Ho Ho Ho Hannukah

Years ago my boss' grandson came to visit her jewelry store with her husband. The holiday season had been brutal. We had yet to make a sale. While her husband parked their Land Rover, Jeri taught the six-year-old how to open a safe and once the handsome lad opened the steel cube she asked, "Did you get a Hannukah gift for your mother?"

"I wanted to, but I don't know if I have enough money."

"How much you think you have?"

"$2."

"That's a lot of money. Let me see what we can find."

"I like those." Matthew pointed to a pair of sliced sapphire earring rimmed by gold.

"You have a good eye." Jeri pulled out the earrings. They cost $100. "You said you had money."

"$2." Matthew proudly emptied his coins on the counter. The boy was a goy, but his father was ein bissen Juden on his paternal side and as an Irishman I have a strong respect for tradition.

"$2 and seven cents for the tax."

"Tax?"

"Yes, that's what the government charges, so we have roads and TV and lights."

Her husband and I exchanged a glance. We shared another opinion about taxes, but this was Hannukah, a night for good thoughts.

"Today, they sung a new song," interjected his grandfather.

"Ho, Ho, Ho, Hannukah."

"Do you know how to sing it?" I asked from my chair.

My youngest son in Thailand was the same age as Matthew.

Six.

I hadn't seen Fenway in over two years nor Fluke, Noy, or Angie, but I knew they loved their mothers same as Matthew loved his. The six year-old looked to Jeri and his grandfather. A smile broke over his lips and he chanted, "Ho-Ho-Ho Hannukah."

Jeri sniffed back a tear. She wanted grandchildren of her own. We are life. We are light. She kissed Matthew on the cheek.

"You're a good boychek." Jeri handed over the earrings in a pouch.

"Thank you. My mommy will be so happy."

Matthew left with his grandfather. Jeri stared at me.

"What?"

"That was our first sale of the season."

This afternoon a 68 year-old man had refused his wife a fancy-yellow diamond, because he said he didn't have the money. I believed him, but Matthew gave his every penny to make his mom happy and I was happy too, because I would have done the same for my mother and so would Jeri.

Ho-Ho-Ho-Hannukah.

Goodbye Subway Inn - 2014

On July 24, 2014 I had a last drink at the Subway Inn on East 60th Street. The property owners were evicting the 77-year-old Manhattan bar to erect a towering luxury condo. I first drank in the Subway back in 1977. It was a classic dive bar then and most recently my boss frowned upon hearing that I was heading there after work.

"People get killed at the Subay every weekend." Jeri came from a good Upper East Side family. Those people don't associated with the lower classes in fear that they might be reminded of their roots.

"They do?" I quickly googled 'subway inn killings' only to find 'Yuppies Are Killing the Dive Bar'.

"It's a hellhole."

"Have you ever been in it?"

"Me?" The Suzanne Pleshette lookalike grimaced in horror.

"Then we're going after work. It's closing next week and you'll be able to thrill your friends with a slumming tale. When was the last time you slummed it?"

"A long time." Jeri was no square and she checked her Patek diamond watch. "Just one drink. Let's close."

The two of us walked the short distance from her jewelry store and she hesitated before entering.

"What if my husband sees me?"

"I know your husband. He's not a drinker. Certainly not in the Subway Inn, but I'll check first."

I stepped inside the bar. The crowd was mostly workers from Bloomingdales. Jeri's husband was not with them. I walked outside half-expecting for jerk to have cut out, but she was smoking a cigarette.

"He's not there."

"Then that's a plus." She loved her husband, but long relationship bred the urge to be alone for a few hours a day. "Drinks on me."

We sat at the bar. She ordered us gin-tonics.

With Bombay Gin.

"The glasses look clean."

"Who can tell in his light?" Night was eternal in the Subway Inn. "Here's to my first and last time at this dump."

We sipped at the gin-tonics. The first one went down smoothly. Jeri told me a story about her mother killing a diamond sale by telling the customer, "This ring isn't you."

