The Insurance Fire
COTTLE, THOMAS J.
The Insurance Fire Thomas J. Cottle Johnnie Murphy is fifty-five years old. A short man, strongly built, with pink cheeks, a nose that has been flattened, he says, from fights, and soft white...
...A guy lives here all his life and speaks with an accent...
...Wrapped up, and Jews, they don't celebrate Christmas...
...They are...
...No-goodniks...
...He says, 'Murphy.' Me, I'm Murphy to him, he's Klein to me, like he should never forget I'm Irish, and I'm never going to forget he's Jewish...
...Stole them blind...
...So you know what I did...
...His latest book, Children in Jail, will be published in November by Beacon Press...
...But today, you got the problem because you lost your job.' 'I didn't lose it exactly,' I told him...
...And here you got these two elderly people sleeping on mattresses on the floor in the back...
...He said, 'We taught them to study and be smart...
...Like a baby...
...Here, take a drink...
...Of course, what am I talking about...
...The two of them put in twelve hours a day at least...
...Real protection, for no cost.' You know what he told me...
...We could see by how many people come into his store, and who they were, what their color was, how the world was changing...
...Maybe they did...
...My own mother.' 'You couldn't handle your own mother,' he said...
...Disappeared off the face of the earth...
...It ain't no TV show, buddy boy, although I wonder how much some of these people begin to learn and take things from what they see on the TV...
...This one's pink!' "Guy had a sense of humor on him...
...Klein never had no money...
...He says one more thing before getting up to leave, his head still bowed...
...Bills...
...I think Jews are a little smarter than most of us about how to live...
...Old, young, a bunch of raging animals...
...They're not only Jewish people.' 'No, they don't do it,' she said...
...The first third was spent less than a mile away...
...No good prospects lined up...
...I told this to all these wise guys I know too, all their remarks about how clever Jews are with money...
...All of us...
...But I like the guy...
...his greatest sadness, what he calls the decline of his country, the decaying of America's great cities...
...But no matter...
...I couldn't figure it out...
...Try a banana...
...Klein though, he didn't get out...
...He set fire to his own store like I discovered America...
...Now this part of the story is where I get mad...
...Thing that gets me mad is how many innocent people get hurt when the neighborhoods change...
...Jews are human too.' That's what he said...
...That's why I told him when I went in the back of the store with him that first time, 'Listen, Klein, you got to let me help...
...The neighborhood was going to hell...
...He was a good guy...
...He misjudged because he wanted things to be better, different, but those ain't mistakes...
...Maybe the whole city was too, You know, the Irish and the Italians and the Jews, they had their wars...
...So a few kids will come in while we're back here and steal a dozen apples...
...I'd love to tell you it was only black kids, but it was both...
...Here, I'll eat an apple with you if that's going to make you feel better about eating one stinking apple.' That's the way he talked...
...That's some kind of a guy to do that...
...Because we're rough, like animals...
...They died in that fire, everybody knew it...
...Old man Tierney though, he caught me this one time and beat the living Jesus out of me...
...A short man, strongly built, with pink cheeks, a nose that has been flattened, he says, from fights, and soft white hair...
...If I talked to one lawyer I talked to fifty...
...He didn't tell nobody because he was ashamed...
...Take a pear...
...How come they don't help?' He laughed...
...Mattresses on the floor, a dirty toilet, I saw it...
...That's the way they operate...
...She told me...
...You know what I told him...
...The neighborhood went to hell, and when it went, I mean it went fast...
...It was him I was friendly with...
...If he did, he was either stupid or his brain had decayed on him, because he cancelled the fire insurance on his building over five years before the accident...
...And this guy Klein was causing no one trouble...
...I didn't go near his shop again...
...A close associate...
...About seven years ago, I'm laid off from a job I had delivering fire wood in the suburbs, and I'm in with Klein, just hanging around, and he comes up to me, a sweet guy, I mean it...
...You know, I could have stole a bottle, all the bottles from him any time...
...Near nobody, and four blocks away they're putting in a giant of a supermarket...
...It's clean, he's got some good Thomas J. Cottle, a contributing editor of moment, is the author of Busing...
