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September Through December, 1950

 Bottles One

Fifth period: Second of three crowded, 55-minute lunch periods at Harrison High.

Norman and Mitchell had followed the line of kids waiting their turn to buy a hot lunch, or in their case, pop and chocolate milk at five cents each, plus a two-cent bottle deposit.

Upending the pint bottle, Norman drank the last of the chocolate milk, put the bottle on the tray, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and tilted his chair back.

Sitting on the opposite side of the long lunch table, Mitchell loudly slurped the last few drops of Orange Crush through the straw, “Urpp!” belched and, “So, we still gonna look for a job on the way home?” sat back, too.

“Yeah,” sighing, “guess we gotta.”

“Only if we wanna have money we gotta, and these…” Looking up, Mitchell watched as a pretty, dark-complected girl wearing a tight-fitting, pink angora sweater, and carrying a lunch tray came abreast of the table. Catching, the girl’s and Mitchell’s eyes held until she passed. “And these,” continuing what he’d been saying, “junior girls don’t come too cheap.”

Facing the opposite direction, Norman watched the movement of the girl’s well-rounded posterior under her black, calf-length skirt. “Yeah,” sighing longingly. “I guess.”

They had finished their brown-bagged lunches of two sandwiches and an apple for Norman, and two sandwiches and a package of Twinkies for Mitchell, who was absently watching a boy across the aisle.

Through eating, going to the garbage can at the head of the table, the boy dumped a paper bag, a Hostess cupcake wrapper, and an empty Coke bottle into the can.

Looking down the length of their table, Mitchell counted three bottles left by previous occupants whom, not quite as neat or as considerate as the boy across the aisle, did not want to take the time, or found it too demeaning, to stand in line for a measly two-cent bottle deposit refund. Looking about the huge lunchroom, he saw that there were dozens of empty bottles that had been left on the tables waiting for the kitchen helpers to gather between this period and the next, when the women went from table to table pushing stainless-steel carts, wiping the tables clean of the residue left by the departed students, and also, collecting the unreturned bottles.

Mitchell’s gaze shifted to the short line of students waiting in line for their two- cent deposit.

Leaving the Orange Crush bottle, going to the nearest garbage can, dropping his bag and Twinkie wrapper inside, looking down, reaching into the can, he removed three bottles. Picking up a tray that a departed student had left on a table, going back to Norman he put the three bottles, along with his and Norman’s and the other three bottles that had been left on their table, onto the tray.

“What the hell you doing?”

“I got an idea, Norm.” Going to the next table, picking up two empties, he put them onto the tray also, and within minutes, “Norm,” he asked, pointing to the full tray, “how many bottles do I have here?”

“Five times seven,” Norman said. “Thirty-five. So what?”

“So what? Hey, Parminter, get off your ass; we’ve just gone into business!”

Staring at him, “Don’t be stupid! They won’t let us do it!”

“Yeah? Why?”

“Why? Why? I don’t know why! Because…” trying to think of a reason, “just because.”

“Wait!” Pointing to the girl in the pink angora sweater, who had just finished her lunch. “Watch this.”

Standing, the girl didn’t even bother to take her tray, but left all: tray, dish, silverware, and her milk bottle.

“See? She’s too snobby to stand in line for a lousy two-cents, or maybe she’s in a hurry and doesn’t have time…”

“Or, maybe,” Norman added, “she’s just a lazy slob.”

“Yeah, that, too. But whatever, she’s paid her two cents and the lunchroom owes two cents to whoever returns that bottle.”

Standing, “Okay,” still doubtful, “let’s see what happens.”

Balancing two trays of thirty-five bottles each, uniformly made milk bottles on the bottom and unevenly shaped soda bottles on the top, Norman and Mitchell stood in line just minutes before the sixth period bell rang.

“Hi.” Putting his trays on the counter before the white-haired lady sitting on a high stool behind an old fashioned cash register, “Here you are, Ma’am,” he said, smiling. “Thought maybe we’d save you some time and help out by bringing some’a the bottles back ourselves.”

