East Side Stories:Tales of Jewish Life in the Lower East Side of New York in the 1930's (24 page)

Clara was saying, “But you sure asked a question when you asked me what my name was, didn’t you?”

“What’d you want him to do?” Goldie asked. “Say to you, hey, you? You wouldn’t like that, would you?”

Danny didn’t wait for a reply, he dove deep almost to the water’s bottom, cool, other-worldly, the dim roar of its liquid movement sounded in his ears, the outside turbulence of the ocean above now gone. There was only quiet water with a slight swell, a dark green world. He stroked and stroked, gliding through the water, coming for air into the bright blinding sunlight.

Two more girls from the group had joined them. All of them, Danny, his friends, the girls, all seven of them swam, and Danny who swam well wanted to go farther out, out where the real swimmers were. He could see their arms moving fluidly and methodically, appearing and disappearing into the water. But the girls were all here, they were fun, they laughed, they told secret jokes to each other.

Now and then Danny would submerge, glide through the water, grab one of the girl’s legs and as she laughed and screamed, lift her and spill her into the ocean. Max and Goldie had also been at it, now all of them, all seven played the game, the girls protesting loudly as they laughed and screamed, the boys pursuing their sneak attacks.

Clara was Danny’s favorite victim. He didn’t know why he was attracted to her, maybe because she swam so well, maybe because she was unafraid, maybe because she screamed so little and laughed so much when she was up-ended. And maybe because she looked so good in her bathing suit, so well-proportioned, maybe because he felt so good when swimming underwater, he tackled her. It was fun, he liked swimming with her, he liked the game they were playing.

They emerged from the ocean, the girls removed their colored rubber bathing caps. Clara, with her long hair down her back, looked even better to Danny. Goldie busied himself with Evelyn, Max selected one of the other girls. Danny and his friends sat down on the edge of the girls’ blanket and one of the girls said it was time for lunch.

“You got your lunch, I hope,” she said to Goldie. He nodded. “Good,” she said. “What’ve you got? I got a baloney sandwich.”

Goldie reached into his canvas bag, removed out a sandwich, lifted the upper lid of white bread, said he had lettuce and tomato, Max said he had a salami sandwich, Danny said he had a hard-boiled egg sandwich.

“Me, I got a ham sandwich,” Clara said.

Danny glanced sharply at Goldie and Max. He had never knowingly eaten ham, he never would he told himself. Clara, held up a sandwich, called out, “I got two sandwiches, I can only eat one. Anybody like an extra ham sandwich?” Turning to Danny she asked, “Would you like it?” Danny shook his head and she said, “What’s the matter?” Smiling, glancing at her friends, she turned back to him and asked, “You kosher?”

“We don’t eat ham,” Danny said.

“Why not? What’s wrong with it?” Clara asked. “It’s food, right? Kosher is for the old country, this is America, our families came here to get away from the old country, didn’t they?”

Danny didn’t know why he had become involved in this discussion but he could not help saying, “They came from the old country, yes. But they’re still Jews.”

“Who said they’re not?” Clara said lifting her eyes. “But what has that got to do with eating ham?”

“Ham’s not good for you,” Max said.

Goldie and Max were talking to the other girls, Evelyn sat silent. Clara said, “What’s wrong with you guys? They inspect ham here, ham’s just as good as anything else.” She leaned towards Danny and asked in a teasing tone of voice, “You eat milk after you eat meat? Cheese maybe, or a milk shake, a malted, a glass of milk, after you eat meat?”

“Yeah,” Danny said. “Sometimes.”

“That’s supposed to be forbidden too, you know that?” Evelyn said.

“I’ll do that but I won’t eat ham,” Danny said.

Clara glanced around at her friends. Some of them were smiling, Clara grinned at them, turned and said to Danny, “Oh, what do you know, a rabbi. We got us a rabbi. And where do you live? You promised to tell us before, before we went into the water.”

He didn’t like what she was doing, she was toying with him now, he wouldn’t play along with her, he would not show her his growing anger. He said with forced pleasantness, “On the East Side.”

