Father Divine's Bikes

by Steve Bassett

  After a few months, Terry had settled into his duties and got to know his parishioners. He made the requisite house and hospital calls. Said morning Mass. Presided at baptisms, confirmations, funerals, and taught religion in the church school.

  He marveled at the diversity of the ward, the hectic face-to-face bargaining of merchants on Prince Street, the synagogues, Greek and Ukranian Orthodox churches, the voodoo shamans whose black magic guaranteed long life and good fortune on Howard Street, and got a different slant on the news from the Negro editors at the Newark Herald. Since his recent encounter with Eight-Ten, he began paying particular attention to how numbers runners worked their territories in full view of the police, especially patrolman Frank Gazzi, who seemed to be everywhere and doing nothing.

  It was on a Thursday afternoon that he strolled down Spruce where a big, smiling Negro man in a white shirt and trousers waved a greeting from the Peace Barbershop across the street. A perfect numbers drop, Terry thought, just like the innocent-looking policy parlors along Jersey City’s Bergenline Avenue that had sucked more than a fistful of nickels and dimes out of his teenage pockets.

  It was after Mass the following Saturday that Terry put on a sweatshirt, corduroy trousers, and scuffed loafers, headed back to Spruce, and hit it lucky. Just as Eight-Ten described it, he spotted two of his altar boys, Richie Maxwell and Joey Bancik, pedaling their bikes to the rear of the barbershop. He ducked into a doorway across from the shop, an excellent vantage point for him to see the two kids park their bikes, walk down the alley and enter through a side door. The big imbecile was right, and the question now was what was he going to do about it.

  Terry knew he had to take some action, these kids were breaking the law. He decided that, for the time being, he would sit on it.

  Although the problem had been eating away at him, Terry did not broach the subject during his next meeting with Jim. Instead, he again voiced his confusion about the racial mix of the congregation.

  “You’ve been handling the eighth-grade religion class for several months now. Any impressions?”

  “They’re all good kids, but I did notice that the few black families in the congregation don’t send their children to our school.”

  “Yes. What about it?”

  “It’s just that the Third Ward is mostly black, but St. Mark’s doesn’t reflect it. Seems odd.”

  “Not really when you think about it. The church’s big brass didn’t realize how much it cost to put every Catholic kid behind a desk in a Catholic school. It takes big bucks that most of our parishioners don’t have. So we rely on the Kramiers and the Trommers. But there are strings attached.”

  “Like prejudice.”

  “Let’s just say the schools are kept highly selective. Most black families in our parish can’t afford the tuition anyway, but even if they could, their kids wouldn’t feel welcomed, and they know it.”

  “Isn’t that our mission?”

  “You’re right. But there are other factors at work. The powers that be want to maintain the status quo, despite the changes in the community. We’re merely the gatekeepers. I make no excuses. Certainly I can rationalize.”

  “Okay, Jim, rationalize.”

  “Terry, our parish is made up of frightened people. Most of them speak with accents, some speak no English at all. Most haven’t gotten past the eighth grade. They’re untrained and unassimilated, trying to survive. Somehow they scrape together enough for the tuition. Then the blacks started moving in. Taking over the tenements. Even jobs. When a man has lost his job to a Negro, how do you ask him to accept that Negro’s son into the same classroom with his daughter?”

  “That’s not the point. It’s not in the spirit of the mission.”

  Jim sighed. “Don’t get sanctimonious. That is precisely the point. Thank God that most of the community has another option.”

  “Like public schools?”

  “Yes…and Father Divine.”

  “You mean that preacher who runs all those stores and shelters?”

  “Him and others like him. They give their believers something we can’t come close to.”

  “Cheap groceries?”

  “And hope for a better future right here on earth. We offer incense and a promise of some fantastic seven-layer heaven. His heaven is right here. It’s heaven filled with tencent meals, cheap beds with clean linen, honest stores, and most of all, pride and dignity.”

  “That’s not religion. It’s social welfare.”

