When I was in college I took a part time job intending to learn banking. I learned about more than just finance.
Here’s a few scenes from my brief banking career, culminating in an adventure involving a three year old, Anna, a baby and a pickup truck.
For a few summers and during Christmas vacation in the mid 1970’s I worked at a small bank in my hometown, Libertyville, Illinois. This bank was little more than the building and loan from the movie It’s a Wonderful Life.
I swept the parking lot, weeded the flower beds, shredded documents, filed checks, shovelled snow, worked as a teller and helped repossess cars. I did the stuff nobody wanted to do.
In the afternoon I filed checks with the accounting department staff. I was the only male. For each check we verified the customer’s signature and reviewed the endorsement; thereby learning how the people spent their money. All the while the ladies talked about their lives and the community. I just listened. The checks triggered comments about who was paying whom for what.
“Look Mr. Bunsen spent $100 at the Roman House last Friday.” That was a strip club south of town.
“What would his sweet mother think?”
“Wally Malevitz bought another used car from Bernard’s. That’s the third one this year. You’d think Holly would make him stop. They can’t even pay the mortgage.”
“Poor Mrs. Howard keeps sending money to that TV preacher every day. God doesn’t cure stupid.”
We knew who was having family troubles, giving to charity or buying crap they couldn’t afford. You learn a lot about a person by seeing how they spent their dough day after day.
I organized the correspondence files; they were a disaster. I sat for hours in an underground vault with decades of letters. I read about my father’s car loans, including $900 he needed to buy a 1964 TR4; I loved that car. I saw a series of letters between the bank and Marlon Brando. He owned some land in the area. Most of the other letters were mundane BS; occasionally I read about people in desperate financial trouble. Those letters exposed a side of life I had never seen or imagined. More on that later.
At the beginning of my second summer, I became a teller. Most of my work was stress free; now I had to deal with the public and their money – no fun.
One morning my high school religion teacher, Mr. Roberts stood at my window. I knew him and he knew me. I went to school with his youngest son. His business had failed and he was bouncing checks all over the county. Everyone in the bank knew it. My brother, Pete, called it, “Hanging bad paper.”
“Hi Tony, how’s it going?”
“Fine thanks, Mr. Roberts. How ya doing?”
“Great. Could you cash this check?”
He handed me a $150 check written to cash and drawn on his personal account. I turned away and opened a computer printout on the counter behind the teller line. The bank’s rudimentary computer system generated the report every morning and the head teller, Mrs. Palmeri, marked certain accounts with red ink. That meant we couldn’t cash those checks. Of course my boss painted Mr. Robert’s accounts crimson.
I turned to him and said, “Sorry, I can’t cash your check.”
He said, “Please, Tony. Come on, for old time’s sake?”
I thought, “Old times sake? Sure I’ll give you $150. Then I’ll get fired for old times sake.”
I said, “You can go across the floor and ask Mr. Quinlan. If he approves it, I’ll cash your check.”
“Damn it, Tony. You could do it this once.”
“Sorry, Mr. Roberts.”
With that he scowled at me, grabbed the check and left without saying goodbye. – like a good Christian.
My phone rang; it was Mr. Quinlan.
“Tony, what did Roberts want?”
“He tried to cash a $150 personal check, and I wouldn’t do it.”
“Good job.” Then he hung up.
I didn’t feel good. Roberts thought I was an easy touch, a rube, someone he could buffalo. I liked sweeping the parking lot more than being a teller.
Saturday mornings were the busiest time on the bank floor. Customers lined up with deposits, withdrawals and to get the interest posted in their passbooks. Miss Fisher, a woman in her sixties, came in every Saturday morning and hung around for about an hour. She drank the free coffee and ate the free coffee cake. She dressed like a cheap hooker – short shorts, partially buttoned blouses and the thickest makeup known to mankind. Her hair was dyed Superman black, except at the roots for some reason. One day she joined the long line at my window. I saw her behind the six other customers and my stomach tightened. She had that effect. When she got to the window her perfume formed a cloud around the two of us. It almost brought me to my knees. She wanted to cash a $40 check. I skipped looking at that morning’s report. I didn’t care. She could have been overdrawn by a million bucks. I needed her gone. I gave her four tens and said goodbye.
