Back in the 90s sandwiches on 47th Street cost anywhere from $6-8. That added up to 40 bucks. The price of 3 bottles of wine, so I bought my lunch to work. The meals cost less than $2 and I knew what I was eating.
Salami and cheese from the Italian deli on East 9th Street. Bread from the Ukrainian bakery on 9th. The pickles I glommed from Berger’s Deli.
One November afternoon I hurried to the diamond exchange. Cold drizzle dampened the sidewalk. My leather jacket kept off the cold and my boots stopped the wet from touching my feet. It was 9:25 and I would have arrived on time, except a slovenly beggar wearing a soggy drunken bum wearing a yamakah stepped into my path.
“Damian, can you spare a few coins for a drunk?” Lenny pushed his busted glasses up his nose. The homeless schmiel smelled like a slave ship. His wardrobe consisted of a stained tee-shirt, soiled gray flannel pants, and torn sneakers. Lenny lived off the donations of passers-by. I donated a couple of bucks each week to prevent him from calling my boss a Nazi. I considered Lenny a good luck charm.
“Sure.” New York was a tough town and it didn’t take much to fall from the heights to his depth. I gave him all my change and a dollar.
“Bless you, Damian.” The empty bottle of brandy in his hand needed filling. “Can you tell me why your boss hates me.”
“Manny doesn’t hate you. He just doesn’t have any use for bums.” Manny’s life was his work.
“I wasn’t always a bum.”
“I know that.” I didn’t have the time to hear his story. Manny was in the front window of the exchange. He pointed at his watch. “Lenny, you want me to bring you a coat?”
“No, the other bums in the shelter will only steal it.” Lenny waddled down the sidewalk with an outstretched palm and I hurried across the street to the store. The guard buzzed me in and I went behind the counter. Elise Randolph was in the window with Myrah, their company’s go-fer. The blonde girl was always on time.
“Nice of you to show up.” Manny sat at the safe. The combination was written on the piece of paper in his hand.
“I’m only a few minutes late.” The door opened to the public at 9:30. It was only 9:25, but Manny wanted us in early to set up the store for business.
“Late is late.” Manny twisted the tumbler to the right and then the left.
“Shouldn’t we wait for Domingo or your sons?” Opening the safe with only two people was an invitation to the thieves of 47th Street were constantly on the prowl for a slip-up.
“Wait till when?” Manny spun the tumbler again. “Shut up for a second. I need to concentrate on the combination.”
It took five attempts for Manny to open the safe. Elise Randolph across the aisle rolled her eyes at his fumbling fingers and I laughed aloud.
“What’s so funny?” The safe tumblers clicked and Manny yanked open the safe.
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?” Manny lifted a metal box from a shelf. “Start setting up the window and try not to smudge the jewellery with your greasy fingers.”
“My fingers aren’t greasy.” I hadn’t stopped at Veselka’s for breakfast.
“You touched Lenny.” Manny started setting up the aisle counter. “Why you give that schmendrick money anyway?”
“Lenny’s my charity.” I laid out the glittering diamond rings. On tray was worth about $50,000. “It’s not like I’m paying taxes.”
“Enough.” Money issues were no one else’s business. “Just set up the window.”
I did as I was told and afterwards Manny gave me several manila envelopes to deliver to the setters and polishers. I didn’t like leaving him alone.
“I come from Brownsville. I was fighting in a gang at age 15.” Manny opened his jacket. His .38 was in its shoulder holster. He had a license to carry. Most jewellers do. “Who’s going to rob me?”
The takers were legion on a street where the criminals outnumbered the customers.
“You’re the boss.” I picked up the NY Times.
“Where you going with that?”
“Sometimes the pen is stronger than the sword.” Rolled up the newspaper packed a good punch.
“Everyone’s a hero.” Manny lifted his eyes to heaven. “Don’t go disappear.”
I made the rounds in record time, stopping only to gaze at the other windows. Some stores specialized in high-end diamonds, other in dreck. Manny’s was in between and our big diamonds came from the Randolphs. They were old money on this street.
By the time I returned to the store Richie Boy, his brother Googs, and Domingo were working three customers. I handed the envelopes to Manny. A walk-in customer entered the exchange. Before I could greet him, Manny gave me another sheaf of envelope.
