Train Tracks Read online

  Monk’s old lady was Frances, and she was beautiful. She was a beautiful English beatnik—tan, long hair down to her waist; and she was so different from the women that I grew up with that, naturally, I fell in love with her. She was gorgeous. She wore dungarees. I used to hear Charlie Fartser talk about Frances once in a while. The other men couldn’t admit they liked her, right? Because socially, who was she? She wore pants, dirty pants. But they loved her. I mean, they were hot for her. She was the only real woman around. Charlie would say, “I bet you can smell those pants up here.” You know, they’d talk about how dirty her pants were. But they really loved her; you could see it in their eyes.

  Years later, when I was a young merchant myself, Monk got sick. After a heart attack, he shrank in size. It was frightening; he went to Bellevue and came out looking one-third the size—a skinny man with no power, in a wheelchair. He told Benny he wished he was dead.

  Frances was always friendly with homosexual types who would work in the stand with her. And this is where I really got a feeling for music, by watching them across the center gangway, where the market was open on both sides. I’d sit behind my father’s stand and watch these men listen to music, and enjoy it. They’d play classical music, and they would move to it while they were cleaning something, polishing some metal. You’d see the men genuinely moved by the music. No one was watching them, so they were really relating to it as though they were in their own house. That’s where I was first able to see a man, or a human, moved by music.

  The only other Frances tale occurred in the basement when I was about thirteen and wearing my hair combed back in the semi-ducktail. She came downstairs; I was very shy, and I was there cleaning the bronzes, and she says to me, “How come you want to look like a teddy boy? Why do you want to look like a teddy boy?” Now, I was also insecure, and I had been ridiculed by my father so much that I thought she meant a fag, by her “teddy boy.” But she meant a hitter. She was actually telling me, “Why are you trying to look so masculine?” while I thought she was saying, “Why do you look so feminine?” That’s how distorted I had gotten by that point. It took me five years to figure out what “teddy boy” meant. Five years to figure out that Frances wasn’t calling me a fag.

  Now we get to Ethel, white-haired Ethel with the big breasts or, as they called them, bosoms. In her case they were not really sex glands. They served one purpose only: to say, I am a maternal, warm woman. So anyhow, she had these huge breasts, which were worn under a drape, a green velvet drape. She had white hair, cute little woman. Everyone thought she was nice. My father knew otherwise. They’d fall for her nice act. She’d cry, she’d give you a little candy or cake that she’d made. She was always crying about her sick husband. She always had rum cake which appeared to have been just baked in the back of her small booth. And she always told you about her sick husband and leaned on you, as if to say, “My sick husband is who I work for.” My father used to say, “Ethel, please, stop weepin’ for Christ sakes.” So she would try to bullshit my father, like if a customer would come in to see my father, she’d get jealous. She was the only one who dared to carry the same merchandise as my father. She’d buy from the same guy and carry a small stock of the same things. She was right next to him in the back part of the market. So they’d come in to see my father’s chandeliers, and there was a board running across the top between his stand and hers; and she had the nerve to hang a few chandeliers across this joint beam. To a big buyer from South Carolina he might say, “Well, the last one’s not mine, it’s Ethel’s. Ask Ethel.” So in a sense there wasn’t that much open begrudging; it was a market and communal in a sense. You couldn’t say, “Don’t shop.”

  But everyone was in competition. My father was supposedly the richest. That was the only way he could be there. Even among that motley band, he had to be the wealthiest. But it wasn’t true. He only thought he was the richest, I’m quite sure. Anyway, Ethel called my father the human fly, because he used to walk on the beams, above the stalls near the ceiling where he kept things. He’d balance himself from board to board, a little trapeze act for the crew.

  Ethel had a son who was supposedly a CPA, only he wasn’t a CPA, he was a PA, he blew the C. He wasn’t certified; in other words, he was a failed accountant. She used to call him “my boy.” He was forty-seven, not married, and she’d say, “Danny, my boy, I wish he’d meet a nice girl.” This went on for twenty years.

  In the next stand was Gene. Now, thus far, I’ve been talking about Jews, till we get to Gene. Gene was Italian; Gino was actually his name. Gene was married to this woman, Helen, and my father named her Helen Throw Bean for some reason. I don’t know why. And Helen Throw Boob. Helen was this big bimbo. But Gene and Helen were fifty, and she’d lost all her looks, but apparently they were gorgeous as young people. She was a sweet woman through all that big lipstick and the crazy eyes dressed up with mascara, crazy lipstick, and the weird dresses and the high heels—she was a sweet woman. They lived in a teeny little flat.

  They always had dogs that they loved. When one dog died, they closed the market, they were so sick for weeks. And she told me once, when I was about fifteen, she said, “That’s my Gino back there.” She said, “You don’t know about Gino. Gino is my golden boy. When he was young he had long golden hair. He was such a handsome man; he was very beautiful.” She said, “Gino was very rich when I met him.” It was always like that, you know, rich and beautiful. Gino supposedly owned a couple of automobile agencies, Chrysler agencies, which he lost during the Great Depression.

