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Volume 1 Issue 4
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In This Issue:
A Point of Honor . . . . . . Lynn Nelson
Civil Service, The Conclusion . . Kenneth Wolman
________________________________________________________________________
Lynn Nelson lhnel@ukanvm.bitnet
A POINT OF HONOR
"Il Vecchio" is what we called him, Mr. Braccia, "The Old Man."
Within his hearing, however, we called him "il signor," partly
because it made him happy and he would sing, and partly because
he was, in fact, very old and, although we were just grubby
children living life only as it could be lived under the roaring
el tracks of 63rd street in South Chicago, we respected real age.
And what did we think we meant by "real age?" I wish I could tell
you simply, but when those complex criteria of childhood are
caught by a stray memory and held tight, turned over and over for
analysis, they disintegrate into a kaleidoscope of pictures.
Children think and judge, not by rational means, but by a mass of
distorted and fragmented pictures and sounds. So when I asked
myself why Mr. Braccia was "Il Vecchio," and why our little bunch
of Gassenjungen always stood up when Mr. Braccia went by with his
pushcart, I can only say that I have the memory of a picture from
some magazine of a gnarled and twisted cypress growing out of
some impossible crack in a big rock by the sea, and leaning
forward as if the wind never stopped trying to blow it out of its
precarious hold on the earth.
The Old Man was also a man of great honor, and repaid respect
with liberality. "Bene," he would say as he swung his fruit and
vegetable cart into place on the corner of Maryland and 63rd,
pulled out an old fruit box, carefully set it on end, and just as
carefully seated himself where the sun would reflect off the
light-colored bricks behind him, and slowly and steadily warm the
muscles and bones of his back. "Bene," he would say, and point to
a spot on the sidewalk in front of him with an air of complete
and assured authority that somehow entirely lacked any trace of
the head-patting sort of contempt that made us fear and despise
our teachers. We would stand in front of him, and this wifeless
and childless old man would at look each of us from head to toe,
smile slightly and repeat the word "bene." With each of these
benedictions, he would dispense a vegetable as if he were giving
us some precious gift.
Il Vecchio would then frown slightly in thought and, after a few
moments during which we waited silently, he would pass on to us
some of the accumulated wisdom of his years. "If she's good olive
oil, she shouldn't run too slow," he once told us. On another
occasion, we learned that you don't never get all the sand out of
endives. Also, "Wait for the seasons before you eat the fruits.
They make you sick if you don't." Why do I remember these things
when I have forgotten so many words of so many experts,
champions, presidents and other important men and women each in
their day? Partly because Il Vecchio gave us sweet green peppers
and crisp cold celery, partly because he was old and deserved to
be listened to, and partly, I suppose, because what he had to say
has proven more true than what great men and women have told me.
I remember that it was a Friday in July, but I can't recall the
year. It must have been 1938, though, because, for some reason or
another, I think of Luke Appling when I remember that morning.
Mr. Braccia had just pushed his cart into his accustomed place,
and we had gazed with awe from the other side of 63rd Street. Il
Vecchio had a new, large, and completely magnificent cart! The
box was a rich maroon, the spokes were a dark green, and above
the display of immaculate fruits and vegetables was a dark green
and white striped awning. Modest black-shadowed gold printing on
the side of the box spelled out "A. Braccia Green Grocer."
Reaching beneath the box, Il Vecchio pulled out a folding chair
and cushion. To complete his series of wonders, he reached
beneath the box once more, extracted and donned a dark green
bibbed apron and a new straw hat. The overall effect was as
marvelous as it was unexpected, and a number of people stopped to
applaud.
It was just then that an elegantly attired, pearl-spatted, white-
carnationed figure carrying a small black leather valise crossed
Maryland Street, took off his hat to Il Vecchio, and started to
continue on his way. He was a familiar enough figure, although I
never heard anyone call him by name. He would walk from store to
store along the street each Friday, collecting five dollars from
small concerns and ten from larger businesses. For this
relatively small sum, the businessmen secured protection and the
right to bring their problems to the attention of Mr. Alfonse
Capone. Unlike the modern arrangement, the businessmen were
actually protected, and, for the most part, their problems were
in fact resolved.
