by Joe Bruno
Every so often, a certain priest, say Father Quincy for instance, would disappear for a few weeks and sometimes even months. The excuse the Archdiocese gave to the parishioners was that the priest was on a retreat, reinforcing his relationship with God. When in fact, he was in some dry-out tank, at one of the many Catholic Church-owned hospitals spread throughout the country.
Or maybe even worse.
The worse being, one of the altar boys had told his parents that a certain holy father had accidentally put his hands down the front of little boy's trousers. This had happened more than anyone connected with the Catholic Church would ever admit. Yet after a few months of retreat life, the offending priest would be given a transfer to another parish, most often in another city, sometimes in another state and maybe even in another country.
Now inquiring minds might ask, did Tony B steal the wine just to get drunk himself?
Don't be absurd.
Tony B hated wine. It tasted like someone had taken a leak in his mouth.
Yet, Tony B had no problem selling the wine to his upperclassmen, in grades six, seven and eight, for a buck, or two, or whatever price moved him at that particular moment. Thus his early morning wine excursions earned Tony B just enough extra cash to buy his favorite girlie magazines at a newsstand on Chatham Square, run by a Chinaman, who would sell anything to anybody, regardless of race, color, creed, or more importantly in Tony B's case – his age.
When he was ten years old, Tony B's parents moved to a spacious three bedroom apartment, in a six-story tenement on the corner of Mulberry and Worth Street, just down the block from the Department of Motor Vehicles.
Since Tony B had his own bedroom and was now having multiple-daily erections, the girlie magazines he bought with the cash garnered from the stolen sacristy wine, sure came in handy when Tony B felt compelled to take matters into his own hands.
When the urge came, Tony B would close his bedroom door, click on his War Civilian radio for background noise so his mother wouldn't wonder why he was so quiet, and begin his novice masturbation routine. At the age of ten, only a few dozen rapid strokes were necessary to bring himself to completion.
Then one day, the unimaginable happened.
Tony B's was banging away with his right hand and holding a copy of New York Nights in his left hand. Fibber McGee and Molly were arguing on the radio, when for no discernible reason, his mother opened the bedroom door and stumbled in.
Time seemed to stand still. Tony B stopped pumping his right hand and held his manhood tight, with one eye on his mother and the other on the bedroom window, which he was considering jumping out of in about ten seconds.
Mom, if anything, seemed more embarrassed than Tony B. She stood frozen, with her mouth open and nary a sound coming out of it.
Suddenly she said, “Well, all-righty.”
Then without another word, she did an about-face and exited the room, closing the door gently behind her.
Tony B froze for a second, then decided it was best he finished the job at hand. And that he did.
The next day when Tony B came home from school, he noticed a slide lock was installed on the inside of his bedroom door. Nobody needed to tell him when to use it.
Tony B quickly established himself as somewhat of a neighborhood practical joker. Usually the butt of his jokes was Richie “Ratface” Rambone, who was called “Ratface” because he resembled the cartoon character Mickey Mouse. Or maybe it was Minnie Mouse. Nobody was really sure.
Richie had a funny walk, like he had a broomstick up his butt. Tony B heard people say mean things, like maybe Richie Ratface was a queer. Tony B had no idea what the word queer meant. He thought it probably meant that someone walked like they had a broomstick up their butt.
One day while in sixth grade, Tony B came up with the brilliant idea of giving Richie Ratface a present he and the entire neighborhood would never forget.
It was the day after Halloween and the neighborhood kids had made a few bucks trick-or-treating the night before. Most people gave cash. A quarter here. A half a buck there. And some people even sprung for the green, which was just fine by Tony B, who as the son of a local mob boss, expected no less. But some old-fashioned creeps still gave the kids candy, which plainly sucked, because you couldn't buy a girlie magazine on Chatham Square and offer the Chinaman a Milky Way in return.
So Tony B decided to be a pal and give all the chocolate candy he received the night before to his friend Richie Ratface, who was a chocolate fiend himself. But mixed in with the Mars Bars, Milky Ways and Chunkies, Tony B slipped in a few dozen brown chocolates wrapped in aluminum foil.
