Jesse Meade and Officer Cobine
Poonrod was giving fewer haircuts since the war broke out. The war effort siphoned off almost all the eligible young men in town. The fighting in Europe and Asia hung like a dark cloud over West Des Moines. Like many cities and towns in America, most citizens would listen to the radio or read the local newspaper for their information consumption. Televisions were coming, but Iowa did not yet have a broadcasting station. Poonrod had a radio console on the shelf in the corner of both the barber shop and the pawn shop. He always kept them turned on for customers. It kept an ambiance in the air and broke the silence. The Tribune was usually laid out in sections on the card table and read several times daily by customers. The articles mentioned fighting in places around the globe never heard of by most. The majority of families in America knew little more than which theater of war, Pacific or Europe, and maybe their son’s unit or ship. The news broadcasts would report on various US Army divisions; Iowa was attached to the 34th Infantry Division. If their son was in the Navy, they could be anywhere around the world. The letters mailed to the troops were sent to obscure military postal addresses in the United States, then forwarded on. The civilian and military postal clerks would then sort out the mail by branch of service and then command. The Army or Navy would then locate the service member’s command somewhere around the planet. The letters sent back home happened in reverse. Unfortunately, many important letters were never delivered because planes and ships carrying the mail were also shot down or sunk.
The rail yard was left with mostly older men, married men, and rejects who failed their draft physicals at Fort Des Moines. The women and children filled in where they could around the farms and local businesses. There was a sense of shame in the men that did not qualify for the war effort. Some were drunks, some weaklings, some too unfit to serve or stricken with polio. There were men that had exemptions because their families owned the means of production more important to the war effort than their military service. There was no glory or heroes being created plowing a tractor through a field or mucking out a barn stall when local boys were fighting and dying overseas. When the casualties and bodies began returning home, it amplified the anxiety in the remaining local men and teenage boys. The draft dodgers, as the press called them, knew already their destiny was to listen to the glorious war stories of other greater men until the end of days. They did not sacrifice life or limb for America. They were not in any great battle that would be awarded with a medal or ribbon on their uniform to wear around town. They were often left to work with women in factories or retail jobs around town. They were the audience, lucky enough to still be alive, to applaud their fellow citizens’ wartime heroics when they returned.
Outside his storefront window, Poonrod saw Nellie, Jesse Meade’s 1937 Ford pick-up, rolling along slowly, looking for a parking spot. Jesse’s first two boys, John and Bill, were already enlisted in the Army and Navy. Men enlisting early at 18 years of age were allowed but not required. The assumption was that better duty might be given to those who volunteered instead of waiting around a few years to see if their numbers were called to report to the draft board. Citizens in public often looked at these young men as cowards, but they were alive. Those that did not enlist out of high school and waited until they were twenty-one also ran the risk of being stationed at the front lines as the war dragged on. At least that was the going assumption in Valley Junction.
What used to be four haircuts now took half the time for the Meades. The Saturday mornings when it was four haircuts seemed distant now. Jesse and his youngest son, Jimmy, looked for his grandfather’s Buick, but it was nowhere to be seen among the other cars. He had surely been there already and gone by now. When Jimmy spotted the Ford he saw in Life Magazine two Saturdays ago in Poonrod’s, he said admiringly, “Wow, look at that beauty there, Pa. That’s a Super Deluxe.” Jesse drove slowly past the 1941 Ford Super Deluxe. The blue two-door with a powerful V8 engine stood out against the other cars. The Ford no longer had the shiny new look. It was four years old now, but it was clean and had new tires. It had Polk County plates on it too. Someone either had some serious connections or it was owned by the government. The war rations restricted the purchase of new tires since early 1942. Jesse was curious. He wanted a new set of tires himself for winter driving. He found a spot and parked Ol’ Nellie at the edge of 5th Street opposite the depot. Father and son got out of the pickup and walked back towards the Super Deluxe on their way towards Poonrod’s. The car stuck out with its big white-walled tires and sleek body compared to the more angular models of the twenties and thirties. “I read it can go 75 mph flat out of the factory, Pa.” Jimmy kept his eyes on the car as they walked past.
