Larry stepped between Frank and Shimmy. “Cut it out, boys,” he pleaded. “We don’t want no trouble.”
Frank struggled to keep his head. He knew what Shimmy had that he lacked: the ability to present an outward appearance of calm at all times. No matter how Shimmy felt, whether he seethed with anger and rage, with the lust to stab or kill, his expressionless eyes and tightly compressed lips never betrayed him. Slugging a guy or laying a girl, Shimmy’s countenance never changed, and now as he listened to Frank’s threat he still kept his hands in the deep pockets of his double-breasted jacket, tensed, alerted for a sudden attack, but still master of himself.
“I’m not starting any trouble,” Frank went on. “But I want him to stay away from my date. I just saw him over there talking to her, and now he’s over here telling me what to do with Benny. Now you”—he turned to Benny again—“give me that bottle and make it snappy before we have a little accident.”
“Give him the bottle,” Larry ordered.
Benny withdrew the bottle from his pocket. “I’m just giving it to you because I don’t want to start anything now.” He glared at Frank.
Suddenly they heard Crazy’s voice, pitched in the key that meant he was seeking trouble. “Don’t give it to him, Benny,” he said. “Give it to me and let’s see if he can take it away from me.”
“Shut up”—Larry turned to him—“and get the hell outa here. Mitch’s been looking for you, so go find him. Come on, let’s break this up.”
With a great show of cordiality Larry grasped Shimmy’s arm and led him toward the checkroom. He spoke earnestly to him, laughing and finally placing an arm around his shoulders in an effort to convince him that the flurry of words meant nothing.
“What’s the matter?” Betty asked Frank as he rejoined-her.
“Nothing. I saw you talking to that ape. Stay away from him if you want to stay healthy.”
“He came over and talked to me,” Betty said. “He didn’t. say anything or get wise.”
“I know that kind of wolf,” Frank told her. “He doesn’t say anything, and the next thing you know you’re flat on your back and wondering how the hell you got there.”
“You want to go?” Betty asked him.
Frank looked around. “I think so,” he replied. “Come on.”
It was after eleven o’clock and the mob of new ticket holders was arriving, and the Dukes who were stag stood in a group near the door and greeted the boys and girls they knew. As Frank waited to get to the checkroom he saw Crazy push forward and jostle him.
“Stay away from me,” Frank warned him.
Crazy hopped up and down, and Frank knew he was working himself into a rage.
“Who the hell asked you to come to our dance?” Crazy said to him.
Frank did not reply.
“Does your old man know you’re down here? I heard about him being at the police station,” Crazy went on while the other Dukes listened quietly. “Ya got your old man’s permission to be down here?”
Frank shoved Crazy against two of the Dukes. “Keep my old man out of this, you lunatic bastard,” Frank said.
“Your mother still buttoning your fly?” Crazy laughed and made a blowing noise with his lips.
“I’m remembering that.” Frank tried to imitate Shimmy’s impassivity.
“I’m remembering Fanny Kane,” Crazy retorted.
Frank could not resist taunting him. “She’s here. Why don’t you get her?”
“I saw her,” one of the Dukes answered Crazy’s silent question. “She came in a little while ago.”
“You better find her,” Frank continued, and then he squared off as he saw the charging look in Crazy’s eyes. “Come on, you crazy bastard,” Frank dared him.
Bull ducked under the checkroom counter and came toward them. “Cut it out,” he said.
“I’m not doin’ nothin’,” Crazy said. “Look at him.” He pointed to Frank. “He’s startin’ the trouble.”
“You’re a crazy bastard,” Frank repeated. “A no-good crazy bastard who was born crazy, is living crazy, and is going to die crazy.”
Crazy spit at him. “Beat it. You’re not one of the Dukes any more.”
“Go to hell,” Frank said.
“You’re not one of us,” Crazy went on, waving his arms and rolling his eyes. “You don’t hang around with us any more. We don’t even want you around. Do we, guys?” he asked the Dukes who stood around them.
The Dukes were silent, and Frank sensed their new and sudden hostility toward him.
“No”—he faced them—“I guess after tonight I’m not. Now I know where I stand with you guys.”
