He grabbed the stuffed pillow case, turned off the lights, and gave one last check of the room. The television was on. He hadn’t noticed before. The sound was muted and the picture was as grubby as the room. He looked for a remote. There wasn’t one so he used his elbow to shut it off. “The revolution will not be televised,” he said, and left the room.
Piece Work
Kenneth Wishnia
Hitler celebrated his forty-seventh birthday the other day with a triumphal procession through the streets of Berlin, and he couldn’t wait to unwrap his shiny new presents, mainly field-ready motorized units and heavy artillery. Then in an elaborate state ceremony, Air Force Minister Goering anointed him with the imperial title of Oberste Kriegsherr. The starstruck reporter for the New York Times couldn’t understand why the Führer would accept the title of Supreme Warlord, given his repeated claims that he is thoroughly devoted to working for peace, but none of us had any trouble figuring it out.
“You believe that mishegas? Adolph frigging Hitler claims he’s a peace-loving Socialist, and they just repeat it without question when anyone who’s read a newspaper in the last three years can see that he wants to be the next Kaiser,” says Benny, the rising steam forming a gauzy veil around his words.
“Oyb nisht erger,” I say, smoothing out a cluster of pleats in a blue chiffon dress. If not worse.
We have plenty of so-called Socialists right here in New York who support Wall Street’s own brand of imperialism, including the head of our union, but there’s no point in mentioning that—it would just set Benny off on another one of his rants, and what good would that do? Even with the shop windows open, it’s already hot enough by the pressers’ stations to curl the wallpaper.
The business agent came by a couple of hours ago, fussing over the new styles and feeling each piece of material with his grubby fingers, before settling on a lousy $2.75 per piece for a brand new tropic print silk evening dress with a double cut-out strap back that’s going to retail for $19.95 at Simon’s on Fifth Avenue. I figure that after the cutter, the operator, and the finisher are done with it, my share works out to about forty-five cents, which means it will take a couple of hours of heavy-duty steam pressing to pay for just one of my son Aaron’s weekly violin lessons. And our second child is due in about four weeks.
A pair of thick rubber hoses dangle from the overhead rod like a couple of sweaty jitterbuggers shimmying down to supply the irons with steam. The 150-gallon boiler is swaddled with thick layers of insulation, but it still radiates enough heat to make a plain cotton undershirt feel like you’re wearing a penitent’s hair shirt, and I have to work right next to it grinding out piece after piece because that’s how we get paid. None of us are paid by the week, except for the almighty cutters, so Benny stands across from me as we drag the big, heavy irons across the delicate chiffons, crepes, and organdies, smoothing out the wrinkles and getting the dresses ready for shipping.
Summer’s almost here and the fabric is getting lighter and harder to work with. Slim waists are in this season, with big poofy shoulders and sleeves echoing the leg-o’mutton styles of the Gilded Age. I think of my own dear wife, who may not be as sleek as this year’s models, but unlike them, she’s built to last. And I ask Benny how many more dresses he thinks we have to press before we can retire or drop dead from heat exhaustion, whichever comes first.
Abe Weinstein looks up from the buttons he’s sewing onto a white silk dress with big black polka dots and a very thin waist. “Just hang on another dozen years or so, Reb Mordkhe,” he says over the clamor of the Singer machines.
Abe is the only one in the shop who uses my full name, Mordecai. Everyone else calls me Morty. Morty Levy.
“For it is written that the Levites shall retire at age fifty.”
“Where is it written?” says Morris Gutbeder, glancing up from his machine. “I didn’t see it in the Morning Freiheit.”
“Maybe it was in the Forverts,” says Benny, but Gutbeder doesn’t take the bait.
Abe lets the thread go slack. “The Midrash says that when the Israelites were wandering in the wilderness of Sinai, only the tribe of Levi did not debase themselves by worshiping the Golden Calf.”
“No wonder they all became Communists,” Benny says, winking at me.
