Shenanigans
In the late 1940s, Coca Cola ® was a rarity in our home, available only as a special treat during the week between Christmas and New Year’s. Mom said it had to do with “Mr. Touch Decay” and the cost of dentist bills for fillings. The war had ended, money was tight, and jobs were scarce. Dad’s salary was $100 a month, considered middle-class at the time.
We weren’t poor, but we ate a lot of Campbell’s tomato soup with water, not milk. Too often, meals were just bone marrow from soup bones spread on white bread. Chicken livers were prevalent on our dinner menu, with beef liver and onions, or kidney stew weekly for dinner.
Dad had been a draftsman for the Defense Department during the war so he had never left the states. After the war, he commuted to New York City, Monday through
Saturday, to work as a commercial artist for advertising agencies. No five-day work week back then, which seemed to Mom like some crazy idealist scheme a union Communist had dreamt up rather than anything practical that could ever happen for the American worker.
A 48-hourwork week without over-time pay seemed fair to my folks. They were Republicans.
We lived in a quad apartment close enough to the Long Island Railroad to make the dishes rattle in our kitchen cupboards when the LIRR Express from Manhattan to Queens thundered by. Though the noise was a nuisance to Mom, it was convenient for Dad to walk to and from the train station in less than a minute.
The four families in our quad consisted of us, the Winter family of four, the Goldfield family of four, the Shulmann family of three, and the McGorey family of four. All told, half the tenants were Jewish, and the other two quarters were Irish, and us of German-Austrian decent.
The Goldfield sons were in their early twenties, one fat and slovenly, the other confined to a wheelchair with rheumatoid arthritis. According to Mom, the Goldfields were “nice people,” but they kept to themselves. The McGorey daughters were Kathy, a freckle-faced, buck-toothed tomboy in eighth grade who beat up boys, and her seventeen-year-old sister, Patricia, who was sometimes my sitter when Mom had to take my older brother, Bobby, to the doctor.
“Patty,” as I called her, was my Dream Girl, though I was too young to have any desires beyond a peck on the cheek before she tucked me in for a nap. Her breath smelled like Juicy Fruit gum. Kenny Shulmann was an only child, between my age and Bobby’s.
The three of us, Bobby, Kenny, and I, often played together—more plotting than playing.
There were no pre-schools back then, so a boy like me approaching age five had to entertain himself. Having a brother three years older paved the way toward more extravagant mischief. The snowy, black-and-white reception on a rare TV available to watch at a friend’s house made life beyond our limited realm in Queens seem dull and grey. But I owed a colorful kaleidoscopic view of the world to brother Bobby’s artistic perception of life. Color us, along with Kenny, a rainbow of trouble and shenanigans.
Kenny Shulmann and I are gonna raid ole lady Schmidt’s house when school’s closed for the holidays. Since you’re such a tattle-tale, you’re comin’ with us. I figure you can’t tell Mom and Dad on us if you’re in on it, too.”
“Sheesh, Bobby. I wouldn’t tell, but I don’t wanna go. I’m scared of that ole lady.
She reminds me of the witch in Snow White, especially with that wart on her crooked nose.”
“Kenny and I will protect you, Jem. We’ve got a plan.”
Bobby always called me “Jem” when he wanted something from me. It was Dad’s nickname for me since Mom said I was “a diamond in the rough,” a real gem. Any other time,
Bobby just called me, “Squirt,” because, up to age three, I’d been a bed-wetter.
“What kind a plan, Bobby? Whaddaya wanna go in that scary ole lady’s house for?
She threw a bucket of ice water on us when we went trick-or-treating last Halloween. Sheesh.
It’s freezin’ now in December. I don’t wanna get all wet again. I could catch pee-neumonia.”
That’s what Mom called it, because she wanted her boys to know how to spell, even if
I wasn’t in kindergarten yet and Bobby was in second grade at P.S. 61, an old wooden school-house on Higbey Avenue. He had to walk two miles to school every day from Laurelton. I had to respect an older brother with thatkind of courage.
“Ole Lady Schmidt’s got fancy things . . . crystal goblets, clocks, and jewels. Maybe we’ll find some cool stuff to give Mom and Dad for Christmas tomorrow.”
“What if the ole lady catches us?” I warned.
“Ya kiddin’? She limps with a cane. She won’t catch me and Kenny, but I dunno about you, slow poke. You run like you’ve got a load in your pants.”
“Aw shut up! I can run as fast as you and Kenny.”
“You may have to if you don’t wanna get left behind.”