“For cryin’ out loud,” Bull said, “don’t you guys got anything else to do but start arguments? I’m breaking my ass in the checkroom and you guys are out here making trouble instead of keeping things going. You”—he pointed to Crazy—“you get in the checkroom with me.”
“I want to find Mitch,” Crazy said.
“Get in the checkroom”—Bull pushed him—“and leave Mitch alone. He’s got a date.”
“I want to see Fanny.”
“Let him go, Bull,” one of the stag Dukes said. “I’ll help you.”
Bull held Crazy by the arm and squeezed. “Listen to me,” he cautioned him. “What’s between you and Frank you can settle some other place. But you stay quiet. We’ll need you later.”
“For what?” Crazy asked eagerly.
“We’re not paying the band,” Bull said. “Well need you.”
Crazy rubbed his hands together and cackled. “We’ll have trouble with them, huh? Boy, that’s for me!”
“Don’t say anything,” Bull continued. “Now go find Fanny and stay out of trouble.”
“I’ll see you later.” Crazy roughly bucked a dancing couple out of his way and charged across the room to Fanny, who stood in front of the band with the arm of a D-Rape Artist around her shoulders. She moved in rhythm with the music, and the boy with her was making fast time. As he bent down to whisper something in her ear, Crazy snarled and tore Fanny loose from the embrace of the boy with whom she had been standing.
Fanny shrank away from Crazy. “Let me alone,” she faltered.
Crazy walked toward her. “So I caught you at last,” he said, and each word was a menace.
The saxophonist raised an arm to keep Fanny from falling over his music stand, and the D-Rape Artist looked around for some of his guys, and as one whizzed by on the dance floor he motioned to him for help.
“Let me alone,” Fanny said.
“You stood me up,” Crazy told her.
Fear paralyzed Fanny. “Let me alone,” she repeated. She clutched the arm of the D-Rape Artist, who placed her behind him.
“Get away from my girl, Sam,” Crazy said to Fanny’s protector.
Sam’s courage returned as he saw some members of his gang coming toward him. “For who?” He pushed Crazy.
“For me!” Crazy shouted at him. “She’s my girl and she gave me a screwing!”
Sam turned to Fanny. “Are you his girl?”
Fanny trembled. “No.”
“You bastard!” Crazy tried to get at her, but Sam and two of his friends blocked him. “You stood me up! Remember? Come outa there.”
“Listen, Crazy”—Sam felt safe now as two more of his gang stood behind Crazy—“why don’t you blow? This kid don’t want no part of you.”
With a smooth rapid motion Crazy drew his spring knife and simultaneously pressed the spring and shoved the knife against Sam’s stomach. “One move outa you or your other crumbs and I’ll have this in your guts,” Crazy rasped. “Just one move.”
“Don’t do anything, Sam,” one of the D-Rape Artists warned him. “I’m going to get Larry.”
Crazy pressed the point of the knife against Sam and it made a little impression in the cloth of Sam’s jacket. “In your guts,” Crazy repeated. “You son of a bitch. You think I can’t handle five guys like you? You think you’re gonna fool around wit
h my girl?”
“I was only kidding,” Sam gasped, and tried to move away from the knife, but Crazy pressed the point into the pit of his stomach.
“Nobody kids around with me,” Crazy told him, and Sam began to look sick. Crazy’s reputation as a cutter and potential killer was well known in Brownsville. In one of his murderous rages Crazy was berserk, a street and gang fighter spoken of respectfully. Impervious to pain and blows, he would keep charging into the middle of any brawl, kicking and slugging with a fury and energy that was abnormal. Then—no one knew when—Crazy might draw his knife and begin slashing, and there were many who predicted that Crazy was going to be a big-time mobster if he lived long enough.
The crowd became more compact around Crazy, Sam, and Fanny, and the leader of the band signaled with his clarinet for the musicians to cease playing. There was a sudden cessation of noise as the word spread throughout the room that Crazy Sachs was going to give it to a guy.
Perspiration dampened Sam’s face and his eyes were hunted and sick, for the knife pricked his jacket and he knew that any sudden movement he or his friends might make would be the impulse that would propel the knife into his stomach.
“Let’s talk things over,” Sam said to Crazy.
