Jerry Devine was my first boss in Manhattan after Elisabeth and I moved up from Florida. We’d moved in with Mutti and Vati, Elisabeth’s parents. They had a two family house in Woodhaven Queens. God bless them for their generosity and love. I started going into the ‘city’ to look for work. I saw some construction going on between fifth and sixth on 58th street. It was a crew demo’ing a TGI Fridays and I asked one of the Spanish laborers to point out the ‘boss’. The ‘boss’ was a hair-lip Irishman by the name of Jerry Devine. He had sparkly little eyes and hair combed with a little Pompadour like my dad used to do back in 1960, and a mustache that did not conceal the deformity on his upper lip. He was not a big man but he was hard built and carried himself like a big man. When he considered me standing out on the sidewalk he did so with a stance that was kind of a pose. Fist on hips. Head cocked. Staring straight into my eyes he said, “So, you’re a carpenter?”
“Yes.”
“Can you do tile too? Cabinets? Trim? He fired off a wish list of job qualifications giving me no more than enough time for a “yes” or a “no”.
“I will pay you twelve dollars and hour. Start tomorrow.” End of conversation. Which was just as well for me as understanding him was difficult. The hair-lip lent a muffled, nasal quality to his voice which, along with a slight brogue, made it tough for me to understand. Over the months to come I would learn to understand Jerry easily. He was as direct as they make them. His orders were clear and I was happy to be working and eager to please. He did not like too many questions or any back talk. He gave me enough rope to hang myself and I gave it back at the end of the day-coiled neatly and ready for use on some other poor slob. I liked him. He didn’t seem to mind me.
One day he called me down off the Baker scaffold and told me he was giving me a raise to fourteen dollars an hour. All he said was that I should keep a watch on the other guys. I didn’t know what he was talking about at that time but I took it to mean that I was to step up and take responsibility. From then on I made myself available to anyone with a problem. If anybody needed a hand or a fresh set of eyes on a detail I became the guy to see-carpentry wise, that is. I liked the responsibility. Jerry left me alone for the most part. He and I might plan a cabinet or lay out a switch for the electrician together…he looking at the plan he held the ‘dumb end of the tape while I did the measuring and marked the wall the wall. He trusted me to do little sketches of the cabinet as we worked out the drawer size or the slant of the top of the maitre d’s pedestal. I liked working like that. He recognized my skill and let me use it.
I was sorry when the fifty-eighth street project (The Manhattan Ocean Club) was completed and the job ended and I dreaded ‘hitting the streets’ again. It was a surprise and relief when Jerry came to me and said there were “odds and ends” to be done in another restaurant he’d built and he wanted me to go over and take care of them. I was only too happy. Later I learned that there were always “odds and ends” in the restaurant business and occasionally other types of work to do as well. Jerry, it seemed, would be keeping me busy for a while!
The next restaurant-the one with the “odds and ends” was Smith and Wollenski’s, a well known steak house on the East side. I spent a month moving shelves, tightening hinges and fixing chairs. The pay was steady and the food was great. I never got a steak but the burgers were wonderful and there seemed to always be some soup to be tasted or a loaf of crisp, fresh bread for the staff and no one objected to a working guy (one who was always willing to take care of a squeak, or a hinge-bound door, or hang a family picture on the manager’s office wall…) having a little bit of a taste. What I was seeing, and I just know it now, is a lingering bit of Old New York. Before the security cameras, the proximity detectors and the magnetic cards took the Love-of-Fucking-Mike outta the pleasures of the day. It was a time when I could go into the Chrysler building, me being little more than a hay seed, and hop on the elevator and go up to the 38th floor just to see the architecture. Step off the hot summer street into the cool brass, air conditioned lobby just to appreciate the elevator doors in the French Building. Just wander around in the jungle of columns on the ground floor of the Trade Center-their whiteness, their tallness-just to look. I was experiencing the end of the sweet taste of the Deco City of Dreams and I was thankful even though I didn’t know it was coming to an end and I certainly didn’t fully appreciate just how sweet it was.
From Smith and Wollenski’s Jerry moved me over to a magnificent duplex apartment on 57th Street. Just me and a laborer. My job, abbreviated instructions from Jerry, was to make some saw horses, take some measurements (he gave me a drawing. Trusted me with a drawing. Realized I knew how to actually read the drawings! All this was implied in the simple handing-over-of-a-roll of plans! No other explanation given or required…) and to stay out of trouble until the job got rolling. He left. I looked the place over.Two-story high ceilings. Two-story high wrought iron windows over-looking 57th street, each window topped with a round arch set with pebbly old glass. A balcony overlooking the two-story living room. The kitchen was half the size of my see-through, shot-gun apartment in Woodhaven but the appliances were top-of-the line from 1948. The “ice box” was shaped like a fat, round ’47 Ford coupe and trimmed with pitting chrome pull handles and bronze parallel mouldings left over from a Ginger Rogers/Fred Astaire movie. The stove was similarly styled and had and four, cast iron burners which surrounded a huge, rusty iron griddle in the center of the wide cooking surface. There were two large ovens with glass and white enameled doors with pulls like the hood ornaments on a Cadillac. The cabinets thorough the space were harsh, white enameled sheet metal but the floor and walls were covered with square, soft colored tiles (sea foam and a very light coffee and cream), that soothed the eyes in an otherwise medicinal pallet.
