________________________________________________________________________
Conveniently forgetting it was she that had suggested Mitchell find a part time job. “Another thing! Why does he have to work part time at all? Jesus! Walter and Myra are his parents and they’re paying him ‘coolie wages’! The two of you gave them their only grandchild and they give him a lousy five dollar a week raise! We don’t belong to a fancy yacht club, and we pay your brother enough to live on! Why the hell can’t they?”
“I told you before, Mother, he hasn’t covered his draw yet!”
“And that’s another thing I don’t understand! You mean to tell me for all the time your husband has been working for his folks, he, somehow, ends up owing them money?”
“I told you before: they pay him a weekly salary that applies against his commission, and…”
“Yes, Marsha, I know,” Rhea said tiredly. “You don’t have to tell me again!”
Wishing her mother would go upstairs and leave her alone, “Anyway, he’s going back this evening to get his samples and they’ll go over the whole presentation with him again, and he’ll start making calls tomorrow.”
________________________________________________________________________
Chicago, Illinois
May 2, 1957
Mitchell was assigned two leads for his first night out: one for six o’clock and the other seven thirty…
On the first call, in the apartment of Carmen O’Hara, a gangly, homely, not so middle aged redhead, with both her mother and father sitting at the table watching every fumbling move he made and listening to every stuttering word he stuttered, Mitchell blundered through the entire forty minute presentation and, as though that wasn’t enough, he made a mistake in repacking the second case and embarrassingly had to empty the entire sample case and begin again.
As expected, no sale there.
The second call was on the north side, in a shabby, depreciating neighborhood just south of Lawrence Avenue, where Mitchell rang the doorbell on a small house and waited, and waited… and rang the bell again just as the door opened. Thrown off by the suddenness of the door opening, “Uh, Miss…” thinking a moment or two, “Uh, Miss Gerts?”
The woman was short, appearing to be no more than five feet tall, and, to say the least, rotund, weighing in the range of, to say the least, over two hundred pounds… and old.
“Gerwitz!” the woman corrected crossly. “Mrs. Alvin Gerwitz!”
Uh oh! “Yes!” Remembering, “Sorry, Mrs. Gerwitz.” Off on the wrong foot here. “I’m Mitch Lipensky from Sierra Marketing, and I’m her to see,”—her daughter? her granddaughter?—“uh, whoever made the appointment with me.”
“It’s me!” Filling the doorway, Mrs. Gerwitz moved aside. “Come in! Come in!”
It’s me? What’s she mean, ‘It’s me’? With both arms straining against the weight of the heavy sample cases, stepping into the, to say the least, malodorous home of Mrs. Alvin Gerwitz, thinking, Oh, my God! Mitchell stared in disbelieving awe.
The room was jam packed with furniture and things of all description—but if pressed for a single description, it would have to be “junk.” There were piles of bundled newspaper and magazines stacked from floor to ceiling. Sofas, chairs and tables were loaded with indescribable refuse. There were boxes overflowing with clothing and…? stuff, and so far as Mitchell could see, rags, just rags.
Stunned, really wanting to run from this…? fire hazard. “Uh,” he said haltingly, “I, uh, need a place to, uh, lay out the, uh, merchandise.”
Turning sideways—not that it made much difference—so she could squeeze her bulk through the narrowly crowded aisle. “Right this way, sonny. We’ve room in the kitchen.
Having to walk sideways also, the width of the sample cases barely scraping by, he followed her into a hot, cluttered kitchen that had the near nauseating, commingled odors of boiled cabbage, rancid oil, fried fish and burnt meat.
The start of the pitch was actually made with the opening of the first sample case, and, “Never!” Al had said, “Never begin to lay out the merchandise until the buyer is there!”
Dressed in slacks, jacket and tie, sweating from the heat of the kitchen, fighting nausea, Mitchell—illogically? Logically?—prayed the person he was there to pitch wasn’t home, because if she wasn’t there it’ll give him a courteous excuse to…Jesus Christ, he thought. I want to get the hell out of here! “Mrs. Gerwitz,” he asked, “is this…” hefting one of the sample cases an inch off the floor, “for your daughter, or, uh, granddaughter?” Hoping she’d say, “Yes, but she’s not here,” but…
“No! I thought I told you, it’s me you’re here to see!” Going to the gouged, varnish stripped wooden table, Mrs. Gerwitz took a knife and fork and a dish containing that evening’s—or yesterday’s… or last week’s—meal to the sink, came back with a dripping dishrag, swiped it over the table scattering bread crumbs and bits of dried food onto four rickety, wooden chairs and filthy, worn linoleum floor. “You can put your stuff here.”
Looking at Mrs. Gerwitz a moment, lowering the case to the floor, his back to her, opening the case, “Oh, shit!” he silently mouthed.
