Holy War on 34th Street

There Oughta Be a Law, or if there ain't a law, then there oughta be a place where all the loonies can do their thing without driving a poor cop nuts. Like they have in London, where I took the wife and kids on my last vacation—Hyde Park, where all the religious kooks can stand up on their soapboxes and yell at each other without screwing up traffic. We got enough trouble on the streets of New York with stoned-out hippies think they're on L.A. freeways, buses hogging three lanes, crazy cabbies think they own the streets, winos gorking out in the middle of intersections and trucks parking anywhere they damn please and to hell with all the citizens leaning on their horns behind them. What we sure enough don't need is 31 different flavors of religious fruitcakes crapping up traffic, too, let me tell you, Charley.

Especially not at 34th Street and Herald Square, which is a traffic cop's nightmare to begin with. You got Sixth Avenue and Broadway crisscrossing and 34th (continued on page 84) Holy War on 34th Street (continued from page 81) punching right across both of them, all three being major arteries, islands and three-way traffic lights and a pattern so confusing that some out-of-town yuk is always panicking and creating a balls-up. It ain't bad enough, you got Macy's and Gimbel's and Korvette's and a major subway station pumping mobs of pedestrians into the intersection, just to keep things interesting.

Down on 32nd Street is the Hotel Martinique, where the Scientology nuts have got a whole floor. A weird-looking crew—got eyes that seem too close together, if you know what I mean, and they like to stare at you with them. There are always a few of them hanging around on the corners, trying to rope in the marks with some kind of free aptitude test or something, but that's for the bunco squad to worry about, they never gave traffic any trouble. Not until, that is....

No, I think the whole mess really started when the Hare Krishnas staked out the northeast corner of 34th and Broadway. Now, even in New York, which is a 24-hour freak show, the Hare Krishnas are major-league weirdos for my money. Barbled-looking kids in orange robes, the guys with their heads shaved, some kind of white gook on their noses sometimes, playing drums and bells and cymbals and dancing up and down and chanting, "Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare...." Over and over again, till you know the words by heart, whatever they mean. They peddle incense and magazines, too, but what the heck, there didn't seem to be any percentage in trying to move kooks like that along as long as they didn't do it in front of Macy's and really screw the sidewalks up. Live and let live, right? Wrong, Charley, as I was to find out the hard way.

Because eventually the Scientologists got to notice the crowds they were drawing. There would be maybe a dozen or so of these bozos in orange robes, chanting, jumping up and down and staring into space; naturally, they would draw a crowd of shoppers from Macy's, tourists from Keokuk, hippies from the East Village and grease from the Bronx and Brooklyn. "Street theater," what they call it, and so much of it goes on in New York that we don't try to bust it up unless it really impedes traffic or starts turning ugly. I mean, who wants to turn a little free-lance craziness into something for the riot squad?

But the Scientologists, working the sidewalks like Orchard Street pullers, started homing in on these crowds of stationary people—easier to run their spiel on marks just standing there than trying to catch them on the fly.

Trouble was that the Hare Krishnas had their own goods to peddle—magazines and incense and religion—and they were into hard-sell techniques, too. While most of them were drawing the crowds with their dingo act, two or three of the least spaced-out types would be pushing incense and magazines and catching citizens in raps.

Some poor schmuck from out of town comes walking down the street with the little lady, staring up at the Empire State Building or gawking at the free freak show, and all of a sudden, he's staring into a pair of spaced-out eyes attached to a weirdo in an orange robe, saying loudly: "Have you heard about our Lord, Hare Krishna?"

"Uh...."

"Are you a religious man?"

"Ah...."

"Well, then, wouldn't you like to know more about our beautiful Lord?"

"Uh…."

"This magazine will tell you, go on, take it, it's yours!"

And he hands the mark the magazine and the guy, who by now wants nothing more than to get the hell away from this nut, nods thank you and starts to escape.

At which point he finds the Hare Krishna freak standing in front of his face with his palm out: "That'll be a dollar." Maybe six times out of ten, the yuk will give him the buck just to get free.

Well, when the Scientologists started working the same crowd, the scene began to change. They started competing. The same poor schmuck wanders down the street, stops to look, and all of a sudden, he is accosted by two loonies.

"Have you heard about our Lord, Hare Krishna——"

"Pardon me, sir, I'm a student and my school is offering these free personality-profile tests to——"

"Beautiful Lord——"

"Right around the corner at the Church of Scientology——"

Both of them trying to stare him down with the same kind of crazy eyes, you know, too close together and too close to his face. "Huh? What? Jeez, Maude——" He starts to freak.

