Read Online The Hoods by Harry Grey - Free Book Online
Authors: Harry Grey
Tags: Literature
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my strenuous work.
The driver worked on a commission basis. He was greedy, and he had a prodigious capacity for work. We took ten minutes for a sandwich. That was our lunch hour. Then we began again and labored far into the night. After a meager supper, I would crawl numbly into a cold bed, completely drained of any ambition ever to move again. I had peculiar dreams of walking with a bundle of wet wash tied to each leg and another balanced on my head. When I awoke in the cold dawn, stiff, hungry and aching, miserably contemplating my lot in life, a fierce resentment surged through every part of me. I gave vent to my feelings by cursing. I started with the driver, went on to the boss of the wet wash laundry, then to everybody in general. The $4.50 I brought to Momma when I crawled home from work ten o'clock every Saturday night was barely enough for the little food we had.
The old man was spending more and more time in schul. His face and beard grew whiter and whiter. His coughing spells lasted longer and longer. As the months rolled by, we fell further and further behind in our rent. Life was bitter for mama and us. But it wasn't black enough.
The dread “dispossess” came. Then the cold matter-of-fact marshall and his men came. We were out in the biting cold—all our miserable, broken-down belongings piled in a heap on the sidewalk for the callous world to gaze at. All around our piled-up belongings, the restless life of the East Side seemed to pursue its indifferent, hurried course.
It seemed as if the old man's schul-going, his praying, the rabbi— nothing, nobody seemed to want to help. The old man was taken away to Bellevue Hospital in an ambulance the same day.
Finally, my friend, big Maxie, arrived. He brought his uncle over to talk to my crying Momma. Then Maxie's uncle went and spoke to the Tammany district leader. The Tammany leader came to our rescue. He had us moved into a flat farther down on Delancey Street. He paid two months' advance rent for us. He sent five bushels of coal and a new pot-bellied stove. He sent potatoes and groceries—a two weeks supply. But the old man never came home again. He died in Bellevue the next day, from pneumonia.
Maxie's uncle buried my father without charge.
Numb with the hopelessness of it all, I went back to carrying more wet wash bundles.
One day a delegate from the Teamsters' Local arrived outside the wet wash laundry. He questioned some of the drivers and their helpers about working conditions.
My driver said, “Everything is all right. Things aren't bad.”
A few others told the truth. They insisted that conditions were bad. I told the delegate that we were being exploited; we were working more than eighty hours a week. My driver told me to shut my fresh mouth. I talked too much. I looked at him scornfully. The delegate signed those who wanted to join the union. My driver and a few others refused. The delegate drew up a fifty-four hour work week contract with a ten percent increase in pay and submitted it to the boss. The boss told him to drop dead, and go to hell. The delegate called the union men out on strike.
I walked a picket line. My driver and most of the others scabbed. We were jeered at and called lousy agitators and socialists. For days we trudged wearily back and forth. Everybody crossed the picket line. It was disheartening. I did strike duty fourteen hours a day.
One day the cops on strike duty purposely disappeared. A car pulled up with four men in it. They flashed badges. They were from a private detective agency. They told us to keep away from the laundry. They said the strike was over.
The other picket and I refused to go away. They took away our picket signs and beat us both up.
The cops with smirks on their faces came back and asked, “What happened?” They smiled with malice. “Ain't it too bad, wise guys? All right, beat it.”
They chased us away. The driver and his new helper stood laughing at my black eye and bleeding head.
I
The driver worked on a commission basis. He was greedy, and he had a prodigious capacity for work. We took ten minutes for a sandwich. That was our lunch hour. Then we began again and labored far into the night. After a meager supper, I would crawl numbly into a cold bed, completely drained of any ambition ever to move again. I had peculiar dreams of walking with a bundle of wet wash tied to each leg and another balanced on my head. When I awoke in the cold dawn, stiff, hungry and aching, miserably contemplating my lot in life, a fierce resentment surged through every part of me. I gave vent to my feelings by cursing. I started with the driver, went on to the boss of the wet wash laundry, then to everybody in general. The $4.50 I brought to Momma when I crawled home from work ten o'clock every Saturday night was barely enough for the little food we had.
The old man was spending more and more time in schul. His face and beard grew whiter and whiter. His coughing spells lasted longer and longer. As the months rolled by, we fell further and further behind in our rent. Life was bitter for mama and us. But it wasn't black enough.
The dread “dispossess” came. Then the cold matter-of-fact marshall and his men came. We were out in the biting cold—all our miserable, broken-down belongings piled in a heap on the sidewalk for the callous world to gaze at. All around our piled-up belongings, the restless life of the East Side seemed to pursue its indifferent, hurried course.
It seemed as if the old man's schul-going, his praying, the rabbi— nothing, nobody seemed to want to help. The old man was taken away to Bellevue Hospital in an ambulance the same day.
Finally, my friend, big Maxie, arrived. He brought his uncle over to talk to my crying Momma. Then Maxie's uncle went and spoke to the Tammany district leader. The Tammany leader came to our rescue. He had us moved into a flat farther down on Delancey Street. He paid two months' advance rent for us. He sent five bushels of coal and a new pot-bellied stove. He sent potatoes and groceries—a two weeks supply. But the old man never came home again. He died in Bellevue the next day, from pneumonia.
Maxie's uncle buried my father without charge.
Numb with the hopelessness of it all, I went back to carrying more wet wash bundles.
One day a delegate from the Teamsters' Local arrived outside the wet wash laundry. He questioned some of the drivers and their helpers about working conditions.
My driver said, “Everything is all right. Things aren't bad.”
A few others told the truth. They insisted that conditions were bad. I told the delegate that we were being exploited; we were working more than eighty hours a week. My driver told me to shut my fresh mouth. I talked too much. I looked at him scornfully. The delegate signed those who wanted to join the union. My driver and a few others refused. The delegate drew up a fifty-four hour work week contract with a ten percent increase in pay and submitted it to the boss. The boss told him to drop dead, and go to hell. The delegate called the union men out on strike.
I walked a picket line. My driver and most of the others scabbed. We were jeered at and called lousy agitators and socialists. For days we trudged wearily back and forth. Everybody crossed the picket line. It was disheartening. I did strike duty fourteen hours a day.
One day the cops on strike duty purposely disappeared. A car pulled up with four men in it. They flashed badges. They were from a private detective agency. They told us to keep away from the laundry. They said the strike was over.
The other picket and I refused to go away. They took away our picket signs and beat us both up.
The cops with smirks on their faces came back and asked, “What happened?” They smiled with malice. “Ain't it too bad, wise guys? All right, beat it.”
They chased us away. The driver and his new helper stood laughing at my black eye and bleeding head.
I
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