The Old Neighborhood

a teeming, roughhewn paradise of saloons, burlesque houses, factories, funeral parlors, chinese laundries, fire stations, heroes and harridans-- this was the brooklyn of his youth

It's There in "the halls of memory," like some old, old map of a lost world which still exudes a faint odor of musk. It's a world without dimensions, constantly in process of becoming, constantly undergoing transmogrification. When I picture myself astir in it I see a little boy with eyes of wonder roaming through a familiar and beloved countryside. But it's a countryside in which I never encounter a blade of grass, a tree (though there must have been some), a cow or even a muskrat. But there are horses, horses pinned to the earth, at the veterinary's opposite my home: they are being castrated in full view of the passers-by. There are wooden horses, too, on the carrousels, and they are awesomely beautiful, as if snatched bodily from myth and legend.

Only five years I had of it in this paradise--the years from five to ten--but they remain the most vivid in all my memory. Everything of vital importance to me seemed to occur in these years. There was the police station to which I was sometimes dragged by the ear; there was the beer saloon to which I was sent to fetch pitchers of beer; there was the burlesque house (The Bum) with its bawdy posters and a long queue of horny sailors fresh from the Navy Yard; there was the kindergarten where learning was not a torture, where the teacher was a friend and not an ogre; there was the tin factory with what seemed like Carthaginian slaves always on the trot, always staggering under heavy loads or pushing wheelbarrows filled with bright pieces of tin; there was the undertaker's and next door to it the Chinese laundry; there was the firehouse with the wonderful Dalmatian dogs which followed the chief's buggy at breakneck speed; there was the ferry slip and the big saloons blazing with warmth and cheer at each corner. There was everything, it seems, that goes to make up the world we know, including churches, clinics, lunatic asylums, alms-houses, drugstores and, at the butcher's, mountain oysters always on display on a bloody platter. (continued on page 148)Old Neighborhood(continued from page 120) Everything but a library. I don't remember ever seeing a bookstore until some time in my teens, and then in some far-off neighborhood. Books came only with Christmnas or birthdays. They were treasured. I remember reading them, however, only during periods of confinement, when convalescing from some illness.

The candy store was the most enchanting spot in the entire neighborhood; it was only a few doors from my home, in the basement of an old shanty. It was something out of Dickens, as were the two sisters who ran it. Or maybe the sisters were out of Chekhov. My mouth still waters when I think of the display in that shopwindow.

Like the sisters, there were two streets particularly dear to me: one was North First Street, just the block from Driggs Avenue to Bedford Avenue; the other was Fillmore Place, only a block long, running from Roebling Street to Driggs Avenue. On these two streets we did nearly all our playing. (Unlike kids today, we were never at a loss how to pass the time.) We knew games galore, and those we didn't know we invented. With the seasons came tops, marbles, potsy, shinny or cat, prisoner's base, cops and robbers, leapfrog, and so on. In the fall we would kill sparrows with our bean-shooters and roast them in the empty lot. We also dug deep pits in which we threw one another to see if we could break an arm or a leg.

In my books I am always making reference to "the open street." Open is the exact word for it. It was open to anything and everything. All our knowledge and experience were gained here. How like ancient times! The halls of learning may be hallowed, but they are grim and covered with rust. Real learning takes place outdoors, in the midst of life. What one truly learns, one learns in a flash, and seldom in the expected place or circumstance.

One of the first things a child learns is to read character. A kid spots a cheat, a liar, a hypocrite immediately. You may prove him wrong, but you don't convince him. He knows. He knows because he is still unspoiled by our adult view of things. Brat though he may be, there is still something of the angel in him. Adults love to deceive themselves, lie to themselves; they love to judge, condemn, punish, torture, preach. Kids are free-wheelers: they have their code all right, but it's a just one. They have their taboos and superstitions, too, just like adults, but it doesn't throw them.

In Louis Lambert, Balzac talks about the angel in man. It is this I remember most about childhood, this angel business. I mean, of course, the sense of innocence. Adults use the word apologetically, it seems. They prefer to say "not guilty." We seldom used the word, but it was evident in all we said and did that we regarded ourselves as innocent. The criminals, or guilty ones, if you like, were our parents and teachers. They were the ones who loused things up. We were helpless against them, especially when they professed to love us. (Though we weren't taken in by this love stutf.) Most of us were brought up to the sound of blows and screams, of curses and maledictions. Almost every home boasted of a drunk, a sadist, a ne'er-do-well or a budding criminal. One doesn't have to study sociology; just have a look around you. It's all there plain as daylight.