...We'd be in there a lot, in the later years, all by ourselves, 'cause he was running low on business and when the big supermarket went in he was as good as wiped out...
...You don't think the Jews went after each other...
...God almighty, I stole my share when I was a kid...
...Then we needed each other...
...Now be careful,' he says to me...
...They always do, because people haven't learned how to be kind, peaceful...
...I tried to find out...
...Then the kid pulls out his little shopping list, you know...
...They tell us, sell, sell, sell...
...He knew it...
...They want the best prices, no matter how they're treated...
...That's what I told Klein, he's got to get tough...
...Love to have a dollar for every time this old nose got socked in a fight...
...Girls too...
...He's got glasses, the works, and there we are, eleven in the morning, like two fancy guys having a drink...
...But not real friends...
...So they'll steal...
...His problem, see, was that he believed in people...
...Maybe not much each time, but something...
...I was working then, so 1 had to do it all after work and Saturdays, and so nobody would catch on to what I was doing...
...Klein,' he'd say, and Klein, he'd know the kid's name...
...I even went to talk to the police...
...Cause there's a law that says he can't do that...
...Nobody buys firewood in April.' 'It's losing your job,' he said...
...It wasn't all beautiful sweet music in those old neighborhoods...
...They've never had it too easy...
...Not in the old days, though...
...Take something...
...He believed if he was kind, people would be kind...
...He didn't care...
...I found that out the first week of my investigating...
...I loved it...
...I says, 'What is it with you?' And he's just staring at me...
...Klein's philosophy went, 'trust them, it's the only way.' He told me 'live life minute by minute, the days go fast enough.' You know, he really was like a teacher...
...It's a little store with a shrinking stock.' He knew he was headed out...
...I thought maybe he was lying to me...
...Did you report this to the cops?' 'Sure, yes,' he reported it to the cops...
...No way...
...I'll tell you, I'm glad I didn't go to his funeral...
...Jews do it like that, Murphy...
...Where was he going to go...
...When I got one, we'd sort of celebrate with a little drink in the back...
...So finally my wife, who sees I'm really shook up by this horrible accident, and I'm convinced it is an accident no matter what these stiffs tell me, she says, 'You got to give up, John...
...Their bodies were recovered and identified...
...and Mrs...
...Millionaire...
...It's April...
...What the hell did he ever have...
...I mean, I personally had arguments with ten people...
...He wore the same shoes, I remember, every day all the years I knew him...
...I saw his wife wasn't there so I said, 'Where's your wife?' 'She's sick,' he says...
...Get a guard...
...I think someone burned the place down...
...No, Murphy, you can't see the truth...
...Don't worry.' 'So how can we come back here when you may have customers, and other people coming in?' Now you notice, I say 'customers and other people.' 'Other people' means two things: first off, because he's in the neighborhood so long, and because he's the kind of guy he is, he's got other people like me dropping in to talk with him, even though we're always in his way...
...He trusts me, I trust him...
...Or been fired from it...
...Man taught me so much, and I never got around to thanking him...
...Maybe they did burn the old place down themselves...
...But the way he did it, trusting me like that, there was no way in the world I would have gone behind his back...
...They're also poor people,' I told her...
...Do it for the insurance, my eye...
...Just standing there we're in his way, 'cause with the store so small, and the way he's got it laid out, there's barely room for anybody...
...We all got out...
...I wanted to go to the funeral but I didn't know, would there even be a funeral, or where would it be, 'cause there was nothing mentioned in the papers...
...I remember one day listening in on him talking with his wife...
...1 even talked to Klein's son...
...That store...
...Maybe he's drunk...
...I told INSURANCE FIRE Continued from page 58 him I was a Catholic but I wanted to speak to him about a Jewish friend...
...Jewish people commit suicide...
...One guy sells potatoes for fifteen cents, Klein for eighteen cents, they don't go to Klein, even though it's more personal, you know what I mean...
...You going to let him get away with that?' I asked him...
...You don't like to go face the old lady...
...Klein was so poor he took to living in the store because he couldn't pay the rent on the store and his own home...
...Nobody knew when he came to the neighborhood, nobody knew where he was...
