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Show "Gone," I said. "Divorced." "Shit Jarvis, that's too bad. I liked her." He lit the fuse. It only took a few seconds. B a. - Irooo rV) Red Before All This They started calling him Redboots because he wore his older sisters boots to school. Jarvis Joe Redboots Loop. Though in a month or two they dropped the Jarvis. Years later, when he was on Midway,-*Wwife would name his first born son Jarvis and he'd sit in front of his tent and crumple the letter and cry out, "Micheall We'd agreed on Micheall Mikel" But he was thousands of miles away fighting Japs. You couldn't trust Catholics. His mother had told him that. "Marry a good Br German girl. A Lutheran. You can't trust Catholics and the Polacls are worse, cheap and shrewd." It took him three years to forgive Helen, once Helen Pelkowski and now Helen Loop. Xtxaxxaataefc To forgive ?J«Mr±«j it took him eighteen. He slept with Hi Helen. „ h , IAA r--y His father's name was LUphaus, Joseph Jarvis*Lwphaus, but he changed it B during the firx First World War to get work. It was tough being a German back then. Krautheads. Victory cabbage. And now it was almost as bad, a depression, The Depression, and he had to wear red boots. Everyday that winter of 1930 he tromped out of Germantown with his*sister Matilda and walked XXK two miles up the Old French Road to Jefferson Grammar, though usually he ditched Tilly as soon as they got out of the ghetto. It was bad enough wearing her red boots. After school he peddled two paper routes. He had to lie about his age to get the first, saying fcxat he was twelve instead of ten, and added a different name, Shorty Wilkey, xxxaxx at a different paper station to get xx the other. That's where Richie Rutkowski HXKKXXX xxxxkx really made it xxxgxx rough. The Rutter went to Jefferson too, one grade ahead xxag though he'd flunked. He lived just on the edge of Polish Town, just south of East 26th, so he didn't go to Garfield with the other Polacks and spooks. But that's where he hung out. He had a little gang that he took over to the West Side sometimes to hit on the Dagos, and afimfltjmPR down to the Bay Front where the spooks were moving in. |