David Lazar

by Robert Kalich

  Solomon was a godsend to so many people that he should’ve run for mayor. I would have to say that aside from my wife Elizabeth and son Liam, both of whom weren’t around until well after Solomon Lepidus passed, the most impressive thing about my life had little to do with the books I’ve written, the women I’ve loved, or my handicapping. The most special thing was having the good fortune to have known that five-foot-six-inch, barrel-chested phenomenon. Solomon Lepidus was a New York original.

  I was at Solomon’s steakhouse one very cold Tuesday night during the second week of December 1973. It was just about eighteen months after I had taken my book cartons and moved out of my parents’ home. I had made $109,000 tax free that year. I had become a someone. I felt good about myself. And now I was expanding. I was taking in partners, and, thanks to The Colonel, guys were coming out of the woodwork.

  “David Lazar is the greatest handicapper since...” he would tell everyone. Legitimate businessmen and wise guys alike would proposition me. Begging me to give them my games and offering me deals. That’s when Nathan Rubin first came in.

  “Ya see, sonny boy, this is the way I do things. I put up two thirds of the money. You put up one third. I don’t want to hear what your deal with Solomon Lepidus is. Lepidus is a sucker. You want my money? My outs? My information? You do it my way.”

  There wasn’t much of a crowd in Solomon’s steakhouse that night. A winter blizzard had hit the city. Hardly anyone showed up. I had Solomon all to myself.

  “Davey boy, I’m going to join my wife and daughter this weekend in London. If you find a special game, don’t worry about calling me. You know how much I hate to talk on phones!”

  “Solomon, I feel uncomfortable betting this kind of money when you don’t have a clue as to what’s going on. Why can’t you do what Nathan Rubin does? Check in with me every night before the games begin.”

  “What the hell, Davey boy! Don’t be such a businessman! I trust you.” Solomon gave me one of his broad grins. “What the hell, Davey boy! It’s only money! Just keep pickin’ winners!”

  Solomon Lepidus was a primordial man with simple truths. I don’t say this to denigrate Solomon; it was just how he lived and thought. “Davey boy, first you make your money; then you live your life,” he said the first time we met. I had my nose in Jean-Paul Sartre’s Being and Nothingness. I thought Solomon was aboriginal.

  In 1985 Solomon told me, “There’s this new telemarketing company in Canada. They have a once-in-a-lifetime idea. They need money to expand. That’s me, Davey boy. I’m buying fifty-one percent of the company with the six million I still have left.”

  “Don’t be crazy, Solomon!”

  “I’m going to take a shot, Davey boy. I have to. Otherwise, my employees are without jobs. They’re mostly family men; they need their jobs.”

  “Take your six million and run. You can still have a great life—you’re not dead!”

  “I have obligations, Davey boy. People are counting on me.”

  In the middle of the winter of 1986, Amy Cho and I were having dinner at Dewey Wong’s. I had a brown paper bag with $37,000 in Franklins to give to Solomon. He was over two hours late. Finally, at 10:05, he arrived. Before reaching our table, he stopped to say hello to half a dozen people who recognized him. One of them was Bobby Murcer. Another was Abe Beame, the first Jewish mayor of New York. Possibly the most ineffectual, too. According to Solomon, “He was a clubhouse Democrat, Davey boy. The city’s budget chief who during the seventies because of some influence from some politicians with clout, if you know what I’m saying, ended up mayor and presided over the largest budget crisis in New York City history. It might not have been Abe Beame’s fault, but it certainly was his undoing. He should’ve stayed at Richmond Hill High School as a teacher. That was the best job he ever had, he usta tell me.” Another was a Brooklyn D.A. Solomon shook his hand, patted him on the back, whispered confidences. Both men laughed so hard that they started crying. When Solomon finally reached our table, he didn’t greet me with his usual, “What’s doin’, Davey boy?” Instead, it was with a terrible shaking of his head, his raspy voice quavering. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me,

  Davey boy.”

  Amy began to sob.

  “I don’t know what’s wrong with me, Davey boy. I just blew $90,000 in Atlantic City. Had to sign an IOU. I’m crazy.” Solomon shook his head. “I can’t afford it. I know that better than anyone.” I was earning major dollars that winter. I was on a real roll and handing over wads of Franklins every week to Solomon so he could meet his payroll.

