The Long November

by James Benson Nablo

  I’d gone up the alley behind the Sherman for my dinner and was digging down into the pails when I saw this guy leaning against the wall on the other side of the alley. He was as big as me and not much older, and he watched me with a pitying look. You get to know the marks of a bum—the suit that doesn’t fit, or the odd combinations of pants and coats; the shoes with burst seams and the threadbare overcoats. He was a bum and I wondered why the hell he was pitying me.

  “Are yuh that hungry, ‘bo’?” he asked.

  “No, I just like it better when it’s been used a little...”

  “Come on, I got me some dough and we can cut it up.”

  “You mean it?” I was amazed.

  “Sure...”

  We ate a pretty good meal in a Greek joint where you got the works for two bits. It was the first full meal I’d had in a month and it tasted like heaven. We talked a little and he said he’d been getting by a little better than I seemed to be doing, but he didn’t offer to explain how. “I spotted you for a new hand right off.”

  “How?”

  “By yer clothes; they’re yours, ain’t they?”

  “What’s left of them—I’m out of socks right now.”

  “Why don’t cha make the Sally for some?”

  “What’s the ‘Sally’?”

  He laughed, and he had nice teeth—teeth that had been cared for somewhere, sometime. “The-home-away-from-home...the Salvation Army.” Those magic words! Just knowing the name meant I lived, and meant I pulled out of the hole. Don’t ever let anyone tell you they aren’t a divinely guided organization. They are where God works in this world, if He works here at all. Those funny little people who keep you eating, clothed, and sheltered when you can break your heart trying to bust into a big stone church to get warm. They gave me a bed, a bath, a clean shirt, and I didn’t have to sleep with a filthy mountain of hips and tits lying next to me. Don’t walk by that tambourine, brother; kick through with some dough because you may eat from it before you’re done. Have you ever wondered where those funny, bewildered, broken men go? Where they sleep and eat and who worries about them? Not their families, brother, and not their individual gods. They eat and sleep and have a game of checkers at their own social club, the Happy Sally. And when they get drunk and fall asleep in an alley and are found there frozen stiff the next morning, the Sally feels bad.

  My friend said he might have a spot for a guy in a racket he worked, but he’d have to think about it. I wondered what his racket might be, but I didn’t ask. He said he’d see me at the same place at the same time tomorrow, gave me half a buck, and told me how to find the Sally Ann. I never saw him again, but I read about him. Yes, he made the papers, and one day they took him out and hanged him. But he did buy me a meal and stake me to a half, and he sent me to the Sally.

  What was it like, bo, when they sprung that trap? Did it hurt much? I guess the waiting is what hurts, isn’t it? Hurts far more than it hurt the pansy whose head you cracked in the alley before you robbed him. You hit hint a little too hard, bo, and you needn’t have used a piece of pipe. Your fist would have been enough for a pansy when he’s kneeling. So you got fifty bucks and a watch, a trial, and a rope. But you didn’t live long enough to shoulder a musket in defense of the “way of life” that let you kill a pansy in an alley so you could eat. There was a picture in the papers of you, bo, and a picture of your mother who must have worried about your teeth. She said she didn’t know how you could have done it because you had always been a good boy.

  The Salvation Army took me in. Me, Joe Mack, onetime king of the river-runners, onetime boy friend of Steffie Gibson, onetime owner of Pierce-Arrows and Cadillacs, and when I’d been cleaned by the tinhorn boys in Toronto by trying to fill inside straights, and when I was broke and beaten in Chicago, the Salvation Army took me in. Fed me and bathed me and gave me no crap religion. They told me about God and talked quite a lot about Salvation, but they didn’t walk me to the door and send me out into the cold saying, “Have courage, brother.” The shuffling men you see wandering the streets could always go home and get warm. It isn’t so much a question of being cold and hungry as it’s a question of nobody giving a damn. They got me a job, too, and in the most improbable place—a brewery; as soon as the brigadier of the Sally found I wasn’t an alcoholic he gave me a note to the brewery. But for nine long weeks the Sally kept our Joe alive. ‘

  The employment manager at the brewery hired me for eighteen bucks a week as a helper on one of the beer trucks. He looked me right in the eye and said:

  “You’ll pay me five bucks a week for three weeks, out of your salary.”

