Summertime Escapades
I spent every summer in Atlantic City begining in my early childhood until late in my teens. Who wouldn't enjoy being on the beach all day and splashing in the surf, but the fun really started as I got older. The geography of the Atlantic City Beach in those times was very ethnic. Hamid’s Million Dollar Pier jutted out into the ocean at Mississippi Avenue. Looking at the ocean, to the right of the pier was “Little Italy” and to the left of the pier was “Little Israel”. In my early teens, with my dark hair and deep tan it was difficult to determine my nationality. One sure giveaway was the miraculous medal that I wore constantly. My mother gave it to me on the day of my confirmation and I have been wearing it ever since. The Italian girls in our neighborhood were good-looking but they were cloned. They all had dark hair, dark eyes and dark skin. It was rare to see a blond blue-eyed girl on the Italian side of the pier. Under the pier and out towards the Jewish side, were blond buxom blue-eyed babes scattered all over the beach. They were gorgeous and I was mesmerized by them. The Jewish girls were very particular about only associating with Jewish boy’s (it’s an ethnic thing) and it presented a problem for me. The solution: buy a mezuzah and wear it on the Jewish beach. I would wear my miraculous medal on the Italian beach and while walking under the pier to the Jewish side, put my miraculous medal in my pocket and wear the mezuzah! On my side of the pier I was “Charlie Del Marco” but on the other side I became “Charlie Schwartz”.
Bernice Waxman was cute, cuddly, blond, blue-eyed and had a pair of knockout knockers. She wore a two-piece suit and filled it all the way. I made a move and we connected; Charlie Schwartz was acceptable. We frolicked on the beach, splashed in the surf and generally got along quite well together for a few days. One afternoon I walked her home to meet her mother. That proved to be a mistake. We had tea and cheese blintzes while her mother interrogated me. The next afternoon her mother came storming down on the beach looking for me with fire in her eyes. She drew a bit of a crowd screaming that I was not Jewish and she didn’t want me sniffing around her daughter. I remember the expression because I had never heard it before. It was the end of my foray into the Jewish neighborhood. It was great while it lasted and I kept the mezuzah; it might come in handy sometime again.
Over the years I had a series of jobs beginning with selling orange drinks in convention hall, ending playing piano in bars and cocktail lounges. The orange juice gig in Convention Hall was a learning experience. I thought all we had to do was sell little cartons of orange drink and get paid a percentage of what we sold. The older boys taught me to collect the empty cartons, then when we went to the chief vendor for a new supply, we would find a spare room, lock the door and fill the empty cartons with 50% of the orange drink from the new cartons and fill the remainder with water. Do this three or four times in an evening and you end up with three or four times more money. Call it wrong, call it cheating, call it stealing, but I when I found out about it I did it too. It taught me another lesson; never buy soft drinks in cartons at any sporting event.
My Uncle John, mother’s younger brother, would arrive in Atlantic City for the summer season. Uncle John was an alcoholic, not just an ordinary alcoholic but a confirmed alcoholic. He would start the day with an eight ounce glass of whiskey and continue drinking until he either went to sleep or fell down in a stupor. He would disappear in winter. No one would hear from him but with the first flowers of spring he would pop up in Atlantic City. He was a good cook and always had a prime job at one of the nightclubs. He could never hold a job in a restaurant because of his drinking but it didn’t seem to matter to the nightclub owners. One of his favorite kitchens was the Hialeah Supper Club on Atlantic Avenue. When I was young he was very strict with me and made sure I didn’t get into trouble. I was 15 years old when he got a job for me busing dishes at the club. Uncle John was colorful and I loved working with him. He would tell me “don’t eat ‘nuttin’ off the plates you bring back to the kitchen, if you want ‘sumtin’ to eat, I’ll make it for you” and “stay away from the waitresses, they are all whores.” As I got older I waited tables and played piano during the late hours. The place was a haven for gamblers, hookers, horse bettors and jockeys. I could never understand how jockeys could drink and carouse all night and gallop horses the next day. I was fascinated by the diminutive jockeys and the leggy, buxom broads who were always with them. It goes something like this, “if you’re toes to toes, your nose is in it and if you’re nose to nose your toes are in it”.
