The Pushcart War

by Jean Merrill

  “I hope so, too,” said the Police Commissioner, scowling at Big Moe. “I have never liked a man who talks like a big shot to the newspapers and then makes very small bets when he is at the poker table.”

  With the Police Commissioner’s gun on the table and their overcoats on the wall beside Maxie Hammerman, The Three did not want to annoy the Police Commissioner by making any small bets. Fortunately, it was Friday night and The Three had in their pockets whatever amount of their profits they took home with them at the end of every week.

  “Of course, it has been a bad week,” said Big Moe, in case the Police Commissioner did not think the bets were big enough.

  The Police Commissioner won the first three hands. His winnings were $237, most of which he won from The Three, as Eddie and Maxie did not bet much on the first three hands.

  “For a big dope, you are a pretty good poker player,” Maxie said to the Police Commissioner.

  The Police Commissioner did not mind Maxie Hammerman calling him a big dope.

  Eddie Moroney won the next hand and got $42 from Louie Livergreen. Louie had three queens and Eddie Moroney only had two jacks, but Eddie was so determined not to give in to Louie that Louie got nervous and threw in his hand.

  Then Maxie Hammerman started winning. He won every one of the next ten hands, winning each time larger amounts, as The Three made bigger and bigger bets, hoping to stop Maxie. On the last hand alone, Maxie’s winnings were $13,500, and altogether Maxie won over $60,000.

  Big Moe lost the most money to Maxie. He even bet the $14.50 check Maxie had written him and lost that. The game had to stop then as none of The Three had any more money in their pockets.

  “Now that is what I call a conspiracy,” laughed the Police Commissioner, as he helped Maxie sort out the $60,000 into piles of ten, fifty, and hundred dollar bills. Big Moe was looking so foolish that the Police Commissioner did not begrudge Maxie a cent of his winnings.

  “And,” he said to Big Moe, “if you wish me to investigate this conspiracy, I will be glad to do so, as it would be worth my time to know how Maxie Hammerman won so much money on ten hands of poker.”

  The Police Commissioner then offered to take The Three home in a squad car as they did not have any money for bus fare. “If anyone sees you riding in the squad car,” he said, “I will explain that you are not common criminals.”

  CHAPTER XXVI

  Maxie Hammerman’s War Chest: A Philosophy of War

  Maxie Hammerman has sometimes been portrayed as a happy-go-lucky fighter whose victory over The Three on the night they came to kidnap him was a matter of pure luck. Maxie himself has always been modest about his part in the Pushcart War. From his own descriptions of the $60,000 card game, one might easily conclude that Maxie was simply a crazy gambler who was lucky enough to hold the right cards.

  However, Eddie Moroney, who was there, guarantees that Maxie knew what he was doing at every step of the game. Eddie remembers a conversation with Maxie just after The Three had left with the Police Commissioner.

  Eddie and Maxie were having a bottle of cream soda together, and Eddie said to Maxie, “I, also, would like to know, Maxie, how you won so much money on ten hands of poker, as I know you do not cheat at cards.”

  “It is simple,” Maxie said. “I won all the money because Louie Livergreen—of whom The Tiger and Big Moe are a little afraid—because he is the one who makes all the plans—was afraid of me.

  “Louie was afraid of me,” Maxie explained, “because he knows I could have had the Police Commissioner shoot him on the spot for breaking into my shop. But I did not. Instead, I pretended that Louie and Big Moe and The Tiger were my friends, by which Louie Livergreen knew that I was not afraid of him. And this scared Louie Livergreen. Because if I am not afraid of him, it means that either I am smarter than he is, or that I have made a plan which is even better, from my point of view, than to have the Police Commissioner shoot him.

  “So,” Maxie smiled, “Louie Livergreen’s mind was not on the cards he was playing, and Big Moe and The Tiger could see that Louie Livergreen was nervous, which made them nervous, and they did not play their cards carefully.

  “Also,” said Maxie, “I played my cards very carefully.”

  “It was a good game,” said Eddie. “But I still do not understand why you did not let the Police Commissioner shoot them. It would have been such a surprise to them.”

  “Yes,” said Maxie, “but it would have been against my philosophy of war.”