  Amy cried herself to sleep that night. She loved Solomon. Solomon helped her start her jewelry business. Supplied her with all the silver and gold that she needed. Gave her advice. Sat her down and told her step-by-step what to do.

  “Amy girl, remember this, the best place to look for a helping hand is at the end of your own right arm. Make this happen, Amy girl! Give it everything you’ve got.”

  “I will, Mr. Lepidus. I swear.”

  The college hoops season ended. There were no more five-star bets. Besides, my incredible winning streak had ended. I am not self-defeating. I continued to help Solomon. As the Greek philosophers would say, “In moderation...”

  The incredible percentage of winning that I achieved over a lifetime didn’t come easy. There wasn’t one day that the strong and the weak in me wasn’t tested. There wasn’t a day that inside that erratic mind of mine, I wasn’t on the verge of walking away. Each loss killed me. Every time I had to get a score, whether it would be at halftime, during the last two minutes of a game, hell, even during the first five minutes, I held my breath, clenched my talisman silver dollar, and died a little. Thirty-plus years of dying. Thirty-plus years of being under the gun. And then those contracts on my head, that too, unnerved me; I paid a price for the life I led. All that winter, I picked nothing but winners. I had won something like twenty-nine of the first thirty-seven games that I wagered on that season.

  Besides the hard work, the long hours, the anxiety, the danger, the damage to my soul, I had to tap into the art of handicapping. I found the gestalt of handicapping, which, besides odds, and home court advantage, and good coaching and numbers, and all the other details, demanded an intuition, a sense of where the whole was greater than the sum of its parts. And I learned to trust it, when to put down a bet and when not to. It was a gift, but I earned it.

  In 1986, I was as well-heeled as a one percenter. Solomon Lepidus being more than a great man to me, I could never say no to him. Of course, during my handicapping career, Solomon Lepidus had saved my life, too. Right now, I think of riding in a Lincoln town car with the buttons going down for one of those end-of-life rides. One phone call was all I had left.

  “Solomon, I got a problem...”

  There were five or six other crises like that when my life depended on Solomon Lepidus. And each time he came through.

  But Solomon also disappointed me.

  When he was negotiating to buy the New York Yankees: “Davey boy, I promise you, if I get to own the Yankees, you’re going to be my general manager.”

  Solomon changed his tune when the negotiations became serious.

  “I’m sorry, Davey boy. I think Jackie Robinson’s the right man for the job.”

  If Solomon Lepidus sounds larger than life, it’s only because he was larger than life. I, too, would have selected Jackie Robinson to manage my team. In fact, the day Solomon told me about his change of mind to Jackie Robinson was Debbie Turner’s twenty-fourth birthday, October 11, 1972. The four of us were driving to Solomon’s steakhouse for dinner.

  “Mr. Robinson,” I asked, “how did you ever find the courage to stand up to those beanballs that those racists were throwing at your head?”

  Jackie Robinson looked me straight in the eye, “I guess God gave me big shoulders,” he said.

  Chapter 16

 
I’m gazing at my two collages. Recalling a thousand memories. Rodney Parker grew up in Bed-Stuy. Never graduated the fifth grade. I met him when I was an undergrad at NYU. We were both seventeen. Rodney was shining shoes in front of the old Madison Square Garden. I had an extra ticket, which I gave to him. He said he’d meet me inside the Garden. He never showed. The following week, I was again going to the Garden for an NYU game and saw Rodney in front of Nedick’s scalping tickets.

  “You gave me a profession, man!” he yelled.

  We became friends, remained friends for fifty-seven years. Rodney died five years ago. His scalping did a whole lot of good. Eight children and all with decent lives and college educations. This feel-good story hasn’t even begun to tap the surface of all that Rodney Parker did. He saved more young men from the streets than anyone I knew. Through the years, he kick-started hundreds of basketball careers. Got boys into Five-Star Camps, junior colleges, Division One colleges, even the NBA. Rodney ended up knowing just about everyone in the game. The only negative to the story is that every year I write a letter trying to get Rodney Parker into the New York Basketball Hall of Fame, and every year, the board members reject my plea. They say Parker made his living scalping tickets and stick their collective noses up in the air. Rodney Parker wasn’t just one of my closest friends, he was a New York prototype. Besides helping all those youngsters, he did other things. But no one is a saint. In Rodney’s case, he made serious moves on all the women I had ever loved, but that’s another story.