“You’ve said enough,” Crazy said. “You got my girl.”
“You’ve got me wrong,” Sam protested, and quickly lowered his right hand, which he had raised to wipe his face, for Crazy had pricked him warningly. “I didn’t know she was your babe.”
The crowd gave as Larry and Mitch shoved their way toward Crazy and Sam.
“Crazy”—Mitch spoke quietly—“what do you think you’re doing?”
“I’m going to give it to this bastard.” Crazy continued to glare at Sam, and the killer look on Crazy’s face made the crowd silent, for any sudden noise, sound, or movement meant that Crazy would sink the knife into Sam’s stomach.
Sam’s eyes were frantic with fear. His mouth twitched and he now kept his arms rigidly at his sides. Fanny shook with terror and cowered against the saxophonist’s music stand. For a moment she held Frank’s attention, but he shrugged his shoulders helplessly, and Frank’s date held him tightly.
“Put the knife down,” Mitch commanded Crazy.
“When I get good and ready,” Crazy replied.
Mitch placed his hand lightly on Crazy’s right arm. “Fanny wants to talk to you. Don’t you, Fanny?”
Fanny nodded dumbly.
“I didn’t mean nothing, honest,” Sam said earnestly.
“You’re breaking up the dance.” Mitch tightened his grip on Crazy’s sleeve. “Fanny wants to dance with you and,” he whispered in Crazy’s ear, “you can take her in the back and give it to her.”
Slowly, almost imperceptibly, Crazy withdrew the knife. He looked questioningly at Mitch, and Mitch nodded affirmatively.
“Put it away,” Mitch said. “You better take a powder,” Mitch said to Sam, whose face was still pallid and streaked with perspiration.
Sam tugged at his tie and tried to catch his breath.
“Yeah, you better go,” Larry agreed. “I’m sorry you got a shoving around”—he led the unprotesting Sam toward the checkroom—“but you tangled with a hard guy.”
Mitch had ordered the band to start playing, and the musicians began to break down another number.
“Here’s the key to the back room.” Larry handed it to Mitch. “Give it back to me when you’re through.”
“Right,” Mitch replied. “Come on,” he said to Crazy, “let’s go. You too,” he said to Fanny.
“Where’re you taking me?” she wept as Crazy pushed her ahead of him through the kitchen and cellar into a small bin which had been fitted up as a darkroom by some of the Tigers.
Mitch snapped the wall switch and shut the door before he spoke. “Crazy ‘n’ me want to talk to you.”
“Let me alone!” she screamed, and was silenced by Crazy’s slapping her in the face.
“You little bitch!” Crazy panted. “So you stood me up and thought you could get away with it!”
Fanny huddled in a corner and shielded herself from Crazy, who stood over her menacingly.
“I’m gonna leave you two alone,” Mitch said to them. “And you,” he said to Fanny, “you gave Crazy a raw deal and now you’re gonna pay off.”
“Let me alone!” she screamed and wept. “I never done it! I swear! My mother’ll kill me when she finds out! I never done it!”
Mitch was unrelenting. “That’s your story, stinker, and you’re stuck with it. Don’t give us that never-done-it stuff. It don’t go with us.”
Fanny clung to him. “I swear!” Her tears softened the mascara, and the hollows under her eyes became black. “I never done it! I never done it!”
Mitch pushed her from him. “So it’s time you did. And Crazy’s a good man to break you in. Gimme your knife,” he said to Crazy.
Crazy tossed him the knife.
“You sure you haven’t got another?” Mitch asked.
“No,” Crazy said.
“O.K. Have a good time.” Mitch opened the door, and as Fanny attempted to run out he punched her in the chest and knocked her to the cot. As he slammed the door behind him he could still hear Fanny screaming that she had never done it and begging Crazy to leave her alone. Before he entered the kitchen he stopped to listen and heard nothing. There was no danger of anyone hearing what was occurring in the darkroom. Mitch sighed. Taking care of Crazy was beginning to be a full-time job, and he had his own troubles. He had hardly danced once with his date and he had been so busy taking care of Shimmy and his guys that he wasn’t having much of a time himself.