The gamblers and the hoods were of a different ilk. Some were quiet and some were boisterous but all of them deadly. Uncle John would point out certain customers for me to give extra special attention. I did and always received a very generous tip. One night one of the gamblers called me to the table and asked me to find a scissors. I got one from the kitchen and went back to the table. There was a bet on the length of my tie. One of them got up, took the scissors and cut my tie off claiming that he won the bet. Before they left, he gave me a $50 bill and told me to buy a few ties.
There was one group of men who looked particularly ominous. They were regular customers and rated special service. They chomped on cigars, had 18 inch necks, large pepper noses and big bellies. The table, located in a corner, was always enveloped in cigar smoke. One night they called Uncle John out of the kitchen and asked him to make linguine with fresh little neck clams and crab meat in white sauce laced with garlic. “You know John, like you made us once before.” Uncle John said “Yeah, crab meat I got but no fresh clams.” One of the men looked at him and said “Johnny, get some, we’ll wait.” It was past midnight and John went back to the kitchen, made a few calls and sent me out to pick up a bag of fresh clams. It was close to 2 a.m. when I served the meal. The aroma alone would’ve been enough and the men consumed it with gusto. Before they left they went into the kitchen, put their arms around John, hugged him and gave him a wad of cash. One of them gave me $100 bill. That’s the way they were.
I was walking home from work late one night when a police car pulled alongside me and two burly policemen jumped out, grabbed me, put me in handcuffs and tossed me roughly into the car. I had no idea what was happening and they were not about to tell me. When we got to the police station I was allowed a phone call. I called my mother and you can imagine what she said to me. I told her I had no idea why they picked me up. She calmed down and told me she was on her way. It is customary in Italian neighborhoods that if you are in trouble, call the ward leader, a small time politician who could fix tickets and patronize the local police. Meanwhile I was gathered with a group of eight or 10 other boys and put in a lineup. Evidently a young girl was molested and I, along with the others, fit the description of the perpetrator. Each one of us was asked to step forward, step right and then left and say something. As each boy did his turn I could hear a voice say “that’s not him”. I knew I was innocent but I was very nervous when it came to my turn. I let out a sigh of relief when I heard her say “no, that’s not him”.
One might think that was the end of it but all hell broke out when I went to the desk sergeant for a release. My mother was there and the local politician was schmoozing the sergeant. The sergeant leaned over to my mother and said “Well now, you can take your boy home” He had an Irish accent and mother got right in his face and said sweetly “Yes, I’ll take my boy home, but you, you Irish bastard, if you ever touch my boy again I’ll wipe the street with you.” The sergeant threatened to put my mother in jail, the politician was trying to restore order and I aggravated the situation by telling the police sergeant to “go forth, be fruitful and multiply”, or words to that effect. The sergeant threatened to put us both in a cell and the politician had his hands full. My mother quieted down after a while and we dragged her out of the station. Regardless of the fact that I was innocent my mother found a reason to punish me. My mother always found a reason to punish me.
One summer season I was working steady and saving lots of money. I was playing piano in bars and honky-tonks when I got a job playing pit piano in a burlesque theater. The Globe burlesque house was located on the boardwalk at St. Charles Place. (a bit of irony there) It was legitimate theater and during the season played to a packed house. The chorus girls were
full figured and the comedians, ie., the top bananas,
in rare form. At intermission the ‘tit singer’ would
come on stage in a tuxedo. Hewas the ‘tit singer’
because he sang while the chorus girls bounced and
jiggled across the stage (usually out of step) to his
rendition of ‘On The Road to Mandalay'. He hawked
the audience that some of the boxes of Cracker Jack
had special prizes hidden inside. “At least 10 boxes
have little French picture books, you know the kind I
mean folks, the little books with 8 pages of pictures
that makeFrenchmen foam at the mouth.” After he
made his pitch he would sing a few more songs and
the second half of the program would begin. The
second half featured the star performer.
The premier ecdysiast of the night would bump and grind, encouraging hoots and whistles from the audience.