“Wow, that is a looker. That is not a government car. They would never buy a two-door like that for government use. I wonder who owns it?” Jesse admitted as he imagined himself in the car rolling down Lincoln Highway at 75 mph with the windows down and Rose at his side. That was almost race car speed.
“They are only $460. You think she could outrun Nellie, Pa?” Jimmy remembered the price from the advertisement in Life Magazine. Jesse always kept Nellie in top shape. He had a knack for working on engines, and his red, 90-horsepower V8 was the fastest pickup truck in town. He had the needle on the speedometer pegged to 75 miles per hour multiple times before the war. After the outbreak of the war, the rations on gasoline began, and tires were restricted to re-treads only. No one could buy tires in town or anywhere else. The racing was done.
“With those tires? Yes.” Jesse could read the vulcanized name Firestone on the tires. They indeed were new. “Same V8 inside her as Nellie though. I could get him if I had some new skins. Nellie’s lighter by a good bit. But if it snows, he’s got us. We need sandbags in the back just to get around now if it snows.”
“Maybe it is a bootlegger. A real moonshine runner, Pa.” Jimmy said as they crossed the street and walked past the vehicle on the sidewalk.
“I seriously doubt it. Prohibition ended years ago. But, no doubt, I bet she will get up and go.” Jesse replied as he noticed the exhaust had been reconfigured to have two tailpipes instead of one. Moving more air and fuel means more power. Someone knew what they were doing, making a sleeper; an inconspicuous car faster than it looked. Jesse already had a good idea who owned the car. “Plus, it is $460. You got $460, son?”
The last decade was hard on families with many workers unemployed, working for meals only to stay alive to look for work or beg the following day. Jesse had been disciplined with what money he earned. He had a small farm, a house, a wife, three boys, and a union job at the rail yard. Between the farm, the family, and his job, it was still nowhere near enough leftover to finance a new Super Deluxe. At least that is the message that was intended to be delivered to Jimmy. In reality, Jesse could easily afford the car.
“No. I got about $3 saved up.” It was quite a bit short of $460. Jesse paid his boys to work the farm and allowed them to spend and save as they wished.
“That is a long way from a Super Deluxe, son. With the rations right now? We can’t even get a re-tread for Nellie for $3,” replied Jesse.
“You make $400 a month at the rail yard, and we get money from the farm. I saw your paycheck on the table, Pa.” Jimmy reminded his dad he was a good listener when it came to talking about money. It seemed that money is really all that mattered in America. If you had money, you got the big house, a cruiser like a Ford Super Deluxe, and people thought you were special.
“Son, that $400 is almost already spent before I earn it,” Jesse laughed.
“The advertisement said they have payment plans.” Jimmy remembered the fine print of the advertisement in case his father was curious.
“I bet they do. Probably $50 a month? That is out of our budget, son.” Jesse nodded as he turned his head back towards the sidewalk. A quarter of his salary every month for a Super Deluxe? It needed to be taken into consideration, he thought to himself. He could easily afford it, but it would draw too much attention. It would send the wrong message about values to the boys, and everyone else in town, if he was flashy with his money. He was still wearing coveralls to work like the other men, but most of the other men were scraping by on $100-$200 a month.
“Ticket for jaywalking is $5, Jesse Meade,” a voice yelled from the passing squad car rolling down 5th Street. Jesse and Jimmy turned to see it was Captain Fred Cobine making his rounds.
“Mail it to me!” Jesse shouted back. The officer waved out the window but kept on driving. Jesse knew Cobine was giggling in the front seat of his car like himself.
In the beginning, what Poonrod and Jesse also banked on correctly was the fact cops drank liquor too. In the beginning, the Valley Junction Police Department’s newest officer was Fred Cobine. He too was a transplant to Iowa after the first war. He met an Iowa nurse somehow during the war and followed her back to Des Moines to get married and raise a family. He started off as a beat cop and knew Jesse Meade and Verne Poonrod from card games and beers at the VFW post on Main Street, renamed 5th Street with the changing of the city’s name to West Des Moines. They got drunk together and told war stories till the wee morning hours long before the Volstead Act was enacted.
