The Twinkle in his Eyes

"Tony's," as we kids called it, was an old-fashioned Candy Store in a three-story building in Queens, New York. It was sandwiched between the deli and the fruit store on a heavily traveled street in the neighborhood I grew up in. 

Even then, as a schoolgirl, the building seemed old. It was probably built at the turn of the 19th into the 20th century. It was constructed of decorative red brick and had beautiful detail with stone cornices and ornately trimmed windows. 

The storefront itself had large glass windows and an old wooden door. "Confectionary" had long before been hand-painted in fancy white script on the front windows as many shops of the day likely were. The paint was chipped, though; the flourishes peeling away. It had seen its better days inside. At one time, it had carried all the popular handmade candies of the day, truffles, petit fours, along with other freshly made baked goods and confections. 

By the 1970s, Tony's had become a slowly dying soda shop, an afternoon pit stop for local kids including myself, sparsely stocked with packaged candy bars, penny candy, newspapers, and comic books. It was a frequent stop for my brother and me, or whatever friend I may have walked with that day on our way home from school.

     As we'd push open the heavy door, the bells hanging from old bakery string on the back of it would jingle like Christmas, alerting Tony to his young customers. The weight of the squeaking door gave way to the sweet scent of candy combined with newsprint and ink of the daily papers. 

Tony would be sitting on the second step of the small landing. Behind him was his apartment; you could see right through to the kitchen if you looked past him. 

He'd manage a small smile and a weak wave hello. Then he would limp over to the soda fountain to make egg creams or malteds for the few local kids that sat on the swivel chairs at the counter. 

Often he'd be chatting with Pete, an elderly neighborhood man with a shock of snow-white hair and blue eyes. Pete would be doing most of the chatting. Tony was a quiet man. Sometimes, other older gentlemen were there, smoking cigars, waiting for the evening paper, "shooting the breeze," as my father would call it. 

"Hiya Smiley," Pete would say to me when he saw me. For some reason, this always made me smile even more. Sometimes I'd even feel my cheeks hurt from smiling. As one of four small children, I guess it was simply felt nice to be noticed by a grownup. An old grump now; it's hard to imagine I was ever fit to be called Smiley. 

Pete always addressed me this way when I saw him. Of course, he acknowledged my brother too, but he didn't call him Smiley. That was a name reserved for me only, and I was proud. My brother and I would choose our treats and head home to our block just around the corner.                

    There were other days we'd go into Tony's, but there'd be no greetings, no Pete. There'd be no older neighborhood men smoking cigars while waiting for the night owl edition of the paper. 

It would be quiet at the soda counter. No one was sitting on the step. The swivel stools were empty. We'd hear some shuffling from the back, then a weary voice would call out from the kitchen-"take what you want-put the change in the box!". 

If we looked toward the back on days like this, we might see Tony sitting in his chair hunched over the Formica kitchen table. He might have had a cereal bowl and the newspaper in front of him. He'd be wearing a white undershirt, his salt and pepper hair uncombed. He seemed sad.

  The White Owl cigar box sat atop the glass counter above the stacks of newspapers. Behind it, the cabinets reached the ceiling and had tall glass doors with thick ornate trim. 

My grandmother's apartment nearby had the same kind of built-in cabinets that loomed to the ceiling. A lost art of former days. She would tuck pictures and other important things, like the church bulletin, into the corners between the glass and the trim.

My brother and I would drop our change in the cigar box. It would rattle against the rest of the coins that had accumulated during the day. Then we'd head home or back to the block to play with our friends, the afternoon soon becoming a faded memory. 

     We'd long since left the area when a Facebook post about the neighborhood prompted a conversation with my aging mother. A busy young mom and housewife in the 70s, she had no reason or inclination to talk about Tony or Pete to me back then. 

I was curious about Tony, his limp, and why he seemed sad. Why did he stay in the back some days, leaving the store unattended? I wanted to know who Pete had been in his younger days as well, what was he like before he was an elderly man hanging around with the guys at the candy store?

Between the trim of the glass and wood of the cabinets in the candy store, my mother recalled seeing pictures of Tony and his buddies and their airplanes...Tony was a decorated WWII Fighter Pilot. His medals were proudly displayed on the glass as well, along with a picture of him in his uniform. He was a handsome young man. He'd been injured in the war and was in chronic pain, hence the limp. 

Perhaps what made him the saddest, though, may have been that his wife had passed away suddenly after he returned from the war. After her death, he rarely emerged from the apartment in the back. Tony had a broken heart.  

Pete was a retired mailman that had served in WWI. He lived around the corner from the candy store and was married to a jolly woman with a Southern Drawl. I didn't find out much else about but I do know that

I felt happy when Pete acknowledged me as a kid. Even then, I noticed the twinkle in his eyes and knew he was special. I like to think perhaps it was that same twinkle that occasionally drew Tony out from behind the kitchen table into the candy store to greet the neighborhood kids and the passersby of the day.