my brothers, they got their own lives, they live back east, they don't care what happens to Augie...”
This guy, if you let him, could drive you nuts. He had these huge intense eyes that saturated you, so that you wanted to run from the poor bastard. He'd be in the store, and I'd be in the back, stocking shelves, trying to stay away from Augie and dad and the intensity at the front table, and Augie'd find me. “Ohh, little Murray, such a good boy. Look at those things on your feet. Those are rags, they got tape holdin' 'em together. Goddam tennis shoes, they're drivin' the shoemakers out-a business, those sneakers, Little Murray. Why you wear them ugly things, when they fallin' off your feet...?
“I'm an athlete, Augie, I play ball in 'em. They may not look good, but they fit good. I don't have to worry about polishing them or being filthy, I can run through puddles and creeks and if they stink, I dry 'em out in the sun...”
“But they got tape on 'em, Little Murray. Your dad, he's in the shoe business, and his boy, he wears cheap sneakers with tape keepin' 'em on his feet. What you think all his customers gonna think when they seein' you wearin' them rags with tape holdin' 'em together...?”
“I don't care what they think, Augie. I care about my feet and playin' ball.”
“People think your daddy is poor, and he works so hard...Little Murray, your daddy, he is my best friend, so little Murray, what Augie is gonna do, he's gonna make you some good shoes, nice leather shoes, you don't got to put no tape on 'em...”
“I gotta go up front, Augie, dad needs my help.”
He followed me up front, where it wasn't much better, with him fawning over me and telling my dad what a great kid I was, my dad knowing for sure that was bullshit, but going along with Augie since Augie was his loyal customer, who would never under any circumstances buy from any other wholesaler in the country, and now dad was even bragging to these grimy characters about my working out and learning the business and would someday inherit and run the business.
I persevered this bullshit. But Augie, he wouldn't let up. He'd pigeon-hole me every time he came in the store, telling me how wonderful my dad was and how great I was, and how I “deserved” better shoes and not those raggedy sneakers, and then one day he comes in with these goddam boots. Ankle-high boots, gorgeous boots made of supreme leather. Fruit boots.
He presented them to me up front while dad and about twenty shoemakers looked on. “Your boy, he deserves nice boots, Murray, look at those rags he's wearin...”
“The kid wears rags, Augie. I can't even buy him new clothes. I don't know what to do with him. He won't wear new things or nice stuff.'
Augie insisted I try on the boots. Dave flashed me a look. I took off my filthy, smelly, ragged sneakers and slipped into the boots. A perfect fit. I felt a shiver go up my spine as Augie beamed and my dad turned away, not wanting to see the expression on my face.
“Look at those boots, Murray. I make 'em for your son.”
“Beautiful boots, Augie, you're a real craftsman.”
“Your son, he's my son, too, Murray. I do anything for him.”
Now I had the boots off, slipped back into my sneakers.
“Murray, the kid's wearin' them sneakers again! They got tape on 'em. He won't wear my boots. Why won't he wear my boots?”
I started sneaking to the back of the store. Dad glowered at me. “You can wear the boots for a little while,” he said, miserable.
I went to the back of the store, tying the laces of my sneakers. Brand new laces secured from the shelves in the store. Holding the sneakers together, like binding. Meanwhile, Augie whined and harped on, crushed by having to see his unworn boots on the front table. I'd had enough. I had to put a stop to this sonofabitch or there's no telling how far he'd go. I found the big push broom and slithered up along the shelves. There was Augie, carrying on, his baggy pants crumpling up at his ankles, hiding his scrawny ass. I raced forward and shoved the end of the broom up that scrawny ass and Augie shrieked and went straight up in the air, landing feet first on the long low table full of orders. He grabbed at his ass and shrieked again. He waved his arms, his enormous eyes circulating around like crazed orbs. He jumped off the table and secured the long window-opening pole and came after me with it. We blasted wooden poles against each other, like sword fighters in movies. My dad tried to get between us. Shoemakers spilled out onto the sidewalk. I tossed down my broom and followed them in a dead sprint, My dad and Augie gave chase. Nobody could catch me. I was well down the street. Dad fired me for good that night, cutting his losses.
Augie came back in the fold. Nobody else but my dad would put up with him. Dad kept the boots on a high shelf in the garage.
My father, after playing professional baseball from 1937 until 1953 (he lost three years during the war) started a wholesale leather and shoe findings business in Compton, California. He had a small warehouse near the downtown and by 1955 had the place going pretty strong and was dropping hints that I might want to go to work for him so as to learn a “work ethic while helping him out.”
I had no desire to work. I did such a poor job mowing the lawn that dad called me a “goddam butcher.” But, most loathsome, I was forced to go to work due to some “malicious mischief.”
