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!)

Brooklyn

November 18, 1955

It was a five days before Anthony’s birthday. His Aunt Laura, as usual was visiting after their early Sunday afternoon dinner. Aunt Laura helped his mother cleanup the dishes and made some tea. The sisters both sat knee to knee around a pink and gray top Formica kitchen table with matching vinyl chairs. Both gently blew across their saucers to cool down their hot Lipton tea with Carnation Evaporated Milk.

For the past two weeks, he had driven his mother crazy, begging her to have a birthday party. He had gone to many parties at his friend’s houses but he never had one of his very own. He circled the kitchen table like an Indian, pestering his mother and making sullen looks, as he grabbed a “black and white” Ebingers cookie from the green bakery box.

“Please Mommy, please, please, p-p-p-lease.” At his final p-p-p-please, all of a sudden, his mother put down the saucer and burst out in tears. She sank down on the chrome kitchen chair, putting her hand to her head and sighed, “Yes, Anthony, you can have your birthday party on Friday after school. Just be quiet”.

Aunt Laura rose up from her chair like a black bolt of lightning, and gave her nephew a look that could kill. “Anthony you are such a bad, boy! You have no consideration for your poor mother, you only think about yourself.” She put her hand on her sister’s shoulder. “Josephine, it will be too much work for you in your condition. Josie you gotta rest. He doesn’t deserve it anyway.”

As she sat down, Aunt Laura stubbed her big fat toe on the bottom of the Formica kitchen chair. Anthony sniggered but turned away not to show his smile. He wondered what his mother’s condition was. She was acting funny lately, and she had gotten very big around her middle. His mother had told him he was going to have a new sister, but he did not put the two and two together. His bratty brother Michael was already three years old and he didn’t remember how he had magically arrived. His mother laughingly told him, the stork brought them. He went to the school library and looked up storks. Mmmm…

Anthony was so upset he made his mother cry but he still wanted his birthday party.  Standing in back of her chair, he put his arms around her and whispered:  “Mommy, I’m so sorry I made your cry and you’re not feeling well. I promise to do all the work. P-p-please, Mommy.” His mother whispered back that he could invite his second grade classmates of St. Thomas Aquinas for a party after school on Friday.  He tried to give her a kiss, but she brushed him away.

He was such a lucky boy. He would now would celebrate his birthday twice – once with his classmates after school on his actual birthday and then one with all of his relatives came over on Sunday. Aunt Laura was not happy as she nosily started to clean up the table and rattled the teacups in the enamel kitchen slop sink. She glared down at the smiling boy. He gave her a big toothed “black and white” cookie filled grin.

His Dad came back from Nona’s house.  He went every Sunday afternoon to visit his mother who lived way up in the Bronx.  “Tony”, as all the adults called his father, gave his mother money for the party. That Monday morning she gave Anthony two whole dollars to go down after school to buy decorations at Kresges on Fifth Avenue.

All day in class, his stern teacher, Mrs. Morris, had to wrap his knuckles with a ruler to stop him from passing around notes inviting his friends to his party.  The night before he had written out ten notes in his best cursive handwriting. He would rather do that, than ask his friends and stutter and be laughed at.

Please come to my Birthday Party
Friday November 18
463 10th St.
3:30 pm.

After school, Anthony ran up Ninth Street to the 5 &10 on 10th Street, only two blocks from his home. He first poked his nose in the record department to see if any new Broadway albums had come out. He finally made his way to to see what the theme would be for his party: Mighty Mouse, Roy Rogers, Howdy Doody, Flash Gordon or Lady and the Tramp. After spending at least an hour deciding, he had planned splendid party of blue crepe streamers, white balloons, Mickey Mouse paper plates/cups and a Pin the Tail on the Donkey game. With his last nickel, he bought himself a Snicker Bar that he ate on the one home.  He went straight to the front hall closet to hide his purchases. He rummaged around the back of the closet, chock-a- block with Christmas decorations to see if there were any birthday gifts for him since that’s where his mother always hid the Christmas presents. No presents! All he knew was that his mother had said he would get a very special gift that year but it wasn’t in the closet. What could it be? What could it be???

