HAZEL: Never. I never felt inferior to any of my customers. Even though sometimes they try to make you feel that way. I think I would quit a long time ago if I ever felt any inferiority.
EDWARD: I would not stand humiliation. It"s not openly when a woman gets hostile against you and says, "If you"re a hair stylist, you"re below me." Many wealthy people will hire a hair stylist and haul them around and they will carry their suitcases. It really looks la-de-da, you might say elite, where she"s going to the airport with her hairdresser and her poodles and her dressmaker all following after her like the Queen of Sheba. This is a form of humiliation. But the guy don"t care. She"s paying him well and he builds his name. And she"s using his image to make herself.
HAZEL: The less important or average-intellectual customer is the one that tries to humiliate you more. Where she can suddenly go to the hairdresser weekly. These kind of people try to depress your importance. She"ll ask for something that you may not have heard that term. So she"ll say, "Oh, you don"t know!" But people who have been around, if they don"t like what you do, they go to another place. It"s the average-intellectual individual who"s apt to come in and show her importance and try to decrease yours. I"m very good at putting them in their place.
EDWARD: There was some humiliation when I was newer. I didn"t rub hard enough. "Oh, just don"t bother any more! Just have Hazel do it." The beginning hairdresser could be very embarra.s.sed by a customer. The customer says, "Oh, just leave my hair alone! Comb this out for me, get this idiot away from me!" Because the person was green. There are times when the woman will take the comb and say, "Give me that thing!" This is an insult. When she says, "This is good enough!" and you"re not happy with it. Some hairdressers will blow their fuse and throw the comb on the floor and say, "I wouldn"t touch you with a fourteen-foot pole." Verlaine was like that. He threw customers out of the door with wet hair. He was eccentric that way.
But I still feel we are servants. A servant to the public, like a doctor. Not a servant that does housework. I didn"t mean in that cla.s.s. Just because you"re a great hair stylist, win prizes-anybody can buy a trophy and put it in his window. But he becomes a star, arrogant. Some people say, "I won"t take this c.r.a.p any more." If they give you a hard time, all you say, "Look lady, I"m sorry, this is the way I think it should be. If I can"t please you, you"ll have to find someone else." But you don"t argue and throw brushes around like some of these guys. You may see ads in papers for hairdressers: No stars, please.
We hired this one guy, he was going to hair coloring school. He was using our place to practice with his hair colors. One day he took a very prominent customer of ours. He colored her hair red. She"s out in the car crying. She says, "I can"t go home like this. My husband"ll kill me." I said, "I thought you wanted to be a redhead." She says, "All I asked for was a rinse." I brought her back. By this time he was packing his bag. I didn"t have to fire him. He just simply walked out. He took a woman and being another genius, he"s gonna make something of her. You don"t take it upon yourself.
You have to put in a thousand hours in beauty school to get your license. The average hair stylist, dresser, beauty operator has an equal amount of schooling as a practical nurse. You have to know blood, you have to know diseases. You have to know everything that pertains to the human body so you can understand why hair grows.
Styles are basically the same since the bob. What can you do with hair? It"s like cooking chop suey. By adding more mushrooms or less. Styles repeat themselves over and over again, like women"s clothes. You always go back to something.
We used to get fifty dollars for a permanent. Like silver-blonding. Years ago, a wife wouldn"t think of going to a grocery store with blond hair. "Cause what is she? A show girl? Light hair only went with strippers, prost.i.tutes, and society women. In order to silver-blond in those days, you would use a lot of ammonias and bleaches and the woman would have to come back two or three times before it got light enough to be a silver blonde. This cost fifty, sixty dollars a treatment. So the average hausfrau and her husband, he"d say "What are you workin" as a cigarette girl or something? You"re a mother, you got four kids, you"re insulting me in church, you look like a hoozy." But today all girls look like hoozies.
HAZEL: They have commercialized it and came out with all these gadgets, and put work that should be done in a shop into home. You can buy a comb that cuts hair. You can buy a permanent. They should have strictly remained professional. The manufacturers got greedy and they commercialized hairdressing, whereas they make it so easy it can be done at home. So you can"t command the prices you did a number of years ago. Today they sell these kits, and if you can read you can do it. It has hurt the poorer sections mostly. More wealthier neighborhoods, it hasn"t hurt them bad. Most of these women, they don"t want to take the time.
