by Karen Wolff
“Poor Harry. I wondered what you were up to.”
“Yeah, Gram had really saved up some chores for me. It gave me time to think. I don’t want to work in that country store forever for no wages, and I’ve made up my mind about one other thing for sure. I don’t ever want to be a farmer.”
She laughed. “I don’t blame you after what happened today.”
“I’m going to go to high school, Carol Ann. I figure it’s about the only way left for me if I want to make something of myself.”
“Oh, Harry. I’m so glad that’s what you’ve decided. I really hoped that’s what you would do. We’ll have a great time. You’ll see.”
She was so pleased with me that I started thinking I might be able to kiss her, but Mr. Bellwood came out and sat down in the porch swing. He chatted a bit about the nice evening and gave no sign of leaving. In fact, I was pretty sure he intended to stay there until I went home, so I finally gave up my good idea and said goodnight.
I told Gram the next morning about deciding to go to high school.
She said, “I’m not too surprised. That girl really wants you to do it.” She paused. “We’d better ask Ty about living here in that case. For the store.”
“Really Gram? That’ll be wonderful. Shall I fix up the shed for us so we can sleep there?” I could imagine the two of us out there staying up half the night, talking and laughing.
“No, I don’t think so. It’ll be too cold out there in the winter. Granddad will have to come back and sleep with me. You and Ty can have the daybed.”
I was so happy to have Ty coming to live with us that I decided not to argue.
A few days later, Uncle Lyle’s truck came bumping down the road, I nearly died of shock. Ty was driving! Ty, my brother, who was only a little over a year older than me, was driving the truck and Uncle Lyle was in the passenger seat. I was so jealous I thought I would bust right open. I had never even sat behind the steering wheel of a car or truck, and here was my brother driving. He jumped out so casual about it, and I was green with envy.
“Hi, Harry,” he said. “Isn’t this great? Me coming to stay here.”
I couldn’t even say hello. Instead I said, “When did you learn to drive? Does Uncle Lyle let you drive all the time? Can you show me how?”
“Hold on, Harry,” Uncle Lyle said. “I needed Ty’s help with some things on the farm, and it made it easier to have him drive once in a while.”
I turned to Granddad. “Are we ever going to buy a car? Everybody knows how to drive but me.”
“I don’t know if that’s a very good reason to buy a car,” he said.
“I could take you places, do errands for you and Gram. It would save a lot of time. Please, Granddad. We need a car.”
“I’ll think about it,” was all he would say.
I finally remembered my manners and helped Ty move in, and I made him promise to teach me how to drive if we ever got the chance.
THE PALETTI FRUIT and Vegetable truck from Sioux City arrived with our produce order, and Tony Paletti himself burst into the store where Ty was learning how to run the cash register. Tony waited for Granddad to finish with a customer, then said, “Alfie. I have some news for you.” He looked around to make sure no one was listening. “Bud Johnson asked me to pass this along to you.”
“That crazy devil!” Granddad said. “Where’s my beer? He’s missed his last two deliveries and the bar’s about dry.”
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you. He isn’t going to deliver beer this week, and maybe not for a while after that. The Prohibition agents are making raids in Union County, and Bud doesn’t dare deliver ‘til they clear out.”
“How do you know?”
“They hit the Tip-Top Tavern in Burbank and closed it down, and a bootleg place in Jefferson. Richard Hart led the raid. You know, the one they call ‘Two Gun?’ You’re lucky they haven’t been here.”
“‘Two Gun Hart,” I said. “Isn’t he the one with pearl-handled pistols?”
“Yeah,” Tony said. He’s led bootlegging raids all over Nebraska. Even in Sioux City. I haven’t heard of him in South Dakota ‘til now.”
Granddad stood slack-jawed with this news, and I felt a ripple of fear go down my backbone. This was something, to think the Feds might come to our store.
“How am I supposed to keep my customers happy?” Granddad said.
“I don’t know, Alfie. I guess you’ll just have to wait.”