“Jeez, Bobby. It’s Christmas Eve. Shouldn’t we wait till the middle of Christmas week to raid that old lady’s house after Santa’s delivered our toys. Maybe he’ll bring
Mom and Dad some cool presents, then we won’t need to get any stuff for them from
Mrs. Schmidt’s place.”
Bobby and Kenny smirked.
“I already got my Hanukkah gift,” Kenny said. He was taller than us and skinny with curly black hair. Kenny was almost six. Compared to me, Bobby and Kenny seemed like men of the world, so I had to follow their lead.
“Don’t you know that George Washington attacked the British on Christmas Eve
Don’t you want to be brave like the Father of Our Country, Gem?”
“He did? Really? Doesn’t sound like a nice thing to do. ”
“Nice for us, but not for the Red Coats.”
“I’m too young to know about all that stuff you’ve learned in school, Bobby.”
“I’m teachin’ ya, so you’ll be ahead of the other kids when ya start kindergarten.”
“How we gonna sneak out without Mom and Dad knowin’?”
“You know how Dad comes home bleary-eyed from the office Christmas party and he and Mom fight then go to bed so they can wake early to decorate the tree, wrap our presents, and fill our stockings before we get up to see what Santa’s left us. That’s when we’ll sneak out with Kenny, cross the railroad tracks, and walk a block to ole Mrs.
Schmidt’s big house on the corner.”
“That big house is as scary as she is, Bobby.”
“Ah, she’s just an ole lady with a bunch of neat stuff we can snatch while she’s sleepin’,” Bobby said. “Everyone in the neighborhood will be sleeping, except us.”
Kenny nodded and said, “Maybe I can find a necklace for my mom.”
“Sure, there must be lots of cool stuff she’s been hoarding in that house for years.”
“I heard her husband had been a banker in Germany before the war, but unlike my
grandparents, the Schmidt’s came to America with lots of money, so the Nazis couldn’t get it.”
“What are Nazis?” I asked, but Kenny and Bobby rolled their eyes at me.
“My grandparents didn’t escape,” Kenny said, his mood suddenly solemn. “Maybe some of my grandparents’ things were stolen by that German banker, Mr.Schmidt. Maybe his old widow has my grandfather’s watch. Those Heinies took that, too.”
Bobby and I stared at Kenny for a long silent moment, until Bobby said, “We’ll meet in the cellar’s coal bin at midnight then climb up the coal chute to leave without using the doors so our folks won’t hear us.
We put our hands together like Gene Kelly in The Three Musketeers.
“One for all and all for one,” Bobby said, just like in the movie.
The coal bin in the cellar stunk, and Kenny was already there when Bobby and I arrived. We nodded in unison and climbed up the coal shoot, me in the middle, behind Bobby and in front of Kenny. When we got into the yard and crawled along the barbed-wire fence that separated our building from the railroad tracks, it was colder than I’d ever felt before. Maybe because I was scared and shivering, but the night air was surely freezing and damp, as if it would snow. I loved the thought of snow on Christmas, but hoped it would hold off until we had our fun and got back home safe in our beds.
We knew about the deadly third-rail that could electrocute us if we stepped on it. That was common knowledge for all kids who lived close to the tracks.
Bobby gave me a glare over his shoulder and said, “Don’t get fried, Squirt.”
We huddled in the bushes in the empty lot across from Mrs. Schmidt’s house.
“She must still be awake,” Kenny said, noting a light flickering at the first-floor’s bay window.
“Maybe not,” Bobby said calmly. “Remember when she opened her door, holding a bucket on Halloween, then dumped cold water on us? I’d seen a fireplace in her living room. She must’ve lit the fireplace for Christmas. See how it’s flickering at the window. She must’ve left the fire going till morning. C’mon. We’ll slide down her coal shoot and come up through her cellar stairs.”
We did as Bobby said, and within ten minutes we were on the first floor. We found the living room where the hearth still glowed with smoldering cinders. The house smelled like Christmas. Her tree had the fresh scent of blue spruce. Candles scented with apple, cinnamon, and pumpkin flickered all around the room. Christmas cookies must have been baked in the oven earlier with the air still sweetly redolent of vanilla and sugar.
Rather than Christmas lights strung on her tree, each branch had a candle in a holder at its tip, a German tradition I was familiar with from my grandmother. I wondered why Mrs. Schmidt would go to all this trouble just for herself when no one had ever seen anybody come to her home other than the postman and the milkman.
The candles were charred, so they’d been lit earlier, but you couldn’t leave them burning for long without the danger of setting the house on fire My grandma said that’s what made a candlelit tree more precious with its beauty only for just a brief moment. She said it was like the fleeting gift of the Christ child, a symbol of how we had to concentrate on that blessing from God, so we wouldn’t lose its glow when the candles burned out.
