by Yari Stern
“You’re exploiting us! Revolution against the bourgeoisie is justified!” Sue cried.
“You blame white people for everything that’s wrong in your lives,” Morris interjected, “down to the warts on your toes.”
Sam grabbed his brother’s arm, but Morris was too revved up by then to be stopped. “Your people live in their Cadillacs because there’s no money left for rent, then dress in the latest fashions while your children go to school without breakfast.”
“How about you Jews and your food?” Sue asked, pointing to Morris’s protruding stomach. “Eating in fancy restaurants till your bellies force you so far away from the tables your arms can’t reach the plates. Always tryin’ to fill your souls through your stomach and pockets,” she went on, nodding her head with increasing vigor. “Then you go home and pull your thick drapes closed to protect your spoils, while we cover our broken windows with plastic sheets.”
“Then your people run to the bars and drink till they can’t stand up,” Morris replied.
“That’s what anybody would do,” Sue said in a voice now more somber than incensed, “when they know there ain’t gonna be no salvation, and their children never gonna see their dreams come true.”
Morris slammed the refrigerator door with enough force to topple every jar above onto the floor.
Sue took the hint, gathered her fixings, and got up to leave. She was not up for the task of physically confronting the six-foot tall former master sergeant, but turned at the threshold of the doorway for one more invective. “Bub’s goin’ hear about this,” she threatened, then stalked out of the room.
“I don’t give a god-damn what you tell her,” Morris retorted.
He saw the surprised look on Yari’s face and so said to him, “If you knew who and what your grandmother was, you wouldn’t look so shocked.” He then continued without the need for outside interest. “Back in her village of Teeter-Totsfella, Hungary, she spread rumors about people until they were at each other’s throats. When the few remaining residents in the village found out she was the cause of the vendettas, they rose up and threw her out of their hamlet, and out of the country. They even paid for her ocean voyage to ensure they’d be rid of her. You can imagine the boat ride coming over, like Dracula leaving Transylvania on an ocean liner, nobody living by the time the ship reached port.
“Bub was twenty-years-old when she arrived here and married Joe Stern,” Morris went on. “Joe had a job in a manufacturing plant, while Bub worked in a dressmaking factory. They dreamed of owning their own business, but all she knew how to do was lie and cheat. With that big mouth of hers, she got merchandise on credit and a lease on this building. When was that, Sam?”
“It was 1919,” Sam replied reluctantly. “I was five-years-old.”
“It took twelve years for Bubby to drive Joe away. He walked out in the heart of the Depression, in the middle of the night, after he caught Bub stealing change from mentally ill customers.” Pointing a stern finger at Yari, he concluded, “Now you know the truth about your grandmother.”
Sam swung the black and white TV around and turned up the volume as the images of riots from across the country filled the screen. “It’s all going downhill,” he said, the agitated look on his face turning to despair. “The wheels the government set in motion are going to run over good people and bad.”
“What do you mean, Sam?” Morris asked as he got up to finish making his lunch.
“You can’t dictate human behavior. When you try, the friction just keeps building up from rubbing against reality. The powder keg is set to go off. All that’s needed is a spark.” Sam said while keeping an eye on the TV and Mississippi State Troopers pounding passive marchers with police batons.
“Well we’d better get ready. It’s coming this way,” Morris said. “I got the word from the FBI. The organizers and agitators down south are headed here. They’ll create an incident if they have to.”
“And what are we supposed to do when the Blacks riot?” Sam asked, while watching marchers blown off their feet by fire hoses.
“Let ’em run wild,” Morris mumbled between bites.
“What?” Sam appealed, turning to his brother faster than the sandwich moving towards his mouth. Roast beef hit the vinyl tablecloth with a slap.
“Not while I’m still breathing air,” Yari broke in. “Nobody walks over us. I’ll--”
He was cut off by the straining eyebrows of his father.
