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could turn out to be just as
snotty, just as much a thief.
Besides, she would remind me,
it was impossible to find any
one with his experience. Most
of the experienced grocery
clerks in the city were em
ployed by chain stores which
paid them much higher sal
aries than we could afford to
match.
Clearly, my mother needed
someone to help her operate
the business. This she and her
brothers, who were successful
real estate operators, decided
one evening at a meeting
which had been called to con
sider our critical financial
condition. It distressed them
that the business was losing
so much money. At that rate
of loss, the limited sum of
money she had gotten from
Father’s life insurance would
be dissipated within several
months.
They thought of Barney,
Father’s older brother, a
widower in his early sixties
who lived in Cleveland. I had
never met him. Perhaps he
might be interested in coming
to Chicago to help manage the
store, my uncles speculated.
Years back, he had had some
experience in the grocery
business. Their impression
was that he didn’t have a reg
ular job. They decided that
my mother should offer him a
modest salary. The hope was
that he might accept the offer
not so much for the money’s
sake but as a favor to my
mother, of whom he was fond,
and out of loyalty to the mem
ory of Father, to whom he had
been devoted.
So a long letter containing
all the particulars on the cash
register shortages and so on
was sent off to him, and we
waited for a reply. We didn’t
count on an affirmative one.
After all, he had lived in
Cleveland a long time; and
uprooting one’s self at his age
would be no small thing. Un
derstandably, too, he wouldn’t
be eager to accept the head
aches of managing the busi
ness.
I remember the two weeks’
period in which we waited for
his answer. The store had al
ways been a prison for me but
at that time it was especially
intolerable. Mary, Babs, and
not only my mother, looked
perpetually weary and sullen.
The walls, floors, stacks of
merchandise, faces of custo
mers — the entire atmos
phere was depressing. With
34
depressed feelings my mother
and I came to that mausoleum
each day and in depression we
left it at night. It is as though
we had been fated to partici
pate in an interminable burial
of Father and the store was
our cemetery.
Even after Uncle Barney’s
response in the affirmative
reached us, we were not im
mediately buoyed up. In fact,
only then did we first express
some misgivings about having
turned to him. Perhaps he
wouldn’t have a good head for
business either. Or maybe the
customers, Mary and Babs
wouldn’t like him. Perhaps he,
too, wouldn’t be able to keep
Jim honest and in line. My
mother worried that after a
while he wouldn’t be satisfied
with the salary. Or that they
might not be able to work to
gether, that he might come to
dislike her. “Let the store go to
hell!" she said, “just as long
as we don’t end up being
enemies.”
What it came down to is
that she no longer had a clear
picture of what her brother-
in-law was like. Fifteen years
before, when she and Father,
newly arrived immigrants
from Russia, had arrived in
Cleveland, Uncle Barney had
looked after them, let them
stay in his flat, gotten Father
a job in a grocery store. But
after coming to Chicago, they
had soon lost contact with him.
He didn’t like to write letters,
nor did they. And in those
days a long distance call was
a luxury. He had never come
to Chicago for a visit, not even
for Father’s funeral, because
at the time he was in a hos
pital for some minor surgery.
Later he had written to say
that, God willing, he hoped to
be at the unveiling, which was
scheduled for a day some four
months beyond the day on
which mother had written to
him about the store.
But if the possibility of
Uncle Barney as a solution to
our failing business was prob
lematic, I nevertheless took a
grain of satisfaction from be
ing the first to inform Jim
that my uncle was on the way
to help with the store man
agership. I found him stretch
ed out on a sugar bag in the
stockroom, listening to a
broadcast of a Chicago Cubs
baseball game. He should have
been out in front, waiting on
trade. At the time my mother
was at the bank, and the pres
ence of the boss’s son didn’t
intimidate him. All along his
attitude toward me was un
mistakable: a brainless incom
petent who couldn’t take
charge when his father died.
And, in fact, sometimes he
went so far as to address me as
though there were an un-
spoken understanding be
tween us, a pact between con
niving operators, goldbricks.
He was despicable! And I de
spised myself for lacking the
manhood and confidence to
pitch him out of the store and
take over his job. At any rate,
to my announcement about
the coming of Uncle Barney,
Jim allowed me no satisfac
tion. He wore an expression of
absolute icy indifference.
With white spats on polish
ed shoes and sporting a cane,
silk scarf and a Miami Beach
skaw hat he came into our
lives. My mother had met him
at the railroad station. His
step was quick, spry, as
though he had walked to Chi
cago from Cleveland, enjoying
every foot of the way. His
mustached, ruddy cheeked
face looked a decade younger
than his sixty some years. Al
together he gave the impres
sion of being a man whose
body had freely taken and
given pleasure.
And it was the stocky body
I was immediately aware of as
Mother, standing to one side
of the register, introduced me
to him. “Hello haver," he s;
in a richly resonant voice 1
had expected him to lead off
with something conventi nal
—like ‘You must be my br; le
er's son.’
His eyes were sending or'
sparks of affection, warmth.
“How was the trip?” I asked
nervously, awkwardly.
He smiled, and suddenly
raised and cocked his fists in
the mock pose of a profes
sional boxer posing for photo
graphers at weigh-in time.
“You look like you’ve got
good muscles on you. How
about going a few rounds with
me?”
I liked him on the spot.
When had my perpetually
sad-eyed and weltschmerz-
ridden father ever been the
clown. I said, “No uncle, you
look too tough. I don’t want
to get hurt.” What prompted
me to say that, since in those
days levity or wit rarely
passed from my lips, I don’t
understand.
He laughed, a snorting, ex
plosive laugh, and threw his
arms around my shoulders in
so powerful a bear bug that
Continued on page 37
You Can’t Top It...
For Quality and Good Taste
Cordial Greetings
Of The Season
A Friend
The Southern Israelite