Happily, we had also with us the fools and idiots, the half-wits and the downright cracked ones. They, too, enjoyed the freedom of the open street. The epileptics, which we also had, added an uncanny and disturbing note. They would lie on the sidewalk, foaming at the mouth like mad dogs, twitching, squirming, uttering weird sounds, and we standing around waiting until they came to their senses. The ambulance wasn't always at one's beck and call, as nowadays. Nor doctors either, it seemed. Neither were there any boy scouts. There were Sisters of Mercy, but to us they looked like birds of prey masquerading in chill piety.

The priests who paraded up and down the street we always accused of being tipsy, which they often were. They put the fear of Christ in us with their nasty temper and their ugly paws. We gave them a wide berth whenever they passed our way. Behind their backs we made fun of them, largely because they looked vicious or foolish. Suddenly I ask myself if we were already confirmed atheists. I know there were some Catholics among us, but they displayed no more reverence than we did. The best they could do was to mumble--"Mornin", Father! Yes, Father!" Once the "Father" was out of sight you might hear another tune, something like--"The old fart!"

A remark like this would sometimes lead to a religious discussion. Remarkable observations were then dropped. For example ...

"If Jesus is the Son of God, who, then, was his mother?"

"Why, the Virgin Mary, you idiot!"

"Who's she?"

"Who's what?"

"Holy Mary."

"You're a dirty Jew, that's what!"

Almost as edifying as the ecumenical debates, what! What we couldn't get through our little heads was--how come a pretty girl would want to become a nun and wear those hideous garments? "Because she's Catholic, that's why," someone would volunteer. And that was that.

If there was one individual we really feared it was Crazy George. George owned a horse and wagon with which he made the rounds. In summer he peddled vegetables and fruit; in winter he delivered coal and wood. What terrified us was his unpredictable behavior. To begin with, he was a religious maniac. Driving slowly through the streets, he would lean forward in his seat and hurl bloodthirsty passages from the Bible at anyone within earshot. If his horse slipped on the icy cobblestones, he would flog it unmercifully, not forgetting to draw on his beloved Bible for choice invectives that would facilitate the poor animal's damnation. If we came within striking distance of him, he would give us a flick or two with the horsewhip, which made us howl and scream like the demented. George had a way of laughing, a mirthless laugh, which sent chills up and down our backs. Our parents pretended to be sorry for him since he was obviously off his rocker, but to us he was not so much a crazy individual as a mean, cunning, sadistic devil. It was said that he slept in the stable beside his horse, which is why, perhaps, his grimaces seemed horsy to us as well as frightening. I can never forget him, because he was the first truly malevolent being I met.

On reflection, this period called childhood had a far greater significance than the term usually connotes. It wasn't just a transitional period leading to adolescence, but something complete in itself and of a duration analogous to that of a geological epoch. As the primitive lingers on despite all our efforts to annihilate him in one way or another, so we lasted--until our wings began to atrophy. And then, overnight it seemed, the wondrous world of magic in which we had our being gave way to the threadbare, lackluster world in which we floundered and sank to the bottom or emerged like blazing monsters.

Fortunately, this adult world of X-2 or cock-a-doodle-doo was then only dimly perceptible. With us it was still just so much happy horseshit. If it snowed we made sliding ponds, fantastic ones a block long; if it was stifling hot we made for the river and baptized ourselves with the delicious sewer water; if we were hungry we rifled the icebox and got a good belting for it afterward. When we had nothing better to do we enticed one of our girlfriends to a cellar or hallway and for a penny or two we had our pleasure with her, such as it was.

There were quiet days, too, mostly when we were ill or confined to the house as punishment for some "unforgivable crime." Then we read. One of the strangest books to me was Stories from the Bible which some doting aunt had lifted from a department store. I can still see the infant Moses floating in a basket among the bulrushes. And Daniel in the lions' den, not shittin' in his pants, not even scared, so it would seem. I could never figure out who thought up these (continued on page 232)Old Neighborhood(continued from page 148) yarns. Certainly they had no connection with our life: they must have been dreamed up for dull, dreary days as extra punishment for being alive and itchy. Jesus was another character, I remember. (No one ever pronounced the name, incidentally, except at church.) I didn't go for him at all. Too meek and gentle for my crude tastes, except, of course, on that one occasion when he drove the money-changers from the temple. Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves was a bit more interesting, a bit livelier, so to say, but somewhat preposterous, too. At any rate, this early reading helped to give me the notion that the world outside our ken was a wacky sort of place.

