By Wayne Lerner

“And they’re off!”

Those are words I have only heard on TV, not in person, as I have never been to a race track except when it is closed.

Let me explain.

In college, I worked for my grandfather who owned Acme Heating and Air Conditioning, the second oldest HVAC firm in Chicago. Why was it called Acme? Because then it would be first in the Yellow Pages when people looked up air conditioning firms.

It wasn’t a big union shop, but busy enough that, every summer, Gramps employed many men to service home and business air-conditioning systems. Most were local technicians but many came from Mexico to work and send money home each week.

Gramps had an interesting and diverse staff and a fascinating set of clients.

One was a tall, slender man with sloping shoulders whose eyes sparkled with kindness, most of the time. Underneath, he had a mean streak emanating from his pores from growing up on the streets. He was born in Little Italy of Jewish parents who had emigrated from Russia. My great grandparents had little control over him. In sixth grade, he was sent to Montefiore, a school for students with severe emotional disorders, aka juvenile delinquents. 

He never had any formal education beyond sixth grade but was as street smart as any person I had ever met. While Gramps had some latent racist tendencies and was known to make offending comments, he put his arms around all kinds of people, anyone in need. They loved him for his generosity and were loyal to him. That was the trait he valued over all others.

As a teen, he was the leader of the 16th Street Gang and tooled around the city on his motorcycle. He was known for his brutal toughness. His knuckles were scarred, his hands callused. There were marks on his arms where cuts were stitched up from fights long ago. More than once, I would urge him to tell me what it was like growing up at that time.

“Was it as dangerous as they say?” I would ask.

“It was not easy being the only Jew in the neighborhood gangs,” he said. “I got called all kinds of names. My friends reminded me that I didn’t belong there. Why? It was a religious thing. After all, they said, ‘the Jews killed Christ, didn’t they?’” 

“Did they beat you up for that?” I asked, seeking the details behind his injuries. 

“We made a peace treaty because we had bigger fish to fry than who killed Christ. We all needed money, we were dirt poor. My father, your great grandfather, worked as a tailor and your great grandmother cleaned houses. My friends’ parents were in the same boat.”

My mother would tell me stories about her father’s misadventures when he was young. She said that he was a part of the Capone gang.

She said that, in his twenties, he got a job delivering booze for Al Capone. Gramps drove a cab six days a week but, on Sundays, he took his mother for rides so she could get out of the house. The problem was that he would only take her through the alleys of Chicago and nearby suburbs.

The family legend goes that his mother called Capone and demanded that he be released from his service.

Every so often, he would ask her to get out of the car. 

“Ma, you need to stretch your legs.”

“Why, Leo?” 

“Because the doctor said that you shouldn’t sit too long.”

“If the doctor says so, I’ll do it.” 

When she left the cab, he lifted up the backseat where the booze was stored, unloaded the illegal products and delivered them to big Al’s clients’ back doors.

When his mother realized what he was doing, she was apoplectic. 

“Leo! You have become a criminal, a goniff, a thief, a no-good-nik! What am I going to do with you? You are going to get caught and be sent away again. This time you are not coming back!”

You don’t piss off an old woman who sacrificed all she had to get her family out of Tsarist Russia and away from the pogroms.

She wanted Gramps to get an education and become a professional-a doctor, a lawyer, even an accountant.  That would have been her idea of success. That wasn’t in the cards for young Leo. All he wanted to do was fool around, make money delivering booze, and gamble. Leo didn’t use the money he made to play cards, dice or the horses. He bought vacant property, sometimes alone and sometimes with his Uncle Herb, another alum of Montefiore. How they got the sellers to agree with the prices they offered is a story unto itself.

The family legend goes that his mother called Capone and demanded that he be released from his service. I can just imagine that conversation. 

“Mr. Caponey, I want my Leo out from your terrible business. It’s illegal. And if he gets into trouble one more time, the authorities will send him to the labor camps, not to a prison. Please, Mr. Caponey, find another putz to deliver your liquor. Just leave my Leo alone!”

Capone—who’d never been talked to that way, certainly not by an 80-year-old Russian woman with broken English—would have roared. 

