by Lee René
Images, smells, and sounds flooded my senses: the soulful clarinets of klezmer music, Yiddish radio, and strolls down Fifth Avenue, while taxi drivers honked their horns for no reason.
That evening, Leah, Zisel, and I walked under one of Penn Station’s monumental arches. Leaded glass windows released ribbons of light in every direction. I stopped in my tracks, awed by acres of stone, concrete, and steel. Zisel’s voice soon brought me back to earth. “Mitzi, stop dawdling. You have a train to catch!”
The three of us marched through the station, constantly looking over our shoulders in case Nussbaum and his goons had tracked us there. For the past two weeks, Leah and I had been in hiding at Zisel’s brownstone and couldn’t even mourn my father properly. We didn’t have an ounce of courage left between the two of us, and the frenetic pace of the station only added to our anxiety.
Our enemy had sworn to set fire to everything we owned, but Leah and Zisel had the last laugh. We’d slipped out of his clutches and the crumb could bay at the moon for all we cared. Perhaps the rabbi of the grand new temple in Los Angeles would find us lodgings and, most importantly, jobs. After we settled, we vowed to search for Uncle Baron’s grave.
Heads turned at Leah in navy serge and Mrs. Zisel Goldberg looking hoity-toity in her signature black. People swore my eldest sister resembled the movie actress Kay Francis, but in my humble opinion Zisel surpassed her in every way. Leah possessed a quality that turned on men’s motors. Folks described me as cute as a bug’s ear, but everyone swore I had the best figure. I walked behind my two sisters and got a few whistles myself.
Zisel dropped a roll of cash into Leah’s pocketbook.
“Guard this with your life. It should keep you going for a while. I’ll be expecting a telegram as soon as you arrive in Los Angeles. Leah, I expect you to take care of our baby.” She turned to me, a concerned expression on her beautiful face.
“Mitzi, you listen to your big sister. Don’t either of you worry about Pops—I’ll look after his grave. You guys concentrate on Baron. With a little luck, some thug will shoot Nussbaum between the eyes and you’ll come back to me.”
When Zisel began sobbing into her handkerchief, the bawling started in earnest. Leah transformed from seductive vamp into a red-nosed ball of snot, and I could barely contain myself. “Zisel, it’s bad enough that Leah’s blubbering, and now you’re a big creampuff too. We’ll never make our train.”
Zisel took my face in her hands. “Promise you’ll both write as soon as you’re settled. If I don’t hear from you two, I swear, I’ll call the cops.”
With that, she pointed her Kodak camera at me. “I have lots of pictures of Leah, Pops, and Mama, but I want something to remember you by. Say cheese, my little Mitzi.”
I failed miserably in fighting off my tears, but tried to flash a smile. The camera clicked, Zisel took one last look, then walked away. I started bawling like a crybaby, then dried my tears. Leah and I had practical matters to consider. Zisel had heard lurid tales of crossing the country by Greyhound, so she’d refused to let us take the bus to Los Angeles.
“Do you know what happens to pretty girls at those bus stops? Pimps kidnap them and sell them into white slavery!”
Everyone knew folks exaggerated stories of life on the road, but Zisel refused to listen. She’d spent an arm and a leg on train tickets, and I wondered how Leah and I could ever repay her.
Leah and I would leave New York on the Broadway Limited, then transfer in Chicago to travel in the lap of luxury on the famed Santa Fe Chief. I looked around the vast waiting room. The aroma of freshly percolated coffee mingled with the scent of desperation permeating the place. Although everyone had put on a brave face and dressed in their Sunday best, few had the money for anything other than a cup of joe.
A thin woman with dark circles under her eyes spent the long hours crying into a soggy handkerchief, ignoring her two monstrous children as they wreaked havoc throughout the terminal. The couple sitting across from us held each other, whispering as they looked at photos of a smiling child. They’d just buried their son, and their grief compounded the general feeling of hopelessness. Only a pair of newlyweds on their honeymoon appeared immune to the misery that surrounded them. They spent every moment staring into each other’s eyes, oblivious to everyone else.
Could things get any worse? It would be hard to top the Crash unless all of Penn Station came down with bubonic plague. Then I heard a voice through the din, a salesman hawking his wares.
“Lovely ladies, this is your lucky day. I’m selling a lot more than brushes. How about stockings that feel like silk, the best face powder on the market, all at a big discount. For the gents, I have talc and shaving cream to make your skin as soft as a baby’s bottom.”