  “Maybe, but it’s working and his flock is growing. And ours remains as it has been for decades. It’s the way of the world these days.”

  Terry had just completed the six-thirty Mass, and after removing his vestments and laying them out for the sacristan to put away, he headed for the rectory and breakfast. At his place at the dining table were a few letters and an official-looking manila envelope. In the upper left corner under the OPA logo was a hand-printed “J.D. Crosswaite.”

  “Mrs. Spiser, how ’bout that coffee?” Terry tore into the manila envelope and pulled out a four-page report prepared by a Marcus H. Cooke for the Central Planning Board of Newark. Attached to it was a typed note from Crosswaite.

  “Father Nolan,

  This will undoubtedly be our last contact.

  I wish I could say ‘read and enjoy,’

  but that would be asking the impossible.

  If I judged you correctly, you’ll soon find what it’s

  like to have your suggestions to the city’s powerbrokers

  viewed not only with indolence but with contempt.

  You’ll probably be talking to Bernard Schein. He’s a good

  guy and I told him about you. Welcome aboard!

  J.D. Crosswaite”

  Terry knifed and forked his way through Mrs. Spiser’s ham, over-easy eggs and fried potatoes, along with lightly toasted and buttered rye bread. The coffee was fresh and good.

  He discovered that the Third Ward contained 26,863 people, of which sixty-threee percent were Negro. He learned that they did most of their shopping along Waverly, West Kinney, Spruce, and Belmont, the so called “Black Belt.” There were five grade schools, and white students between the ages of five and twelve had begun transferring to schools outside the ward.

  It wasn’t until he reached the middle of the second page that Terry felt his anger rise. He fought back an almost uncontrollable urge to curse out loud. Jumping from the page were statements of municipal guilt that more than fifty percent of the Third Ward’s housing was in need of major repairs or had no private bath, and that seventy percent of these dwellings were Negro homes. Crowding was endemic.

  “Tuberculosis and other communicable diseases thrive under crowded conditions and are more prevalent in the Third Ward than in any other section of Newark,” the report noted. When Terry got to the top of the next page, the raw data forced him to put down his knife and fork. “Christ Almighty” escaped before he could control himself. He heard the kitchen door slam as Mrs. Spiser took self-righteous refuge.

  Who the hell wrote this thing? he asked himself. I’ve got to talk to him. At the end of the report, he found Bernard Schein’s name. He checked the clock; it was quarter past eight. He pulled the phone over and got the Central Planning Board’s number from information. He took a chance that someone would be there this early. To his surprise, someone picked up after only two rings.

  “I want to talk to Bernard Schein, if he’s around.”

  “This is Schein. What can I do for you?”

  “I just had your Planning Board’s report sent to me. I read only a few pages, but it was enough to really piss me off.”

  “Whoa, whoa, big fella. Who am I talking to?”

  “Father Terence Nolan, St. Mark’s.”

  “Oh yeah, heard about you from J.D.”

  “I hope you don’t take this call lightly.”

  “Okay, I don’t. If we’re going to take this any further, let’s not assume anything. J.D. said you just got into town,”
Schein said. “Still have no idea just how high the bar graph for frustration can climb in Newark. You probably have the report in front of you. Where do you want to start?”

  “Here, for example: In the past year, out of 1,245 births, seventy-five percent of the kids died before they were one. Can that possibly be true?” Terry said.

  “Yes. True, and it isn’t getting any better. What else?”

  “Here, out of ninety-eight cases of TB, fifty percent died. How could this be allowed to happen? Why the hell is it happening?”

  “I hate like hell saying it, but what in the world do you know about the ward’s problems from your vantage point?”

  “When are you going to start using the right word? We’re talking slum, and from what I’ve seen, no one wants to use the word,” Terry said.

  “Damn right it’s a slum. The ward is a slum, and much of Newark isn’t far behind,” Schein said. “Let’s take fires, for instance. Every week a tenement house in the ward either burns down or is damaged. We’re saying one a week, but that’s only a guess. We’ve gotten no cooperation at all from the Fire Department, the safety commissioner, or City Hall. It’s their job to know and tell us what everybody knows, that almost all of the fires are caused by illegal kerosene stoves and unventilated coal stoves.”

