Susan Had an Associate's Degree, a Contagious Smile, and No Problem Finding Good Jobs...
Looking back at that time in our lives (1980), nothing was going as planned. Susan and I wanted to live in Florida after we got married, and we trusted my father with helping us find jobs. That was our first mistake. Okay, I'll take full credit. My first mistake.
After leaving New Jersey, we stayed with my in-laws in Sharon until Susan and I got settled. I felt horrible about the direction our lives had taken because of me. We had already lived on our own, and as much as we appreciated her parents' kindness, we needed our own place, which meant finding jobs that paid enough.
Because Susan had her Associate's Degree in Early Childhood and a big, contagious smile, she always found good jobs. On the other hand, I interviewed for lots of shitty jobs and took a few in the process. After I left State Mutual, Susan heard about a job driving a canteen truck out of Stoughton. I immediately went and talked to the owner, who hired me on the spot.
We rented a second-floor, one-bedroom apartment on Pleasant St. in Stoughton, and it gave us the privacy we needed as a young married couple. In nice weather, I could walk to the commissary on Washington St, just across from the skating pond, where the canteen trucks were parked, and the food and beverages were kept in walk-in coolers.
I was paid $200 a week, but that wasn't enough. So, I started selling various items off the truck, including cheap costume jewelry and clothing I picked up from some pretty shady characters. And I supplied football cards for gambling on NFL games, which, back then, was the best bet in town. Maybe the only bet in town. A friend of mine knew a local bookie who operated out of a small breakfast joint in Stoughton.
The extra money helped, but I still felt horrible. When we got married, I was gonna work nights and finish college, but when my father left his job unexpectedly, and didn't help us like he said he would, everything changed.
Susan and I were very trusting and more than a little naive, and didn't recognize what my father had actually done. He manipulated us, and when we left New Jersey and headed back to Massachusetts, he was pissed and wouldn't talk to us for quite a while. Neither would my mother.
While I was driving the canteen truck in Norwood, the Norwood Hospital was ready to break ground on a huge addition. I knew it would be a very lucrative stop for a canteen truck, so I started cruising by once a day, in the morning, hoping to see a construction trailer. There was another independent canteen guy who was doing the same. We usually arrived about the same time and made eye contact. Despite having never spoken to one another, we immediately became enemies and arch-rivals.
One day, I hit it right. A construction trailer was delivered early that morning, and I sped across the grass towards it. As I did, I saw the other canteen guy in my side view mirrors. I had beaten him to the punch. He shook his head, almost as if he were saying touché, acknowledging that I had won.
I knocked on the trailer door carrying three hot coffees, some cream and sugar, and some fresh donuts and pastry. I introduced myself to Joe, the thin, gray-haired job supervisor who looked to be in his early 50s. He was happy to see me, and after he sipped some coffee and took a healthy bite out of a fresh cruller, he looked at me and smiled, "You got it, Vin. This stop is all yours! No one else can touch it."
I shook his hand and thanked him. When I went back to the commissary that afternoon, I told the owner, and she was ecstatic. I had to pry a finder's fee out of her cold, cheap hands, but she eventually gave me a crisp $100 bill, which was nothing compared to what she eventually made there.
I had taken a day off from driving canteen and shadowed my father-in-law, who was a self-employed plumber. After he plunged his bare hands into a toilet bowl and flipped me a ring of solidified urine he dug out of the siphon jet hole, which he thought was funny, I had little interest in becoming a member of the family plumbing business or eating Irv's home-made coleslaw ever again.
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I wasn't content with being a canteen driver, and when I heard that UPS was hiring for the Christmas rush, I went to the Brockton facility and applied for the job. I got the job, thinking that if I worked really hard, they'd hire me full-time, and then Susan and I could afford to buy a house and start a family. But after the Christmas rush ended, I was sent packing like everyone else.
My friend Tommy had just bought a rigging company in South Boston, Esposito Movers, and he needed some help, so I worked for him for a few weeks. We moved safes and pianos. I learned a lot working for Tommy…
While I was driving canteen, I met three plumbers at the Mass Hospital in Canton. When I told them my father-in-law was a self-employed plumber, they urged me to stop driving a canteen truck and become Irv's apprentice. When I told them about my experience shadowing him and having no interest in the trade, they countered, "So, you're afraid of the little brown trout?"
When I hung my head, they told me I didn't have to do that kind of work. I could focus on the mechanical stuff, heat, and new construction. They were good guys and very convincing.
After UPS ended and I had no desire to become a rigger, I told Susan I was interested in the plumbing position her father once offered me, if it was till available. She smiled a mile wide and said she'd talk to her mother and father. She knew her father was solid, and that we could count on him.
I didn't set out in life to become a plumber, but it was my best opportunity, and I wanted to make Susan happy. We hadn't even been married for two years, and I had already put her through hell…
Susan and I had escaped New Jersey and my father's controlling grip. I swore to her we'd never go back again…
To be continued…