by Studs Terkel
HOTS MICHAELS
“Do you have a favorite tune? Here’s an oldie.” He plays “As Time Goes By.” The piano bar is fairly crowded. The drinking is casual. It is early evening at the downtown hotel. Once it was a favorite gathering place for the city’s sporting crowd, politicians, and strangers looking for action. It will be razed this year to make way for a modern high rise.
He started here in 1952. He refers to a mutual friend, who has since died. “Chet and I began the whole thing. The first piano bar was in this hotel. Now every tavern and saloon has one.” There is a jukebox in the room. Its loudness envelops all during the piano breaks.
He works five nights a week, from five-thirty to “around midnight. If there’s a crowd, I keep going. I might play many hours in a row. I take a break when it’s empty.” There are frequent phone calls for him, interrupting the conversation.
Piano playing is incidental to this place. It’s kind of background music for talking. Businessmen talking deals. Out-of-town visitors. Occasionally you get some people interested in hearing a certain type of song, and you entertain them. I never took any lessons. I play strictly by ear. I’m lucky I can read titles. (Laughs.)
Over the years I get to know people. They’ll hit the piano bar and we’ll talk back and forth. A second group will move in, strangers. They might be from small towns and they want to know what’s happening. You have close contact with people. This petrifies some piano players, so they play with bands. I never played with a band because I wasn’t qualified.
Late business is a thing of the past. People don’t stay down as late as they used to after work. The local people will have their drinks and go home. At one time they stayed down five, six hours. And they don’t come down like they used to. They have places out in the suburbs. And I think there’s a little bit of fear. I’ll see people check into the hotel, come down and sit around the piano bar. They’re really afraid to leave the hotel. It’s the strangest thing. Myself, I feel very safe. Evidently my work at the piano bar will be ended. Nothing is forever.
I hate to see it end. I’ll dread the day it comes, because I enjoy the action. I enjoy people. If I were suddenly to inherit four million dollars, I guarantee you I’d be playin’ piano, either here or at some other place. I can’t explain why. I would miss the flow of people in and out.
You’re kind of a listening board here. Sometimes they tell me things I wish they’d keep to themself. Personal, marriage problems, business. I get about twenty calls a night. A wife looking for a husband to bring something home. In a cute way she’s trying to find out if he’s here or some place else. If he doesn’t show up in an hour, I’ll be hearing. (Laughs.) I cover up constantly. They tell me things I’d just as soon not know. (Laughs.)
Some people think I run an answering service. We kid about it. They’ll get ahold of me and say, “Is so-and-so there? Do you know where he might be? If you get ahold of him, will you have him call this number?” A bartender hears the same stories. Saloons are full of lonely people trying to fill an empty hour or two. Waiting for a train . . .
There’s only a few things that separate you from the masses of workers. Through this business I have met some dignitaries. Where else could a piano player meet President Truman or Bob Hope or people like that? I’d never do it if I were a steam fitter or a plumber. There’s nothing wrong with their line of work. They probably make more than a piano player—except that I happen to be where people gather. It’s a good feeling. We’re fighting for a little bit of status, one way or the other.
Every minute of my life I deal with a drinking public. I’m not knocking it, they pay my salary. But you have to treat them a certain way after they have a few martinis. They change that rapidly. It doesn’t bother me unless they get rough. If he offends somebody around the bar, some wild vulgarity, I get up and get him out. Just by being nice. Most people you can talk to. It’s much more difficult with a woman who is drinking. She can be difficult. You can’t put your hands on her.
They’re never discourteous to me, directly. What gets me is the lack of courtesy to waitresses and bartenders. People could be a little kinder to’em. Not “Hey you, give us a drink over here!” Of course, we’re dealing with drinking people, so you have to put up with it. If someone happens to be rude to me, I don’t get mad. It rolls right off me. I just think, Poor souls. (Laughs.) You can’t show your troubles in this business. The customer is allowed to have troubles. That’s why we’re here.
