Magic Words Page 7

  But on this morning, he found Max already seated in the center of the shop, fully dressed and shaved, and surrounded by brown cardboard boxes.

  “Come here,” Max said.

  Julius wasn’t used to seeing his brother much before ten. By that time, he had swept the shop, restocked the shelves, culled the unsold periodicals and opened the door for the eight o’clock rush. By nine, he had waited on dozens of Omaha’s citizens stocking up on black shag or enough cigars or plug to last them the day. Once the commotion died down, he checked the inventory; then he tallied the invoices and composed the order telegrams to be sent to the suppliers back East—all this before his brother so much as drew a breath by the pipe racks.

  Once Max did arrive, he invariably spent his first working hour negating everything the boy had done.

  In their native German, he would upbraid Julius for his numerous errors in commercial judgment. Nein! The chew plugs should be placed bottom label out so that ladies buying for their men can see them better. Nein! Nein! You call this writing clear? I can’t tell if this says three dollars or five dollars the way you write! Nein! Nein! NEIN! Who allows a widow with four children to buy quarter candy and writing paper on credit? Are you mischigah or only stupid?

  Not that any of these retail disasters ever encouraged Max to arrive any earlier. He always claimed that his pre-dawn absence was prompted by his need for prayer and reflection and the holy maintenance of his body. But in a town the size of Omaha, secrets were like teakettles: no one could see the water but everyone could hear the whistle. Julius had long known that if his brother’s body was in for maintenance, the mechanic was likely Lady-Jane Little Feather or, in a down month, someone less expensive.

  Peering over the boxes, Max didn’t bother to greet him, which surprised his brother not at all. As Julius had not yet begun his day’s work, there was no reason to criticize him—and since there was no reason to criticize him, there was therefore no reason for Max to say anything to him at all.

  The boy knew better than to inquire as to the contents of the cardboard boxes, but noted that each one bore the name of a printer from Des Moines. As his brother’s buck knife cut through paste and panel, Julius smelled fresh ink and wondered what could have made his brother indulge in such an extravagance.

  Max reached into the first box and removed a stack of cream-colored papers. Each was folded twice and covered with type and pictures. Without a word, Max peeled off one of the papers and handed it to Julius. The cover read:

  M. MEYER TOBACCO CO.

  Omaha, Nebraska. Since 1864.

  The company name had been hand-drawn with great skill, every letter like a carving in ivory, festooned with oak leaves and filigree. But even more startling was the fine engraving just below the elegant trademark. It depicted an Indian chief in full headdress. He wore a beautiful buffalo robe, and his wrists were adorned with jewelry. The face wore a grave but contented look and he appeared to contemplate the very essence of the primitive as he enjoyed a long-feathered pipe. The artist had rendered the smoke so that it rose from the bowl and billowed about the old brave’s head in curlicues. When the smoke finally reached the top of the page, it gracefully surrounded the words your satisfaction guaranteed.

  Julius unfolded the brochure. Inside, there were more fine illustrations: wild Indians in full battle array and demure red-skinned maidens, their hands and necks laden with fine stones and gems. In one corner, there was a detailed drawing of a beaded purse, in the other a striped blanket with a pattern of running horses. The copy read:

  We of The M. Meyer Tobacco Company, Omaha, have long prided ourselves on supplying our clientele with the finest in tobacco products as well as fancy gifts from around the globe.

  Now, we are happy to announce that Meyer can offer even more!

  In addition to the fine items for which we are justly renowned, our customers may now also avail themselves of the beautiful craftwork created by the Indian peoples with whom God has allowed us to share this great land! Savages though they may be, we submit that no other people on Earth have yet attained the appreciation of nature or the matchless craftsmanship evinced by these wild tribes.

  From their red hands, we now offer exquisite blankets, belts, robes and hats as well as jewelry in silver and gold. These items have been attained at considerable danger to our staff, as there are still those among these untamed peoples who would seek to make war on their white betters. But thanks to the courage and shrewdness of our traders, we are now able to offer these unique items at the cheapest possible price, for the personal delectation of the most discerning ladies and gentlemen.

