The Easiest and also the Worst Job in the World

That probably belonged to Corky Eubank, the younger brother of one of the premier old-time hustlers, Sammy Eubank of Little Rock, AR. The preamble to this story is Corky’s prior job attempt for Sammy. Corky’s booze and dope habit was well known to brother Sam when Corky approached him for a little help in the career department. Sammy realistically knew Corky wasn’t fit to do too many things so he tried to make things as simple and easy as possible. After all, blood should look after blood. The job was this: at 3 pm every day, Corky was to pick up Sammy’s kids from school and drive them home -- about 20 minutes each way. For this he would receive $100 a day. There was a stipulation though. Corky must be sober and totally clean for the trip, with Sammy inspecting him thoroughly upon his return. Breathalyzer and eyeball check was taken for granted. Any violation of such would be subject to a pistol whipping. This job proved to be too demanding, and Corky packed it in after only three days. Three in the afternoon was just too long a time to wait between hits. If Sammy could find a school that let the kids out around 11 am, Corky thought he could probably handle that.

This all occurred back in the 80s when Sammy was staying in the suburbs of Chicago, hustling with his lifelong partner, Dale Smith. Sammy and Dale were fearless hustlers, and they even went so far as to prey on various Outfit joints throughout the mobbed-up suburbs. They had been warned to leave the robbing of the customers to the Outfit themselves, but Sammy and Dale flew no flags, took no prisoners, and paid no heed. They had a, "suckers belong to the whole world" philosophy.
Philosophy notwithstanding, being on the wrong side of mob Whack man Joey the Clown, did cause Sammy some paranoid apprehensions. He dealt with those in a very practical way, he paid his brother Corky $300 a week to start his car every morning. I had stayed over at his house a few nights so I got to witness the show first hand, and believe me it was hilarious. Sammy would give Corky the keys, and then he would lay down (I would too) on the floor until the car was safely started. This ritual was repeated daily.

I asked Sammy how he could let his little brother do such a job. He reminded me that Corky wasn’t very talented and he had already tried him at other things including the school pickup thing, plus he only had to work about 10 minutes a week for the $300. I guess that was a pretty high pay scale if you thought about it.