The boys of Bensonhurst
by Salvatore La Puma
Bensonhurst
(Originally published in 1987)
1942
The angel whispering in Frankie’s ear warned him to be careful going to New Jersey, but he said, “Scram,” to the pest, which the other guys thought might be a fly, and they all went up from the BMT subway to Times Square, where lights on billboards, movie houses, restaurants, and shops blinked nervously, and where even the scrounging pigeons were hemmed in. Mobs of people drifted out of step but mostly in two-way lanes, and nearly everyone, including the legless beggar man squatting and rolling along the sidewalk, seemed to know exactly where he belonged, and cars looked packed in the streets as in lots at Yankee games.
They went west on 42nd Street: Frankie, the oldest at seventeen; Nick, the altar boy; Rocco, the killer in the ring and with dames; and Gene, wild on the drums and the youngest at fifteen.
“I love this place,” said Rocco, shadowboxing in the street.
“Lots of dames around,” said Frankie.
Cardboard dames in underpants and bras were posted by the lurid movie houses, and live dames in split skirts and open blouses were in doorways, all looking for customers. Bells were ringing in arcades for pinball, miniature bowling, and peep shows. Greasy smoke blew from narrow shops grilling hot dogs, hamburgers, and knishes, shops which would be closed for a few hours before dawn with see-through steel gates. White-hat hawkers urged the guys to buy beers, orange drinks, cotton candy, caramel popcorn, and homemade fudge. Almost anything a guy could want was for sale.
The pedestrians were all sizes, ages, colors, sexes, rich and poor. They gawked at the hustlers and pimps who gawked back. Horns and tail pipes played flat, while loudspeakers from record shops played the hits so far in 1942. In a bookstore window the nudist magazine Sunbathers had on its cover naked dames with pubic hair. So the guys went inside. Frankie Primo often read magazines and books, rode on an old Harley, was secretly in love with an older dame, and didn’t want to go in the Army. Of Sicilian blood, he was a little ashamed that he wasn’t eager to kill Japs and Nazis. Every other Sicilian guy he knew of couldn’t wait.
“You ever read this?” said Frankie.
“It must be about screwing,” said Nick Consoli, who wanted to be one of the boys, and often went along, but at the crucial moment he could hold back, remembering what sin was, as he was doing now, shaking his head. “Screwing’s bad for the soul.”
“Everything’s about screwing,” said Frankie, acting the man of the world.
The man in charge crooked his finger at them, so Frankie and his friends moved to the shadowy back of the store. There the man dealt out cards face-down on the glass showcase like hands of poker. When he flipped them over, they weren’t aces and kings; they were snapshots of naked dames turning themselves inside out to show how they were made. The guys got frog eyes.
“How much?” said Frankie.
“A fin,” said the man.
“Five bucks for pictures?” said Frankie. “You’re kidding?”
“Get out,” said the man. “Out. Before I kick asses. Scummy kids.”
Farther down 42nd was the bus terminal with snaking lines at ticket windows, with sitters on suitcases and hard benches, and blind-looking people hurrying somewhere, and others dragging, unhappy to go where they were going. Not knowing which line to get in, the boys went to Information.
“You don’t want the Greyhound,” said the colored guy. “It don’t stop in Union City. You want the Madison line. It’s red and white. It goes to Jersey by the Skyway.”
At the first and only stop in Union City everybody got off, as if the only reason to go there was to see the show. It was almost June and the light was still out, and they all went up the hilly street, passing old brick buildings with boarded-up windows, dark warehouses where nothing useful could be kept, scurrying rats, and drunks nursing like babies from bottles in paper bags.
“Poor bastards. We ought to help them out. But we ain’t got time,” said Frankie, and his angel whispered her agreement.
The boys kept their eyes peeled in case a derelict should pounce from a doorway with a filthy proposition. They were a little scared, except for Rocco Marino. He threw a left jab at an invisible opponent to dare trouble to come out. But then, without being asked, Rocco gave a dollar to the old man with a balding beard and one-tooth grin.
“I got dough from my fights,” Rocco said to his friends, who didn’t have as much. He didn’t want them to think he was a show-off.
When the crowd turned the corner, the street was in the glaring spotlight of thousands of burning white bulbs on the Hudson Theater’s marquee, reading in capital letters:
“We have half an hour still,” said Frankie.
“How about a beer?” said Gene Dragoni, hoping the bar next to the theater wouldn’t find him too young.
“First, let’s get tickets,” said Nick. “If they sold out while we’re sipping suds, it would be a waste. After that trip.”
They got in line. But the seats weren’t reserved. So instead of drinking their beers in Little Lil’s Bar, bought from Lil herself, who was built like a wrestler and who winked at Gene although she knew they were all underage, they took their bottles to seats in the third row of the balcony.
The orchestra’s lower half was already mostly filled, though not entirely by servicemen and other men. Dames too were in the audience, with dates, or in groups of dames together. That girls were there at all seemed to the guys a little odd. But at the back of their minds they knew things existed that they couldn’t explain yet. They hoped that later on, when they weren’t boys any longer, they would understand such minor mysteries.
Two rows down and over to the side in the balcony were two dames by themselves not much older than Frankie and his friends, and one had rusting blonde hair. The guys couldn’t take their eyes off the dames, and the dames, not taking their eyes off the guys either, even waved first. The guys elbowed each other and thought they were easily recognizable as Romeos. They talked about moving their seats next to the dames, or asking them up to seats in their row. But they were filled up on each other’s friendship and were anticipating the pleasure of other dames showing off their legs, breasts, and behinds, so for now they just didn’t need these dames.
People in the aisles were still looking for seats when a guy in a white jacket and black tie came onstage. His grin was so broad it was almost a mirror reflecting flashes in code. “Ladies and gentlemen, tonight we have a sensational offer. The most sensational in the history of the Hudson Theater. Tonight we have this lovely box of delicious Whitman’s chocolates made with imported chocolate. Crunchy nuts. Chewy carmels. Buttery creams. All for one dollar. Let me repeat this sensational bargain price. All for one little dollar. This special sale is from the maker exclusively to you, to introduce their fine quality. And not only one pound of chocolates, but in each ten boxes is a special bonus. A Bulova watch. Can you believe your good luck? One out of ten leaves here tonight with a Bulova worth $25 on his wrist. What a terrific deal. I’m buying ten boxes myself. And even if you don’t win, these delicious chocolates make you feel like a winner. So, please, have your dollars ready. We have only seventy-five boxes for this limited offer. When we’re sold out, there just won’t be anymore.”