Gift to

Jean Shepherd K20 RS
Some Guys Make It
- and then there's us
U know, wh en you really
ste p off a cliff, yo u YO
know you've done it. It's
just like looking out from
the observation tower at
the Empir e State Building,
and suddenl y yo u' re in mida
ir and you know that
there's no going back . I
mea n, it's a great flight
while it lasts.
It's madde ning. You notice
th at up and down the
street the guys in the big
Cadillacs never get tickets?
Have you ever seen a ti cket
on a fat Merced es? Let me
te ll yo u, I used to co me
back with my mot or scoote
r decorated like a Christmas
tre e. You know , all
those Iittl e gree n tags hanging
like tinse l allove r it.
And in fron t of me would be
a tag less Cadi llac, and behind
me a tag less Mercedes.
Both parked there
since last Easter. My scooter...
I'd slow down , and
the fuzz woul d be running
alongside me, tying 'em on.
Well , tha t goes in all directi
ons. There are guys
Reprinted from 73Magazine, December,
1963.
who alw ays ge t it you ­
know-where, and there are
guys who don 't. It's just that
way. Now I don't know how
it's set. I don't know whether
it's pred estin at ion . I
don't know whether it's preorda
ined , but some guys
from t he ve ry m inu t e
the y're born-and they ca n
be born in a rotten neighborhood-but
from th e
very minu te they' re born,
they are preo rda ined or
so mething to Make It. And
there a re other guys who
are born to be Sunk. I mean
just born to it. Your ship is
le a ki ng. Fro m th e ve ry
minute you start to wa lk.
Your shoes sq ue ak. And
you' re phon ying it up, and
ho king it up from the time
you're six. O ther guys win
the sack races. You know,
legitimately. They can run
fa ste r.
We ll, let me tell yo u
what happened one time.
I'm on the air, you see. I'm a
ham , and this is when I began
to d iscover this principle.
I'm a kid, and I got th is
paper route-rout. It was
bo th a rou te and a rou t. It' s
terribl e to have to admit
that even when J was a paperboy,
I was a paperboy
for a paper that was abo ut
to go out of business.
Every wee k you'd come
aro und and yo u'd t ry to co l­
lect, and t hey'd tell you
they wa nt to drop the subscription,
it's a rott en pape r.
It's awf ul. I had a pa pe r
cal led the Herald-Examiner.
Did you ever hear of it, the
Chicago Herald-Exam iner?
And you know, it wa ssuch a
bad paper that they didn't
even read it in my house,
and we had a free subsc ription.
I used to go running
around the neighbor hood
at fo ur o'clock in the mo rning,
deliveri ng this rotten
pa per. It was a losing battle.
And o n Saturdays, eve ry
morn ing, I wo uld go up and
I'd knock on every t hird
door, trying to co llect the
dough, and they'd say :
" Here's forty cents for
last week. Please don't
d e liver t he paper a ny
more."
Well , the n I'd have to go
back a nd te ll George The
Pap er Ma n that th ey quit
down there, on Cleve land
Street, those people dow n
there, and he'd say :
"Ah, t hey're rotten people."
George was fighting a
losing battle too , because
he had the Hera ld-Examiner
fran chise in the neighborhood
and he was going
down with the ship. And a ll
th ese poor litt le kids who
we re 12 years old and who
we re getting kno bby knees
from running around with
this paper, t hey were go ing
down , too. Whereas right
across the street from us
there were a bunch of wiseguy
kids who had the Tribune.
And th is big fat guy
who had the franchise for
t he Trib . And they a ll got
fa t. All those kids are Republicans
today. And Cub
fan s. All of t he rest of us
kids th at had t he Herald­
Examiner, look at us. Ha!
Dem ocrat s, following the
Wh ite Sox till the day we
die.
So anyway, I'm a kid and
I get my ticket, a nd I figure
I'm lice nsed , like a ll the rest
of t he guys. Except, of
168 73 Magazine. October, 1980