As I was staring at the tree, Bobby and Kenny went to the dining room where a long table was set with ornate china, sterling silverware, and crystal goblets. Along every wall were china closets containing a variety of crystal figurines, goblets, chalices, vases, and delicate toys as I’ve never seen, which included dolls of every kind from all parts of the world. Bobby was right about what Mrs. Schmidt had in her home, a fortune. including gold watches, diamond rings, and necklaces displayed like a jewelry store on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan.
Bobby and Kenny started eating from a decorative plate stacked with cookies shaped like Santa, reindeer, angels, and Christmas trees. The cookies sparkled with decorative colors. I tasted one, too. My mouth drooled with the sweet flavor of the cookie still warm from the oven.
Warm, I thought, but before I could warn Bobby and Kenny, there was Mrs.
Schmidt’s frowning face glaring at me from her reflection in the mirror above the sideboard beside the dining room table.
“Ya-a-a-ah!” I shouted running for the cellar door.
Bobby and Kenny echoed my screams, but each grabbed handfuls of jewelry as the old woman shrieked and swatted her cane at them. Bobby was right, we were all too fast for her, but we kept bumping into one another in the cellar and scrambled awkwardly up the coal shoot. To our surprise, when we came out of the cellar through the coal hole into the yard it was snowing like crazy with strong wind.
“Aw, crap!” Bobby shouted, giving me a look of warning not to tell Mom that he’d said the forbidden S-word.
We had to scramble back down Mrs. Schmidt’s coal chute and huddle together in a corner by the coal bin. We shivered for several hours in the dark but thankfully, Mrs. Schmidt never came down the cellar stairs to find us. The three of us whimpered and cried.
I felt my tears freezing on my cheeks. I’d never imagined spending Christmas Eve like that.
The snow didn’t stop till sunrise when we had to burrow our way out of the coal hole. The snow was up to my chin and even above Kenny’s waist. It was hard to trudge our way through the deep, heavy snow in the yard. Though some trucks had begun plowing the streets, we had to go home the way we’d come along the railroad tracks. The tracks had been plowed clear by a locomotive , but the third-rail was buried, so we couldn’t see it. Bobby made a stuttering sound by sucking cold air through his lips like an electric shock to make me and Kenny jump.
“Cut it out, Bobby!” Kenny complained, but I just wet my pants. The warm flow quickly froze against my thigh. The blowing snow sparkled like glitter, and the wind made five-foot snow drifts at the street corners.
It was almost 9 a.m. when we returned to our own coal bin and divvied up the goods among us. Kenny wanted the gold watch because he believed it might be his grandfather’s. He kept that for himself, but took a diamond tie clip for his dad and a pearl necklace for his mom. Bobby snatched a silver hairclip with diamonds for Mom and a golden cigarette case for Dad. Bobby grabbed a silver cigarette holder for himself, figuring he’d use it when he was a grownup. Bobby never seemed to like being a kid, always wanting to be in control like a parent. That’s what made him so bossy with other kids.
I took what was left, a gold wristband for Dad and a diamond encrusted rose pin with silver petals for Mom. Only one item remained for me, a German coin dated 1933.
The profile of a man called Paul von Hindenburg was on one side, Reichsmark on the other.
It didn’t seem like much compared to what Bobby and Kenny got, but I liked the feel of it in my soft little hand, and the coin seemed to glow with warmth in my snow suit’s pocket.
I’d lost my mittens in the snow, so the coin warmed my cold hands when I put a hand in my pocket.
Kenny made it upstairs to his folks apartment, and Bobby and I came up the cellar stairs into our apartment to find a Christmas tree decorated and a Lionel train set with tracks around the base of the tree. There was a train station beside the tracks that had a sign on its roof: PLASTICVILLE
“Look, Bobby. The tracks have a third rail just like the LIRR.”
He was staring at my face with a grin. He nodded to the mirror hung above our living room sofa. We both stood on the sofa and laughed at each other with our faces blackened with coal dust from climbing up and down the coal shoot at home and in Mrs. Schmidt’s coal bin.
Momand Dad were still asleep after thinking we were safe in bed and staying up late to set up the tree and the electric trains before Santa delivered our presents.
Mom and Dad left an ashtray full of cigarette butts and the dregs of what looked like Coca Cola ® in cocktail glasses. Bobby took one glass and handed me the other.
“I dare ya, Gem,” he said, both of us aware of Mom’s strict rule about drinking Coke only on Christmas and New Year’s.