“Those are the orders from the attorney general’s office, to the FBI, to Police Commissioner Howard Leary,” Morris explained. “They say it’s a cheap price to pay. In a few days the rioters will be back in their cages with enough new toys to pacify them for a few more years.”
“How can they possibly think that?” Sam asked.
“Yari, can you come here for a minute?” Toby called from inside the store proper. “I need some help stocking the shelves.”
He figured it was a pretext for something more important. She would never bother him with such a triviality. “Dad, don’t forget to call the bank and set up my loan. Remember, I only need five grand now.” As he got up to leave, Yari reminded Sam of a key link in his plan, but left out the part about betting the proceeds on a five-year-old pacer.
“Just keep your nose clean out there,” Sam said.
“You’ve kept your nose clean downtown and what’s it gotten you?” Yari asked on his way out. “You’re a pariah; someone who can’t be trusted because you’re not on the take.”
As soon as he left the kitchen, Toby snared him and said, “They’re still talking about your episode with Frank the refrigerator man last week. Why the hell do you go off like that?” she asked as she led Yari toward the front of the store. “You know what it does to your father and the danger it puts all of us in.”
Toby tossed a loose pair of socks to Trixie as she passed by, then turned back to Yari and said, “Not much scares me, except the thought of dealing with somebody with nothing to lose, which means almost everyone on Ridge Avenue.”
“That cocksucker tapped into our electricity and we’ve been paying his bills for the past twelve months.” Yari turned purple recalling the recent events.
“But he offered to repay your dad.” Toby stopped at the lingerie counter to finish counting a recent delivery of stockings. “We need things to remain quiet on The Ridge so we can continue building up our side businesses.”
“That’s not good enough. He’ll pay with his blood. Nobody scams on us; nobody plays us for a fool. He’s history.” Yari’s voice turned slow and calm. Toby shivered from the intensity.
“Do you know what happened to Mark Aaron at the shoe store last night?” she asked.
Yari leaned down onto one of the showcases with a ponderous boredom, hard enough to test the half-inch glass. “They waited for him outside his place with baseball bats after he kicked one of the little bastards in the ass for running amuck in the store during the day. Now he’s in the hospital. You’re going to provoke the locals and then leave us to pay the price,” Toby said, raising her hand to Yari’s face.
“We’re not taking shit from anybody anymore.” Yari threw up a blocking back-fist. “Someone tries to come against our family, I rip them a new asshole. it’s our turn. I’m not bending over for some needle dick cocksuckers that--.”
“What the hell are you talking about? This is business, not vendetta. We’re just trying to cut out a small niche for ourselves, not right all the wrongs since the Last Supper.
“It’s up to me to show them that not all Jews walk into ovens without a fight,” Yari retorted, momentarily distracted when his aunt bent down to grab more hangers. He eyed her ass like it was a prize piece of steak.
Toby cautiously turned her backside away from him . As she righted herself, Toby said, “It’s about brains, not brawn. We paid our dues, that’s why it’s all coming our way now.”
Yari agreed with his aunt’s evaluation. History taught him that, given the opportunity, a race deprived
took back more than its share. Those lessons applied to everyone, especially to Jews - dispossessed for two thousand years, from the Roman Empire to Germany then Russia – who were now seated at the head table.
“And what’s with the muscle shirt?” Toby asked.
“It makes me look tough, like Uncle Max,” Yari said, standing a little straighter.
“Who told you that?”
“I heard my mom talking to Aunt Miriam. They said I remind them of Uncle Max.
Did you know him?”
“Of course I knew him. He was my first cousin and your grandfather’s brother. Max came over from the old country, worked like hell for six years, and finally set himself up in business. He had a shoe repair place on Cherry Street, a few blocks from our first store.”
“They said he was nuts. Was that true?”
“I’ll tell you a story about him, then you can decide for yourself. Max had a reputation as a craftsman, but everyone close to him knew he was a time bomb set to explode.” Toby set down her box of stockings and continued to unwind her tale. “He never combed his hair; it would stick straight up on his head. And he had a thyroid condition so his eyes bugged out. He wore a sleeveless shirt, even in winter, because his arms were so big he’d rip the material off anything else. But it was his temper that scared the shit out of family and strangers.
