I Can Get It for You Wholesale (6 page)

I turned around to take a good look at it.

“Maybe I’m wrong,” I said, “but it looks like a truck to me.”

“Sure it’s a truck. What do you think, I’m dumb or something?” Well, he certainly wasn’t something. “But what the hell is it for?”

“Well, you’re looking a little peaked, and I thought a little ride in the fresh air would do you good, so I just went out and rented me a truck, and so here we—”

“But no kidding, what’s it for?”

“This, my boy,” I said, tapping the fender, “is the latest way of running a strike that has yet been invented.”

“What the hell, am I nuts or are you?”

“Well, Tootsie,
I
feel perfectly okay.”

“But what the hell is it for?”

“Jesus Christ on a raft!” I said. “What did you do, make a record of that? Don’t you know any other songs?”

“Yeah, but what the?—”

“Ah, nuts,” I said, grabbing his arm. “Here, you’re gonna ride up front here, with the driver. I’m gonna be inside, on the floor, so nobody can see me.” I handed him a piece of paper. “That’s the route we’re gonna follow. You keep reading it to the driver, to make sure we stay on it, and keep your eyes open. If anything starts to happen, anybody starts to get tough, maybe the cops or somebody, you let me know. Understand?”

“Sure, but—”

“But my eye,” I said. “Look at this.”

I grabbed the piece of rope on the side of the truck and pulled down the wide sheet of oilcloth and fastened the piece of rope to a nail at the bottom. The sheet of oilcloth that came down like a window shade was a sign. It said:
SHIPPING CLERKS ATTENTION
!
DON’T FORGET THE GENERAL STRIKE
!
TO-MORROW AT
8:00
A.M.
!

“Gee,” Tootsie said.

“Yeah,
gee
!” I said, pulling him after me around to the other side of the truck. I hauled down the other sign and fastened it at the bottom. By now a small crowd was beginning to collect, so I pushed him into the truck next to the driver and climbed into the back myself. I parked myself on the mattress on the floor and motioned to the driver.

“Get going,” I said.

“Where to?”

“What time is it?”

“Ten after twelve.”

“That’s just right. Go right up Thirty-Fourth till you hit Broadway, then turn right and go up Broadway slowly, about ten or fifteen miles an hour, till you hit Forty-Second. Then turn left twice and go down Seventh Avenue, till you hit Thirty-Fourth. After that follow the route on the paper I gave him.” I pointed to Tootsie. “Understand?”

“Okay,” the driver said, and we began to move.

Through the crack between the doors in the back of the truck I could see a little of the street. In a couple of minutes I could see the “L” pillars on Sixth Avenue and hear a train going by above me. We turned right, into Broadway, and slowed down for the traffic in front of Macy’s.

“What time is it?”

“A quarter after twelve,” Tootsie said.

That was just about right. Most of them would be out on the street. I waited until the truck began to move forward slowly. Then I leaned over to the mike and began to speak.

“Shipping—clerks—attention,” I said slowly, and heard the words come booming out above me louder than all the noises of the street. “Shipping—clerks—attention,” I said again. I almost laughed out loud at the look on Tootsie’s face as he looked all around him and then back into the truck at me. “All—out—for—the—general—strike—to-morrow. All—out—for—the—general—strike—to-morrow. Shipping—clerks—attention. General—strike—to-morrow—morning—at—eight. General—strike—to-morrow—morning—at—eight. Shipping—clerks—attention.”

Through the crack between the doors I could see the crowds milling around the truck, moving along with it, laughing and yelling.

I repeated it slowly and clearly, spacing out the words so that they would be understood. Then I paused for a few seconds and started again. Sometimes I varied it a little, adding a crack to keep them interested.

“Shipping—clerks—attention. Step-children—of—the—garment—industry. Fight—for—your—rights. Turn—out—for—general—strike—to-morrow—morning—at—eight. Shipping—clerks—attention.”

The crowd loved it. They ate it up. They laughed and shoved and followed the truck. They couldn’t seem to get enough of it, but they certainly didn’t have to walk along with the truck to hear me. The amplifier carried my voice for blocks. Once in a while I caught a glimpse of the side of a building through the little window over the driver’s seat. People were hanging out of all the windows, watching the street below, laughing and pointing to the truck as it moved up toward Times Square.

“Shipping—clerks—attention. General—strike—to-morrow—morning—at—eight. Shipping—clerks—attention.”