The police were caught in the middle of the prohibition drama when enforcement of the unpopular law was required. A significant part of the community were Christians and wanted abstinence laws strictly enforced by a police force who were drinkers. An even larger portion of the community were pissed the law was ever enacted in the first place. The cops drank the beer and whiskey they confiscated, if it was Canadian and done outside the eyes of the press. The homemade spirits all got dumped in the street for press photo ops. The bathtub gin, white lightning, and potato vodka were all low quality and some dangerous counterfeits. The drunks would drink too much of it and end up in the hospital or dead. The wine made from blackberries, mulberries, grapes, or cherries was ignored by the cops. The alcohol-based apple cider also was rarely confiscated.
The cops got wind of Jesse and Poonrod’s action from a few deadbeats picked up lying on their backs in the streets next to bottles of good Canadian whiskey. The chief of police at the time, Captain Ferguson, tasked young officer Cobine to reach out to the culprits, Jesse and Poonrod, about an arrangement. They were all relatively the same age in their twenties, vets and friends already. The two could have easily been arrested and made examples of strict abstinence enforcement to the public. Instead, the chief would attempt to use the two to modulate the process of sin in town. Several Iowans had been killed trying to make their own bathtub gin or corn-based whiskey. The statistics showed increases in poisonings, fires, and arrests for thefts and petty crime all surrounding bootleg liquor operations and speakeasy clubs. Plus, the Canadians had much better whiskey. It wasn’t even close, but neither was the drive. Most of the cops were drinkers too. The initial meeting between Poonrod, Jesse, and Cobine was a success. The cops would get 10% of the proceeds out of the profits and a case of whiskey a week to look the other way, and Cobine would notify Jesse and Poonrod if there were any state or federal agencies in town.
The partnership laid the foundation for the reputation of the guys from Valley Junction. (The Operation), as they called it, began with an eight-foot-tall wooden fence installed around the chain-link one that already existed in back of Valley Junction Pawn. This was meant not only to reinforce the existing fence but to keep curious eyes from seeing what transpired within. Trucks coming and going at all hours were often loaded under tarps. Stuffed under and among other bulky items were cases of whiskey. Milo, Poonrod’s first dog, another Great Dane, roamed off his leash within the fence, deterring anyone seeking further inquiry with his growling. Jesse would back up his old Chevrolet sedan, and the trunk would be filled when the shipments came in. He made the short drive to the rail yard parking lot and opened shop.
Via Poonrod and Jesse, many small Iowa towns got whiskey, and eventually beer too, delivered weekly. Jesse controlled access to the rail yard in Valley Junction and signed off on the manifest of each load after inspecting it. Enough room would be found on one of the boxcars, and a pallet with cases of Canadian whiskey or barrels of beer were inserted into the cargo. A call was placed to the destination, informing the union yard master on which train the liquor was coming in on and where to look. The following week, a satchel full of cash would come back hidden safely within a different load destined to stop in Valley Junction. To the unknowing eye during daylight hours, it looked like any regular customer taking delivery of a cargo manifest from a yard worker at the rail yard. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary with the men loading and unloading cargo from the train near the baggage area of the platform either. Jesse collected the cash from the train and handed it to Domino or Poonrod.
Officer Cobine and the police patrolled the neighborhood with impunity, and crime was kept to a minimum. Chief Ferguson promoted Cobine to Sergeant, and anyone who got out of line on the streets of Valley Junction was referred to Cobine. He was allowed to make a street decision on the justice before the perpetrators were ever brought to the station. However, men are men. Guys would get shit-faced drunk and pass out in the streets. The cops would pick them up and question them. Anyone that mentioned Jesse or Poonrod got a stiff slap across the face and told there was an active investigation going on and they better not be seen in Valley Junction again. If the guy quit their job or got fired and still owed money, he was marked. Any of the deadbeats who owed money were then stopped unsuspectingly on the street and roughed up a bit by Cobine and the boys. They were then given a train ticket on the next train out of town and told never to return.