"Hey!" Mr Braccia suddenly called out to the collector, "Where
you think you're going?" The collector slowly turned to Il
Vecchio, took off his hat again, and said inquiringly, "Si,
Signor?" The Old Man stood up, reached in his apron pocket,
pulled out a bill, and said "Ain't you forgot my five dollars?"
The collector shook his head firmly, "You don't owe no five
dollars. Il padron mio don't collect from no pushcarts. No money
from nobody what shouldn't afford it. Braccia ain't in my book,
so I don't take no money from il Signor." Il Vecchio turned red,
and said, with heavy sarcasm, "I gotta new big cart, I gotta
apron and hat, I gotta fine customers. I'm a businessman, so why
shouldn't I get protected?" The collector looked at the pavement,
and spoke so softly that I could hardly hear him, even though I
had crossed the street, as had many others. "The names in my
book, they got money and oughta pay, and everybody got something
to protect so everybody got protection." Il Vecchio was furious.
"I ain't no rag picker or junkman. I gotta business, I gotta good
customers, so I gotta pay my share. I don't take handouts even
from il suo padron."
Everyone must have understood, since even we children knew what
was happening. It was a pun'd'onor, a point of honor. Il Vecchio
was demanding that Mr. Capone take five dollars from him as a
sign of respect, and Mr. Capone's agent would not take the five
dollars out of respect for the Old Man's age and poverty. The
collector was staring intently at the sidewalk and said in a
dogged voice, "Signor, I ain't never gonna take no five dollars
from you. Your name ain't never gonna be in the book. And you're
gonna be protected as long as you're alive." Il Vecchio flew into
a rage and wadded up the bill and threw it at the collector. He
fairly screamed, "Take my money, you son of a whore!"
There was a sudden silence then. The collector had flinched as if
Mr. Braccia had actually hit him; then he turned away, put his
hat back on, and walked on just as if he had never been stopped
in the first place. Mr. Braccia had turned a wet palish color, as
if he were about to be sick, and turned to the people who had
gathered to watch, ineffectually moving his hands palm up as he
opened and closed his mouth several times as if to speak. None of
it served any purpose; all of us, even the children, stared
intently at the freshly-washed sidewalk and wished for a way to
make things never have happened. Il Vecchio finally turned away,
and his shoulders slumped down. He took off his new hat and
apron, folded up his new chair, and carefully put everything away
once again below the box of his beautiful new cart. He kept his
face turned away from everybody and, as he put each thing in its
place, he was muttering, "Bene. Bene." He put the harness over
his shoulders, pulled the chocks from under the wheels, and
slowly pushed his cart away. We never saw him again, and the
local A&P grocery store opened a fruit and vegetable section a
week later.
One funny thing. Il Vecchio's wadded-up five dollars
lying on the sidewalk when he trundled away. Everybody who had
stood there watching, turned and went back to their business when
he left. We kids went down to Lawndale Cemetery to watch a couple
of funerals. People sometimes gave us a quarter to go away, but
we really went because we liked to hear the bang of the guns for
veterans, the cantor for Jews, the Latin chant for Catholics, and
see all the ladies crying so hard that black streams of mascara
and tears would flow from beneath their veils. We also liked to
watch the women to see if one of them would station herself in
front of one of the pall-bearers before screaming that she could
Not Go On Without Him and trying to throw herself into the grave.
The pall-bearer would always catch her and hold her very tight.
Times were hard, and a woman could not afford to stay a widow for
long, especially if she had children.