...I couldn't say it exactly right, but something like that...
...Guy and his wife own a little food store, terrible location...
...He had nothing...
...You were robbed but you never told me.' 'What's to tell?' he said...
...Hey, listen, I was in Germany in '43 and '44, I saw what the Nazi and the Jewish thing was all about...
...So we'll drink.' And brother, we drank...
...Burn his own place down to collect insurance money...
...Country falls apart and people become animals...
...To have a few regular customers, that's all...
...Then the wars really started...
...That's the amazing part, that all these people in the old neighborhood, they spoke English...
...You see where I'm getting...
...No way, Jewish people never commit suicide.' I said...
...Johnny Murphy calls himself a happy man...
...I went back to the old neighborhood, walked around, asked people nearby...
...But nobody needs the details, 'cause in the end it came out just like I thought, and like I hoped...
...Call him an associate...
...All the rest is just words...
...This was a sweet man...
...Isn't it bad enough this one got my raisins...
...I wouldn't tell him Klein's name, or why I was there, because if Klein did commit suicide, I wanted to, like, protect his memory...
...In that neighborhood...
...I told him, 'It's a monster, I hate it.' 'It's no monster,' he said, 'it's progress.' Each day, really, no kidding, each day, his shelves got emptier and emptier...
...But we saw the world changing, right through the windows of that little tiny store of his...
...How do I know...
...But people don't want that nowadays...
...Every day something...
...I told him in all my years I never met a man like this one friend of mine...
...What do they want to come around here for...
...Clever guys don't burn themselves up...
...Kind of a guy you see in the beginning, you don't say too much to, you know what I mean, but after a couple of years you become friends...
...But because they were Jewish, and people knew how tough it was for them, everybody said they set fire to their own store to collect insurance, only something went wrong and they died...
...Don't stand for that, Klein.' I don't know how many times I told him that...
...Except for one thing...
...I'm lucky...
...The innocent people...
...They had to make sure they called him a name before they left...
...You think the governor wants to use one of his important policemen as a personal body guard for Klein's grocery?' He was right too...
...Just beautiful...
...Klein saw him do it...
...I still didn't give him Klein's name...
...Then the times change—and that's not a saying, because neighborhoods do change—and now you can't trust anyone about anything...
...Maybe they didn't know the old couple was inside, but they burned it down...
...Not every day, but I saw him two, three times a week...
...And he knew it...
...Nobody knew...
...He was always worried about me when I didn't have a job...
...Enough in the register,' he'd say, 'in case we're robbed...
...His wife wasn't bigger than a flea herself...
...All he had to sell was friendship, and trust...
...All this happened, see, after we moved away...
...Lucky I didn't go to his funeral...
...During World War II he was in France and Germany...
...Get a cop in here,' I told him...
...They go to save three cents, not make a friend, or keep a good friend, like Klein was...
...You get mad, you get mad...
...Drive up on the curb to hit you...
...That's the least I could do for the guy...
...A Jew was my last connection to the place, like she said, and I had to give it all up once and for all...
...So Klein says, 'What do you want me to do, call another cop...
...They spoke English...
...So I told him, 'I swear to God, Klein, I'd beat the living Jesus out of my own mother if I thought she took a penny off you...
...You learn so much from people like that and you never tell 'em how you feel...
...This way, you don't have people on Klein's side going out looking for revenge...
...But some of us is worse than others, if you get my meaning...
...Go where they can save a few pennies, forget about friendships, real friendships, I mean...
...He'd tell me, 'Me, I got a steady job, there's nothing to celebrate for me...
...they just always turn out that way...
...I enjoyed it...
...Beautiful...
...He trusted me, I wanted to make sure he always would...
...I never been in the back before and I was expecting it to be real large, like he had a warehouse or something...
...Hey, Klein, what's this,' I told him...
...All of it in English...
...They could undercut him on every price...
...I made him give the stuff back...
...He is crying...
...But old Klein, he was never a part of it...
...He paid his rent, bought his groceries from his own stock...
...I could go through all the details, what the hell...
...At first it's just hello, how are you, then pretty soon it's talk about my family and his family...
