________________________________________________________________________
“Okay,” he said dubiously. “Tell you what; today’s Thursday and you’ll only get paid for one day this week, but we’re pouring concrete tomorrow,” nodding his head over his shoulder, “and I was going to pull some men off another job anyway,” feeling a little guilty about starting his nephew off that way, but, “so if you want to start tomorrow…”
“Yeah, sure! That’s great! What time do you want me here?’
“Seven. And when you get here look up Tony Esposito. And, Mitch…
“Yeah, Uncle Shel?”
“Better get yourself a good pair of work gloves.”
****
On this day, Mitchell quit his job at Walter Lewis Studio.
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Chicago, Illinois
April 25 through July 3, 1958
Arriving at the Mozart Avenue work site at 6:40 a.m., approaching the group of men sitting along the curb drinking coffee out of paper cups, “Hi!” he said to the first man he made eye contact with. “Tony Esposito around?”
Not much older than Mitchell, the scruffy young man wearing oil and cement splattered blue jeans and a like decorated sweatshirt, answered, “Yeah,” jerking his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the City of Chicago’s newest parking facility, “Esposito’s in there, someplace.”
“Thanks.” Mitchell walked to the edge of the cavernous, steel beam skeleton then into its maw by means of a rickety, uneven roadway made of paint and cement slopped 2x12 wooden planks that had been lain, by the most direct means, over a crisscross undergrowth of circular one half inch steel reinforcement bars and around a forest of vertical 4x8 plywood cement form encased steel I-beams to the far southern corner of the two story, public parking facility. “Hi! Tony Esposito around?”
“Yeah.” A middle aged, dark haired, deeply tanned man with a light growth of white stubble on his chin, wearing spotlessly clean chino slacks and matching shirt looked away from the two men he’d been instructing. “I’m Esposito. What can I… Oh, yeah!” Tony looked at him a moment, then back at the other two. “Okay. The two’a you know what to do! You,” motioning to Mitchell, “come with me.” Going a number of steps over the plank roadway, out of earshot of the other men. “Hi,” holding his hand forward, “I’m Tony.”
Shaking the offered hand, “I’m Mitch Lipensky. Good to know you.”
“Yeah?” Smiling wickedly, “Maybe ya won’t think so after today… Shelly tol’ me you was gonna be here an’ I shouldn’t do you or him no favors ’bout the work, an’ I ain’t gonna. But bein’ as you’re new at this an’ it’ll cost me more in time an’ slopped concrete, I’m gonna give ya one’a the smaller ’barrows… You got gloves?”
Reaching into his back pocket, “Yeah,” he produced a pair of leather work gloves.
“Good, you’re gonna need ’em… Oh, by the way, Shelly tol’ me most likely you’re only temporary an’, if I can, to kind’a keep you out’a sight when the union reps come by. So when I tell you, you go disappear. Get yourself coffee or somethin’ for twenty, twenty five minutes, till they take off. Okay?”
“How’ll I know when they go?”
“Them pricks always drive dirty blue Chevys.”
****
In the netherworld between labor and management, Tony Esposito, the foreman of this crew, had been Shop Steward for so long and had been so well liked that the membership had neither voted him out of the position nor found anyone they would rather have.
Originally working as a carpenter Journeyman under Morris Barrish—Sheldon’s father—although at different levels, Tony, along with Sheldon, had worked himself up through the ranks of Costello Construction and the two men had formed a long and lasting friendship.
At times Sheldon would give Tony and his men concessions that might normally take negotiation and compromise. This improved the loyalty and moral of the men, thus giving Costello Construction a higher quality of work from the Esposito crew.
And Tony, at times, would do small favors for Sheldon—like hiding his nephew from union representatives that would occasionally come on site to check for, and on the validity of union membership cards that were held by those of the work force.
****
“Hey, Tony!” one of the guys called. “Concrete’s here!”
“Okay, you guys!” Tony yelled through cupped hands. “Get on it! Let’s hustle!” He looked at Mitchell. “Move your ass!”
****
Standing behind and beneath it, the downward angled rotating steel drum looked, in Mitchell’s perspective, as large as a house and sounded as though—rather than the thick, black grease he saw—sand had been tossed onto the cogs that turned it. The rumble that emitted from within the rotating drum had the sound of…? liquid thunder.
The sluice opened and a gray glacier of chunky glop sledged down the shoot into his smaller… smaller? wheelbarrow. When the concrete hit, the three cubic feet of splashing semi liquid rocked the steel carrier almost jerking the two wooden handles out of his hands. Tightening his fists about the handles, straining the muscles of his back, arms and legs, “uhhhh,” lifting the rear of the wheelbarrow, stepping off the side of the plank that was beneath the concrete shoot, “uhhhh,” pivoting the wheel to the right, “uhhhh,” pushing, he began the long, “oh, shit!” journey from the Portland Concrete truck at the curb outside, into the cavernous, steel beam skeleton of Chicago’s newest parking facility, and over a quarter block of springy, bouncy, uneven planking as all the while he attempted to keep up with the man before him and away from the lip of the wheelbarrow of the man behind him. With each step the 350 pounds of sloshing weight, along with the weight of the smaller… smaller? wheelbarrow did all it could do to yank the handles from his hands, and the continuous compensating strain on first one wrist then the other felt as if the multitude of small and large bones of his hands, wrists, arms and shoulders were being pulled from their joints. Near the end of the plank path, the last number of steps were taken at a trot in order to give the men pushing the larger, two wheel wheelbarrows and his—okay, yeah—smaller, one wheel wheelbarrow enough momentum so when they reached the end of the plank roadway the man could lift the rear of the wheelbarrow projecting the—in Mitchell’s case only—350 pounds of concrete out and over the steel reinforcement bars, where the concrete crew, in high rubber boots, stood within the widening sea of concrete spreading, evening and smoothing what, within minutes, began the solidifying process that would eventually become the lower deck of the parking facility.
