by Betty Smith
in the whole damned Borough of Brooklyn!"
That was Denny's version of his father's far-flung
challenge to the world: "I'll bury youse all! "
5< CHAl'TER FIFTY-SIX ~
To DENNY'S disappointment, he wasn't allowed to cut
meat right away. Winer said he had to work his way up
from the bottom and he meant it literally. Winer, like
many a lonely person, was scrupulously neat about himself
and the store and first Denny had to learn to carry out
Winer's ideas of neatness.
Each night, after the store closed, the sawdust had to be
swept out and fresh sawdust sprinkled on the floor. Each
day, the marble block that was the store window's floor
had to be scoured and rubbed with a cut lemon; the
cutting block had to be cleaned daily, with salt and a wire
brush; the knives had to be washed and honed daily. The
meat-grinding machine had to be taken apart and washed
after each usage, and it was used ten or fifteen times a
day. The counter scrubbed; the store window washed once
a week; the walls swabbed down every so often. Clean,
scrub, polish . . . Winer was fanatically neat.
Winer tossed all fat scraps into a barrel. Winer sold the
fat to a soap manufacturer. Once a week, Denny risked
getting a double hernia carrying that barrel Otlt to the
curb to be picked up by the soap people.
And Denny loved e very bit of w ork connected with the
butcher shop.
The second week, Winer let him cut meat from bones
and cut up scrap meat and grind it into hamburger, which
was called
1,''7~1
chopmeat in the neighborhood. It fell to Denny to place
the sprig of parsley in the center of the artistically
arranged swirls of ground meat on the grey agate platter.
Winer let him sell soup bones: a marrow bone, a knuckle
bone and a straight bone, all for a nickel. He let him slice
bologna. He let him give away dog meat and dog bones
free -hut only if the customer made other meat
purchases.
"When they ask for dog meat," instructed Winer, "you
must say should you wrap it or do they want to eat it
here."
"But that gag's got hair on it," said Denny. "It's that old."
"Just the same, the customers like it. It belongs with
giving away dog meat."
Now Denny knew that hamburger was one hundred per
cent profit; being made from meat that couldn't be used
any other way. He asked Winer wouldn't it be better to
urge the already ground hamburger on a customer when
she asked for a pound of chuck or round ground to order.
"That's out of date," said Winer. "Here's how you sell
chopmeat off the plate. A lady wants a pound of round
ground. You make out like you're very happy to do this.
You grind it right in front of her. When you put it on the
scale, you look mad like you grind too much meat. You
take a lumper off and throw it on the choprneat in the
showcase like vou don't care. The lady and any other
ladies in the store will tell theirselves: I should pay thirty
cents for ground round when I can get the same off the
plate for eighteen cents. And I know it's the same. I saw
the butcher put some on the plate from my
thirty-cents-a-pound ground round."
The bane of Winer's life was a woman coming in and
asking for half a pound of sirloin or one lamb chop or any
other quality meat which meant cutting into a whole side
of meat for little profit. Winer instructed Denny.
"A lady comes in and wants only half pound sirloin, it
should be cut thick. You then go in icebox and come out
and you are carrying a side of beef on your shoulder. You
make your legs bend like is the beef very heavy. You put
it on block and put hand over your heart like it hurts a
little from carrying. Then is the lady so ashamed, all that
trouble for half a pound, she says she may as well take
whole pound steak."
~ 3~3 ]
Winer instructed further. "People buy kidneys and
hearts and pigs' feet. Maybe they is shamed they buy such.
They all make the same fun about it but all thinks he
made up the fun in the first place. Like a lady says: 'You
got kidneys?' "
"So I tell her," said Denny, "not to get personal?"
"No. That's fresh. Y on say, like this: 'I hope sot' then
you smile and make a wink. They think, ain't he fresh!
But they like it ail the same. Also on all the old ladies
and middle ones, you should smile and make a wink even
without the kidneys."
"Yeah. But I don't see you winking, Otto."
"That I cannot do. They think I got dirty feelings
because I am a widder man living by myself in the back.
But for you what is so young and nice-looking, it is a
present, the wink, to the ladies what ain't so young no
more."
Just then, Denny saw Maggie-Now turning in to the
store. He knew that Winer did not know Maggie-Now. He
said, "Otto, let me try the wink and the smile on this
customer." Otto gave permission.
Denny gave his sister a big wink. To Otto's
consternation, the lady winked back. "What can I do for
you, Tootsie?" asked Denny.
Otto, shocked, whispered: "Say 'Missus.'"
"Missus Tootsie." said Denny. "What's yours?"
"Do you have spareribs?" she asked.
He made a great to-do about clutching his ribs and
feeling his back. "I thought I had some," he said. "But I
must have left them home, hanging up in the closet."
That was better, thought Otto. He beamed. Denny
weighed and wrapped the ribs and Maggie-Now asked,
"How much?"
"I'll let you have them for a nickel," said Denny, "if
you'll give me a big hug and a big kiss."
