We came back to the city Labor Day Monday--us and a couple millionothers--traffic crawling, a hot day, the windows practically closed uptight to keep Cat in. I sweated, and then cat hairs stuck to me and got upmy nose. Considering everything, Pop acted quite mild.
I met a kid up at the lake in Connecticut who had skin-diving equipment.He let me use it one day when Mom and Pop were off sight-seeing. Boy, thishas fishing beat hollow! I found out there's a skin-diving course at theY, and I'm going to begin saving up for the fins and mask and stuff. Popwon't mind forking out for the Y membership, because he'll figure it'scharacter-building.
Meanwhile, I'm wondering if I can get back up to Connecticut again oneweekend while the weather's still warm, and I see that Rosh Hashanah fallson a Monday and Tuesday this year, the week after school opens. Great. SoI ask this kid--Kenny Wright--if I can maybe come visit him that weekend soI can do some more skin diving.
"Rosh Hashanah? What's that?" he says.
So I explain to him. Rosh Hashanah is the Jewish New Year. About half thekids in my school are Jewish, so they all stay out for it, and I always dotoo. Last year the school board gave up and made it an official schoolholiday for everyone, Jewish or not. Same with Yom Kippur, the week after.
Kenny whistles. "You sure are lucky. I don't think we got any holidayscoming till Thanksgiving."
I always thought the kids in the country were lucky having outdoor yardsfor sports and recess, but I guess we have it over them onholidays--'specially in the fall: three Jewish holidays in September,Columbus Day in October, Election Day and Veterans' Day in November, andthen Thanksgiving. It drives the mothers wild.
I don't figure it'd be worth train fare to Connecticut for just two days,so I say good-bye to Kenny and see you next year and stuff.
Back home I'm pretty busy right away, on account of starting in a newschool, Charles Evans Hughes High. It's different from the junior high,where I knew half the kids, and also my whole homeroom there went from oneclassroom to another together. At Hughes everyone has to get his ownschedule and find the right classroom in this immense building, which isabout the size of Penn Station. There are about a million kids init--actually about two thousand--most of whom I never saw before. Hardly anyof the Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village kids come here because itisn't their district. However, walking back across Fifth Avenue one day, Isee one kid I know from Peter Cooper. His name is Ben Alstein. I ask himhow come he is at Hughes.
"My dad wanted me to get into Peter Stuyvesant High School--you know, thegenius factory, city-wide competitive exam to get in. Of course I didn'tmake it. Biggest Failure of the Year, that's me."
"Heck, I never even tried for that. But how come you're here?"
"There's a special science course you can qualify for by taking a mathtest. Then you don't have to live in the district. My dad figures as longas I'm in something special, there's hope. I'm not really very interestedin science, but that doesn't bother him."
So after that Ben and I walk back and forth to school together, and itturns out we have three classes together, too--biology and algebra andEnglish. We're both relieved to have at least one familiar face to lookfor in the crowd. My old friend Nick, aside from not really being my bestfriend anymore, has gone to a Catholic high school somewhere uptown.
On the way home from school one Friday in September, I ask Ben what he'sdoing Monday and Tuesday, the Jewish holidays.
"Tuesday I got to get into my bar mitzvah suit and go to synagogue andover to Brooklyn to my grandmother's. Monday I don't have to do anythingspecial. Come on over with your roller skates and we'll get in the hockeygame."
"I skate on my tail," I say, because it's true, and it would be doublytrue in a hockey game. I try quick to think up something else. We'rewalking down the block to my house, and there's Cat sitting out front, soI say, "Let's cruise around and get down to Fulton Fish Market and pick upsome fish heads for my cat."
"You're a real nut, aren't you?" Ben says. He doesn't say it as if heminds--just mentioning the fact. He's an easygoing kind of guy, and I thinkmost of the time he likes to let someone else make the plans. So he shrugsand says, "O.K."