“My mom made these special,” Tony B told Richie Ratface.
Of course, Tony B failed to include the tiny little fact, that the candy was actually Ex-Lax, used by men who would never be considered “regular guys.”
So right in front of half the neighborhood, Richie Ratface filled his yap with several pieces of the laxative. He chewed, swallowed, then headed on home.
It was Skinny Benny Vacarelli who told Tony B, that maybe this joke was not too funny, since more than one, or two Ex-lax could make a young boy very sick indeed. Maybe even sick enough to die.
They had watched Richie Ratface knock down at least six Ex-Lax and there were a couple dozen more in the bag Tony B had given him. And what if Richie Ratface's parents downed a few Ex-Lax themselves? Well, then the shit would hit the fan for sure.
So Tony B and Skinny Benny rushed to Richie Ratface's apartment at 75 Baxter Street, the corner of Bayard, right across from the newly built Tombs Prison, where Tony B might wind up in, if Richie Ratface kept eating those damn Ex-Lax.
75 Baxter was the only tenement in the neighborhood that had an elevator, big enough for maybe two people at a time. 75 Baxter also still had the bathrooms in the hallway, but that's another story for another time.
When Tony B and Skinny Benny finally got to 75 Baxter, they decided time was of the essence, so they ran up the stairs to Richie Ratface's 4 floor apartment. Tony B knocked frantically and Richie Ratface's mother answered the door.
Trying to keep his eyes off Mrs. Rambone's huge knockers, Tony B spilled the beans about his little prank.
“My God!” Mrs. Rambone screamed. “Richie, come here this instant!”
Richie came out of his bedroom, munching on another Ex-Lax. He had a puzzled look on his face when he spotted Skinny Vinny and Tony B.
“What's the matter guys?” Richie Ratface said, chocolate rimmed around his mouth.
Before they could answer, Mrs. Rambone ran to the sink, grabbed a pasta pot and filled it with warm soapy water. She poured a glass of the suds, then handed it to her son. “Drink this down in one gulp. Now!”
Richie Ratface looked at his mother like she had three eyes. “What are you crazy? I'm not drinking no hot soapy water!”
“Oh yes you are!” Mrs. Rambone screamed.
Then without saying another word, she grabbed her son by the back of the head, put the glass to his lips and made him swallow the entire contents down in one gulp. Then she refilled the glass and made him do it a second time.
Mrs. Rambone stood back and admired her handiwork. “Feel like you want to throw up?”
Richie Ratface's face was all scrunched up. “No, but that stuff tastes horrible.”
Time for plan B.
Mrs. Rambone rushed to the refrigerator and took out a cartoon of eggs. She broke ten eggs, one at a time, into a pasta bowl. She whisked the eggs, then added a warm can of beer and a almost a entire bottle of hot sauce.
She handed the bowl to her son. “Drink this down! Now! Quick! I need for you to vomit. Or you might die!”
By this time, Tony B and Skinny Benny would rather be anyplace else in the world than in Richie Ratface's apartment at 75 Baxter Street.
They watched as Richie Ratface knocked down the entire eggs, beer and hot sauce mixture.
This time Richie Ratface's whole body shook. He looked pleadingly at this mother, then
heaved a projectile vomit right into his mother's face.
Not waiting to see any further results, Tony B and Skinny Benny sprinted out the apartment's front door, down the stairs and out of 75 Baxter. They dashed into Columbus Park, running like their lives depended on it, and exited Columbus Park near Park Street. They sped into Tony B's building and their legs didn't stop moving until they were safely in Tony B's apartment.
Sally Boy was sitting at the kitchen table, with a shot and a can of beer in front of him. A bottle of Remy, half-empty, was sitting on the table. He saw the boys were sweating and near exhaustion.
“What happened? Were the cops chasing you?” Sally Boy said.
Tony B told his father the truth, waiting for the explosion of Mouth Etna, which is on the opposite side of Sicily from Palermo.
But Sally Boy did not erupt. Instead he smiled, patted Tony B's shoulder and said, “That's my boy!”