"You go too far!" shouted Otto. "Excuse, lady," he said
to Maggie-Now, "but the boy is new here."
"That's all right," smiled Maggie-Now. "I'm his sister."
"No! "
"This is Maggie-No~v. I'm her baby brother."
"He is lucky baby, Missus Now," said Winer gallantly.
Denny laughed. "Mrs. Bassett. We just call her
Maggie-Now.'
"By me," said Winer, "she is always Missus Now."
[ 354 ]
Winer had never come across the word "lagniappe." Yet
he and many other storekeepers observed the custom. The
bulk of the shopping was done by children sent to the
store by their mothers. The kids patronized those
shopkeepers who gave them little treats. The Chinese
laundry man gave a lichee nut, the baker, a cookie, the
druggist a sweetwood stick to suck on, the butcher a slice
of bologna and so on.
"Every kid what buys gets piece of bologna," Winer told
Denny. "A kid what comes in the first time, you know, she
did not come here before? She gets click slice worst to
knush on. She comes in again, it should
be dimly."
Denny asked about the alleged custom of weighing the
thumb with the meat. Winer was indignant.
"The thumb, it is not meat. We don't weigh that. You
only weigh the thumb when you don't want the customer
to come back no more."
"I don't get it, Otto."
"Like that lady. You see how she comes in yesterday?
She says: 'Take back this weal stew what you sold me this
morning. It ain't fit a dog should eat it, especially my
husband. So now give me one pound without no bones or
gritzel or fat.' So I put the meat on the scale and I make
out I don't see so good and I look near to see how much
it says on the scale and I put my hand on the scale, it
should stand still, then I press the thumb down. Hard."
"Didn't she get wise?"
"I wish so. Then she don't come here no more." Ele
made a rationalization. "A lady what likes to be snotty, is
right she pays extra for the thumb."
It was these things that Otto knew and that he wanted
to be known by someone before he died. Ele stopped
worrying that the knowledge would be lost with his death,
now that he had Denny to teach these things to.
In time, he taught Denny how to cut meat. Denny
learned fast. He had a great aptitude for meat. Denny
became very popular with the customers. Mothers told
their children: "When you go by Winer's ask that Denny
should wait on you. He don't skin people."
Winer called Denny "I)inny," because Den-iss was too
difficult for him to say and the name Dinny was like an
affectionate
~ 38S 1
souvenir of the fate that had sent Denny to his store that
day.
Winer depended a lot on Denny. Winer found he could
take things a little easier now. He experimented with new
combinations of food, because Dennv ate lunch with him
now and Winer liked to surprise him. Winer took walks in
the morning and naps in the afternoon while Denny tended
the store alone.
Came the time when he left Denny in charge of the store
for a whole day. Winer was going over to Yorkville to
spend the day with a Landsmann, also a butcher. Denny
had long since been promoted to sweater, straw cuffs and
white bib apron. On this day, he got his stripes--a straw hat
to wear in the store.
"There," said Winer, placing it on Denny's head with two
hands as though it were a crown. "Today you are full
butcher. Now I go to Yorkville and I would not stay all dav
if I did not trust you, Dinny."
Denny was so accustomed to being mistrusted that he
didn't know whether Winer's remark was a compliment or
a warning. Denny tipped his nev. straw hat over one eye.
Winer frowned and set it straight on his head. Denny
always wore it straight after that.
Denny had always wanted to know why butchers wore
straw hats in the store even in winter. At first, he thought
it was to prevent dandruff from falling on the meat. Then
he decided it Noms to prevent a butcher from running
bloody hands through his hair. Now he had a chance to
find out the truth.
"Otto," he asked, "why do butchers always wear straw
hats in the store?"
"So people should know they're butchers," said Otto Winer.
~ CHAPTER ~ IFTY-SE VEN ~
THE neighbors who once eagerly discussed Denny's bad
ways,
because they had to talk about so1~et~ing, IIOW discussed
his
success just as eagerly because they still had to talk about
some
t/'i~zg. They used to warn their boys not to be like that
Dennv
~'86'1
Moore, now. Now they asked their kids, why couldn't they
be like Denny Moore? Once it had been agreed that he'd
end up in Sing Sing. Now it was agre. d that he'd own his
own butcher shop before too long.
Mothers of marriageable daughters put off buying meat
until the daughter came home from work. Then it was:
"Go to Winer's before they close and tell Denny you want
four loin pork chops." At six each evening, there was
always a rush of girls in the store. Each time a girl came
in, Denny hoped it wasn't "That" Tessie and when it
wasn't Tessie he was disappointed.
Maggie-Now and Wine r laid the foundation for a
teasing friendship. She bought all her meat at Winer's
now, and brought her foster children along A hen she
shopped.
Nearly every Saturday night, Winer gave Denny some
delicacy to take home to Missus Now: a couple of veal
kidneys or a sweetbread or a Delmonico steak. She was
touched and grateful. And she told Winer so.
He said: "I ain't so dumb like I look. If I give Dinny
meat to take home, how can he ask me for a raise?" And
he knew MaggieNow didn't believe that.
