Five finger discount, p.11
Five-Finger Discount, page 11
My uncle Robby, just thirteen at the time, rode his bicycle down to City Hall, JVK written in chalk on the back of his jacket. To him and the other poor kids in Jersey City, Kenny was a hero, like Joe DiMaggio.
He and his friends arrived at City Hall before all the ballots were counted, hoping to cop some free soda or ice cream. But there wasn’t any. The crowd at City Hall was mostly adults, and they were too excited to even think about eating or drinking. Some danced on the roofs of cars or on the grass at City Hall in front of the tired statue, music blaring from the sound trucks. One policeman stood on the City Hall balcony waving a broom. Inside, the coffin drifted overhead upon a sea of bodies.
In another photograph that captured the moment, a somber-looking girl sits alone in the background at City Hall, away from the mob, to the right of the coffin sign. That’s my aunt Mary Ann, looking blankly off into the distance. A kid with big ears and a wide smile lights up the foreground of another picture. That’s Uncle Robby. When he saw the coffin go by, Robby got scared, thinking Hague’s body was in it. Ever since his brother, Sonny, had fallen off the truck and died, Robby had been afraid of coffins. Now, he got down on his knees, crawled out of the crowd, and ran all the way home.
In one more black-and-white snapshot taken that night, the most posed of the bunch, another family member smiles for the camera. Grandpa, all decked out in a freshly blocked fedora and suit and tie, is one of two men holding a sign that reads UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT. A crowd of seven men and boys are gathered around them and the plate-glass door to the mayor’s office, flashing the two-fingered V signal.
For victory. For John V.
Grandpa must have been overjoyed, but his face, the only one in the picture that is cast in dark shadow, betrays only a slight grin. Everyone else looks grim or surprised, worried that Hague might walk out any second and punch him in the nose—or, worse yet, see the picture the next day in The Jersey Journal and have him hunted down and killed.
Despite their disbelief that Hague was truly out, Jersey Citizens partied until dawn. One ’Forty-niner played taps outside Eggers’s home at 3 A.M. There were rallies in the street, from Greenville down to the Horseshoe.
“Let us bid farewell to fear,” said Kenny in his victory speech. “Let us say good-bye to corruption. Let us walk forward now as free men and women.”
Because of Kenny, an investigation was finally launched into Hague’s three-decades-long rule. Needlenose Malone—not Hague—was indicted on charges of corruption, and pleaded guilty after thousands of city workers signed affidavits attesting to Rice Pudding Day. Malone, not a well man, was given a suspended sentence. Eventually, Hague was informally exiled from New Jersey. If he stepped within its borders, he would be served with a subpoena. Traveling back to Jersey City five years later for the wake of his nephew, Hague was handed a subpoena by a deputy sheriff. Hague threw the subpoena to the ground and ignored it, but from then on stayed the hell out of Jersey City, funerals and all.
Some say that in his last days, he had trouble sleeping in his Park Avenue apartment, plagued by thoughts of all the families he’d damaged. Now and then he would call old friends in Jersey City and have them check on the survivors of breadwinners he had crippled or killed. My family never got a call.
Hague died, without apology, in 1956, on New Year’s Day; Grandpa died seventeen years later on Christmas Day.
Though he had promised reform, John V. Kenny simply carried on where Hague left off. Patronage flourished. When Barney Doyle was appointed county superintendent of weights and measures, Gene Scanlon, a reporter from The Jersey Journal, called him for an interview. At the end of their chat, Scanlon threw him a giant softball.
“How many ounces are in a pound?” he asked Barney.
“How the hell do I know?” snapped Barney. “I just got the job.”
Like Hague before him, Kenny also encouraged illegal betting. He loved the horses and spent all his free time at the track. Legend had it that the Turnpike extension in downtown Jersey City was built to accommodate Kenny’s frequent trips to Monmouth Park, the racetrack on the Jersey shore.
