WHY KEVIN WELCH WAS A DOUCHE BAG

You may or may not recall a previous story entitled Why Howie Bloom Was A Mensche. A mensche being a man or a more accurately, a stand up guy. It’s a Yiddish word which is fitting because Howie was Jewish, and his nickname was Howie the Jew. We all had nicknames back in the Bronx. Billy Destefano was Billy Bag-O-Pretzels because he always bought 3 or 4 of the big, wet pretzels from Pekula’s Bakery on our way to school in the mornings. Patrick Fitzgibbons earned the title of "Pat the Cat" because when he was six his family’s cat attacked his crotch drawing blood and lots of screams from Pat (actually, we're not really positive how it happened and not sure we really wanted to know) There was Jimmy “Black n White" for obvious reasons, but also because he liked those black and white cookies you got in delis and bakeries. Liking them was an understatement; he was addicted to them to the tune of four or five a day.  In fact, Jimmy White could have been called “Jimmy Jumbo”, but Jimmy “Black n White" was kinder. I was dubbed Bobby Tremont Ave. because I lived on Tremont Ave. So why was Kevin Welch  a douche bag?

This is going to elicit gales of laughter from anyone reading this who even remotely knows me, but I am, and always have been, a fairly shy and introverted guy. Oh, I can hear the guffawing, groaning and gagging now. But it’s true. I am a very shy guy when I’m around strangers. I am especially shy when it comes to approaching members of the opposite sex. I’d rather be boiled in oil than ask out a girl who I was not 150% sure wanted to go out with me. Even then I’m a bit reticent. I always envisioned the scenario where your friends tell you that so in so wants to go out with you, so you screw up the courage and go ask her out with voice cracking and she looks at you like you have nine heads, laughs and says, “Uh, I don’t think so.” Meanwhile, your “friends” are off to the side laughing to beat the band and you’re left looking a prize winning jag off. I just didn’t have a whole lot of self-confidence when it came to the opposite sex, so being ten, and in love with Debbie Weeks, put me at a distinct disadvantage.

In an earlier story I mentioned that I was a member of the Sea Cadets. This was a naval version of the Boy Scouts complete with U.S. Naval approved uniforms and run by retired members of the U.S. Navy. Sea Cadets/Boy Scouts? Cool uniforms/khaki shorts and a soda fountain guy’s hat?  No question, Sea Cadets every time. We’d meet every Friday night in the basement of St. Dom’s Church. That’s short for St. Dominic’s…see even dead saints had nicknames in our neighborhood. At Cadets we’d learn all there was for us to learn about being in the military…specifically the Navy. We were bad asses because we wore military uniforms and on the way home from meetings on Friday we’d stop at Carl’s for pizza and act like we were on shore leave. Well as close to it as ten year olds could. You’re probably wondering where are parents were. Home. This was the late 1950’s in New York. Kids grew up at a two to one age ratio to kids in the south. In other words a New York ten year old was the equivalent to a twenty year-old Southern boy. Okay, maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration. Maybe even more than just a bit of an exaggeration, but we were much more mature than ten year olds today, and we were allowed to go trick or treating alone till 10 p.m. and walk home from cadet meetings at 11 on Friday nights. It was a different world back then. Oddly enough, with the “mother network” back then, I think kids got in less trouble than today. If you did something wrong twenty blocks from home, by the time you got home your mother already knew about it and you were punished; the severity of which depended on the offense. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the “mother network,” I lived in a ginormous apartment complex called Parkchester in the Bronx…177^th St. and Hugh J. Grant Circle on the #6 Pelham Bay Line (subway). Parkchester was a city within a city, divided into quadrants or “quads” as we called them. There was the North, East, South and West quads and I lived in the North. It didn’t matter what quad you were in, if you did something wrong and a mother saw you, within minutes the network went to work and word was passed on and passed on until it finally reached your mother. The network even had agents outside the perimeters of Parkchester in places where their children frequented, ie. St. Dominic’s on Morris Park Rd. had agents assigned to the mothers of Billy, Pat, Howie, Tommy and myself. But occasionally we were able to find cracks in the network and believe me, we took full advantage of them. Regardless, our parents knew where we were and kept pretty close tabs on us, even at 11 p.m. on a Friday night after Sea Cadets.

It was early October of 1960. My dad was in the hospital dying of cancer unbeknownst to me, and my mom was spending entire days and into the evenings at the hospital. My brother had his nose up his girlfriend’s butt and I was fending for myself with the help of neighbors and the mother network. At a Sea Cadet meeting the first Friday of the month it was announced that there would be cadet dance the first Friday of October: Dress Blues Required/Escorts Optional. Optional? I had been forced into dance lesson when I was seven, something I’m grateful for now but highly resented then. I remember the dances where the boys were on one side and the girls on the other. It was painful. Besides, I was already interested in girls, knew how to dance, was anxious to wear my dress blues and to me, the only girl that existed in my world was pretty, blonde, blue eyed Debbie Weeks.

