“Good? Them? With all those green legs?” Ira screwed up his face in revulsion. “How c’n you eat them?”
“What d’yuh mean how c’n you eat it? Jesus, you Jews must be dumb. Yuh cook ’em an’ break the shell with a nutcracker. Them two big things in front ain’t legs. Them’s claws.”
“Like that?” Ira conciliated.
Eddie’s was the world Ira now yearned for, to be allowed to share, allowed access to. He was only too ready to gloss over differences, lull the felt sense of strangeness the East Side had implanted in him, in the sanctity of kosher food, in custom, in observance. They were all impediments to entering Eddie’s world, world of rooftops and flying kites, of journeys to the marvelous turning bridges over the Harlem River like the one at the end of Madison Avenue, where a whole bridge swiveled slowly around to allow a ship to pass, and the bewildering network of tracks in the huge freight yards on the other side of the river, in alien Bronx. Or way over east, past little Italy, where people spoke a strange language, haggled over produce in long, sometimes strident syllables, gesturing violently all the time, strange produce on pushcarts and in stores, that even Eddie didn’t know the names of—“Aw, dem’s for wops”—to the floating swimming pool in the East River, where, under Eddie’s tutelage, Ira finally learned to float in the water, and — miraculously — to dog-paddle. Amid the naked, splashing, shrieking kids—“Everybody pisses in de water; so don’t swallow even a mout’ful,” Eddie advised, “or it’ll make ye puke.” Together they climbed the fecally malodorous rocks to the summit of the Mt. Morris Park. .
Something had been preying on his mind, something that demanded to be taken into account, demanded a retracing of steps for the sake of authenticity. Its omission awoke in him a sense of panic, an irrational fear, akin to the catastrophe long ago that arrested normal progress, and now unforeseen stretched tentacles into his psyche in the present. Never mind, he tried to reassure himself — append the omitted material, and go on; the substance is trifling. And yet, without it, the narrative would remain defective, the portrayal incomplete: Ira and his parents were not the first Jews living on 119th Street. He was not, in short, without alternative of Jewish kids to hobnob with, enticing to the writer as that sort of extreme predicament might be.
Another Jewish family lived in his own house, Mrs. Schneider across the corridor, though there were no boys his age. Jewish families may already have lived in the landlord Jake’s hulking tenement, on the corner of Park Avenue, though none of the kids played in the block. A scattering of Jews already lived in the six-story apartment house on the other corner of Park Avenue (apartment house because it boasted hot and cold running water — and steam heat), comfortable enough for the family of the Jewish pharmacist to occupy, Biolov, whose pharmacy — drugstore — was on the corner also, and whose plump, condescending wife wheeled the fanciest baby carriage in the neighborhood. But none of the kids of the corner apartment house, if they were big enough, played in 119th Street. Only the kids of the appallingly destitute Jewish family living in the red-brick, six-story, cold-water tenement across the street played on the block: scrawny, dark-skinned Davey, and his equally scrawny, dark-skinned younger brother, Maxie. They had a sister, Dora, between them in age, and in complexion like them, shrinking and fugitive as a mouse; also an infant brother with a frightful rash. A thin, dark-skinned mother, and a short, affable father were their parents.
They lived in such bleak destitution that even Ira, grown accustomed to squalor, and not too observant of it either, was taken aback on entering their home. Would he ever forget the scabby baby in his scarred, smeared, old high chair catching a cockroach in his splotched fist, and offering to throw the insect into his doting and gently reproving papa’s glass of tea. Mr. Baer was a gambler, Mom said: He refused to do anything, except spend his time at the card tables. And wizened Davey and Maxie too were expert gamblers. Whatever the game they played, always they played with the same ruthless concentration, clawing and squalling for advantage. It was too much for Ira to withstand. He learned early to shun gambling with them.
They met, perhaps that very first afternoon, when he so treacherously struck Heffernan. The brothers were newcomers to the street like himself. Their common Jewishness confirmed, and encouraged because they now numbered three, they set out on a ramble. They entered Mt. Morris Park at the corner of 120th and Madison, stared in wonder at the lofty, rocky, tree-grown hill rising in the midst of the park, and lifted perplexed eyes to the wooden bell tower rearing up on top of the hill. They came out at the uptown end of the park, at 124th Street, where they turned west, passed the hushed, sedate brownstones, and marked the staid, gray public library set in the midst of the brownstones. They crossed bustling Lenox Avenue, and still forging westward through a rich, subdued neighborhood of dignified townhouses, they reached prosperous Seventh Avenue. Elegant stores at the foot of tall, exclusive apartment buildings lined the way; Pierce Arrows and Packards were parked along the curb. The three stood and gazed; at the 125th Street corner of the wide and prosperous avenue the tall, impressive Hotel Theresa dominated its well-to-do neighbors. And at the very corner where they stood, on 124th Street itself, how sumptuous, how decorous, tubs and tubs, a whole row of wooden tubs with short evergreen trees in them, all closely aligned, so that the branches of the trees interlocked, were set out on the sidewalk. They formed a green hedge in front of a restaurant; they formed an outdoor café.
The three crept up to the dense front of leaves and boughs, and peeped through: On the other side stood neat round tables covered with blue-and-white checkered cloth, and in the midst of each round table stood a trim, creamy vase with flowers in it. The blond, bow-tied waiter, in his plum-striped jacket, lifted his head from the cutlery he was setting out on one of the tables, and his eyes came to rest on the other side of the hedge where they stood. He gave no sign of having caught sight of the trio of Jewish gamins. He picked up a napkin, appeared to flick a crumb from a table, and still intent on his duties, stepped toward the sidewalk entrance of the café. But Davey had already divined the waiter’s purpose, and signaled the others to poise for flight. And fortunately they did, for they dashed past him as he came out running. And pell-mell east they fled through 124th Street, as fast as they could, and he after them. But he chased them only a short distance. For when they looked over their shoulders, they saw he had given up pursuit — or had only feigned it. So they also stopped running, stopped in the middle of the secluded street, and Davey and Maxie, with hands cupped around mouths, uttered a defiant, half-scared bray of deliverance.