Working

by Studs Terkel

  Another man that stood up at my wedding, he’s also retired. But he has asthma or something. Believe it or not, he pulled out a grocery bag about that big and he said, “Joe, here’s what I got to compete with.” He just dumped the contents out and he had about twelve different bottles of medicine. He says, “Joe, you don’t know how lucky you are.”

  Sometimes when I get kind of wild, I take a train and go out to Glen Ellyn by my daughter. I surprise her because I hate to impose on people. I got two granddaughters. When I go out there, how they beg me, “Grandpa, stay for dinner.” I say, “Not this time. I’m goin’ home by train the same way I came out.” Occasionally I stay there.

  There’s two Slovenian families across the street. They’re brother-in-laws. They love to come to the tavern with their wives and have a drink or two. One of them got a real beautiful voice and he loves to sing. So we start singing in the tavern and their wives join in. Believe it or not, we dig up songs that are fifty years old. (He sings.)I’m so happy, oh, so happy, don’t you envy me?

  I leave today at three for my home in Tennessee.

  Dad and mother, sis and brothers are waiting for me there

  And at the table, next to Mabel, there’s a vacant chair.

  Oh my, you ought to see the world she showed me

  Right on my mother’s knee, she showed the world to me.

  (He pauses, hesitates: “I’m a little mixed.”)

  All I can think of tonight is the field of snowy white

  The banjoes hummin’, the darkies drummin’,

  All the world seems right.

  The rose ’round the door make me love mother more

  I’ll see my sweetheart glow and friends I used to know

  When I—

  (He pauses, stops.) Somehow or other, I’m losin’ out on that song. But that’s all right.

  I go to fires every once in a while. That fire we had on Milwaukee Avenue about three months ago, that was supposed to start in the morning. I was there at four o‘clock that afternoon. I was surprised that goddarned all the windows was broke and yet the smoke was comin’ out there heavy as hell, but you don’t see the flame. They had about thirty units there. You get the news on the radio. I was gonna go to that Midway Airport accident. My two friends, they said, “Joe, you can’t see nothin’ there no more. That’s all cleaned up, leveled off and everything.” They work fast on that.

  I tell you what I did see. In 1915 I was workin’ as an errand boy. I saw that Eastland disaster about two minutes after it happened. I was right on the bridge when it toppled over. You should hear the screams. I was chased off. That was that Western Electric picnic outing. Seven hundred or something was drowned.

  I usually go to the Exchange Bank downtown just to get myself a nasty headache. I have a brother there. He makes up packages of dollar bills in a canvas bag and puts a wire around. One-dollar bills come four hundred in a package. Sometimes he’s got stacks about two foot long and two foot wide and three foot high. You can imagine he’s got a couple of million there. That’s the headache.

  This coming December, it’ll be three years I made the trip to California. I got a sister out there. I stayed out there over the Christmas holidays and we went to Disneyland. Believe it or not, honest to God, I didn’t think such beautiful things existed in this world of ours. It was somethin’.

  I’m hopin’ to be around here for at least five more years. I don’t care. Twenty more years? Oh God, no. When people get old, they get a little bit childish.

  I have a very, very good, darn good memory. I’ll tell you another one. On the eighteenth of June, 1918, I went to a dance. Another guy and me. There was two girls dancin’. They were sisters. He grabbed one, so I grabbed the other. You know what they played. (Sings) Smile a while, you bid me sad adieu. I kissed that girl on the cheek. She told the world and me, “If I don’t marry you, Joe, I’ll never marry another person in this world.” She was seventy years old last week. I called her up, wished her a happy birthday, and that’s all. I could’ve married her, but—

  I know a lot of songs. Sometimes when I’m washin’ dishes, that’s when the old time songs come to you. (He sings.)Everybody loves a baby

  That’s why I’m in love with you

  Pretty baby, pretty baby

  Won’t you let me rock you in the cradle of love

  And we’ll cuddle all the time.

