Context
from Teitlebaum’s Window
Wallace Markfield
Then in June, 1932, on the second
Saturday, a year exactly till Teitlebaum would start in with his signs
(“President Roosevelt had a hundred days but you got only till this
Monday to enjoy such savings on our Farm Girl pot cheese”), not long
after the Workmen’s Circle took out space in the Coney Island Bulletin urging total membership to stay away from French wines and perfumes
until Léon Blum was restored to his parliament; also the same week Luna
Park finished off a lousy season with a nice fire; a day after
Ringleman, the Dentist, got his glasses broken by Mrs. Weigholtz for
proposing certain advanced oral-hygiene treatments; around the time
Harry the Fish Man’s daughter, Fat Rosalie, gave away her father’s
beautiful little Schaeffer pen for a Suchard, the semisweet; not too
long after Margoshes of the Forvitz ran this little item at
the foot of his column: “Which hotsy-totsy Mexican actress should be
called Amhoretz Del Rio for denying her Jewish blood?”; around the time
Mrs. Faygelees kept calling and calling the News to find out when
Elinor Ames would be using her question (“Should the son of a sick
mother whose husband was put on a piecework basis have to pay for the
Gravesend Avenue line transfer of a girl not from his faith?”); nine
days since Block and Sully and Belle Baker were on the Rudy Vallee
show; this also happening to be the day Gromajinski the Super, in a fit
of drunken Polish rage, snipped every radio aerial on the roof of 2094
Brighton Beach Avenune; while Mrs. Aranow’s Stanley was still telling
the story of how he had been hailed at Grand Central Station by this
fellow in a raccoon coat and a straw skimmer; how this fellow finished
off a whole hip flask during the thirty-five cent ride; how he put
three dimes and five pennies into Stanley’s palm; how Stanley had
extended his arm, saying “Mister, we work for tips” or “Mister, we
depend on tips”; how talking and talking of the cabbie’s plight he kept
his arm extended; how this fellow had smashed at the arm with a
cruel-looking cane and said through his fat nose, “Godfrey Daniel, if
there’s one thing I can’t stand it’s a one-armed cabdriver!”; while
Mary Mixup still had her share, and more than her share, from Bicep the
Wrestler; even as Benny still could not get himself to drown his
kittens; right after Smitty tried out for a job with Mr. Bailey; Simon
Sloan, all rosy and redolent of matzo and milk, waited till his father,
whiffing and chuffing and grumbling away in some old argument, fell
into a fuddled snooze. Then with both hands busy Simon came rolling
over on top of his mother, going “Lemme lemme!” “In case Cousin
Phillie comes over tonight”—his mother took love-bites at his
behind—“that’s just in case, and he wants you should kiss him, remember
you mustn’t, you dassn’t say to him, ‘Go away vomithead!’ ” “What he is,” said Simon as he cupped and clutched. “You
should do a shake-hands with him, a ‘How are you’ and a ‘What’s new,
Cousin Phillie,’ ” his mother droned drowsily, “and then you can say to
him in a nice way, a not fresh way, ‘The reason why I didn’t kiss you,
Cousin Phillie, is on account of I’m only only eight years old and
they’re not teaching yet in my 3B1 to be a two-face and you shouldn’t
expect it from me as I know the whole whole tragic story of what you
and yours did to my Mommy, Malvena the Orphan, how you gave her a
misleading, Simon crooned, softly crooned, A my name is Aaron “Without opening a big mouth you’ll tell him also how he repaid your mommy . . .” “_Pogrom_,” Simon’s father mumbled from his deepest sleep. “That
when she got so so sick and they wanted her to come and bring with her
a urination specimen in a bottle you docked her three cents for the
bottle. . . . In a pleasant way you can mention he’s still still
throwing up how when your Mommy got married he took care of the liquor.
. . . You can tell him, ‘Cousin Phillie, I heard already how you took
care of the liquor, you and yours by themselves took care of half a
case nearly.’ ” And in her man’s undershirt—Reis, extra large,
the elastic scissored under her arms and around her belly so it should
not bind or chafe—she rocked and rocked him till the bed creaked on its
casters. A “Yiden” was heard from his father. Then agonized snoring. Why are you still mitchin’ “_M’schlagt yiden_,” his father croaked out. “Bright eyes, little beauty,” his mother muttered at him.
you begged and begged her she should come and work for you in Hartford,
Connecticut, she wouldn’t never never know again from a bad minute,
sure she wouldn’t know, how was she going to know, the first thing you
did you took away from her her watch . . .’ ”
And my wife’s name is Anna
We come from Alabama
And we sell . . . ALPS!
Over which Simon’s mother sang in a piercing and buoyant voice,
Workin’ in the kitchen?
Why keep the family waiting?
When we can do the graiting?