  Many of these men in fact were refugees both of the old country and of the Depression. They were double refugees. And the market in essence was to them a gold mine, because they would make a living without working for someone; they were still independent, which was the most important thing to them. They were all first generation. My father was born in Russia as was Monk—they were all immigrants. See, they all came from another market together. At first, they just sold rags and junk off pushcarts, that’s how they met. I think my old man also began with a pushcart after his dry goods business failed, during the Depression. So, for them to have a fixed store was really something. This was their market; they were merchants. A Ship of Merchants. But remember what a merchant was to a man with a pushcart—it was the Promised Land. I used to hear stories about the old market. And the division of loyalty that I grew up on was between those from the old market who came into the new one (they were the nucleus) and the newcomers who didn’t count for a nail. They were the ridiculed ones. Ethel was a new one. Johnny was a new one. The original band was Benny, Sol, Murray, Charlie, and Monk. And that was about it. The rest were newcomers and therefore not even worth the time of day. They all knew each other only thirty years in the new market, but that didn’t matter. Those not from the original crew were considered worthless.

  Then we had, coming up on the right—what the hell was his name?—the eighty-five-year-old guy built like a sixteen-year-old kid. The Iron Man. Leo. Leo sold mainly jewelry and had gray hair, and was renowned as a philanderer. His wife would work so that he could get dressed up as a dandy with white gloves, hat, cane, and walk up and down Second Avenue. He was just a dandy, that’s all. I saw him in his later years. But he was always interested in girls. At my Bar Mitzvah, I remember him coming up to me, and saying, “Oh, Michael, who’s that? Who’s that woman? What’s her name?” It was some giant bimbo. She was married to a gambler and she had no fingers, but Leo didn’t see that she had no fingers. Actually, she
had stump fingers, she was born that way. It was weird. I remember she had all stumps. I was thirteen years old, and I’m seeing this guy getting crazy about this giant woman with big breasts, but he didn’t know she had no fingers. I wanted to say, “Hey, Leo, uh, that’s uh, so and so, but she got no fingers. I mean, you know, don’t get too crazy.” Of course I didn’t say it. I think he eventually found out, you know, over by the ice sculpture carved in the shape of a left ventricle. That would have best typified the life you were about to be initiated into, at that fantastic pageant.

  Coming up on the left we hit Benny. Benny cannot be paraphrased or discussed in a few paragraphs, so we’ll have to skip over him. We’ll leave him there in the shop mounting lamps for a little while, and we’ll move right on. We’re almost sweeping back to the door, when we come to Johnny, Johnny La Crut. Johnny had the lowest status. He was illiterate. He was the Italian organ-grinder. Johnny looked like the kind of guy who would have a monkey in the street, an organ-grinder. Sol took him in in later years. Originally he used to mount lamps for Sol, and then eventually he got taken into the market as Sol’s semi-partner. Eventually he quit, and just retired; he was the smartest one. In typical Italian fashion, he was the only one who retired. He put away enough money living in a one-room apartment for twelve dollars a month to quit with a stash.

  So we have Johnny La Crut, and then his boss, Sol. Sol was Cigarette Sol. You never saw Sol for a second without a Pall Mall hanging out of his mouth, and he always had tobacco stuck on his lip; he was always going, “pff, pff, pff,” always spitting a piece of tobacco out of his tough lip: “Hello, Michael, pff, pff, pff.” Sol was a very nice man; he was married to Effie. He was the brother of Charlie Fartser, who died of cancer.

  Sol and Charlie were brothers. And Molly Bloom was their brother. Molly was the brother who didn’t do anything; he was the bum. He lived with Sol and Effie and the three children in one small apartment. The years would go on, and he never left the ghetto. Never. Molly Bloom, I learned later, was a character of James Joyce; a woman, the daughter of a major. But in this case, Molly Bloom was this Jewish ne’er-do-well who lived with the brother and the wife in a two-bedroom apartment on Allen Street.

  Molly earned his living by, every once in a while, going to the sales where the men who were the principles in the market bought their merchandise. Molly would occasionally buy lesser merchandise and sell it out front. The stuff that Molly bought to sell was something that nobody else specialized in—used eyeglasses. Our market was one of the only places in America that I know of where used eyeglasses were trafficked in the open. On a typical Sunday outside 137 Ludlow Street, at the corner of Rivington, you might see Molly, with his face all red from the cold, with a few trays of eyeglasses bought at auction—a few dollars for several hundred pairs. They were bought at a subway auction, you know; stuff that people left on subways—unclaimed stuff. SO, there would be several hundred pairs of glasses, all jumbled up in boxes outside 137 Ludlow Street, and Molly would be selling them. Now, who would buy them but the poorest people, mainly the poor Jewish people who everyone has forgotten today. People say that every Jew is rich; after all, the Jews supposedly own the banks and the newspapers, so therefore there are no poor Jews. Of course I grew up around all poor Jews, but you’re not supposed to mention that. We were all supposed to be striving, you know, to control the world banking system. But Molly didn’t know about that, and he figured the next best thing to owning a newspaper or an oil industry was to sell used eyeglasses outside 137 Ludlow Street. So his customers were poor people, and they bought eyeglasses. They felt it was cheaper than going to an optometrist, a schmoptometrist, and getting a prescription, and having it ground, and spending forty dollars for glasses. They bought for fifty cents or a dollar. Now, they didn’t buy any pair of glasses; naturally, they bought glasses which fit them. If they were nearsighted they needed glasses that came from a nearsighted person; if they were farsighted they needed glasses from a farsighted person, and so forth. So how did they figure out if the glasses would work? Very clever—they tried them on. And what did they do? They read. So Molly would have a few torn pieces of newspaper, such was the eye chart they tested their new powers of sight on. There would be a few old Jewish dailies, like the Forward, the Daily News, and the Post. I don’t mean a full sheet of paper, but a shred from the corner of the sheet. So these shreds of paper were mixed in with the glasses, and you’d see these old people putting them on, reading, throwing the glasses off, on and off, on and off, till they found something; and then they’d bargain with Molly, who’d knock a dime or a nickel off of the glasses, and that’s how Molly earned his living. To this moment I can vividly see Molly standing there outside in the cold, selling glasses, smiling when I came up to see him, his breath an airy cloud.