A group of Fuller Brush men made their way through the terminal, their suitcases packed with goodies. The fellows bustled with youthful energy as they strolled through the waiting room flashing ear-to-ear grins. I admired their gumption, peddling their wares in these desperate times, and even the guards looked away.
One guy in particular stood out. He wore a snazzy serge suit, had pomaded his blond hair in place, and his blue eyes blazed like a million klieg lights. I’d read the Fuller Brush Company hired fellows right out of college, and this handsome dude couldn’t have been over twenty.
The gloom lifted, people forgot their troubles, and the Depression blues vanished. The fellow charmed every woman in the place, refusing to take no for an answer. After he sold his goods, Mr. Fuller Brush Man dipped further into his bag of tricks.
He signaled to the other fellows, and they opened music cases in unison. One pulled a harmonica from his pocket, another a clarinet from his brush case, and one more an accordion from who knows where. A fourth fellow tapped out a downbeat on a small drum, and the makeshift band went to town.
The gorgeous leader walked around the waiting room strumming a ukulele as he serenaded everyone with a snappy rendition of “When You’re Smiling.” The Fuller Brush man sang out in such a resonant baritone that I nearly jumped out of my shoes.
Leah shoved me over in his direction. “Go on, sing with them. They might pass the hat.” My skin turned to gooseflesh when the blond fellow looked me up and down and said, “What’s cooking, good looking?”
Good looking? I felt a blush moving up from the bottom of my feet to the top of my head. “How about I sing with you? I’m good, I swear I am.”
His eyes twinkled, and he whispered, “Heck, if you sing half as good as you look, we’re aces.” He called out to passengers and passersby alike, “The little lady wants to sing. Should we let her?”
People applauded, and he whispered, “What tune, baby?”
Wow, he called me “baby” as if I were his girlfriend. “How about “Singing in the Rain”? In E flat?”
He nodded to his fellow buskers, played the opening vamp, and I belted the song out like Sophie Tucker. The guy seemed awfully impressed and flashed his million-dollar smile my way. “You got a great set of pipes.”
I didn’t have time for false modesty. “My father always said I could warble with the best of ’em. You ought to hear me tickling the ivories.”
He grinned that whiter-than-snow Fuller Brush smile again, and my heart soared. “Maybe I will one day. Hey, little lady, how about “It Don’t Mean a Thing If You Ain’t Got that Swing”?”
I gave him a nod and boy, did we wow them. Our audience spurred us on, shouting out their favorites. Even the guards patrolling the station got on board and popped their fingers along with everyone else. I sang with all the passion I could muster, and the guy harmonized like a pro.
“Hey, Mr. Fuller Brush Man, you’ve been holding out on me!”
I matched him lyric by lyric, song by song. Our voices blended so perfectly that folks from all over the station found their way to our impromptu nightclub. By the time we finished our little concert, even the sourest apple applauded. He passed the hat, and we split twenty-four dollars and forty-eight cents!
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Leah had planted her face in a book and didn’t notice when the Fuller Brush man crammed a paper bag into my hands. I could barely contain myself when I saw the lipsticks in shiny steel tubes, tiny pots of rouge, silver compacts, and face powder.
He gave me a Fuller Brush grin. “I know you’re a natural beauty, baby, but every girl likes a little help.”
I felt heat on my face. Guess I was a blushing fool as well as a natural beauty. I stuffed the treasure into my pocketbook.
“We’re going to Los Angeles, and I’ll need this with all the glamour girls there. This is a real mitzvah.”
His blank look told me he definitely wasn’t Jewish. “ ‘Mitzvah’ means an act of kindness.”
The Fuller Brush man kept smiling but didn’t say a word. I felt my face warming, my knees shaking. You might as well call me Nervous Nelly, but I managed to extend my hand. “My name is Mitzi, Mitzi Schector, S-C-H-E-C-T-O-R.”
He laughed and his eyes crinkled in the corners. I thought I’d plotz right there on the spot, blow up into a million pieces that would scatter all over the terminal.
“The name’s Chick Hagan, H-A-G-A-N, of the Fuller Brush Company, but that’s just temporary. I have a good feeling about you, Mitzi S-C-H-E-C-T-O-R. Kid, you’ve got talent in spades. I envy you going to Los Angeles. I sing with these fellows, the Society Crooners, and we’ve played gigs all over the state. Heck, we’re making my way to Los Angeles one step at a time.”