"Your mother has a lot of character."

"That's a good word for it."

I liked Jeri's mother. The diminutive octogenarian regularly drove into the city from the Island. Ruth was a scary driver, but could find a parking space in front of our store like the space had her name on it. We talked to our drinking neighbors. Jeri had them in stitches about her performing a violin concerto at Carniege Hall in a state of shock.

"I don't remember playing a single note, but everyone applauded wildly at the end. My mother said, "Don't quit your day job."

"What was your day job? asked the young female Chinese bartender. Jeri and she and spent a good the minutes talking about men. Little of their conversation was good.

"Being my mother's daughter. Talk about working." Jeri heard a buzz. Someone was calling her. "My husband. I got to go."

She threw money on the bar.

"Keep the change." Jeri wasn't accustomed to hard liquor and I walked her several blocks home. The phone kept ringing, which she ignored,while smoking a cigarette. "Gin doesn't smell, does it?"

"Not at all."

"What about the Subway Inn?"

"A little. What dive doesn't?"

"And we didn't get killed either."

"No one gets killed at the Subway. Only a little Shitskah."

"You goys are never shitskahed."

"Not on Shabbas." The night was deep night this close to the solstice.

"It's Shabbas?" Jeri wasn't that religious.

"Until tomorrow night. Don't worry about opening the store tomorrow. I'll be your Shabbas goy." I was a good gentile to the Jews, although I preferred to think of myself as the Shabbas starker. We grew up tough on the South Shore of Boston.

"Thanks." Jeri liked to sleep in late.

Her doorman opened the door. He nodded to me. I wasn't coming up and caught the train back to Brooklyn.

I never made it back to the Subway Inn until today.

A steel gate covered the windows.

Closed for good after three-quarters of a century.

The Subway Inn opened a few years after the end of Prohibition.

The original owner, Charlie Ackerman, was reputed to be a cranky piece of work without a good word for anyone, which reminded me of Manny, my old boss man on 47th Street.

Supposedly Joe Dimaggio slummed there with Marilyn Monroe, would drop by after a dinner at the nearby restaurant Gino.

During the 1978 Blackout I took refuge at the bar after a failed attempt to break Fiorucci's front window to loot a gold lame Elvis Suit.

Gone, but not gone 100%, because the owner, Steven Salinas, will dislodge everything in the bar to a new location.; the bar stools, booths and neon sign will move two blocks east on 60th Street, to a spot near Second Avenue.

“The space will look exactly the same. Colors, floor and all! In fact, our replication architect is hard at work making sure our new home will be nearly identical.”

As for the hoity-toity residents of the Subway Inn Tower.

Feh.

THE BEST FORM OF FLATTERY by Peter Nolan Smith

Written Sep 24, 2010

Midtown traffic was snarled by the security measures protecting foreign dignitaries from any harm during the annual UN General Assembly. Crosstown streets were closed east of 5th Avenue and the beeping tentacles of the congestion packed Madison Avenue. My bus took twenty minutes to cover ten blocks. I was late for a gallery opening on 78th Street and abandoned public transportation for the more ancient mode of walking. My pace was accelerated by two panicked calls from my landlord AP and Billy O. Our dinner guest, an Irish hedge fund banker, was on a 'craic'.

"This is polite society up here." Billy O was looking for clients. He was a real estate broker in the East End. Most people living above 72nd Street had money, especially in between Park and 5th Avenues. "I'm afraid that he's going to shag an old heiress."

"Would be the worst thing to happen to her? When I was living down in Palm Beach, I dreamed about seducing a wealthy octogenarian with three weeks to live."

"You would have given her the best two weeks of her life." Billy O and I went back to the 80s.

"At least." I was never stingy with love or lust given the right circumstances, however my time on Palm Beach had been off-season. Secondly those crones with money knew the game. Men fought over them at the Leopard Lounge. I was too proud to enter that arena.

Except for once.

"Hurry up." Billy O sounded desperate. "He's offering the owner a line of blow."

