Rules of '48 Read online

  RULES OF '48

  by Jack Cady

  Rules of '48 © 2008 by the estate of Jack Cady

  This edition of Rules of '48 © 2009 by Night Shade Books

  Interior layout and design by Jeremy Lassen

  Cover layout and design by Claudia Noble

  First Edition

  ISBN10: 1-59780-085-6

  ISBN13: 978-1-59780-085-3

  Night Shade Books

  http://www.nightshadebooks.com

  For Pauline Cady

  Mother, teacher and friend

  Other Books by Jack Cady

  The Hauntings of Hood Canal

  The American Writer

  The Night We Buried Road Dog

  The Off Season

  Street

  Inagehi

  The Sons of Noah

  The Man Who Could Make Things Vanish

  McDowell's Ghost

  The Jonah Watch

  Singleton

  The Well

  Tattoo

  The Burning and Other Stories

  Ghosts of Yesterday

  A Note To My Reader

  This book began as a memoir, but from page one, characters stood up and demanded attention I couldn't make happen in a memoir. They whispered in my ear, through my dreams, and they argued with each other, or fussed. They didn't seem to ask for much: a display of seven weeks in 1948 when their worlds altered forever. It turns out they asked for a lot.

  It became necessary to change characters' names while writing a novel. (Cady, for example, became Wade). The novelized memoir began as an account of doings between white men and black; and the aftermath of the greatest war in history.

  Then the Samuels family got involved. I had not known them personally because no one did. I only witnessed their separate deaths. As the awful stories that lay behind those deaths surfaced, the first two drafts of the book hit the round file.

  A new book appeared. If it is successful you'll get at least some feel of an American city as it was after WWII; a business-y city that after 83 years still held roots in the Confederacy. Some of what characters say comes from memory which remains acute. Some will reflect what 'had to have been', for while I could trace lives and actions, I could not fully know all thoughts. Use of racial terms, as of 1948, is precise.

  Nearly all of these folks have now passed into history. I wrote with an urgency that said they deserve to be remembered.

  New Guy in Town

  Wade had a mouth on him that could stun horse flies. Knock them right out of the air. It wasn't the standard cuss words that did the job, it was the elaborations; often Biblical.

  There wasn't a mother's son among us: ('us' meaning Lester and Howard and Jim, and maybe even Lucky) who didn't almost admire that mouth; especially while knowing that Wade was not exactly heaven-bound. Wade could whip them off without thinking: " . . .sacramental cream-of-cowshit . . . ."

  His ability came from being raised in Blackford County, Indiana, where cussing among men was as necessary as church on Sunday. Except, in Wade's case, it was church on Saturday, because Wade's daddy was a religious bigot who hated Jews, Negroes, Catholics, Coca Cola (which represented frivolity and broken dietary laws), F.D.R., city people, country people, and members of his own 7th Day Adventist church. Wade's daddy believed that heaven was forty square acres surrounded by walls made of gold and only Adventists, and only the best of them, would be Chosen. He also believed that Mussolini had been misunderstood.

  Wade's mom was so strict that when the preacher came to call, the preacher was nervous for fear he'd say something wrong. She threatened grandchildren with eternal fire if they so much as chewed a pork chop, or asked: "Was Joshua as good a trumpet player as Mr. Harry James?"

  This pair spawned five kids, of whom Wade was the youngest. He always said it was a good thing his parents found each other, because it would have been a shame to spoil two families.

  Months before WWII opened Wade got out of the dry and miserable heat of Indiana bringing a wife and two kids. Wade came to the wet and miserable heat of Louisville. He worked at a company called Tube Turns that cast engine blocks for B-17 bombers. He barely avoided the draft because he worked in vital industry, and also because he had kids. The war had drafted most working-age men. Wade claimed to be a foreman in charge of aging deadbeats, needy housewives, and lazy niggers; and maybe the foreman part wasn't a lie.

  He hung on making bomber engines until war ended. When new cars came to market he ran the repair shop at Hull Dobbs Ford, back when it was still located on sleepy Broadway around 8th or 9th. He was a good shop manager, but, truth to tell, auto repair is boring. The car company was only a car company, no better, no worse.

