Tale 1
Artie Perlman and the Arrow in the Forehead
Playgrounds in New York City were perfect little oases for little wiseguys growing up. It was the safest sanctuary for our parents to bring us, safe from the cars in the street. The moms could keep an eye on us too. Fathers were working in those days so it was a playground filled with moms and little kids. This is where Coney Island and all the amusements started for a New York kid. You had the slides, usually two, which we learned to walk up and down on and then run up the wrong way. The collisions with kids coming down were great. Then there were the swings where in the early days mom would push you and make those ridiculous silly faces everytime you swung back towards her. As we got older we did the swings alone or with friends and tried to swing as hard as possible to try to flip upside down or at least touch the tree branches with our legs. The seesaw was next. Early days were two of us smiling at each other with an adult supervising…easy rocking motion…lots of smiles. Later days consisted of one of the wiseguys trying to shake the seesaw or jump up and down to knock the other person off. It was great unless it was your little sister or brother and they got hurt. The last amusement was the arena, the gladiator pit, the notorious sandpit. That was the only amusement where you could get rough and not get too hurt because of all the sand. We built sandpits, sand forts, sand designs, etc. and relieved our mothers of their potential anxiety. It was usually just some crying coming from the sandpit.
The following tale was one that involved an argument I had with another friend of mine and my retaliation. It still goes down as my best arrow shot ever. Artie forgave me but it took about 12 years. On to the playground.
One day in the playground, an ordinary day of entertainment, we were called over to the benches where our moms sat to have lunch. The moms prepared these neat little sandwiches for us every playground visit, usually peanut butter and jelly, or bologna, or cheese. Anyway, my friend Artie, a nice cute chubby Jewish boy with the roundest head (until Sheldon Rosenthal in elementary school) was sitting down and eating his bologna sandwich while I had peanut butter and jelly. Frankly even at the age of 6 or so I was fed up with the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. The Jewish kids got to eat bologna sandwiches and even had the delicious kosher dill pickles, the thick barrel ones so famous in New York. The Irish Catholic kids still had the peanut butter and jelly or American cheese. I decided to branch out and asked Artie if he would give me half of his sandwich to trade with me or at least give me a bite of his. He refused. I requested again. He refused, this time adamantly. I was quickly furious. How could any friend refuse such a benign request? So after asking him a third time and getting a final “NO, you CAN’T have any of my sandwich!” I took matters into my own hands. I walked over to get my play bow and arrow and came back and stood right in front of him almost touching him with the bow and shot an arrow right towards his forehead. The next thing I knew I saw this rubber-tipped arrow sticking right out of his forehead. His eyes focused on the arrow which gave him this crosseyed look and he started to panic, thinking he was dead. He started to run around the playground shouting “I’m DEAD! I’m DEAD!” with his mother chasing him trying to assure him that it was okay and he wasn’t really dead. It must’ve looked pretty damn funny, this chubby Jewish kid running around the playground with a rubbertipped arrow sticking out of his forehead with his mother chasing him. Meanwhile the general chaos caused me to panic and I started to run around the playground too while my mom was running after me. Finally Artie’s mother caught up with him and removed the arrow and hugged him and my mother caught me and started smacking me several times either on the wrist or on my tiny little ass. I can’t remember which part of my body received the due attention it deserved. That wasn’t a good day for me and it certainly wasn’t a good one for Artie either.
Funny thing about connections but I met Artie as a freshman at the University of Arizona about 12 years later totally unexpectedly. I asked him if he remembered the incident and he said he didn’t. I still apologized profusely. We both laughed. It still remains my best arrow shot ever. I was as shocked as he was when it stuck out of his forehead and both of us reacted for quite different reasons, he, thinking he was dead and me, thinking I was going to get a good ass-whooping. Oh by the way, my mom was a great mom growing up. When she smacked me I always deserved it. She wanted me to say that in the tales.
Saturday, January 19, 2008
Tale 2-Mrs. Finnerman bending over
Tale 2
Mrs. Finnerman bending over
Wiseguys in New York City either attended school in parochial schools where they were indoctrinated and sometimes beat into it or public schools, the great social experiment. We were really all numbers, especially in public schools. In fact we didn’t even have names for our schools. They were identified by numbers, P.S.98, P.S.152, JHS 52,etc. The public school was our opportunity to be with people of different ethic, racial, and societal backgrounds from us, kids we would never hang out with normally.
The hierarchy of the classes were interesting too. Generally the kids in 6th grade in 6-1, for example, were smarter and caused less trouble than the kids in 6-5 or 6-6. In junior high school it was even bigger and more obvious. We had these “special gifted classes”, the 7, 8, and 9 SP and ESP classes like 7SPE-1 and the classes went up to 7-10 or 7-11 which really had the winners in them. Everyone knew it too so kids generally hung out in their own class levels. It would’ve been unheard of for an SP kid to hang out with a 7-10 kid, at least not in the open.
Mrs. Finnerman was a bad-ass teacher, a 4th grade teacher, who looked like a pug-nosed truck driver AFTER an accident. She was big, broad, nasty to look at and tough as nails. NOBODY messed with Finnerman. In fact, if God had a bouncer in heaven, she would at least be applying for the position.