“Mrs. P,”  he would reply, “Calm down. I have a proposal. How about if he works for me just one day a month. You see, he is quite good at his job and nobody gives Leo any trouble. Not never. What do you say?”  

I am sure the call was not long, but still one for the books. In the end, Capone relented. He respected her family values, the old woman’s guts and her commitment to her son. And he knew if he didn’t let Gramps go, my great grandmother would never stop nagging him.

These events can’t be validated but were told quite often as I was growing up. Whenever the story came up, all Gramps would do was give a sly smile and a twinkle would come into his eyes. He would never say a word about those days or the stories. Just smile.

His choice of staff and customers reflected his upbringing. The latter included bookstores that sold racy material in their back rooms, special town houses where suspect illegal activities were going on night and day, most of the City of Chicago police and fire departments and libraries. And the tracks, Sportsman’s and Hawthorne. Gramps never had any trouble with the police. Ever.           

My job at Acme was to take apart the window A/C units, fix their problems and then put them back together. More often than not, I ended up with more parts on the bench than in the unit. But the unit worked, kinda. What can I say? I was a college boy with no technical skill whatsoever. 

One Monday morning, I heard Gramps holler from the office in front.

“James, get up here. There’s someone I want you to meet.”

Coming in from the back, I saw a gentleman talking to Gramps in heavily accented English about a job just assigned to Acme. 

“I want you to meet Juan,” Gramps said. “He will be your boss from now on. Just follow his directions and you will do just fine.” 

Gramps assigned me to work with one of his most trusted employees. Juan worked for Acme for over twenty years. He would arrive from Saltillo, Mexico every April 1, like clockwork, in his beat up but reliable truck.  A touch over six feet, a solid two hundred pounds, Juan knew how to handle himself. With a perpetual 5 o’clock shadow and muscles bulging from his work shirt, Juan was my protector and tutor. 

Over four years, Juan unsuccessfully tried to teach me Spanish and eat foods that were quite spicy as he watched over me like a second father. He made sure I didn’t mess up the jobs we were on or the guys didn’t give me too much trouble. I had to learn to stand up for myself, but sometimes things went too far. That’s when Juan stepped in. A quiet, commanding presence who made his point of view known in both Spanish and English, with emphasis added.

Juan knew I was not cut out for the air-conditioning business and that my grandfather was doing me a favor by giving me a job. 

“James, why you cut yourself so many times on our jobs? A good repairman finishes the day with no cuts, no blood. It no good to go to bars after work looking like you lost the fight!” Juan’s laugh was long and hearty matching the smile on his face. “We have to stop at Walgreens before we go home to get you more band aids!

Daily, I would nag my grandfather to be assigned the more risqué places to service.

“Why can’t I go to that bookstore on Rush Street or that house on Cedar like the other did guys last week?” 

“First, you are not old enough. Second, You’re my grandson and I don't need shit from your mother who will certainly find out where I sent you. Third, why do you need to look for trouble? You’re a smart boy, you're in college. Get a fucking education and leave those calls to someone else.”

So Juan and I serviced home and apartment units, corporate clients like Solo Cup in Ford City and the tracks.

At the race tracks, my job was pretty simple, but potentially dangerous. A flat-bed truck delivered large heating and air-conditioning units to the site. A crane with a large boom was brought in, a big hook attached. The hook had to be put in the eye bolt which was fastened to the top of the unit. Once the connection was made, the person attaching the hook to the eye bolt had to scamper down a ladder and get off the flatbed truck before the crane began to lift the unit to the roof. That was my job. I guess I was considered expendable because I was the only non-union guy around.

Over the course of a week, we would install ten to twelve rooftop units. In between the installations, we would trudge through the race track with our footsteps echoing down the hallways as it was empty of any patrons, only service workers present. We would walk by the betting windows, watching the cashiers stock their drawers full of cash under the close scrutiny of the floor bosses, for the races later that day. 

One afternoon, after doing an install and before going to another job, Juan and I went to the cafeteria for a cup of coffee. We were sitting there when one of the guys who worked at the track, recognized us and came over and sat down. 