  Wade was like the car company. A working guy, a newer model, maybe. Wade would be not-a-little pleased when a snockered TV announcer (in those earliest days of TV, when one could still get by with being a little plowed at work) said "Hull Dobbs stands behind every one of his cars, and if you buy one you'll wish he stood in front of it."

  In real short order, then, Wade got sick of auto repair and cast about for something new. That is when history took over.

  Back in the 1920s the American Businessman had been celebrated as the new Messiah. Business had been King. The Businessman, it was suggested by a popular writer and opportunist named Bruce Barton, stood with God at his right hand. Barton compared the Businessman to Jesus. He proclaimed the American Businessman as the Great White Hope of the world. Wade, who was only a kid at the time, bought it.

  By 1948 Wade looked the part of Great White Hope. He was handsome and six feet tall in a day when a majority of men were not. He weighed in at around two hundred, and not an ounce of it fat. He sported blue eyes, brush cut hair, and a vocabulary suitable for pulpit or barnyard. On days when he was nice, he was very, very nice. Sweet smile and all. On days when he was bad, he was loud. He was also a rising force for change, in a place and time that resisted change.

  Because of his mouth he had a choice of businesses. He could become an Evangelist which was mighty profitable, but preachers don't get to cuss in public. Yet, a man adroit with his mouth should use the abilities the good Lord gave. Wade was always a quick study. He became an auctioneer. " . . .easy as fucking ducks with a howitzer."

  When he stood above an auction crowd throwing sweat and b.s. through all seasons, he was a man in control. From Louisville to Blackford County, Indiana was not all that far, but for Wade the distance was a million miles. And even a million miles was not quite far enough.

  Business competition was slim. At the time there was only one auctioneer of high repute in Louisville. His name was Charlie Weaver, but Charlie was on his last legs. He could not have cared less when Wade rented auction rooms on Bardstown Road, although Charlie's rooms were only a few blocks distant. Charlie's rooms sat about halfway between Wade's place and a working-class slum on Jackson St.

  Wade will shortly rise and mouth his way across these pages, and Charlie, in his quiet way will at least rise; but it is with Bardstown Road and Jackson St., plus an important man named Lucky, that our story really begins.

  Bardstown Road and Jackson St.

  At the intersection of Bardstown Road and Eastern Parkway, polite residences with tidy lawns gave way to dusty commerce. Tall trees clothed neighborhoods with shade, and magnolias cast warm scent into summer nights. Winds whispered before storm. In Kentucky summers the trees made Eastern Parkway coolish, while Bardstown Road fried.

  The intersection hosted a sleepy drugstore, a new and yellowish Shell station, a busy White Castle from which flowed smells of fried onions and 5 cent hamburgers, while a nondescript car dealer's display windows boasted Kaisers and Fraisers, the early, lumpy models with hood ornaments of buffalos; and which looked like buffalos.

/>   Hang a right before entering Cherokee park, and Bardstown Road ran all the way to Bardstown where stood a brickish southern mansion. In the music room of that mansion a painting portrayed Stephen Foster seated at a piano. His Muse, dressed as a diaphanous Victorian angel, floated airily above while pressing her finger to his brow. Had he been consulted, Foster might not have been totally pleased with the painting. He had, after all, been an abolitionist from back east during the War of Northern Aggression.

  In the garden of the mansion a very black old man played the part of a darky and plucked a banjo. He dressed in the style of a minstrel, and his main tune was My Old Kentucky Home which was also the name of the house.

  But, if you hung a left Bardstown Road took you in the direction of the river. It passed run-down houses and small businesses. Wade's auction house stood beside a shotgun-style house in disrepair. Further along were a few bars, an orphanage, another auction house until Charlie Weaver died, a hardware, a roller rink, dry goods, and more houses until the intersection with Broadway. At that intersection and to your right, Cave Hill Cemetery contained only the best people, but hang another left. Keep traveling, and bingo, you soon arrived at Jackson St. where the world turned black and brown and beige.

  Three-story brick houses with concrete stoops lined a street where cars with flat tires outnumbered cars that ran. On windy days religious tracts and pieces of newspapers flew along the street. Top floor rooms or apartments looked out on a neighborhood of black folk leavened by an occasional white, like cream stirred into chocolate.

