Roughneck - An Autobiography Part 3

"You wanted a job, Jim," he said, heading his car toward the shabbiest section of town, "so I helped you to get it. But I don't think you're going to like it. I don't, and I think I can take a lot of stuff that would throw you."

"I don't understand," I said. "Mr. Clark seemed to be-"

"Mr. Clark 'is' a nice guy. As long as you produce. That's all he asks of you, to get the money, and he doesn't care how you do it. But, brother, you'd sure as h.e.l.l better get it."

"Well," I shrugged, "that's our job. If a man doesn't do his job, he should catch h.e.l.l."

"It's not quite that simple," said Durkin. "But you'll see what I mean."

We had crossed Salt Creek and entered a neighborhood of rutted dirt streets and unpainted shacks. Durkin stopped in front of one of them, took a collection card from the dashboard clip and got out. I followed him across the trash-strewn yard to the house.

Durkin knocked; he pounded; he stood back and kicked the door. There was no response. All was silent behind the drawn shades of the place.

"Well," I said uneasily, "it looks like there's no one home, Durk."

Durkin gave me a pitying look. Drawing back his fist, he jammed it through the screen and lifted the latch. Then, he turned the doork.n.o.b and walked in.

I tottered after him.

Seated at a table made of packing boxes was a burly unshaven man in unders.h.i.+rt and trousers. As we walked in, he set down his tin cup of coffee and directed a string of curses at Durkin.

"Ought to beat your G.o.dd.a.m.ned head off," he swore. "Ought to call the cops on you. Breaking and entering-don't you know that's against the law?"

"Let's have the dough," said Durkin. "Come on, snap into it!"

"I ain't got any dough! I ain't been working."

"Come through," said Durkin. "You worked two days and a half last week."

"So I made a few bucks. I got to have something to eat on, don't I?"

"You don't do any eating on our money," said Durkin. "Let's have it."

The man ripped out another string of curses. Surlily, his eyes wavering away from Durkin's stern stare, he jerked a five-dollar bill from his pocket.

"All right. There's your G.o.dd.a.m.ned dollar. Give me four bucks change."

Durkin put the five in his billfold, wrote out a receipt for it and tossed it on the table. "You were behind in your payments, Pete," he said evenly. "That brings you up to date."

The man's face purpled. Fists clubbed, he started toward Durkin, and, almost absently, Durkin turned to me.

"Jim, get that size forty-six coat out of the car-the sheep-lined. I want Pete to try it on."

"But,"-I stared at him incredulously-"b-but he-"

"That's right. I brought it along especially for Pete. Winter's coming on, and he's going to need a good warm coat."

I got the coat out of the car, noting that it had cost six dollars wholesale according to the code number. Durkin slipped it on Pete, even as the big man glowered and grumbled threats.

"Fit's you like a glove," he declared. "Isn't that a swell coat, Jim? Makes Pete look like a new man."

"Prob'ly fall apart in two weeks," muttered Pete. "What you want for the d.a.m.ned thing?"

"Oh, I'll make you a good price on that. Let you have it for twenty-five dollars."

"Twenty-five dollars!" Pete let out a howl. "Why you can get the same d.a.m.ned thing anywhere for eleven or twelve!"

"But you don't have eleven or twelve," Durkin pointed out, "and you can't get credit anywhere else...Tell you what I'll do, seeing that you're an old customer. I'll make it twenty-two-fifty, and you can pay it out at four bits a week. Make your payments a dollar-fifty a week instead of the dollar you're paying now."

"Well...twenty dollars and two bits a week!"

"You're wasting my time," said Durkin, crisply. "Let's have the coat."

Pete hesitated. "Oh, h.e.l.l," he said. "Okay. Twenty-two fifty and four bits a week. What you got for me to sign?"

Having given me a demonstration of what the job was like, Durkin filled me in orally as we drove on to the next customer. The store was one of a nation-wide chain of eighty, all operating under the same unorthodox methods. They deliberately sold to poor credit risks-a market avoided by other stores. Thus, being without compet.i.tion, they could operate from the most unpretentious side-street establishment and charge very high prices for inferior merchandise. Collection expenses were high, of course, but still low enough, percentage-wise, to make the operation immensely profitable. And the losses on uncollectible accounts were not nearly so large as one might think. The chain was constantly on the lookout for good men-"aggressive, forceful men." Such men could earn very handsomely. There were minimum prices on all merchandise; anything a man could get above that price was split between him and the store. He also received a relatively high base salary, and a commission on collections.

"I run better than a hundred dollars a lot of weeks," Durkin said. "That's about three times what I'd get in this town on the average collection job."

"I'd say you earned it," I said. "Are all the customers like Pete?"

"Well, none of 'em are easy to get money out of, but some are worse than others. We've got a real tough baby coming up."

The "tough baby" lived in a place similar to Pete's, and like Pete, he did not appear to be at home. The front door was locked, also the back one. Durkin shaded his eyes with his hands and peered through several of the windows.