“You guys work for Acme, for Leo?” he asked. “Oh yeah, my name’s Rocco. I like Leo. He doesn’t bullshit around. If he likes you, great. If he doesn't, you better watch out. I don’ want to be on his bad side. I heard the stories, you know, and they weren’t pretty.”

 Juan just nodded his head. I sat there staring at the guy like he was an actor out of the gangster movies.

Rocco was a presence at the track. Dressed in high waisted black pleated slacks, a colorful shirt and pointed Italian shoes, always polished.  No one knew what he did. He was not one of the service guys, not dressed like that. 

Juan and I were well aware of the rumors of who worked at and financially benefited from the track. We did our jobs and that’s all. We were not there to make waves, new friends or enemies.

Anytime we were at the track to install or service the units, Rocco was there. He would always seek us out to sit and talk. 

Rocco had a hard edge to him, but seemed to be a pretty good guy underneath. He treated Juan and me with respect. In turn, we respected him. Whenever we got together, however, Rocco did all the talking. 

He told us stories of his family and how hard his dad was on him.  How he really couldn’t make it in school.

“I don’ like all that reading and writing. I like doin’. Ya, know what I mean?”

He would laugh and then tell us about his escapades with girls he was trying to get into bed that week.

“You ought to see Betty Ann. What a looker and built! Like a brick shithouse, she is!”

And a little bit about his siblings. But only a little bit, like he was trying to hide something.

We never saw Rocco pay for any of his food or drink. He always had a full tray of refreshments with him and would bring it to our table when he wanted to talk with us. 

“I’ll buy,” he would say as we walked in. “Whaddaya want? A date with Betty Ann? You Acme guys can’t handle that broad.” Rocco had a laugh which bounced off the walls of the cafeteria and brought everyone’s attention to him. 

As a gesture of friendship, we would offer to buy him lunch or something to drink if he ever came over empty-handed.

Most of the time, my job was to get Rocco black coffee which he had with his ever-present cigarette. He carried his pack of unfiltered Pall Mall’s in a folded up portion of his shirt sleeve, under which he wore his white Dago tee. Rocco was always in uniform and played his role perfectly.

One day, towards the end of the summer, Rocco was moaning about his brother who, he said, was going to be gone a long time. 

“Me and my older brother take care of each other. Nobody fucks with us. He’s the only guy I can trust, the only guy I can lean on.”

“What about us?” I asked. “You can trust us. We can keep our mouths shut.”

“Sure,” he said. “Like you, college boy, and your Mexican friend here are going to do the shit we do. No fuckin’ way. You don’ have the fegato to do our kind of work. Capisce? Do you understand?” 

Rocco laughed loud and long, then stopped as if the reality of the situation he was going to face entered his consciousness. 

Rocco’s face contorted as it moved from laughing to concern, fear and then terror. 

“I got to go,” he said as he got up from the table. “I gotta get out of here before I talk too much.”

“Wait,” I said. “What’s with your brother? You started to say something about him, then you stopped.”

Rocco paused as he stood over us, looked around and said in a quiet voice, “He killed a cop who was staking him out. The cop figured it out what our business was and was goin’ to take us in. My brother didn’t know that the cop had friends with him. They nabbed him after he shot the cop in the head. They took him to court. Now he’s in Joliet for murder one. And he ain’t coming back.”

I remember nothing more about the rest of the day. My mind went blank. Throughout the rest of the summer, we saw Rocco several more times before I had to leave for college but he never came over to talk or sit with us again. 

Once he told us the story about his brother, it was clear he needed to avoid us. He was never the same after the day of the big reveal. His appearance got sloppy and he no longer had a swagger in his walk. He shuffled from place to place, looking like a man with no future. Once, I heard one of the pit bosses hollering at him. If Rocco’s brother was still around, that would never have happened. Rocco’s protector was gone. Now he was on his own.

The next summer, I went back to work for Gramps. When we got to the track, Rocco wasn’t there. No one knew what had happened to him or they weren’t saying. Just then, the head of the pit bosses came over with his coffee, sat down and lit a cigarette.

“You guys from Acme?” he asked with smoke billowing from his nose as he spoke.

“I got a few window air conditioners in the apartments I manage which could use a tune up. They’re making funny noises. Think you can do me a favor one of these days?”