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3.
JACK'S JOBS
"Okay, you lazy bum, get up! The vacation
is over!" Rose announced, barging into Jack's apartment. "Shower, shave,
get dressed in your black shoes, socks, trousers and white shirt, then
come over and I�ll give you some juice and coffee. You are getting a job
to-day!"
Jack knew this day was coming. He was just surprised
that it took so long. Rose had been paying his rent, utility bills,
putting food in his cupboard, buying him some clothes and slipping him
few dollars everyday. He had been keeping track of all she was spending
on him and planned to repay her as soon as he got a job. The problem was
that he was en-joying playing tourist and kept putting off the job
hunting.
"Okay, I'll be there in a bit."
"And it wouldn't
hurt for to clean up this pigsty once in awhile."
He laughed and
said, "I guess I'll have to fire the cleaning lady." Jack knew Rose came
in two or three times a week while he was out and cleaned the place.
"Don't
be a wise ass! Get out of bed! And don't worry, you haven't anything I
haven't seen before," Rose said, knowing he slept in the nude, as she
walked out the door.
Thirty minutes later he was at her kitchen
table looking over a list of hotels and restau-rants that Rose had
handed him.
"I asked a few cabbies and they said these places are
looking for help. Try the hotels first for a bellhop job and I'll start
giving you some lessons for a waiter's job then you can hit the
restaurants. At least in both jobs you'll have some pocket money
everyday. And I'm telling you right now that I get your paycheck every
week. I'll open a savings account for you in both our names and you'll
only be able to withdraw money for emergencies."
Jack didn't like
being treated as child but he knew that she was right. He would spend
every bit of money he got.
"Don't worry, they don't pay much down
here so the check won't be that big. You'll hardly even notice that's
gone."
Later that afternoon, after putting in a half a dozen
applications at various hotels on Collins Avenue he knew the fact that
he didn't have any experience was working against him. After talking to a
few other guys who were also job hunting he learned that most places
didn't check references so he started to lie and soon enough was hired
at one of the many hotels lining both sides of the avenue block after
block.
"Actually," he told Rose, "I got two job offers, one at
the San Souci and the other at the Seville. I think I will take the San
Souci one as the hours are from four to midnight while the other was the
morning shift. This way I'll still be able to go to the beach. Also,
one of the guys told me the tips are better in the evening."
The
next day, after he figured out the labyrinth of the hotel underground,
he was given a uniform and started to work. He quickly learned how to
handle four suitcases with two under each arm and other tricks of the
trade. The guys he worked with knew right away that he was new at the
business and were more than willing to teach him. After two weeks he was
as fast, and making as much money, as the guys who had been at it for
years.
Jack didn't find the work too hard but he did find it
boring. There was a lot of standing around and though he was making
money it didn't seem as much as he felt it should be. He knew Rose made
more in tips than he did and her shifts seem to fly by. He enjoyed
helping her when he was in the restaurant and it got busy. The boss
didn't seem to mind and even gave him a sandwich when he helped out. He,
also, liked the joking around between the waitresses and customers that
didn't seem to happen between bellhops and hotel guests.
Jack
gave the whole luncheonette a big laugh the first time Rose tried to
teach him how to carry 4 cups when he dropped them. Good thing there
wasn't any coffee in them or a few people would have been burned, but he
finally got the knack of it and soon was able to carry six cups, full,
without spilling a drop. The more he learned and the more he saw what
the waitresses were making every day the more he was leaning to becoming
a waiter.
A few weeks later, while talking to Rose, she
mentioned that they needed help at the Italian restaurant a few doors
down from Al's. He decided to apply the next day and was hired when the
owner said that he had seen him and knew he was Rose's nephew. That
evening instead of showing up for his shift at the hotel he called and
quite. Rose raised the roof when she heard what he had done.
"I
thought you knew better than that! You give two weeks notice when you
quite a job. Okay, they may fire you then and there but, at least, you
did what was right."
"But I start the new job tomorrow and I was
afraid they wouldn't hold it for me if I said two weeks."
