Happy Birthday Rory! Move In Day, 1957

June 20, 1957, on Rory’s first birthday we moved into apartment #4R at 517 East 83rd Street. Mom let Rory and me run straight into the apartment before my aunts and uncles brought the furniture up. I dragged my brother by his arm. At the window was a fire escape with a nest of baby pigeons. Rory squealed and said his newly learned word, “Wow!”

I felt the same way. “Mom, got to see it, birds, lots of them!” I yelled over my shoulder.

Mom came over in three strides, gave Dad a look and said, “Bob, stay here. I’m taking Tommy and Rory for ice cream.”

On the stairs, we passed Aunt Barbara and Aunt Joan carrying our kitchen table and they gave Mom and us a funny look as sweat dripped down their faces.

When we returned from the store Rory and I ran to the window. No birds.


I asked Dad, “Where they go?”


“Their mom taught them to fly and they took off.”


I said nothing but knew something fishy happened. I had a good cry, Rory saw me, and he started crying too. Rory didn’t know why he was crying; he just liked to cry when I cried.


When the furniture was in and the move was over the adults started cracking beers. The next thing I knew a group of friends and extra relatives showed up. Allie Cobert, Uncle Mickey and Uncle Lenny put on Dad’s white dress shirts and made bow ties out of the ladies kerchiefs and begin singing, “Sweet Adeline.” After the singing sung out, Dad played records on his prized RCA Victrola. Bored, I retreated to the bathroom. I sat on the toilet bowl and did some target practice with my water gun. Out the window into the airshaft, a few quick shots off mom’s bra drying on the towel rack, then up at the naked light bulb on the ceiling. That was fun. The more I shot it, the more it sizzled. I could see smoke coming off it. I kept going.

“CRACK, BOOM!”

The bulb exploded, the door flew open and a half dozen people were in the bathroom with me before I could hop off the bowl. Mom was on top of me pretty good but Barbara and Joan extracted me before Mom could figure out what to do with me.

The next day, Barbara came over the apartment to see how we were settling in. She sat in the kitchen drinking coffee with Mom. When Mom wasn’t paying attention, Barbara went to the back window by the fire escape and opened it. Then she sat back down in the kitchen like nothing happened.

Within a few minutes we heard birds, “Tweet, tweet, tweet.” Then it stopped. Two minutes later, “Tweet, Tweet, tweet.”

Mom moaned and said, "Oh, Christ, they’re back.”


I smiled. Then a big gruff voice said, “Fire Inspector, Fire Inspector!”


Mom popped out of her chair. In came Joan in my red fire hat with a big grin on her face.


Joan had gone to the roof and came down to the fourth floor fire escape waiting for Barbara to open the window to let her in. It was not the first, or last time someone came into our Yorkville apartment using something other than the front door.

Happy birthday, Brother.



My book, "I Hate the Dallas Cowboys - tales of a scrappy New York boyhood," will be published by YBK, October 2014. If you like TV's "The Wonder Years," add tenements, loitering and a subway - you'll slip seamlessly into my world.


Our next "City Stories: Stoops to Nuts, show on Tuesday, July 8th @ 6pm @ Cornelia Street Cafe is a doozy.

Our amazing artists: "The Duchess and the Fox, aka, Andrea Diaz and Joe McGinty(standout and founder of The Losers Lounge), Jennifer Barrett (Living Loud), Nicole Ferraro (NY Times) and Harry Rolnick (WSJ). We're bringing the musical side of storytelling to our show in a big way with Andrea, Joe and Jennifer merging with two of my favorite tellers in NYC, Nicole and Harry.

Sister Lorraine Gave My Turkey a B minus

  

 It was Wednesday afternoon, the day before Thanksgiving 1961 inside St. Stephen of Hungary’s second grade in Yorkville.

“Children, the Pilgrims had a bountiful crop their first year in the American colony. They arranged a peace treaty with the Indians. They celebrated together, and feasted on geese, deer, corn, and oysters.”

“Yuck,” said a few kids at the mention of oysters.

Sister Lorraine threw a look around the room then said, “… and President Lincoln made Thanksgiving an official holiday in 1863.” 

She cleared her throat, “Let’s move on. Everyone take out the hats, bonnets and headdresses we’ve been working on. Pilgrims, go over to the windows… Indians, stay on the closet side. Think about your lines, everybody.”