No one was allowed in on the operation’s traffic without personally knowing Cobine, Jesse, or Poonrod. Sergeant Cobine collected the cops’ cut of the money and carried the cases of whiskey away in the trunk of his own police cruiser on the night shift. Every cop got a free bottle of whiskey and some pocket money every week to carry on the illusion of enforcement and ignore the operation’s activities. Jesse, being the point man on the rail yard, reached out to the thirsty Pine and Dixie cement crews as well. These boys would be dealt with separately after sundown out of the back of the Chevy. Jesse always wore a pistol and had Max, a large shepherd from the farm, with him on whiskey delivery nights. No one asked questions because none were ever answered. Everyone in town knew it was not just the mayor, Poonrod. It was the entire handpicked city council involved in something bigger and the big negro was now in on it too. That is all anyone was allowed to know, intentionally.
Sergeant Cobine, his rank at the time, would let the perpetrators go, and no investigation was ever undertaken. The police that were non-drinkers on the force were either fired, offered a job in the fire department, or never hired in the first place. The non-drinkers would be recovering alcoholics or Christians. It was too much temptation for the former drunks, and the church crowd ran the risk of their moral compass turning towards the light and exposing the more nefarious undertakings of the city’s leadership. The new hires were infrequent, and only local guys were accepted. Sergeant Cobine had already a good idea of who to recommend, if and when it came to recruiting a new badge for the force.
The pawn shop was incredibly successful at cleaning money and collecting items of value from the word go. The loan officer at Valley Junction Bank saw no reason not to offer Poonrod another loan on the building across the street from Valley Junction Pawn. This spot would become Poonrod’s Barber Shop. It indeed was the perfect cover. Poonrod even enrolled in Moler Barber College in Des Moines to become a certified barber within a matter of months. His own barber shop would allow him to keep a pulse on the gossip and know who was coming and going in the town during business hours. He could read the newspaper, smoke cigarettes, drink coffee or beer, and listen to the radio while making money on haircuts. There was a shoebox overflowing with fake receipts for haircuts that never happened in a filing cabinet at the pawn shop he used as expenses on his tax returns. Jesse and Cobine stopped by a couple of times a week just to grab a beer and talk with the boys hanging out.
The idea for the upstairs of the building was for it to be converted to an exclusive gentlemen’s club on the weekends. It wasn’t fancy, but there was a radio to follow the news and catch the broadcast of baseball and football games. It was the beginning of their sports book. Poonrod had a bookie he called back on the East Coast to check the lines on games. He then bankrolled the original bets himself. Cobine and Jesse were offered 10% finder’s fees on this action. A chalkboard was installed to keep track of the games and the odds. A separate phone line, refrigerator, a billiard table, a couple of rigged pinball games, and a card table completed the upstairs. It was a small group of guys playing poker in the beginning: Poonrod, Jesse, Doc, Herman Bradley, a local lawyer and the zoning city’s zoning commissioner, Melvin Bickford, deputy district attorney for Polk County and at-large council member, and Marlin Rixie, a successful insurance agent in West Des Moines and the other at-large member of the city council. Rixie was the last to join just before the war unfolded. After the war broke out, it was inevitable Domino would join after he finished high school. He officially was the last member to join the operation. All the men on the city council used it to further their own careers and keep a firm grip on what happened on the west side of Walnut Creek.
The rest of the citizens, visitors, and workers paid the freight.
Most in town had a pretty good suspicion of what was going on, just not the details. Several of the cops got free haircuts and would spend a portion of their ill-gotten gains buying items out of Poonrod’s Valley Junction Pawn or lose it back gambling on sports games or poker at the barber shop. Chief Ferguson preferred not to know exactly what went on at the barber shop. Poonrod was already the mayor and could dismiss him at will. Herman Bradley would tell him he had no chance in a lawsuit, and Melvin Bickford would make sure any potential charges filed would be dismissed. Instead, Chief Ferguson focused on dealing with the rest of the city and controlling information on the street. Only some of the regulars at the barber shop would be allowed upstairs to play billiards or pinball during the weekdays after the chalkboards had been erased and the money collected. However, the passengers killing time with a haircut while waiting for their train’s departure were not allowed upstairs. They didn’t need to know what was going on. What was agreed to by all is that the members never talked about the operation in public or on the phone. That was all that was needed to control the narrative in the beginning. The Valley Junction operation kept the pulse on the streets, and its members would be the first to know about anything going down in West Des Moines, good or bad.
