Katie's Sketchbook - Christmas at Famous-Barr 1976 - 1. Part 1 – Scene One: Magic Ain't Easy

Katie's

Sketchbook

Christmas at Famous-Barr 1976

A Novella

By

AC Benus

Contents

Part 1 – The Week Before Thanksgiving

Scene One: Magic Ain't Easy

Scene Two: Kismet

Part 2 – A Cast of Visitors

Scene One: Breakfast with Miles

Scene Two: "How do you do?"

Scene Three: Breakfast with the Boys

Scene Four: Sloan's Morning with Katie

Part 3 – Wonderland

Scene One: I don’t think we're in Ohio anymore

Scene Two: The Better Piece of Chocolate

Part 4 – Haggling at Soulard, and an Unexpected Surprise

Scene One: Even a Grizzly

Scene Two: My Hand from my Glove

Part 5 – "How do you do?" – The Climax

Scene One: The Whispering Arch

Scene Two: Two Dignitaries of the Season Finally Meet

Part 6 – Magic

Scene One: A Pair of Wishes

Cover Art: Famous-Barr employee newsletter for holiday season 1976.

Part 1 – The Week Before Thanksgiving

Scene One: Magic Ain't Easy

He picked one up and inspected it. A glass tray, like the bottom of a butter dish, rested next to the register, and faced customers with a neat stack of matchbooks. Arrayed in the same way that mints would be, Sloan always made sure his gentlemen customers grabbed one on their way out. 'It's the best advertising possible,' he silently mused.

The Famous Man, the front cover announced in lowercase block letters positioned before an offset sepia-toned sunburst. This disk with stylized rays of glory coming out in organized, organ pipe fashion from the center looked like it was borrowed from a Spanish Mission: an elegant and a clear nod to tradition, with its penchant for old world bluster. But he liked it, and although his mind was slightly troubled, fingering this white flap of incendiary advertising grounded him.

He admired the back side too – Store for Men – appeared in white characters along the bottom corner of a black box with the same sepia tone outlining it. Sloan was fond of the store's logo, which was also done in white lettering, but boldly cursive and dynamic as it ran Famous-Barr up the center of the cube at a 45-degree angle. It was a decisive look; it had strength, and yet it was graceful; he hoped it was something like himself, but he feared it was actually more like Richardson.

He chuckled, recalling the first time he had fingered one of these matchbooks. It had been a sweltering June day, but now after nearly eighteen months of being a 'Famousite,' his second winter season and the store's busiest time of year was about to set in.

As for Saint Louis, it was amazing. He'd never imagined a city could be so well balanced between the modern and historic – what other place had ever erected a monument as visionary as the Gateway Arch, for example – and everywhere was money coupled to effortless elegance. A view of wealth inherited and carried unbroken from French times looked down on ostentatious displays of the gaudy, and praised the well-appointed as the invariable standard of measure. From art to the symphony, to jazz and the nightclubs on Laclede's Landing, the place had something for everyone, and much more if you were lucky enough to be one of the Fortune 500 executives who were more plentiful per capita in The River City than New York, Chicago and Los Angles combined. For Sloan, it was an incredible place to be in the business of fitting gentlemen with the right suit – and he loved what he did with a passion.

A female cousin, who worked in Central Accounting upstairs with its network of vacuum tubes connecting it to every corner of the store, introduced Famous to him and set up an appointment. His old life in Columbus finally felt left behind, and so did 'him' – the bastard who broke his heart so thoroughly. Fresh starts, independence, that was what Sloan told himself he needed.

As for thoughts of summer, they invariably brought back with them the thrill and excitement of lying out on the grass of the Arch grounds and watching the Bicentennial fireworks for several nights in a row; that mass spectacle was free to all, and such a success, there was already talk of making it an annual event. The only 'complication' to what he told himself he wanted – independence to match the natal day of the Nation's own – was that he had not experienced the Fourth on his own. Far from it, for only a week and some days before, he had met Richardson – Richardson and his daughter.

A customer arrived with an FB suit bag.

"Good morning, sir. May I be of assistance?"

The matchbook got set aside as Sloan reached over the counter to snag the hanger part extending from the protective garment carrier.

