Anybody Can Do Anything (17 page)

“Who in hell are all those people?” one of my short term bosses asked me.

“Bill collectors,” I told him humbly.

“All of them?” he asked in amazement.

“Yep,” I said, “and I’ve more that haven’t found me yet.”

“And I thought I had troubles,” he said and was very kind about my shorthand.

I might have been able to duck a few of my bill collectors if it hadn’t been for Mother. When they called at the house, she invited them in for coffee and they told her about their wives and children and sicknesses and ambitions and Mother retaliated with where I was working, had worked, hoped to work and could no longer work.

“Don’t tell them
anything”
I used to scream at her.

She’d say, “Now, Betsy, you’re taking the wrong attitude entirely. Mr. Hossenpfiester knows all about Mr. Chalmers’ office closing and what a hard time we’ve had this winter and about having to buy a new gas heater and taking Sandy [our collie] to the veterinary and all he wants is for you to talk to him and explain when you can pay and how much.”

“He’s very nice when he’s drinking your coffee,” I said, “but when he comes to my office he yells and calls me ‘sister.’ Don’t you dare tell him about this job.”

But Mother did and pleaded with me to go down and talk to all my creditors. I wouldn’t. Only too well I remembered what Gammy had said about only robbers buying things they couldn’t pay for. I was ashamed of owing money, I was scared to death of all credit managers and I hated my bill collectors. I sneaked around town, jumping six feet if anyone touched me on the arm, getting tears in my eyes every time I was called to the phone and dashing for the restroom if a stranger came into my office.

Then I got behind on the payments to the Friendly Loan Company and I learned what trouble really was. The Friendly Loan collectors were everywhere. They yelled at me in the lobby of movie theatres when I had dates, shouted at me on the streetcar, and the woman with the coontrap mouth called me on the telephone three or four times a day no matter where I was working.

One time I lied to old Coontrap and told her that she had called me so much I’d been fired. I went up to her office after work and cried real tears and she said she was sorry, but the next day at work she called and when I answered the phone she said, “Well, hello, you dirty little sneak. You better come up here tonight after work or else.”

Then I went to work for the Government and the first week so many bill collectors came roaring into the office or called me on the phone that I expected to be fired but instead my boss took me down to the Federal Employees Union and they not only loaned me the money to pay all my bills, but paid them for me.

They paid the Friendly Loan exactly twenty-seven dollars—the difference between the thirty-five I had paid them, which they had apparently credited to cleaning the rugs, new draperies, etc., instead of the principal, and the sixty-two dollars I had actually received, and told them that if they didn’t like it they could come into court and fight charges of usury.

In all my life I will never forget the deliriously free, terribly honest feeling I had the day the Federal Union notified me that all my bills had been paid and that from that day
forward, except for a little matter of several hundred dollars I owed them and was to pay back so much out of each pay check, I was solvent.

Is it any wonder that I love the Government and don’t mind paying my income tax?

12:
Bundles for Bards

I read the other day that some women solve the clothes problem by giving a designer $100,000 a year to dress them. All I can say for that designer is that he must be sewing together old hundred dollar bills and using them for interlining. Clothes are a problem to almost every woman but sans a designer and a check for $100,000, the problem is usually how to turn the dentist bill money into a tweed suit without a certain party noticing.

Naturally during the depression clothes were more of a problem. If it is hard to be well dressed on $100,000, imagine how hard it was to be well dressed on nothing. Fortunately, we could all wear each other’s clothes (the first one up was the best dressed) but our wardrobe even when combined had nothing in common with the “early evening,” “country living,” “an afternoon at the museum” or “something for the symphony” categories depicted by the fashion magazines. Our clothes had categories but they were “clean,” “dirty,” “work,” “date” and “terrible” (which we wore around the house).

