In this portrait of a neighborhood hatter, William S. Poster adapts the traditional dramatic monologue, with all its possibilities for ironic revelation, to an examination of the character and life of the small businessman.
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What’s a man? I’ll tell you! A piece of dirt,
that’s what a man is, he’s nothing better than
a piece of dirt! Look at these goddam fingers,
bent, swollen, twisted, mangled, like I’d been
catching knucklers; but I’m no Yogi Berra
(though I once had a tryout with the Dodgers),
only a messed-up hatter on Hinsdale Avenue.
Arthritis, that’s what the doctors say it is,
I only know it’s hell, but they got names,
names and needles, that’s where my money goes,
gold, silver, cortisone, anti-histamine,
I got a drugstore full of junk in me
and more holes than a Swiss cheese. A guinea pig,
that’s me. And if I squeal, they shake their heads
and tell me, Joe, Joe, go to Arizona,
the only place for you is Arizona.
But what’ll I use for money? And what’ll I do
in Arizona? Big business with the Indians?
How can I leave this place, the customers
want Joe, Joe with the little mustache, it’s me
they come to see, from every where they come,
Canarsie, Flatbush, the Bronx, Queens, Manhattan,
even from the South. The hats don’t feel right
unless I crease them, flip them, give them the old
Joe Froman treatment. That’s my job. Thirty years,
that’s how long it is since I sold my first lid,
and every single day, new headaches, heartaches.
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Who would have thought when I was young that I
would end like this, a cripple, fat, ashamed
to walk thestreets? Why I was like a bull,
I could do three men’s work, raise hell all night
and never feel it, but in this crummy world,
you got to pay for everything, some sooner,
some later, and looks like I pay sooner, hey?
Only the pain, the pain, my God, the pain!
Christ, I’ll do something crazy yet! Sometimes,
when the boys are out, I go up for a hat,
I drag these stinking legs up all those stairs
though every step is like a stab, and when
I get the hat, I’d like to scream aloud,
scream and rip its guts out like I rip my own
before I jam it down somebody’s throat.
That’s how I feel. Just one step from the bughouse
but everyone thinks I have it easy. Easy!
I got a million socked away in trunks,
that’s what they say. I go home every night
and sit on them they think. What they don’t know
would fill a library. The old man skimmed
the cream and left me water. Sixty-five,
that’s how old he was when mother passed away,
and had to go and take another wife,
a tramp who wasn’t fit to shine her shoes,
she lived with him a year and finished him,
took all he had. Till I got her, my uncle
and own brother out of the firm, it cost me
bundles. The lawyers got it, and doctors? Hah!
My kid got sick, my wife’s mother, then the wife,
for everything who had to pay but me?
And now I can’t pay for myself. But I,
I’ll sweat it out somehow, on hands and knees,
if necessary, though it all goes from bad
to worse, I’ll stick right here. Easy money!
The government takes it, the landlords grab it,
manufacturers chisel your heart away,
the scale for union men is higher than
you draw yourself, you open up at eight
and close when every lousy working stiff
has hit the sack! A great life! A racket!
The retail business is a bloody buck,
my boy, it gives you nothing solid, no friends,
no life, no love for anything but paying bills.
The times are good, they say, I read about it
in the newspapers, but not on this street, nah,
this section’s dying, dying inch by inch,
like a man with cancer, the good one sall
drift out, the scum comes floating in, that’s it,
that’swhat we got here now, scum of the scum,
the dregs of the dregs, you hate to sell to them,
it makes you feel like scum. The other day,
who strolls in but a refugee, get this,
a green one, a Kraut, here two years, married into
a factory and thinks he knows it all.
Maybe, he says, I got a hat to sell,
one like he wore in Germany, ein gutes Hüttel,
a Borsalino that never wears out?
A Borsalino! I haven’t laid eyes on
a Borsalino since I put on long pants.
Look, Mister, I say, you want a Borsalino,
a hat that never wears out, suppose I sell
you one, suppose, for argument, I sell
one of them to every customer Igot,
what happens next? I sit down here and cut out
paper dolls? Suppose that you sold leather goods
that last forever, where would you get new orders?
It’s ideas like yours that ruined Europe,
they don’t go over here. This is America
where everything wears out, valises, hats,
clothes, shoes, buildings, automobiles, nothing
lasts or we would all be out of business.
And you and me we wear out, too, or else
our kids would never get a break. You see?
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I sold the bum two Stetsons but I felt
like hell. That’s what I go through now. No trade
that makes you feel it matters if you block
a hat just right. This section’s dying, no good
new blood comes in and funny things begin
to happen. Sales go up when they should go down
and down when you get set for up. There’s no real slack
and no real season, the customers just don’t
behave the way they should, the smartest brains
can’t puzzle out the trend. Could foe Cold War,
taxes, viruses, maybe TV keeps them indoors
or mixes up the pattern but something’s screwy
somewhere. Even the hats don’t fit right, sizes
seem tobe a little off or people’s heads
are shrinking. I wish I knew. It scares me
and I don’t scare easy. I’ve been around
a longtime, seen changes of all kinds, but these!
And death, sickness, doctors, drugs, hospitals,
that’s all you hear. Remember Larry Kransdorf?
That’s right, the jeweler. A nice guy, just my age
and he had plenty. Business and real estate,
jewels, stocks, houses, mortgages. His heart went
in the middle of a sale, he died right there
behind the counter, all the diamonds rolled
across the floor, they didn’t hardly know
which to pick up first. His money didn’t mean
a goddam thing. And the Spannik boys. Big,
healthy, good-looking kids, thirty and thirty-five,
they lived like lords, the old man left them Apex,
the biggest mill in the state. In six months
they both went. Anemia, leukemia, something
the matter with the blood. And have you heard
about Gordon? Back from Florida, he felt
a little pain. The sun, he said, a trifle
too much sun, but he was through. He barely lived
to sign his will. And so it goes, it goes,
the families go, the big ones first, aman
is just a piece of dirt, a nothing, less
than a nothing and not a goddam thing
will help, money or looks, position, influence,
doctors, vitamins, Florida or Arizona,
nothing helps because a man is nothing,
the bigger he becomes the more he is
a nothing. Well, that’s the way things are around here,
this neighborhood is dying, I can tell,
I am a businessman and can read the signs.
Good God! Somebody at the door. Maybe, today,
I’ll break ice early. Looks like a live one.
I’ll see you, Jack. Regards to the kids and missus.
Come around! Good morning, sir, good morning.
What can I do you for today? Hah, hah!
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