Rules of '48

by Jack Cady

  July 31st, 1948

  Two Kinds of Ghosts

  The Kentucky ghosts in this story are not bereaved spirits made of ectoplasm, and they do not moan. They are southern ghosts, which means they exist on the edge of living consciousness. They exert power, or at least, energy, at odd moments and they affect the living in sometimes useful ways. At other times they can cause a certain amount of misery.

  The ghost of Charlie Weaver does not, strictly speaking, haunt; but Charlie is in attendance because of who he was. To Lucky he represented a gentlemanly Old Order that was giving way to a garish New Order. With the loss of Charlie, Lucky understood that history had stumbled and spat forth Wade. Lucky was the kind of man who thought about such things.

  When he left the cemetery he headed toward Wade's place telling himself he had an errand. He knew that he mostly went because it was a rare, rare time when his store was closed. He could enjoy a break before reopening.

  He drove left from Cave Hill and passed Charlie Weaver's auction rooms. The building stood dusty beneath summer sun. Windows needed washing. Charlie had been slipping these past few months. Although Charlie had departed quietly, his departure had been noticed; even if his ghostliness had not.

  Sometimes newspapers get the facts fairly straight. The Courier Journal, rather more informal than The Times, did a front page memorial, second section. The Courier didn't say much about auctions. It just offered a courteous piece in behalf of a courteous man, plus a little bit of history of the kind that meant a lot to Lucky; and in those days, meant a lot to Louisville.

  Charlie Weaver had grown when Louisville still ranked as an intimate performance on a small stage. Even back in the early century the city was somewhat raw and spraddle-legged, but Charlie, a gentleman, might not have known that.

  He was a cultured Victorian. Had he been wealthy he would have funded missionary societies and museums. He would have done his bit to relieve respectable suffering, though he might have drawn the line at Aid to Fallen Women.

  He was born in 1875 and lived a quiet 73 years. Charlie dressed well in suit and tie, although on sale days in winter he wore a houndstooth jacket. In spite of his auctioneering trade his face remained calm. He was a handsome man, not particularly tall, but somehow stately. He sported groomed gray hair, and gray eyes that occasionally seemed light blue. His manner shone deft, but kindly, with a flair for humorous understatement. He married at age 30, and was a man who missed wars; wisely escaping the Cuban adventure, too old for WWI and WWII. He begat and raised children. He was faithful to his faithful wife.

  His auction house was geared to dignified days of yore, because his customers (the crowd) took seats in chairs arranged before the sales platform. Grips, including a colored gent named Lester, moved sale items into view; and Charlie's manner somehow imbued even mended crockery with respectability. "Think of the life of this dear old pot, mended now. Mended, perhaps by a gentle lady, or perhaps by some dear old pot . . . ." a chuckle, and, "Do I have an offer?"

  Charlie sold whilst seated, and he sold quietly. His was an aristocrat's performance, lightly comic, not a little pious, yet kindly.

  His quiet dignity was notable in The Land of the Auctioneer; that is, Kentucky: where tobacco auctioneers chant over burley, where farm boys praise the haunches of swine, where auto auctions are sleek as greased reptiles, and sales of general goods clamor and yelp. Also, flamboyant in Kentucky, many auctioneers carry the title of Colonel. Some actually are Kentucky Colonels. They gain a colonel-hood by contributing to governors who then issue certificates. Charlie, reserved, never went in that direction. How different Wade was, from Charlie.

  * * *

  As Lucky would soon discover, some ghosts of the time were not southern, but European. Those ghosts do haunt the tale, and they haunt our lives, causing thought, sorrow, and weeping. Those few of us who remain still remember them, and though we no longer weep, or at least not much, we think about them. Those ghosts changed all of us.

  Lucky, for instance, had no way of knowing that during the seven weeks from the last day of July to mid-September, his world would flip-flop and land him in darkness. People kept dying. Excessively.

  Next door to Wade's auction a neighbor-lady passed and no doubt went to heaven. Her degenerate sons, according to every Bible-thumper in town, then went where souls wish for asbestos underwear. Hers was a grim tragedy, but no one had a hint. When she passed the newspaper carried no traditional obit. It just reported her death at age 67. It did not say where she came from or if there was ever a smile from her, ever a frown, ever a stare. The paper did not mention that she had been quiet and mousy and thin. Her name, folks learned from the newspaper, was Mildred Samuels. She died, folks learned from the newspaper, of complications from extended illness. People who read the report assumed diabetes.

