East Side Stories:Tales of Jewish Life in the Lower East Side of New York in the 1930's (6 page)

“Remember? I remember,” the Canarrick replied. “You don’t let me forget.”

“A-ha!” Bulldog said. “A fight already. Listen, Rifkeh, and you listen too, my friend, the Canarrick. Fights, I don’t need. I got my money, Canarrick, you got yours. So I’m going. Good night. Fight in good health.” And with that Leo heard the front door open and close. Leo undressed, turned off the overhead light, and was now in bed.

“What do you mean,” he heard his mother say angrily, “I don’t let you forget?”

“That you don’t let me forget,” the Canarrick replied. “All the time.” And he mimicked Rifkeh’s voice, “When do we get married? when do we get married?”

“Yeah. When?” Leo’s mother said, her voice rising. “You’re the one who tells me all the time we’ll get married, don’t you? So what are you saying now?”

There was a huge silence. only the faint noises from the street below and from the few flats in the building in which people were still awake. Leo heard the soft pad of his mother, now in her stockinged feet treading slowly across the linoleum floor of the kitchen, the floor groaning slightly under her steps.

The Canarrick, his words slow and emphatic said, “I’m saying, like I just said, we’ll get married. You hear that? What more do you want?”

“Nothing, nothing,” Leo’s mother snapped in return. Then suddenly, “Why do I have to say it, to remind you all the time? Why can’t you say it, alone, without me asking you?”

“But I said it!” the Canarrick shouted. Lowering his voice somewhat he said, “Are you deaf? Didn’t you hear me?”

There was another silence. Dimly Leo heard someone in the kitchen go to the sink, open the faucet, fill a glass with water. There was the mumble of words moving farther and farther away, lost in a vast distance, the distance curled and enveloped him and Leo fell asleep.

His mother didn’t smile the next morning when Leo sat down at the kitchen table for breakfast. She had already eaten her meal, everything about her was grim. Leo, darting glances at her, began to eat his fried egg.

As she was about to leave to go to work, she turned and said to him, “You be good today.” He nodded. “I’ll be back when I finish work.” Leo nodded once more as she said, “The Canarrick, he’s still sleeping.”

“I won’t make noise, mama,” Leo said.

“Make noise, make noise,” she said to him. “Who cares?”

She said nothing more, then she was gone. Leo stared down at his food, his head nodding slightly. So the fight was still on. He sighed. Why did people fight? What did they want? Ah, if only they acted nice to each other, everything would be all right. If only.

When he returned from school, the Canarrick was gone. Leo washed the dishes that had been piled in the sink, swept the floor of the kitchen. The room still smelled of tobacco smoke, he opened the window, the fresh air rushed in, the vestiges of the smoke that clung to the walls and the ceiling began to disappear. He shut the window and left the flat.

Standing outside on the stoop of the tenement as the day was weakening and turning to gray, he searched the street for one of his friends. He saw nobody, it was too early, his friends, just as he, had come home from school and they were still in their flats. Leo leaned against the side of the entryway to the tenement. He felt tired, last night he had gone to bed at least an hour past his usual bedtime.

He was surprised when he saw Kaplan at his side. “Mr. Kaplan—” he stuttered out.

“Ah, Leo, Leo,” Kaplan was saying, a fixed smile on his face. “Just the one I wanted to see.”

“Me? What for?”

“You. Because I want to ask you something,” Kaplan said staring into Leo’s face. “You always looked like a good boy to me, an honest boy. Yes? I always said that, didn’t I? Yes or no?” Still perplexed, Leo nodded slowly and Kaplan said, “I want to ask you for something, just one thing. And I want you to answer me
der emess,
the truth. Yes?” Kaplan waited for Leo’s reply, there was none and

Kaplan said slowly, “Is the Canarrick your real uncle, hah?” Leo began to shake his head, not in reply to the question, but to rid himself of the words he had just heard. No, he didn’t want to reply, he didn’t want to be there. His heart was pounding, he looked away from Kaplan who said, “I can never see her alone, he’s always there. Not Bulldog. Is Bulldog your uncle?
Der
emess?”