Our problems were not the knotty ones of trying to choose between a Dior or a Carnegie, or deciding whether to wear a peplum even if it made our hips look big. Our problems were first getting something, anything, and then trying
to keep it away from Alison and her high school friends, who descended on our closets like moths, the minute we left the house. We threatened Alison with torture, we ordered her friends from the house, we even yelled at Mother, but it was all wasted effort and for Alison’s four high school years, nothing Mother or Mary or Dede or I owned ever got really cool. I would clean and press a dress and have it neat and ready for work in my closet, but when I went to get it, it would be gone and in its place would be a wrinkled, milk-shake-spotted tweed skirt and a blouse ripped under both arms. “Alison,” I’d yell. “Where is my brown dress?” “Which brown dress?” Alison would say, her eyes shifting from side to side like a metronome.

“My office dress,” I’d say. “It was brand clean and pressed and now it’s gone.”

“I haven’t seen it,” Alison would say, slipping through the front door and signaling to whoever had it on not to go past the house. That night when I got home the dress would be back in my closet, reeking with some musky perfume and still warm.

But even with Alison and the depression, Mary and Dede and I never attached the desperate importance to our work clothes some girls did, as we learned one night at a road-house north of town.

A large group of us were sitting in a booth drinking terrible drinks and eating old boiled chicken that had been slightly heated in deep fat, when we became aware of a commotion next door. A heavy thumping, a few curses and then little moans. One of the men in our party peered around the curtains and reported that a man in the next booth was throwing his lady-friend against the wall like a hand ball. “How terrible,” we all said as we climbed up on our chairs and peered over the partition.

Sure enough, a rather small but strong man was hitting a girl and sending her crashing into the wall. Each time as
she hit she’d straighten up, say, “Aw, honey,” and he’d hit her again. Finally, however, there was a ripping noise, and when the girl looked down, saw that her dress had caught on the corner of the table and torn, she immediately burst into tears. “Stanley Johanson,” she sobbed. “Now look what you done. You tore my office dress!”

For a long time we bought our clothes at nice stores, waiting until they were marked down for the last time, which usually meant that we were just buying our summer clothes when the rest of the world was getting ready for snow. But “it’s not your clothes but you, yourself that counts,” Mother told us and so we whetted our personalities and patched our petticoats and dreamed of the day when we’d be rich and could be beautifully dressed and dull.

Then Dede and I found the Bargain Mart, a funny little dark store with funny little dark clerks; store hours geared for musicians and gamblers; clothes that often bore in addition to labels from other stores, little traces of other occupancy, such as a little grease and powder around the neck, a forgotten clip, even a handkerchief in the pocket; and dusty, cluttered show windows displaying, even in summer, children’s dirty white fur coats, heavily embroidered Chinese mandarin coats and big waterproof work shoes. Dede and I never could decide whether the Bargain Mart sold stolen clothes, bought up leftovers from other stores or dealt in white slavery in the back and sold the clothes of their victims in the front. Whatever it was we liked it.

We first found the Bargain Mart one evening about ten-thirty when walking down the street after a movie. I had caught and torn my only pair of stockings on the seat of the movie and was wondering what I would do about work the next day, when Dede said, “Look, a store! And it’s open. Maybe they carry stockings.”

We went into the Bargain Mart and for a few minutes just stood and waited. There didn’t seem to be anyone
there. Everywhere were counters piled high with underwear, hats, dolls, men’s hunting jackets, purses, silk scarves, jewelry, satin nightgowns, kimonos—but no clerks and almost no lights. Finally, nervously I said, “Maybe the door wasn’t supposed to be open. Maybe there are burglars in here.”

Dede said, “So what. There’s enough junk here for all of us. Look, I’ve found a pair of stockings.”

She had been digging down under a counter and had come up with a pair of pinkish tan silk stockings, so old they crackled like tissue paper and were faded on the creases. There was no price mark on them. Dede took them toward the back of the store and yelled, “Hey!” Instantly from somewhere up front near the door a tiny little dark man appeared and said, “Something?” “Yes,” I said. “These stockings. How much?” “Dollah,” he said. “These stockings are old,” I said. “Look they’re faded.” “I’ll get new ones,” he said, reaching under the counter. “What size, please?” “Ten,” I said and he pulled out a box and produced a pair of sheer, new, beautiful silk stockings. So I gave him the “dollah” and we left.

