The Glass Maker in the Crooked House

There was an old glass maker who lived down the lane. Everyone knew who him, and for as long as anyone could remember he had always been old.  He was one of those tired little old men when you could never imagine being young.  His shop was on the ground floor of the crooked house on the corner and he lived in the small apartment above that leaned at a funny angle.  The roof had been patched up more times then anyone could count, and it creaked and shook when the wind howled along the ram shackle street.

The glass maker was by no means a rich man, but he was well off compared to the rest of the street. He was always a fair man to do business with but harsh when wronged.  He’d kept his prices reasonable and if you couldn’t pay then and there he was always willing to let a customer buy on credit for a small fee.  If you didn’t pay it back as promised though then he’d never do business with you again, nor would anyone buy on your behalf because if the glass maker found out then they would end up in the same black book. 

Everyone remembers the story of the landlord of the Fox and Beaver. He was new and greedy. He’d bought the place from its former landlord and almost immediately raised prices claiming cost of business and the need to refurbish or some such nonsense. It hit the whole community hard.  We all needed a stiff drink after a shift at the steel mill and there was no where else to go.  Not that there weren’t other pubs.  But the Fox and Beaver was our pub and were our people drank.

 The landlord had decided to invest in new glasses for the bar ones engraved with the pub name and like everyone else he went to the glass maker in the crooked house.  The old man offered him a fair price, better then he’d get anywhere else. But the landlord was a greedy fellow and so of course claimed poverty and derided the overpriced contractors who were milking him dry and asked of course for credit.  A month he claimed. Just give me a month and I’ll be able to pay in full with interest. The glass maker agreed never one to put another into poverty for the sake of his work.

A month went by and the landlord never returned to pay his debt.  On the second month the glass maker wandered up to the pub and politely asked for what he was due and what did the landlord due but laugh in the old man’s face and have him thrown out into the street.  The landlord lost a lot of business that day. Tradition was one thing, but community came first, always.  The Iron Spigot became the new local after that. No one on the street would go back to the Fox and Beaver after that. The glass maker walked away from the pub not enraged or yelling but with a look of fury in his cold eyes. 

After that nothing much happened. The Fox and Beaver still did decent business I suppose from the outsiders who stopped in on their way to and from work. The glass maker went back to his work and nothing more was said.  Until one cold winters night months later when the worst storm in decades hit the city.  Ice and snowing blowing in from Lake Ontario pelted the street, shaking the houses to their foundations.  It was a bitterly cold night and not safe outside for man nor beast.  I remember covering the windows and keeping the fire going through out the night and I swear to this day that despite the blizzard and midnight hour I saw the silhouette of the old glass maker hobbling down the street with a sack on his back and his cane for support. 

In the morning when the world returned to normal everyone ended up abandoning their mornings work to join the crowd and commotion outside of the Fox and Beaver.  According to the police and papers the storm had broken every window in the place and snuffed out the fires.  The landlord no doubt heavily drunk had slept through all of it and froze death during the night.  It was of course a shock to everyone. No one liked the man, but the Fox and Beaver had been there for decades.  Many feared it might be torn down after that incident. Fortunately, enough it was salvageable, and the brewery sent out an aspiring man named young Billy who fixed the place up in no time and reopened the doors to the community.

  The first time I went back it felt like I was home again, but it wasn’t until my fifth pint that I noticed something odd.  When I asked young Billy, what had happened to the engraved glasses the pub used to have he told me quite plainly that when he taken over the place that there had not been a single pint glass left in the place. It was the oddest thing he’d ever seen but those of us on the street nodded and couldn’t help but think of the glass maker in the crooked house.

 There was only one other time I saw that look of fury in the eyes of the old glass maker and it was on an otherwise sunny summers day.  He was walking alone down the street a small box under his arm and wearing an ill-fitting black suit that became his staple style after that. I wasn’t sure where he had been until much later when I learned that the family photo that had always held a place of prominence in his shop had been taken down. I’d never met any of his family and not even seen them beyond the photo, but I suppose then I never asked.  If a man didn’t speak of his family, then there was probably a reason why. And a man in a black suit who takes down a family photo does so for only one reason on the street.

It was an odd couple of months after that.  The old glass maker’s shop was open sporadically at best he was rarely seen and was always looking gaunt and tired when he was.  There were strange sounds and the furnace seemed to burn late into the night.  The crooked house at the end of street that he lived in creaked and heaved ominously in the wind and tiles fell from the roof when the chimney belched out black smoke. Then the cholera epidemic struck the street.  It swept through house after house to the point that the health authorities had be called and in the quarantine us one and all.  It was a painful month with supplies low and fear running rampant.  Cholera was known to come for immigrants and returning soldiers so there was plenty of blame and accusations thrown around.  But more than anything we all lived in fear. Fear that Cholera would take our loved ones and worry that our jobs at the steel mill would be gone by the time we were healthy again.  Sadly, both proved to be true. 

Work was hard enough to come by at the time and none of the mills were hiring. Even general labour was hard to find and paid next to nothing.  One day while many of us were gathered in the Fox and Beaver to listen to a workers rights advocates pontificate to us about the unfairness of the situation and how we should fight for better wages and job security but promising nothing. The old glass maker hobbled in with a grin on his face but his eyes still dark.  He walked past the speaker chuckling at the pointless of his speech and bought everyone there a hot bowl of stew and a cold beer. 

