Joshua: A Brooklyn Tale

by Andrew Kane

  “We got ourselves a good thing,” she often remarked. “So you best fit in, go to school, and do what you’re supposed to be doing!”

  At times like this, Joshua wondered what planet she lived on. Here he was, a poor black kid from Bed-Stuy, in a middle-class white world, and she was telling him to “fit in.”

  CHAPTER 2

  On a sunny mid-June day in Washington Square Park, Anshel Simenovitz waited anxiously for his name to be called. As he sat among the class of 1948, he began to sweat in his black cap and gown. But the twenty-five year-old ignored his discomfort, for soon he was to join the ranks of power and success. Soon he was to officially graduate from New York University Law School.

  The law school dean was a tall, robust man with a ruddy face, bulbous nose, and deep set eyes. His raspy voice resounded over the loud-speaker. “Lawrence Manchester,” he announced as one of Anshel’s classmates approached the podium to receive a diploma. Anshel knew he was next. The dean cleared his throat, as he did every five or so names, and then spoke the two precious words Anshel had been waiting for: “Alfred Sims.”

  Anshel’s classmates and family looked bewildered. Who was Alfred Sims? It was a name that Anshel alone recognized: it belonged to him, part of his master plan to become powerful and successful. For a name like Anshel Simenovitz would only be a liability. So, a few weeks prior to graduation, he finalized the legalities to assume his new identity. He hadn’t told his classmates, mother, or any of his relatives, many of whom were present in the audience. The only other person who knew was his fiancée, Yeda Voratitsky, who recently underwent a similar transformation. She became an Evelyn, still Voratitsky, but soon to be Sims.

  Growing up on East 53rd Street in Brooklyn, between Foster and Avenue G, Anshel couldn’t have known the difficulties of being an Anshel. After all, his friends were Moishes, Shloimes, and Hymies. And although the Italian and Irish kids frequently gave the Jewish kids a hard time, the names themselves didn’t seem to matter so much as the fact of just being Jewish. But among the WASPs, whose antipathy toward Jews was more subtle, Anshel believed that a name change could make a difference.

  He had learned this from his four years in the Navy during World War II, stationed on a supply ship in the Philippines, the only Jew among one hundred and fifty sailors. Although he was smart and educated, his ethnicity kept him at the three blue stripes of a Seaman, never to advance. His peers were mostly Poles, Irish, and Italians—just the sort of people he’d been accustomed to dealing with. A few fist fights and pranks, and soon he managed to gain respect. He was a tough kid from Brooklyn, not to be messed with.

  They nicknamed him “Angel,” an obvious takeoff on his real name, and an allusion to the fact that he was quite the ladies’ man. Tall and muscular, with thick black, wavy hair and green eyes, he was the desire of all the island girls and many a Navy nurse. The envy of all. A powerful and successful man.

  Yet, notwithstanding his social achievements, Anshel Simenovitz realized that there was one circle in which he would never be welcome: that of the WASPs. Most of the officers were WASPs, especially at the higher ranks. A well-educated Catholic or Baptist occasionally got a shot as well. But never a Jew.

  Even among those few of his fellow seamen who were WASPs, there existed an odious undercurrent. They, like the officers, shied away from him. They were, of course, always formal and polite, but never quite accepting. It wasn’t long before Anshel came to recognize this as the most insidious form of anti-Semitism he had yet encountered. And it wasn’t long after that, he swore to himself that he would never fall victim to it again.

  Now, four years after his discharge, Anshel Simenovitz and Yeda Voratitsky had officially become Alfred and Evelyn. Now, they could “pass” in the gentile world. Nothing stood in the way of achieving power and success. Nothing—except maybe Anshel’s mother.

  “Vhat is dis Alfred Sims business, Anshel?” she asked angrily as the family gathered around at the end of the graduation ceremony. “If your father—God rest his soul—vere still alive, this vould surely send him to his grave.”

