Life on Myrtle (Click most images for larger versions.)
The three of us moved to Brooklyn!
I'm not sure whether it was after the marriage or before that Ike, Mother and I moved into what is called a railroad flat. I've found no record of the marriage, but there are some slight indications that the marriage had to wait until Mother's divorce was final. Yet, I seem to remember the five and dime episode as happening while we were living with Ike, while Father was there to sign the papers...I'm pretty sure.
Anyway, a railroad flat is an apartment whose rooms connect in succession, front to back, like the cars of a train—you have to walk through one room to get to the next. The flat was on Myrtle Avenue, a famous street with cobble stones, trolley cars, and elevated trains. The hustle and bustle of the Brooklyn Navy Yard took place a block or two behind us, but across the street in front of us, much to my delight, was a park with swings and slides and rings, all on a generous expanse of grass. [click image for larger version]
It was Fort Greene Park, the oldest park in Brooklyn and the nation's first urbanized public park, and I played there for hours and hours and hours, especially on the rings. I learned to love the rings—Mother had a heck of a time getting me home for meals. I grew to treasure the movement and the exhilaration as I swung high off the ground from ring to ring. Plus, there was also a sense of accomplishment as I improved. Blisters were a drawback, but they eventually turned into calluses, although they continually flaked. Mother would get so upset when I picked at them or nibbled on them, pulling off the dead skin.
Nonetheless, the rings were my first scintillating passion. When we love something that much, however, we also flirt with great disappointment and heartache—yin and yang.
And, as it turned out, a yearly organized event took place in the park, a city-sponsored competition and neighborhood get-together. One event in particular caught my interest: the "Best Ringer" contest. That was for me! My practice increased dramatically in preparation for my victory—no one my age could keep up with me. Everyone knew I would win.
As it turned out, the man in charge was also aware of my prowess, and it proved disastrous, at least that's how it felt back then. Now whether he was only handicapping the event or being prejudiced by not wanting a girl to win, I'll never know. But, for many, many years I felt he made me lose. He did that by holding me back until the very end. By then the rings were wet and slick with sweat from all who went before me. I couldn't get firm grips, which slowed me down. Well, the organizer's "ploy" worked: I came in second.
It wasn't fair. I was the best. I should have won. I held back tears until I got home, and then the waterworks came. The disappointment lasted forever, as did my sense of injustice. It was my first taste of indignation, and the pain seemed unendurable.
(I think those first lessons we learn as children cut more deeply due to the newness of the emotion and the lack of competition for attention from other upsets. As life goes on, the repetition and proliferation of bitter events does not necessarily dull the pain, it makes it more familiar and less singular, therefore, less acute. Of course, there were other years and other competitions, when I won, but for some reason that first plate of bitterness lingers more than the victories. Fortunately, my life on Myrtle held more than lingering disappointment.)
A large part of the reason we moved to Myrtle Avenue was so Ike could walk to work. His job was on Atlantic Avenue, where the train tracks ran through town. He worked for that era's Pony Express: the American Railway Express Agency, which became the Railway Express Agency (REA) in 1929. The job was only six blocks from our new apartment, and he would walk through the park to get there. I remember a sense of relief when he left the apartment—lunch pail in hand—to go under the El then cut through the park to Atlantic—he retired from REA after many faithful years of service.
Ike wasn't a complete ogre. After we settled on Myrtle, he began taking us to the Olympic Theater, at the corner of Myrtle and Fulton St., every Friday night for movies and live vaudeville—my love for the movies took root there. On Saturdays, I would pray that he was in a good mood, so he would give me a dime for the matinee. When he did, I would sit in delight, watching silent movies as an organist played accompaniment. Tom Mix was my favorite. I also liked William S. Hart and Charlie Chaplin among others, but the afternoon would not be complete without a cliffhanger, like "The Perils of Pauline." I would get so flustered when the serial ended leaving her in such grave danger, but to not see it at all was infinitely worse. Those Saturday afternoons at home, when Ike wouldn't give me the dime, were unendurable.
It's possible that all the angst and elation surrounding my first film going experiences helped to create my attachment to the cinema. It's difficult to describe how upset I can get now as my fading hearing makes understanding movies more and more difficult.
The other nice thing Ike did from time to time, when the summer heat and humidity grew unbearable, was to take us via the El down to Coney Island, one of the first amusement parks in the U.S. It's a section of shoreline on the southern end of Brooklyn next to Brighton Beach—my love for the sea took root there. It's also where I consumed my first hot dog, although we didn't call them that back then. When they first came out, there at Coney Island, people began calling them Coney Islands, or Coneys for short. It was just a frankfurter on a bun, and I don't know when they started calling them hot dogs; but I wonder if they would taste as good today as I thought they did then?
