Reason for Leaving Read online

  © 2001 by John Manderino

  Published in 2001 by

  Academy Chicago Publishers

  363 West Erie Street

  Chicago, Illinois 60610

  First paperback edition 2012

  All rights reserved.

  Printed and bound in the U.S.A.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any way

  without the express written permission of the publisher.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Manderino, John.

  Reason for leaving : job stories : a novel / by John Manderino.

  p. cm.

  ISBN 978-0-89733-635-2

  1. Separation (Psychology)—Fiction. 2. Job satisfaction—Fiction. 3. Occupations—Fiction. 4. Young men—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3563.A46387 R43 2001

  813’.54—dc21

  2001053481

  To Linda,

  in loving memory

  DELIVERY BOY

  ALTAR BOY

  WINDOW WASHER

  DITCH DIGGER

  BALLPLAYER

  GAS STATION ATTENDANT

  BUSBOY

  CLERK

  GRADUATE TEACHING ASSISTANT

  SECURITY GUARD

  VOLUNTEER IN SERVICE TO AMERICA (VISTA)

  INSTRUCTOR, COMPOSITION SKILLS

  FIELD WORKER

  TUTOR

  UMPIRE

  ZEN BUDDHIST TRAINEE

  WRITER

  Delivery Boy

  NOVAK’S MEAT MARKET, CHICAGO 1961

  So. How are you doing, young man?

  Fine, Mr. Novak.

  Here. Shake my hand. I’m seventy-eight years old. How do you like that grip?

  It hurts.

  Does it?

  Yes!

  Does it?

  Please!

  Please is good. Would you like a piece of coffee cake?

  No.

  I’ll cut you some. It has cinnamon. Do you like cinnamon?

  It’s all right.

  Here. Eat that. What do you say?

  Thank you.

  What grade are you in?

  Seventh.

  How much is eight times four?

  I don’t know.

  Thirty-two. Do you have a girlfriend?

  No.

  Don’t you like girls?

  They’re okay.

  How’s the coffee cake?

  Fine.

  I’m seventy-eight years old.

  I know.

  Mr. Novak is from Poland and looks like Lawrence Welk. He’s the owner of Novak’s Meat Market, where my dad’s a butcher. My dad’s been working there since he was fourteen and still calls him Mr. Novak. So do the other two butchers, Bob Stanwyck and Hank the German. So do all the customers. Uncle Bobby says Mr. Novak’s wife probably calls him Mr. Novak.

  Uncle Bobby’s my mom’s kid brother, my dad’s godchild, and my delivery partner every Saturday. He drives and I run the bags of meat up to the door and run back with the money and maybe a dime or a quarter for myself. Uncle Bobby is skinny and swaybacked and wears a snapbrim cap and sunglasses, which he calls “shades.” While Mr. Novak looks like he could play polkas on the accordian, ordering everyone to dance whether they want to or not, Uncle Bobby looks like he could play the saxophone, some cool slippery blues—although in the car he plays the country western station. Our favorite song is “The Wabash Cannonball,” especially the fingerpicking part.

  “Godfather!” Uncle Bobby shouts as we walk in the shop at seven in the morning.

  “Godchild!” my dad shouts back, and stops cutting up whatever he’s cutting up.

  They talk about how they bowled Wednesday night while I find a chair, close my eyes and pretend I’m back in bed where I belong.

  I fall asleep.

  I dream that Lucille Hanratty comes up to me after school and says she likes me. This makes me very happy. But she wants to shake my hand and I don’t want to because I know she’ll turn into Mr. Novak. “Don’t you like me?” she says, holding out her hand …

  “Hey. Moonface. Let’s go,” my dad tells me, and I wake up and follow him and Uncle Bobby into the freezer to begin lugging bags of meat out to the car, each bag with a customer’s name pencilled across:

  Stark

  Levin

  Petrovitch

  Dart

  Cohen

  Nudo

  O’Connor…

  When the car is packed with bags, with just enough room for us, Uncle Bobby starts the engine and shouts, “We’re off like a herd of turtles!”