My employment came to an abrupt end. One night, prior to the start of the show we were setting up the instruments when my mother came marching down the aisle, grabbed a handful of my hair and pulled me off the piano bench. The drummer mumbled something like ‘she can’t do that’ and I said ‘and who’s going to stop her.’ Someone told her about it and she was furious. I told her I was working at a club; I didn’t think it would benefit me to tell her it was a burlesque theater. “This is where you’re working! This is how you spend your time! I’ll show you a thing or two young man!” That was one of my mother’s favorite expressions when she was angry with me. She was frequently angry with me.
I saved enough money to buy an automobile. It was a prewar jet black Pontiac convertible with wide white wall tires. I had it done up in zebra cloth seat covers. It was a dandy car and I loved it. One night one of my friends begged me to borrow the car for a few hours. I was reluctant but he was a good friend and I made him swear not to mess up the back seat. He brought the car back in a few hours and I thought nothing of it. A few days later my mother had somewhere to go and because my car was out front she asked me for the keys. It was a beautiful sunny day and I told her to put the top down. You may recall that convertibles at that time had a latch on the left and right side to unlock the top. The latches were behind the sun visors.
Mother came bursting through the door screaming that she didn’t have a son but a pig!! She was holding a Kleenex between her thumb and forefinger from which dangled a knotted, loaded and well used condom. Her temperature went up several hundred degrees when I said “What the hell is that?” She exploded. “You know damn well what it is. Is this what you do in your car? I thought I raised a son but I raised a pig!!!” She ranted and raved for what seemed an eternity. I had nothing to say. There was nothing I could say. The scenario began to develop in my mind, frame by frame, like a movie running backwards in slow-motion. It goes something like this..........................,
Mother sat in the car, reached up to pull the sun visor down in order to get to the latch to open the convertible top. When the sun visor came down, the condom came down with it and fell with a ‘plop’ right in my mother’s lap. It now became clear what happened in the back seat the night before. My buddy thought it would be a riot to leave a trophy under the sun visor. There was no way my mother was ready to listen to any explanation so I decided to get out of her way. I left the house for several hours waiting for her to cool down. I came home at dinner time. She glared at me, put a plate of food on the floor and said “You want to live like a pig, eat like a pig.” I glanced at my father but he was no consolation. He looked at me sadly and said “You know how your mother is.” I tried to pick up the plate but my mother had mayhem in her eyes. She growled “Don’t you dare pick it up. Eat on the floor like the pig you are.”
Now folks, you must understand that my mother loved me more than anything else in the world. I was her pride and joy, her sweet little boy. She would stand in front of a locomotive going 100 mph to protect me. When she was angry, as she frequently was, love was swept aside, replaced with severe chastisement. It took several days before I could fully convince her that it wasn’t my doing, that I had let someone borrow my car. She had a hard time understanding why anyone would do such a thing and she made me promise never again to lend my car. Given what happened it was an easy promise for me to make and keep.
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Bernice Waxman was cute, cuddly, blond, blue-eyed and had a pair of knockout knockers. She wore a two-piece suit and filled it all the way. I made a move and we connected; Charlie Schwartz was acceptable. We frolicked on the beach, splashed in the surf and generally got along quite well together for a few days. One afternoon I walked her home to meet her mother. That proved to be a mistake. We had tea and cheese blintzes while her mother interrogated me. The next afternoon her mother came storming down on the beach looking for me with fire in her eyes. She drew a bit of a crowd screaming that I was not Jewish and she didn’t want me sniffing around her daughter. I remember the expression because I had never heard it before. It was the end of my foray into the Jewish neighborhood. It was great while it lasted and I kept the mezuzah; it might come in handy sometime again.
Over the years I had a series of jobs beginning with selling orange drinks in convention hall, ending playing piano in bars and cocktail lounges. The orange juice gig in Convention Hall was a learning experience. I thought all we had to do was sell little cartons of orange drink and get paid a percentage of what we sold. The older boys taught me to collect the empty cartons, then when we went to the chief vendor for a new supply, we would find a spare room, lock the door and fill the empty cartons with 50% of the orange drink from the new cartons and fill the remainder with water. Do this three or four times in an evening and you end up with three or four times more money. Call it wrong, call it cheating, call it stealing, but I when I found out about it I did it too. It taught me another lesson; never buy soft drinks in cartons at any sporting event.
