Louis the Butcher
My great grandfather of paternal lineage was a butcher by trade. Everyone refered to him as Papa Louis, everyone that is except for the men in the fancy black sedans who occasionaly stopped to pay a brief visit to Papa Louis. The men didn't look or dress like folks around Buttholeville. They wore tailored pinstriped suits and fedoras on their heads. I was quite young so I don't remember all the details but a few things have stuck in my mind over the years.I remember the cars always had Illinois plates and the men who got out of the front of the fancy black sedans weren't always the same, but the man who got out of the back was. He always had a big cigar in his hand, an overcoat draped over his shoulders, and was the only other man I ever saw who's hair was as snow white as Papa Louis...not grey but literally as white as virgin snow.
Papa Louis was a man of large stature, a stark contrast to the diminutive figure that was my great grandma Rose. They lived on an acreage just off the edge of buttholeville. At the back of the lot was a tall oak tree with an old tire tied from a branch for a swing that overlooked the barn and a small fenced in pasture where Papa Louis' one black mare lived a solitary existance. I remember everything always seemed a little greyer and a little colder during the winter time behind Papa Louis and Nana Rose's house...I'm not sure why.
When the men in the fancy black sedans would come to visit, Papa Louis would take them out to the barn to talk in private. I asked who they were but the only answer I ever got from anyone was that they were businesmen from Chicago. Once I snuck out to the barn and peeked through the weathered grey barn boards while they talked. I couldn't hear what they were saying but I noticed Papa Louis thumbing through a thick yellow envelope before shaking the hand of the white haired man with the big cigar. This man always referred to Papa Louis as Louis the Butcher.
Later in life I learned that as a younger man in the late 1920s and early 30s Papa Louis was what was called a bootlegger during the prohibition era, running illegal alcohol out of the back of his butcher shop in Chicago. Apparently he was arrested and given a choice of going to prison or testifying for the government against a particular Chicago area businessman by the name of Al Capone. Papa Louis relocated to Buttholeville in the middle of the night before Mr Capone was to stand trial.
From what I understand Papa Louis knew several "Legitimate Businessmen" who appreciated his willingness to quietly relocate in the middle of the night. We all have skeletons in our closet...this is one of mine.
Comments (8)
The first was some property my family purchased in the north part of Seattle, in an area known as Ballard. It's basically an area where a lot of Scandinavian folk live. The garage had a rectangular hole in the concrete floor, right under where a car would be parked. I thought the hole was so people could work on their cars, but actually illegal booze was stored in the hole during Prohibition, and then lifted up into the car to make deliveries.
The second time was when we bought the ranch of 35 acres for $11,000 cash in Kent, Washington, which had several odd buildings on the property. The three-room cabin had meat hooks hanging in the ceiling. And there was a barrel on the property that I refer to as "the burn barrel", though that wasn't what it was used for during WWII. This ranch was used as a black market meat operation during WWII, when meat was supposed to go to the soldiers who were fighting in the war. There was a ramp where pickups could pull up to load up the illegal meat.