Karmic Review

Karmic Review

By

Isa Moore

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 2013 by Isa Moore

All Rights Reserved.

Chapter 1

The year is 1944, the place is Long Island city; a ghetto of mostly Italian Polish and Irish Catholics; there wasn’t that many men on the block that I lived on; almost all women and children. I had two sisters; Dot and Pat. Pat being the oldest at ten; Dot being the middle kid at nine, and I was the four year old tow head, Dot’s hair had turned that Danish tint of light brown, with ultra-white skin inherited from my Mother, who had that color mixed with a copper red, and freckles like a spotted trout. I never realized how pretty my mom was because in this era, she always had a semi stressed frown on her face, except when she looked at me with that smile like I was the light of the world. Then there was other times, when she acted like she would like to just run away from me; leave me somewhere in her past; this was illustrated when she was fed up with carrying my little body, as my four and a half year old legs got tired from trying to keep up with her, on our way to the little local market. She walked like all New Yorkers, briskly; almost competitively. I was in no shape to compete; I had to take two and a half steps to her every one. My legs ached, and there was this tremendous fear that she would round the next corner, and when I turned it after her, she would not be there; she was all I had, between life and death. That was the way I saw it from the height at which I was standing; less than three feet tall. From that perspective everything and everyone was enormous. Never cross the street alone; don’t talk to strangers. It seemed like anyone could kill me if they wanted to. Who would notice? Most folks were all busy going back and forth to places I couldn’t imagine. Three blocks away was a spot where these huge pieces of dirty iron went up high, and then something above them blocked out the sun from the sky; next there was screeching and grinding so loud, that I had to cover my brand new sensitive ears. Mom wasn’t afraid of that thing up there, she barely gave it a glance as she continued pulling me along hand in hand, I was beginning to get the hang of this New York minute gate, I didn’t walk with her I ran alongside of her. My legs were getting stronger and stronger. It gave me a feeling of confidence that I could always keep her in sight, cause when she rounded a corner I’d be right there beside her. When we were home in our little apartment on the second floor up, which in these old strongly constructed houses was really almost the third floor cause you had to walk up the stairs on the stoop just to reach the first floor. The stoop was made of solid concrete, and had seven stairs to the landing at the front door. There was no such thing as TV. In the last two hours of sunlight in the summer, most of the families would sit on the steps of those stoops, watching the kids in their early teens play stickball. What’s stickball? I suppose you could call it urban baseball. You take an old broom; cut the bristle part off, and you’re holding a long stick; someone throws a Spalding ball towards you, you hit it with the stick, and run around the bases. Naturally you have to touch each base, but the bases are indigenous ones; a hydrant; the light of a parked car; a telephone pole; and last but not least, the manhole cover in the middle of the street, home base. When the kids hit a foul ball through someone’s window, they’d pass a hat around to the people on the stoops, to collect enough money to pay for the busted window. I was amazed that almost everyone put some change in the hat. These people were poor, but they had a sense of community. Everybody’s dad was off in the war; mine was dead from tuberculosis. I don’t know how you get tuberculosis of the stomach, but that’s what he died from. When the stick-ball game was over, and the sun was low in the sky, it was time to go have supper and listen to the radio; wish I had that radio today it would probably be worth around eight grand, it stood my height and was laced together with various types of hard woods. It was a chunk of furniture with wires and tubes in its bowels; it would whistle and hum, as you turned the dial to pick up the station. At first there would be a fireside chat from Franklin Delano Roosevelt. My mom might listen to a quarter of it; turn it off till he was through. Then turn on Fibber Magee and Molly Or maybe The Green Hornet came on first, then The Life of Riley on different days there were different shows. She especially liked Jack Benny. One of my favorites was The Shadow I actually thought the guy was a real shadow. But whose shadow is he mom? My sisters and mother just laughed. In my logical little mind, it seemed to me that whose ever shadow it was, had to be the source of The Shadow’s power. But I didn’t know how to put that into words, and it was enough that my sisters and mom were good-naturedly amused by my questions. One time when I was playing outside near the stoop, Dot invited me to go up and see Mrs. O’ Mercer, a very old lady around six structures down the street from us. I think she’d ask Dot go to the grocery store for her on occasions. Dot said hello, and the almost white haired lady invited us in. Dorothy then said: Could he see the statures?

