willing to train me. I
would earn more money and work more regular hours than I would if I worked for his wife.
I couldn’t believe my luck when he hired me on the spot. ‘Glad to have you
aboard, kid,’ he said, and from that day forward, he always called me
‘kid’ or referred to me as ‘the kid’, like John Wayne or
Humphrey Bogart. The icing on the cake was that Happy Harry’s Ice Cream Company
was based around the corner from our new apartment so I’d be able to walk to work.
Who says there’s no such thing as miracles?
One of my jobs, at the end of each day, was
to check the salesmen in, tally up the unsold products against sales and collect the
money they had taken. Sometimes someone would not show up with his day’s takings
and I soon learned that men with drinking problems often took these jobs. They would
abandon the ice-cream cart, make off with the money and find the nearest bar. On those
occasions, Happy Harry became Unhappy Harry. It would take hours to find the abandoned
vehicle and its now ruined contents, to say nothing of the lost income.
I kept records of the amount of money taken on
each vending route, especially the parks. It seemed that Happy Harry’s had the
sole concession to sell ice cream in Chicago’s city parks, which apparently was a
very big deal. There were much larger ice-cream companies, such as Good Humor, which
might have expected to be granted the park concessions, but in those days, it was
definitely whom you knew that determined how contracts were handed out. Apparently,
Harry was a good friend of the parks commissioner and money changed hands regularly
between them. I had to work out the percentage of income from all park sales, of which
ten per cent went directly to the parks commissioner. In fact I kept two sets of books:
we did not report the correct gross amount to him, thereby cheating the cheat out of
some of his kickback.
Later, after I’d left that job, Mr
Morris phoned me. He instructed me that if anyone ever contacted me to ask how I had
kept his records, I should tell them that I had never altered any of the figures, that
we did not keep two sets of books, and that we always reported honestly and accurately.
Who knows what might have happened had my employer or I been found out? Fortunately, no
one ever approached me for information. I learned that, in those days, most things were
run that way in Chicago’s political ‘Machine’. In later years I was to
learn how different Chicago politics were. On Election Day, or on the days leading up to
it, people would come to your door and offer money, bottles of whiskey or boxes of
chocolates to swing your vote their way. They would drive you to the polls too. The
Machine was powerful.
While I worked for the Morrises, who now
insisted that I call them by their first names, Harry would often say, ‘How about
some lunch, kid?’ Sometimes I went with him. Occasionally the parks commissioner
joined us and I listened to their conversations. I’m sure they thought I was too
naive to understand their business relationship, but I had my suspicions. I knew the
commissioner was receiving kickbacks from the ice-cream business, but when he and Harry
whispered behind their hands, I wondered if more shady deals might be going on. I once
overheard something about a shipment of condoms that had come into the
commissioner’s possession the pair discussed how much they could make selling them
by the gross. Weird.
Harry and Joan treated me with great
kindness, and Joan and I became friends, which was a good thing because I had realized I
was pregnant and had no idea what to do about it. Joan, who was expecting her fourth
child I can’t remember ever seeing her when she wasn’t pregnant insisted on
taking me to her obstetrician.
My first visit to him was traumatic. I had
never had a pelvic examination before and found it embarrassing and uncomfortable. I
couldn’t believe that I had to lie on an examination table, skirt up,
would earn more money and work more regular hours than I would if I worked for his wife.
I couldn’t believe my luck when he hired me on the spot. ‘Glad to have you
aboard, kid,’ he said, and from that day forward, he always called me
‘kid’ or referred to me as ‘the kid’, like John Wayne or
Humphrey Bogart. The icing on the cake was that Happy Harry’s Ice Cream Company
was based around the corner from our new apartment so I’d be able to walk to work.
Who says there’s no such thing as miracles?
One of my jobs, at the end of each day, was
to check the salesmen in, tally up the unsold products against sales and collect the
money they had taken. Sometimes someone would not show up with his day’s takings
and I soon learned that men with drinking problems often took these jobs. They would
abandon the ice-cream cart, make off with the money and find the nearest bar. On those
occasions, Happy Harry became Unhappy Harry. It would take hours to find the abandoned
vehicle and its now ruined contents, to say nothing of the lost income.
I kept records of the amount of money taken on
each vending route, especially the parks. It seemed that Happy Harry’s had the
sole concession to sell ice cream in Chicago’s city parks, which apparently was a
very big deal. There were much larger ice-cream companies, such as Good Humor, which
might have expected to be granted the park concessions, but in those days, it was
definitely whom you knew that determined how contracts were handed out. Apparently,
Harry was a good friend of the parks commissioner and money changed hands regularly
between them. I had to work out the percentage of income from all park sales, of which
ten per cent went directly to the parks commissioner. In fact I kept two sets of books:
we did not report the correct gross amount to him, thereby cheating the cheat out of
some of his kickback.
Later, after I’d left that job, Mr
Morris phoned me. He instructed me that if anyone ever contacted me to ask how I had
kept his records, I should tell them that I had never altered any of the figures, that
we did not keep two sets of books, and that we always reported honestly and accurately.
Who knows what might have happened had my employer or I been found out? Fortunately, no
one ever approached me for information. I learned that, in those days, most things were
run that way in Chicago’s political ‘Machine’. In later years I was to
learn how different Chicago politics were. On Election Day, or on the days leading up to
it, people would come to your door and offer money, bottles of whiskey or boxes of
chocolates to swing your vote their way. They would drive you to the polls too. The
Machine was powerful.
While I worked for the Morrises, who now
insisted that I call them by their first names, Harry would often say, ‘How about
some lunch, kid?’ Sometimes I went with him. Occasionally the parks commissioner
joined us and I listened to their conversations. I’m sure they thought I was too
naive to understand their business relationship, but I had my suspicions. I knew the
commissioner was receiving kickbacks from the ice-cream business, but when he and Harry
whispered behind their hands, I wondered if more shady deals might be going on. I once
overheard something about a shipment of condoms that had come into the
commissioner’s possession the pair discussed how much they could make selling them
by the gross. Weird.
Harry and Joan treated me with great
kindness, and Joan and I became friends, which was a good thing because I had realized I
was pregnant and had no idea what to do about it. Joan, who was expecting her fourth
child I can’t remember ever seeing her when she wasn’t pregnant insisted on
taking me to her obstetrician.
My first visit to him was traumatic. I had
never had a pelvic examination before and found it embarrassing and uncomfortable. I
couldn’t believe that I had to lie on an examination table, skirt up,
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