While the kids got into place, I put on my Indian headdress and snuck over to the teacher’s desk. It was the only one with a cartridge pen. Second graders worked in pencil. Sister Lorraine, distracted by the two herds moving to her left and right, missed my pre-show make-up application. I had no mirror to work with so I figured out two spots and wiped an inky finger across each cheek twice. Sister Lorraine gave us a short history lesson while she passed back our art assignments. My turkey got a B minus. I ran out of brown crayon and finished his stomach off with green and red. Eventually she saw me upfront.

“Thomas, what are you doing?” 

“Huh?”
“What are you doing?” Sister Lorraine repeated.
“Putting on stripes.” I said, standing in front of her desk working the ink off my fingers onto a piece of loose leaf.
“Why, God Almighty are you putting on stripes?”
“I’m an Indian. If I’m an Indian, I’ll need war paint. It’ll look good, promise.”
“Do you ever listen to me?”
“Yes, Sister.”
“Didn’t I just say the Pilgrims and Natives declared a peace treaty?”
“Was she nuts?” I thought.
“You’d trust an Injun? I watch a lot of movies. Believe me; Sister, peace treaties are broken all the time.”
“This will be a calm re-enactment of a peaceful gathering. Thomas, the war paint is not necessary.”
“There might be trouble.” I said.
“You have one minute, mister. One minute, that’s it. Go to the bathroom and wash the ink off your hands and face. And don’t touch your shirt again. Your mother is going to kill you.”

Disgusted, I ran off.
“Don’t run,” she said.
“Make up your mind,” I mumbled.




I learned a valuable lesson that day. Cartridge pen ink doesn’t wash off well with cheap school soap. The nun sent two boys to get me. My head was buried in the sink. 

 

“Sister told us, ‘Get him back in here if you have to drag him by his feet,’” Joey Skrapits said to the back of my head. “She’s not happy. What’s up?” Leslie Henits added. I turned around and showed them. I held my hands out. They were beginning to look white; my face, however, had an even blue tan. It seemed the washing, rather than taking the ink off, just moved it around.

“I can’t get it off,” I said.
“Holy crap, forget your face, look at your shirt. Joey said. It’s a gunshot wound.”
I looked down and moaned.
“You’re going to need Lava Soap to get that off. Come on, dry up and let’s go.” Leslie said.

As I crept through the classroom door, the entire class laughed their heads off. I tried to bury myself in the middle of the Indian tribe. I thought of opening one of the coat closets and spending a little time in there. My first stage appearance as Injun Joe was ruined. The only good part was: Sister Lorraine was laughing too. I was more afraid about her being angry than me being embarrassed. Once I saw her laughing, I calmed down. I almost forgot that my mother was going to murder me.

We did our little Pilgrim and Indian “everyone be thankful” speeches, and then we started singing, “Over the river and through the woods, to grandmother’s house we go…” I stared at the clock over the alphabet cards lining the top of the blackboard. The clock said, One minute to three.

Pop! My Mom’s incredibly angry face flashed over the clock’s face.

When I got home, Mom pounced. “What the hell did you do?”
“Nothing.”
“What happened to your shirt?”

Then she saw my face and her voice went up an octave.

“What the hell did you do to your face!”
“Two sixth graders started a fight in the schoolyard at lunchtime. I was leaning against a car right next to them. One of them had a box of pen cartridges in his shirt pocket. They were wrestling, two of the cartridges were crushed - and the ink flew all over. Luckily, I wasn’t hurt, but the ink got me in a few places.”
“A few places?” Mom said.
“Are you sure you weren’t refereeing the fight?
“No, Mom…no, no, no, I was doing nothing. Just standing there.”
“Where? In the ink factory when it exploded?”
“Take the shirt off and throw it away. Then come over here by the sink.”
Mom knew second graders weren’t allowed near ink.
“Thank you, God,” I whispered.

At the sink, Mom put Boraxo scrubbing powder on a washcloth and began making little circles on my face.

“Ouch” I said pulling away. “My face is being ground with sand.”
“Well, what else can we use to get this ink off? Stop fidgeting and stay still. If you let me work, it’ll be over one, two, three.”
“Big fat liar,” I thought.

Once clean, my face was a deeply embarrassed rosy red.

My brother, Rory, mocked me, “ha, ha!”

I gave him a knuckle when Mom wasn’t looking – a slight tap. He had a fever, so I held back a bit. I felt bad for him. On the verge of getting sick, there was no way Mom was letting him go with Dad and me to the Macy’s Thanksgiving parade in the morning.

