My Great Uncle Clyde was, well, a great uncle! He was an all the way Chicago guy, whose mother came to the city in 1890 something or another, he wasn't sure. He lived to be 97 years old, and was lucky enough to keep his faculties until the day he died. I loved that man. He was my favorite relative. We shared a loathing for phony bullshit, which made us hard to be around for a lot of our family, who were mostly full of phony bullshit. So on family occasions we'd wind up alone in a corner, happily not talking to anyone. Then we started talking a bit, (mostly because he wanted me to sneak him some bourbon from the bar, which of course I did) And pretty soon we found we actually liked each other, and let me tell you, Uncle Clyde had the best damn stories about his days in Chicago's First Ward. In fact, I will tell you. And I'll going to tell it to you just like he told me.
Being a building supervisor wasn't my first job for Hinky Dink, but it was the first one where I got the fringe benefits. Fringe benefits is everything, let me tell you! I'll take a cut in pay for extra fringe any day of the fuckin' week. You know why? Cuz a check is always one number, and just that number - finite. But Fringe Benefits are nigh infinite, they could be anything. I like that phrase, nigh infinite. This Wop named Nelson who used to do novels and stuff would say that all the time. Yeah, I stole his words a lot. Got me a lot of tail it did.
Anyway, I was 22 years old, wet as Lake Michigan and in charge of this entire building. Three floors, four apartments each, and me in the basement. Hinky Dink McKenna was one of the two Alderman of the First Ward, and he was the guy I hustled for. After a few years of shoveling shit and packing in bums for the vote, he gave me this building to run. He paid me a salary, and I got a percentage of the rents. But it wasn't all a straight deal. The two back rooms on the first floor were call rooms, rooms used by the whores and the guys called Cadets who rounded up the Johns. The telephones were brand new, and off limits except for McKenna's boys, and one of those boys was me. Everybody worked for Alderman Hinky Dink McKenna in those days. He and Bathhouse John Coughlin ran the First Ward, which was the only place in Chicago were Vice was legal...mostly.
Not too many girls used the rooms, because Hinky wanted the building to keep a respectable air about it, so it was only used for overflow during conventions and Holidays. It was my job to keep the girls on the QT, and all the tenants happy. Yeah, I said 'Happy', and I meant that. You see we didn't screw over our tenants, like you see on those movies and shows. God's balls, it pisses me off when they do that. Hinky Dink had good buildings, Good Ones! Running water most of the year around, steam heat, and a guy who took the trash away. And the rent was rock bottom, I mean fuckin' granite on the floor rock bottom. I wasn't making shit as a rent bonus, which at first chapped my hide a bit. But, it was still better than what I was doing, and the second month in, I started to get some of those fringe benefits I was taking about.
We had a, what you kids call today, a diverse bunch in the building. Italians, Irish, Hungarian, Poles and one Scotsman and his sister. I got along with all of them, once they saw I knew what I was doing and respected them. You see, it was mostly Families with single mothers. They don't tell you that in the books, but men were just as shitty to woman back then as they are today, all that Gentleman stuff is Bunk. And the girls weren't allowed to do for themselves like they can today. Buy Hinky Dink helped them out, gave them a place to stay. He was a fucking saint like that. I don't cared how many goddamned votes he stole, he saved lives, buddy.
Anyway, we kept the families on the second floor which added up to two husbands the Scotsman; three men and me, that's it . The rest were women and kids. And I didn't put my hands on them or proposition none of them. I didn't operate like that. And, sad to say, that was a rare trait amongst my comrades in the First Ward. But the thing is, you had to to hard hearted, you know? You had to punch a guy in the throat without thinking about it or that guy's gonna slice your liver, you know? Nah, you don't know, and that's a good thing. It's one thing to be tough, but we had to be cruel. Yeah. Cruel. The kind of things you don't walk away from. I ain't going to talk to about that now.
So, here I am, 22 and a Building supervisor and, to get to the point of this story, I'm horny as hell. But, I'm working all day and a lot of nights, the only people I see are the tenants and the girls who fuck and leave, and I didn't do working girls whom I didn't know personally. You had to careful. Saw a guy with an advanced case of Syphillus once, holy shit! From that point on, I always used rubbers and girls with references only.
Yeah, I slept with prostitutes. We all did. There was no dating, pitching woo or romantic crap. Guys like me didn't have the clock to waste on that. And at the time I had, what's that phrase?...a poor self image. Yeah, I thought I was a piece of shit, and that I should be happy to get any chunk of happiness that I could crap out of this bung hole called life. After all, who would want to be with me? I didn't think the Michigan avenue Gibson Girls would be Arm-in-Arming with old Clyde anytime soon. And you know what? Fuck those uptight Biddies anyway!
Allright, here we go. So one Thursday I'm calling on Mrs. Rosetti, who insists everyone calls her Mama. She has three kids, no husband and her windows are stuck. The kids are off at work and I'm prying up the window and trying to get to the casement inside. Now Mrs. Rosetti had the biggest goddamn tits I had ever seen. I mean they were Mama Mia titties, like they could feed all of Sicily. Now back then, women didn't do cleavage, or let their boobs all hang out like they do today, but some things you just can't hide. Now I'm banging away at the window, and it's just not coming out, and I'm getting frustrated. It had been a rough couple of weeks, and I was starting to let it show.
"Damn this fucking window!" I yelled out, forgetting Mrs. Rosetti was even in the apartment.
"Holy Mother of God, Clyde! Such language!"
"Oh, ah, Sorry Mama Rosetti. This window is really bugging me."
"Yes? The window is it? I think it might be something else as well? Eh?"
