Summer Song writing challenge

“If I Can’t Have You…”

Malo and my summer job

I didn’t enjoy working for my father each summer at the wholesale jewelry store his first cousin Arnold owned. Both Dad and Arnold were all business, and I felt every inch of the undependable teenager I was, working for minimum wage and relying on that steady paycheck to keep me in records and weekend nights out with my friends.

No, I didn’t enjoy the work — changing jewelry prices using adhesive stickers on which I’d print in purple ink, after setting the price keys myself in a machine that likely was used by a Dickens character back in old London. Or padding and boxing and labeling new shipments of pendants, bracelets, and crosses. Every time I got a shipment of crosses, I thought bout Dad and Arnold, two Jewish men, distributing that ancient sign of past undoing.

Yet I continued boxing.

We arrived each morning by a quarter to eight, and Dad started working from the moment he stepped inside. Since I was on a time clock, I waited, punctually, till eight, catching a few minutes’ talk with a co-worker. We got an hour for lunch, and the day ended exactly at five — better not try to leave even five minutes early, because “quittin’ time” was quittin’ time.

Two things, besides the pay, made these summers bearable.

The first was my co-workers.

I was the youngest employee for most of these summers, which went on through my college years, at which point some of the receptionists were fresh out of high school seeking that first step into an employable world. I like to think I can get along with anyone, and over those years, my friendships at work provided the proof.

For the record there were Jessie, Freddie, Calvin, Susan, Phyllis, Chuck, Rick, Jim, Lynn, Cheryl, Robbin, Charles, Shelia (spelled correctly here), and Sylvester. Likely, I have a story about every one of them, but here, I want to focus only on the last two.

Shelia was one of those young women who graduated high school early, got married, and had a baby, before turning eighteen. She was slim, almost boyish, with long black hair and slanted eyes.

She haunted me.

Since she was married, I never thought about getting close to her, or at least not too close. But I thought about her and maybe even dreamed about her. I was a year older than Shelia, old enough to know better, but not old enough to be as discerning as I should have been. Not that anything ever happened, but I hope you understand that desire is desire, and who knows from where it springs, and why.

From what Dad told me, Shelia’s husband was a mean one. How did Dad know? Thinking back on it, I bet Lynn, the receptionist who recommended Shelia for the job, told him. Everyone liked Lynn who was friendly, open, and maybe a little naive. In any case, there were days when I’d notice bruises on Shelia’s face or arm. I have no proof even today of how she got them.

What I do know is that her husband was anti-Semitic. Dad had already said so to me privately, but one day, close to the end of the summer and my exit from the store back to college, Shelia remarked that she couldn’t wait for the second weekend in September, because the store would be closed on that Monday, given that it was a Jewish holiday.

“For once, even Butch is happy that I work for Jews,” Shelia said.

I winced, and maybe she saw it, but I suppose my reactions had only so much power, even though I was convinced back then, and still believe it now, that Shelia was attracted to something about me.

We really knew nothing about each other, and I’m sure we both understood that the arcs of our lives would never parallel, much less intersect after these summers.

Usually, Shelia brought her lunch, some kind of bologna-looking sandwich and chips, but once or twice, I talked her into walking to a BBQ joint up the street with Sylvester and me.

Sylvester was married, too, and tall.

He was also African-American, someone I’m sure Selia’s husband would disapprove of, to put it mildly.

I don’t know what budget Shelia used to buy her lunch, but I could tell she enjoyed it. She and I would get a chopped pork plate, Sylvester, the beef plate. I don’t know that he was a Moslem, but it’s funnier now when I think about my Jewish side not caring a whit over eating pork.

The other thing the three of us did, always on the way back, was pause under a viaduct in downtown Birmingham and share a joint.

Sylvester was a delivery guy who also kept the store clean. Whether he was fucked up or not didn’t exactly interfere with the smooth running of the office. Shelia was a biller, working the store’s only and somewhat crude computer, which looked exactly like the other typewriters used by the two other billers.

So God only knows what Shelia and I contributed to the store eventual closing in the late 1980’s when wholesale jewelry got squeezed out by the likes of America’s Wal-Marts.

Only one time that I remember did Shelia and I take lunch together. She drove us to the BBQ joint, and after we ate and got stoned, we drove to a park and flung a Frisbee that she kept in her car. We were late getting back to work, and Dad looked at me like I’d never seen him look at me before.

Thus ended what could have only been some deep shit for Shelia and for me.

The other thing that made my job bearable was the FM radio I had in the room where I worked, alone. Back in 1973, I found a station, WJLN, which later became WZZK, that played “Free-Form” rock, meaning that they had no playlist, and if you called them with a request, as I often did, they would play it within fifteen minutes. What power.

They played new and old songs, jams, and much that was offbeat and psychedelic. They played the entire Close to the Edge album side once, and yes, I loved Yes, but not as much as my friend Fred did.

Sometimes, though, a song would come on, and whatever price I was fixing would have to wait. This happened the day I heard, for the first time, Malo’s “Suavecito.” Malo was Carlos Santana’s brother Jorge’s band, and maybe they even appeared on Dick Clark’s American Bandstand once. In any case, “Suavecito” was their only hit. Here it is:

I don’t know what to tell you about it, or how to make you love it as I did. Do.

So, after hearing it that first afternoon amidst the pendants and crosses, two things happened to me:

First, I took a break and walked next door where a record store, The Music Depot?, had a copy of the album for maybe $3.99. It was a DJ’s promotional copy, but in excellent shape. It was mine then, and I still have the copy in my vinyl collection downstairs.

The second thing?

Well, nothing tangible, but listen to the lines:

“I never, no no yeah, met a girl like you in my life…

Together we’ll always be, you’ll be mine until eternity…

All I want is you. If I can’t have you, I don’t know what to do.”

That Latin sense of romance and rhythm. The beauty of the percussion expressing what I surely felt. The flugelhorn and bass ending the song but leaving everything else so open. And open, too, my imagination, though my maturity level wallowed in serious doubt.

It’s hard when feelings hook you so deeply. Months after seeing Shelia for the last time, as I lay in bed on a night before Thanksgiving, listening to the radio after a night out with friends, “Suavecito” came on, and I wondered what Shelia was doing, if she was safe or happy.

And of course, I never found out.

Thank you Jessica Lee McMillan again for the challenge! To see and participate, please look here: https://readmedium.com/july-writing-challenge-c63c5d014c29