...He told me, 'Murphy, you got the troubles today, not me...
...Jews are just human, and that's a lot.' I told him okay, but I said to myself, if I want to think Klein was special, I'll keep on thinking he's special...
...Tell you something wonderful he said to me...
...Sounds like a TV show I'm talking about...
...They shouldn't get disappointed when they find so little...
...I'll call another cop he'll take a melon.' Some of the kids who came in there, you never saw such a bunch of animals in your life...
...He wrote letters to the precinct station about the kids...
...I talked to everybody in the neighborhood, at the police, the city hall...
...You know, I wept the day they opened that supermarket...
...I said, 'What's to tell...
...I figured, okay, now I'll learn what language he really speaks...
...Didn't he give me a bottle at Christmas every year...
...I learned a lot from that old man, more than any of these other guys will ever know, even if they live to twice Klein's age...
...You got to meet a man like Klein, he'll teach you what smart is...
...Five at the most, 'cause I got down there as soon as I could...
...I saw it all with my own eyes...
...He seemed like a nice enough guy...
...But we made it through...
...Klein's son told me he inherited bills from his father...
...Klein used to say it himself, it was his message...
...I walk down the street, how do I know a guy isn't going to drive up on the sidewalk and wipe me out...
...Crooks, they get angry when they find out that not everybody who runs a grocery store is a millionaire.' Jesus, I could have cried when he talked that way...
...He has lived within the same ten block area for the last two-thirds of his life...
...Klein set fire to his shop for the insurance...
...I used it...
...That's what Klein called progress...
...I said, 'It may be against their religion, but when you're living like an animal and you got dignity like Klein had dignity, maybe you decide, the hell with religion, I can't take it no more...
...All he did was give, give, give, and instead of people liking him for it, they stepped all over him...
...Couple of times, now that I think about it...
...People will go after anybody...
...I lold Klein once, 'Give me a few bucks and I'll guard the store for \ou...
...But it was dangerous living there...
...Several years ago, he took his wife and three children to Canada on a fishing trip...
...You just fight with people who talk against him...
...And I mean he's got some fancy Scotch...
...His jobs over the last twenty years have changed, he says, almost with the season...
...I got him Christmas presents but he didn't celebrate it...
...Sure, you got your Italians who speak Italian, but we're all speaking English...
...Why not...
...I was one of the tough ones once...
...He's old, and he was always sort of sickly, with this little cough...
...At that time...
...Damn...
...He's got boxes stacked up everywhere...
...His own son didn't know he was living in the store...
...I don't blame him.' Of course that's what would happen...
...I never stopped thinking about it...
...They moved...
...He went to see it...
...Where are the children?' I asked him once...
...If you worried about all these things, you wouldn't move out of a hole in the ground.' That's the way he lived, that's the way we all live...
...Or maybe he began to lean over...
...Cause I saw he had pictures all over the place...
...Miserable punks...
...I don't know, maybe he hid it from me too...
...Tell you a rumor I heard, and I'm willing to bet on it...
...Actually, it was sort of fun...
...Nobody knew...
...What about them...
...Then I thought, maybe they wouldn't let non-Jews in even if there was a funeral, but I thought, they must...
...I saw a cop once snatch a box of raisins...
...We could all take a few lessons from them.' "I almost hit the guy...
...I saw 'em...
...Don't let nobody fool you into believing that...
...English...
...Murphy,' he says, 'what's wrong?' 'So, what's wrong?'— that's the way he always talked...
...I would have but I had the old lady with me...
...Couple of years of how are you, how are you, and I'm going in there not just to shop, but to talk...
...Johnnie Murphy has turned his head...
...That's the thing you want to worry about most...
...They had one of these little hot plate deals to cook on...
...Not too big to start with, and each year, it struck me, he got a little bit shorter...
...I used to try to figure out what they made an hour because occasionally he'd let me help him close up and I'd count the money in the register and the box...
...But who the hell were both of us fooling...
...Jews are always a little trickier with money...
...One thing nagged at me...
...Klein, he knows what's going on, but he's concerned about the kid's bleeding on the cheek, where I popped him...
...Now, I'm talking when he was over seventy...