  Anshel’s sister, Brindle, and his Uncle Izzy and Aunt Rivka pretended to ignore Sheindle Simenovitz’s rebuke. They might have harbored similar feelings, but they knew better than to start up with Anshel. Everyone seemed to fear him, save his mother. She, like him, feared nothing. She had been through too much in her life to ever be intimidated by the likes of Anshel. She had seen her first children, two daughters, raped and murdered as teenagers during a pogrom in Russia. She fought with her bare fists as the same butchers nearly beat her husband to death. And in her own struggle, she had lost her left hand and had been stabbed through her stomach. No, she wasn’t afraid of Anshel.

  “Will you ever stop with that nonsense about how everything I do would cause my father’s death? He’s gone already, and so—by the way—is Anshel,” Alfred responded.

  Evelyn came over and interrupted. “Congratulations honey,” she said as she embraced and kissed him.

  He responded, “Thank you,” a bit coldly, still affected by his mother’s comments.

  Evelyn stepped aside, and held Alfred’s hand while facing the others. “An emesse lawyer, a real lawyer, yes?” she exclaimed heartily. She would have to lose that Yiddish inflection, Alfred thought to himself. Aside from that, she would make a perfect wife.

  That was his plan—the perfect wife, the perfect family, the perfect home. Nothing would get in his way. Soon enough, the striking, tall, full-figured brunette with blue eyes, Evelyn Voratitsky, the princess of Bradford Street, would be taking diction lessons.

  They were married that August. Three months later, they abandoned the basement apartment of Sheindle Simenovitz’ East Flatbush home for a large new home in the exclusive town of Hewlett Harbor, one of the famed “Five Towns” on the south shore of Long Island. Ten years earlier, Alfred had inherited a substantial amount of money from his father, a successful furrier on the Lower East Side. Since his law school tuition had been courtesy of the GI Bill, and as a student he kept his living expenses to a minimum, he was able to save and invest. In those years, the stock market was his forte. He did quite well. Now, his sights were set higher, properties and buildings in the five boroughs. Real estate would be his future. Buying, selling, managing, and perhaps even developing.

  “Vhat is it you vent to law school for, to learn to be a salesman?” his mother asked, standing over a plate of smoked fish at the bris of his son Paul, just a year after he and Evelyn were married. Alfred had been talking up his latest venture to some of the guests and was caught off guard by the remark. “No, mom, I went to law school to learn how to argue with you,” he responded. Touché. He seemed to enjoy this thing with her.

  In truth, law school, as everything else, was simply a vehicle for Alfred. Practicing law was smalltime compared with what he had in mind, but he knew that the prestige of being a member of the Bar would be an asset. As a lawyer, people would be afraid to “screw” him. Alfred always thrived on the fears of others.

  Everything was going exactly according to plan. Until, that is, the exotic Loretta Eubanks entered the picture. Alfred had a weakness for black women. He was excited by them because they were taboo for a proper Jewish boy from Brooklyn.

  While he had regularly been fooling around on the side, he respected his home and kept his family insulated from his escapades. But when Evelyn hired Loretta as a live-in, things began to change. It wasn’t two months before he was sneaking into her room downstairs in the middle of the night. The danger of this made it all the more enticing, for both Alfred and Loretta.

  Loretta may have harbored fantasies of stealing Alfred from his family, but deep down she knew that she was no more than a mistress, not very different from many of the slave girls in the South a few generations earlier. She tried not to let that bother her, and the satisfaction of being more desirable than the white woman, in whose house she lived and worked, seemed to help. In the end, however, she knew she had no choice in th
e matter. It was either play along with Alfred, or find another job.

  For a few months, Alfred managed to keep his gallivanting under one roof. It was rather convenient while it lasted. Then, something happened. Loretta learned that she was pregnant with his child. This changed everything. He pleaded for an abortion, but she—a Southern Baptist—would have none of it. “Don’t you go worrying yourself about anything,” she told him, “I can take care of this child on my own.”

  Evelyn appeared to be unsuspecting, and assumed that the deed had been done by some boyfriend during one of Loretta’s weekends off. In any event, she didn’t want Loretta living in the house once the child was born.