  Thus, she remained a mystery. She had been reclusive and foreign in her small house with her two grown sons. Perhaps someone, somewhere in town, knew and remembered her. If so, no one on Bardstown road ever heard from them.

  Had there been a complete obit, Lucky would surely have acted, because Lucky, like everyone thoughtful, had reason to absorb newspapers at a time when radio news was trash and television nonexistent. He really could have used that obit.

  There was no obit because there was no one to compose it. Mrs. Samuels' sons were not handy with language. The tall son was known as Mr. David (or behind his back 'The Yid') at the local grocery. He spoke fractured and screwed-up English. He looked pale, carried scars from burns, and walked crooked because of a serious limp.

  Her other son was small and frail. No one knew his name. He sometimes puttered about the backyard where a sagging garage shielded a scorched garden from the alley. He never went anywhere.

  In excess of grief at his mother's death (folks assumed) Mr. David shot himself. In further excess (folks assumed) the younger son wasted away. Their stories will never be fully known, although Lucky would eventually uncover facts surrounding their deaths. Years later, Wade's kid, Jim, full grown, would glean some facts about their histories. It turned out that they were Polish Jews from Warsaw. The full last name was Samuelwicz.

  Mildred (her Polish first name was Noemi) Samuelwicz and her husband Jakob (Jake) entered the United States legally in 1938, fleeing fears of Stalin. They worked, and with moderate success.

  Mr. David escaped Poland in 1939, made his way to England, and flew a fighter plane until he was shot down and crashed on the English coast. The younger son, Isaac, miraculously survived Treblinka death camp. When they got to Louisville, only their mother was there to greet them. Jakob had died of age and overwork in 1943. The Samuels family had a problem. The two sons were illegal, having entered the U.S. through Mexico.

  * * *

  Some deaths caused other ghosts of the southern variety. A man named Jolly showed up butchered in an alley beside the Sapphire Top Spot. That proved extra hard for everybody on Jackson St., especially Lucky.

  And a country boy from Corbin got himself righteously shot, and that proved hard for everybody on Jackson St., especially Lucky. Ghosts of Jolly and the country boy probably still flit through shadows along Jackson St.

  July 31st

  The Second Death

  Mrs. Mildred Samuels

  Lucky's '47 Fleetwood, painted money-color green, pulled up to the pumps of the new Shell station at Bardstown Road and Eastern Parkway. A kid with an amazing combination of freckles and pimples pumped gas at 24.9, while the station owner came from the lube rack.

  "Lucky," he said, "you working or drinking?" The guy looked toward the Cad, saw Lucky's jacket and tie draped across the seat. "Or, where you been preaching?" He grinned. A youthful guy but experienced. Behind him sat a couple of cars for sale, blue '38 Chev at one-seventy-five and a black '41 Hudson at two-and-a-quarter.

  "Laid a guy to rest," Lucky told him. "How's business?" A polite question. Anybody could see that business was singing.

  "I'm for sale." The guy's brown eyes showed t
rouble. His dishwater blond hair carried a dab of grease from the lube rack. "Business is too good. Those horses' asses at Shell will find an excuse to break lease. Another six months, and this is a company station."

  Behind the station, oaks and maples rose above houses on the parkway. An occasional white spot of magnolia peeped through dark leaves. Sun pinioned traffic to the street and a young woman came from the drugstore carrying the latest novel, rental 5 cents a day. She dressed in southern pastels, and walked stylish, knowing she was pretty.

  The filling station guy watched the girl. "I'll open a drugstore. You never see a drugstore going broke."

  "Sell down the inventory." Lucky looked the place over. "You can't break the lease, but dig a foxhole." He pointed toward the street, down toward the auction, then at the Chev and Hudson. "Dump everything. Leave Shell with what the little boy shot at."

  The young guy also looked in the direction of the auction. "Twenty percent commission."

  "He's new," Lucky told the guy. "Offer ten, pay fifteen."

