Find Big Fat Fanny Fast (3 page)

Sally Boy was sitting at the kitchen table, with a shot and a can of beer in front of him. A bottle of Remy, half-empty, was sitting on the table. He saw the boys were sweating and near exhaustion.

“What happened? Were the cops chasing you?” Sally Boy said.

Tony B told his father the truth, waiting for the explosion of Mouth Etna, which is on the opposite side of Sicily from Palermo.

But Sally Boy did not erupt. Instead he smiled, patted Tony B's shoulder and said, “That's my boy!”

Sally Boy poured his son and Skinny Vinny a shot of Remy. Then he went to the fridge, pulled out two cans of beer, popped them open and placed one in front of each boy.

Sally Boy raised his glass. “Salute.
Cent'anni
”

All three drained their shots and washed the booze down with beer.

Sally Boy raised his glass again. “Here's to my son finally growing some balls.”

Skinny Benny looked puzzled. “What does
Cent'anni
mean?”

“A hundred years,” Sally Boy said. “May we all live a hundred years.”

The two boys raised their glasses, saluted Sally Boy, then downed the booze, followed by some more beer.

But Tony B knew it was not likely, considering his present lifestyle, he was going to live ten years longer, let alone a hundred years.

As for Richie Ratface, his mother's quick thinking saved him a trip to Beekman Street  Emergency. But Richie Ratface found the toilet bowl his constant companion for the next several days.

When he returned to school, Richie Ratface looked pale and skinnier than Skinny Benny. And from that day on, Richie Ratface treated chocolate like it had the bubonic plague.

Tony B skated through the rest of his grammar school years, doing just enough not to get left back in any grade. When he graduated 8
th
grade, he made the grand circuit of graduation parties all throughout Little Italy.

The legal drinking age in New York City was eighteen at the time, but not in Little Italy, which is on a different planet from the rest of the world. Any boy over the age of 13 could go into any Little Italy bar and get served a beer, as long as his father had said it was alright. If the father wasn't with him, the bartender would always ask, just to make sure, “Do you have your father's permission?”

If the boy answered yes, the bartender would pour him a small eight-ounce glass of Reingold, which cost a mighty ten cents. If the boy answered yes and the real answer was no, he'd be barred from all Little Italy bars until he reached the age of eighteen and sometimes longer. Some neighborhood men were thirty years old and still waiting for their first Little Italy bar drink. Lying has it consequences.

The apartment parties for grammar school graduation were a little different than your average house party. Every kid knew who had a party and what they were serving. So the kids made the rounds, scarfing up Italian cold cuts, trays of meatballs, manicotti, baked ziti, veal and chicken parmigiana, and whatever else the apartment chef would rustle up.

Cans of beer were offered to the kids, but some apartments had a full assortment of whiskey and liqueurs, which were set up in shot glasses on serving trays. So as Tony B made his rounds of the Little Italy apartments, he downed a shot here, a shot or two there, of whatever the host chose to pour.

During the course of maybe three hours of apartment hopping, Tony B had devoured such spirits as scotch, rye, vodka, gin, flavored brandies, crème de menthe, crème de cocoa, galliano and a diesel fuel called grappa.

After the first half a dozen shots, all the booze basically tasted the same to Tony B. So as he weaved a crooked line down Mulberry to Bayard, to Baxter, across Canal, up Mott, across Hester to Elizabeth, across Canal again and finally down Mulberry Street again, things were looking a little bit shaky, especially Tony B's legs.

When Tony B crossed Park Street by Columbus Park, his father was looking out the 6
th
floor window, having already received reports that his son had maybe a little bit too much to drink. As soon as Sally Boy saw the wiggle in Tony B's legs, he yelled inside to his wife, “Hey Dria, make a big pot of black coffee. This kid's drunk!”

Sally Boy knew there was no way his son was going to make it up the stairs in the condition he was in. So he ran downstairs, picked up his son, draped him over his broad shoulders and carried him up the six flights of stairs.