****
“Huh?” The odors getting to him, not knowing if he would be able to finish before having to vomit, hurrying through the presentation, all he wanted to do was wrap it up and get out of there! But somehow, this time, even though he rushed, his words came out right and his pitch came out straight and, although Mrs. Gerwitz had sat in all but stony silence throughout his entire spiel, muttering a barely heard, “Uhhuh” each time he’d asked a minor close question, when he came to the major close question: “Mrs. Gerwitz, you do want this set, don’t you?” Amazingly, she said…
“I’ll take it!”
“Huh?”
“I’ll take it!”
Thinking, She’s buying? Finding it hard to believe, “Uh, yes. Thank you.” looking about the cluttered kitchen, figuring, because of the jam packed, shabby appearance of her house, Mrs. Gerwitz must be impoverished, or damn near. “Let me fill out the order form.” Finding his order book, not wanting to sit on the crumb covered chair, standing while writing, “Uh, how much would you like to put down?”
“‘Put down’? No, sonny.” The eccentric—to say the least—old lady reached into the pocket of her apron, removed a roll of cash, snapped off the straining rubber band and handed him the top bill. “I always pay cash,”
He looked at the hundred dollar bill, then back to the wad in the old lady’s hand, and could see that the next bill was a hundred, too.
Folding the roll open, the lady took two twenties off the backside, and handed it to him.
“Uh, Mrs. Gerwitz, it’s one-twenty plus tax, and I don’t have enough money with me to make change.”
“No, no, sonny, it’s okay. The rest is for you.”
****
“Marcie, guess what?” Thanking the old lady profusely, packing the sample cases quickly, properly, leaving the home of Mrs. Alvin Gerwitz, “Marcie, guess what?” he’d driven to the first phone booth he could find.
“You sold a set of pots and pans.”
“Huh?” The wind taken from his sails, “How’d you know?”
“I didn’t, Mitchie, I was only trying to be funny… You did? You really made a sale, so soon?”
“Yeah, and it’s only my second call! I can’t believe it, and she even gave me a fifteen dollar tip.”
“Mitchie, God, that’s great! I’m so proud of you!”
Often feeling he didn’t do enough for Marsha, now, though, basking in his wife’s pride, “Thank you,” he said softly.
“When’ll you be home?”
“In about fifteen minutes, but I wanted to call to let you know.”
“I’m glad you did. Come on home, Mitchie. Mikey’s still up and maybe you can play with him a little while.”
“Yeah, baby, see you in a few minutes.”
Truly amazed at the ease of this, his first sale, but more so, as he drove home, envisioning the appearance of the house he had just left, Mitchell wondered, Where in the hell’s she going to put ’em when she gets ’em?
Interference and Argumentation
May 13 through May 18, 1957
Engaging with a sharp click, the grinding of the machinery of the ascending elevator could be heard above the normal din of the studio.
Plagued by mostly imaginary slights, not knowing if it was her son in the elevator, but if it was, wanting to confront him the moment he arrived, sliding the window open, Myra waited to see if the elevator was even coming to the third floor… It was. The moment the steel doors separated, “Mitchell, come in here!”
Recognizing the irritated and so irritating tone of his mother’s voice, knowing he was about to hear it again, sighing, he went into her office, but the phone rang.
“Yes, Mister Schaub, they’ll be in the mail this afternoon… Yes, sir, goodbye.”
As the connection was broken, “Mitchell,” she said angrily, “do you realize it’s almost two months since Michael and your wife…” the words “your wife” said venomously, “have been home from the hospital and you’ve been to my house only one time! Just once!”
“Mom,”—said defensively—“they’ve been home about six weeks and you’ve been over by yourself twice, and with Ma and Pa once and dad and the kids another time, and Marsha really hasn’t been feeling well and I’ve been out working almost every night.”
“You don’t work on Sundays, my dear, sweet son,”—said just as venomously—“and I’ll bet your wife feels well enough, and has plenty of time to see her mother!”
“I did work last Sunday and, really, we don’t see that much of my mother-in-law!”
True… kind of true . He did make one call last Sunday and, true also, he did not see that much of Rhea, and Marsha, if given a choice, would see far less of her mother than she did, but if Marsha didn’t go to the twelfth floor, Rhea would come down to the fifth.
“Mitchell, I don’t believe that, not for a second!” Myra still hated the fact that her son’s family lived in the same building as his in-laws and was still extremely jealous of the time she imagined they spent with Rhea. “And whenever I call your wife to invite you over she always has an excuse for not coming! And also, I thought maybe, just maybe, after she had the baby and knew what it feels like to be a mother, maybe, God forbid, you dear, sweet wife would begin to address me!”
Thinking, Shit! Here we go again! Then, as always, not having an excuse for this ongoing portion of his mother’s tirade, he said nothing in response. “It’s not an excuse, Mom! Her stitches are not healing well! They’re forming adhesions and seep constantly, and she says they’re ‘drawing’ and hurt! And really, she hasn’t been feeling well!”
“I’m sorry, but you can’t convince me that there hasn’t been some time, in all this time, that you couldn’t take a ride to Skokie with your wife and baby, for just a few minutes!”
