Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do (82 page)

 

GEORGE: The personal touch. “How’s the kids?” “How’s this one?” “How’s that one?” “Work goin’ okay?” “Sorry to hear you lost your job.” All this sort of thing—gone.

It’s more of a transient deal, even though they live in the neighborhood. They’re so flighty you don’t know who’s livin’ where. You can’t even trust somebody who’s come in for six months, because they just up and turn that fast. We would cash checks and give ’em credit and carry ‘em along. As the area changed, you’d get stuck with bad debts. So we’ve eliminated cashin’ checks due to the fact that we have thirteen hundred dollars worth of bad checks. We allow a little bit of credit to old stand-bys for about a week.

 

IRENE: If we take a chance and cash a check that does bounce, we find ‘em walkin’ on the other side of the street. They don’t want to acknowledge they’re in the neighborhood—for a measly five dollars. The people, they’ve changed in such a way it’s unbelievable. We had magazines and books, but we took ’em out two years ago because the theft was so bad.

 

GEORGE: We had thirteen hundred dollars of books stolen in the last three months of the last year we handled books. A lot of cases with food. Women would open their purse and drop lunch meat in it. I caught a guy one evening puttin’ two dozen eggs in his Eisenhower jacket.

 

IRENE: I was standin’ at the bread rack there. I see this guy tryin’ to stuff the
second
dozen eggs down his jacket, with a zipper and to the waistline. (Laughs.) He was havin’ a tough time gettin’ that second dozen in. I said,

“Hey, hon, some guy’s stealin’ two dozen eggs back here.” George’s runnin’ around and all the other customers are lookin’ at one another. No one knows who’s got the eggs.

 

GEORGE: I’m runnin’ around one way and he’s comin’ around the other. I said, “Where is he?” He said, “Here I am.” (Laughs.) He gave ’em back. The customers would come in and tease and say to Irene, “Hey, you want to search? I got eggs.” (Laughs.)

 

IRENE: Nylons were stolen. Now we’ll lock the door after eleven and only let the ones we know in. Forget it, there isn’t many that you know any more. We were always open to midnight, all through the years. We used to work in the store to two, three in the morning and leave the door open. Now we can’t wait to bolt the door at night, it’s so bad. I take a chance when I open it. It’s hard to tell any more by looks who’s all right and who isn’t. Some of ‘em are the worst lookin’ people but they’re really all right when you get talkin’ to ’em.

 

GEORGE: The worst lookin’ hippie things that come in the door are so polite and some of ’em, the ones that are very well dressed, are so ignorant. When the folks had this store, it was all family. This is not too much a ma and pa area any more. The ones that are left close at six. They’re scared to death.

 

IRENE: We’ve had several holdups. It was around eleven-fifteen at night, three young people came with ski masks over their face. Two guys and a girl.

 

GEORGE: I’m checkin’ out and they put the gun to the side of my head. I said, “Aw, go to hell.” I thought it was the kids in the neighborhood horsin’ around. I look up—they backed us around the jewelry counter. The front part was more expensive stuff, high-class, diamonds, gold rings. They scooped off the cheap costume jewelry off the back shelf. I said, “Damn it, leave me somethin’ for the next time you come in.” They said, “Okay, okay,” and they backed off. (Laughs.) We’ve had several holdups since then. I don’t worry too much about it.

 

IRENE: When Martin Luther King was killed, you can imagine the tension. I was alone here. People were panicky. They were announcing on the radio and television that people should be off the street at eight o‘clock at night. The stores were forced to close. Our youngest was nine and was instigator of our selling a lot of food that night. She would say, “We may not be here tomorrow because there’ll be a riot tonight and they might come in the neighborhood. You better get all you can get. Stock up now.” She was half-hysterical and she put the fear in everyone else. They cleaned out the refrigerators, all the food. I couldn’t ring it up fast enough. The police came by three times tellin’ me to close the store. We really made a haul that night.

