Part One
“Cantique de Noel”
or
“O Holy Night”

And it came to pass in those days when John V. Lindsay was mayor of New York, the city was in crisis, and war was raging in the East that Anthony went up from Manhattan to the Hudson Highlands – it being Anthony’s first Christmas Eve at home after being away at Cathedral College, a preparatory seminary on the Upper West Side. The journey took two hours, leaving neon and grit and passing unto mountains and malls.  Anthony’s mother met him at the little, tawdry bus station, in the abandoned and violent city of Newburgh that tumbled down Broadway to the Hudson River. Their flight passed houses festively lit in blue and white, under stop lights of red and green, past a Dickensian spectral cemetery on the right, a vast field of hay opposite, finally sharp left turn down a country lane, and right onto tar and gravel street to their home in the town of New Windsor, New York – December 24th, 1967.

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It was slightly snowing as my mother pulled into the macadam driveway, arriving at our two story Cape Cod house. Even before I had dropped my bag and taken my winter coat off, my mother demanded that I decorate the front door for Christmas. “What would the neighbors say” (actually our next door neighbor lived in a trailer so who could cast stones?). I kept my winter coat on, went down the cellar steps and dug around in semi-darkness to retrieve some decorations. I pulled out three strings of big GE colored bulbs, the ones with little ridges on them giving them a depth of color that warmed your hands on this cold night. I ran them around the frame of the front door and the two side windows, making sure it was all balanced, the colors were in sequence and all the bulbs worked (if one went out, they all did).  I stood back, plugged them in and admired how nice they looked, like a small Ginger Bread House complete with a witch inside. I unplugged them and made my way back to the basement, hung my wet coat on the clothesline and went upstairs.

Mom had elaborately decorated all the downstairs rooms. In the parlor, much to my disappointment, we had an artificial Christmas tree. My mother was afraid of fire ever since her baby sister caught on fire years ago and died of severe burns.  So I sprayed the fake tree with pine aerosol to give it an ersatz scent. Fragile glass ornaments that we had collected over the years were hung with care and lots of aluminum tinsel were tidily draped on the bright, shiny twisted and stunted green, plastic branches –  having been packed, repacked and crammed to many times into its brown carton box.

On top of the TV set was a manger we had bought at Woolworth’s. It had a complete set of figures made out of some hard mysterious chalk material – The Holy Family, shepherds, angels, sheep, cows, camel, and donkey. The Magi: Melchior, Caspar and the Negro King, Balthasar were placed on the side lamp table as we moved them at it closer to January 6th.  Fake garland wound its way down the staircase banister along with Christmas Cards taped all around the big living room hanging wall mirror. In the bathroom was a knit Santa Hat toilet-paper roll cozy. The kitchen was filled with slightly melted waxen elves accented by my mother’s handmade holly & ivy handmade potholders and dish towels. The dining room table was covered in a 1950’s style white linen tablecloth embroidered with brilliant red poinsettias. A big Check Slovakian cut crystal bowl of fruit and nuts sat in the center set off by two matching candles sticks. We never lit the candles. A sprig of fake mistletoe hung in the foyer by the dirty beige wall telephone. Mr. R. H. Macy would have been proud.

Preparations started in the late afternoon for the traditional Italian Christmas Eve dinner of “Seven Fishes.” First came the spaghetti with white clam sauce. My mother sort of cheated on this dish using a can of Progresso clam sauce as the base to which she added fresh clams. I had to open a dozen clams using a screwdriver and hammer. I never got the hang of shucking. I resorted to smashing the shells open with a hammer which splintered shards into the clam milk. It took me a long time to strain the shards out. My other job was to clean the shrimp. I spread newspapers over the kitchen table and pulled off the outer shell carapace and violently tugged off the legs. I then used a small paring knife to devein the shrimp removing that ugly black line that ran the length of their little pink bodies. Like Susan Sarandon in the movie “Atlantic City,” I cut lemons wedges and slowly wiped the fishy smell off of my hands.

The celebration officially started as soon as it was dark. I dramatically snapped on the outdoor lights that I had hung that afternoon and put the Baby Jesus in the crèche. We drank Crowley’s artificial eggnog spiked with some rum as we watched the evening news on TV. Dinner was served later than usual, at 8pm. Christmas Eve diner was at the kitchen table – Spaghetti with White Clam Sauce, Shrimp Creole, fried shrimp and sautéed flounder with Tartar Sauce accompanied by baby peas and broccoli. Not quite seven fishes but we counted seven mouthfuls to reach the magic number. No dessert tonight except for cookies we still left on a plate by the tree. We quickly cleaned up, wiping dishes and scrubbing pots. It was getting late. I grabbed a Christmas cookie from the Santa dish as I sprang up the staircase and put on my suit and tie to get ready for Midnight Mass. My father, brother and sister went to bed and I turned off all the inside lights and warmed up the car.

Midnight Mass at our Italian parish of the Church of the Sacred Heart was as dramatic as any verismo opera – pomp, pageant, incense and music. We would have to get there by 11pm to get a good seat. The church was in semi-darkness as the choir serenaded us a Capella with a ceremony of carols. Everyone was in their holiday finery, ladies in brightly colored dresses and men in jacket and newly gifted Christmas ties. Ushers in tuxedoes sat these scions of Italian Immigrants filling every row of pews to their fullest capacity. Our ancestors would not recognize this new modern church built in 1964. The old church was built by hand by its Italian parish’s stone masons, carpenters and electricians. In their honor the old steeple bell was hung high in the new metal Louise Nevelson like croft. We all waited in anticipation to greet our new pastor, Monsignor Salvatore Cantatore who started in September. We all still mourned the passing of Msgr. Salvatore Celauro. I guess you had to be a Salvatore to be prelate at Sacred Heart. Just before twelve all the lights of the church were extinguished.