It started not long after my friend Rex Cutler and I were coerced into the Boy Scouts. All we wanted to do was play baseball. We were just 12 that summer, and we had to go on this big camping trip to lake Arrowhead with about 100 other scouts from neighboring cities. Rex and I hated tying knots and bending to conformity among aspiring outdoorsmen and goody-goody scoutmasters. We hated these pricks. We made fun of them. We didn't like the idea of wiping our asses with bark or pine cones after taking a shit in the woods.
So, dreading a nature hike, after which we would set up camp and have to deal with prowling bears ransacking trash cans while we quivered in our pup tents, Rex and I decided to desert and find a highway below the mountains and hitchhike home to Compton, where we could return to our hooliganism and play ball.
On our way off the beaten trail, Rex and I discovered a cabin with aluminum roof, inside of which were adults, whose shiny sedans were parked outside. We heard them partying to cornball modern classics by Rosemary Clooney and Perry Como like “Don't Let the Stars Get In Your Eyes.”
“What a buncha dorks,' Rex concluded. “Let's bomb their asses.”
At first, we lightly scattered their roof with a hailstorm of pebbles, drawing the dorks and their ladies outside, where they peered about as we hid on the high ground behind foliage. When they went back in, we immediately bombarded the roof with jawbreaker-sized rocks, provoking the heroic male dorks to beat the brush in search of us, all of them muttering about about “goddam delinquents.” By this time we had clamored deeper into the woods behind thicker foliage, and again they retreated to their cabin.
We waited a while, let them get going again with their Hit Parade tunes, and hoisted football-size boulders on our shoulders and, on the run, shot-putted them at the cabin for direct hits that exploded like sonic booms, tearing jagged holes through the the roof and crashing into the cabin.
While terrorized women squealed and scurried outside, the dorks set to chasing us through the woods. Little athletes made of wire, we lost them. Skirted the village of Arrowhead half a mile away and crept through the woods just off the main road which was now patrolled by a squad car and those driven by the dorks. We darted back into the woods, walked miles and miles and finally, exhausted, hitched a ride down the mountainside to Rosemead, where Rex called his mother and explained we were homesick and hated Boy Scouts. She came and took us home.
That evening, of course, the victims of our tyranny contacted the scoutmaster, a too earnest and humorless man, who was aware of our absence and made a special trip down the mountain to show up at our doorstep, where, when confronted by my father, I, like a good boy scout, confessed my sins. Dad, after apologizing and promising to cover any damage to the cabin (along with Rex's mother), informed my mother he was taking charge of me, and putting me to work in his store, where I would toil the rest of the summer “like a slave jumping at my every command,” until I repaid my debt for my vandalism and mayhem. No more ball, and a whipping.
********
Dad opened his store at 7:30 in the morning so his shoemakers could get in early and buy supplies before opening up their shops. I was introduced to them (mostly Italians) as “my kid, Snaggletooth,” since I'd fallen off my bike earlier that summer and busted off a front tooth, “everything he touches turns to shit.”
“Why yah got him here then, Murray?” asked Sal Rammalini.
“Because if he does damage here, I can keep an eye on him. I don't know what the kid's gonna do out in the streets. If he keeps breakin' up other people's property I'm liable to get sued and end up in the poorhouse and my family starves. You gotta keep your enemies close, Sal?”
What he had me doing at first was sweeping the aisles and front floor and stocking shelves. Once in a while, if he was waiting on a customer up front on the long table, where he stacked and boxed items and wrote out invoices, he'd shout out, “Meathead! Get me six 11/11 half heels.”
Dad blew his top at me in front of his customers from time to time, especially when I put half heels on the whole heel shelf, so he relegated me to sweeping and fetching items and carrying boxes of merchandise to the cars of his shoemakers, all of whom were understanding of me and told me they looked forward to the day when I ran the business like my dad.
Dad's right-hand man, uncle Russ, married to my mother's sister, was an out-of-work musician who had made a lot of money before the war and been a big time bandleader in Chicago, but was now down on his luck and serving time in Dad's store. He had a delivery route in Orange County, where he had a home with my aunt and cousins. Dad told my mother that Russ was “worthless and one of the laziest, undependable, irresponsible Irishman he'd ever come across.”
All true, but a great charmer and story teller. Dad, a crazed hustler, always moving and busy, lightning quick, tried to push Russ, but without success. He had one speed—slow. Among other things, dad informed me that the lovable Russ was a “chronic complainer, hypochondriac, and the biggest goddam prima donna I've ever seen in my life, and believe me, playing pro ball 17 years, I've seen 'em all, Dell.” Then he'd wink at me.
“You're not gonna end up like your uncle Russ, are you?”
“Nah, dad. I wanna end up like you.”
