The Mayhem on West Broome Street

I remember the day that Jenny moved into the first floor of the 5-story apartment building where I lived in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, in the summer of 1998. School had just let out a week before and I had no real responsibilities, other than finding ways to entertain myself while staying out of trouble. It was always the second part that was difficult.

Me and two of my friends who lived on the second floor - Josh and Nathan Cohen - were playing stickball out in the street, using the wall near the corner of our building as a backstop. We used a thick piece of chalk to draw in the strike zone, but it would always wash away in the rain. I thought we should just chuck the chalk and use spray paint. Permanent strike zone! There was already plenty of graffiti all around our neighborhood anyway. A little more wouldn’t hurt, plus it would support youth athletics!

The Buddies were all up on the corner, as always, standing around in front of the Italian deli that one of them apparently owned, drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes. Maybe all of them owned it. No one really knew, and the Buddies didn’t like questions very much. We called them the Buddies because whenever you walked past them, they always said, “Hey Buddy”. They seemed nice enough, but everyone knew that they were involved in something shady.

Anyway, that was when the moving truck came down the block and pulled over to the curb right outside the front door to our building at 233 West Broome Street. I barely noticed until Jenny stepped out of the truck wearing Levi’s jeans, black Chuck Taylor high-top sneakers and a NY Yankees pullover hoodie. She was so pretty. I didn’t know it at the time but she had already planted her flag in my heart.

“Here, Josh. Take over for me on the mound. I gotta go to the bathroom.” I tossed him the ball so the game could continue, sort of. While Nathan liked to picture himself as Derek Jeter, Josh liked to see himself as the legendary closer on the Yankees pitching staff, Mariano Rivera. If either of those two ever found themselves as part of the NY Yankees franchise, it would surely be somewhere in Accounting, or maybe Legal Counsel. Even those professions seemed unlikely, but only because Nathan and Josh were into art and books and film and stuff like that. But they were both really smart and could probably do anything they wanted to do (except sports).

One time I went into Greenwich Village with them and their dad on a Saturday and we went to the movie theater to see an old black-and-white film called “The Sorrow And The Pity”, about the Holocaust in World War Two. It was so boring I considered faking an epileptic seizure so we could leave early. I would have preferred to spend that time in an ER waiting room. By the end of the movie I really didn’t feel that bad for the prisoners of the Nazi concentration camps. That movie was four hours and twenty five fucking minutes long! I estimated that my suffering was basically the equivalent of theirs. 

Sorry. I’m kind of a dick sometimes. I can’t help it.

But afterwards we went to Katz’s Deli and got those huge pastrami sandwiches on Jewish rye with mustard and cream soda and unlimited pickles. As always, it was all delicious. Moi! Chef’s kiss! It was almost worth it to sit through that movie just for those pastrami sandwiches..

Sorry. I’m rambling. I do that sometimes when I’m distracted or nervous or scared. Let me get back on point here.

I tried to make it look incidental that Jenny and I both reached the front stoop to our building at the same time, but in truth I was watching her closely out of the corner of my eye and pacing my footsteps to achieve this goal. When I arrived there and saw her carrying a cardboard box, I smiled and nodded at her and then jogged up the last few steps to hold the door open for her. She thanked me as she passed and I wanted to say something but I didn’t know what. It’s probably best that I stayed quiet. I surely would have said something mindless and moronic in that moment; a silent moment which will remain frozen in a state of perfect crystal clarity in my mind until the day that I die.

I watched Jenny disappear down the hall and into apartment 1B, where the door was propped open. I heard footsteps racing down the steps and a voice shouting, “COME ON, PAPA! WE’RE LATE” Omar. The little 8-year old Albanian kid from apartment 4B. He smiled at me and punched me in my arm as he raced past me down the staircase. I used to steal a candy bar from the corner market for him sometimes. He was loud and never walked anywhere, but he was a good kid. I liked him.

I passed by Omar’s father, Mister Markovic, the building’s superintendent, on the staircase. He was moving much slower than his son, as always. He always seemed to look angry with his dark eyes and furrowed brows, but he was actually a nice guy. He was just kind of awkward. I heard that most of his family got killed in that Bosnian War a few years back. Maybe that’s why he is the way he is.

Still, he’s kind of scary. When he was fixing the leak beneath our sink last month it was a hot day and when he removed his long-sleeve work shirt to do the rest of the job in his tank top, I saw the thick muscles in his back and chest and arms. He was definitely very strong, and he was angrily muttering what must have been some kind of Albanian curses (I gotta learn some of those) at the stubborn pipe joint as he threw enough brute force torque into it until it cried uncle and screeched into place.

He stopped for a moment to speak with me on the staircase.