It was evening when we got back and passed the corner of Maryland
and 63rd Street. The wadded-up five dollar bill was still lying
on the sidewalk. I turned to Bernard, who was munching slowly at
the large end of an immense five-cent dill pickle that he had
bought with his share of the proceeds from the last funeral of
the day for us. "Just what did all that go to prove?" I asked
him, somewhat rhetorically. "It proved," Bernard replied,
beginning to achieve a general aroma of garlic and dill that he
did not relinquish even after his Saturday bath, "that you can't
buy honor, at least not for five dollars." I thought at the time
that it had proved something more, but Bernard seemed pretty
certain, so I forgot about the whole business until just
recently.
____________________________________________________________________________
Kenneth Wolman ktw@hlwpk.att.com
The first two installments of Civil Service
appeared in CORE 1 and 2, respectively.
Gelfen, a dropout employed by the New York
City Department of Social Services in the
1960s, manages to slum an easy ride off
the System until he aquires a new welfare
client, ex-con cum pimp Eusebio Colon --
and Eusebio's sister, Nilsa.
CIVIL SERVICE
The Conclusion
3
Two weeks later, Gelfen began sleeping with Nilsa
Colon.
A few days after his visit to the apartment, Intake
notified Gelfen that someone was there to see him about
Eusebio Colon. Gelfen went downstairs and found not Eusebio
but Nilsa: dark olive-skinned with lush straight waist-
length black hair, thin but with a far better-than-average
body, and a delicate sort of face with huge black eyes.
Taken overall, a knockout, and off from her job for the day,
she said, to bring over her no-good brother's paperwork and
a pile of her own troubles.
Troubles they were, for Nilsa Colon turned out to be a
first-class victim and willing recipient of other people's
_drek_, flung her way through some perverse quasi-magnetic
attraction. She chain-smoked Lucky Strikes, nervously threw
her mane of hair around like a racehorse, flicked at
imaginary bugs on her skin (a legacy, Gelfen surmised, of a
lifetime spent among them), and, as the final touch, cried
herself a river. Gelfen, a born sucker for women's tears,
found himself after fifteen minutes in an Intake booth,
holding Nilsa's hand, sympathetic and with the beginnings of
a first-rate hard-on because she was, despite his best
professional intentions, exciting the hell out of him.
``What I've gone through for that bastard,'' she said
in English that had more in it of the Bronx than Puerto
Rico. ``Between him and that shit Javier - Eusebio told me
he told you _all_ about that [Gelfen nodded] - it's a wonder
I'm not in my grave!''
``I understand,'' said Gelfen, hoping nobody would ask
him to stand up until well after Nilsa had gone.
``I am _so_ tired of them coming to _me_ so they can
get their little _culos_ wiped! Eusebio is a big _macho_
because he's selling heroin, so I spend money I don't have
on a lawyer who gets him in jail anyway! He goes to Attica
and I get left alone with _Javier_,'' the name of her man
coming from her mouth like a wail.
``I've heard he can be trouble,'' Gelfen said, not sure
what he was thinking.
``Trouble!'' she almost exploded. ``He sleeps with my
best girlfriend, then he has the nerve to come to me to ask
for it with my mouth'' - Gelfen remembered what Eusebio had
said about Javier's ``testimony,'' and was dying of lust -
``but he can get _himself_ off for all I care! I want a man,
not a wild animal.'' Inwardly, Gelfen saw himself as Gable.
For four days after her visit, he walked around in an
erotic daydream of Nilsa Colon, complete with reveries of
_Noches En Los Jardines Del Bronx_ and smooth brown legs
embracing his waist. It took Eusebio's voice on the phone
one morning to snap him out of it.
``Hey, man, so wha's happenin'?'' asked Eusebio. ``You
gonna open my fuckin' case or what?''
``I guess so,'' Gelfen said. ``I have everything I
need.'' Bullshit, he said to himself.
``Yeah, Nilsa was over there,'' Eusebio said. Was he,
Gelfen wondered, suppressing laughter, or was that his own
dirty mind working overtime?
