The Crazyladies of Pearl Street Read Online Free Page A

people.
    “What's the matter, kid? Your ears broke? I asked where you was from.”
    He said 'axed' for 'asked'. I shrugged and reached out for the door to the shop, but a kid grabbed my collar and pulled me back, so I muttered, “Lake George Village.”
    “What's that? George what? Talk up, why don't you?” He said 'tack' for 'talk' and 'ya' for 'you', and that troubled me. These local tribes didn't even speak our language. It wouldn't be long, however, before I learned to slip into the metallic, dentalized, slack-mouthed idiom of Northeastern street talk when I wanted to sound tough, and save my own accent for when I wanted to seem intelligent or polite.
    “We're from Lake George Village,” I said more firmly than I felt.
    “Where's that?”
    “Up-state.”
    “Hey, kid, got any money?” another asked. No.
    “Why you going to the Jew's then? He don't give kids no credit.”
    I tried to open the shop door, but someone grabbed my arm. “Come on, kid. Give us a nickel!”
    “No!”
    “You looking for a fist sandwich, kid?”
    The door of the cornerstore opened. “Well, well, what have we here? A gathering of the neighborhood's best and brightest, is it? Our nation's hope for the future?” It was the shopkeeper wearing thick glasses and a green cloth apron. “And who are you, young man? Well, come in if you're coming in. I can't stand around here all day. Time is money, as the watchmaker said.”
    I followed him into the store, hoping the kids would disperse before I had to go back home.
    In response to my request for a small jar of peanut butter, Mr Kane took up a long wooden pole with metal fingers that were manipulated from a grip in the handle. He grasped the jar of peanut butter on a high shelf of his narrow shop, plucked it away, then opened the metal fingers and let it drop. As I gasped, he snatched up the hem of his apron to make a nest for receiving the jar with a plop, the deft performance of a man who had show business in his blood. I would learn before long that only bad breaks and the Depression had brought Mr Kane to North Pearl Street as a shopkeeper. And it wasn't show business he had in his blood, it was socialism.
    “And what else, young man?”
    “A loaf of bread,” I said, “...wait a minute. How much is the peanut butter?”
    “For you? Fifteen cents. For others? A nickel and a dime.”
    “Okay, and how much is a loaf of bread?”
    “Eleven cents. One thin dime and a somewhat thicker penny... which isn't logical, but who said life has to be logical?”
    “Do you have small loaves?”
    “Eleven cents is the small loaf.”
    “...Oh. I don't think I can...”
    “Of course, day-old bread is only a nickel.”
    “Do you have any day-old bread?”
    He looked down on me, his eyes huge through thick lenses. “Well, I close up shop pretty soon. Tell you what; I'll sell you a loaf of tomorrow's day-old bread. How's that?”
    I hated people giving us stuff or doing us favors, as though we couldn't make our own way. I hated it because my mother resented it so much. But...
    “Okay.”
    There was a shout outside as one boy 'sizzled' another by snapping his fingernails down across the kid's butt in a way that stings like hell. The sizzled kid took a swing at the other, who ran down the street, and a couple of kids ran after him, laughing and shouting. If I could only give them a little more time, maybe the rest of them would go away somewhere.
    “We just moved in,” I told Mr Kane brightly.
    “Yes, I saw you sitting over on the stoop of 238, surrounded by your possessions, like a band of Arabs in the desert. When business is slow, so it shouldn't be a total loss, I use my time to keep an eye on the street. After all, if I don't keep an eye on it, who will? I heard you tell one of your tormentors that you're from Lake George Village.”
    “Oh, do you know Lake George Village?”
    “Never heard of it. But if I concentrate I can almost...” He closed his huge eyes. “An image is coming to me