I have discovered that some Facebook friends have been following my writing about my brother’s memoir on Substack (thank you!) but have not yet read the book. So I’ve decided to share one “growing up” story here today and one “prison” story later. Let’s start with Shoeshine Boy.
It was Christmas 1970, the first since Dad left. I told Mom I didn’t want anything, because I knew she couldn’t afford gifts. On Christmas morning I unwrapped two presents, a sweater and a transformer for my electric racing cars. This was depressing. You see, we were used to a plethora of gifts on Christmas morn. Having no money sucked, and it was time to do something about it. I was not about to go back to school and listen to what all my buddies got, ever again. So, I robbed a bank! Only kidding! Scratch that from the record, Your Honor. The jury will disregard that statement!
I had my hair cut at Dominick’s Barber Shop. Dominick was about 60, with white hair circling his bald head and a pencil-thin moustache. He looked like a hood. When I told Mom I wanted to shine shoes there she told me I couldn’t because he was a “bookie.” I didn’t know what a bookie was, but I knew it wasn’t legal, and it was cool. So, I walk in and tell Dominick I want a job as a shoeshine boy. He says, “A bootblack, huh?” He goes on to say that if I want the job, I have to sweep the floor, empty the trash and get coffee, and, “I’m not payin’ you a dime!”
I bought a shoeshine box, painted on it “Johnny’s Shoeshine 25¢ or 12.5¢ per shoe.” He wouldn’t let me write “Pepo” because “Dat ain’t da name your mudda gave ya.” The man scared me. Still, he helped me fix up my shine box and reinforced the pay plan: “I ain’t paying ya nuttin!” He took me to the shoemaker next door and fixed me up with shoe wash, brushes and three different kinds of polish, because when he saw that I had only one can of black polish and the rag that came with it, he felt sorry for me. In those days we had three shoemakers in two blocks. Where did they go?
I’ll never forget my first shine, because the guy’s shoes were filthy. I was a wreck, had no idea what the hell shoe wash was for, and I made 35¢. After that near-disaster, Dominick shook his head and told me he was going to show me how it was done. I was amazed that this mean man would take the time to teach me the fine art of polishing a shoe. I think he wanted me to succeed, and I was his little project.
I was off and running, working every day after school and all day Saturday. I met the guys who would come by every two weeks for haircuts. Then there were guys who came by every day. They would talk to Dom, slip him cash and leave. Some of the fellas would wait around the shop, listening to the radio for hours, then leave without getting a haircut.
After my first couple of weeks, I would earn about a buck a day during the week and five dollars on Saturday. But after the third week, on Saturday night before closing time, Dom called me over and handed me three bucks. Wow! I was advised that since I was on the payroll, I had to fill the foam in the shaving cream heater, put towels in the hot towel thing, and the worst part: once a week I had to count how many dirty towels we used. They were stuffed in sacks and soiled with soap, lather, hair, tonic, sweat, and whatever else you could think of. After the first week, I asked, “Why don’t ya count how many clean ones he gives you every week?” This question was ignored.
Dom charged $1.25 for a haircut, and 75¢ for a shave, with a hot towel. Business was never really that busy, just enough to keep a couple of guys reading Playboy or Penthouse. The latter, by the way, was new and the talk of the shop, because it showed female pubic hair, unlike Playboy. Of course, I wasn’t allowed to look at these because I wasn’t old enough, and as Dom would say, “Ya kiddin? I wouldn’t be able to keep him outta da batroom.”
Dom drove a brand-new gold 1971 Oldsmobile Toronado with white leather bucket seats and a white vinyl landau roof. It sat in front of the shop, all day, every day. Dom would brag that he bought a new car every year. I couldn’t figure out how he could park in that spot when it had a NO PARKING ANYTIME sign. And he never got a ticket, when everyone else who parked up and down Broadway would get a ticket if their meter ran out, or if they parked in front of a fire hydrant or bus stop. It was like he was immune from the cops. If another car parked in front of the barber shop it was ticketed immediately.
Before I started working there, Dom had a payphone on the wall, but it had been alleged to be used for gambling purposes, so it was removed. Before I was aware of this, I always wondered, if he spent literally half the day either waiting for, or on, the pay phone across the street at Sid’s candy store, why he didn’t have a phone. Even though I was only 12, I began to put a few things together. I was starting to realize how Dom could charge $1.25 for a haircut when the barber up the street was struggling to get a buck, and he couldn’t even afford a car.
Since Saturday was the only day I got there early, Dom had me sweep the front of the store, get coffee and doughnuts for the boys, and a couple of New York Daily News papers. I could get all of this for about a buck. The first place that anyone ever looked in the paper would be the page with results from the racetracks. This was known as “da pony page.” You would hear guys say, “I bet on dat fuckin’ nag in the eighth last night, and I think she’s still runnin’!”