Abe was a respected scholar back in the old country. A real talmed-khokhem. He’s got a full beard and everything that goes with it. Now he’s a finisher, trimming cuffs and seams and doing a little needlework as needed, and occasionally sharing traditional wisdom amid the industrial activity like a character from a Sholem Aleichem tale who’s fallen into our world and can’t find his way back to the shtetl. Especially with that beard. I’ve been shaving since I was sixteen.
“Enough of your fairy tales,” says Gutbeder. “Where’s Linkel?”
“He’ll be here,” says Grossman, without missing a stitch.
Gutbeder is a big bear of a man and a war vet who looks as out of place handling silk and lace as a Cossack horseman taking the Seventh Avenue Local.
His pal Ruben Grossman served in the Soviet Navy during the Revolution. He was a Russian Jew, I was Polish Jew, and our respective leaders tried to convince us that we two Jews should be shooting at each other. Good thing we saw it differently.
Benny gives the tropic print dress another blast of steam and a once-over as I pick up the pleated chiffon dress and carry it over to the rack that’s headed for Oppenheim Collins on West Thirty-Fourth Street. Any excuse to stretch my legs, which always get stiff when I have to stand for a few hours, especially my left knee, a legacy from the war. Not the Great War. I was too young for that. The war Poland declared on Russia in 1919. A little advice to all would-be conquerors: It is never a good idea to invade Russia. You will get your tukheses handed to you.
Gutbeder and Grossman keep checking the clock like nervous fathers killing time outside the delivery room. But the piece work continues.
I take my time hanging the dress, which gives me a moment to look out the grimy window that some joker propped open with a baseball bat and check out the traffic on Broadway, eight floors below. The same happy bustle as always. No continuous stream of red pouring spontaneously into the streets and threatening to overrun the banks, as some of my khaveyrim have predicted every year since Moses led the Israelites out of slavery.
I return to the pressers’ station just as Moishe Kaufman bellies up in a sweat-stained undershirt with an oily black cigar clamped between his teeth and shoves the bottom half of a navy blue two-piece in front of me.
“Gotta do the sheams on thish one,” he says around the cigar.
This is the part of the job I hate. Now I have to turn the skirt inside out and flatten all the seams so he can keep working on it. All that stitched linen has to have a crisp, clean look when it’s done, but the time-consuming task of underpressing just adds to my workload without increasing my piece count. And in this style, the finished piece retails for the bargain price of $6.95 at Saks, so you can imagine what my share of it will be.
The metal door bangs open and we all look up as if we’re expecting a personal telegram from Trotsky himself in Mexico. But it’s only Hillel Glassman with a sackful of furs to store in the back room. The furriers’ bosses must be hiding their assets in case the strike goes through.
We’ve been pushing for a minimum hourly rate for piece work since the days of the Taft Administration, but when the bosses hired goons from Murder Inc. to attack the Needle Trade Workers headquarters on West Twenty-Eighth Street, sending several delegates to the hospital, the cry went up for a general strike in solidarity with our injured comrades. We’re tired of being targets.
“Any word?” Moishe asks.
“The Dodgers are down four-zip,” says Hilly. “Dizzy Dean’s really got his stuff today.”
“That’sh not what I meant you little putzeleh,” says Moishe, exhaling a cloud of cigar smoke that mixes with the steam in front of my face, forming a lethal combination that makes my eyes water.
>
Brooklyn’s second baseman Lonnie Frey got four hits in a 10-7 win over the Phillies a few days ago, but ever since, “Dem Bums” have been stumbling from one anemic loss to another.
Suddenly one of the Italian operators from the shop two floors above comes flying down the stairs, pops his head in, and announces:
“Hey, all a-you guys, Linky’s coming!”
The little man with the limpid eyes and pale pink jowls had a quiet way of speaking that made people listen closely to every word. The beefy man with him looked like an ex-prize fighter who’d been hit too many times with a loaded glove. They sat at a small round table under the dim lights sipping strong black coffee with their backs to the kitchen and their eyes on the door to the street.
He was paying half a dozen henchmen to sit around and keep their eyes on the door as well, but the little man had a policy of never taking anything for granted. So his eyes sharpened when the little bell rang and the door swung open.