  The boy handed the pamphlet back to his brother.

  Julius turned to Max. “The courage and shrewdness of what traders?”

  Max still said nothing. Laying down his knife, he pointed toward the door.

  Prophet John McGarrigle was as silent as Max Meyer, but for a different reason: he was asleep. The activities of the previous evening—which had included the sampling of some freshly distilled white lightning at Pat’s Pair o’ Dice—had apparently overcome his usual alertness. Upon his arrival only a few minutes before, he had made the mistake of leaning against the shop’s door jamb for what he thought would be a moment’s rest and went out like a light. Julius looked down to see Jim Riley’s boots crossed one over the other in a jaunty manner, as if McGarrigle were a city swell reclining on a lamppost, the better to observe the ladies.

  “Shiker!” Max cried at the scout, using the Yiddish word for drunkard. “Wake up. You have to today take mein brother to the Indians.”

  The Prophet awoke with a start but began to smile almost immediately at the sight of his former roommate. He held up an index finger as if to beg a moment’s forbearance, then stuck his head out the doorway. He spat a part of last night onto the rough wooden boardwalk and turned back to face his hosts.

  “Nice to see you, Mr. Max. Young Jules.”

  “Ach,” Max said. “Are you ready to leave? It will only take mein brother a few minutes to gather from what he has and then you and him will go by the Indians.”

  “The wagon’s loaded,” Prophet John said. “Just got to water the mules. Everything I need is on my person and everything they need is on theirs.”

  “Good.” Max turned to Julius. “You’ll now go and get ready clothes and from what you need for two months maybe and you’ll go with the McGorgle.”

  “Go?” Julius asked. “Go where?”

  “By the Indians. Your uncle, the Gershonson, says that now he is from them buying what they make. Trinkets, belts, blankets, and all chazarei what is made by them. All of a sudden, right away they want such things in the East. The women in Manhattan want they should look like savages. The men wear buffalo robes to Wall Street. Who would believe such nonsense? But they buy, so we sell. So the McGorgle will take you and you’ll trade.”

  “So the courageous, shrewd trader is me—the one who faces the considerable danger?”

  “Only advertising, young Jules,” John said. “Tales exaggerated for the Eastern Seaboard. Be of good cheer, for you are in good hands. I’ve faced down Chased By Owls and still I eat and breathe; smoked pipe with Standing Bear himself and I trod God’s earth. Your brother hired me to lead you around the shit piles, so to say; and bring you back with plenty pretty merchandise and them black curls intact.”

  Julius looked from the gray man to his brother and shook his head. Max’s eyes popped wide.

  “You won’t do it? And who it was what brought you from Europe, you shouldn’t starve? Who took you from that yeshiva orphan house and away from those fanaticals? It wasn’t for me you would be begging already in the street with a beard and earlocks or be fifteen and married to some two-headed girl you first laid your eyes on under the chuppah.”

  “Your brother makes a point,” said the Prophet, helping himself to a piece of Helm chew. “Share the riches, share the risk, I always say.”

  Max grabbed the tobacco from the scout’s hand and
turned on Julius in a cold fury.

  “So maybe you don’t like being an American boy,” Max said in German. “Maybe you’d like to go back to the old country, eh? I’ll write to the Governor and put your papers in. I’ll tell him my brother prefers Prussia with the fucking Polacks and the Germans and the goddamn frum Jews to America with the goyim and the Indians. I’ll get you a ticket and before you scratch your dick you’ll be back from where I took you. There, nobody will ask you to do anything except beg them for a bowl of soup or lie still while they beat you.”

  Julius stood still between the two men, his eyes like coals, his fists clenched at his sides. Damn the danger. Could the hatchets of Indians be more humiliating than his brother’s condescension? Could a hail of arrows be much worse than the gray man’s string of inanities?

  Julius threw the pamphlet down and stomped through the rear of the shop and up the stairs. Max and Prophet John could hear the banging of a suitcase and the rapid clatter of boots. A few minutes later, Julius came back down, his suitcase in his hand and his hat on his head. He walked past his brother as if he were another display of meerschaums and into the street.