“One day, in the early ‘50’s, a customer came in to pick up their wing-tips. The guy must have had a bad day and wanted to make it a lot worse. He grabbed the leather shoes from Max and started looking at them like he was going to find something wrong no matter what.
“Well, the frown on the customer’s face kept growing. Then, after slipping on bifocals, he spotted a loose thread. ‘There! See!’ he says, ‘It’s horrible. I can’t wear them.’ The guy beamed with pride over his discovery.
“Max was a giant of a man, but uttered in his softest voice, in contrast to the customer who was boiling, ‘Would you like me to correct the problem now?’ he asked.
“‘Yes, right now!’ the ball-buster demanded, shoving the shoes back at Max with more force than he probably ever screwed his wife with.
“Max took the pieces in his huge, hairy hands, as though he were full of sympathy and ready to fulfill the request, regardless of how irrational. Instead he tore the shoes in half with the same effort you or I would use to rip a single sheet of paper.
“The man took his redesigned footwear, paid the bill in full, and left the store after thanking Max for using all his creative talents. That’s the side of the family you get your attitude from. Nobody ever told Max what to do. And if they tried, he would turn their life into a nightmare. No matter what the cost, he could never just let it be.”
“My kind of guy. What happened to him?”
“He died at age forty-seven.”
“How?”
“Stabbed to death by a seventeen-year-old black kid who didn’t weigh as much as one of his arms.”
“At least he went down swinging. He didn’t live like a muted sheep, walking in lock-step, directed by a foreman with a cattle prod, into society’s pruning shears.”
“You’re going to wind up like our Cousin Mendy Weiss. You look just like him with that expression on your face.”
“Tell me about Mendy!” Yari blurted out. “I heard he killed Dutch Schultz.”
“Forget that. You have to make your own road. I want you to meet someone.”
Yari listened as his aunt spoke out of the side of her mouth, as though she were setting up a clandestine CIA operation. He followed Toby over to the showcase windows. There he saw a person of deceptive age browsing through the racks of women’s and children’s clothes that had just been set out for the coming season, a disheveled character perusing the items as if they held a secret far beyond their corporeal components.
“Ed, this is Yari,” Toby announced proudly.
Yari stood dumbfounded as the man stuck out a hand that pointed directly to him, while the rest of his body remained facing the racks of clothes. Ed’s oversized head shook up and down, gracefully matching the words of greeting and motion of his out-stretched arm.
“What’s hot?” he asked.
Yari was mesmerized by the gravely voice that seemed to emanate from the back of Ed’s head, like the guy was a trained ventriloquist. He tried to make visual contact while the man’s deep-set, owlish eyes continued to look everywhere but at him.
Ed was a dichotomy: dressed in a brand new leisure suit, labels still attached, with cuffs four inches too long, dragging along the wooden floor, gathering as much dust as a vacuum cleaner. His expression was dark, suggesting that any concern for others stopped at the end of his commodious belly.
“Uh…what are you looking for?” Yari asked. “I’ll make a few phone calls.” In his confusion, Yari looked to Toby for assistance. Instead, he got a stinging pinch on the tricep.
“What?” Yari winced, trying to tear away from Toby’s grip.
“Schmuck,” Toby whispered. “I thought you graduated from the cool school. He wants to know if you’re a serious player or not.” Toby smiled at Ed like it was just a simple misunderstanding, before turning her attention back to Yari. “I’ve been building you like you’re the next Bugsy Siegel,” she whispered. “Don’t fuck it up.”
Yari watched the thickset man with a perpetual scowl peruse the boy’s suits with fingers that danced over the cheap material like a classical pianist.
Toby dragged him aside. “Wake up. This is your shot for the pros. Ed’s one of the best bank scammers and fraudulent credit men on the East Coast.”