Part two of three tomorrow…

Kenny Devoe's Magical Nose

Walking to school the day Mom asked Dad for a house money raise, I smiled, remembering it was Good Friday. That afternoon we’d be doing the Stations of the Cross in the church. Right after lunch, I said, “Sister, can I be excused?” The nun made a face but she had to let me go down to the sacristy to transform into an altar boy. The rest of the class and the whole school assembled in the pews a half hour later. Kids ate the Stations of the Cross up. It was theatre. Two altar boys with gigantic candles would stand to the side of a third boy carrying Jesus on what to me looked like a heavy duty stickball bat with a crucifix on top. You felt like you were in the Roman Legion and you got to leave the altar and walk up and down the church aisles. “Look at me!” Standing right next to your chums and pretty older girls who couldn’t make you go away. That particular afternoon, things got interesting. 

Kenny Devoe loved altar wine and for some reason would never drink it directly from the gallon jug. He carefully poured the wine into the cruet, the tiny glass vessel used during the mass. This drove me crazy. First problem was a twelve-year-old drinking wine. Did Kenny think he was going to get in more trouble or less trouble depending on his method for getting it into his stomach? The other problem was his slow wine transfer meant he was tripling the chance of getting caught. We knew if Kenny got busted our indictments were sealed. School rule - If you’re there, you did it. That day, Kenny drank too much. When the altar bells rang, we led the priest out of the sacristy to the center of the altar to start the procession. I had a candle, Smithy had the cross and Kenny the other candle. At the ninth station, when Jesus carrying the cross falls for the third time, the entire student body cheered him on with practiced sarcasm learned from first grade through eighth grade; they read from their missals, “Jesus – exhausted – in pain – for the third and final time. Long pause here BUT, NO! Jesus rose and struggled on!” Three hundred little boxing announcers sounding like Don Dunphy at ringside screamed, ‘our Lord had risen from the canvas back into the heat of the battle.’ The nuns flew around the church wanting to thump somebody but really couldn’t do anything, while the getting-away-with-murder insolent children picked up the reading speed leading towards an early dismissal. The nuns tried to slow it down but the three hundred-voice rock was rolling downhill. After a good giggle, I looked around the church for some of my friends, when I noticed Kenny nodding off into the flame at the top of his candle. I nudged Smith carrying the pole, who nudged Kenny, but Kenny was well past that point. He was a sleeping horse standing up in his stall. After a hard nudge, Kenny’s head lifted up with a jolt, he shook his noggin and wiggled his nose. Then he gradually dropped back into the flame. We pulled Kenny along through the rest of the stations. By the end, his nose smelt like skirt steak. Kenny left the altar boys that week. His nose, first purple, and then red for a year became Kenny Devoe’s Magical Nose.

If you like my work check out my memoir, "I Hate the Dallas Cowboys - tales of a scrappy New York boyhood." Available at Logos Book Store or online at Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

The book has 136 Amazon five star reviews out of 136 total reviews posted.  My old world echoes TV's "The Wonder Years" ~ just add taverns, subways and Checker cabs. 

School Lunch Is Killing Me

"Fear!"

Thank you, Mr. Beller's Neighborhood for publishing my story today, "School Lunch Is Killing Me."


“Lefty, what did you do with the hard boiled egg?” I worked the words out of the side of my mouth. I was Jimmy Cagney in “White Heat” and I wanted to take this place apart.

“It’s in my pocket, and what’s with the Lefty crap?” John said.

“Lefty, we’ll know more in a few minutes. Are you sure the egg is safe?”

“Yes, you idiot. It’s safe; it’s tucked away in a Kleenex,” John snapped.

Our squawking drew Sister Adrienne’s attention as the lunch hour was winding down in St. Stephen of Hungary on East 82nd Street in April 1964. The nuns didn’t allow talking. The more you talked the longer it took you to finish your food.

4th grade April 1964

“John and Thomas, put a lid on it. You have two minutes, two minutes, misters, to finish your food. Do you hear me?”

“Yes, sister.”

John, facing me across the table mouthed a silent, “You’re dead, stupid.”

I made a face back at him. I thought that the nun was behind me. I was wrong.

“Young man, did you make a face at me?

“No.”

“Do you think this is a joke?” 

Sr. Mercedes 
by Jan Chapman

“No, no, no, sister, I have allergies and sometimes I scratch the inside of my nose by moving my face around. This is good in case it itches when my hands aren’t free.”