I looked forward to Saturdays, not only because I was making between $10 and $15 a day, but because it was exciting to see guys come in whistling in a really good mood. Then Dom would hand them an envelope. I would say a Hail Mary for the guy to want a shine. Usually, a guy who got an envelope was good for a whole buck! Sometimes I didn’t even have to give him a shine, and I would still get some dough. I thought about all these things – the new car every year, the inflated prices, the clientele, the envelopes, all the time on the phone at Sid’s, and all the guys listening to the radio. The station would repeat the news every 20 minutes, and also had up-to-the-minute results from area racetracks. It drove me nuts listening to the same shit over and over all day, especially on Saturday.
Then one summer weekday afternoon I was to find out everything.
While Dom is across the street at Sid’s, on the phone, I figure I’ll clean up. I wipe down the Formica shelves that hold the tools of his trade, like the large glass container that looks like a small upright fish tank, except it has “sanitizer” in it, which is blue water that hasn’t been changed since the Brooklyn Dodgers moved to L.A. Wiping down the shelves, I come across numbers and names written next to the cash register. It looks like it hasn’t been cleaned in months. After putting the witch hazel and everything else back, I admire my work.
Dom comes back and to my surprise, I don’t even have to tell him what I’ve done. He screams, “What happened?” I tell him I’ve cleaned up. He takes a couple of deep breaths and asks me to sit. We had a little table in a cubbyhole that faced the street. This was the manicurist table, which was never used for that purpose. He stresses the importance of “nevah, evah” erasing anything written on the Formica.
Now I ask exactly what is going on with the phone calls, the guys getting envelopes and the pony page. He had always told me it was none of my business. For some reason, he decides to explain the inner workings of his real business. You could compare this to the moment in How the Grinch Stole Christmas, when the Grinch’s heart grows three times larger and he decides to give all the Whos back their gifts. I find out that Dom provided a “service” to his buddies who couldn’t make it to the racetracks to place their bets. This was before legal Off-Track Betting in New York. Dom takes out the paper and explains how horseracing works. Win, place, show, exacta, perfecta, trifecta, and how much the horses pay according to their odds.
I ask how the fellas know which horse is going to win. He smiles and says, “Dey don’t.” After getting a crash course on calculating payoffs, I realize why the shop is closed on Sundays. It’s the only day the tracks are dark. After absorbing all this, I ask, “Well, what’s with all the numbers?” He looks toward the heavens and begins to explain. Listed every day on one certain page of the newspaper, at the bottom, is the track’s total mutuel handle, that is, “da numbah.” Each day, the number is in the millions and the boys bet on the last three digits. I ask, “How do they know that?” Again, he answers, “Dey don’t.” Now I am figuring out the new car, the high prices, etc. Shit, these guys are just interrupting him by coming in for a haircut.
Although the odds of guessing the number are 1 in 999, he pays 1 in 500. In other words, you give Dom six bucks a week and you hit once. That’s 500 clams. He adds that you can play for as little as 25 cents a day or $1.25 a week. Hell, even I can afford that! I plunk down $1.25 and say to Dom, “212 for a week, straight.” 212 was my homeroom in 7th grade with Sister Alice Mary McClain. That last word, straight, means it has to come in exactly, because he has described to me the various ways of boxing a number, which increases your odds but also lowers your payoff. I thought that was for chumps. I want the whole $125. I could buy every racing car and accessory that the beloved Aurora Co. out of Cherry Hill, New Jersey, could possibly manufacture.
Dom tells me to take my money back: “Ya mudda would moider me if she found out you wuz gamblin’ and I was takin’ ya dough.” I plead with him, explaining what I could do with that newfound wealth. He says several of the regulars like Buster, Uncle Cholly and Johnny Broadway had never hit the number and they had been betting for years. Dom says, “You can nevah win when you play ponies or da numbah.” You might have a lucky streak now and again, and these guys might feel like they’re winning, but they were just getting back some of the money they had already lost. The reasons these poor slobs never won were various. The day the numbah came in, they were out on a bender. Or, they didn’t have money to play that week. Or they got so disgusted with the number they were playing, they switched to a different one, only to see their old one come in the next week. This was known as a “bum numbah.”
Dom says a lot of these guys have to borrow money just to gamble! I couldn’t believe that a guy would borrow dough to bet on a horse or a number. Now I realize why Dom has so many friends and why they are so loyal. I start to feel sorry for these guys, but if it weren’t for them, I would be in financial difficulty myself. Never look a gift horse in the mouth, right?