“Hello, Randy. How are you?” He had the deepest voice I ever heard. Darth Vader had nothing on him.

“I’m good, Mister Markovic. How are you?”

From down on the sidewalk, Omar screamed, “COME ON, PAPA! WE’RE LATE!” That kid was born with some set of lungs on him. Mister Markovic slowly closed his eyes, inhaled a deep breath through his nose and then exhaled.

“Randy, how is your mother doing? Is she okay? Does she need anything?”

My mother had Leukemia. She and my father got divorced when I was eight and he moved down to Florida now, with his new wife and his two new kids and his whole new life. We never talked anymore. He even stopped sending me a lousy Christmas card with a twenty-dollar bill inside every year. I guess he figured he could do better than me and Mom. Fuck him, I hope he gets eaten by a huge bull shark.

“She’s doing okay. I don’t think we need anything right now. I will ask her and let you know. Thank you, Mister Markovic.”

From down on the street below: “PAPA! WE’RE LATE!!!”

He closed his eyes again briefly and inhaled a deep breath through his nose, then resumed descending the staircase, rubbing his temples.

“Hey Mister Markovic, it looks like we have new people moving into 1B today, huh? Who are they? Where are they moving here from?” I was fishing.

He stopped to look at me and he smiled. It was the first time I ever saw him smile. It was thin, but it was there.

“So, you saw the girl, yes? Oh, I will pray for you, young man.” He chuckled softly and then he kept on moving down the staircase at an unhurried pace. As he went, he responded to me briefly in his thick eastern European accent without looking back.

“I don’t know much. They are the Lee family - father, mother and daughter - and I think they are moving here from Sheepshead Bay. That is all I know.” He exited the building.

Nice! Jenny didn’t have any big brothers I had to worry about.

I was kind of scared to run into Jenny again, to be honest. She was already filling my head with her mere presence in the building, and although I didn’t know her name yet, I knew I would probably be getting little sleep that night. I had to think. I had to plan out something to say next time. Something good. Fuck, I wished I was smarter!

When I got back down there, Josh and Nathan were sitting on the front stoop, the cut-off broomstick with black electrical tape wrapped around the grip-end was leaning against the wall, but I didn’t see the tennis ball.

“Where’s the ball?”

“We don’t know. I think it went down the storm drain, just like all the others. It was Josh’s fault. He threw a wild pitch and it bounced off the wall and rolled down the street.”

“Bullshit, Nathan. You kicked it when you were chasing after it and that’s why it rolled down the hill.”

They were both silent for a little while, looking off in opposite directions. Josh broke the silence while I was thinking about something else.

“Yeah, it’s probably my fault. I threw the wild pitch. It probably went down the storm drain.”

“Yeah, that’s probably where it went,” Nathan said, rejoining his brother in solidarity, shooting him a quick look of measured reconciliation. Like all brothers, they fought sometimes. I’ve had to break up a few of those fights when they got physical. It has never required very much effort on my part. 

The beautiful blonde girl who was moving into apartment 1B did not show herself again that day. The moving men came and went until the truck was empty and then they drove off.

I walked down the block to buy a slice of Sicilian pizza (we call them “squares” here) for my mom and a regular pepperoni slice for myself. On my way there and back I got the standard “Hey Buddy” greeting at least ten times. After I finished eating at my mom’s bedside while she watched the evening news, I went downstairs to Josh and Nathan’s apartment to watch a movie with them in their bedroom. I warned them that any of this “The Sorrow and the Pity” bullshit would immediately be met with physical violence.

Nathan quietly reached into a stack of DVDs in the corner and removed one, grinning at his brother. He turned the DVD cover towards us, and it read “The Crying Game”. I had never heard of it.

Josh shook his head. “He will kill us both.”

“It’s so good though. One of the greatest reveals in cinematic history.”

Josh folded his arms over his chest and shook his head again. Nathan returned to the stack of DVDs, shuffled around for a minute and pulled another one out. He turned the cover towards us and the title read “Reservoir Dogs”. Josh nodded his head.

“You're going to like this, Randy. I promise you.”

He was right. Still one of my favorite films of all time. I might never be a NY Times film critic, but I know a great movie when I see it. Mister Blonde. What a perfect sociopath.

The next day was Saturday and when I woke up, I went to my mom’s room to say good morning and check on her.

“Are you hungry, Mom? Do you want me to go get you a bacon, egg and cheese sandwich from the deli?”

“I’m not hungry, Sweetie. But you go get one for yourself.” She reached into her drawer and stuffed a five-dollar bill into my hand. “Just get me a glass of water before you go so I can take my medicine now.”

I brought her the water and kissed her on her forehead. She returned it with a pained smile that she was trying to suppress. 