By all means. replied the kindly, tall ninety year old. We walked into her bedroom; she had a queen size bed, and a large rosewood dresser directly across from the bottom of it, on top of which was three statues, one of the virgin Mary two and a half foot tall, and two one footers flanking it; St Joseph on the left, and mini Mary on the right. My mom had one like the small one, so I thought that Dot brought me there to see how big the large Mary was. Let’s turn off the lights to get the full effect said the old woman. That frightened me. It was dusk outside; the sun was almost all the way down, and the room was dimming, but before the lights went off, there was a knock at the front door. Mrs. O‘Mercer: Oh that must be Angelo with the ice. She turned the wall switch on as she left the room lightening it up significantly. We followed her out to hall. She opened the door, and there stood a very muscular Italian man around six foot four, with a burlap-bag folded over his shoulder; on top of that burlap bag was a square chunk of ice weighing around sixty-five pounds. She walked in front of him into the kitchen, and opened a door to what looked like another dresser. Yes this thick strong dresser had four doors on it instead of drawers. Angelo wrestled the block of ice off of his shoulder and slid it in through the open door. Mrs. O’ Mercer noticing the inquiring look on my face said: This is my Ice Box. As she was handing money to Angelo and them nodding to each other: Everyone used to have one of these.

Where do they get the ice?

They cut large pieces of it out of the Hudson River in the winter, and store them in a warehouse, then cut smaller blocks from the big ones, and sell them to people all summer long. Angelo left, and Mrs. O’Mercer invited us back into her bedroom, to look at the statues once more. No sooner had I got into the bedroom; situated in front of the statues, and the lights went out. I was about to get alarmed, when I noticed there was still light in the room, it was the statues above me glowing brightly illuminating the whole boudoir. The statues were made out of some kind of material, that glows in the dark. To my eyes it was like witnessing a little miracle.

Chapter 2

The next day after the morning meal Wheaties The Breakfast of Champions my mom ushered me over to the open window, adjacent to the fire-escape. There was a steel pie plate sitting on its landing close to the windowsill, it was filled with torn bits of bread covering its surface, and twelve sparrows stepping in and out of the plate as they pecked off pieces of the bread while attempted to eat them on the steel slats of the fire-escape, then lose them through the spaces between slats, and having to go back for another morsel of the bread. Five of the birds remained within the plate bent over eating directly in place; among those five was a larger than usual sparrow; could have been a bulky Robin cause he was more than double the chest span of any other sparrow. Mom: Watch what happens in this pie plate. Said with a big enthusiastic smile: These birds are just like people. So I scrutinized, the birds all acting like people going into church, they stayed evenly spaced, carful to not invade the other guys eating space, content to work on the area they were in, but frequently looking up, to spy for cats; birds of prey, and overzealous little humans. An eager enthusiast obviously a youngling jumped up into the plate, and began eating like an adult. The large chested fellow took immediate offence to this act, and began pecking at him with a closed beak, but it seemed to me he was pecking awfully hard. I felt like grabbing the pecker by the throat, and teaching him some dining manners, but my mom just sat there like a non-activist, which was not her mode, and watched the spectacle play itself out, so I reluctantly followed her example. Instantly a medium sized bird ran in from the sidelines, and pecked the large bird in the ass. The big boy turned to engage the ass pecker, but the pecker was already in retreat. The bully bird rigorously pursued the agile middle weight, who literally ran him in circles round the outer perimeter of the pie plate, while the little upstart ate casually and confidently till the oversizer noticed the little guy on one of his many trips around the plate, then stopped the chase to peck the youngster again, and was simultaneously pecked in the butt when he bent over to peck the youngling, and around the plate they ran again. I was beginning to worry that the agile bird wouldn’t get to eat, and decided to offer him more bread when the feeding frenzy was over, if he was anywhere to be seen. Gallantry should be rewarded with favor, has always been my creed. As for the big guy, he could afford to miss one meal. It might make him less arrogant, to my way of thinking.

It was another typical day on Clark Street; horse drawn wooden wagons filled with fresh organic produce would roll slowly down the street, one at ten thirty am, and another around one pm. The vegetables must have been grown in the man’s back yard, cause there was rationing of various items. We were at war, The items you had to have chits for most commonly were, meat; butter; eggs; and coffee, most other items could be bought at will; however I got the impression the produce acquired from the horse drawn wagons were much cheaper, and they were being brought right to your door. Not only that; the old Italian men who owned the carts were in good physical condition in spite of his age, half of the women would flirt with the old guy from the morning cart. The afternoon cart was smaller, and the man was even more elderly and frail looking, so he didn’t get as much action, but he did get some! The vegetable carts came every day; once every two weeks an immigrant man of unknown origin would come around in an early nineteen-thirties truck. Where do you think he’s from? said one woman to two others. I don’t know, but he sure can sharpen knives! He had a large sharpening wheel around two and a half foot in diameter, powered by an electric motor. The electricity must have come from the battery of the vehicle, cause he let the motor of the truck idle while he worked away bringing all those butcher knives to a razor sharp edge. Everybody brought their blades out to him, even my mother. He could afford to let the motor run infinitely; petrol cost three cents a gallon. That’s right! Three cents. Then there was my favorite. I only got to go on it once, cause one of the neighbors volunteered the entrance fee; one nickel. It was a non-motorized merry-go-round, the base of which was bolted down to the surface of a flatbed truck. The whole seven-foot in diameter merry-go-round was made of steel, with little wood painted horses chasing each other in an eternal circle. I looked under the merry-go-round and saw a eight inch wide steel shaft with a very wide gear-wheel reaching out like a beast of prey to engage with another gear wheel not quite as large; that one reached for the outer perimeter of the circumference to meet with a much smaller gear-wheel which faced perpendicular to the ground, and had a huge handle on it like the ones you’d see people starting model T-Fords with. The preschool children would get onto the little horses in the merry-go-round, and an Italian immigrant around five foot five; fifty yrs. old with arms bigger than Charles Atlas would crank that handle; first slowly then more rapidly as the mechanism gained up momentum, then it would move smoothly as he casually cranked it round and round, with the women looking at the power in his arms, and the span of his chest, then up to their little ones having such a good time going in circles.