“Jesse Meade. How the hell are you? You got junior along with ya?” Poonrod greeted Jesse and Jimmy from his empty barber’s chair.
“I see your glasses are still working, old man.” replied Jesse.
“Good enough to cut your hair. You just missed your grandfather, Jimmy,” Poonrod greeted the Meades.
“Doc beat us in this morning?” asked Jesse.
“So did Willie and Skeeter,” Poonrod added.
Jesse took off his coat and hung it on the coat rack and shook his head. It was a cold Friday night, and they managed to make it through the night on the yard without hurting themselves or anyone else. The three trains that came through in the dark of the night had no issues. He would just ding them on their time cards before payday, as usual. “Imagine that. Those two clocked out early again. Where are they?”
“Upstairs playing pinball. Which one of you is going first?” Poonrod asked as he lit up a fresh cigarette.
“I am going to play a couple of games too, Poonrod,” said Jimmy.
“Why, don’t you wait until they are done, and I will give you a few nickels,” Poonrod said in their direction.
“That is a good idea, Jimmy. Saturday mornings get busy, and you don’t want to lose your spot,” replied Jesse. In reality, Jesse caught Poonrod’s signal. The games were currently rigged for no winners.
“Hey, Roofus.” exclaimed Jimmy when the Great Dane rose from the floor to greet them. Roofus was both large in size and personality. He roamed freely in the barber shop and pawn shop during business hours. He loved car rides and playing catch with the ball. He could be seen with his big head hanging out the passenger side of either Poonrod or Domino’s cars when they drove about town. Jimmy shuffled in for a seat on the chairs against the wall, and Roofus followed. “Hey, Domino.”
“Hey, Jimmy,” Domino smiled as he came back down from upstairs and noticed who came in the door. “Bring your dad in for a haircut? You still look just like your momma. You should let your hair grow out more,” Domino teased as he nodded his head at Jimmy.
“No, I don’t,” a defiant Jimmy retorted. He was baby-faced but a senior in high school now. He was seventeen and the youngest of the three Meade boys. A few months from now, school would finish up, and he would turn eighteen and be eligible to enlist. Deep down, he didn’t want to go to war. He and everyone else wanted it over sooner than later. Millions had already been killed around the world, and several of the older local boys that shipped out early came home dead in pine boxes. It was a terrifying message to the underclassmen. But all those boys got military honors at their funerals and respect from everyone in town for serving their country. He was still a high school kid. And, like Johnny and Bill, didn’t know about the depth of the operation nor its tentacles throughout the community.
“Yeah, ya do,” confessed Jesse as he sat in the chair, and Poonrod placed the apron around his neck. Bill and John looked more like him. All three boys were good athletes too; tall, thin, and muscular. Bill and John played football on the high school team with Domino as teenagers.
“Doc, got chased out of here early by Willie and Skeeter earlier. He mentioned he wanted to talk when I got a minute. Any idea what he wants?” Poonrod asked as he turned on his clippers.
“Probably, about him getting out of the Army.”
“Doc is giving it up? Really?”
“Well, that is one way of saying it. He was telling me the other night that he still gets his science journals from Sweden once a month. They might be a month or two late but they have been pretty consistent in sending them. Anyways, he was saying that some of the Germans that went to the same school as him in Sweden are now Nazis. They are reporting the Nazis bastardized their science into experimenting on prisoners in labor camps. Now the university is trying to distance themselves from the Nazis.”
“What does that have to do with him?”
“Because the US Army commissioned him to do exactly what he was trained to do in Sweden on our troops here when we screen them for service.”