Jack
showed up the next day and from the beginning loved the job. It was a
small restaurant with a few tables and booths. One waitress handled it
all and he helped her out. Though it wasn't as fancy, busy, big or the
tourist draw that Picciolo's, a few blocks away, he was learning a lot,
figuring that after awhile he could go get a job there. Mean-while
whenever the waitress didn't show he took over her shift. The
restaurant's pizza maker made all the pizzas in a show window at the
front with the oven behind him. After he had been there a couple of
weeks he started to learn how to make pizzas and loved it when a crowd
gathered in front of the window and watched him twirl the dough.
From
the first customer he served until he finished his side work filling
the salt and pep-per shakers Jack loved being a waiter. He enjoyed the
people he waited on, joking with them, suggesting particularly good
dishes depending which cook was on, taking their or-ders, giving them
to, and joking with, the cook. He looked forward to seeing how closely
he could guess the tip the party would leave and most of the time he was
right. He liked when it was so busy that a waiting line would form, and
depending how long they had to wait, could make them cranky. He saw it
as a challenge to make this crotchety people re-lax, enjoy their dinner
and leave smiling.
Jack was working three nights a week as the
waitress decided to cut her shifts back when she saw he knew what he was
doing. The boss immediately saw that the patrons loved him and seemed
disappointed when they came in and he wasn't on. With the season almost
over he knew he would be cutting the hours of operation back which
included the help's working hours and, not wanting to lose Jack, he
wasn't sure what he would do.
Jack hadn't told anyone, including
Rose, of his intentions to stay at this job through the summer and then,
in September apply for a job at Picciolo's where he knew he would
certainly make more money if for no other reason than the sheer numbers
of people they served. After working a few weeks he got some money
together and asked Rose out to dinner, taking her to Picciolo's.
The
first thing he noticed was how big the place was. In the center was the
main dining room and there were two indoor porches off of that room
with a large patio in the rear, also for dining. He counted about ten to
eleven waiters and 3-4 waitresses. They were greeted as soon as they
walked in and asked if they would like to sit in or outside. They both
immediately answered that they would prefer inside. In many ways air
conditioning was new to Miami Beach and both thought the tourists could
have the outside as they got heat all year round.
As soon as they
were handed the menu Jack knew he would have to ask if he could have
one to keep before he left. Aside from the fact that it was huge were
all the different items they had a choice of. The place wasn't as
expensive as he thought it would be and was surprised how low their
seven course dinners were. He ordered chicken parmagania and Rose had
shell pasta with meat sauce. The waiter very quickly brought them hot
gar-lic bread sticks, a cup of minestrone soup and a salad. Jack was
served spaghetti with his chicken while Rose got a fresh vegetable with
her pasta. For dessert she had cannelloni while he had spumoni. They
both had coffee.
Jack was impressed with both the food and
service and told Rose that he had a lot to learn. Naturally he over
tipped and when he left he knew whether he got a job there or not he
would be coming back to have dinner quite often but now he wanted the
job more than ever. Leaving he asked for a menu, which the hostess gave
him, and inquired if they were hiring. She suggested he talk to the
manager but to come back when it wasn't so busy as he wouldn't have time
to talk now. She pointed out the manager and he was delighted to see a
youngish, good looking, obviously, muscled guy. He wanted the job even
more.
Jack went back to the restaurant every month until,
in October, he was finally hired as a waiter. This time he did give his
current boss two weeks notice. The next day when he came to work the
boss told him that letting him go then and there. It wouldn't be the
first, or last, time he was fired from a job. When he told Rose what had
happened she said that at least he had done the right thing and if he
ever wanted to go back he stood a better chance of being rehired. He
never did go back because he found a job that he loved.
The
term 'season' had a different meaning in South Florida than it did up
north. There, aside from the four seasons, there was the Christmas
season and the summer season. On Miami Beach there was only one season
and that was 'tourist season' which started a week before Thanksgiving,
then dipped until Christmas week and kept building until Easter or
Passover, whichever came last.
