A FBOW excerpt in sequence: Rubidoux Meyers: 1956
New York, N.Y.
July 30, 1956
___________________
Surprising Mitchell,— coming to mid neck— not so much for the beyond regulation length as its color. The man had tightly curled, platinum coloured hair and was loudly…
“Ba ba ba bummm! Ba ba ba ba bummm!”
‘Ba ba bumming along with ‘Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony’ which roared over the radio in ear piercing competition with the clacking and grinding of the Addressograph plate making 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 swivelled on the chair, and…
‘Holy shit!’ Mitchell thought because…
About Mitchell’s age— between twenty and twenty-three— in addition to near white platinum coloured hair, the young man had a strange, albeit handsome face with startling light green eyes, a flaring Negroid nose, Caucasian lips and, if not pure white, than certainly the lightest complexion he’d ever seen.
Thinking, He’s a white black man!
Obviously used to being stared at, a thin smile forming on his lips. “Hey, man...” he said good-naturedly, “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 co-worker 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 the man’s appearance that, “ ‘Ruby’?” Mitchell questioned. “Your name’s ‘Ruby’?He asked for the third time, then realising and a bit embarrassed ....Uh, I’m Mitch Lipensky.”
“Actually, my name’s ‘Rubidoux’. Good to meet you, Mitch… ‘Lipensky’?” Questioning Mitchell’s name also. You spell it with a ‘Y’ or an ‘I’?”
Taking a few seconds to understand the question. “ ‘Y’, why?”
“You’re a Jew!?”
The blunt, unexpected statement/question throwing him. “Did you say your name is…” thinking a moment, “... ‘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 nature. “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 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 effect.
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 until, 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 a ‘M.O.T’.., too.”
“ ‘M.O.T’?”
“ ‘Member of the tribe’.” Seeing the confused look on Mitchell’s face, “I’m a Jew, too.”
“Uh, ‘you’re’ Jewish? Funny you...” the words slipping out, “...don’t look Jewish.”
Which rekindled Ruby’s laughter, which reignited Mitchell’s laughter.
****
Occasionally two people might meet and sense…? A kinship of sorts in the other person that sparks an instant affinity regardless of physical appearance...
An instantaneous kinship sparked between Mitchell Lipensky and Rubidoux Meyers.
****
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!” Picking his off the floor and tossing it onto a desk, “Come on! I’ll tell you how ‘things’ are done here 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 self conscious 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, hash browns 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 practising. 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, Mitch, I’m ‘kosher’.”
“Sure you are!” 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’.” Signalling 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, you don’t know it yet, but they’ve ‘really’ done you 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.” Jabbing his forefinger into his chest.
“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 wants to walk ‘all’ the way...” he smiled, “...across the ‘dead space’. 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! If you’re that close I’ll pick you up and drop you off.”
“Hey, that’s ‘great’!Thanks, Pal.”
After the ‘non-paperclip shooters’ in the live space, ‘Pal’... Mitchell thought, ...sounds great! Especially — for some reason— coming from this weird looking, good looking, white black man.
****
Sitting in front of one of the Addressograph plate making machines. “Here’s how you do it,” Ruby explained placing a 1x3 thin 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, Ruby typed: ‘Hall, Gilbert P., L.T.J.G. Ret.’ and tapped 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 ‘H-a’ 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 sheets in the holder to his right— “...dropped in their basket by ‘Office’ at about o600 once or twice a week and ‘Mail’ drops ‘em into our basket… Don’t ask why ‘Office’ doesn’t drop ‘em directly into our basket, ‘cause I don’t know why. When we’re done making the plates we store ‘em, and...”— pointing to the banks of plate cabinets that lined the walls— “...date stamp the lists and drop ‘em back into ‘Mail’s’ basket. When ‘Mail’ needs plates for a mailing…”
Explaining, “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 ‘Mail’s’ door. When ‘Mail’ is through with the plates they schlep ‘em back and leave ’em by our door.”
“Got i?”
“Yeah.” Tickled over 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.”
****
“Dum dum dumdumdumdum dum dum!” Ruby sang along with the music and, Clack clack…clack…clack — pounded away on the Addressograph machine.
Clack…clack! “Shit! Em, eh…” Mitchell pushed the back space key two times and the erase key two times and ‘attempted’ to pound away on the Addressograph machine.
****
Traffic crossing the Brooklyn Bridge was stop and go… mostly stop.
“Where you from, Mitch?”
Surprised this hadn’t come up before “Chicago.”
“Ol’ ‘Chi’ town, ’eh. So tell me, your town, is Chicago really as windy as they say?”
Mitchell glanced at Ruby.
He’d never thought of Chicago as ‘his town’ till recently. Actually, New York City was the only other big city he had ever been to. And until he’d married Marsha and moved to Seagate, the people he had met, the men on the Halfmoon and at Rockaway Life Boat Station—with the exception of Warrant Officer Floyd Richard Ewing—were friendly enough. But now, thinking specifically of the unfriendly group of men at Third District Headquarters and the people in their building, of whom, besides their immediate neighbours, Lou and Grace Weiner and Mrs. Tennenbaum—the old lady that owned the apartment building they lived in—no one had made much of an attempt to be friendly.
“Yeah...” answering Ruby’s question, “...it sure does get windy but no worse than here at times, except maybe downtown or along Michigan Boulevard. But one thing about Chicago: the people there are really friendly. I haven’t been all over, but from what I’ve been told and seen, no one’s as friendly as mid- westerners… Where you from, Ruby?”
“ ‘Baltimore’ now, but my mother is originally from ‘New Orleans’. That’s why I’m named ‘Rubidoux’. It’s French. You see I’m named after my great, great grandpa…” looking at Mitchell, “who was a slave holder.”
Stopped in traffic, “A ‘slave holder’?” Looking to his right, his eyes locked with Ruby’s.
Next FBOW excerpt in sequence: Ruby’s Roots& Retrospective 6
