FAKE CHINA CABINETS
People still got rich back in those days, young hard working men would go out into the world with pennies in their pockets, and never pausing but for quick sleeps would rise with thousands in their wallets. It was hard work then, it is hard work now to get rich and only a few ever get there too; never as many as it is advertised today, lots of people back then just did not have the publicity making magazines of today, these publications now have to find people that are doing great things and in a hurry make big bucks, back then you got your money and your big house and big friends too, it is hard to stay humble when you are rich, Dad would always say, “Only the poor can afford to be humble.” Dad was humble.
We lived in what was called a track house, called that later but it was before that, we sort of lived on the first suburbs, but also before that was called that. I am trying to give you an idea of the time based on what I remember and I remember very little. The houses were all white and all had the same architectural style, flat square, efficiency built in, though no architect had done them. Back then architects only designed big and important things, track housing back then did not require such expertise. When I compare neighborhoods today which are all the same even down to the plants and cats, back then it was grass and dogs, I sense that we have come a long way from those days, people care more about the look and feel of their track housing, they almost look rich now, of course many of them today are just like us back then, barely making the mortgage at the top of their spending curve, maximizing their responsibilities just to have enough, but their houses sure look prettier, and they even have gates for protection. You have to call the guard up to let your friends in, in the old days it was the rich people that had gates, but now the rich people have money gates, you can’t get into their neighborhoods without a million dollars, no gates though. Regular folk now have gates because they live in dangerous communities, but still kind of sophisticated to have a gate with a guard.
The neighbors were just like us only different enough so that none of us would think that we were like the others, Mama would say things about this or that neighbor and Dad would say, “That is just how those people are Maryann.” And he would butter his white bread and eat it cold just the same.
Dad was a sort of entrepreneur, just when all those big housing projects were kicking off Dad was picking up loads of work as he was equally fading off in years. Things were going good, Dad did something in construction to the houses, I don’t really know what, I never worried about money or payments, I just went to school, rode my bike and fixed a lot flat tires. Dad worked four or five other men that kept on coming over to the house for supper and beer and card games that would go profanely into the night. I slept a good sleep, I never felt attacked by anyone or much afraid of anything, everyone was mostly solid, there were not a lot of people doubting who or what they were such as there is today. We knew who we were so much so we never bothered to ask “Who am I?” “What am I doing here?” When you live in a place that is very much the same from end to end, where everyone is eating the same foods and drinking the same beer, smoking the same cigarettes, and they all pretty much look and talk the same; well when you live in place like that you don’t have to ask any questions, things are very clear.
I was a growing boy in all that certainty, a bit naive I admit but we were all naïve, we sort of just knew us and work, and while there were some perversions they were rarely worked out; the neighbor’s wife gave me the eye but neither of us had the courage to act out that act. We got a TV, which was grand indeed even in black and white. All those great shades of gray photographers that refuse to adopt color were raised on black and white. Actually we did not watch much television because Dad still preferred to listen to the radio, so my sister and I sat next to him, listening to breathing voices while mom would knit us cotton-wool blankets.
Life was good but for one night when Joe came to our house with some men; they came storming into our house breaking down the door, and standing in our living room barking Dad to come out: “Henry, you son of a bitch! you’ve been doing some dirty work haven’t you!” Anger stuttering and jumbling Joe’s voice, “Come, come out now here Henry!” He did not really need to urge my Dad to come out, my father was not a menacing fellow, but he was not afraid of anyone either; Dad had awakened and hastened into the living room to figure out what the hell was going on, just as had Mom and my tomboy sister and me. We were all there, standing, wearing our pajamas kind of like we did not know what was happening.
Joe was sort of the leader of many of the work projects that were given to my Dad, Joe would pay my Dad to do work on these projects, but Dad was a contractor supposedly free to work on other construction sites, only there was hard won competition for the building projects, not because there were a lot of people competing but because there were a couple three guys that wanted all the work that was to be had. Joe was one of those guys; he paid bribe money to get projects, sometimes he would bribe his competition to stay out of a bid, even though they could not have done the work if they had gotten it, other times he had to buy their laborers to finish a job that was more than could be handle by his work hands; and there were times when they just had to take a guy out back to close a deal. And so there were many crooked feuds and many regulatory violations to make the money that was saved on the bidding process. And since Joe gave my Dad a lot of work he did not want my Dad working for the bigger guys on the other side.
