like a poker hand, “I’d prefer to pay you for a full week’s work, now.”
I managed not to stutter. “Fine. If I need to go beyond a week…?”
“Do it. I’ll be in touch soon.”
With a final tight mirthless smile, he extended his hand and I stood behind the desk and shook it.
“I appreciate your help, Mr. Heller.”
“I hope I
“I pray so,” he said. “I pray so.”
Then he was gone, and I put his money in my pocket, and wondered where I’d seen the pretty, apple-cheeked girl in the snapshot before.
U
PTOWN
U
PTOWN
3
I started the job the following Monday, which was the day the heat wave really started taking itself seriously. At 7:00 A.M. I caught the El—Uptown was six miles north of the Loop—and already it was sweltering; every man on the train was in his shirt sleeves, with suit-coat over arm or left the hell home. The only men I saw that day with their coats on were the old gents sitting on benches in front of the El station, where I got off at Wilson and Broadway; they seemed to be unchanging fixtures of the landscape, a part of the ornate, carved-stone station, like the marble arch with the clock in its grillwork belly that hovered above the front entryway.
The terra-cotta El station—patterned, so they said, after New York’s Grand Central—was typical of the Uptown district’s naively grandiose opinion of itself. Though few of the buildings were taller than three stories—the exceptions being a couple of hotels and a few high-rise apartment houses and the occasional office building— Uptown fancied itself a miniature Loop, and with some justification. The gingerbread on the buildings bore the influence of that other Chicago world’s fair, the Columbian Exposition of ’93, where the hodgepodge beaux arts style of pseduo-European/classical architecture reigned; and in Uptown to this day a fairlike atmosphere prevailed. There were movie palaces like the Riviera, dance halls like the Aragon, specialty shops, department stores, banks, drugstores, delis, tearooms; restaurants from Russian to Polish to Greek, as well as chop suey joints and a Swedish cafeteria.
In this blistering weather, however, the beaches of Lake Michigan, the eastern border of Uptown, would be doing more business than the businesses—with the possible exception of the orange juice huts and ice-cream parlors. And the bars and cafes, offering something cool to drink, wouldn’t be faring poorly, either.
The Howard girl’s cafe was a block from the station—a sign protruded over the sidewalk proclaiming it the s & s sandwich shop—in a three-story building with apartments above. Since its address had a “?” in it, I’d expected a hole-in-the-wall greasy spoon; but as I walked by, glancing in the window, I saw a long counter and floor space to the tune of eight or ten tables, and a trio of waitresses, one of which was the apple-cheeked pretty Polly.
That’s all I saw, because I was glancing, and I walked across the street to a four-story residential hotel called the Wilson Arms. The bottom floor was a bar, and the check-in desk was at the top of the second floor. The place was no competition for the Edgewater Beach, but it was no flophouse either. I paid for three nights—which set me back as many dollars—and rented an electric fan for one day. At twenty-five cents, the fan was highway robbery; after all, I knew store clerks who were making only a nickel an hour, these days, and glad for it. But it was hot, and I had a fifty-buck retainer to play with, and Chicago was unfair even when there wasn’t a depression.
So I sat in a small room on the second floor by the open window, the fan on a table not far from me, blades clicking on the wire mesh as they whirled around, attempting to cool me. I had pulled up an easy chair and was as comfortable as possible, my tie loosened, my shirt unbuttoned.
Down on the street, as morning headed toward noon, the sidewalks were filled with men in shirt sleeves and girls in light summery dresses. The dresses clung sweatily to the girls, which in many cases made for pleasant viewing; the equally sticky shirts of the men, with their underarm sweat circles, didn’t. There weren’t many school- age kids around—they were at the beaches, mostly—but matronly gals in shade hats and tent dresses prowled the sidewalks, carrying shopping bags, looking cross and wishing they were younger and weighed less. I wished I could grant them their wish.
In this heat nobody but working stiffs stayed indoors. Even in cool weather, though, there’d have been plenty of activity on this street. Broadway and Wilson was the heart of Uptown’s considerable commercial district; parked autos lined either side of the street, and cabs prowled constantly by, often finding takers.
Polly’s cafe was doing a brisk business, as people headed in for Cokes and lemonades. Cooling off was the priority of the day. College boys (or anyway college-age boys) sat on little stoops in doorways, or leaned against lampposts, often nibbling at ice-cream cones that threatened to melt down their arms, or drinking orange juice out of paper cups that gave them citrus mustaches. The boys were watching the girls in the summery, sweat-clinging dresses, the little rats. Shame on ’em.
Hard times seemed not to have hit Uptown as hard as some parts of the city; but there were, now and then, reminders: several men wearing homemade sandwich signs wandered by, asking in bold hand letters: WANTED—A DECENT JOB. Then something personally descriptive, like FAMILY MAN, 43. In smaller letters beneath were printed job resumes, including phone numbers and addresses.
From down the street I heard Louis Armstrong, faintly; I craned my head out the window. There was a shoeshine parlor down there, on Polly’s side of the street; the colored boys in their undershirts and wide pants were singing along with the Victrola, mimicking Satchmo, as they whapped the cloths across their customers’ hot feet. They even danced a little. But just a little. In this heat I was surprised they could sing. Jazz does wonders.
Buttoning my shirt, snugging my tie, I went down to the bar and bought a bottle of cold beer and back up to the room and spent an hour drinking it; the last swig was warm as spit. By now there’d been any number of men going in the sandwich shop alone who might have been Polly’s boyfriend; but no one had stayed longer than it would take to have a Coke or anyway a sandwich. Polly was working the tables, and I caught a glimpse of her occasionally in the cafe window, taking an order at, or clearing, one of the front tables. Nothing seemed to be going on in Polly’s life today except waitressing.
She still seemed familiar to me. And I still hadn’t placed her.
By 2:00 P.M. my stomach was making noise, so I went down on the street and gave one of the college-age boys half a buck to go across the street and buy me a ham-and-cheese sandwich at Polly’s cafe. He didn’t ask why I didn’t want to cross the street myself; he just went for the sandwich, brought it to me in a paper bag five minutes later, and earned the quarter’s change. Maybe now he’d go rent himself an electric fan.