On hot weekends, people swarmed over the Coney Island beach like ants. The sand was wall-to-wall with blankets and bodies, umbrellas and beach chairs, baskets and bassinets, and nary a discouraging word. It seems to me people were more gregarious at the beach in those days. We left prejudice and bigotry behind; everyone getting along despite the crowded conditions, or because of them. It might be a small girl's distorted view, but I don't remember bad blood or harsh words. We were all so happy to be at the beach, beating the heat, that we put everything else on hold. [click image for larger version]
Another memory I have of Coney Island—a picture in the Christian Science Monitor reminded me—is the life ropes. Many lines were gone by the time we went there, but the poles still stood in the sand, and some wire lines still swung between them, ragged ropes hanging down. They went far out into the waves, and the people would cling to the ropes as they went out in the surf. You have to realize that the vast majority of New Yorkers couldn't swim in those days, and there were no lifeguards. So, we clung to the ropes. It added to our sense of excitement.
Of course, when we got back home from our trip to the Atlantic, it was nearly as hot and uncomfortable as when we left, but at least we had missed the heat of the day. Those hot nights, we sat out on the stoop with the rest of the neighbors. Our stoop, however, was only a short flight of small steps, but it was always cooler out there than in the apartment. Usually, Mother would go inside first to start supper, while Ike chatted with other men and I played with other children. Then, when dinner was ready, Mother would call out the window to "Come and get it!" [click image for larger version]
To reach our apartment, we entered through a vestibule at the top of the wide steps: two successive doors with a space in-between to keep out the winter cold. Since there was no electricity in the building, nor skylight, the stairwell was dark and scary with only one sputtering gas jet on each landing. When I was alone, I dreaded the two terrorizing flights up to our floor. So, I ran up as fast as I could, knowing that "something" was after me.
Before I go on, I should mention the smelly toilet on each floor between the apartments. Two apartments shared one toilet, which separated the apartments in the rear, as the stairwell did the front. So, not only was it dim and frightening, the stairwell also stank. I tried to spend as little time in it as possible, especially when the ice was delivered—the iceman cometh!
Ice came in large 25 lbs. blocks on a horse-drawn delivery wagon. They had to be carried up the flights of stairs to our apartment and placed in the special drawer in our ice box—we had a pan underneath to catch the melt, which had to be emptied every day or it would overflow; Mother hated that. The heavy blocks were borne on the shoulder of The Iceman.
In my eyes, he was a huge man in dark clothes with a thick leather pad over his shoulders against the wet and cold of the ice, plus a leather cap for the same reason. Depending on whether he was going up or down, he either had a block of ice on his shoulder or huge ice tongs dangling from one hand. It didn't make any difference, he scared the bejeezus out of me either way.
As he came up the dark staircase, the block of ice on his shoulder made him grotesque. Without the block, the large tongs poised to strike from his meaty hand were even more threatening. Of course, I have no way of knowing now who was scared more by our encounters: I or the poor man faced with a small, crazed, whirling dervish whizzing by in the dim light, and possibly screaming—why did he always appear when I stopped expecting him?
Even if I didn't meet the iceman, between my fear of the stairwell and my exertion, I was about to burst when I reached the safety of our apartment, slamming the door shut behind me. Then, I always enjoyed a wave of relief: safe again!
"By all the saints, child, what's got into you?" Mother might ask, shaking her head in befuddlement.
"Nothing."
I was a firm believer in that annoying child's response. Besides, I didn't know how to explain myself to her. To me, she was a "flat" woman: someone with little or no imagination nor wonder. Maybe her life did that to her; maybe she was born that way. I don't know, but how could she fathom the electrifying thoughts that danced through my brain? Whereas she was dull and uninquisitive, I was quick-witted and insatiably curious. (Today, I feel a debt of gratitude to my parents for creating me this way. How boring, not to want to learn.)
At any rate, I always entered our Myrtle Avenue apartment by way of the kitchen door. There was another door along the hall toward the front that opened into the living room, but it was for guests on "formal" occasions, not little girls trying to escape the boogyman.
In the center of the kitchen was an old square table and cheap chairs where Mother would sit, when she had the chance, and put her feet up as if taking off the weight of the world. I can still hear her groans and sighs.