Then at the stroke of midnight, the main gold doors of the church were thrown open and a wintry blast blew through the darkness.  A solemn procession proceeded down the center aisle. First came three altar boys attired in special red cassocks and white lace surplices – one altar boy carried a large gold crucifix, flanked by the other two carrying candles, now the only light in the entire church, symbolic of the solstice, the year’s shortest day when light starts to return.  Another altar boy swung his thurbile in lusty arcs, sanctifying the way for the entrance of our new pastor as celebrant. He slowly walked down the aisle, dimly lit by the two beeswax lit tapers.  Just behind him, followed Father Leo and Father Lombardo, our two assistant priests acting as deacon and sub deacon for the High Holy Mass. They ambled like two penguins loaded down with ornate stiff heavy silk Sicilian chasubles embroidered with gold and silver threading. At last came the youngest, most angelic altar boy carrying a statue of the Baby Jesus on a silver tufted pillow.

The procession continued past the main altar, turned right and stopped in front of the side “Mary Chapel” We all stood in silence nary a cough, only the quiet shuffling of our wet boots on the terrazzo floor. Then our pastor dramatically turned around facing the congregation and choir and loudly intoned in Latin: “GLORIA IN EXCELIS DEO…!” The organ blasted out, the choir lustily sang, “ET IN TERRA PAX HOMINIBUS BONAE VOLANTATIS,” the old steeple bell pealed wildly and one altar boy almost sprained his wrist clamorously ringing his brass hand bells. And suddenly all of lights of the church were turned on, revealing  an elaborate Neapolitan crèche with hundreds of carved Nativity figures, gamboling over the country side, crossing a river with working waterfall on their way to the stable in Bethlehem. The choir continued as Msgr. Cantatore took the Baby Jesus off the pillow, raised it high in the air and gently placed it in the crib between Mary and Joseph. The Christ Child was born bringing light and grace back to the troubled world.

The procession went back to the Main Altar to start the holy service, Msgr. Cantatore chanting the Kyrie.  He made his name sake proud, Cantatore meaning singer in Italian or Cantor in Hebrew.  However his-a English wa-ssa nota so good but at the end of his holiday sermon he made it perfectly clear that he was expecting big bucks in the collection basket. The ushers walked down the aisles in military precision extending their sliding extension pole baskets to reach the center of each pew. Those who had money made a great show of putting in 10 or 20 dollar bills so everyone could see. The rest of us furtively tossed our one and five dollar bills in or made sure our coins silently fell to the bottom of the basket.

As it neared communion time, my mother and I knew what was coming next as we looked at each other with anxious hidden glee for the soprano, La Diva, Concetta Malavoce to sing her big solo. We daren’t look back over our shoulders up to the choir loft to see this zaftig woman, crammed into her old peacock blue bridesmaids dress. With grand expression and sour notes she imagined herself to be great Italian opera star, Maria Callas.  Every year during communion she would try to sing the famous French carol, “Cantique de Noel or O Holy Night.” My mother and I sometimes unsuccessfully couldn’t control our giggles when she began, “O Holy Night! The stars are brightly shining. It is the night of the dear Savior’s birth.” We knew this was leading to the famous High C at the end. “Long lay the world in sin and error pining. Till He appeared and the soul felt its worth.” She just couldn’t quite reach that difficult high note but if you looked back up at her you think she was at La Scala with all of her claque applauding widely. “A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices. For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.”

Her aria continued as I got on the long line for Holy Communion. I followed behind Mrs. Peluso who was wearing (draped over her shoulders, not hiding her décolletage) a red fox stole with long bristly hairs electrically charged from the cold. As I got near the alter rail, Concetta closed in on “Fall on your Knees! Oh, hear the angel voices!” It was like being on the front car of the Cyclone as Concetta voice rose higher, inching up to the perilous top as she screamed out and the roller coaster descended. ‘Oh night divine, Oh night when Christ was born”  I piously knelt down at the altar rail trying not to listen as she edged up closer to a bel canto precipice. Father Lombardo solemnly placed the wafer on my tongue – “Body of Christ” I murmured “Amen.” The wafer stuck to the roof of my mouth.  I started back to my seat trying to manipulate the wafer off with no success.  Then La Diva rang out that top sour note. “Oh Night, Oh Night, Oh Night Divine”!

The wax in my ears moved, my eyes winced, I choked trying to stifle a giant guffaw when the wafer spit out of my mouth out and landed on the back of Mrs. Peluso’s fox stole sticking to the red fur. I quickly sacrilegiously plucked the wafer off the stole that had stuck to the red hairs of the fur. I put the host back in my mouth now tasting of musk and Jesus. Keeping my head down, I almost missed my pew. I knelt down and my mother gave me a nudge and it was mighty hard not to laugh. The choir sang the famous Italian carol, “Tu scendi dalle stele” during the second collection. The sub deacon and deacon cleaned and put the chalices in the tabernacle and opened up the missal to the final page. Father Leo held up the book, as our pastor turned around to face the congregation and intoned. “The Mas is ended. Go in Peace!” Mom and I rang out, “Thanks be to God!” and thanking God we didn’t have to hear Concetta Malavoce till Easter!

       Part 2
“Fall on Your Knees”

And it came to pass, that the congregation departed the church with haste.  But some went to the front of the church and found both Mary and Joseph, and the babe lying in the manger. And they adored. And when they saw it, they made known concerning the saying which was spoken to them about this child. And outside, a bright star and moon shone in the heavens.