  I started to answer, then shut my mouth. He owned three apartment buildings the last time I heard of him, but apartment buildings or not, he’ll wind up with a chive in his back some dark night.

  It was tough work and we slugged it out for ten and twelve and even fourteen hours a day. I worked with a hell of a good guy; he drove the truck and his name was Jake Levinsky. Jake had great opinions on everything from and back to women. Jake would say:

  “So I’m a Jew, but I don’t work at it, see? I eat what I like and I screw what I like, and no rabbi tells me what to do. If I want me a Gentile girl then I get me one, and if I want a Jewish girl I get me one. I pay my bills and don’t beat my old woman.”

  I never heard Jake refer to his wife any other way. He had a big, broad-shouldered body and was afraid of nothing in this world, and he lived to drive his truck and snarl his way through traffic. “Yuh God-damned fool ..was his standard snarl, but he could really do a classic job when someone pulled in too close. He would park the beer truck sometimes in such a way that he tied up traffic for a block, and if anyone shouted, he had to fight Jake. He had two great ambitions—one to own his own truck, and the other to lay his wife’s kid sister. He finally achieved both.

  Jake taught me to find my way around Chicago in more ways than one. I told him the story of my life, except only the part about Steffie, and he had a new respect for me, but he said I was a sucker to stick my neck out by coming to the States illegally.

  “You’ll just get going good in some damn thing an they’ll deport yuh.”

  And you were right, Jake, they did. I’ve got you to thank for that, haven’t I, Nora? You sweet, vicious bitch. When you couldn’t sink those nice, even teeth of yours into my shoulder any longer, you put me where no one else could for a while, and then I got a free ride home and an escort across the bridge to Cataract City, Canada. You were right, too, Jake, when you told me she was no damned good. I had to find it out the hard way, but you were right about that and a hell of a lot of other things, Jake, and thanks. It’s a funny damned thing, Jake, but if I ever stop to add up reasons why I should or shouldn’t die for sweet democracy, you’ll be one of the reasons why I should. I’m not likely to, Jake, so don’t let it bother you.

  I loved that big, sweaty frame of yours, Jake, and the “to-hell-with-it” way you lived. The way you’d ignore everything else on the street and say:

  “Lookit the lungs on that babe, Joe”—

  The times we’d park the White in behind the apartment building where Gert and that big broad Helen lived, and hole up with them for the rest of the day. That Helen was a dish, Jake. When she wiggled those hips of hers she could toss me up to the ceiling. The free lunches we lipped the saloons for when we’d rolled their beer into them, and the way you’d draw cool glasses off in the cellars when we hooked the barrels up to the system. The cool beer in a cool cellar on a hot July day, Jake. Yes, I loved you, Jake, for many things. Thinks like taking me home to sleep on the sofa of your place when you found I was living at the Sally Ann. The way you opened the door and smiled at your old woman and just said:

  “This is Joe...he’s gonna flop here for a while.”

  You kissed her lightly, Jake, and smacked her nice, plump ass, and she clucked as happily as the rooster’s favorite hen. She liked me because you liked me, Jake, and you were her life. You lucky bastard.


  I met Nora Kramer through Jake’s wife; Nora lived in the next apartment and was always running in and out. Jake didn’t like her.

  “When a Jewish girl has only Gentile friends, Joe, it means the Jewish people don’t like her and don’t want her. When a Gentile girl messes around with only Jewish people, it means the same damn thing.”

