The Hoods (3 page)

“Yeh.”

“It's very commendable, but wouldn't you rather continue school?”

I shrugged my shoulders.

“Well, yes or no?”

I shrugged again.

“Look. I want to help you. I can help you if you change your ways. Keep away from your troublesome companions, continue going to school. Only by learning—”

I cut him off. “I can't finish school. I gotta go to work. My father ain't working.” I blurted it out defiantly, all in one breath.

“How long has your father been out of work?”

“How long? About three months.”

“Hmmmm.” O'Brien rubbed his chin. “Well, I have an idea and I'll do it in your case. You're intelligent and fundamentally all right.”

He hesitated. As an afterthought he added, “I think, with proper guidance, you can still develop into a good and successful citizen. I'll have a social agency look into your case and help your family, so that you can continue your schooling. Keep away from bad companions.” A confident smile broke over his face. He thought he'd solved the problem. His voice was joyful. “Well? Isn't that a good thing? They will help you to help yourself. You will continue your studies, and by behaving yourself you can succeed. You want your share of success in life, don't you? To acquire your share of the world's goods you have to specialize. I see you're pretty good in mathematics. Why not continue and try to be a bookkeeper, possibly an accountant? Don't just go floundering through life without a definite goal. Specialized knowledge is like a sharp knife. It will help you cut your way through the entanglements of life to your goal. To success. You understand what I mean?”

Yeh, I knew what he meant, but I played dumb.

“Yeh, I'll get myself a big knife,” I said.

He blew his top for the first time.

“Damn your stupidity,” he exploded. “I thought you knew what I was talking about.”

I shrugged. I was getting annoyed.

“Well?” his voice was agitated.

“What?” I made out I didn't understand.

He stared at me. I lowered my eyes. Then he knew that I understood what he meant.

Yeh, I knew what he meant. He wanted me to continue school, break away from Max and miss out on the million bucks we're gonna make on heists and everything. I'm gonna get help from a social agency? Huh! Everybody will look down on us. Charity, feh. What good is education? I had enough for what I wanted to do. I can write. I know arithmetic. I can read. I'm smart. I use my noodle. Yeh, that's why people call me Noodles. Because I'm smart. Yeh, and I'll get me a real sharp knife. That'll be my knife of specialized knowledge. O'Brien stood in front of me, a stern expression on his face.

“I'll get the social agency to help your family, and you, continue school,” he said.

His tone was definite.

I stood up. I felt heroic, like Nathan Hale. “I don't want or need your charity. I'm quitting school.”

He was a pretty good guy. I felt sorry for him. He seemed so sad for me, for all of us kids.

“All right, all right, that's all, son.” He patted me on the back.

I walked towards the door.

I turned and said, “Well, will I get my working papers?”

He didn't answer. He just looked at me and sighed hopelessly.

I was insistent. “I want them, Mr. O'Brien,” I said.

He nodded sadly. “You will have them.”

My friends were waiting downstairs.

“What did the old cluck want?” Maxie asked.

“Nothing much. He was talking to himself mostly. He wanted me to continue school.”

Cockeye took his harmonica out. We walked down the street harmonizing “Goodbye, My Coney Island Baby.”

Maxie had a pretty good baritone. Patsy had a so-so bass voice. Dommie sang in a high falsetto, his voice was changing, and I sang what I thought was tenor. Anyway, we were pretty proud of our street corner quartet.

We swung down the street in step with the music. Suddenly, we stopped and gawked: there was the biggest man in the world. He was bigger in our eyes than George Washington was to most school kids. He was looking right at us.

“Hello, kids,” he said.

We stopped in awe. Maxie was always the nerviest one. He answered, “Hello, Monk.” It was Monk, the toughest man on the East Side, and, as far as we were concerned, in the world.

“I want you kids to do me a favor,” Monk said.

“Anything you say, Monk,” Max said.

“O.K., follow me.” He gestured with his hand.

