The Other Side of Me

In the midst of all this excitement, I was calm. Very calm. It seemed only natural that this was happening to me at such an early age. You’re going to be world famous.

It was show time. The conversations in the auditorium began to die down and the theater became hushed. The set consisted of a simple living room where a boy and girl were playing a husband and wife whose friend had been murdered. They were seated next to each other on a sofa.

I was playing the detective investigating the murder. I stood in the wings, ready to make my entrance. My cue was the boy on stage looking at his watch and saying, ‘The inspector should be here soon.’ But instead of ‘soon,’ he started to say ‘any minute,’ and he caught himself and tried to change ‘minute’ to ‘soon.’ What came out was, ‘The inspector should be here any minsoon.’ He quickly corrected himself, but it was too late. Minsoon? That was the funniest sound I had ever heard. It was so funny, I had to laugh. And I could not stop. The more I thought about it, the louder I laughed.

The boy and girl on the stage were staring at me in the wings, waiting for me to make my entrance. I could not move because I was laughing too hard. I was helpless. The laughing took over completely and I became more and more hysterical.

The play had come to a standstill before it started.

After what seemed an eternity, from the auditorium I heard my teacher’s voice calling, ‘Sidney, come out here.’

I forced myself to leave the shelter of the wings and stumble out to the center of the stage. My teacher was in the middle of the auditorium, on her feet, listening to my frenzied outburst. ‘Stop it,’ she commanded.

But how could I? Minsoon?

The audience began getting up and drifting out of the auditorium and I watched them go, pretending that I was laughing because I wanted to, pretending that what was happening was not important.

Pretending that I did not want to die.

THREE

By 1930 the Depression had gotten deeper and was squeezing the economic life out of the country. Bread lines had increased and unemployment was pandemic. There were riots in the streets.

I had graduated from Marshall Field grammar school and had a job at Afremow’s drugstore. Natalie was working as a cashier at a roller derby, a new craze that took place in large rollerdrome arenas with huge circular wooden rinks where intrepid men on roller skates raced around the rink, knocking down their rivals and committing as much mayhem as they could while the audience cheered them on.

Otto, meanwhile, was traveling around the country putting together his hypothetical mega-deals.

Intermittently, he would come home filled with enthusiasm.

‘I have a good feeling about this. I just made a deal that’s going to put us on easy street.’

And we would pack up and move to Hammond, or Dallas, or Kirkland Junction, in Arizona.

‘Kirkland Junction?’

‘You’ll love it there,’ Otto promised. ‘I bought a silver mine.’

Kirkland turned out to be a small town, 104 miles from Phoenix, but that was not our destination. Kirkland Junction was a dilapidated gas station, and we ended up living in the back of it for three miserable months while Otto tried to corner the silver market. It turned out that there was no silver in the mine.

We were saved by a phone call from Uncle Harry.

‘How’s the silver mine?’ Harry asked.

‘Not good,’ Otto said.

‘Don’t worry about it. I’m in Denver. I have a great stock brokerage company going. I want you to join me.’

‘We’re on our way,’ Otto told him. He hung up and turned to Natalie, Richard and me. ‘We’re moving to Denver. I have a good feeling about this.’

Denver turned out to be a delight. It was pristine and beautiful, with cool breezes sweeping down from the snowcapped mountains through the city. I loved it.

Harry and Pauline had found a luxurious, two-story mansion in an elegant section of Denver. The back of their home looked out on an enormous, verdant piece of land called Cheeseman Park. My cousins, Seymour, Howard, Eddie and Steve, were glad to see us, and we were delighted to see them.

Seymour was driving a bright red Pierce Arrow and dating girls older than himself. Eddie had been given a saddle horse for his birthday. Howard was winning junior tennis matches. The moneyed atmosphere in their lives was a far cry from our dreary existence in Chicago.

‘Are we going to live with Harry and Pauline?’ I asked.

‘No.’ They had a surprise for me. ‘We’re going to buy a home here.’