``Well, we . . . talked a little about you, and we
think maybe you ought to start looking around for work.''
Gelfen was beside himself with self-satisfaction: he'd been
desperate to change the subject away from Nilsa, and
magically had hit an Approved Welfare Topic. Social worker
to the balls of my balls, he thought.
``Hey, shit, man, don' bug me, okay?'' Eusebio
responded. ``I jus' got out, remember?''
Gelfen felt like an overseer. ``Look, Eusebio, they're
gonna start to hassle _me_ pretty soon if I can't say you're
working at something _legal_. You understand?''
``What the hell do I know how to do?'' Eusebio all but
whined.
Gelfen seized a solution. ``Look,'' he said, ``come in
on Monday and we'll talk about training programs and stuff
like that.''
Eusebio seemed agreeable, but when Gelfen went to
Intake on Monday there was no Eusebio. No one, in fact,
turned up until Thursday, and then it was not Eusebio, but
Nilsa again. Gelfen was torn between anger at getting
screwed and a desire to get screwed right then and there, in
the nearest unoccupied Intake booth. ``Where's your
brother?'' he asked.
``He said he's sick again,'' she replied. ``He said
he's been sick all this week. I thought he'd been here
already.''
``So you,'' Gelfen said, ``called in sick yourself to
come here.'' Nilsa said nothing, and she didn't have to.
Gelfen figured she would eat a day's pay for Eusebio the
gentleman-of-leisure because she was a graduate doormat. He
found the concept mildly tantalizing. He went through the
motions of explaining job-training to Nilsa, who seemed to
follow him, brushing his leg (deliberately?) with her own;
and he gave her some applications for Eusebio to fill out
when he was ``feeling better.'' But at five o'clock, he
found her out front, waiting for him.
``Nilsa!'' he exclaimed, simultaneously suspicious and
delighted.
``Now the bastard's not even at home!'' she cried, much
too loudly, and began to bawl right there, out in the
street.
Aroused by her fragility, Gelfen invited her to get
something to eat, then took her for a walk in the twilight
through a large park near Yankee Stadium. They did not talk.
A few feet from a lamp in the park, in near darkness, Gelfen
realized Nilsa was facing him, her head cocked upward in a
gesture of expectant desire or submission, he could not tell
which. The blood running thick behind his eyes, he drew her
against him and kissed her. Not only did she respond with
the most amazing tongue-work he'd ever experienced, but
also, after a moment, and to his surprise, he felt a small,
warm hand moving deliberately over his groin.
_Carpe diem_, schmuck, thought Gelfen, and flagged the
first cab he saw.
In the taxi, heading toward his apartment, Nilsa's body
almost pressed into his own, Gelfen surfaced just long
enough to ask himself precisely what he thought he was doing
here, slouching toward University Avenue with this Puerto
Riquena fox, putative mistress of some hopped-up piano
playing pimp who, for all he knew, was hiding, straight
razor in teeth, in the trunk of the cab, or - worse yet! -
was the cabbie himself, conveying Gelfen to a secluded
cement works where he would be buried dick-deep in concrete.
Gelfen looked timorously at the hack license photo, then at
the driver's name - Moshe Rosenblum - and placed his paw
confidently on Nilsa Colon's crotch.
4
Gelfen's work habits, always at war with the Protestant
Ethic, came close to outright collapse after three weeks of
Nilsa Colon, and he felt he was about to go under with them.
This, he thought, will finish me off for sure. I'm tired all
the time, my stomach's crying for Gelusil, I'm getting
goddamned headaches. Part of it was Nilsa's mattress
repertoire, which was formidable: it was all Gelfen could do
at times to get her into a cab after one of their sessions.