  To Mrs. Stark.

  I hate going there.

  In the foyer I press the black button beside her name and wait for her suspicious little voice to come out of the speaker box:

  “Who is it?”

  “Novak’s.”

  “Who?”

  “Novak’s. Your meat.”

  A long pause while she decides whether to believe me.

  Then the buzzer, and I shove open the door and head up the carpeted stairs.

  “Up heeere!” she calls down from the third floor.

  How does she get up there?

  Maybe she never comes down.

  She’s in the doorway, tiny, with a papery face and blueish hands, her skull showing through her wispy white hair, and she’s all wrapped up in a quilted housecoat in the middle of June, telling me to come in, come in. “Put it over there, on the counter top. I’ll go get your check. Please don’t touch anything,” she adds, shuffling off in her furry slippers.

  It’s so hot in here.

  On the table there’s half a cup of tea, the used tea bag on the saucer, a half-eaten piece of toast, a knife with crumbs in a smear of butter, and Doris Day on the radio:

  When I was just a little girl, I asked my mother …

  “Here you are,” she says, returning with the check. “And something for yourself.” She shows me the nickel, then places it in my palm, and with her cold bony hand closes my fingers over it, an apology in her smile. Sorry it’s only a nickel? Sorry she’s so old and spooky?

  I thank her and get out of there.

  Will I be pretty, will I be rich …

  I take the stairs two at a time and escape into the morning sunlight. I race to the car and Uncle Bobby, who’s in there singing along with Buck Owens and the Buckaroos:

  I’ve got a tiger by the tail, it’s plain to see,

  And I won’t be much when she gets through with me …

  Mrs. Levin, looking straight at my big Italian nose, says, “You must be Johnny’s boy.”

  She’s good for a quarter, though.

  Mrs. Stolowski has to take out every single package and open it and smell it. Then she has to check everything against the bill. Then she has to wash her hands. Then she has to go find her purse.

  No tip.

  The Cohen’s apartment has a shiny wood floor, throw rugs, books and magazines all around, a painting on the wall that’s just a bunch of lines, and a little weiner dog they call Prince Hal who tries to untie my shoe with his teeth. Mr. Cohen has a beard and sandals, like a beatnik, and Mrs. Cohen looks like a fortune teller. They’re very relaxed. I have a feeling they don’t believe in God.

  Fifty cents, though.

  Garlic-smelling Mr. Petrovitch holds out two fat fists and tells me to guess which one has the silver dollar. Every week, whichever hand I guess, he turns it over, opens it, and it’s empty.

  “Sorry!” he says with a big laugh.

  He never shows me if there’s a coin in the other hand.

  The Darts have a daughter a little older than me. I don’t know her name. She comes to the door half-asleep in a housecoat she holds at the throat, her hair every whichway and one eye
stuck closed. She’s beautiful. I can smell her sleepiness. “Here,” she says, and hands me a check and closes the door in my face.

  I stand there staring at the door.

  One day I ring the bell again, but then run.

  Freddy Nudo has the meat brought to his bar, Nudo’s Tap.

  “How’s your old man?”

  “Fine.”

  “Tell him gimme a call. I got a horse for him.”

  “All right.”

  “Gonna be a butcher like your dad?”

  “No.”

  “Brain surgeon?”

  “Ballplayer.”

  “Your dad was a damn good ballplayer.”

  “I know.”

  “He tell you that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Tell him Freddy said he’s full a shit.”

  “All right.”

  “So who ya gonna play for? White Sox?”

  “I guess.”

  “Here’s a buck, case you don’t make it.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Tell him to call me.”

  “All right.”

  Heading back after the morning run, we pass a wedding at the church near 90th and Jeffrey, the bride and groom in front of the doors getting their picture taken. Uncle Bobby shouts out his window, “Fools! Fools!”

  We laugh like hell.

  Mr. Novak is waiting for me with his handshake and his coffee cake with cinnamon. I understand why he likes to show me he can break my fingers even though he’s seventy-eight years old, but I wish he didn’t have to show me every week.

