I Can Get It for You Wholesale (11 page)

“We can’t help
that
,” I said.

The hell with them. If they didn’t like being shipping clerks, then let them take a crack at something else. The way I did. I didn’t see anybody walking around worrying about me, so why should I worry about the rest of the world? Maybe I’m getting a little cockeyed, but I don’t seem to see anything in the papers any more about eccentric old millionaires running around snatching hard-working, deserving young men out of poverty and rewarding them with fortunes.

“We can’t help
that
,” I said again, shrugging and playing with the heavy deck of application cards that the two hundred shipping clerks who had been turned away had left with us. Nothing too obvious, you know. I just bounced them back and forth in my hand so that they should all see them and know what I meant. “That’s the best we can do,” I said. “After all, you know, you don’t
have
to work for us.”

I
STOPPED IN AT
the bank and cashed a decent-sized check.

“Better give it to me in singles and fives,” I said to the teller. I wanted the roll to look important.

Then I went into the subway and took a 180th Street-Bronx Park Express. It was only a little after four and the trains weren’t crowded yet. I got a seat. At least that was
one
advantage of being your own boss. You could leave whenever you wanted to and avoid the mob.

I got off at the last stop and walked up 180th Street. I went into the bakery on the corner of Daly Avenue and bought a cheese cake and a
Stollen.
Then I walked up the remaining two blocks and turned into Honeywell Avenue.

I paused in front of the house and looked at it. A couple of the neighbors were leaning out of their front windows. But I didn’t pay any attention to them. I was doing a little calculating, trying to figure how much longer it would be before I could afford to move her into a decent place.

“One more month,” I said to myself finally, “and out you go.”

Or maybe two months. But whenever it would be, she was first on the list.

I rang the bell and walked up the stairs. She was holding the door open for me when I reached it.

Her face began to light up as soon as she saw me, but she squeezed the smile out of her lips and looked stern.

“Hello, Mom,” I said grinning.

“Hello, Big Business Man,” she said sarcastically, holding the door wide for me to pass her.

“How’s the girl?” I said, and stooped to kiss her cheek quickly as I went by.

“Go on,” she said, ducking away and making a threatening gesture. But she couldn’t hold the smile back any longer. It broke out and spread all over her face. “I thought maybe you forgot the way home already.”

“Aah, you know I’d never forget
that
, Mom,” I said over my shoulder as I walked ahead of her to the kitchen.

“Yeah,” she said, “I know. Then why weren’t you home last night?”

“Aah, now, Mom,” I said, “didn’t I tell you it was the last day of our first month? Didn’t I tell you I wanted to be downtown early so’s I could look through the checks that came in the mail? Didn’t I?”

I set the packages down on the kitchen table and turned toward her. She was trying to wipe her hands on her apron and tuck her loose hair back at the same time. I put my arms around her quickly and kissed her, lifting her off the ground a few inches. In public I could kill guys that did things like that.

“Heshie!” she said sharply, but she put her own arms around me and kissed me back.

“Come on, now, Ma,” I said, kissing her again. “Didn’t I say I wouldn’t be home for the night?”

“Sure you said it,” she said. “But just the same you weren’t home, were you?”

I laughed and hugged her, lifting her off the ground again. “Say, you want to watch your figure, there, Ma,” I said. “Pretty soon I won’t be able to lift you up any more.”

“Never mind,” she said. “Don’t tell me any stories. I weighed myself only yesterday.”

“Yeah?” I said. “How much?”

For answer she walked over to the table and began to undo the packages.

“Come on, now,” I said. “How much?”

She looked at me and we both began to laugh. “It’s okay, Ma,” I said, putting my arm around her. “You put on as much weight as you want. I’ll like you just the same.”

“I know, Heshie,” she said. “But promise me you won’t stay away no more. It gets lonesome at night and I start worrying and I don’t know what happened.”

I snapped my fingers.

“That reminds me,” I said. “That’s another thing we’re getting. A telephone.”

“Don’t try to mix me up what I’m saying,” she said. “At least you could call me up by Mrs. Hirsch, from downstairs.

Even three o’clock in the morning she would call me to the telephone. Last night, for a nickel, you could—”

“What?” I said. “And have Mrs. Hirsch know that I called up my mother?”