  Jake had told his wife not to go out with Nora because a woman living alone meant just one thing to Jake, and if he told his Sarah not to go out with Nora, Sarah damned well didn’t. Chicago might have been a hell to start with, but Jake and Sarah gave me a wonderful time. Sarah’s kid sister, Esther, was always around and it wasn’t hard to see why. She had a hell of a crush on Jake and was always messing around him. When Sarah finally went to the hospital to have her first kid, Esther came over to look after Jake and me. She sure looked after Jake, and for three days I drove the truck alone while Jake shacked-up with Esther, and if Sarah ever knew she said nothing about it. On Saturday nights we’d get a small keg from Hymie in the shipping room and have a party. Those Saturdays were wonderful, with liverwurst and salami sandwiches, and the beer. One night when the beer was gone, Nora brought in a bottle of Bourbon, and that night I went home with Nora.

  Yes, Nora girl, you were quite a gal. Maybe you felt sorry afterwards, maybe your little mind that was only big enough to see my body and how it fitted yours regretted the phone call that sent Joe back home. Yon couldn’t know about Steffie and the reasons why our Joe never married you. You got mad because you thought there was another woman, Nora, and there was. Was? There still is, Joe, there always is. It was a crappy thing to do, Nora, a mean little thing and it’s the mean little things that stink so much. Like a kick in the crotch, or a door slamming in your face, or picking garbage pails, or a smug son-of-a-bitch clipping you five bucks a pay. Whose shoulder are you biting now, Nora? You’ll always bite someone, somewhere, and you’ll always be driven to making the phone calls that send the shoulders away from you. That hot, firm, tormented, lovely body of yours and the little, possessive, jealous, whacky mind. You sweet, vicious bitch; and here in the smells of this room nine years later, I still would like to have you bite my shoulder.

  No exact date started my living with Nora—I just drifted into it and it just drifted on and on. Nora was two years older than I and had kicked around a lot. Her mother died one day when she was sixteen, and her father brought a woman in to live with him the next day. The woman packed Nora’s clothes and Nora started out. All she had was a cute, dark face and a good body, but something kept her from hustling. God knows what, except maybe the memory of a sad-faced little German woman. Nora worked as a wrapping clerk at Marshall Field’s until a floorwalker noticed her hips. After two nights with the floorwalker, Nora was a saleslady in the lingerie department. She probably still is. She chewed gum at all. times, even in her sleep, and I’ve even felt her shift the gum in her mouth when her lips would be pressed against my chest, and she’d be sobbing with sheer animal heat.

  Do you remember how she was, Joe? How you’d try just to get into bed and read for a few minutes before you went to sleep? How you both always slept raw, and pretty soon her hand would slide down your body while her eyes never left the pages of the true detective magazine she was reading. She would fool with you for a few minutes and then you’d look at her and a funny, knowing smile would be playing around her mouth, dodging in and out in the steady motion of her jaw. You’d throw your book on the floor and turn to her, and you were always surprised to find her completely ready for you. Ready, waiting, and oh, so damned willing, with the nipples of those breasts standing as hard as .303 slugs. Waiting, like she knew all the time you’d have to turn to her. Do you remember how she’d always wash your back so she could keep her hands on you? How she’d get dinner in just the black pants and brassiere and wiggle that sweet backside of hers until you could hardly wait to go to bed? The black pants those same deft hands pinched from Marshall Field’s stock. You were born to wear black pants, Nora, and whoever the unscrupulous bugger is that first thought of black pants must have had you in mind. Do you remember, Joe, how hot and damp she was, and how you’d tear the bed apart and get everything shaking until Jake would pound on the wall. Then you’d lie there and start to doze until Nora would push you and say:

  “Come on, muscles, we’ve got to have covers, too.” Nora would sleep all tied in a knot around you, Joe, until Jake yelled to get up. He was always ready before our Joe and he’d stand in the doorway and say:

  “Thirsty Chicago waits for Gimbel’s beer. Where’s Jake and Joe, asks thirsty Chicago? Jake is ready, but where’s Joe, answers the ever-ready Jake. Joe’s too busy laying Nora.”