Sister Adrienne let out a long exhale that caved her chest in.

“Well you both can sit there till the ice skating rink is done in Hell. There are poor children starving in China. You both dwell on that fact.”

John gave me a nasty look. I was convinced part of a nun’s final exam involved making the case to the Mother Superior that there was a connection between kids finishing what was left on their plates and fewer kids starving in the world. 

first campaign poster

John had put the egg in his pocket because he had no intention of eating it, and because our prison guard wouldn’t let him leave the basement cafeteria until his tray was cleared of all food.

Daydreaming about getting news that Mom was dead was my vengeance for her forcing me to eat this crummy school lunch. Mom had done the math after first grade. She was losing two hours of her day picking me up, taking me home and feeding me, then returning me to school. At the start of the second grade I was put in the school’s lunch program, or as the older kids called it the “Pain Meal Plan.” You could not bring your own lunch to school. The Parish was greedy for profit and knew that the only way to make money out of the school’s lunch program was to up its enrollment. They paid an old lady called “Ma” to cook for 150 kids. Her specialties: boiling green meat brown and adding spoiled vegetables into the soup.

While John settled his egg in his pants pocket, I rearranged the cold white beans on my plate for the sixth time. The smiley face was gone. The beans were now a crucifix. Sister Adrienne could take this a few ways. My hope was that she’d appreciate that I was thinking about our Lord. She went another way and identified my bean work as further proof of my defiance. She loved that word. 

happy faces for Father

“Thomas, your defiance will lead you to ruin. Not only will you not get out of here to play with the other kids, but if you don’t finish the beans and the half of a sandwich still on your plate, you will stay after school as well.”

Sister Adrienne’s foot kept time throughout her speech. Watching her shoe tap reminded me of a hoe down.

“Well swing your partner…” I pictured her in a straw hat, overalls, and checkered shirt with a red kerchief, telling us to dosi-doe…then I remembered the pickle I was in. I moaned, picturing the other fourth graders playing box ball in front of the school.  

Ryan Girls @ St. Stephen's

“Sister, I’m not feeling well. This is the best I can do.”

“Try harder,”

“I’m feeling weak.”

“Bite it. Chew it. You’ll get your strength back.”

“This is not meat.”

John whispered, “I am Spartacus.”

Watching John enjoy the nun’s and my back and forth, I was positive he couldn’t have been happier if he’d just won a million dollars. I pictured him sitting on a pile of money.

The sandwich, a plug of greenish-brown ham, was thick enough to sit in front of Snoopy’s doghouse as a doormat. It curled on the edges and was bookended by stale wheat bread and a globby spread of margarine. No mayo, no mustard, just margarine. It was sickening. I gave up salvaging any of the remaining lunchtime but I had no intention on staying after school. It was 70 degrees and sunny. The park was screaming for me to get over there as soon as I could.

St. Stephens, 1st grade, 1962

Back at the gulag, John actually liked white beans and thick chunks of ham. He made sure he showed me every half-chewed bite in his mouth. He’d drop his jaw all the way down like a ventriloquist’s dummy in a state of awe, leaving his hangar open and giving me a bird’s eye view. His eyes would stay on the nun and follow her around, and only when she was looking at him would his mouth close shut. After his final satisfying swallow, with an audible “aaahhh,” he was ready to make his break. He gave me a last smile and made a head motion towards his empty plate, wiggled his eyebrows and bid me farewell.

“See ’ya, numb nuts.”

John held his empty red tray up in presentation to the nun. I wanted to kick him in the ass. While the sister looked John over, I slipped a handful of white beans into my pocket and rushed back to my fork. I felt the cold beans gook up against my leg, but I’d deal with that later.

With John gone, it was only Sister Adrienne and me. She was ready to give me her full attention.

Looking at my plate, she said, “Well, you’ve made some progress.”

I smiled sensing something behind the stone eyes.

“Yes sister, I’ve done all I can.” I said with a pathetic smile trying to look like Dondi, the Italian orphan in the comic strip.

“Can I go now?”

A glint of kindness muscled its way round her iron mask.

“You can leave the rest of the beans but you have to finish the sandwich.”

Well, she might have well as told me, “You don’t have to jump off the building, but I’m still setting you on fire.”