  Schein’s impatience was showing and he made no effort to hide it. “Most of the coal for those tenement stoves is sold in twenty-five-pound bags, because that’s all they can afford to buy at one time. The coal is bituminous, the cheapest and filthiest stuff you can get. We went to six places along Waverly, Spruce, and Belmont that sell the coal, brought the bags in, cut them open, and found that they all had at least five pounds of coal dust at the bottom.

  “Just stick your head in a kitchen burning the stuff and you’ll find out why babies are dying and TB is killing everyone.”

  “This is one time I don’t mind being put in my place,” Terry said.

  “Let’s put it this way, Father Nolan, if you try to do anything, get used to being put in your place. And with that starched white collar of yours, the hacks downtown will at least make an attempt to hide their contempt.”

  “I guess we’ll be talking again.”

  “Good idea. We can meet over borscht.”

  Terry hung up the phone.

  The horrifying statistics in Schein’s report submerged a gnawing uncertainty that had been eating away at Terry for the past week. It had been with him since he’d learned from Eight-Ten that two of his altar boys were running numbers. He had not discussed the matter with Jim, and doubted that his indecision was in line with Father Ski’s advice to “tend your flock.”

  Joey Bancik was surprised when Richie Maxwell approached him with a big smile in the St. Mark’s school yard after class the previous Thursday afternoon. They were never the best of friends, so he suspected a trick of some sort.

  “Well you finally got it,” Richie said. “And if you work it right, a lot more than you’d expect.”

  “Got what? What the hell are you talking about?”

  “A Beacon route. Marsucci told me to pass it on to you.”

  “You better not be shitting me,” Joey warned.

  “I’m not shitting you, come on, let’s go over to the Greek church.”

  They crossed High Street and parked themselves on the church’s steps. Richie leaned back on his elbows and sized up Joey. He found what he was looking for, that crazy look that always crossed Joey’s face when he got excited. How he tried to keep it all inside, but was never able to pull it off.

  “First, there’s more than just you and Marsucci and the Beacon to deal with,” Richie said. “It’s the whole package or nothing.”

  “The whole package? What the fuck are you talking about?”

  “The numbers.”

  “The numbers. You saying that all along you’ve been running numbers and telling everybody you’re just a paper boy?”

  “You want to listen to me or not? Here’s the skinny. They said there’s room for another kid like me, and asked me for a name. I gave them yours, and they asked me why. I said your family’s having it hard and you’re always broke, and I told them you don’t take shit from nobody.”

  “Them? Who the hell you talking about?”

  “You on board or not? Shake on it, and I’ll tell you more.”

  Richie and Joey extended their right hands, then settled back, and Richie started talking. It didn’t take long for him to explain everything, the policy slips, the drops, the payoffs, and how everything flowed into the barbershop policy parlor. How a bike from Simon had already been arranged for, and how the three bookies would hold onto the loot Joey got from the numbers until he wanted it.

  “We’re going over to Simon’s to get your bike, and just like me you’ll be paying it off a little each week,” Richie lied. He had never had to pay off his bike, the three nigger barbers had taken care of it. But there was no way he’d let Joey know about his sweet deal.

  Eli Simon was alone when they walked into his office. He had been waiting for them. The three black bookies had met with him earlier in the week, and the meeting was anything but pleasant. They had finally spelled it all out. Their policy parlor in the back of the barbershop was too small and had to be moved. They were taking over a large portion of the pawnshop’s storage area, walling it off and punching out a door in the rear of the building. Simon knew from the beginning this would happen ever since John Travers, a/k/a Righteous Reckoning, left that silver-plated ladies’ hat pin on his desk and promised more to come. He readily accepted their booty, but what choice did he have. It was either that or a burned out pawnshop.