...Not on laws, you don't depend on laws...
...This one time he was robbed, it was in the neighborhood paper...
...produce, so what if he don't have everything we need...
...He made sure I knew where he kept them...
...So the cop there tells me, 'Klein knows exactly who it was...
...All they know is how to be rough...
...Are you crazy...
...The new supermarket could go on without him, that was fine...
...I can't get back the blood, sweat, and tears, but I'll get a few dollars out of this crummy neighborhood...
...And if you don't get my meaning, then stay around here for a couple of weeks and you'll see it all for yourself...
...It's hard to explain...
...I caught this one kid stealing in there late one night, you know...
...Did Klein do it for the insurance and make a mistake, or was it, like I thought, like I wanted it to be, an accident, a horrible, horrible accident...
...What the hell you talking about, Jewish people don't commit suicide?' 'It's against their religion,' she says...
...New people moving in, old friends of both of ours moving out...
...The rabbi, young fellow, didn't look like I thought he would, he said, 'No...
...I mean, nobody's a foreigner here, but they're ready to kill each other...
...He saved his money a long time for that trip, and he hopes to make another one, to the same towns...
...And he's telling me about his business, how the prices are killing him, making him stop getting certain items which is always the items people want...
...We all depend on one another,' he'd say...
...Sure, I'd look out for my own kind, but I'd look out to protect any decent person who wasn't causing trouble, black or white, Jew or no Jew...
...He can't keep up, you know what I mean...
...Only the guy that has it, right...
...Knew him, let's see, must be at least fifteen years...
...No, no, that's not true either...
...Don't stand for it!' " 'What do you want me to do?' And he'd bring his shoulders up...
...But he's not going to do it...
...Ethnic,' he'd say, 'what's so ethnic about this place...
...You depend on people being good...
...They were surprised, and a little sad like me too, although I don't think that none of 'em care all that much for human life...
...I can't fight it...
...Don't think that because we did this you can come here any time you like and have a free one on the old man.' He was laughing when he said it...
...Terrific guy...
...He had no phone, only at the store...
...What's that going to cost...
...Millions of them...
...It got so I couldn't even go in there I felt so bad for the guy...
...I mean, I was ready to go after the son-of-a-bitch myself...
...April, you know, no job...
...Of course you don't want it...
...I'd tell him who was going, or he'd tell me friends of his were going...
...Nothing against them, but they're clever, real clever...
...They'll come into your house and rob you even if you're ninety years old...
...He knew what I knew...
...Maybe they don't like Jews, although I don't think it's that neither...
...He had nothing, and the little he had he gave away, like all that Scotch...
...Don't worry, I won't charge you...
...You have to let go of Klein who's your last connection to the old neighborhood.' I hadn't seen it that way, you know, but she did...
...That's the only way I could repay him...
...That's the real international language, like they say...
...They call him Nazi...
...Maybe they, you know, suicide...
...I'll call a cop, he'll steal my raisins...
...Just as much as boys...
...You go looking for a fight, you're going to find one, you see what I mean...
...Went to the old guy in the cleaning store, but he sold out...
...But what about all these people who run from fights, and get hurt all the same...
...Not a word about it, but I started making my own little investigations...
...It was in the papers...
...The tops, I mean the absolute tops the man made in a day, I mean he couldn't have cleared thirty, forty bucks...
...I told this to these guys...
...They call him Nazi...
...His greatest fear is unemployment...
...They stole his stock, they robbed him blind, although to my knowledge, he was never robbed of money...
...Maybe when we locked up the place together in the night he'd walk around a little and come right back and let himself in...
...You name it, I've done it...
...He knows my name, I know his name, though I can't pronounce it too good, his first name that is, but he doesn't say nothing to me about it...
...I don't give a damn if it's my own son doing it, I'll break his face open for you...
...So what's wrong, Murphy?' 'Nothing's wrong,' I told him, although I was really down...
...And you know damn well a week later the same kid will be right back in that shop with.Klein doing the same thing, with his little list...
...Honest, I'll do it.' He told me, 'I'll give you a few bucks and you can come here and visit me...
...No goodbyes, no services, nothing...
...It was for animals...