My first kiss was at eight years old, with none other than Allie O'Brien about 2 months after my brother almost killed her brother in the "Showdown at Starling Pizza". It was a real kiss, not one where the girl give a boy a kiss on his cheek and he frantically wipes his face in fear of catching “cooties.” I liked her, she liked me, we kissed and never spoke about it again…..until about 12 years later; but that's another story. One thing I do know about that kiss….I liked it….a lot. So by the time the Sea Cadet dance rolled around I was more than ready. One problem: I had no clue how to ask her, and if I did, what if she said, “No?” I had no back up plan, no Plan B. If she said no it was stag or stay home.

Debbie didn’t live in Parkchester; she lived right on the outskirts in what we apartment dwellers called a “private house.” These private houses had a small chain-link fenced in yard, a four step walk-up including the stoop and a screen door with the initial of the family’s last name. And if you were Catholic, there was always a statue of the Blessed Virgin in the front yard. The Weeks’ were that family: a “W” on the screen and the BVM in the yard. Debbie was sort of an adjunct member of our group. Not living in the Parkchester and being a girl precluded her from full-membership. We would, on occasion, venture into her neighborhood and hang out and give each other the business. I never let on that I was carrying an Olympic size torch for her. On the rare occasions that my brother was around and not spending time with his head up his girlfriend’s butt, I would ask him advice about dating in general and more specifically how I could ask Debbie Weeks to the dance. I had all these elaborate speeches planned out on how I would ask her to the dance. “Hey Debbie, I’m a member of this group called the Sea Cadets, we’re sort of like sailors but…..”   “Debbie, have you ever heard of the Sea Cadets? We meet every Friday nite……”  “You know Deb, I really like you and I thought……” My brother said to be direct: “Hey Debbie, the Sea Cadets are having a dance, you wanna come with me?” Wow, that was so simple. Okay, I’ll do it.  Had this event taken place eight years later, the question would have been preceded by a few shots of whiskey and a beer chaser, but I was still only an “ic,” I hadn’t added the “alcohol” yet. I had to face this one with only a few chugs of Kool-Aide. I knew I was going to see Debbie the next day at school, so I planned to wait for her after we were dismissed, and just blurt it out. What was the worst that could happen? We won’t go there. I went to bed that night repeating “Hey Debbie, the Sea Cadets are having a dance, you wanna come with me,” like a mantra.

I was rehearsed. I knew every place for every nuance for every one of the fourteen words in this interrogative. All day long I avoided making eye contact with Debbie for fear I would tip my hand…alert her to what awaited her. Outside. Four o’clock came and Sister Michael Marie, or Sister Mike as we secretly, because we feared for our lives called her as we secretly called her, led us out and dismissed us as usual. It was time. As Debbie was preparing to cross the street I called her name. She turned and stopped. I, as suavely as possible, strode over to her. As I was in route, she took her handkerchief out of her purse and it fell to the ground. Still out of reach to retrieve  the small cloth square, Kevin Welch, one of our fellow classmates, came up behind her, picked up the handkerchief, sniffed it and said, “you smell wonderful.” Debbie swooned, I groaned and THAT is why Kevin Welch was a douche bag.

WHY HOWIE BLOOM WAS A MENSCHE

What is a mensche? In Yiddish it refers to a real man, one who does the stand-up thing for his friends and/or family. Howie Bloom could be one of the most annoying, whiney individuals you could meet. All of us had nicknames in those days, I was Bobby Tremont Ave. because I lived on Tremont Ave., and there was Billy Destefano, AKA Billy Bag-O-Pretzels because he could eat five of those big soft pretzels at a time. Patrick Fitzgibbons was known as Pat the Cat because when he was 7 a cat ran up his shorts pant leg and started clawing at his privates. Here we were, three Catholic boys from St. Helena's and then there was Howie, AKA Howie the Jew. Today you'd say he was the token Jew of the group. If you saw Howie, he looked like Jerry Mathers (The Beaver) with the map of Israel all over his face. But he was our token. He went to Yashiva school in Riverdale, the swanky part of the Bronx and the best was that he was Orthodox and was probably more Catholic than the rest of us. He tried to get in on the practice confessions prior to First Holy Communion, but Sister Redempter caught him and dragged him out by his ear. Any one of us would have screamed our way out of the church, but not Howie, he whined his way out. But he was our Howie.

