LESSON4
At 7:30 Saturday morning, I caught the bus to the poor side of town.
Mike and I met with his dad that morning at 8 o'clock. He was already busy and had been at work for more than an hour. His construction supervisor was just leaving in his pickup truck as I walked up to his simple, small and tidy home. Mike met me at the door.
"Dad's on the phone, and he said to wait on the back porch[1]," Mike said as he opened the door.
The old wooden floor creaked[2] as I stepped across the threshold[3] of this aging house. There was a cheap mat just inside the door. That mat was there to hide the years of wear from countless footsteps that the floor had supported. Although clean, it needed to be replaced.
I felt claustrophobic as I entered the narrow living room, which was filled with old musty overstuffed furniture that today would be collector's items. Sitting on the couch were two women, a little older than my mom. Across from the women sat a man in workman's clothes. They smiled as Mike and I walked past them, heading for the kitchen, which lead to the porch that overlooked the back yard. I smiled back shyly.
"Who are those people?" I asked.
"Oh, they work for my dad. The older man runs his warehouses, and the women are the managers of the restaurants. And you saw the construction supervisor, who is working on a road project about 50 miles from here. His other supervisor, who is building a track of houses, had already left before you got here."
"Does this go on all the time?" I asked.
"Not always, but quite often," said Mike, smiling as he pulled up a chair to sit down next to me.
"I asked him if he would teach us to make money," Mike said.
"Oh, and what did he say to that?" I asked with cautious curiosity.
"Only a funny look on his face at first, and then he said he would make us an offer."
"Oh," I said, rocking my chair back against the wall; I sat there perched on two rear legs of the chair. Mike did the same thing.
Suddenly, Mike's dad burst through the rickety[4] screen door and onto the porch. Mike and I jumped to our feet, not out of respect but because we were startled.
"Ready boys?" Mike's dad asked as he pulled up a chair to sit down with us.
We nodded our heads as we pulled our chairs away from the wall to sit in front of him.
He was a big man, about 6 feet tall and 200 pounds.
"Mike says you want to learn to make money? Is that correct, Robert?"
I nodded my head quickly, but with a little intimidation. He had a lot of power behind his words and smile.
"OK, here's my offer. I'll teach you, but I won't do it classroom-style. You work for me, and I'll teach you. You don't work for me, I don't teach you. I can teach you faster if you work, and I'm wasting my time if you just want to sit and listen, like you do in school. That's my offer. Take it or leave it."
"Ah... may I ask a question first?" I asked.
"No. Take it or leave it. I've got too much work to do to waste my time. If you can't make up you mind decisively, then you'll never learn to make money anyway. "
"Take it," I said.
"Take it," said Mike.
"Good," said Mike's dad. "Mrs. Martin will be by in ten minutes. After I'm through with her, you ride with her to my superette and you can begin working. I'll pay you 10 cents an hour and you will work for three hours every Saturday."
"But I have a softball game today," I said.
Mike's dad lowered his voice to a stern tone. "Take it or leave it," he said. "I'll take it," I replied, choosing to work and learn instead of playing softball.
By 9 a.m. on a beautiful Saturday morning, Mike and I were working for Mrs. Martin. She was a kind and patient woman. She always said that Mike and I reminded her of her two sons who were grown and gone. Although kind, she believed in hard work and she kept us working. She was a task master. We spent three hours taking canned goods off the shelves and, with a feather duster, brushing each can to get the dust off, and then re-stacking them neatly. It was excruciatingly[5] boring work.
For three weeks, Mike and I reported to Mrs. Martin and worked our three hours. By noon, our work was over, and she dropped three little dimes in each of our hands. Now, even at the age of 9 in the mid-1950s, 30 cents was not too exciting. Comic books cost 10 cents back then, so I usually spent my money on comic books and went home.
By Wednesday of the fourth week, I was ready to quit. I had agreed to work only because I wanted to learn to make money from Mike's dad, and now I was a slave for 10 cents an hour. On top of[6] that, I had not seen Mike's dad since that first Saturday.
"I'm quitting," I told Mike at lunchtime. The school lunch was miserable. School was boring, and now I did not even have my Saturdays to look forward to. But it was the 30 cents that really got to me.
Mike smiled.
"Dad said this would happen. He said to meet with him when you were ready to quit."
"What?" I said indignantly. "He's been waiting for me to get fed up?"
"Sort of," Mike said. "Dad's kind of different. He teaches differently from your dad. Your mom and dad lecture a lot. My dad is quiet and a man of few words. You just wait till this Saturday. I'll tell him you're ready."
"You mean I've been set up?"
"No, not really, but maybe. Dad will explain on Saturday."