  “There it is in the corner,” Simon said pointing to a Schwinn with a sturdy carrier rack over the rear tire. “It’s seventeen dollars, needed new tubes front and rear. Nothing down, but I’ll expect you in here every two weeks with two dollars cash to pay it off.”

  Joey didn’t know what to say, it was all happening so fast. Richie took up the slack. “Thank you, Mr. Simon,” he said, then turned to Joey. “Go ahead, Joey, roll it outside and I’ll be right behind you.”

  “And that’s it? All there is? Can’t believe I got a paper route and a bike all in the same day, just like that.”

  “Well you do, but don’t wet your pants over it,” Richie said. “Now let’s get out of here.”

  Outside, Joey rolled up the bottom of his right pants leg, and tested the pedal and brake. Richie straddled the rear carrier rack and grabbed Joey’s shoulders.

  “It’s over to the nigger barbershop,” Richie said. “I don’t think I have to tell you where it is.”

  While Joey was doing the pumping, Richie did the talking. He explained that the only way in and out was down the side alley to the door.

  Joey pedaled east on Montgomery, slowed as the street veered to the right, then glided past a parked Buick into the alley that ran behind the barbershop.

  “Never saw anything like that around here before,” Richie said after eyeballing the big, black car.

  “Bet it’s a rent collector,” Joey said.

  There were no customers in the shop when they got there, and the policy parlor was closed for the day. The front window blinds were drawn, and the three bookies were in their customary places, God’s Tall Timber and Darn Good Disciple relaxing in barber chairs, and Righteous Reckoning in his seat by the door. Joey didn’t know what to expect, and as he followed Richie inside, he felt queasy and scared.

  “This must be Joey Bancik,” the biggest of the three black men said, extending his right hand and smiling broadly. “Ready to talk business, Joey?”

  “I’m ready,” Joey wasn’t sure what to say next. He looked at the faces around the room and decided to keep his lips buttoned.

  “I’m God’s Tall Timber,” the big black man said, “and this fine fellow is Darn Good Disciple, and over there is Righteous Reckoning. Now that you know us, let’s talk business.”

  “Take a seat. Be comfortable,” Darn Good said po
inting to the center barber’s chair.

  Joey sat down and waited. His buddy had told him what to expect, but it was obvious he would be no help now. Richie watched impassively from his seat by the door, and Joey knew that from here on, it would be between him and the three bookies.

  “Richie tells us that you are smart and tough, and that your family has fallen on bad times,” Tall Timber said. “As messengers for Major Jealous Divine we can help, and sometimes that means bending things a little to carry out his mission. You understand…?”

  “Yeah, if I run the numbers for you, I’ll be breaking the law, and if I get caught, it’s my ass in the wringer.”

  The three bookies laughed and turned towards Richie. “You’ve got it right Richie, your friend is a smart kid, just what we need.”

  Jesus, Joey thought, I wasn’t all that funny. I might as well wait ‘til they stop giggling before I wade in. This is my only shot at it. So here goes nothing.

  “Richie told me what his deal is, and I want the same thing. Do I get it?” Joey hoped he hadn’t pushed too far. “I know I ain’t showed you nothing yet, but if I’m caught, the screws at juvie hall don’t much care if I’m the new kid on the block or not.”

  “Of course you get the same deal. The Divine One’s fair with everyone,” Tall Timber said.

  The bookies explained how his ten numbers stops would be folded into his Beacon route, now extended into what had been exclusively Clarion turf.

  “I’m in. What’s next?”

  “Marsucci, he’s waiting for you at his office. Go over and he’ll fill you in from his end. You start Saturday. He’ll show you around this weekend, and you’ll be on your own on Monday. By the way, how do you like the bike?” Tall Timber said.

  “I like it fine.”

  “So will your folks,” Reckoning said, “and the money you’ll be bringing in. No need to talk about the numbers.”

  “Sounds good, don’t it,” Darn Good chimed in. “And it can only get better.”

  Richie joined the three fake barbers, and everyone was smiling as they all shook hands. The two altar boys walked out to the alley, closing the door behind them.