  My dad fixes me and Uncle Bobby each a couple of ham sandwiches on a paper plate with a big wet pickle. Uncle Bobby reads the Sun-Times with his sandwich and I watch my father working.

  Under his apron he wears a white shirt and tie, his hair is neatly combed with Vaseline Petroleum Jelly, and he moves around quickly. I like watching him cut meat, slicing along invisible dotted lines that divide the hunk into separate pieces that have names. He’s a very good butcher.

  But so are Bob Stanwyck and Hank the German. Yet a lot of times they’ll go to serve a customer and the person will say, “That’s all right, I’ll wait for Johnny,” like this was a barber shop. The reason is, my dad is such a nice guy he makes people feel good. It’s as simple as that. He kids around with them and listens and shares tips on horses or talks about the White Sox, and they can tell it’s got nothing to do with trying to sell more meat.

  He comes backing out of the freezer with a long tray of pork chops.

  “Dad, Freddy Nudo said to call him. He’s got a horse.”

  “All right.”

  “He told me to say you’re full of…you know.”

  “Shit?”

  “Yeah.”

  “He give you anything?”

  “A dollar.”

  “That’s all right, then.”

  The afternoon run takes us all the way up by the lake, flying along the Outer Drive, sailboats and gulls out there, ahead of us the Chicago skyline, and Mr. Johnson waiting in his tenth floor apartment, in his red robe, looking down on the Lake and the boats and our little car bringing him his meat.

  He invites me in to show me again the photo of him and Mayor Daley.

  I tell him, “Nice.”

  Then the baseball signed by Luke Appling.

  “Nice.”

  Then his World War II sharpshooter medal.

  “Nice.”

  Then he gets this nervous look and says, “Would you like to see something really special?”

  I always tell him I don’t have time to see anything else because my uncle is waiting. “Maybe next week,” I tell him.

  “All right,” he says, looking sad now.

  He gives me a fifty-cent piece.

  Riding down in the elevator I wonder about the special thing he wants me to see. I’m pretty sure it’s his wanger, but maybe not.

  On the way to Mrs. Fitzgerald, Uncle Bobby turns off the radio and tells me a joke about an Indian with the world’s greatest memory.

  “… but this time the guy just says to the Indian, ‘How.’”

  I don’t get it, but Uncle Bobby tells it so well it’s still funny and I laugh and laugh.

  “That’s not it,” he says.

  “Oh.”

  “So when the guy says, ‘How,’ the Indian looks at him and says: ‘Scrambled.’”

  I wait.

  “That’s it.”

  I laugh and laugh.

  Uncle Bobby sighs and turns the radio back on.

  We sing:

  The news is out all over town

  That you’ve been seen out running ’round …

  The Toolan sisters, two old ladies, think I’m such a pleasant boy, so cheerful.

  “Like his father,” says one, and the other one nods.

  But what it is, they’re the very last bag and now I’m free.

  They give me a nickel.

  “Thank you! Thank you very much! See ya next week! Goodbye! Goodbye!”

  Back at the shop while Uncle Bobby and my dad check the bills against the money, I count up my tips: four dollars and seventy-five cents. My dad gives me a quarter to make it five. Then he wraps some ham and baloney for me to take home and walks us to the back door.

  I feel bad leaving him here.

  But in the car “The Wabash Cannonball” comes on and Uncle Bobby turns it all the way up:

  From the great Atlantic Ocean

  To the wiiiide Pacific shore …

  Altar Boy

  QUEEN OF APOSTLES CHURCH RIVERDALE, ILLINOIS 1962

  The pay is lousy, a dollar a year around Easter. But I’m not in it for the money. Neither is Ralph.

  “Who we got?” he says, hurrying into the dressing room, pulling off his sweater.

  “Crowley,” I tell him, working on the twenty-three buttons down my cassock.

  “A quicky,” he says.

  “Yep.”