  “In what way?” Eddie asked.

  “In this way,” said Maxie. “Louis Livergreen, you may recall, thought that if he kidnapped me, the pushcart peddlers would not fight.”

  “We would fight harder,” said Eddie Moroney indignantly.

  “Certainly,” said Maxie Hammerman.

  “In the same way,” Maxie pointed out, “if we got rid of Big Moe and Louie and The Tiger, there would still be maybe a million truck drivers who hate the pushcarts. Also, there are three other men behind The Three who would be only too happy to see Big Moe and Louie and The Tiger disappear so that they could be the top three. I can name you twelve men who would fight with each other to be the top three.

  “It is my idea,” Maxie went on, “that if you are going to have enemies, it is better to have enemies you already know. It is easier to guess what they are going to do.

  “Also,” said Maxie, “it is better to have enemies who have learned to be a little afraid of you.”

  Maxie scooped up the $60,000 he had won and stuffed it into an old tool chest. Then he dipped his finger in a can of axle oil and lettered on the side of the box “WAR CHEST.”

  “What is that for?” asked Eddie Moroney.

  “My philosophy of war,” Maxie continued, “is that what you need to win a war is money. Everybody is willing to fight for a good cause. Fine. But there comes a time when you run out of money for peas—for pins—for whatever you are using for ammunition at the moment. You cannot afford the repairs to your pushcart. Or for the doctor bills when you get hurt in the fighting. Or, to feed the children because you cannot work a regular schedule. There comes a time.

  “When that time comes,” Maxie said, “we have this war chest. Anyone who cannot afford to pay me for repairs to his pushcart may take from this chest. No questions asked. As long as he is fighting, the money is there.”

  “You mean we are going to pay you to fix our carts with your own money which you won at poker?” said Eddie.

  “Who knows it is my money?” asked Maxie. “Who needs to know? It is from contributions to our war effort.”

  “But who would contribute to us?” Eddie asked.

  “Why not?” said Maxie. “I am the Pushcart King. Kings can get contributions.

  “And a king, Eddie Moroney,” Maxie said, looking very pleased with himself, “a king takes care of his people in time of war. You should know that.”

  Eddie Moroney pulled from his pocket the $42 he had won from Louie Livergreen and gave it to Maxie Hammerman. “It is a contribution,” Eddie said.

  “To the Pushcart King for the Pushcart War,” he added.

  CHAPTER XXVII

  The Truck Drivers’ Manifesto

  After the failure of the plot to capture Maxie Hammerman, The Three were not anxious to tangle directly with Maxie again. They decided to attack in a different way.

  They called a meeting of all the truck drivers in the city. At this meeting the drivers drew up a manifesto which they sent to Mayor Cudd. The manifesto claimed that Maxie Hammerman’s map and the fact the ammunition had been found in his basement was clear evidence of a pushcart conspiracy.

  The manifesto made four demands:

  That every pushcart peddler in the city be arrested;

  That pushcarts be permanently banned from the streets as they were endangering the whole city;

  That Maxie Hammerman be fined $60,000 and sentenced to 60 years in jail for organizing the Pushcart Conspiracy, and

  That the Police Comm
issioner be fired, as there was reason to believe he was in on the whole conspiracy.

  The truck drivers warned that if the Mayor did not act at once along the lines suggested, they would have no choice but to declare war on the pushcarts. Mayor Cudd called the Police Commissioner and read him the manifesto.

  “Well, what do you want me to do?” asked the Commissioner. “If you fire me, I cannot arrest the peddlers.”

  The Mayor had not thought of that. “I think the truck drivers would settle for arresting the pushcart peddlers,” he said. “At least, that is Point One of the manifesto.”

  “Well, I cannot arrest the pushcart peddlers in any case,” said the Police Commissioner. “There are, according to Maxie Hammerman, over five hundred pushcart peddlers in this city, and we do not have that many empty cells in the jail.

  “Moreover,” said the Police Commissioner, “even if there were a pushcart conspiracy, it would be impossible to prove which trucks have been shot down by pushcart peddlers as a part of the conspiracy and which have been shot down by children purely in a spirit of fun.

