There was in our old Detroit neighborhood a restaurant called the Cream of Michigan, famous for its barley soup and delicatessen. It was a humble place, in a humble neighborhood, planted among haberdasheries and grocery stores. The Cream of Michigan didn't confine its service to the cream. It's true that you could find affluent gents from the suburbs with monogrammed hankies in the breast pockets of English-cut tweed jackets who sought the corn bread and barley soup of their youth. But the Cream of Michigan was mainly patronized by neighborhood people, men of the working class. It was also the special preserve of the Jewish toughs, our hoods, who occupied the counter and the front tables. When we passed behind them and glimpsed a rear view we saw bulls at a feeding trough with enormous backs and necks and jowls. They wore fedoras on small domes.
We knew a man who was a doctor to these hoods. This doctor entered the Cream of Michigan one day. He heard a quarrel and turned to look. A behemoth descended from his stool, grabbed a little guy who had irritated him, and with a twist and a twirl heaved him through the plate-glass window. The little guy crawled to the streetcar tracks where, as the doctor put it, “He exsanguinated.” That was a new style for our people, our own hoods and killers. And after all the pretty talk is pared away, who were Arthur and his Knights? The cowboys of the West? Stenka Razin? Robin Hood? Admired butchers. It wasn't a style Jake cared for. The Jewish hoods were killing Jews, not dragons. It's not that they lacked sentiment. The jukebox at the rear of the Cream of Michigan played Meine Yiddische Momma, among other fine pieces, and these hulks grieved for mothers. Yet they could blot the tears, honk their noses, get down from their stools, and heave you through plate-glass windows. While you exsanguinated they finished their barley soup. My Pa, Jake Gottlieb, scorned these bums. He had no quarrel with sentiment. In memory of his own mother he could also weep. These oxen, though, when they were finished weeping were ready to pound your head with fists like boulders. They struck without sentiment; not even with hard feelings, and resumed slurping their soup. The incident with the exsanguinating man was rare since most of the damage they inflicted was off the premises.
There was one among our hoods, Happy Weinberg, whom we kids most admired. Weinberg had a sunny disposition and a freckled red face as tubby as the moon. When Happy grinned you saw white and gold. He had a laugh that was so exuberant you had to join in. He was fond of children; he let them hang around while he played pool. He probably got a boost out of the appreciation of children. I wouldn't have been surprised to find Happy watching cowboy movies on Saturday afternoon. I don't mean to represent him as a moron who happened to be a hood by accident—a buffoon first, secondly a bruiser. That isn't my intention. Because that big sunny face with the merry eyes might very well be focused on a brutal scene such as a girl being teased while her cowed escort is invited to be a bystander. If Happy gave a hard goose to your sister, you kept your mouth shut. Happy could unloose that infectious laugh while some frightened tailor was being slapped around. It was a good laugh, a real “ho-ho” that used all two hundred and fifty pounds of Happy. He was able to laugh at how absurd men look when they are being tormented. We kids didn't despise him for that. Weren't we instructed to be cool when murder was done? I'm speaking, of course, of our other models, Tom Mix and Buck Jones and Bob Steele and the Manassa Mauler and Achilles and Joshua and Sgt. York, not to mention Mickey Mouse and that crowd. His cool meanness, his cheerful sadism made Happy all the more admirable to us kids. Not to Jake Gottlieb, however.
Jake walked past the counter at the Cream of Michigan as if the hoods didn't exist. He wasn't about to surrender a first-rate delicatessen because hoodlums shared his appetite for good barley soup. With my brother Ernie and me in tow he marched to the tables in back and let people know that Gottlieb was around. He ridiculed the hoods. His comments were loud and clear.