On the steps of the church everybody was joyously wishing each other “Buon Natale.”  Msgr. Cantatore was smiley widely, the collection must have been a good take. All the ladies were fawning over him and their husbands preened and lit cigars or cigarillos. It was then, like a star in the East shining down on the Christ Child, I spotted Marc Burnett looking like the Apollo Belvedere. I hadn’t seen Marc since we performed in the parish passion play the previous Easter where he played Jesus and I played Judas and we both played with each other between Stations of the Cross. I left my mother who was smoking a Kent and went over to give Marc a seasonal warm hug and say hello to his Mom, Mrs. Burnett. She said she was leaving with her mother to spend the evening there. I never met Mr. Burnett since they were scandalously divorced.  Marc quickly asked if I wanted to come over to his place for some hot chocolate. Of course, I glowed! I gingerly asked my mother if I could go to Marc’s house for a while. He would drive me home later. She stomped on her Kent, giving me a sly knowing look and gave me a passive/aggressive “yes” to go. A mother always knows….

Marc lived in a large house in Balmville, one of the more upscale neighborhoods surrounding Newburgh. The night had turned frigid as we hopped into his mother’s car and turned on the radio. The sky was overcast with clouds and now nary a star, so it was quite dark out as we made our way through the back roads. Pretending to change one of the stations, I slid a bit closer to Marc (this was the days before seatbelts). My thigh lightly touched his as we chatted and caught up on our freshmen college semester, mine in New York, his in Boston. I laid my hand lightly on his thigh. There was static in the air. He placed his on mine, steering with one hand.

Like Little Ride Riding Hood’s Grandmother’s house, Marc’s Tudor Style home glowed with red Christmas lights as we pulled up into the long driveway. In the frosty air, our breath almost seemed tangible as we jumped out of the car, ran to the front door, kicked off our boots and tumbled into the warm living room. A giant Christmas tree cast a magical rainbow of hues all across the room and our faces. We stood in front of the tree for a long time as I stared at the tree and the colors washing over Marc’s handsome face. He caught me staring and our eyes met. He quickly suggested we go downstairs to the finished basement where he had a small pipe organ installed. He was a consummate musician and played me some pieces by Handel and Bach. I sat on a lime green bean bag with my eyes closed listening in fascination, enraptured by the full sound of the organ, its waves of music washing over me, penetrating my soul. I felt like Christine listening to Lon Chaney play in “The Phantom of the Opera.” However before I could “unmask” him, Marc ended a Bach Passacaglia with a flourish, stood up, bowed and suggested we make hot chocolate and go to his room. I applauded madly.

We made the hot chocolate in silence, as I hoped this was only the prelude to our evening’s theme and variations. With steaming mugs warming our hands, we went upstairs and entered his bedroom. He said he needed to take a shower as he closed the bathroom door behind him. I turned off the lights and the clouds must have disbursed for now the whiteness of the new snow and the light of the moon cast a silver shadow across his bed.  I walked over to his little twin bed, took off my jacket and tie, opened the top button of my white shirt and loosened my belt. I lay on the bed facing the bathroom door, imagining Marc getting undressed. I turned on the table radio on the night stand and found a Christmas station. I heard the sudden rush of the shower. I could hear my heart beat as I smelled the shower’s iron rust smell of the hard well water that began to mix in with the pungent scent of his Irish Spring Soap. The windows of the room began steam up with fog as the room grew hotter. The only light was from the radio dial. The shower stopped.

After what I thought was an eternity, the door opened slowly and there stood Marc wearing only fern green towel tied around his waist. With the bathroom light reflecting behind him off the medicine cabinet mirror, Marc looked like the Resurrected Christ I remembered from the spring passion play. The deep green pile contrasted so well against his rosy white ivory skin set off by his fiery red bush that rose just above edge of the bath towel. On the radio, Jim Nabors was singing “O Holy Night” as Marc stood over me. There was no room in the inn in this little twin bed.  I stood up and we held each other without speaking a word. I heard Nabors’ sing “Fall on your knees”.  He did.…

“C’est l’heure solennelle
Ou l’Homme Dieu descendit jusqu’a nous
Pour effacer la tache originelle
Et de Son Pere arreter le courroux”.

Oh Night Divine!

Afterwards, we had fallen asleep so close to each like two sleeping puppies. Waking up I looked at the clock radio and realized it was almost 6:30 am. Like Cinderella, I had to be home by 7 am for the opening of the Christmas presents. I almost fell over putting on my clothes. My prince and I ran out to the car in the cold dawn. Marc warmed up the engine as I hastily scraped the ice from the front windows. As we drove back to my house the snow began to fall and I thought of the final famous sentence from the short story I had just read in English Literature class, ”The Dead” by James Joyce..

“His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.”

It didn’t take long to get to my house in New Windsor since the roads were empty on this Christmas morning. We held hands the whole short ride home. I wished we could have drove to New York City to my little dorm room on W. 86th Street and be together all Christmas Day. Marc turned off the car lights as we turned the corner onto Cross Street. It was still dark on this silent night but Mom had left the Christmas lights on. I adventurously leaned over took my angel’s face in my hands and kissed him oh so gently and oh so sweet. I calmly got out without saying a word, but I turned back and gave him a long look. “Buon Natale!” I almost slipped on the ice in the driveway.

I slowly opened the front door of our house, glided upstairs and put on my flannel pajamas without waking my Dad, brother and sister. I ran back downstairs and since I was famished wolfed down all the Santa cookies that had been left out the night before. I pulled out my LP copy of the “Messiah”conducted by Eugene Ormandy with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.  I silently opened the lid of the stereo, put on LP #3 and turned up the volume all the way. The “Halleluiah” chorus blared out throughout the house. I plugged on the lights of the Christmas tree and put the Baby Jesus in the manger.

I heard a couple of th-thumps from the upstairs bedrooms as Karen and Michael came running down. Mom in her floral nightgown came out of the downstairs bedroom, while my Dad shuffled down the staircase from the upstairs bedroom he shared with me and my brother. My father donned a Santa hat and we dove into the mountain of gifts, as he handed them to us one at a time. We opened them up in wild abandon with gift wrap and ribbon strewn all around us – toys, perfumes, pants, coats, scarves, sweaters, shirts, and ties. I collected up the bows for next year.