But there was also the spectre of incipient paranoia for
Gelfen to contend with like Jacob wrestling the Angel. He
dreamed of public exposure, and of a letter to the _News_
that would Tell All. He envisioned the unspeakable revenges
upon him of Eusebio and Javier, defending the honor of Latin
womanhood against the vile seductions of this _gringo_
bastard Gelfen. He imagined someone seeing them together and
phoning an anonymous tip to the department's Investigations
Unit, which would bug his phone, send out spies with
telephoto lenses to follow him, and culminate in the
inevitable (he imagined) ritual humiliation of being
publicly stripped of his Civil Service rating, field
notebook, departmental procedures manual, and Bic pen in a
ceremony worthy of the degradation of Captain Dreyfus (``_Je
suis innocente!_'' he would cry. ``_Vive le
Departement!_''). And he took to twice-daily examinations of
himself for the first signs of the venereal disease that
would leave him a babbling maniac by age 30, if Javier
hadn't shot him first.
To top it all off, Eusebio no longer bothered to call
Gelfen, who was as much relieved as annoyed. Any information
he gathered about his wandering client came from Nilsa at
distinctly inopportune moments. One night, as she straddled
Gelfen, Nilsa suddenly stopped moving and launched into a
narrative about how Eusebio had taken up with Javier (and
she wriggled twice to help Gelfen maintain his erection),
and the two of them were cruising around in Javier's 1958
Buick Roadmaster (she moved again), recruiting freelance
would-be whores for the stable they were trying to build.
From seven at night until three or four in the morning
(Nilsa rocked twice, wriggled again, and moaned as Gelfen's
eyes widened), up and down Southern Boulevard from 149th
Street to Fordham Road, and hitting every bar along the way
(Nilsa moaned and leaned backward), the two caballeros
steered the mammoth Buick in and out of parking spaces, made
side-trips to the Bronx Zoo to snort cocaine by moonlight,
picked up likely girls (Nilsa leaned forward and love-bit
one of Gelfen's nipples), took them to various hotels under
the El at Simpson Street, and - if they passed the various
tests Eusebio and Javier set them (as Nilsa wriggled again
and Gelfen exploded inside her), were admitted to the
company.
Nilsa finished loudly, dismounted the sweating Gelfen,
and began to sob into her pillow. I don't believe I just sat
still for this, Gelfen thought, his temples beginning to
throb. ``Tell your dumb bastard brother to get his ass into
the office tomorrow or I'm closing him down.''
5
The following Monday afternoon, after eating an
indigestible lunch of red-hot Italian sausages, Gelfen
returned belching to his desk, chewed down three Gelusils,
and found a scrawled message that none other than Eusebio
Colon had been cooling his heels in Intake since 10 that
morning. As usual, nobody downstairs had bothered to let him
know before 1:30, and when he found Colon, the client was
pissed off and sweating.
``Where the fuck were you!'' snapped Colon the moment
they were alone in an interview booth.
``I could ask you the same question,'' Gelfen replied,
trying to retain his composure as he realized he really
didn't give a damn where Eusebio had been, so long as it
wasn't near him.
``Whadda you and my sister doin'?'' Eusebio cried,
looking like he was getting ready to explode.
Colon's words sent a knife through Gelfen. ``What do
you mean?'' he asked, waiting for Javier to leap down from
the partition and ventilate his windpipe with that straight
razor.
``Hey, I'm sittin' here three an' a half hours like
some nigger'' - Colon lowered his voice on the last word -
``because I don' need you or Nilsa talkin' about my _future_
behin' my back!''
Oh God, thought Gelfen, starting to feel relief, he
doesn't know. The spectre of his slashed throat began to
fade. _Nilsa_, to Eusebio, was merely the name of his
sister, not the caseworker's _puta_.
``Your sister told me,'' said Gelfen with a sudden
feeling of invincibility, ``that you and your buddy Javier
have gone into business together.'' Suddenly he was all but
tasting the moment, as though the mere sound of the words
was itself irresistible. ``You know _exactly_ what I'm
talking about, don't you?''
``_Maricona_!'' Eusebio hissed between his teeth.
