All Gone

CAPITAL LABOR

A friend of my sister calls and says “I was chatting with Lula just before and asked how you are and she said looking for work and I said ‘Yeah? Because something’s come up in our real estate office he might be interested in, think I should call him?’ and she said ‘I don’t think so because Mort hates any kind of stuffy office work,’ and I said ‘But it’s mostly outside in the sun among the birds and city trees,’ and she said ‘He still hates any kind of hard-core money-making work including artistic, but chance it and call him because this time who knows?’ So I’m calling. You think you’d mind working for us full-time for a month if I tell you what it is?”

“I’d like some steady work after going through two jobs in a week.”

“Wonderful. We want someone to act as our rental agent for five recently renovated buildings in the Eighties on the West Side. They’re all close together so no hardship for you to get to, one from the other not a block apart. What you have to do is hang around the buildings and sometimes in the office in one of the vacant apartments where there’s a phone. So if people see our To Let signs on the buildings if you can’t grab the more interested-looking prospectives off the street — you’ll get the knack quick — they’ll call and you can be right down and around the corner or wherever to show them around. No pay. But one-third the rental fee if you rent the apartment. If the tenant refuses to pay the fee, since they might be wise we also own the building we’re acting as agents for, then fifty dollars for each apartment you rent and ten dollars more for a two- instead of a one-year lease. September’s the key month for renting, so you can clear a thousand minimum for a few weeks work and probably earn more. Sound okay?”

I go to her office. It’s in the old General Motors building, top floor. The furniture looks like wood but is formica, the bright orange carpet clashes with the dark furniture and walls. The reception room’s unkempt: trash cans spilling over, ashtrays smelly and full, boxes of photocopy-machine paper on the chairs and couches, empty matchbooks and squashed soda straws on the floor. But the walls and pilasters are made of real oak from the old days and with decorations in the coffered ceiling around where the chandeliers must have hung looking like something out of a French chateau or New York turn-of-the-century townhouse.

“Meet Larry, my boss,” Penny says.

We go into his office. Larry’s sitting in a big chair behind a wide desk with his back to me but swivels around and puts some legal papers down and we shake hands. He’s about my age. “So sit down, sit down,” he says. “Like some coffee?”

“No thanks.”

“It’s from a Mr. Coffee maker and special Jamaican blend. No sweat in making it.”

“Had a cup before I came.”

“It also makes hot water for tea.”

“Leave him alone,” Penny says. “He doesn’t feel thirsty, don’t bug him.”

“Who’s bugging? I’m being polite.”

“I don’t want any, thanks,” I say. “Nice place you have here. Looks like where the GM chairman of the board himself might have worked.”

“Hey man, very close. This suite was for their president. It’s the penthouse. Where I sit is where he did. Let me show you his slide-away bar.” He presses a button under his desk and two cabinet doors open and a bar appears. “The liquor didn’t come with it. Like a drink?”

“Too early.”

“Good for you. You passed my only test. Too early for me also and I don’t want to employ a lush, especially for out there.”

“Sneaky,” Penny says.

“Why? I got rid of that other guy what’s his name, Pigmi-gansky—”

“Parmiagiano.”

“Parmesan cheese, okay, but I got rid of him the same way, didn’t I? And later we heard he was a lush and a half. Same job as yours he applied for, Mort, and nobody ever looked more refined on so little dough. Too bad too. He knew his stuff. Psyched this suite out immediately as the finest he’s ever seen and knew all the names of the architect styles: New Renaissance, Neo-Smorgasbord. He said we have the best view in New York. You ever seen one like it?”

“Something like it. When I was in a paying play once, I went to a dentist on Central Park South to have a couple of teeth capped.”

“It couldn’t’ve been anything like this. Here, take a look from this window. There’s the lake. Way back there’s Harlem. What are those twin towers off 110th? They really sunk a bundle into those beauties and are going to lose most of their teeth. You see, we’re all attorneys here, Mrs. Rothblatt excluded—”

“Penny,” Penny says.

“Penny. You know each other. And we’re in lots of different businesses here, so I thought this suite and the park and Queens and Brooklyn and all the bridges at their feet would impress our clients, and it works. Everything in life is show, right?”

“I don’t know.”

“What’re you talking about? You’re an actor Penny says. You said it yourself about your capped teeth. So you most of anybody knows from shows and clothes and the impression you make is the impression people keep. Maybe now you can’t afford that kind of show. ‘Between jobs’ you people like to say, which is why you’re here and we get the benefit from it — but with us, more scratch we put out for show, more we get back, but proportionately. Same with any effort except sex sometimes and sitting on the toilet, present feminine company excluded.”

