A distant cousin owned one of three corner grocery stores on the Point. He took pity on Aaron and offered him a job sweeping floors, stocking goods, and eventually operating the cash register. Before long, Aaron ran the place and business improved. He knew all the customers, and their children and grandparents, and would do anything to help a person in need. He upgraded the inventory, discontinued items that rarely sold, and expanded the store. Even when it was closed, he would fetch items for customers and deliver them to their homes on an old delivery bike. With Aaron in charge, his boss decided to open a dry-goods store two blocks over.
Aaron saw an opportunity with another expansion. He convinced his boss to rent the building next door and establish a bar. It was 1920, the country was in the grips of Prohibition and the Catholic immigrants in Biloxi were thirstier than ever. Aaron cut a deal with a local bootlegger and stocked his bar with an impressive variety of beers, even some from Europe, and a dozen brands of popular Irish whiskeys.
He opened the grocery store each morning at sunrise and offered strong coffee and Croatian pastries to the fishermen and cannery workers. Late each night, Lida baked a tray of krostules, oil-fried cakes sprinkled with powdered sugar, and they became immensely popular with the early crowd. Through the mornings, Aaron hustled about on his cane, working the counter, cutting meats, stocking shelves, sweeping floors, and tending to the needs of his customers. Late in the afternoons, he opened the bar and welcomed his regulars. When he wasn’t serving drinks he scurried back to the store, which he closed after the last customer, usually around seven. From then on he was behind the bar pouring drinks, bantering with friends, telling jokes, and spreading gossip. He usually closed around eleven, when the last shift of cannery workers finally called it a night.
In 1922, Lida and Aaron welcomed their first child and blessed him with the proper American name of Lance. A daughter and another son soon followed. Their shotgun house was crowded, and Aaron convinced his boss to rent him an unfinished space upstairs over the bar and grocery store. The family moved in while a crew of carpenters erected walls and built a kitchen. Aaron’s sixteen-hour days became even longer. Lida quit her job to raise the family and also to work in the grocery.
In 1925, his boss died suddenly of a heart attack. Aaron disliked his widow and saw no future under her thumb. He convinced her to sell him the bar and grocery store, and for $1,000 cash and a promissory note, he became the owner. The note was paid off in two years, and Aaron opened another bar on the west side of the Point. With two popular bars and a busy grocery store, the Malcos became more prosperous than most of the immigrant families, though they did nothing to show it. They worked harder than ever, saved their money, stayed in the same upstairs apartment, and went about their ways as thrifty and frugal immigrants. They were quick to help others and Aaron often made small loans to friends when the banks said no. They were generous with the church and never missed Sunday Mass.
Their children worked in the store as soon as they were old enough. At the age of seven, Lance was a fixture on the Point, riding his bike with a basket filled with groceries for home deliveries. At ten, he was sliding cold bottles of beer across the bar and keeping tabs on the customers.
Early in his business career, Aaron witnessed the darker side of gambling and wanted no part of it. Illegality aside, he chose not to allow card and dice games in a back room. The temptation was always there, and some of his customers complained, but he held firm. Father Herbert approved.
The Great Depression slowed the seafood industry, but Biloxi weathered it better than the rest of the country. Shrimp and oysters were still plentiful and folks had to eat. Tourism took a blow, but the canneries stayed in business, though at a slower pace. On the Point, workers were squeezed out of jobs and fell behind on their rents. Aaron quietly assumed the mortgages on dozens of shotgun houses and became a landlord. He took IOUs for past-due rent and usually forgot about them. No one living in a Malco home was ever evicted.
When Lance graduated from Biloxi High, he toyed with the idea of going off to college. Aaron was not keen on the idea because his son was needed in the family business. Lance took a few classes at a nearby junior college, and, not surprisingly, showed an aptitude for business and finance. His teachers encouraged him to pursue studies at the state teachers college up the road in Hattiesburg, and though he harbored the dream, he was afraid to mention it to his father.