Oooh! We all feigned great delight at a pair of gloves my brother received from Aunt Laura. Oooh! Karen got a scarf and I got a key case from her. My mother liked the Jean Nate Bath Oil I gave her and dad loved his flannel shirt. My Mom got me the original cast album of The Apple Tree which was the second Broadway Show I had seen that fall. Of course, I had asked for this, so it wasn’t a surprise. As I was reading the liner notes, I was struggling to remove a piece of cookie stuck in my teeth. Try as I may I couldn’t get my tongue around it to dislodge it. Finally ungracefully, I poked my finger into the crevice and out came a small cookie chunk with a mysterious red threadlike strand. AHA! I chuckled as I flicked the hair on the Christmas tree and swallowed the cookie. Our dog Marigold jumped up and began licking me all. I think she smelled the Irish Spring Soap.

Everybody went to their rooms to get dressed for our Christmas luncheon of Baked Ham served in the dining room; there would be dessert. I took the “Messiah” off the player and put on “The Apple Tree.” All alone in the living room, I sat under the tree and listened to the overture and openings songs of the musical based on the short story, The Diary of Adam and Eve by Mark Twain. The tree glowed, I half suspected it to grow like in” The Nutcracker”.

The parlor was still empty. The snow started faintly falling as I swooned a little looking out the window. Then came Eve’s plaintive song to Adam wondering what made her love him after spending a life time in and out of Eden. The beautiful Barbara Harris sang the song with great love and melancholy. Her performance in all three of the short stories that made up “The Apple Tree” would haunt me forever. I hummed along to myself and mouthed the words. I daren’t sing them out loud lest someone walk in and see me crying. Listening intently to the lyrics, I thought of the night, the cold, the Christmas lights, the Baby Jesus, even imagining Concetta singing “O Holy Night” in perfect pitch, my aunt who died long ago in Brooklyn, the gifts, the red fox fur, of The Magi and of my Marc-

“What makes me love him?
It’s quite beyond me,
It must be something
I can’t define.
Unless it’s merely
That he’s masculine
And that he’s mine.”

New Year’s came and went and on January 6th, the Epiphany, the lights came down from the front door and put back in the basement, the Christmas tree was dismantled and crammed back into that brown carton and the little figures of the manger were carefully wrapped in tissue paper and put in a shoebox till next year. The next day my mother drove me to the bus station and I went back to seminary. I didn’t see Marc again till fifteen years later when in 1981 perchance I ran into him at a play in Boston. The play was called “Fools”.

At this time of year, my mother had all of her Christmas shopping done. This triumph of planning was complete actually by Labor Day.  Back in the 1950’s my mothers strategy was based on the Layaway Plan and Christmas Club Payments.

Before credit cards there was layaway, a way to purchase an item without without paying the entire cost at once. However, rather than taking the item home and then repaying the debt on a regular schedule, my mother did not receive the item until it was completely paid for. There was typically a fee associated with a layaway purchase, since the store must “lay” the item “away” in storage until the payments are completed. In the event my mom did not pay the amount due, the item would be returned to stock and any payments would be forfeited.

My mom typically bought our clothes on this plan. She would drag me to the store in August to try on winter snow suits and sweaters. They were “layed away” until December till they magically appeared under our Christmas Tree. Gee, how did Santa know which store to go to to retrieve my coat?

The other plan was payments to a Christmas Club. Right after the holiday, my mother went to the bank and opened up a few accounts in different denominations. You got a payment book filled with dated coupons that you gave to the bank teller with your money. I was forced to open one for $20 and pay into it out of my allowance so I could buy gifts for the family. I made my weekly payments of 50 cents till I would receive a check in November. There was no interest on the account but the bank did give you some free cheap gift like a calendar or plastic Santa or snow globe.

So in December of 1957 being 9 years old I went by myself with $10 to Kresge’s on  Fifth Avenue in the Park Slope section of Brooklyn. Kresge’s was a typical 5&10 cent store with displays of items piled in heaps on long counters.

I bought a floral lace handkerchief set for my grandmother and a brown handkerchief/tie combo for my Dad. Mom got a set of note cards with nature scenes. But Uncle Joey got a  LP of “Rhapsody in Blue” that  I bought for 99 cents in Merkels across the street from Kresge’s. Merkels was a Brooklyn chain of meat markets.  You would order  your meats from the butcher who would prepare to your order. Then he handed you a piece of paper with the amount on it that you brought to a cashier who sat in a little white booth. You paid in cash as she stamped it “paid.” You then went back to the butcher dressed in white apron and retrieved your brown paper wrapped parcel that was clammily cold to the touch and had that sour freshly cut meat smell.. Merkels went out of business a few later for supposedly selling horse meat.

On Christmas Day I proudly gave out my presents.  I would wait breathlessly as they opened their clumsily wrapped parcels. I watched as they may or may not have feigned wonder and joy at my simple gifts. I opened up my presents and smiled knowingly as I pulled out a red plaid woolen snow suit .

Ragamuffins

 On Thanksgiving morning, when I was a young lad growing up in Brooklyn, I would dress up as a hobo and go begging. No I wasn’t poor…

Children would dress up on Thanksgiving morning, in raggedy clothing and blacken their faces with a burnt piece of cork to resemble hobos. We would go from house to house yelling, “Anythin’ f’ Thanksgiv’n?” and if we were lucky, we would be rewarded with coins, or piece of candy or (ugh) a piece of fruit.

This custom practiced mostly in Brooklyn was called “Ragamuffin Day. It resembled trick and treating on Halloween. Ragamuffin parades, harkened back to European traditions, and gave a chance for the poorer immigrants of New York City  to march through the streets in extravagant costumes, begging for change. Popular myth would have it that the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade originated in a similar fashion when its immigrant store employees wished to celebrate their newfound American-ness with a European-style parade. Of course, the idea really came from store executives.