  Everybody loves a baby

  That’s why I’m in love with you, pretty baby of mine.

  That’s all. That’s over. There’s more I know. I pride myself with that. Many of my friends will tell you, “If there’s anything you want to know, ask Joe.”

  BOOK EIGHT

  THE AGE OF CHARLIE BLOSSOM

  CHARLIE BLOSSOM

  He is twenty-four years old, of an upper-middle-class family. His father and grandfather are both doctors. His parents are divorced; each has since remarried. He attended a college on the west coast for one year, dropped out, and has been on his own ever since. “My main concern was political activity. I was then supported by my parents. It was a struggle for a lot of people I knew, whether to continue taking money from their parents.”

  His long hair is be-ribboned into a ponytail; his glasses are wire-rimmed; his mustache is scraggly and his beard is wispy. He is seated on the floor, having assumed the lotus position. The account of his life, adventures—and reflections—is somewhat discursive.

  My first job was in a dog kennel, cleaning up the shit. It was just for a couple of days. My real first job was in a factory. I was hired to sweep the shit off the floor. They saw I was a good worker and made me a machine operator. I was eighteen and a conscientious objector. I told ’em at the factory I didn’t want to do any war work, any kind of contract with any military institution. I tried to adhere to my politics and my morality. Since that time and through different jobs I’ve been led into compromises that have corrupted me.

  They said, “You don’t have to do any war stuff.” They were just not telling me what it was, figuring I’d be cool. I was going along with it because I wanted to keep my job. I didn’t want a confrontation. I was punching out some kind of styrofoam. It was for some burglar alarm or something weird. You twist it around and ream it out. I was getting really angry about it. It’s just not worthy work for a person to be doing. I had a real battle with myself. If I had any real guts, I’d say, “Fuck it,” and walk out. I would be free. All this emotional tension was making me a prisoner. If I would just get up, I would put this down and say, “This is bogus, it’s bullshit, it’s not worthy. I’m a human being. A man, a woman shouldn’t have to spend time doing this”—and just walk out. I’d be liberated. But I didn’t.

  One afternoon I was sorting out the dies and hangin’ ’em on a pipe rack. In order to make room to hang more up, I had to push ’em like you push clothes in a closet. It made a horrible kind of screeching sound—metal on metal. I was thinking to myself—somewhat dramatically—This is like the scream of the Vietnamese people that are being napalmed. So I walked over to the foreman and I said, “Look, no longer is it enough not to do war work. The whole plant has just not to do any kind of work associating with killing people of any kind. Or I’m not gonna work at all.” It was sort of like a little strike. I said, “I’m going home.” He said, “Yeah, come back in a day or so.” So I came back in a day or so and some high-up guy said, “Maybe you better look for another job.” I said, “Okay.” That was my first real job.

  I worked in VISTA for a couple of years. I got assigned as a youth worker, with no real supervision, no activities. I just collected my paycheck, cashed it, and lived. I suppose I did as good as anyone else with a structured job. Freeing myself of a lot of thought habits, guilt, and repressiveness. Getting better acquainted with my own feelings, my own sensations, my own body, my own life. After they fired me, I worked with guerrilla theater. I worked for a leftist printer. It didn’t work out. I didn’t have a car, didn’t have money. Couldn’t get a job. Not that I was really t
rying. Finally I was recommended for a job as copy boy on a Chicago paper.

  I had very long hair at that time. It was halfway down my back. In order to get the job, I tied it up in such a way that it was all down inside my shirt. From the front it looked like a hillbilly greaser kind of haircut. The kind like Johnny Cash has. I borrowed some ritzy looking clothes, advertising agency clothes.

  I went down to the paper and I talked to this guy and told him how much I wanted to be a journalist. It sounded like some Dick and Jane textbook. A lot of people like to pretend that’s the way the world is. He liked me. He thought I was bright and hired me. I had a tie on.

