MY DAD'S STORE #1 "BIG FISH EATS LITTLE FISH"
My dad's store was drab as any building in town and quite large and dusty and overcrowded with stock, and airless because of the lack of windows, and permeated with the distinct smell of leather. It was situated on a main boulevard just off the downtown in Compton, California, about half a mile from our modest home, which was across the street from Roosevelt Junior High school, where I had just finished the ninth grade. Dad supplied shoemakers with leather and rubber goods and all manner of findings involved with repairing or rebuilding a shoe. Opening hours were 7:30 in the morning 6 days a week, but dad always showed up around 7:15 because his shoemakers, mostly first and second generation Italians, liked to arrive early and gather their merchandise before opening their shops at 9, but it was my contention that these shoemakers liked to show up early so they could kibitz with each other and hang out with my dad and drink his coffee and in some cases bring in home-made pastries made by their wives.
Nevertheless, just to be sure, dad always stopped at this shop on Atlantic boulevard that was shaped like a giant brown donut and bought a dozen glazed and chocolate, which meant I had to get up earlier than I wanted, Dad always rising first and using our lone bathroom beside my bedroom to take a noisy dump, shower and shave before entering my room and always saying the same thing, “Get up, meat, time to go to work. Come on, boy, rise and shine, meet the day, we're gonna make money today!”
He left the door open, joined mother for coffee (my sister slept) in the kitchen and by then I was up after my journey to the bathroom and I sat half asleep and mindless in his Nash Rambler station wagon while he hit the donut shop and then the store, where usually about a dozen shoemakers milled around out front.
Dad pulled up under an awning in front of the front window of “Franklin Leather & Shoe Findings” and the minute he stepped out of the car his personality changed from one of nail-chewing preoccupation of the days agenda and consternation over the pressures of business to the kind of excitement to see his shoemakers that relatives in airports displayed after greeting love ones they hadn't seen in ten years.
These men, stooped from bending over grinding machines and shoe lasts, gnarled fingers begrimed with grit, shoe wax and dyes, worshiped my dad, who treated them like royalty while waiting on them, and instructed me in a no nonsense manner to do the same, because they were our lifeblood and allowed dad to feed our family, and besides, it was vital to treat all people with respect and warmth, even if they were assholes, because at some point down the line they might buy from you.
Upon entering the store, a frenzy began, mostly with dad, who had to wait upon and get these guys out. I went in back and made a huge aluminum vat of coffee. At a little after 7:30 my cousin Bob showed up from where he lived in Garden Grove in his lowered '51 Merc with flames on the side and went right to work, filling out and writing up orders while I fetched items for dad's shoemakers. Dad, amid the swirl, made deals. Every one of these guys wanted a deal, needed to chisel down prices, had a certain discount, and of course none of them wanted any other shoemaker to know his discount, just in case the other got less, and they all furtively at one time during their visits managed to get my dad off to the side for a hush-hush-big-deal discussion that lent suspicion among their peers, a constant game of who, dad said, “could fuck Franklin the best.”
“In the end, I get them,” dad told me. “The big fish eats the little fish. Your father, he's not an ordinary man.” And he winked.
Yet it was all jovial. The shoemakers talked shop (always claiming business was slow), family, ate the donuts and pastries, drank their coffee out of several stained cheap cups the shoemakers kept on a table by the window. My cousin Bob, who was 20 and had already knocked up his girl friend and had a kid, and another coming, could fix and build anything, often winked at me as dad bullshitted.
But from 7:30 until 9 it was go-go, with me sprinting from aisle to aisle securing heels and soles and nails and dyes and waxes and shoe laces and threads and awls and needles and slabs of leather and rubber and all the other copious items, boxing and calling out these items while dad or Bobby wrote them up, carrying boxes to cars of clients who felt it glorious that I work for my dad, “helping out the family like a good boy.”
Often, during this frantic hour and a half, the phone repeatedly rang with shoemakers calling in orders to be delivered later that day. We all felt like we were under attack, or sniper fire as the shoemakers began to urge us to get them out, and if I answered the phone, or Bobby did, they always insisted on talking to dad, who had to maintain his civil and pleasant tone and again act overwhelmingly pleased to talk to his customers as he scribbled on a note pad or an invoice or on the wall if he couldn't find any paper, gritting his teeth, finishing and hustling back, and it was usually at this time that I, too, caught up in the maelstrom, tried to go too fast, and dad growled, “you're going too goddam fast!” I instantly screwed up and dad unleashed a torrent of frustration and pent up rage my way, screaming “I told you you were going too goddam fast, goddammit...you're screwing everything up!”