“Bring them back quick.” Everything was a rush with Manny. I hesitated, as the man surveyed the merchandise in the display case. Manny waved me out the door. “Go already.”
I took my time on this trip. The Gotham Book Store was a good for killing a few minutes. I read a few chapters The Curious Lore of Precious Stones by George Frederick Kunz. The bookstore wanted $15 for the Dover reprint of the original 1913 publication expounding on the magical aspects of gemstones. I bought Charles Williford’s A BURNT ORANGE HERESY instead and headed back to the exchange. It was lunch time.
Manny looked at his watch. I would have dropped the envelopes on his desk, except he was sorting through a packet of tiny diamonds.
“What are they?” I placed the envelopes carefully on a shelf.
“I have these loose diamonds. Anything less than .22 carats is what we call ‘melee’. Lesson over. Leave me alone.” Manny plucked a diamond from the pile with tweezers and examined it with a loupe, which magnified the stone 10 times. Manny lifted his head. “Go already. You’re making me nervous.”
I went to my desk and took off my leather coat. The Randolphs had ordered sandwiches from Berger’s Deli. The aroma of pastrami reminded me of my sandwich and I sat down at my desk, piling salami and provolone on the rye bread. Richie Boy snagged a slice of salami off my sandwich. He didn’t bother to hurry away, since he was still wearing leg braces from his ski accident.
“I see you have no shame in being a schnorrer!” We had been friends for over ten years. Eating each other’s food before the other could get it in their mouth had been a contest that neither of us could win.
“Only because I learn from the best.” Richie Boy popped the peppery slice in his mouth and returned to fielding the onslaught of phone calls from friends and customers.
“What’s a ‘snorer’?” asked Myrah, the blonde girl working for the Randolph. Her mother was a schitzah and her father Jewish, but she had been bought up agnostic and couldn’t get her mouth around the guttural ‘schn’.
“A schnorrer is someone who mooches off you.”
“Mooch?” This term also stumped Myrah’s English.
“A mooch or schnorrer is a beggar.” A passing Hassidic pearl dealer partial to blondes interjected his two cents.
“Yes, but not always,” I explained. “A schnorrer is more someone who eats off your plate, because he likes what you have.”
“You mean like how someone else’s potato chips taste better than those you buy.”
Myrah understood this analogy and I turned to the Hassid. “Can you think of another word for beggar?”
“Not that I know.” The Hassid pulled on his long curly side lock. Richie liked to call ‘peyes’ ‘yidlocks’, then again he was a bacon Jew i.e. he ate pork. It ran in his family.
“Marty,” I yelled to the retired principal, who schlepped merchandise part-time for the Randolphs. “What’s the Yiddish word for beggar?”
“Have to admit I really don’t know.” Marty was perplexed by the question, especially since he didn’t expect it from a goy.
“So a ‘snorer’ is like those ladies with the canes begging on 47th Street?” Myrah was referring to the seemingly crippled women dressed in Hassidic attire
“No, those ladies are Palestinian Gypsies,” Marty frowned disapprovingly with an added shaking of his head. “They pretend to be Jews.”
“So there’s nothing wrong with them?” Myrah’s eyes widened in revelation.
“They have a school where they learn to walk like ballerinas with broken feet.” Marty explained without bitterness. He had nothing against gypsies other than they were thieves. They came into the exchange every day trying to steal. Robbing was honest in comparison to pretending to be a Jew.
“I thought they were cripple.”
“They’re thieves running a scam.”
“So beggars are more honest.” Myrah obviously had been giving them money. She was a little slow, but had a good heart.
“Beggars are just as bad.” Manny chipped in from his desk. He had quit at age 14 and worked on Canal Street humping boxes. He had no pity for any able bodied person who didn’t want to work even if they were family, but one beggar on 47th Street drove him insane. “Especially that schlemiel Lenny.”
“Not Lenny!” Slagging off my good luck charm was bad luck.
“Lenny was the worst of them all. He pretends to be mad, but he’s mad crazy smart. He has more money than all of us put together. Just like the goy. You have money socked away someplace. The goy fortune.”
“Manny, I wouldn’t be working here if I had money.”
“No, you’d be here because we make you laugh.” Manny was losing his temper.
