A “Becoming” Excerpt in sequence 

                               “The Collectors”

Chicago, Illinois

September Through December, 1950

Winte 1950: The Collectors

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

****

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 two-cent bottle deposits.

****

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 sat back too. “So, we still gonna look for jobs on the way home?”

“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 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-defined posterior beneath  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 soda bottle into the can.

Looking down the length of the 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 he dropped 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 two 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 sized 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 he began to run. “See you later.” Norman called over his shoulder.

Watching his friend run, rationalizing, Gym? Looking at his watch. 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 Tech, 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 five 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 both periods would be a sure way to be stopped. Even so, allowing sheer greed to be overcome by common sense, the take home for each boy was in excess of twenty dollars a week, which was almost two 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 after all, 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 their 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, Mitchell and a host of minor collectors collecting bottles daily, the loss of income was deeply felt by Bryer and Masako but the principle and vice principle did not know how to stop the young entrepreneurs without revealing their own embezzlement.

After almost three 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’.

On Thursday, December 14, 1950...

...At precisely 1:22 p.m. a runner came into the seventh period civics class of Norman Parminter and Mitchell Lipensky, whom, coincidentally, had this one class together.

“Parminter…”

Looking up from the open book on his desk, “Yes, Sir?”

“Lipensky… ‘Lipensky’!”

Behind the open, propped book on his desk, his head slipping from the palm of his hand, his eyes opening, “Huh?”

“You two! Mister Bryer wants to see you…”

Uh-Oh! Thought Norman.

“…on the double!”

Glancing at Norman, “Oh, shit!” Mitchell muttered under his breath.

****

With humbly bowed heads and wildly thumping hearts, the boys stood before the highly polished, oak desk of the fearsome, eminently exalted, god-like personage of Mister Donald Bryer, the principle of Harrison Technical High School.

Mister Bryer was tall and thin with a narrow face, pinched nose, muddy gray eyes and the remnants of a disappearing head of sandy-colored hair.

Sitting with his back to the window, hunched over his desk looking through the contents of first one, then a second file folder as though comparing one to the other. Mister Bryer’s head moved from side to side as he looked from file to file. Ominously muttering, “Hmmm!” and, “Uh-huh!” every few seconds the principle would look up, into the distraught faces of Norman and Mitchell, and, Tch-tch-tch, click his tongue.

A study in terror, the boys stood befotr the principle looking at the top of his bent head, and the reflection of light from the overhead fixture that shone through the long strands of hair that Bryer had combed from left to right in a vain effort to cover his balding pate.

Finally. Closing the files, putting them together he dramatically tapped their sides on the edge of his desk. Looking up, Bryer’s muddy gray eyes stared first at one, then the other of the two terrorized boys. “You two hoodlums,” he said in a flat, unemotional voice, “have been stealing from the lunchroom.”

“ ‘Stealing’? Well…” Mitchell nervously cleared his throat, “I wouldn’t exactly call it steal…”

“ ‘And’,” Bryer cut him off, “I thought I’d talk to you before I call the police.”

“ ‘Stealing’? ‘Police’? Excuse me, Mister Bryer.” Finding his voice, “Stealing ‘what’?” Norman asked.

“ ‘Parminter’, you do ‘not’ speak to me in that tone of voice!”

“Sorry, Mister Bryer, but I thought you said that Mitch’n’me have been stealing money from the lunchroom.”

“ ‘So I did’!” he said emphatically. “ ‘And so you have’!”

“No, Sir, we ‘have not’!”

Turning his wilting gaze from Norman to Mitchell. “Oh, and what do you call it, Lipensky, when you illicitly return merchandise that isn’t yours…” Speaking in a normal tone of voice, Bryer now roared, “ ‘and get paid for it’? Huh, Lipensky? Just what in the ‘hell’ do you call it?”

Mitchell stared at the stone-like face and horrific gray eyes of the principle a moment, then his gaze wilted and his eyes dropped.

“Well, ‘Lipensky’?” Bryer’s gaze, though, did ‘not’ wilt, and he now added an impatient tapping of his fingernails on the hard wood desktop. “I’m waiting…” tapping, “for your answer!” tapping, “If it’s ‘not’ stealing,” tapping, “what do you call it, ‘Lipensky’?” tapping… tapping.

“ ‘Free enterprise’.”

“Huh?” Amazed at his friend’s simple, brilliant answer, Norman’s head snapped to the left.