As Mitch re-entered the clubroom and heard the loud, high-pitched shrill laugh that started as a scream and ended as a sudden gasp, he knew that Rosie Beanbags had arrived. Rosie stood against the wall with two of her friends, and they were bantering the Dukes and anyone else who wanted to join the fun. Rosie had jet-black hair which she wore in two thick braids that were fashioned into a halo on the top of her head. Her face was broad, with high cheekbones, and her eyebrows had been lengthened into two heavy lines which ended at the outer corners of her eyes. Her cheeks were heavily rouged to conceal the coarse and pitted texture of her skin, and the lipstick had been applied to her lips in a thick red cake. When Rosie laughed her heavy lips drew back to expose her gums, and her teeth were large and covered with tartar. Her breasts were tremendous, so large that they were a byword in the clubs and gangs of Brownsville and, as a sharp guy had once said, if a fellow were hit across the head with one of Rosie’s knockers he’d be driven into the sidewalk up to his ankles. The low cut of Rosie’s dress showed the heavy line between her breasts, and her high uplift brassière accented their size. Rosie’s legs were heavy and covered with hair, and she wore a pair of French-heeled open-toed sandals with thick red soles studded with nailheads and straps that crossed her fat, stolid ankles. The nails of her toes were covered with silver polish, and the long nails of her hands were tinted a purplish black. Heavy bracelets decorated both wrists, and around her right ankle she wore a silver slave bracelet. Rosie’s friends looked equally slutty, and as they stood in a group smoking their cigarettes and squinting at the boys through half-closed eyes Betty felt sick and overcome with revulsion.
“Aren’t we going?” She nudged Frank.
“I changed my mind,” he replied angrily. “Those guys want me to stay and I’m hangin’ around.”
“But we’re not having a good time.”
“I’m staying until it breaks up.”
“Whatever you say.” Betty shook her head as if she were unable to keep pace with the vagaries of his mood.
“Watch them,” Frank said to Betty. “Rosie’s a riot.”
“I think she’s disgusting.”
Frank’s reply was a sneer.
The boys rocked with laughter as Rosie heaved a bump at them.
“Come on, Rosie,” one of the boys encouraged her, “you musta heard some good d
irty stories since I saw—I mean laid—you last.”
The girls standing in the crowd began to slip away. Between them and Rosie and her two friends there was a clear and defined social gap—the difference between a girl who permitted a boy whom she liked to give her some loving and the girl who was common gang property. Rosie suggested cellars, vacant lots and roofs, obscene coarseness, and dirty bed sheets, and the girls who stood about her moved away, singly, in twos, ashamed that they should have been seen in such close proximity to this notorious gang whore.
“Yeah,” one of the Dukes said as he nudged Shimmy and told him that now they’d see some fun, “give out with a story.”
Rosie raised her hands, palms forward. “Sure,” she yelled, “I got a good one!” She took a deep breath and began. Her story was pointless, without wit or humor, a dirty description of an impossible situation, related with a lewdness and vulgarity that made boys who had never before seen or heard of Rosie wince and despise her. And she was urged on by the loose laughter, the sudden dirty snorts of glee, the obscene delight which stimulated most of the crowd about her, until she came to the stupid climax of the story and in her thick throaty voice accented the dirty line. Then she laughed her shrill gasping laugh, and the crowd laughed with her.
“Rose,” one fellow commented above the howls of laughter, “you’re hotter than a two-dollar cornet.”
Bull Bronstein approached her and slid his hand into the bosom of her dress. “Rosie,” he said, “I wish I had them stuffed full of gold.”
“You’d sure have something,” she agreed, “but with Lilly here you’d starve to death.”
“Oh yeah?” Lilly retorted. “It ain’t knockers what count.”
“So let’s not waste any more time.” Bull spoke quietly to Rosie. “We got some guys down here from Williamsburg who’ve been givin’ us a hand all night. So how about fixin’ them up?”
“Can’t we later?” she replied. “We just got here and we wanta fool around first.”
“You’ll fool around later,” Bull decided for her. “Larry, Jackie,” he called the president of the Tigers, “Rosie and her babes are gonna entertain Shimmy and his guys in the back. You got some more cots?”
The Amboy Dukes Page 19
