Ice Cream Town Page 4

  “Not sing? You have a beautiful voice. A hazzan’s voice,” he said, referring to the cantor, who chanted the prayers in the synagogue.

  Sammy stared down at his lap. How could Papa understand? What did he know about his own son, a boy of six, walking from house to house and singing for pieces of bread? Singing reminded him of begging, and Sammy did not want to beg ever again.

  Papa watched him for a moment. Then, with a sigh, he chanted the blessing so the meal could begin.

  CHAPTER 7

  Finding a Friend

  On Monday morning, Sammy woke up to a knock at the door. In the front room, Malka was talking to a boy with a pile of dress pieces on his back.

  “Max!” Sammy rushed forward. “It was you I saw on the street.”

  “Sammy!” Max grinned from ear to ear. “I hoped I’d find you.” He dropped his bundle on the table. Malka bent over the pile and counted the pieces.

  Sammy looked at him. “Is this what you do?”

  Max shrugged. “Yes. Two weeks in America and already I am a working man. How do you like New York?”

  “It’s all right.” Sammy kicked at a spot on the floor. “Do you like it here?”

  Instead of answering, Max punched Sammy’s arm. “We had fun on Ellis Island, didn’t we?”

  “And good food… Remember the ice cream?”

  Max licked his lips. “Have you eaten it since?”

  “No.” Sammy shook his head. “But,” he whispered, “I had a non-kosher cookie my first night here. Where do you live?” he asked, changing the subject.

  “On Houston Street.”

  “That’s not far. We can meet and play ball.”

  Max’s smile disappeared. “I am not allowed to play. I have to take the clothes to and from the factory.”

  “You are lucky you have a job,” Sammy said in admiration.

  Max shook his head. “My new father says that if I want to eat, I have to work.” He lowered his voice. “Nobody gets nothin’ for nothin’ around here,” he growled. “That is what my father says.”

  “Tell him he’s not your real father, and he can’t order you around.”

  Max’s shoulders slumped. “He keeps telling us how lucky we are that he brought us over. It’s like we owe him our lives.” Max scowled. “But all he wants is for my mother and me to work hard so he can sit in the coffee house all day with his friends.”

  “Do you work all the time?”

  Max nodded. “I deliver my piecework in the morning and pick it up every evening. In between, I help my mother.”

  Malka stopped counting and turned around. “Thank you, Max. There are forty-two pieces here. Come, sit. You will eat some breakfast with us?”

  Max looked longingly at the plate of fresh-baked rolls and the pot of jam that Malka had set on the table. His stomach growled, and he moved forward. Then he stopped.

  “Thank you, Malka. But I must go. I have another delivery waiting at the factory.”

  He turned to Sammy. “I will see you in school. My father,” he said, pronouncing the word like a curse, “says I can go. It’s the law, so if he tries to keep me home, he will get into trouble.”

  He turned to Malka. “I’ll be back at seven.” He gave her a pleading look. “Please have everything done, or the supervisor, Mr. Markowitz, will fire us both.”

  Sammy watched Max clamber down the stairs. He felt sorry for his friend, but at the same time a bit jealous. At least Max had something to do. He was helping his family. What was he, Sammy, contributing, except running errands for Malka? He had to change. He didn’t know how, but he was going to find out.

  CHAPTER 8

  The Stickball Game

  America hadn’t turned out to be as grand as Sammy thought.

  “I don’t like it here,” he said at supper one hot August night. “People make fun of us because we are new, and I don’t have any friends.”

  “There are so many children in the neighborhood,” Malka said. “You will make friends when you start school. What about the Baldanis? Two of the boys are about your age.”

  “They have their own group.” One thing Sammy had learned right away was that the Italian kids and the Jewish kids only hung out with their own gangs. He wasn’t part of either. As for Maria, he had seen her coming and going, but they hadn’t said more than hello since the first night on the fire escape.

  “I’m a greenie,” Sammy grumbled.

  Papa looked up from his bowl of cabbage soup with boiled potatoes. “Everyone starts that way. Soon you will become an American citizen.”

  “When will that be, Papa?”