The floor creaked as the messenger approached, hat in hand, bowing like his predecessors in ancient times, and whispered something in the little man’s ear.
The little man nodded once, deliberately, as if the news were unpleasant but not unexpected, like the final notice of an overdue electric bill. He dismissed the messenger, contemplated his coffee cup for a moment, then gestured to two of the men sitting around in the shadows.
A couple of chairs scraped back, and Lefty Shapiro and Big Bill Cohen lined up front and center to receive their orders.
“The locals have voted to strike,” the little man informed them. “I want you to meet the others in the garage on Thirty-Seventh.”
“Then we’ll need a car,” said Lefty.
That got blank stares.
“To carry the gear.”
“What kinda gear you need?” said the guy with the battle-scarred face.
Lefty actually started to list the various items they would need—lead pipes, brass knuckles, maybe some stink bombs—when the big guy cut him off:
“Whadaya need, a friggin’ howitzer? It’s just a bunch of wheezy needle-pushers, for shit’s sake.”
“Besides, parking’s a real pain in midtown this hour,” said Big Bill, “and we need to blend in.”
“So maybe we should drive across the bridge and park downtown,” Lefty suggested.
“Just take the subway and walk,” said the little man, with a calmness that was almost a threat. And with that, the meeting was over.
Lefty and Big Bill got on the subway with a couple of short lengths of pipe awkwardly concealed under their suits. They took the local to Boro Hall and transferred to the Seventh Avenue Express, but as Lefty trotted up the stairs to catch the train, the heavy brass knuckles in his jacket pocket kept whacking against his hip.
“Damn. We should’ve taken the car,” said Lefty, plopping into the seat as the doors closed.
“What for? Gurrah says it’s only a bunch of shnayders.”
Lefty grunted and licked the dry skin on the knuckles of his right hand.
“Why the hell you always gotta be doing that?”
“Doing what?” said Lefty, his tongue hanging half-way out of his mouth.
“That. Licking your damn knuckles.”
“Because they’re always dry and chapped, all right? Now leave me alone.”
He was about to start on the knuckles of his left hand when a woman sitting across from them leaned forward.
“Pardon me, but I couldn’t help overhearing you,” she said. She was a shapely blonde in her early thirties, in a powder-blue skirt and matching hat with a royal blue bow. Her lips were a lustrous shade of Chinese Red. “You shouldn’t be using—um, saliva for dry, chapped hands. You should try using cold cream, or better yet some petroleum jelly.”
Big Bill could almost see the woman’s words working their way through Lefty’s brain as he tried to make sense of the words “petroleum jelly.” Suddenly Lefty’s knuckles clenched, and Big Bill put a hand out to stop him. The lady’s smile quickly faded.
“She means Vaseline, you moron. Come on, this is our stop,” said Big Bill, tipping his hat.
They walked two cars down and got right back on. Lefty grabbed a newspaper someone had left on the seat and buried his face in it.
“What’s eating you?” said Big Bill under the noise of the train. A poster on the wall told him that smoking Camel cigarettes was good for the digestion. He wished he could have a Camel cigarette right then.
“They raided Saffer’s joint.”
“Ah, crap.”
Lepke and Gurrah had been using Oscar Saffer’s garment shop on Broadway near Thirtieth Street as a payoff drop, funneling at least $150,000 through the place in the past year alone.
“Dewey’s boys walked out with nineteen cartons of business records.”
“Sounds bad, but the worst they can do is get him on tax evasion.”
“Yeah, and what if he starts singing?”
“Saffer’s no feygeleh. They’ll fine him five grand, tops, and maybe give him a year in the can. Time off for good behavior, and he’s back on the street for the spring season.”
Lefty chewed on that while Big Bill grabbed a piece of the paper.
Right there on page three was a story about some kid named Parker who had kidnapped a disbarred lawyer from New Jersey for some screwy reason using a toy pistol, handcuffs, and a fake beard from a novelty store. The Brooklyn D.A. had put out an eight-state alarm that turned up nothing but a bumbling accomplice hiding out in Youngstown, Ohio, until a woman walked right into the police station and said that Parker had offered said accomplice a job with the new Jersey State Police in exchange for helping pull off the kidnapping job, and now all the fingers were pointing to Parker’s dad, who just happens to be the chief of detectives of Burlington County, New Jersey.