After a couple weeks, dad accused me of being a “clock-watcher and day dreamer,” because I repeatedly “cocked up orders.” But his exasperation with Russ was so overwhelming that it placed me temporarily in the background. Nobody could compare to uncle Russ in being a worthless human being, not even me.
Finally, one afternoon Russ left early to beat traffic while dad was out delivering, and left me alone to fend for myself—all hell broke loose.
One of dad's biggest accounts, who owned four shoe repair shops, came in for a massive order, and there I was, a 12 year old kid, all by myself, not knowing the stock or prices. Together, I and this crusty, gnarled old shoemaker, loaded him up as best we could, writing down on a notebook what he took out, and when the guy called dad and told him what happened, dad fired poor old Russ.
While dad looked for a new employee, he took me aside. “Now that your buddy Russ is gone, your corking off days are over. I know it was you distracting him, getting him to tell you stories all afternoon instead of stocking while I'm out making deliveries. I can look around and see you didn't do a goddam thing while I was gone but sit in the office drinking cokes and getting that goddam freeloader to tell you his bullshit stories. I'm on to you, boy”
The kid taking Russ's place (Russ found a gig playing piano, singing and telling jokes and stories at an Anaheim nightclub) was the son of one of dad's customers who needed to get his kid a job. Ludy. I took one look at this guy (he was around 20) and tabbed him “Ludy the Loony.” Ludy was fairly strong and eager. But, since he was visibly simple, dad started him out stocking, sweeping, and carrying out orders to cars, while I had advanced to actually fetching items and packing orders at the big table, a show of trust and added responsibility. He told mother I was actually improving a little, while mother chastised him for hiring Ludy, claiming the “poor thing was retarded.”
“You gotta have flunkies,” dad explained to her.
Dad managed, through kindness and patience, to turn Ludy into a robot, politely asking him to fetch such and such an item, and Ludy, only able to do one thing at a time, was like a remote control toy. If the pace in the store got frantic and demanding, and Dad gave Ludy too much too quickly, it was disaster. Still, dad reacted to Ludy's fucking up with rare understanding. Ludy wore new baggy jeans crumpled up on black Keds, and a white T shirt. Sometimes his mouth hung open. I couldn't talk to him.
I began lurking among shelves and hurling, from long distances, little ladies toplift heels at Ludy, nipping him on the flank, and the poor kid yelped and jumped as if stung by a bee, dropped the item he was fetching for dad and dashed up front, squealing and jerking himself around like a dog trying to bite his flea-bitten ass. Customers recoiled with distaste while dad took me straight to the office and threatened to “break me into a thousand bloody pieces” if I did not stop tormenting poor unfortunate Ludy.
I took my ass-chewing like the miscreant I was, behaved like he wanted me to and then some for over a week, before sailing with some zing a large leather heel at Ludy's flank, and this time he went berserk, drooling all over himself, his eyes wild, as he grunted animal sounds. He grabbed a broom and came after me, and I dashed out the front door and outran him down Compton Boulevard while dad wrested the broom away from Ludy and stood cursing me, shaking his fist, threatening to break me into a thousand bloody pieces. He fired me that night after a whipping.
********
But he rehired me a day later after a discussion with mother, who felt I was “really too young for a serious job.”
“Bullshit,” exclaimed dad, as I listened at the keyhole to them arguing about me. “Listen, the kid's only paid half of what he destroyed. We can't let him skate, Rose, or he'll skate on every goddam thing he does the rest of his life. And believe me, deep down, I wanna cut my losses and get rid of him before he cocks up something else, because everything he touches turns to shit, believe me, but he owes me, and the smartass, he knows exactly what he's doing, the devious little bastard knows goddam well I'll fire him, he wants me to, and I probably should, before he sabotages our goddam livelihood, but it's a matter of principle with me, so the worthless kid goes back to work.”
So I returned to work. Immediately I decided to toss a curveball at my ex major leaguer dad. Instead of being a perennial fuckup, I picked up the slack for Ludy, who mercifully quit, nearly losing dad a customer (Ludy's dad). I conscientiously went out of my way to not only do things right, to work hard and fast and learn quickly, but to trade in my wise-guy attitude for a Boy Scout impersonation, so that many of dad's customers complimented him on my work ethic and maturity.
Dad hired another shoemaker's son, a 25 year old dud, a fruitcake, Don, but I left him totally alone.
And everything would have probably worked out the remainder of the summer if it had not been for Augie (Big Schnozz) Pazzioli. Augie was this very short guy with a long body and huge head of curly dark hair and a monstrous hooked beak and two crazy darting black eyes. The size of a jockey, he was married to a fat woman at least twice his size who had hatched ten kids and never stopped carping at Augie, who had a shop in Culver City and played and lost at the horse races.