“Mort knows. Women don’t go potty. Tell him what he came here for.”

He tells me about my job, hours and duties. “More time you work at it, more money you make and quicker you get your commissions from us. One September we had a guy who practically slept on the street to rent our apartments and he rented all of them in a week what would have taken anyone else a month. A real hustler. Remember Gatbar?”

“Gainsborough. He’s in jail now,” Penny says.

“Not for anything he did for us. He was a clean Gene all the way, not a light bulb was missing. Did I cover everything, Pen?”

“You better show Mort the apartments so he knows what he’s selling and where his office is at.”

“Where’s the keys, Mrs. Rothbrains?”

She takes them out of her purse, a ring of about two hundred keys.

“We haven’t got them all marked yet,” he says, “but the super’s going to do that today.”

“Marked yet? That’s a laugh.”

“Everything to her’s a laugh. I ought to get you replaced with a TV laugh track. You know, can you for canned laughter. Hey, to me that’s funny, no?”

“Wonderful. I showed a prospective an apartment today but actually couldn’t because after going through the ninety-ninth key that didn’t fit the front door, she left. Can you blame her? You got to get each door key marked or you’re going to rent zero this year.”

“That’s what I said. Joe the super. I guess we can take a cab over. Think I can be back for the Danube case by four?”

“It shouldn’t take you any longer than that,” Penny says. “Mail these on the way?” She gives him a packet.

“I’m paying her but she acts like my boss. Hey, you pay me from your salary from now on, all right?”

“Great, if you triple mine.”

“A raise? I’ll give you a raise. Sure I’ll give you, a triple one. And next week I get to play the boss. Alternate weeks, got it?”

“Wonderful. Don’t get lost.”

We get a cab. In it he says “You know, I also was an actor once. Not seriously for the movies like you maybe, but commercials. I’m married but was seeing this actress, an unbelievable beauty. Boobs out to here and waist my thumb and middle finger went around and I’m stubby. I won’t mention her name because she’s right on top and making a million now and might not like it because acting people can gossip, I know that. I’ve seen you guys on panel shows. But at one party we’re at there’s a television ad man who says to me am I an actor or model? I said ‘Me, you kidding?’ and he said it’s because I might look like one. That I have just the right face they need, rough and ugly, and would I like to audition for a shampoo ad. I asked if it pays and he said ‘plenty.’ ‘Then you’ve hired me, baby,’ and I took this film test and the ad got the okay from the soap company and was seen network to network twenty times a night for I don’t know how many months and I’m still getting residuals from it, three years later. They still put it on. Same product but a little changed with an XYZ formula now in it, but still with me sudsing my hair like King Kong. Gave me enough to live on for two years if my expenses weren’t so irrationally high. You like money?”

“I need it to live on. I like it all right.”

“I love it, that’s how much I like it. More than anything except the health you can’t buy with it. But for the health care you can buy with it I love it for that reason also and everything else it buys. That’s not original thinking, I know, but for me it’s true. But why be original? Play in, I say, play in. But I respect you. I’m not kidding. You’re a serious artist Penny says — an actor but artist, right? And I respect all serious people for what they do no matter how many years it takes them. Me, it has to come quick. That’s why I’m both lawyer and in real estate and a businessman, but what I’m most serious and do best at is being a baker. Making bread. Bread: money. No? Hey, good thing my seriousness isn’t in selling jokes.”

We stop in front of one of his buildings. He tries to get into the apartment that will also serve as my office till I rent it. After going through the entire key ring and some of the keys two and three times each and in both key positions and on both locks, he whacks the key ring against the knob and says “I’d kick the shit out of this door if it wasn’t mine,” and we go outside. Joe the super comes by on his bike.

“I’ll get them all marked by tomorrow,” Joe says.

“Tonight,” Larry says. “Then get your ass out here early tomorrow morning to give my keys to Mort.”

“Tonight. You bet. Meet me here at ten on the spot, Mort.”

“Nine,” Larry says.

“Nine. Good. I’ll get them all etched in with my stamp machine I got. For instance, that one on your ring I can see is already 3B for number 57 down the block. So some of the keys will be no problem.”

“How do you know it’s 3B’s?” Larry says.

“By the grooves and lock make. See, I got an exact one of each myself,” and he jangles a ring of about two hundred keys on his belt. “Some are already marked of mine and the most aren’t because I don’t have to. I got those memorized by heart.” He aligns a key on his ring with one of Larry’s. They do look alike.