A few weeks after Christmas when we were in 4th grade, we had a killer snowstorm. There must have been 2 feet or more of snow on the ground. Snow meant snowballs and snowballs meant war, but it meant war with kids our age, not with the elderly crowd of Jr. high students. There was this 13 year old kid named Hayden Ryder. Howie sort of knew him because his younger brother went to Yashiva school with him. Hayden was a schmuck.  He got his kicks out of picking on 4th graders. Anyway, here we all are having our snowball fight with 4th graders from St. Raymonds in the East quad when Hayden and his Hitler Youth decide to start throwing at us. Okay, a snowball fight is a snowball fight, no big deal. But Hayden decided to start throwing what we called "hardballs," snowballs with rocks in them. Well one of those hardballs hit Pat the Cat in the temple and dropped him like a \stone. Remember the scene in A Christmas Story when Ralphie has finally had enough? Well I saw rage come over Howie's face as he walked up to Hayden and kicked him square in the crotch. Had his nuts been footballs he would have kicked them 50 yards. As Hayden dropped Howie punched him as hard as a 4th grader his size could punch (which wasn't very hard), but nevertheless, he did what we wanted to do. Hayden Ryder never picked on any of us again. Bloom always will be a mensche in my book.

A PICTORIAL OF PARKCHESTER

If anyone is interested in taking a look at my old neighborhood, Parkchester, here's a great website sent to me by my pal, George Antonopoulos.

http://parkchester.homestead.com

THE DAY WE CLOGGED UP RED'S

Every neighborhood has a local “hangout.” For some it’s a bar, or a record store, but for us kids, it was Red’s.  Red's was a candy store across the street from Parkchester. No one quite knows how it got the name Red's; there was no signage that said "RED'S;" to my knowledge there was no one who worked there named Red. Maybe the original proprietor was named Red. Whatever. Red's had a tile floor, you know the small black and white diamond pattern you see in a lot of old Italian restaurants in the Bronx? And it was always, and I do mean always, greasy. Many a customer would walk into Red's only to be met with gales of repressed laughter as they went ass over elbows. After they were sitting square on their butts, completely humiliated, someone from behind the counter would say, "watch out, the floor's slippery!" God, people can be cruel. Red's was the "Official North Quad Hangout: Candy Store Classification." You see, we had pizzeria hangouts, music store handouts, deli hangouts, etc. Red's was the candy store/soda fountain hangout in the North Quad. If you don't know what I mean by Quad, read Red Zombies first. Okay, so Red's had the stainless steel, red cushioned stools that you could spin around on endlessly until you fell off, got yelled at to stop or puked. The floor behind the counter had wood slatted mats so the help wouldn't go ass over elbows like the many unfortunate customers. You could get cherry coke, lemon coke or just regular coke and they were made with seltzer water, AKA club soda, cola syrup and the cherry or lemon flavoring. Real malted milks (known to many as "malts") were the specialty of the house along with "egg crèmes." Egg crèmes were made with seltzer, chocolate syrup and milk; they were really a carbonated chocolate milk. Any of these wonderful taste sensations were like nectar of the gods, especially on a hot summer day. They also served hamburgers and hotdogs, but none of us kids ever had enough money to buy those, and if we ever were fortunate enough to have that kind of money, we'd go to the Palace Theatre, sit in the balcony and throw JuJu Beads, Junior Mints or Howie Bloom on the people down below (we never really threw Howie over the ledge, but we sure wanted to at times). Red's was also the place where the high school students gathered after school to smoke. I had not reached that level of maturity yet, but it wasn't too far off. Swennyway, this is where the North Quad, 4^th grade version of the Cosa Nostra hung out every afternoon, until Sal, the owner, instituted a two soda minimum. The outrage could be heard from Tremont Ave. to Westchester Square. TWO SODA MINIMUM? Even the "well-to-do" high school students were up in arms. High and low level summit meetings were held to discuss what could be done. Even the other Quads were involved. After all, each Quad had it's own "RED'S," what if the other owners did the same thing? What if Carl's Pizzeria initiated a 2 slice/LARGE Coke minimum? What if Harmony Music adopted a "you play you pay" policy for their 45's? Something had to be done to stop Red's. But what? In retrospect, a boycott would have done the trick, but you have to realize, we were New York street kids and we had no clue who Thoreau, Ghandi, or Martin Luther King, Jr. were. No, we had to "get him." And get him we did.