She said: "Why, Mr. Winer! You're just terrible!" And
she knew Winer didn't believe that.
Pat, of course, had to take a dark view of Denny's
profession. "Do you know, me boy," he said, "that when
you went in the butcher business, you gave up your great
right as far as the constitution is concerned?"
"No, I didn't. I can still vote when I'm twenty-one."
"I mean the right to serve on a jury. In a murder trial,
they don't take butchers on the jury, because a butcher is
use' to blood and chopping off bones."
"Were you ever on a jury, Papa-"
"No. I had better things to do with me time."
"Gee, Papa," said Denny "if I live until I'm a hundred,
I'll never understand how you figure thUlos out."
"I'm deep," explained Pat.
One Sunday morning, Denny just happened to wander
over to the church on llontrose Avenue. He wanted to
see Tessie, he convinced himself, to drum up business for
Winer. He planned
1'38-, 1
to say that they had just gotten a side of prime beef and,
if she'd like to stop in after her work, he'd give her a
good cut of steak.
Tessie came out Title a young man. She saw Denny and
smiled all over. "Hello, Dennis," she said. "Hello, Tessie,"
he answered and started to walk an ay. Tessie spoke to
the man she was with and the man tipped his hat and left
her. Tessie started after Denny, then decided that she v.
as not the sort of girl who ran after a man.
Denny hung around the house all that afternoon and
was short-tempered with everybody. He told his sister: "So
her mother wouldn't let her go out with me! And you
ought to see the bum that Tessie's going out with now."
A few nights later, after Denny had had supper,
Maggie-Now said: "Denny, will yolk do something for
me?"
"Sure. What?"
"I pressed your good suit today and polished your other
shoes...."
"Gee, Maggie-l!Tow, I don't want you shining my sh
oes."
"Oh, I love to do it. I want you to get all dressed up and
go over to see Annie."
"Do you think I'm crazy or something?" he asked in
sheer astonishment.
"I want her to see how very nice you turned out to be."
"Who cares what she thinks of me, one way or the other."
"I was over to see Annie a couple of Sundays ago and
Tessie asked all about you. She said that every Sunday
when she comes out of church she alvv:lys hopes you'll be
waiting for her . . ."
". . . when your sister brought you here. How old was
she then? Yes, she had eighteen years, and you was a
baby, Denty, and Tessie was in my arms yet and Albie
wasn't even here yet."
"I hardly remember that," said Denny, and Tessie smiled
as though he had said something very significant.
"My, think on it!" said Annie. "And now you are such a
big man."
She s.w that Denny wasn't listening. He sat there
looking at Tessie and Tessie sat there looking at him.
"I talk too much," said Annie, suddenly embarrassed.
"Mrs. Vernacht," said Denny suddenly, "would you mind
if took your daughter out?"
~ ,8Y 1
"Take my Tessie out?"
"Yes. Take Tessie out."
"She has the say of that," said Annie.
"Well, what do you say, Tessie?" he asked.
"When:" she asked right back.
In this way was the pact between them made and it
would endure for all of Tessie's life.
Annie knew the inevitable. She sighed as she thought:
He ain't rich, but he has a good trade and now he is a good
plan. What more could a mother ask from God, only that
her daughter gets a good man?
A two-year courtship started with that first date. In that
more leisurely era, courtship was considered the happiest
time of a young girl's life. It was a tender interlude of
man and girl adoring each other; of presenting their best
aspects to each other; of considerate attentions given and
received; presents given each other that would be kept
and cherished and handed down to the children.
It was the growing excitement of getting to know each
other well; it was the delight of kissing and
embracing the drawn-out prelude to the ultimate
physical togetherness that came with mar
riage.
Too soon after marriage, things would get tough. The
children would come along pretty soon one after
another, because in their religion children wele the
objective of marriage. There would never be enough
money. There would be sickness and debts and work and
worry and little time for acts of tenderness. The bright
articulation of courtship Could dribble away into mono-
syllabic communication. The essential love between them
would seem lost. But it would be there. It would be there
in their memories of their loving and wonderful courtship.
"We'll be different," they told each other.
"I won't be like some women," said Tessie, "and get
sloppy as soon as I have you for good. No matter how
much housework there is how many children there
are I'll have my hair curled and my nails manicured
when you come home from work and I'll treat you as
though you were company."
"And 1," said Denny, "will be just as polite to you as
though
1 359 1
you were a girl I'd jtiSt met and was anxious to make a
little time with."
"And," said Tessie, "we'll have dates, pretending we're
not married but just going steady. And we'll get dressed
up and go out on Saturday night to a show or a dance or
a nice dinner someplace like we do now."
"And I will respect your mother," he said.
"And I will keep on loving your sister the way I do now
and I will be nice to your father."
"Yes," they agreed. "We'll he different."
.~N CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT ~
AT ~ lIE turn of the century, Winer had bought two
acres of farm land in a sparsely settled place out on the
Island, called Hempstead. He had only paid a hundred
dollars for the land. But now Hempstead was growing into