“Let’s get in there then. I want to show Mort at least one apartment before we go.”

Joe tries to get into 3B with Larry’s key. It doesn’t work. He tries his own. Goes in but doesn’t turn.

“I was sure this was the right one. Maybe the last tenant changed the lock. That bum. Burglarized by his own friends he also steals from us everything from spigots and bathroom tiles. Junkies. That’s why we got him out and the first-floor tenant’s also vacant. Nobody wanted to live in the same building with him.”

“Let’s try that one,” Larry says. “It’s a duplex, our highest rental, and at least it’s open.”

The front door of IB has no cylinder in it so Joe just pushes it open. The place is a mess. Holes in the plaster walls, some floor planks ripped out, a closet door hanging by a mangled hinge, the banister to the windowless playroom below, which makes it a duplex, lying on the stairs.

“Dwayne David had it last,” Larry says.

“Who?” I say.

“The actor-performer, star of The Magic Feet. Real pothead. Built his own loft out of ropes and hammocks and puffed puffed puffed with his boy and girl cuties all day except on matinees. I don’t see how you never heard of him, but use him as a strong selling point. People like to live where there were stars.”

He shows me the garden which he says has 3B’s garbage in it. “I’ll have it cleaned out, but see the kind of slobs we get? That’s what I want to change from now on. One thing I want to warn you about renting these places is if a dude pulls up in a new pimpmobile and wears a fancy pimp outfit and Superfly hat and says ‘Hey daddy, jive, give me five,’ and gives you the hand-slapping number for a greeting but on the application says he’s a tailor, tailor him the hell out of here or tell him he hasn’t a chance to get a mouse hole in this building because your boss doesn’t let pimps in, understand? Don’t be afraid of offending anyone.”

“I don’t see how I could say that.”

“Then tell him his application will be processed summarily, but don’t take a deposit as that one we just tear up. With the last pimp in 4A it was like a screaming slave market in there. He even threw a live dog out the window.”

“We don’t know if it was alive,” Joe says.

“We even sure it was a dog? God, what pigs.”

Larry and I go to Columbus Avenue for a taxi. As I’m stepping into the cab I tell him I’ve changed my mind and now want to walk home.

“I guess it’s good for you, exercise. But one last thing. No renting to more than two black families per building, got it? No matter if they’re all college presidents and the building has ten vacancies in it like number 7.”

“I don’t think I can do that either.”

“All right. If it’s against your principles, put an asterisk on the bottom right-hand corner of the application so I know the applicant’s black. It’s not against my principles. I don’t like them. Neither do most of my tenants. They bring down the property value and destroy the building because they hate the landlord. Even the blacks I let in tell me to keep more out, so if you think you’re doing anyone a favor, think about that.”

I think about the asterisk that night and don’t know what to do. I call a friend and ask her what she’d do in the same position and circumstances—“If you hadn’t a hundred dollars to your name and could possibly make a thousand or two in a month.”

Doris says “How would you explain carrying out the duties of this job to Max?” who’s a mutual friend of ours and black.

“Is it necessary for me to tell him?”

“I’ll tell him.”

So I write my decision in a note to Larry, saying that “even putting that asterisk on the page presents moral problems to me,” and at nine next morning show up at the meeting spot with the super to give him the note and application forms when he’s supposed to give me the keys.

Joe comes at ten, says “Sorry, I got tangled up with a broad. Tenant who wanted her window puttied. Then quick, she’s pulling off my pants if I can get Larry to forget her three months’ back rent. Promise everything, give nothing, Larry says. I’ll tell you her apartment when I’m tired of her or she finds out I can’t help. What’s this? Not taking the job? Go screw yourself then, for why I even bother? I had to fly down from heaven to this when I wasn’t even done yet? I haven’t the keys marked for you anyhow,” and he pedals off.

That night Larry calls and says “You really wasted my time yesterday, but I want to tell you something more I hope you won’t forget. Don’t mention to anyone what our renting policy to blacks is. If ever one comes in haughty and confident to see their denied applications, which they’re entitled by law to, but says they know what that asterisk means or whatever new little mark we put on it or some dude named Mort also told them about our renting policy and they’re going to court to get in our building, I’m going to send a couple men over to talk some sense into your head. I mean that. That’s how outraged I’ll get if I have to let in one more black than I have to because of you.”

I call Doris and say “I didn’t take the job for the reasons you didn’t want me to, but for my own sake keep what I told you about their not renting to blacks to yourself.”

“I already told Max, just in conversation, and he said he was contacting a local anti-racist league.”