On this Thanksgiving morning in 1957, I made the rounds around the block in black face, old dirty clothes and my father’s crumbled gray fedora. I rang the vestibule door bells and yelled out, “Anythin’ f’ Thanksgiv’n’?”  I knew exactly which bells to ring so I could accumulate the biggest stash of goodies and be home by 11 am; an A&P paper shopping bag bulging with Snicker, Milky Way and Charleston Chew candy bars. I threw all the apples away in the corner trash basket. I ate three full sized nickel candy bars so I didn’t have to listen to my mother yell at me to save room for the big afternoon feast. “Your eyes are bigger than your stomach!”

“You’re late!” My mother yelled as I threw my tatter all’s on the floor, ran to the bathroom and quickly wiped the burnt charcoal and chocolate from my face. I put on my good Easter Suit, snapped on a satin silk tie and secured it in place with a fake gold tie clip. We were all going to my Polish grandma’s house in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn for Thanksgiving dinner.

At noon, Dad led us to our DeSoto as we walked down the stoop steps of our brownstone. We were all dressed up, looking like a family of ducks following their mother. I precariously carried two boxes of the holiday pies while holding, my brother Michael’s hand and Mom struggled with my bundled up, crying baby sister, Karen. Mom sidled across the front seat and Michael and I took the back as I placed the pies boxes between us, marking my territory. My father, one hand on the wheel and one hand fiddling with the radio dials zoomed across the Gowanus Expressway to the Belt Parkway to the Fort Hamilton Parkway Exit.

At this exit, before they built the Verrazano Bridge, there was an actual decaying dark brick fort out in the Narrows Bay built for an impending British attack in 1812 which never happened.  Off of Fourth Avenue, in Fort Hamilton Park, a huge black cannon with very large cannon balls still stood silent watch over the harbor. A left at St. Patrick’s Church at Fourth Avenue took us to grandma’s house at 345 96th Street.

Fort Hamilton

My grandmother lived on a quiet street lined with London Plane trees. These are the kind of trees that drop big puffy seed balls in the spring and whose bark you can easily peels off in sheets which I did.  Wide enamel cherry red painted slippery steps led up to the front door of a two family attached two story dwelling. The door to the right was Mr. Russo’s, the Italian landlord who lived on the first floor. Grandma did not get along with the Russo’s; so they were to be avoided at all costs. Actually Grandma didn’t like anybody, a true Krotki trait.

I pressed the doorbell on the left repeatedly. It was a doorbell that rang out clear like the knife sharpener man’s bell; it would make Quasimodo proud. My Uncle Joey flew down the steps yelling “Stop ringing the bell!” Its lucky Grandma was hard of hearing.  He peeked through the curtained glass panes of the front door, making sure it was us – we could be burglars, you know. He let us in. Even from all the way downstairs, a wafting warm aroma of roasted turkey swept over us and up to the wintery sunlit skylight. Another  steep set of narrow steps got you up to the second floor vestibule where there was always a small aluminum trash can. A swinging door led directly ahead into the kitchen while a French Door with white lace behind the glass panels led off right into the dining room.  Since this was a holiday, we were allowed to use the French Door.

Everyone was already there: Uncle Joey the youngest of the seven siblings; my bitter Aunt Laura with her Italian husband, Uncle Cy, a Frank Sinatra looking Lothario; their always taciturn son Glenn;  my bachelor Uncle Eddie who along with my favorite Uncle Joey lived at home with my grandmother; my divorced heavy set but baby-faced Uncle Larry still bereaved over the desertion of his wife, taking their son (my cousin) with her to Florida and my barrel chested Uncle Phil, the oldest, also bereft of wife and child (and another lost cousin).  They were all drinking Whiskey and Rye over cloudy ice cubes, washed down with good old cold Brooklyn Rheingold beer. They were feeling no pain.

Grandma’s House

My deeply religious grandmother Josephine (who my mother was named after) wore a gray and pink housedress with turquoise floral apron over it that she had both bought at Mays Department Store on Fulton Street in Downtown Brooklyn. She always wore her hair in a tightly coiled bun held together with big black hairpins, looking like an older Irene Dunne in “I Remember Mama.”  She went to mass at St. Patricks’ every morning and a large Infant of Prague statue loomed on her bedroom dresser. She changed the baby Jesus’s attire to match the liturgical calendar.  Like the savory cabbages glumkies she always made, grandma would run sweet and sour. Sometimes giving me some “car fare”(a quarter or two) or making a sharp remark in Polish if I did something she didn’t approve of (like picking my nose without a handkerchief).

I put the light green Ebingers boxes of pies tied with brown twine on the huge buffet in the dining room. Baby Karen was deposited on Grandma’s double bed in a nest of winter coats looking like the Infant of Prague on its side. Michael tore around the apartment playing airplane till my Grandmother gave him a whack to stop which provoked lots of his crocodile tears. It was perfectly accepted for a relative to discipline a child.  “A child should be seen and not heard.”

I then went directly to my Uncle’s Joeys’ Hi-Fi Player that I was enthralled and obsessed with. It played such bright clean sound on long playing records not like my primitive portable 45 rpm player. I poured through all the albums that I knew by heart: Show Boat, Sing Along with Mitch, and Piano Rags by Joanne Castle. I gingerly took out two black disks, being careful not to get my finger prints on the grooves. I blew off some errant dust and put two LP’s on the changer: Lester Lanin’s At the Tiffany Ball followed Jackie Gleason’s Music for Lovers Only.  “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” segued into a lively Twelfth Street Stomp. I raised the volume. My mother yelled out to shut “that shit” off since dinner was ready.  I made it louder for a second before I abruptly lifted the needle off in spite.