As for us, we had our own heroes, our own idols, and what's more, they were alive and in our midst. They couldn't resurrect the dead, that's for sure, but they had other endearing qualities which more than compensated for their all-too-human make-up.

For the most part these demigods of ours were only a few years older than we, but this in itself was sufficient to put them in a special bracket. They had a way of patting us on the back when passing, or praising our skill, or complimenting us on our daredeviltry. Sometimes they would let us in on their discussions concerning the merits of Joe Gans, Terry McGovern or Jim Jeffries. Later we would discuss their relative merits, quite as if they were so many Julius Caesars.

My first idol was Lester Reardon, whose father, I believe, was a police lieutenant. He had a leonine quality, was proud, haughty, conscious of his good looks, his regal bearing and his indisputable superiority. I don't believe I ever addressed a word to him; I simply stared at him in undiluted admiration whenever he happened to cross my path. He always seemed to be looking at some point in the distance, an invisible star perhaps. If he had ever taken the trouble to notice me I would probably have passed out. He was remote, untouchable, as an idol should be. Had I been capable of formulating a prayer of my own, it would have been--"Please, God, make me like Lester Reardon!"

My hero, on the other hand, was Eddie Carney, and he lived in that magical, otherworld street called Fillmore Place. I used to watch him saunter down the street to the corner where the beer saloon stood; here he would take a stand, happy-go-luckylike, and wait to see if any of his pals would show up. In that brief interval he would graciously give me the opportunity to lick his boots, not as a fawning jackanapes but as one worthy of his serious attention and consideration. He was the very opposite of Lester Reardon, naturally. He was human, approachable, lovable. He was Irish, of course, and his smile was heart-warming. If you were in trouble he was openly and avowedly on your side, immediately.

Long after I moved away from this neighborhood, my thoughts would turn to Eddie Carney. I wondered if he had ever become somebody: I wondered why I didn't hear of him; indeed, after 15 or 20 years I wondered if he were still alive. It simply wasn't possible that one like him should remain alive and be unheard of. Alive or dead, he was the first person in my life whom I looked upon as a champion and protector, as someone who believed in me and who would go out of his way to aid me.

There were others, of course, who loomed large in my life--Johnny Dunne, Joe Gorman, Gus Fowler, Tim Buckley, Joe Goeller, Jimmy Short, for example. With these, however, we didn't have much direct contact or communication; their virtues, their exploits were relayed to us by others who were more favored. We simply sniffed at their heels.

How can I explain why these older lads, whom I have only fuzzily outlined, were of such tremendous importance in my young life? Perhaps only by relating them to their environment. The neighborhood, known then as the 14th Ward, was in process of change; from a rather stately, homogeneous community made up largely of Germans and Irish, it was beginning to feel the impress of immigrants from the ghettos of Europe, largely Jews. In a few years the old neighborhood was to lose its character entirely. It would come to resemble the Lower East Side, Manhattan, from which quarter, as a matter of fact, most of these newcomers hailed. These early heroes and idols of mine had consequently come to take on the attributes and characteristics of the favored few, the remnants of the Old Guard. Naturally, there was a striking difference in their deportment, their bearing, their outlook, from that of the raw newcomers whose ways were utterly foreign and often repugnant to us. We had the snobbish feeling, I suppose, that our favorites had "breeding."

Let me say immediately that my own playmates were not drawn from this singular and "aristocratic" species. Fortunately not. The parents of my little friends were of varying nationality and in no way distinguished. Not one of them was even moderately well off. And so my companions had no special charm, nor even what might be called good manners. They were more like slum kids than anything. Some turned out to be absolute rotters: two of them went to the penitentiary later. This never altered my affection for them; they were unlucky, that's all. Not everyone goes to the penitentiary who belongs there.