...So I figured, why should I tell what he didn't want told...
...Just getting old don't make nobody smart...
...So I make a second trip to another place...
...He was always tired, old looking...
...Couple of no-goodniks, she called us...
...They'd just pop in the door, snatch something and wham, they're gone...
...I never talked much with his wife...
...I beat him to an inch of his life...
...When I found out about the insurance I told this to my wife...
...By mistake...
...Then I saw the cleaning shop next door, 'cause the whole store was gone, and I said, 'Oh my sweet Lord, it's him.' Then I read he died...
...Not only kids, everybody...
...I had the Scotch and I went right away to the police and told them about Klein knowing, I thought, who robbed him...
...April...
...Kill himself...
...He couldn't even replace the stock he sold...
...I learned more from that man than I ever learned in the schools I went to...
...I hadn't seen him for a number of months...
...They aren't tricky, and Klein wasn't tricky...
...I know guys, out of work, they'll come around here and protect you...
...I didn't tell my wife nothing...
...But this time he was doing it for me...
...First, I saw the fire on television one night, in the news, I thought, the old neighborhood...
...The man remembered every can on his shelves, every box of laundry soap...
...But he's got people, men and women, coming in all the time to talk, sit around and be comfortable, you know what I mean...
...Then he's got all these problems with his inventory, what he's got, what he don't have...
...There was no place to sit down...
...The old man knew he was on the way out, and he figured, I'll get something out of this place...
...I loved him like he was my own flesh and blood...
...I told him, 'Don't it bother you, all these kids barging in here like that, taking whatever they want?' Lots of 'em, you know, they wasn't content just to pocket a couple of apples...
...Oh," he will say, his gentle blue eyes moving quickly as if there weren't much time to speak, "the changes don't have to be for the worse...
...And I'll stop calling him Klein and call him Mister Klein as I should have done all along, although he never would have gone along with it...
...He sits at a corner table at a bar on Pickney Street, and tells about Klein: "Klein, this guy I knew, he was a funny little fat pudgy sort of a guy...
...All of them worth fighting at the time, none of them worth a damn ten minutes after they was over...
...You had to know him...
...From a good old Irish family name of Tierney...
...I went to the Jewish temple and I asked to talk to the rabbi...
...They did...
...Went to the pharmacy, but that guy wasn't around any more...
...He saw all three of the men but he's afraid to say 'cause he's sure they got friends who'll come for him again...
...We all could have killed each other, our own kind, anybody's kind...
...I'm sixty-seven,' or whatever he was at the time...
...Apron and all, he told me, he wanted to see it for himself...
...Wife or no wife, and she didn't waste words on either one of us...
...He called it the box...
...My mother wants a half pound of sugar, and three lemons,' and on and on, and while Klein's getting what the kid wants, the kid's stuffing his pockets full of candy, grapes, cookies, anything he can find small enough...
...A cop, with a small box of raisins...
...Don't guard nothing!' "Then, of course, he had the ical toughies...
...But they didn't...
...But what I like most about him is how he poured me the most, and him the least, and all the time he's wearing this expression like, You didn't think I was the type, did you...
...Some of them, and this used to really get me, they'd call him the Nazi...
...You have to...
...The rabbi said I was right...
...Eight years old and they're animals...
...When they're beaten down, they do it...
...His nature is to be content with what he has, make the best of what is available...
...You just believe it will be all right...
...And he was there, or his wife was there, seven days a week...
...Maybe he was even living there when I was visiting him, before I moved away...
...He's bandaging the kid up while I'm emptying his pockets of all the stuff he took two minutes before from the guy who's now taking care of him...
...Six bucks a bottle, beautiful stuff...
...And all of this is happening in three, four weeks...
...Klein, as far as everybody I talked to was concerned, were vanished...
...To what...
...I'd tell him, 'Klein, the world changes, supermarkets, big housing projects...
...Johnnie Murphy, pink cheeked, bumpy nose, soft white hair...
...I would have cried like a baby, losing a friend like that...
...Then he turns and studies the empty beer glass before him...
...Can you imagine that scene...
...He could correct me 'cause I can hear he says it different from me...