“It’s always a dame who bring these guys down,” said Big Bill.
“Those bent cops bring themselves down. Like the dick in the Drukman murder. Thirty years on the job, they call him in for a few routine questions about the extra money in his bank account, and he goes home to Queens and blows his brains out.”
“Guess he figured that was his only option.”
“There’s always options. Especially for a detective sergeant.”
They got out at Thirty-Fourth Street and walked up three blocks to the garage. The place smelled of oil and damp cement, and the smell grew stronger as they descended a narrow flight of stairs to the basement and joined a crew unloading gear from the back of a brand new DeSoto. Lefty felt a surge of confidence when he saw all the familiar faces. The Syndicate had sent a small army. The brass knucks in his pocket didn’t chafe against his hip anymore. Their weight and power changed as the hunk of metal molded to fit his hand. He took a few practice punches against his opposite palm and drew great comfort from the feeling.
Some of Mendy Weiss’s boys were there, along with guys who worked for Little Farvel Cohen and Greenie Greenberg.
They shook hands and made wisecracks until someone dropped a lead pipe and the sound caromed off the cement walls with an ear-splitting clang.
“Jeez, be careful with that, will ya?” said one of Little Farvel’s boys.
Word was that the Italians were sending some guys uptown to meet them, and even the Madden gang was pitching in.
“I hear they finally caught Old Creepy,” said one of Greenie Greenberg’s boys, taking a few practice swings with a three-foot length of pipe.
Alvin Karpis (né Karpavioz), a former member of Ma Barker’s gang who rose rapidly through the ranks to become “Public Enemy Number One” after the Feds gunned down Dillinger and Baby Face Nelson, had gotten nabbed in St. Paul after a series of hold-ups that left a trail of dead bodies so wide even the Feds had no trouble following it.
“Wonder who they’ll promote to Public Enemy Number One now that there’s an opening.”
“Maybe Torrio.”
“He’s small potatoes.”
“Try telling that to I
nky Silver.”
Laughter echoed off the walls.
Louis “Inky” Silver had worked with Torrio, managing a brewery in Brooklyn until someone shot him on the corner of Broadway and Sixty-First Street. He survived, but Mayor La Guardia had given orders for Torrio to be arrested the minute he set foot inside the city limits. You had to take the good with the bad in this racket.
The men armed themselves with blackjacks and a crateful of nightsticks that came straight from the supply room in the Twenty-Third Precinct. Soon it was time to mobilize, and they lined up like a bunch of unruly school kids at recess. Someone took a swing and shattered the driver’s side headlight on a rusty old Dodge, and some of the guys laughed at that, too. A few of them even picked up broken bricks from a pile in the corner, and Big Bill spotted Lefty licking his knuckles as they made their way up the stairs to the bright light of day.
Everything’s pretty peaceful so far, considering the size of the crowd. We raised more of a ruckus when Toscanini gave his farewell performance with the Philharmonic and they had to call out the mounted police to restore order. Garment workers are lining the sidewalks from the southwest corner of Thirty-Eighth down to Herald Square. The blousemakers are represented by two different locals: the Italian girls are demanding an end to piece work in favor of a weekly wage, and the Jewish girls are echoing their calls. Even the kneepants makers local is out in force.
Charlie Zimmerman, manager of the dressmakers’ union, is on the picket line side by side with representatives of the Workers Alliance of America and the American Labor Party. Protest signs and banners mark the territory of each group with the standard slogans, like the radical proposal for a forty-hour work week, plus the usual smattering of signs for causes ranging from support for the French and Spanish Leftists and a call to enact Kerr-Coolidge (Stop Deporting German and Russian “Aliens”) to the Hosiery Workers’ endorsement of FDR in the fall elections. And in the middle of all this, an Italian anarchist is holding up a sign in support of the Scottsboro Boys.
Send My Love and a Molotov Cocktail! Page 13