He made one trip, then another, then that Portland Concrete truck was empty and gone but, “Ohhh, fuck!” there were four other grinding, rotating steel drum trucks idling along the curb.
Having spent almost four years in the U. S. Coast Guard, Mitchell Lipensky had thought chipping paint, scrapping paint and repainting was hard work. But this work was work beyond all comprehension of what he’d ever thought of as work. By the end of the first coffee break of this first day he could hardly lift himself off the curb. And, “Thank God!” by the end of the day he felt as though he’d died and gone to hell.
Skokie, Illinois
April 26, 1958
On this morning, awaking, forcing himself from a lying position, “Oy, Gevalt!” to a sitting position, Mitchell Lipensky hurt from the tips of his fingers to the soles of his feet. He was sore from every follicle of hair on his head to every follicle of hair on his toes. Hell, he thought, even my eyelashes hurt. Forcing himself from a sitting position, Oy, Gevalt! to a standing position he had no doubt the creaking of his stiffened joints could be heard from across the room. Hell, he thought again, they can probably hear ’em creak downstairs.
As painful as he felt on this morning, though, he did know that coming home—to the home of his parents—yesterday evening he’d taken a shower and, for the very first time in his life, fallen into bed without eating… And that he had slept throughout the entire night without waking to think of his wife and son. Also, proudly, that he had gotten through the entire first day of his new career as a shlepper. And, he thought, By shlepping all that damned concrete yesterday—thank God today’s Saturday—by Monday it’ll make everything else… anything else they want me to do seem a hell of a lot easier.
A minute later, “Oy!” bending over the sink, “Oy!” washing his face and brushing his teeth became a major source of pain.
“Oh, God!” And walking—well, actually shuffling into the kitchen—he laboriously lowered himself onto a chair.
“You want juice?”
“Yeah, Mom, thanks.” Feeling he needed both hands to hold the glass—there were eight Bandaids on six of his ten fingers—his trembling hands reached outward with his fingers splayed open.
“My God! Everything hurts!”
Not showing too much sympathy, “You wanted this!” Pouring a cup of coffee, Myra added, “I didn’t raise my son to do shvartzer work!”
“Yeah, I know. It’s okay, Mom, this’ll be good for me. At least you and dad don’t have to worry about paying me anymore.”
“Well, my son, I just want you to remember that quitting was your idea, not your father’s or mine!”
The mother neglected to add what the son desperately wanted to hear: “Mitchie, Dad and I are sorry to see you go and we’ll miss you.”
Unable to bend his fingers, both due to stiffness and the Bandaids, holding the mug between the palms of both hands, sighing, sipping the coffee, “Yeah, I know, Mom.”
On Thursday, when he had told his father that he was quitting the studio and going to work for Sheldon, after a quiet moment, Walter had simply said, “Okay, that may be for the best.”
Mitchell had, and did feel bad that the results of his efforts—and he did make an effort—were so poorly received that his father would just let him go without even a pretense of remorse and, even as badly as he felt on this day, the pain that hurt the most was the thought that even his parents did not want him.
Chicago, Illinois
April 28, 1958
Monday Mitchell Lipensky shlepped concrete again.
It was not a hell of a lot easier.
Lakeside Michigan
April 28, 1958
Monday—after doing her best to keep the memories down for three days—Marsha Lipensky walked with her baby along the outer edge of the Old Road.
Hidden in a hazy, gray blue sky, the warm, midday sun did not afford her the company of even her own shadow.
Trees and the undergrowth showed their brilliant spring growth while cottages and boarding hotels stared outward with their blind windows still boarded against the rigors of the recently past winter.
With the exception of an occasional car that sped by trailing dust devils, the road was deserted.
Pushing the buggy before her, memories inundated Marsha’s mind and the unbelievable fact that she was walking this old road, the Old Road of her memory, with her child evoked an incredibly nostalgic poignant mood. Her voice cracking with the stress of emotion, “Oh, Mikey,” she said softly to the sleeping baby, “you can’t begin to know the times I’ve walked this old road.”
The memory of her childhood… The memory of the times of this wonderful place along with the faces of her best friends… The memories…
Wisps of the remembrance of friends that she thought had long since left her memory that had populated those wonderfully happy and terribly sad times of her life seemed to walk along with her. Marsha Lipensky’s throat tightened and tears for that long gone, good and bad times of her childhood stung her eyes.
Walking the two miles from Lakeside to Union Pier, coming nearer, averting her eyes, hesitating, she tried not to see it… But compelled, Marsha’s gaze was drawn to the structure on the other side of the road.
Because the eye of a childhood memory so often saw a thing on a much larger and grander scale than the eye of the adult, Marsha found it hard to believe that the—at least in her memory—once prestigious Lakeside Hotel now looked so small and so shabby.
Fearing the additional memories this place would bring, hesitating again, looking away, drawn again, compelled…
Marsha pushed the buggy across the Old Road and, remembering, stood in the exact place they had stood on that night.
The windows were boarded over. The lawn was overgrown with grass. Weeds choked the once white painted, now peeling gray rock that bordered the denuded flower beds. No longer whitewashed, a number of rails having fallen from their slots, a few sections leaning forward, a few backward, Marsha stood next to the split rail fence, where they had stood on that night, and…
“Oh, God!” Marsha Lipensky remembered.
Marsha Goldman Lipensky remembered that night as though it were now.
