For, yes, Clyde did treat me well. He gave me a beautiful little girl, Clydette. He gave me a spinet piano and a new living room suite with beautiful appointments. He never found need for the arms of other women.
He did, however, drink. Too much. He drank so much that his liver SHRIVELED UP AND DIED and he was forced to submit to an operation that would end his life after three short days, because the odds were too great that his body would ever accept a transplant from a monkey, much less a liver lifted from the body of a chimpanzee named BOPPO which Dr. Blanton confessed after the deed was done and the brown hepatic slab securely fixed in its new home, was a heavy drinker himself! Yes, my Clyde traded his cirrhotic human liver for an EQUALLY CIRRHOTIC PRIMATE ONE! Or perhaps one even more diseased than his own, for Boppo had a thirst for Brandy Melange that was nearly UNQUENCHABLE!
All this leaving me with a dead monkey-livered husband and murdered hope.
That is, until I read that you too had suffered tragedy and now lay sprawled single upon the marital bed. Until I came to know the hard facts about this bumpy road we call life. Facts acknowledged by us both. Fate has dealt each of us a losing hand, Jonny. But the game doesn’t have to be OVER. We are permitted another deal, count on it. Yet we must move quickly. That quicksilver dealer of second chances will clear the table and depart if we tarry.
Shall we play that other hand? Shall I see you again, you successful entrepreneur, you! I have heard of your grand business plan. You will wave your magic wand in the marketplace and men will be wiped clean of the noisome odors of hard labor and sporadic ablutions, and I desire that a wand be waved over me as well. By your hand. Bringing me back THE LIFE I ONCE LIVED. When we were both young and you made me laugh and feel beautiful and much loved.
Am I wrong to write to you in this way? If so, please forgive my effrontery.
Yours,
Mildred
I have no way of knowing if Jonathan ever responded to her offer, even with only a polite decline. Mildred moved to Boston in the mid-twenties and lived there until her death in 1975 when she was struck by a school bus. Ironically, the fatal accident took place at the height of the citywide donnybrook over court-ordered bussing.
2. Izzy and Moe shot straight with their new employee; he was hired because they thought the extra leg would bring in a few extra customers. Several years later the Pettiville haberdashers would be famously confused with federal agents Izzy Einstein and Moe Smith who became celebrated during Prohibition for donning elaborate disguises to infiltrate speakeasies and bootlegging operations. As a result, Izzy Feldbaum received a bullet in the spleen courtesy of a Capone caporegime who had mixed up his Izzies. Unaware at the time that the attempt on his life had been a case of mistaken identity, Feldman told a reporter from his hospital bed, “If he wanted the suit, he should take the suit. What I need less is a hole in the kishke! ” Pettiville Press, 22 July 1927.
3. “I feel as if I have stepped into a deep furrow from which I cannot remove myself.” Working at the haberdashery for twelve hours a day in a struggling attempt to infuse operating capital into his parent’s floundering farm left Jonathan fatigued, depressed, and more estranged than ever from the life that he had hoped to build for himself in the world outside of Pettiville. This low point in Jonathan’s young life is articulated by the following entry from his diary.
August 15, 1909
Hee haw. Hee haw. I’m a work mule. A plow pony. A damned beast of burden, that’s what I am. Mildred is married and Great Jane is a connubial impossibility and I see nothing on the horizon but nose-to-the-grindstone bachelorhood for me.
The silver lining: I am getting very good at selling. Suits and ties and shoes and spats. These days I can pretty much sell any fellow who walks into the store. In fact, there’s only one person I can’t selclass="underline" Father. And I’m not talking about clothes here. When it comes right down to it, Father’s getting far too old to run that farm with so little help and with that fractured pelvis and I am just barely able to keep all of our heads above water, but will he listen to my pitch? If only I could make Mother and Father see that the best thing they should do now is liquidate the acreage and get themselves a nice little place in town. I’ll be happy to help out as needed. Because I’ll have no family of my own to place a drag on my income. Nose-to-the-grindstone bachelorhood for me. If that’s my fate, I will reconcile myself to it.
Dr. Bloor would be sorely disappointed to hear what has become of me.
4. “Izzie and Moe still won’t give me a raise. I am going to look for work elsewhere.” Ibid., 15 October, 1909.
5. “Are you a hairy man?” Jonathan noted in his diary (19 October1909) that the interview for assembly line relief man at Pettiville’s Sure-Fry Lard Works was one of the strangest encounters he’d ever had. He took pains to transcribe to the best of his recollection nearly the whole exchange.
JENKINS: Have a seat. Fritter biscuit?
JONATHAN: No thank you.
JENKINS: Crunkle cake, fresh from the vat?
JONATHAN: Thanks, but I’m not all that hungry.
JENKINS: Deep fried crackle crisp?
JONATHAN: I’m not sure I know what that is.
JENKINS: Shall we get down to business?
JONATHAN: Yes.
JENKINS: I don’t beat around the proverbial bush. When I want to know something, I simply ask it.
JONATHAN: Go right ahead.
JENKINS: Are you a hairy man?
JONATHAN: Am I what?
JENKINS: A hairy man.
JONATHAN: Well, I—
JENKINS: I note a minimum of carpeting on your forearms. Does this indicate a lack of same upon other regions of your epidermis?
JONATHAN: I would suppose so.
JENKINS: That is unfortunate.
JONATHAN: I beg your pardon?
JENKINS: The fact that you are effeminately hairless.
JONATHAN: Perhaps I will grow more hair as I age. I am, after all, only twenty-one.
JENKINS: Yes. Hmm. There is that possibility. Though I must tell you, Mr. Blashette, that my preference is for the men who join this operation to have sufficient, well-established body hair.
JONATHAN: My father is somewhat hairy. Perhaps in time—
JENKINS: I’m afraid I need this position filled next week. (A pause.) There are, of course, ways for one to stimulate the growth of hair.
JONATHAN: Yes?
JENKINS: One proven method comes to mind. But there is a downside. On occasion, the hair growth is limited to the palms of the hands. And in some exceptional cases, one goes blind.
JONATHAN: I wouldn’t want that, no.
JENKINS: Tripping and bumping into things. I’d have to keep you far away from the rendering room.
JONATHAN: I do think I would make a good employee, Mr. Jenkins, if only you could see your way to dismissing the fact that I am not an overly hairy man.
JENKINS: I’m sorry, Mr. Blashette, but that would be difficult. This is a factory of hirsute men and one Mrs. Beebe who joined us following a failed Rutgers pituitary experiment. You would not be happy among these people. You would inevitably be teased, taunted, perhaps even roughed up. And here I’m speaking only of Mrs. Beebe. It simply wouldn’t be safe for you here.