"Yes, I need an alteration."

The customer was a strikingly handsome young man in his twenties: an African American in luxe suit and tie, and an even more luxuriant smile for Sloan.

"Certainly." He hoisted the bag and led the way. "If you'll follow me, please."

The Men's Suit Department on the Second Floor of the downtown flagship store was like its own suite of rooms, only the 'walls' were made of tall cabinets with hooks for displaying the various styles of the current season.

Off to the left of the register area was a three-part, full-length mirror and the discreetly curtained entrance to the changing rooms.

Sloan placed the customer's apparel on a rack and unzipped. Sliding the bag off the shoulders of the wooden hanger, he unrobed the suit coat. "Shall we try it on, please?"

The gentleman took off his coat and jacket and laid them over the back of a white leather club chair. Sloan held the item to be altered open for him, and the customer turned around to help him slip it on.

Sloan immediately lifted and let the shoulders resettle into a natural position on the man's body. Then he tugged resolutely a few times on the skirt of the coat. "It's as if this jacket was made for a much larger man."

"I know; I've lost a lot of weight recently."

"Congratulations, and no problem – we'll gladly take in your suit for the 'new' you."

Sloan gathered the fabric along the seams mid flank of the garment and pinched them. An inch of excess material pooled between his grasp on both sides.

He let go, and reached for his inner coat pocket. Taking out his leather-bound alteration notebook – with its self-housed sterling silver pencil – he noted: 'Half-inch take-in side jacket seams.'

"How do the shoulders feel, sir?"

The handsome man rotated to face him, and smiled again as he raised his arms. "A bit loose."

Sloan checked, and immediately entered in his notebook: 'Quarter-inch take-in under arms.' He tugged on the cuffs, just to make sure the sleeve length still worked; it did.

"Now, sir, let me help you off with that, and you can go slip on the trousers."

In a couple of minutes, the man reemerged from the changing area with the baggy pants in place.

"Right here, sir." Sloan indicated the standing platform bulls-eye with the three angled mirrors. The customer stepped up, and Sloan – who had taken the changing interval as a chance to get the official paperwork and a tape measure – knelt down. He first tugged at the waistband to make sure it rode the gentleman's hips at the right place, he then again gathered fabric along the outside line of stitching.

He entered: 'Half-inch take-in along trouser seams.'

As he whipped off his tape measure to get a new waist size, he mused quietly that if only the customer knew Sloan was simply going to write up the order form and walk the suit across the street to Boyd's, he'd probably go there first! Ironic, but Boyd's was not only the region's Brooks Brothers – giving the real Brooks Brothers' upstart location down the street a run for its money – but arguably the best tailoring resource in the city. So the department store relied on that old-school professionalism for the quality FB knew would keep its customers happy. It was a win-win, but still his mind drifted over the fact that Famous' old tailoring room, with its steam presses, industrial-sized sewing machines, and large tables for cutting out suit cloth, was just inside the staff door to the behind-the-scenes area. They could hire a tailor, perhaps even lure one away from Boyd's, and be back in business. 'I mean,' he thought. 'Why give fifty percent of the alteration fee to our competition when we don’t have to?'

As he wrapped up his measurements, Sloan considered that he'd have to raise the business proposal with his big boss. Maybe the manager of the Menswear Department would agree.

Back at the counter, Sloan took down the gentleman's contact information. "It should be done in one week, and I will give you a call."

As the young man from Ohio wrote, his free hand came out to slide the matchbook he had been looking at into the reach of the customer's grasp.

A shy glance and grin was his reward as the contented client palmed it. He asked, "But next week is Thanksgiving week – "

"Oh, it will be done before then – probably by Tuesday."

"That's great. I can't wait to come back and see the store all done up for the holidays."

"Yes, it's amazing – but you'll have to pop in the following week, as the Famous 'elves' only come out to transform the store the Friday after Turkey Day. They work all through the weekend – it must be madness."

"I guess," the man chuckled. "Magic ain't easy."

"I hear ya on that one." Inexplicably, a mental flash of Katie, Richardson's twelve-year-old daughter, flitted across his consciousness. "This upcoming season should be one for the record books, and this year's theme has an English accent."