  Father Crowley can do a high mass in thirty-five minutes, a low one in twenty. The man’s amazing.

  We get into our surplices, with the big sleeves like wings, and head down a passageway behind the altar that comes out in the sacristy, where Father Crowley’s getting into his outfit.

  “Good morning, Father.”

  “Morning, boys.”

  Father Crowley has the hairiest nostrils I’ve ever seen on a human being.

  Me and Ralph get busy, getting the altar candles lit, getting the water and wine cruets filled. Sometimes, like this morning, Father’s back is bad and we have to tie his shoes for him, Ralph taking one, me the other.

  Then we’re all set to go. We stand in the wings, palms pressed together under the chin, waiting for Father to give the word. Sounds like a pretty good crowd out there for a weekday. You can hear them coughing and fidgeting. Then Father says, “All right.” And out we go.

  Soon as we appear, everyone stands right up.

  That’s a very cool feeling.

  Father goes on up with the chalice and sticks it in the tabernacle for later, then turns around and spreads his arms and says, “Introibo ad altare Dei.”

  And me and Ralph tell him, “Ad deum qui laetificat am juventutem meam.”

  I don’t know what we’re saying, but God does and that’s the important thing. God is what this job’s all about.

  I know Ralph feels the same way. In fact, he’s probably going to be a priest. Jesus appeared to him in a dream and told him he’d make a pretty good one.

  I don’t know if it’s a job I’d want or not. I mean, I think it would be cool doing Mass, and of course hearing Confession:

  Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. I committed an impure act with myself.

  My son, that’s disgusting.

  I’m sorry, Father.

  Don’t ever do that again. You hear me, boy?

  Yes, Father.

  Now get the hell outa here.

  But the thing about being a priest, you can’t ever quit. I wouldn’t like that. I like b
eing able to quit.

  That’s what I told Ralph and he agreed but he said he didn’t have any choice. He said Jesus picked him and that was that.

  I said, “He didn’t actually pick you. He just said you’d probably make a good one.”

  Ralph shook his head. “You didn’t see His face.”

  I feel bad for Ralph because I know he’d rather be a Marine, like his dad. I told him he could be a chaplain, but he said they’re not allowed to kill, so what would be the point?

  We get to the Offertory in about twelve minutes flat. Father holds up the host and Ralph gives the handbell one clean shake, all wrist, and now the bread is the body of Christ. Then Father holds up the chalice and Ralph rings the bell and now the wine is the blood of Christ. Even if you’re not a Catholic, you have to admit that’s pretty miraculous.

  And we do it here every day.

  Ralph goes and gets the paten—the silver plate with a handle, to catch any crumbs—and Father Crowley gives us Communion. Then, with the body of Christ still melting in my mouth, I follow Father down to the railing and go along holding the paten under everyone’s chin while they shut their eyes and stick out their jittery tongue. Sometimes there’s a kid you know and you’re tempted to give him a friendly little stab in the Adam’s apple with the edge of the paten. But you don’t.

  After Communion it’s just a matter of wrapping up. Then Father tells them, “Requiescat in pace”—Go in peace—and we head back into the sacristy.

  “Well done, fellas,” Father tells us.

  That’s what you like to hear. Because if Father is pleased, then God is pleased. And if God is pleased, then you’re all set.

  I know Ralph feels the same way.

  “Semper fidelis,” he always says to me when he leaves, meaning “Always faithful.” Only, that’s not from the Church, it’s from the Marines.

  Window Washer

  CALUMET CLEANERS RIVERDALE, ILLINOIS 1963

  I can’t decide whether Lucille Hanratty, if she happened to walk by, would think I look cool doing this or not.

  I’m out on the sidewalk washing the big front window of the Calumet Cleaners, where my mother works mornings. It’s February, after school, turning dark, and so cold the steaming water I splash onto the window with a long-handled brush turns to ice unless I’m quick with the squeegee. But I don’t want to move too quickly. I want to appear detatched from this window washing, as I’m detatched from the weather in my unzipped ski jacket, no hat or gloves.