Yari listened in awe while Toby boasted of Ed’s accomplishments, as if they were her own. “Ed’s a major player; balls as big as coconuts. He’s had his face on every post office wall in cities bigger than six people,” she said, taking on a nostalgic look of pride.
“Just last month he was down in New Orleans for the funeral of a Mafia boss, while every FBI man in the South was taking pictures. One agent had been trying to nail him forever. When he saw Ed walking in the procession, he went over and joined him. As they strode along, the guy told him, ‘Ed, I’m going to get you. I’m a patient man. You’re going down for the count.’
“Well, instead of walking away, or just smiling, or begging forgiveness, Ed told the prick, ‘Fuck you. Fuck your mother. Fuck your father. Fuck your dead grandmother. Your wife’s going to die of syphilis she got from your coolie gardener and all your children will catch polio.’ How’s that for guts?”
Reverentially, Yari stepped aside as Ed entered their circle to break up Toby’s braggadocio. “Kid,” he put his arm around Yari’s shoulder but continued staring at the merchandise lining the walls, “your Aunt Toby tells me you’re all hooked up and ready to make a name for yourself.”
“That’s right,” Yari postured with words and body language. “I got jewelry coming in from the brothers in North Philly, suits droppin’ out the back door of Diamond’s and Al Berman’s, and TV’s and stereos from Silos.” His chest swelled with pride as he spoke.
“That’s small potatoes. If you want to sit in with the Jewish Mafia, you’ve got to bring something big to the table.”
The wind sailed out of Yari as he watched Ed turn back to the nurse’s uniforms. “Toby, package up six of these for me, would’ya?”
“But I’ve got a deal cooking for the machine guns right from the armory,” Yari boasted. “I’ll have it wrapped up real soon.” Even holding his breath, his confidence was seeping out through abundant breaches of doubt.
“Good, but not good enough,” Ed replied.
“How about credit card? Unsigned, unused. Five hundred; limits from $500 to $25,000.”
Ed stopped what he was doing, turned around, nodded and said, “Well that’s a horse of a different color. When can you lay your hands on them?”
“This Friday…if I can get the money together.”
“Yeah, well let me know when ya do,” Ed said, turning his attention from an articulation o
f Yari’s accomplishments to the thread composition of the garments hanging on the wall.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Continental Bank. Ridge Ave, Phila. Pa
Yari met Sam at the store early for the 9:00 a.m. appointment his dad had set with Continental Bank. He wore a suit, emulating his dad’s sport jacket and perennial bow tie, not out of regard for the institution they were calling on, but to lull those in a position to help into a false sense of security. “Did you put a good word in for me?” Yari tried to catch his father’s expression hidden by a wide-brimmed hat pulled down low on his brow in anticipation of the blustery day outside.
“Yes. Just don’t let me down. These people are loaning you the money based on my collateral, not your track record.”
Yari’s translation left room for flexibility, for him to take advantage of his father’s dedication to family.
As they began the walk down the street to Continental Bank, shopkeepers unrolled their multi-colored awnings using metal hand cranks, going through their daily rituals with a pride bred in a previous era.
“Did I ever tell you what happened to us during the Depression?” Sam’s eyes took on a distant look. He did not wait for Yari to reply before beginning his tale. “By 1933 the store had been open for fourteen years, and in all that time we knew only one bank. We had saved six hundred dollars, money to be used for expanding the business and buying new stock.
“Just days before President Roosevelt intervened, I sat down with Mr. Cushman, vice-president at Continental Bank and Trust, and we had one of our long chats. When we parted, I shook his hand and told him I’d be in on Monday.” Sam bent down with difficulty to pick up an errant piece of trash and placed it in his pocket, a visible sign of the inter-connectedness he felt between their store and the surrounding neighborhood.
“Over the weekend the banking holiday was declared, but Bub and I didn’t realize the implications. We thought our monies were safe. We didn’t bank at Continental, we banked with Mr. Cushman.”