When she was three years old she’d come out in the store. We had girlie books on the rack. The guy would stand there lookin’ at
Playboy.
She’d come up behind him on a ladder and hold a crucifix in front of him. That was too much for him. He had to fold the book. (Laughs.)

 

GEORGE: We used to open at six in the morning. One day, one mother come in hollerin’ I shouldn’t sell Johnny penny candy on the way to school. Next day, another mother come: Susie shouldn’t have bubble gum because she’s got fillin’ in her teeth. Another come. So I says, “Listen, I’m not gettin’ fringe benefits of bein’ married to you. If you can’t handle your children—I’ m doin’ this for your convenience so you can get things for your breakfast. I won’t open till they’re in school.” So now I don’t open till around ten-thirty.

There usually isn’t that much sleep. We used to average two, three hours. That went on for ten years that way. Now we get on an average of four hours. Sometimes you have time to eat breakfast. In the morning I mop the floors, haul fifteen twenty cases of soda from the basement, throw it in the cooler. For the first three hours you have your variety of salesmen, your bread men and your milkmen. You might open with a $200 bank in the morning. By two in the afternoon, you’ve paid out $197 and taken in $6. Then your evening trade starts. We switch hours between meals. I wouldn’t say we’re tired at the end of the day, we just drop. (Laughs.)

Seven days a week. Sundays we’re open from 7:00 to 10:00 A.M., close to go to church, have dinner, and reopen at four to midnight. We started goin’ out for dinner because they would come to the window (mimics high-pitched voice): “I gotta have a greeting card.” “I need a quart of milk.” We couldn’t eat our dinner in peace.

 

IRENE: Some people think ownin’ a store is real easy. All you have to do is stand there and sell it. They say, “What’s your old man doin’, sleepin’?” He hardly ever sleeps. Movin’ all the stock, the refrigerator’s blocked up, cleanin’ all those drains, he hauls all the groceries home, cuts up boxes, moving all the time.

 

GEORGE: I usually say to her, “Hi, good-by.” That’s the extent of our conversation.

 

IRENE: After twelve ’ we unwind for an hour, but we’re so exhausted we fall asleep. It’s always been a rough life, but we’ve made a decent living out of it and raised three children and have never gone without.

 

 

GEORGE: Chain stores don’t bother me. People gotta have a place where they can run for a loaf of bread, a dozen eggs, or somethin’ for a snack, a pint of ice cream or a bottle of soda. Instead of goin’ in the chain store and standing in line. The cold indifference. They still get the personal touch here, the chatter back and forth, the gossip and the laughter.

 

IRENE: George and I like to kid with the customers. He horses around with the women and flatters them, no matter what they look like. I’ll kid the guys.

 

GEORGE: A new customer come in, she got shocked. I said, “Still love me like you never did?” She said, “I beg your pardon. I love only my husband.” (Laughs.) We have a standard joke. People come in and buy a box of Kotex, we’d say, “Use it here or take it with you?” They’d get all shook up. (Laughs.)

 

IRENE: Prophylactics, there’s another joke. A man would come in at night and say, “Is your husband here?” I’d just know, and they’d turn so red, like a woman askin’ a man for Kotex.

 

What I notice is a big change in the people’s attitudes. They come in and they may look grouchy. I’d say, “Hi, how are you?” They used to answer, “Hi.” Now they look at you like I’m nuts. They think you’re crazy because you say hello to them. It’s more like a big city now than a small neighborhood. Peopie are kind of cold.

Years ago, every Halloween we’d give about five hundred dollars worth of toys away. We’d have several hundred kids out front. We would drop balloons from the upstairs windows with tickets in ‘em. They would turn the tickets in and get prizes. When the neighborhood changed, the parents would start grabbin’ the balloons and steppin’ on the kids. So we just cut it out.