Sally Boy poured his son and Skinny Vinny a shot of Remy. Then he went to the fridge, pulled out two cans of beer, popped them open and placed one in front of each boy.
Sally Boy raised his glass. “Salute. Cent'anni”
All three drained their shots and washed the booze down with beer.
Sally Boy raised his glass again. “Here's to my son finally growing some balls.”
Skinny Benny looked puzzled. “What does Cent'anni mean?”
“A hundred years,” Sally Boy said. “May we all live a hundred years.”
The two boys raised their glasses, saluted Sally Boy, then downed the booze, followed by some more beer.
But Tony B knew it was not likely, considering his present lifestyle, he was going to live ten years longer, let alone a hundred years.
As for Richie Ratface, his mother's quick thinking saved him a trip to Beekman Street Emergency. But Richie Ratface found the toilet bowl his constant companion for the next several days.
When he returned to school, Richie Ratface looked pale and skinnier than Skinny Benny. And from that day on, Richie Ratface treated chocolate like it had the bubonic plague.
Tony B skated through the rest of his grammar school years, doing just enough not to get left back in any grade. When he graduated 8 grade, he made the grand circuit of graduation parties all throughout Little Italy.
The legal drinking age in New York City was eighteen at the time, but not in Little Italy, which is on a different planet from the rest of the world. Any boy over the age of 13 could go into any Little Italy bar and get served a beer, as long as his father had said it was alright. If the father wasn't with him, the bartender would always ask, just to make sure, “Do you have your father's permission?”
If the boy answered yes, the bartender would pour him a small eight-ounce glass of Reingold, which cost a mighty ten cents. If the boy answered yes and the real answer was no, he'd be barred from all Little Italy bars until he reached the age of eighteen and sometimes longer. Some neighborhood men were thirty years old and still waiting for their first Little Italy bar drink. Lying has it consequences.
The apartment parties for grammar school graduation were a little different than your average house party. Every kid knew who had a party and what they were serving. So the kids made the rounds, scarfing up Italian cold cuts, trays of meatballs, manicotti, baked ziti, veal and chicken parmigiana, and whatever else the apartment chef would rustle up.
Cans of beer were offered to the kids, but some apartments had a full assortment of whiskey and liqueurs, which were set up in shot glasses on serving trays. So as Tony B made his rounds of the Little Italy apartments, he downed a shot here, a shot or two there, of whatever the host chose to pour.
During the course of maybe three hours of apartment hopping, Tony B had devoured such spirits as scotch, rye, vodka, gin, flavored brandies, crème de menthe, crème de cocoa, galliano and a diesel fuel called grappa.
After the first half a dozen shots, all the booze basically tasted the same to Tony B. So as he weaved a crooked line down Mulberry to Bayard, to Baxter, across Canal, up Mott, across Hester to Elizabeth, across Canal again and finally down Mulberry Street again, things were looking a little bit shaky, especially Tony B's legs.
When Tony B crossed Park Street by Columbus Park, his father was looking out the 6 floor window, having already received reports that his son had maybe a little bit too much to drink. As soon as Sally Boy saw the wiggle in Tony B's legs, he yelled inside to his wife, “Hey Dria, make a big pot of black coffee. This kid's drunk!”
Sally Boy knew there was no way his son was going to make it up the stairs in the condition he was in. So he ran downstairs, picked up his son, draped him over his broad shoulders and carried him up the six flights of stairs.
Sally Boy laid Tony B down on his bed until the black coffee (or what Americanus called espresso) was ready. As Tony B lay prone, he saw the room spinning around him in a counter clockwise direction, like he was on the merry-go-round at Coney Island. There was no brass ring to grab, so he held on tightly to the sides of the bed to stop him from falling off this crazy ride.
Sally Boy went into the kitchen and returned with full cup of black coffee.
“Now drink this down,” he told his son.
Tony B sat up straight, or what he thought was straight, because the room had reversed course and was now spinning clockwise.
With shaky hands, Tony grabbed the cup of coffee from his father and took a sip.
“No small sips,” Sally Boy said. “Down the freakin' thing, while your mother makes some more black coffee in the maganette.”