Generally the customer is always right. But if he’s out of line . . . I have seen brutal racial vulgarity right in this hotel. People from a certain part of the country would talk abusive to black waiters. Aw, brutal. Back in 1952, ’53, Chet and I would step in. When that happened he either pays his check right away and gets out or he does an about-face: “Can’t you see I’m joking?” I’m a person who gets involved—sometimes too much. It’s best not to get involved in everything.
I get a straight salary. I was never what you’d call a tip man. I don’t know why. I worked at the piano bar and there was nothing but money around. Men on expense accounts. But I never made the tips others in this industry made. We had all those wonderful years, but I never saw any of it. Why, I don’t know. (Laughs.)
It might be sort of an independence I have. Sometimes people feel they would offend by tipping me. Here’s your city guy sitting at the piano and he’s dressed rather well. He seems to be getting along with the crowd. Maybe they feel he doesn’t need it. Most of the people in town, the really big spenders, the sporty class, I knew too well. They started tipping me, but the first thing you know I’m that person’s friend and that’s the end of the tip. I know piano players that keep aloof. They’ll walk out of the room on a break. They stay away from people on their own time. It’s good psychology.
I couldn’t do that. Naturally anyone would want to make a little extra money. But it wasn’t the target in my life. I was never a hustler. There’s ways of hustling people for tips. You can put a bowl on the piano, put a few dollars in it. There’s also a verbal way. A fella is hitting you for a few tunes. He keeps it up. There’s ways of kidding him: “God, that’s a five-dollar number, that one.” But it just doesn’t run in me. If they want to give it to me, fine. If they don’t, all right. They’re gonna get the same action.
I play along whether it’s noisy or quiet. It doesn’t bother me if people talk or are loud. It’s part of the game. I never had a strong ego. I sometimes wish I did. I can play all the melodies, but I’m not really a good piano player. I wish I were. I never touch a piano until I walk in here. I don’t have a piano at home. My father was a talented musician. In our home there was always a piano. Everybody played, my father, my mother, my brothers, my sister, myself.
I consider myself a whisky salesman. The amount of money spent in this room pays me. I encourage people in a nice way to have a good time. I usually take a break only when business dies down. But you might as well be there while you have visitors. That way it helps the bartender. I never thought of myself as an artist. I know my limitations. It’s a business. It’s all show biz.
I shudder to think of retirement. The most frightening thing to me will be the day I say, “I’m going down to St. Petersburg and buy a little home.” I know everything in life ends. It’s not growing old that worries me, but what would I do? When it gets quiet here, your mind strays and you start thinking of many things. I find myself talking about the future but I’m always thinking about the past.
TEDDY GRODOWSKI
He’s an elevator starter at a large office building. He had operated a car, “but they became automated.” He had previously worked in a factory. “Man, I had to sweat, buffing, polishing. This is a clean job. I really enjoy it.
“You could say I work at least five and a half hours on my feet out of eight. See what I’m wearing? Those are good shoes, arch support, cushion. Oh, you gotta.
“I went two years of high school but I coulda gone four. It was my fault. But what are you gonna
do? You can’t cry over spilt milk.”
Some of these starters, they won’t do nothin’. I told ’em, “One good piece of ass and one day’s work would kill you guys.” They never done hard work. They were always on the cars. They were squawking that they work hard opening doors for people. That was a pleasure to me, ’cause you get to know people. You get to know their habits.
Certain persons get on at the same time and I know just where they’re goin’. This one woman, I’d catch her every time, at ten or ten thirty. She wouldn’t tell me where she was goin’. She’d always get off at the fourteenth floor. See, the main washroom’s on the fourteenth floor. (Laughs.)
I’m security too. Anybody takes anything out, they gotta get a pass. Somebody look suspicious, you ask ‘em where they’re going—in a polite way. You just watch the car, see where they’re going, and don’t say no more. Sometimes by lookin’ at a person you can tell what character he is. Any time they go to the board I always say, “Can I help you?” I won’t say any more. When they see you’re watchin’ ’em, they’ll go right down again. That’s all.