He stopped talking for a moment and grinned. “Aw, enough about me, baby. We’ll meet again, Good Looking. I can feel it.”
Then Chick stroked my cheek, his hand as gentle as velvet. Forget about plotzing. My heart would explode and I’d probably keel over and die right there in Penn Station. He took my hand for a moment, brought it to his lips, then went on his way with a tip of his hat.
How could our paths ever cross once more? Leah and I were on our way to sunny Los Angeles, while Mr. Chick Hagan and the Society Crooners would be stuck here in New York with the Fuller Brush Company. Maybe we wouldn’t see each other again, but I knew I’d never forget him.
When I brought Leah the riches from my singing adventure, she practically did a backflip. “And I thought we’d be stuck eating the liverwurst sandwiches I brought.”
We locked arms as we walked to the underground concourse where the Broadway Limited awaited us, and on the way we passed a magazine kiosk. Rex Dallas, my idol, grinned at every passerby from the cover of Photoplay. Seeing his smiling face made me feel a million times better.
****
That night, I thought of Uncle Baron, so beautiful, so reckless. I remembered how he’d cradle me in his arms and whisper, “You hold my heart in your hands, little Mitzi.”
The rhythm of the train lulled me into dreamland. I lay glued to the mattress, unable to move as a handsome Fuller Brush man blew hot breath on the side of my face. My dream man took my chin in one hand and warmth spread between my legs. His beautiful mouth caressed my cheek, and then he whispered, “Mitzi, baby, kiss me, please.”
His lips moved to my mouth, closer, closer, then—I woke up. Maybe I should have felt guilty about my wicked dream, but I didn’t, not in the least. In fact, I’d never had a better one.
Chapter Four
The Santa Fe Chief
The next morning Leah and I took our place in the elegantly appointed dining car with all the swells going to Chicago. The Broadway Limited attracted the carriage trade, regal matrons, sober businessmen, and a few cigar-chomping fuddy-duddies who treated the porters like slaves.
With everyone acting so hoity-toity and living high off the hog, you’d never know there had been a Crash. What fakes we were, two Jews facing the poor house, but since the other passengers dressed to the nines, we did too. I wore a Kelly green frock; Leah dressed in black gabardine, with faux pearls at her throat, the epitome of European chic. Who would have guessed we’d been born in Flatbush?
Sixteen hours after Leah and I had left New York, the Broadway Limited rolled into Chicago, where we’d change trains. We looked around the spanking new Chicago Union Station, only five years old, a stunning mass of steel arches and concrete. Folks called its main concourse the portal to the Midwest, yet the massive driveways built for taxis and automobiles offered no protection from the murderous weather. An icy squall dispatched newspaper pages higgledy-piggledy, reached under the ladies’ skirts and gentlemen’s collars, encircled heads, tossed hats into the air.
A porter, observing the mayhem, yelled out to me, “Watch out, little lady. There’s a reason they call the Chicago wind the Hawk.”
Yes, the wind reminded me of a bird of prey, grasping everything in its frigid claws. Only the newlyweds I’d seen in Penn Station took no notice of the freezing gale. They wrapped themselves in the young man’s greatcoat and floated away into their future.
The elegant Santa Fe Chief stood in wait for us, her sleek chrome lines majestic in the bright light.
A crowd of photographers swarmed over the platform, flashbulbs popping, the whole place scented with burnt glass and flash powder. Leah and I pushed through a mass of newsmen, none of whom paid us an ounce of attention. The air crackled with electricity as reporters jostled past the two of us. Suddenly, a cry went up, and a crowd blocked our way. “It’s Jill Carpenter!”
Every orb focused on a beautiful girl with silvery blonde hair perched atop a mountain of luggage. Another explosion of a million flash bulbs, and a photographer called out, “Hey, Jill, give us a smile.”
I heard a collective intake of breath when the young woman turned to face the cameras. Venus had just risen from the sea. Hollywood had named the goddess Jill Carpenter, the Movie Mirror’s cover girl and Regal Pictures’ rising star. Her skin looked as though it had been fired from the finest porcelain. She had plucked her eyebrows into near nonexistence, then penciled them back in, rouged her lips, and lacquered her platinum hair. Miss Carpenter smiled, revealing a set of dazzling white teeth. She finally spoke, her polished tones that of an actress trained in elocution.