We all proceeded to the formal dining room which was only used at Christmas and Easter. The table was set with a white damask linen tablecloth and an ecru crotchet lace overlay; the best china was laid out. Uncle Joey had wiped each one of them with a damp dish cloth after taking them from the dusty big China closet with glass doors that stuck and never did quite close. Uncle Joey had also polished the silverware the week before They were stored in a mahogany box lined in lush hunter green felt that looked like Alexander Hamilton’s case for dueling pistols. Mogen David wine gleamed dark blood red in the clear silver lead crystal goblets. The sliced White Mountain Bread from Ebingers was set out on a cloisonné tray that ‘Ole Blue Eyes,” Uncle CY had gotten from his stint in Korea. The White Mountain bread left powdery blotches all over my suit that I tried to wipe off with water which made more of a mess – like dirty sleet after a city snow storm. My grandmother frowned.

Ebingers

Everybody knew where to sit by instinct. We all stood behind our chairs till Grandma finally took off her apron and sat down.  Thanksgiving was the only time we said “Grace”. But before my eldest Uncle Phil could start, my father yelled out “Grace Kelly” and we all laughed. Uncle Phil started over in earnest tone, “Bless us O Lord for these thy gifts which we are about to receive from thy bounty through Christ Our Lord.” “Amen!”, we all yelled out like the start of a baseball game.

The first skirmish of courses started – soup plates were passed in military precision to   Grandma who ladled out her Duck Soup from a huge Liberty Blue Staffordshire soup tureen. She had prepared the soup days before – a Polish Catholic version of Jewish Chicken Soup but much darker and thicker almost nut brown with great chunks of carrots and celery congealed to Carolina Rice. You had to lick the spoon after the initial slurp, to savor the savory reduction, coating an unusually large soup spoon.

At the last slurp,  Aunt Laura, Uncle Joey and Mom cleared the soup plates in an assembly line from dining room, to kitchen to sink. Uncle Joey then brought in the behemoth sized turkey. He walked the platter slowly around the table showing it off like a rabbi with the Torah on the High Holy Days. With great pomp it was placed before Uncle Larry who took out a gigantic ivory handled knife and pronged fork that he got from Japan. As he had been an army chef in Hawaii during WWII he carved with expertise and histrionic brio. The Arnold’s stuffing oozed out of the bursting sewn up cavity of the bird. Grandma got the “Pope’s Nose”; the legs went pride of place to the eldest uncles, Uncle Joey and Aunt Laura snagged the burnt wings and Ma and I grabbed the white meat.

In military parade review, out marched the platters – a bounty of side dishes all from my uncle’s fruit and vegetable store in Sunset Park: a mountain high bowl of steaming buttery mashed potatoes (it was my job to mash them and I always bruised my hand in exuberance) – a tray of  cold cranberry jelly mold (Aunt Laura had cut her finger when the using the crusty old can opener, opening both ends of the tin, pushing the quivering shape out)  – tangy thyme laced parsnips and creamy rutabagas with pearl onions – roasted sweet potatoes (or where they yams?) layered over with charred mini marshmallows – boiled-to-death string beans with almond slivers – gray-green garlicky Brussel sprouts and finally earthy pungent buttons of mushroom caps stuffed with bread crumbs that my Mother had made.  Half the dishes circled clockwise, the other half counter. We passed around a precariously filled-to-the-brim boat of turkey gravy which we slathered over everything, spreading out over the entire plate like the Johnstown flood.  We filled our thick water glasses with ice cold Key Food Golden Apple Cider poured from a glass gallon jug with a little side handle that I always got my thumb stuck into.

Cousin Glenn

Silence descended like the truce at the WWI trenches on Christmas Eve. We devoured the meal in less than a half an hour. There was a collective groan of satiety when my Uncle Larry gave a big sigh and rose up to toast Grandma and saying it was the “moistest” turkey she had ever made (he said this every year). We all clapped as she looked over her family like a stony, silent Indian chief. My fey Uncle Joey went to the Hi-Fi and put on record of the famous band leader, Art Mooney. The needle plunked down on “I’m looking over a four leaf clover” and we all sang along even my quiet Cousin Glenn,  “that I over looked before. One leaf is sunshine; the second is rain, third is the roses that grow in the lane. No need explaining, the one remaining is somebody I adore. I’m looking over a four-leaf clover that I overlooked before.” My brother and I fought over the wish bone. I won.

When the song was over, like revelry, everyone rose from their turkey tryptophan stupor. Uncles Phil and Eddy put on their over coats and left quickly racing down the steps to go the Jolly Pigeons Bar & Grill to pick up some other kind of Thanksgiving bird. They would not stay out late: Uncle Phil had to be at Hunts Point at 3am to buy wholesale for their fruit and vegetable market and Uncle Eddy had to open up the store. Uncle Larry kissed Grandma on the cheek saying “Night Mama” as he left in sweet sadness. My father went to the parlor opened the top of his pants, stuck his hand under his belt, laid his head back and the couch and fell asleep.  Uncle Cy joined him in the parlor watching football on TV.

With all the men gone or asleep the cleaning up was left to the females; scraping, rinsing and washing the dishes as I helped to transfer  the food to smaller bowls, sealed with Saran Wrap.  Grandma never gave us any leftovers. They were always kept for the return of her beloved prodigal sons. Art Mooney and his Orchestra continued on the Hi-Fi with “If I knew you were coming Id’ve baked a cake, baked a cake, baked a cake. If I knew you were coming Id’ve baked a cake.” Uncle Joey would sing out the refrain: “Howdya do, Howdya do, Howdya do?” and we all joined in.  Michael sat on the kitchen floor, getting in our way, coloring in his Mighty Mouse book. Grandma like a retired general, went to the front sun room, sat in her rocking chair, eyes closed, praying the rosary, davening and murmuring like a Tibetan monk, asking forgiveness and mercy for her wayward family.

The tablecloth now looked like a tapestry camouflage of mottled brown gravy stains; sanguine cranberry Rorschach blots, a barrage of bread crumbs and gangrenous vegetable smudges. Aunt Laura laid a smaller yellow art deco cloth over it all, hiding the battlefield. Uncle Joey put the trash out in that ever present garbage can on the other side of the kitchen door. Silence descended.