  I wrote my novels, picked my games, had my relationships. It wasn’t romantic love all the time. Here’s a snapshot of a woman I knew in 1979 who was a centerfold in one of those girlie magazines.

  “David, that’s pathetic!” I can hear Elizabeth complain.

  Here’s one of Whitey Reynolds. Hadn’t spoken to Whitey Reynolds since we were in high school. He played in the same backcourt as Noah Weldon back then. Whitey and I were close. We hung out together. Then we lost track of one another. Joya Weldon phoned me two weeks ago to tell me that Whitey’s wife had passed. That I should give him a call. When I did, he was still grieving. Of course, he was. What did I expect? The thing is Whitey and I started talking. It was as if we were back at Commerce High School. I didn’t invite Whitey to have dinner with me. I thought it was a bit too early for that. Something he said to me made me sad. I mean, outside of the fact that his wife had passed. He said that he never made it. That he tried.

  “My dream was to own a diner, Lazar. I ended up a dishwasher. I saw you more than once at the restaurant I worked at.”

  At eighty, there isn’t much left of me. I must remember to tell Elizabeth to pick up a more secure rubber mat for our bathtub. The current one is dangerous. I had safety bars installed in the tub, and it still took me six minutes to climb out. I’m becoming feebler every week. And that’s with going to Equinox four times a week and working out with a personal trainer. Maggie Giddens is doing her job. It’s me. I never thought I’d be one of these old people. I am. It happens to everyone. Stick around long enough and it’s sure to happen. I’m super grateful for these years I’ve had with Elizabeth. As for friends, at last count, only six of my forty-one closest ones are left. There are several new individuals in my life. When I think of it, ninety percent of my old friends were self-made men and women. Idiosyncratic, with large egos, and that’s something that’s missing nowadays. I dwell on all my buddies who are gone, from Rodney Parker to Solomon Lepidus to

  The Colonel.

  So many friends gone. The scarce few that are left are in wheelchairs. Have home attendants. Joya Weldon, it seems, is forever going for chemo. Stanley Banks was probably my oldest friend. When I think of what Duke did not do with his life, my mind jumps to Rodney Parker and what he did with his. As for Noah Weldon, he’s still my closest friend. For years and years, once a month, we’d have dinner at Sylvia’s in Harlem or go down to Little Italy and pig out.

  This is sad. Noah doesn’t remember he’s my closest friend. A stroke unceremoniously dumped him on an anthill in a debris-ridden park in Jamaica, Queens.

  Last week I visited Noah in the hospital. He’s in bed doing a lot of stammering. Yet he’s talking on the phone sounding alert. In fact, so feisty on the phone that he sounds just like he did in 1965 when he took Tommy—Latoya Earl’s boy—under his wing. I had talked to Noah about Tommy, and he introduced him to some community leaders in Queens. Didn’t stop working with Tommy Earl until he found a concrete way for him to make a living. Now, here I am visiting my best friend since we were fourteen, and Noah is stammering to some woman named Heather Feshbach.

  “Don’t abandon us like your mother did. The congresswoman gave up on our community. She’d rather make a buck and be a hotshot than do something for people. You know what I told your mother to do with her electoral politics. You’ve got to stay right here and teach, Heather. Continue teaching and working for the people in your neighborhood. If young people would just do that, the rest of it will take care of itself.”

  Noah’s tirade ended right there. Those were his last words.

  Five days went by before I took an Uber up to the Bronxwood Funeral Home. When I got there, I spent some time with Joya. Actually, it wasn’t Joya, it was a diminutive, frail, white-haired old woman who I didn’t recognize. A stranger in form, but as morally strong and powerful as her voice that cried out to me, “My baby is gone! My baby is gone!” Sixty years of being happily married will do that, I guess.

  “My baby is gone!”