Red's was the corner store of a huge block containing at least 50 small bakeries, pizzerias, delis, and diners along with Harmony Music, Toy Sun Chinese restaurant, an A&P and the infamous Palace Theatre. This block was probably built sometime before World War I, so the plumbing must have been at least 65 years old. All we wanted to do was flood the bathrooms, but what happened is probably still talked about today. Armed with roll after roll of toilet paper in our knapsacks as well as sawed off broom sticks, the good little Catholic boys from St. Helena's grammar school, along with Howie Bloom from Yashiva school, clandestinely entered Red's with mischief on their minds. With people posted at the doors of the men's and ladies rooms, we proceeded to jam roll after roll of toilet paper into the commodes. On the appointed signal, we proceeded to flush and haul ass out of the restroom. Well, this must have been the straw that broke the camel's back for the plumbing, because not only did we see water coming out from under the doors of the restrooms, but brown water at that….lots of it….accompanied by the worst stench known to man. The pressure on the plumbing must have done something to the other pipes because before long the water coming out of the faucets behind the counter was a chunky brown. A mass exodus took place with people coughing, gagging and screaming….it reminded me of a Godzilla movie. Okay, in retrospect, it was a rotten thing to do and had we been caught, it would have cost our parents a fortune and, it didn't change the two soda minimum. But, when I returned to New York the first time after moving in 1966, kids in the North Quad were still talking about it and claiming that they personally knew the perps. That was a lie. We learned early on, if you're going to pull off a great prank, you have to be satisfied to let it be known only to the perps, otherwise, you're going down. And that was the day we clogged up Red's. I wonder if I'm the first one to break the silence.

RED ZOMBIES FROM HELL

Ok, before proceeding to read my other blogs (that was awfully presumptuous of me), I feel it necessary to introduce you to some characters that will be referenced often in my musings about the Bronx. No one went by their first and last when someone was referring to them. We all had nicknames. Patrick Fitzgibbons was named "Pat the Cat" because on a dare he stuffed a kitten in his shorts; Billy Destefano was nicknamed "Billy Bag-O-Pretzels" because he was obsessive/compulsive over those large, soft, salty wet pretzels you'd get at any candy store. There was Jimmy White who was given the title of "Jimmy Black N' White" because you rarely saw him not stuffing his face with one of those large cookies that were half black and half white called a Black and White. I lived on Tremont Ave. so I bore the moniker "Bobby Tremont Ave or Bobby T." for short. Pat, Billy, Jimmy and myself…2 Italians Catholics, one Irish Catholic and God knows what Jimmy was except Catholic. We all attended St. Helena's Catholic Elementary School. Then we had Howie Bloom who attended Yashiva school in the Bronx. His nickname was simply "Howie the Jew." We were young kids, 7 and 8 year olds, but remembers, this was the mid-1950's and kids were allowed out without parental guidance until dark; plus we were "hanging out" on the streets and getting into mischief, so we grew up a lot quicker than kids today. The five of us were inseparable; four of us were in the same class, sat next to one another, walked to and from school together, stopped at one of the many candy stores, pizzerias and record stores together. Howie, would always meet up with us after school and he sort of became an honorary Catholic since he probably attended mass with us more than he did temple. So here we are, five blood brothers out to make a mark and leave a legacy on Parkchester, the place where we all lived.

Bronx, New York. If you live in Manhatttan, which I didn't, it's uptown and to the right. At one time, the Bronx was actually a fairly swanky borough of the City of New York. That must have been when the dinosaurs roamed the earth because I never remember anything about the Bronx being swanky. Skanky maybe, but definitely not swanky. Naw, that's not true, I just said it was skanky as a play on words. You know, a literary device. The Bronx might not have been upscale when I lived there, but two of the world's greatest parents lived there; some of the best friends a guy could ever have lived there; I lived there and it was home. 

As I just stated, we lived in Parkchester, a sprawling housing development which opened just after World War II. When I say sprawling, there are 51 buildings ranging from 6 to 7 to 12 stories, 66,000 windows and 12,000 families in this place. Restaurants, banks, grocery stores, delis, pizzerias, Macy's, bakeries, (did I say pizzerias), churches, temples, schools (Catholic and the other guys), anything you wanted or needed, right there in Parkchester. A few people were reputed to have lived their entire lives without ever venturing out of the boundaries (as we used to call them) of Parkchester. I loved Parkchester too, but come on. The entire development was divided into quadrants or quads as we called them and they were the equivalent of "turfs." The quads converged on a central point called the Metropolitan Oval. It got its name from the fact that the convergence point was an oval pool, and Parkchester was then owned by the Metropolitan Insurance Company. The five of us lived in the north quad, in fact Howie, Billy and I all lived in the same building. The "NORTH," that was our turf. The year before I was born the north and south quads formed an alliance, which up until this particular summer  seemed to be fairly stable. But then came the Red Zombies from Hell. 