The whistling teapot startled us with its load hissing noise and signaled it was time for dessert. Dessert was a ladies delicacy. Hot boiling water was poured from teapot into dainty teacups with a tea bag of A&P “Our Own Brand” tea. There was a little string attached to the bag that I liked to keep dunking and dunking till Grandma gave me rap. She would pour the hot, hot tea from her cup onto the saucer and blew across the top to cool it down before sipping. Grandma used Carnation Evaporated Milk in her tea, a vestige of the Great Depression and WWII rationing. Like weary veterans we sat around the now empty vast dining room table with the faint cheers of the Rose Bowl filling the quiet background. It was in a way a most holy and serious rite.

On the table lay the pies, pumpkin and pecan displayed on crystal cake stands, mixed hard shelled nuts in a pewter bowl and fruit in a large cornucopia Italianate painted bowl.  Aunt Laura served Uncle Cy still watching the game, a piece of each pie topped with a dollop of freshly made whip cream. I made a mess cracking open the walnut shells and making them into little soldier helmets on my finger. With little dessert forks, we took tiny nibbles of the pies, groaning as we took our last bites. Grandma opened up a bottle of her favorite liqueur, Cherry Herring Brandy. She gave me sip from a rose colored etched with gold cordial glass. It tasted like Smith Brothers cherry cough syrup. No one ever touched the fruit.

Baby Karen crying from the bedroom, signaled the festivities were over. In a quiet armistice, the table was quickly cleared and everything put back where it belonged in its stasis of everyday living.   Hugs all around and nary a kiss was espied on the cold Polish border of our family mores.

It was dark out now. It was same feeling of amazement I always got when I went to a wintery movie matinee, entering in the bright clear afternoon sunlight but coming out into darkness. We all slept on the way home as Dad somehow stayed awake, driving. He opened up his side window so the chilly night air whooshed back to my seat and rushed through my hair. I then rolled mine down too and stuck my head out pretending I was a train engineer. “Close that window,” my mom snapped.” You’ll catch cold of the baby!” Michael woke up as we slowed down and went up the steep incline of Park Slope’s 10th Street.  There was parking on the right side of the street right so Dad didn’t have to get up early the next morning to move the car to the other side.

Karen was quickly laid down in her blonde wood crib. The rest of us got into our pajamas. My mother made dad a sandwich and he gave me a bite. We sat down to watch The Wizard of Oz on CBS, channel 2. Of course it was in black and white. It wasn’t till my Uncle Joey took me the following month to the Sander’s Movie Theatre off of Prospect Park that I realized that when Dorothy opened the door she stepped into the glorious lollipop Technicolor Land of OZ.

“There’s no place like home”

After it was over, we all went to sleep. I said my prayers and went to bed. I was hungry again so I reached under the bed where I hid my Ragamuffin Day goodie bag and pulled out an O’Henry bar.  As I was eating, I noticed some charcoal under my fingernails, left over from the morning so I licked it off with some of the chocolate from the O’Henry. I chuckled, “Anythin’ f’ Thanksgiv’n’?

I couldn’t sleep. Something was troubling me. Maybe it was my parent’s conversation I overheard the other day. They were talking in whispers. I caught fragments of words – moving – upstate – house.  I didn’t know it then but like a movie, they were changing the scenery of my life. The following year we would move upstate to Newburgh, NY to a real house. My life would in a way be like Dorothy’s story but only backwards. I was now living in my beloved OZ, a New York City of vibrant neon lights, magnificent bridges, roaring subway trains and  crazy characters. I would soon be dropped down the following year into to the drab, gray, dull suburban black and white existence of the suburbs, a Kansas where everybody looked like everybody else, acted the same, got around in cars and there was no Ragamuffin Parade.

The outside street light cast a cool white light into the bedroom. Snow flakes flittered against the window pane. An ambulance car siren wailed in the distance and I swore I heard the clanging of a Brooklyn trolley car way off from Flatbush Avenue.  My father  started snoring until my mother gave him a quick jab. Sweet sister Karen gurgled, and my brother gently rolled over on his side, facing away from me. With all of my family gathered around me, I still I felt so alone in my bed in a vastness of tumbled sheets. I hummed  “I’m looking over a four leaf clover.”  Maybe there would be four leaf clovers in Newburgh; I looked up to the ceiling with its rusty water stains and mottled light and pulled the covers up to my chin, and like Dorothy I started to whisper to myself over and over:  “There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home, there’s no place like home, there’s no place like, there’s no place, there’s no, ……. .”

As you might have guessed, I intend to gather all of these segments into book form. Actually I had the intention to write my life story way back in college. How pretentious! So here is what I wrote in 1972. It was meant to be the first chapter. It is pretty much the way I wrote it with just some minor tweaks. 

Pistachio Nuts! Yes, Pistachio Nuts, the red ones, the kind that the color gets all over your hands and mouth. That’s where it all began – those blasted nuts, a glass milk bottle and a boy.

Bill was possibly an eight-grader, tall, lean and blonde and our Irish landlady’s son – practically an adult – someone to look up to. I was a young Sal Mineo tintype with short brown hair, slight widow’s peak and a tiny nose (little knowing it would bloom five years later to a classic Roman schnoz!).

So it happened in Brooklyn. If you blindfolded me and dropped me in any part of Brooklyn, I would instantly know it was Brooklyn. Like Tchaikovsky; I hear two notes of his and I know it’s his music. In this case it’s Brooklyn. I don’t what it is – ladies in kerchiefs and pants, men in green work clothes, grubby kids or is it the church on every corner that makes Brooklyn the City of Churches? I don’t know.