  I spoke to Noah’s son, Jesse, then I was introduced to Noah’s grandson, seventeen-year-old Jordan Weldon. Jordan Weldon moved me as much as Noah did the first time we met. He had Noah’s effusive smile, his high brow, his warm voice, his good looks. The boy was a reed, well over six feet tall.

  “My poppy spoke about you all the time, Mr. Lazar. He said that you were the one white man he trusted.” I didn’t have to hear any more. That said it all. At the funeral of the 500 or 600 mourners, no more than three or four were Caucasian. The mayor was one of them.

  “What a world we live in.” Noah would always sigh when we were so very young and trying to change the world.

  “My poppy and I were real close, Mr. Lazar. Every Sunday we would sit together at church. No, he never mentioned that he was an All-City basketball player. No! He never mentioned that he played college ball. No! He never mentioned that he was invited to the White House by the Clintons. My grandma told me about that. No, he never mentioned that you dedicated your first novel to him or that you were the best man at his wedding. No! No! No! But he did tell me all the time about how much work still needed to be done for people. He was a hands-on community leader, Mr. Lazar. My poppy worked with everyone from the mayor to gang leaders to neighborhood people. He knew every church, mosque, and synagogue all throughout Queens. My poppy got along with everyone, Mr. Lazar. He drilled into me two things that he made me scribble on my wall. One: People are important. Two: Read! Read! Read!”

  Jordan was the spitting image of Noah. It was eerie at first. I had flashbacks of my first day in Mrs. Martin’s homeroom. Noah and I sitting side-by-side and becoming friends.

  “I’m going to Howard, Mr. Lazar. I just found out that the school accepted me. After college, I know what I want to do. I’m going to be a civil rights lawyer and work for people. Try and do the same kind of things my poppy did. I mean every day—” Jordan hesitated and then stammered, “My poppy was a great man, Mr. Lazar. I loved him so much!” He started to sob.

  “I loved your grandfather from the time we were fourteen, Jordan.” I said, putting my arm around his shoulder. Inside I felt very much as I did as a fourteen-year-old when Noah and I first met. I felt so

  much better.

  Two weeks later, I was still thinking of Noah and Joya...When I think of Joya, it’s as a fifteen-year-old with bruised plum-colored cheeks, a Booster’s white sweater, green skirt, knee socks, running out on the
basketball court to cheer for Commerce and, of course, Noah. Joya Highsmith was so damn young. So darn adorable. So full of life. She was the feistiest girl at Commerce. Joya bossed Noah around from the first day they met. “Hey, Weldon,” she would snap. “I’m here. Stop ogling them women.” Noah would freeze, take orders, do what he was told. Even at sixteen, he knew who the boss was and he also knew he loved Joya.

  When I saw Joya at the funeral she was not someone I was familiar with. She had shrunk to the size of a tiny lady; a kind of elderly citizen, frail, ghostly, and slow of pace. She had white, white hair that was thinning in the front, tightly pulled back to cover the bald patches at the top of her head. Her forehead was the most prominent part of her. It was pulsating, that is, the vein in the middle was. Her skin was colorless, the rest of her was covered by a gunnysack dress that some might say was smart and stylish. Joya’s demeanor was antithetical to the Commerce Booster as my life is different as an octogenarian from my high school days. Yet, Joya’s voice hadn’t changed at all. She still sounded as alive as sixty years before, no, make that sixty-five. It wasn’t Proustian time, but it was a flashback that seemed as if we were back to the you-know-what-can-never-be. Joya’s tone, pitch, resonance, social concerns, devotion were all there, the caring qualities, not only for Noah, but for our country.

  “Character, that’s what’s missing in these guys—character! It all starts there.” Then Joya fused teardrops into communication. “My baby,” must have been repeated as much as “Noah was great. Not only as a husband, Dave, but as a man. Forget the stupid basketball for a minute, do you have any idea how much he did for the people. People!” she said.

  “Do you remember when we double-dated with Sheila Tronn?” I asked. We must have been sixteen, maybe seventeen and eighteen. Sheila was fifteen. Redhead and as pretty as a young Rhonda Fleming. For those of you who aren’t familiar...Rhonda Fleming was an actress.