With one of these playmates I kept up a friendship until well along in life. He was a Polish boy named Stanley, who lived with his uncle and aunt. I have written about him a number of times in my books. The interesting thing about Stanley was that, like myself, he was an avid reader and secretly nurtured a desire to become a writer. Years later we became friendly rivals, neither of us seeming to evince the least talent as writers. Of all the critics who have attempted to slaughter me, Stanley was the one whose venom I dreaded most. In his opinion I lacked style, form and a sense of tradition--and how right he was! His favorite writer was Joseph Conrad, a Pole like himself. At 18 he was already dispatching me lengthy rhapsodies, from Fort Oglethorpe, no less, about his beloved Conrad. But I am getting ahead of myself. In those boyhood days we didn't discuss people like Conrad and Anatole France, another of his favorites; we discussed, believe it or not, religion and cosmology. We tried our damnedest to understand who or what God was, what sin meant, and whether there was or was not a hereafter such as we heard about in church. We were also curious about angels, virgins and miracles.

From the beginning, Stanley's life was a tough one. I, on the other hand, was born with a golden spoon in my mouth. Stanley had a violent temper and I was easygoing. I made friends easily, Stanley was always on his own. It was this contrast on all levels, I suppose, which drew us together.

There was one friend we both revered, I remember, and now I am coming not to another idol or hero but to a beloved one: Johnny Paul. This lad, considerably older than either of us, at least in appearance, was of Italian origin, and endowed with the most gentle nature imaginable. When he spoke to us his eyes were always moist; they hung like live coals beneath two bushy eyebrows which met in the center of his low forehead. He gave the impression of being strong as a gorilla; he moved slowly, deliberately, as if coming out of a trance. I never once heard him raise his voice in anger, even when provoked. His voice was always soft, soothing, caressing, as if he were more woman than man. Of all those to whom we looked for guidance and protection, he was the most solicitous. When he gave advice it was indirectly, like a sage rather than a priest or mentor.

His folks being extremely poor, he didn't hobnob much with the lads his age; he was too busy earning a living. I don't think he had time to finish grammar school. But if his life was hard and grim, he never showed it; he was always in excellent humor, always had time to listen to us. Even at that tender age I had the feeling that he was exceptional, "the salt of the earth," as we say. Had we had among us then a Giono or a Silone, I feel certain Johnny Paul would have been subject matter for their books.

It was some 10 or 15 years after I was taken away from this neighborhood that I began to realize more knowingly what a grand human being this Johnny Paul was. When I finally decided to go in search of him he was no longer to be found. By this time I had become alarmingly aware that there are two kinds of heroes, those who make the front page and those who remain forever unknown. Among the latter are those who do the inconspicuous but all-important dirty work of the world, who take the blows and hardships without complaining, who look not to fame, success and material rewards. They do what has to be done without questioning; they are without envy, spite, malice, greed and, best of all, without ambition.

Many, many times as I wandered about the world my thoughts reverted to Johnny Paul. I remember one occasion particularly, when visiting Assisi. My mind was already full of St. Francis, for I had been reading with the most intense excitement Chesterton's wonderful account of him. What, I asked myself, if Johnny Paul had been farmed out to the monks at an early age--would he have made another Francis? Probably not, for Francis, like Jesus, was something more than a meek and gentle soul. Undoubtedly the fire was missing in my beloved boyhood friend. Just plain good at heart, he was hardly one to set the world on fire. He had the dove in him, but not the serpent--or the lion.

Years and years later, after I had settled in Big Sur, I was still curious to know what had happened to this man of peace. Finally I ran an advertisement in a Brooklyn daily, inquiring if anyone remembered him and could put me in touch with him. To my astonishment, there came one day a letter from Johnny Paul himself. Nothing eventful had happened to him; he was growing old with grace and serenity, and he was content with his lot, humble as it was. He remembered me vividly, he said, everything about me. As I folded the letter I wept. I have heard no more from him since, but I trust that he is still alive and that by some miracle these words of mine will reach him and make clear that my love and admiration for him are still strong as ever.

Naturally, my heroes and idols have changed names over the years. The heroes of Manila Bay and San Juan Hill have faded. Aguinaldo, the Filipino rebel whom I worshiped as a boy, is still in my pantheon, however. So are John Brown, Jim Larkin and Eugene V. Debs. On the whole I have been fairly constant, fairly loyal, "faithful in my fashion." The important thing is that there is always room for new ones in this pantheon of mine. I remain a worshiper, a devotee. I would rather make a fool of myself by picking the wrong man than to sneer, deprecate and debunk.