I pushed the beans aside, mashing them for good luck, and centered the sandwich. I wanted to get a good look at it. I figured centering it in the middle of the plate might make it look smaller. No luck. Maybe if I imagined it was something else…I mean really, really, really imagined it was, say, a boiled hot dog, American cheese or liverwurst. Yes, liverwurst, that’s meat right? Then maybe I could eat it. But it was hopeless. The scary smell coming from in between the bread slices closed off any chance I was going to trick myself.

I stared down at the thing and tried to clear my mind. I was ready to wait till the Pope had a baby. I had my guns on. Sister Adrienne put on her holster. The streets had cleared and the bank and the barber pulled down their window shades. The clock in the steeple said twenty to one. The standoff began.

At one o’clock we’d be due on line in front of the school getting ready to return to the classrooms. I had twenty minutes before I went into the penalty situation – staying after school. There was no more conversation. We both took turns looking at each other, looking at the clock, looking at the sandwich, and looking at our feet. I kept thinking she wanted to pick her nose but wouldn’t do it in front of me. I guess that’s because my nose needed picking and I wasn’t going to do it in front of her either. Did you know that the second hand on a clock doesn’t just spin around without stopping? No, it stops each second then with little jerks does it again fifty nine more times each minute. I wondered if my turtles, Joe and Lenny, missed me when I was at school. Little nuggets like that kept me going until loud shoes smacking the wood floor interrupted my daydreaming. I looked up and saw Father Edward.

“Excuse me, Sister Adrienne, I thought lunch was over.”

“It should be.”

“Sister, I can come back a little later.”

“No Father Edward, please take care of your business.”

“No that’s okay, thank you.” The priest left.

Sister’s eyes followed the priest’s shadow long after he left the room. She liked the priest. Everyone in the school knew that. Father Edward had been a Marine chaplain and he still did his exercises. Sister got all jelly-legged when he was around. Playing Olive Oyl to Father Edward’s Popeye, I thought of balling the sandwich and putting it in my pocket. I decided against it. Sister Adrienne would probably pat me down on my way out. When she wasn’t looking, I tried sticking the sandwich inside my sock but the elastic band was too tight.

Then one word pulled the string attached to the light bulb in my brain, “Margarine.” There was enough of the stuff on the bread to stucco a wall. I slipped the two sandwich pieces apart and pressed the wet sides firmly to the bottom of the table. As Sister Adrienne turned back toward me, I chewed on the imaginary wad of pig in my mouth. I faked a swallow and got up to show the nun my tray, though it really wasn’t necessary at that point. And yes, she patted me down on my way out while looking around me to see if she missed something. As I left the lunchroom, her mumbling behind me sounded like an old car trying to turn over on a cold morning.

I headed straight for the boy’s room to dump the beans. They came out of my pocket in broken parts. I threw them into the toilet bowl on top of what remained of John’s flushed egg. I owed him one, and would plot my revenge later. My Timex watch said one minute past one. School lunch was killing me.

***

The Love Seat (A Ghost Story)

Thomas Pryor's Yorkville Stoops to Nuts
Next Friday, Nov 5 @ 7pm
Ryans Daughter
350 E. 85 St.
Neighborhood Storytelling & Song with special guests:
Jeff Rose, Joe Dettmore, Fred Caruso, Eric Vetter & Courtney Hills

Admission: $10

My ghost story published in Mr. Beller's Neighborhood.

As a boy in the early 1960s, I’d go up my grandparents’ second floor apartment on York Avenue several times a week. Their hallway was lit by one low watt exposed bulb. The dark hall frightened me. Sometimes my fear was compounded when I’d hear fuzzy radio sounds coming from the usually locked basement. I assumed it was a foreign station, maybe German based on the marching music, waltzes and the announcer’s accent. I told my grandmother.

“You’re hearing things,” she said
“What’s down the basement? I asked.
“Nothing and it’s none of your business!”

I chose to believe her because I had no courage or interest in going down to the cellar to investigate. I began taking the single flight of stairs in four long jumps to get into the apartment as fast as I could. I never looked back.



Over the years, the radio echoes from the cellar were there on and off. In 1964, Pop Rode, the man I knew as my grandfather died (Pop was my grandmother’s second husband), and I began to stay over my grandmother’s on the weekend. The noisy avenue was right outside our front window. I’m a light sleeper. Awake, over my head I began to notice pacing in the apartment above. My ears perked up like Nipper the RCA dog. Dread sharpens my hearing. Through the airshaft next to my bed, I heard a man talking to himself. Based on my movie knowledge he sounded German. He spoke rapidly with quick pauses as if he was reading a list of pressing things to do. I didn’t move a muscle. The old lady above us spoke in a whisper, lived alone, and walked with a cane. It was a waste of time to check in with my no-nonsense grandmother.