Once in a while a hairdo will disturb me because I feel I didn"t do it quite right. I"ll brood over it for a little while. I like to feel I"ve done the best on each one every day. Once in a while I"ll flunk. (Laughs.) EDWARD: You feel like a doctor who has a patient who died on the operating table. You"re concerned. What went wrong? Why didn"t I get that right? A beauty operator wouldn"t care. I enjoy the work. I"d do it again even if I made less money.
We have lost young people in the beauty shop. The average person we work on is over twenty-five. The olden-time mother would never stand to see her daughter with that straight gappy look. She looks like a witch on Halloween night. Today it"s the style for young people.
I have a girl come in the shop: how can I straighten her hair? There was one time, a woman with hair like that, she was something on a broom. Even her mother would say, "Why the h.e.l.l don"t you go to the beauty shop and get the hair out of your mouth?" Today you can"t tell a child . . .
In my opinion, the men are getting more feminine and the women are getting more masculine. If a boy and a girl walk down the street together and his hair is as straight as hers, he"ll get a permanent at home. The one with the straight hair is usually the girl and the one with the wavy hair is the guy.
It"s due to our permissive society. There was a time once, September rolled around, they were forced to go to the barber shop or beauty parlor and get it clipped for school. Otherwise, the teacher sent them home. Today you have a whole society where a young man can go on the street, raise a beard, wear crazy clothes, he can wear one shoe off and one shoe on, and no one bothers to look at him.
HAZEL: It has regressed.
Do you disagree with customers on occasion?
EDWARD: I often disagree with customers-depends on who she is and what authority she has. I lost a customer once because she was from Germany and this other customer happened to be from a very, very p.r.o.nounced Jewish family. She said she wouldn"t buy a Volkswagen because of what they did to our people. And the woman said, "What did I do? I was a child." Next thing you know, she called her a n.a.z.i. So here I"m bound to lose one customer. The one I favored, the one I hoped I didn"t lose, was the one that paid the most money and had the most service. But I felt sorry for the other girl. I took sides only for monetary reasons.
JEAN STANLEY.
She sells cosmetics and perfumes in a department store. It is a suburban Connecticut branch of the city"s most fashionable establishment. The patrons are, for the most part, upper middle cla.s.s.
Though it has been her five-day-a-week job for the last seven years, she had been at it, on and off, for thirty years. "I was home for about twenty years. I went back to work when the children were in high school."
Her husband is a buyer in textile. Though he has an excellent record and reputation, his position is tenuous, due to the industry"s impersonal drive for young executives. They have three children, all of whom have gone to college.
I sell cosmetics to women who are trying to look young. They are spending more on treatment creams than they did years ago. I can remember when lipstick at two dollars was tops. Now they have lipsticks that sell for five. Appearance. Many times I think, thirty dollars for this little jar of cream. I know it doesn"t have that value. But in the eye of that woman, it has that value. A cosmetic came out that was supposed to smooth out the wrinkles for five or six hours. It puffs out the skin. The wrinkles would return. We criticized it. But a woman came in one morning, she said, "I"m going for a job interview and I"m past forty. I want to look nicer." I felt differently about selling it to her. It might bring her a job.
They say everything comes out of the same pot. (Laughs.) There isn"t a cream that"s worth forty, fifty dollars. But when you see the enthusiasm of the women who purchase these things (laughs), you don"t want to make them feel discouraged. They"re beginning to show lines and wrinkles. They know their husbands are out in the business world with young women who are attractive. They"re trying to look nice, to keep their husbands interested. So cosmetics have their place, I think.
There is always the compet.i.tion of keeping their husbands interested. You see the fear in their faces-becoming lined. They all discuss this: "Look at me. I look terrible." They will talk about seeing it on television-the cream that erases lines. Television is the thing that has brought all this. More anxiety.