  As for Alfred, he had a plan. His conscience wasn’t so far gone that he could just abandon Loretta, so he would set her up in a place of her own, and she could keep working for the family as long as she desired. He would pay her rent, and take care of whatever the child might need. Even if she refused his help—which, in fact, she did for the first nine years—he was confident he would eventually persuade her to accept it. Everything would be fine. The perfect life.

  CHAPTER 3

  Joshua was his Christian name. But on the streets of Bed-Stuy he was called “Peanut,” a title bestowed upon him by “Big Bob,” one of the neighborhood bosses. While “Peanut” was a reference to his having had light brown, peanut butter colored eyes, just being given any street name at all was considered an honor. It was an indication of Big Bob’s admiration for him and his ability to deliver packages quickly and discretely. He had been doing this since he was eight-years-old, and had never inquired about the contents of the bags Big Bob gave him, nor the envelopes he was supposed to bring back in return for them, or why Big Bob needed a young kid to do this sort of thing. Joshua never even peeked. He just did what Big Bob wanted, and gladly accepted his compensation.

  “Good job, Peanut, my man,” Big Bob would say whenever Joshua handed him an envelope. “Good job!” he would repeat, holding his free hand out for Joshua to slap him five. Always the same script.

  True to his name, Big Bob was big, at least three hundred pounds. His round head had no hair, and his face was mean: wide bloodshot brown eyes, deep pocked skin, and a sharply trimmed goatee. He wore several thick gold bracelets and necklaces, with flashy bright colored shirts and trousers, and a wide-brimmed white hat—straw in summer, felt in winter. Joshua emulated Big Bob, and was naive enough to believe that Big Bob cared about him. He even fantasized from time-to-time that Big Bob might actually be his father.

  “You think that fat ugly hoodlum on the street is your daddy,” Loretta reacted when Joshua mentioned the thought. “Your daddy’s bad, but he’s not that bad,” she exclaimed. That was all she ever said on the subject of his father. “And you stay away from that man, Joshua! I best not be hearing you got anything to do with him!”

  So Joshua worked for Big Bob just about every day, and hoped his mother wouldn’t find out. He began playing hooky from P.S. 44. A quick buck seemed a lot better than wasting his time with the three R’s.

  “Don’t you worry none about school, Peanut, you’ll learn all you need to know right here on the streets,” Big Bob had once said. “You see all the things I got for myself, my man? Well, I didn’t get them studying no science or history. No, I got what I got from the streets.”

  And “things” he did have. First, there was his fancy green Cadillac. Then, the jewelry. And of course, the women. Yes, Big Bob, as ugly as he was, had quite a harem. They hung around him day and night, constantly massaging him in one way or another. Joshua watched all this, and couldn’t wait till he grew up, till the time when he could be just like Big Bob.

  One day Loretta received a call from the school about Joshua’s truancy. It didn’t take long before she learned what he’d been up to. There was lots of gossip in the old neighborhood, and she had her share of informants.

  Joshua was walking along the avenue on his way from making a delivery, with one of Big Bob’s envelopes in his pocket when she came up behind him. “Joshua Eubanks! What in the Lord’s name have you been doing?” she yelled as she grabbed his jacket. She pulled him aside, and held him against the wall of a building.

  Perspiration dripped down her face. Saliva appeared in the creases of her mouth. “I hear what’s been going on with you, how you ain’t been going to school, and how you been hanging around that bad man. What have you been thinking? You wanna be a hoodlum like him? Are you that stupid?”

  Joshua stood there, mute and paralyzed, his right hand in his jacket pocket, clenching the envelope. “Now, you’re coming straight home with me, and you’re gonna stay there till I tell you!”

  “But Mama…”

  “Don’t you ‘but Mama’ me! You do what I tell you!”

  She took his arm and led him home. His right hand was sweating in his pocket, still grasping the envelope. Soon, Big Bob would begin to wonder where he was. Big Bob didn’t take kindly to anyone being late, especially with business.