Since he got home late, he hurriedly finished his arithmetic homework so he could watch Kukla, Fran and Ollie after dinner at 7:00 pm. At 8:00 pm he got on his knees to say his usual evening prayers, blessing everyone, asking Jesus to get him a Jack-in the-Box for his birthday  – the tin one where Jack would leap out with a freaky ghoulish glee. He also prayed that his Aunt Laura would stub her big fat toe again and it would fall off. He jumped into bed and dived under the yellow chenille bedspread. He gave his brother, Michael a kick and shoved him over to his side of the bed. But Michael kept turning and tossing until Anthony finally had had enough and took his pillow and made a fort wall between him and his brother. He used his Teddy Bear instead of the pillow that night to sleep on.

In the middle of that late chilly November night, Anthony got up with a start when he heard his father and mother talking in loud whispers across the way since they all slept in one big front room of the Park Slope brownstone. He played dead as he tried to listen to what they were saying. Finally his father came over and sat next to him on the bed and whispered with a definite seriousness: “Anthony, I have to take your mother to the hospital. Go back to sleep and take care of your brother. Your Aunt will be here by the time you wake up. Be a good boy for Daddy.” “Is m-m-mommy ok?” Anthony stuttered.  “Be quiet. You’re the oldest, watch your baby brother and go back to sleep” and with that, Anthony’s father turned off the lights and left the room with his mother wrapped up in her big woolen coat. Anthony heard the front door close. All was quiet again. He covered up his brother Michael with the bedspread, gave him a soft kiss on his forehead. He fell back to sleep.

At 7am his Aunt Laura came bursting in, expecting to find the house burned down. “What are you still doing in bed, you lazy pig?” He always got up at 7:30 am so he didn’t know what all of the stink was. “Hurry up now, get dressed, it’s time to go to school. If I were your mother I would have put you in The St. Vincent Home for Boys a long time ago” Every time they would drive past the home on Atlantic Avenue in downtown Brooklyn, his aunt would point to it and say “If you don’t behave we’re going to leave you there with the rest of the bad boys”. Sometimes his mother would threaten to give him away to the Gypsies who told fortunes, living in an abandoned store around the corner.

He was so excited about his party even though it was still two whole days away. He could barely put on the clothes that his mother had laid out the night before: clean white BVD’s, pressed navy blue chino pants, yesterday’s old wool socks, a white starched shirt and a maroon knit wool tie embroidered with STA (St. Thomas Aquinas). Finally, he managed to get dressed after wrestling with his pants legs that he had put on backwards. Just as he was about to leave, Aunt Laura said “Tell all your friends that you can’t have your party because your mother is sick!” Anthony was stunned. “B-b-but Aunt Laura! We have to! I have all the stuff bought. I invited them all.” She stood in the doorway blocking the way. “Your mother will not be back until Friday and you are not having a birthday party and that’s that. So un-invite your so-called friends. I will cancel the cake. Do you hear me? You are not!” She let him pass but not before she stubbed her big toe on the kitchen table leg and yelled out a loud: “son of a bitch!”

Anthony ran out the front door and slammed it behind him. He was so hurt that he could not even relish Aunts stubbed toe. He didn’t have time to write notes so he had to tell his friends, one by one. They didn’t laugh when he stuttered. They all said they would bring him his presents, they were already bought anyways. It didn’t seem fair to Anthony that they should have to give him presents without going to a party.

Anthony’s father came home late that night without his mother. He heard this Dad and Aunt whispering something that sounded like Preemie. Was it code? Was his mother dying? His father went right to bed. The next day Anthony went to church after school and knelt down at the altar rail of the Mary Chapel and prayed for his Mother and told Jesus he was sorry he hated his Aunt Laura but still wished she would disappear like the melting Wicked Witch of the West. He said “Three Hail Mary’s” and one “Our Father” like the priest would have asked him to do at Confession. Aunt Laura made supper that night and his mother was still not home when he went to bed.

Anthony got up very early Friday morning, his birth-day. His father said he could stay home from school to watch his little brother. Aunt Laura couldn’t come over, she had to work at the A&P chocolate factory down in the Bush Terminal Buildings. He pictured her in a white chef’s hat like Lucy on TV. “Roll them!” he snickered.  After he had his bowl of Cheerios, smothered with sugar, he turned on the Dumont TV and watched all the soap operas his mother would tell him about.  In the middle of the afternoon, even with his brother annoying him, he got so lonely and so, so sad. Drying away dramatic tears, he went to the closet and got all the party favors out. He quietly decorated the entire kitchen in blue crepe streamers and white balloons as his brother watched from the kitchen linoleum floor. Anthony put his party hat on with the elastic band under his chin and sat at the table and started to eat only the red M&Ms. He sang “Happy Birthday” to himself. He didn’t stammer when he sang.