(Mine are very similar nowadays. But, I use a remote control to bring up the leg support on my lounge chair, as well as another remote to turn on my gas log, along with another remote for the TV, and yet another for my WebTV on which I write e-mail—the wonders I've witnessed during my life! Yet, I'm sure Mother enjoyed her comforts as much as I enjoy mine, wonders or not.)
When it was cold, Mother could also enjoy the heat from our black, coal stove, which sat against one wall of the kitchen. It was the only source of heat in the entire apartment, and I was glad my bedroom was close to the kitchen in the wintertime. On the other hand, I hated it in the summertime.
Opposite the stove was a cold water sink and two tubs for washing clothes. I also vaguely remember a primitive gas burner of some kind that Mother used for heating the wash water. The only illumination came from a dim, hissing gas lamp that hung over the table, and during the day, from a pair of small windows on the rear wall. The windows looked out over the building's backyard and a cobblestone stable—horse manure and hay odors permeated our summer air, until automobiles replaced the horses. Then oil and gasoline vapors would drift in.
All totaled, the apartment had five rooms. The living room was in front, Mother and Ike's bedroom next, then Buster's bedroom (when he returned from Termonfeckin), then mine, and of course, the kitchen in the rear. Both the living room and the kitchen were wider than the three bedrooms, due to the short landing that ran between the two doors I mentioned; it was as if a bite were taken out of that section of the apartment. Only the kitchen and living room had windows, but the elevated railway, or El, ran both night and day right outside the living room windows. That's why it didn't bother me too much that the living room was off limits, although with time I grew accustomed to the El's thundering rhythms. Conversation, especially in the living room, would stop, nonetheless, as it stormed by; brief "hiccups" that became perfectly normal. (It is amazing what we can become "used" to.)
What bothered me the most about that apartment, besides the stairwell, was the lack of privacy. Anyone could walk through my room at any time, and usually did! I'm not sure why it was such a concern to me, unless I aimed it at Ike. But for whatever reason, I didn't like people traipsing through my domain. What child does?
Another thing bothered me about life on Myrtle: too much walking. Despite the El and the trolley being right outside our door, we walked everywhere. Back then it drove me crazy, but now that I think of it, maybe Mother was being frugal because she was saving money for Buster's ticket home. I don't know, but I remember wondering why we never rode the nearby modes of transportation, especially as we walked a mile both ways to Reeve's grocery store just because the butter was better.
Reeve's sold their fresh butter in big tubs. The clerk would scoop out a piece and weigh it, then add smaller chunks until it was exactly a pound. The A&P was only a block from home and I'm sure they had lots of dairy products, too, but if we needed butter, we walked to Reeve's. The walk seemed even longer, because I preferred the A&P; they had the items I liked.
I can still taste their rich mocha cake, which I adored, and their scrumptious pies! Regardless, Mother never hesitated to walk out of her way for what she wanted, deal or no deal; and it didn't always make sense. Here, we'd walk a mile for better butter, but then we'd also walk block after long, long block to the day old bread and cake factory, because their loaves of bread were only five cents, despite not tasting nearly as good as the A&P or even Reeve's. It was all very frustrating to a little girl, but those trips didn't scare me. That took the dark, grisly alley off Myrtle Avenue.
That's where we went to buy chickens. It was horrible. The chickens were alive when we arrived; cages full of clucking fowl. Mother would size them up, then pick the one she wanted. That's the time I dreaded, for the blood smeared salesman would reach in and grab the unsuspecting bird, summarily chop off its head, dunk the still squirming body in boiling hot water, pluck it, cut it open, gut it, clean it, and wrap it up. The soft package was still warm when the butcher handed it to me as Mother paid. I quickly stuffed it into another bag, if one were available, so I wouldn't have to carry it. It's no wonder that I frequently had nightmares about the chickens and the alley where they were slaughtered.
As I got older, Ike and Mother expected me to make the trips by myself. Heaven was going to Lovejoy's to buy penny candy—such a large amount of candy for a penny. Hell was walking alone for all those blocks and blocks, just to save Mother a penny or a nickel. You haven't lived until you've walked ten blocks in a New York winter to save two cents on a loaf of bread. (Today's youth really does have it easier.) The worst trips were to the horrid alley by myself. But, unless I wanted to feel Ike's razor strop across my behind, I went. Of course, I went angrily, but I had to find other outlets for my anger.