I introduce him to Cat. Ben looks him in the eye, and Cat looks away andlicks his back. Ben says, "So I got to get you fresh fish for RoshHashanah, huh?"
Cat jumps down and rubs from back to front against Ben's right leg andfrom front to back against his left leg and goes to lie down in the middleof the sidewalk.
"See? He likes you," I say. "He won't have anything to do with most guys,except Tom."
"Who's Tom?"
So I tell Ben all about Tom and the cellar and his father disappearing onhim.
"Gee," says Ben, "I thought I had trouble, with my father practicallytelling me how to breathe better every minute, but at least he doesn'tdisappear. What does Tom do now?"
"Works at the flower shop, right down there at the corner."
Ben feels around in his pockets a minute. "Hey, I got two bucks I wassupposed to spend on a textbook. Come on and I'll buy Mom a plant for theholidays, and you can introduce me to Tom."
We go down to the flower shop, and at first Tom frowns because he thinkswe've just come to kid around. Ben tells him he wants a plant, so then hemakes a big thing out of showing him all the plants, from the ten-dollarones on down, so Mr. Palumbo will see he's doing a good job. Ben finallysettles on a funny-looking cactus that Tom says is going to bloom prettysoon.
Ben goes along home and I arrange to pick him up on Monday. I wait aroundoutside until I see Tom go out on a delivery and ask him how he likes thejob. He says he doesn't really know yet, but at least the guy is decent towork for, not like the filling-station man.
* * * * *
I sleep late Monday and go over to Peter Cooper about eleven. A lot ofkids are out in the playgrounds, and some fathers are there tossingfootballs with them and shouting "Happy New Year" to each other. It soundsodd to hear people saying that on a warm day in September.
Ben and I wander out of the project and he says, "How do we get to thisFulton Street?"
I see a bus that says "Avenue C" on it stopping on Twenty-third Street.Avenue C is way east, and so is Fulton Street, so I figure it'll probablywork out. We get on. The bus rockets along under the East Side Drive for afew blocks and then heads down Avenue C, which is narrow and crowded. It'sa Spanish and Puerto Rican neighborhood to begin with, then fartherdowntown it's mostly Jewish. Lots of people are out on the street shakinghands and clapping each other on the back, and the stores are all closed.
Every time the bus stops, the driver shouts to some of the people on thesidewalk, and he seems to know a good many of the passengers who get on.He asks them about their jobs, or their babies, or their aunt who's sickin Bellevue. This is pretty unusual in New York, where bus drivers usuallyact like they hate people in general and their passengers in particular.Suddenly the bus turns off Avenue C and heads west.
Ben looks out the window and says, "Hey, this is Houston Street. I beendown here to a big delicatessen. But we're not heading downtown anymore."
"Probably it'll turn again," I say.
It doesn't, though, not till clear over at Sixth Avenue. By then everyoneelse has got off and the bus driver turns around and says, "Where you twoheaded for?"
It's funny, a bus driver asking you that, so I ask him, "Where does thisbus go?"
"It goes from Bellevue Hospital down to Hudson Street, down by the HollandTunnel."
"Holy crow!" says Ben. "We're liable to wind up in New Jersey."
"Relax. I don't go that far. I just go back up to Bellevue," says thedriver.
"You think we'd be far from Fulton Fish Market?" I say.
The driver gestures vaguely. "Just across the island."
So Ben and I decide we'll get off at the end of the line and walk fromthere. The bus driver says, "Have a nice hike."
"I think there's something fishy about this," says Ben.
"That's what we're going
to get, fish," I say, and we walk. We walk quitea ways.
Ben sees a little Italian restaurant down a couple of steps, and we stopto look at the menu in the window. The special for the day is lasagna, andBen says, "Boy, that's for me!"
We go inside, while I finger the dollar in my pocket and do some fastmental arithmetic. Lasagna is a dollar, so that's out, but I see spaghettiand meat balls is seventy-five cents, so that will still leave me bus farehome.
