“It isn’t because he knew how to tie himself in? That isn’t luck, Ralph. That’s rope smarts.”
“You’re missing my point.”
“Just what is your point, Ralph? What’s the story?”
“I’m shuttering the business, getting out of the ice-selling racket. It isn’t profitable anymore. I never got into the coal delivery line. I never diversified. I sell ice. Just like my father sold ice, and just like his father before him. But nobody’s buying ice these days. They’re buying refrigerators. I don’t blame them. Hell, Vivian and I just got a Frigidaire ourselves.”
“There will be people who won’t want to give up their iceboxes, Ralph.”
“But not nearly enough of them to keep me in the black.”
“Do you have a buyer?”
Ralph shook his head. “Just where would I find such a person? They gave the ice industry last rites two or three years ago. I’m selling buggies, Garth, while the country’s buying Duesenbergs. So I’m walking away while I’ve still a little something left in the family piggy bank. I owe that to Vivian and the kids. She loves the big house. And we both want the boys to go to college. I’m not gonna bleed myself dry just so a handful of Mrs. Broussards can hang onto their iceboxes for old times’ sake.”
“When did you make this decision?”
“I’ve been mulling it over for a few months now. Finally got off the pot and talked to Vivian a couple of nights ago. She agrees that it’s the right thing to do.”
“What am I supposed to do, Ralph?”
“Look for a job like everybody else.”
“You know what that means.”
“So let me get this straight: I’m supposed to keep losing money every Goddamned day just to keep you and Preston and Jibbs and all the rest of you fellas off the bread lines? And what happens when the company finally goes belly up and my bank account’s totally wiped out? I get to take my place in line with you? My father and grandfather were successful businessmen, Garth. They passed a thriving business down to me. It stopped thriving. But I’m still a Morris man. I don’t know the words to ‘Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?’ and I’ve got no intention of ever learning them.”
Garth didn’t reply. The band was tuning up. The oompah-oompah of the tuba reminded Garth of Oktoberfest. He glanced at Ralph’s wristwatch. A minute till midnight. He looked at his friend.
“Caddy thinks you’ve always been this way,” said Garth. “I tell her: ‘No, baby. I can remember a time when we were both kids and we looked out for each other.’”
“My back’s against the wall. Can’t you see that?”
“Here’s what I see: You should have gone into fuel delivery. Your competitors did. You didn’t because you aren’t half the businessman your father and grandfather were. Caddy wanted me to get into another line of work, quit Morris Ice ages ago, back when I had a few prospects. I stuck with my friend. This is how I’m being repaid.”
“Now you wait just a minute there, Garth—”
“I don’t think I want to, Ralph. I think I want to get me a beer.”
Garth turned. As he started to walk away, the band began to play. Seconds later the sound of “Happy Days Are Here Again” was drowned out by the blare of steam whistles and the squall of sirens from the brewery. Several people honked their car horns to add to the festive cacophony. Garth took his place in line. It was a much different line from the one he’d be standing in a few days later.
He closed his eyes. He tried to imagine what that first swallow of beer would taste like. He tried to imagine, as well, what his life would have been like if he’d left Morris Ice when he had the chance. How much better things might be for Caddy and him now.
Or not. It was the Depression, after all. Who’s to say that he wouldn’t have lost that other job, too?
Garth glanced back at the car. Ralph was pulling out of his spot. He was going to have trouble getting his coupe through the dense crowd. But he’d come out of it all right; Garth had no doubt. Ralph was a Morris, after all.
1934 ADULTEROUS IN ILLINOIS
The first conversation took place between Norman and Patsy inside the Amos and Andy rocket car of the Century of Progress Exposition’s Sky Ride. Their conversation was low-toned, almost whispered, and went virtually unnoticed by the other thirty-two passengers in the car, some of whom oohed and ahhed and nudged one another with glee and wonder, while others recoiled with a shiver, as still others bravely pressed their noses against the glass in hopes of getting a better view of the fairgrounds decked out in all its Art Deco splendor 215 feet below. The Sky Ride was the signature attraction of the World’s Fair, which had opened the previous year and was now bringing in tens of thousands of new visitors in its second successful season.
Chicago rolled the dice in the middle of the Depression and had come up a winner.
“What is that?” asked Patsy, removing her official guidebook from her purse as she peered down. “The Hall of Science or the Hall of Social Science? I always confuse the two.”
“Did you hear what I just said?”
“The colors were different last year. Remember? Bolder. I liked it, but I read somewhere that they were giving people headaches — all those gigantic exhibition buildings in brilliant blues and golds and reds. The fair got complaints, so they toned it down. It’s all so muted now. Almost drab in places.”
Norman, who had been looking at the side of Patsy’s face, turned to take in the panorama below. It was still very colorful, he thought. What was Patsy talking about? Why was Patsy trying to change the subject? They had twenty minutes — twenty-five minutes at the most — and then they would meet up again with John and Shirley at the Mayflower Doughnut Restaurant next to the Havoline Thermometer. The Havoline Thermometer, standing at a height of 227 feet, was the largest thermometer in the world. It overlooked Admiral Richard E. Byrd’s South Pole ship moored in the South Lagoon.
“What is there to say?” said Patsy. “We both agreed we would drop the bombshell. I told you to pick the time and place. If you want to talk to them about it over doughnuts, that’s fine with me. Prohibition’s over, though. I thought you might like to get our spouses liquored up first.”
“Shirley is unpredictable when she drinks. I don’t want to take a chance on a dramatic overreaction.”
Norman looked up into the sky. Several others on this side of the Amos and Andy rocket car did the same. Some pointed. “The Goodyear blimp needs a little more lift or it’s going to hit the transport bridge.”
Patsy took a breath. “The pilot knows what he’s doing.”
The next conversation took place among Norman and Patsy and Norman’s wife Shirley and Patsy’s husband John. Both couples were in their early forties and lived not far from one another in Kenosha, Wisconsin, where Norman worked as a mid-level manager for Nash Motors. Nash had one of the more popular attractions at the fair: an eighty-foot-high plate-glass tower with sixteen 1934 model Nash automobiles stacked one on top of the other like compartmentalized slices of pie at the Automat.
John was a podiatrist. He knew Dr. William M. Scholl personally and had spent part of that morning visiting his friend at the Scholl Manufacturing Exhibit in the Hall of Science.
Although John had wanted more than doughnuts and coffee, he consented to the late-morning snack with a promise by the others of a full luncheon in Midget Village a couple of hours later; the guidebook had assured him that the portions served there would be filling for a man of normal stature.
“How was the ride?” asked Shirley of her husband and her best friend. “I still can’t see how you could go up in that thing.”