A few nights later Dede and I were going home from work and happened to pass the Bargain Mart. A little dark woman waited on us, or more truthfully, stood in the shadows and watched while we pawed through the dresses, suits and coats, which were hung among and on
top of the men’s suits and coats and gave the back of the store the look of a crowded coatroom.

After some searching and no help from the woman, I found a very smart, three-quarter-length mouton coat with a plaid wool lining, marked, for heaven’s sake, $35. I tried on the coat and it was most becoming. I showed Dede the price and she said, “If it hasn’t got somebody else’s initials where they’ll show, take it.” So I did. “Oh, what a darling coat, where did you get it?” everyone said and I, looking as
dishonest as the Bargain Mart clerks, said, “My aunt sent it to me.”

The thing about the Bargain Mart was their boxes, which were bright magenta with ENORMOUS gold letters on both sides screaming BARGAIN MART at anybody within a radius of twelve miles who didn’t carry a white cane. Dede and I loved the Bargain Mart but we certainly hated those boxes which were made of such punk cardboard they tore when we stopped in the alley and tried to turn them wrong side out.

We didn’t take Mary to the Bargain Mart because we knew that she’d be more interested in what they were doing in the back than in the good bargains, but we took Mother and she bought, for seventeen dollars, a gray tweed coat with a “Made in England” label in the sleeve and a fountain pen in the pocket.

Mary didn’t miss being taken to the Bargain Mart because she had her own ways of being well dressed on no money. In the first place, she liked, and had the courage to wear, high style clothes and so when she had to lengthen a dress by inserting a girdle of a different material, people didn’t look at her and say, “I’m sorry!” as they did to me. They said, “Mary, how smart!”

Then Mary had a dressmaker who charged very little and could copy pictures in the
New Yorker
and
Vanity Fair.
The only problem was to get the finished article away from her before she had a chance to embroider it. She wanted to embroider wool flowers on coats, big birds on dresses and leaves and flowers on suits and the reason she charged so little for her sewing was because she intended to charge a lot for the handwork we wouldn’t let her do.

Then Mary made good use of our trunks and when asked to a cocktail party would rummage in the trunks, grab the garden scissors and often emerge in an hour or two looking at least different. One Saturday afternoon she took our black
taffeta evening dress with the huge full skirt and our white high school graduation dress and by cutting off the sleeves and lowering the neck of one and removing the skirt from the other evolved a very smart ankle-length black jumper dress with a white dotted-organdy blouse with enormous puffed sleeves, real lace on the collar and a demure little black velvet bow at the neck. Mary’s only trouble was that she made so many of her major changes with pins that sitting down in one of her creations made you feel like one of those Hindus who lie on spikes.

One time a Mrs. Schumacher, a very rich friend of Mother’s, met Mary at a cocktail party and admired her dress, and when Mary told her how she had made it not ten minutes before out of some old portieres and a few potholders, Mrs. Schumacher was so impressed by Mary’s cleverness that the next day she sent over a huge box of clothes accompanied by a note which said, “Some things I’ve hardly worn and thought you and your brave little family might use.”

“Hooray!” we all said, diving in, jerking things out and throwing them over our shoulders. But when we’d looked at everything, we knew that we would all have to be a great deal braver than we were to wear Mrs. Schumacher’s hand-me-downs which were big blouses and big party dresses, of chiffon, satin and beaded fringe, all orchid or fuchsia.

“Here,” we said tossing them to Anne and Joan and their friends for “dress ups,” and for years afterwards we could hear them in the playroom quarreling and saying, “Now, Joan, you know Tyrone Power wouldn’t wear a beaded Schumacher,” or “How can I be Sonja Heine when you 1 have on the chiffon Schumacher.”