One of Kenny’s best friends was the notorious bookie Newsboy Moriarty, who, with his fortune, bought a new altar for St. Michael’s Church—Kenny’s parish. Moriarty was a former newspaper hawker who never wrote down a bet: because of his photographic memory, he kept it all in his head. Since there were no records, it was difficult for the police to arrest him, even though he always had large wads of cash—upward of $7,000—in his pockets. Newsboy, who ran a $10 million operation, did some time in jail, but it was a small price to pay for being a millionaire—tax-free. When the cops chased him, he would throw money at them. It was guaranteed to slow down the pursuit.
Newsboy was a rich man, but he never boasted. He drove an old car that had cost him around three hundred dollars, wore tattered clothes, and always ate sandwiches, never fancy sit-down dinners. He lived with his two unmarried sisters in an old brownstone. He dated a girl from Newark for years, and every night, though he had the money to buy a fleet of stretch limos, he put her on a bus back home.
In the early 1960s, the Mafia started to infringe on Newsboy’s territory. The inside story goes that New York Mob boss Crazy Joe Gallo was given the okay to run the numbers racket in Jersey City and that Newsboy was ready to make a stink. The two were to meet at the Harmony Bar in downtown Jersey City’s Italian Village section, a known hangout for the local mobsters.
Kenny’s chief of police had Newsboy picked up from the streets before he could meet Gallo and start trouble. To get even with Kenny, Newsboy started a rumor that some of Kenny’s payoff money was hidden in a car trunk in a West Side garage. Since most of it was earmarked for Kenny, it was no loss to Newsboy when two carpenters found the $2.4 million inside an abandoned 1947 Plymouth sedan. Stacks of the money disappeared, and once Newsboy claimed the rest, a big chunk of it went to the IRS. It was Newsboy’s revenge for Kenny letting the Mob in on his turf.
Kenny had no choice, though. He was already in too deep, and well known down on the waterfront, where he had controlled the 6-for-5 shylock business before becoming mayor. Longie Zwillman had put up $350,000 in street money for Kenny to pay off voters. In that very first election, Kenny paid fifteen dollars a vote to Hague’s five.
In 1952, Kenny double-crossed a gangster named Mo Manna and was hospitalized for pneumonia and phlebitis, according to the papers. Word on the street was that the Mob had given Kenny a bullet in the ass.
To make peace with Kenny, the Mob put Mo’s son, young Anthony “Bobby” Manna, at the mayor’s disposal. If somebody in the city needed fixing, Bobby would take care of it.
That same year, Kenny was called to testify before the Waterfront Commission, and denied having ties to the Mob. The commissioners knew he was lying, had proof, and threatened him with a perjury charge. A week later, he made a public announcement saying his testimony was a lie. Kenny stepped down as mayor, but he remained the unofficial boss of Hudson County. It wasn’t until 1971, the year I started first grade, that Kenny finally lost his power, sentenced with Mayor Whelan in the Hudson Twelve case.
7
LUCKY STRIKE
Great-Aunt Katie was Grandpa’s sister, a tough, gray-haired woman who kept a handgun in her dining room sideboard and smoked unfiltered Lucky Strikes. She said it was the filters that gave you cancer. Every day, to go with her cigarettes, Aunt Katie drank a shot of Canadian Club. She said it cleared her lungs and kept her going.
For my mother, Aunt Katie was a replacement for Grandma, even though she wasn’t anything like her. Katie was squat and muscular, with short hair that made her look like a little man. Grandma had always worn dresses. Aunt Katie always wore pants.
She was the only woman I knew who really knew how to gamble. When Aunt Katie went to Atlantic City, she didn’t play the slot machines like the other old ladies. She shot craps—and had to stand on a box to reach the pit, because she was so short. Many a night, after a big win, the casino sent her home in a limo. Whenever she went to Florida to visit one of her sisters, Aunt Katie was sure to lay some bets at the dog track.
I loved spending time at Aunt Katie’s house, especially in her backyard. It was the same house where she and Grandpa and their ten other siblings had lived. It was my grandparents’ first address together, the place where Pauline’s water broke when she was pregnant with my mother.
While Aunt Katie and my mother drank coffee, I played with Katie’s dog, Buddy, who was so smart that he knew how to open the door from the hallway. Katie treated him like a human, and often sang the old war tune “My Buddy” to him. “Nights are long since you went away. I dream about you all through the day. My buddy. My buddy.” His ears would perk up and he would place a soft paw in her lap.