Knowing his blustery, bluffing theatrics had paid off on Lipensky, about to lay into Parminter, Bryer had turned his attention to the other boy, but, Free enterprise? Turning back to Mitchell, “ ‘Free enterprise’?”

The words dredged up from God knows where. Surprising even himself. Feeling total confidence with this answer. Remembering, May as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb. Staring back at the principle. “ ‘Yes, Sir’! That’s what we in America call it: ‘Free enterprise’!”

His eyes boring into the boy, “ ‘Free enterprise’, Lipensky?” the principle shouted.

Internally his stomach jumping, outwardly Mitchell did not flinch.

Rather surprised that his bluster was no longer rattling the boy, “What the ‘hell’s’ this got to do with free enterprise, Lipensky?”

Still going with the ‘sheep-as-a-lamb’ theory, “In civics, Mister Olensky said our economy, the ‘American’ economy is based…” Mitchell said proudly, proving that he’d learned ‘something’, “...on the free enterprise system. And that what me’n…uh, Norman’n’ I did, was to see an opportunity and apply the, uh, theory of ‘free enterprise’.”

Rather sure that Mitchell had slept through that lesson, Norman bit his lip in a near futile attempt to keep from laughing.

“Yes, ‘Lipensky’,” Bryer said disgustedly. “I’m sure if you and ‘your’ people…” the corner of his lip curling scornfully, “only learn one thing in America, it is bound to be the ‘free enterprise system’… and how to make money!”

“ ‘Mister Bryer’,” more cognizant of anti-Semitism than Mitchell. catching the barb and actually a bit shocked that his principle would make such a remark. “The fact that Mitch’n’me are Jewish has ‘nothing’ to do with this,” Norman said. “You are still talking about the bottles, aren’t you?”

“Yes, Parminter, ‘I am still talking about the bottles’! And that the two of you have been cutting your classes to do your, uh, collecting. And one thing more…” Fishing, trying to find anything that would once again fluster these two. Lying. “It’s been brought to my attention that the two of you have been taking bottles ‘without’ permission, from girls and freshmen… Smaller freshmen, and cashing them in yourself.”

“Okay, yeah, we’ve cut a couple’a classes a couple’a times to work in the lunchroom,” shocked at the allegation, “but Mister Bryer, ‘I swear’…”

Angrily cutting him off. “Mister Bryer,” Norman said, “we’ve ‘never’ taken so much as ‘one’ bottle from anyone who didn’t want us to have it! And if you’ve got anyone that says we have, we’d like to hear him say that to our faces! And if someone pays a two-cent deposit for a bottle and doesn’t want the bother of standing in line to bring that bottle back, ‘then’, being as this ‘is’ America and according to our civics teacher, if, in fact, we ‘do’ operate under the free enterprise system, if that bottle is paid for and if that person does not want to bring it back him or herself and we do, then why ‘shouldn’t’ we get the two cents?”

“ ‘Why’?” Becoming red in the face, Bryer slammed his fist onto the desk. “I’ll tell you ‘why’!”... Thinking, Smart-ass kikes! Bryer paused, trying to think of a plausible reason…

“Because the ‘Board of Education’ does ‘not’ give Christmas bonuses! This extra money, the ‘refund money’, that you two have been stealing, is saved in a special account to give to the poor old ladies that work in the lunchroom as a Christmas bonus! That’s why!” Bryer looked from boy to boy, hoping they bought this story because he wanted, very badly, to end this conversation.

“Enough!” His mounting anger apparent. “I don’t owe you two any explanation! The collecting of ‘all’ bottles is to be stopped as of today! As for cutting classes,” this said out of habit, “I want the two of you to have a parent here, tomorrow!” The principle made a dismissing motion with his hand, but neither boy moved. “Parminter, Lipensky,” he said, “this conversation is ‘over’!”

Not buying ‘the little-old-lady story’, thinking of the loss of money, but also about cutting classes, with a ‘C average’. “My dad’s a businessman who ‘does’ believe in the free enterprise system, and I don’t know about Mister Parminter,” glancing at Norman, “but I ‘do’ know my father ‘will’ want to talk to you about this!” Once again thinking of the sheep/lamb theory, bluffing, Mitchell added, “So I’m ‘sure’ he’ll be here tomorrow!”

Looking at the boys a moment, “Hold it!” swiveling his chair around, looking out the window, thinking, Lipensky’s old man just might object to us teaching one thing—god damned free enterprise system—and when his kid’s got an opportunity to practice what we preach, we… ‘I’ won’t let him do it. And who the hell knows who these Jews know?

