The American Dream: A cliché?
Part 2
The Curse of the Chickens
After the Second World War, America faced some serious labor shortage. Yes , American soldiers fought and died in Europe and the Pacific, so there were not enough men left to work in the mammoth auto, steel and chemical factories. Unlike today, USA was an industrial giant then, and the Government allowed open migration from the Middle East. Mainly Christians from Syria, Lebanon and Jordan were encouraged to come to Detroit and Pittsburgh to work in the factories. They looked Caucasian, and their skin color was fair enough to pass as white folks. English was a problem, but they were good workers in the humongous auto plants. Seventy years later, if you visited Detroit , there would be a large Arab population in some of the suburbs. Detroit even had an Arab News Channel (in English!). There are many Muslims, but the Christians are the majority. The Christian “Arabs” have assimilated very well in the melting pot. Unlike Indians ,education was not a high priority item for their children, making money was the main goal. In Detroit Metropolitan area, these people – indistinguishable from the white folks ( language was not a problem any more ) – own most of the gas stations, convenience stores , inexpensive restaurant franchises , and many other retail stores.
I taught in Wayne State University in Detroit for one year during 1988-89, and had many Middle Eastern students in my econ classes. Each of them worked full time jobs while attending college – they came to classes running from their jobs during the middle of the day and left immediately. No, after graduation they were not going back to their factory jobs like their grandfathers (that’s what the American workers did, the auto plants were super generous with salary and benefits at that time). Unlike the mainstream population in Detroit, which had a serious drug problem, these kids were clean, they were all going into business, mostly started by their fathers already. They had no intention to get a Ph.D. and become scholars, I tried to talk to some of them, they generally laughed at the idea.
The same scenario played out in Pittsburgh , Cleveland and other US cities that were industrial giants in the fifties. The “Arabs” there are now part of the main populace, except their middle eastern surnames, there is no way to tell them apart. They are business men, politicians, policemen and lawyers. Oh yes, Detroit (and possibly Pittsburgh) had the best Middle Eastern food in America , at par with New York City. Right outside Wayne State campus and within a block of heavy duty illegal drug traffic, there was this small Lebanese place. There was fresh lamb, the goat cheese was superb and the baklava was pretty much worth dying for. I am sure several years have been deducted from my lifespan for clogging my arteries during lunch during 1988 and lusting after the very attractive daughter of the owner who worked as a server. Oh well, it was worth it!
But, as you know, the ancestors of these people had been traders for about a millennium , they were all over the Middle East and Africa . They traded spices , silk, slaves and everything else with the Europeans, Chinese and Indians.
In America, some of these immigrants got hit with a trading virus. They left their factory jobs once they became US citizens, and took off with their cars. They drove to small towns and villages in the Midwestern states – an area half as big as India. They were called Lebanese Carpet Traders by the country folks. Yes, the main merchandise was carpets, but they sold almost everything else that was on demand. In small towns and villages, in those days, opportunities for shopping were limited. If you wanted to buy appliances or fancy clothes (or carpets!), you would go to the sole Sears Department store in town, sit down with a sales rep and order your stuff by mail. Or you can mail order on your own from a tattered catalog that you have at home. Or you can drive at least two hundred miles or more to go to a decent-sized town with shopping malls. So the Lebanese traders did good., bringing truckloads of carpets and vacuum cleaners and leather handbags – and joy- right to the villagers’ homes.
Most of these men were single and very handsome, so the red-blooded American farm girls jumped on them (or vice-versa) and within twenty years their children were totally like mainstream American kids.
Johnnny Shalub had his Lebanese grandpa’s last name, he finished high school from a small Kansas town, had a lot of pimples on his face and no marketable skills. An obnoxious alcoholic man gave him a minimum wage job in his gas station in Lawrence, Kansas. There were eight to ten pumps and a small convenience store. In the early eighties, credit cards were hardly used for gas, Johnny went around the pumps where customers pumped gas themselves and collected money or sometimes checks. He managed the convenience store, while the old man sat at the cash counter , yelling obscenities at Johnny (and sometimes at the customers) in his drunken stupor. This old dude was too lazy to do repair work at the pumps or inside the store, so he forced Johnny to do that too. Johnny’s skill set improved somewhat , but he was still making minimum wage.
Soon, the trader’s grandson started hustling. He will buy his own supply of snacks and drinks and restock the shelves in the convenience store. When young women dressed up to party, they hated pumping gas by themselves, so Johnny offered to do it for them for a fee. Same with old folks who had less mobility. Slowly, money started coming. The old man hated all this, he started swearing more at him. At the end, Johnny’s snacks and drinks were over half of the store’s shelf space, and people came to know that this was one of the two gas pumps in town where you do not need to pump on your own.
The old man had a stroke – his swearing transformed into babbling – but his heart changed. He helped Johnny buy the gas station . The bank gave Jonny a mortgage , his savings covered part of the down payment and the old man covered the rest. I guess he turned out to be not so bad after all!!
Johnny now was a business owner, he got married, his wife was chubby and very cute, later cute and pleasantly plump.
Johnny took his business a big step further! One day, when I went inside to pay for gas , I noticed a fantastic smell. Johnny showed me his new dive: a little kitchen with a deep fryer and some golden brown fried chicken at the corner.
