An excerpt from the novel Columbus Took a Chance
The world is filled with dreamers and fools and my dad knew how to attract them. Educated in the Italian immigrant housing projects on Taylor Street, now Chicago’s quaint Little Italy, he honed his skills at an early age. The engaging smile, bright eyes, infectious laugh and boyish good looks followed him to manhood and stood in place on top of his burly frame. Hawking newspapers on the street corner as a boy prepared him for his current sideline endeavor. Dad imported accordions from Italy and often used them as bait to empty the wallets of the helpless, the dreamers and fools.
Maxwell Street transformed into a legendary flea market each and every Sunday. On days the weather cooperated, my father would arrive before first light with his boxes, a chair and me. As the foot traffic began, he would sit in the chair with an instrument on his lap and effortlessly press joy through the bellows and into the morning air. Magically, a few souls from the school of passersby would transform from determined and focused to consumed and mystified as joy entered their ear canals and melodically numbed their minds. The week’s problems, the pain in their blue collars and even their immediate intentions disappeared as they passed into heavenly bliss. I watched each musical phrase intensify their dream state through my eight-year-old eyes. I saw into their inner thoughts through their smile and gaze… “How beautiful… look how simple… I want to…. I can…. I know I can”.
My dad knew their thoughts better than I did. When he could see the point of no return in a dreamers face the music would stop. Then some general form of the following pitch would begin.
“I work in a factory like you. I just picked this up on the side. My wife and kids love to hear me play… look at him”. My smile was trained to produce the result of the organ grinder’s monkey. I was good at my job. “By the way, what’s your favorite song?”
The time between my dad seeing the look and the dreamer walking away with his 25lb treasure was never more than 20 minutes. My dad sent each dreamer off with the same line… “If you decide you want a lesson or two, I’m here all the time. Stop by and we’ll arrange something.”
I doubt if any of the instruments that passed through my dad’s hands into the dreamer’s ever yielded the tones of joy my dad could produce.
During the week, Dad was a Supervisor on the second shift at the factory owned by the Continental Can Company. Whenever possible he would stay into the third shift to make extra money. Monday through Saturday afternoon, my sisters and I did not see him. Saturday afternoons that preceded a weather-friendly Sunday we learned to avoid him. Those Saturday’s were the most dangerous days of our year.
Dad had a price tag on everything he could find that was unattached to the house. He made his way from room to room, collecting used items as inventory for the Flea Market. He collected disposables with the precision of a Hoover vacuum. If he touched it, it was sucked into a disposable bag. Only on rare occasion could my mother protect our family’s belongings. Once, on the Saturday before Palm Sunday, my dad got his hands on my sister Nina’s Easter dress.
“Joey, she hasn’t even worn it yet,” my mother protested. “It still has the tags on it!”
That dress was spared, at least for another two weeks. On this Saturday, my dad found a children’s record player hidden under some clothes in my bedroom closet.
“Hey Carl, you ever listen to this anymore?” He honestly didn’t know. He was not present when we were awake. He never heard Disney’s Bambi or Fenwick the Elf singing through the front speaker. No matter of course, whatever the true answer, the obligated response to his question was “No I don’t Dad.” The record player disappeared into the bag and would be off to Maxwell Street the next morning.
Early Sunday morning, the record player was on the sidewalk next to my Dad’s chair. About 9 AM a scary looking fellow stopped by to inquire about the device. The prospective buyer looked exactly like the football card I had of Deacon Jones, part of the LA Rams Fearsome Foursome. This Deacon, however, was carrying an extra 50 pounds around his midsection.
“How Much?”
“$4” replied my Dad.
“Does it work?”
“Yeah, works great” dad assured.
“Ok, I’ve got a restaurant down the street, let’s check it out.”
We secured a neighbor to watch the accordions while Deacon was trying unsuccessfully to press his stubby fingers into the carry handle of the record player. Deacon’s hands were the size of catchers’ mitts. Finally, he gave up on the handle and just palmed the device like a basketball and we were off to the restaurant. As we followed the Deacon through the foot traffic, my dad created some space from him, then in a soft voice asked me if the player worked. I shrugged my shoulders. We would find out soon enough.
The restaurant was really a first-floor living room next to a kitchen counter where an electric frying pan was plugged in. Deacon entered the room waving the record player and making loud and abrasive comments to his customers, all of who could have been relatives. The patrons were sitting on sofas and eating bacon, eggs and buttered toast off of plates they held. We had not eaten and the place smelled really good.
When Deacon reached the kitchen counter, he abruptly unplugged the electric frying pan…. Restaurant closed. He plugged in the record player, flipped the on the switch, and watched the turntable begin to spin. My dad and I glanced at each other and smiled. Deacon shuffled through the house continuing a loud conversation with the people there. He bent over in a corner, exposing the largest backside I’d seen to date, then straightened up and produced an LP. He removed the record from the jacket and now holding court in the restaurant, he placed the record on the turntable. Deacon lifted the arm and carefully put it down at the beginning of the album.
The sound that came out of the record player had nothing in common with music. The scratching and ripping of vinyl produced a sharp grinding noise that annoyed every ear it entered. The record player had no needle.
Deacon’s facial expression changed immediately as the painful sound reached his ears. He was clearly perturbed by what was happening to his recording when he lifted the arm.
There was not a person in the house that looked anything like my dad or I. Dad sensed the need to lighten the moment and spoke up in a loud voice
“Hey, what kind of music do you listen to anyway?”
The customers started laughing, took the cue and reeled off rapid-fire abuse directed at the Deacon’s musical taste. Dad, smiling and laughing his infectious laugh, walked to the counter, unplugged and closed the record player, then led me out of the restaurant. I’m sure he did not apologize; I can’t say whether he said or waved goodbye. My eye was fixed on the light of the porch outside the door.
Once safely on the street and a few houses away from Deacon’s, my dad started fondly reinforcing his newest memory. “Did you see his face when the noise started?” He asked, trying in vain to facially express pain through his laughter. About a block further away we still engaged in reliving the incident when a passerby going the opposite direction stopped us.
“Hey, did you just buy that record player?” he asked.
“Yes, ” my dad replied while slowing his laughter.
“Does it work?”
Still smiling, he said “Yeah, works good. We just tried it out in a restaurant back there.”
“How much did you pay?”
“$5” my dad answered.
“Will you take 7?”
My dad pretended to think for a minute, looked at me, looked down, looked at his new customer, then said: “Sure, OK.”
Returning to our Accordion spot, it was probably difficult for people on the street to determine which one of us was the eight-year-old. Smiles, laughter, recounting short excerpts of the last half hour’s adventure, more laughter. It was another life memory from a Sunday morning on Maxwell Street.