“What’s the matter? It’s something to be ashamed of?”

“Of course not,” I said, “but she don’t have to know my business.”

Letting Mrs. Hirsch know something was like buying fifteen minutes on
WEAF.

“But Heshie—”

“Aah, you don’t have to worry about me, Ma,” I said.

“Sure I don’t have to,” she said. “But what am I going to do when it comes night—oh, Heshie!” She’d finally gotten the packages open and seen the cakes. “You didn’t forget!”

“Me forget?” I said. “How could I forget a thing like that?”

She broke off a corner of the cheese cake and bit into it. “A taste?” she said, holding it out to me.

“Later,” I said, going over to the gas range and lifting the cover of a pot. “What, no blintzes?” I said, turning back to her.

“Of course, no blintzes,” she said. “If you let me know in advance when you’re coming home, I’ll make you blintzes. But like this, you don’t come home two nights, you don’t call me up, you come home five o’clock in the middle of the day, without telling me anything, how should I know to make them?”

“That’s a fine how-do-you-do,” I said, striking a pose like an actor. “A hard-working son like me, I nearly wear myself out and kill myself starting a delivery business, so my mother should have diamonds and furs, and when it comes to a little thing like blintzes, I can’t get them!”

“Stop already with the fancy speeches,” she said, laughing. “Somebody would think I was starving you. So you’ll have them to-morrow. But tell me, Heshie, how did it go with the business? Everything is all right?”

For answer I pulled out the roll of bills and held it up.

“
I
think everything is all right,” I said. “How does it look to you, Ma?”

“Oy, yoy-yoy, yoy-yoy,” she said, shaking her head a little and holding her hand to her face. “I thought you said it was a delivery business? You didn’t tell me it was also a bank!”

“I thought you’d know that,” I said reprovingly. “Would I go into any business, Ma, if it wasn’t at least as good as a bank?”

“Let me
tokke
take a look,” she said, reaching for the roll.

“One second, Ma,” I said, dodging her skillfully. I peeled off six fives quickly and held them out to her. “This is for you for the house,” I said. “You ought to be able to make plenty of blintzes on that. You be a good girl, Mom, and make them like I like them, and you can have that every week. All right?”

“I should say it’s all right,” she said, looking important. “Business is business.” She folded the money and put it into her small purse carefully. Then her face became pleasantly sad. “
Ai
, Heshie,” she said, shaking her head, “you’re a good boy.”

Well, that was one thing about my mother. I was sure she liked me.

“This is nothing, Ma,” I said. “This is only the beginning.”

I snapped a rubber band around the rest of the roll and held it out to her.

“Now take a look at the rest of it, Ma,” I said.

She took it and squeezed it a little and bounced it in the palm of her hand. Then she handed it back to me.

“That’s a lot of money for a young boy like you to carry around, Heshie,” she said. “Maybe it would be better if—”

“Don’t worry about it, Ma,” I said. “Any time you want any, no matter how much or what for, you just ask for it. Okay?”

“I know that, Heshie,” she said. “I wasn’t thinking about that.” Maybe she wasn’t. “I was just wondering—” Her face took on a worried look. She leaned toward me a little as she spoke. “You’re making it in a nice way?” she asked.

“Sure,” I said. “All I have to do is stand on Forty-Second Street and Broadway in a full-dress suit and a silk hat and people go by and hand me twenty-dollar bills. It’s so nice, I don’t even have to touch the money. I wear white gloves.”

The worried look disappeared from her face and a smile took its place.

“Now you’re joking with me,” she said. “But maybe it’s better I shouldn’t worry. I’m sure if it’s your business, Heshie, it must be nice.”

That was
one
way of looking at it.

“For the time being,” I said, “it’ll do.”

“I’m only a little worried,” she said. “I mean, now you’re making so much, what are you gonna do with—?”

“Come on, and I’ll show you,” I said, taking her hand. I led her through the kitchen and the foyer to the living room and stopped in the doorway. “First of all,” I said, “look at that sofa. How long’ve we had it?”

