He was a Hebrew, was Lucky; a fallen Jewish angel. His nose hooked like a caricature of Shylock. In winter he dressed in pinstripe suits, pastel shirts, and ties in primary colors. In summer it was short sleeves and sweat like everybody else. When he smiled his brown eyes lighted, and when he snarled his gaze went flat. He had a purple splotch on the back of his right hand, and a bald spot where a yarmulke might have sat, but didn't.
His hockshop on Jackson St. sat next to the fading green Sapphire Top Spot. An alley ran in between. The undertaker sat next the hockshop, with the Methodist church just down the way. It was said that Jackson St. carried everything a man would need in life; a drink, a loan, a prayer and farewell.
Drivers along Jackson St. saw a freshly painted yellow building with three balls dangling; and the sidewalk cleanly swept. Across the front, in boldest black against brilliant yellow, a sign read:
Lucky Collins Loans Best Deals Try Me
You can tell a lot about a man by looking at his store. Hockshop customers being who they are, hockshops need be narrow with everything behind showcases. That said, the difference between Lucky's hockshop and the general run was certain splendor.
Trombones lined the walls. Vertically. They pointed to saxophones, clarinets, trumpets and bugles; gold and silver horns promising blues, echoes of cakewalks and jazz. Cases contained hair straightener, pocket knives, aspirin, hand tools, rings of all descriptions from zircon to diamonds; rings of lodges, rings for real weddings, and goldish bands for 'let's pretend'. There were colorful medals and patches and medallions from the latest war: orange and brown emblems of tank battalions, and Purple Hearts.
Cases held cameras and spy glasses, while shelves behind the counters carried kitchenware, and shoes with tassels, some new. At the back of the store hung racks of new suits, 15 bucks, sometimes 12. Two bucks down, a buck a week.
Most hockshops are predictable, thus dull, but not Lucky's; because Lucky attended auctions. He came up with merchandise of such wonder that even lots of white folk walked through his doorway, sniffing contemptuous sometimes, but interested and dickering.
He'd fetch in cases of canned peaches, nine cents a can, and cans of sardines eight cents. Feathered boas. Panama hats. He displayed new grilles for ancient Packards, used jukeboxes, a gross of votive candles, indoor ball bats, framed pictures of the 1937 Ohio River flood.
And, high above the front counter, beneath the invisible blare of trombones, perched two Not-For-Sale mascots of the store: a stuffed and mounted Guinea hen named Lola, smallish, plump, but matronly; and a stuffed Plymouth Rock rooster named Thomas, head pushed forward, somewhat askew, glassy-eyed, obviously daft, probably insane.
Most hockshops are the focus of the owner's life. The quick buck and hustle, the smooth slippy-slide and whisper of counted money. Most hockshops are sleaze. They are run by people named Big Jerry. There's no fun to them and 'compassion' seems a naughty word.
But in Lucky's shop a man could jive for free. A man could piss and moan with hope of sympathy. A man could cuss preachers and cops. What a man couldn't do was hock family property in behalf of a drink.
"God-bless-it, John, Milly needs that radio. I'll write you two bucks honor, and you get a week." Lucky would tap the suppliant on the shoulder, friendly-like. It was rare he ever lost a dime.
Because Lucky knew his neighborhood, knew the goldbricks and deadbeats, and never loaned to them without security. But to honest men he'd loan on trust, because two bucks were possible to pay back (plus interest). And two bucks would soothe a man. Two bucks, at ten cents a glass, bought enough time and beer at Sapphire Top Spot to let a man believe there was a job somewhere. Two bucks bought the sorrow-prevention it took to get through another day, another night. Colored men, last hired, first fired. No work. And, wife and kids at home in a rat-rid dump on Jackson St.
And, because he paid off the police, Lucky managed to keep a lot of those saddened men from arrest. It could be said, and with but little caution, that Lucky did more for that neighborhood than did all the churches in town.
When Lucky snarled, though, wise men took their scrawny bottoms elsewhere. Lucky would sell a pocket knife. Don't ask for a straight razor, a pistol, or a switchblade. And don't miss that buck-a-week payment on the 12 buck suit.
The shop was open 10-6 Mon-Fri and 10-7 Sat. On one special occasion, though, it was closed. That happened when Charlie Weaver died.
Lucky attended both the funeral service, and the interment at Cave Hill Cemetery where August sunlight flooded green, green grass. It also flooded somber clothing, dark suits, dark dresses of mourners. The temp stood above 90. Armpits poured sweat. Charlie was not overheated, but family and former customers were in misery.
And, yet, people seemed loathe to leave. Most of them knew each other. They watched each other. They had bid against each other for years. Charlie's auction house had been not a business, only. It had practically been a club. Even after an Episcopalian tribute by a hopeful preacher, and after the casket descended into soil, the crowd lingered. Somber colors, murmuring lips, and green, green grass.
Dirt to fill the grave lay heaped beneath canvas. A couple of working stiffs hovered, their shovels still hidden. The undertaker's assistant moved with what he hoped passed for dignified haste. The flower car was needed elsewhere. As the crowd hesitated, funeral florals were laid carefully but unceremoniously beside the canvas-covered heap. White lilies, forget-me-nots, mauve sweet peas and fragile baby's breath. The car departed. The assistant remained.
Around the grave-site the landscape spouted marble. Soldiers from the days of Presidents Davis and Lincoln lay in quiet ranks across hillsides. Victorian mausoleums in the form of Greek temples stood above grass so tended it seemed nigh artificial. The graves of children sported marble angels who bent toward the earth.
"I see nobody who's gonna take his place." A tall guy with a big belly spoke barely above a whisper. He wiped sweat with a bandanna-sized hankie; a man in the used-food business down on Market St.: beans with dented cans, insurance shipments from truck rollovers, warehouse stuff a teeney bit past pull date; profit margin seventeen percent, with plenty volume.
"Nobody will," a lanky man murmured. The man ran an Army/Navy store just past 4th on Broadway. "Stuff changes," he said, sounding helpless. He looked toward Lucky who, though Hebrew, was considered smart.
"The new guy," Lucky said, and said it brisk.
"Damn country boy, dammit."
"It's an act." Lucky also wiped sweat with a hankie, then looked into the grave where the polished coffin awaited dirt. "Nice funeral," Lucky said to the coffin. "Charlie, my boy, you had class." Lucky looked again at the lanky man. "You're right. Stuff changes. But I'm right too. Behind that country mouth, the new guy has his charms."
"I don't see 'em." The grocery-guy wiped more sweat. He now carried a 'going-away' posture, a man ready to head back to his store.
"He runs a clean sale. He's watching out for his dealers." Lucky looked once more at the coffin. "Until later, then," he said to the coffin, but in a voice that suspicioned the afterlife. He gave a small wave to Charlie's customers. As he left he slipped out of his jacket and pulled off his tie. Folks saw a white shirt wet in the armpits, white moving among pink and gray marble and above the greenest grass in town.