A FBOW excerpt in sequence: “Carmen O’hera & Mrs Gerwitz”

“Another thing!” Angrily snubbing her cigarette out. “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...” Marsha said, “... 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 had been assigned two leads for his first night out: one for six o’clock and the other seven thirty…

The appointments being made days earlier by one or two of the ‘boiler room’ ladies,

“Oh, ‘shit’!”

‘Carmen O’hera’ lived in a yellow brick, three story apartment structure off ‘Irving Park Road’.

Extremely nervous over this his first sales call… And possibly having to drag the two large, unwieldy imitation leather sample cases up… and down three flights of stairs.

Arriving about a half hour early, the ‘52 Ford convertible sat at the curb as the occupant went over the ‘pitch’ attempting to secure the major selling points and the ‘minor closes’ within his mind. Also — this being a rather warm, humid evening he did not want to appear ‘sweaty’.

At five-fifty-five, screwing up his courage, Mitchell Lipensky stepped from his car and opened the —still scrunched trunk— and with a grunt with each, hoisted his sample cases from the trunk-well onto the street.

Door bell buttons above each of six brass mail boxes—meaning two apartments per floor—hoping for the best, Mitchell pushed the ‘O’hera’ button.

After a slight delay. “Yeah...” came a call from what sounded like the second floor, “...who’s there?”

“Hi! I’m Mitch Lipensky from ‘Sierra Marketing’ ...” calling upward, “...and I have an appointment with Carmen O’hera.”

“You the pot’n’pan guy?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Okay, come on up.”

Holding the lighter case an inch off the steps, the other bouncing upward, Mitchell laboriously made his way— thankfully to the second floor where an open door to his left awaited him.

“Hi!” A portly older man dressed in a ratty T-shirt, running shorts and shoes standing just inside the doorway held his hand forward. “I’m ‘Stan’, Carmen’s dad.” Standing aside, “come on in.” he motioned inward. Noticing the gleam of sweat on Mitchell’s face. “Here, le’me me give you a hand.

“No, That’s okay...”

“Bullshit!” Taking a case from Mitchell’s hand, Stan carried it into the kitchen where he placed it alongside a green fermica topped table. “You can set up here.”

“That’ll be great, Mister O’hera, thank’s!”

“ ‘Hey, Carmen’! Your guy’s here! Come on!”

‘Carmen O’Hara’: a gangly, homely, not so middle aged redhead sat with her father 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 without so much as one ‘yes’ from Miss O’hara and, as expected, no sale here and as though the embarrassment of the last forty minutes wasn’t enough, he made a mistake in repacking the second case and embarrassingly had to empty the entire sample case and begin again.

On hi way for a two mile ‘quick walk’, Stan O’hara— being a really nice guy helped Mitchell down stairs carrying one of the cases.

The second call of this night was in a shabby, depreciating neighbourhood just south of Lawrence Avenue, where Mitchell rang the doorbell on a shabby wood-frame house and waited, and waited… Then 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 ‘plus’ pounds… And old.

“ ‘Gerwitz’!” The woman corrected crossly. “ ‘Mrs. Alvin Gerwitz’!”

Thinking. 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.

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’.

Stunned! Wanting to run from this…?— ‘Fire hazard’? But knowing he couldn’t. “Uh...” he said haltingly, “...I, uh, need a place to, uh, lay out my... the, uh, merchandise.”

Turning sideways—not that it made much difference—so she could squeeze her bulk through the narrowly jammed aisle.

“Right this way, sonny...” Mrs Alvin Gerwitz said, “... I’ve made room in the kitchen.

Having to walk sideways also, the width of the sample cases barely scraping by, Mitchell Lipensky followed Mrs Gerwitz her into her hot, cluttered kitchen that had the near nauseating commingled odours of boiled cabbage, rancid oil, fried fish and burnt meat and something decayed.

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,— remembering Mrs Geerwitz’ words:, ‘It’s me’ — Mitchell, ‘illogically’? ‘logically’ prayed the person he was here 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, grand-daughter?” 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!”

Waddling 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 and 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 as, opening the case, “ ‘Oh, shit’!” he silently mouthed.

**** 

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, “Uh-huh” 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…

“I’ll take it!”

“Huh?”

“I’ll take it!”

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 but 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, I ‘always’ pay cash! “

“Huh?” Fortunately there were no flies flying about because one could easily have flown into Mitchell’s open mouth.

“What’s it cost?”

Uh, one twenty-five and another seven for tax and shipping… One thirty-two in all.”

The eccentric—to say the least—old lady reached into the pocket of her apron, removed a thick roll of cash, snapped off the straining rubber band and handed him the top bill.

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 also.

Folding the roll open, thumbing through a number of bills Mrs Gerwitz pulled a fifty dollar bill and handed it to him.

“Uh, Mrs. Gerwitz, it’s one-thirty-two 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’. He’d packed the sample cases quickly… and properly,

Leaving the home of Mrs. Alvin Gerwitz, looking for a telephone booth…

“Marcie...” he asked excitedly, “... guess ‘what’?”

“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 eighteen dollar tip.

“Mitchie, my ‘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 twenty minutes away, 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!”

Recognising 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 realise it’s almost two months since Michael and ‘your wife’…” the words ‘your wife’ spoken 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 sales 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. However 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, your ‘dear, sweet wife’ would begin to address me!”

Thinking, Shit! Here we go again! As always, not having an excuse for that 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 evenings, if the locations were close enough he would take three leads, Mitchell had made but one other sale. Also in all this 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, remotely, bring him closer to meeting his draw.

****

“That makes ‘what’...” Rhea asked sarcastically, “...sixty/seventy dollars? For two ‘whole’ week’s work!”

“First off, mother, every extra dollar helps and 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 ‘ever’ 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 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, ‘I 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 then 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 and sitting on the sofa, Marsha brought the bottle to the baby’s mouth.

“ ‘Have you’?” Marsha demanded. 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 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!”

Leaving himself open for...

“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 from the table, standing, he went to the closet, took his jacket and 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 18, 1957

“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’.”

Marsha had actually 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!”

 Next FBOW excerpt in sequence: “The Witches Cauldron”