The Winter and Spring came and went with peace still prevailing between the once warring North and South quads. No one is exactly sure why the two quads originally fought. Some say it started over a dispute as to who had the best pizza in Parkchester, Starling Avenue Pizzeria in the South (which was on the south side of Starling and technically just outside of Parkchester) or Carl's in the North, which also was technically outside of Parkchester. Come to think of it, there were no pizzerias IN Parkchester. So scratch what I said about pizzerias in paragraph two. Regardless, by the time I started roaming the turf, the peace had long been made. By the way, I've had pizza in both places and confidentially, Starling Avenue was the better pie. It had a thicker patina of grease on the top. Hmmm-Hmmm good! If I had admitted that back in the day, I would have been sent to live in the West quad and a more unspeakable horror one cannot imagine.

Now in the South quad, close to St. Helena Church and School where I proudly attended, lived Allie O’Brien, who also attended St. Helena and who also was a classmate of mine and who also sat right in front of me. Oh yeah, I was also head over heels in love with her. Allie was fairly tall for her 8 years and had long, flaming red hair, freckles and green eyes you could swim in. She had a crooked smile which revealed a missing tooth just to the left of center and wore enormous, coke bottle glasses. On this particular Labor Day, the day before school began, Allie, her family and three of Allie's friends had been to Jones Beach where they all got particularly wicked sunburns, especially Allie. Her face puffed up stretching those beautiful tiny freckles to look like liver spots and her eyes swelled to slits. Her once crooked smile was now a swollen mass of cracked, Vaseline covered pulp. And her three friends didn't fare much better. Now you have to remember that 8 year old suitors didn't show their love in the traditional manner with cards, candies and compliments. When an 8 year-old's fancies turned to romance, he displayed his affections by haranguing his lady love with a barrage of insults ranging from "four eyes" to "dot face" to "Red Zombie from Hell." Let me say now that Hell hath no fury like a red zombie and her three little minions scorned. What ensued quickly shattered the once stable peace between the North and South and it would take the emergence of a great peacemaker to heal the great divide. 

Did I mention Allie had three brothers? Three large 14, 15 and 16 year old tree trunks with heads was more like it. Thinking back, they didn’t look any different than your run-of-the-mill teenager, but you have to remember, I was 8. Well once I let the Red Zombie from Hell insult fly from my lips, my crew of Howie, Pat the Cat, Billy Bag-O-Bagels and I circled her and began taunting her with inane rhymes for “red zombie” like “Fred Bombie” or “Lead Rombie.” Hey, what can you expect from 8 year olds? I was in love and this was like a love sick suitor’s serenade. Allie called me something like a “do do head” (1958speak for ‘Shit Head’) and said she was going to tell her brothers, then ran off in tears. SUCCESS, we made her cry…SHE LOVES ME. And off we went to play and insult again another day. Now it’s time for a little cultural diversity lesson. Parkchester was a melting pot, but the quads were definitely ethnically pure to a large degree. The North, where I lived was Italian and Jewish; the South and East were largely Polish and Irish and the West was, well I’m not quite sure. The various ethnic groups got along fine 99% of the time, until a person or persons of one or more ethnicities, let’s say Italian and Jewish, injured the honor of another, let’s say Irish. I know, you’re asking “What about Pat the Cat? He was in on it too.” Pat’s last name was Fitzgibbons; he got a pass. But not the two little “WOPS” and the “Heeb” from the North. No, we were marked kids; a bounty hung over our heads. We had to go on the lam.

School started, and the much dreaded first day was dreaded even more by the prospect of having to walk through the South quad to get to St. Helena. During the winter, when it was snowing heavily, we received bus passes from the school to ride the city bus, but during the nice months, we were relegated to the “shoe leather express.” Howie the Jew was lucky; he went to Yashiva school on Castle Hill Road out of harms way. But Billy and I were faced with having to cross the DMZ and transgress into enemy territory. No, that would be too brave; instead we left for school early and made our way through the west to the lower end of Parkchester and across Olmstead Ave. to the back of the school yard. We couldn’t stop at Mr. Katz’s candy store for a sweaty pretzel, but that was okay; at least we got to live. Allie’s brothers went to St. Helena High School and that was way out by the Whitestone Bridge. At least for now, we were safe.

Third grade began that year with Allie O’Brien absent. ABSENT? My God, did we hurt her THAT bad that she couldn’t come to school? Was she that distraught that she would miss the first day rather than face her insulters?  Did it for a second occur to Billy and I that maybe, just maybe, her sunburn was so bad that she was too sick or too embarrassed to come to class? Yeah, it did. Now we KNEW we were dead.