We often accompanied Jake to the Cream of Michigan, even in the summer when we were on vacation. On a rainy day we welcomed the chance to get away from our tent at the lake and take a trip to Detroit to have some restaurant food. But the prospect of Jake offending Happy and his cohorts scared me. These men needed little cause to heave you through plate-glass windows. Ernie made no effort to disguise his anguish. Happy Weinberg had an unpredictable sense of humor. He might laugh off Jake's abuse. He might even enjoy our nervy Pa. But he had a buddy, Whitey Spiegelman, who was dangerously sensitive. This Spiegelman wasn't to be teased. Ernie feared that Jake was ignorant of Spiegelman's possibilities. Such ignorance was a threat to us all. Spiegelman resembled a clerk. He was scrawny and bald and doughy-nosed. If a defined chin is evidence of power, he would be classed as timid and meek, for he had no chin. Yet, despite appearances, he was a dangerous man. We heard stories of sudden furies, provoked by trivialities. He swarmed over his opposition, flailing like a windmill, not stopping until his tantrum had run its course. He may have lacked Weinberg's heft, but he was relentless. He had exceptionally skillful hands. We saw him perform card tricks. We watched him move around a pool table, bending, sighting, then stroking quickly. It was foolish to provoke such a man.
One Sunday when our appetite for vacation ebbed, a succession of gray days, bickering, the tent closing in on us, we accepted Jake's offer of a drive into Detroit for a meal at the Cream of Michigan.
Again we had to listen to Jake's daring abuse, and I wished I was back at the lake. Better the dullness of our tent. But when nothing came of Jake's ridicule—the restaurant was crowded and every kid's pa had a big voice and every table had someone putting on a show—I relaxed and ate. I felt wonderful relief and became sassy myself.
_____________
We Loaded up with delicatessen as we left. We were outside the restaurant when Happy Weinberg summoned Jake. He was waiting at the curb, leaning against the open door of a new Hudson. Spiegelman was at the wheel.
“Gottlieb, you old bastard. Say hello to a friend.” It was an exuberant, high-pitched voice, a friendly tone that offered no threat.
Jake handed one package to Ernie and another to me and faced Weinberg with folded arms. “Do I know you? We've been introduced?”
“You're Gottlieb, the laundryman, OK? You work for Kravitz at Atlas Linen. Meet my pal Whitey Spiegelman.” He leaned into the car and explained to Whitey Spiegelman that Jake Gottlieb was a friend. Spiegelman didn't seem impressed.
“I'm no friend of yours,” Jake declared. It was clear that he offered a statement of policy, not merely fact. Did he take that strong line because his sons were present? We knew that Jake's tone was always pitched to an audience. Couldn't he, out of concern for us, have retreated on this occasion? I have a photo of Jake taken about that time, an impressive profile, a face that would attract a sculptor who wants to make something of a coarse-grained stone. A heavy face, a big chin, the short neck making a firm pedestal for the large head.
Happy bent down and faced me at eye level. “I see you boys around, don't I? You're Vic, right?” I was thrilled that he knew my name. “And this here is Ernie who hangs out with Lenny Mitchell. Lenny Mitchell is my buddy, do you know that? I take care of Lenny Mitchell. Well, you boys got some daddy. What big ideas he got. Don't be surprised if one of these days you find out that me and your Pa are in business. Weinberg and Gottlieb. How's that for a team?”
Jake said, “I got no business with you.”
Happy straightened up and clapped Jake's shoulder, a good swat. “Don't be in such a rush, Gottlieb. I can do you favors.”
“Why should you do me favors?”
“We got mutual friends.”
“What friends?”
“Hy Kravitz.”
“He's no friend.”
“He speaks nice about you.”
“By the time I'm finished with Kravitz,” Jake said, “either he'll be out of business or he'll be paying us a living wage. You go tell that to Kravitz.”
“It would be a special favor to me, Jake, if you talk nice to Kravitz. A friend of Kravitz is a friend of Happy Weinberg.”
He only asked that Jake be reasonable and talk to Kravitz.
“You making threats?” Jake asked.
Happy appealed to us. “Did you hear me say anything, kiddies? What a touchy pa you got.”