Over the next few months, I plead with Dom. He tells me to get lost. His main fear was my mother. He would tell the fellas about my ambition: “Da kid tinks dat he gives me da money and then next week he collects.” They laugh as I dream of my name being written on the Formica next to the cash register, in pencil of course.
Bets are written in pencil in case they have to be erased in a hurry. I ask why the cops would bother him, because it seems they are his buddies. Like the cop who walks by Dom’s illegally parked car while ticketing other cars on the street. Or the others who wave when they walk or drive by in their cruiser. He agrees that yes, they are his buddies, but he adds, “But you ain’t seen one of da boys in blue inside da shop, have ya?” Then it dawns on me that a police officer would never set foot inside. It seems that Dom had been busted by the bunco squad. My guess is that he pissed somebody off, or maybe one of the guys who got promoted to the bunco squad couldn’t pick a horse or a number. Now that I know what’s really going on, I can talk to the regulars about the horses they bet on. I could know who hit the number, and wait for him to pick up his envelope. Sometimes the guys who got an envelope disappeared for a while.
After I bugged Dom for months, he says he is going to teach me a lesson. In front of the fellas, I give him my hard-earned $1.25 and tell him 212 is my number. When I tell him “straight,” the boys get a kick out of it. Two or three days go by, and I have a ritual just like all the other guys who wait for the “Nite Owl” edition of the Daily News, which hits the streets – literally, when bundles are thrown from a truck – around 9:00 p.m. The only difference between me and the guys waiting outside the candy store was that I was about 50 years younger, had way too many teeth, and wasn’t waiting for good news out of the sports section so I could pay my rent.
No luck. This ain’t working. I think I got a “bum numbah” just like Cholly. I tell Dom I’m changing my number mid-week. “Can I do that?” Dom replies, “Ya really tink ya gonna win, doncha?” I tell him, “Yeah, I’m playin’ 617.” This is the percentage of the World Champion 1969 New York Mets, who stood the sports world on its ear with one of the most amazing years in baseball history. I could not lose. This number has to come in.
Now I’m down to my last day. If I don’t hit, I’ll have to come up with another $1.25 for next week. I start to see how this could be a problem, when you believe you’re going to win and you don’t. I hand Sid eight cents for the paper, walk outside and open to the pony page. Dom taught me how to spot the track with the number for the day. There were different tracks with results, but you had to know what to look for. Believe me, I had plenty of practice from the guys, now asking me when they came in, “Who got da toid?” which means which thoroughbred was triumphant in the third contest at either Aqueduct or Belmont, depending on the time of year.
I open the page and look down and see 617. I immediately close the paper and think: I have the right track. I have the right number. I’m up to date with my money, so I’m covered.
I re-open the paper to be sure everything is copacetic. My first thought is the money. ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-FIVE DOLLARS! In 1970 this is a lot of dough. My second thought is how sweet it’s going to be when I show up at the shop tomorrow. I am gonna be the guy getting the envelope. Then I think how happy Mom will be. My feet don’t touch the ground as I race up three flights of stairs. I bolt through the door and scream to my mom, “I hit da numbah!”
After I open my eyes at the slap past my cheek, Mom says, “Have you been gambling?”
I reply, “I ain’t gamblin’, Mom, I’m winnin’!” I’m lucky she doesn’t hit me again. After acting pissed off, she asks what number I played and she verifies it. How does my own mother know how to check the number? Then she says I am going to the Chase Manhattan Bank to open a savings account.
“But, Ma, I got plans for that money.” I picture myself leaving Murray’s Hobby Shop with a bag full of new racing cars and tracks, and all of the other stuff I can now afford.
I’m not going to win this battle.
The next day I tell everyone of my good fortune. They ask what I’m going to do with the dough. I tell them of the plans for my bonanza. “Put it in da bank, are ya kiddin? When my fadah hit da numbah we didn’t see him for a week,” one buddy says.
I could hardly wait to go to work. I walk in the shop and Dom looks as depressed as I’ve ever seen him. “I don’t fuckin’ believe it,” he says. My new name for that week was “that lucky little cocksucka.” When I ask where my envelope is, Dom says, “Ya didn’t tell ya mudda, didya?” I tell him the bad news, and add, “I told ya I was gonna win!” He shakes his head.
Not being able to substantiate the claim that a 12-year-old needs the money, I find myself at the bank the next day. At work, some guys ask me what number was going to come in, or which horse to pick. There is residual income from my windfall, because when I pick a horse that comes in, I am rewarded. Of course, I could not pick another winning number for them, and I listened to Dom, who told me if I was smart I would never play the number again for as long as I live, and be one of the few who would be ahead of the game. Although “pick threes” are legal in most places, I have never tried my luck. And I never had the nerve to ask Dom to play again.