Exploring, my footsteps creaked as I walked around the apartment on the maple strip flooring that was dry and shrunken. The high ceilings and hard plaster walls reflected the sound of my footsteps. The smell was of dust, and dry, stale air. In one of the bathrooms I sat on the edge of a claw foot tub. It was massive and deep. The pedestal sink was dull from years of cleaning with abrasive cleanser and the chrome on the spout and handles was worn off so that the underlying brass shown through. The floor was 1” octagonal tile and the walls were 3” x 6” white glazed tile like they used in the subway stations. On these the underlying terracotta showed through slightly on the edges and I suspected this “pink” cast had been there on the day they were new. The lighting was florescent and harsh. There was no window. Assuming the privilege I used the toilet and when I was done I pushed the lever and the beast let loose with a flush that sounded like the urinals in Grand Central. No flow restrictors or ‘low flow’ here. I was jolted to hear the doorbell ring and went out to the service elevator entrance to see who was there.
It was the lumber delivery that Jerry had set up. The porter came up to let us know the truck was on the street and the elevator would be available for a short time in the basement. I hurried down and brought up the few 2x4’s, nails, and miscellaneous items on the order. It only took a trip or two. Of course I was warned that this would be the last time the staff of the building would allow me a delivery without scheduling the freight elevator in advance. I paid the proper respect, including a small “tip” and accepted all responsibility for the poor planning (even though it had been Jerry who’d set up the delivery.) It won’t happen again, I said. Jerry’d gotten a bargain for his $14 dollars and hour. As I carried the last of the lumber into the apartment everyone was smiling.
Now that I had my material and my curiosity about the apartment had been sated I set about building a couple of sets of saw horses so the crew could start working when they showed up in the near future. I have built many, many sets of saw horses in my career. A set takes me less than an hour. By lunch I had built two sets and had the rest of the afternoon (after my noon break) to fill in the measurements Jerry had indicated he needed on the set of plans. I would easily be done ahead of quitting time. Looked like an easy day.
Just before I left to go outside with my sandwich from home Jerry came into the apartment. I met him in the living room where he asked, “When did the material come?” I told him and showed him, in the dining room, what was left of the small order and the two, new pair of sawhorses. He looked at the horses. And then he looked at me. Back at the horses. And then back at me and in his muffled, naisely way he said, “Who in the fuck are these for?” It came out like “Oww ‘n th’ fuk er des fur?” I didn’t understand. I mean I did understand what he’d said, but I didn’t understand what he wanted to know! I just looked at him waiting for more in the way of explanation. None came. Just hands on hips, eyes slightly tense and bugged out and pale blue and his sandy red hair waiting for an answer. “For me,” I said, “For the crew…to use.” He walked all around them and touched them and finally said-looking straight at me, incredulous, “They’re too short!” (came out “Dayre do shord!”) Now his hair lip was coloring like a slice of meat ready to bleed, and I didn’t know what to say.
Like I have said, I have made many, many saw horses. The height had never been the subject of complaint before, but apparently these did not suit Jerry. I could have explained that to have made them taller would have been to have made them uncomfortable for me to work on. A little short is much better than too tall and a taller person bending a bit more is far preferable to a shorter person trying to work on a surface that is too tall…but the explanatory route, that would have been a mistake. As I have also said, Jerry did not like too much discussion. So, I finally said, “I have enough material, I will make a couple of new sets.” At which point Jerry turned on one heel like a disgruntled Gestapo agent and stormed out, muttering through his mustache as he left the apartment. I had a dozen 2x4’s left and instead of lunch I set about building another set of saw horses suitable for any person, of any height.
An hour later Jerry Devine came back to inspect the saw horses. I was sitting on one of my ‘short’ sawhorses in the living room, finishing my sandwich. He was satisfied when he saw me knowing that I must have completed the task or I would never have taken time to relax and eat my lunch. I just pointed to the archway that led to the dining room. He marched in to see for himself. In a few moments he stormed back out and yelled at me “Where are the fucking saw horses?” (Wer ‘er da fukn thaw hawses?) Again I just pointed to the entry to the dining room but this time when he stormed in I was right behind him. Once in the room he turned and I was standing there pointing ‘up’! And his eyes followed the direction of my finger to the new sawhorses…Each one on legs the full height of an uncut 2x4 stud-eight feet long. Each horizontal member also an uncut stud, eight feet long. He had walked right under them when he passed though the arched opening from the living room to the dining room. And it was with this realization that Jerry Devine broke out in a wide, warm smile. He said “Shit!!” (Thit!). We both laughed and not another word was spoken on the subject. In fact not another word was spoken on any subject that day as Jerry was laughing the whole way out of the apartment and he could not talk. He came back in the morning with that same smile on his face.