Suddenly the door opened and in shuffled his mother and father. His mother was cradling a small bundle. Anthony was so happy to see her and was just about to tell her about mean Aunt Laura canceling his party when his mother said “Wow! How beautiful the kitchen looks Anthony. How sweet, you decorated it for your new baby sister.” Leaning down to him, she lifted the bundle’s pink coverlet and showed Anthony his new baby sister, Karen. Her eyes were closed and crusty with sleep. It was the tiniest person he had ever seen so he guessed a stork could carry a baby. She was small as a peanut. Aha! Peanut not Preemie!.  He decided then and there to call her Peanut.  His mother went to the bedroom. She laid Peanut down next to her and both took a nap. Anthony glowed that he made his mother so happy. He didn’t tell her he secretly had decorated the kitchen for himself.

Later that night, all the relatives unexpectedly came over. There were the two grandmothers: Nona and Grandma; all the Italian and Polish Uncles: Nick, Larry, Phil, Ed and Joey; his Aunts: Mary and Mary and his Cousin, Viola and of course, his wicked Aunt Laura. They all oohed and ahhed at the new blessing and all draped themselves on the couch, the two club chairs and kitchen chairs dragged into the living room. Dad opened up some whiskey, passed some frosted high ball glasses around and they all toasted him on his new daughter. Anthony kept poking his father till he gave Anthony a sip that made his lips pucker up.

In the middle of the festivities, Anthony’s mother took Karen to the chair-less kitchen table and laid her gently down. Anthony followed her in. “She has to be changed” his mother said. There was a sour smell mixed of Johnson & Johnson baby oil and poop. As she took her diaper off, Anthony eyes widened.  He couldn’t figure it out. “Where’s her Pee-Pee? She ain’t got any.” His mother laughed gently. “She’s a girl, Anthony. Girls don’t have Pee-Pees. Don’t ask so many questions, you are such a curious boy. Now be quiet and go back in the other room while I finish.” His Aunt Laura came in to help and pointed her finger shooing him to leave.

Anthony stopped in the bathroom on the way down the long hallway. He climbed up on the toilet bowl cover. He pulled down his pants and held his pee-pee in his hand so he could admire it in the mirror. His mother was always yelling at him to stop playing with it. He realized he had something his little sister didn’t have. His brother, Michael had one too but so much smaller. Even his Dad did, he guessed, though he had never seen it. He smiled. He was very proud of it. He put it away, climbed down from the bowl. He put the toilet bowl seat lid back up as his mother had taught him.

As he entered the parlor, the lights went off. What happened? Not another circuit breaker that always goes off? He moved slowly down the dark corridor toward the living room. Then with a start, he jumped as he heard everyone singing:

“Happy Birthday to you!

Happy Birthday to you!

Happy Birthday dear Ant-hony,

Happy Birthday day to you!”

They all clapped and laughed as he entered the living room, beaming. And there was Aunt Laura, standing in the kitchen doorway, carrying a big white whipped cream birthday cake. He started to cry as he blew out all eight candles. All his relatives kissed him, patted his back and his little butt. He then turned to his Aunt Laura and gave her the biggest of hugs. She sorta smiled. Thank God, Jesus didn’t hear everything he prayed for, he thought.. He cut the first slice of his cake and on purpose, got some whipped cream on his nose and made them all his relatives laugh.

When his Mother came back in with Karen, they cried out – “Bella bambina – What a beautiful baby – She looks just like you, Josie.” His mother gave the baby to Grandma to hold. Nona looked stonily on. His mother reached behind the couch and pulled out a beautifully wrapped present. “You didn’t think we would forget your birthday, silly boy?” He uncharacteristically tore the ribbons and paper off and there was his Jack-in-Box!  He wound it up. It played “Here we go ’round the mulberry bush, the mulberry bush, the mulberry bush, here we go ’round so early in the morning” and out sprang the Jack in the Box. He pretended to leap up in surprise as he gave his mother the biggest kiss and got whipped cream on her cheek. His older cousin Viola yelled out: “He looks just like you!”  All his relatives laughed again. His Aunt Mary, walked over to the closet and pulled out two winter coats she had bought at the Arthur Avenue Open Market. Anthony politely thanked her. “Give Titzie a big kiss!” Like an octopus’s tentacles, her kiss sucked his cheek out.