“It’s Christmas,” Bobby said, giving me permission. “Cheers!”
I nodded, and Bobby counted to three. We both gasped because there was rum in the Coke. We ran to the bathroom and rinsed out our mouths, then Bobby washed the coal dust off his face and mine. The bath towels were soiled, but Bobby just shrugged, probably figuring he’d think of some explanation for Mom that would incriminate me more than him.
“I know where Mom hides the wrapping paper. C’mon, Gem. Let’s wrap Mom and Dad’s gifts and our own, too, as if Santa brought them for us. Hurry, before Mom and Dad wake up.”
Mission accomplished, we were busy playing with our new train set when Mom and Dad came out to the living room in their bathrobes and pajamas to wish us Merry Christmas.
“Looks like Santa’s been good to you boys,” Mom said.
“And to you, too,” Bobby said, nudging me to help present them with the gifts we’d wrapped, his neat with bows, and mine with tape in all directions and the wristband and rose pin protruding from the gaps in the reindeer-patterned wrapping paper.
“What’s all this?” Mom said with surprise. “How did you—?”
“Not us, Mom.” Bobby said.
“It’s from Santa,” I said.
She turned to Dad, but he just shrugged.
“Well, I never—“Mom said, but the doorbell rang, startling all of us. Then Dad peeked out the bay window and said, “Wow! I can’t believe all that snow. Must be more than two feet.
Look at those drifts.”
“There’s a lot more I can’t believe than all that snow,” Mom said, glaring at Bobby.
Then she knew to turn to me, the weakest link in last night’s chain of events.
Bobby wrinkled his nose at me, his signal to keep my mouth shut, but then Dad said,
“There’s some old woman at the door and she’s got a German shepherd with her. Could she be blind and wandering out in the snow on her own with her seeing-eye dog? She must have lost her way in the snow.”
“I don’t think so. Somehow, I think I can guess what she wants,” Mom said with a squint, more at me than at Bobby, probably figuring I’d cave.
As Mom and Dad went to open the door, Bobby pinched my arm.
“Mouth shut, Squirt. She’s got nothin’ on us—” he started to say, but ole lady Schmidt spoke first.
“Merry Christmas,” she said with a subtle German accent like my grandma’s. “I just wanted to be sure the boys, the other taller one, too, will come to shovel my walks today, even though it’s Christmas. I can’t afford to slip on the ice and break another hip. Took me an hour to get here walking in all this snow with my bum leg. Thanks to my dog, Strider, I got here in one piece. Wires are down—no telephone service to call you.”
Then she hesitated, seeing Mom’s new rose pin on her bathrobe and the diamond clip in her hair. Dad had his gold cigarette case in his hand. The way she glared at me, obviously
Mrs. Schmidt wasn’t blind as Dad had thought. Grownups seem to have some telepathic line of communication to report to one another about kids’ bad behavior.
“You see, I made a deal with the boy upstairs and your sons,” Mrs. Schmidt said. “I let them each pick out Christmas gifts for their parents and for themselves from my vast collection in return for their shoveling my walks each time it snows this winter.”
“I’m glad to see your new rose clip suits you,” she said to Mom.
Mom stammered, surely wondering what this was all about.
I could see from Bobby’s expression that he was as dumbfounded as I was. What was the old woman talking about?
“It was your older son’s idea, because the boys are too young to have money to buy family gifts.”
“When did all this wheeling and dealing go on?” Mom asked with a frown at Bobby.
Whew! I was out of this one.
Mrs. Schmidt gave Mom her answer. “Last Halloween, the three boys stopped at my house and saw my collection. I could tell they admired my wonderful things, so I gave them what they each wanted, if they agreed to shovel my snow-covered walks all winter.”
She turned with a smile at Bobby and patted him on the cheek. Bet you never thought it would snow on Christmas, huh?”
Bobby shook his head and stared at his feet with shame.
“I don’t want to spoil your family’s Christmas morning, so how about if the boys come by at two o’clock this afternoon. Three hours work before dark will make us even.
Farmers Almanac predicts no more snow this winter. Maybe we can strike another deal next Christmas, too.”
“I had no idea my boys were so industrious,” Mom said.
“Sure fooled me,” Dad agreed.
“It is ‘Mrs. Schmidt,’ right?” Mom asked, and the old woman nodded. “You must be chilled to the bone. Come sit and have some hot chocolate with us. May I offer your dog something to eat? We have some giblets set aside because the boys don’t like that in their turkey stuffing. You’re welcome to join us for dinner. We have plenty.”