"Here, take this magazine——"

"If you'll just come this way, sir——"

They start shoving magazines and personality profiles in his puss and grabbing him by the sleeve. "What the——Buncha crazy people here; come on, Maude, let's go to the top of the Empire State Building or somewheres...." And he brushes the weirdos away and pulls the old lady double-time down the street like a kid's balloon.

In the beginning, this was about all that happened; but once it began happening often enough, the Hare Krishnas and the Scientologists started noticing each other. You might think that this was stating the obvious, but, Charley, these were people who had trouble noticing anything outside their own brands of craziness, let alone each other. It must have taken them at least a week or two to finally realize that the other loonies were costing them customers. And from there to realizing that there was another flavor of nut out there, In that order.

At which point, they started taking each other for marks. Why not? To the Scientologists, the Hare Krishnas were just more crazy citizens in need of what they call it, "processing"; and to the Hare Krishnas, the Scientologists were just more unenlightened citizens who by rights oughta be wearing orange robes, shaving their heads, chanting and jumping up and down like jungle bunnies. I think the main reason they started really glomming onto each other, though, was that both brands of loony were heavy into staring.

You must've been in staring contests when you were a kid; you know, first kid to blink or laugh or say something is the loser. Silent staring contests, we used to call 'em. Well, the Scientologists and the Hare Krishnas got themselves into jabbering staring contests, nothing silent about 'em, let me tell you, Charley.

The rube drags his wife up the street away from them, and they're left alone, giving the heavy staring act to each other, close enough to smell pastrami on each other's breath.

"Come on, chant with us and experience the pure joy of——"

"Seem to be fixated at a very low energy level, but the Church of Scientology——"

"Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna——"

"Possible to reach a high preclear level in only eight weeks of——"

"Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare——"

"Come on, stop this suppressive behavior and——"

"Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare——"

"You're really in desperate need of the help only Scientology——"

"HARE KRISHNA, HARE KRISHNA——"

"Reach beyond your natal engrams to——"

"KRISHNA KRISHNA, HARE HARE——"

All the while staring at each other, and the Krishna freak jumping up and down finally, and clapping his hands in time with his goombahs.

At this point it was that the northeast corner of Broadway and 34th Street became something of a hassle for the traffic detail. Because sometimes these contests would really go on and get heavy. The Hare Krishnas would come in behind their boy like sidemen and the whole bunch of them would practically surround the poor Scientologist, bouncing up and down, playing their drums and bells, chanting and giving him the collective goggle-eye. Now, if it was you or me in there, Charley, we would instantly remove ourselves from such a hard-sell (continued on page 190)Holy War on 34th Street(continued from page 84) television commercial, right? I mean, it's like having an armpit shoved in your face. Not your Scientologist. To him, it's a challenge or something. He stands there staring right back, clutching his clipboard of personality tests and playing to the crowd.

Because by now there is a real crowd, and they are all watching the contest to see who flinches. I mean, after all, here you have a dozen crazies dancing up and down, playing their instruments and chanting at the top of their lungs, giving their all to put this one guy on their trip, and him a beady-eyed character who's giving them the big stare right back. Even for New York, this is pretty good street-theater stuff, right? So the crowd grows and grows and pretty soon it's slopping over into the gutter of 34th Street and they're not paying attention to the traffic lights anymore and traffic trying to turn right onto 34th gets blocked and ties up Broadway and cabbies start leaning on their horns and pickpockets start working the crowd and truck drivers are turning the air brown with their mouths and a poor son-of-a-bitch traffic cop has to run over and break it up before some old fart in an Oldsmobile has a heart attack and really screws traffic up.

Who knew who would win? Every time it really got going, we had to step in and break it up. And it was always a somewhat surly crowd to move along, because they wanted to see how the show would end. Hard to blame them. After busting up these weirdo contests two or three times a day for half a week, I got to wondering how it would come out, too. Sergeant Kelly, in his gentle way, told me later that this was my downfall, my ticket to my present beat up here in Fort Apache in the wilds of the east Bronx, where patrol cars have to travel in pairs. Like what they say about curiosity and the cat....