Strikes on Seventh Avenue are no novelty. They’ve got a new one every Monday and Thursday. The garment district is usually as full of pickets as the rotogravure section of the
New York Times
on Sunday is full of brassiere and corset ads. But they go just as quickly and easily as they come. They have no novelty, no zip. People just take them for granted. Any rummy can call a strike. But who ever hears of them? What happens to them? Well, this was one that they’d hear about! Not only would those dopes remember that they were supposed to go out on strike the next day, but the rest of the garment district would remember it too. When I do something, I do it right.

“Shipping—clerks—attention. General—strike—to-morrow.”

At Times Square the truck turned left and then, quickly, left again, and we were on Seventh Avenue.

I began all over again, rolling the words off my tongue and listening to it come roaring out. Suddenly the truck stopped. I knew what it was before the cop reached the truck. I was a little surprised that we hadn’t been stopped before this.

“What the hell’s going on here? Where d’you guys think y’are?”

Tootsie leaned in through the little window over the driver’s seat.

“Harry, it’s a cop.”

“You mean it?” I said. “I thought for a minute it was Greta Garbo.”

I pulled the permit out of my pocket and handed it to Tootsie through the window. I didn’t want anybody to see me, just in case some of those shipping clerks were around. As far as they were concerned, I had nothing to do with this strike.

“Show this to the law,” I said.

Tootsie took it and leaned across the driver to give it to the cop. In a few seconds he handed it back in to me and we began to move forward again.

“It’s a lucky thing you had that,” Tootsie said through the window.

Luck nothing. You can do almost anything in this world. All you need is enough brains to plan everything in advance. Getting a permit in advance sounds simple. So does the idea of hiring a sound truck to remind a couple of thousand shipping clerks of their appointment to go out on strike the next day. But the guy who would get both these ideas is one in a million. Like me.

But I didn’t have time to explain all that to Tootsie. I was too busy with the mike.

“Shipping—clerks—attention. General—strike—to-morrow. Fight—for—higher—wages—and—fewer—hours. Shipping—clerks—attention. General—strike—to-morrow.”

We kept it up until half-past one, crisscrossing through every one of the streets between Thirty-Fourth and Forty-Second, from Sixth Avenue, across Broadway and Seventh Avenue, to Eighth Avenue, and then around the circuit we’d started with—the triangle that’s formed by Times Square, Broadway and Thirty-Fourth, and Seventh Avenue and Thirty-Fourth.

We could have stopped at one, because there isn’t a shipping clerk in the whole damn neighborhood who gets more than a half-hour for lunch, anyway, and most of them are plugging away again by one o’clock. But I was getting a kick out of it, the longer we kept it up the longer we’d be remembered, and anyway, I’d had to hire the truck for a full half-day, so keeping it in the neighborhood for another half-hour or so didn’t cost anything extra.

“Shipping—clerks—attention. General—strike—to-morrow.”

Finally, though, I began to get hoarse. I had the driver stop the truck and I told Tootsie to hop out and release the signs. Then we drove back to the garage.

“Well, Tootsie,” I said as we walked away, “how’s that for a way to run a strike?”

“Oy! Swell,” he said, “I only hope it works.”

“Don’t worry, stoop,” I said, keeping my hand in my pocket to prevent it from poking him one. “It’ll work.”

I
T TOOK ME LESS
than an hour to come down from the Bronx, and I’d left the house before eight, so I was on Seventh Avenue long before nine. But early as I was, the pickets were ahead of me. The first building I saw was 463, on the corner of Thirty-Fifth. About a dozen of them were parading up and down before the front entrance, their backs and bellies plastered with large signs. As soon as I got near enough, I saw another dozen, on Thirty-Fifth, covering the freight entrance. They had the building bottled up. Nice work.

I went up Seventh Avenue quickly, spotting all the main buildings: 469, 498, 525, 530—they were all covered. I didn’t have a chance to go through the side streets, but as I passed I glanced into them and I could see the marching pickets, with their red and white signs, and the crowds watching them. Broadway was the same: 1359, 1375, 1385, 1400, 1410—they all had their quota of pickets. Tootsie was all right. He had done his work well. He was a little thick at times, and once in a while you had to talk your left lung off to make him see two inches in front of his schnob, but in the long run he was all right.