If Jake wanted to demonstrate that he didn't fear the most dangerous hoods on Twelfth Street, he had proved his point. What he said next made me dizzy.
“Listen, bums, with such arms and shoulders you should be standing in the front lines, breaking Nazi skulls. Instead, you specialize in old tailors. Tell Kravitz if he wants to speak to Jake Gottlieb, he can talk to him face to face. He don't have to use third parties.”
Weinberg didn't need to make threats. His reputation made threats for him. If he greeted you, you were threatened. His tone of voice was irrelevant. I knew my Pa had been threatened and I trembled.
“We hear stories about them,” Ernie told Jake as we left the Cream of Michigan. “You don't fool around with Weinberg and Spiegelman. They can do terrible things.”
We were under the spell of Weinberg's threat when Jake pulled us into the doorway of a closed Woolworth's.
“Listen, organizing a union is dangerous work. I don't hide that from you. Those bums mean me no good. But I assure you, boys, it doesn't give me a second of worry. I have been banged on the head; I have been hit in the face. No one intimidates your Pa, Jake Gottlieb.”
“These guys are serious,” Ernie said. “Nothing is beyond them. Anything goes.”
Jake clapped our shoulders. He fixed us solemnly. It was an occasion he meant us to remember. I felt, as I'm sure Ernie did, that this was one of Jake's stagy moments.
“Boys, if anything happens to me, Kravitz will be responsible. Remember that.”
Ernie asked, “What do you mean, ‘Remember’?”
“Remember what 1 told you. Act according to your conscience. Never forget you are the sons of Jake Gottlieb.”
Ernie was almost ready to explode. “Of course we won't forget. What a thing to ask.”
“And act accordingly.”
“Act? What do you expect us to do?”
“I shouldn't have to say more.” Did he imagine himself the Papa of Mafiosos? “1 only ask that you remember,” he said. “Take an oath. Swear that you will do your duty by your Pa.”
_____________
We stood among the Woolworth displays, sales on swim suits, suntan lotions, mosquito repellent, bug sprays, picnic utensils—reminded of the common pleasures of ordinary life at Walled Lake—and Jake demanded that we take an oath appropriate to the barren hills of Sicily or ancient Israel, but not Twelfth Street.
“Swear!” he ordered. “If something happens to your Pa, swear that you'll remember.”
“What could happen? What?”
“You heard what this bum Weinberg said.”
“It's foolish,” Ernie said. “I won't swear.”
Why was Ernie so obstinate? All he had to do was swear and Jake would be pacified. He insisted that we swear. He wouldn't budge from the spot until we did. However reluctantly given, he wanted our oaths. He wanted guarantees that his two sons would follow in his tracks and accept the consequences of his acts.
We squabbled in the doorway of Woolworth's. The threat of Weinberg no longer oppressed us. We fought each other.
“It's stupid. It's false! It's just melodrama!”
“Swear!”
We ignored inquisitive looks from passers-by.
Finally I said, “Yes, Pa. I swear.” I said it to give him pleasure. Yet what wonderful relief after I swore to remember. That was always Jake's effect on me. He oppressed me; then he liberated me.
So Ernie also agreed. “OK. I will.”
“You'll what?”
“I swear.”
“Get Kravitz!”
We swore that if anything happened to Jake Gottlieb we would hold Kravitz to blame. The next time that Jake faced Kravitz and was threatened, Jake would warn him, “Anything that happens to me, happens to you. My boys will see to it.”
He hadn't won Ernie's good will and so he wasn't satisfied. He stopped the car before turning into the camp. Again he gripped our shoulders and held us tight.
“I hide nothing from you. You are of an age to be men and you got obligations. Your Pa now speaks to you as men. You can see from our meeting with these hoodlums that I have enemies. They are dangerous and they have no affection for Jake Gottlieb. That suits me. That's my pleasure. J don't want their affection. Not a tiny bit. Such enemies give me no trouble. Not when I got two sons to take up my cause. So pay attention. I want you to swear an oath. If anything happens to your Pa, remember that Hyman Kravitz is the man. Get Kravitz.”