...Sell to who...
...So Klein, he says, 'Don't tell me there's nothing wrong, I'm reading it on your face, something's wrong.' I told him about my job and he says, 'Come with me.' So we go into the back of the store, you know, and I'm surprised it's so small...
...He was robbed...
...The fire comes and the man and his wife are caught in the fire and they perish...
...Maybe they decided, it's too much, it's too hard...
...Somebody burned that store down...
...You believe that...
...But it never stopped Klein, and if it didn't stop Klein it sure as hell wasn't going to stop me neither...
...He never made a mistake in his life, Klein...
...Twenty cents tops, right...
...I mean, sometimes I thought the guy was a little too much on the weak, let's-not-talk-about-it side...
...I'm going to talk with your wife.' 'She doesn't know nothing about it,' he says...
...He looked his age, past his age too...
...Murphy, the private eye...
...That's modern times for you, isn't it...
...I couldn't even answer...
...that's the way he was...
...You'd get a little innocent looking boy come in there, you know, Good morning, Mr...
...You should've seen the arguments I heard in those years...
...I ain't saying who...
...Funny, I just thought, you know, he spoke with an accent but he told me he was born here, in this country...
...For me...
...What the hell, I know it myself...
...Come on, I got some new Scotch,' which he did have, too...
...Now, the other type of, what do you want to call them, non-customers he had were kids coming in there all the time to steal...
...Set fire for the insurance, my Irish eye...
...Just a few of his old standbys should stay around...
...So it comes to me: They're Irish guys who robbed him and he doesn't want to start trouble or make me think something bad...
...So, what are they going to do about it?' 'Well, they look into it, I don't know.' 'Don't you even want to talk about it?' I asked...
...Maybe TV's teaching too many people too many things they'd be better off not knowing...
...So many people hating one another these days it could be anybody...
...So they got out...
...The rest in the box...
...But it's nothing...
...And everybody who comes, he'd say, in that way he spoke, 'Here, take an apple...
...We made it until the Negroes came in...
...There's another possibility too...
...You take a swing, you catch a swing...
...He looked at me and laughed...
...Like a private eye...
...So the people ate him up...
...I hey didn't have no little lists...
...And let me tell you there was black kids and white kids...
...I said, 'What the hell's going on here...
...Those places got broken into at night...
...Who in his right mind would want it...
...Fireman told me they suspected arson, but they didn't want to spread the information around, figured there was already so much tension in the neighborhood, why, you know, add to the problems...
...They had no clothes...
...So I told him, 'I'll do it, I'll do it.' 'What's to do?' he'd say...
...Like sometime he'd like sing it...
...You want to buy this place, Murphy?' I was embarrassed...
...Nothing...
...What happens to the little ethnic grocery store?' He loved hearing me talk like that...
...He didn't say it this way but he didn't have to...
...Jews are human too...
...They gotta...
...His light blue eyes are moist, more than moist...
...People like me, we do all our shopping in his store...
...He looks down the long wall of the bar...
...They fought, we fought, the Poles fought, the Italians...
...I'll do it for you myself...
...So now let's see...
...Klein, Klein, Klein, no Klein...
...You heard of a white elephant, Murphy...
...I looked in all of them...
...I told him after knowing this old man, this poor old man, I thought maybe some Jewish people were even more than human...
...His family...
...They're like everybody else...
...But you, Murphy, you got something to celebrate...
...He's bawling her out about something and she's getting even with him, in English...
...Maybe he has a heart attack...
...Look, what did he want from life...
...Here he is, this little guy, I didn't think he even knew what drinking was all about, and he's got a few bottles stashed away...
...But to the man himself you don't say a word...
...But didn't he tell me a hundred times, what's the use of calling the cops...
...But for years, this guy and his wife been holding on by the skin of their teeth...
...And when they steal everything I have, I'll pack up and go away, and they'll steal from the next one.' "I felt so bad for the guy when he talked like that, because he was right...
...My Irish blue eye...
...Can you imagine that...
...We watched the cop together, and when he left I looked at Klein the same time he looked at me...
...Is it going to kill anybody...
Vol. 2 • October 1977 • No. 10