"What?" The customer's tone chuckled with curiosity.

Sloan deflated, realizing his slip. "Oh, I'm sorry, sir. I've already said too much. The holiday themes of the department stores are top secret, but our charity event to launch this year's will be a big affair, so if you have children, be sure to check out the papers on Tuesday. That's when Stix and Famous officially announce their Christmas programs for the year."

The man looked rankled by the 'children' reference. Sloan almost bit his lip – as a Gay man himself, he'd never want to go out of his way to make another out person feel ill-at-ease.

He handed the customer his order slip with a "Sorry," and the man left.

'It's Richardson's fault,' he thought. 'He's the reason I've got children on the brain.'

As Sloan completed the form, and then zipped up the suit, he considered the rainbow scene in STL. The Gay nightlife was leaps and bounds ahead of central Ohio in variety as well as the number of establishments to visit. Thanks to a tip first mentioned by his cousin upstairs, he'd settled on a particular piano bar – Clementine's – as his social home base, and Sloan soon found out it had been an institution of Pride in the city since the 1950s. Anyone who was anyone had drifted through this Soulard Neighborhood bower for ages, and already in his short time there, he had gotten to sing old standards in casual duets with the likes of Barry Manilow and Bobby Short. Needless to say, it was fun, and Sloan loved being a regular there, for the well-dressed and dashing twenty-five-year-old farm boy, with his soulful brown eyes and sandy hair, stood out as a desirable companion in the eyes of the slightly older, slightly better-established clientele of one of the oldest Gay clubs in the United States.

"Hi, Sloan."

He glanced around, and his young coworker, Giulio, was smiling while striding up to his counter.

"Nice break?" Sloan asked good-naturedly.

"It was cool, man. Thanks."

Giulio was a floppy-haired nineteen-year-old boy from The Hill Neighborhood. He had gotten his dark features and Valentino good looks from his Italian immigrant father who was one of the store's delivery van drivers. He wanted to get his son into a white-collar position with Famous if he could, and the Second Floor was trying him out in various departments.

Sloan liked the kid; he was a quick learner.

"Hey, Giulio…" Sloan checked his watch. "It's 20 minutes to 12; I'm gonna snag these bags and run over to Boyd's before lunch. You okay to man the ship until one?"

Giulio grinned and jerked his head to the side. His words were accompanied by hands thrusting into the pockets of his suit pants. "Sure, Sloan. I know Osgood is around too."

'Osgood' was Mr. Hubert, the Men's Business-wear Manager. "Okay," said Sloan, gathering up the three garment bags. "I will see you later."

"Later, Sloan."

Chuckling to himself, he stepped out of the suit area, then turned to the left and headed to the eastern escalators. He trod over the giving texture of the cork tiles making up the main aisle while glancing around at the sparkling displays. Then, as so often happened, the young man was struck by how massive the Second Floor of Famous-Barr really was. With a building storefront covering an entire city block of 228 feet by 271 feet, the Menswear floor has a capacity of just under 62,000 square feet of display space. Few department stores in the world could match that, and this was only one floor in a building in which Famous sprawled itself over nearly a dozen floors of this exact same size. It was all so amazing.

He hurried down the escalator, not paying much attention to their Art Deco grandeur, because he didn't want to be late.

Out one of the three double doors, he looked for traffic and dashed across Olive Street; Boyd's entrance was almost dead centered with this Famous entry, but a few steps east, towards Sixth Street.

Entering through their main door, he again remembered why Boyd's was the best: the place even smelled of success and money, at least money as a high-class purveyor of menswear would understand it. A delicate wreath of Merino wool, couched in fragrances of camel hair and cashmere crowned his head and was unmistakable to the initiated; those fabrics imported from places as far afield as Italy, Britain and France were ungodly expensive.

He stepped aside for browsing customers with his most courteous of professional smiles firmly in place and regarded the 1920s elegance and delicacy of the rosewood cabinets lining the far wall to his right. Above each one was Boyd's fearsome trademark from days gone by – a round shield of ancient Roman design with two crossed swords behind it. These low-relief plaster medallions had an ever so slight collection of dust on them, but far from marring the effect, it enhanced it by lending a time-tested and time-worthy seal of approval that money invested in Boyd's wearing apparel would hold its value.