When I saw the house they were going to buy, I could hardly believe it. It was large, with a lovely garden, in a quiet suburb on Marion Street. The rooms were large, beautiful and welcoming. The furniture was fresh and lovely, far different from the musty furniture in the apartments I had lived in all my life. This was more than a house. This was a home. The moment I walked in the front door, I felt that my life had changed, that I finally had roots. There would be no more moving around the country every few months, changing apartments and schools.

Otto is going to buy this house. I’m going to get married here and my children will grow up here…

For the first time in my memory, money was plentiful. Harry’s business was doing so well that he now owned three brokerage firms.

In the fall of 1930, at the age of thirteen, I enrolled at East High School, and it turned out to be a very pleasant experience. The teachers in Denver were friendly and helpful. There was no throwing of inkwells at students. I was starting to make friends at school, and I enjoyed the thought of going home to the beautiful house that was soon to be ours. Natalie and Otto seemed to have settled most of their personal problems, which made life even sweeter.

One day, during a gym class, I slipped, hurt my spine and tore something loose. The pain was excruciating. I lay on the floor, unable to move. They carried me to the school doctor’s office.

When he was through examining me, I asked, ‘Am I going to be crippled?’

‘No,’ he assured me. ‘One of your discs has torn loose and it’s pressing against your spinal cord. That’s what’s causing the pain. The treatment is very simple. All you have to do is lie still in bed for two or three days with hot packs to relax the muscles, and the disc will slip back into place. You’ll be as good as new.’

An ambulance took me home and the paramedics put me to bed. I lay there in pain, but just as the doctor had said, in three days the pain was gone.

I had no idea how deeply this incident was going to affect the rest of my life.

One day I had an out-of-this-world experience. There was an advertisement for a county fair in Denver, where one of the attractions was a ride in an airplane.

‘I’d like to go up,’ I told Otto.

He thought about it. ‘All right.’

The plane was a beautiful Lincoln Commander and it was a thrill just to get in it.

The pilot looked at me and said, ‘First time?’

‘First time.’

‘Fasten your seat belt,’ he said. ‘You’re in for a thrill.’

He was right. Flying was a surreal experience. I watched the earth swoop up and down and disappear, and I had never felt anything so exhilarating in my life.

When we landed, I said to Otto, ‘I want to go up again.’

And I did. I was determined that some day I was going to be a pilot.

Early one morning in the spring of 1933, Otto came into my bedroom. His face was grim. ‘Pack your things. We’re leaving.’

I was puzzled. ‘Where are we going?’

‘We’re going back to Chicago.’

I could not believe it. ‘We’re leaving Denver?’

‘That’s right.’

‘But—’

He was gone.

I got dressed and went to see Natalie. ‘What happened?’

‘Your father and Harry had a—a misunderstanding.’

I looked around at the home that I thought I was going to live in for the rest of my life. ‘What about this house?’

‘We’re not buying it.’

Our return to Chicago was joyless. Neither Otto nor Natalie wanted to talk about what had happened. After Denver, Chicago seemed even more unfriendly and uncaring. We moved into a small apartment and I was back to reality, a grim reminder that we had no money, and that a decent job was impossible to get. Otto was on the road again and Natalie was working as a sales clerk at a department store. My dream of going to college died. There was no money for my tuition. The apartment walls were closing in on me and everything smelled gray.

I can’t spend the rest of my life living this way, I thought. The poverty we lived in now seemed even worse after the brief, heady taste of affluence in Denver, and we were desperately short of money. Working as a delivery boy for a pharmacy was not my future.

That was when I had decided I would commit suicide, and Otto had talked me out of it by telling me I had to keep turning the pages. But the pages were not turning and I had nothing to look forward to. Otto’s promise had been empty words.

When September came around, I enrolled at Senn High School. Otto was on the road again, trying to make mega-deals. Natalie was working full time at a dress shop, but not enough money was coming in. I had to find a way to help…

I thought about Natalie’s older brother, Sam, and the checkroom concessions he owned at several hotels in the Loop. The checkrooms were staffed with attractive, scantily dressed women, and hang boys. The customers were generous with their tips to the women. They had no idea that the money went to the management.