For instance, there was the time Mother went to the store to buy large bags of plums for a plum and fig jam. I was to help prepare the fruit for the jam, but when she returned, Mother couldn't find me. Angrily searching, she finally caught me up on the roof chucking rocks at people down in the street, venting my anger. Well, I remember having a sore ear from her pulling it all the way back to the apartment, where I had to pit every last plum. I didn't dare eat one, because I feared she would tell Ike. He was hard and mean, and wouldn't hesitate to hit me. I think he enjoyed punishing me.
Now, when I think about it, I carried a vague burden during childhood, a doubt about my parents' desires of me. Then, I wasn't able to put it into words, but now I think I'd ask them: "What do you want from me who has nothing?"
Mother told me, in later years, that she wasn't that fond of Ike, either, but agreed to the proposal for Buster's sake. Yet, she said in time she grew to feel what she thought was love for Ike, despite his abuse.
I know he often struck her just as he struck me, but she said that stopped as time passed, especially after the birth of Ike's own son, Harry, but that comes later.
I think those rocks that I threw were really aimed at Ike.
I was too young to understand that we were his scapegoats; that instead of throwing rocks at people in the street, he beat Mother and me. I, for one, quickly became an expert at reading his body language, looking for clues as to his mood. I would observe him closely when he came home from work and, if the clues were there, I'd make myself scarce. The safest thing to do was get out of the house: run an errand or visit the library. When I couldn't do that, I made myself useful by doing any chore—Ike was loath to stop anyone at work.
When I was unfortunate enough to raise Ike's ire, he might demand that I do his bidding, then punish me for not doing it right, whatever it was. For that reason, he demanded things of me that I wasn't really capable of doing. Like the time he made me fetch his straight razor from the bathroom, although he knew I couldn't reach the medicine cabinet where it was stored—you didn't question Ike: his word was law. In my panicky attempts to reach the cabinet, I stood on the side of the bath tub. After reaching the razor, however, I slipped and fell, receiving a deep, serious cut across the back of my hand and a large bump on my head.
Mother came running when I started screaming, but Ike didn't budge. Mother took me to the doctor: Ike stayed home, indifferent to my plight. Poor Mother. Imagine how she must have felt carrying a bleeding, howling child in her arms, hurrying down the busy street. I don't know how far she had to carry me, but I still carry the scar on the back of my hand, a memento of my step-father's cruelty. Yet, despite it all, I had to learn to call him Dad with a capital D. It was more a nickname than anything else; something for me to call him besides Ike. All the same, I tried to give "Dad" a wide berth.
During that time on Myrtle, and in keeping with the yin and yang of my life, I also learned some welcomed lessons in human kindness from a wonderful Jewish woman who lived in the apartment next door. Her name was Mrs. Singer, a widow, and her apartment was the cleanest and neatest in the building. The brass and metal shined, her floors were spotless, and lavender aromas filled her rooms. That is, whenever she wasn't cooking.
Mrs. Singer was very kind to us, giving us food and her discarded clothing. Her holiday pastries not only introduced me to Jewish food, but also to variety in cooking—Mother's meals were unimaginative and boring. Mrs. Singer's greatest gift to me, however, was succor.
She had two daughters who worked, which meant she was alone during the day. So it was that one hot day, while Mother and I were visiting her, Mrs. Singer admitted that she could hear the fighting. She knew Ike was hitting us and wanted to help. She was very compassionate, offering her apartment as a refuge whenever Ike became abusive. She even threatened to call the authorities the next time it happened. I can't remember Mother's reaction, but I'm sure it mortified her, and that she downplayed the incidents. As for me, I was grateful and moved. It made me realize that what was happening wasn't normal, and that someone cared.
Mrs. Singer taught me that, plus the value of kindness and charity. She also offered a contradictory example to the anti-Semitism I heard at home and on the streets. Not only did she broaden my tastes in cuisine, she also helped me learn tolerance of other races and religions. Her concern gave me hope, and lightened the darkness that was growing in my life. I don't remember chucking rocks at anyone after that day, but I remember spending more time at Mrs. Singer's.
Saturday nights on Myrtle Avenue were bath nights, everyone using the same tub of water, oldest first, meaning Ike. Since it was a cold water flat, Mother had to heat the bath water, then pour it in the tub
—I can remember the large copper cauldron of water constantly steaming on the stove. If the weather were cold, she added pitchers of hot water, but I still remember goose bumps. Normally, the water was very gray and tepid by the time I got in. I don't remember how I felt about that, but I was young and didn't know any better, so I doubt whether I gave it a second thought. Used water or no, I didn't like taking baths, and I'm sure that it wasn't one of Mother's favorite chores, either. It was an arduous, time-consuming production for her, and that must be why we bathed only once a week.