  When he had walked a few yards, he felt the rough hand of Prophet John on his elbow. He cursed and shrugged the gray man off, walking hard toward the livery where Max had boarded the mules.

  “I understand, young Julius,” the prophet said. “Big brothers like things their way. I had one myself, name of Carter. Wouldn’t give you a canteen if he owned the Great Lakes. Every time he got his hands on a dollar bill, he would smell it like a flower. Get four or five, and it was like his boyfriend sent him a bouquet. Believe me, young Jules, he made your Max look like a philanthropist. I guess that’s what comes of having the birthright. What’s mine is mine and if I figure yours is mine, then that’s mine, too.”

  Julius thought his head would explode from McGarrigle’s gibberish. At the corner by the Dime, the stable came into view.

  “And don’t worry for your life, young Jules. Remember, there’s only so dead you can get. I’ve been charged with the protection of many in my life, and my survival rate, roughly calculated, is above seventy percent. And while some ended up dead, I’m proud to say that none was dead aplenty.”

  Julius stopped in his tracks. His head buzzed like a swarm of bees.

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  McGarrigle snorted into his nose. “See, in my years as a scout I’ve been caught in some fights here and there; some of them what was with me joined the upstairs chorus, and that’s a fact. Soldiers looking for Indians—pilgrims trying to bed down a wagon train. Some got killed by arrows. Woooshhh! Through the heart or ear, nice and clean. Some got shot by pistols. Bang! Done for. And I reckon it was little comfort to their kin that they were dead. But dead aplenty, well, that’s something else.”

  “What’s the difference?” Julius said. “When you’re dead, you’re dead.”

  Prophet John chuckled and shook his head. “Oh no, young Jules, nothing like it. When a foe puts a bullet in your brain or a road agent cuts your throat, you’re dead. When you get the influenza and they pull up the sheet and read over you, you’re dead. But when say, you fall seventy feet from a cliff and land with your eyes on two rocks, or you crawl ten miles through the Mexican desert with a gila monster hanging from your ear, or Chased By Owls makes you watch while he slices your gut and throws your entrails to the dogs, well, son, then you’re dead aplenty.”

  Julius glared at the gray man and began to walk toward the stables again. The prophet took his arm.

  “It’s all right, young Jules. John McGarrigle is here to care for his baby. We’ll come back weighed way down with wampum and you and your brother will be rich enough to leave these wilds and return to where they pray in your native tongue and wait for the Jew messiah. Besides, I’m something of a celebrity among the Poncas.”

  Julius whirled on his boot heel and shouted into the scout’s face. “I suppose you’re going to tell them about tomorrow’s weather. Or maybe fall to the ground and howl and convulse and give Standing Bear a great premonition.”

  McGarrigle looked into the boy’s earnest face and coughed deeply. Then he burst into laughter.

  “No, no, my boy,” Prophet John said, shaking his head back and forth. “I’m not due, not yet. And anyway, when it comes to the big chief of the Poncas, he’s no different from anyone else. I’ve only got so many fits in me. They each comes with a single warning. And I only hand out one per customer per lifetime.”

  9

  JO ANN MCGREEVY HAD SPENT A GOOD PART OF THE DAY with a rag in her hand.

  In the rest of the house, she might entrust such work to the maid, or enlist her lazy son Richard for some tasks. But in this room, only the landlady herself handled the chores, thus ensuring that the cleanliness of the home matched the quality of the tenant. If she was forced to take in boarders, at least she had found one who was what her late husband always called a “Christian gentleman.” And even if the gentleman wasn’t actually a Christian, he maintained all the qualities of the breed; and it wouldn’t do to have him return from his business to the kind of filth Omaha produced as routine.

  Mrs. McGreevy had just finished straightening the last doily when she heard the bells on his wagon. She hurried downstairs to the kitchen and hung her apron on its hook. Making for the front entrance, she shouted for her son and then took up a position to the left of the door.