Mrs. Schmidt stayed for an hour while Bobby and I played with her German shepherd as the grownups shared stories. She had to leave hoping to get a phone call from her son from the Veteran’s Hospital. Kurt had been wounded in the war. Fighting in France had lost an arm. He hadn’t been able to visit his mother since his U/S. Army discharge. He’d hoped to come that Christmas, but his travel had been delayed by the unexpected storm.
“Kurt was afraid he’d be more of a burden than a help to me, but if he arrives tomorrow, I’ll convince him that, with your sons’ help around my house—in exchange for gifts of course—he’ll be no burden to me. You’ll get your friend, the Shulmann boy, to help me, too. Won’t you?”
We nodded.
At two o’clock, the Shulmann’s came down from their apartment to have holiday cocktails with Mom and Dad, while Kenny joined me and Bobby over at Mrs. Schmidt’s house where three new snow shovels were leaning against her porch railing for us to begin our hard work. Enthused by the holiday spirit and inspired by the outcome of what had begun as an assault on the property of a defenseless old woman, we cleared and salted
Mrs. Schmidt’s walks in just two hours rather than three.
“Great job, you schtinkers,” she said, jokingly. “Come in for some hot apple cider before you go home.”
As we sat in our stocking feet with our goulashes drying by her crackling fireplace, the old lady told us the stories behind the things we’d stolen from her.
“Like your family, Kenny, I’m Jewish. But to escape from Germany when Hitler began to take over, we changed our family name to Schmidt, which was more Arian, if you’re foolish enough to believe such a super race exists. We are Steinbergs by birth, which would have put us into the boxcars to the death camps a year later. We were lucky to get out and come to America without loss of life or fortune. But our guilt over those less fortunate still hangs around my neck like a noose. I’m thankful that you boys did what you did.”
“Thankful?” Bobby said with puzzlement.
“Yes. These trinkets may have value, but not to me. They remind me of my fear with no solution to appease my guilt, unless I give them away.”
“Wow, so you’re Jewish, too,” Kenny said. “I’m sorry I thought you were a Nazi.”
“Hey! I’m not even five yet!” I blurted. “What’s a Nazi?”
“Hopefully, you’ll never need to know,” she said, but you’ll have to before you become a man. If you don’t, there’s always the horrible chance they might come back.”
On our walk back home, it was turning dark and stars twinkled in the mauve sky.
When a shooting star crossed the horizon above the newly completed Idlewild Airport,
I shouted, “Look! Santa’s sleigh is heading back to the North Pole!”
Even Kenny and Bobby couldn’t be sure if I was right. It seemed as if Santa had somehow transformed three naughty boys into future young men who’d learned an important lesson about giving rather than taking.
“Can you hear them?” I asked Bobby and Kenny.
“Hear what?” they chorused
“The bells jingling on Santa’s sleigh.”
They cocked their heads then grinned, unable to deny what they also felt sure they heard. Over seventy years later, I still imagine hearing those sleigh bells at Christmas.
It didn’t snow again that winter, but there was still a foot left on the ground and higher drifts that were like grey boulders from air pollution by New Year’s Eve. The
Shulmann’s decided to join Mom and Dad by going to Times Square to see the dropping of a ball from a tall building. Mrs. Schmidt told Kenny, Bobby, and me that the ball was invented by Adolph Ochs, a Jew of German heritage who had owned The New York
Times. The old lady had a wealth of information to share with us.
I interrupted her to ask, “We didn’t know you had a dog. How did you keep your German shepherd so quiet when we came into your house through the cellar? I’d never would’ve come if I’d known Strider was here. He’s as big as a wolf.”
She laughed and said, “I’m not blind, but Strider’s deaf. He served, like my son Kurt in the war, but the shellshock destroyed his hearing. He’s a mine sniffer, not an attack dog, not even a good watchdog, but I love him and he keeps me from getting too lonely.”
So that our parents could go out, Mrs. Schmidt volunteered to have us three young boys spend the night. She even let us use noise makers on her front porch at midnight. Just don’t tell Mom and Dad she let us all drink a toast with her homemade cranberry champagne to bring in the New Year. The Singing Cowboy, Gene Autry, sang “Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer,” on our Philco radio all week. The old lady had great tales to tell us that kept us awake till 1 a.m. It was a great time to be a kid.
Everyone else from that Christmas is gone except me, but I still have my Reichsmark to remind me of all I’ve learned since.
That next spring, I turned five under the private tutelage of ole Mrs. Schmidt who saw to it that I’d know more about everything than all the other kids before I started kindergarten. Of course, my big brother, bossy Bobby, would always know even more than I ever would.