Dad, who was never wrong and never screwed up, never snapped at Bobby for fucking up and seemed to use me as a sounding board, but I resented it, and his castigation of me in front of all his customers was embarrassing and I always defended myself, claiming I was not “going too fast” and then he growled at me not to “fucking talk back when we were busy,” and I maintained I “was not talking back but merely defending myself,” and then he warned me that if I kept it up we could “take it outside, bird-boy,” whereupon I always answered snottily, “Awh, get off my goddam back,” whereupon he threw down his pen and put his face an inch from me and threatened to “break me into a thousand bloody pieces!” And I, the son of Mr. God, asked, “A thousand bloody pieces dad, or nine hundred and ninety nine, or one thousand and one pieces?”
By this time the front area of the store, at the long waist-high table where we filled out orders and shoemakers congregated, was cleared out, the shoemakers out the door and on the front sidewalk while Bobby continued writing up orders, smirking, taking it all in stride.
“Go ahead,” I'd say, “Break me into a thousand bloody pieces.”
“You smart ass punk, I will! One more word, and by God I will beat you into a thousand bloody pieces!”
“You'll pay the doctor bills, dad, and I won't be able to play ball tonight if you break me into a thousand bloody pieces. What are you gonna say to everybody when I can't play ball because I'm in a body cast?”
“You're a real smart-ass, know all the answers, don't you, wise guy? Well, let me tell YOU something—maybe you think you can get away with this because you're a 14 year old punk, but when you're twenty four and I'm 54, I'll still be able to kick your ass, and when I'm 74 and you're 44, I'll still be able to kick your goddam ass, cuz you're all talk, just like your mother...”
By this time he was actually calming down, realizing it was impossible to break me into a thousand bloody pieces and not a good thing anyway, considering I was his only son and that although I drove him crazy most of the time with my back talk and hijinks, he was secretly proud of my playing American Legion baseball at 14 among 17 and 18 year old's and holding my own and in some cases standing out—a “chip off the block” of my ex major league playing father.
“Now's the time, dad,” I said, backing up, putting up my dukes the way dad, an ex amateur boxing champ taught me. “I'm only fourteen, a bird-boy. Five years from now I'll kick your ass.”
Bobby was giggling.
“Yeh, that'll be the day,” dad muttered. “Let's get back to work,” and the whole affair was over as the shoemakers matriculated back into the store, instantly adapted as Dad and Bobby and I continued working as if nothing untoward had happened.
Nevertheless, just to be sure, dad always stopped at this shop on Atlantic boulevard that was shaped like a giant brown donut and bought a dozen glazed and chocolate, which meant I had to get up earlier than I wanted, Dad always rising first and using our lone bathroom beside my bedroom to take a noisy dump, shower and shave before entering my room and always saying the same thing, “Get up, meat, time to go to work. Come on, boy, rise and shine, meet the day, we're gonna make money today!”
He left the door open, joined mother for coffee (my sister slept) in the kitchen and by then I was up after my journey to the bathroom and I sat half asleep and mindless in his Nash Rambler station wagon while he hit the donut shop and then the store, where usually about a dozen shoemakers milled around out front.
Dad pulled up under an awning in front of the front window of “Franklin Leather & Shoe Findings” and the minute he stepped out of the car his personality changed from one of nail-chewing preoccupation of the days agenda and consternation over the pressures of business to the kind of excitement to see his shoemakers that relatives in airports displayed after greeting love ones they hadn't seen in ten years.
These men, stooped from bending over grinding machines and shoe lasts, gnarled fingers begrimed with grit, shoe wax and dyes, worshiped my dad, who treated them like royalty while waiting on them, and instructed me in a no nonsense manner to do the same, because they were our lifeblood and allowed dad to feed our family, and besides, it was vital to treat all people with respect and warmth, even if they were assholes, because at some point down the line they might buy from you.