  Within a couple of weeks after working there, I reverted to my natural clothes. I was bringing organic walnuts and organic raisins and giving it away. Coming to work was for me a kind of missionary kind of thing. Originally I was gonna get some money and leave, but I had to get involved. So I tried to relate.

  After a couple of weeks, the editor called me into this office. He said, “Read this little speech I wrote and tell me what you think of it.” It was just a bunch of platitudes. Objectivity was the one thing he mentioned. I started telling him stuff: I think a newspaper should be this, that, and the other thing. We talked about an hour. I thought we were in fine agreement, that he was eating it up. I was paraphrasing exactly what he said. In the business world, you gotta play the game. I was leading around to asking for a scholarship.

  We were exchanging rhetoric about how wonderful a newspaper is as a free institution and all this bullshit. All of a sudden he said, “I was walking through the office last week and I said, ‘Who is that dirty, scummy, disgusting filthy creature over there?’ And I was told that’s one of our new copy boys. I was told he was bright and energetic.”

  He was talking about me! That struck me as a weird way of relating to somebody. He started by saying that clothing is unimportant, “so that’s why I’m asking you to change your clothes.” It was just so bizarre. I told him, “Look, now that I’ve got a job, I’ll buy fancy clothes, I’ll rent an apartment, I’ll take a shower.” He seemed pleased, but he wanted me to cut my hair. I balked at that. He rose from his desk and stood up. The interview was over. He said blah, blah, blah, blah and hustled me out of the office. I was very shaken by it and went out and cried. Or maybe I didn’t cry at that time. But once he was pissed off at an assistant editor and took it out on me and yelled, “You got to look like a young businessman tomorrow or you’re out!” That’s one time I’m pretty sure I did cry,’cause I just don’t know how to relate to it.

  I was enjoying my job, because I was answering the phone most of the time. People would call up and complain or have a problem. I’d say, “This is a capitalist newspaper and as long as it’s a capitalistic newspaper it’s not gonna serve you, because its purpose is not to serve you. Its purpose is to make money for its owner. If you want some help . . .” And I’d refer them to the Panthers or the Seed.62 People were very grateful. They’d say, “Thank you very much.” After they talked to me forty-five minutes or so, they’d say, “I’m glad I talked to you. I didn’t know the Panthers were like that.”

  Were there any complaints?

  About what?

  About your—uh—commentary and suggestions?

  No complaints, no hassles. I was very polite. At that stage of the game, I was in a very mellow mood. I was giving organic raisins and walnuts and sunflower seeds to everybody—to reporters and rewrite men. I was bright and cheerful and everything. The city editor was very short and rude to people that called up and hung up and stuff like that. I’d say, “That’s a person on the phone.” I used to walk around the office and say, “How can grown people spend their time doing this?” I got into long raps. I actually got one, who’d been a reporter for twenty years, to seriously question himself: Am I doing anything worthwhile? I liked doing this, to persuade people to think. It was my contribution to the world. That’s why I told people who called for help that they should write letters or call up the editor or come down and take over the paper. A lot of people responded very well to those suggestions.

  And no complaints about your persuasions . . . ?

  (A throwaway.) Sometimes. What finally happened was—I was involved in a severe personal relationship and I really got obnoxious. I was very alienated and very hostile. I stopped bringing in organic food. I started taking a couple of hours off on my dinner break—which is very cool. I’d grab two, three beers and smoke a joint or two on my break. The grass and the beers put me in a very mellow state. The straw broke when somebody called up and the reporter hung up on him. The guy called back and I answered the phone. I got real mad at the guy, too, and called him a bigot, racist, and hung up on him, too. The guy complained. And I was the one who got in trouble. It was a big thing, with the editor coming down on me for my attitude on the phones. I guess he found out about those other calls. I couldn’t understand his anger. I was just trying to convey my feelings to the people.

  My fantasies all spring at the paper was getting a machine gun and coming in and shooting them. Getting psychedelic hallucinogens and putting them in their drinks. Getting a gun and walk into the editor’s office and shooting him. Maybe pointing the gun at him first and say, “Okay, how do you face your death?” I saw a Japanese movie once where two guys met their deaths in two different ways. That’s the kind of fantasies I had, cutting ’em up with knives.

