Terkel occasionally emerged from the throng to m.c. the performance. Studs Terkel is a Chicago phenomenon, a talented actor and impresario of the wellsprings of culture, whether jazz or folksongs. In the early days of commercial television, when the experimenting was being done in Chicago, he created a type of entertainment perfectly adapted to the intimate nature of the medium. “Studs’ Place” was the hottest show in Chicago, so far as the response of viewers went, but it soon disappeared. Apparently what Chicago offered could not be exported. The strange belief continues to persist that the tastes of America can properly be tested only on the Broadway crowd (the knowing) or the Hollywood Boulevard misfits (the paranoiac). The crowds and misfits elsewhere do not seem to constitute a suitable national index. Anyway, so far we have not been able to export Studs.
In the growing crowd and increasing turbulence and raucousness, I didn’t care any longer what happened. I just stood in a corner and tried to look friendly. Rhoda and Jack Pritzker came in with a party of friends. People were crushing about Studs and Louis, urging Louis to sing and Max to play. Suddenly I was terribly tired. I wanted air. I was just getting out when the ceiling came down.
The toilet was on the second floor (it served the entire building) and, never very dependable, it had come to the end of the line. When it broke, the water came flooding down through the ceiling onto the people in the shop and taking the plaster with it. Louis was soaked. I shall always remember Rhoda Pritzker barraged by falling plaster and Dorothea Parrish losing her poise and letting out a war whoop. Studs got a piece of ceiling in his eye. Max Miller was directly beneath the broken pipe and suffered the consequences. For some moments it seemed as though the total disintegration of the aged structure was at hand.
I ran up the stairs and began applying my best flood control technique. Finally, with the aid of a pile of rags, we managed to staunch the flow. Those engaged were exhausted, but the party was made; now the laughter rang with real gaiety and the songs soared with enthusiasm. It was one hell of a wake.
The last song was “Honeysuckle Rose.” The damp musicians thanked everyone for listening and said goodbye. There was a hurry of leavetaking. Soon only Ira Blitzsten, Bob Kohrman, and Ben Kartman remained.
There was nothing left but to turn off the lights and close up, yet I couldn’t bring myself to rise from behind the desk. No more building inspectors, no more landlord wishing me good luck, no more broken plumbing ... just the end of the world. All I had to do was get up, look around for the last time, turn off the lights.
Look around at what? The old bookshelves made out of third grade lumber? The dark green walls that Tweedy and Carl Dry had helped paint? The absurd little bench with its hopeful inscriptions? I didn’t need to worry about the bench. I could take that with me.
There was the barrel in the corner, half full of apples ... the battered old coffee pot sitting on the hot plate ... and the string dangling from the ceiling from which a salami once depended. I always bought my sausage from a little old Hassidic Jew who appeared from time to time in his long black coat, black hat, and with a grey and black beard extending down his chest. We would haggle over the price and he would shower me with blessings when he left. All of this was spiced with Rabelaisian jests. Once I asked him, while studying the sausage situation, “Tell me, do you think sex is here to stay?” He thought a moment. “I don’t know vy not,” he said. “It’s in a vunderful location!”
Somehow, I did not see a salami hanging in my new Michigan Avenue location.
But onward and upward! Don’t turn back now, or Lionel’s prediction will come true. All is well. The lease is signed, the fixtures are paid for, you’ve o.k.’d the color the walls are to be painted, no one is threatening you, and you’ve put down a month’s advance on the rent. So please get up and turn off the lights.