“I told you Henry not to work for those assholes but you been doing some work for them haven’t you!!” “….answer me Henry!!” Dad did not try to deny it, he gestured with his hands pleading for obvious understandings, “Joe I had to do some extra work to keep my boys busy, they have families, I have family you know that Joe, and times aren’t always going to be good.” Dad was not even angry that Joe had broken down our door, he was just trying to explain why it ought be ok for him to work for the other guys, Dad was always reasonable like that. Joe came back “Henry you know how damn hard those guys make it on us, you know how they steal our business, I work hard! my boys work hard! we have to keep the business somehow and you are not helping!” Then Joe moved himself over to the nice glass windows that we had and crow bar stroke them into shattering. Dad did not move, the family always did what Dad did, we did not move. Joe moved over to another window and struck it to pieces too. And then he walked over to Mom’s China cabinet, her fake joy adorned of unleaded crystals, and Joe said to Dad “We are all working hard Henry. Here we all work hard Henry, we need to STICK together you just can’t be thinking of just your family, you have to think of us too.” Stroking shatterings!
For a moment I thought Joe made sense, thinking about community and not just our family but my philosophizing ended quickly for when Joe broke Mom’s China cabinet Dad broke with tradition, he went wild and trounced upon Joe like I’ve never seen him fray before. The boys just stood by watching my Dad punch Joe and Joe would try to defend himself and punch back but my Dad was now more angry, more angry, and finally Joe just had to succumb to my Dad as he sat on his chest and punched poor Joe till his ugly face was blood swamp. Then Dad looked at Mom, who was tearing with pride, and let Joe go.
Joe managed painfully up and, pointing his finger, muffled uttering… “Henry you gotta stop doing work for those guys, it is just not right, don’t do anymore work for those guys.” Dad said nothing back. Joe and the boys walked out.
The following week, on schedule, Joe and the boys came over for the usual drinks and card game; I overheard Joe complaining that Dad was winning too much, “…maybe you are hiding a Queen Henry?” And that is all I remember.
We lived in what was called a track house, called that later but it was before that, we sort of lived on the first suburbs, but also before that was called that. I am trying to give you an idea of the time based on what I remember and I remember very little. The houses were all white and all had the same architectural style, flat square, efficiency built in, though no architect had done them. Back then architects only designed big and important things, track housing back then did not require such expertise. When I compare neighborhoods today which are all the same even down to the plants and cats, back then it was grass and dogs, I sense that we have come a long way from those days, people care more about the look and feel of their track housing, they almost look rich now, of course many of them today are just like us back then, barely making the mortgage at the top of their spending curve, maximizing their responsibilities just to have enough, but their houses sure look prettier, and they even have gates for protection. You have to call the guard up to let your friends in, in the old days it was the rich people that had gates, but now the rich people have money gates, you can’t get into their neighborhoods without a million dollars, no gates though. Regular folk now have gates because they live in dangerous communities, but still kind of sophisticated to have a gate with a guard.
The neighbors were just like us only different enough so that none of us would think that we were like the others, Mama would say things about this or that neighbor and Dad would say, “That is just how those people are Maryann.” And he would butter his white bread and eat it cold just the same.
Dad was a sort of entrepreneur, just when all those big housing projects were kicking off Dad was picking up loads of work as he was equally fading off in years. Things were going good, Dad did something in construction to the houses, I don’t really know what, I never worried about money or payments, I just went to school, rode my bike and fixed a lot flat tires. Dad worked four or five other men that kept on coming over to the house for supper and beer and card games that would go profanely into the night. I slept a good sleep, I never felt attacked by anyone or much afraid of anything, everyone was mostly solid, there were not a lot of people doubting who or what they were such as there is today. We knew who we were so much so we never bothered to ask “Who am I?” “What am I doing here?” When you live in a place that is very much the same from end to end, where everyone is eating the same foods and drinking the same beer, smoking the same cigarettes, and they all pretty much look and talk the same; well when you live in place like that you don’t have to ask any questions, things are very clear.