My first childhood memory – correction – my first sexual childhood memory occurred one fine spring day. My mother was pregnant, again. I already had a brother so what next? Bill and I were playing on the stoop in front of our Park Slope brownstone (stoop is Dutch term for the stairs leading up to the front door).

We were playing with our little green plastic toy soldiers (which taste great too if you nibble on them). I was “America” and he was “Japan”, the mysterious east. I would fling my spitballs at his troops and defend our honor. But he had a secret weapon – napalm. He would take out a book of matches and throw fireballs and burn my soldiers, searing them with his flame until they became an ugly blob of green melted plastic. How could America withstand the attack of Japan?

As I said, the time was spring and my pregnant mother, whose acute smell due to her late term, whiffed my burning soldiers from the open window up to our third parlor floor. She leaned out the window and screamed:

“Anthony what the hell are you two doing?
What’s that awful smell? Playing with matches again?
Do you want to burn the Goddamn house down?
I have enough to worry about without having to worry about you!
You should know better! What are you doing?”

“We are just playing with our s-s-s-s…, I tried to get out.

“Shit, you can’t even talk, can’t you do anything right?” my mother announced to the entire neighborhood.

“Soldiers!” I cursed back.

But I had them all fooled. I stuttered on purpose. Well that’s how it began. Mommy and Daddy never noticed anything I did – not my drawing, my homework, my writing, nothing. But when I did something wrong – WOW I was the center of attention. They would yell, hit me and even fight over me. So I began to count on all the bother and fuss to get attention. But, but, but my plan didn’t work out so well. Before I pretended to stutter, now it happened beyond my control. My mouth had gone Frankenstein on me. I couldn’t do anything right.
Meanwhile, Bill and I put our soldiers away. Japan was impotent without her flame. I was gonna go upstairs and watch “The Howdy Doody Show”. It was time, 4:00pm. However Bill said he wanted to show me something. He gave me some more of his pistachio nuts and led me up the fourth floor landing under the roof.

We sat down. It was dark but some light came through the dirty skylight, enough to see what was around me – some empty milk and Coke bottles and Bill in his blue dungarees. “What’s’ up?” I naively said. Bill smiled. He pulled down his zipper. Three metallic rips that sounded like the roar of a locomotive whizzing down the tracks. He pulled out his “thing” and held it. I continued eating pistachio nuts. He reached to my mouth and took a wet, saliva-covered empty shell. He placed it on the head of his penis. It looked like a little soldier with a red helmet – “The House of the Rising Sun”. He looked into my eyes and I knew what I had to do – the same. I don’t know why, like follow-the-leader. I fumbled with my dungaree buttons. I struggled to get mine out. I thought I lost it until I felt a sharp pain as it grazed over the rough teeth of the zipper. As last it whimpered out. Bill placed a helmet on mine. Both stood at attention like a standoff. Then we touched them, bowing the heads as if starting an elaborate duel. We parried and thrust. My pistachio nut fell off in the heat of battle and it left a red stain on the tip. My penis looked like a little matchstick.

Bill then grabbed a milk bottle and slowly guided the head of his penis into it as it grew and engorged, making the entry difficult. “Pheasant under glass,” he joked as he spit and put some of his saliva on the bottle rim. The mouth of the bottle moved back and forth over his skin. He never took his eyes off of me as it glided in and out. All of a sudden he sighed and something happened which I couldn’t understand. If by magic, a milky cream appeared in the bottle as he pulled it off. He motioned me to try. I attempted to perform the same trick. I picked up another milk bottle and my little “thing” easily slid in. He told me to look into his eyes, as he tried to kiss me. I moved mine back and forth following Bill’s instructions carefully. But then  I broke my stare to look down to see how I was doing and how big I had grown. I gasped in disgust when I saw a roach at the bottom of the bottle. I tried to yank my thing out but it was stuck. Billy was laughing. I pulled hard till it finally came out, with the sound of a Tupperware lid – POP. I was wincing as I stared down on my red stained penis. Now I was scarred for life I thought.

I jumped up and ran down two flights to my apartment, leaving Bill who was sitting Indian-style in the dark hallway. I skidded past my mother to the bathroom and slammed the door. I scrubbed and scrubbed trying to get the red pistachio stains off my little weenie. It was like the stigmata on the statue of St. Francis that I used to kneel in front of at church. I rubbed it so raw that it began to hurt so I put some of my mother’s Nivea cream on it. As I came out of the bathroom my mother crinkled her nose and said: “Anthony have you been playing with my lotions again?” “No Ma!” as I plopped myself down in front of our Philco television.

“The Howdy Doody Show” was just over. As I changed the channel, I noticed my fingers were still stained red from the pistachio nuts. Emulating Bill, I moved closer to the TV and squatted Indian-style. I folded my hands underneath my legs to hide them from my all-seeing Argos Eyed of a mother. Suddenly The William Tell Overture rang out! I tried concentrating on the show but I kept remembering my afternoon skirmish and  couldn’t stop thinking of Bill and his legerdemain. The music blared out again as the half-hour Western concluded. My heart was beating in fear and delight and as fast as I licked the last lurid red remnants of the Pistachio nuts. I knew I was stained with original sin forever as those final galloping notes of the famous war horse overture rang out and a voice announced:

Who was that masked man?”
A fiery horse with the speed of light, a cloud of dust, and a hearty ‘Hi-yo Silver!’
The Lone Ranger!

When I think of June I think of graduations. I always remember a teacher telling me that graduation does not mean an “end” of learning but a process to the next level. From the Latin, gradus meaning step or walk. So it means you are onto the next step of aspiration. Every June we should celebrate how far we have “graduated” from the previous year. So what are your grades for 2006?

When I was in grammar school the year was subdivided into A & B. If you notice on my second grade picture from St. Thomas Aquinas it says “2B”. This meant it was during the January – June part of the year. And yes, you would either graduate or be “left back” from 2A to 2B.  Can you find me in the picture? (hint: I was the class clown!)