The Ohrbach GIrl

A few nights ago, I watched THE DEVIL AND MISS JONES on Criterion.  I've been on a Jean Arthur kick lately and this one looked like fun. Charles Coburn is as much as star of this as Jean. As I watched, the story felt so familiar. Not in the particulars, but in the general overarching plot. It took a few hours of thinking for me to remember it. In the early days of my blog, I used to host flash fiction challenges and the story below was from a challenge to write a story based on a Reginald March painting. I picked one picturing a strike in an attempt to unionize department stores. This was exactly what THE DEVIL AND MISS JONES was about. Weird. I always meant to go back and expand the story and submit it somewhere but never did. 

The Ohrbach Girl

by Patricia Abbott

I was eating creamed spinach at the Horn and Hardart’s on 8^th when Dave Lombardi walked in looking snazzy in a gray drape-cut suit topped by a soft fedora. His shoes looked new too. I pushed my scuffed tee-straps farther under the table.

”Maria Batista, you gotta be kiddin.’ All the chow in those slots and that’s what you gave up your dime for. Who are you—Popeye? ”

I didn’t even look up. Dave Lombardi and my pop had been partners once—buddies in small-time schemes. Pop always looked for a soft mat to land on, and Dave kept one ready. My trouble was I was outta work and Dave—well— maybe he could help me. Ma had gotten herself on relief but it wasn't enough dough to buy the kind of rags I liked. At 23, I was getting too old to live off her anyway.

“Still outta work?” Dave asked.

Ma must’ve been flappin’ her jaw about me losing my millinery job. I shrugged and shoveled more spinach into my mouth.

“Listen, kiddo, I might have a lead.”

I rolled my eyes. “Hard to warm up to goin’ to jail, Dave.” I pushed the empty plate away, my stomach protesting at the disappearing dish.In a few slick moves, Dave tossed the plate in the bin, fed the slot, opened the window and presented me with a lemon meringue.“Piece of pie’s not gonna buy many favors,” I said. We had some history—him and me.
“Can’t I be a nice guy?”
I licked at the meringue. “Sure. Whenever you get the urge.”

“Got your Dad’s smart mouth.”

“Pop wanted to leave me more than his bills.”

Dave sighed. “Okay, quit the patter and I’ll tell you about the job.”

Putting a small bite of pie in my mouth, then savoring it, I waited.

“Guy down at Orhrbach’s wants a reliable kid to make hats. Girl that won’t talk union. Chatter is, there’s gonna be a strike. Heard about it?”

I hadn’t. And a job at Orhrback’s sounded pretty okay to me. I couldn’t afford to be sweet on unions.

“You’ll really be workin’ for me. I'm figuring the crowd watchin’ the picket line's a good place to pick some pockets. Just tumble onto the subway if things get outta hand. There’s gotta be an opportunity for mischief with all the bedlam.”

“It’s not a pick it line,” I said. I shoulda known no job courtesy of Dave would be legit.

“Enough with the smart aleck routine. Wanna job or not?” His voice had a curl in it.

“So what's my angle?” I put down my fork to concentrate.

“Get to know the dames that shop there. Which ones carry a lotta dough Maybe we’ll need you to create a ruckus. Have to see how to play it.” He paused. “I like havin’ a man, or in your case a girl, on the scene. May take a week or two to find the best hand to play.”

Ohrbach’s sat on Union Square and every Saturday there was some kinda strike or protest. Poor slobs were tryin' to get a union going. Place was Red Central with the subway lines and buses spewing out jobless people with time on their hands. Within a day or two I usually took my sandwich outside to see what was goin’ on. Sometimes people from up on Broadway put on a play. Other days writers shouted their angry poems. Meanwhile, the clerks from Ohrbach’s marched around holdin’ their signs. Even when Orhrbach got himself an injunction from some judge on his payroll, the workers found ways around it.

The job was A-OK s'long as you didn’t mind back-breakin’, poor-payin’ work. Guy I worked for was nice enough, but jeez, that Ohrbach was a cheap bastard. Livin’ with Ma, I could make out, but some of ‘em supported a family on eight bucks a week. Fifty-seven hours work for chicken feed. And Ohrbachs wasn’t no Bonwit Teller’s. It was a crummy crowded store—damp and stuffy. After a while, I wanted to carry a sign myself. Dave and his scheme began to eat at me.

“This is the set-up,” Dave told me, on the phone in the building's vestibule one night. “Create a disturbance on the square. Somethin’ that'll pull security out of the store. Maybe accuse someone of being a Red. Or a thief. Get into a brawl.”

“I weigh 100 pounds. Think I can take on some of them bruisers millin’ around?”

“Just cause trouble. Monkey Business—that’s what the newspapers call it when the Commies do it. Guards are waitin’ for it since some noodle head opened a crate of mice in Notions last week. Ohrbach beefed up the force and I got two guys inside now who are just waitin’ to empty the tills and jewelry cases.”

“What if I say no?”

“Milliners are a dime a dozen.”

Saturday was a nice day and the crowd was the biggest yet. Someone gave kids balloons that read, “Don’t Buy at Ohrbach’s” and the cops were wrestlin’ them away. Kids were crying like Santa had forgotten to stop at their house. One kid had a bloody nose, another broken glasses. Oh, that Ohrbach. He had every crooked pol in his pocket.

As I puffed up with rage, it suddenly came to me how to make a disturbance—though probably not the one Lombardi had in mind. I grabbed a picket sign from the nearest girl and dashed into the center of the square where a statue of George Washington riding a horse sat. Putting the sign in my mouth, I mounted that statue and stuck the sign under George's arm.

A cheer went up, and a thousand people rushed the statue, stickin’ their signs around the base forming a barrier from the cops. We got our picture in the Daily Worker though none of the other newspapers touched it—chicken shits.

Things worked out okay for Dave too. His guys cleared all the first floor tills and the jewelry counter before the cops came. My take was enough to buy Ma a new radio. Sure, I wasn't gonna say no when the envelope came my way.

‘Course Orhbach fired me and dozens more the next day. You never can win with those guys.