Customers ask your advice. They rely on you. If you"ve worked in one of these places for a number of years, you have a following. People come in and wait for you actually. You become a little bit of a friend. They can speak to a stranger more than they can to an acquaintance. They may tell you some little tragedy or something. You learn a lot about people when you"re with the public all day. There are so many lonely people. So many women between the ages of forty and seventy.
You"re supposed to try and sell a certain brand. Many stores work that way. We suggest the brand we know about most. Many women come in and they"d like to see an Arden, a Lauder, or a Rubenstein product, and you show it to them. If they ask for a definite brand, you don"t try to sell them another. I"m not aggressive. I don"t want to send a customer home with a bag full of things and when she gets home she feels, Why did I buy this? You try to feel the customer out. I stress the saving: "How much would you like to spend?"
Years ago, women that sold cosmetics and perfumes made more money on the average than they do now. You could earn much more than girls working in an office. Today you hardly earn as much. The companies are spending so much money on advertising. Perhaps they feel the girl will sell much more and earn more, that way. (Laughs). They don"t put it into salaries, I know that much. They have tremendous advertising budgets. We work on salary plus commission. One of my children who"s sold said, "The lowest common denominator is the salesclerk on commission." (Laughs.) It brings out their greed and their disregard for their fellow workers.
I"m not paid by the store. I"m paid by the cosmetics company. The company expects you to sell their merchandise. You send them a monthly report. There are ten of us in my department. Each one represents a different company. Out here in the suburbs you represent more than one company. You might have two or three cream lines; four, five, or six perfume lines. You have a tremendous amount of stock to take care of, reports to send in. You have to have an auditor help you with your income tax. (Laughs). You have salaries from so many different companies.
The extra work, making out reports, is done in your own home, on your own time. The Revlon report can be eighteen inches, with numerous items on it. You can"t work on these reports when you get home at night. Your eyes become a little blurred. (Laughs.) You"re a little weary. You have to do it on Sunday. You spend the whole day on it.
There"s another hazard to the job. (Laughs.) You get no health insurance or anything like that. The companies don"t cover you for hospitalization. I have to carry my own. You can"t get in on a pension plan either. A woman that just retired worked in this section fifteen years. If she worked directly for the store, she could have retired with a little pension. She retired with nothing. I will get nothing.
The company I represent gives you five days a year sick leave. If you"re sick more than five days, you don"t get paid. The one year I was sick, I didn"t get paid for the few days over. There are department store unions, but if you"re in the pay of someone else, it"s . . . no man"s land. Years ago, when earnings were greater, I could have retired with something. Now I won"t.
My manager is very friendly with me. She knows she"s secure with me. I"m going to stay just where I am. It"s been seven years and I"ve been here every day. When we get to the age where we have to . . . (trails off). I can be dismissed at will. We have no protection.
You stand on your feet all day. Years ago, there was a rule that there had to be a stool in the back of each counter. I don"t see that enforced any more. There aren"t any stools around. I think everyone"s feet feel tired at the end of the day. We have college kids that come in, especially before Christmas. They complain more about being tired than the older women.
The managers seem afraid to tell the young people what doesn"t go. They"re not as willing to work. A little less courtesy, too. Maybe it"s a good sign, in a way. Maybe they feel this is nonsense, all the thank you"s and the please and everything. The same thing with their appearance. There"s a certain independence they"re showing. But in showing their independence they look like all the others. (Laughs.) When you have children that are going through college for years, it takes money. (Laughs.) That"s the reason many women go back to work, their children"s schooling. We have widows, women who were caught in the Depression, who couldn"t go into professions. So we turned to selling.
Stores like ours that carry high-priced merchandise have make-up for black women. Many buy light make-up. They think they"ll look better. You have to be very careful when you"re selling a black women. Some like a strong fragrance. Some, because they"re black, will not buy a strong fragrance. These are middle-cla.s.s women. The prejudice behind the counter -I can"t begin to tell you. They use the words. You wonder how it"s ever going to be resolved. Sometimes you get discouraged with humanity.
There are other things you"d like to be doing. I was interested in teaching but the Depression . . . You would have liked to do something more exciting and vital, something you felt was making a contribution. On the other hand, when you wait on these lonely old women and they leave with a smile and you feel you"ve lifted their day, even a little, well, it has its compensations.