We took the oath. We swore and not for the last time. Jake was in a risky business and he wanted guarantees of our loyalty. “Who knows how long I'll be around? Can you blame me if I want your attention?”
Ernie blamed him.
How could we take the oath seriously? Our Pa often assumed histrionic poses. Ernie swore, and then tried to put the oath out of mind.
“It's foolish,” he told me. “He hams it up too much.”
We numbed ourselves to what Jake asked. Did he set himself against Happy Weinberg? That was no match. Happy Weinberg at two hundred and fifty outweighed Jake by seventy pounds or more. Happy Weinberg, every day of his life, every hour of every day—including the night hours when he had bad dreams—plotted the most brutal use of his two hundred and fifty pounds. He was familiar with guns, brass knuckles, knives, pipes, blackjacks, bare hands. He saw all the world's furnishings as possible weapons. He studied each man he met with the obsession of a general who must consider any terrain he enters as a potential battlefield. Men were Happy Weinberg's battlefield. As for Jake, I never imagined his massive arms and his barrel chest to be tools of war. He dreamed of the day when the lion would be couched with the lamb. He couldn't sustain his ferocity. He only had moments. If he conquered you, he assumed your burdens.
Jake let everyone know about his meeting with Happy Weinberg.
“They have me marked,” he boasted. “Spiegel-man, Weinberg, the whole Cream of Michigan crowd. If they didn't know I had a big mouth and sons to avenge me, I'd long ago be planted in a wooden box.”
Listening to him you could lose respect for his achievement. “Why doesn't he keep it to himself?” Ernie asked. “Why do we have to be told? What does he expect from us?”
“Shouldn't we share his troubles?”
“Even Weinberg and Spiegelman have their pride. There's no reason to insult them.”
Jake believed in a homeric style of history and told whoppers in the manner of the Greeks. It didn't bother me. It was a respectable tradition. Didn't Achilles boast each night at the campfire? Didn't the heroes proclaim their pedigrees, cite their credits, advertise their power before launching spears? Despite the bragging, spears were launched; the glory merited. It wasn't a style for those raised in the laconic tradition of Gary Cooper whose silences, by the way, I always thought hammier and stagier than the bragging of more natural men. Jake's style suited me, if not Ernie.
_____________
I had terrible dreams. I woke up and saw Ernie in the cot opposite mine evidently in the same fix. Our nightmares had the same source. Jake made us swear and the oaths lay on our hearts like hot brands.
I remember a dream that Ernie and I must have shared. I dreamt that I rowed behind swimmers, crossing the lake. Jake was in the lead, flinging himself far ahead of the others. I rowed desperately to keep up. Fog closed us in. I thrashed the oars trying to keep Jake in view. I lost him. I rowed on and saw him floundering. He was stiffened with cramps. His enormous chin stretched to keep above the water. His eyes rolled. He grasped the side of the boat and tried to enter. He didn't have the strength. I couldn't reach him. He said to me, “Don't worry yourself, Sonny. It's all right.” Then he went under.
It was not me, but Ernie whose shout woke up our tent. I jerked up, ready to yell and saw Ernie hanging over the edge of his cot, clutching for the man who sank in my dream.
Jake tried to comfort us when he showed up at the lake. He invited us to accompany him down to the beach.
“Your Ma tells me you have bad dreams.”
The machinery of his arms and shoulders and chest was ponderous, as if sweaty effort was needed to get it under way.
“She says you wake up at night.”
Ernie didn't want any inquiry into his dreams. He said his dreams were his own business.
“If our talk the other day has given you problems, I want you to forget about it. Put it out of your mind altogether. It wasn't my intention, boys, to give you worries.”