Tony B was not feeling much better. Plus he had a bitter taste in his mouth, like he had eaten a whole bunch of raw broccoli.
“Put some sugar in the coffee,” Tony B said.
“No sugar,” Sally Boy said. “Sugar turns into alcohol. And you'll get more drunk.”
This scene transpired a few more times, until Tony B had knocked down about a quart of the gooey black stuff, with no sugar.
It was like drinking mud.
Tony B. found out at an early age that drinking black coffee to negate drunkenness was just plain stupid. The caffeine in the coffee did not make you any less drunk. What it did was wire you up so tight, you were now a hyper-nervous drunk ready to rip out the walls.
Eventually Tony B. wound down enough to actually go to sleep. When he awoke twelve hours later, he had a huge headache and his mouth was as dry as sand. He staggered out of the bedroom to the kitchen table, and there was his father waiting for him, with, you guessed it, a pot of black coffee.
“Here, this will straighten out your hangover,” Sally Boy said.
All Tony B could think about was what a moron his father was.
CHAPTER 4
Seward Park High
Tired of all the Catholic school nonsense, and not being able to steal any more wine from the church sacristy, Tony B decided to go to public high school, which was OK with Sally Boy, since public high school was free.
The required public high school for Little Italy residents was Seward Park High, at 350 Grand Street, between Ludlow and Essex, right in the middle of what the Italians called Jewtown, one of the nicer things they said about the neighborhood.
When Tony B was a freshman at Seward Park, he had heard a couple of former Seward Park Jewish graduates had tried to become actors, with no notable success as of yet.
Their names were Bernie Schwarz, who had changed his name to Tony Curtis, and Walter Matthau, which was his real name, because who in their right mind would change their name to Walter Matthau anyway? No one Tony B knew had ever seen either one of these Jews on the big screen. Tony B thought maybe it was all bull and these two Jews were really ushers in a Times Square movie house.
And come on now. A Jew named Tony Curtis? Impossible.
Tony B. never heard of a Jew named Tony, not even in the Sunday comic strips.
Abe – sure. Aaron – absolutely.
But Tony? You've got to be freaking kidding me.
And Jewish actors? Ar
e these morons serious?
Jews were cut out to be doctors, lawyers, bankers, jewelers, or any other racket when they can make big bucks, so that that could supply their wives with diamonds and furs and maybe get laid once a year, usually on early New Years Day, ten minutes after the bells.
And can you imagine a Jew busting their balls to become starving actors?
Fuhgeddaboudit!
With no money they'd never get laid!
So Tony B figured Bernie Schwartz and Walter Matthau, must be so freaking stupid, they can't do anything else in this world, except become actors, which Tony B felt took absolutely no talent whatsoever.
Now trying to convince the local shylock that you really can't make this week's payment on time, that took some real acting genius that can't be taught in any stupid acting school.
Growing up in Little Italy, Tony B had very little contact with the Negroes, Ditzunes, Jungle Bunnies, Spades, Moolies, or whatever else you wanted to call them. Sure, you'd see a few Darkies once in a while in Little Italy, usually delivering beer to a bar, or a side of beef to a butcher. But they were in and out and gone, before you even knew they had been there. Tony B felt his neighborhood was a hell of a lot better being that way. And so did everyone else in Little Italy.
Yet Seward Park High School was a lot different deal altogether.
Whether he liked it or not, Tony B had to rubs elbow with the Moolies, day in and day out at Seward Park High, because they were all over the place, like roaches in a box of bread crumbs. Not to mention the slimy Puerto Ricans, or the Spics, as Tony B liked to call them, who slithered through the hallways combing back their greasy black hair laced with Vitalis or maybe even Brylcreem – a little dab will do ya.
Day after day, it was a constant fight to stay alive, in school and on the streets surrounding Seward Park High, after classes were over.
Seward Park High was basically divided into three gangs; the Negro Sportsman Gang, the Puerto Rican Dragons and the white Mayrose gang, made up of Jews, Micks and a few Dagos, who weren't tough enough to hang out with the Italian mob in Little Italy.
