The Nation's Pulse/Fight to the Fanoosh
Conlon, Edward
Editors' note: Last. month, Robert J. Powers, Col., USAF (Ret.), a Bronx native now resident in Louisiana, wrote our crime correspondent Edward Conlon, also a native of the Bronx, to describe a trip...
...Somebody wrote me to ask this...
...Unfortunately, Reel never defined what fanoosh was, and Col...
...I was affable, if somewhat oblique...
...Powers had been shocked by the desolation he saw, except in Bronx's Little Italy, a thriving, peaceful, prosperous inner-city neighborhood that centers on Arthur Avenue...
...There are two meanings for this word fanoosh," the owner explained, rather coldly...
...It can be a root vegetable, or forbidden love, or a combination of the two, the Leek That Dare Not Speak Its Name...
...What are you asking, why'd you want to know this...
...Exactly...
...I recently undertook an expedition there, in the company of a Miss Tierney from County Cavan, in order to glean the meaning of the term fanoosh...
...Which one do you mean...
...His eyes narrowed...
...One is 'fruit,' like the leek, from finocchio, the fruit...
...How such an oasis can continue to flourish in the Bronx is a mystery, and the only explanation Col...
...Miss Tierney had never been in a real Italian restaurant, and we chose well for both food and realism...
...A vegetable...
...Powers hoped that Edward Conlon could offer a definition...
...Like you eat, a vegetable...
...Moreover, the quality-of-life crimes that are the most obvious signs of neighborhood decline—the purse-snatchings, muggings, and burglaries—are the work of young individuals or loose groups, and La Cosa Nostra probably is a decisive factor in the low levels of these activities in their own neighborhoods...
...So, you want dessert...
...No thank you, just coffee," said Miss Tierney, visibly confused...
...All shook their heads and walked away...
...I went through the same flim-flam I had given the waiter in the bathroom...
...So don't ask me again...
...Powers had ever heard was from New York Daily News columnist Bill Reel, who attributed it to fanoosh...
...I don't mean who it means, I mean what it means, just the word, fanoosh...
...He paused for a moment...
...The Sicilian dialect has many Arabic and Greek words, and criminal slang presents additional problems: usage can be local and ephemeral, and outsiders often simply get it wrong...
...Jimmy Breslin recently wrote, however, of several neighbors of John Gotti who had been beaten and robbed in Edward Conlon is a writer living in the Bronx...
...We got 'em upstairs, inna kitchen...
...The waiter and I examined the leek until we were both satisfied it was on the up and up, and there it would have ended had not the owner arrived, with several other waiters in tow...
...There are only two meanings for this word...
...La Cosa Nostra may well be an exception to this rule, given the age, size, and sophistication of the organization, to the extent that their non-Italian victims may outnumber their Italian ones...
...the owner was unsatisfied...
...The other is, like you say, 'fruit,' meaning gay...
...I must mean a third meaning"—and thus I launched into the Rowland theory of "finished," citing Grimm's law and the stormy history of Sicily in support...
...Now I know what he means and I don't care who he means, whoever, I have the greatest respect for these people, I don't know who they are, don't care, all I know is dammit, it's unfair what they say in the media...
...He seemed a bit startled, and pressed for further details about why I wanted to know...
...No, we're all fanoosh...
...The streets are clean, the stores are nice, bakeries, old ladies, Mary on the half-shell in the front yards, the restaurants—the striped bass, fantastic, by the way—and he wants to know why...
...But I really don't think the owner's concern was whether I had pinched the sommelier in the gents...
...Fanoosh, it seems, has many meanings...
...Tell you what, when I come up, you show me one...
...B ack at the table, as Miss Tierney and I finished our meals, the waiter returned with a large green leek on a tray...
...Here Mr...
...A nd so, Colonel, I hope you appreciate the trouble I took on your lexicographer's errand...
...All of a sudden, he hits Arthur Avenue...
...Right...
...Boom...
...Somebody asked me, find out what the word fanoosh means...
...And his friend says it's the fanoosh...
...Hold on a second, I got a question for you," I said, attempting to face him, in a slender gesture of respect...
...Which brings us to the final definition of the term, which, oddly enough, is the same as all others in the Mafia glossary...
...It's a vegetable...
...As we ate, I hoped for an opportunity to delicately inquire of the term while making clear that my curiosity was strictly academic...
...I mean the opposite...
...So just fanoosh, what the word means, is all I want to know...
...The thought crossed Miss Tierney's mind as well, I'm sure of it...
...the security afforded a little old lady crossing the street is quite real...
...Conlon replies: One of the rules of thumb of ethnic organized crime is that criminals and victims belong chiefly to the same ethnic group...
...their own homes, and were archly dismissive of the idea that his influence was any real guarantor of order...
...he asked, in a grave voice, barely polite...
...Oh, yeah, that's what he mean to say, he just says the Bronx, it's finished...
...The "protection" offered a local merchant is a fraud and a crime...
...by Edward Conlon Such an opportunity presented itself, I thought, in the men's room, where our waiter was finishing his business as I began mine...
...Right, nice, but finished...
...The first waiter interrupted with nervous laughter...
...a Bronx native now resident in Louisiana, wrote our crime correspondent Edward Conlon, also a native of the Bronx, to describe a trip home some years ago...
...This guy's from the Bronx, he grew up here but he's not back in forty years, since the War, God knows, so this guy, he's back in the Bronx, he's up and down the Concourse, he's shocked, he's horrified, the crime, the drugs, the burnt-out buildings, he—" At this point, Colonel, I should add that I did not use your name...
...Look, I'm a writer...
...Colonel Powers will be delighted to know that, for whatever reasons, Arthur Avenue still thrives...
...Fanoosh means "None of your damn business...
...Ann Catania Rowland of Brooklyn has conjectured, quite plausibly, that it is a variation of finuto, or "finished," "an end," which gives a nice sense of where the buck stops...
...Like, liking men...
...Maybe, but he meant this neighborhood, which is nice...
...Oh...
Vol. 26 • February 1993 • No. 2
