Lilli Ann, Meeting Adolph Schuman (1968, a short Sketch)

Lilli Ann,
Meeting Adolph Schuman
(1968)



I had worked for Lilli Ann, for about eleven months, and met Adolph Schuman, back in 1968, and a few months in 1969, a half dozen times, although I didn’t care to run into him, it was uncouthly each time, but impossible not to, Mr. Schuman, Adolph Schuman, was the owner of Lilli Ann, his wife being Lilli Ann. (‘While he operated the Lilli Ann Corporation, Adolph Schuman also held a number of political and governmental offices. At various times, he served as finance chairman for the presidential election campaigns of John, Robert, and Ted Kennedy; Director of the Commission for National Trade Policy; Chair of California World Trade Authorities; and on the Council for the Department of Commerce. He passed away in 1985.’)
Adolph Schuman came by me one afternoon, as I was stacking cloths in bin, said “You, what are you doing, put them cloths down properly, no, no, and you’re fired!” I got reinstated by the administrator that same afternoon, which was more practical. (He was an eccentric to me, and perhaps I to him.)
Well, that wasn’t the only time we met, we met on Christmas, Christmas, of 1968, I drew the design or logo for the event, and at the event, in the basement floor of the establishment, I met him again. He was more at ease with me, and me with him this time. I guess he reminded me of my grandpa, and I smiled, yet tried avoid him, tried to and if I couldn’t I smirked or smiled or played dumb.
“Here,” he said, handing me a bottle of Scott Whisky, “No,” I said, I don’t drink the stuff,” I liked beer, but I didn’t tell him that. Anyhow, he looked at me wired, and Dan, my friend, whispered “I’ll pay you for it later, half priced—take it,” and I said, “Mr. Schuman, I’ll take that bottle,” and he smiled, perhaps heard Dan’s whisper.
The third time I met him, he was running away from a woman, and it was not his wife, it was a lovely young model, and to my understanding his steady, if he had such a thing, with a big, big, big pearl on her finger.
I had seen her around, but not running around like this afternoon. Well, I got out of the fire lane, he was running from her, and she was not far behind him, “Grab this door, hold it, and don’t let her pass,” he told me. And I did, as he said, and she came to a standstill a foot away from me, remember I’m just a peon, “Well,” she said, “are you going to move or am I going to move you?”
I moved, what could I say, I mean, it was a Catch 22, I couldn’t win either way.
Well, we are at number four now, and I am having lunch at the café up the block from Lilli Ann, and Adolph Schuman comes into the Chinese restaurant with his poodle, or perhaps it was hers, that gal that told me “Move,” or suffer the consequences. Fine, I never really had a conversation with Adolph, never said more than a few words, nor he to me, and I kind of liked it like that. I mean, what would he and me have in common, but he looks over at me says something to his administrator or manager, I think he was called by both titles not and then, my friend, as far as manager friends go, and I am called over to his table, and told to join them, and to bring my food. For some odd reason, I got scared, I usually didn’t, but even my hands started to tremble a bit.
Now I am sitting down with Adolph, the Administrator or male manager, the female assistant manager, and they are all talking, he asks,
“Where is your family from?”
“Russia,” I say.
“Oh, a lot of Turkish Jews in Russia.”
“I don’t know about that, Mr. Schuman,” I say.
“Go ahead and eat, well just talk as we eat,” he says.
In good health, we ate, but I was having the hardest time eating, getting the food to my mouth, as he along with the other two all seemed to make me self-conscious. I mean I never ate with a millionaire, and he was actually down to earth today. He wasn’t the grandpa figure anymore, just a man in a café with a dirty dog by his leg, and I thought that was a bit improper, but I didn’t say a word to that effect.
As years went by, I got into a little business, and was worth 1.3 million dollars in 2002, making about $200,000-dollars a year, not as much as Adolph (in 1940, his sales were one million dollars alone, and in 1982, 40-million, he died at age 73, in his office with all that money he gave to his family, a heart attack they say, and his business ended soon after), when folks came to talk to me, poor folks, eat with me, I noticed sometimes they were nervous, and I always went back to the little China café on the corner of the block to remember Adolph and me, and I tried to make my company comfortable with them, I think Adolph tried for me.
It was sad they closed the place down after Adopt died, I feel privileged to have met the designers and managers and so forth, of that day and from that company, and they were among the world’s best.

Written 5-29-2008