Allie began school that year on day 3. Because we were both tall (I stopped growing around 12) we always sat in the back, she in front of me. That was the way it had been in 1^st and 2^nd grades and it was no different in 3^rd. What was I going to do? What was I going to say? “I’m sorry for insulting you, Allie,” never crossed my 8 year old mind. When we got in line in the school yard, she made a point of ignoring me. Okay, nothing out of the ordinary. We walked in silence which was standard operating procedure in Catholic elementary school and filed into the classroom for the start of day 3…only 177 to go. At the end of the day we filed out of the class as usual, with Sister Mary Agnes leading the fold. As we were dismissed on Olmstead Ave., Billy-Bag-O-Bagels and I beat feet to the West quad, up behind Macy’s across Unionport Rd. and home. SAFE. This little dance continued through most of September and into October and it really began to wear thin on us. The trek through the South up Unionport into the North was the way we had traveled through first and second grades. Pizzarias, Katz’s candy store, all in the South, and we knew everyone. Yes, there were some pizzarias and candy stores in the West quad, but it was the West. I know what you’re thinking. “How could parents allow their first and second graders to walk home alone from school?” First of all, this was a different era…safer. We always “buddied up” for the walk home and then of course, there was the “mother network.” If you did something wrong in any of the four quads, even the West, you could bet your mother would know about it before you made it through the door. We were always being watched. Living, breathing guardian angels. So Billy and I were like ex-patriots. Exiled to another land, separated from our comfort zones. Forced to wander the frontier of the West.

Billy and I had been making the same journey 5 days a week since the day after Labor Day. Maybe we were safe. Maybe Allie’s brothers forgot about it or maybe, just maybe Allie never said anything to them, and all of this was blown up in our minds. But when Mario Puzo wrote The Godfather, he must of taken a chapter from Allie’s playbook because she was “keeping her friends close but her enemies closer.” Since day three of class, Allie acted like nothing had happened; she called me immature when I acted up in class and when I answered questions wrong in class, which was quite often, she called me “lunkhead” or “doe doe brain.” But I was Italian, I wasn’t about to be lulled into a false sense of security by some Irish girl. But six weeks had passed and nothing. What was going to happen, if anything? The answer came on a cold October afternoon, IN THE WEST. As we made our way up behind  Macy’s and through the double rows of old people on benches, we were about to make our way up the stone steps to Unionport Road, into the North quad and home when blocking our path was Michael, Ryan and Sean….O’Brien. I would like to think the dialogue went something like this:

Michael: You have to answer for Allie

Bob & Howie: You got it wrong Mike; we’re innocent

Ryan: Awww, that little charade you played with my sister, did you think it would fool an O’Brien?

Bob & Howie: Please Ryan, I….

Sean: Relax, do you think we’d leave our sister friendless.

But that only happens in movies. What really took place was more like:

Michael: Hey assholes!

Sean: You think its funny making our kid sister cry? Huh douchebags?

Bob and Howie: uh uh uh uh uh…..please don’t hurt us!

Ryan: Shut the fuck up.

I distinctly remember Ryan and Sean with ice cream cones and Michael with a bottle of Pepsi Cola. I remember this because the ice cream cones were shoved in our faces and the Pepsi Cola dumped on our heads. Did I mention it was cold outside? To add insult to injury or grime to the crime, they took dirty and poured it all over us. Then they walked away…as cold as could be…just walked away. They had exacted their revenge. But that was far from the end of it.

I don’t think I mentioned that I had an older brother, ten years old to be exact. And he was 6’8” and a badass. And he hung around with a crowd of equally badasses…all being Italian. When I walked through the door my mother was horrified, my dad was still at work, but my brother was in the living room watching television. I would like to say I walked in with a cavalier attitude, but that would be a lie. I was balling. My mother asked me what had happened and I told both her and my brother bout Michael O’Brien and the Hitler Youth.

I knew the O’Brien brothers hung out at Starling Ave. Pizzaria at the southernmost point of the South quad. The following Saturday afternoon, Billy-Bag-O-Bagels, my brother and his badass friends, and I made our way through the South quad to Starling Ave Pizzaria. Before we crossed Unionport, however, my brother and his badass friends stopped at Katz’s candy store and purchased two chocolate cones and a bottle of Pepsi. Oh boy, this was going to get good. On that particular Saturday afternoon, Katz’s was full of kids from both St. Helen High and Elementary schools. Word had already gotten out about mine and Billy’s public humiliation, so when my brother and his badass friends entered Katz’s to purchase identical weapons of mass destruction, the place cleared out and everyone made their way to Starling Ave. Pizzaria for Armageddon.

