beanpole he could have decked with one punch. Even as a kid, I knew that his boss’s behavior was beyond the pale; it was the sort of gratuitous cruelty that permeates the workplace in this country, one colossal job-creating machine in which millions of Americans start their own businesses every year because they cannot stomach even one more day of abuse from their superiors. This way, they can run their own operations and mistreat their underlings, who will then run off to start their own businesses.
You didn’t need to have much on the ball to see that my uncles were supplanting my father as my heroes. They were independent, they were flashy, they made their own hours, they had yet to meet any crap they were prepared to take. Whippersnapper-protégé that I was, I got into the habit of asking them tons of questions, not because I cared all that much about the answers but because it enabled them to assume the enviable role of the wise old patriarch, sagaciously explaining to a callow youth who was who and what was what. After which they always bought me soda pop.
One Saturday, Uncle Charlie rounded me up to help out with his undefined duties as a ward heeler. We spent the morning stuffing hundreds of envelopes with fliers beseeching voters to get out and support the Democratic ticket. Then, after lunch, we delivered the envelopes to houses throughout his neighborhood. My uncle smoked cigars all day, bought me some ice cream, and then, at the end of the afternoon, rewarded me with a few bucks for my efforts. I told him that I would put the money toward the purchase of a jet-black English racer that I’d had my eye on for some time. About a year earlier, I had purchased a used bike at the Salvation Army for $12 with cash I had saved up from birthdays and my confirmation, but the vehicle was a dud whose steering wheel would never stay in place, causing me to regularly go flying off in all directions. To work my way back to the house after a spin around the project, I had to pedal past a playground teeming with inclement white trash, so relying on a bicycle with a defective steering wheel was a bad idea. The bike I’d been dreaming about was going to set me back $33, though I never really expected to make that purchase, because as soon as I had $33 amassed—a princely sum that was probably half what my father was earning each week back then—I knew he would requisition it for some dubious emergency, like stocking up on blended whiskey in case the state of Tennessee got nuked by the Russians. My father was the Internal Revenue Service writ small; he was the physical embodiment of all those tax-and-spend Democratic legislatures that Republicans have always reviled, in that he made it pointless to work hard, because the money was only going to end up getting confiscated by lazy sons of bitches who had their own ideas about how to spend your hard-earned cash. He, like them, was a master at demoralizing the workforce.
Two Saturdays after the outing with Uncle Charlie, my mother dispatched a search party and told me to come home immediately, as a fantastic surprise awaited me. I could not imagine what this surprise could be, but as surprises were in short supply back then, I ran home as fast as my little legs could carry me. When I nipped through the front door, my uncle Charlie was kneeling on the living room floor, clutching a wrench, putting the final touches on the assembly of a magnificent jet-black English racer. The bicycle had been manufactured by a German company called Hermes, after the god of speed, though, technically, he was also the deity responsible for watching over anyone involved in shady financial transactions. No matter how long I lived, no matter how radiantly fortune shone upon me later in life, I never got a better present. I rode that bicycle every single afternoon until the day I went to college. I rode it up hills, down hills, past gangs of hoodlums, through gangs of hoodlums. I loved that bicycle the
You didn’t need to have much on the ball to see that my uncles were supplanting my father as my heroes. They were independent, they were flashy, they made their own hours, they had yet to meet any crap they were prepared to take. Whippersnapper-protégé that I was, I got into the habit of asking them tons of questions, not because I cared all that much about the answers but because it enabled them to assume the enviable role of the wise old patriarch, sagaciously explaining to a callow youth who was who and what was what. After which they always bought me soda pop.
One Saturday, Uncle Charlie rounded me up to help out with his undefined duties as a ward heeler. We spent the morning stuffing hundreds of envelopes with fliers beseeching voters to get out and support the Democratic ticket. Then, after lunch, we delivered the envelopes to houses throughout his neighborhood. My uncle smoked cigars all day, bought me some ice cream, and then, at the end of the afternoon, rewarded me with a few bucks for my efforts. I told him that I would put the money toward the purchase of a jet-black English racer that I’d had my eye on for some time. About a year earlier, I had purchased a used bike at the Salvation Army for $12 with cash I had saved up from birthdays and my confirmation, but the vehicle was a dud whose steering wheel would never stay in place, causing me to regularly go flying off in all directions. To work my way back to the house after a spin around the project, I had to pedal past a playground teeming with inclement white trash, so relying on a bicycle with a defective steering wheel was a bad idea. The bike I’d been dreaming about was going to set me back $33, though I never really expected to make that purchase, because as soon as I had $33 amassed—a princely sum that was probably half what my father was earning each week back then—I knew he would requisition it for some dubious emergency, like stocking up on blended whiskey in case the state of Tennessee got nuked by the Russians. My father was the Internal Revenue Service writ small; he was the physical embodiment of all those tax-and-spend Democratic legislatures that Republicans have always reviled, in that he made it pointless to work hard, because the money was only going to end up getting confiscated by lazy sons of bitches who had their own ideas about how to spend your hard-earned cash. He, like them, was a master at demoralizing the workforce.
Two Saturdays after the outing with Uncle Charlie, my mother dispatched a search party and told me to come home immediately, as a fantastic surprise awaited me. I could not imagine what this surprise could be, but as surprises were in short supply back then, I ran home as fast as my little legs could carry me. When I nipped through the front door, my uncle Charlie was kneeling on the living room floor, clutching a wrench, putting the final touches on the assembly of a magnificent jet-black English racer. The bicycle had been manufactured by a German company called Hermes, after the god of speed, though, technically, he was also the deity responsible for watching over anyone involved in shady financial transactions. No matter how long I lived, no matter how radiantly fortune shone upon me later in life, I never got a better present. I rode that bicycle every single afternoon until the day I went to college. I rode it up hills, down hills, past gangs of hoodlums, through gangs of hoodlums. I loved that bicycle the
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