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Free and Clear
- University of Georgia Press
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Free and Clear N o longer did Benny lounge early mornings running his hand dreamily down Fanny's golden back. He leapt up heading to the street, seeking out a sleepy-eyed newsboy hawking the day's first papers. Like a famished man pulling at Matranga's bread,he yankedthe Register apart for stories about the Wall Street crash. When the first word of Black Mondayhad come,Morris had dismissed it, telling Bennyhe owned no stocks, NewYork was thousands of miles away, "and what is more, I am already making my second million." "Your second million? What are you telling me, Morris?" "The rich men always say,c Oh,the first million, it isthe hardest.' So why not start with the second?" "Crack jokes all you want," Bennysaid ruefully. "You'llsee." As Morris swept the walk and Pastor came to sit and drink coffee, Bennyread aloud terrifying NewYork stories: about a man losing thousands of dollars in steel who put a gun to his head on Park Avenue, and whose wife came home to find him hideously twisted on the floor; about a downtown tycoon who stood on the ledge outside his office window clutching motor company stock before jumping forty-five floors to the pavement. Morris huffed, "When the armyin Romaniatook my father's dis115 n6 CHICKEN DREAMING CORN tillery, do you think he cut his own throat? Hewould not give to his enemies so muchjoy." "A Catholic who kills himself,boom," Pastor said,"is doomed en el Purgatorio. His soul cannot be saved.God does not likea coward." "A Jew who does this,"Morris added, "he willbring on his family so much shame." "These men have lost everything,everything" Benny said. "What do you expect?" "That they act like un macho" Pastor said. "A mensch" Morris translated. But as weeks continued, and Benny's fistful of Mobile Register stories grew, Morris paused, leaning on his broom and listening, while Pablo bit at the edge of his coffee cup. In grim detail Benny repeated stories that affected them most. Not the ones about millionaires reduced to selling off townhouses, but about men of modest means no longer able to paytheir debts. Miriam and Abejoined them to hear about the Chicago boot manufacturer who, unable to meet his bank payments, turned plant ownership back over to the bank. They shook their heads at the sorrow of livestock ownerswatching their cattle and sheep loaded up for free and hauled away by the very men who'd financed them. Bank officers said they allowed three, five, eight missed payments before foreclosing on properties. What werebanks, after all, to do with pigs, or boots, or bolts of cloth, but auction them for eighty cents on the dollar, sixty cents, forty cents, aquarter? Stories came from closer to home, wherethe Panic took root in the smallest towns. Benny walkedto the BattleHouse and brought back a Collier's with photographs of idle men standing in lines, hands jammed uselessly in their pockets. They waited turns at a window where men gaunt as the St. Francis Street undertaker slopped porridge into bowls. "Look," Pastor said, "how many are smoking. Men will always buy cigars." [3.239.59.193] Project MUSE (2024-03-19 04:34 GMT) Free and Clear 117 "Shoes," Morris said, "every man must still have shoes." The shoes on the sidewalk racks behind him grew dusty, though. Benny heard Morris talking to Abe about deliveries coming in far behind schedule, and how it washarder to pay for earlier shipments without new goods available to sell. At Morris's suggestion Benny sat on a stool near the doorfront of M. Kleinman &Sons, soliciting customers. A man walked by turning empty pockets inside out. Another made a gesturelike eating, saying,"First got to get my young 'uns some food." In his room, alongside Fannykissing him fervently on the neck and shoulders, he turned away, saying, "Not right now,"and listened for voicesthrough the wall:Morris and Miriam bickering about the dropping-off of sales, about the slowing activity of Dauphin from Hammel's to Mirsky's, about sending Herman extra cash for college and the funds needed for dental work for Hannah, even though Spicer offered to do it for barter. "Benny," Fannysaid, stroking his chest. "Where areyou?" "Right here," he said with annoyance. When shefell asleep he counted in his mind the dollars they had saved together at the store, piling them up on one end of an imaginary scale, the other weighted heavily with...