"Can't see him," he frowned, "but I know d.a.m.ned well he's here. I'm sure I saw him out on the steps when we rounded the corner. I wonder if..."

He broke off, staring speculatively at the back yard privy. With a significant wink at me, he headed for the edifice, pausing on the way to pick up two fist-sized brickbats.

He pounded on the door of the privy. He kicked it. He stood there and hurled the brickbats at it with all his might. There was a yell from the inside, a furious curse-filled sputtering. Durkin took a pair of pliers from his pocket and hefted them thoughtfully.

"Come on out, Johnnie," he called. "You'll have to do it sooner or later, so why not make it light on yourself?"

"To h.e.l.l with you!" yelled the man within. "Try and make me come out, you G.o.dd.a.m.ned thieving junk-peddler!"

"All right," said Durkin, reasonably, "don't come out, then. Just shove your money under the door."

Johnnie replied with an unprintable suggestion. He was not shoving any money under the door and he was not coming out; and that, by G.o.d, was that.

Durkin shrugged. He fitted the hasp over the staple in the door, and slid a handle of the pliers through it. Then, scooping up an armful of old papers from the yard, he walked around to the back of the privy.

Two planks had been removed from its base, apparently to provide ventilation. Durkin touched a match to the papers, and shoved them through the aperture.

Since they fell into the waste pit, there was no danger-or at least very little-of incinerating Johnnie. But the clouds of stinking smoke which welled up from the pit, soon had him on the point of strangulation. He yelled that he would murder Durkin-he would kill him if it was the last thing he ever did. The next moment he had ceased his threats and was beating wildly on the door, pleading hysterically for mercy.

"Three dollars, Johnnie," said Durkin. "Shove it through the crack and I'll let you go."

"G.o.ddammit,"-'cough, cough-'"I can't. My wife's in the hospital. I've got to have-"

"Three dollars," said Durkin.

"But I-'all right!"-'a terrified scream. "There it is! Now for G.o.d's sake let me-"

Durkin took the three crumpled bills, slipped the pliers from the hasp and stepped back. Coughing and strangling, bent double, Johnnie staggered out into the yard.

He was no more than a boy, eighteen, perhaps nineteen years old. He was tall, six feet at least, yet he could not have weighed much more than a hundred pounds. His cheeks were colored with the rosy, telltale spots of tuberculosis. There was no fight left in him.

He stumbled and sat down in the weeds, coughing, staring at us.

"Starved," he said dully, as though he were talking to himself. "Just plain starved, that's all that was the matter with her. And it won't be no different when she gets out. Starvin', her and me together; freezin' when it's cold, scorchin' when it's hot, livin' like no one ever let a dog live. W-what-what's-"

He broke off, gripped in another paroxysm of coughing. He wheezed, spat and spoke again.

"What's a guy gonna do?" he said. "What's he gonna do when he does all he can and it ain't nowheres good enough? Huh? How about it?" He glared at us fiercely for a moment. Then, his eyes lowered and he addressed the question to the ground, to the soured, sun-baked earth. "What's a guy gonna do, anyway? What's a guy gonna do? What's a guy gonna..."

Durkin gripped my arm suddenly, and steered me toward the car. "It's him or us," he said. "Them or us. What's a guy going to do?"

10.

I had beginner's luck that first week. Perhaps I was a.s.signed to some of the easier accounts, or perhaps my customers were feeling me out-taking my measure-before getting tough with me. At any rate, I did very well and without having to resort to the tactics which Durkin had used. The quaint notions grew in my mind that (1) I was the world's champion collector, and (2) that the store's clients were merely misguided and misunderstood. They didn't pay because they had not been made to see the importance of paying. Because they were approached with abuse, they responded with it.

Sat.u.r.day night came, and Mr. Clark detained me after the other collectors had left for a few words of hearty praise. "I knew you'd be a top man," he declared. "You keep this up and you'll be making more dough than your college professors."

"Oh, well," I smirked, my head swelling three sizes, "I don't expect to make 'that' much."

"You'll do fine. You've got the size-that's the important thing. Throw a good enough scare into these b.a.s.t.a.r.ds to begin with and you can take it easy from then on."

"Well," I hesitated, uncomfortably. Somehow the fact had evaded me that the store's four collectors and Clark as well were all very large men. "I don't think size has much to do with it, Mr. Clark. I mean-"

"Maybe not," he shrugged. "We always hire 'em big, but I suppose there are plenty of tough little guys. They wouldn't have the psychological advantage, of course, but-"

"I don't mean that," I said. And I went on to tell him what I did mean. That the customers should be treated with kindness-firmly but kindly. Treat them as oneself would like to be treated if in the same circ.u.mstances.