DR. STEPHEN BARTLETT.
He is a dentist who has practiced for nineteen years in an upper-middle-cla.s.s suburb just outside Detroit. He is forty-six, divorced. It was a late start for him; he enrolled at dental school at the age of twenty-eight.
He comes from Tennessee. "I worked for three years in the mines, digging thirty-inch coal" for his brother, who was an operator. "I was in one cave-in." He drove a truck. He worked in the world of outdoor advertising: "There was a lot of corruption, a lot of the under-the-table bit. That took all the fun out of it for me."
One day a week he teaches at a hospital in the city. He rides a motorcycle to and from his office, which is five blocks from his home.
Dentistry is very precise. No matter what you do, sometimes things just don"t go right. One of the big diseases dentists have is stress. It"s physically hard because you"re in an uncomfortable position most of the day. With techniques today, young fellows are sitting down. I wish I"d sit down more, but I"m not accustomed to it. So I stand most of my day.
The mouth you work on usually is not in an ideal condition. If the patient is not cooperating, moving their mouth or salivating a lot, it"s hard to get the job done. You"re nervous. If you"re not satified when you"ve completed your work, n.o.body else knows, but you do. You"re your own worst critic.
The patients are in a tense position too. There is stress on both sides. The consciousness of pain is always with you. There are two categories of people: those that are more scared of the needle than the drill, who don"t want Novocain, and those more scared of the drill. If you get those who don"t want Novocain, you"re under more stress, because the equipment today is high powered, fast. All they have to do is jerk once on you and they"ve damaged themselves.
You don"t make money unless you have your hand in somebody"s mouth. It"s not like any other business where you can get income by being away. Any time you"re not working on a patient, you"re losing money. Your overhead continues.
What appeals to me here is that I can practice the dentistry I like. I couldn"t be happy practicing in an area where a guy comes in and says, "Come on, doc, pull it, it hurts." Rather than pull a tooth, we could fix it with endodontics or root fill or put a gold crown on it. You don"t have to really lose your teeth. When someone loses teeth, it"s a traumatic experience. It"s getting more so with all the TV ads. With toothpaste and mouthwashes and all this, people are getting a lot more conscious of their teeth.
I insulted a girl last night, a young, beautiful child. I noticed the corners of her mouth turned down a little bit. I asked if I could see her teeth. I wanted to see what kind of work she had there. She was missing a lot of teeth. The mouth closes like a person who"s a denture wearer, and she will get old before her time. That"s one of the first things I look at.
I went to see Fiddler on the Roof. When I saw a close-up of Topol and his teeth, he had partials. To me, this made him human. Did you know that Clark Gable for a number of years had only one tooth here in front? And no one saw it. When you"re close to it, it"s your life.
Teeth can change a person"s appearance completely. It gives me a sense of satisfaction that I can play a role. The thing that bugs me is that you work hard to create, let"s say, a good gold bridge. It requires time, effort, and precision. Before I put them in place, I make the patient look at them. An artist can hang his work on the wall and everybody sees it. No one sees mine except me. A dentist is creative too. It requires a certain skill, a certain art. If you do a good job, damm it, you"re proud of it. And you want other people to appreciate it.
I don"t think a patient knows whether you"re a good dentist or a bad one. They know one of two things: he didn"t hurt and I like him or he"s a son of a b.i.t.c.h. It"s strictly a personality thing. I tried to change my personality when I first started in and I did myself more damage than good. My first cards I had printed when I became a dentist were S. Harrison Bartlett. It was ridiculous, I dropped it. I"m not a formal type. I tell jokes, I make notes and remember things of interest to them. I try to say something personal to each of my patients. I don"t antagonize people.
I"ve had some patients who did not stay with me. There are some people who are used to deference. This is not my way. They"re always demanding. If you run a little late, they get upset-or if you don"t hand them the napkin properly. They get irritated and raise their voice or they try to tell you what they want done and what they don"t want done. d.a.m.n it, when they"re in my office, I"m the boss.