We would have followed our hero to hell if he had given the word. He led us into a saloon on Ludlow Street where ten husky pug-uglies were sitting around guzzling beer.

Monk laughed and said to them, “How do you like my new gang?”

They looked at us and smiled. “Tough looking gang, all right, Monk. How about some beer, kids?” one of them said.

It was the first time we had drunk the stuff. It tasted awful, but we drained our glasses, feeling a little dizzy and important.

Monk Eastman explained what he wanted us for. We were given two baseball bats apiece and told to meet him and his gang in Jackson Street Park. A gang of Irish hoodlums had made a habit of swooping down on the park and of annoying the old Jews who congregated there. This time, the Irish were in for a surprise. Monk had gathered together the ace man from every neighborhood on the East Side for this event. It was an all-star gang, as all-star as a baseball team made up of the star players from both leagues. Besides Monk, there was Kid Dropper, Pulley, Abie Cabbagehead, Big Louie, Crazy Izzy—all big-name guys.

If Monk and his men were to carry the bats through the streets and into the park, it would be a dead giveaway to the cops and to the Irish mob. That was the reason we were invited along.

Monk and his men filed into the park one by one, pretending not to know one another. They sat on benches, with the older members of their religion, took Jewish newspapers out of their pockets, and buried their heads deep in the papers so they wouldn't be recognized. We stood a little distance away ready with the bats. We didn't have long to wait. From the river side of the park we saw the Irish coming— about fifteen tough-looking dock wallopers. Immediately, the meek and religious Jews left the park.

Abie Cabbagehead was closest to the advancing mob. Abie was famous for his large head, which wasn't soft like a cabbage. It was as hard as a rock. The biggest of the Irish gang walked over to Abie and growled, “Twenty-three skidoo, sheeny. Out of the park, you goddamn mocky.”

Abie rose slowly from the bench, as though he was about to retreat. Then, with his head lowered, he charged in like a bull. We didn't wait for any signal from Monk. We ran in with the bats. Monk and his men jumped off their benches. Each grabbed a bat from us, and the slaughter began. We stood watching, with rocks in our hands. If an Irish head came into view, the five of us would conk him. We were having a hell of a good time.

That's where we first laid eyes on Pipy, Jake the Goniff, and Goo-Goo. Maxie was the first one to notice something queer. Three kids about our own age were jumping in and out of the thickest part of the fighting. Max said to me, “Watch the two Jew kids and that Irish kid. They're working together. They're up to something, sure enough.”

They would be in the middle of one fighting group; then they would break away and dive into another.

I said, “They aren't fighting, what are they up to?”

Maxie shrugged his shoulders.

The clanging pie wagon finally came along, the cops in their high stiff helmets swinging their clubs. Everybody who could, ran.

Maxie and I grabbed a bat apiece. Max shouted for the rest to follow, and we started chasing the two young Jews and the young Irish kid. We cornered them by the East River. The young Irish kid was all out of breath, but smiling.

In a brogue he said, “Didn't we have enough fighting? Let's be friends.”

He stuck his hand out, introducing himself. “My friends call me Pipy, and these are my two pals, Jakie and Goo-Goo.”

Jake stuck his hand out, smiling, and said in a marked Jewish accent, “Pleased to meet up with you boytchiks.”

Maxie lifted his bat ready to swing, and said, “Can this friendship crap. Noodles, go through their pockets.”

I gave Patsy my bat. He held it ready to swing while Dominick and I went through their pockets. We were amazed at what their pockets held. There were three wallets and four watches with gold fobs among the three of them. We took the money out of the wallets, about twenty-six dollars. Maxie handed Pipy, Jake and Goo-Goo two bucks apiece. After considering a moment, he threw them each a buck more.

Jake the Goniff was a tall kid. Pipy was short and stunted. Goo-Goo was squat with enormous, questioning popeyes. They were so different in appearance, I thought them a peculiar combination. When I got to know them better, I saw that underneath they were alike. They were greenhorns,—greenhorns from different countries, but with the same sly humor and instinct for thievery.