A lot of people come in here, they go to that board, they won’t even ask you, ‘cause they’re afraid. Some of these buildings, the guy says, “There’s the directory.” I try to help. It don’t hurt. You mention a room number, I would give you that room number. ’Cause every time they change that directory I try to study that board. It makes me look like a genius when somebody asks me something.
A person goes on a vacation or they’re out on a business trip, I tell ‘em, “You were gone.” They’ll say thanks that you were thinkin’ about ‘em. Remembering people’s names, that means a lot. They let you know if they want to be called mister or missis. I respect these guys with their high positions. If they want you to call ’em by their first name, they’ll tell you.
I found out executives are the really good ones. They’ll kid around. Even the ordinary people, they’ll kid around with you. Someday, if I don’t talk to ‘em, they’ll say, “What’s the matter, you mad or somethin’?” If I don’t smile, people will want to know if I’m sick or what happened. You gotta always have somethin’ goin’. I always tell ‘em in the morning, “Have fun.” Next time I see ’em, “Hurry back.” When it’s bad out, I always say, “Did you order this weather?” They like this kidding around. They say it cheers up their day. I’m not hard to get along with nobody.
I got a picture with Dirksen.42 We open the door when he come in and just as he shook my hand, this photographer—I got it home, two of ‘em, colored pictures. He come right up and shook my hand. Daley came in: “Hello, there.” He thanked me for takin’ him up. You know who else I met here? Sonny and Cher. They were dressed like hippies. I didn’t know who they were, so somebody told me. It could happen any time. When I see a celebrity, I go home and tell my wife about it. She’ll tell all her friends and relatives. She’ll say who I saw. I don’t want to retire. I’d be lost if I had to stay home and don’t see the public all day long.
POSTSCRIPT: “Today we have no friends since TV came out. One time, before TV, friends come to your house. You say, ‘Come over,’ and as soon as they come over, they stick their nose in that TV. Forget about it! I’ll tell you, I bought a Hammond organ. I’m takin’ organ lessons. Soon’s I get home, before I have my dinner—two cans of beer. Then I’ll eat. Then I’ll practice the organ. TV? Forget it.”
TIM DEVLIN
He suffered a nervous breakdown and was in the hospital for three months. He’s been out for a year. “I’m thirty years old and I sometimes feel fifty.” (Laughs.)
Right now I’m doing work that I detest. I’m a janitor. It’s a dirty job. You work hard. When I’m at work I wear a uniform, gray khaki pants and a gray shirt. It’s baggy pants. It’s what you see a lot of janitors wearing. This is the kind of work I used to think niggers would do or hillbillies or DPs. You don’t associate with people like that. Now I’m one of them.
“You’re a bum”—this is the picture I have of myself. I’m a flop because of what I’ve come to. There’s five of us at work here. It’s a housing project. Three can barely speak a word of English. They’re DPs. They work very hard and don’t complain. They’re perfectly content, but I’m not. It’s a dead end. Tonight I’m gonna meet a couple of old friends at a bar. I haven’t seen them for a long time. I feel inferior. I’ll bullshit ’em. I’ll say I’m a lawyer or something.
When you meet somebody at a party they ask, “What do you do?” I bullshit ‘em. I tell ’em anything. Their minds are like a computer. “I’m a CPA.” Oh, he’s gotta make at least eighteen-thousand a year. He’s a success. If I said I was an electrician, they’d think I make nine dollars an hour. If you say, “I’m a janitor”—ooohhh! You get this feeling that you are low. It’s a blow to my ego. Who wants to be a janitor? They even call them maintenance engineers.
I don’t have any interest in furthering myself, but I just can’t see myself doing this the rest of my life. I almost get to the point that I ought be on welfare. I ought to chuck it all and just not do anything. My whole outlook on work is different than it was. I’d be free if I could say I’m a janitor . . . If I could only say, “I’m Tim Devlin and I enjoy what I’m doing!”