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Mother washed my hair after my bath, then tied it with white strips of cotton (rag curlers) to give it curls for church the next day. Then I would put on the clean underwear she laid out for the week. At the time, it was all normal. Only by comparison with today's instant hot water, showers, deodorants, endless changes of clothes, and societal compunctions to smell good and stay clean does it seem odd...well, to some of us.
Speaking of clothes; it seems as though laundry days were Saturday, too, but I think I'm wrong. It was probably Sunday so that our dirty church clothes could go in the wash for the next week. Whatever day it was, I had to help. Mother would use those large tubs, again heating her hot water first.
There was a corrugated-tin washboard for scrubbing out spots. Then I would help carry the rinsed clothes to the roof, where we hung them on the lines. I can still recall the waving rows of wash festooning the roofs of the apartment buildings on wash day. When the clothes dried, we gathered them, carried them back downstairs, and Mother would use two heavy irons to press them. There were two so that—not being electric in those days—one could heat on the stove while she worked with the other.
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That's why they say a mother's work is never done. Every day was a long, weary string of chores. There were times, especially in Summer, when I'd find her bent over the ironing board, pushing down hard to press out wrinkles as the stove baked the room, the heat stifling, her face flushed. I can picture her there drenched with sweat, her hair frizzed and sticking to her forehead, cheeks crimson, a look of pain creasing her features. It wasn't until years later, however, that I came to understand and appreciate the sacrifices she made for us. At the time, her labors also seemed normal—it's what mother's did. But, that didn't make it any less of a travail for her.
Thinking about what she went through for us (and remembering how she made it clear that she didn't like working for Enrico Caruso), I wonder whether she liked her life at home any better? I truly believe she was little more than a servant for Ike. He never lifted a finger around the house, unless wrapped with the others in a fist. He wouldn't even get up and crank his own record player.
We had no phone or electricity on Myrtle, but one day Ike came home with his first mechanical Victrola gramophone. It was so amazing to hear music come out of that big tin horn, despite Ike's boring, even maddening selection of records.
I would crank the handle as Ike sat, eyes closed, pipe reeking, listening to his Irish and Scottish folk songs, or his beloved marching and military music. None of it did anything for me, so after the novelty wore off, cranking the Victrola became just another chore. Easier than most, but still something I had to do.
Ike's records were the only music I knew, until much later when I heard my first live performance of a classical work. I was smitten, totally enraptured, and from then on the Victrola made covert forays into highbrowism, but more on that later. First, the Victrola got electrified!
The year they wired our building for electricity was a watershed, a very major event. Ike celebrated it by purchasing his first electrical phonograph. It was like magic. He'd move a lever, set the needle, and...Voila!...the record would play itself, the tempo even, the music unwavering, no longer lagging when cranking was needed. I was off the hook! Or crank, as the case may be.
Electricity! We take it for granted today, plus all the miracles it performs, but when it came indoors that year, a turning point in our civilization seemed to take place. I didn't understand it. What wizardry was at work? Anxious to know whether the new lights would come on every time, I would turn the wall switch round and round, until Mother told me to stop. Those first fixtures were dim by today's standards, yet far brighter than the murky gas lamps they replaced, plus safer, or so they said. Whether they were or not, we all felt as if our new electric bulbs were lighting our way into the future; and it's safe to say they did.
It was also on Myrtle, and before I began school, that I discovered I could understand writing. No one taught me. No one told me how it worked. One day I just realized that I could understand simple printed words, and another new world opened for me.
There was a public library two blocks from our apartment, so I joined its young readers club and began consuming fairy tales: I couldn't devour enough. "Surely," I thought, "I would never want to read anything else!" Fortunately, with time I did, but I loved that library and its books. I luxuriated in its quiet spaces, dipping again and again into its endless delights.
I still carry many images from my days there, but the most vivid by far was etched in my mind's eye on one of my many trips home from that wonderful sanctuary.
I was walking home in the dark, hugging books, holding them tight to my chest for warmth—the library closed at 6 p.m. and I always stayed until shooed out. I don't remember the year, but it was November and very cold.
The sea air was salty in my nostrils as my breath turned to vapor, leaving a dampness on my upper lip. Horns in the Navy Yard were moaning as a thick fog rolled up the street "...on little cats feet." And as I walked, I passed through luminous cones of light created in the mist under the comparative brightness of the gas lamps. The brightness of the lamps was like halos on the heads of angels who hung there below each light, wearing ethereal robes of luminescent mist.
A mystical scene for an impressionable youth. No wonder it stayed with me.