Not that I was crazy enough to do anything more than think about it. I don't care what Kelly says, I didn't purposely create the "Holy War on 34th Street," as the Daily News called it. You think I wanted a thing like that to happen on my beat? You think I wanted to be up here in yehupetz dodging bricks and rousting savage junkies? Sure, I admit I had this fantasy about letting the Heavy-weight Staring Championship of the World go on till a KO, but I had no intention of letting it actually happen, no matter what Kelly says. All that happened was that this curiosity slowed me down a little; that much I will admit.

But even that would've been OK if the damn Mitzvah-Mobile hadn't been the first vehicle to get caught trying to make a right turn from Broadway onto 34th. Picture this crummy old rented truck, a covered delivery type, the back of which is filled with these characters in black hats and long black coats. I mean coats made out of horse-blanket material—in June, with the thermometer hitting 85! And they've all got scroungy beards and long scruffy sideburns—Hasidim, Jewish hippie Holy Rollers from Crown Heights, something called the Lubavitch Society, which I know on account of this is written on the side of what is also labeled the Mitzvah-Mobile, along with a lot of Hebrew graffiti and a picture of a mezuzah, which is also some kind of ICBM.

There I am, standing on the Herald Square island halfway across the intersection, pausing for just a minute—honest, Charley—to watch the show before I break it up. The whole width of 34th Street is blocked with people and the crowd is starting to spill onto Broadway. I can see the shaved heads of at least a dozen Hare Krishnas bouncing together above the crowd, and the chanting is shriller and louder than I've ever heard it before, even over the sounds of horns and the screams of cabbies. There's a little gang of street hoods in the crowd and they're starting to cheer and yell; they seem a little loaded. Hippies are clapping their hands in time with the chanting. Even some ordinary-citizen types are cheering and applauding.

I cross over to the edge of the crowd, but instead of waving my night stick, blowing my whistle and telling them to get their stupid asses moving, I elbow my way quietly through them. All right, all right, I admit it, I wanted to see what all the excitement was about before I broke it up this time.

In the middle of the crowd, a dozen Hare Krishnas were dancing and chanting at the top of their lungs, as expected, but what wasn't expected, Charley, was that there were six Scientology nuts standing there with their arms folded and staring at them. And I mean, those boys were staring! Shoulder to shoulder, like statues of the Rockettes, making like Bela Lugosi on methadone; you could hang your clothes out to dry on the lines between the Krishna freaks and their spaced-out eye-balls. Let me tell you, like the hippies say, the vibes there were really strange. The Scientologists just stood like fireplugs and stared, and that just made the Hare Krishnas jump up and down faster and faster and chant louder and louder.

"HARE KRISHNA, HARE KRISHNA, KRISHNA KRISHNA, HARE HARE...."

And the crazier the Hare Krishna freaks went at it, the harder and colder the Scientologists stared. It got so heavy that the crowd was lining up between the silent starers and the jumping jacks, and something was going to give pretty soon.

At this point, let me tell you, I unfroze fast and started to move in, but, damn it, I was about a second too late. All of a sudden comes this incredibly loud blast of incredibly tinny hora music to the tune of which a chorus line of weirdos in beaver hats and long black coats dances in between the Hare Krishnas and the Scientologists.

"What's this goyisha meshugaas?" says a Hasid who looks like a fullback for Yeshiva University.

Another of the beards accosts a thin, pimply Scientologist. "Are you Jewish?" he demands.

"All right, move it along!" I shout, waving my billy and stepping right into the fruit salad. But it's too late; the loony bin has hit the fan.

Everyone is shoving literature in everyone else's face. Half of the Hare Krishnas are jumping up and down and chanting halfheartedly, while the others are trying to brush away Hasidim, who are trying to reach down the front of their robes to see if they're wearing mezuzahs. The Scientologists have seized the main chance and are pushing their free personality tests on the crowd that has now moved right into the middle of everything.

"Krishna Krishna, Rama Rama——"

"Tallith and tephillin are the strategic deterrent of the Jewish people——"

"It'll only take an hour of your time and it could change your whole life——"

"Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna——"

"Baal Shem Tov——"

"L. Ron Hubbard——"

I try my best to break it up, but I ask you, Charley, what could I do? It's wall-to-wall people now, and everybody is screaming at the top of his lungs, and the horns from the clogged traffic on Broadway sound like a dinosaur convention, and Scientologists keep pushing their clipboards under my nose, and the Yeshiva University fullback even has the nerve to frisk me for a mezuzah. Who can hear me blowing my whistle like an idiot? Who can tell a goose-along from my billy from somebody's elbow in his back? What was I supposed to do, start hitting people over the head and firing my pistol into the air? How was I to know that the Mitzvah-Mobile had a bullhorn?