As we entered the pizzeria we immediately saw Michael, Sean, Ryan and Allie. ALLIE? What was she doing here? Were they gonna use her as a shield? Did they think she’d be able to stop my brother and his Luca Brazi-like pals? Starling Ave. Pizzaria isn’t that big, so many of the onlookers were forced to place their grimey faces against the glass to get a look at the action, much to the dismay of Mr. Migliaccio, the owner. But I figured he was about to have more problems than a dirty window. The only thing stronger than the “mother network” in Parkchester was the “kid network.” In the space of minutes word spread of the rumble that was about to go down at Starling Pizzaria. My brother looked at me and said, “which one’s were they?” I confidently walked up to Mikey, Ryan and Sean and said, “dees guise” (translation: these guys). “C’mere douchebags,” my brother said calmly. And they hesitantly approached my mammoth brother and his badass friends. “Apologize to my brother and his friend,” said my brother in a relatively ominous voice. “Tell them you’re sorry and you will NEVER do something like that again.” Michael, Sean and Ryan, with humility in their voices and on their faces looked at Billy and me and said, “sorry guys, it won’t ever happen again,” and they extended their hands and we shook. Then my brother and his friends ate their ice cream cones and drank the Pepsi Cola. As we were walking out of Starling Ave. Pizzaria, my brother said to Billy and me, “apologize to their sister.” WHAT? APOLOGIZE? IN FRONT OF ALL THESE PEOPLE? TO A GIRL? I think that was the day I had MY first dose of humility. We went up to Allie and said, “Sorry Allie,” to which she replied, “Do Do Head.” and she smiled that crooked smile.

Peace was restored. Often we would see Michael, Ryan and Sean and they would wave and say, “Hi Men, how goes it?” But we knew what they were really thinking. Patrick Fitzgerald, who was just as guilty as Billy and me shrugged his shoulders and said “hey, you should have been born Irish.” Howie simply said, “Oy,” and we were finally free to walk the streets of the South quad, feast at Starling Ave. Pizzaria and steer clear of the West.

FIRST COMMUNION

It's amazing what people remember most about landmark events from their past. For instance, I remember that on the morning of my sixteenth birthday, I was the first person in line at the DMV to take the driving test (I passed. Parallel parking was a cinch). On the night of my high school graduation, Robert Kennedy was shot down. On the night of my college graduation I was shot down by Suzanne Huff. But the thing I remember most about my first communion was the fact that Theresa Bukowski threw up in church and they had to spread that green kitty litter on it so the entire church wouldn't stink. Sister Redempter told us that something like this might happen, so the boys were already betting which of the girls it would be. It kind of surprised me that it was Theresa. She was one of the honorary boys in 3^A at St. Helena's and I'm sure Vegas odds would have given 1000 to 1 against her being the one to blow chunks, but sure enough, just as she was getting ready to receive the body and blood, up it came, and everyone within striking distance from ground zero was ducking for cover. Had this been Delores Weeks or Daphne Dempsey, it would have been the ultimate in karmic justice, but Theresa was okay and I can't even imagine how humiliating it must have been. I caught up with Terry recently and she hasn't forgotten that experience. Who would?

Other than Terry's life scarring experience, First Communion went off ALMOST without a hitch. ALMOST.  Jerry Smith, one of the attending altar boys, pulled the paten (the plate they placed put under your chin in case the host dropped to the ground) away from Jimmy Bay's chin before the host was on Billy's tongue, and I guess it spooked him because the host didn't quite make it to his mouth but went tumbling end over end to the floor. Nowadays you would just pick it up and dispose of it in the sanctified sink, but back then you placed a cloth over it and it had to be scooped up with a gizmo that resembled a spatula. The festivities were delayed for about 10 minutes while other altar boys scrambled looking for the "Cloth" and the spatula. I half expected some hard hats to come in and jack hammer a hunk of floor where the host landed and send it off to the Vatican for display. But the best part of the whole day was that my dad, who was just a working stiff, took all of the family to lunch. We're talking me, mom, my brother, grandparents, and two sets of aunts and uncles. My old man must have been saving for years because we went to this fancy restaurant on Westchester Square. I can still remember what I had for lunch…chopped sirloin steak. I loved chopped sirloin steak and ordered it every time we went out to eat which wasn't very often. We didn't start going out to eat with any regularity until my dad went into the hospital to die and my mother and I went for Chinese food every Friday night before we did laundry. Egg Fo Yong always makes me think of my mom and dad. Anyway, we weren't five minutes into the meal when the Italian in everybody (except my mother) came out and arguments ensued ranging from someone not giving enough money as a wedding gift to Tupperware that hadn't been returned. But you know, that was what being an Italian Catholic family was like, at least for my family. And now, having received First Communion, I was officially one of the tribe. 