Clark stared at me blankly as I expounded my theory. Then, at last, his broad flatnosed face puckered in a grin, and he guffawed. "By G.o.d!" He slapped his hand on the counter. "You really had me going there for a minute, Jim!...Treat 'em nice, huh? Be kind to 'em. I think I'll pull that one on the home office!"

"Well," I said, "I guess it does sound kind of funny, but-"

"What a sense of humor! What a kidder!" He burst into another round of guffaws. "Well, have a nice weekend and I'll see you Monday."

I spent the weekend working on the old car I had bought. Monday noon, still stubbornly convinced that I had solved the secret of successful collecting, I went back on the job. It was just about my last day on earth.

My first customer was an employee of a rendering plant, a place which, due to the h.e.l.lish odor it exuded, was located in the outskirts of the city. Here the unfortunates of the area's animal population were brought-those that had died of old age or disease or accident. Here they were converted into hides and tallow, glue, bristles and bone.

I parked my car in the stinking, refuse-filled yard. Entering the building, I was almost knocked down by the stench and great clouds of blow flies swarmed over me. I gasped, and tried to brush them away. I went forward cautiously, brus.h.i.+ng and gasping.

The lower floor of the building appeared to be one huge room, apparently the storage place, so far as any existed, for the animals that were brought in. From wall to wall, they littered the floor-cows, horses, sheep and swine; animals in various hideous stages of mutilation and decomposition. All swarming and crawling with blow flies.

While I was peering around in the darkness, a man-some sort of foreman, I suppose-came in from the yard and inquired my business. I explained, tactfully, that I wished to see Mr. Brown on a business matter.

"Collector, huh?" he grunted. "How come you don't do your collectin' at his house?"

"I don't know," I said. "I'm a new man on the job. I imagine, though, that the store wasn't satisfied with the way he was paying so they instructed me to come here."

"Well," he grimaced, surlily, "I'll call him for you-this time."

Moving a few feet away from me, he cupped his hands and shouted up at the ceiling. He was preparing to shout a second time when a trapdoor opened high above him and a man looked down.

"Yes, sir? Was you callin' me?"

"You're d.a.m.ned right I'm calling you!" the foreman said, adding that the next time his work was interrupted by personal matters it would be the last time. "I ain't going to have it, get me? You can't take care of your business without mixing it up with mine, you can get another job!"

He jerked his head at me curtly, and strode away. I moved over beneath the trapdoor.

The man above me was so besmeared and grimed from his work that I could see nothing of his features. But there was that in his att.i.tude which spoke of murderous anger. I called up, apologetically, that I was sorry if I had caused trouble. "If you'll just drop your payment down to me..."

"Tough guy aren't you?" The eyes in the smeared face gleamed broodingly. "Scare h.e.l.l out of my wife, get her so upset she's half out of her mind. Then you come around here raising h.e.l.l."

"You're mistaken," I said. "I've never talked to your wife or even seen her for-"

"The h.e.l.l you ain't! She told me what you looked like. There wouldn't be two guys with that outfit as big as you are."

"But there-"

"You wait there," he said. "You wait right there, and I'll drop something down to you."

I waited. I stood looking upward until my neck began to ache, and then I looked down again. And that was when it happened.

I imagine he must have had someone help him, for the great bloated carca.s.s-a dead hog-which shot down suddenly through the hole must have weighed all of four hundred pounds. It grazed my arm as it went past. Only the fact that I had turned slightly, to glance out the door, kept it from landing on me.

There was a tremendous thud, the sound of splitting hide and exploding flesh. I flung myself backward, instinctively, but not soon enough to avoid a sickening and smelly spattering. I looked down at myself, at the awful thing at my feet, and then I looked up at the trapdoor. Brown was there, peering downward casually.

"Little accident," he said. "Fella forgot that the door was open. Happens all the time around here."

I didn't wait. I was on my way out of the place as fast as my near-nerveless legs would carry me. My hands were trembling so badly that I could hardly get the car started.

I made myself fairly presentable again at a filling station washroom, but the damage to my morale was irreparable. I couldn't collect. I couldn't sell-which, ordinarily, was quite easy to do. I could not approach my customers with the "firm kindliness" which I had so grandiosely advocated (how could you be nice to people like that?). Neither could I get tough with them (tough with people who might kill you!). I didn't know what to do, what to say, how to act; and while I doggedly made every call a.s.signed to me, I wound up the day without a single sale or one small collection.

I stalled at the store that evening until the other collectors had checked in and left. Then, with forced casualness, I sauntered up to the wicket and laid my collection cards in front of Clark. We were alone. Except in very large cities, the managers of the chain's stores were the sole inside employees.

He lighted a cigarette, spewed smoke from the corner of his mouth as he squinted down at the cards. His coat was open. For the first time I noticed the minute ornament that dangled from his watch chain-a tiny pair of golden gloves.

"Yeah, Jim," he said absently, having followed the direction of my eyes. "Yup, I was a pretty good man with the mitts. Might have made a champ heavy if I'd kept at it."

"I see," I said.