  “Do you want me to arrest all the children, too?” asked the Police Commissioner. “Including those whose fathers are truck drivers?”

  “No, no,” said the Mayor. “Just the pushcart peddlers.”

  “Well, I am not going to arrest anybody without proof,” said the Police Commissioner, “including Maxie Hammerman, who is a gentleman, a good sport, and a good businessman. Once I start arresting people without proof, what is to stop me from arresting you?”

  “Me?” said the Mayor nervously.

  “But what can I do?” pleaded the Mayor. “Fifty thousand truck drivers have signed this manifesto. That is fifty thousand votes, you know.”

  “I suggest that you declare a truce until the question of a conspiracy can be fully investigated,” said the Police Commissioner. “If any pushcart peddler violates the truce, I will arrest him—but not before.”

  CHAPTER XXVIII

  The Truce

  The period of the truce was a difficult time for the pushcart peddlers. They had won the first battle, but they had not won the war. The peddlers realized that within a week all the truck tires would have been repaired and that the trucks would be on the streets again in full force and more determined than ever to make trouble for the pushcarts.

  This was exactly what happened. Within a week Maxie Hammerman’s shop was filled with pushcarts needing repairs of all sorts. If it had not been for Maxie’s war chest, many of the peddlers would have lost heart entirely.

  One day General Anna had a wheel ripped off her cart by a truck crowding her into a curb. Maxie Hammerman said that Anna would need a new cart as there was damage to the axle that could not be repaired.

  The pushcart peddlers held a meeting to discuss the truce. Morris the Florist pounded on a table. “When they hit a lady,” he said, “it is too much! What kind of truce is that?”

  “General Anna has had that cart for forty-two years,” said Maxie Hammerman. “My father built it when I was just learning to use a hammer.”

  “Forty-two years, and I never had a day’s trouble with it,” said General Anna. “Maxie’s father once said to me, ‘When I build a cart, it could last a lifetime.’ So maybe I should die now.”

  “Please don’t, General Anna,” said Papa Peretz.

  “Naturally I won’t,” said General Anna. “I wouldn’t give a truck the satisfaction. I was used to that cart. But never mind. Maxie Hammerman can build me another. What I want to know is: Why don’t we fight back as before? Just selling apples and pears while a truck is cutting off my wheel, I don’t like so much.”

  “I am perfectly willing to fight back,” said Harry the Hot Dog.

  “‘Willing’ is not the question,” said Maxie Hammerman. “If we break the truce, we are in serious trouble. The Police Commissioner has promised the Mayor that he will arrest anyone who breaks the truce.”

  “A truck is smashing my axle and it is a truce?” said General Anna.

  “You are right,” said Maxie Hammerman. “But how can you prove that it was not an accident? And any accidental damage we do the trucks now would be very risky. The truck drivers are looking for just one good excuse to make the Mayor put us off the streets entirely.”

  “Maxie is right,” said Mr. Jerusalem. “We must not damage the trucks at this time. But I have an idea. We can make a peaceful protest.”

  “Peaceful!” said General Anna scornfully. “Peaceful like a broken axle?”

  Mr. Jerusalem shook his head. “Like a Peace March,” he said. “What I mean is this: the trucks want to run us down one at a time when nobody is looking. They hit General Anna, and everybody says it is an accident.”

  “That we already know,” said Harry the Hot Dog.

  “I am coming to something else,” said Mr. Jerusalem. “Suppose a truck has to run down one hundred and seventy pushcarts at a time. Could that be an accident?”

  “So we should all get killed?” said General Anna. “Is that what you are coming to?”

  “For once, listen,” said Mr. Jerusalem. “My idea is as follows: we choose three streets, three streets where there is always a lot of truck traffic. We divide into three teams—one hundred and seventy pushcarts to a team. Then we go marching down these three streets, one team down each street. We are lined up across the street, six or seven pushcarts in a row—like a parade.”

  “Or like an army,” said General Anna. “An army of three divisions. Call it an army, and I like the idea. So continue,” she added.

