True Detective by Max Allan Collins Read Free Book Online

attended Walsh school, and while I managed not to get involved directly, there were gang wars aplenty, bloody fights in which kids would slash each other with knives and fire pistols at one another. And that was the six- and seven-year olds; the older kids were
really
tough. I managed to live through two years of Walsh before Pa announced we were moving out.
When
? I wanted to know. He said he didn't know, but we
would
move.
    Even at age seven (which is what I was at the time) I knew Pa wasn't much of a businessman; school supplies and dime novels and such made for a steady, day-to-day sort of income, but nothing more. And while he was a hard worker. Pa had begun to have headaches what years later might have been called migraines- and there were days when his stall did not open for business. The headaches began, of course, after Mother died.
    It couldn't have been easy for him, but Pa went to Uncle Louis. He went, one Sunday afternoon, to Uncle Louis' Lake Shore high-rise apartment in Lincoln Park. Uncle Louis was an assistant vice-president with the Dawes Bank now; a rich, successful businessman; in short, everything Pa was not. And when Pa asked for a loan, his brother asked, why not go to my
bank
for that? Why come to my home? And why, after all these years, should I help
you
?
    And Pa answered him. As a courtesy to you, he said, I did not come to your bank; I would not want to embarrass my successful brother. And an embarrassment is what I would be, Pa said, a Maxwell Street merchant in ragged clothes, coming to beg from his banker brother; it would be unseemly. Of course, Pa said, if you
want
me to come around. I can do that; and I can do that again and again, until you finally give me my loan. Perhaps, Pa said, you do not embarrass easily; perhaps your business associates, your fancy clients, do not mind that your brother is a raggedy merchant- an anarchist- a union man; perhaps they do not mind that we both were raised by a whorehouse madam; perhaps they understand that your fortune was built upon misery and suffering, like their fortunes.
    With the loan, my father was able to start a small bookstore in the part of North Lawndale we knew as Douglas Park, a storefront on South Homan with three rooms in the rear: kitchen, bedroom, sitting room, the latter doubling as my bedroom; best of all was indoor plumbing, and we had it all to ourselves. I went to Lawson school, which was practically across the street from Heller's Books. And the school supplies Pa sold, in addition to the dime novels he continued to stock, kept his store afloat. In twelve years he'd paid Uncle Louis back; that would've been about 1923.
    I didn't know it then, because Pa never showed it, but I was the center of his life. I can see that now. I can see that he was proud of the good grades I got; and I can see that the move we made from Maxwell Street to Douglas Park had mostly to do with getting me in better, safer schools and very little to do with improving Pa's business- he still wasn't much of a businessman, stocking more political and economic literature than popular novels (Pa's idea of a popular novel was Upton Sinclair's
The Jungle)
, refusing to add the penny candy and junk toys that would've been the perfect commercial adjunct to the school supplies he sold, that would've brought the Lawson kids in, because the school supplies and dime novels were the only concession he'd make to commerce, the only room he'd sacrifice to his precious books. And he didn't stock the religious books that would've sold well in this predominantly Jewish area, either; a taste for kosher food was about as Jewish as Pa got, and I guess the same has proved true for me. We're that much alike.
    He wanted me to go to college; it was his overriding dream. The dream was no more specific than that: no goal of a son as a doctor, or a lawyer; I could be anything I wanted. A teacher would've pleased him. I think, but I'm just guessing. The only thing he made clear was his hope