``I really don't give a shit what you and your buddy
Javier do for spare coin,'' said Gelfen, riding a wave of
self-righteousness he felt would hold him up forever, ``but
don't come crying to me about how your _sister_ is selling
you out behind your back.''
Eusebio stared at Gelfen. Slowly, methodically, he
leaned back in his chair and meditatively scratched his
crotch. ``So when did Nilsa tell you all this good stuff
'bout me, Mr. Social Worker?''
Gelfen hadn't been expecting the question. He felt his
mouth go dry, and just stared back at Colon in shock.
``When?'' he repeated, feeling that something had just gone
terribly wrong with his life at that moment.
``Yeah, _when_,'' Eusebio repeated. ``My sister gets
these funny ideas sometimes, y'know? They can get people
into heavy trouble if she's not careful.''
Gelfen could not figure out why, but he decided to
brave it out. ``So what has that got to do with me?'' he
asked, the picture of defensive innocence.
Eusebio leaned forward in his chair. ``Tha's the point,
Mr. Social Worker,'' he said very slowly and quietly. ``It's
got _nothin'_ to do with you. _None_ of it has. Family
business, Mr. G., you understan' me?''
From the corner of his eye, Gelfen looked out for a
second at the Intake waiting area. He blinked as though to
clear his vision. Nilsa was sitting in the first row,
holding hands with a Puerto Rican man wearing an expensive-
looking leather jacket. As Gelfen looked, she lifted her
head and kissed the guy, who stroked her thick black hair,
smiled, then started to laugh. He turned back toward
Eusebio, who had the same shiteating grin and the same
leather jacket, which he was putting on as he stood in front
of the desk.
``Javier's out there, right?'' Eusebio said. ``The guy
with Nilsa.''
``Yeah, I guess that's him,'' Gelfen murmured.
``Yeah,'' that is Eusebio, ``that is one mean mother.
``He don' wan' me to be late for work, so he keeps an eye on
me, you un'erstan'?'' He glanced at a wristwatch that had to
cost as much as Gelfen made in a week. ``Hey, I gotta split.
Be cool, Social Worker.'' And he left.
It took Gelfen two minutes to compose himself before he
could leave the Intake booth. Eusebio, Javier, and Nilsa
were long gone.
6
Shortly after Eusebio's final visit to the Welfare
office, Gelfen's worst fears were realized. All of a sudden,
taking a leak became a contest to see how much pain he could
endure before he started to chew through the flush handle on
the urinal. Going to his family doctor was out of the
question. Dr. Rosen delivered him, got him through measles
and mumps, and gave him a pre-Bar Mitzvah lecture on the
Joys of Puberty; but Rosen's idea of doctor-patient
confidentiality would be to telephone Gelfen's parents five
minutes after his patient was out of the office. So Gelfen
went to a doctor at Beth Israel in lower Manhattan, a guy
not much older than himself, who checked him out and said
briskly, ``Mazel tov, schmuck, I hope you're luckier at
cards than you are at love. You've got more clap than the
audience in an opera house. Now drop the pants and stick out
your butt.''
The doctor hit Gelfen in the ass with enough
tetracycline to cure a Pakistani cholera epidemic, then
prescribed a follow-up of horse pills. ``For a month after
you lose the symptoms, pal,'' said Dr. Segelman, ``you may
consider yourself to be in a Jewish monastery. The girls
will just have to buy themselves ears of corn. I don't even
want you to have a sexual _thought_. By the way, gonorrhea
is a public health matter, so I'm supposed to ask for the
names of your most recent sexual contacts. Which is merely a
nice way of asking you if you have any idea where you caught
it.''
Gelfen burst into laughter. He gave Segelman Nilsa's
name and address, and told him about Javier Melendez and his
pursuit of the Americano dream. The next morning he closed
Eusebio's case and then resigned.
~~~~~~~~~November 1991~~~~~~~~~~
________________________________
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