Amerikai Magyar Szó, 1986. július-december (40. évfolyam, 27-49. szám)
1986-12-25 / 49. szám
Thursday, Dec. 25. 1986. AMERIKAI MAGYAR SZÓ 13. We struck out in the wheat fields, the orchards and even the California fields. "What happened to those jobs waiting for you, Johnny?" Vic asked. "The Depression is getting worse. You've heard that enough on this trip," I answered. He never pressed the point or complained about my failure to produce the promised work. We were riding boxcars through some of the most spectacular and beautiful country in America and that tended to mellow both of us. A few days after Vic's only question about our dissappoint ments, we spent half a day in an apricot orchard in Oregon. He struck up a conversation with an attractive picker in the packing shed and persuaded her to give him a tour of the orchard. Fortunately the boss was elsewhere and I was the only one who knew they were gone for three hours. Vic rarely smiled, but he looked happy and grinned from time to time when we left that orchard. "That pretty blonde was a niece of the orchard owner and I could have had a fulltime job there," he confessed. "What in the hell did you pass that up for? There would have been some kind of small job for me too," I said. "You're too young to understand, Johnny. We were just resting on a nice grassy spot in a hollow when she started talking about getting married. And I hardly knew her." "Three hours on a grassy spot in a ditch talking about marriage? Don't give me that, Vic." "Look Johnny, I never kissed a girl until I was eighteen and in the Navy. I'm not a tom cat. That's why girls see a good marriage prospect in me." "I don't blame you for making up f®r your late start, Vic, but don't try to snow me. A grassy spot in a ditch out West is just like the heavy grass on the levee back home. They're both good places for a romp." Now almost broke, we began heading for cities. Besides the Salvation Army in which to clean up, eat and sleep, we might find a mission, where we prayed for the same benefits. If we very lucky, the town would have one of the new Transient Relief Bureaus. These were financed by the federal government when the cities could no longer feed or house the down- and-out travelers. Our aim was to reach one by late afternoon, in time for shower, delousing and supper. Traveling by uncertain rail, we did not make one every day. Once we failed to have an adequate meal when we arrived late, while the kitchen was being cleaned up. The best they could offer was all the boiled potatoes we wanted, covered with canned evaporated milk. It filled my empty stomach, and I have never had it since. Nor missed it. Skipping food for an entire day was never a problem for me, at least in those days. At the orphanage we always fasted on Good Friday and since I was determined to be not only a good Catholic but a Jesuit Priest, I voluntarily passed up food until sundown the next day. This personal sacrifice and example of faith was so strong that, after the orphanage and for some years, I practiced the same fasting on Good Fridays. On many days without warm meals, we managed well enough on a small salami, or other cold meat and crackers. If there was only one slice of cold meat and a few crackers left, this would be a fine meal, chewed very slowly and carefully. No hurry when you're on a train and not getting off for hours. The neighborhoods near the freight yards, where we hopped off our trains, usually had a small grocery store for the poor people living across the tracks. Often, while trying to determine how to spend our limited funds, the storekeeper would discover that we were a long way from home and seriously looking for work. This led to generous portions and at times free food. Other times we got jobs to clean up, stack or deliver groceries. These little jobs proved what we discovered time and again throughout the country. Most people are kind, considerate and helpful. Not ready to give up this noble quest for jobs, I urged Vic to give Texas a try. "Somewhere in my reading I remember that every other Texan had a ranch with thousands of cattle. The other Texan had oil wells." "That's pure bull shit but let's try it anyway. It couldn't be worse than the rest of the West," Vic said. We learned that western Texas, from El Paso to San Antonio, was a closed shop for Mexicans, meaning no jobs for us. In those days, words like "Chicano" and "Spanish-speaking" were unknown. In Houston, the Transient Relief Bureau was housed in an enormous, never-used factory. It had been built to manufacture autos, but the promoters had failed. Now just part of the building could house beds for hundreds of men on the road. Here you were allowed to stay two nights. Since it was a larger bureau, it had a social worker who tried to place you in a job. On the second morning we applied to this social worker, a pleasant young lady who was eager to help. I had long since learned to fib about my education, filling in "high school graduate" on my application to avoid grubby jobs. Actually, the second week of the eighth grade ended my formal education. She described a number of jobs available to young men, the best of which had the lowest pay. That was for an orderly at the South Houston General Hospital. "I don't know about you, Vic, but I'm ready to stay off railroads for a while. My clothes need washing. I'm tired and I'd work for nothing to get regular meals and some rest. I sure hope you agree so we can take it easy in this hospital for a week or so. How about it?" "You're not getting an argument out of me on that. I feel the same as you do and have another big reason for giving it a try." "What's that, Vic?" "It's supposed to be a very big hospital and even a little hospital is bound to have some nurses. I never saw one in a box car." "Do you ever think of anything serious?" I asked. "You tell me what's more serious than a good toss in the sack." We took a bus out to South Houston and agreed to take the orderly jobs for a week at least. We lasted over seven months and it would have been longer except for Vic's carelessness. Not because conditions included room and board, two fresh white uniforms a week, twelve hours a day or night shift, six days a week work, and exactly one dollar cash per week. Why would we ever stay months on a job with these meagre benefits? The satisfaction of helping people, nothing more. It was an enormous hospital, old and falling apart. The patients were people on the road and the poor people in Houston who could not afford hospital care, mostly Mexican-Americans and blacks. Eight hundred and more patients filled the rooms or were in beds strung along the hallways. My Father's photograph at the time I was in the orphanage. There were never more than a dozen registered nurses on the job and often only a few on duty. At times none were available and we unskilled orderlies filled in. "There is only one goddamned doctor in this hospital," Vic complained. "There is one assigned here, a Jewish doctor who left Germany. He is also the administrator we met on our first day. But doctors from other hospitals visit here for surgery and. other critical work," I said. We could never keep up with the work, so the days flew by. Being on different shifts, Vic and I rarely saw each other. On my day off, I would hitch-hike or walk the eight miles to the seedy side of downtown Houston. My destination was a pool- room with a poker game, where I would invest my weekly pay of one dollar. If I could avoid going broke, there would be change left to take a bus part of the way back to the hospital. Most often I walked. Walking meant going through the roughest side of town and the red light district. It was interesting to run the gauntlet of the whores yelling their bids of pleasure for sale. One time a very large lady of three hundred pounds or more enticed me onto her porch on pretext of a cold drink offer. Making her business known,' she would not accept my pleas of poverty. Within seconds she went through all of my pockets, my shoes, and even turned the sweat band of my straw hat inside out, thinking I might be hiding money there. She did all this while holding me in a vise-like grip. "That's all right, honey, you all come back when you get a dollar or two," she said, instead of being angry that I had not one cent on me. I laughed all the way back to the hospital. Having worked in the VD ward on primitive cures for gonorrhea and syphillis, I took two showers after the wrestling match with the big whore who searched me so thoroughly. Most of the women in the VD ward were prostitutes whose clothing was taken away and not returned until the ladies were cured and ready for discharge. This often took months. Once, when helping to carry a dead body on a stretcher down three flights to a waiting funeral car, I could not hold up my end of the heavy weight as we turned a corner.- ci -iHi.vi .Dailyy; 9i,• (To be continued)