  “You will become a citizen when I become a citizen. But first, I must pass a test. You, Sammy, will go to school to learn English. You will help me learn English.” He laughed, and his beard, more white than black, bobbed up and down. “We will study together. You, Malka, and I will all become Americans together.”

  Malka cleared the dishes and brought out glasses of tea. Papa took a cube from the sugar bowl and stuck it between his teeth. He took a long sip of tea through the sugar. “So,” he said, setting the tea glass on the table, “tomorrow we will start.”

  After supper, Sammy and his sister sat on the front stoop. It was a steamy night and the whole neighborhood was out on the street. Water spurted from a fire hydrant and children laughed and shouted while they played in the cooling spray.

  “Malka, I want to work.”

  “Again with the work! You heard Papa. Going to school will be your job.”

  “But we need money.” Sammy pulled his lucky stone from his pocket and cradled it in his palm. The cool, smooth surface was reassuring, as if he had brought a piece of Poland with him to this strange new country.

  “I want to buy ice cream,” he complained.

  Malka put an arm around his shoulder. “Every week I will give you a nickel, all for yourself. To earn it, you must study for all of us.”

  Study for all of them? It would be hard enough to learn English for himself. Besides, it wasn’t knowledge that Sammy wanted. It was power! And that, he knew from his wanderings around the Lower East Side, was not found in a schoolroom. It was found on the streets.

  Sammy was learning how New York worked. Everything happened on the street. In addition to the boys, groups of girls hung out together. The girls played mostly sidewalk games like tossing beanbags—cloth containers filled with cherry pits. They also played potsy, a game where they drew chalk lines and boxes on the sidewalk and, pushing a tin can or other marker, hopped from one box to another.

  The boys never played with the girls; and if a girl tried to get into one of the boys’ games, she was chased away. Boys played marbles and hide-and-seek, but the most popular boys’ street game was stickball. To play, you needed a wooden broom handle—usually red, blue, or green—with the straw removed, several manhole covers, and a rubber ball. The Orchard Street game had four players on each side. Home plate and first base were manhole covers, usually stolen from Stanton or Hester Street. Second base was the fire hydrant in front of Schwartz’s Bakery, and third base was Mr. Gershom’s pushcart.

  Sammy got into the game by accident. He was watching Simba dance on his leash, holding out his cap for pennies from people passing by.

  “Hi, Simba,” Sammy said, handing him a banana that he’d brought from home. Bananas were the strangest new food Sammy had eaten in America, but Simba loved stripping off the rubbery peel and stuffing the sweet mushy fruit into his mouth.

  “He likes you,” Yichel said, and he ground out a tune on his organ. The organ sat on a long stick that reached the ground. Yichel held it up with his left hand and turned the crank, which made the music, with his right. As Sammy handed Simba the banana, the stickball batter hit the ball right at him.

  Sammy reached up, caught the ball, and tossed it back to the pitcher.

  “Hey, you!” The pitcher waved at him. Even though he was speaking English, Sammy could tell the boy wanted him to come over.

  “You throw
a mean ball,” he said when Sammy joined him.

  “Mean?” He knew a few words of English by then. “Why the ball is mean?”

  Everyone laughed. “A greenie, huh?”

  The boy hooked his thumbs in his suspenders. All the boys wore caps, and his was pushed back. A shock of sandy hair stood up on his forehead like a brush.

  “We need another player,” he said, switching to Yiddish. You wanna play?”

  Did he want to play? Did birds want to fly?

  “Sure,” Sammy said, using an English word he had picked up from Cousin Joshua.

  The pitcher held out his hand. “I’m Herschel and that’s Moishe.” Herschel pointed to a boy so thin he reminded Sammy of one of Malka’s noodles.

  “And that’s Tommy.” Tommy smiled, and Sammy saw that he had two teeth missing from the right side of his mouth. He doubted that Tommy had lost them eating candy.

  “Our team is called the Orchard Street Sluggers. Those guys” —he pointed to the team waiting to bat— “are the Delancy Sliders. We’re out in the field now. You can play third base.”

  Third base meant standing in front of Mr. Gershom’s pushcart. Sammy swallowed hard. “Sure,” he said again and ran over to his spot, ignoring the evil glare Mr. Gershom shot his way.