I was a growing boy in all that certainty, a bit naive I admit but we were all naïve, we sort of just knew us and work, and while there were some perversions they were rarely worked out; the neighbor’s wife gave me the eye but neither of us had the courage to act out that act. We got a TV, which was grand indeed even in black and white. All those great shades of gray photographers that refuse to adopt color were raised on black and white. Actually we did not watch much television because Dad still preferred to listen to the radio, so my sister and I sat next to him, listening to breathing voices while mom would knit us cotton-wool blankets.
Life was good but for one night when Joe came to our house with some men; they came storming into our house breaking down the door, and standing in our living room barking Dad to come out: “Henry, you son of a bitch! you’ve been doing some dirty work haven’t you!” Anger stuttering and jumbling Joe’s voice, “Come, come out now here Henry!” He did not really need to urge my Dad to come out, my father was not a menacing fellow, but he was not afraid of anyone either; Dad had awakened and hastened into the living room to figure out what the hell was going on, just as had Mom and my tomboy sister and me. We were all there, standing, wearing our pajamas kind of like we did not know what was happening.
Joe was sort of the leader of many of the work projects that were given to my Dad, Joe would pay my Dad to do work on these projects, but Dad was a contractor supposedly free to work on other construction sites, only there was hard won competition for the building projects, not because there were a lot of people competing but because there were a couple three guys that wanted all the work that was to be had. Joe was one of those guys; he paid bribe money to get projects, sometimes he would bribe his competition to stay out of a bid, even though they could not have done the work if they had gotten it, other times he had to buy their laborers to finish a job that was more than could be handle by his work hands; and there were times when they just had to take a guy out back to close a deal. And so there were many crooked feuds and many regulatory violations to make the money that was saved on the bidding process. And since Joe gave my Dad a lot of work he did not want my Dad working for the bigger guys on the other side.
“I told you Henry not to work for those assholes but you been doing some work for them haven’t you!!” “….answer me Henry!!” Dad did not try to deny it, he gestured with his hands pleading for obvious understandings, “Joe I had to do some extra work to keep my boys busy, they have families, I have family you know that Joe, and times aren’t always going to be good.” Dad was not even angry that Joe had broken down our door, he was just trying to explain why it ought be ok for him to work for the other guys, Dad was always reasonable like that. Joe came back “Henry you know how damn hard those guys make it on us, you know how they steal our business, I work hard! my boys work hard! we have to keep the business somehow and you are not helping!” Then Joe moved himself over to the nice glass windows that we had and crow bar stroke them into shattering. Dad did not move, the family always did what Dad did, we did not move. Joe moved over to another window and struck it to pieces too. And then he walked over to Mom’s China cabinet, her fake joy adorned of unleaded crystals, and Joe said to Dad “We are all working hard Henry. Here we all work hard Henry, we need to STICK together you just can’t be thinking of just your family, you have to think of us too.” Stroking shatterings!
For a moment I thought Joe made sense, thinking about community and not just our family but my philosophizing ended quickly for when Joe broke Mom’s China cabinet Dad broke with tradition, he went wild and trounced upon Joe like I’ve never seen him fray before. The boys just stood by watching my Dad punch Joe and Joe would try to defend himself and punch back but my Dad was now more angry, more angry, and finally Joe just had to succumb to my Dad as he sat on his chest and punched poor Joe till his ugly face was blood swamp. Then Dad looked at Mom, who was tearing with pride, and let Joe go.
Joe managed painfully up and, pointing his finger, muffled uttering… “Henry you gotta stop doing work for those guys, it is just not right, don’t do anymore work for those guys.” Dad said nothing back. Joe and the boys walked out.
The following week, on schedule, Joe and the boys came over for the usual drinks and card game; I overheard Joe complaining that Dad was winning too much, “…maybe you are hiding a Queen Henry?” And that is all I remember.
posted by Ricardo Correa at 8/31/2006 11:19:00 AM
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