Boogaloo On 2nd Avenue

by Mark Kurlansky

  Then, in 1945, without having ever been inducted or trained, he was given ein Geshütz, a gun. He knew nothing more about the tool. It was a gun. He had no idea how to shoot a Geshütz, though to be honest he made no real effort to learn since he had no intention of using it. He was told that he was now a private, a Schütze. He was sent out of Berlin to the south along with hundreds of other Schützen with a variety of Geshützen. Though he was already in his forties, most of the others were about sixteen years old. For two days, he wandered with his Geshütz and several armed and terrified children through muddy Prussian fields and woods dampened in spring rain until, half-starving, he found himself behind a thick tree with someone in the distance shooting at him. Hearing the flat, hard thwack of bullets hitting the tree, he was afraid to look out, but he finally gained the courage for a quick peek. To his joy, they were Americans and not Russians. He had wandered too far and missed the Red Army, which was probably in Berlin by this time. He looked again. There were three Americans with Geshützen far bigger, it seemed, than his.

  "Apple pie a la mode!" shouted the cornered, starving Private Mullen, suspecting that this would make little sense to the Americans. But it was the only American phrase he could think of. The shooting stopped, and Mullen threw away his gun and came out from behind the tree with his hands in the air. Suddenly he was rolling in the mud. An American had shot him! He had been shot in the leg. Then Mullen remembered something else. "Strawberry rhubarb! Strawberry rhubarb pie!"

  One of the Americans shouted something back about strawberry rhubarb pie. Incredible, Mullen thought, and repeated it again. "Strawberry rhubarb pie!" It turned out the American loved strawberry rhubarb pie, and that was how Mullen convinced him to take him prisoner instead of killing him. And he still had a phrase in reserve, "Boston creampie," to say in the event he was interrogated. Private Mullen's military career was over.

  Karoline was relieved to have the truth at last, yet when she had warned her parents of what was about to happen, they had acted as though they had been caught.

  "We knew this day would come, Bernsie."

  Moellen sighed. "Yes, we knew."

  Karoline did not understand. Surely they could prove who they were. He could prove that he was not Reinhardt Müller.

  "Yes," said Moellen, "but we will never be accepted in this neighborhood again. The Jews and the Italians and the others, they will never buy pastry from us. They will never let me play with and tease their children. But you will get married and live on the East Side with Dickie and open a better shop in midtown. And we will retire. It's funny when we first came here, we didn't want to live on the Upper East Side because it was full of Germans. We wanted to get away from Germans and be here with the Jews and Italians and Poles."

  And now the Edelweiss Pastry Shop was over, too. The Moellens waited for a visitor. One came in only a few days, someone from immigration. They hadn't expected that. They had thought at least FBI. There were so many different kinds of federal agents in the neighborhood. They thought it would have been something rarer than the people who checked the papers on the dishwashers at the restaurants. It was not difficult for Moellen to prove who he was, though, and once that was cleared up, they quietly left the neighborhood.

  Karoline had been trying for days not to think about the idea that if she had not become involved with Nathan Seltzer, this might not have happened. Maybe it would have. Her parents thought that it would have happened anyway. That it was predestined.

  "But you are innocent," Karoline insisted.

  Her father said, "No one is innocent. Babies are innocent."

  "Viktor Stein," said her mother. And her father affirmed by repeating the name.

  "Who is Viktor Stein?" Karoline shouted in exasperation.

  "Shh!" both her parents responded.

  "No one is listening," Karoline said.

  "Viktor Stein was my oldest friend," said Moellen. "We grew up together. He and his wife and two children lived in our building. They took away his job. Then they made him leave our building. Then they took them all away."

  "And killed them," said Karoline's mother.

  "And killed them," Moellen confirmed.

  "What does that have to do with you?" said Karoline.

  "Exactly," said Moellen. "That is what I said, too. Why should I do anything? So my oldest friend and his family are robbed and murdered. What does this have to do with me?"