Within two days, the beer barrels in the store were dry, and Granddad had to turn away the regulars, himself included.
“Damn it anyway,” he said. “This isn’t right. They’re going to ruin my business.” He swore and groused around for another day. Truth be told, I think he wanted the beer for himself as much as for the store.
“I’m gonna borrow Lyle’s truck and go down to Sioux City and get the beer myself,” he announced at dinner.
Gram was appalled. “You can’t do that,” she said. “You don’t know your way around down there. Sioux City’s a rough place. It’s wide open,” she said. “They don’t call it ‘Little Chicago’ for nothing. All those mobsters. What if ‘Two Gun’ Hart finds you there?”
“We’ll stick to the back alleys. Nobody will even notice us.”
The thought of all this stirred me up. We’d heard plenty about how wide open Sioux City was. How the mobsters came out there on the Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul railroad when things got too hot for them back east.
“You remember what happened to that minister, don’t you?” Gram said.
“Well sure. Everybody knows that, but he was a ‘dry’ and I’m not.”
The shooting of Reverend Haddock was legendary. He went around preaching about the evils of drink, so the saloonkeepers hired two thugs to give him a whipping. They didn’t count on the minister fighting back, and John Ahrensdorf ended up shooting him dead. There was a famous trial, but somehow the jury decided the shooter was innocent. He was so proud of his success he had his picture taken with the jury just for bragging rights.
That tale didn’t stop Granddad though. He wasn’t determined about much in this world, but he wanted his beer. Next thing we knew, he had recruited Uncle Lyle and his truck to go to Sioux City. He asked me if I’d like to go too! I was scared to death, but I wanted to go along as much as I’d ever wanted anything.
“You’re not taking this boy to do your dirty work,” Gram said.
“I’m going to need him, Bess. It’ll give Ty a chance to run the store with your help. Lyle will drive, and Harry and I can get the barrels loaded up and out of town quick as anything.”
“You are a crazy fool, Alphonse.” She never called him Alphonse unless she was really mad.
But Granddad won out, and the next day the three of us got in Uncle Lyle’s truck and headed for Sioux City. We crossed the Big Sioux River into Iowa and took the river road that ran south alongside the bluffs. I’d never been to Sioux City and couldn’t wait to see it. The danger we might face from the revenuers pumped me up even further.
“Do you think they’ll catch us?” I asked.
“Hope not,” Granddad said. “I don’t want to go to jail.”
“This is a damn fool thing, Alfie,” Uncle Lyle said.
“Well let’s wait and see,” he said.
The thirty-mile trip took a little over an hour on that dirt road, but it felt like a whole day to me.
“How do you know where to go, Granddad?”
“I’ll probably have to ask.”
“Will we ride a street car?”
“I doubt it.”
“Will we eat in a café?”
“We might. Now just hush up for a while, Harry.”
When I had about given up on us ever getting there, the road took a big bend to the east. The tall clay bluffs stood on our left, and on our right the Big Sioux River met up with the Missouri. Our teacher had showed us on a map where this happened, and she told us how big the Missouri was, but I never dreamt there could be this much water. T
he river was a beautiful deep blue color and sparkled in the sun. It was so wide I could barely see across. There were barges loaded with barrels and crates and all kinds of fishing boats on the water. Riverboats with their paddle wheels were docked on the Nebraska side of the river.
“There it is,” Granddad said, and I tore my eyes away from that magnificent river to look at the buildings rising on our left and gawked open-mouthed at what lay before us. It was a large city with about seventy thousand people, but until I saw it, I just couldn’t imagine any one place in the world with so many buildings.
Uncle Lyle pulled off the road near the river where the ferry operation was located. Granddad got out to get some directions, and I went with him into the little lean-to building. Inside were a half dozen men sitting around, drinking beer and eating sandwiches. They were a rough, unshaven lot, their pants so filthy they could have stood up by themselves. They turned to stare at us.
“That beer looks mighty fine,” Granddad said, grinning. “Wish I had time to join you.” When he got no answer, he said, “Do any of you know where I can find Davy Berman?”