  Lucky looked over the lot, looked at inventory in lube and repair area: belts, parts, brake shoes . . . .

  "If you discount," Lucky advised, "Shell will catch on. If you peddle to another station the word will get around."

  "Where did that noisy bastard come from?"

  "Hicksville," Lucky told him. "It's somewhere in Indiana. Maybe Illinois."

  A polished gray '48 Plymouth pulled onto the island. The kid on the pumps didn't know whether to stand and collect for gas, or pump the Plymouth. Lucky passed him four dollars, accepted change.

  "I'm headed that way now," Lucky told the filling station guy. "Auction is setting up for a week from Wednesday." He looked at the freckled kid pumping the Plymouth. "Good help?

  "For a kid, yep. Kids have got everything to learn."

  "Honest?"

  " . . . near as I can tell."

  "When you lay him off, tell him to come see me."

  "Where you're situated . . ." the station guy said, " . . . he won't. Those niggers will scare crap out of him. No offense."

  "None taken," Lucky told him. "On the other hand, you're both singin' in the dark." He grinned, touched the guy on the shoulder just to watch the guy flinch. "A customer," he told the guy, "is a customer."

  When he parked across the street from the auction house he saw that someone was dead. A hearse stood at the curb. Two guys in dark summer suits climbed steps of the house next door to the auction. When the door opened, the two guys spoke to a tall, thin-faced man who rubbed his hand across his cheek, then his brow. He had been crying and he sniffed back snot. When he turned back to the house, he limped.

  The mortuary guys entered. Lucky told himself he'd had enough funerals for one day. He murmured condolence beneath his breath, then headed for the auction house. Later, he would bitterly regret his haste.

  * * *

  Certain rhythms attend superior cussing. Few men, and almost no women, own them. The rhythms start out lento, move steadily to con brio and end up forza, as follows: "This Goddamn sonovabitchin' hunk-a-holiest-of-holies crap is blocking the fornicating and bag-balmed door to the shithouse. Get it moved." Mark Twain once had that kind of rhythm. Billy Sunday had that rhythm, but not the vocabulary; at least not in public. Wade proved proud bearer of the tradition. As Lucky entered, the cussing swelled, dwindled, came to conclusion. Two kids—a boy and a girl—yawned, while a quiet woman behind a desk made entries in a ledger. The boy pushed a five-drawer chest across the smooth-tiled floor. It was an awfully nice chest. Cherry wood, pre-Revolution, probably.

  "Lucky," Wade said, "How's business?" He seemed ready to extend a handshake. Then he looked at his hand, saw soil and dust from merchandise. "Take my word for it."

  Wade wore his thick hair cut short in no-nonsense country style. His nose looked half-English and half-Hebrew. He had Scots-blue eyes and broad hands. Women thought him handsome, men thought him loud, and his boy thought him a pain-in-the-old-patooker. Lucky looked at the kids. The girl was pretty and probably thirteen. The boy was a year older, skinny, brown-haired and sullen.

  "You're walking around during business hours." Wade looked to the front of his store where the hearse sat parked. He pointed toward the hearse and spoke to the boy. "Go see what's happening." He turned back to Lucky. "Who's minding the store?"

  "Charlie Weaver's funeral," Lucky told him.

  "I sent flowers." Wade watched his kid as the kid trudged to the front door and out. "Didn't seem quite right to attend." He sounded the least bit uncertain. "Charlie and I kept our distance."

  "You made the right move." Lucky looked around the auction house, or at least as much as he could see. The difference between Charlie Weaver's house, and Wade's, was wider than the rolling Ohio River.

  It had an upstairs and a downstairs connected by a long ramp. The downstairs room fronted the street and held antique china cabinets with bowed fronts; the cabinets decorated with carved Victorian flowers, or curving and chesty Edwardian lines. The china cabinets were needed because the city boasted large numbers of aristocrats and old money. Sales of estates produced fine glass of every variety from tumbler to chandelier.

  Light sparkled along edges of cut glass. It reflected on cranberry pitchers, Meissen statuary, Limoges dining service, bisque, Delft, Wedgwood; blue and cream, or sometimes cream and green. Light brightened sterling silver, and softly illuminated coin silver (sad memory of a war where coins were melted and formed into spoons, so Yankees would not steal them). The definition of 'antique' was: Item must be at least a hundred years old, and the best of its kind when it was made.