“Ladies and gentlemen of the press, I’m overjoyed to be here with you, and thrilled with the critical praise of my motion picture, Honeymoon Hijinks. I want to thank Mr. Ben Roth, President of Regal Pictures, for giving me this wonderful opportunity.”
Miss Carpenter blew a kiss at a powerfully built man watching from the sidelines. Mr. Ben Roth looked to be in his late thirties, and although he missed being handsome by a hair, he possessed something more compelling than simply good looks. Mr. Roth exuded power all the way from his polished oxfords to his homburg hat. He never averted his pale blue gaze from the actress.
At the mention of Ben Roth, something icy zipped up my spine, and it wasn’t the Hawk. Leah squeezed my hand, her eyes misted, and she looked away. We’d known his name since our childhood, when Pops’ younger brother, Baron, a handsome youth as wild as a whirlwind, ran away from home to get in the movies. My father left New York and searched all over Los Angeles before discovering Baron worked as an extra at Regal Pictures. Leah whispered in my ear, and I heard the catch in her voice.
“Pops had planned to bring Uncle Baron home by hook or by crook, but fate intervened. Poor Uncle Baron. He died on the Regal Pictures lot in a horrible fire that also killed the movie actress Clarice Dumont.”
Although Leah spoke under her breath, I heard the anger simmering beneath her calm façade.
“The world mourned Clarice, the golden-haired shiksa, but no one outside of our family knew about our Uncle Baron. The movie people sent blood money, a check signed by the president of Regal Pictures, Mr. Ben Roth himself. Remember how our poor grandmother shriveled up and died from grief? It was then I learned the difference between money and happiness. To hell with Ben Roth and all his gold.”
Without warning, Miss Carpenter turned her back on the reporters and dropped her fur cloak, revealing a winter-white sheath dress that accentuated every curve. The sleek lines were a dead giveaway. It had to be a creation of Regal Pictu
re’s great couturier. “Look at that beautiful dress, Leah. Alexandre of Paris must have designed it just for her.”
Before Leah could reply, a lady standing near us harrumphed like an old yenta. She glared at the platinum goddess. “That Jill Carpenter is nothing but a common tart, and everybody knows she’s Ben Roth’s mistress. When she dumped her husband, the actor Bobby Fayette, the poor man tried to kill himself. She’s just another Hollywood hussy. Movie people are a bunch of floozies and lechers.” The dame elbowed her way through the crowd, probably to get a closer look at the floozies and lechers.
A roar from the newsmen and the throng separated as if Moses had parted the Red Sea. A tall fellow in a full-length beaver coat, a Trilby hat covering his dark hair, walked through the opened path. The theatrical makeup slapped on his face didn’t detract from his chiseled features. I recognized him immediately, the “dashing devil from Atlanta,” Rex Dallas, in the flesh.
“Look, Leah, it’s him. It’s Rex Dallas!”
Leading men cropped up in movies all the time, but my heart belonged to just one. I called out to my idol, yelling at the top of my lungs. “Yoo-hoo, Mr. Dallas!”
Miracle of miracles, he heard me and turned his regal head in my direction. When I waved at him, somehow, someway, he saw me through the crowd. It must have been destiny. Mr. Dallas stared at me for the longest time, a huge smile on his face. How fabulous, my favorite actor noticed me. Then, from my periphery, I saw Mr. Roth had turned from Mr. Dallas to me, displeasure written across his face.
Mr. Roth bounded over to Mr. Dallas, pointed at me, then shook his finger in Mr. Dallas’s face. Mr. Dallas looked as if he wanted to slug Mr. Roth. A mass of reporters surrounded them, and the two men pulled apart. Suddenly, Miss Carpenter stepped forward. The crowd lurched, everyone converging around the two stars, and I feared we’d never get on the train. Suddenly, a man’s voice called out, booming above the hubbub, “Ladies, over here, please!”
A Pullman porter waved to us, and we rushed over to him. Once we climbed aboard, a comforting blanket of warmth embraced us, vanquishing the Hawk. The youthful fellow couldn’t have been over twenty-one and didn’t look like the other porters scurrying around the railway terminal. Passengers called those hardworking men of color in their snappy black uniforms “George,” and treated them like servants.