Upon entering the store, a frenzy began, mostly with dad, who had to wait upon and get these guys out. I went in back and made a huge aluminum vat of coffee. At a little after 7:30 my cousin Bob showed up from where he lived in Garden Grove in his lowered '51 Merc with flames on the side and went right to work, filling out and writing up orders while I fetched items for dad's shoemakers. Dad, amid the swirl, made deals. Every one of these guys wanted a deal, needed to chisel down prices, had a certain discount, and of course none of them wanted any other shoemaker to know his discount, just in case the other got less, and they all furtively at one time during their visits managed to get my dad off to the side for a hush-hush-big-deal discussion that lent suspicion among their peers, a constant game of who, dad said, “could fuck Franklin the best.”
“In the end, I get them,” dad told me. “The big fish eats the little fish. Your father, he's not an ordinary man.” And he winked.
Yet it was all jovial. The shoemakers talked shop (always claiming business was slow), family, ate the donuts and pastries, drank their coffee out of several stained cheap cups the shoemakers kept on a table by the window. My cousin Bob, who was 20 and had already knocked up his girl friend and had a kid, and another coming, could fix and build anything, often winked at me as dad bullshitted.
But from 7:30 until 9 it was go-go, with me sprinting from aisle to aisle securing heels and soles and nails and dyes and waxes and shoe laces and threads and awls and needles and slabs of leather and rubber and all the other copious items, boxing and calling out these items while dad or Bobby wrote them up, carrying boxes to cars of clients who felt it glorious that I work for my dad, “helping out the family like a good boy.”
Often, during this frantic hour and a half, the phone repeatedly rang with shoemakers calling in orders to be delivered later that day. We all felt like we were under attack, or sniper fire as the shoemakers began to urge us to get them out, and if I answered the phone, or Bobby did, they always insisted on talking to dad, who had to maintain his civil and pleasant tone and again act overwhelmingly pleased to talk to his customers as he scribbled on a note pad or an invoice or on the wall if he couldn't find any paper, gritting his teeth, finishing and hustling back, and it was usually at this time that I, too, caught up in the maelstrom, tried to go too fast, and dad growled, “you're going too goddam fast!” I instantly screwed up and dad unleashed a torrent of frustration and pent up rage my way, screaming “I told you you were going too goddam fast, goddammit...you're screwing everything up!”
Dad, who was never wrong and never screwed up, never snapped at Bobby for fucking up and seemed to use me as a sounding board, but I resented it, and his castigation of me in front of all his customers was embarrassing and I always defended myself, claiming I was not “going too fast” and then he growled at me not to “fucking talk back when we were busy,” and I maintained I “was not talking back but merely defending myself,” and then he warned me that if I kept it up we could “take it outside, bird-boy,” whereupon I always answered snottily, “Awh, get off my goddam back,” whereupon he threw down his pen and put his face an inch from me and threatened to “break me into a thousand bloody pieces!” And I, the son of Mr. God, asked, “A thousand bloody pieces dad, or nine hundred and ninety nine, or one thousand and one pieces?”
By this time the front area of the store, at the long waist-high table where we filled out orders and shoemakers congregated, was cleared out, the shoemakers out the door and on the front sidewalk while Bobby continued writing up orders, smirking, taking it all in stride.
“Go ahead,” I'd say, “Break me into a thousand bloody pieces.”
“You smart ass punk, I will! One more word, and by God I will beat you into a thousand bloody pieces!”
“You'll pay the doctor bills, dad, and I won't be able to play ball tonight if you break me into a thousand bloody pieces. What are you gonna say to everybody when I can't play ball because I'm in a body cast?”
“You're a real smart-ass, know all the answers, don't you, wise guy? Well, let me tell YOU something—maybe you think you can get away with this because you're a 14 year old punk, but when you're twenty four and I'm 54, I'll still be able to kick your ass, and when I'm 74 and you're 44, I'll still be able to kick your goddam ass, cuz you're all talk, just like your mother...”
By this time he was actually calming down, realizing it was impossible to break me into a thousand bloody pieces and not a good thing anyway, considering I was his only son and that although I drove him crazy most of the time with my back talk and hijinks, he was secretly proud of my playing American Legion baseball at 14 among 17 and 18 year old's and holding my own and in some cases standing out—a “chip off the block” of my ex major league playing father.
“Now's the time, dad,” I said, backing up, putting up my dukes the way dad, an ex amateur boxing champ taught me. “I'm only fourteen, a bird-boy. Five years from now I'll kick your ass.”
Bobby was giggling.
“Yeh, that'll be the day,” dad muttered. “Let's get back to work,” and the whole affair was over as the shoemakers matriculated back into the store, instantly adapted as Dad and Bobby and I continued working as if nothing untoward had happened.