Mr. Quinlan phoned me immediately,
“What did Miss Fisher want?”
“She cashed a personal check for $40. I did not look at her account balance because she scares me.”
“No problem, Tony. She scares me too.” Quinlan hung up.
I learned the rules could be bent.
When repossessing cars I accompanied a loan officer to pick up the car and drove the wreck back to the bank. Most people who can’t pay their loans, don’t maintain their cars. I drove filthy and dangerously damaged vehicles. They rattled down the road spewing blue smoke and making disturbing noises; one Pontiac seemed to fart every half mile. The steering was always hinky and the brakes an adventure.
My last mission occurred two days before Christmas in 1976. It involved a pickup truck. At around 11:30 in the morning the loan officer, Jim Carey, and I pulled into the parking lot of a rundown apartment complex on the southside of Milwaukee. I did not like the feel of the place.
I told Jim, “I’ll wait for you out here.” This was a chance to show some damn bravery, and I failed.
He said, “No. You’re coming with me. He might have a gun.”
While walking into the building I thought, “I’m making $1.65 an hour and could get shot. There’s got to be a better way to make money.”
Once inside we climbed the stairs to the third floor because the elevator wasn’t working. The long halls were dark and smelled of burnt bacon and rat poison. Carey knocked on the door and a skeleton-like twenty-seven year old guy with a patch over his left eye answered. He was smoking a cigarette and wore greasy jeans, cowboy boots and a bowling shirt. A three year old girl stood behind him wearing heavily stained PJ’s. Her hair looked like a tangled blond bird’s nest. Nobody had combed it in days. She was eating a Poptart. A television playing The Price is Right blared in the background.
Carey asked, “Are you Orville Schultz Junior?”
“Yep.”
Carey handed him a business card and some court documents.
He said, “I’m James Carey from the bank and we’re here to take back a 1973 Ford pickup truck.”
Schultz said, “I knew you were coming. Ya bastards couldn’t wait until after Christmas, could ya?”
Carey said, “May I please have the keys?”
All the while I’m thinking, “Where’s the gun?”
The three year old finished the Poptart, started sucking her thumb, and scratching her privates.
Schultz asked, “What about the f’ing capper? The bank’s got no right to that.” A capper is the shell that covers the bed of the truck.
Carey asked, “Can you remove it?”
Schultz shouted back, “No goddamn way, asshole. It’s freezing and snowing outside. I gotta watch Anna here and the baby. Give me $200 and consider yourself lucky.”
I’m thinking, “Jesus, Mary and Joseph – there’s a baby and a three year old. What kind of gun did he have?”
Carey responded, “I’ll pay $40.”
They went back and forth while I stood behind Moran – hoping he’d take the bullet. Schultz shouted and swore. Carey remained coldly business-like. They settled on $70. Carey removed the cash from his wallet and handed it over. I hoped Anna and the baby might get something special for Christmas but imagined most of the dough would go for beer, pot and smokes.
As we left, Anna said, “Merry Christmas.” My heart ached.
We found the truck in the parking lot. Carey made sure it started and then handed me five dollars for gas and tolls.
I noticed a very disturbing stain on the driver’s seat. It looked like a gallon of blood. As I drove south on I 94 the steering wheel vibrated like a paint mixer at the hardware store. The radio and heater didn’t work. The windshield wipers made the windows dirtier. The ashtray overflowed and garbage covered the floor. The cab smelled of sweat and cigarettes.
Since I couldn’t go faster than forty five, I had time to think. Like a moron I had worried about Orville’s gun, but Anna sucker punched me in the gut with her Christmas greeting. That hurt more.
Around the Waukegan exit, I decided banking wasn’t for me.