On occasion my mom would take me up the hill to the local church with her. It was a huge gothic looking structure encompassing a quarter of the block, with a victory garden behind it encroaching another half of the block; on the remaining quarter were two other structures semi gothic in appearance; the rectory and the nunnery. Our Lady of Mount Carmel had the ambiance of a good location for a Dracula movie, and its vibes bore an underlying kinship to said location, but it wasn’t so morbid inside the church. The belly of the beast shimmered with glowing candle light affording it the warmth and hospitality of a campfire in the wilderness. It seemed to me that my mom had her dead husband on her mind while praying at the railing closest to the altar. I honestly felt she was trying to get God to give him back; make him reappear, and be her husband again. I didn’t know it, but I was picking this up psychically, and even at that age, I was aware that her request was not likely to be granted. Even Jesus had to have a cadaver to work with. She wanted spontaneous manifestation directly from the ether.

My mom would smack my sisters whenever they did something they knew she wouldn’t want them to, but did it anyway. She would repeat with knitted brow: The older they get the dumber they get. Then mom would go off to church to pray for what ever her second request was; when she did so, Pat and Dot would want to play Mama.

Hay Jer… Let’s play Mama! They’d jump under the covers on their bed, and I’d hit whatever was sticking out of the top of the covers, like their head or their shoulder or elbow with my opened hand and say: If you ever do that again I’ll kill you! They’d laugh, cause I’d actually imitate mom’s tone. Ok well if you think that was funny, we’ll see how funny you think it is when I get the hair brush. I was about to use the flat side of the hairbrush, which my mom used like a paddle. Pat jumped out from under the covers and said: No, no! You can’t use the hairbrush. I’m thinking: "If I’m supposed to be mama, I should use the hair brush, She did, but maybe it’s different when you’re playing mama."

When no one was around one day I took a walk on the fire escape, I think my mom thought I was asleep. I kind of knew she would have a conniption if she knew what I was doing, but I still felt like doing it, without an ounce of fear I climbed the stairs of the fire-escape to the next floor up, leaned over from the stairs sat on the railing wrapped my feet around the bars in an outboard position; bent over backwards and hung there. I had no fear of the fact that the ground lay three stories from the position of my head, I was fearlessly unattached to emotions in general, it just seemed like the thing to do. I hung there for awhile; raised up, grabbed the rail from the iron stair, pulled myself back up; put my feet on the stairs, turned round and walked down to our landing then slid over the sill into the bedroom just as my mother entered into the room. I was projecting something I would experience several times into the future; a moment of invincibility.

Jerry, come here I want to show you something. My mom was looking at a half size magazine, about the size of a Readers Digest; it had a picture of a Mongolian boy on its cover. He had a good healthy tan with a slight hue of orange in it, all I saw was a strange looking being resembling no real person. Isn’t he beautiful? Thinking: "He can’t be beautiful, only girls are beautiful, and I don’t think he’s pretty, maybe she thinks he’s handsome…..He’s awful dark; I ain’t seen anyone around here, who looks anything like him. With eyebrows up: Yeah.. He’s nice. The next day she shows me another magazine just like the first one, except this one’s got a boy’s face on it, with wide round shaped deep brown eyes: "The white part’s really white; his nose is wide, and his lips are bigger than a pretty girls; his skin is such a dark brown, it looks black."

Isn’t he nice? I glanced at her, then back at his face; now he seemed like he was actually there, looking at me. "He really is nice… He really likes me. Glancing at my mom: I really like him." She smiled a satisfied smile, as caught from my peripheral vision; I was still concentrating on him. From that day on, whenever I looked at a face in a magazine, it was like the person was right there with me. I never took a magazine into the bathroom.