I took the elevated train (the ‘El’) downtown to the Loop to see my Uncle Sam. He was in his office at the Sherman Hotel.

He greeted me warmly. ‘Well, this is a nice surprise. What can I do for you, Sidney?’

‘I need a job.’

‘Oh?’

‘I was hoping that maybe I could work in the checkroom at one of your hotels as a hang boy.’

Sam knew our financial situation. He looked at me thoughtfully. Finally he said, ‘Why not? You look older than seventeen. I think the Bismarck Hotel can use you.’

And he put me to work that week.

Being a hang boy was simple. The customers would give their coats and hats to the female attendant, who handed them a numbered check. She would then turn their coats and hats over to me, and I would hang them up on corresponding numbered racks. When the customer returned, the process would be reversed.

I now had a new schedule. I went to school until three, and immediately after school, I would take the El south to the Loop, get off at the station near the Bismarck Hotel and go to work. My hours were from five p.m. to closing, which was sometimes midnight or later, depending on whether there was a special party. My salary was three dollars a night. I turned the money over to Natalie.

Weekends were the busiest time for parties at the hotels, so I found myself working seven evenings a week. Holidays were emotionally difficult for me. Families came to the hotel for Christmas and New Year’s Eve celebrations and I watched the children celebrating with their mothers and fathers, and I envied them. Natalie was busy working and Otto was gone, so Richard and I were alone, and had no one to celebrate with. At eight o’clock, while everyone else enjoyed their holiday dinners, I would hurry out to a coffee shop or a fast food restaurant, have a quick bite to eat and return to work.

The bright spot in my nightly routine was when my Aunt Frances, Natalie’s effervescent younger sister, came to work at the Bismarck checkroom for a night or two. She was a small and vivacious brunette, with a quick sense of humor, and the customers adored her.

A new checkroom attendant, Joan Vitucci, came to work at the Bismarck. She was only a year older than I, and she was very pretty. I was attracted to her, and I began to fantasize about her. I would start by taking her out on dates. Even though I had no money, she would see the positive things about me. We would fall in love and get married, and we would have wonderful children.

One evening she said, ‘My aunt and uncle have a family lunch every Sunday. I think you would like them. If you’re free this Sunday, why don’t you join us?’

The fantasy was coming true.

That Sunday turned out to be a lovely experience. It was a warm, Italian family gathering of about a dozen adults and children sitting around a large dining room table, filling up on bruschetta, pasta fagioli, chicken cacciatore and baked lasagna.

Joan’s uncle was an affable, gregarious man named Louie Alterie, the head of the Chicago Janitors Union. When it was time to leave, I thanked everyone and told Joan what a great time I had had. This was the real beginning of our relationship.

The following morning, Louie Alterie was machine-gunned to death as he was leaving his building where we had had lunch.

Joan disappeared.

That was the end of the fantasy.

Between school during the day, the checkroom nights, and the drugstore Saturdays, I had little time for myself.

Something strange seemed to be happening at home. There was tension, but it was a different kind of tension. Natalie and Otto were whispering things to each other, and looking grim.

One morning, Otto came in to me and said, ‘Son, I’m going to the farm. I’m leaving today.’

I was surprised. I had never been on a farm and I thought it would be fun. ‘I’d like to go with you, Otto.’

He shook his head. ‘I’m sorry. I can’t take you.’

‘But—’

‘No, Sidney.’

‘Okay. When will you be back?’

‘In three years.’ He walked away.

Three years? I couldn’t believe it. How could he desert us for three years to live on a farm?

Natalie came into the room. I turned to her. ‘What’s going on?’

‘I’m afraid I have bad news for you, Sidney. Your father got mixed up with some evil people,’ she said. ‘He was selling vending machines to stores. What your father didn’t know was that there were no vending machines. The men he worked for took the money and ran. But they were caught, and your father was found guilty, along with them. He’s going to prison.’

I was shocked. So that’s the farm. ‘For three years?’ I did not know what to say. What are we going to do without him for three years?

As it turned out, I need not have worried.