“I’m broke. My bank account’s broke.”
“Dad, he’s so broke he can’t pay attention.” Richie Boy attempted to defuse the tension.
“Go blow smoke up someone else’s ass.” Manny was on a roll and ready to bruise anyone’s ego. Idle hands bugged him and I put away my sandwich. Richie Boy backed off and I said, “Manny, you’re right. I have a pirate’s chest buried in the sand. Maybe a million dollars and I lent you some at 7% vig per week.”
10% was the standard hit from a loan shark.
“Such a hero.” Manny’s face was red. He had high blood pressure.
“Maybe Lenny could do better. How much money you really think Lenny makes in one day?”
“Fifty dollars easy,” Marty ventured and even Mr. Randolph entered the discussion. “Lenny doesn’t need the money. His family was too rich.”
“Too drunk more like it!” Manny muttered, then added, “Don’t you have anything better to do than talk about that bum!”
“Yeah, the world’s a better place without him!” Mr. Randolph returned to his end of the booth.
Lenny certainly wasn’t cantonizable to sainthood, so I dropped the subject and called several customers about picking up their merchandise. Once I was hung up, Myrah came across the aisle and whispered, “Why did everyone get so angry about Lenny?”
“This street has plenty of bums.” I spoke quietly, not wanting to ignite another debate this far from closing time. “There’s a mad rabbi who always is shouting ‘Shalom!’ and another Hassid pretending to be asking for alms for the new temple in Jerusalem. Lenny’s the only Hassidic bum not running a religious scam.”
Manny walked past on his way to replace a diamond brooch in the window.
“So Lenny is a good person?” Myrah asked loud enough for only me to hear.
“No, Lenny wasn’t such a nice person, but I like him.” Maybe because he resembled an overweight puppy gone. Myrah left the store to get lunch from the Randolphs. Their boss paid them lunch. Manny only did on Fridays. He handed me a set of earrings. “Go up to the setter and have him check these stones.”
“Can I eat my sandwich first.” I unwrapped my food and Manny picked off a slice of salami. “Nice. Almost as good as we used to get on the Bowery.”
“It comes from an Italian deli.”
“You can tell.” He took another slice. “Why are you bothering to tell that girl stories about that gonif?”
“Because Lenny is special unlike your buddy, Tie-Coon.” Tie-coon was a well-dressed gentleman from Harlem providing ties and belt from famous stores at a fraction of the price. Manny gave him $20 every time he came into the store, which was once a week. Usually on Fridays.
“Tie-coon provides a service.” Manny had a soft spot for Tie-coon and I had mine. “Lenny always has a nice word for me.”
“Cause you give him a buck!”
“Yeah, well, it’s my dollar.” Manny respected other people’s money no matter how much the amount.
The drizzle became rain. No more customers came into the store and the Randolphs started packing up at 4:30. They always went home early.
Manny was desperately hoping for a final sale and said we were staying till closing time. The guards weren’t happy to hear this news. Like Richie Boy, Googs, and Domingo and me they wanted to go home.
“Maybe we’ll get lucky.” Manny was eternally hopeful.
A hand slapped the glass door. It was Lenny. He pushed his way inside. His stench now smelled more like rancid alcohol and everyone stepped away from the front door.
“Anyone have anything to give today.” Lenny blew on his hands.
“Get out! This is a place of business.” Manny shouted from his desk.
“What you have against Jews?” His voice was irritatingly high-pitched.
“We have nothing against Jews, only bums!” Jerome Randolph yelled from the other side of the aisle. “You heard the man, get out of here!”
“You’re both Nazis!” He faced me. “What about you? You’re a gentile, right? You got a dollar. I don’t do drugs. All I do is get a little schitkah. That’s Yiddish for drunk.”
“You tell me the word for beggar in Yiddish and I’ll give you a dollar.” I dug into my pocket.
“Most people think its schnorrer, but they’re wrong. The more applicable word is bonsai or even belter. Of course the pronunciation depends on the accent of the shell.” Lenny was playing the audience. “You know Mr. Randolph, there’s a very good book by Israel Zangwill. THE KING OF THE SCHNORRERS.”
“Enough already.” Mr. Randolph slapped a dollar on the glass counter top. “Go.”
