Ausgamecht

I belong to a writer's group that meets once a week at my local library. I enjoy the immediate feedback on my work, and hearing what other people are writing. A few weeks ago, one of the other fellows read a story about growing up in a Jewish neighborhood on the north side of Chicago, every bit as good as any Yiddishuh tale I've ever heard told.

Ausgamecht

by Daniel Staffin

The last faint echoes of the nineteenth century receded in the Chicago north side neighborhood where I grew up. The echoes were each and all old men who plied their trade house to house. Door-to-door salesmen still frequented the neighborhood. They were a disappearing lot who carried on more by habit than necessity.

They sold brushes, carpet cleaners, milk, laundry service, and there was one old world general merchandiser still on the job. I would see him plying the sidewalks in my neighborhood. They were not alley walkers the door-to-doors; no, they would walk up to a promising front door, ring the bell, introduce themselves, and begin their pitch.

They were, to a man, old, and their pitches practiced and smooth. There were pauses at appropriate places for civil discourse and transactions to occur. If the lady of the house wasn't interested, there was a pause after the introduction for a polite "No thank you," followed by a polite request for an appointment at another time, and so forth.

All deals were by word and trust. Cash was not necessary. The salesmen would settle for thirty days, a payment schedule, lay-away, or other arrangements. Whatever the parties agreed to was done by a handshake. It was another world, gone several generations now.

The merchandise man who walked our block was an expert in his own way, not smooth, and just at the edge of polite, the edge towards pushy. He was small, maybe five feet, but large enough to a six year old. I only saw him wearing black, hat, coat, jacket, pants, and shoes. The hat was a schtreimel, a style preferred by Orthodox Jews, and he had a hairstyle that matched; a long, full salt-and-pepper beard, as well as dangling gray forelocks called payot.

But his payot were different; they had tiny blue ribbons on the end, and they didn't dangle freely down, but stiffly out. I never saw him without the hat. For all I knew, the payot went with the hat, not the head. He was either roly-poly fat or he stored racks of merchandise under his wool overcoat, and I always saw him carrying two bulging, paper shopping bags, one in each hand. In this way he waddled down the street.

When I'd see him turn our corner, I'd skip over to him and fall in step for a bit. He mostly paid me no attention, except when he wanted to get rid of me he'd cough on me. He'd turn his head my way, lean down just a bit, and then as if I wasn't even there, he'd cough a big, phlegmy cough. I'd squeal, turn, and run.

Katie was serving me lunch. She was a black woman from Mississippi, and her cooking was hearty and spicy. In the early fifties she was called a maid, but Katie was actually my nanny. I loved her dearly, and she loved me in return. She taught me manners, civility, dance, and being on time. She was smart and well-spoken. She could turn the southern accent and attitude on or off at will. With me it was usually off, except when she told me about her Mississippi childhood.

While I ate, we listened to "Ma Perkins" on the radio. Suddenly the front doorbell rang, a rarity in our house, where the back door was in the kitchen, the center of most afternoon activity. Katie leaned back at the head of the table and looked out the dining room window to see who was at the door. She got up from the table and went to answer the door. I followed behind her. Katie told me to sit back down and finish my lunch, but I continued to follow and when she opened the door, I was hanging onto her skirt, peeking out from behind.

"Yessuh?" Katie said in Mississippian.

"Uh? De schvartzeh!" the little merchandise salesman said. "Vere's Raizelleh?"

Katie had been with us long enough to know what those words meant. Schvartzeh was a neutral term in Europe, there were few black people there, but in the USA the phrase had a racist edge. Katie didn't like him, but she was responsible for the household when my mom wasn't there. She had to adhere to the rules of polite behavior.

"Mizz Rose ain't here right now. She won't be back till laytuh."

"Vell, den I vill have to come back. Good day."

That was that. He didn't tip his hat, so again I didn't find out if the payot went with the hat or the head. He carefully waddled down the steps, a bulging shopping bag in each hand. Katie and I went back to our lunch and the conclusion of "Ma Perkins."

I had just sat down and had a bite when the back doorbell rang. Katie opened the back door and glowered at the little merchandise man standing on the other side, a bulging shopping bag in each hand.

We lived in a corner house, and perhaps he did not know it was the same household. He was a little startled when he saw Katie and she said clearly, "Yes, sir. What may I do for you?"

But he was experienced and recovered nicely with, "You be sure undt tell Raizelleh that if she don't buy sumting she vill be ausgamecht!"

With this he made a striking gesture with a thick pencil nub across his little, black order book. I thought this was great and started chanting, "Ausgamecht! Ausgamecht!"

The little man turned, blue-ribboned payot sticking out from under his hat, and waddled down the stairs, lifting his elbows a bit to keep his shopping bags from scraping the cement treads.

When mom returned home from shopping, Katie filled her in on the day's happenings. When Katie finished with the word 'ausgamecht,' my mom's forehead wrinkled and she said, "Oy."