My Uncle John, mother’s younger brother, would arrive in Atlantic City for the summer season. Uncle John was an alcoholic, not just an ordinary alcoholic but a confirmed alcoholic. He would start the day with an eight ounce glass of whiskey and continue drinking until he either went to sleep or fell down in a stupor. He would disappear in winter. No one would hear from him but with the first flowers of spring he would pop up in Atlantic City. He was a good cook and always had a prime job at one of the nightclubs. He could never hold a job in a restaurant because of his drinking but it didn’t seem to matter to the nightclub owners. One of his favorite kitchens was the Hialeah Supper Club on Atlantic Avenue. When I was young he was very strict with me and made sure I didn’t get into trouble. I was 15 years old when he got a job for me busing dishes at the club. Uncle John was colorful and I loved working with him. He would tell me “don’t eat ‘nuttin’ off the plates you bring back to the kitchen, if you want ‘sumtin’ to eat, I’ll make it for you” and “stay away from the waitresses, they are all whores.” As I got older I waited tables and played piano during the late hours. The place was a haven for gamblers, hookers, horse bettors and jockeys. I could never understand how jockeys could drink and carouse all night and gallop horses the next day. I was fascinated by the diminutive jockeys and the leggy, buxom broads who were always with them. It goes something like this, “if you’re toes to toes, your nose is in it and if you’re nose to nose your toes are in it”.
The gamblers and the hoods were of a different ilk. Some were quiet and some were boisterous but all of them deadly. Uncle John would point out certain customers for me to give extra special attention. I did and always received a very generous tip. One night one of the gamblers called me to the table and asked me to find a scissors. I got one from the kitchen and went back to the table. There was a bet on the length of my tie. One of them got up, took the scissors and cut my tie off claiming that he won the bet. Before they left, he gave me a $50 bill and told me to buy a few ties.
There was one group of men who looked particularly ominous. They were regular customers and rated special service. They chomped on cigars, had 18 inch necks, large pepper noses and big bellies. The table, located in a corner, was always enveloped in cigar smoke. One night they called Uncle John out of the kitchen and asked him to make linguine with fresh little neck clams and crab meat in white sauce laced with garlic. “You know John, like you made us once before.” Uncle John said “Yeah, crab meat I got but no fresh clams.” One of the men looked at him and said “Johnny, get some, we’ll wait.” It was past midnight and John went back to the kitchen, made a few calls and sent me out to pick up a bag of fresh clams. It was close to 2 a.m. when I served the meal. The aroma alone would’ve been enough and the men consumed it with gusto. Before they left they went into the kitchen, put their arms around John, hugged him and gave him a wad of cash. One of them gave me $100 bill. That’s the way they were.
I was walking home from work late one night when a police car pulled alongside me and two burly policemen jumped out, grabbed me, put me in handcuffs and tossed me roughly into the car. I had no idea what was happening and they were not about to tell me. When we got to the police station I was allowed a phone call. I called my mother and you can imagine what she said to me. I told her I had no idea why they picked me up. She calmed down and told me she was on her way. It is customary in Italian neighborhoods that if you are in trouble, call the ward leader, a small time politician who could fix tickets and patronize the local police. Meanwhile I was gathered with a group of eight or 10 other boys and put in a lineup. Evidently a young girl was molested and I, along with the others, fit the description of the perpetrator. Each one of us was asked to step forward, step right and then left and say something. As each boy did his turn I could hear a voice say “that’s not him”. I knew I was innocent but I was very nervous when it came to my turn. I let out a sigh of relief when I heard her say “no, that’s not him”.
One might think that was the end of it but all hell broke out when I went to the desk sergeant for a release. My mother was there and the local politician was schmoozing the sergeant. The sergeant leaned over to my mother and said “Well now, you can take your boy home” He had an Irish accent and mother got right in his face and said sweetly “Yes, I’ll take my boy home, but you, you Irish bastard, if you ever touch my boy again I’ll wipe the street with you.” The sergeant threatened to put my mother in jail, the politician was trying to restore order and I aggravated the situation by telling the police sergeant to “go forth, be fruitful and multiply”, or words to that effect. The sergeant threatened to put us both in a cell and the politician had his hands full. My mother quieted down after a while and we dragged her out of the station. Regardless of the fact that I was innocent my mother found a reason to punish me. My mother always found a reason to punish me.