  Mohammed Ali dwelt nearby, but was only six years old, and in those days was known as Cassius Clay; when he wasn't called 'boy', 'sugar', 'sweetness' or 'whatcha-say-little-nigger'. Jonah Jones had lived just down the street, but he took his magic horn and moved uptown, Chicago, New York, and around. Jackson St. also sported institutions: a Methodist church, an undertaker, a junior high school, a hock shop, and a bar painted in fading and flaking green named the Sapphire Top Spot.

  Through all the jobless days, through days of canned heat strained when a man was cashless, the raggedy Sapphire Top Spot stood through Louisville weather that boiled in summer, deep-pressure-cooking sweat so abundant even young guys almost didn't want to 'mess'. Sapphire Top Spot served cold beer, also whiskey with ice, could you cost it.

  Jackson St. and Bardstown Road: Auction houses: Colored guys: White guys: It's in those places a man named Lucky Collins would help two kids named Jim and Howard, and two men named Lester and Wade, solve problems of business and race. Lucky would also suffer hurt of the kind that almost kills.

  Meeting Lucky

  He was a Hebrew, was Lucky; a fallen Jewish angel. His nose hooked like a caricature of Shylock. In winter he dressed in pinstripe suits, pastel shirts, and ties in primary colors. In summer it was short sleeves and sweat like everybody else. When he smiled his brown eyes lighted, and when he snarled his gaze went flat. He had a purple splotch on the back of his right hand, and a bald spot where a yarmulke might have sat, but didn't.

  His hockshop on Jackson St. sat next to the fading green Sapphire Top Spot. An alley ran in between. The undertaker sat next the hockshop, with the Methodist church just down the way. It was said that Jackson St. carried everything a man would need in life; a drink, a loan, a prayer and farewell.

  Drivers along Jackson St. saw a freshly painted yellow building with three balls dangling; and the sidewalk cleanly swept. Across the front, in boldest black against brilliant yellow, a sign read:

  Lucky Collins Loans Best Deals Try Me

  You can tell a lot about a man by looking at his store. Hockshop customers being who they are, hockshops need be narrow with everything behind showcases. That said, the difference between Lucky's hockshop and the general run was certain splendor.

  Trombones lined the walls. Vertically. They pointed to saxophones, clarinets, trumpets and bugles; gold and silver horns promising blues, echoes of cakewalks and jazz. Cases contained hair straightener, pocket knives, aspirin, hand tools, rings of all descriptions from zircon to diamonds; rings of lodges, rings for real weddings, and goldish bands for 'let's pretend'. There were colorful medals and patches and medallions from the latest war: orange and brown emblems of tank battalions, and Purple Hearts.

  Cases held cameras and spy glasses, while shelves behind the counters carried kitchenware, and shoes with tassels, some new. At the back of the store hung racks of new suits, 15 bucks, sometimes 12. Two bucks down, a buck a week.

  Most hockshops are predictable, thus dull, but not Lucky's; because Lucky attended auctions. He came up with merchandise of such wonder that even lots of white folk walked through his doorway, sniffing contemptuous sometimes, but interested and dickering.

  He'd fetch in cases of canned peaches, nine cents a can, and cans of sardines eight cents. Feathered boas. Panama hats. He displayed new grilles for ancient Packards, used jukeboxes, a gross of votive candles, indoor ball bats, framed pictures of the 1937 Ohio River flood.

  And, high above the front counter, beneath the invisible blare of trombones, perched two Not-For-Sale mascots of the store: a stuffed and mounted Guinea hen named Lola, smallish, plump, but matronly; and a stuffed Plymouth Rock rooster named Thomas, head pushed forward, somewhat askew, glassy-eyed, obviously daft, probably insane.

  Most hockshops are the focus of the owner's life. The quick buck and hustle, the smooth slippy-slide and whisper of counted money. Most hockshops are sleaze. They are run by people named Big Jerry. There's no fun to them and 'compassion' seems a naughty word.