“I thought he was still sterilizing retards and the feeble-minded folks,” Domino asked as he took a sip of his Schlitz.
“That is what he does on Saturdays down at the hospital.”
“So he is getting out of the Army and just going to be doing that full time now?”
“That is just it. If the Nazis are sterilizing whoever they want, the eugenics science is doomed. Everyone has been carrying on about it for a long time now. It will no longer be a method of cleaning up the gene pool. It would be considered torture. The school itself is considering closure. There are a lot of Americans with Italian, German, Polish, and Czech descent over their fighting too. If POWs were getting castrated just because they were captured? If that happened to anyone in Iowa? Doc would have to move to save face. He is pretty jammed up about it.”
“Shit, we can’t be using the same damn
methods as the Nazis if they are torturing people.” Domino said as he popped a beer, thinking about his balls being squeezed by a pair of pliers in a foxhole.
“What’s Doc want from me?” asked Poonrod.
“I am not sure,” Jesse winked, indicating Jimmy was in the room and changed the subject. “Nice set of wheels at the curb. New Firestones all the way around, dual exhausts, and recently washed in the winter too. Must have some connections,” Jesse said without mentioning which car.
“The blue Super Deluxe? It’s The Geek’s,” replied Poonrod while he flipped off the hair clippers.
“Ol’ Pizza Man Frattello?” Jesse remembered the name from the paper. It was damn good pizza too. The name, however, he had not heard in years. “He came in for a haircut?”
Poonrod nodded. “Yesterday, about this time.”
“He had anyone with him?” asked Jesse.
“Yeah, a big Italian-looking guy about my age.” Domino spoke up. “He doubles as protection and does the talking. I could take him. He was a light heavyweight and carrying a gun too. I saw it.”
“The guy that owns the Super Deluxe is a gangster, Pa?” Jimmy asked his father. Roofus barked when he heard the word gangster.
Jesse paused to think of how to define Frankie The Geek Fratello. “He was definitely connected to Al Capone and the Chicago mafia years ago. I remember the story in The Tribune. They were so proud of it. You go into any Windy City Pizza in Des Moines, and there is a framed copy of the picture of him and his little kid with Al Capone standing in front of a Cadillac hanging on the wall.”
“Yeah, the kid was carrying a piece too,” replied Poonrod. “I saw it holstered inside his jacket when he reached for the paper,” Poonrod recollected as he picked up his scissors.
“It was a .38 caliber Smith and Wesson,” added Domino. After a few years working in the pawn shop, Domino was keen on sizing up people and guns. Domino grabbed a cold Coca-Cola for Jimmy and another Schlitz from the back of the refrigerator for himself. “You want a beer, Jesse?”
“No, it is too early for me.”
Domino popped the top off the bottle and handed the Coke to Jimmy. “There is always someone else behind the counter running the joint every time I am in there. But the pizza? It is excellent.”
Jimmy took a big swig of the Coke, sat back in his chair, and petted Roofus. It was the air about Poonrod’s that he loved. It always smelled like smoke and cologne from the barber shop. Jimmy looked at the magazines beside the puzzle on the small folding table. There was Life, Sporting News, Newsweek, and one without a cover and coffee stain. “What happened to the National Geographic?” asked Jimmy.
“It ain’t come in yet,” Poonrod replied with a cigarette in his mouth while he continued on Jesse.
“Aw, shucks.” Jimmy sat down at the small table and looked at the half-finished puzzle and various sections of The Tribune. “Where is the sports page?”
“It is over on the chair Willie was sitting in. It smells like his fart,” Domino laughed.
“The goofy guy from the rail yard farted on the sports page?” Jimmy laughed at the thought.
“We call him the Phoenix now,” Poonrod laughed.
“Phoenix?” Jimmy was confused.
“Yeah, Skeeter and Phoenix,” Domino laughed, thinking about their previous interaction. “What a tandem. Why do you let those two upstairs?”
Poonrod snickered, “Those two are natural-born entertainers. You can travel for miles and not meet a couple of guys as weird as those two. I think they are funny. They are great customers too.”