“How should I remember a thing like that?” she said. “What’s the matter, you think I have nothing else to do but to figure out how old every piece of furniture in the house—”

“Okay, okay,” I said, patting her shoulder. “Don’t start with the speeches, Ma. I just asked how long we’ve had the damn thing.” She opened her mouth to say something, but I stopped her with a hug. “Never mind, Ma. Whatever it is, we’ve had it long enough. Well, that’s where part of this is going.” I tapped the money in my pocket. “First of all, the first thing, I’m going to buy a new sofa.”

If I really wanted to, I could have moved her right then. But it wouldn’t have been to as nice a place as I was sure I would be able to afford before very long. When I’d do it, I’d do it right. And besides, I don’t like to make too big a splash right at the start. All it means is that later, if something goes wrong, you look like twice as big a jackass.

“The next thing is this,” I said. I led her over to the armchair and said, “Sit down, will you, Ma?”

She pretended she didn’t know what I was up to.

“Heshie,” she said, “I got things on the stove—”

“They won’t run away,” I said. “Come on, Ma.” I took her arms and pushed her into the chair gently. “There. Now, how does it feel?”

“Go tell him how it feels!” she said. “How do you expect it should feel? Like an elephant? It feels like a chair!”

“That’s what
you
say, Ma,” I said, laughing. “To me it feels like a coal pile.”

“Since when did you get such a soft behind?” she asked, smiling up at me. “All these years it was good enough, it felt like a chair. For your father, he should rest in peace, it felt good enough. For me it felt good enough. For you, even, it felt good enough. But all of a sudden, from a clear sky—”

“All right, Ma,” I said. “So
that’s
settled. So we’re getting a new chair.”

She broke into a laugh and slapped my hand.

“It’s yet a lucky thing for the world that my Heshie didn’t all of a sudden decide he wants to wear his hat on his feet,” she said.

I looked at her.

“What?”

“Because otherwise,” she said, “you could be sure that before long the world would be walking on its head.”

“Aw, don’t say that, Ma,” I said. “I don’t want you to think I’m trying to
force
a new chair on you. If you don’t want it, you just say the word, Ma, and I won’t—”

“All right, all right, all right,” she said, still laughing. “So we’ll get a new chair. Maybe it’ll be easier to keep clean. What else?”

I looked around the room at the dinky table, the cheap radio, the old horse of a mirror, the oilcloth rug, the old-fashioned pictures on the wall, the string portieres.

“Aah, hell,” I said, waving my hand to take in the whole room. “Everything. We’ll throw the whole damn junk out and—”

“What kind of throwing out?” she said, sitting up in the chair. “Who do you think you are, Rockefeller? You want to buy new things, all right. But we’re not throwing out anything. You want to get rid of it, so all right, we’ll sell it to the junk dealer or somebody. But what do you think, money grows on trees?”

“For some people it does, Ma.”

“For dopes,” she said. “Only dopes they think money grows on trees. A smart person doesn’t think like that. A smart person, even he’s
got
plenty money, he still doesn’t go around like a dope thinking money grows on—”

“All right, Ma,” I said. “Money doesn’t grow on trees and we won’t throw this junk out. We’ll sell it. Then we’ll get new stuff. All right?”

“All right,” she said. “Now, Mr. Millionaire, what are you going to do with the rest of that money?”

“Plenty,” I said. “But first I’m going to take you out and buy you some fancy new clothes.”

“What’s the matter?” she said sharply. “All of a sudden my clothes aren’t good enough for you?”

“Sure they’re good enough for me, Ma,” I said. “But they’re not good enough for
you.
I want you to have—”

She got up and put her arm around me.

“Remember, Heshie,” she said, “The banks need customers, too.”

“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’ll be getting around to them.”

“To the banks, Heshie, you should go
first
.”

“There’s no rush, Ma,” I said. “The longer I wait the more they’ll have to shell out with when I get ready to take them over.”

She laughed and shook her head.

“Come on,” she said, “you’re such a good boy, I’ll make you some blintzes.”

“But what about the stuff you already got on the stove?” I said.

“Don’t stick your nose in my pots,” she said. “Let me worry about the cooking. You want blintzes, so I’ll make you blintzes. The other things we’ll save for to-morrow, or we’ll throw it out or—”

“What kind of throwing out?” I said, imitating her voice and scowling. “Who do you think you are, Mrs. Rockefeller?”