Ham On Rye - Charles Bukowski [78]
The guy next to me, a little pretzel of a man, knifed his sharp little elbow into my side. He was one of those individuals whose glasses always seem ready to fall off. He was uglier than I was.
“Hi!” he whispered. “I’m Mewks. Odell Mewks.”
“Hello, Mewks.”
“Listen, kid, after work let’s you and me make the bars. Maybe we can pick up some girls.”
“I can’t, Mewks.”
“Afraid of girls?”
“It’s my brother, he’s sick. I’ve got to watch over him.”
“Sick?”
“Worse. Cancer. He has to piss through a tube into a bottle strapped to his leg.”
Then Ferris began again. “Your starting salary is forty-four-and-a-half cents an hour. We are non-union here. Management believes that what is fair for the company is fair for you. We are like a family, dedicated to serve and to profit. You will each receive a ten-percent discount on all merchandise you purchase from Mears-Starbuck…”
“OH, BOY!” Mewks said in a loud voice.
“Yes, Mr. Mewks, it’s a good deal. You take care of us, we’ll take care of you.”
I could stay with Mears-Starbuck for forty-seven years, I thought. I could live with a crazy girlfriend, get my left ear sliced off and maybe inherit Ferris’ job when he retired.
Ferris talked about which holidays we could look forward to and then the speech was over. We were issued our smocks and our lockers and then we were directed to the underground storage facilities.
Ferris worked down there too. He manned the phones. Whenever he answered the phone he would hold it to his sliced left ear with his left hand and clamp his right hand under his left armpit. “Yes? Yes? Yes. Coming right up!”
“Chinaski!”
“Yes, sir.”
“Lingerie department…”
Then he would pick up the order pad, list the items needed and how many of each. He never did this while on the phone, always afterwards.
“Locate these items, deliver them to the lingerie department, obtain a signature and return.”
His speech never varied.
My first delivery was to lingerie. I located the items, placed them in my little green cart with its four rubber wheels and pushed it toward the elevator. The elevator was at an upper floor and I pressed the button and waited. After some time I could see the bottom of the elevator as it came down. It was very slow. Then it was at basement level. The doors opened and an albino with one eye stood at the controls. Jesus.
He looked at me.
“New guy, huh?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
“What do you think of Ferris?”
“I think he’s a great guy.”
They probably lived together in the same room and took turns manning the hotplate.
“I can’t take you up.”
“Why not?”
“I gotta take a shit.”
He left the elevator and walked off.
There I stood in my smock. This was the way things usually worked. You were a governor or a garbageman, you were a tight-rope walker or a bank robber, you were a dentist or a fruit picker, you were this or you were that. You wanted to do a good job. You manned your station and then you stood and waited for some asshole. I stood there in my smock next to my green cart while the elevator man took a shit.
It came to me then, clearly, why the rich, golden boys and girls were always laughing. They knew.
The albino returned.
“It was great. I feel thirty pounds lighter.”
“Good. Can we go now?”
He closed the doors and we rose to the sales floor. He opened the doors.
“Good luck,” said the albino.
I pushed my green cart down through the aisles looking for the lingerie department, a Miss Meadows.
Miss Meadows was waiting. She was slender and classy-looking. She looked like a model. Her arms were folded. As I approached her I noticed her eyes. They were an emerald green, there was depth, a knowledge there. I should know somebody like that. Such eyes, such class. I stopped my cart in front of her counter.
“Hello, Miss Meadows,” I smiled.
“Where the hell have you been?” she asked.
“It just took this long.”
“Do you realize I have customers waiting? Do you realize that I’m attempting to run an efficient department here?”
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