  Standing against walls, and between china cabinets, stood Victorian wardrobes with carved grapes and lilacs, sleigh beds, four-posters, highboys in cherry and walnut, mirrored oak stands for cloaks and umbrellas, and sidearm bookcases. Arranged in rows down the middle of the house stood dining tables (usually walnut), lamps, end tables, Victorian love seats, roseback and ribbonback chairs, a baby grand and an upright; with small items of worth displayed on the tables.

  In the back room, which was long and unpainted and shabby, sat used but useable merchandise: refrigerators, sofas, tables, ordinary chairs and chests, serviceable tools, boxes of clutter, unopened cans of paint. Louisville's small tradesmen came to the back room knowing they could add to their inventories, and profit would ensue.

  Because, memory of the Great Depression still dwelt among businessmen and customers. Memory of scarcity during WWII also dwelt. The idea of "Use it up and make it do" had not departed America, and so, even in the first flush of new stuff after the war, there was a grand market for worn goods.

  Happy, then, in that back room, was the auctioneer who could become a businessman among businessmen. He could say 'damn' if not 'shit', and he could announce about merchandise: "This poor thing can't help being dinged-up, but it's still got feelings, so do right by it." Or, describing a framed Victorian portrait, "Here's a chance to pick up an ancestor": always a good line because antique dealers were ever present; and antique dealers know that folks with New Money need ancestors.

  All that was needed was a short stool, a whistle for quieting the crowd, a grip, and a clerk to write down prices and names of buyers. When the clerk's sheet was filled, Wade's kid carried it to his mom. She used it to make out invoices.

  The stool put the auctioneer head and shoulders above the standing crowd. Instead of grips bringing items to the fore, people moved along lines of merchandise. The grip held up small items. This was barnyard selling, tobacco selling, but it worked because a standing and mobile crowd held more tensions than a crowd seated and relaxed. At its height, a sort of "oh, yeah?" atmosphere entered the bidding. Prices soared.

  If Charlie Weaver's spirit attended such an auction (which seems likely) it doubtless shook its head, pursed its lips, watched the mounting prices; then, being spirit only, and out of the game, probably shrugged. The spirit might have thought the auction looked like a religious revival in its early stages.


  After all, a large and handsome man would be elevated above an attentive crowd. His demeanor would be intense and serious. His eyes would flash, his mouth would pound adjectives onto nouns like a man setting rivets, and his hands would move most expressive.

  "The neighbor lady died." When Wade's kid returned he tried to pretend that what he said meant nothin', but he couldn't make it play. His voice trembled. The kid looked at his sister. "Don't go out there."

  The girl, of course, went immediately. Then the quiet woman, Wade's wife, looked up from her ledger. She stood. "I'll see if there's anything we can do." She was as pretty as her daughter, maybe prettier, but a little dumpy.

  "I got a sale to set up," Wade told Lucky, "and there's a shit-barge hearse in front of the store. How good is that for business?" He looked toward his son. "Don't move an inch. We got work."

  The kid swallowed hard. Twice. "Her mouth was hangin' open," he whispered. "I got to pee." He headed for the can.

  "My girl is more practical," Wade mused. "If my boy was a girl, and my girl was a boy, it would surely take a load off."

  Beneath searing sunlight the mortuary men loaded the sheeted corpse. July heat caused asphalt to bubble. Some of the bubbles would burst, and later, in the cool of the evening, some would sag. The asphalt would carry tiny craters that looked like pockmarks of disease. Traffic would smooth them out next day.

  "It's not my place to say it." Lucky sounded apologetic. "But the boy just saw his first dead person. Maybe somebody ought to explain something."

  "He'll talk to his mom." Wade was clearly ready to go back to work. "What can I do for you?"

  "I want to take a couple of weeks in late August. What's lined up I'd better not miss?"

  "Warehouse. Plumbing supply house that went busted, but that's end-of-the-month."

  Lucky noted the date of the warehouse sale. "See you in a week." As he left, Wade's wife and daughter returned. The woman suddenly sad and permanently tired. The girl seemed shaken.