Rock & Rye was rolled out and liberally poured over ice as the Polish and the Italian accents bounced around the room accompanied by platters of capicola with caponata and kielbasa with potato salad that had hastily been purchased at their local neighborhood delis. Aunty Mary puffed on her Kent cigarettes like a locomotive; half eaten plates of birthday cake were strewn on the coffee and end tables.  His grandmothers sat as sultans in their court – détente. The streamers started to fall from the heat melting the scotch tape glue.

Aunt Laura organized the cleanup. Anthony’s mother retrieved his sister like a little chick, that was laid to rest in a nest of his relatives coats tossed on the bed .Even Dad was teary eyed good byes. Kisses on one cheek from the Polish contingent and two cheeks kisses from the Italians; bye-byes and ciaos. At 8 pm everyone was gone, all the grandmothers, aunts, uncle and cousin. The house was once again quiet. Exhausted, the Napoli family all went to bed early.

 Before he went to sleep, he got on his knees, said his prayers and asked blessings for his entire family including his Aunt Laura.  He thanked him for the Jack-in-the-Box and even the two coats too. But he knew the best present of all, was the one his mother gave him, his new baby sister, Karen Jean – Peanut. Anthony wished a special blessing on her and promised Jesus he would love her all his life and take care of her (as his Aunt Laura said he should). Although he and his sister’s birthdays were three days apart, November 15th & 18th, they would always celebrate them together.

 So Anthony did have his birthday party after all. And on Monday morning, he would get more presents from his classmates. He would thank them all, one by one. He did not stutter…

Karen Jean – Peanut

November 15, 1955

I was so excited. My Dad was taking me to Union Square to see my two favorite TV stars live, in person: Molly Goldberg and Ethel Mertz. My parents loved The Molly Goldberg Show and I Love Lucy. I would squat on the floor like an Indian between Mom and Dad who sat behind me on their gray and pink floral art deco couch. I got to stay up a bit later when these two shows were on. Mom usually bought special snacks, Wise Potato Chips and some of my favorite Hoffman Cherry Soda.  Ethel tickled me when she would stick out her tongue behind her husband s Fred back. I laughed at Molly’s Yiddish accent as she leaned on the window sill and yelled out: “Yoo-hoo, is anybody there…?”

It was a warm Brooklyn day in June when we hopped in Dad’s black DeSoto – just him and me to see Ethel and Molly. My father was very quiet as he maneuvered down Flatbush Avenue passing the Fox and Paramount Theatres, past the red and gold storefront of Junior’s. The Myrtle Avenue El Train rattled by us as we reached the Manhattan Bridge.

I turned the radio on as usual as we climbed up the bridge ramp but my dad reached over and abruptly shut it off. I thought I had done something wrong. He said I didn’t but to be very quiet when we got to the rally and to stay next to him and be a good boy.  Manhattan crested into view as we turned onto Chrystie Street directly into Chinatown onto Jewtown to the East Village along Second Avenue. My dad was great at finding parking spaces and he somehow squeezed into a tight spot on East13th Street behind Luchow’s, the famous German restaurant.

I was bursting with anticipation to see the TV stars as I held my Dad’s hand, who was still strangely solemn.  As we walked up 14th Street, huge crowds were gathering around: men dressed in dark suits, all wearing Fedora hats; ladies with hats or kerchiefs. Some were carrying homemade signs which I couldn’t read. They were all quiet and solemn too like a funeral, like black ants assembling around a hill that I had seen once in Prospect

Park.

When we got to Union Square it was so filled with adults that I couldn’t see the stage. Dad put me on his shoulders so I could just barely make out the speaker’s platform. I strained to hear what they were announcing. After many speeches and cheering I ask my Dad when Molly and Ethel when coming out? He took me down off his shoulders and looked amusingly at me and laughed slightly and smiled.

“Who, how did you get that idea?  Ha-Ha… Ah …. No, no you silly boy. Anthony, we are here for an important reason. We are all to protest a grave injustice being done to Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.”

I didn’t understand.

“So Molly and Ethel won’t be here?”

“No they won’t be, you go the names mixed up baby.

“Oh” I said with sad disappointment.  So Julius and Ethel will be here?”

‘No they won’t be” He started to explain but stopped when the crowd began yelling again.

“Just be quiet and when we are done I will take you up to the Merry-go-round in Central Park.”

“Yes, Daddy,” I obediently replied.