“You’re hearing things.” She’d say. Eventually I’d fall back to sleep or it’d get light outside and chase my terror away.

In 1977, my parents bought a house after a lifetime of apartment living and had extra space to place new things. The day they moved in, I noticed Dad carrying a wide chair.

“Dad, what’s that?”
“It’s a love seat.”
“Where did you get it?”
“From your grandmother.”
“I’ve never seen it.”
“It was stored in her cellar.”
“Huh?”
“It belonged to someone else who never retrieved it.”

Dad told me a story. When his father contracted late stage tuberculosis in the mid 1930s, Mr. Volk, the German man upstairs cared for Dad’s family, bringing them food and fetching a doctor when one of them was sick. After my Dad’s father died in February 1941, Mr. Volk gave my grandmother a couple of dollars anytime she was short. As a thankful gesture, my grandmother invited Mr. Volk in for coffee at the kitchen table. While Dad spoke, I pictured this with ease because I saw my grandmother do the same thing hundreds of times in my lifetime. She was strict but kind.

Mid 1942, Mr. Volk knocked on my grandmother’s door. With his hat clutched in his hands, he greeted her urgently, “Mrs. Pryor, how are you? You work hard. I have something to ask, it is difficult. You know I’ve been good to your family. When you’re husband was ill and after he passed. I care for you and your sons like they’re my own. Immigration came yesterday and said I’m being deported in two weeks. There are problems with my papers. I have one chance to stay; I must be married and do it quickly. I ask you because I trust you to trust me that this is purely so I can stay. I’m desperate!”

My grandmother paused, took a deep breath and politely turned Mr. Volk down. He didn’t grow angry; he thanked my grandmother for her kindnesses and asked her a favor.

“Would you take care of my love seat until I return after the war? It belonged to my parents.”

She agreed to care for it and felt obligated to store it safely until Mr. Volk’s return. The love seat sat in the cellar of 1582 York Avenue from 1942 until 1977. It’s in my living room today. I hear no voices. Mr. Volk is at peace.

First Of May & Holy Communion 1962

Carl Schurz 1962 @Otto Nelson

Tomorrow, the First of May reminds me of my 1962 First Holy Communion suit. When you’re a seven year old pig-boy, Mom rarely gets an opportunity to dress you up and keep you dressed up in one piece. (At least through noon)

When Mom bought my blue outfit I didn’t know I’d have to wear it three horrifying times.

Besides the communion event, we wore our monkey suits for the Crowning of the May Queen in St. Stephen of Hungary’s Grotto on the side of the church. 

don't mess with them

Since the second grade class all had new suits and pretty white dresses, the nuns drafted us into the school-wide ceremonial crowning of the Statue of Mary. Some girl was made crowner and every one else in the class were her drones. Most of the Moms showed up for this non-prime time event simply because they couldn’t believe they got their kid to dress up again. 

Ryan girls 1964

My third appearance in the suit nearly killed me.

For an unexplainable reason, the nuns at St. Stephen’s school and certain mothers were compelled to put on a talent show every year, despite the fact there was no talent in the student body If you discount the Rheinwald Brothers' dueling accordions. They were good. 

talent show 1965

The show's producer, Mrs. Otis, took advantage of our recent Sunday's best purchase and forced the boys and girls to dance a Viennese waltz in our blue suits and white communion dresses. You got to be kidding. She insisted the boys wear white gloves. Make me vomit! 

Confirmation 1963 three of us happy with Dad

I begged Mom to stay home. I faked sick the day of the show triggering a swift kick in the ass on my way out the door.

Rory communion 1964 w/Mearns girls

 

Rory in talent show 1965

There Will Be Blood

Mr. Beller's Neighborhood published my bloody Yorkville story. Thank you, Mr. Beller's! 

At 16, my dream job was working behind the deli counter at Daitch Shopwell. As a stock boy this would be a coup. Watching Milton or Marty cut thin slices of rare roast beef and Jarlsberg Swiss, I cried with pain. Pain that some son of a bitch was going to eat that tasty mound of meat and cheese and it wouldn’t be me. One Saturday in 1970, Milton got sick and Marty asked if I wanted to help him out for the ladies afternoon cold cut rush?
“Huh?”