  Mr. Jerusalem continued. “We have filled the streets where we are marching. No truck has room to pass us. A truck driver comes driving toward us. He says, ‘Out of my way, Pushcarts.’ But we keep marching forward. Very peaceful. Doing business as usual.” Mr. Jerusalem paused to let everyone get the picture.

  Papa Peretz looked doubtful. “And while we are doing business as usual, the truck keeps coming forward?”

  “So he keeps coming,” said Mr. Jerusalem. “Are we worried? No. To push us out of the way, that truck would have to run down six, twelve, eighteen, forty, maybe one hundred and seventy pushcarts to get through that street. Could that be an accident?” Mr. Jerusalem demanded.

  “No,” he replied triumphantly. “It could not! And so the truck drivers will have to bargain with us. They will have to guarantee no more hitting the pushcarts.”

  “Bargain with us,” said Harry the Hot Dog. “They would rather run us down—six, twelve, eighteen, forty pushcarts. What do they care how many they hit?”

  “Ah,” said Mr. Jerusalem, “but if they do hit us, then everyone will see who is breaking the truce. Who could hit forty carts by accident? I say they will not dare.”

  “But if they do—?” said Harry the Hot Dog.

  Mr. Jerusalem shrugged. “Then six, twelve, eighteen, forty pushcarts will be smashed,” he said. “Maybe we will all be killed. It is a war, isn’t it?”

  “A Peace March you are calling this!” said Harry the Hot Dog.

  “Are we hitting anyone?” asked Mr. Jerusalem. “Are we breaking any law?”

  “Yes,” said Morris the Florist. “If the trucks are coming toward us and we are marching toward the trucks, and it is a one-way street, which it certainly will be, we will be going the wrong way down a one-way street—and that is against the law.”

  Mr. Jerusalem laughed. “A minor traffic violation,” he said. “Nothing serious, like breaking a truce.”

  “Nothing serious,” General Anna agreed. “In fact, it is a fine plan, and I am marching in the front line. You could hurry with the pushcart, Maxie?”

  CHAPTER XXIX

  The Peace March

  Maxie Hammerman was able to finish General Anna’s new pushcart in time for the Peace March by using, with General Anna’s permission, his electric drill and power saw. It was true what Maxie Hammerman had told the Police Commissioner about General Anna’s preferring the work on her cart to be done by hand.

&nb
sp; “But we are at war,” said General Anna. “It is more important that I should have the cart in time for the Peace March.”

  Maxie Hammerman said afterward that the greatest compliment anyone ever paid him was General Anna’s remark when she saw her cart: “Even with electric tools, Maxie Hammerman can make a cart every bit as good as his father made by hand.” Maxie was so proud of this compliment that he personally bought General Anna a cartful of the best-quality apples and pears, so that she would make the best appearance possible on the day of the Peace March.

  As Mr. Jerusalem had suggested, the Peace Army was divided into three groups of about one hundred and seventy pushcarts each. Mr. Jerusalem was to lead the First Division down West Street. Harry the Hot Dog commanded the Second Division which was going to march down Broome Street. General Anna herself took charge of the Third Division which was to march down Greene Street.

  General Anna gave orders that all divisions were to report to their stations at 7:30 on the morning of the Peace March so that they could get lined up before there was any amount of traffic in the streets. This meant that some of the peddlers had to set out before dawn to reach the street where their division was to march.

  The Peace March was well organized. The peddlers had all dressed in their best clothes and many of the carts had been freshly painted for the occasion. A few peddlers in each division carried posters and some of the carts displayed banners.

  The banners and posters had been lettered by Eddie Moroney. The lettering looked very professional because of Eddie’s long experience in lettering circus carts and posters as a young man before he went into the pushcart line.

  The banners all read: “PEACE MARCH,” some in plain and some in circus-type lettering. The posters, however, said different things: “Be Fair to the Pushcarts” or “Don’t Push the Pushcarts Around,” or simply “Pushcarts for Peace.”

  Some of the posters were gaily decorated with birds and flowers and other designs Eddie Moroney felt were in keeping with a peace march. General Anna thought a lion or two would be very nice, as Eddie Moroney was known to be very good at drawing lions as well as at lettering. But Eddie said lions definitely were not in keeping with a peace march.