  Then he’d have a cup of coffee with us and we’d push off.

  It was one of those bright August mornings in ‘34 that we got into the fight with the big Kraut, the fight that sent me to the sales department and to the almost willing arms of the sales manager, John Simpson. Jake pulled the truck into the NO PARKING spot in front of Schulte’s German-American Beer Garden on Halsey Street, and we started to unload. Gus Schulte was standing out in front and he was one of the biggest men in the world—three inches short of God, and weighed a lean three hundred pounds. Schulte shifted the tobacco in his mouth and said: “Move yer truck, Hebe.”

  Jake looked at him, then merely spat and went on unloading.

  “Move that heap, Hebe, you ain’t deef.”

  “You calling me ‘Hebe,’ you squareheaded bastard?”

  And the scrap was on. Two of Schulte’s waiters came out, but I kept one from helping his boss with a straight right, and the other figured it was a good time to start wiping off the tables inside. They still talk of that fight in Chicago, I’ll bet, and they always will. Hitler had started pushing the Jews around in Germany, and Jake didn’t like Germans. Schulte didn’t like Jews, and all the necessary elements were there for a good scrap. Schulte probably knew more about scientific fighting than Jake, but he’d been training against the bar in his own joint, while Jake had been tossing beer kegs for years. It was a straight toe-to-toe, slug-it-out match and the first man down lost—lost because he didn’t go down until there was nothing left to hold him up. Schulte went down, and stayed down. Jake was cut a little and winded, but not hurt badly nor too winded to drop one mighty hand down to Schulte’s collar and pull him up for a final right to the jaw.

  “That’s for the ‘Hebes’ in Germany, you bastard.” And we went on unloading the beer.

  Schulte canceled his contract with Gimbel’s, and Simpson had Jake and me up on the carpet. Simpson was a slim man around forty and had a too well-massaged look about him. His face was pink and he had a funny lisping way of talking. He looked at me and wet his lips a little, and I thought of Paul Lacey. Jake told a straight story and I corroborated Jake. Simpson didn’t like it.

  “We can’t have you men fighting the customers, you know....I don’t care what he called you; we spent seventy-five thousand dollars on advertising last year and one thing like this can make that effort useless.” He looked at me and wet his lips, and went on, “You can see that, can’t you, Mack.”

  “Certainly, Mr. Simpson, but it’s pretty tough to take what Schulte was tossing at Jake.”

  A secretary announced the arrival of Mr. Gimbel and the great man walked in. He was a little fat Jew with a nice face. Simpson jumped to his feet as though he’d been goosed and got a chair for Mr. Gimbel. Gimbel shook hands with Jake and me and asked what the hell the fight was about. Jake told him the same story, and I did, too, except I added the last punch and the line that went with it. Gimbel smiled happily, and the following week Jake was made assistant dispatcher, and I went to the sales department. .

  It’s a mixture now—the smell is still sweet, damned sweet, and it’s still all over the room, but it’s metallic. A gritty or “brassy” smell is with it. It isn’t soft and woody any more and it isn’t clean. Maybe a German boy is wiping off a gun out in the street. That’s it—it’s oily. There’s a n
ice dish for our Joe, guts and maple, garbage and Nora and elm, then mix it all with oil and brass, steel and rotting flesh, and serve it up in a dark room in Italy where I’ve got a great big lump in my throat...

  For fourteen months I worked in the sales department of the Gimbel Brewing Company, and I learned how to sell. It may be some of that Dale Carnegie crap, but as Bill O’Rourke, Gimbel’s best salesman, used to put it:

  “So you’re peddling Gimbel’s Beer...it’s no better than Blue Ribbon or Bud, so what the hell are you going to sell the customer? He doesn’t “have’ to buy Gimbel’s beer, and by Jesus he won’t unless he likes Joe Mack. To hell with selling the beer, Joe, sell yourself—make ‘em like Joe Mack.”