From Katie’s backyard, where Buddy’s doghouse stood, I could hear the bells of St. Mary’s ringing nearby. The St. Mary’s neighborhood, back when Grandpa and Aunt Katie were young, was still an Irish neighborhood, a bad place for a bunch of Italian kids to be raised. Because of her name, many people thought Katie was Irish, so she fared a little better than Grandpa had.
St. Mary’s was the church where Grandma Pauline converted to Catholicism from the Russian Orthodox religion in which she was raised. Aunt Katie backed her, getting Grandma in touch with the priest and helping her study for each of the sacraments. Aunt Katie was there when Grandma was rebaptized, when she received First Holy Communion and Confirmation, and on the day she remarried Grandpa. Grandma and Grandpa were remarried in St. Mary’s so that the marriage would be recognized by the Church and Grandma could receive Holy Communion every week.
It always astonished me that Grandma married Grandpa not once but twice.
During the ceremony, which was held in the parish rectory, Grandpa had a claustrophobic fit. He could never stand tight spaces, and I guess the chapel and the thought of getting remarried made him want to run. Grandma should have let him.
Because Aunt Katie had been so good to Grandma, my mother loved her. So did I. When I cried, Aunt Katie made me laugh by telling me that the water from my tears was making my eyes shrink. I had squinty eyes to begin with, and the thought of them growing even smaller made me stop crying.
Aunt Katie knew I hated being short like she was, so she told me that someday she would buy a racehorse and, since I was so tiny, I would be its jockey. I looked forward to those days at the track and imagined myself in photo finishes, my family raking in big bucks from lucky bets on me and my trusty steed.
The horse never did materialize, but Aunt Katie provided other distractions. She could throw a mean fastball in the backyard, or imitate a crowing rooster—that is until Uncle Al, her longshoreman husband, came home. As soon as Uncle Al came in the door, he would order Aunt Katie around. But she would make funny faces behind his back and “yes him to death,” as she called it.
Uncle Al’s face looked like one of the faces on the Indian-head coins that Grandpa had stolen from the library. He was Polish, but he looked just like an Indian chief. Though he wasn’t as crazy as Grandpa, he could be just as mean. He was stubborn, too, and insisted that Aunt Katie buy Tip Top bread. “Tip Top bread makes Tip Top toast,” he said without a hint of humor in his voice, as if he were a staff sergeant. Since Tip Top was expensive, Aunt Katie would buy regular A&P bread and put it in a leftover Tip Top bag. Uncle Al never knew the difference. Aunt Katie was very resourceful.
If Uncle Al lost his temper, he could go into a frenzy and break all the kitchen furniture. Aunt Katie always had a new kitchen set. When he was drunk, Al could be as abusive as Grandpa. But Aunt Katie knew how to handle Al. She was much smarter than he was.
After Uncle Al came in stinking drunk one night and terrorized her, Aunt Katie got an idea. “I’ll fix him,” she said. While Al snored, she smoked four cigars and a half pack of Lucky Strikes and left the stubs in ashtrays on the table. She sloppily spilled some Canadian Club into glasses, took a few swigs, and left the glasses sitting half empty. She dealt a round of playing cards and tossed some furniture around. Then she went to bed.
When Al got up the next morning, his head pounding with a hangover, he found Katie sitting at the table crying. She was a good actress.
“What’s all this?” he asked.
“What do you mean?” Aunt Katie sobbed. “Don’t you remember?”
Uncle Al looked at her blankly.
“Last night you and your fucking friends wrecked the joint with your poker game,” she said, waving her stubby arm. “Look at this mess. They were cursing and drinking and smoking. One of your buddies even made a play for me.” She cried a little harder, to show how traumatized she was by the near-rape experience.
Uncle Al was horrified at his and his friends’ behavior, and even more horrified that he couldn’t remember a minute of it. That day, he went to St. Mary’s and took a pledge never to drink again. He kept his promise for two long years.
Aunt Katie could handle anyone and anything that came her way. She once explained what to do in case a rabid dog tried to attack me. “Take your coat off and wrap it around your arm, like this,” she said, winding an imaginary coat around her forearm. “Then stick your arm out so the bastard goes to bite it. When he jumps up, you give him a swift kick in the balls.” I never got a chance to use the rabid-dog defense, but it was good information to have in downtown Jersey City, where an occasional pack of wild dogs would roam into my part of the neighborhood.
