There is no Kroger store now on East Broadway in North Little Rock, Arkansas. It was demolished to make way for the new Alltell Arena. The “Fifty-Yard Line”, that black night club, is also gone and the pawn shop that was next to it. A.C.O.R.N. would have a fit. That’s the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. Kroger tried to close #634 several times, but the “activists” of A.C.O.R.N., carrying their placards, backed the company down. Low income people need a store in their neighborhood. And so an unprofitable store was kept open , reluctantly.
What a cast of characters frequented 634 daily during the decade of the 70’s! The earliest each morning was “Old Snuff”, with that telltale brown stain edging his mouth. Snuff was dirty, smelly and vile. He would scan the counters for a moldy piece of cheese or darkening meat and bring it to a clerk for a discount. When the customary half-price was quoted, he snarled and cursed, until the price was reduced to a quarter or a dime or a nickel. Then he paid and left the store, without gratitude. Survival skills for a homeless man!
Billy Cook, a wino, would clean the dumpster area like no employee could or would. He was given a bottle of wine for his labor. Billy’s picture was one of dozens in an end-of-the-year story about murders in Little Rock in the Arkansas Gazette.
Ruthie cleaned house for an elderly white couple. They would send her to buy cat food and she would come into the store screaming uncontrollably about the “children” chasing her. Her mood and countenance would instantly change when she saw Cliff Wilson, the young Co-Manager with the Erkle-like appearance. With lust in her eyes she would say: “Mr. Wilson, I’m gonna take u hoooooooome!” Cliff’s dark skin concealed the blush.
Almost lost in the daily parade of homeless, impoverished and elderly customers, was a barrel-chested man with reddish-gray hair and beard, dressed in army surplus. He gave out an impression of gruffness, bitter on life, but I smiled and greeted him anyway. He stopped in his tracks, whirled back around and asked: “What’s so different about you?” While that is the question Witnesses sort of expect and hope for, it took me a couple of sentences to finally say that I was one of Jehovah’s Witnesses.
“Do you know the Visecki’s in Los Angeles? There big Jehovah’s Witness. They go to all of your seminars. Mrs. Visecki almost died, though. She needed a blood transfusion to live. She finally took it, though it’s all “hush, hush”. I know that’s against your religion.”
Well, that was a mouthful on first meeting. I didn’t believe much of it, especially about the Witness compromise. But, after getting to know Jim Colbourne, I leaned toward belief.
Jim’s initial gruffness, I soon learned, was usually manifest on days when his life-friend, Lee, was sick. He once confided in me: “Lee is so kind. I don’t know how he puts up with a son of a bitch like me.” But, gruff or not, Jim and I continued to size up each other. He couldn’t understand why a grocery clerk was conversant on so many levels. I was blown away by the intelligence, directness and communication skills of a ghetto customer. The story began to unfold.
Jim was a child actor in the initial group of Our Gang Comedy, the Little Rascals. As a young adult, he was in contract with MGM studios. Already an established actor well before Elizabeth Taylor came on the set of “National Velvet” in 1948, but never a star, he played roles in movies and television for forty years. His last work came in an episode of “Little House on the Prairie”, where he played a mountain man.
Jim had some issues with the Screen Actors Guild, SAG, but I don’t know all the details. Suffice to say, Jim and Lee earned their living by renting a table at flea markets. Jim’s knowledge of antiques, art and books enabled them to survive without pensions.
Partly through my recommendation, but mostly through their own contact, the store’s employees began to know Jim and Lee. They had mostly Hollywood questions for Jim, the very subject I avoided. Jim never lacked a strong opinion about any actor with whom he had worked. Usually, he would say: “An asshole!” When Lee would step in and offer that they simply had a personality conflict, Jim would continue: “Personality conflict, my ass! The man was an asshole, an absolute prick. He thought his turds didn’t stink! Ha!” So much for trying to sanitize Jim Colbourne!
In Jim and Lee’s almost daily rounds through the store, Jim would at once captivate, intimidate, but always entertain the employees. As his booming voice resounded over the aisles you braced for attack. He ALWAYS caught one off guard! He had dozens of “looks”, theatrical looks that would project across a stage to the balcony. Looks of astonishment, condescension, rage, disbelief, mirth and even compassion. He would even resort to slapstick if he caught you stocking a shelf with your butt facing him: “I’d recognize that face ANYWHERE!’ he would say in a booming John Houseman voice. Double or even triple entendre was the norm. Everything Jim said meant something else, then something else again. His twinkling eyes reflected your misunderstanding.
Jim’s interest in me included questions about my religion. He wanted to know what I believed, by not why I believed it. If I even tiptoed into Bible or Watchtower-speak or tried to illustrate a point, he waved that off: “Yeah, yeah, yeah.” He made it quite clear that he was a Catholic, but a nominal one. He was well aware of all of the horrors and abuses of Catholicism, but knew priests who were good men and nuns he respected. He found it hilarious that Michael Jackson was a JW. “The Jehovah Witness, with undescended testicles!” he called him.
Although I knew Jim liked me and found me a decent conversationalist, his reaction to my wife was shocking! It was love at first sight! I had never seen him so careful, so gentle, so mannerly! “My dear, you are the spitting image of Sophia Loren. With just a dab of make-up here and there, you are her equal!” This was a little unsettling for me, because I had always thought of my wife as pretty, not beautiful. But I have looked back at pictures from those years and see his point. Strong Aztec features on a slender frame with dark eyes and hair. Many Arkies simply viewed her as “Eye-tallion“, as they would say. But it was not physical features that Jim treasured most. It was the total honesty that flowed stream-of-consciousness on any subject. That’s what captivated Jim. He would pull me aside and say: “You have a jewel here. Don’t ever hurt her!”
So I was a little anxious and bemused when my wife whipped our two Bible “journals”. Jim was kind: “Oh, honey, I never read the Watchtower. Too religious. But I would be happy to buy the Awake! from you. It occasionally has something that interests me.”
So Jim became a rainy day return visit, an Awake! reader. But with all the superfluous words above and many, many things I have left out, that was all Jim was to me. He held his hand of friendship out to us and we kept him at Theocratic arm’s length.
I regret that.
TMS