"Mr. Hirshhorn!" Sloan strode up to a distinguished-looking man behind a counter outfitted with a bronze 'TAILORING' plaque. Victor Hirshhorn was a taciturn man of the old-school variety, and one not to be trifled with. Still, in Sloan's mind, he was exactly the sort of character customers would expect to be manning a counter at Boyd's.

"Ah, Mr. Stevenson. You have suits for us?"

"Yes, sir. Three pair." Sloan laid the clothing carriers on the 'tailoring' counter before Hirshhorn, and handed over a folder with the work orders.

"I'm glad it's you who brought them, and not that 'kid.'"

"Giulio? He may be young, but he's eager to learn. We were all young professionals once."

The expression on Hirshhorn's face said he thought otherwise. The man was slender, about five-foot-seven or eight, and as one would expect, his business suit was of the finest dark blue pinstripe wool and expertly tailored to fit his form like a glove. Gray hair crowned the top of his chiseled, stone-like features, and as a man of his generation, he still used some slick pomade to add luster and weight to the hair sweeping straight back from his straight-arrow forehead. His hands were lean, but strong, the kind Sloan could imagine had done some fair share of work in their life, and also learned how to hold and fire a gun in World War II.

The Boyd's manager began looking over the alteration instructions while Sloan waited dutifully for dismissal; to the younger man's surprise, the grizzened older man engaged him in conversation, although, most of his attention remained focused on ensuring the tailoring details were well-enough documented for his store to do the work to his personal level of satisfaction.

"Sloan, is it?"

"Yes, sir."

"You've been coming over here for a year now, haven’t you?"

It was actually a year and a half, but the farm boy from Ohio was smart enough to know not to correct him.

"Yes, sir. One year."

"Aren’t you getting tired of the type you have to put up with over there..?"

"Well, as I say, Giulio – "

"I mean the customers, not the 'help.'"

Sloan wasn't sure what he meant. "Well, Famous, like any establishment, could always be better, but I like it there."

That response raised Victor Hirshhorn's eyes from the work orders to Sloan. "Well, I have to admit, I like your ambition and professionalism in this field." He snapped the folder shut. "No one else brings me alteration orders as completely done and legible as you do. Where did you train?"

"At Lazarus, in Columbus."

"Ah, yes. I should have known it wasn't 'over there.' Lazarus is a quality, old-time store."

Sloan scoffed silently at the notion, remembering that the Barr part of Famous first opened its doors to the public in 1849, which made it a few years older than even Lazarus. In lieu of broaching that subject, he slipped on a professional smile and reminisced instead. "I loved Laz. Working there part time in college is what fueled my drive to excel in this business."

Hirshhorn leaned a bit cryptically on the counter and lowered his voice. "You know, Stix, Baer and Fuller is more a store, for our kind, than Famous."

Again, Sloan was not sure what he meant.

As the Boyd's man continued, his posture grew erect and his tone blossomed in nostalgia. "I too, young man, started out at a real department store; Scruggs, Vandervoort and Barney was Lord and Taylor and Bergdorf Goodman rolled into one. And before either one of them became elite, they copied their business model of luxury from Scruggs, who single-handedly came up the exclusive, high-end only concept in 1917."

"Wow – and they were here?"

"Oh, yes. They had ten stories, and occupied the entire block from Ninth to Tenth, between Olive and Locust."

"Wow – that's only three blocks away."

"Yes. Christmas '67 was the last time 'the big three' department stores of Saint Louis all competed against one another."

"Well, Stix is a nice store too."

"Yes, it's gone a bit soft in recent years…" Hirshhorn flanged his wrist towards Sloan, and let it go limp. "But, I've tried to bring Scruggs values to Boyd's, and to keep them up."

"Well, I'd say you are succeeding! Boyd's is a wonderful place to visit."

Victor Hirshhorn seemed to like that, for a cold, calculating smile played at the periphery of his upper lip. He took one of his business cards from atop the gold-plated holder on his counter and slipped it into the handkerchief pocket of Sloan's suit coat.

"Call me, when you're ready to join us here. You will go far, of that I'm sure."

_