I’ve had college training and I’d been in sales almost eight years. I was right off the assembly line: In life you become a success to get ahead; money is the key to judge people by. That was my childhood thing—the big office, the big car, the big house. I was doing as good as I wanted to be. I could have done much better.
I fell in love and thought it was the most beautiful experience in the world. Shortly after I was married I found out that my wife—I’m not blaming her—was interested in money. She was judging me against other people my age. Was I a financial success? I put in long hours. I got this feeling I was just a machine. I felt at the end of the week, Here’s the money. Now do you love me? Am I a better man?
I was selling a photocopy machine for $1,250. My commission was $300. The total value of the machine was $480. I thought, Jesus Christ, there’s something wrong here. If it costs $480, why can’t it be sold for $480—for as small a margin of profit as possible, not for as much profit as possible? I’m looking toward a utopian society, ain’t I? I didn’t feel proud of myself.
I was one of their soldiers. I read the sales manuals. If the customer says this, you say that. Turn him around, get him in the palm of your hand, and —boom!—get him to sign on the dotted line. You give him bullshit. You wiggle, you finagle, you sell yourself, and you get him to sign. Pow! you won a round. The next day is another round. What the hell am I doing? I don’t enjoy it. My marriage is turning sour. I’m making good money. I have a company car. This is what my wife wants, but I feel bad. I begin to question things. It blew the whole marriage.
I never talk about it to anyone. People would think I’m a communist or I’m going crazy. A person that’s making money shouldn’t question the source of it. I always kept it to myself. This was the American Dream. This is what my father was always pounding into my head.
I learned this angle thing from my father. He was always trying for some gimmick to make a lot of money. He didn’t want to spend the rest of his life as a tradesman. He was always trying to open up a business or a franchise. He lost every dime he made. He believed in the American Dream. We should examine this dream. If I sell a machine that’s worth $480 for $1,250, is that the American Dream?
When I got divorced it hit me bad. I went through a crisis. I blamed the system, I blamed the country, I blamed God. This is where the nervous breakdown came in. I just didn’t give a shit any more. I didn’t want to see anyone any more. I didn’t want to hear someone tell me, “Yeah, next week I’m gonna get a promotion to district manager.” Big deal. I don’t give a goddamn if he’s gonna be President of the United States. I’m cynical. This is what I’m carrying around with me.
When I was selling, my friends looked up to me. One worked in a bakery. Another was driving a cab and deliverin
g pizza. They were thinking, “Maybe I ought to go into sales.” A salesman! You wear a suit every day, you drive a company car. Now they call them account executives. A CTA bus driver may make more money, but you have a white shirt, a tie . . . My sisters are all married to white-shirts.
A lot of people are considered failures but it’s not their fault. I don’t know exactly what I want to do. I don’t want to go back in the rat race. Will it be the same thing again? I’ve had offers to go back into sales—to be a con artist. But I’ve gotten turned off. I think I missed the boat. If I could do it all over again, I would have gone into the field of mental health, really finding out what makes people tick. I would love to find out why people think it’s important to be a success.
I do want to make it financially. But the only thing open for me would be sales work again. I’m not twenty-one any more. My God, I’d have to start off with maybe a hundred and a quarter a week. That really isn’t any money. That’s just enough to put a roof over your head. If I do apple polishing, I might make assistant manager in ten years—and maybe a lot of titles along the way. I’m afraid that’s the only way open for me now. I guess I could buy stock, get remarried, and be part of what the system’s all about. But I really question the system . . .
COUNTING
NANCY ROGERS
At twenty-eight, she has been a bank teller for six years. She earns five-hundred dollars a month.
What I do is say hello to people when they come up to my window. “Can I help?” And transact their business, which amounts to taking money from them and putting it in their account. Or giving them money out of their account. You make sure it’s the right amount, put the deposits on through the machine so it shows on the books, so they know. You don’t really do much. It’s just a service job.