CONFESSION...AKA....PENANCE....AKA....RECONCILIATION

I am a child of the Bronx. I was born there, spent the first 11 years of my life there, have been back to visit almost as many times as I am old and I was born in the 50's so that will give  you an idea. My name is Bob Arcuri; I'm a professor of communications at a state college in Florida and ever since I went into the 10th grade and met Sister Miriam Catherine, I have had a passion for reading and writing. I love writing short stories, mainly about growing up Catholic in New York and Florida, but I also like writing on a host of subjects from pizza to drug and alcohol addiction to the question that's been plaguing me for years: if  you can put a man on the moon, why can't you put metal in a microwave? My goal is to hopefully receive positive feedback on my writing and maybe someday be published. But if I only get people to smile, cry, laugh or just ponder as a result of my stories, I'll be happy. As I continue to blog, you'll be introduced to a host of characters from my past, many of which I liked, but many I did not. But I begin with one of my favorite experiences from my Catholic elementary school days, going to confession.

If you grew up Catholic in the 50's, you earned a red badge of courage. I can't even begin to imagine how difficult it must have been for those poor, beaten down, guilt ridden souls who came before us, I only know that when I was a kid in the Bronx, the Catholic bar of expectations was very high indeed.

    My mother was a convert. When she met my dad she was a Methodist and if she had any hope of getting in good with Angelina and Antonio Arcuri, she'd better start following St. Peter's Ragtime Band. Now converts are the worst; they're like reformed smokers. They just recently learned all the Catholic stuff that lifers have already forgotten and they're always up in your face quoting the Catechism of the Catholic Church. That was my mother. And to make matters worse, since my older brother was already written off as a "lost soul," my mother had plans for me to become a priest. Fortunately for me, the best she ever got was an altar boy. The first mass I served was on a 7:00 a.m. mass on a weekday in February. It was colder than a well diggers butt, but every single member of my family, aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents and parents were there. You would have thought I was being ordained. Every time I recited one of the Latin prayers, you would have thought I just changed water into wine. Ooohs and ahhhs filled St. Helena's. But the thing I remember most was that Father O'Shea said the mass and he farted throughout most of it. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Before one can become an altar boy, one must first receive one's first holy communion. This meant CONFESSION. We received our first communion in the 3^rd grade and you're probably wondering, "what kind of sins could a third grade Catholic school boy commit?" By the way, that thing about going blind is a myth. I have 20/20 vision.

The nuns were assigned the task of training these new Eucharistic recruits in the art and science of what we now fondly call, reconciliation. We did mock confessions. Sort of a Liturgical Moot Court. The nuns would act as the priests and we would go in and make our confession. Since it wasn't for real, we got to make up all the sins. All the Italian boys confessed to high level mob hits while the Irish boys usually owned up to some kind of bar fight. The girls were typical girls and confessed to things like eating meat on Friday or talking during mass. There was a rumor, however, that Debra Weeks may  have raised the bar for future communicants and confessed to slipping a boy the tongue. I often think that if it had been a few years later, I would have confessed to the Kennedy assassination. Anyway, the day of the first confession had arrived

We were all hoping that we could have had Father O'Shea or Father McInnenny for our first confession. With them it was 2 Our Fathers and 2 Hail Marys and you were back on the street. Now in those days, you went into a small booth, the priest slid back the door and you had a screen with a curtain between you and the priest (they still have those confessionals for those who would rather have wisdom teeth pulled without anesthesia than go to face-to-face confession). The reason for the screen and curtain was anonymity. But we were sure Monsignor Scanlan would recognize our voices, so we disguised them using pathetic 3rd grader accents or trying to sound like a grownup. The boys probably sounded more like the girls than the girls. To this day I still remember my penance: 3 Our Fathers, 3 Hail Marys, 3 Glory Be's and the Apostle's Creed and a promise to never sin again. The 3, 3, 3 and Creed were easy, it was that promise that has been a bit hard to keep over the years. So there I was, full of sanctifying grace and ready for my first communion which wasn't for another 3 days. What if I sinned before those 3 days were up? All of the priests at St. Helena's knew me. What would they do? Was there some kind of court you went to where the priests handed down punishments for 3^rd graders who couldn't go three days without sinning? But then it dawned on me that I could go over to Saint Raymond's where no one knew me. I had the bases covered. But if you're a Catholic you learn that there are two kinds of sin, veneal....less serious....sort of like a misdemeanor of sins and MORTAL....the felony of sins. But to commit a mortal sin you had to KNOW it was a sin, you had to WANT to commit it, then you had to COMMIT  it. In other words, you had to want to feel up Suzie, you had to know it was wrong to feel up Suzie, and then you actually had to feel up Suzie. THEN you committed a mortal sin. I think they may have changed their position on mortal sin since then, but don't quote me on that. Anyway, I had a lily white soul. The nuns told us that if we were to have a horrific accident and die at that very moment, we would go to Heaven, but only after a stop in Purgatory. The nuns always had a way of cheering us up. With lily white soul, I was ready for the granddaddy of Catholic events......FIRST HOLY COMMUNION.