Twelve months after Otto reported to Lafayette State Prison, he was on his way back home, a hero.

FOUR

We had read the story of Otto’s heroism in the newspapers and had heard it over and over on the radio, but we wanted to hear it from Otto. I had no idea what prison did to a man, but somehow I had the feeling that he would come home changed—pale and burdened down. I was in for a pleasant surprise.

When Otto walked through the front door of our apartment, he was grinning and cheerful. ‘I’m back,’ he said.

There were hugs all around. ‘We want to hear what happened.’

Otto smiled. ‘I’ll be happy to tell it again.’ He sat down at the kitchen table and he began. ‘I was working inside the grounds of the prison with the regular cleaning crew. About fifty feet away there was a huge reservoir that supplied the prison’s water. It was surrounded by a wall that was about ten feet high. I looked up and saw a little boy come out of a building. He was probably three or four years old. The work crew had finished and I was alone.

‘When I looked up again, the boy was climbing the steps of the reservoir wall, and was almost at the top. It was dangerous. I looked around for his babysitter or nurse or someone, but there was no one. As I watched, the little boy reached the top. He slipped and fell down into the reservoir. A guard in the tower saw what had happened, but I knew that he could never get to the boy in time.

‘I got up and ran like hell to the wall. I climbed it as fast as I could. When I got to the top, I looked down and I could see the boy going under. I jumped down, into the water, and managed to grab him. I was fighting to keep the two of us afloat.

‘Then help arrived and they pulled us out. They put me in the hospital for a couple of days because I had swallowed a lot of water and I had some bruises from the jump.’

We were hanging on his every word.

‘As luck had it, the boy was the warden’s son. The warden and his wife came to visit me in the hospital to thank me.’ Otto looked up at us and smiled. ‘And that would have been the end of it except for one thing. They found out that I couldn’t swim and that’s when everything got crazy. Suddenly I was a hero. It was in the newspaper and on the radio. There were phone calls and letters and telegrams coming into the prison offering me jobs and asking for leniency for me. The warden and the governor had a meeting and they decided that since my offense wasn’t too serious, that it might be good public relations to pardon me.’ He held out his arms. ‘And here I am.’

We were a family again.

It might have been a coincidence, but suddenly a scholarship that I had applied for a year earlier from B’nai B’rith—a Jewish philanthropic organization—had been awarded to me.

It was like a miracle. I was going to be the first one in my family to go to college. A page had turned. I decided that maybe there might be a future for me somewhere after all. But even with the scholarship, we were desperately short of money.

Could I handle the checkroom job seven nights a week, Afremow’s on Saturdays and a full college schedule?

I would see.

Northwestern University is located in Evanston, Illinois, twelve miles north of Chicago. The university, a 240-acre campus on the shore of Lake Michigan, was spectacular. At nine o’clock on a Monday morning, I walked into the office of the registrar.

‘I’m here to enter the university.’

‘Your name?’

‘Sidney Schechtel.’

The registrar picked up a heavy volume and looked through it. ‘Here we are. What courses would you like to take?’

‘All of them.’

She looked up at me. ‘What?’

‘I mean as many as I’m allowed. While I’m here, I want to learn all I can.’

‘What are you mostly interested in?’

‘Literature.’

I watched her go through some pamphlets. She picked one up and handed it to me. ‘Here’s a list of our courses.’

I scanned the list. ‘This is great.’ I checked off the courses I wanted and then handed the list back to her.

She looked at it and said, ‘You’re taking the maximum amount of courses?’

‘That’s right.’ I frowned. ‘But Latin isn’t there. I really do want to take Latin.’

She was looking at me. ‘Do you really think you can handle all this?’

I smiled. ‘No problem.’

She wrote down ‘Latin.’

From the registrar’s office, I went to the cafeteria kitchen. ‘Can you use a busboy?’

‘Always.’

So I had another job, but it was not enough. I felt impelled to do more, as though I were making up for lost time. That afternoon I went to the offices of the Daily Northwestern, the school newspaper.