Did I want to see Emma Peel nude?
Did I want Ranger tickets on the glass?
Stupid questions, of course I wanted to be in the deli. And there I was, helping Marty make orders and sneaking bits of delicious cold cuts left and right into my mouth. I gained five pounds that day.

The following month, Milton was scheduled to be off for two Saturdays in a row, and Marty talked Harry Cohen, #16 store manager, into letting me cover. “Harry, you’ll save money using the kid!” Harry looked like Mr. Dithers from the Blondie comic strip. He pulled his starched collar, wiggled his neck with the huge hairy mole and said, “OK.”



I brought my LaSalle Academy schoolbag in. 

It was well used and had holes in its four corners from me throwing it around the subway platform while waiting for the #6 local at Bleecker Street. I needed the bag. I had no control this close to the goods. I talked Marty into letting me cover up the salads so he could leave early. This left me alone with the roast beef and Jarlsburg. I finely cut 3/4 of a pound each on the slicer, wrapped them like a spastic, and shoved the wax paper lumps into my bag. Making sure Pete the Assistant Manager saw how good a job I did cleaning the sawdust off the deli floor, I gathered my bag and said good night to all and went around the registers towards the exit. Two steps from the automatic door, I heard, “Pryor!” I turned towards the voice. The Assistant Manager was looking down. I followed his eyes and saw a long trail of blood leading from Pete’s feet to my LaSalle bag.

“Drip, drip, drip,”
I listened to the faint sound of my thieving deli days being cut off.

Talking Scales!

"Please! Step on the scale!" said a firm voice.
I waited a second; listening closely, making sure my grandmother sounded busy three rooms away. When I heard the sink running, I stepped onto the scale.

"Your weight is 178 pounds. Have a nice day. Goodbye!"

"1985... I'm a fat bastard." I mumbled.

Laughing started in the kitchen at the other end of the railroad apartment on York Avenue. My grandmother with the hearing ability of a nocturnal animal was clearing her lungs and stomach, big ol' belly laughs starting way down. I wanted to kill her, and kick my cousin, Kathy, in the ass for buying her the talking scale with Don Pardo's voice.

I loved Nanny Cuckoo dearly but she wanted me fat. She wanted everyone fat. She loved food and loved eating with people, so she filled her fridge to the point it was dark in there because the low watt light bulb was shaded by a colossal head of iceberg lettuce sitting on two large tubs of Cool Whip. The Cool Whip to go on top of the Turf Cheese Cake that she bought in the bakery right next to our house. Italian Village pizza place on First Avenue considered her family and the Parkers’ bought their first car on the profits they made off Nan's cold cut orders at their grocery store.

She never bought a quarter pound of nothing. Half pound was a snack. Three quarters of a pound was getting into sandwich country. I was a cold cut junkie.

The bond with my friends was strengthened by the load of cold cuts, Jewish rye and condiments in my Nan's fridge. Artie Peters met me on Saturday afternoons on lunch break from my delivery job at Corner Pharmacy on 79th & York. We'd go straight to Parkers, buy a pound of Swiss cheese and a loaf of rye on Nan's credit in the marble book, go up the apartment and make six grilled cheeses, two each ~ Nan included. We made dark chiaroscuro swirls on Nan's white tin ceiling with the plume of smoke coming from the butter soaked black frying pan with the foot high flame under it.

Buddy McMahon and I, had a kind of exchange student relationship with his mom and my grandmother. I'd sometimes hang out with his Mom and shoot the shit while she loaded me up with 4 C Ice Tea. Buddy would drop by my grandmother's when I wasn't there for a quick sandwich and glass of milk and catch up on the local gossip and politics.

About a month after Nan got the scale, Buddy dropped up the apartment - for a change - while I was there. "Hey, Buddy, try out the new scale," Nan said.

Obediently, Buddy stepped on the scale clueless, and Nan looked like she just ate a canary.

"Your weight is 180 pounds. Have a nice day! Goodbye!"

Buddy startled, frowned and rubbed his belly. I was pleased, and Nan grinned.


Tommy Buddy 1985


Artie Tommy 1969

Keeping The Lantern Lit

 Yorkville 1966 & Yorkville 2021 (s/w cor. York Ave. & 85th St.) the front of Loftus Tavern and the second photo is Bailey's Corner today on the same corner. Bailey's is a tavern that welcomes strangers & friends warmly. As did Jack Loftus in my youth. Jack would be proud of Shawn the owner. He's a good egg. Bailey's is a must stop if you are passing through Yorkville or looking for a glimpse into a part of the old New York neighborhood.