One summer season I was working steady and saving lots of money. I was playing piano in bars and honky-tonks when I got a job playing pit piano in a burlesque theater. The Globe burlesque house was located on the boardwalk at St. Charles Place. (a bit of irony there) It was legitimate theater and during the season played to a packed house. The chorus girls were
full figured and the comedians, ie., the top bananas,
in rare form. At intermission the ‘tit singer’ would
come on stage in a tuxedo. Hewas the ‘tit singer’
because he sang while the chorus girls bounced and
jiggled across the stage (usually out of step) to his
rendition of ‘On The Road to Mandalay'. He hawked
the audience that some of the boxes of Cracker Jack
had special prizes hidden inside. “At least 10 boxes
have little French picture books, you know the kind I
mean folks, the little books with 8 pages of pictures
that makeFrenchmen foam at the mouth.” After he
made his pitch he would sing a few more songs and
the second half of the program would begin. The
second half featured the star performer.
The premier ecdysiast of the night would bump and grind, encouraging hoots and whistles from the audience.
My employment came to an abrupt end. One night, prior to the start of the show we were setting up the instruments when my mother came marching down the aisle, grabbed a handful of my hair and pulled me off the piano bench. The drummer mumbled something like ‘she can’t do that’ and I said ‘and who’s going to stop her.’ Someone told her about it and she was furious. I told her I was working at a club; I didn’t think it would benefit me to tell her it was a burlesque theater. “This is where you’re working! This is how you spend your time! I’ll show you a thing or two young man!” That was one of my mother’s favorite expressions when she was angry with me. She was frequently angry with me.
I saved enough money to buy an automobile. It was a prewar jet black Pontiac convertible with wide white wall tires. I had it done up in zebra cloth seat covers. It was a dandy car and I loved it. One night one of my friends begged me to borrow the car for a few hours. I was reluctant but he was a good friend and I made him swear not to mess up the back seat. He brought the car back in a few hours and I thought nothing of it. A few days later my mother had somewhere to go and because my car was out front she asked me for the keys. It was a beautiful sunny day and I told her to put the top down. You may recall that convertibles at that time had a latch on the left and right side to unlock the top. The latches were behind the sun visors.
Mother came bursting through the door screaming that she didn’t have a son but a pig!! She was holding a Kleenex between her thumb and forefinger from which dangled a knotted, loaded and well used condom. Her temperature went up several hundred degrees when I said “What the hell is that?” She exploded. “You know damn well what it is. Is this what you do in your car? I thought I raised a son but I raised a pig!!!” She ranted and raved for what seemed an eternity. I had nothing to say. There was nothing I could say. The scenario began to develop in my mind, frame by frame, like a movie running backwards in slow-motion. It goes something like this..........................,
Mother sat in the car, reached up to pull the sun visor down in order to get to the latch to open the convertible top. When the sun visor came down, the condom came down with it and fell with a ‘plop’ right in my mother’s lap. It now became clear what happened in the back seat the night before. My buddy thought it would be a riot to leave a trophy under the sun visor. There was no way my mother was ready to listen to any explanation so I decided to get out of her way. I left the house for several hours waiting for her to cool down. I came home at dinner time. She glared at me, put a plate of food on the floor and said “You want to live like a pig, eat like a pig.” I glanced at my father but he was no consolation. He looked at me sadly and said “You know how your mother is.” I tried to pick up the plate but my mother had mayhem in her eyes. She growled “Don’t you dare pick it up. Eat on the floor like the pig you are.”
Now folks, you must understand that my mother loved me more than anything else in the world. I was her pride and joy, her sweet little boy. She would stand in front of a locomotive going 100 mph to protect me. When she was angry, as she frequently was, love was swept aside, replaced with severe chastisement. It took several days before I could fully convince her that it wasn’t my doing, that I had let someone borrow my car. She had a hard time understanding why anyone would do such a thing and she made me promise never again to lend my car. Given what happened it was an easy promise for me to make and keep.
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