Willie’s fart was long gone, absorbed into the thick, ubiquitous smoke layer in the barber shop. Jimmy admired Poonrod. Everyone seemed to like the old guy. He had a pulse on everything like a one-man newsroom. He knew almost everyone in town. The barber shop was a place where men were themselves and not behaving the way they ordinarily would when women and girls were around in public. “Let’s get pizza for dinner, Pa. We’ve been there before. I remember that picture too. We should go back. It is delicious pizza, Pa. It has been a while,” Jimmy said eagerly.
“That does sound good. We will see if your Ma wants to go out for pizza later,” Jesse said, as he watched Poonrod clipping around his ears in the mirror.
Jimmy looked down and read the headlines in the sports page aloud. “Halas is back for the Bears already?”
“He’s back. I read it too,” Domino was an avid reader of the sports page as well.
“That is swell. The Bears are coming back!” Jimmy was excited as he began to read the article. George Halas returning from the Navy was a great sign of the times for America. The Allies had the upper hand now.
“What do you think The Geek was doing over here in the first place?” Jesse returned his attention to the old mobster.
“He is getting older. He’s got a kid or two, I think. I think the big guy with him might have been one of them. But, I kind of think he was checking it out too. He didn’t say anything.”
“He never did,” Jesse chuckled.
“The kid did all the talking. He just said to make his hair look like it already was but shorter, and then he nodded. He asked if there were any good pizza places around while I was cutting the old man’s hair. I played dumb like I didn’t know who he was and told him no,” Poonrod said as he handed Jesse a hand-held mirror to see the back of his head.
“You were right about that,” said Jimmy.
“I’ll second that,” Domino added. “I told ya it would be a good idea, Pappy. There is money in pizza.” Domino was the only one that called Verne Poonrod, Pappy. It was a term of endearment for the man who saved his life. Domino was also now huge compared to the average-sized guy. To many locals, he resembled Joe Louis, the heavyweight boxing champion. To hear him call Poonrod, Pappy, always made people smile. He truly loved the old guy, and vice versa.
“He didn’t go upstairs?”
Poonrod shook his head. “No, he looked around a bit. He might have heard about a game, but he wasn’t trying to get in on anything.”
“That is the last thing we need in town…” Jesse’s gaze shifted from looking in the mirror when he was interrupted.
“I don’t know what is worse around here, the haircuts or the pinball,” Skeeter scowled to no one in particular as he and Willie entered from the rear of the room with their newly shaved heads.
“No luck today, boys?” asked Poonrod.
“What do you think?” replied Willie with equal disappointment.
“Hey, you guys are looking good. Ladies should be tough enough to keep off ya now,” Domino teased.
“Gentlemen, always nice to see you, fellas. Was it cold last night?” Jesse greeted the two apprentices.
“Yeah, freezing,” answered Skeeter.
Jesse smiled and shook his head. He didn’t believe it. Skeeter came back to the maintenance shop after the last train went through and coaxed Willie into taking off early with him. “Not only did you not get paid for the hour you took off early, again. If I catch you guys taking off early without clocking out again, you will never see another day shift on the rail yard again.”
“Yeah, sorry about that, Jesse. The last train took off, and the wind was whipping up pretty good,” Willie replied.
Jesse did his best not to break character. He wanted to laugh at the two of them because they looked so damn dumb but resisted. “I understand. You heard me.”
“Alright, well be seeing ya,” Willie replied and trudged out the door with Skeeter behind him.
“I got $10 right now. Neither one of those boys’ time cards clocks 40 hours next week,” offered Domino.
“Pa, if they are such misfits, why do you keep them around?” asked Jimmy.
“You ever walk down a rail line in the middle of the night when the temperature is below zero and the wind gets howling?”
“I don’t work on the rail yard.”
Jesse shook his head. “Take my word, it is a thankless job. Those boys show up late and leave early once a week like clockwork. But they show up every day for a tough job. That matters.”
Poonrod exhaled a blast of smoke from the puff on his cigarette. “I’ll second that. You are up next, Jimmy.”