I call Max and he says “If I’d have known your head depended on it I still would have told the league. These things have to be exposed. We all have to take chances sometimes — you as well as me. You call Larry back and tell him I told the league and if he’s got any men to send over to send them to me and give him my address. And feel privileged you were put in the position to get that data, because none of us could. Anyhow, don’t worry. Most of these Larrys make threats all day but are just big windbags and I’d sit tight and call his bluff.”

I call Penny, tell her what’s happened and ask if Larry’s serious about sending men over to rough me up.

“Oh he’s serious all right. He can be a real thug and knows who to go to to get what and now I’m afraid for your life. I never should have got you involved but didn’t think you were bent that way.”

“How can you work for him if he’s like that?”

“It’s a job when they’re not too easy to find and you think mine’s the only one where someone has to compromise? You should have made a couple compromises also if you wanted to work that bad and you now wouldn’t be in such a spot. Besides, Larry’s a damn nice guy outside of those things, pays a great wage, doesn’t breathe down my neck about the pettiest things like my previous bosses did, gives me plenty of room and control and what he does that I have no part of or care for is his business and it also goes to keeping a dozen honest workers on the books and their families fed. Like our own government might kill or detain perfectly innocent people but we still pay our taxes and don’t complain about these illegalities too much, true? But I think I have the solution for you. I’ll tell Larry you blurted out something before you knew you shouldn’t have and that to make amends you told your black friend and his league that you were lying about our renting practices, more to momentarily break up the seriousness of their cause a little and have a good laugh with him, but it backfired.”

“He wouldn’t believe me.”

“Say you were lying anyway. Your friend will at least know you won’t go into court on their behalf, and if he still won’t listen to you, phone the league and tell them yourself.”

“Why don’t I just phone the police and tell them Larry’s threatened me?”

“You have it on paper? Your sister’s my best friend besides? And excuse me, but I tried to do you a favor and you now want to lose me my job that took a half-year to get? And what’ll you do when the cops stop protecting you if they ever start? Don’t come to me. Be smart. Drop the matter entirely and look elsewhere for your crusade.”

I call Max and tell him I was told by Larry’s office to say I was lying about its rental policies. “But what it really means is that I’m afraid of him and that whatever you told the league I said I’m going to say isn’t so or was just drunk talk or something when I told you it.”

“Then I’ll call the league and tell them my friend was mistaken and they have no case. But about you and me, Mort, I don’t see how I’ll ever be able to see you again,” and hangs up.

Doris calls later and says “For the first time since I’ve known you you can do something for people actively, not just verbally, and you give that up and Max’s friendship just to protect yourself over some punk’s probably baseless threat?”

“It wasn’t baseless.”

“They actually threatened your life?”

“They intimated.”

“That isn’t the same thing.”

“Trying to find out if they’ll go through with it could be. But I didn’t want you to know and still don’t because that could put you in danger too.”

“I’m not worried about myself when it comes to this matter and certainly Max isn’t worried about him, so why should you be about you?”

“I’m worried about Max and you.”

“Just answer me.”

“I’m worried about me, Max and you.”

“That still doesn’t answer it.”

“I’m more involved with it than either of you, can’t you see?”

“No, you’ve no guts. Nothing to back up your big principles. Hell with it. I’ve lost all my respect for you just as Max has,” and hangs up.

I call back and say “Please understand what I’m up against, Doris,” and she says “And you try and understand me. If I can’t respect you, how can I still see you? Bye.”

Next day Penny calls and says “How’d it work out?” and I tell her and she says she’s sorry and tells me to hold on and she comes back to the phone and says “I just spoke to Larry and it’s all right with him, if it is with you, since he feels you’ve nothing to lose now and he’s already put the time in to show you how, to work for us at the same job if you adapt to our policy about those asterisks and things.”

“I don’t think I can.”

“He has no hard feelings for you anymore.”

“Neither do I much for him, I think, but I still can’t go along with it.”

“Good enough, but the word from here is to still keep your trap shut.”

“And if I don’t?”

“You acting stupid again?”

“Don’t you even have the slightest regret about what you do?”

“Right now no, goddamnit, no. Now what do you have to say to me but your acting stupid again?”

“I understand. I’ll keep my mouth shut. And as for all the problems you caused me and your own ethics: fuck you,” and I hang up.

Larry calls me a minute later and yells into the phone “Don’t you ever speak to Penny like that again, don’t ever, I’m warning you, don’t.”

“All right, take it easy, I won’t,” and he hangs up.