Sally Boy laid Tony B down on his bed until the black coffee (or what Americanus called espresso) was ready. As Tony B lay prone, he saw the room spinning around him in a counter clockwise direction, like he was on the merry-go-round at Coney Island. There was no brass ring to grab, so he held on tightly to the sides of the bed to stop him from falling off this crazy ride.

Sally Boy went into the kitchen and returned with full cup of black coffee.

“Now drink this down,” he told his son.

Tony B sat up straight, or what he thought was straight, because the room had reversed course and was now spinning clockwise.

With shaky hands, Tony grabbed the cup of coffee from his father and took a sip.

“No small sips,” Sally Boy said. “Down the freakin' thing, while your mother makes some more black coffee in the maganette.”

Tony B was not feeling much better. Plus he had a bitter taste in his mouth, like he had eaten a whole bunch of raw broccoli.

“Put some sugar in the coffee,” Tony B said.

“No sugar,” Sally Boy said. “Sugar turns into alcohol. And you'll get more drunk.”

This scene transpired a few more times, until Tony B had knocked down about a quart of the gooey black stuff, with no sugar.

It was like drinking mud.

Tony B. found out at an early age that drinking black coffee to negate drunkenness was just plain stupid. The caffeine in the coffee did not make you any less drunk. What it did was wire you up so tight, you were now a hyper-nervous drunk ready to rip out the walls.

Eventually Tony B. wound down enough to actually go to sleep. When he awoke twelve hours later, he had a huge headache and his mouth was as dry as sand. He staggered out of the bedroom to the kitchen table, and there was his father waiting for him, with, you guessed it, a pot of black coffee.

“Here, this will straighten out your hangover,” Sally Boy said.

All Tony B could think about was what a moron his father was.

CHAPTER 4

Seward Park High

Tired of all the Catholic school nonsense, and not being able to steal any more wine from the church sacristy, Tony B decided to go to public high school, which was OK with Sally Boy, since public high school was free.

The required public high school for Little Italy residents was Seward Park High, at 350 Grand Street, between Ludlow and Essex, right in the middle of what the Italians called Jewtown, one of the nicer things they said about the neighborhood.

When Tony B was a freshman at Seward Park, he had heard a couple of former Seward Park Jewish graduates had tried to become actors, with no notable success as of yet.

Their names were Bernie Schwarz, who had changed his name to Tony Curtis, and Walter Matthau, which was his real name, because who in their right mind would change their name to Walter Matthau anyway? No one Tony B knew had ever seen either one of these Jews on the big screen. Tony B thought maybe it was all bull and these two Jews were really ushers in a Times Square movie house.

And come on now. A Jew named Tony Curtis? Impossible.

Tony B. never heard of a Jew named Tony, not even in the Sunday comic strips.

Abe – sure. Aaron – absolutely.

But Tony? You've got to be freaking kidding me.

And Jewish actors? Are these morons serious?

Jews were cut out to be doctors, lawyers, bankers, jewelers, or any other racket when they can make big bucks, so that that could supply their wives with diamonds and furs and maybe get laid once a year, usually on early New Years Day, ten minutes after the bells.

And can you imagine a Jew busting their balls to become starving actors?

Fuhgeddaboudit!

With no money they'd never get laid!

So Tony B figured Bernie Schwartz and Walter Matthau, must be so freaking stupid, they can't do anything else in this world, except become actors, which Tony B felt took absolutely no talent whatsoever.

Now trying to convince the local shylock that you really can't make this week's payment on time, that took some real acting genius that can't be taught in any stupid acting school.

Growing up in Little Italy, Tony B had very little contact with the Negroes, Ditzunes, Jungle Bunnies, Spades, Moolies, or whatever else you wanted to call them. Sure, you'd see a few Darkies once in a while in Little Italy, usually delivering beer to a bar, or a side of beef to a butcher. But they were in and out and gone, before you even knew they had been there. Tony B felt his neighborhood was a hell of a lot better being that way. And so did everyone else in Little Italy.