Some tried to put me down when I was trying to establish myself. It hasn"t bothered me for a number of years. Some people are chronically late, and that"s all right. But if you"re late with them once, they"re upset. Sometimes they call up a half-hour before the appointment and say, "I forgot." I make adjustments now. My girl has a list of people who can come in immediately. So when somebody doesn"t show, we start down the list. Otherwise, that"s time lost which cannot be made up.
I have people who pay me once a year for income tax purposes, or they"re waiting to clip coupons. I have people that drive Cadillacs but can"t pay their dental bills. It"s not because they don"t want to. Dentistry is one of the first areas in business cut back in a recession, that people tend to ignore, unless they have a toothache.
When a person walks into the office, it"s an instinct. You know who"s gonna pay and who isn"t gonna pay. I"ve never used a collection agency. I should, "cause I have an awful lot on the books. But this bothers me. I don"t want to do it.
My life is entirely different since my divorce. If someone told me of these opportunities as a married man, I would have called them a liar to their face. It is really unbelievable. The banter. When you"re in a dental chair, you"re under stress, I don"t care who you are. As a consequence, your guard is down. People reveal more of themselves and their true nature than at other times.
Fantasies about women come before and after work. The schedule is set up that you"re operating against time. You have a half-hour to get this done. Now in the evening or going back over the day I might think, "G.o.dd.a.m.n, she was good looking!" Or, "I wonder what she meant when she said that?" Or, you know, "Hmm!" Draw your own conclusions.
I like girls. And women. I"m called a dirty old man lots of times in a joking situation. That"s part of my image too. But you don"t eat and play where you work, this bit. I not only work here, I live here. So I"m very careful. Reputation is very important in a small community such as this one.
Dentistry as a whole feels it"s a second-cla.s.s citizen. I know a lot of dentists who wanted to be physicians and couldn"t get into medical school, so they went to dental school. I personally don"t feel second-cla.s.s because I spend every third month in the emergency room of the hospital. Believe me, medical men don"t know the first thing in the world about dentistry.
People say, "Oh, he"s a dentist." That doesn"t bother me. When I first got my D.D.S. and I was a new doctor, h.e.l.l yes, I was very proud and I wanted everybody to recognize that. Remember, I was older when I got out than most fellas, so it doesn"t bother me as it might the others.
I wouldn"t be a physician if they gave it to me, to be honest with you. I don"t know any profession in the world that is better than dentistry. You"re your own boss, you set your own hours, you can go anywhere in the world and practice. You don"t have the burden of life and death over your head at every decision. Your working conditions are ideal. Okay, they"re physically hard, but there"s nothing wrong with that.
There are supposed to be peak years for a dentist, I"ve been told. I don"t know what they are. My predecessor was an old man, his hands were shaking and all this bit. I know that will be a factor in time to come. But I think if you keep your image up-to-date, you"ll decrease the age factor. I"ve seen many young men who are old and I don"t propose to go that route.
DOC PRITCHARD.
We"re in a Manhattan hotel near Times Square. It is an old, established place of some three hundred rooms. Its furnishings are quite simple, unpretentious. There are permanent guests as well as transients.
He is a room clerk, on the 8:00 A.M. to 4:00 P.M. shift, five days a week. He"s been at this work twenty-two years. "I not only room people, I do cashiering, checking out, cashing checks, all that sort of thing. The day goes pretty fast. Before you can say, "Jack Robinson," it"s time to go home. (Laughs.) It"s difficult at times." (Laughs.) I begin at eight in the morning. I have to have a smile on my face. Some mornings that"s a little difficult. The first thing you run into is people checking out from the night before. You might get a slight lull and then people begin arriving. They"re like little bees. You"re concentrating on what you"re doing. It"s a little difficult to have that smile all the time. I have one particular girl who says to me, "What? No smile this morning?" So I smile.
Clerks are really underpaid people. It is one of the lowest paid jobs in the United States. I think they should put out more money for a good hotel clerk. If you get a fellow on the front desk who has got a good personality and can get along with people and he"s on his toes, I mean really serving the guests, I mean really getting out there and encouraging them to come back-the hotel has to be halfway decent too. Then I think you"ve got a clerk that"s worth two hundred dollars a week.
