September 24, 2005--Saturday Story: "Uncle Morty and the Tongue Factory"

My plan has been to post a blog every weekday inspired by an article in the NY Times. I will continue to do that. But I thought, as a respite from all that, you might enjoy an occasional Satuday Story. Here then is . . .

Uncle Morty and The Tongue Factory

Most people think that the tongue sandwiches available in the Second Avenue Deli come from cows. In fact the tongue comes from Tongue Factories. I know because my Uncle Morty owned one in the 1950s. It was in the South Bronx.

He was actually in the meat "processing" business. People in this business would process meat products--smoke hams and pigs knuckles, pickle corn beef, cure pastrami from beef briskets, and pickle tongues. That’s why his really was a factory.

People in the meat processing business were always in a tight cash flow situation because products such as tongues needed to be bought and sold on the futures market--in order to assure a delivery of 2,000 tongues for processing and sale in December, one needed to purchase futures for them in July. At a per pound price fixed in July. Since orders for processed tongues were typically not secured so far in advance, Uncle Morty and his meat processor competitors needed to speculate that the price they were required to pay in July would be for orders they might receive in September from retail meat stores and supermarkets which in turn needed to be sold at a price by them in December that would enable the processors to turn a profit.

But since they never had the money they needed in July to secure the September futures, they needed to borrow the money. Money that was secured only by hoped-for orders. In a way, Morty and his colleagues were not so different from the George Soroses of the world—just a little ahead of the arbitrage curve and of course in a very different sort of business.

As one might imagine, in an industry so unpredictable and where one's "protection" and union relations were provided for and controlled by the Mob it was not always possible (actually never possible) to borrow money from conventional places such as banks. That's where "Factors" came into the picture. Factors provided unsecured, very high interest (read usurious) loans to people such as Uncle Morty, and of course Uncle Eli in the garment industry since he too lived with daunting cash flow issues--needing to buy velvet in March for clothes that would hopefully be sold in September.

Factors were not nice people. Since Uncle Morty could never secure their "loans," he was forced to give them a piece of the business--in fact a controlling piece. Off the books of course, with Eli listed as the sole owner. He lived that way for years, from month to month, eking out a modest living. But basking in the pride of owning his own business--at least on paper.

His dream was to get a big order from the A&P or Food Fair. This would be such a big order that he would at last be released from the futures-Factor cycle and in fact reclaim his own business.

This fantasy came true. One day, out of nowhere, he got a call from the Macy's food buyer (Macy's at that time had the fanciest, highest quality, highest volume meat store in the City right there in its then one flagship store at the corner of 8th Avenue and 34th Street). The most prominent New Yorkers sent their cooks there to buy prime meats; the most exclusive restaurants sent their chefs there every day to buy the most selective meats and delicacies. Macy's at the time was about much more than mass marketing Polo jeans.

So when the Macy’s meat buyer called Uncle Morty and placed an order for a thousand tongues Morty saw it as his way back to prosperity as well as a way to enter the world of "quality"--Macy's meat store after all was the place where the uptown goyim shopped.

But this magnificent, life changing opportunity also presented an conundrum--because of Macy's reputation and buying power they told Uncle Morty not only how many tongues they needed but also how much per pound he could charge them. The problem--he had bought the 1,000 tongues via the futures market for more per pound than Macy's was willing to pay!! They planned a special tongue event and thus demanded them from him at a price that would allow Macy's to turn a profit even after placing the tongues on sale.

So what to do. Uncle Morty was constitutionally unable to turn down an order of this kind (after all his customers were places such as Willie's Meat Market on Church Avenue in Brooklyn, where a big order was for two dozen tongues) and all he pleas about how much he had paid for the tongues and how much he would lose on every pound did not move the Macy's buyer. He had a sale planned and fixed numbers in his head. So Morty of course said yes and promised them the 1,000 tongues by next Friday.

I was working for him at the time and among my specialties was injecting the pickling liquid into the tongues. I did this by using a huge syringe attached to a pump that was inserted into a vein at the base of the tongue (the schlong—don’t ask) which then pumped in the brine. The factory was of course federally inspected--this meant that the resident inspectors were changed every six months so as to limit the possibility of corruption. Corruption included over-pumping tongues when pickling them. But of course we managed to find a way around this. Cash in blank envelopes was always helpful. That also was one of my specialties--the delivery of such envelopes.

The federal law allowed us to pump up a two pound tongue to double its size and weight. Uncle Morty, though, had something else in mind for the Macy’s tongues. While the inspectors were on a day long break, with their envelopes firmly in hand, he had me pump the tongues up to triple their original size--to six pounds per tongue. This would mean that he could deliver the tongues to Macy's at a net price that would at least allow him to break even. And perhaps more important--to enter into the goyisher world of fine meats.

The following Friday he proudly delivered the 1,000 tongues personally to Macy's (with me driving). The buyer was there to receive them and to pay Morty--unfortunately by check. He made note of the tongues' colossal size--he had never seen tongues like that. Morty told him that they came from a specially bred herd and that he had made an extra (expensive) effort to secure them for the Macy's order. The buyer appeared to be impressed.

The tongues went on sale the next day and I visited to see them on display in Macy's elegantly iced cabinets. Though I was there for just half an hour, there was a run on these magnificent items: no one had ever seen tongues of this gargantuan size nor at such a price. They were selling like hot cakes.

When I reported this to Uncle Morty he was ecstatic, feeling he was on his way to full respectability and financial security. He would be able to pay his Factors and recover control of his business and wouldn't Macy's, coming off this great success, see him to be their provider of choice for his full range of meat products--Paramount hams (the company name), corned beef, pastrami, and of course tongues.

All was well until Monday afternoon. The phone started ringing. The calls were from irate Macy's tongue customers. All complaining that when they went to steam their magnificent Paramount tongues, to prepare them for dinner (needing to stuff them, because of their size, into huge pots), when they uncovered the pots, after just a half hour of steaming, the tongues appeared to be about on third the size they were before the steaming.

The next series of calls was from the Macy's buyer--all not returned. But he did leave a message for Uncle Morty with Phyllis, Paramount's zaftig secretary (she is another story unto herself). In essence the messages said, Don't even bother to deposit the check for the tongues since Macy's had already stopped payment.

Morty came looking for me. I was hiding in one of the huge refrigerators crouched between racks of hams ready to be moved into the smoker. Phyllis had alerted me that Morty was looking to blame me for over-pumping the tongues.

In fact, he was coming to hide with me in the cooler because the Factors had heard about the Macy's fiasco and were on their way to collect, one way or the other. I avoided Morty and somehow he managed to fool the Factors that day--they never thought to look in the freezer.

But the day of reckoning from another source was soon upon Morty. While struggling to keep his books in balance and to have some money to pay his own apartment rent, he had neglected to pay the US Government the payroll taxes he had been withholding from his employees. You can run and maybe hide from the Factors, but the Feds are another matter. Even though he was just the owner on paper, he was held accountable, tried and convicted, and spent a little time in jail (the family's darkest secret until today).

But while Morty was "upstate" (in a sanitarium recovering for TB we were told), Paramount continued and did generate some income that kept his family going. All transactions were in cash; but since Uncle Morty owed the government back taxes, he of course did not want them to know about this small stream of money. Thus that cash went to my mother who kept it in her safe deposit box (along with her engagement ring).

Escorting her weekly with the cash to the Greenpoint Savings Bank on MacDonald Avenue, to stash it and occasionally to withdraw some, were among the best times of my young life. Because at long last I was involved in mobster like activity--my career plans were beginning to take shape.

But that's another story!