Returning the smile, “Well, ain’t that nice’a you sonny!” Knowing exactly how many bottles a tray held, reaching into the cash-register drawer, she handed Mitchell a dollar bill and four dimes.

“What an idea, Norm!” Standing in the hallway seconds before the bell rang. “We’d have to work… what? Almost two’n a half hours to make this much.”

“Yeah,” still dubious, “but I don’t know, Mitch. It seems too easy.”

The sixth period bell rang.

“Anyway, got’a get to study hall!” Trying to beat the second bell, beginning to run, “See you later.” Norman called over his shoulder.

Watching his friend run, rationalizing, Gym? Shit! I’ll never make it on time! Ah, what the hell! Going back into the lunchroom, Mitchell made an additional five dollars and sixty-cents.

Having only gym and study hall, making about ten dollars each, working both periods, the next day the boys cut sixth period.

After school, walking home through Douglas Park, smoking, each felt the roll of singles in their pockets.

“Know what?” Norman laughed. “We can’t afford to cut anymore.”

“Yeah, you’re right. Remember ‘Earn while you learn’? Who’d’a thought it?”

                                                                          ****

In a high school the size of Harrison, the unpaid, pre-paid bottle deposits for the three lunch periods amounted to, on a weekly average, in excess of five hundred dollars. The one standing order for all cafeteria workers had always been, “Get all the bottles from all the garbage cans!” The only real loss of refund money, before, had been due to the garbage cans. But the amount of money lost for missed bottles buried in the lunchroom garbage cans was minimal, and an estimated loss of less than ten percent was, begrudgingly, acceptable… Before!

In the past, not being greedy… not being too greedy, knowing that something had to show up on the books, some—most—of this unaccounted money had been split between the vice principle and lunchroom manager, Mister Leland Masako, and the principle of Harrison Techenical High School, Mister Donald Bryer.

This windfall usually amounted in the neighborhood of two hundred, undeclared, dollars a week, each, which was far in excess of Mister Bryer and Masako’s weekly Board of Education salaries, which had, literally, put the Bryer and Masako families in another neighborhood.

The boys had considered cutting both their fourth and sixth period classes, but hard argument and good reasoning on the part of Norman had convinced Mitchell that cutting would be a sure way to be stopped. But even so, allowing sheer greed to be overcome by common sense, the take home for each boy was in excess of fifty dollars a week, which was almost three times more than they would have earned with part time jobs after tax deductions… in a fraction of the time, which, because it was school afterall, they must put in anyway.

But alas, as is true in all good things, no sooner does a guy find a way to make a buck than imitators begin to crawl out of the woodwork and the boys soon began to have competition. But, because they were the first, they were the two major collectors, daily filling one of the long lunchroom tables from end to end with hundreds of empties sitting on trays waiting to be “schlepped” to the old lady at the cash register for refund.

Within days the boys discovered that they had loyal patrons whom, on their way out of the lunchroom, would actually go out of their way to pass the table to drop their empties off. Because of the volume of their business, Mitchell and Norman soon became “employers,” employing Big Rosalind Feigenbaum and Ronald (Mushuggi’witz) Muskowitz as schleppers being paid ten percent per tray, and also, Pat Maggipanto, a school tough guy who always took three lunch periods anyway, but then got paid two bucks per period to baby sit their table—to be sure none of the bottles were swiped by the competition—during fifth and, yeah, okay, fourth and sixth periods occasionally.

With Norman and Mitchell, and a host of minor collectors collecting bottles daily, the loss of income was deeply felt by Bryer and Masako, but so long as the boys were not cutting their classes on a regular basis, the principle and vice principle did not know how to stop the young entrepreneurs without revealing their own embezzlement. After almost four months of greatly reduced extra income, the highly mortgaged homes of both men were on the brink of foreclosure and they knew that some way, somehow, they had to stop all of the bottle collectors, and they had to start with the Kings of Empties.