They don"t get that. It"s difficult sometimes for them to get along with just one job. A great many of "em moonlight. Or they work a couple extra nights in another hotel. A great many actors went into this. They did it just to eat between jobs. This was before the unemployment check. Many show people worked in hotels. They"d do it until the next part came along. Then they"d quit. So n.o.body really cared.
I doubt if a hotel clerk really commands a heck of a lot of respect. I"ve had people talk to me just like I was some sort of dog, that I was a ditchdigger, let"s say. You figure a fellow who comes to work and he has to have a cleanly pressed suit and a white shirt and a tie on-plus he"s gotta have that big smile on his face-shouldn"t be talked to in a manner that he"s something so below somebody else.
It affects me. It gives you that feeling: Oh h.e.l.l, what"s the use? I"ve got to get out of this. Suddenly you look in the mirror and you find out you"re not twenty-one any more. You"re fifty-five. Many people have said to me, "Why didn"t you get out of it long ago?" I never really had enough money to get out. I was stuck, more or less.
In a lot of hotels, the cashiering is done by a certain person and the rooming is done by the clerk. Here I do everything. At times I even act as manager, because if the manager"s out, you have to take hold. There"s a good deal of bookkeeping. It can get quite confusing. I"ve had fellows from universities come in. I would try to break them in. They couldn"t make head nor tail out of being a room clerk. The one thing you must remember: Forget what happened yesterday and let tomorrow take care of itself. It"s today you"re working. Everything you do has to come under this date. So many look back two days and post back two days and this is how we get fouled up. (Laughs.) There"s pressure when you"re doing it all. There is tension, quite a bit of tension. On a busy day I"ll go home and it takes me about an hour and a half to unwind. I just want to sit there and pick up a book or a paper or something. Just get away from it all.
My legs are quite tired. I"m on my feet the whole time. In doing these jobs I don"t have much of a chance to sit down. You"re moving back and forth and pivoting most of the time. You"re not in a large area. You"re turning and pivoting. Ofttimes through the day I take a walk in front of the desk.
The thing I don"t like about it is you"re trapped-in a small area eight hours a day. You"re behind the desk. We had a grill on our desk and I asked them to take it away, because I felt like I was in jail. The other side is open, wide open, where you can talk with the guests. But this cage was near the cash. I told it to more than one guest. There"s a gla.s.s there now and a sign: Please go to the front.
"When I broke in, it was shortly after World War ll. Hotels were much busier. I"ve worked most of "em. I"ve even worked resort hotels. You might work two or three months, then you got to trudge out and look for another job. I"d rather work in a commercial house like this. Here you got things set winter through summer."
You see a lot. I"m not a nosy person. I don"t care what another person is doing. It"s none of my business. I"ve found out that people who do worry about what a guest is doing, nine times out of ten they"re wrong. Especially when you"re dealing with people in the arts. Many times it"s pertaining to business, has nothing to do with what that person who thinks like Archie Bunker thinks is going on. I"ve got enough to worry about what I do without worrying about what somebody else does.
The clerk in a hotel is rarely tipped. The bellboys, rather, get all the tips. A fellow that comes into the hotel to do a little cheating will always tip the bellboy heavily. The boy can"t help him at all, in any way, shape, or form. It"s the clerk who watches his mail, watches his messages, and watches who comes in and out to see him. It"s really the clerk who covers for him. But he never seems to realize that. If the manager wishes that he be ejected from the hotel, it"s the clerk who can save him. The bellboys couldn"t do a thing for him.
The clerk knows what"s going on. The fellow relies on the bellboy to keep his mouth shut. The bellboys never keep their mouth shut. The first guy they tell is the clerk, when they come back-if the clerk doesn"t already know it. (Laughs.) Occasionally you will get people who seem to know their way around. They will throw the clerk a couple of bucks or a five-dollar bill now and then.
