My parents had a small basement restaurant. It was on Henry Street, near Jefferson. Right in the middle of the old East Side.
A meal cost 22 cents. Appetizer, meat and a potato, soup, dessert, a glass of tea—plus all the bread and seltzer you wanted. A few had a special arrangement. Two courses for dinner, the next two for supper. Later, during the evening, they had the glass of tea.
The customers used to stay as long as one let them. Those who knew the ropes went into the little room between the restaurant and kitchen—They sat there.
They played chess. Played dominoes. Played cards.
As a rule—they played cards.
They were young. Factory-workers.
Most of them, however, were saving their money. Meant to have a business of their own. Some were going to a night school. Learning English. Preparing to study a profession. True—there was Sam.
Sam was a cigar-maker. When he worked, he would get a good wage. Only—he had a conscience. A social conscience.
Any time there was a strike, Sam used to strike too. A sympathy strike. No matter what shop. No matter what trade. Sam had a real talent—he always managed to find a place where they were striking.
He was an exception. The others? Well. . . .
Here is one—he got a shop. Here is one—he got a store. Here is one—became a doctor. Here’s a dentist. Here’s a lawyer.
This was back in 1912. During the next thirty-five years, they—and their like—became the very heart of the Jewish community.
There they sat. A cross-section of tomorrow’s Jewish community.
They were drinking a glass of tea. They were playing a game of cards!
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In Europe—who used to play cards? Kartevnik, card player—was a term of odium.
A card player’s children always used to go hungry. Card players? Once, on a Yom Kippur Eve, two started to play. They got a little tallow candle, one that ought to last an hour. When it went out, they would get a bite. Then, they would go to Kol Nidre.
The Devil, getting an inch, immediately took a foot.
The candle continued to burn.
Finally, it went out. But—it was too late.
No prayer. No penance. No peace. They had played through the whole of a Yom Kippur.
Cards?
Who used to play cards?
My grandma gave meals to some of the boys at the Yeshiva. My Ma tells me that, after the boys ate, they would play—for polly-seeds. My Ma adds that one or two of ’em cheated.
A butcher, a drayman—after a hard day’s work—might play a couple of deals.
A traveler, a merchant—might get a bit worldly. A doctor, a druggist—might try to show that he knew the usages of polite society.
These were special cases. Did not apply to you.
When did you play cards in Europe?
Christmas Eve—The peasants used to go by.
The drunken peasants used to go by.
The door was barred. Your windows shuttered.
You did no reading in any of your pious books. You sat; you hoped that there would be no trouble.
You sat. You played cards.
Hanukkah—You ate lotkes.
You were genial. Patriarchal. You sat in the bosom of the family. You sat. You played cards.
Otherwise?
No play.
If you did—you did it in secret. In a cellar. In a garret. On the outskirts of the town.
This was not so easy to arrange. Once, maybe two times in a year.
A player and a player’s ways were a thing of mystery.
A good man got up early in the morning. To say the Midnight Prayer—He noticed that a lamp was lit in the window of a neighbor.
Maybe somebody is sick. They may need his help.
Out—into the street. Up—on his toes. He peered through the window.
He saw that they were playing cards.
Oh—how he was puzzled.
“Cards,” he said. “Cards! Why should they get up so early just to play a game of cards?”
Now—on a holiday morning, a couple of young people might go walking in the country.
Fresh air. Breathe it deeply. Green grass. Flowers. Freedom. Freedom from the old folk’s eyes.
In a goyish orchard, in a goyish garden—they pause. Sit down. They play—a few hands of cards.
There are several songs which tell of such a moment.
The moment went into a song. You, however, you turned back. Back to the crowded Jewish street.
You got back. Back into the tight harness—Jewish ways, Jewish rites, Jewish customs, Jewish traditions.
Ich bin g’ven in gorten
Ich ub geshpilt . . . in korten. . . .
The moment went into a song. You—you became your father. Your father’s father before him.
You played on Hanukkah. Played on Christmas Eve.
A player and a player’s ways—they were a mystery to you.
_____________
New times. New winds.
Finally—a new land. A land where a game of cards was not a breach of the proprieties.
New land. Land of hope.
Work. All day. In a factory. Beds were not beds of roses. No, not as yet. Clothes were not silk and satin. No, not as yet. Streets were not cobbled with gold. No, not as yet. But they were able to play cards.
Did they have any alternative?
Work. A long day—Then, in the evening, they needed a diversion.
A date with a girl. A worker too. A dressmaker; a waist-maker.
Well—where would they go?
Partly as a matter of pride, partly as a matter of primness, she used to pay her own way. This was all to the good. But—where would they go?
Nowadays, things are different. It’s a magical thing to be young. You take her to a movie. You eat chop suey. But, back in 1912, this Wonderland had not, as yet, descended on the nation.
As for the East Side. It was—to put it mildly—no center of amusements.
Well, then, let us suppose that you desire to be alone. This is no easier.
Her flat is full of the landlady’s kids. Your flat is full of your landlady’s kids.
