The Studs Lonigan Trilogy - James T. Farrell [399]
Clubs, Hotels And Restaurants
WAITER—ROADHSE., THURS. SAT. NTS. husky, sober.
Nothing there for him.
Salesmen And Solicitors
Might be something here. He knew, though, from the way he’d heard guys talk about looking for jobs, that most of the selling jobs advertised in the papers were sucker propositions. But maybe there might be a real steer in one of these. And he could sell without endangering his heart. Still, to sell, you had to have a line and he didn’t have one. But what the hell, if other guys could develop a line, why couldn’t he? Red Kelly had sold refrigerators for a while. And he had to do something. Anything he could. He would have to support a wife in two weeks, and a baby in seven or eight months.
LIFE INSURANCE MEN — FULL OR PART TIME. Comm.
He marked the ad with a pencil, figuring that even if he `got another job, he might try selling a little insurance on the side. Phil Rolfe might take some, and Carroll, Red, lots of his friends. He’d see about it.
UNUSUAL SALES OPPORTUNITY FOR A-1 men calling on Funeral Directors. Metal vault with patented features, backed by live-wire merchandising plans. Good territory. Open and generous commissions that mean real money for man who can qualify. Write experience.
He would write a letter on this one when he got home. Might as well try everything. He imagined himself going around to undertaking parlors. Not the most pleasant sort of business.
CONFIDENCE INCORPORATED has openings for neat appearing, courteous young man to sell ice cream confections; commission basis. Apply.
He couldn’t see himself standing outside the South Shore Country Club with a little wagon, selling ice cream cones.
TO SALESMEN—SELL SOBER-UP CAPSULES taverns and roadhouses.
He smiled, thinking of how there were so many goddamn funny jobs in the world.
MAN—YOUNG (GENTILE) WHO COULD SING AND PLAY UKELELE EVENINGS...
Employment agencies. He wondered if anything might be gotten that way, or would he just be handing his dough out. Jobs advertised by them for fifteen or twenty dollars a week, and only college graduates need apply. Things must be tough if that’s all college graduates could get after four years of education. And trade schools.
LEARN SCIENTIFIC SWEDISH MASSAGE
That would have been good work for Hink Weber.
THE IMPORTANT THING IN
LEARNING BARBERING IS
THE JOB AFTER YOU
COMPLETE IT
Hollywell not only creates the unusual jobs but the unusual graduates by their distinctive individual short course.
He could see himself going to a barber college. Studs Lonigan the barber.
Help Wanted Female
More jobs for women than men. Not too promising. Hell, he didn’t even know where to go. Through the train window he saw the lake, gray, sullen, and he thought that, Christ, he did not see why he instead of someone else had to get a break like the one he had gotten. It hadn’t happened to Red Kelly or Stan Simonsky. Stan at least had his health. But suppose his baby should be born crippled like Stan’s? It couldn’t. He couldn’t have one additional jolt of tough luck. The world wasn’t made that way. He turned back to the classified advertisements.
BE A TRAFFIC MANAGER. Learn newest growing profession. Railroads, industries, motor freight carriers need men trained in modern methods. Big pay and free emp. Help to qualify. Class forming. Call 9 A. M. to 9 P. M….
That was something it might be well to follow up. As soon as he and Catherine got really settled down, he’d take a course like this one, and see if he couldn’t get himself lined up with a job as a traffic manager. He saw himself a business man wearing a classy suit, getting up from a glass-topped desk, turning to a pretty stenographer and saying with an air of authority, Lucy, I’ll be back at two-thirty. And then, walking out of an office with WILLIAM LONIGAN painted large on the glass window. The train was crowded. Were all these people