 

GEORGE: Actually, this is a gold mine. We’re on the main drag. People on this side of the street don’t want to send the children on the other side. Your main trade here is all the little darlings who want “one of dem, one of dese, one of dose.” Penny candy. They come in, three cents, and it takes them twenty minutes to make up their minds.

 

IRENE: They say, “How do you have the patience to stand and wait on those kids?” It’s really difficult, but if you allow yourself to get uptight, you look bad in front of your customers. So we just shrug our shoulders.

We’ve seen people now that are married and divorced who were in grammar school when we came in, have got two and three children. They were miserable little kids and George taught most of ‘em manners. They’d come in: “Gimme change for a dollar.” He’d teach ’em to say, “Could I please have change for a dollar?” Some of ’em, you wonder where the teachings are at home.

 

GEORGE: One of the things in a ma, pa store you have to put up with—mothers use it as a baby sitter. It’s much easier for a mother to give the child a penny and go to the store. It takes a kid ten minutes to walk to the store, ten minutes in the store, and ten minutes back. Mom says, “You’re a good boy, here’s another penny.” So for two cents an hour they got a baby sitter. In the course of the day you’ll have the same monster in eight, ten times a day. A penny at a time.

 

IRENE: It’s unbelievable what we go through. All through the years we’ve had all sorts of telephone calls during the night. Not so much any more, because we don’t have our name in the book like we used to. We had so many goofy calls. They call and ask if we have Prince Albert and I say yes and they’d say, “Let the poor guy out of the can.” Those kind of jokes. Oh, a lot of people will stand around waitin’ for papers and they talk about bingo and they complain about the blacks who take all their parking areas. We have to hear all that.

 

GEORGE: They used to hang around more. But now I don’t allow anybody to drink soda or eat food in the store. I put the opener outside. Keep it movin’. Otherwise, it’d be just a regular hangout. It’d get pretty crowded.

 

IRENE: They come in in droves, six, seven teen-agers at a time. One or two might buy and the rest circulate through the store and they’ll rob you blind. You have to sort ’em out right away. “How many want to buy? The rest of you leave, please.” You have to be a little rude.

 

GEORGE: When I first came in here, some of the punks, we call ‘em, some of the neighborhood rowdies, I’d pick out a leader of the group. I’d take’im down to the health club where I was workin’ out. I’m in condition, liftin’ weights. You take these young guys who think they’re real tough, you put’em through calisthenics and their bodies would ache for a week. (Laughs.) The next time they’d have a little more respect for you. Now I got into karate and I worked up to a black belt. They found out about that and they got a healthy respect for me. (Laughs.)

 

IRENE: A lot of people come in and make comments: “How come you’re drivin’ such an old car? What’s the matter? You got so much money you’re hoarding it. You can’t buy a new car?” Then we would buy a new car: “Oh boy, you’re really makin’ it off us poor people.” There’s no pleasin’ ’em nohow.

When prices go up, people come in the store and they throw the items on the counter and they blame us. Eggs go up ten cents a dozen and they act like it’s us that raised them. Actually, we make two cents on a gallon of milk. You can’t tell them that. They can’t understand that anyone could make so little. They say, “Now you’re a buck richer.” They’re so used to having items raised that the resentment is much more. They slam the door and they cuss at you. They gotta blame somebody so they blame us.

 

GEORGE: When we first opened the store, our insurance was $398 a year. Now it’s jumped to $1,398. They say you’re in too high a risk area. Your lights have went up, your gas, all your utilities. Your mark-up on your profit has decreased. Like Hostess cakes—they raise an item a penny, it costs you a penny more. You’re getting a less percentage on the return. At one time, you were makin’ a twenty-two percent mark-up with a five percent overhead—which would leave you a seventeen percent profit. Now they squeeze you down to a twelve percent mark-up if you’re lucky. With costs up, your overhead is ten percent, now you’re workin’ on two percent profit. Instead of coming out of the hole, you’re going into the hole. It’s impossible to survive unless you’re doing something else on the side.