Yet Seward Park High School was a lot different deal altogether.

Whether he liked it or not, Tony B had to rubs elbow with the Moolies, day in and day out at Seward Park High, because they were all over the place, like roaches in a box of bread crumbs. Not to mention the slimy Puerto Ricans, or the Spics, as Tony B liked to call them, who slithered through the hallways combing back their greasy black hair laced with Vitalis or maybe even Brylcreem – a little dab will do ya.

Day after day, it was a constant fight to stay alive, in school and on the streets surrounding Seward Park High, after classes were over.

Seward Park High was basically divided into three gangs; the Negro Sportsman Gang, the Puerto Rican Dragons and the white Mayrose gang, made up of Jews, Micks and a few Dagos, who weren't tough enough to hang out with the Italian mob in Little Italy.

Day after day, heads were cracked, and jibones of all races got knifed, hit with chains, or shot with hand-made zip guns, which were as reliable as submarines with screen doors. Jerks who got involved with these boneheaded gangs, couldn't afford to buy any real guns, which were as easy to get on the streets as a dose of the crabs. These morons concocted fagese, single-shot zip guns, made with tubing used in coffee percolators, or radio antennas, strapped to a block of wood, with a rubber band used as a freaking firing pin.

These piece-of-garbage-guns were more dangerous to the shooter then they were to the intended target. Because it was six to five/even money that the zip gun would explode in the sucker's hand who was doing the stupid shooting.

Tony B would have no part of these dopey gangs, basically because there was no money to be made hanging with these gedrools. None of the gangs members would screw with Tony B, because word got around quick, Tony B was Sally Boy's son, and nobody, black, white or whatever, wanted to wind up doing the doggie paddle ten feet under the East River with concrete blocks tied to their legs.

So in Seward Park High School, Tony B did the smart thing. Instead of immersing himself studying math, or the finer arts, he made his entrance into Organized Crime 101, by being the school's number one (and only) bookmaker and shylock, under the protection of Sally Boy and his crew. Sally Boy had been promoted to Family Boss, a.k.a. Capo de tutti Capi, which meant in greaseball — Boss of All Bosses. As a result of his father's exalted status, Tony B, if they knew what was good for them, had no problems with any of the rival Italian crews either.

It was simple in Seward Park High. If you wanted to make a bet, you made it with Tony B. Need a few bucks to tie you over until you could make a decent score doing whatever, borrow the money from Tony B. At three points a week of course.

Tony B not only had the bookmaking and shylocking businesses locked up in Seward Park High, but also in the surrounding ne
ighborhood, which was made of
the same Moolies, Spics and Jews, Tony B had to rub elbows with in the school itself.

And it was not only the students who partook of Tony B's rackets, but some of the teachers as well, right on up to the principal. Thank God for that, otherwise Tony B never would have graduated high school on time, if he had graduated at all.

Take geometry teacher Mr. Goldstock for example. Tony B could calculate odds on bets in his head, as if he had an abacus for a brain.

Parlays. Round Robins. Teasers. Reverse bets. Exactas. Quinellas. No problem for Tony B.

But trigonometry, geometry, or calculus? The square root of pie, times the circumference of Galileo's balls. No freaking way. And who gave a crap anyway?

Luckily for Tony B, Mr. Goldstock picked horses like Venus De Milo picked people's pockets.

So when Mr. Goldstock got in the hole with Tony B. for five hundred clams, Tony knocked the figure down to a manageable fifty bucks a week, for forever, as long as Mr. Goldstock gave Tony B a “B” in sophomore geometry. Tony B figured, why get greedy and ask for an “A”, when a “B” looked just fine on his end-term report card. No reason to raise anyone's suspicions. Right?

Tony B did the basically the same deal with his junior year French teacher, Henri Pouffette, who loved betting baseball, but didn't know a stolen base from a crepe suzette. Rack up another “B” for Tony B in junior French.