"The Saturday Job"

The Saturday Job

I was about 9 or 10 and it was a Saturday morning.  Today would turn out to be a Saturday morning like no other. Instead of sleeping late in my cozy bed in Queens and watching Huckleberry Hound and Magilla Gorilla on TV, my Father woke me at 5:30am with a rousing “Get the f*&k up! Time to get the f&^k up and go to work, you’re coming with me!” I don’t remember why he picked me and not my older or younger brother to go with him, but I wasn’t gonna argue. Little did I know the excitement the day had in store for me.

So, I did just that. Got dressed, brushed my teeth and got into the front seat of his ’66 Grand Impala station wagon. Not a word was said, all the way into the City, just WINS  News blaring from the Chevy’s AM Radio. We stopped at The Shop, (What my Dad called it) his place of business. It was in an old tenement building on 13th Street and 4th Avenue, right by Union Square. A funky ‘hood, but more on that in another story.

 I watched while my Dad went around talking to his men in the Shop. Then he turned to me and said “C’mere!” So I walked over to him in the Shop, trying to ignore the whine of the table saw, routers and drills. He took me by the hand to the back of the Shop to the Finishing Room, basically boards on saw horses and a huge fan sucking the sanding sealer, lacquer and what ever out a huge steel tunnel that vented to the roof. There were stacks & stacks of unfinished bookshelves in various stages.

He pointed at the Foreman, Juan and told me “Now you listen to him, I’ll be back later.” So Juan took me to a stack of shelves, handed me some sandpaper, a block and a paper facemask. He showed me the correct way to sand the shelves. So that’s what I did. For the next 3 hours or so. There was no A/C, it was hot, dirty and tough work for a little kid, but I did it, listening to the sing song English and Caribbean Spanish being spoken around me.

At a little before noon, my Dad walked in and saw me covered in sawdust & sweat. He said “A hard day’s work’ll kill ya! Let’s  get some lunch, c’mon.” So I gladly tossed my paper face mask in the trash and followed my Dad out. We stopped at an Italian deli on 1st Ave, got 2 amazing  hero sandwiches – fresh semolina bread, ham, capicola, sharp Provolone cheese and sweet peppers, gotta have the peppers. We sat  and ate them in on a park bench by the East River. He didn’t say a word except: “Pizarro’s is a great f&^king deli, huh?” So we hopped back in his station wagon and on we went, up the East River Drive to the Park Avenue building where my Father’s men were working, trying to finish up an expensive custom kitchen.

We went down the stairs to the service entrance and the Super let us in. He kind of nodded to my Father and took us up to the 18th floor by the service elevator where the crew of carpenters and laborers were busy trying to finish up the job, an expensive custom kitchen with all the newest features and finishes. As soon as we walked in through the service door (in the back of the apartment) Trent, the Foreman met us. “Are we gonna finish this f&^king job today?” my Father asked him.

Trent was a very big man, 6’2”, over 200 pounds and lifted weights besides working with his hands all day. He had an easy smile and the singsong lilt of St. Croix accented English. “Well, Mr. H - we have a small problem.” I could see my Father’s blood beginning to boil. “What f*(king problem? We gotta be off this job by tonight!” Trent replied: “Well, we had to vent that new Jenn Air range to the outside. We were able to do that but we still need to glue a vent cover over the hole to finish it. Someone needs to go outside but none of us can fit tru that tiny window to slap de vent cover on from the outside.”

My Father looked at the window then at me. “He'll fit. You got any rope?” Trent looked at my Father like he had three heads. “Mr. H - you mean tie up de boy, toss him out the window?” “Fuc^*ng A right. Kid needs to earn his keep!” Trent shook his head as we went thru his gang box and came up with a hank of rope. “Tie him up!” he told Trent.

Dear Reader, let me remind you of just what was going on. I was going to be pushed out a window - 17 stories above an interior brick courtyard with just a piece of rope around my waist. I had one chance to slap an aluminum cover with glue on one side over a hole in the exterior brick wall. “Tie him up!” he told Trent. So they did. As I crawled out the window, holding the ledge in one hand and the vent cover in the other, all my Father could say was “You got one shot! Don’t f*&k it up!”

So, as Trent held the rope, I inched over as far as I could to be able to reach the hole. I made the mistake of looking down and felt my feet start to slip on the brick. In that split second, I flexed my toes, dug into the wall and smacked the cover dead center over the hole. “Alright, pull him back in!” I heard my Father yell to Trent and another guy holding the rope. So they did.

Back inside, I got a high five from Trent and no reaction from my Dad. So I said: “Hey Dad, how much am I gonna get paid for this?” My Father said: “What the f&*k? I should pay you? I put the food in your mouth, roof over your head and clothes on your back? Why the f$%k should I have to pay you?” Trent just looked at my Old Man and shook his head in disbelief. This was one of the 1st hard lessons I would learn about working in a family business..