Leo didn’t want to say anything, he wanted to run away but somehow he couldn’t, his feet seemed cemented into the stoop. He shut his eyes, he heard his heavy breathing, and opening his eyes at last, he whispered, “Yeah.”

“Der emess?”
Kaplan asked. Leo nodded. “And the Canarrick?” Leo tensed. No, I won’t answer that, no, I can’t. Why does he ask me? what does he want from me? the words sped through his mind. Go away! he thought. Get away from me! Leave me alone! And Kaplan was saying, “The Canarrick, is he your uncle? Leo, you don’t lie, you tell the truth, I know it.”

It seemed forever, it was forever. He attempted, oh, how he tried! to say, Yes, he is. And that would be the end of it, the questions would be over, the tormenting would stop, Kaplan would go away, they would leave him alone at last, all of them. But the words did not come. Dimly, yet distinctly, he heard Kaplan’s question once more.

“No,” he heard his voice, something disconnected from himself say as he stared far into the distance.

“Ah!” Kaplan whispered and remained silent for a moment. Finally he said, “You’re a good boy, Leo. One in a million.”

Breathing heavily in and out, Leo felt that Kaplan at last was gone. He turned to look where Kaplan had been, the man had disappeared. Slowly, with great effort, he began to climb the stairs back to the flat. He shouldn’t have told Kaplan. Who was Kaplan, what was he to Leo? But Kaplan had insisted on
der emess,
damn him! If Kaplan hadn’t said those words, maybe he, Leo, would have been able to lie. Maybe.

When his mother came home later, she looked distraught. “What’s the matter, mama?” he asked.

“Nothing, nothing,” she mumbled with a wave of her hand. “Where’s the Canarrick? Did you see him?” Leo shook his head, his mother said, “Go look for him. Go find him. Maybe he’s with Bulldock. Go find him!” Leo was about to tell her that the Canarrick would come home, not to worry, but she said, “Go, Leo, go!”

She looked so beset with trouble that Leo felt he must obey her. He ran out of the house, ran all the way to where Bulldog lived. Running up the stairs of that tenement, two steps at a time, he arrived in front of the flat. Breathing heavily, he knocked on the door. Bulldog was at the door and when he opened it, Leo could see the Canarrick sitting at the kitchen table.

Leo said to the Canarrick, “Come quick! Mama wants you.”

“What’s the matter?” the Canarrick asked looking up from where he sat.

“She says for you to come. She says it’s important. She’s waiting. Come.”

The Canarrick glanced at Bulldog, shrugged, lifted his eyes to the ceiling, pushed himself up from his seat and followed Leo out of the flat. Outside, in the street, Leo began to run, something was wrong, he knew it. He didn’t want to think about what was wrong, maybe nothing was wrong, maybe his mother was still mad at the Canarrick, yes, that was it.

The Canarrick called out to Leo, “Wait! Don’t run! Your mama will be there if you come two minutes later.”

Leo stopped, turned back to the Canarrick and said,” She don’t look so good. Maybe she’s sick. She said I should find you right away and you should come home. We could walk a little faster.”

The Canarrick shook his head to himself, let his hands fall to his sides. “Go,” he said to Leo. “Run. Fly. When you get home tell your mama I’m coming.”

Leo began to run. Down the streets to the tenement where he lived. Up the stairs, to the flat. The door was closed but not locked. He burst into the flat, his mother was sitting at the kitchen table, her face held up by her right hand, her elbow on the table. A thin strand of hair had fallen on her cheek.

She looked up when Leo entered the room and he said breathlessly, “I found him. He’s coming.”

“You’re a good boy, Leo. You’re good to your mama,” she said with a weak smile. Leo didn’t know what to say. He stood, waiting for the Canarrick. Now he could hear ascending footsteps on the stairs. “He’s coming?” Leo’s mother asked and Leo nodded. “Go in the bedroom, Leo,” she said. “I got to talk to the Canarrick.”

The Canarrick came into the room as Leo entered the bedroom. When Leo shut the door he could hear the Canarrick say, “You wanted me? What is it?”

“I lost my job,” Leo’s mother said beginning to cry. “I got fired.” She began to sob and Leo closed his eyes, prayed he could not hear anything else.

“You got fired?” the Canarrick said incredulously. “What for?”