We"re not getting any young blood. There"s no incentive. I don"t blame"em-to be tied up in one spot. There"s not as many hotels as there used to be. A great many of the two-hundred-, three-hundred-room houses are being torn down or they"re turned into office buildings. All that"s left are a few old stand-bys. There"s the big hotels, monstrosities. There is no homey feeling. You"re just a lonely traveler. If you go down to the bar, you don"t know who the h.e.l.l you"re gonna run into. Your information clerk will probably be a nineteen-year-old college girl or boy. He doesn"t know a thing about hotels. He could care less. He wouldn"t even have an idea what you did for a living. These hotels are going to be missed.
Everybody"s in a rush: "Will you please hurry up with my bill? I"m in a hurry, I gotta catch a plane." It"s a shame, because we could live in such a relaxed society . . .
I"m getting a little older. Can"t take it the way I could twenty years ago. Sometimes you just sit and ponder the day. You get a lot of laughs. (Laughs.) A fellow walked in one morning, he wanted to know if I had seen his wife. He took a picture out of his pocket and held it up. He said, "If you see her, tell her I was looking for her." It was a picture of a nude woman. (Laughs.) You get a lot of laughs.
I have about nine years to go until sixty-five. My hope is that I"ll be in good condition, so I can do two or three days work at least in hotels. I know I"ll miss people. You always have the idea that you"re gonna better yourself. You think, Gee, I wonder if I could write a book or just exactly what I could do. I think I could have done a lot better than just being a clerk.
HOTS MICHAELS.
"Do you have a favorite tune? Here"s an oldie." He plays "As Time Goes By." The piano bar is fairly crowded. The drinking is casual. It is early evening at the downtown hotel. Once it was a favorite gathering place for the city"s sporting crowd, politicians, and strangers looking for action. It will be razed this year to make way for a modern high rise.
He started here in 1952. He refers to a mutual friend, who has since died. "Chet and I began the whole thing. The first piano bar was in this hotel. Now every tavern and saloon has one." There is a jukebox in the room. Its loudness envelops all during the piano breaks.
He works five nights a week, from five-thirty to "around midnight. If there"s a crowd, I keep going. I might play many hours in a row. I take a break when it"s empty." There are frequent phone calls for him, interrupting the conversation.
Piano playing is incidental to this place. It"s kind of background music for talking. Businessmen talking deals. Out-of-town visitors. Occasionally you get some people interested in hearing a certain type of song, and you entertain them. I never took any lessons. I play strictly by ear. I"m lucky I can read t.i.tles. (Laughs.) Over the years I get to know people. They"ll hit the piano bar and we"ll talk back and forth. A second group will move in, strangers. They might be from small towns and they want to know what"s happening. You have close contact with people. This petrifies some piano players, so they play with bands. I never played with a band because I wasn"t qualified.
Late business is a thing of the past. People don"t stay down as late as they used to after work. The local people will have their drinks and go home. At one time they stayed down five, six hours. And they don"t come down like they used to. They have places out in the suburbs. And I think there"s a little bit of fear. I"ll see people check into the hotel, come down and sit around the piano bar. They"re really afraid to leave the hotel. It"s the strangest thing. Myself, I feel very safe. Evidently my work at the piano bar will be ended. Nothing is forever.
I hate to see it end. I"ll dread the day it comes, because I enjoy the action. I enjoy people. If I were suddenly to inherit four million dollars, I guarantee you I"d be playin" piano, either here or at some other place. I can"t explain why. I would miss the flow of people in and out.
You"re kind of a listening board here. Sometimes they tell me things I wish they"d keep to themself. Personal, marriage problems, business. I get about twenty calls a night. A wife looking for a husband to bring something home. In a cute way she"s trying to find out if he"s here or some place else. If he doesn"t show up in an hour, I"ll be hearing. (Laughs.) I cover up constantly. They tell me things I"d just as soon not know. (Laughs.) Some people think I run an answering service. We kid about it. They"ll get ahold of me and say, "Is so-and-so there? Do you know where he might be? If you get ahold of him, will you have him call this number?" A bartender hears the same stories. Saloons are full of lonely people trying to fill an empty hour or two. Waiting for a train . . .
There"s only a few things that separate you from the ma.s.ses of workers. Through this business I have met some dignitaries. Where else could a piano player meet President Truman or Bob Hope or people like that? I"d never do it if I were a steam fitter or a plumber. There"s nothing wrong with their line of work. They probably make more than a piano player-except that I happen to be where people gather. It"s a good feeling. We"re fighting for a little bit of status, one way or the other.
