Evan Hunter - Streets of Gold

I was sitting at the bar. We had just finished a set, and Madeleine was arguing in French with one of her countrymen who kept insisting it was time we forgave the German people. (This was May of 1946; the war in Germany had ended only a year ago!) The voice on my left said, “Hello, Iggie, long time no see.”

There are very few accidental meetings in the city of New York. Yes, sometimes you will run into an old classmate, and you will babble on unenthusiastically about old times long forgotten — do you ever see Charlie Hobbs, who used to throw scum bags filled with water from the elevated IRT, whatever happend to Jennie Whatshername, who used to be so good in math, and golly, you’ve got fourteen kids now, huh, wow, amazing, yes, I’m with Amalgamated Life over in Newark, and gee, great to see you again, give my regards home, huh, got to run. That happens rarely; it’s a big city. The girl on my left sounded a lot like Rebecca with the green eyes, and she was in Auntie’s on Macdougal Street in Greenwich Village, and I had not spoken to her since that Thursday night in July, ten months ago, and I turned to face her, and I held my breath and thought This can’t be an accident; if it’s her, it can’t be an accident. Aloud, I said, “Is it you?”

“Who?” she asked.

“Rebecca.”

“Is it Iggie? Or is it Ike?”

“It’s Ike, but it’s Iggie. Is it you?”

“It’s me,” she said.

“Where’s Marvin?” I asked quickly.

“Marvin? Who’s Marvin? Oh, Marvin. Marvin is married.”

“Not to you, I hope.”

“Not to me. He married a singer. Would you believe it? I think he kept taking me to all those jazz joints only so he could meet a singer.”

“Listen,” I said, “you didn’t happen to pick me up in a taxicab last Christmas, did you?”

“No,” she said. “What?”

“Outside a pasticceria on First Avenue?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive. I was in Miami last Christmas.”

“I’m glad you’re back.”

“So am I.”

“What’s your last name?”

“Baumgarten. What’s yours?”

“Di Palermo. How’d you know I was here?”

“I saw an ad in the paper. I figured Blind Ike? Had to be.”

“So here you are.”

“Here I am.”

“So what are you doing Monday night? I’m off Mondays.”

“Take it easy,” she said.

“Why?”

“Well...”

“What is it?”

“Well... you see, my father has trouble with Italian names.”

“Huh?”

“In fact, he has trouble with any names that aren’t Jewish.”

“Huh?”

“He’s what you might call a raging bigot.”

“You’re kidding,” I said. “You’re kidding, aren’t you?”

“Am I? My father’s got two specialties — selling Oldsmobiles and hating the goyim.”

“What’s that?”

“Goyim? That’s you. Do you know what a pogrom is?”

“Yes.”

“A pogrom is what’ll happen if my father ever finds out I came here to see you. He’ll come riding down from the north Bronx with his tallis thrown over his shoulder...”

“His what ?”

“That’s a prayer shawl.”

“Of course it’s a prayer shawl,” I said. “But your father’s got some tallis, too, if he can throw it over his shoulder.”

Rebecca burst out laughing, and then sobered immediately. “Listen,” she said, “I’m a nice Jewish girl, and... and not whatever you’re thinking.”

“What am I thinking?”

“I mean... you know. I don’t make a habit of following piano players all over the city.”

“I should hope not.”

“In fact, I don’t know what I’m doing here,” she said.

“Well,” I said, “look... uh... why don’t you... would you like a drink or something? I mean, Jesus, what ever you do, don’t go running off again, okay?”

“Why’d you call me that time? You didn’t even know what I looked like.”

“I still don’t. What do you look like, Rebecca?”

“I’m gorgeous, what do you think?”

“That’s what I think,” I said.

“You don’t look Italian at all,” she said.

“What do Italians look like?”

“Oh, you know, short and dark and... not like you.”

“I’m really Jewish,” I said. “I got kidnapped from my very religious Jewish parents by a band of Sicilian...”

“I only wish,” she said.

“Why?”

“Because... listen, do you want to know something? I got Marvin to take me back to Staten Island two weeks later. But you were gone. There was another band there. I’ll tell you the truth, I was relieved. I once went out with an Irish boy, and my father chased him down the stairs.”

“Rebecca, you’ve got to be...”

“Michael, his name was. Michael Sullivan.”

“Rebecca, let’s worry about your father later, okay?”

“No, let’s worry about him now.”

“Okay,” I said, and fell silent.

“Are you worrying?” she asked.

“I’m worrying,” I said.

“Where shall I meet you Monday night?” she asked.

It had been a suffocatingly humid week, and the stifling heat in the Mosholu Parkway apartment staggered me as we came through the front door. (There was a mezuzah on the doorjamb, similar to the one my grandfather’s “Kasha” had touched her fingers to in the year 1901. I did not see it.) I had been dating Rebecca for close to three months, but I had not yet met her parents. Rebecca had prepared both of them for our impending visit, and Honest Abe Baumgarten had said, predictably, “If you bring a blind shaygets up here, I’ll shoot him on the spot.” The apartment was strange to me, the lingering cooking smells alien. There were voices, men talking and laughing. Rebecca led me into the kitchen. I recognized the sounds of a poker game in progress and suddenly thought of my Uncle Luke. “Daddy,” Rebecca said, and the voices stopped.

“Daddy, I’d like you to meet Ike Di Palermo,” she said. Her voice had a frightened quaver in it. She was clinging to my left hand, and her own hand was sweating.

“How do you do?” I said, and extended my right hand.

I stood there for several minutes with my hand extended, and suddenly realized no one was going to take it. I pulled it back.

“Who deals?” somebody asked. I later learned this burning question had been put by none other than the Mad Oldsmobile Dealer.

“Ike is a piano player,” Rebecca said. “Do you know ‘Far, Far Away’?” someone at the table asked.

I had been playing piano since the time I was six, but I swear to God I had never heard this old saw before. Innocently, I said, “No, I’m sorry, I don’t.”

“We don’t want you to play it,” the man said. “We want you to go it.”

“Far, far away,” someone else said, and everyone burst out laughing.

“Who’s shy in the kitty?” Abe asked. “I don’t want to be in the kitty,” someone said. “The kitty is for Ratner’s,” Abe said. “September fifth, we’re going to Ratner’s. Get up a nickel.”

“I don’t want to go to Ratner’s,” the man said. “Go without me, I don’t want to be in no kitty.”

“We need a cup for the fecahkteh kitty,” someone said.

“Anybody got a tin cup?” Abe said.

“Excuse me,” I said, and turned to go, and knocked something off the cabinet close to the table. I stooped to pick it up.

“I’ll get it,” Rebecca said.

“I can find it,” I said, and got down on my knees, and scrambled around on the floor for whatever it was, something metallic, an ashtray, a small pot, something; I didn’t know what the hell it was, and I couldn’t find it, either. Rebecca said, “Leave it, Ike. I want you to meet my mother.”