Chapter 3

It’s another day; there was a precocious girl of comparable age living on this block named Bernice Hunt. My sisters decided to coerce me into kissing her. I said no, cause they wanted to watch. I kind of liked the idea of kissing Bernice, although I didn’t know why, until my sisters negotiated a viewing arrangement. I agreed to kiss the girl if they watched through the frosted glass window of the entrance door to the building; that’s when I noticed the tingling under my testicles, it was a pleasant feeling, but I didn’t want to Smooch her too long. Cause the feeling was getting stronger, needless to say that was my first kiss, weeks later I was shocked to see her and a tall blond kid named Dennis, pull their pants down, and wiggle their genitalia at each-other while an ensemble of kids of comparable age, gazed at the spectacle with as much interest as I was having. One kid: This is a mortal sin! An older one: It ain’t a mortal sin unless they touch. In spite of the impelling curiosity, I kept well back from the front of the group for fear that they would want me to perform with Bernice, and sure enough they voiced that request; I was off and running home, before they could finish the sentence. I never mentioned any of it to my mother cause I knew I’d get everyone in trouble, and I would be asked: Why didn’t you leave sooner? After all I did watch for a while, and snitches were considered the lowest form of life, in a community like this.

Hay Jer, we think it’s time you learned how to fight. To my way of thinking I already knew how to fight. You just swung you’re fists like hammers, and landed them on the other guy’s face as fast and as hard as I can. Of course I didn’t tell them what I was thinking, cause I somehow knew I was going to defend myself from one or both of them, at some time in the future. It was a strong feeling I didn’t quarrel with, I just accepted it. Dot was laying out their game plane: We want you to beat up Billy Ackids. No. Billy Ackids is my friend. He lived right across the street, and a sweeter kinder, little blond kid you couldn’t find. But Jer you gotta learn how to fight."

I’m not gunna learn, by pickin on somebody smaller than me, and he’s my friend. Thinking: If they keep tryin to make me beat up Billy, I’m gunna have to fight them. I knew I could beat Dot cause she pushed me to my limit once before; I blacked out turned into a raging warrior, and beat her to the ground with a windmill of fists. But I was sure I couldn’t beat both of them. So I was glad when they backed off, and left me alone. A little while later they got another bright idea: Come on Jer, we’re gunna teach yah how to skate.

I don’t think I’m big enough to fit into those skates.

See my feet don’t fit into them. I’m too small.

That’s alright, we’ll tie your feet into them.

Ok, but you won’t let me fall?

Nah, we won’t let you fall. I initially felt safe cause they were on each of my sides supporting me as I started off. Then suddenly they weren’t there, and when I attempted to raise my foot up like I saw them, and other kids do; the skates were too heavy and large for my little legs to lift; when I tried to raise my foot, I had to lean back; as soon as I leaned rearward I flipped over, and went down hard, with my head bouncing on the sidewalk. I saw lots of stars, and was about to grow a good size goose egg at the point of impact, when I called time out, to do what my mother did whenever I bumped my head anywhere; she’d grab me and rub the point of impact with the palm of her hand. At first it would hurt like hell, next it would go pleasantly numb, and then she’d stop; look it over good; then send me back to playing. Some of these silly old remedies are ridiculously excellent. My sisters pull me back up to a standing position and say: Ok let’s try it again. I wanted their approval, but I added: Hold on to me this time. They let me go, which led to another sidewalk landing. As I’m sitting back up on the cement rubbing my head in a new spot Pat says: Comon let’s go, he’ll never learn. Dot: Yeah, you’re right, he can’t skate." as they walked off, to I know not where. Not only did my head hurt; I had to struggle with the rope binding my feet to the skates; good thing I was young and agile. I opened the knots with my teeth.

My mom had a mutual camaraderie with many of the women on the block. The majority had husbands in the war; they were all man-less; she would sit, and talk with them on the stoops and discuss, who knows what? One day everyone was excited about something. My mom was very pleased along with them. That night the whole neighborhood put tables on the sidewalk outside every house; then they put red and white-checkered tablecloths on them, and filled the tables with food, and lots of wines and beers, and sodas; they made a scarecrow from some pants and a shirt, then stuffed them with straw, next they put a noose around the neck of the scare crow, and hung it from the arch of the lamppost, then started singing songs as they lit the scarecrow on fire and watched it burn. What are they doin mom? Another lady at the table said: They’re hanging Mussolini in effigy. Looking at my mom: What’s effigy mean?

Make-believe. as she took a taste of the drink. Who’s Mussolini?

I’ll tell you later. I would find out a few years afterward He was the Fascist leader of Italy.