Every minute of my life I deal with a drinking public. I"m not knocking it, they pay my salary. But you have to treat them a certain way after they have a few martinis. They change that rapidly. It doesn"t bother me unless they get rough. If he offends somebody around the bar, some wild vulgarity, I get up and get him out. Just by being nice. Most people you can talk to. It"s much more difficult with a woman who is drinking. She can be difficult. You can"t put your hands on her.
They"re never discourteous to me, directly. What gets me is the lack of courtesy to waitresses and bartenders. People could be a little kinder to"em. Not "Hey you, give us a drink over here!" Of course, we"re dealing with drinking people, so you have to put up with it. If someone happens to be rude to me, I don"t get mad. It rolls right off me. I just think, Poor souls. (Laughs.) You can"t show your troubles in this business. The customer is allowed to have troubles. That"s why we"re here.
Generally the customer is always right. But if he"s out of line . . . I have seen brutal racial vulgarity right in this hotel. People from a certain part of the country would talk abusive to black waiters. Aw, brutal. Back in 1952, "53, Chet and I would step in. When that happened he either pays his check right away and gets out or he does an about-face: "Can"t you see I"m joking?" I"m a person who gets involved-sometimes too much. It"s best not to get involved in everything.
I get a straight salary. I was never what you"d call a tip man. I don"t know why. I worked at the piano bar and there was nothing but money around. Men on expense accounts. But I never made the tips others in this industry made. We had all those wonderful years, but I never saw any of it. Why, I don"t know. (Laughs.) It might be sort of an independence I have. Sometimes people feel they would offend by tipping me. Here"s your city guy sitting at the piano and he"s dressed rather well. He seems to be getting along with the crowd. Maybe they feel he doesn"t need it. Most of the people in town, the really big spenders, the sporty cla.s.s, I knew too well. They started tipping me, but the first thing you know I"m that person"s friend and that"s the end of the tip. I know piano players that keep aloof. They"ll walk out of the room on a break. They stay away from people on their own time. It"s good psychology.
I couldn"t do that. Naturally anyone would want to make a little extra money. But it wasn"t the target in my life. I was never a hustler. There"s ways of hustling people for tips. You can put a bowl on the piano, put a few dollars in it. There"s also a verbal way. A fella is. .h.i.tting you for a few tunes. He keeps it up. There"s ways of kidding him: "G.o.d, that"s a five-dollar number, that one." But it just doesn"t run in me. If they want to give it to me, fine. If they don"t, all right. They"re gonna get the same action.
I play along whether it"s noisy or quiet. It doesn"t bother me if people talk or are loud. It"s part of the game. I never had a strong ego. I sometimes wish I did. I can play all the melodies, but I"m not really a good piano player. I wish I were. I never touch a piano until I walk in here. I don"t have a piano at home. My father was a talented musician. In our home there was always a piano. Everybody played, my father, my mother, my brothers, my sister, myself.
I consider myself a whisky salesman. The amount of money spent in this room pays me. I encourage people in a nice way to have a good time. I usually take a break only when business dies down. But you might as well be there while you have visitors. That way it helps the bartender. I never thought of myself as an artist. I know my limitations. It"s a business. It"s all show biz.
I shudder to think of retirement. The most frightening thing to me will be the day I say, "I"m going down to St. Petersburg and buy a little home." I know everything in life ends. It"s not growing old that worries me, but what would I do? When it gets quiet here, your mind strays and you start thinking of many things. I find myself talking about the future but I"m always thinking about the past.
TEDDY GRODOWSKI.
He"s an elevator starter at a large office building. He had operated a car, "but they became automated." He had previously worked in a factory. "Man, I had to sweat, buffing, polishing. This is a clean job. I really enjoy it.
"You could say I work at least five and a half hours on my feet out of eight. See what I"m wearing? Those are good shoes, arch support, cushion. Oh, you gotta.
"I went two years of high school but I coulda gone four. It was my fault. But what are you gonna do? You can"t cry over spilt milk."