  “We’re ready,” Herschel shouted to the Sliders. “Play ball.”

  Stickball was an easy game to learn. The pitcher pitched a one-bounce ball, and the batter was allowed one swing. If he missed, he was out. If he split the ball in half, which happened a lot, or his ball landed in a sewer or drainpipe or was caught as a fly ball, he was out. After three outs, the teams changed places. During Sammy’s first game, he caught two fly balls, and when it was his turn at bat, he hit the ball all the way to the corner of Orchard and Delancy Streets, without splitting it.

  “Holy cow!” Herschel waved his cap in the air. “You’re another Babe,” he gloated, pounding Sammy on the back.

  “Baby? I am not a baby.”

  Herschel laughed. “That’s a compliment, Greenie. Babe Ruth’s the greatest baseball player ever. Someone calls you the Babe, you say thank you.”

  “Thank you,” Sammy grinned, and the game continued— until Moishe hit the ball into Mr. Gershom’s pushcart. Mr. Gershom grabbed it and threw it down the sewer drain. Herschel stomped over, snatched a tomato, and threw it at Mr. Gershom, who shouted so loud a policeman ran over and told the boys to “put back your manhole covers and stop causing trouble.”

  “So, you never played stickball before?” Herschel asked.

  Sammy laughed. “Play stickball in Poland? We were too busy trying to stay alive to play much of anything.”

  “You like the game, huh, Babe?” Herschel pounded Sammy’s shoulder as they carried the last manhole cover to Hester Street.

  “My name is Sammy, not Babe.”

  “Welcome, Sammy. Here,” Herschel stopped and motioned for him to lower the cover onto the open hole. “Whew,” he said when they had rolled it into place. “Thanks for the help. Okay, Sammy boy. From now on, you’re a permanent part of the Orchard Street Sluggers. Welcome to the team, Babe.”

  CHAPTER 9

  A Rude Awakening

  In September, Sammy started school.

  “This is a wonderful opportunity,” Papa said as Sammy fastened the suspenders on his new blue corduroy pants and buttoned the stiff high-collared shirt that Malka insisted he wear for school. “We are in a new country. Here, Sammy, you have the chance to be anything you want.”

  Sammy looked at his father. He seemed so much more tired than he had appeared on the day he’d picked them up at Ellis Island. Papa’s face was lined and his shoulders stooped from long hours at the coat factory.

  “I’ll try, Papa,” Sammy promised, suddenly ashamed that he didn’t want to go to school. “I promise. I will try.”

  The school was a square brick building with a wide hallway that was lined with classrooms on both sides. The fifth grade was in room ten. The teacher, whose name was Miss O’Malley, told Sammy to sit at the last desk in a row by the window. Miss O’Malley was beautiful. She had pale freckled skin and hair the color of a new copper penny. When she spoke, her voice had a musical lilt.

  “Do you understand any English?” she asked.

  “A little,” Sammy said.

  “Don’t worry. You will learn fast.” She handed him a notebook with a black and white speckled cover, and a yellow pencil with a red rubber tip.

  Sammy slid into his seat. For the rest of the morning, he felt as if he had wandered into the wrong place. He could not read the words Miss O’Malley wrote on the blackboard at the front of the room, and he only understood a little of what she said.

  When a bell rang for recess, he followed the rest of the class out to the yard—and that’s when he got a surprise.

  Standing in the yard, looking as lost as he felt, was Max.

  “Sammy!” Max ran over and thumped him on the back. “Am I happy to see you! What room are you in?”

  “Ten.”

  “I’m in twelve.”

  The boys walked to the edge of the yard. “So, how do you like New York?” Sammy asked as they leaned against the fence separating the schoolyard from the street.

  Max scrunched his face into a frown. “Poland was better.”

  “Better!” Sammy slapped his forehead. “How could it be better? No food, soldiers all over the place, everybody sick.”

  Max’s face turned red. His body tensed. “In Poland, I didn’t carry coats on my back. My mother didn’t sit at a sewing machine all day.” He unclenched his fists and his body sagged. “In Poland, my mother was pretty. Here, she is always tired.”

  The bell rang, ending recess.