Well—maybe—the Park.
There it is—Seward Park. It is the size of a yawn. The size of a potted plant—More people in it than trees—There’s a sign:
Keep Off
Grass.
The grass reads it—It keeps off.
Besides—There is your girl.
She is nice. An “idealist.” She is sensible. She may even be pretty.
But—Has she any wiles? Any ways? Any whims?
Does she have any nonsense? Did she ever learn to dance the toe-dance of flirtation? Can she play with you like a magician with a coin?
She is prosy. A prosy posy.
If you go with a girl, it is “serious.” It is serious.
You still need a diversion.
What’ll you do? Drink?
Yodel? Bowl? Lift weights? Join the National Guard? Put a ship into a bottle?
Not for you. Not a part of your tradition.
Cards—
There is the solution.
_____________
You do not need a special place. You do not need a lot of room.
You need little equipment, and the little is not expensive.
You begin it any time. You quit it any time. You have a whole evening. You play it the whole evening—You are going to a night school. To a meeting. To a lecture. You have a half hour—You play it a half hour.
As a matter of fact, if you have a date, bring your girl. She’ll watch you.
Cards. A game of cards. Meets all the specifications. Has all of the virtues.
A game of cards requires no special training. There is no need to depend on a stranger. You do it with friends—On the other hand, if your friends are absent, you may do it with strangers.
You—you are no fool. You never play for more than you can afford. If you lose—if you lose—then you have paid a reasonable price for your diversion.
If you lose—if—
Do you intend to lose?
1912. They sit in my parents’ restaurant. Sit in the little gas-lit room in front of the kitchen—The floor is strewn with saw-dust. A small window opens on a side-alley.
Tea. The glass is very thick. The tea is very hot—Blow it before you sip it.
A cube of sugar between your teeth—You suck the liquid through it.
Each of the players has two heads—a minimum of two—growing out of his shoulders. One of the heads is his own. The others belong to his kibitzers.
Each player, each of his kibitzers—each of them makes his calculations.
An ignoramus cannot do this. A peasant cannot do this.
You need Sense. Need Memory. Arithmetic. Mathematics.
Ah, this is Mind. This is Intellectuality.
The Player knits his brow. He plucks at his ear-lobe. He caresses his chin.
“If I do thi-is, he will do tha-at. If I do tha-at, then he will do thi-is.”
His head goes to the right. His head leans to the left.
The eyes squint. Head is thrown back—Eyes stare up at the ceiling.
The fingers light on a card; shift to a different card. A grunt. Another grunt. Back—to the original card. Then—slowly, with dignity—you lift a third card. Lift it high—Pause—Then, with a bang, it is slapped on the table.
Ah, and the post-mortems.
You say you did right. Kibitzers say you did wrong. You say you did wrong—This is not going to save you—They say you did right.
Which is as it should be. A game of cards deserves the deepest analysis.
A three-handed pinochle will bring you the finest of post-mortems. One man buys the bid. The other two play as partners against him—When the buyer makes his bid, each of the partners knows that he has been ruined by his partner.
Eyes pop. Veins are like cords. Taut. Straining cords.
This is not a show of temper. It has a certain stature. It is something that is primal. It is something elemental.
For a moment or two, you are not able to speak. Then, by an effort of will, you manage to remind your partner that he is an idiot—You have to say it to him before he says it to you. But, at the same time, you are not able to rush it. For, before you speak, you have an interval of strangulated silence.
It is a thing that requires delicate timing.
“Idiot” has two pronunciations. A slow. A quick.
A slow: I-di-AUGHT.
While, if it is more than even you may bear—you give him the percussive, the quick: i—DYUT!
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II
When I was six, my parents sold the restaurant. One year later, we moved up to the Bronx.
You always got a bigger place than your immediate family needed. There would be an extra bedroom or a couple of extra bedrooms. For the single friends or relations.
When a roomer got married, there would be a new roomer. Roomers always used to get married. And then—used to move into the same general area.
In the evenings, they would gather.
A bit of talk about the War. Then—the men started a game.
One began to go to movies.
One began to use more English—Some of the men started to buy a paper to read on the “El”—the paper’s devotion to sports made my Uncle B. get curious—B. began to go to ball games.
Mrs. M. got a bargain. A second-hand victrola. Mr. M. discovered that he liked to listen to a record.
A little here. A little there—The horizon began to stretch.
Too late. Too late. The pattern had been set.
As a rule—they played cards.
Once, they had played because it was the only possible diversion. No longer true now.
The sword that had been forged in the fire of Necessity began to be converted into the bobby-pins of Habit.
Man—Man begins to die as soon as he is born. The player had not—as yet—risen to that plushy pinnacle which, in time, was to be his. Yet—look! You may see how his rise is part of his decline.
They were in business. Down-town. They would not get home till about half-past seven.
They had a feeling that their wives suspected that the last hour or so that they had spent in the place of business, they had spent in a game of cards. So—when they finished supper, the husbands did not begin to play. Taking out a little note-book, they started to do sums. To mutter, cryptically, to themselves.