Before the nineteen fifties Miami
Beach became a ghost town from May until November with all the main
hotels, restaurants, night spots and businesses closing with just enough
staying open to serve the local residents. By the nineteen sixties, and
as people found out how inexpensive the area was, along with air
conditioners becoming as common place as stoves and refrigerators, more
and more businesses stayed open longer. Though the late spring, summer
and early fall did only about fifty percent the business as during
winter less owners closed their places for six months each year.
Season
on Miami Beach was another world. Every week people came from all over
to live as millionaires for two weeks or more. Women wore mink coats in
eighty plus de-gree weather while men wore suits and ties in the
evening. No one knew them so they could be whoever they wanted to be and
do whatever they wanted without fear of repri-sals. Gamblers, hustlers,
prostitutes, gigolos and scam artists swarmed the beach knowing they
would leave a lot richer than when they came. Everyone and anyone,
including the tourists, were corrupt, forgetting ethics and morals. It
was a sinner's paradise.
It was in the nineteen fifties that
Miami Beach started to come in to its own as a vacation heaven for
middle and upper middle class people. The effectiveness of the 'Come on
down' and 'Fly with me' ads let the average person know they could
afford a luxurious vacation. Working residents and older people mostly
lived south of Fourteenth Street, along with tourists looking for
bargain hotels. There were so many retired seniors living there that the
slogan 'A waiting place for Heaven' became part of the language.
The
hotels in the thirties, along Collins Avenue, were showcases until
first the Fountain-bleau and the Eden Roc were built and new standards
were set. Further up, in the forties and fifties, hotels like the Bal
Moral and Kennelworth were catering to a different crowd such as the
latter rumored not to allow Jews. Above Haulover Beach was 'Motel Row'
with the Castaways the 'in place.
Martha Raye opened the Five
O'clock Club, Jackie Gleason did his television show from the new Miami
Beach auditorium that would eventually be named after him, while the
biggest stars from all over the world appeared in hotel clubs like the
La Ronde room at the Fountainbleau or the Latin Quarter nightclub..
Those
who couldn't afford, or didn't want to spend the money, to see the big
names could play miniature golf, choose from the latest movie houses
with first run films or just walk up and down Lincoln Road and window
shop. A favorite pastime was to get dressed up in their finest clothes
and go from hotel lobby to hotel lobby which were really tourist
at-tractions in their own right. Some did make afternoon trips to Parrot
Jungle or the 'bohemian' area known as Coconut Grove.
Most of
the tourist's time, during the day, was either spent at the pool in
their hotel, or on the beach, working on a tan, usually returning to
their hotel and take a nap. Very few went into Miami unless they wanted
to see, and/or bet on, Jai Alai. Though there were sightseeing tours
most people did things on their own. Many would ask the bellhops or
people behind the front desk for recommended places to eat generally
just eating break-fast in the hotel dining room.
Gamblers, or
not, most adults spent an evening at the South Beach Dog Kennel to watch
the dog races having dinner and watching the races from the clubhouse.
There were trot-ters and horse race courses in Miami along with the Jai
Alai fronton.
It was also a gay man's paradise. Every week other
gay men from small towns and big cities would come for a couple of weeks
of fun in the sun not worrying about being sneered and jeered at. They
could be who they were without presenting a facade to the world. The gay
residents joked about changing lovers every (or every other) week
during season and having to go to bed with each other off-season.
Cruising
took place seven days, twenty-four hours a day, on the beaches, in the
hotels, the bars and just walking on Collins Avenue or Lincoln Road. Sex
was available any time you wanted it, as often as you wanted it and
with any 'type' you wanted.
The biggest stars of the
entertainment world appeared in nightclubs built for them and then after
their shows were over they would go out and become 'one of the crowd'.
More than one famous name would go to the gay bars, sometimes performing
at the piano bars, without fear of being exposed. Rich people, poor
people, famous, infamous, low life, high life and all in-between could
be, and were, whomever they wanted to be for a week, two weeks or for
however long they could pay the hotel bill.
The only down side
was for those who lived, worked or owned businesses as they had about
six months to make enough money to put aside to live all year round and
many for-got that.
