Bad Education on Lower Main, 1969

I was really good at hiding the small things Grandma used to lift from Atlas Five and Dime, the dual-door emporium that, along with Schweitzer’s Department Store across the street, was Fort Lee's Arc de Triomphe welcoming you into the eastern end of lower Main Street.

The polished feel of her five perfectly manicured oval-shaped red fingernails on the nape of my neck was my signal to stick my butt out ever-so-slightly so that the shaved waistband of my corduroy pants would draw away from the small of my back creating a gaping hole for whatever cold hot object she was funneling south.

I rehearsed this position over and over in the solitude of my bedroom, judged only by the dispassionate black button eyes of my adored Snoopy stuffed animal won for me at the Feast of St. Rocco two summers before. In order for the heist to work the angle of my torso had to be a perfect 45 degrees; otherwise, tubes of Revlon Raven Red lipstick would come shooting from my ass. I forced myself to practice because Grandma was a consummate professional who knew how not to get caught. So, if we ever got fingered it would be because I did something wrong. And what four-year old could live with that guilt?

Some days Grandma tossed so many things inside my pants that my ass felt like a piñata ready to burst open showering all kinds of goodies onto the ground.  I don’t want you to get the wrong impression about Grandma; I only acted as Grandma’s mule when her cavernous black purse could hold no more merchandise. The items she clipped were for resale only. Think of Grandma as the T.J. Maxx of her time. She got it “wholesale” then sold it “retail” to all of her white-haired coupon-clipping friends. They didn’t care if the items were hot, only that she carried their brand. Her best customers were members of the police chief’s family which only served to blur the lines of my moral vision, merging the lawful and criminal worlds into a peculiar pious alliance.

When she and my pants had both had their fill, Grandma would lay her thick-knuckled grip upon my forearm and steer me through the store’s heavy glass door and onto the broken sidewalk of lower Main Street towards her second floor walk-up in what is now In Napoli Restaurant. As Grandma’s bag swayed beside my ear, the unholy echo of her pink plastic rosary beads snaking themselves around her swollen swag resounded an aria of fractured Hail Mary’s.

I knew I was grandma’s favorite grandchild. For no other reason than out of the 40 grand-skulls she could choose among, mine was the only one that sported a thick tangled mess of fiery red curls which was nothing short of bizarre in a town populated with dark-haired Italians and black Irish. I was one big genetic flaw since no one; I mean no one, had hair remotely close to the color of mine! However, one four-year-olds’ genetic flaw is another Grandma’s hot ticket because the Technicolor Bozo-nian hue of my hair always worked to distract people while Grandma “browsed.” While they were busy running their curious fingers through my enticing curls, she was busy running her sticky fingers through their enticing merchandise. 

Thinking back upon it now, Grandma’s expertise at “plucking” items was, without a doubt, the inspiration for the arcade machine, “The Claw.”  Grandma’s hand would spasmodically sway over the assemblage of items that had been neatly organized in ordered rows within the thick-bordered wooden display cases, before expertly swooping down to grab the one object that caught her eye in a now-you-see-it, now-you-don’t, gone-in-a second, show of chicanery. “The Claw” did her best work in the sewing and make-up aisles. I didn’t so much mind the tubes of lipstick and bottles of nail polish that “The Claw” dropped into my pants, but I did draw the line at the sewing needles. Once a pin shook loose from the fold of its paper case and lodged itself right into the rump of my nubile roast!

Our escapades were just an extension of a life that Grandma had been living for a long time. You see, Grandma was on the “payroll.” For years she ran numbers for the mob and called in bets to bookies on a black rotary phone that they had installed on the wall in her kitchen. Alongside the phone was a small black covered notebook in which she would record each day’s bet that was placed with her, along with the names of the neighborhood men and women who owed money for bets placed and lost. Most importantly, in a world without commitment, Grandma was trustworthy -- she never ever ratted on anyone. This not only awarded her prestige among the crooked of the community, but protection from the law. Why? Because the information contained in Grandma’s little black book included more than just the names of a few nickel bettors –it was no secret that the names in her little black record book could bring the wheels of the local government and law enforcement to a screeching halt.

          It was an exciting life for a kid until the summer I turned five. That’s when my world as I knew it came to an abrupt end. I discovered that Jersey had some stupid law mandating that I start Kindergarten in September. I was broken-hearted thinking about all the adventures with Grandma  I’d be missing out on while imprisoned in a classroom with 25 runny-nosed novices who knew nothing about life in the underbelly.

I considered asking my Uncle Joey, who was the head of the local Laborers Union, to use his practiced elbow to influence the powers that be to help me avoid Kindergarten. With his noteworthy connections I figured I could hang out with him and get a job that wasn’t a real job, but paid well.  However, I had nothing of value to exchange for a favor so big, and in my fractured world where currency was not only measured in dollars, but in services rendered -- when you had nothing to exchange you got nothing in return.

My parents would never entertain the idea of me dropping out of school before I even began. The poor things were clueless about mine and Grandma’s adventurous partnership, and that’s the way Grandma and I wanted it. They had no idea that I was already well on my way to getting an education; I was already collecting the stories I would one day write and meeting people whose suspect, yet hilarious antics were, even in 1969, on the brink of extinction. 
Unfortunately, there was nothing I could do to avoid my fate. Reluctantly, I readied myself for Kindergarten. The sadness in Grandma’s eyes was palpable, and I could feel our crooked bond weakening as summer began to nudge its way towards fall. On our final outing, Grandma took me to Schweitzer’s Department Store to buy my very first pair of school shoes.  

With a weighted heart I scraped my worn red PF Flyers against the gold- carpeted floor of the shoe department as I watched Grandma remove cash from her purse. She moistened her thumb with saliva from her tongue and meticulously counted the clean crisp dollar bills that were exchanged for a pair of red Buster Brown tee-strap shoes with black rubber soles so thick I could have hauled used cars on them. The purchase of those red Buster Browns dissolved any remnant of our joint venture, and I hid behind the sale rack to conceal the bitter tears of my discontent.

I now knew there was no way I was getting out of Kindergarten, so I looked at my situation the way most of the people who populated my first five years in Fort Lee would look at it -- I was looking at a minimum 12-year sentence with no chance of parole. I just hoped that I could stomach turning legit. I didn’t know it then, but I had nothing to worry about because the nuns took great pleasure in beating the legitimacy into me making me wish I was born a Jew.