The chicken was astoundingly good! I don’t know what Middle Eastern recipe he used, I could taste the spices but could not identify them. It was extremely flavorful but not spicy hot. Johnny turned on the fryer around eight in the morning , the prep work took one more hour prior to that. By late morning, the birds were ready for consumption. Only fried chicken and potato fries with a special sauce. There was no advertising , no flyers, people who would come inside the store to pay for gas would smell the chicken and see the sign for “Johnny’s Broasted chicken”. The chickens were in a heated display case, it was self-service and pay at the counter. Only two sets of tables, mainly takeaway. I don’t know why he called it Broasted, but word of mouth spread rapidly and soon, by early afternoon, the shelves were bare. Soon, Johnny started frying chickens in the afternoon as well.
I took his chicken to several multi-national parties and everyone was surprised to hear that it was from a gas station, not from a gourmet place. I guess I got him free publicity as well.
Johnny started making boatloads of dollars. Did I tell you that the chicken tasted fabulous and everyone loved it? And he had no overhead costs for the restaurant! A Mercedes was purchased, as well as a nice home. The old pickup truck was now used for business purposes only. His wife stopped working part-time at the store and stayed at home to raise their kids. Johnny now had a roaring business, he came a long way from pumping gas for preening young ladies and listening to verbal abuse from an old fogey.
But this story did not have a happy ending.
What messed up Johnny was too much hard work. Cooking twice a day all by himself, and running a full-time business at the same time was just too much work. He would not allow other people to cook his chicken and he was averse to hiring full-time help in his gas station. He was working very hard , stressed out all the time. Some buddies suggested a weekend trip to Las Vegas , closing the chicken store for a couple of days but keeping the gas station open with hired help. Johnny tried his luck at the good old Blackjack tables in Vegas. First couple of times he lost money, the third time was a charm – he came back home with 4000 dollars after expenses. A good way to relax, or so he thought.
Johnny got hooked on Blackjack. Blackjack is a great game for the casinos. With correct play, the odds are about 45% in favor of the players. Not bad odds, huh? But cards come in streaks. Sometimes a player wins many consecutive hands, but he can’t quit – he is thinking about winning big money ! Sometimes the player loses many consecutive hands, gets wiped out and gets more money and gets wiped out again and again! As the odds are almost even, the player bets on likely wins and keeps on losing although statistically it was just a bad streak that apparently never ended! The human mind does not want to concede so easily ! And once you are hooked, you get high playing blackjack in Vegas, I have heard of people playing for 48 hours straight in the casinos.
Initially, Johnny spent all his savings. Then, once he started taking money from the daily sales (the business was almost all cash then), the downhill slide was brutal. He would take 6000 dollars from the cash register (his decent profit for one month) and blow it in Vegas during the weekend. If you lose your monthly income every week, you are not far away from financial ruin. I noticed the chicken store closed every week for a few days. The convenience store started looking like crap, with bare shelves , and boxes piling up on the floors.
Once he defaulted on his mortgage, the end was swift. He lost it all. The bank took the property. The vendors came and took away the unsold merchandise. The Mercedes was sold, his nice house was foreclosed by the banks as well. It took only about three years from the first day he went to Vegas when he had money to burn, lots of it!
Around the turn of the century, Johnny was staying at one of large apartment complexes in town where mainly college students lived. We called these Student Ghettos. The apartments were cheaply built, things were breaking down all the time. Johnny and his wife were in charge of all the minor repairs that needed to be done every day. In return, they stayed rent free. Their salary covered their living expenses, barely. Johnny was a broken man! He will never get back what he had! Damn, he still had pimples! Still freaking young!
Previously, USA had no legal gambling except in Las Vegas and in Atlantic city.
It is ironic ( for Johnny) that the US Federal government and the States started allowing casinos to open up in special places in the nineties. By late nineties, Kansas and the adjacent state of Missouri had casinos in Native American reservations and on riverboats. But in these casinos, there were limits and restrictions, so you can not lose a lot of money. You could play Blackjack for a dollar a hand but a max of 25 dollars per hand. There was a limit of about 500 dollars that you can lose every four hours. Vegas, though, was a free-for-all.
I always wondered if Johnny started his gambling a few years later, he will still be OK because he would go to the local casinos instead of taking the 2000 km trip to Vegas. Heck, he would lose money at a much slower pace and maybe would come to his senses. But maybe not, maybe he would have lost everything after six years instead of three! Who knows!
There is a moral of this story. What is it ?
Don’t gamble? Nope!
Unfettered capitalism sinks a lot of innocent people? Nope!
To find the moral , read the epilogue:
Epilogue: The gas station survives , until today. There is a counter and a kitchen for rent where the Broasted chicken used to be. For about twelve years , a long time, I noticed restaurants opening up, one after another in the same place. I sampled the fare in each of those.
A Mexican place- Frozen food, microwaved by the lazy owner. Folded soon.
A Chinese place – The food was great , but it was authentic Chinese. The customers wanted more bland American-style food. The owner was obnoxious and stubborn, would not change his menu. Folded after a while.
An Italian place- The fat guy had no idea how to cook Italian food, or any food. He piled up Cheese and tomato sauce on everything. Folded soon.
Another Mexican place – Food was good, but only three items on the menu. Customers got tired after a few months. Folded.
A barbeque place: Tasteless pork with a sauce that resembled Ketchup. Didn’t last long.
I think there were a couple more. You do notice a pattern here, dont you?
In conclusion, the chickens gave up their lives for Danny, but their souls were angry at the capitalist system . They must have put a curse on the place for perpetuity! Only a shrine for the chickens will remove this curse! Or maybe a penance with a Hindu priest!