A waiter rushes up, wearing a white napkin over his arm like a banner, andtakes our order. He returns in a moment with a shiny clean white linentablecloth and a basket of fresh Italian bread and rolls. On a third triphe brings enough chilled butter for a family and asks if we want coffeewith lunch or later. Later, we say.
"Man, this is living!" says Ben as he moves in on the bread.
"He treats us just like people."
Pretty soon the waiter is back with our lasagna and spaghetti, and heswirls around the table as if he were dancing. "Anything else now? Mindthe hot plates, very hot! Have a good lunch now. I bring the coffeelater."
He swirls away, the napkin over his arm making a little breeze, andcircles another table. It's a small room, and there are only four tableseating, but he seems to enjoy acting like he was serving royalty at theWaldorf. When we're just finished eating, he comes back with a pot ofsteaming coffee and a pitcher of real cream.
I'm dolloping the cream in, and it floats, when a thought hits me: We gotto leave a tip for this waiter.
I whisper to Ben, "Hey, how much money you got?"
He reaches in his pocket and fishes out a buck, a dime, and a quarter. Westudy them. Figure coffees for a dime each, and the total check ought tobe $1.95. We've got $2.35 between us. We can still squeak through with busfare if we only leave the waiter a dime, which is pretty cheap.
At that moment he comes back and refills our coffee cups and asks what wewill have for dessert.
"Uh, nothing, nothing at all," I say.
"Couldn't eat another thing," says Ben.
So the waiter brings the check and along with it a plate of homemadecookies. He says, "My wife make. On the house."
We both thank him, and I look at Ben and he looks at me. I put down mydollar and he puts down a dollar and a quarter.
"Thank you, gentlemen, thank you. Come again," says the waiter.
We walk into the street, and Ben spins the lone remaining dime in the sun.I say, "Heads or tails?"
"Huh? Heads."
It comes up heads, so Ben keeps his own dime. He says, "We could have hungonto enough for _one_ bus fare, but that's no use."
"No use at all. 'Specially if it was yours."
"Are we still heading for Fulton Street?"
"Sure. We got to get fish for Cat."
"It better be for free."
We walk, threading across Manhattan and downtown. I guess it's thirty orforty blocks, but after a good lunch it doesn't seem too far.
You can smell the fish market when you're still quite a ways off. It runsfor a half a dozen blocks alongside the East River, with long rows ofsheds divided into stores for the different wholesalers. Around on theside streets there are bars and fish restaurants. It's too bad we don'thave Cat with us because he'd love sniffing at all the fish heads and gutsand stuff on the street. Fish market business is done mostly in themorning, I guess, and now men are hosing down the streets and sweepingfish garbage up into piles. I get a guy to give me a bag and select acouple of the choicer--and cleaner--looking bits. I get a nice red snapperhead and a small whole fish, looks like a mackerel. Ben acts as if fishguts make him sick, and as soon as I've got a couple he starts saying"Come on, come on, let's go."
I realize when we're leaving that I don't even notice the fish smellanymore. You just get used to it. We walk uptown, quite a hike, along EastBroadway and across Grand and Delancey. There's all kinds of intriguingsmells wafting around here: hot breads and pickles and fish cooking. Thisis a real Jewish neighborhood, and you can sure tell it's a holiday fromthe smell of all the dinners cooking. And lots of people are out in theirbest clothes gabbing together. Some of the men wear black skullcaps, andsome of them have big black felt hats and long white beards. We go past acrowd gathering outside a movie house.
"They're not going to the movies," Ben says. "On holidays sometimes theyrent a movie theater for services. It must be getting near time. Come on,I got to hurry."
We trot along the next twenty blocks or so, up First Avenue and to PeterCooper.
"So long," Ben says. "I'll come by Wednesday on the way to school."
He goes off spinning his dime, and too late I think to myself that wecould have had a candy bar.
12
Dave holding up lizard for Ben by pond in woods.]
THE RED EFT
It's like this, cat Page 11