  “Come with me after school,” Sammy said as they headed back to their classrooms. “I’ll get you into my stickball game.” Saying those words—my stickball game— made Sammy feel good, like he belonged somewhere.

  Max shook his head. “I have to work.”

  “Don’t you ever get time off?”

  “Only for school,” Max said. He shoved his hands into his pockets. Suddenly he blurted out, “I hate my stepfather. He treats us like slaves.”

  “There must be something you can do,” Sammy said, as they entered the building. “Come home with me. We’ll talk to my father.”

  Max shook his head. “We’ll see each other at school every day,” he said. “That will have to be enough.”

  At the end of the day, Miss O’Malley handed Sammy a book. “I want you to take this home and practice your reading. It is called Treasure Island. It’s about pirates, and I think you will enjoy reading it.”

  After school, Sammy walked along Delancy Street. The summer heat was gone, and the air felt crisp, like the first bite of a really good apple. As usual, the street was filled with pushcarts selling everything from baskets and pots and pans to red, yellow, and gold stacks of fruits and vegetables. Malka had kept her promise and had given him a nickel every week to spend on whatever he wanted. As usual, he wanted ice cream.

  The best place to get ice cream was Cohen’s Candy Store on Delancy Street. Mr. Cohen was a pink-cheeked man who liked selling treats to children. Sammy walked quickly, avoiding other tempting foods along the way. Yellow-skinned bananas, salt-studded pretzels, and fat dill pickles made his mouth water, but he continued until he reached the candy store.

  The bell over the door tinkled as he entered. Sammy studied the glass counter filled with wonderful treats. His nickel would buy ten black licorice whips or a whole bag of brightly colored jellybeans. But the candy, as good as it looked, couldn’t compete with the creamy smoothness of vanilla ice cream.

  Mr. Cohen’s starched apron was as white as the ice cream in the freezer case.

  “Hellooo, boychick (young boy).” He beamed. “What will it be today? No, don’t tell me.” He held up a hand. “Vanilla ice cream. In a cone, yes?”

  Sammy nodded. Mr. Cohen took a silver scoop from a glass of water, bent over the case, and
carved out a creamy white ball, which he plunked into a tube-shaped cone.

  “Be careful,” he said as he accepted Sammy’s nickel. “Don’t drop it.”

  Sammy grinned, and walked back to the street. It was at times like this that he understood why people loved America. His steps slowed as he watched women filling their baskets with food from the pushcarts. Breathing in the mixture of horse droppings, gasoline, garlic, and sea salt that was New York, Sammy was glad his family had come here—even if learning to live in what he thought of as his ice cream town brought so many problems.

  Sammy walked along, juggling his book in one hand and the ice cream in the other, while his tongue chased the drips trickling down the side of the cone. Maybe that was why he didn’t see Luigi turn the corner. Or hear him calling to his friend Tony.

  Or see him heading for Sammy’s ice cream.

  Whoop. The cone jumped from Sammy’s hand into Luigi’s.

  Thump. Someone hit Sammy on the back, and he fell forward. His knees smashed into the sidewalk and his hands skidded across the rough pavement.

  “You can’t eat this, remember? It isn’t kosher.” Luigi leaned over, grabbed a handful of Sammy’s black curls, and pulled his head up. “Thanks for the treat, kid.” Then he bent down and picked up Sammy’s book.

  “Hey,” he sneered, “what’s this? You lookin’ for treasure, Greenie?” He tossed the book to Tony. “Hey, the boy found a treasure map.”

  “Ain’t no treasure in New York,” Tony grunted.

  “Yeah. You’d only be disappointed.” Luigi tore the book apart and threw it in the gutter. Then, licking his ice cream, he sauntered down the street with Tony right behind him.

  Sammy lay on the sidewalk, too stunned to move. The fall had knocked the wind out of his lungs. His knees hurt, and his palms were bleeding from the scrapes.

  Mr. Cohen ran from his store and helped Sammy to his feet. “Boychick, are you all right? Bums! Ruffians!” He shook his fist after the retreating boys. “Brush yourself off and come inside. Two scoops of ice cream you’ll get— vanilla and chocolate, with whipped cream and a cherry on the top. My treat.”