  So that’s how Molly made money once in a while. That’s how he would support his alcoholic habit and puke on the floor in Sol’s house, and they’d have to move him out once in a while to a hotel. And once in a while he’d accidentally expose himself a little to the daughter. When Sol bought a vacation house out on Long Island, they’d invite Molly out but he never went to this house. He never left the East Side, for any reason. He loved the ghetto; he had everything he needed there. He had his bar, Hammel & Korn. That’s all he needed, the gin mill next to the synagogue.

  Anyway, Sol saved his money and bought a small place out in Patchogue. After a day on a boat out on the water, we’d all barbecue at the house. It was so gorgeous. My father was there, my mother was there, everyone was there. We were so rested and happy. It was summertime. The reason I liked it was that, see, I never had a father to do anything with; he worked seven days a week.

  The reason that I knew I had no father, it hit me when I was eleven, was when I went to a father-and-son Boy Scout dinner. I was the only boy at that Far Rockaway dinner without a father. So another kid’s father saw me—I don’t know why, he must’ve seen my face with schlumped shoulders; not slumped shoulders but schlumped, bent. I was so sad. It was the grayest day of my whole existence. I didn’t understand. You know, when you’re a kid you don’t know why you’re depressed; you just don’t feel good, and you don’t know why. I mean, I was eliminating the roast beef dinner, and here were all these lame fathers making speeches and bringing their sons up for awards. So anyway, this kid Aaronson’s father took me in, but his father was a weakling. I mean, I wanted him to be tough and loud—I wanted my father to be there, to yell at everybody at the Boy Scout dinner.

  Because that’s what Benny would do, was yell. I remember once in a while Captain Queeg Benny would walk the deck on the “merchant ship.” He’d get angry; he’d throw his weight around every once in a while, and yell at everybody, and then one after the other he’d put them down: “And you, you funkin’ moron, and you, you this,” and then he’d give the entire crew the yell, “If it wasn’t for me, the lot of you would be in shit shape. Don’t bullshit me; you’re all a buncha morons.” And there wouldn’t be a peep; they’d all stop what they were doing and all be in fear and trepidation. Arrested as in a painting, fixed in time; this one polishing an urn, that one appraising a fragment of precious metal, another arranging or dusting—all fixed in time.

  I remember one particular thing that happened between Benny and me. I was about ten or twelve and had decided it was time I learned to box. Being a small kid, I had always been pushed around and wanted to punch back. My uncle Nate happened to be close with a black fighter named Brown who was then training for
the fight that would have given him a title shot. It was to take place in June, outdoors in Yankee Stadium, just before the heavyweight title fight.

  Anyway, Nate called Brown and told him that his nephew wanted to learn to fight. It was arranged for me to meet the big black fighter at the Salem Crescent AC, up in Harlem.

  We met and Brown slowly explained that I would be needing to bring a jockstrap, a pair of shorts, sneakers, and a towel. I remember feeling shy and embarrassed at the jockstrap part. Here I was, with an inferiority complex a mile wide, and only a kid—not yet trained in making my initial reactions, not feeling I even had a pair of balls, a real pair, a man’s pair—and this big black man is telling me I’ll need to protect these, in an easy matter-of-fact way. Already I grew in confidence.

  Nate drove me home, back to Queens, and parted after some coffee with my father (his older brother, who he worshipped).

  The next day I beamingly told my father all the details of my meeting with Brown, who he held in considerable esteem, being himself a heavy fan, every Friday night glued to the set. We were all around the table, father, sister, and mother; it seemed even our part-Chow, Skippy, was in on this proud moment. At last the skinny weakling would learn to fight. He had decided, and the world responded. It would help him learn to fly.

  The little man responded in his typical Prussian-Russian way. Reasoning backwards, with heavy doses of scorn, he declared, “Boxing; it’s not for you. What, you go to Harlem every few afternoons by train? Are you kidding? Some six-year-old black will haul off and bust your head with one good right.”