Monday, July 4, 2011

Food for Thought

In the spring of 1982, life as a reporter at the Tri-State Food Retailer, a small, independent trade magazine, had grown progressively weirder for Rob.
Not that the Tri-State Food Retailer wasn’t weird to begin with. It was run like a prison camp; people were discouraged from talking to each other unless their conversation was related to the job. The Zuckermans, father and son, who owned the company ran around the place scowling and peeking over the employees’ shoulders; and only white shirts were allowed. There were no birthday parties, no Christmas parties. You didn’t get any medical benefits until you were there for a year, and every few weeks, someone else was fired. When Rob got the job, he’d hoped to move out of his parents’ house and get his own place again, but on the pitiful salary he received here, it was impossible.
Rob’s misanthropic father usually assumed Rob was to blame for anything that happened to him, but this case was so extreme that Dad was forced to concede that the fault lay elsewhere. "Whoever heard of a job like that!" he screamed. "Why don’t you quit? I’ll support you until you find another one!"
It looked like his father might not have to worry. Bobby, one of the advertising salespeople, confided, "I think you’re a good kid. I’d keep you around all the time. But I’m not really sure what the Zuckermans think ...."
"But Paul just moved me from here," said Rob, indicating the seat near the door, "to there," the seat nearest the editor, Paul Walsh, thought to a sign of moving up within the tiny organization.
"Well," Bobby said, "in the past six months, I’ve seen five people move from here to there, and most of them were fired anyway!"
The following day, Walsh, a tall, bearded man with a lisp whose major claim to fame was having worked for the National Enquirer a few years ago, closed the door.
"Rob," he said, "I have bad news for you."
Maybe it’s not so bad, Rob thought. Maybe it’s merely that he promoted Marlene, the other reporter, to assistant editor over me. But the next minute, he heard Paul say, "I’m firing you."
Rob asked why. Paul replied that Rob had bought two cameras, one a backup, to a supermarket opening in the Bronx because he was uncomfortable with the new camera, showing that he was unsure of himself; that he had let errors slip by in the proofreading process (although Rob had never claimed to be a proofreader); that Rob had misplaced papers on his desk, although he subsequently found them; and above all, Rob had mentioned, in conversation, the Supermarkets Association, which the Zuckermans hated so much that they didn’t want to hear the name mentioned.
"In a way, it’s too bad, because you’re a good writer!" John continued. "But you have a problem – disorganization! And in this organization, you either have to move up or move out! I’ll recommend you for a job, but it has to be as a writer, not an editor. You’re better off in a large organization, like Fairchild Publications, where they can give you assignments and tell you, `Do this,’ `Do that’.."
"But why didn’t you tell me before?"
"Rob, you’re an adult! You’re twenty-nine years old! What should I tell you? `Get organized’?"
At that point, Rob walked into the other room and into the office of Ray, the younger Zuckerman. With nothing to lose, he told him all his dissatisfaction with the magazine: the lack of friendliness, the mandatory white shirts, the fact that the bosses looked over people’s shoulders, the lack of benefits.
"Well," Ray replied, "I’m sorry, but I trust John’s judgment in these matters. As far as the other things you said are concerned, we are what we are!"
As Rob was walking out, he ran into Ellie, the jovial, middle-aged secretary, by the elevator. When he told her what happened, Ellie replied, "Don’t worry about it. They do that to everybody. What’s the problem—that you made mistakes? Paul’s made plenty of mistakes! He’s gotten people’s names wrong, the whole bit! He once left two hundred-dollar ads at home and forgot to take them to the printing plant, and that cost the company more than a thousand dollars!"
Disappointed but relieved, Rob walked out the building and into the crowded streets of Midtown Manhattan, with their overpriced restaurants, their soul-less, glass-and-steel office buildings, their tourist-trap camera stores. He saw the overstuffed executives in their $500 suits, the vapid secretaries with their dreams of soap operas and romance novels, the overworked delivery men with their hand trucks, all hurrying, rushing somewhere. The only places of any interest to Rob for miles around were Grand Central Station, the Chrysler Building and the 42nd Street Library – he certainly wouldn’t miss working here!
Walking uptown, Rob pondered his future. Thank God he’d be able to get unemployment insurance. If worse came to worse, and he wasn’t able to get another journalism job within six months or so, he could go back to his old management job at the city Housing Authority. Unlike Paul Walsh, Mr. Katz at Housing thought that Rob had done a wonderful job, and promised to bend the regulations so that Rob could return if he ever wanted. Rob, a journalism graduate, had left the Housing Authority for a one-year job on a weekly paper in Ohio to gain newspaper experience, but he was grateful that he still had friends at Housing. He only wished that when he’d left the Authority and temporarily moved out west, he’d had enough time to sublet his old studio apartment, his lost Arcadia. Now he was stuck with his parents again. But it could be worse–what if he’d found a new apartment, only to not be able to pay for it when the Food Retailer fired him?
Walking his usual route, toward the Co-Op City express bus that would take him home to his parents’ house, Rob suddenly felt in the mood for a diversion, for relaxation. He was in no hurry, especially now, with his newfound freedom. He’d take the subway up to Allerton Avenue, the Bronx neighborhood where a particular crowd he’d met in high school used to live, and walk around a little for the sake of nostalgia. Then he’d take another bus back home.
Allerton Avenue was the same as it had been back in the days when Dave, Jeff, Vinnie, Mary and the whole gang had ruled the roost at the pizzeria or the aptly-nicknamed "sleazy bar," although none of those people had lived there for at least five years. There was the Italian bakery, there was the Jewish deli, there was the Woolworth’s. Up the block, the tiny movie theater was still there, hanging on despite the steady march of multiplexes that seemed to be opening everywhere.
Rob went into Joe’s old-fashioned candy store, spun around on the stool, then ordered an egg cream. Next to him was a young Hispanic guy reading a copy of the Daily News. Rob reached a copy of Newsday and perused the magazines and newspapers on the rack.
"Crain’s Chicago Business?" he asked, amused.
"It’s funny, but there’s two guys who buy it every week, like clockwork!" Joe said, pouring the milk and syrup into the seltzer.
Soon, a casually-dressed black guy in his thirties came in and started to talk to no one in particular. "Man, I’m glad I got a day off from work today," he said. "I can spend all my day with my writing! Sometimes I just write for hours!"
The Hispanic guy turned around and faced him. "What sort of writing do you do?"
The black guy’s face lit up. "I do songwriting, man! I write songs!"
"Really! I write songs, too! I’ve written about 100 songs, I’ve given them to at least 20 artists, I even gave one to Luther Vandross’ company, but no luck yet! What’s your name?"
"Mine’s Norman."
"Mine’s Manuel. Maybe we can do some business, man. Here, here’s my phone number."
Watching these two guys, Rob reflected that the real life wasn’t in Midtown Manhattan, it was in neighborhoods like this one, all over New York City. This is where the sense of community was, not back there, where the people totally forgot about their co-workers aside once they left their offices. This is where the real people were, people who meant what they said, not people who were planning to fire you for weeks but didn’t tell you until the last minute.
Satisfied, Rob paid for his egg cream, left the store, then waited for the bus to take him home.