  They came to the front door of their building, and Loretta dragged him up the stairs to their apartment. When they got inside, she pointed to his bedroom and said, “Now, you go on, and stay there till I tell you.”

  “But Mama, I have to…”

  “You do what I tell you!” she shouted. “From now on, you’re gonna go to school, do your work, get good grades, and stay outta trouble.”

  He stopped and looked at her, afraid to speak.

  She pointed toward the room again. “Now go on,” she said.

  He obeyed.

  From inside his room he heard her make a phone call. He held his ear to the door but couldn’t make out what she was saying. He thought about the envelope in his pocket. There was no window in his room, no escape, no way to get to Big Bob. He thought of telling her about the envelope, but decided it was a bad idea and would only make things worse. Who knows, he figured, she might even go to the police. Then he’d be in even deeper. He had to find a way out.

  After a few minutes, he heard her hang up the phone. A little while later, it rang. She answered it, talked some more, and hung up again. Then, after a half hour, it rang again. A short conversation. He thought for certain she was calling the police, and could feel his heart racing. If he was right, both their days would be numbered.

  He heard her footsteps coming towards his room, and stepped back as she opened the door. “Now you listen here,” she began, “and you best listen good. I want you to get all your clothes and stuff, whatever you got, and put it all in these bags.” She handed him four brown super-market bags—just about enough to fit what he owned. “You do this right now, you hear?”

  “Why I gotta do that?” he asked defiantly.

  “First, cause I say so. Second, cause I say so.”

  “You sending me away someplace?”

  “I’m taking you away someplace.”

  “Where?”

  “That’s none of your concern. You just do what I tell you!”

  “Who you been talking to on the phone?” Boldness.

  “That is also none of your concern.”

  “You ain’t been talking to the police, have you?” Anxiety.

  “There some reason I should be?”

  He paused. Silence.

  “I’m sure there is,” she said confidently. “But I don’t wanna hear about it. I don’t wanna hear nothing right now. You just start packing, that’s all.”

  “I don’t wanna go no place else!”

  “What you want don’t much matter.” With that, she turned and started walking out.

  “When we leaving?” he asked.

  “First thing in the morning.”

  Oh shit, he thought. What was he going to do now?

  It was the middle of the night. Loretta was asleep on the sofa-bed in the living room. Joshua got dressed, put on his jacket, and quietly opened the door to his room. Slowly, so the hinges wouldn’t squeak. But they always squeaked, and this time was no exception.

  “Who’s there?�
� Loretta asked from her bed. “Joshua, is that you? What’re you up to?”

  “Nothing, Mama, I’m just hungry.”

  “This is no time to eat, it’ll be morning soon. Get yourself back to your bed!”

  “Yes Ma’am,” he uttered, submissively turning back to his room. He closed his door, reached into his jacket pocket, took out the envelope, and stared at it, wondering what to do next. He would wait another hour, then try again. He had to try again. He was sure Big Bob already had some thugs out looking for him. He had to get the envelope to Big Bob before Big Bob got to him. He had to explain things.

  The door burst open. The light went on. Loretta’s voice. “Joshua, what’re you doing sleeping in your clothes like that?”

  He looked himself over, barely awake, eyes squinting from the brightness, and suddenly realized he’d fallen asleep. He felt a surge of terror as he frantically started feeling around the bed for the envelope.

  “What you looking for, Joshua?”

  “Nothing, Mama,” he said, continuing to survey the sheets and blanket. “I just thought I saw a bug.” He started slapping his hands all over the bed. Quick thinking. There were always bugs in this house.

  “Well, never mind that. A cab will be here in about fifteen minutes, so get yourself together.”

  “Fifteen minutes! We leaving in fifteen minutes?”

  “That’s what I said. It’s about time you start hearing me.”

  He ran his hand over the outside of his jacket pocket, trying to be inconspicuous, and felt the envelope inside. “Don’t I even get a chance to say good-bye to my friends?”

  “You mean those hoodlums? They’re not your friends, and you’ll never be seeing any of them again where you’re going.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “We’re going to live in one of Mr. Sims’ buildings over in Crown Heights.”