  It was an ordinary summer afternoon at the Casita Meshugaloo. The tomatoes were still coming in. Felix estimated at least three more weeks and then he should have enough capital to buy produce from the Italians in the Bronx. The multieyebrowed Ruben was out, his face still tattooed, the Dominican flag around his head now concealed by dark, thick hair. He was free and futilely brushing up on his Japanese, even though Panista, who had talked to several Japanese restaurant owners, told him, "They are never going to hire a dude with two sets of eyebrows."

  Then something happened there that had never happened before. For the first time, Ruth Seltzer came through the gate in the chain-link fence that still had the sign that said "Free Ruben Garcia," through the garden, and into the casita. Was she now going to take Harry's place? Try to promote boogaloo? Eat cuchifritos?

  No, Ruth had come to tell Chow Mein Vega that she was selling the lot that the casita was on. Probably a high-rise luxury apartment would be built there.

  "Luxury? This is Alphabet City. Loisaida."

  "That's their problem. They want to pay the money. I have to sell something, and boyoboy, this is the best deal and it displaces the fewest people. Nobody lives here."

  Chow Mein could not answer. He had no other home. He would move back to the barrio where he was born, where it was still a neighborhood ... for now. But if they were building luxury apartments off Avenue B, anything was possible. Someday they might even buy Spanish Harlem.

  "I didn't even know that Harry owned the casita."

  "We own the land. You knew somebody owned it."

  "I didn't. It was just an abandoned lot. We worried about the city taking it. Harry never said anything. Maybe he didn't know that he owned it."

  Ruth smiled. It was perfectly possible that Harry Seltzer owned property that he didn't know about. But he knew about this. "No, he knew," she said. "They had been offering him money for several years. Every time they offer a little more. I wish I could afford to hold out longer and let the price go up more."

  "Harry never said a word."

  Ruth knew what Chow Mein was thinking. This was how it always worked. Everyone loved Harry because Harry never charged anything. So now he left us without any money and I have to sell something. If he had collected a little rent now and then, I wouldn't be selling the lot. But I am the one left to do the bad thing, and Harry is loved. It's what Harry left me, she wanted to argue. "My soul isn't a raisin, if you know that expression." He did. "It's what I have to do." She did not tell him that she was thinking of moving into the new building. It was what she needed, a place in the neighborhood that had no connection, no reminder of the old neighborhood. But they would hate her for moving there, too. And now she realized that if her father had not failed, if he had realized his dream of developing the neighborhood, he would have been the most hated man on the Lower East Side.

  "The funny thing is," said Chow Mein, "all the time I was feeling guilty getting Harry to pick up the tab on cuchifritos, and now it turns out he was the landlord."

  "No," said Ruth. "He wasn't the landlord. Landlords charge rent."

  Chow Mein smiled. "Yeah, that's true."

  Then some words came out of Ruth's mouth that as far as anyone knew had never come out of her mouth before. "Oh, shit," she said.

  She looked behind her to make sure no one was listening. "I can find an apartment for you."

  "I have no money"

  She looked around again. "We still have lots of people squatting," she whispered. Chow Mein smiled. "But you can't tell anyone. And if Harry comes back from the dead to laugh at me
, don't tell him, either. Just don't tell anyone."

  "No. I mean, thank you. Thank you. But this isn't going to be any place for me."

  "Harry would want you to stay."

  "But Harry's not here. The casita won't be here."

  "I know that we are lucky because my father left all this property, but we have never earned any money on it. The best thing it's given us is free places to live. Can I tell you something?"

  "What?"

  "Have you ever had"—she hesitated to pronounce the word—"a vacation?"

  "Oh man, when boogaloo was hot, we had everything. Don't know where it went. I just drank it all up, I think"

  "I have never been on a vacation. Have you ever been to Iceland?"

  "Iceland?"

  "All my life I have wanted to go to Iceland. It has glaciers, volcanoes, and towns half-covered in lava, and geysers and mineral springs so warm you can swim in the winter with the ice and snow all around. And the people are all Vikings."