Mentally calculating how much money he and Masako had put into their pockets each day, not counting school holidays and vacations, Jesus, almost $7,200 a year, ‘each’, times… Christ! Thinking of the years they’ve been partners in this, I sure as hell don’t want anyone from downtown coming here and doing a lunchroom audit on unpaid, goddamned two-cent deposits, for Christ’s sake! His mind shifted to… Jesus Christ! ‘Internal Revenue’! Shuddering, Mister Donald Bryer thought of all the taxes he ‘hadn’t’ paid. Okay, pulling his thoughts together, these two sure as hell aren’t going to tell their parents they’ve been cutting classes to do this. but if I make them haul a parent in, sure as hell the shit’ll hit the fan. Rotating the chair and forcing a smile “Tell you what,” he said, “if you two agree to stop your, uh, little illicit business I’ll pass on seeing your parents and irregardless, I’m sending a memo to the lunch room staff anyway telling them that deposits are to be refunded two-cents at a time, ‘only’!”

Looking at Mitchell, who nodded his head affirmatively, “Okay,” Norman said begrudgingly, “what choice do we have?”

Shrugging his shoulders, “Yeah, I guess.” Mitchell agreed.

  ****

“You were bluffing about your dad, weren’t you?”

“I’m not sure.” Crumpling the empty package, he tossed it into the snow before lighting a Chesterfield. “My dad thinks that what you’n’me have been doing is really good.”

Mitchell had told Walter that the collection of bottles was his idea, which, it was. And his father was proud of him, so Mitchell had thought, for the first time in his life. Which was also true .

“You tell him you were cutting to do it?”

“Shit, Normie, it was only gym!”

“Yeah, except for all the times you cut fourth, and that was math.”

“Nah,” smiling, “that I didn’t tell him.”

‘Yeah, I bet!” Norman smiled. “My mom would’ve killed me if she found out I was cutting anything for any reason.”

“Yeah, but think about it; since we started in the lunchroom I haven’t ditched a day, not once in almost three months.”

“Yeah, Lipensky, you couldn’t afford to miss a day’s school.”

“That’s true .”

“Norm, the more I think about it the more I think there’s something really fishy about the story Bryer gave us about the lunchroom ladies getting Christmas bonuses from the bottle money.”

“Why?” Norman flipped his cigarette into a shoveled mound of snow alongside the sidewalk. “You think he’s bullshitted us? You think, maybe, he’s keeping the money himself?”

“All I know is he sure changed his mind fast enough when he thought my dad would want to talk to him.” Thinking a moment, “Yeah, I think what he told us is bullshit, and I also think the prick’s ‘rooking’ the lunch room. How’s ’bout you?”

Thinking a second, “That Bryer’s rooking the lunchroom? ‘Nah’!” Norman said facetiously, “Principles ain’t supposed to do stuff like that.”

“Stuff like what? Like rooking kids…”

“Yeah. And little old ladies.”

“Like adults ain’t supposed to lie, huh.”

“Yeah.” Norman smiled again. “ ‘Cept for telling kids stuff like their mother’s swallowed a watermelon seed when she’s knocked up.”

“Yeah,” smiling back.

“You got much money left?” Norman asked.

Amazed at how fast it had gone, “About seventy, eighty bucks is all.”

Having no idea where he’d spent it either, “Yeah, me, too.”

“Thought it might be kind’a nice having some money for summer for a change, so I thought I’d try hanging onto some.”

Lighting another Lucky, “Yeah,” Norman said, “that’s what I’ve been thinking, too, and I thought that maybe, after New Year’s, maybe we ought’a try finding a job so we can hang onto whatever money’s left.”

“Yeah, that’s what I’ve been thinking, too, and I thought maybe it might be a good idea seeing if we can find a job selling women’s shoes.”

“ ‘Women’s shoes’? Why selling women’s shoes?”

“That way we can combine business with pleasure.”

“How’s that?” Norman asked suspiciously

“Mmmm, yeah!” Licking his lips comically. “That way we’ll get to look up all the

girls’ skirts.”

“Shit, Lipensky!” Scooping up a handful of snow and molding it into a snowball. “Is that ‘all’ you ever think about?” Norman threw it at Mitchell…

Who ran and ducked… but got hit anyway

 Next “Becoming” Excerpt in sequence: “Death, That’s Life”