Here's my story that features this classic Yorkville tavern.

"Get A Mouser!"

Anne Pryor 1942

Sleeping in the front room of my Italian grandmother's apartment I dreamt Ann-Margret was in a blue bikini doing a shimmy dance humming, “Tommy, Oh, Tommy.”


The vision dissolved when I felt the vacuum cleaner suck my toe in. Above the roar of the machine, my grandmother’s voice. “Get up!”
She did not like you sleeping when she was awake.



1582 York Avenue 1940



Uncle Tom home from Europe 1945

It was 1972, mid-summer. I looked at the clock on the nightstand.
“It’s 8:15!”
“Get up!”
“Why?”
“There’s a mouse running around in the kitchen.”
I don’t believe I heard the end of that sentence while I was still in bed. I jumped up, grabbed my eyeglasses, a pair of dungaree shorts, and my sneakers and ran out the front door. From the top of the staircase, Nan yelled down to me at the bottom where I was tying my sneakers in the low light of the hall.



Hunter I.D. 1972

“Don’t come back without a mouser!”
“Huh?”
“A cat, a cat, bring back a cat.”


It was hot that Saturday and the streets of Yorkville were empty. "Where was I going to find a cat" I thought about walking up to the ASPCA on 92nd Street but I wanted a friend to go with me. The only place where there might be someone else up this early was Esquire Deli on 84th Street & York. Their sodas were ice-cold and Augie, the owner, made terrific hero sandwiches that my friends craved all the time. Including for breakfast.
I ran into the store through their open door -- the AC was broken -- and saw Eddie Hauser talking to Augie’s brother, Joey. Augie was at the slicing machine, making breakfast for Eddie.
I ran into the store through their open door -- the AC was broken. I saw Eddie Hauser talking to Augie’s brother, Joey. Augie was at the slicing machine, making breakfast for big Eddie.




Tom Mac, Esquire, 1970



Side note: If you asked Eddie for a sip of his soda, he'd put the bottle up his arm pit, give it a couple of deep spins, pull it out, and offer you a sip.

“Hey, guys!”
I got back three “Yo’s!”
I went straight to the soda fridge and pulled out a Mission Cream. Walking back to the fellows, I asked, “I need a cat. Anyone want to walk with me to the ASPCA?”
Augie said, “Yeah, I’ll go. But first go get some ice cream.”
“I don’t want ice cream.”
“Pick something out.”
I’m thinking Augie lost his mind from the heat, but, I went over to the ice cream case and found the glass top half way open. Looking in, I saw a cardboard box with five snow-white kittens.
“I don’t believe it!”
The three of them laughed their asses off. Eddie said, “Take one, take two!”
I never had a cat; this was scary business. One had a pink nose. I grabbed it. The kitten fit in the palm of my hand.
“Thanks!” I said, and ran back to Nan’s.“Jeez, that was quick.” It was hard to impress Nan with anything but this nearly did. The whole thing took 20 minutes.


Stymie & Sparky Lyle




Murray Parker



Nan was humming to herself as she stroked the ball of fur in her lap.
“Let’s call her Stymie,” I said. I loved Stymie from the Little Rascals TV show.
“OK, but he’s a she,” Nan said after a quick investigation under the hood.
The contented expression on Nan’s face gave me hope I might have a rare window inside the Honorable Anne Pryor Rode's head.
“Nan, when was the first time you fell in love?”
With no hesitation, she said, “Your grandfather, Tom.”
“Tell me.”
Nan walked across the linoleum floor to turn on the fan. She came back to the kitchen table, placed the tiny kitten on her lap and started the story. As always, her streetwise accent echoed Yorkville's history.

Aunt Mary & Nan 1945

Aunt Mary 1582 York 1978

Stymie & Sparky Lyle

Timeless Carl Schurz Park

Over the weekend, took photos at the Asphalt Plant, down Carl Schurz Park and a few on 84th Street. Here they are at this link.

If you like my work check out my memoir, "I Hate the Dallas Cowboys - tales of a scrappy New York boyhood." Available at Logos Book Store or online at Amazon or Barnes and Noble.

The book has 133 Amazon five star reviews out of 133 total reviews posted. We're pitching a perfect game. My old world echoes TV's "The Wonder Years" ~ just add taverns, subways and Checker cabs. You can also purchase my photography portfolio, "River to River - New York Scenes From a Bicycle" on Amazon.