When I went downstairs to Josh and Nathan’s apartment they were all excited. It was Nathan’s birthday, and his uncle bought him a camcorder. They were busily figuring out all of the features. Then we just recorded each other acting stupid but trying to be funny.

Afterwards, we went outside, and the new girl Jenny was sitting on the stoop eating a bagel with cream cheese. I had to say something. “Hey, I’m Randy and this is Josh and that’s Nathan. Welcome to the building”. Nathan wasn’t paying attention at all, just fidgeting with his new camcorder.

“Hi, I’m Jenny.” She had a little cream cheese on her lip and I wanted to wipe it away for her.

“What’s your middle name?” I was not great at talking to pretty girls, but Josh was just helpless. I gave him a look that said, “One more dumb question and I will kick your ass right here.”

“Jason,” she replied and took another bite of her bagel.

Nathan finally stopped messing with his new camcorder. He laughed. “Jason is a boy’s name.” I gave him a look twice as threatening as the one I just gave his brother. He went back to fidgeting with his camcorder.

Jenny took it in stride though. “Yeah, it is. It was my grandfather’s name, and I loved him. I like my middle name”. She finished off her bagel. “What’s your middle name?” she asked Nathan.

“Avraham,” he replied.

She smiled but said nothing. She just bundled up the tin foil that the bagel had been wrapped in and dropped it into the brown paper bag that she carried it home in. Then she got up. “Well, I gotta go. I have dance class in a half hour.”

“Oh yeah. You’re into dance?”

“I love dance. I am in ballet now but I want to learn swing dance next. Maybe ballroom after that. She did a perfect pirouette and then disappeared into the building. I was completely infatuated.

Me and Josh and Nathan didn’t play stickball that day on account of the fact that we couldn’t get Nathan to put down that camcorder. We had some fun with it though, yelling weird things at passing cars from a hidden spot - Nice car. Do they make them for men too? - and then we recorded the driver’s reaction and laughed at it afterwards.

The next day is when everything on our block went crazy. I heard Omar yelling at his father as he came out the front of the building. “PAPA, COME ON! WE’RE LATE!” Jenny was out on the sidewalk practicing some dance moves. She was really good.

“Wow, you’re really good, Jenny. I’ve never seen such great dancing. Not that I’ve seen a lot of dance, but I think you’re really talented. I’m so glad you moved into our building. I think you’re just great.” I paused for a moment then added, “I’m sorry. I’ve said too much.” I hung my head bashfully.

“You didn’t say too much. I appreciate the compliment.” Then she quickly leaned in and kissed me on the cheek and I thought my heart was going to explode right there. She went back to the sidewalk and continued dancing.

Just then little Omar screamed for his father to hurry up and ran across the street to where his father’s car was parked, but just then one of the Buddies was driving down the block in an old Lincoln, with two more Buddies riding along with him. The driver instinctively swerved to avoid hitting Omar and ran his car into a parked car in the process. The damage was extensive. The Buddy who was driving got out of the car and grabbed Omar by his shirt and threw him up against the car, cursing a blue streak at him and jabbing a finger in his face. The boy looked terrified.

I tried to mediate, completely ineffectually. They should have listened to me though. Right then Mister Markovic came out of the front door of the building, saw what was happening, and raced across the street.

“You don’t EVER touch my son!” He threw one punch and knocked The Buddy unconscious. The other two Buddies got out of the car, racing to their friend’s defense. The first one got a vicious headbutt that immediately opened up a nasty cut on his forehead, followed by a hard knee to the gut. Then he was on the ground. The third Buddy looked very hesitant, and he yelled up to the corner and a whole bunch of Buddies came running down the block. Before they could get there Mister Markovic grabbed the third Buddy from the car, lifted him off his feet, turned him upside down and slammed him headfirst into the pavement.

By then about a dozen more Buddies were on the scene and one-by-one Mister Markovic dealt with all of them harshly. Little Omar was smiling the whole time. Watching Mister Markovic fight the Buddies was like watching a professional boxer take on a bunch of first grade kids.

Jennifer Jason Lee stopped paying attention and went back to doing a grand adage on the sidewalk (I learned about these dance moves later) and Mister Markovic single-handedly destroyed all of the Buddies, while the Cohen brothers filmed it all from the stoop; Nathan working the camera while Josh provided direction. When it was all done the street was littered with the bodies of unconscious Buddies.

That summer I got my first girlfriend, and I was in love. But as with most good things it didn’t last long enough. Jenny and I went to different schools and sometime that Fall she told me she liked me a lot but she just didn’t have time to mess around with boys anymore. She was too busy with school and dance. I suspected there was another boy, but I didn’t know.

It hurt so bad at the time, but I would do it all over again in a heartbeat.

THE END