“I’m sorry, too, Mom!” he said angrily. “But whether you believe it or not, Marsha has not felt well enough to go anyplace!”
“Well, my dear, sweet son, I don’t believe it!”
“Mom, what the hell do you want me to do? Divorce Marsha?”
****
On that day, Marsha did go to the twelfth floor.
“In two whole weeks he’s only made two sales?”
****
Mrs. Gerwitz, so it seemed, had been a lucky fluke.
In the ten days he’d been out, since that first evening, even though on some nights, if the locations were close enough he would take three leads, Mitchell had made but one other sale. Also in all that time—other than a few small, one or two time customers—he had been unable to open so much as one decent account for the studio that might, even remotely, bring him closer to meeting his draw.
****
“That makes, what,” Rhea asked sarcastically, “sixty/seventy dollars? For two whole week’s work!”
“That’s more than he’d make working at Field’s.”
“Yeah, but at Field’s he’d be working on two evenings and Saturdays, not every night!” Laughing dryly, “Mitchell’s the only person I know that, somehow, is able to find a way to work longer and make less! And also, now it’s costing car expenses and if that’s not enough, you have to pay fifteen dollars a month for those lousy pots and pans!”
“That’s an investment, Mother,”—thinking briefly of Rhea’s investment, that cost her and Mitchell their house money—“and that happens to be a very good set of pots and pans.”
“Yeah, that you need like a loch in kop (a hole in the head)!”
“The news says we’re in a mild recession and Mitchell thinks that’s why things are kind of slow.”
“For people like your husband,” Rhea said emphatically, “‘things’ are always slow!”
“He’s doing his best! What do you want me to do, Mother? Divorce him?”
****
That evening, between the time he came home from work and went back to work, “Marsha,” Mitchell said in his irritated and irritating tone of voice, “I want us to visit my folks this Sunday!”
“So go!” Marsha said in her irritated and irritating tone of voice.
“No, I want us to go!”
“If I feel up to it, I will, and if I don’t, I won’t!”
“What the hell’s the difference, Marsha? If you’re just going to lay around and feel sick all the time, you might just as well lay around and feel sick at my folk’s house once in a while, too!”
“Oh? Lay around?” She’d been preparing dinner. “Is that what you think I do, Mitchell: lay around, all the time?” Placing a dish with a thick slice of meatloaf, peas and mashed potatoes on the table, “Here’s your dinner!”
Taking a bottle of formula from the saucepan of boiling water, sprinkling a few drops onto her wrist, going to the sink, Marsha cooled the bottle under cold water.
“You know I haven’t felt well since I came home from the hospital,” she said contemptuously, “and yet you’ve never come home when I didn’t have dinner ready for you!” Staring at him angrily, “Have you?”
Going to the crib, lifting Michael, sitting on the sofa, Marsha brought the bottle to the baby’s mouth. “Have you?” she demanded. But before Mitchell could respond, added, “And I don’t hear you, maybe, just maybe, ever offering to help me out around here once in a while!”
Sounding to Mitchell a lot like—too much like—his mother.
“I don’t hear you offering to give me a break once in a while! Offering, once in a while, maybe, to get up in the middle of the night to feed your son so, maybe, I can get a full night’s sleep, too, once in a while!”
“Yeah, Marsha, all that stuff’s right, Marsha!” He tried to eat but because of his anger, and guilt for not offering to help her with Michael and also, most of all, anger at his mother for causing this and anger at himself for starting this, the food tasted like cardboard… “But that’s what you’re supposed to do, Marsha: take care of the baby and me. And I do what I’m supposed to do!”
“Yeah,” she hissed, “and what’s that, Mitchell?”
“Earn a living, Marsha! That’s what I’m supposed to do!”
“Yeah, Mitchell, that’s what you’re supposed to do! But you sure ain’t doing a very good job of it! Are you, Mitchell?”
Slamming the fork down, “Go to hell, Marsha!” Pushing away from the table, standing, going to the closet, taking his jacket and coat he started to the door.
“As far as I’m concerned, Mitchell, you don’t have to come back!”
“Screw you! Maybe I won’t!”
“Screw you, too! I don’t care!”
May 15, 1957
The Pressure Cooker
“Mitchell, we’re family.” Myra stared at her son. “So I thought, ‘why stand on ceremony? So I tried again and called your wife and asked if she’d bring Mikey for dinner on Sunday. And do you know what your sweet wife had the nerve to say to me, Mitchell?”
Having a pretty good idea, he said nothing, but when she didn’t go on, “No, Mom,” he said tiredly, “what did Marsha say?”
“‘I’ll come if I feel up to it.’”—Actually, Marsha had said, “We’ll come if I’m feeling better”—“If she feels ‘up to it’! Don’t you have any control over your wife, Mitchell? Don’t you?”
Looking at the floor, looking anyplace but at his mother’s face or into her eyes, “Mom, please, I’m doing everything I can!”