All of a sudden, over the squawking hora music comes this wheezy old voice in a thick Jewish accent, only loud enough to rattle your fillings: "Without study of the Torah, in the streets comes chaos!"

And this old bird in a beaver hat and black coat gives me a knee in the butt as he pushes past me, jabbering into his portable bullhorn: "A mitzvah a day keeps der Teufel away!" He looks like Moses as played by Sam Jaffe, if you know what I mean, Charley, and he makes straight for the line of chanting Krishna freaks, drowning them all out with his amplified grandpa voice. "Stop dancing around like a Minsky's chorus line and dance for joy in the name of the Lord——"

At which point, all the Hasidim grab people at random—Hare Krishnas, Scientologists, hippies, street hoods, yuks from Keokuk—and start whirling them around in a hora. Whirl, whirl, whirl, then change partners like a square dance. One of them even grabs me and I find myself spinning around like a yo-yo. Everyone is whirling around, then staggering into each other like drunks, then whirling again, orange robes, black coats, satin jackets, shirt sleeves and skirts.

And then comes the moment when I know for sure that I have had it, when I can feel the pavements of Fort Apache slamming my size nines. Hoo-boy! Here come the Jews for Jesus!

These characters everybody knows about, because they've stuck up their Jews for Jesus posters all over the city, and what flavor they are is self-evident. What is also self-evident, unfortunately, is that somewhere in Fun City is another crowd that doesn't like their trip, because the city is also plastered with posters that read, Not Wanted: Jews for Jesus. Lately, the phantom opposition has taken to spray-painting out Jews for Jesus posters, and the Jews for Jesus have taken to painting out the Not Wanted on enemy posters, cleverly converting them to more of their own.

And here come a dozen boy scouts with five-o'clock shadows in Jew for Jesus T-shirts chain-ganging through the fruit-salad hora like that Carry Nation and her bad-ass biddies busting up a saloon. Can you imagine if it's the Lubavitch Society that's been fighting the poster war with them?

"Accept the Lord Jesus Christ King of the Jews!" they scream, actually loud enough to make themselves heard; they must be in practice.

"Bite your tongue, you should say such a thing!" Sam Jaffe in the black coat lectures back through his bullhorn.

"GOYIM!" shout the Hasidim.

I try to step in between the front lines, but there aren't any front lines anymore; the Jews for Jesus and the Hasidim are suddenly all over the place, going at each other in groups of two or three.

"As Jewish as you are, bubeleh, and don't you forget it—— "

"Look at this meshugaas and tell me the Messiah's already come——"

The Lubavitchers are trying to check the Jews for Jesus for mezuzahs. who are trying to push them away, and the Krishna freaks have gotten their act back together again and are jumping up and down, and dozens of weirdos in the crowd are still horaing on their own. The Scientologists have gone whacko or something; they're handing out free personality-profile tests to everyone within reach and trying to get them to fill them out right on the spot. A Salvation Army lady in her blue uniform appears, playing a tambourine. Two black guys in white robes selling newspapers. Indians in turbans with signs in Hindu lettering. Hasidim are whirling unwilling Jews for Jesus around by the wrists. Somehow I find myself dancing with a Hare Krishna. Somehow I find myself putting a quarter into a collection can shoved in my face. Somehow I find myself filling out a free personality-profile test.

Then I hear sirens—the riot squad to the rescue!

But what pushes aside the mob like bowling pins and comes to a panic stop in front of me is not the riot bus but Sergeant Kelly's squad car.

And what comes howling up out of it is Sergeant Kelly, his face so red it's purple, his eyes rolling like Groucho Marx's, veins standing out like cables on his forehead—believe me, Charley, a sight that would make Godzilla crap in his pants.

"WHATDAHELLISDISGETYER-ASSESOUTAHERE!" Sergeant Kelly suggested to the crowd like King Kong on bennies. A division of Marines would've backed off from Kelly in this state, and instantly the war was over and the parties concerned were streaming away from Kelly's squad car in every direction, while Kelly continued to bellow like a bull moose in heat to encourage their cooperation.

He was still in top form when he turned his attention to me. Me, standing there holding a half-completed free personality-profile test.

Fade out Broadway, fade in Fort Apache.

But you know, Charley, I got to admit it, I still kind of wonder how it all would have come out.