I cannot close without a fleeting reference to a figure of the opposite sex who left her mark upon me. It was a golden day in my life when the family unexpectedly received a visit from a distant relative. She must have been a woman of 25 or so. At sight of her I gasped. Here was a creature utterly unlike all the women I had known thus far. Not only was she dressed differently--somewhat old-fashioned, I thought--but her whole manner, walk, gestures, way of addressing people, was novel and exciting. As for her voice, it was like nothing I had ever heard before. She was soft, gentle, passionate, like a messenger from above. I like to think of her as the first and only "innocent" woman in my whole life.

Strange though it may seem, she had a brute of a father, for brother a born idiot, and a mother who should have been running a whorehouse. And God had made her an angel! (How does one explain such things?)

She visited us but rarely and I used to wonder why. I don't any longer. As I grew older I fell in love with her, a hopeless love, since she was happily married and I was still only a raw youth. When I inquired about her I would receive disquietingly vague answers from my parents. There was a mystery about her that was never cleared up. Yet everyone loved her. I think they were frightened by her goodness, frightened by the reflection of themselves which they glimpsed in her eyes. Despite what one may think, angels are not easy to live with. They make us uncomfortable, to say the least.

I must add a word about this mother of hers who seemed to inspire everyone with fear, dread and loathing. Remember Crazy George? Well, they would have made a perfect pair, these two. The one talked God and beat the piss out of his poor horse; the other had the vocabulary of a Marine, stank like an old nanny goat and was never without a cuspidor at her side. Yes, they were two of a kind all right--conniving, cunning, mean and malicious. They had about as much kinship with the human race as a pair of jackals.

How fortunate I was to have been brought up in an atmosphere of this sort! What better environment could one ask for than this mixture of good and bad, beautiful and ugly, noble and degrading? Though my world was only a microcosm, it contained all the elements which go to make up our great big world. There were angels, saints, heroes and devils; there were the saloons, the asylums, the churches, the prisons--and the mountain oysters. There was only one really bad day in the week, and that was Sunday. It was a day of gloom, even for the poor Jews who didn't have to pretend to be sanctimonious on that day. Because on Sundays, for want of anything better to do, we used to hunt them out and make life miserable for them. No wonder they have never been in the slightest danger of being converted to Christianity!

Shortly after I returned from Europe I decided to pay a visit to the old neighborhood. So much of what I had seen abroad reminded me of the ambiance of those early days. Though I never felt homesick for America while away, I must confess I often felt nostalgic about the beloved 14th Ward. What I found on this return visit was heartbreaking. There's no doubt about it, one can never go home again.

One thing impressed me strongly: Everything I looked at seemed frightfully smaller than what I had known as a child. I felt like a giant walking about amid the shrunken ruins of an abandoned village. The primary school I attended had been razed; the tin factory had been burned to the ground; the Presbyterian church had been converted into a synagogue, and so on. Only Fillmore Place retained its ancient, faerie-like air. It was almost intact, except that the kindergarten was gone. Passing Eddie Carney's house I doffed my hat, as one would before a statue of Rabelais or Mozart. At the saloon I paused for a brief moment and thought of the delicious pitchers of foaming beer I used to collect at the side window. Strolling on, I came to what had once been the burlesque house; it was now a cinema, of course, and the announcements were in Polish, or perhaps Lithuanian. I continued down Grant Street to the ferry slip, but there were no ferry boats, nor even a saloon, if I remember right.

Had it ever been as I imagined, I asked myself. Or had I dreamed up those wonderful halcyon days? Shuffling about amid the pushcarts I felt lost, completely lost. Who was I? Where was I? The glorious past of my boyhood?--it was all but obliterated. Of all the lives I had led, what now remained? Only the halls of memory, it seemed. The memory of Lester Reardon, Eddie Carney, Johnny Paul, the memory of sounds, smells, sights, of drunks in the gutter, of bright pieces of tin, of the Hick of George's horsewhip, of the beatific countenance of that distant relative, of bananas rotting on the fruit stand, of stallions pinned to the ground and the hot iron searing their flesh ... The world and all it contains may vanish like dust, but the intangibles remain.