Now that the first survey was over, I breathed a little easier. I walked around more leisurely, watching the crowds. They didn’t know what to make of it. It was a few minutes to nine, and they were rushing to get to their places on time, but the sight was too much for them. They had to stop and look. Shipping clerks on strike were enough of a novelty. But such a slew of them, covering every building—it was terrific.

Most of them were laughing. Shipping clerks on strike? Who ever heard of shipping clerks going out on strike? Operators and pressers and finishers—all right. But shipping clerks?

I stopped to watch a small parade of them as they went back and forth in front of 1410. A few others stopped, too, and in a minute we were a small group, watching and laughing.

“Looks like they mean business, hah?”

“Looks that way.”

“I’ll tell you the truth, honest, I never knew there were so many around.”

“Well, it only goes to show you.”

“I wonder what they’re striking for?”

That one was a lulu. I had to turn around to get a good look at the big brain that dropped that one.

“What’d you say, mister?” I asked.

He looked a little scared, so I smiled and said, “I thought you said something to me.”

“No,” he said. “I only was wondering what they’re striking for?”

“That’s easy,” I said. I couldn’t help it. The opening was too wide. “They want to crap in the street, like horses,” I said. “See, they do the work of horses, shoving trucks around and things like that, so they want to have the right to drop it in the street, just like horses.”

I didn’t wait to hear what he said, if anything. Can you imagine any one person being as dumb as all that? He wondered what they were striking for!

I moved on down Broadway, feeling good. And every time I passed another building, and saw the pickets parading back and forth in front of it, I felt better. By the time I hit Schrafft’s I felt so good that I decided to go inside for a soda. Halfway through it I remembered the guy who wanted to know what they were striking for and what I had told him, and I began to laugh. But the edge was taken off because I knew there was nobody I could tell it to. That’s the price you pay when you pal around with dopes.

After the soda I lit a cigarette and went outside. You don’t find any shipping clerks standing in front of Schrafft’s in the middle of the day. But you’ll find plenty of dress salesmen. When I was a shipping clerk I used to envy these heels. Some day, I promised myself, I’d be standing there with them, punching the bag and taking time out every half-hour for a twenty-cent ice cream soda. Well, now I was doing it. I was through with being a shipping clerk. For that matter, I was through with working for other people. Nobody ever made any money that way. The way to make money is to get other people to work for you. You be the boss, not the other guy, even if it’s only a peanut stand you’re running.

Promptly at nine-fifteen Tootsie drifted by.

“Hello, Tootsie.”

“Hello.”

“Everything okay?”

“Looks like it to me. Did you take a look around?”

“Just for a few minutes,” I said. “Everything looked all right.”

“I checked on every building,” he said. “They’re all out.”

“Side streets, too?” I asked.

“Everything.”

“How many do you figure are out?”

“Well, we had over five hundred picket signs this morning, and there isn’t a one left.”

“That’s fine,” I said.

“Yeah, and plenty of them are picketing without signs.”

“Any trouble yet?”

“A couple of wise guys tried to take a truckful of dresses out the Thirty-Ninth Street side of 1410, but we stopped them.”

“What do you mean, you stopped them?”

“What do I mean? What do you mean, what do I mean? We stopped them, that’s all.”

“That’s all nothing,” I said. “Don’t just stop anybody. What do you think you’re doing, playing pisha-paysha? In case you don’t know it, Tootsie, this is a strike.”

“I know it is. So what’s that got to do with it—?”

“All right. All right. Don’t look so dumb,” I said. “And don’t start to cry on me, either. The only thing is, don’t tell me any more you just stopped anybody. Anybody tries to come through with dresses or a truck or something, tell those pickets to sail into them. Let’s have a couple of broken heads around here. Then they’ll know we mean business. Understand?”

“Yeah, but what do we have to go around looking for trouble for? Isn’t it enough we stop them? As long as they don’t go in or out, that’s enough, isn’t it?”

“Listen, Tootsie,” I said, “we haven’t got all year for this thing. This strike is less than an hour old, so nothing’s happened yet. But before it’s an hour older the whole neighborhood’ll be lousy with scabs. Maybe they don’t understand English so well, but if they get a good swift kick in the pants or a rap in the snoot once in a while they’ll understand all right. So just shake the lead out of your ass for a change and pass the word around that you want them to stop all scabs with force. Come on, now, shake your ankle.”