Katie was full of life lessons. But best of all, she could tell a funny story—like the one about the time she was cutting her toenails and one of them flew into her sister Eva’s eye. You had to hear Aunt Katie tell it.
It was Aunt Katie who told us about our Italian ancestors, about my great-great-grandmother Vita, the life-giver of the Italian-American line. Vita—Beansie’s grandmother—was married to a man named Francesco, who got involved in a fight during a card game in Bernalde, a town in the district of Matera, a lawless, godforsaken corner of southern Italy. Somehow, maybe in defense, maybe because of the temper that I inherited decades later, Vita killed the man. At least that’s what Aunt Katie said.
Perhaps Vita stabbed the cardplayer and twisted the knife a bit before pulling it out, or maybe she hit him over the head with a very heavy saucepan. Maybe the whole story was a fable. But Vita did escape to the United States around 1897, taking with her the last name of her lawyer or lover. The stolen last name was Vena. In Italian, the name means “vein,” as in the vein that runs through your arm, or through your family history. Figuratively, vena can also mean a talent or gift passed down from generation to generation. In our case, a talent for making trouble. The scandal was a blessing in disguise and a good excuse to leave Matera, which was well known for its violent card games and bandits, its chalky landscape, its cave dwellers, its pagans, witches, poverty, and malaria, its frescoes depicting original sin, and its Via del Riscattoò—“Street of Vengeance.” If Jersey City was hell, it was only the first circle. Ancient Matera was the core of hell, from which my ancestors—Vita and her children—barely escaped.
Vita left her husband behind and traveled by ship, in steerage, with her three young sons. One was lost in transit. Maybe while Vita was gaping at the Statue of Liberty in awe, looking away from her boys, her little son slipped away, stolen by a black-market adoption ring or child-labor slave trader. Perhaps he fell overboard, greedily sucked in by the waves.
Between the missing son, the homicide, and the escape from Italy, Vita was a wreck by the time she arrived at the Jersey City railroad terminal. Like my Russian great-grandmother, Irene, who had arrived four years earlier, Vita put down her bags and gave up in Jersey City. The Statue of Liberty pedestal may have read, “Give me your tired, your poor,” but if Jersey City had had a statue in the harbor, it would have said, “Give me your completely exhausted, completely broken, completely hopeless and weak, who have no train fare to go any farther.” Vita lived to a ripe old age, but in keeping with the family’s flair for drama, she didn’t die of natural causes, naturally. She was accidentally killed while walking down the street when a mischief-making neighborhood kid hit her in the head with a rock-filled sock on Halloween night.
Vita’s two remaining sons were named Leonardo and Valente. My great-grandfather Leonard—Beansie and Katie’s father—grew up to be a barber, and opened his shop right across the street from Hague’s headquarters at City Hall, only three doors from the Majestic Tavern. Leonard was a small man with a full moon of a face. He was so good and clean that you could smell his fresh barbershop scent when he walked past you. Opening the barbershop so close to City Hall was a brilliant move, since it guaranteed a steady clientele, including Hague and all his cronies. The shop was in a basement, a few steps down from the rotating red-and-white barber pole.
From his perch on a bench in City Hall Park, Grandpa could look straight inside and watch his father cut infamous heads. They sat in a row of old-fashioned chrome-and-leather barber chairs—state-of-the-art at the time—their dishonest faces thrown back at them in the bank of mirrors along the wall.
It was Leonard’s difficult job to make them look clean and fresh, to comb over their souls with hair tonic and shaving cream. Combs floated in antiseptic jars. Shaving brushes and straight-edged razors lay out like a surgeon’s tools. Each regular had his own shaving mug sitting on the shelf. Business was so good that Leonard even hired a female manicurist, who kept the politicians’ hands soft and their nails clean and trimmed.
Though the politicians were his main clientele, Leonard served the working men of Jersey City, too, whose hands were callused and dirty. One afternoon, just as a local man was stepping up to the chair, Hague came strolling into the shop.
