Mama always liked to dress me up in ridiculous outfits. The kind that no self respecting street urchin on East 91st in the Yorkville section of Mahattan would be caught dead in. Like the suit that looked like it was made of aluminum foil. She had seen something like it in a magazine and promptly went out and found some of the offensive fabric. She had stayed up late into the night sewing. When it was done you could tell she was very proud of her work, stroking it lovingly while it was on a hanger. I was appalled, she had to threaten me with bodily harm because I balked at wearing it. After all what would my friends say? My God, this was James Cagney's old neighborhood; could you see him wearing a get up like this? All I wanted was to be one of the neighborhood gang. I wanted to wear Keds high top sneakers and blue jeans and a T-shirt. I wanted to blend in. It was bad enough that I looked like a visitor from Spanish Harlem in a sea of blonde and red-haired freckled Celtic children. How was I going to be one of the boys, someone that you couldn't mess with or take for granted? The only time anyone wore a suit in our neck of the woods was on their confirmation day. I wasn't sure what took place exactly, not being Catholic, but I knew that no one could make fun of you for wearing a suit on that particular day. As I pictured myself walking in tow down the street wearing my aluminum suit, all those beady little eyes upon me, ready to pounce, I imagined telling everyone it was my confirmation day. As good an alibi as any. I schemed of ways to destroy the aluminum suit, maybe I could catch the fabric on a nail and rip it to shreds or maybe I could spill my mother's lentil soup on it and kill two birds with one stone. Alas, my courage failed me. I was a defeated man, the victim of two different worlds that would both hold me hostage in their own inimitable ways.
No matter how hard I tried, and I tried mightily to be a good little American, my Greek immigrant parents would often make the wrong fashion choices for me. Like making me wear shorts. That was OK if you lived in Greece but not if you lived on East 91st Street where shorts were considered less than manly. It was hard enough to survive in the street urchin society that we spent so much of our free time in, identifying yourself as different made you a target. Back then kids lived outside in all types of weather, there was not much to do at home and parents expected you to play, get this...outside. They were less paranoid and neurotic in those days about all the terrible things that could befall us, even in the middle of Manhattan. And we too wanted to be where the action was even if it thrust us into a milieu where children governed themselves for the most part, with occasional benign interventions by adults. A society where you could be teased or bullied, though one where justice was always meted out in the end. We looked like well fed, healthy Dickensian waifs, our clothes and bodies dirtied by the grime of the streets. By the time you went home you were invaraibale ushered into a bath tub, where your Mother took particular delight in rubbing you raw to remove the offending dirt in order to redisocover the child who had left home that morning. "Mama stop rubbing so hard, you're hurting me," I protested, while she just keep cleaning the crevices of my ears, unrepentent, mumbling in Greek under her breath.
Our block was one big playgound overrun by noisy playing children. Jumping rope, rollerskating, playing stoop ball, stickball, or immersed in a game of marbles or using bottle tops to play "scullsey." We saved our pennies to buy tops and yo-yos. We organized our own games and everyone played even if you had no talent. I returned to the same street fifty years later only to find it bereft of children, populated instead with latte-drinking, childless thirty somethings whose major preoccupation was postponing the onset of adulthood. They were the products of organized sports where over achieving adults made all their decisions and parents who dressed them from head to toe in protective gear in order to go roller skating. Now they are finally reveling in independence at long last.
I look back on those days in the late 50s and early 60s with nostalgic fondness as some of the happiest years of my life. They were indeed carefree and full of childish games and wonder. Still there were moments of abject terror that even now send a chill down my spine. There were always the kids that delighted in establishing their rightful place in the pecking order at someone's expense or willing to fight at the drop of a hat to avenge some perceived slight. Of all the terrors that we had to face however none was greater in my mind that the two most frightful adults that haunted our territory. Back then adults were accorded respect, they were not to be trifled with. These two were different. They were downright scary. One was a stern Catholic nun named Sister Brigid, a member of the Sisters of Charity order, who taught at Our Lady of Good Counsel School. Her terrible reputation preceded her wherever she went, fed by the blood curdling stories of her students who were friends of mine. Painful tortures inflicted on the unsuspecting innocents who happened to have the bad luck to end up in her classroom. I prayed that I would never be sent to Catholic school where they crossed themselves the wrong way and prayed to statues.
The other scary adult in my life was a junkyard dealer who worked out of a storefront adjacent to the local bus stop. His attire consisited of a filthy white T shirt and dungaree overalls with one shoulder strap always dangling. He had few teeth and the ones he did have were a sickly yellowish-green. He reminded me of a professional wrestler named Haystack Calhoun who ate a dozen eggs for breakfast and pounded nails in with his bare fist. He was nicknamed "Baldy Joe," an appelation earned by his appearance but never uttered in his presence except by suicidal teenagers who would shout it from the back of the bus when it stopped in front of his shop.
Little did I realize that destiny would bring the three of us together one fateful day. My mother had sent me to the barber for a haircut. This particular barber was a Hungarian immigrant who cut hair out of a one chair storefront establishment. His family lived in the back room, the aroma of food cooking in your nostrils while he cut your hair. His son studying engineering often sat at a small cash register with books piled around it which he read intently. Mama liked the way this barber cut my hair and she insisted that I go to him for my haircuts even though it required a bus trip.
After my haircut I took the bus home that day as I customarily did. Halfway home it picked up a familiar passenger, a nun dressed in a floor length black habit and wearing a black pioneer bonnet. I immediately recognized her and I slowly began sliding down my seat in an attempt to lower my profile and become as inconspicuous as possible. I stared at her, drawn by a combination of curiosity and trepidation. As we approached the bus stop I was to get off three teenagers in the very rear of the bus starting yelling "BALDY JOE" through the window bringing an enraged ogre out of his cave as if awakened by some kind of primal instinct. I moved to the rear exit so as not to miss my stop rather amused as were the teenagers laughing hysterically from their protected position. When the doors opened however, there he was, looking crazy and rushing towards me like a bull in a china shop. I almost urinated on myself from the fear, frozen on the stairs of the bus exit. Unbeknowst to me, Sister Brigid, came up behind me, grabbing my arm while she pulled me back, getting between Baldy and myself. She looked at him ever so composed and said sternly, "Get out of my way, Sean O'Casey." It was as if Moses had spoken and the seas parted. Baldy said meekly, "Yes, sister." and held her hand as she stepped off the bus. "Thank you," she turned looking at me, "Come with me young man." I followed her obediently all the way to her school. "Why don't I see you at mass?" she asked in an accent that betrayed her Irish origin. "I'm not Catholic sister, I'm Greek Orthodox and go to another church." She smiled, "That's nice, now run along home lad, your mother will be worried about you." as we parted company.
Neither Sister Brigid nor Baldy Joe seemed so frightening after our paths crossed by chance that fateful day. I was in my own way on the road to maturity and had gained a better understanding of the adult world. From then on, I would wave to both when I saw them in the neighborhood as if we had some unspoken bond. Baldy would give me a toothy grin. Sister would nod in my direction, something that left my friends in utter awe, winning me a grudging respect from my peers. I think she thought waving was a tad unseemly.
με την ερυθρά ημισέληνο, αλλά η καρδιά μου θα είναι γαλάζια με σταυρό..
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