"Ten minutes."

I made it in 15. The police had blockaded 72nd Street for the passage of POTUS. This evening Obama was speaking at the UN. High-level conversations were scheduled between the Israelis, Palestinians, and our leader. Peace initiative # 257. The presidential cavalcade passed at 65 mph. A fast-moving target. I waved to what I guess was his car. My support for change remained strong.

After disembarking from the bus I hurried the final six blocks to the gallery. It was located in a small townhouse. The crowd was gentile. The artist hailed from the Hamptons. Some of his paintings had crows in them. Two women complained about the crows on their property.

"They're bad eating and worse as pets." A tall man in a Versace suit slurred from his slouch. It was Irish Johnny. His accent was pure Hollyfield drenched by the slobber of art wine.

The two middle-aged women in matching Chanel summer drag glanced over their sloped shoulders at the intruders. Their noses wrinkled with disdain. They had the expression down pat and clattered away from Irish Johnny in spiky stilettos. Popular footwear this season.

Irish Johnny staggered to the bar and grabbed two glasses of Chablis. The first one lasted a second. The second balanced his careen through the gallery. His trousers were rolled to mid-calf and his sneakers were unlaced. He was drunk enough not to recognize me. We had drank at a bar in Easthampton a year ago. I didn't say hello, but nodded to Billy O and my landlord. They signaled to keep an eye on Irish Johnny. The banker was difficult work after closing time on the NYSE. I engaged him in a long conversation on John Kelly, Ireland's premier DJ, and drinking at the Shelbourne Hotel Bar. Irish Johnny couldn't have been happy and neither could the gallery owner.

The dead drunk was with the living drunk.

Billie O and AP schmoozzed the rich. A hard crowd to work, but the two had been laboring in the Hamptons for years. AP spoke to a prospective new client. He owned a football team. His girlfriend was an old friend. The connections were snaking together. It was time to leave. Irish Johnny was hitting on a painting.

"How much you want for one night?"

Billy O took charge. Irish Johnny was his boy. They proposed dinner at Danielle's. A posey place. I begged off that future. Billy O and AP said, "Come."

"Veni, vidi, ibam."

"I came, I saw, I went." Johnny Irish was a Latin Scholar too.

I waved my goodbyes and walked to the 77th Street Subway. Lex Line to Bleecker Street. D train to Atlantic Avenue. Key in the front door at 8:23. I climbed the stairs to my apartment and wrote about Hoegaarten Beer. My wine-weakened fingers were slow on the keyboard.

A knock on my door.

AP.

He wanted to smoke some pot.

"Dinner was fantastic, but you were so right to go. He never broke open the bag of cocaine."

"Better to have a $20 bag with a friend than an 8-ball with a fiend." The lack of an 'r' made a big difference.

AP and I smoke some weed. We drank some wine. We listened to garage rock. Our favorite genre of music, although he loved the Beatles and I hated them as pop poseurs. At least we agreed that WORKING CLASS HERO by John Lennon was brilliant.

"You know I really love having you live here." AP considered me a NY legend.

"Thanks." I loved living here too.

"No one in New York is like you now and no one writes like you, but I have to say one thing and that's you have been plundering old writing and putting it on your website as if it was new."

"So you noticed."

"I'm one of your most faithful readers."

I had been adding stories to gain girth on treads of interest. Not lazy, just that I don't have much time in the day to write with my boss asking me what I'm doing every two minutes. No much of a defense for AP.

"You should be writing all the time."

"Agreed." I love writing on the 4th floor of his brownstone. My view of the downtown Brooklyn skyline. The changes of the sunset. His kids sleeping on the lower floor. Their falling asleep to the MC5. "I'll try to be more original."

"No one is more original than you in these days of mediocre." AP truly was a fan. "All I want to see is more new."

"Oof." More work.

A sign of the times.

"I promise to not rob the grave, unless it makes a nice flow."

We smoked more weed and drank the rest of his Hoegaarten.

They were good and we were safe from Irish Johnny.