They looked at each other and didn’t say anything for a minute.
“You here to cause Davy a problem?” one man asked with a gravelly voice.
“No. I’m here to do some business with him, “Granddad said.
Once again there was a long silence. These grizzled men looked like pretty tough characters, and I worried about what they might do.
“Oh hell, Mike, they don’t look like the law. Tell ‘em where Davy is.”
The first speaker stood up, twice as tall as Granddad. He went to the window and pointed. “Take a left out there at the crossroads and go north to Fourth Street. Go east on Fourth until you come to the Chicago House Hotel. You’ll likely find Davy there.” He paused and looked directly at Granddad. “I don’t want to hear about no trouble for Davy, you hear?”
“I sure do,” said Granddad. “Thanks for your help.”
I was more than happy to climb back into Uncle Lyle’s truck.
We followed the directions and soon found ourselves in the middle of the downtown area. Cars and trucks moved in all directions. There were horse-drawn wagons and more people than I had ever seen in my life. Brightly painted streetcars jammed with folks moved up and down the streets, their bells clanging. I stared at Pelletier’s Department Store six stories high, its windows filled with women’s finery of every description. Next to it was Morris’s Hat Store, and I marveled at a store that sold only men’s hats.
Uncle Lyle drove in low gear as he wound his way through the traffic. I was watching a nimble newspaper boy trying to sell papers to people in moving cars when suddenly I was thrown forward as Uncle Lyle braked hard to avoid hitting a little kid who ran out into the street ahead of his mother. I saw the sweat on Uncle Lyle’s upper lip and figured he must be nervous about driving in all this traffic.
Fourth Street began to go downhill, and ended in just a few blocks. We followed it all the way to a wall that kept us from driving into another river. Somehow we missed the Chicago House Hotel on the first pass, so Uncle Lyle turned the truck around, and I watched with Granddad as we went back. The hotel sign, painted in white letters, was half hidden under a wide green awning. Its four stories gleamed with high arched windows on the upper floors and a fire escape zigzagging down the side.
Uncle Lyle found a place to park, and we all breathed a sigh of relief to come to a stop.
“Well, gents,” Granddad said. “What would you say to some dinner before we do our business?”
That was fine with me. I hadn’t realized how hungry I was until he mentioned food. We got out and looked around. Granddad stopped a fellow to ask, “Any good eating places around here?”
The man jerked his thumb toward the side street. “You might find somethin’ down there in the Sudan.”
We started walking. I spied a sign that looked promising—Madame Shaw’s Maple Grove. Across the street was Minnie Kern’s Place. There was loud music coming from both of them, and a bunch of fellows were standing around, laughing and smoking big cigars.
“I…I think we’re in the wrong place, Alfie,” said Uncle Lyle.
“I believe you’re right,” Granddad answered.
They turned abruptly and headed back the way we had come.
“Why couldn’t we stop there?” I asked.
“Just wasn’t right,” Granddad said without looking at me. “I’ll explain later.”
That puzzled me some, but I was so busy looking around, I let it go. I sure was hungry.
We finally came to a little place called Uhler’s Saloon and Food and went inside.
The man behind the counter said, “You fellas here for poker or food?”
“We’ll take some food,” Granddad said.
Next thing I knew, there was a big plate of chicken fried steak, mashed potatoes and gravy, and green beans floating in bacon grease sitting before me. I piled into it. To top it off, Granddad ordered apple pie and coffee for us, and I felt terrific when I’d cleaned it up.
We stepped out to the street and walked to the Chicago House Hotel. The three of us stood peering through the big window for a minute, then Granddad hitched up his pants and we went in. It was very dark inside and full of smoke. As my eyes adjusted, I made out the green and black square-tiled floor and the walls covered in dark gold shiny paper. There were men sitting around talking, smoking, trying to read the paper. I became conscious of piano music coming from a big upright in the corner.
