Playing the Angles

Life among the shortages, like life among the Ubangis, was quite comfortable if you only knew the rules. You had to be sharp, keep an open mind, and remember that the whole thing was a matter of percentages. You had to get up early and work both sides of the street. You had to keep your hand on the throttle and your eye on the rail. You had to make friends and influence people. You had to know Joe and make with the dough with a hey-nonny-nonny and a vo-de-o-do.

Pitfalls and pratfalls were everywhere. In Detroit last week, a woman walked into a butcher shop without having got an introduction from an old customer. A butcher eyed her, scribbled a note to the boss. It read: "Who is she?" The answer: "I don't know. Starve the bitch."

In Kansas City somebody's mother entered a meat shop, was handed a package marked $4.65. "What is it?" she asked. Said the clerk: "A pot roast." She kept on being difficult: "How much does it weigh?" The clerk sighed, kept his temper in a most gentlemanly way, and answered: "Lady, we don't weigh it. We sell it by the piece. Don't you want it?" Then the little lady made the biggest mistake of all. She said: "No."

Hey, Madge, Listen . . . But in Manhattan a thousand sharpies got the word "beef" on the grapevine from the 14th Street Market, were thus able to stand in the rain all night, get into the scrimmage and out again with the bacon by noon the next day. You could get a bear roast in Denver if you knew the right party. And all over the U.S. people were eating venison. A lot of old poacher's tricks were as good as ever, although discretion was necessary. An overanxious hunter in Puente, Calif, got arrested last week after he chased a buck up the road with his automobile and lopped off its head with an ax.

Meat was just one of a hundred fields of endeavor. Baked beans were scarce in New England. Fatback was scarce in the South and thousands of cooks were grumpily boiling vegetables without it--just like the damyankees. But you could get things, Mac. If you wanted to load up on wine, gin, rum or all three you could get a bottle of Scotch. You could get a new automobile by trading in your used car for a reasonable price--say about nine dollars. In San Francisco one John M. McLachlan got a used bathtub for only $8.25 above the ceiling price by buying a medicine cabinet, an ironing board, a garage-door handle and a heap of panel molding with it.

Sometimes you didn't even have to pay extra. In towns where toilet paper was short it was only necessary to haunt hotel washrooms to get a pocketful of the stuff. Housewives in New York's suburban Westchester County maintained espionage networks, reporting to each other the arrival of chain-store trucks, and got first grab. Although it was always correct to tip, when in doubt, it was often possible to become a preferred customer simply by beaming at the high prices. And if you knew the right man in the right line anything was possible.

Wise Wampum. Then there was barter. A car would get you an apartment and an apartment would get you a car. A butcher in Atlanta was doing well in the house construction game--meat got him nails, flooring, plumbing fixtures when other builders were shut down tight. World

Series or college football tickets, good liquor, and even soap, automobile batteries, and sugar had become the wise guy's wampum.

Millions of U.S. citizens seemed to find the whole business highly satisfying. Housewives complained vociferously, but brought home overpriced hamburger as proudly as if they had the Hope Diamond tied up in a pickle carton. There were other millions who got mad, concluded 1) that they were living in an immoral age; 2) that somebody was to blame; and 3) that they were rapidly going broke. But if they got ugly with the butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker they ended up eating eggplant. To get the goods you had to smile, smile, smile.

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