 I held his had tightly now since the crowd was beginning to push and swirl around us, like dirty bath water whirring down a drain.  I didn’t’ understand but I knew something special was going on by the way people were chanting. Some women started to cry and wail. I couldn’t help it and I started to cry too not knowing why. After an hour, Dad sensed this was all a five year boy could take and we walked back to the car. I knew to be quiet.

On the way up to Central Park, my dad explained to me that the Rosenbergs’ were unfairly tried for  spying just like Sacco and Vanzetti, two Italians that I heard my Dad arguing about with my Aunt Mary. We were there to speak out against it. He mentioned something about a big bomb and Russia. I was so confused but happy to be alone with my Dad and to hear him talk with such passion even though I could only grasp a little. I asked my Dad what would happen to them as he lifted me up onto a Carousel horse. He didn’t answer me as he stood next to me, holding me and onto his hat as the horse went up and down and round and round – the organ played the Sousa march”El Capitan”.

We got home around 5:30 pm just in time for our Friday night supper. Every Friday my Aunt Laura who lived down the block on 10th Street would join us for dinner before a movie. Mom had prepared fried fillet of flounder that night since we couldn’t eat meat. Once again, it was strangely quiet at the dinner table, even my argumentative Aunt stared into her bowl of macaroni with plain tomato sauce.

After supper, my Dad went into the living room to read the evening edition of The Daily News. My Mother asked my Aunt if she didn’t mind not going to the movies tonight, she wasn’t feeling well. She went to lie down on the bed. She had been doing that a lot recently. My Aunt Laura cleared the table, washed the dishes while I dried.  I asked her what was going to happen to Julius and Ethel.

“They are gonna fry those awful Jew spies. I wish I could pull the switch myself. They are going to electrocute them tonight at 8 o’clock and I hope they both go straight to hell and burn again. Wait and see, they say the lights will dim when they pull the electric chair switch up in Sing-Sing”

I once stuck my finger in the electric socket when I was exploring so I knew this was a very bad thing. A shudder ran down my spine and I almost dropped the bowl I was wiping with my terry cloth dish towel. I started to ask another question when my aunt brusquely told me it was time for bed even though it was not quite the usual 7:30 pm.

When I said my prayers and asked Jesus to help take care of Julius and Ethel my aunt gave me a slap.  I spun around and looked at her meanness. I climbed into bed and pulled the sheets over my head, hating my aunt.  I couldn’t fall asleep. I could hear my Father watching TV and the front door close behind my Aunt as she left.  My Mickey Mouse watch read 7:45 pm as I tossed and turned. It seemed like an hour before 8pm came. I was waiting for the lights to go out so I knew they were dead.

Mickey’s big hand with a white glove reached 12 – 8pm. I shot up and ran and looked out of the window.  I swore I saw the cobra-headed street light flicker and flare when a muffled collective moaning rose from the neighborhood like when the Dodgers lost to the Yankees in the World Series.  There was no one on the street.

I heard someone coming down the hallway and I jumped back in bed and pretended to go to sleep, very still. I could smell my Dad’s Old Spice as he kissed me on the forehead and whispered, “Good night silly boy.” He sighed and went back to the parlor. I slept soundly that night and in the morning my mother made us pancakes as if nothing had happened.

My Mom wearing a black lace mantilla took me to church at St. Thomas Aquinas.  After 9am mass, my dad drove us out to Grandma’s for Sunday afternoon dinner always held at 1pm after my Polish uncles got back from the 12 o’clock mass. . We took the new Gowanus Expressway to 96th Street in Bay Ridge.

“Anthony, why don’t you turn the radio on?  Aren’t the Dodgers playing?”

I looked up at him as he smiled at me as I pushed the button. I went back to school on Monday. No one talked about Ethel and Julius. I took 9th Street home after school so I could pass the Avon and RKO Theatres to see what was playing. My Mom always took me on Friday nights with Aunt Laura to see the double features. That night we watched I Love Lucy on channel 2 and The Molly Goldberg Show on channel 4….

“Yoo-hoo is anybody there…?

Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were not.

Post Script:

Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were the only American citizens ever to be executed for conspiracy to commit espionage. In retrospect it seems an extremely harsh sentence, but the political landscape of the 1950’s McCarthy era created hysteria which saw the ‘Red Menace’ of Communist domination everywhere, and their execution was widely supported by the public at the time.

Julius Rosenberg was electrocuted first, at 8pm, Ethel Rosenberg followed, and was still alive after the first attempt: she required two further charges of electricity to kill her: as a result of her small stature, the electrodes fitted poorly, in a chair designed for larger male occupants.