  Other people’s fantasies, from what I could observe, were sexual. They were not connected with the political realities. They would look at the young women—attractive by white, bourgeois standards, the ones with long blonde hair and miniskirts—and draw erotic stimulation.

  There was one hired as a copy girl, through some uncle who had pull, and within a month she was an editorial assistant. There were two copy boys that had worked there for a couple of years, that were married and had kids, and weren’t getting fucking paid as editorial assistants.

  A copy boy is a kind of nigger. You stand around in a room full of people that are very ego-involved in a fantasy—they think they’re putting out a newspaper. These are the reporters and editors. Somebody yells, “Copy!” Sometimes they yell, “Boy!” You run over—or you walk over—and they give you a piece of paper. You take that piece of paper someplace, and you either leave it there and go back to waiting around or you get another piece of paper and bring it back to the person that originally called you.

  The other thing you do is go down, when the editions come off the press, and you get three hundred copies of the paper on a big cart and you wheel it around and put one on everybody’s desk. And stuff like that. “We’ve got a pack of photographs to pick up at Associated Press, go over and get it.” “Somebody’s in town making a speech, go and get it.” Or, “Take this over to city hall and give it to the reporter that’s over there . . .”

  Copy boys are also expected to do editorial assistant’s work. That’s answering the phone and saying, “City Desk.” If it’s a reporter, you connect him with the editor or whatever. If an individual is calling about a story that says, “Continued on page seven,” but it’s not on page seven, I look through the paper until I find where the story is and tell him. Or I go get clips out of the library. You take one piece of paper and exchange it for another. It’s basically bullshit.

  When I first worked there, I ran. They’d say, “Copy!” and I’d run. Nobody noticed. It didn’t make any difference. Then I started walking. Why the fuck should I run for them? This spring, I started to shuffle. That’s when the people started to complain about me. I started in February, 1970, and I was fired May 20, 1971. I was out with hepatitis for six months.

  Want to know why I was ultimately fired? I had a pair of shoes, the soles were loose. I didn’t want to spend money on shoes. I was taking home seventy bucks a week and saving fifty. I wasn’t hanging around the paper because that was my destiny. I was just some little pinball that had dropped in a slot. I was there because a bunch of accidents put me there. I also had a will and an
energy and I was moving. I was in motion, creative

  I wanted to have a computer at the paper. I wanted an arrangement where you could get up in the morning and call up and say, “Okay, this is Charlie. I can work on Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday in the evenings. And on Wednesday morning. I absolutely cannot work Wednesday evening.” Everyone would be calling up and the computer would put it all together. They would call back and say, “Okay, these are your hours this week.” ’Cause it doesn’t make any difference who shows up, the way they run the paper. These are the kinds of ideas I had. I wanted decision making in the hands of the people who did the work. I wanted to fuck capitalism.

  I saw those things in terms of classes. The seventh floor was the executive. The fourth floor was the middle class—editorial, reporters, and all that. The ruling class had their offices there too, not up with the executives. I used to see Marshall Field in the hall. I was thinking, If they kill Bobby Seale, maybe I should get a gun and come in here and shoot Field. Maybe that’s a reason for me to keep this job. I’m not accomplishing anything else here. I don’t want money. Money isn’t worth it.

  What would you accomplish by killing Marshall Field?

  Oh well, you can’t look at it as accomplishing anything. Like one of the editors told me, “If you behave yourself, you won’t get fired.” I wanted to take a baseball bat and smash his head in, except I wanted to do it with my hands. He made me so angry. Here is this motherfucker, who is comfortable, he’s not struggling—in truth, there’s not a hell of a lot for him to struggle about, ‘cause he’s a fuckin’ marshmallow in a bag of marshmallows. He’s a nice guy. I mean, I like him. But he’s a fuckin’ marshmallow.