‘I’m Sidney Schechtel,’ I told the man behind the desk with a sign marked ‘Editor.’ ‘I’d like to work on the paper.’

‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘we’re full up. Try us next year.’

‘Next year will be too late.’ I stood there thinking. ‘Do you have a show business section?’

‘A show business section?’

‘Yes. Celebrities are always coming to Chicago to do shows here. Don’t you have someone to interview them for the paper?’

‘No. We—’

‘Do you know who’s in town right now, dying to be interviewed? Katharine Hepburn!’

‘We’re not set up to—’

‘And Clifton Webb.’

‘We’ve never had a—’

‘Walter Pidgeon.’

‘I can talk to someone, but I’m afraid—’

‘George M. Cohan.’

He was getting interested. ‘Do you know these people?’

I did not hear the question. ‘There’s no time to lose. When their shows close, they’re leaving.’

‘All right. I’m going to take a chance on you, Schechtel.’

He had no idea how excited I was. ‘That’s the best decision you’ve ever made.’

‘We’ll see. When can you start?’

‘I’ve already started. You’ll have the first interview in your next edition.’

He looked at me in amazement. ‘Already? Who is it?’

‘It’s a surprise.’

It was a surprise to me, too.

In what spare time I had, I interviewed many minor celebrities for the newspaper. My first interview was with Guy Kibbee, who was a minor character actor at the time. The major stars were too important to be interviewed for a school newspaper.

I was working in the checkroom and the drugstore, I was taking the maximum number of courses at school, plus Latin, I had a job as a busboy, and I was on staff at the Daily Northwestern. But it wasn’t enough. It’s as though I was driven. I thought about what else I could do. Northwestern had a great winning football team, and there was no reason I couldn’t be on it. I’m sure the Wildcats could use me.

The following morning I went out to the football field where the team was practicing. Pug Rentner, who went on to a glorious career in the NFL, was the star of the team that year. I walked up to the coach, who was on the sidelines watching the action. ‘Can I talk to you for a minute?’

‘What’s on your mind?’

‘I’d like to try out for the team.’

He looked me over. ‘You would, huh? You’ve got a pretty good build. Where did you play?’

I didn’t answer.

‘High school? College?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Grammar school?’

‘No, sir.’

He was staring at me. ‘You’ve never played football?’

‘No, but I’m very quick and—’

‘And you’d like to be on this team? Son, forget about it.’ And his attention went back to the scrimmage.

That was the end of my football aspirations.

The professors at Northwestern were wonderful and the classes were exciting. I was hungry to learn everything I could. The week after I started school, I passed a sign in the corridor that read: ‘Tryouts tonight. Northwestern Debating Team.’ I stopped and stared at it. I knew it was insane and yet I felt compelled to try out.

There is a maxim that death is the number two fear that people have, and public speaking is the first. That was certainly so in my case. To me, there was nothing more terrifying than public speaking. But I was obsessed. I had to do everything. I had to keep turning the pages.

When I walked into the designated tryout room, it was filled with young men and women waiting their turn. I took a seat and listened. All the speakers sounded fantastic. They were articulate and spoke fluently, with great confidence.

Finally it was my turn. I got up and walked over to the microphone.

The man in charge said, ‘Your name?’

‘Sidney Schechtel.’

‘Your subject?’

I had prepared for this. ‘Capitalism versus communism.’

He nodded. ‘Go ahead.’

I began to speak and I thought it was going very well. When I got halfway through my subject, I stopped. I was frozen. I had no idea what came next. There was a long, nervous pause. I mumbled something to end the speech and slunk out, cursing myself.

A student at the door said, ‘Aren’t you a freshman?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Didn’t anyone tell you?’

‘Tell me what?’

‘Freshmen aren’t allowed on the debating team. You have to be an upperclassman.’

Oh, good, I thought. Now I have an excuse for my failure.

The following morning the names of the winners were posted on the bulletin board. Out of curiosity, I took a look at it. One of the names was ‘Shekter.’ Someone with a name similar to mine had been chosen. At the bottom of the board was a notice that those who had been selected should report at three-thirty in the afternoon to the debate coach.