When my dad got home, and my mom told him of the day's events and mentioned the word 'ausgamecht,' he said something stronger than 'Oy.' When my dad had cooled down a bit, I asked him what 'ausgamecht' meant. He told me that it was Yiddish or German for 'marked out.' Ous with an umlaut - out, and gemekt - to be marked. What the little man was telling Katie was that if mom didn't buy anything the next time he showed up at the door, he would cross her off his list. In Poland, this was important, not to be marked out. In West Rogers Park, not so important, perhaps even preferred.

As for the difference in spelling - ous gemekt and Ausgamecht - that word became forever after the name I associated with the little, door-to-door merchandise salesman. To this day, if you don't order something from a catalog after a few years you get a special catalog with the headline, "This may be your last issue if you don't order now!" That's the spirit of ausgamecht.

The same evening of the day that Ausgamecht got his name, he became a family legend.

After dinner, as dad was smoking his pipe and mom had finished washing the dishes, Ausgamecht toiled up the front steps, bags in hand, and rang the front doorbell. Mom answered the door. Ausgamecht spoke softly in Yiddish. His demeanor was formal and polite. Mom responded quietly in Yiddish with some deference. She invited him in and led him towards the dining room. Dad put down his paper with a sour look. He walked to the dining room behind mom and Ausgamecht, knowing that it was going to be an expensive evening. He hardly knew.

I watched from behind the kitchen door as mom and Ausgamecht sat at the bare dining room table. He put his shopping bags down on either side of the dining room chair. Dad did not sit. In English, Ausgamecht opened with, "Good evening Maxie, Raizelleh. Vaht can I do for you?"

Dad shifted slightly as if he were about to speak. Mom said quickly, "I need a tablecloth and matching napkins, placemats and hotpads for this table."

Dad pursed his lips. If I said or did something that made him purse his lips in that manner, I knew I was in for it. In one smooth motion, Ausgamecht reached into one of his shopping bags and extracted a large cellophane package, which he plopped on the table with a "THUD." There was a method to this. Weight equated with quality. After an appropriate pause, when all eyes were on it, he opened the package and revealed a beautiful cream-colored, linen tablecloth that had shiny metallic threads interwoven in lovely patterns, one of which was a Star of David. This was to become the tablecloth of record for every Passover till the coming of Elijah. Sale closed!

Then Ausgamecht turned to dad and with a gentle smile said, "Okay, Maxie. Vaht can I do for you?"

Without missing a beat dad said, "You can get me some string."

"Vaht do you mean, string?" asked Ausgamecht as he got out his little, black order book and thick pencil stub to write with.

Dad strode around him and sat down at the table. He began to describe the string in detail. It had to be sisal of a certain fiber length, so many fibers per thread, so many twists per inch, so many threads per yarn, so many yarns per string, rough finish, and wound on a particular commercial bobbin with a specific pattern. Ausgamecht feverishly scribbled in his small book, never looking up, his brow knitted in concentration.

Dad was a mattress maker. He made mattresses in the family business as he grew up, then he moved to Chicago to start his own successful company. He was well aware of the specification for the string used in the construction of box springs and he recited it rote for Ausgamecht to copy down. When he was finished with his recitation, he paused as Ausgamecht finished scribbling.

The little salesman said, "Okay, I can deliver. How much do you vahnt, Maxie?"

Dad waited a moment for effect, then said, "Enough to go from the tip of your nose to the tip of your putz!"

Then silence as Ausgamecht looked up at dad without raising his head. I disappeared farther behind the kitchen door. When dad swore, it meant trouble. I heard the little order book whap shut, and then the rustling as Ausgamecht gathered up his bags.

"Okay, Maxie, I gotcha. Raizelleh, dank you very much. I'll go now."

He and mom lapsed into Yiddish as she walked him to the front door. He did not tip his hat. Once again I did not find out that night whether the payot went with the hat or the head.

That was that, or so I thought. One quiet evening several weeks later, I was playing outside and saw Ausgamecht waddling up the sidewalk. As was the tradition, he ignored me as if I wasn't there. He trundled up our steps and rang the doorbell. Dad answered the door just as a big truck pulled up to the curb. It's been fifty years, I was a little kid, and any truck was a big truck. This truck was a BIG truck. Dad had a stunned look on his face and his paper fell out of his hand.

Ausgamecht said, "Here is da string you ordered. Exactly."

"What do you mean I ordered?" dad replied.

Ausgamecht said, "The tip of MY putz is in Warsaw! Sign here. Here's da bill; tirty days."

Dad was bound by honor. He sighed and signed. Ausgamecht turned around, waddled down the stairs and walked away, a bulging, paper shopping bag in each hand. Dad went to the truck's cab and gave the driver instructions where to deliver the string. The driver casually saluted and drove off.

I later learned that dad's company was still working off that string inventory when he sold the business a dozen years later. No one in the family brought up the subject, even on Passover when mom displayed her fine linen tablecloth and napkins with the ceremonial meal. Nobody raised the Ausgamecht episode in front of dad until he was an old, old man, just a few months prior to his death. He had forgotten much, but he remembered that.

"Warsaw," he said with a laugh.