Goldie now said to Evelyn, “Why? Now you tell us where you live.”

“Brooklyn,” Evelyn said. “Bensonhurst.”

“Wouldn’t you know,” Danny said. “One of those.”

“One of what?” Evelyn asked. Danny remained silent, she demanded, “One of what?”

Danny sighed. Now it had all become impossible. She lived in another world. Depression or no, if she lived in Bensonhurst, her family was one of those relatively few who were living well. Bensonhurst was one of the places where wealthier Jews lived.

He said to Evelyn, “One of those who don’t have to worry about getting enough to eat, about living pushed into a goddammed tenement, about not having money for anything, that’s what.”

“Shouldn’t I be glad that I’m not?” Evelyn said.

“I’m glad you’re not,” Danny replied. “I wouldn’t wish it on you.”

He felt that he couldn’t be friends with any of the girls, that was impossible. Anyhow, you didn’t see girls from Brooklyn, not from the part of Brooklyn in which she lived. The Bronx boys didn’t, the East Side boys didn’t. You didn’t take a Brooklyn girl out, because when you did, you had to see her home, and late on a Saturday night or really early on a Sunday morning, after all the subways had stopped running express trains, you took a local train home. The train stopped at all the stations along the route all while you had fallen asleep on that subway seat for those two hours or more that it took to get to the East Side. Somewhat magically you awoke at your station and you staggered sleepily home.

It didn’t pay. Not for that different world, not for that interminable ride, not to be condescended to. Not that. Anyway, he didn’t have the money for a real date.

He would make the best of what he had for today and he said, “What the hell are we getting so hot and bothered for? You girls have your sandwiches, I’ll have mine, we’ll all have ours. What’s all the fuss about?”

And now Evelyn said shaking her head, “Clara has chicken sandwiches, not ham,” Clara began to laugh softly and Evelyn said, “She was just kidding.” And to Clara, “Weren’t you?”

“Yeah,” Clara said with a grin.

“She loves to kid,” Evelyn said.

“Yeah, so do I,” Danny said in a flat tone of voice.

There was a silence, finally they began to eat. Max told a joke he had heard on the radio, he knew how to tell a joke. They laughed. The quick-moving feet of several boys running by sent up sprays of sand.

Someone, a jokester, had dug a hole in the sand, covered it with several flat sheets of newspaper, and had carefully topped it with a layer of sand so that the newspaper was no longer visible. They watched from a distance as an unsuspecting walker’s leg tore through the paper, down to the hole’s bottom. The victim, a man, began to shout curses as he slowly hobbled away. Danny looked back at his friends.

The group finished with their food, the three boys collected all the garbage, deposited it in a trash can nearby. When they returned to the girls Max said he was going in for a swim. Danny and Goldie followed him in, two of the girls trailed after them.

Into the surf once more and swimming, Danny couldn’t help but think of Clara, Why should she have acted towards him the way she did? He wouldn’t have done it to her. Angry with himself he thought, Why should he be bothered with her? He wouldn’t ever see her again.

Finished with their swim, they returned to the blanket. Clara asked Danny, “You going to any of the rides?”

Danny said, “Nah. We’ll spend all the time here, then we’ll go home.”

“The East Side,” Clara said.

“Yeah,” Goldie said. “The East Side. That’s where we live.”

Evelyn said, “I guess that’s where most of our families came from. My parents used to live there when they first came over from the old country. It’s just a place to live, that’s all.”

Danny smiled at her, she wasn’t anything like Clara. Yet to him she too was still an outsider, one of those lucky people who didn’t know what the East Side meant. Danny wished that Clara had to try to sleep through those terrible nights on the fire escapes of tenements. Or on a blistering tar roof. Or sweat a forever dampness that soaked your clothing, or go one day without eating.

It was now late afternoon. Some people, especially those families with small children, were leaving. Some space on the beach had become available, space littered with newspapers, bits of sandwiches, pieces of fruit, peach pits, wrappers from popsicles, empty soda bottles.