“Of course that was your intention,” Ernie said. “How can you say it wasn't? How can you ask us to take such an oath and then tell us not to worry?”
“I'll tell you what,” Jake said. “Put it out of your mind. Forget it altogether.”
“It's too late,” Ernie said.
“I exaggerate. It's in my nature. You know your Pa, boys. He gets excited.”
I didn't want to be let off. I knew the reputation of the Cream of Michigan crowd as well as Ernie did. They were interested in Jake and we ought to be worried.
Ernie said, “If only I could understand why you were so rude to Happy after he says that he admires you. Did you have to be so insulting when you could have turned him down in a nice way?”
“I should be a gentleman, you mean. You picked the wrong Pa, Sonny. Your Pa, Jake Gottlieb, speaks his mind. His tongue don't go around in circles.”
Though they both may have had good intentions, they marched inexorably into conflict. Jake said that it wasn't his policy to stick his head in the ground in the face of danger. He feared no man. He dared Weinberg to do his worst. “This Weinberg you admire so much, this bum you call ‘Happy,’ this ignorant hoodlum, is nothing. I don't negotiate with this pig. He's nothing; I offer him nothing. He gets no respect from me. I treat him like he belongs in the wild woods or the pigsty. Nothing; a cipher. What someday you got to understand is that it's your Pa, Jake Gottlieb, who is something. Don't go looking so far from home if you want someone to respect. Try respecting your own Pa.”
Ernie wanted to speak what would be most damaging; he also wanted to restrain himself from speaking. He said finally, “Why don't you let someone else blow your horn?”
Jake stopped and caught Ernie's arm. “Who?” he asked. “Who will do it for me? My sons? Can I rely on my sons to speak up for their Pa? There's no one else to do the job, so Jake Gottlieb advertises himself. Otherwise he would never be heard from.”
“Why should anyone be heard from? I don't want to be heard from.”
Jake shook him. “I worry about you. You got no sense. I'm worried that you'll bury yourself. You'll smother because you didn't have the nerve to fight.” Jake shook him. “If you hide your talents who will see you? No one will come looking. Don't count on the generosity of strangers when you can't depend on your own children. Men will step on you just to be rid of the competition. They'll pretend they didn't know you were underfoot. You better make a sound. Yell out. Tell everyone who you are. You got plenty to brag about, a strong, intelligent boy like you, Gottlieb's son.”
My brother said, “I'm nothing. I got nothing to brag about.” He made nothing of himself in order to torment Jake.
“You're plenty. You're Gottlieb's son.”
“A man shouldn't have to boost himself.”
Advice poured in from every quarter, Jake observed. Employers advised him to drop dead. Cops advised him to go back to Russia. Now even beardless kids got into the act. “Everybody in the world has an idea how Jake Gottlieb should behave. I'd love to pay attention but my hearing ain't so hot. It's my tough luck to have a bad character that I grew up with. Now I'm stuck with it. You don't divorce your character like it's your wife.”
He said to me afterward, “Your brother got no respect.”
“He worries for you, Pa.”
“My worst enemy don't show such contempt.”
“He boasts about you. He feels terrible after an argument.”
“I leave you no fortune. I got nothing in the bank. I invest everything in a reputation. All I leave you is the honor of being Gottlieb's son.”
What more could he give? It was true about his character. He had been fashioned in fires so intense that all of the easily-worked material had been consumed and only what was fiercely tempered and unworkable remained in his construction. He was reconciled to himself. That was the source of his enthusiasm and his energy. He wanted to be no one but Jake Gottlieb. He thought Jake Gottlieb as splendid a character as there was on the scene, adequate to any war, ready to assume the station he deserved but which was denied him by men and history. He wanted Ernie to acknowledge, despite the smallness of his achievement, his true size. I saw my Pa Jake as monumental. You could get your bearings by sighting him. He commanded us to remember him. Ernie wanted to hold out, but he took the oath. I'll never let Ernie forget. We swore, more than once.