The piano player was a tall woman wearing a red silk dress with black ruffly stuff around the neck and down the front. Her shoes on the pedals were shiny black lace-up boots, and she had her hair pulled up on top of her head. Her heavy silver earrings and bright red lipstick made her look as fancy as anything I could imagine, as if she were ready to go to a party right there in the middle of the day. I had never seen the likes of such a woman before, and I stared plenty.
Granddad went up to the desk and asked the man where to find Davy Berman.
“I think he’s downstairs,” he said, “but if you’re doing business with him, you better leave the kid up here. Davy don’t like kids around when he’s workin.’”
So Granddad and Uncle Lyle left me. I found a chair and prepared myself to sit back and enjoy looking at the fine woman and listening to her music. She saw me watching her and said, “What would you like to hear, cutie?”
“I don’t know much about music,” I said, mortified.
“Well, how about a rag?” And off she went with a fast, bouncing piece. I hoped she wouldn’t ask me any more ‘cause I wouldn’t know what to say.
Three men sat at a round table in the center of the room. One of them had a wild shock of white hair. He looked over at the piano player and said, “Pipe down, will ya, Lettie. I can’t hear myself think.”
She made a face at him and played softer. Now I knew her name was Lettie.
I sat listening for fifteen minutes or so when suddenly a boy my age came running in saying, “The preacher’s comin’. The preacher’s comin’.”
I was astonished to see the men at that big round table push it aside, lift up the carpet, and open a trap door underneath it. A whoosh of dank, coal smell hit me. They lowered two crates of hard liquor from behind the desk into that opening. Two of the men jumped down with it, one of them being the man with the white hair. The third fellow closed it up fast, dropped the rug, and pulled the table back over it. He and a couple of others sat in chairs around the table looking like they’d been there all day. And it all happened so fast, I thought I hadn’t seen right.
In another minute about six policemen and a man in preacher clothes rushed in. A policeman blew a whistle and the preacher fellow yelled, “This is a raid. Where is Whitey Larson? Where’s the liquor? I know he’s been selling it here.”
The preacher was tall with stringy yellow hair down over his ears. He wore a black suit and tie and a wide-brimmed black hat. He looked arou
nd the room at all the men, but nobody said anything. Then his steel-gray eyes fixed on me. My heart rose up and was pumping so hard I could feel it in the ends of my fingers.
“What are you doing here in this den of evil, boy?” He pointed a long finger with a grimy nail in my face.
I could barely squeak anything out. “I…I’m just waiting for my Granddad.”
“Young man, your direction is hellward for certain when you frequent this pestilential place. This is where the scum of God’s dirt suck the young men of this country into eternal damnation.” He stared a long minute and fear tore through me like fire. “You’ll feel the devil’s flames if you persist.” I believed I could already feel them burning me, shriveling me into a pile of ashes.
“Get out, boy, while you can. Get out before you’re ruint.”
Finally his eyes let go of me, and I took a big, ragged breath and sagged into the chair.
He turned to the woman at the piano. “Where are those sinning devils, Lettie? Where’s that snake Whitey?”
She shrugged, then smiled up at him. “I have no idea, Preacher Simms. I’m just practicing the piano a little bit.” I was awed that she didn’t seem afraid of him.
The preacher signaled to the policemen. “Let’s have a look upstairs.” As they were disappearing up the steps, I saw, out of the corner of my eye, the white-headed man run past the window and down the street. I figured that must be Whitey Larson. Two policemen, who had remained outside, chased after him.
A commotion from the basement drew my attention. A short, pudgy man in a summer straw hat and a wrinkled ivory-colored suit came up the stairs. He was smoking a cigar and had a big gold pin stuck in his tie. He looked like somebody to fear with his scowling face and beady eyes darting around the room. Granddad and Uncle Lyle followed behind. Uncle Lyle’s face was white as Gram’s flour, but Granddad looked like he might be enjoying things. I was never happier to see anybody in my whole life than I was to see him at that moment.
Granddad said, “C’mon Harry. Let’s get out of here.” We headed for the door but were stopped by an officer just outside. He said, “Get back in there. Nobody leaves till we say so.”