I handed him a dollar and Lenny took off his threadbare yarmulke. “Sorry, but I don’t wash in the shelter. It’s not kosher.”
“You are a little ripe.” Like rotten potatoes.
“In the summer it’s worst, but it keeps away anyone who wants to hurt me and in the shelter there’s plenty of people that don’t like Jews.” Lenny shrugged to Manny. “See how gentiles treat Jews.”
As soon as he left, Manny said, “I don’t want you giving that bum any money. Not in my place of business.”
“Okay,” I answered, but my money was my money.
The next day I spotted Lenny in front of Berger’s Deli. It was below freezing, yet his skin steamed from the fever of his mania. He wasn’t speaking to anyone, but I stopped and listened to his articulate treatise on Microsoft stock, though I wasn’t banking anything on someone who smelled like a dead man’s shoe. As I began to walk away, the bum said to a passing Hassidim diamond dealer, “There’s the goy who gave me a dollar yesterday. The good goy, Damien.”
“His name isn’t Damien___” The dealer recognized me at Manny’s store.
“I like the name Damien fine.” I couldn’t resist Lenny’s utter helplessness. “You want my lunch?”
“From Berger? That’s not kosher.”
“Just what the world has been waiting for, a finicky bum,” The Hassidim laughed, but Lenny cringed with hurt and shambled off with a mutter. “I’m not finicky, just don’t eat tref. See you, Damien.”
Berger’s was definitely kosher, though not dairy, and I said, “Lenny doesn’t seem to be playing with all the cards in the deck.”
“Believe it or not, Lenny used to be a big stockbroker on Wall Street.”
“What happened?”
“He went nuts after the 1987 Crash. Lost his fortune and his mind, but he really does know what he’s talking about.”
“So you would use his stock tip.”
“About Microsoft? No way they’ll beat out IBM.”
Of course no one listened to Lenny. We all made fun of him, but no one picked on the schlemiel more than himself and he worked self-deprecation to a fine art. People would ask him to come home in hopes of salvation, but Lenny was beyond redemption and apparently happy where he was, though he did suffer.
The next day I caught Lenny limping up the sidewalk and asked him what was wrong.
“You know I sleep outside, because the crackheads in the shelter will steal everything I have.”
“Lenny, what could they want from you?” Lenny possessed nothing even a crackhead would want, but desperation is the evil step-father of need.
“They think I’m rich, just like everyone here. The Nazis!” He unbuckled his belt and dropped his pants. “I was sleeping on a bench and a cop hit me.”
The bruises across his thighs were not self-induced and I told him, “Pull up your pants, Lenny. There are women present.”
None of them were looking, but Lenny chuckled, “Sorry, I forgot where I was.”
I held out five dollars and Lenny said, “You don’t have to, Damien. I know you don’t make a lot of money.”
“You do?”
“Yeah, I know everything about the street.” His eyes were clear. “Maybe one day I’ll tell you everything I know like how three years ago there was a drought in Angola. You know where it is, right above South Africa.”
The country had been suffering from a savage civil war since the Portuguese abandoned their old colony in 1975.
I nodded and Lenny continued, “Well, there was a UN truce and things were getting back to normal, but because the water was so low, people were able to go into the rivers and pick millions of diamonds from the riverbeds. Billions and diamonds were getting about as rare as light bulbs, so deBeers got tired of paying out this money and paid Savimbi from Unita to start up the war again. Don’t worry, you won’t find it in the papers. Thanks for the money, Damien.”
I never was able to verify this tale.
Being right didn’t help Lenny, but he always retained his humor.
Two days later he started a new shtick.
“Vote for me for President. A Jew for America. I have a plan for peace in the Middle East. We normalize relations with Cuba, bet them to declare Havana to be Miami. All the Cubans will move to Cuba thinking it’s Miami, then we get all the Israelis to move to Florida, where Disneyworld will build them a new Jerusalem to await the messiah.”
Of course no one would for Lenny, but we would give him enough to buy a pint bottle of whiskey. Despite his size it didn’t take much to get him drunk and by 5pm he was a disgrace. His glasses at an angle, he insulted the pedestrians and the police hustled him off the block, because a show like Lenny’s has to take it on the road every once in a while. If only for a day.
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