by Richard Diem

          …About my newspaper delivery days…I did build up one of the biggest routes in the district.  I was a pretty good salesman and knocked on many doors, selling subscriptions and winning prizes including the big trip to Florida for a week.

 

          At the time, my manager Mister Mack picked me to be the Sunday morning manager. This was at the office on 49 Street off Skillman Avenue, and it meant I had the office key and had to go in early to insert flyers inthe Sunday papers and set up the boys’ paper routes. There was no special time to arrive, but being the worry wart that I was, I sneaked out of my apartment around 3am to begin these duties.  This routine was made easy by the Saturday night drinking parties in my house – by 3am, mom and pop were stone cold asleep.  I’d either leave by the ground floor window or I’d walk right past them and find my bike hidden under the staircase by the mail boxes.  Then I’d race to the office and climb over the stack of bundled papers in the office doorway.  And then, my work would begin…

 

          Shortly after my arrival, there was Nick, a Sunday fixture.  I was not really happy to see him.  Nick was a huge, bumbling, foul-mouthed, dirty fellow with thick glasses, and he called me, “Deema.”  He’d been a newspaper office hanger-on for several years already, and I was told he’d gladly help me even as I said I didn’t need any help.  He was as strong as an ox, and broke open the wired bundles with his hands, refusing the clippers I offered him.  He also had no clue what cleanliness meant.  Needless to say, I was well protected when Nick was around.  Sometimes he bear-hugged me but quickly let go when I screamed at him to knock it off.  In truth I think he was just showing his affection for me. Thank God, he usually left when the other newspaper boys started coming in.

 

          Life does sometimes repeat:  fast forward this story about fifteen years when I became the manager of this same district after I went into the newspaper home delivery business.  Going to work very early on my first Sunday, I opened the office door on 47th Street near Queens Boulevard, and there he was coming around the corner!  “Oh no, not you again!”   A bit older, and looking his same scruffy self, Nick saw me and woke up the neighborhood with a loud bellowing, “Deema!  My God it is you, Deema,” and again, I had to push him hard to break out of his bear hug.  Again, he became a fixture around the office, only this time he didn’t leave early and some of the kids teased him and it was difficult at times to keep him from lashing out.  His nasty habits were the same as ever, as was his foul mouth, and he still opened wired bundles with his hands.  But after a while working with him, I found that Nick had a good heart and only meant to help, never asking for anything more than a cup of coffee and cigarettes.

 

          One time I was at my desk and, I guess out of affection, he bear-hugged me from behind even though I’d told him not to.  I swung my hand up and back, and knocked off and broke his glasses.  He stood, a stunned giant towering over me, but backed away like a hurt little kid.  “Why Deema, why did you hit me?”  I felt bad, but Nick never hugged me again.  Eventually I transferred to another district in Flushing, Queens and I never saw Nick again.