Danny noticed a spot not too far away. He nudged Goldie. “Let’s go there,” he said. “There’s room now. Okay?”

Goldie shrugged and whispered, “Okay. These girls are nothing special.”

“What’re you talking about?” Evelyn asked.

“I was telling Goldie,” Danny said, “that we have to be leaving soon, we’re going back, we have to study.”

“Study? What for? It’s summertime, there’s no school,” Clara said.

“To be a rabbi,” Danny said wanting to play with her. He winked at Max, who began to smile. “There’s no summer vacation when you want to be a rabbi.” Clara stared at him as Danny turned and said to Max, “Come on, let’s go. We got a spot over there.” He smiled and nodded to the other girls, the three boys picked up their canvas bags and clothing and said their goodbyes.

Seated on their own blanket, they looked back at the girls. Evelyn had arisen and was picking up her towel, the other girls stood up, gathering their things.

As the girls were leaving Clara called out to Danny and his friends, “Give my regards to Delancey Street.”

“Sure,” Danny replied putting on a huge smile for her.

Evelyn shrugged, the girls walked away, slowly disappeared in the milling crowd. The beach was still crowded, the ocean at its lower depths remained thronged. On the beach was a profusion of colors, of bathing suits, towels, blankets. People’s skins ranged from pink to dark, dark ebony.

Goldie said, “I bet there’s a million people out here today.”

“More,” Danny said. “Anyway, we’ll see what the “Daily News” says it is tomorrow.”

“A million and a half, I bet,” Max said.

They swam once more. In the surf they met some girls with whom they went through the ritual of water-tackling. Everybody laughed, the girls screamed without terror as they were lifted up and heaved into the sea. It was all passing fun.

Time passed quickly, a river of humans, a flood, was now leaving the beach. Sadly it was time to go home. Danny said with a heavy sigh, “Well... we’ve got to go.”

Max wanted one more dip in the ocean, it would be the last one. Running through the more open spaces on the beach they plunged into a high wave rolling towards shore, wishing desperately for the day not to end, yet knowing that it was ending, that nothing they could do would make time stop, make the earth stop revolving, make something happen so that they could swim there forever.

And soon, dripping wet, suddenly feeling tired and tight-skinned, prickling heat from their fresh sunburns, they plodded towards their blankets. They picked up their belongings, packed most of it in a roll, picked up their canvas bags and walked slowly towards the boardwalk.

There, under the boardwalk, in its cool dim shade, under their blankets, they slipped into their underwear and pants. When they were fully dressed, they went out into the late sunlight of the street.

Walking slowly towards the subway, they stopped for a five-cent cone of frozen custard. Savoring it slowly, they stood staring down the avenue. Finished with the custard, they plodded slowly on, the crowd streaming in from all the side streets, all converging on the subway station. They shoved their way through the turnstiles. The subway station was a din of noise, voices, shouts, the cries of babies. Danny pushed his way through to the station platform where he and his friends waited for the Sea Beach express train.

The train finally arrived. At this late afternoon hour it was no longer crowded with those coming to the beach, the train quickly disgorged its few passengers. There was a mad scramble by those returning home, a rush inside the cars, seats were immediately grabbed. Standees became pressed against one another, the subway pusher outside on the platform heaved and shoved a few more bodies into the cars. The doors hissed shut, the train began to move, the steel vertical beams of the station whooshed by and became a blur, they were out in the open, the local stations went whizzing by.

A sort of stupor came over Danny, he stood jammed between people, he could not fall if the train came to a sudden stop or turn, nobody could fall, each subway car was solid with jammed humanity. He could feel the heat rising under his shirt where his body had been exposed earlier to the sun.

Goldie was near him and he knew that Max was somewhere close by in that car. Danny felt tired, his energy used up, he felt the day was over, the sand gone, the ocean gone, the frolicking, the coolness, all gone. Now, in spite of the whirring subway fans, there was a solid heat in the car. He stared unseeingly through a grimy window of the car, there was a constant blur, everything was a dreamlike blur.