Last year at an autographing in southern California, a large woman in a beaded purple chiffon Schumacher came up to me and said, “I’ll bet you’ll never guess who I am,” and I wanted to say, “I don’t know who you are but I know what you’ve got on.” But I said, “No, I’m sorry, I don’t.”

She said, “I’m Mrs. Schumacher from Seattle,” and I said, “How wonderful! You’re the woman who gave us all your old clothes during the depression,” and to my surprise she wasn’t at all pleased but got very red in the face, said, “I don’t remember any such thing,” and went flouncing off, ashamed because I had been poor.

Another friend of Mother’s, a woman so rich that she could afford to wear brown dresses trimmed with black tatting, like our cleaning woman whose son gathered their coal off the railroad track (only the rich woman’s dresses were labeled Florence original and the cleaning woman’s St. Vincent de Paul), came to tea one Sunday afternoon bearing over her arm a beautiful gray coat with a collar and reveres of blue fox. “I’m tired of this old thing,” she said, tossing it at Mary and carefully undoing the fastenings of her own manure-color-trimmed-with-black-Persian-lamb creation. Mary said, “Oh, how beautiful, Aunt Alice. May I try it on?” “Of course dear,” said Aunt Alice smiling benevolently. “I want you to have it.”

“Oh, my gosh, what a pretty coat,” said a friend of Alison’s who had just dropped in to return my skirt, Mary’s blouse, Dede’s jacket and Alison’s shoes. “Can I try it on?”

“NO!” Screamed Mary, Mother, Dede and I together.

“Well, all right,” said Alison’s friend. “Gee, Alison did I tell you how mad my sister is? Yesterday was her birthday and her boy-friend gave her a cross with a head on it.”

“Some sort of religious medallion?” asked Aunt Alice.

“Uh, uh, it’s a red color and has long hair,” said Alison’s friend.

“A figurine?” asked Mother.

“Gosh, no,” said Alison’s friend. “It’s one of those fur scarves with a head on it. You know.”

“Oh, a cross fox,” said Aunt Alice.

“That’s it,” said Alison’s friend. “I think it’s ugly. It
looks just like an animal. Well, bye, Alty, thanks a lot for the clothes.”

“Heavens what a silly little girl,” said Aunt Alice. “Now, Mary, that coat is a Charlie Petcock original and my, it is becoming to you. Just made for red hair.”

I said, “Let me try it on.” Mary did. I looked in the glass and felt like a movie star. Then Dede, Alison and Mother tried it on and we all looked like movie stars.

“Oh, Aunt Alice, it’s beautiful! Thank you, thank you!” we said when she left.

She said, “Remember it’s a Charlie Petcock original. Take good care of it.”

Monday Mary wore the coat to work. Monday night I wore it to a movie. Tuesday I wore the coat to work. Tuesday night Dede pinned up the hem and wore it on a date. Wednesday Mother wore the coat downtown and Mary wore it to a party. Thursday I wore the coat to work and Friday we got the bill from Aunt Alice. “One Charlie Petcock original—$75.00.”

“Why that stinking old skinflint!” we screamed. “That rich horrible old grafter!” and kept the coat and wore it over the weekend.

Monday night Mary returned the coat and Aunt Alice, after going over it with a magnifying glass said, “I think you’re being very silly, Mary. You couldn’t even buy the fur for that.”

Mary said, “In the first place I thought you gave me the coat and in the second place seventy-five dollars would buy winter outfits for our entire family.”

Aunt Alice jammed the coat into one of her bulging closets and said, “Seventy-five dollars is very little to pay for a Charlie Petcock original.”

Shoes were also a depression problem. First there were the children who delighted in greeting me at the end
of a weary day by lifting a foot and displaying either a large new
hole or a sole flopping up and down like a panting dog. “Not another pair?” I’d groan and they’d say, “Um, urn, and my play shoes have come unsewed and my party shoes are too short.” You could get very good children’s shoes for $2.50 in those days but $2.50’s didn’t grow on trees and I longed to bind the children’s feet.