Then we stood around listening to some of Pipy's exploits. That was our mistake. Whitey, the cop, came running over. First he whacked Jake on the backside with his club.

“You're the kids the men in the lock-up described. Hand over those wallets and watches,” he said.

He went through our pockets. He took all our new-found possessions. “Go ahead, beat it before I lock you up,” he said. Sullenly we walked away.

“That goddamn Whitey,” Maxie muttered bitterly, “he's a crook. I'll bet he don't turn that stuff back. He keeps it for himself.”

“What did you think?” I said sarcastically. “Don't you know everybody's a crook? Everybody's illegit?”

“Yep, you're right,” Maxie said.

“Sure, Noodles is right,” Patsy agreed. “Everybody's a thief.” We were outside the park.

“Hope to see you fellows again,” Pipy grinned at us. He, Jake, and Goo-Goo walked away in the direction of Broome Street.

“Yeh, come around,” I called to them. “We hang around in Gelly's candy store on Delancey Street.”

“Yeh, we'll be seeing yuh,” Jake the Goniff called back. We walked down the street. We had already forgotten the unpleasant episode with Whitey.

It was Friday afternoon. The sun, the streets, the people, everything seemed different on a Friday afternoon. We were happy and carefree. We had all eternity before us: two whole holidays, wonderful days with no school. I was hungry, and tonight we ate the big meal of the week—the meal of the Sabbath, the only substantial meal of the week. No stale bread rubbed with garlic, washed down with tea tonight. Momma baked. And there's hot chaleh bread and gefuellte fish and fresh horseradish for supper. My mouth was watering. I licked my lips in anticipatory pleasure. Boy, was I hungry. It seemed I wasn't the only one.

Cockeye stopped playing his harmonica, and said, “How about we go to Yoine Schimmel's Knish Bakery and get a couple?”

Patsy said, “Who's got money? You got money?”

“I got one cent that Whitey didn't take,” Cockeye said.

“Anybody else got money?” Maxie stuck his hand out for Cockeye's penny.

Dominick took two cents out of his secret pocket. The rest of us were broke.

“We'll buy one knish for two cents and a bag of haiseh arbess for the other cent.”

After we'd bought the knish and the hot chickpeas we stood on the street corner, and each had one bite of the knish and a few chickpeas. It tasted wonderful, but it made us hungrier. We walked through Orchard Street, where the pushcart peddlers were gathering up their wares to get home early for the Sabbath. They eyed us warily. They recognized us. After a few intricate maneuvers, Max and Patsy clipped an orange apiece. The peddler shouted curses after us as we ran.

“Banditten, a brock zu eich!”

As we shared the oranges we strolled into Delancey Street, the street I lived in.

“There's Peggy, the Bumehkeh,” Cockeye stuttered excitedly.

On my stoop, leaning languorously against the door, was blonde Peggy, the janitor's nymphomaniac daughter.

“Hi, boys! Give me a piece of that orange, Noodles,” she called out.

“I'll give you a piece of my orange if you give me a piece of your...”

Patsy didn't finish his sentence; he stood there smiling hopefully up at her.

“Fresh boy.” She was giggling, pleased with the idea. She waved him away. “Later, not now, twenty-three skidoo. But not for an orange, bring me a charlotte russe if you want me to give you a good one.”

I walked past Peggy, giving her a feel.

“Oh, Noodles, stop it, not here, let's go under the staircase,” she whispered.

I was young. I said, “Not now, I'm hungry.”

Maxie shouted after me, “Meet us at Gelly's after supper, Noodles.”

“I'll be there!” I shouted back.

I ran up the five flights of creaky stairs into our dark railroad flat. It was full of nice baking smells.

“Supper ready, Momma?” I yelled as I threw my books in a corner.

“It's you, my good boyeleh, my schayneh?”

“Yes, Ma, I asked is supper ready?”