  But in Lucky's shop a man could jive for free. A man could piss and moan with hope of sympathy. A man could cuss preachers and cops. What a man couldn't do was hock family property in behalf of a drink.

  "God-bless-it, John, Milly needs that radio. I'll write you two bucks honor, and you get a week." Lucky would tap the suppliant on the shoulder, friendly-like. It was rare he ever lost a dime.

  Because Lucky knew his neighborhood, knew the goldbricks and deadbeats, and never loaned to them without security. But to honest men he'd loan on trust, because two bucks were possible to pay back (plus interest). And two bucks would soothe a man. Two bucks, at ten cents a glass, bought enough time and beer at Sapphire Top Spot to let a man believe there was a job somewhere. Two bucks bought the sorrow-prevention it took to get through another day, another night. Colored men, last hired, first fired. No work. And, wife and kids at home in a rat-rid dump on Jackson St.

  And, because he paid off the police, Lucky managed to keep a lot of those saddened men from arrest. It could be said, and with but little caution, that Lucky did more for that neighborhood than did all the churches in town.

  When Lucky snarled, though, wise men took their scrawny bottoms elsewhere. Lucky would sell a pocket knife. Don't ask for a straight razor, a pistol, or a switchblade. And don't miss that buck-a-week payment on the 12 buck suit.

  The shop was open 10-6 Mon-Fri and 10-7 Sat. On one special occasion, though, it was closed. That happened when Charlie Weaver died.

  Lucky attended both the funeral service, and the interment at Cave Hill Cemetery where August sunlight flooded green, green grass. It also flooded somber clothing, dark suits, dark dresses of mourners. The temp stood above 90. Armpits poured sweat. Charlie was not overheated, but family and former customers were in misery.

  And, yet, people seemed loathe to leave. Most of them knew each other. They watched each other. They had bid against each other for years. Charlie's auction house had been not a business, only. It had practically been a club. Even after an Episcopalian tribute by a hopeful preacher, and after the casket descended into soil, the crowd lingered. Somber colors, murmuring lips, and green, green grass.

  Dirt to fill the grave lay heaped beneath canvas. A couple of working stiffs hovered, their shovels still hidden. The undertaker's assistant moved with what he hoped passed for dignified haste. The flower car was needed elsewhere. As the crowd hesitated, funeral florals were laid carefully but unceremoni
ously beside the canvas-covered heap. White lilies, forget-me-nots, mauve sweet peas and fragile baby's breath. The car departed. The assistant remained.

  Around the grave-site the landscape spouted marble. Soldiers from the days of Presidents Davis and Lincoln lay in quiet ranks across hillsides. Victorian mausoleums in the form of Greek temples stood above grass so tended it seemed nigh artificial. The graves of children sported marble angels who bent toward the earth.

  "I see nobody who's gonna take his place." A tall guy with a big belly spoke barely above a whisper. He wiped sweat with a bandanna-sized hankie; a man in the used-food business down on Market St.: beans with dented cans, insurance shipments from truck rollovers, warehouse stuff a teeney bit past pull date; profit margin seventeen percent, with plenty volume.

  "Nobody will," a lanky man murmured. The man ran an Army/Navy store just past 4th on Broadway. "Stuff changes," he said, sounding helpless. He looked toward Lucky who, though Hebrew, was considered smart.

  "The new guy," Lucky said, and said it brisk.

  "Damn country boy, dammit."

  "It's an act." Lucky also wiped sweat with a hankie, then looked into the grave where the polished coffin awaited dirt. "Nice funeral," Lucky said to the coffin. "Charlie, my boy, you had class." Lucky looked again at the lanky man. "You're right. Stuff changes. But I'm right too. Behind that country mouth, the new guy has his charms."

  "I don't see 'em." The grocery-guy wiped more sweat. He now carried a 'going-away' posture, a man ready to head back to his store.

  "He runs a clean sale. He's watching out for his dealers." Lucky looked once more at the coffin. "Until later, then," he said to the coffin, but in a voice that suspicioned the afterlife. He gave a small wave to Charlie's customers. As he left he slipped out of his jacket and pulled off his tie. Folks saw a white shirt wet in the armpits, white moving among pink and gray marble and above the greenest grass in town.