One day after lunch and recess when we had to line up outside the gym (we’re about 9 years old), Finnerman was in charge of lining us up to bring us back to class. There was a long line of almost all boys since we had all just finished playing dodgeball and got in line en masse. Finnerman looked at us with those Bronco Nagursky looks and we all pushed and shoved each other into line so not to get beat up by her. When she looked and was satisfied that we were all lined up right, she made a motion for us to be quiet, then turned around. I was about 5th or 6th in line and as soon as she turned around she dropped her keys and when she bent over to pick them up, with her bad behind staring right at us, I let out a huge Bronx cheer (that in local terms was a fake fart with my hand cupped under my armpit and done with a quick downward motion of the arm). It was perfectly timed and everyone up front heard it, especially her. All the little New York wiseguys started to bust out laughing until she turned around and gave us the death stare. Man did she look pissed off! You never saw so many kids wipe smiles off their face that quickly, including me. Then, the unthinkable once again. She proceeded to walk the line from the beginning and when she got to me she took me by the hand with her blacksmith arms and pulled me out of line saying, “You! You wait with me.” Oh, God, I was screwed now. I would rather have been with the devil himself than Ms. Finnerman and I was absolutely shocked that she knew it was me. To this day I have never figured out how she could possibly have known it was me. I was baffled, in shock, and terrified.
So while all my wiseguy friends disappeared one by one towards their classes, I had to walk by Finnerman’s side, held with the vice grip on my skinny little arms, scared to death. She brought me to class and told me that I was going to have to stay after school and write 300 times, “I am sorry Ms. Finnerman. I will never do that again.” 300 times! She must’ve called up my mother to tell her about the after school thing and while all my friends were going home at 3pm, I had to stay in the valley of death with the most feared teacher in the school, alone, in her room, a fate worse than death for a young kid.
I sat at that desk and wrote those words 300 times. After about 70 times I felt like my arm was gonna fall off but I prevailed and finally turned in all the sentences to Finnerman. She let me go with a strict warning NEVER to do such a think again or I’d be “sorry.” Wow. To this day I wonder what I’d be “sorry” would’ve entailed. Would she have hit me or even killed me and lost her job only to be imprisoned and be the toughest inmate on “the bloc?” We’ll never know. Now, some 45 years later I can laugh and admit that on that day one of my greatest Bronx cheers was carried out and after some dread and punishment, I survived.
Mrs. Finnerman bending over
Wiseguys in New York City either attended school in parochial schools where they were indoctrinated and sometimes beat into it or public schools, the great social experiment. We were really all numbers, especially in public schools. In fact we didn’t even have names for our schools. They were identified by numbers, P.S.98, P.S.152, JHS 52,etc. The public school was our opportunity to be with people of different ethic, racial, and societal backgrounds from us, kids we would never hang out with normally.
The hierarchy of the classes were interesting too. Generally the kids in 6th grade in 6-1, for example, were smarter and caused less trouble than the kids in 6-5 or 6-6. In junior high school it was even bigger and more obvious. We had these “special gifted classes”, the 7, 8, and 9 SP and ESP classes like 7SPE-1 and the classes went up to 7-10 or 7-11 which really had the winners in them. Everyone knew it too so kids generally hung out in their own class levels. It would’ve been unheard of for an SP kid to hang out with a 7-10 kid, at least not in the open.
Mrs. Finnerman was a bad-ass teacher, a 4th grade teacher, who looked like a pug-nosed truck driver AFTER an accident. She was big, broad, nasty to look at and tough as nails. NOBODY messed with Finnerman. In fact, if God had a bouncer in heaven, she would at least be applying for the position.
One day after lunch and recess when we had to line up outside the gym (we’re about 9 years old), Finnerman was in charge of lining us up to bring us back to class. There was a long line of almost all boys since we had all just finished playing dodgeball and got in line en masse. Finnerman looked at us with those Bronco Nagursky looks and we all pushed and shoved each other into line so not to get beat up by her. When she looked and was satisfied that we were all lined up right, she made a motion for us to be quiet, then turned around. I was about 5th or 6th in line and as soon as she turned around she dropped her keys and when she bent over to pick them up, with her bad behind staring right at us, I let out a huge Bronx cheer (that in local terms was a fake fart with my hand cupped under my armpit and done with a quick downward motion of the arm). It was perfectly timed and everyone up front heard it, especially her. All the little New York wiseguys started to bust out laughing until she turned around and gave us the death stare. Man did she look pissed off! You never saw so many kids wipe smiles off their face that quickly, including me. Then, the unthinkable once again. She proceeded to walk the line from the beginning and when she got to me she took me by the hand with her blacksmith arms and pulled me out of line saying, “You! You wait with me.” Oh, God, I was screwed now. I would rather have been with the devil himself than Ms. Finnerman and I was absolutely shocked that she knew it was me. To this day I have never figured out how she could possibly have known it was me. I was baffled, in shock, and terrified.
So while all my wiseguy friends disappeared one by one towards their classes, I had to walk by Finnerman’s side, held with the vice grip on my skinny little arms, scared to death. She brought me to class and told me that I was going to have to stay after school and write 300 times, “I am sorry Ms. Finnerman. I will never do that again.” 300 times! She must’ve called up my mother to tell her about the after school thing and while all my friends were going home at 3pm, I had to stay in the valley of death with the most feared teacher in the school, alone, in her room, a fate worse than death for a young kid.
I sat at that desk and wrote those words 300 times. After about 70 times I felt like my arm was gonna fall off but I prevailed and finally turned in all the sentences to Finnerman. She let me go with a strict warning NEVER to do such a think again or I’d be “sorry.” Wow. To this day I wonder what I’d be “sorry” would’ve entailed. Would she have hit me or even killed me and lost her job only to be imprisoned and be the toughest inmate on “the bloc?” We’ll never know. Now, some 45 years later I can laugh and admit that on that day one of my greatest Bronx cheers was carried out and after some dread and punishment, I survived.
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