by Ed Baldwin
“But down in that alley…” I said, leading the story.
T.J. nodded. “I was dancing on a cloud by now. The mysterious shots had continued to materialize and I thought the group gathering around us were well-wishers. I don’t know what Royal Lee thought. She wasn’t drinking. Anyway, we danced over to the edge of the dance floor by the stairs and a guy walked up like he was going to cut in. I was thinking about another shot of whiskey to really put me in a dancing mood and stopped and turned toward him. He hit me with a roundhouse right. I could see it coming but just couldn’t seem to react.
“You had it coming!” I exclaimed.
“The force of the blow had me stumbling backwards toward the back stairs. Just as I got to them someone tripped me and I fell backwards down the staircase. I did two complete summersaults and landed on my back at the bottom. When I looked up the stairs were filled with men coming down to have a piece of me. Some had bottles, others were pulling out knives, most just had a look on their face—”
“Indicating extreme displeasure,” I interrupted.
“To say the least,” T.J. smiled, glad to see I was so absorbed. “So this time I moved a little faster. I opened the fire door and ran out into the alley.”
“With a six foot head start you didn’t outrun a hundred niggers,” I said, incredulously.
“No, but there was a cab in the alley, headed toward the street with the engine running and the back door open. Amos Masters grabbed me by the shirt and fell back into the backseat and the driver took off. I sat up and looked back. There was one frustrated and angry crowd in that alley behind the Club Handy that night.
“Amos said, ‘T.J. you got yourself into a place you don’t belong. You wasn’t there for no music. You was after pussy.’”
“No shit,” I said, shaking my head.
“The brush with death cleared my head from the ‘free drinks’ they had used to set me up, and I thanked old Amos with all the sincerity I could muster, vowing to stay away from there.”
“Yeah, right. And how many times have you gone back?” I asked, knowing how a man’s libido can make him sneer at even the most dangerous situations.
“Not once,” he said, crossing his heart. “I have no idea what happened to the girl.”
“Amos Masters,” I said suddenly. “Sonny’s Father?” I was on the dawn of a new insight.
“Yep. Amos taught me the nursery business. It worked out sort of like that oriental philosophy where if you save a man’s life you’re responsible for him for the rest of your own. I started paying attention to what he told me and began to like it. I also had some insight into the politics of the situation that ultimately helped us both, but you’ve heard that part.”
Now through with his story, T.J. sat back, ready to answer the questions he could see on my face.
“And Sonny?”
“Amos taught me the business, but he taught Sonny a few tricks he didn’t teach me. Besides, when I bought out the previous owners I was a little short of cash. Amos bought in for 20%. Sonny has increased that to 25% since Amos died.”
“You wanted me to start in the back to see if I could work with Sonny.”
“From the ground up, sort of.”
“I still don’t want to be pottin’ no rubber plants the rest of my life,” I said, dismissing what he had in mind.
“Phil, the insight you’ve gained into the way the book business works is just as valid in any other endeavor. If I sat on my duff and waited for someone to come in and buy some flowers or call for a landscaping estimate I couldn’t support one family, let alone the dozen or so that are supported by it now.” T.J. got up and walked to the mirror and combed his hair, which had become mussed while he was reliving the Club Handy episode. Still looking at himself, he went on. “Someone has to go out and grab people by the lapels and say, ‘You are gonna need some flowers at that grand opening, or some landscaping for that addition you’re building, and I want to provide them.’”
“Oh sure, someone needs some gumption to run any business, but I’ve got a sales organization to run. A well recognized product. A future!” I said, confident that T.J. would see that mine was the superior option for a young man who had seen truth.
“Did you ever wonder what Sonny was doing on the phone so much?” he asked with a grin, as if the answer would settle our discussion.
“Yeah. I thought he was a bookie.”
“There are seven or eight colored funeral homes in town and the competition is fierce. So fierce, in fact that several of them employ a man named Jones to hang around the police station and the hospital. When somebody dies he talks to the family right away and suggests a funeral home. He gets $50 just for mentioning the name and then getting the funeral director over there. He’s gregarious and seems to know everyone in that community. We give him $20 just for calling Sonny when he calls the funeral director.”
“You sly dog! How does Sonny close the deal?”
“It takes some tact. He usually goes down there and meets with the family right away.”
“How about the white funerals? Do you have a runner there too?”
“No. That’s a little different. There is really only one funeral home in town that does white funerals, they have a dozen branches. I own 10% of it.” He beamed.
“Do people know that?” I asked, amazed.
“No. But all the funeral directors do.”
“You must have a lock on funerals in all of Memphis,” I said, beginning to see this as perhaps worthy of at least some consideration.
“Let’s just say we do a lot of funerals, but we do that by doing a good job. When the Towers of Flowers van goes out to a church or funeral home, people know they’re getting the best.”
“Why didn’t you tell me all this before?” I asked, a little irritated that I had been kept from knowing about the family business that I had been soundly criticized for leaving.
“You were so resentful of having to work there I was afraid you’d let it get out. I was waiting for some sign you were ready,” T.J. said, fatherly in the extreme and beginning to really piss me off.
“What about the landscaping? You sure seem to do a lot of that,” I said, changing the subject to handle my anger.
“There are scores of small excavating and concrete contractors all over town whose wive’s birthdays and daughter’s weddings are always lavishly flowered without them having to remember a thing. In exchange I get a call whenever a new project starts. The general contractor usually gets his sub-contractors lined up before he starts thinking about trying to weasel a cut from the landscaping, and by then I’ve already called on the company doing the building and gotten the landscaping contract along with the grand opening and probably some plants for around the office to spruce things up, and all on the construction loan so they can amortize the cost.”
Admiration was beginning to replace the loathing I had felt.
“Phil, this business is 90% hustle, just like the book business. We have three greenhouses, but we sell 80% of the flowers in town. The other greenhouses exist by selling stock to us, wholesale. I need someone who isn’t afraid to get out there and sell. I can’t afford you back in the greenhouse. You’re just in the way there.”
“Commission?”
“Same deal Sonny and I work off of. 20% of the gross sale paid at the end of the month. I’ll bet that’s the same commission you’re getting now. A big funeral will go over a thousand dollars and landscaping jobs two or three times that. You won’t have to travel. And I’ll have someone to sell the place to when I want to retire!” he said with a burst of enthusiasm.
“Does the fact that your prize daughter has kicked me out jeopardize this deal any?” I asked, remembering that I wasn’t exactly one of the family at this moment.
“Clean up your act and maybe she’ll have you back, that is, if you want to come back,” he said matter of factly.
I sighed and looked over at him. He looked smug and had a right to. The difference now was that
that look didn’t piss me off as much as it used to.
“Well, I’ve got a business to run,” he said as he got up and lit a cigar. “You’re paid up for the rest of the week. Think about it. Give me a call.”
We shook hands and I thanked him again for bailing me out of jail. We stood there for a moment, and I sort of felt like I wanted to thank him for something else, but before I could figure out what it was, he left.
I walked over to the window and looked down at the street. I watched him exit and get into his Cadillac and drive out into the Wednesday morning traffic. My nose was hurting so I re-applied the ice and stood looking out over the city. I couldn’t see the river out there but knew it would still be flowing past, muddy and deep enough and unchanged by the night’s events.
About the Author
ED BALDWIN has lived in every southern state except Mississippi, and he’s been in jail there; briefly. His second book, The Other Pilot was published in 2012. He’s a retired Air Force flight surgeon living in Hot Springs, Arkansas.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Contents
Preface
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
About the Author
