New York, N.Y.
July 30, 1956
Surprising Mitchell, not so much for the beyond regulation length as its color, the man had tightly curled, platinum colored hair, and was loudly…
“Babababummm! Babababummm!”
…bababumming along with Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, which roared over the radio in ear piercing competition with the clacking and grinding of the Addressograph platemaking machine.
“Hey!”
The man did not hear him over the noise of the radio and machine.
Coming further into the room, tapping him on his broad, muscular shoulder, “Hey!”
Startled. Jerking upward, the cap falling off his head, “Yeah!” the clacking stopped as, lifting his fingers from the keyboard, the man swiveled on the chair, and…
Holy shit! Mitchell thought because…
About Mitchell’s age, between twenty and twenty-three, in addition to platinum colored hair, the young man had a strange, albeit handsome, face with startling light green eyes, a wide flaring Negroid nose, Caucasian lips and, if not pure white, than certainly the lightest complexion he’d ever seen.
Obviously used to being stared at, noting the coffee cup, cap and keys held in the new man’s hand, “Hey, man,” he said goodnaturedly, “I was wondering when they were going to send me a replacement.” Holding his hand forward, “I’m Ruby… Ruby Meyers.”
With a name like Meyers… He had thought his new coworker might be Jewish. But seeing him, Mitchell had no idea what this man might be. Thinking, But he sure ain’t Jewish! “Ruby?” Shaking the offered hand. Ruby being such a contradiction to his appearance that, the question slipping out, “Your name’s Ruby? Uh, I’m Mitch Lipensky.”
“Actually, my name’s Rubidoux. Good to meet you, Mitch… Lipensky? You spell it with a Y or an I?”
“Y, why?”
“You’re a Jew!?”
The blunt, unexpected statement/question throwing him, “Did you say your name is Rubidoux?”
“Yeah! A real pisser, ain’t it? But you can call me Ruby… So, are you?”
“Are I what?”
Said good naturedly,“God sure made white boys dumb… Jewish! You a Jew?”
White boy? Taking a chance on Ruby’s good humor, “Look who’s calling who a white boy!”
“Yeah!” Laughing, “Kind’a like the pot calling the kettle black, ain’t it?”
Saying this, although as of yet Mitchell did not understand the joke, only made Ruby laugh harder, and just as he could not see someone cry without joining them, someone else’s laughter, too, had the same affect.
Going to the cleared desk, which he assumed was his, putting his cap, wallet, keys and coffee mug onto it, sitting on the edge, Mitchell joined Ruby in raucous laughter till, catching is breath, “Yeah,” wiping his teary eyes on the sleeve of his tunic, “I am Jewish!” Mitchell said, adding, “So what?”
Taking a handkerchief from his pocket, wiping his eyes also, “Me, too. I’m an M.O.T., too.”
“M.O.T.?”
“Member of the tribe.” Seeing the lost look on Mitchell’s face, “I’m a Jew, too.”
“Uh, you’re Jewish? Funny,” Mitchell said, the words slipping out once again, “you don’t look Jewish.” Which rekindled Ruby’s laughter, which reignited Mitchell’s laughter.
His laughter dwindling, “Know what? I’m hungry! Come on, let’s get out of here and go down for some breakfast. And seeing as it’s your first day, I’m buying.”
“Ruby,” glancing at his watch, “it’s only nine twenty.”
“Yeah, so what?”
“What do you do, just take off whenever you want?”
“Yeah!” Handing Mitchell his cap, “Sure!” Tossing his onto the desk, “Come on, I’ll tell you about it over chow.”
Walking from the room, turning to the right, Ruby began down the fire escape.
Hesitating a moment, Mitchell followed.
On the street, then in the restaurant, Mitchell felt selfconscious as people stared at them… at Ruby, but, seemingly oblivious to the stares, “How much longer you got to go, Mitch?”
Having ordered his usual—fried eggs over easy, pork sausage, a bagel with extra cream cheese, hashbrowns fried crispy and coffee—“About nine months.” Cutting a sausage link with the edge of his fork, “You?”
Ruby had ordered orange juice, coffee, poached eggs and dry toast. “About the same.” Tearing a piece of toast, he dunked it in the eggs. “Not much of a typist, are you?”
“I’ve been practicing. But no, guess not… How’d you know?” Not waiting for an answer, questioning Ruby’s Spartan breakfast, “Why so little chow? How come no bacon or sausage?”
“Hey, man, I’m kosher.”
“Sure you are!” But looking at him, thinking he was serious, “Oh, come on!”
“Yeah! Really! I am kosher. I mean I’m not a fanatic, but stuff like that…” Pointing at Mitchell’s dish, “You know what they fry that stuff in? You shouldn’t be eating that shit anyway.”
Looking from his dish to Ruby’s, Mitchell suddenly felt guilty.