  Even without being able to see inside it, Mrs. McGreevy could tell that the wagon was far lighter than when it had left nearly three weeks before. Back then, its oblong body had sat mere inches from its springs, so laden was it with worldly goods. Its exterior had been so completely covered with merchandise that its mustard-yellow paint could only be seen through the tiny spaces between the items. Now Mrs. McGreevy smiled to see the big, fancy letters that adorned the side panels in black and green. They read: E. GERSHONSON. A SQUARE DEAL.

  Approaching the house, the peddler shouted something to his mules that was likely the Yiddish equivalent of “whoa.” The animals stopped at the garden fence and bent their necks to a trough of water placed there in advance of their arrival. The driver let go of the reins and gave a small wave in the direction of his landlady.

  Mrs. McGreevy called for Richard again. From the rear of the house loped a gangly youth of about sixteen.

  “Take Mr. Eli’s bag down from the wagon and get his rig to the livery,” she shouted. “Make sure they see to his team proper.”

  Richard shook hands with the peddler as Eli Gershonson clapped him on the back, causing the dust to rise from his own sleeve. The landlady saw her son’s sullen expression change in an instant and knew that Gershonson had slipped a reward into his palm.

  Eli picked up his one small carpetbag. Mrs. McGreevy descended the front steps and met him at the center of the path.

  “Oh, Mr. Eli, I am so glad you are home safe. I trust your trip was a profitable one?”

  “Thank you very much, Mrs. McGreevy,” Eli said. “Yes, somehow the highwaymen missed me and the Indians left me alone again. Maybe I lead a charmed life, or maybe it’s because the Holy One, blessed be he, took my hair before they could.”

  Both of them had heard this joke many times before and laughed at its welcome return.

  “As to profit, I won’t know until the sums have been done, but as you can see, all has been sold. Praise God.”

  “Praise God,” she said. “I’ve prepared all your favorites, Mr. Eli. Tonight there’s brisket of beef.”

  “Mrs. McGreevy, how often have I told you not to go to any special trouble for me? If you make a ham for your boarders, I’m not offended. A few eggs and your bread and butter and I’m a happy man.”

  She raised her eyebrows and waved him away. “They’ll eat brisket of beef and like it. With potatoes and root beets, who wouldn’t? Now, give me that dusty coat before you bring the entire wilderness in the house with you. There are muffins on the table—no lard, Mr. Eli.”<
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  Mrs. McGreevy helped him off with his coat and vest. Quickly surveying his back and shoulders, she could immediately see how much weight he had lost in his weeks away. He removed his hat and followed her into the vestibule. She paused at the chest beneath the mirror and picked up a white envelope. She handed it to him and took the hat in exchange.

  “This came for you this morning. The rest of your mail is in your room. I’ll brush your hat and by the time you’ve freshened up, your tea will be ready.”

  “In a glass, like I like it?

  “In a glass, Mr. Eli. One cube of sugar.”

  Gershonson nodded and climbed the stairs. His room was spotless; even the lace curtains had been taken down and laundered. On his pillow was a voucher good for a bath and shave at Bruno’s Neapolitan. A single white rose from the vine by the front door stood in a bud vase on the dressing table.

  Eli put down his grip and sat heavily on the bed. Only now, in this clean environment, did he notice his own smell: a mixture of road and mule and man. As he opened the white envelope, he noticed that his hands had become tight and dry, the skin cracked near the fingernails.

  The note was written in a small careful hand, as if the correspondent had learned just enough of the alphabet to live in the world of adults. Eli drew his bent spectacles from his vest pocket and began to read:

  My friend—

  If you valu your life, I beg you do not go to the nickle + dime this Friday. Do not go in the morning nor at noon nor at nite.

  Do not go for biznis. Do not go for work nor eat nor drink.

  Of this letter tell no one.

  There was no signature: not even an X or a set of initials. Eli read the letter again, this time more slowly. What could be so dangerous beyond the fights and shootings that routinely took place at the Dime? Surely, this warning wasn’t about misunderstandings over cards or women; every man knew which tables had the potential for trouble and how to avoid them; and he was never known to frequent the Dime except in the mornings when most villains were asleep. Perhaps it was a prank; or maybe it was a way of frightening him away from Omaha; one less Jew to cheat good Americans on the price of an iron stockpot.