Dad referred to Augie as a “Sad Sack.” Always whining. Always looking like his dog just got run over. Business was always bad. Poor Augie. A talented shoemaker who, said dad, when requested, made beautiful shoes and boots for rich folks. Augie even complained to me, “Little Murray, you're such a good boy, workin' for your dad. My boys, they won't work for me, little Murray...”
“My name's Dell, Augie.”
“Little Dell, my kids, they hate me. They don't do nothin' Augie tells 'em to do. My wife, she turned 'em against me. Your daddy, he's my best friend. I wish I had a brother like your wonderful dad, little Murray, but my brothers, they got their own lives, they live back east, they don't care what happens to Augie...”
This guy, if you let him, could drive you nuts. He had these huge intense eyes that saturated you, so that you wanted to run from the poor bastard. He'd be in the store, and I'd be in the back, stocking shelves, trying to stay away from Augie and dad and the intensity at the front table, and Augie'd find me. “Ohh, little Murray, such a good boy. Look at those things on your feet. Those are rags, they got tape holdin' 'em together. Goddam tennis shoes, they're drivin' the shoemakers out-a business, those sneakers, Little Murray. Why you wear them ugly things, when they fallin' off your feet...?
“I'm an athlete, Augie, I play ball in 'em. They may not look good, but they fit good. I don't have to worry about polishing them or being filthy, I can run through puddles and creeks and if they stink, I dry 'em out in the sun...”
“But they got tape on 'em, Little Murray. Your dad, he's in the shoe business, and his boy, he wears cheap sneakers with tape keepin' 'em on his feet. What you think all his customers gonna think when they seein' you wearin' them rags with tape holdin' 'em together...?”
“I don't care what they think, Augie. I care about my feet and playin' ball.”
“People think your daddy is poor, and he works so hard...Little Murray, your daddy, he is my best friend, so little Murray, what Augie is gonna do, he's gonna make you some good shoes, nice leather shoes, you don't got to put no tape on 'em...”
“I gotta go up front, Augie, dad needs my help.”
He followed me up front, where it wasn't much better, with him fawning over me and telling my dad what a great kid I was, my dad knowing for sure that was bullshit, but going along with Augie since Augie was his loyal customer, who would never under any circumstances buy from any other wholesaler in the country, and now dad was even bragging to these grimy characters about my working out and learning the business and would someday inherit and run the business.
I persevered this bullshit. But Augie, he wouldn't let up. He'd pigeon-hole me every time he came in the store, telling me how wonderful my dad was and how great I was, and how I “deserved” better shoes and not those raggedy sneakers, and then one day he comes in with these goddam boots. Ankle-high boots, gorgeous boots made of supreme leather. Fruit boots.
He presented them to me up front while dad and about twenty shoemakers looked on. “Your boy, he deserves nice boots, Murray, look at those rags he's wearin...”
“The kid wears rags, Augie. I can't even buy him new clothes. I don't know what to do with him. He won't wear new things or nice stuff.'
Augie insisted I try on the boots. Dave flashed me a look. I took off my filthy, smelly, ragged sneakers and slipped into the boots. A perfect fit. I felt a shiver go up my spine as Augie beamed and my dad turned away, not wanting to see the expression on my face.
“Look at those boots, Murray. I make 'em for your son.”
“Beautiful boots, Augie, you're a real craftsman.”
“Your son, he's my son, too, Murray. I do anything for him.”
Now I had the boots off, slipped back into my sneakers.
“Murray, the kid's wearin' them sneakers again! They got tape on 'em. He won't wear my boots. Why won't he wear my boots?”
I started sneaking to the back of the store. Dad glowered at me. “You can wear the boots for a little while,” he said, miserable.
I went to the back of the store, tying the laces of my sneakers. Brand new laces secured from the shelves in the store. Holding the sneakers together, like binding. Meanwhile, Augie whined and harped on, crushed by having to see his unworn boots on the front table. I'd had enough. I had to put a stop to this sonofabitch or there's no telling how far he'd go. I found the big push broom and slithered up along the shelves. There was Augie, carrying on, his baggy pants crumpling up at his ankles, hiding his scrawny ass. I raced forward and shoved the end of the broom up that scrawny ass and Augie shrieked and went straight up in the air, landing feet first on the long low table full of orders. He grabbed at his ass and shrieked again. He waved his arms, his enormous eyes circulating around like crazed orbs. He jumped off the table and secured the long window-opening pole and came after me with it. We blasted wooden poles against each other, like sword fighters in movies. My dad tried to get between us. Shoemakers spilled out onto the sidewalk. I tossed down my broom and followed them in a dead sprint, My dad and Augie gave chase. Nobody could catch me. I was well down the street. Dad fired me for good that night, cutting his losses.
Augie came back in the fold. Nobody else but my dad would put up with him. Dad kept the boots on a high shelf in the garage.
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