  "Vikings," said Chow Mein, indicating a horned helmet with his two hands.

  "The Vikings never wore those. I think that was Germans. The Vikings wrote literature, sagas describing their adventures. It's all written down. How they came to America before anyone. I've read some of them. And today they still speak Viking and eat putrefied shark and whale blubber. When I told my son Mordy that I wanted to go to Iceland and eat whale, he was completely disgusted with me."

  "Are there any Jews in Iceland?"

  Ruth laughed. "What a question. You've become more Jewish than my sons."

  "I've tried to teach them." They both laughed.

  "Probably if there had been any Jewish Vikings, they would have moved to Israel by now. I think Jewish Vikings would definitely make aliyah."

  Chow Mein laughed.

  "I would love to go to Iceland. I would even go over a bridge to get to the airport if I could fly to Iceland for vacation." Her voice caressed the last word. "Is there any place you want to go that you haven't been?"

  Chow Mein nodded.

  "Where?"

  "You won't tell anyone?"

  "No. Of course not."

  "Puerto Rico."

  "You have never been there?!"

  "Once for a concert, but it was in a club near the airport. I have never seen the part of the island where my parents were born. Cabo Rojo. You know, the people there make pasteles stuffed with crab and mofongo with carrucha, you know, carrucha, scungilli... You don't eat that stuff Big sea snails and pepper sauce. When I finish my book, I'm out of here. I'm going to get a place in Cabo Rojo. That's why I don't need an apartment. I'm not even going to be here much longer."

  Ruth took his thick right hand in her two small ones. "You made the neighborhood a better place."

  Chow Mein looked at her. "That's because I thought it was my place, too."

  It was Chow Mein Vega's idea, the perfect tribute to Harry Seltzer: a concert. On the program were a dozen musicians Harry had tried to help. Many young musicians offered to play, some out of respect for Harry, some because various club owners and music people who knew Harry, such as Tommy Drapper, would be in the audience, and some for both reasons. Nathan did not offer to play his harmonica because Harry had never liked it. The whole concert made Nathan sad, reminded him of the great distance that always stood between him and his father. Mordy was undeterred and installed equipment to perform his "Pentium Processor Concerto," a series of electronic bleeps and bongs. At several points the piece seemed to stop, and invariably a few people would make themselves foolish by starting to applaud just as it started up again, so that when it finally ended no one dared applaud.

  Wilson Morelos had asked for a spot, saying that Harry had been very kind to him. Chow Mein let him play a short horn piece and was surprised to hear a restrained, cool, muted sound, not Dominican merengue.

  Chow Mein Vega had to play the finale, even though Ruth and almost everyone else found it hard to imagine how boogaloo would fit in a memorial concert. The piece was listed on the program as "Un Boogaloo Mas," "One More Boogaloo." Chow Mein had asked Felix to play congas with him, as he often did, but there were no other musicians. It did not begin with "Ahhhh!" There was no singing, only a slowed-down boogaloo beat on congas while Chow Mein plucked an acoustic guitar, the two playing and thinking about loss. Felix, as he patted the skins of his congas, remembered the green Cibao and all the people waiting for the money he could no longer send since he had left the drug trade, while Chow Mein lost himself in memories of baseball championships in the barrio and the scream of crowds in the great years of boogaloo and his wife, who died in New York while he was touring— and of Harry Seltzer, who had always tried to help.

  After the concert, Tommy Drapper was at the head of a phalanx of music people who headed for Chow Mein Vega and Felix with offers. Felix listened with excitement and then horror as Chow Mein turned them all down. "I am a boogaloo singer. We'll play boogaloo."

  "Nobody wants boogaloo. They want what you just did," said Drap-per.

  "I'm just a boogaloo singer," Chow Mein kept saying. His only explanation to Felix: "Everybody has to have something that isn't for sale."

  "Everyone who is rich. Poor people have everything for sale."

  "If you are poor, it is even more important to keep something for yourself, to have something that is not for sale."