It was probably the most surprising thing he’d ever done up till then. He was always generous but a ruthless businessman, he had never given away to community like this and we were all grateful.  Once we were all enjoying the meal, he opened a rosewood box under his arm and brought forth the most exquisite crystal brandy decanter and glasses any of us had ever seen. It was multifaceted and was both clear and the deepest purple I’d ever seen. It was a as if he’d carved them from an amethyst.  We applauded him and complimented him on his finest work to date.  His grin never left his face and bragged to us that it was no simple lead crystal but made from the fragment of a stolen dream.  It made little sense, but we applauded it none the less. 

He also explained to us that despite the praise that the decanter paled in comparison to a unique creation he had made for a certain special customer, a one-eyed blond colonel. The glass makers eyes grew dark when he mentioned it. We tried to press for details, but the old glass maker would say nothing more then that when the colonel eventually came to his shop, he would receive the fruits of a lifetime of work. But in the mean time he wanted to know the name of the owner of the steel mill.  Wilcox we all said with a spit the president of the steel conglomerate. The old glass maker thanked us and hobbled off with the rosewood box and exquisite purple decanter.

A few days later the old glass maker returned to the pub dressed in a fine suit and hired four lads to repaint and clean the shop.  I was happy to be chosen.  It was hard enough to support a family when I was working let alone when you don’t have a steady weeks pay. Most of the money my wife had squirrelled was nearly gone by that point so we could use whatever we got. 

By the time we had finished working the shop had never looked better. The top shelves were all but empty they only contained a few pieces the exotic purple glass.  As I was leaving a well-dressed man walked in with a pretty girl on his arm. The two could not look more out of place on the street.  I assumed they were lost and had stopped in to ask directions back to a more civilized part of town. 

But it turned out they had come specifically to see the old glass maker.  Wilcox the bastard had shown off the decanter to his friends at the club the night before and the man was eager to acquire a set of champagne glasses for his next sorie.  The old glass maker smiled and said that he had just the thing. A set of twelve besoke champagin flutes of deepest purple. He explained the with the midnight glass the work was all bespoke and the prices reflected as much.  If the man could not afford it then the glass was not for him.  I was surprised to hear him talk that it was like seeing a different man entirely who looked like someone I knew.

The man and his wife assured him they would not have come all the way out here if they could not afford the price. He gave them a nod and apologized for his rudeness and then quoted a price per glass that was more than I made in a week at the steel mill. And they paid it without complainant. Taking their trophy back to whatever fine local they had come from to dazzle their friends and companions with. I was grateful for the pay, but I could not help but be jealous and bitter at the vast sum of money that had just changed hands. The old glass maker sensed my envy and simple assured me that as long as business continued to flourish the street would be taken care of. And he was as good as his word. 

In the weeks that followed the wealthy flocked to the crooked house at the end of the street.  It was like a carnival they came and went with all the trappings that money brought.  Horse drawn carriages and even automobiles driving down the street. Not that we were pleased to see them. Nothing like spending the day searching or begging for work to return to see people spend more in a single purchase then most of us earned in a year. Not that we would attack or rob them despite our anger.  The street had its pride and were proud one of our own had reached such heights that people came all the way from Toronto to purchase his wares.  It helped that the old glass maker gave back to the community a good portion of his earnings. Thanks to the old glass maker none of the families went hungry that summer.

The midnight glass was a popular item amongst the wealthy elite, made all the more popular by its scarcity. It seemed to me from what little I could overhear those few times I could get a couple hours work at the shop that the old glass maker was selective in his sales. Not everyone who tried to buy the glass he would sell to. Why some were selected and other not I can’t say.  The prevailing opinion in the pub was that it was a marketing tactic. Sell as few pieces to the right people and refuse the rest and people only wanted it more.

Those few odd hours of work at the shop were of great help but as dark fortune would have it I didn’t need it for long. There was an accident at the steel mill. Wilcox had been driving the workers so hard and cutting every corner that it was only a matter of time until someone died.  A terrible fire swept through the mill killing most of the shift working there.  It was terrible tragedy the papers said. Wilcox was forced to resign but no charges were brought against him.  No, people like him never had to suffer the consequences of their actions.  In the last month before the fire he had become so obsessed with making money that people claimed he’d gone mad with greed. The funniest thing was he was like a drowning man who kept drinking.  When the mill was reopened and the street was rehired to replace the lost workers we found the warehouses filled to the brim with steel.  He had more then he could sell but insisted on raising prices and producing more.

It was clear to all that old Wilcox had gone mad as a hatter. The papers wrote about it for weeks about how the plant was drowning in steel and yet Wilcox had pushed the men past the breaking point desperate for more. There were stories of him checking the warehouse multiple times a day and yelling in drunken stupor that there wasn’t enough convinced the stores were practically empty. Not that anyone the street cared we happy to see the back of him and be working again.  Not making steel yet, just hauling and lifting work, but work is work and pay is pay.