“For nothing. I didn’t do nothing. I came to the shop, I worked today like before. Kaplan, he looked at me once in the morning, then later in the afternoon I see him go out. Then he came back and he went to his office and soon the foreman, he came over to me, he said to pack my things, I was fired.” Phrases and words were punctuated by sobs.

Lying in bed, Leo couldn’t believe the words. Kaplan had gone out in the afternoon, that must have been—No, it couldn’t be, no! And when he came back to the shop, soon the foreman told Leo’s mother she was fired. No! no! It was impossible! How could it be?

Kaplan had told Leo to speak the truth, and he had. And now, for this to happen? Was that what happened when you told the truth? He tossed and turned on the bed, he banged the pillows with his fists. What had he done?

“Rifkeh, let me understand,” the Canarrick was saying. “He went out, he came back, then you got fired.”

“Yeah.”

“He knows,” the Canarrick said in a soft voice. Leo’s mother said, No, it couldn’t be, how could it? “He knows,” the Canarrick said once more. Leo could hear the loud smash of the Canarrick’s fist on the tabletop. “The bastard! Why did he do that? I thought he liked you, didn’t he?”

“What do you want from me?” Leo’s mother was sobbing. And now angrily, “What did I do, hah? Didn’t I do everything you told me to do? Didn’t I do everything even though I didn’t want to?”

“He knows, the bastard knows,” the Canarrick said quietly. “Okay, Rifkeh, all right, so he fired you, so it’s not the end of the world, is it? There are other places you can work, you always tell me that. This place wants you, that place wants you. So you won’t work for Kaplan, so what?”

“He knows, he knows,” Leo heard his mother say. “I’m so ashamed, Canarrick, don’t you understand?”

“What do you have to be ashamed for?” the Canarrick said. “You did nothing wrong.”

Inside in the bedroom Leo couldn’t bear listening to those words going endlessly on and on, emphasizing the terrible thing he had done. He pulled the pillow tightly up over his head and ears, held it there, damming those words that incriminated him, that had harmed his mother.

After school the next day, when Leo came home, he found his mother, Bulldog and the Canarrick there. But the Canarrick’s face was a caricature of itself. The area around one eye was blue and purple, the eye was closed, his face and lips were swollen. He was holding a compress to his face.

“What happened?” Leo asked looking from one face to another.

“Nothing, nothing,” his mother replied with a violent shake of her head.

“What do you mean, nothing?” Bulldog said to her, the cigarette in his mouth bobbing up and down as he spoke. “They beat up the Canarrick,” he said to Leo. “The
shtarkers
, the strong-arm ones. From Kaplan, maybe.” He nodded to Leo as he said, “No, not maybe. Who else? From Kaplan. He got that big shop, he’s got a few
shtarkers
working for him there.” He turned to his sister and asked, “Yeah, Rifkeh, am I right?”

She shut her eyes blurring her vision momentarily before cutting off the sight of that battered face. “Yeah,” she said without emotion. “He got two, three, working for him.”

The Canarrick said from swollen lips, “Yeah, it was Kaplan.”

Leo wanted to run and hide. First, his mother being fired. Then, this. Why had he ever spoken to Kaplan? Why did he ever have to know Kaplan? Why should this have befallen him? Why had he opened his mouth to that stranger? What had been wrong with him? Crazy, senseless, he hadn’t thought of anyone but himself and that damned
emess.
That
emess,
that was Kaplan’s
emess,
not his. His real
emess
was that he had harmed his mother. And the Canarrick. And himself. That was the
emess.

Bulldog was saying to the Canarrick, “Listen, if you want, I can get a few of the Cannon Street
boyiss
to see those
shtarkers.
And Kaplan too. Yeah?”

The Canarrick turned to stare one-eyed at Bulldog. His swollen lips began to form a small painful smile and he opened his mouth slowly to utter something when Rifkeh shouted out angrily to Bulldog, “
Messhugeneh,
Lunatic!
Idiot!
And now, this? You want to make a gangster from me too, now? It’s not bad enough with the gambling? It’s too much!” She turned to the Canarrick and said, “Enough! Enough with this
chazzerai,
this garbage, enough!” And to Bulldog, “Go already! Leave us alone! You heard me, go!”