  "Fine. We're the millionaires of the Loisaida. We are above making money!"

  Chow Mein could see that Felix didn't understand. Harry would have understood. Harry was the old neighborhood.

  Nathan took Sarah by the hand and walked to the copy center. He lifted the iron gate to let them in but kept it halfway down so that the shop remained closed.

  "Lamento mucho about tu padre," said Carmela from the fire escape. Nathan waved up at her.

  Nathan gave his own memorial concert with an audience of Sarah and Pepe Le Moko, who sat together in a corner in rapt attention as Nathan exhaled on his harmonica the soft, dark, pleading, slightly Middle Eastern notes of a Kol Nidre. The Kol Nidre is to remove guilt for unfulfilled vows. Harry did not particularly like the piece. Harry did not like Kol Nidre, he did not like classical music, and he most definitely did not like the harmonica. But it was Nathan's music. It was his harmonica variation of a Max Bruch cello piece that Nathan had played in synagogue for Yom Kippur when he was fourteen. Harry had gone up to him afterward and told his son that he thought it was beautiful. It was the only time Harry had ever praised his music. Then he turned to Ruth, saying, "I'd love to hear Nathan's music on a cello! On a cello, that would be something!" Even as Nathan played now, he could hear Harry saying, "That would be something!"

  "Hey," said Ruben, sticking his head under the gate.

  Nathan looked up.

  "The guy who did this said to be sure to show it to you. Said you would appreciate it."

  "Let's see it."

  Ruben turned around and yanked up his T-shirt, revealing an American flag unfurled across his back flying from a tall red penis. Nathan tried to think of a way to distract Sarah. But Ruben protested, "It's art. You should see what I paid for this. It's art. Tu sabe', your father bought me my first tattoo."

  "I want to see it again!" said Sarah.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  The Bread of New York

  THE SUMMER was over and so were the Mets, Michael Dukakis, and the Jewish year. George Bush was ahead in the polls 45 to 41 percent. Sixty percent to 27 said that Bush was "stronger on defense," though from the East Village point of view, who was there to defend against, except maybe George Bush?

  The Mets clinched the Eastern Division, but Nusan saw what was coming. The Dodgers, a team people used to root for until it moved to Los Angeles, had a pitcher with the weird name of Orel Hershiser that no Met, not even Strawberry, could hit. "Orel?" said an angry Dr. Kucher. "Oral! They are shut down by a pitcher named Oral and you don't think there is something Freudian going on?"

  Karoline married into what she called "a rational lif
e," which meant a life without her destructive passions. She was glad that there had been a time when she had let herself indulge, that she had in a sense "gotten away with it"—done it and stopped before it destroyed her. Still, sometimes she caught herself wishing for one last time. In time, she hoped, she would not remember this summer.

  Now, twenty years after the first Fat Finkelstein was killed in a place called Khe Sanh that Nathan had refused to fight for, Nathan walked by the Moellens' abandoned Edelweiss Pastry Shop and found that it too was now called Khe Sanh—a much-talked-about new Vietnamese restaurant.

  Khe Sanh instantly became the most popular new place in the neighborhood. Nathan overheard the girlfriend of the seersucker far-darter discussing the restaurant situation. "Khe Sanh," she explained, "is a good place to be at the end of a long day You can sit there and have some coconut milk. But it's not for a birthday!"

  "Oh God, no," agreed the seersucker fardarter. "For a birthday you need something like Viva la Huelga!"

  "I don't know. Mexican?"

  "But it's nueva cocina. They have red snapper chimichangas."

  Both restaurants were making money In fact, it seemed almost everybody was making money. Most of the old neighborhood people complained about what was happening, but rather than put their tokhes on the table, they put their signature on the contract. And they made money Worthless properties commanded fortunes. Failing businesses could be sold for profits. It was a time of moneymaking for New Yorkers. Even Dr. Kucher made money. When no academic press would publish her Pathology of the Mets, she sold it to a commercial publisher for a $500,000 advance under the title The Mets: A Psychodrama.