“Most of us at H.Q. got there by pull.” Signaling the waitress for coffee refills, “And if you’re not such a great typist, and if you have enough time left—’cause they don’t want to offend a U.S. senator or congressman by sending you back to wherever the hell you came from—they’ll send you to a typing class.
“But you’n’me, Mitch, they don’t know it, but they’ve really done us a favor.”
Swabbing a broken yoke with a bit of bagel, “They did me a favor by sending me to Addressograph! How the hell do you figure that?”
“First off, Lipensky, you’ve had the great pleasure and wonderful privilege of meeting someone as unique as me.”
“Yeah, sure, Meyers,” he smiled, “that’s for sure! Shit,” he said jokingly, “I’ve never even seen someone like you! But besides that? What kind’a favor are they doing us?”
“Mitch, we’re in our own little world up there. No one ever comes there. Shit, if you want to take a day off and it’s the middle of the month… We get busy at the beginning and end of most months, but in the middle it’s really slow. So what the hell? If you want to take a day off, just let me know and take the day off, no one’ll ever know.”
“You mean no one ever checks there?”
“So long as we do our job, no! No one, never! But if they should, one of us’ll be there to tell ’em the other’s in the head, or out on an errand. And that’s only if someone should come and ask, but I’ve been there for more then a year and no one’s come yet.”
“Jesus, Ruby, that sounds too good to be true , but I’m the one that gets the office car from the Inter Agency Pool and returns it every day, so I’d never be able to take off like that.”
“The I.A.P. in Brooklyn? No shit!”
“Yeah. Why?”
“Why? Look at me! I’m a white, Jewish shvartzer! How’d you like to get on a subway with a bunch of big mouthed schmucks during rush hour every morning and evening?”
“Hey,” looking at Ruby over the rim of his cup, “I told you, you don’t look Jewish.”
“Yeah, like I don’t know it… So, how’s about it?”
“How’s about what?”
“I live about a half mile from the I.A.P. How’s about if I meet you there and ride in with you?”
“No!” Smiling, “If you’re that close, I’ll pick you up and drop you off.”
“Hey, that’s great! Thanks, Pal.”
After the people in the live space, ‘Pal,’ Mitchell thought, sounds great! Especially, for some reason, coming from this weirdlooking, good looking, white black man.
****
Sitting in front of one of the Addressograph platemaking machines, “Here’s how you do it,” Ruby said, placing a 1x3 metal plate into a fitted holder before the keyboard. “It don’t really matter how fast you type, ’cause these fuckers go at their own speed.”
Looking at a list of names and addresses held in a holder to the right, he typed “Hall, Gilbert P., L.T.J.G. Ret.” and hit the “line” key. Then below, Gilbert Hall’s address. But no matter how fast his fingers went, the hardened metal keys striking the thin metal plate went at their own loud, clack… clack, clacking speed.
“See? It don’t matter how fast you type, ’cause if this thing went any slower it would be going in reverse.”
“What do I do if… when… I make a mistake?”
“Here, see?” Punching the “back space” key to “Hall,” then the “erase” key twice, the embossed “Ha” was flattened and ready to by typed over. Cocking his head over his shoulder, “See that basket?”
Mitchell looked at the wire basket attached to the outside of the open door.
“The guys in the mail room get the lists”—pointing to the sheet in the holder to his right—“dropped in their basket by ‘Office,’ and ‘Mail’ drops ’em into our basket… Don’t ask why Office don’t drop ’em directly into our basket, ’cause I don’t know why. When we’re done making the plates we store ’em”—pointing to the banks of plate cabinets that lined the walls—“and drop the lists back into Mail’s basket. When Mail needs plates for a mailing—it’s all done alphabetically, by designation: active or reserve—Mail leaves lists of what they want in our basket, and we schlep the drawers over and leave ’em by their door. When Mail is through with ’em, they schlep ’em back and leave ’em by our door.”
Mitchell smiled at Ruby’s use of the Yiddish word “schlep.”
“We hardly ever see anyone from Mail, and Mail hardly ever sees anyone from Addressograph, and so long as they do what they do and we do what we do no one hardly ever sees no one and everyone’s happy… The guy that Salazar replaced—Salazar’s the guy you replaced—told Salazar that there’s two of ’em in the mail room, and ’cause no one hardly ever sees no one there, the guys there take ‘port and starboard’ liberty just about every day.”
“One day on, one day off! Every day?”
“Not counting weekends when we’re shut down altogether, yeah, towards the middle of the month when it ain’t busy.”
“Dumdumdumdumdumdumdumdum!” Ruby sang along with the music and, Clack…clack…clack! pounded away on the Addressograph machine.
Clack…clack! “Shit! Em, eh…” Mitchell pushed the back space key four times and the erase key four times and tried to pound away on the Addressograph machine.