One heard enough to realize that the matter had to do with the Mystery of Business. You began to understand that they had to earn a living for the wife and the children. That having to earn a living was a grave responsibility. That this responsibility was a weight on their minds.
When they had established this, they kid away the little notebook.
And, as they played, you could see an aura. They were Men of Business. Men—preoccupied men—men who, somehow, had been able to find a moment of relaxation.
_____________
Summer. A proper man always tried to send his family up to the Catskills.
The farmer grew his own potatoes. His chickens laid his own eggs. Twice a day, you would get the cow’s body-warm milk.
Room plus board cost eight dollars a week. Children—half price. Transportation was the big expense. So the husbands came out only about twice a season.
When they came—no cards. They used to take a dip in the creek. They used to go for a walk. Then, in the evening, they sat on the porch and, looking up at the sky, they used to make deep remarks about Nature.
_____________
Near the end of War I, things began to be different. The farms began to be hotels. The farmers became hotel-men.
Husbands came out on Friday. During the past week, the wives had grown friendly. Now—they introduced the husbands.
The husbands did not know how to handle one another. Each was in a different stage of his Americanization. The wives, however, seemed to want ’em to be friends.
A long, awkward stillness. Finally, a social genius remembered the Common Denominator.
They started a game.
Ah, indeed! This was a pleasant way in which to play.
They came each week-end. They came at the first possible moment. They left at the last possible second.
They arrived-looking pale. They put a table under a tree. They sat. They played cards. They left, just as pale as they had been when they arrived.
Any season was the season for cards. Summer—in the country—that was super-season A hotel got fancy. A neighboring hotel got fancier.
Additional buildings. With faces of stucco. They did a few things to the creek. The creek got swollen; turned into a lake. Near one end, tree stumps stand. Like beavers.
The mower has disappeared. They sold the cows; they got a four-piece band.
The men bought autos.
Rushed up to the Catskills.
Every other week, they’d have an accident. Every other trip, they’d get a ticket.
No more of this pallor. They let the sun give ’em a tan to show to the folks in the city—If it grew too sunny, they moved the table back into the shade.
The card player wore bright knickers. A gaudy sweater. Socks to match.
L. became a concessionaire. He gave the players the cards, the tables and chairs. Also—a pile of pebbles. These were to lay on the cards in case of a breeze.
He even seemed to own the trees. He reserved the finest shade for the people in the biggest game.
’24. ’25.
The player was in his glory.
All was Vanity. All was Pomp. Yet, at the same time, you were able to see the road-signs pointing to decline and fall. As a matter of fact, the pomp, the vanity, were themselves road-signs of decline and fall.
L. from time to time, brought a plate of sandwiches. None the less—they would stop for the meals.
During meals, they were attentive to their wives. Then, having checked that none of the kids were lost, they got back into the game.
Before the evening meal, they used to change their clothes. After the evening meal, L. gave them brand new cards.
At about 10:30, Z. would take a furlough. With tiny, pigeon-toed steps, he would patter off to the casino—Z. used to dance one waltz with his Mrs. —A very good husband.
As a rule, however, nobody left the table.
There might be an Evening. Palestine. Or Relief. Even then, they would not go to the casino.
They would set aside a kitty. By the end of the sitting, there would be a tidy sum. This they would contribute to the Cause.
They had an air of having made a discovery about themselves.
“I,” they seemed to realize—
“I am a nice fellow.
“I am a generous fellow.
“I am really a bit of an all-rightnik.”
_____________
III
Russia. Atom Bomb.
The player sits. Plays cards.
Anti-Semitism—is it rising? Why are such things happening in Zion?
He sits. Plays cards.
’29. There was a Crash. Then, in ’33, the Nazi took power in Germany.
The player sits.
He has never regained his confidence. Never quite.
He has a recurring fever. There are intervals of vigor. But he knows that these are only the remissions of his illness—There are periods of hope. Yet he’s always by the corner of yesterday’s anxiety. He is always by the edge of the disquiets of tomorrow.
Once-long, long ago—a game filled a need in his life. Then, as we have seen, it lost its use.
It ceased to give off its own light. Still, for a number of years, it was able to shine.
It shone with a light reflected from the player himself. It shone in the light of the player’s self-importance.
He sits.
He plays cards. Plays with his un-lit cards.
He was reared in a world where playing a game of cards was a thing that people frowned on.
Now that a game of cards has lost that which gave it a value—now that he has lost that which gave it a value—he reverts to disapproval.
He plays cards.
He disapproves—
_____________
He leaves his business earlier. He has more leisure than he used to. He has the problem now of having to do something with his leisure.
So—from time to time—he opens a book.
Something about a Jewish book makes an English book seem wrong. Something about the English book makes the Jewish book seem wrong.
From time to time, he lets his wife make him take her to the theater.
Something about the Jewish stage makes the English stage seem wrong. Something about the English stage makes the Jewish stage seem wrong.
One of his eyes is his son’s. One of his eyes is his father’s.
He is so much of a green-horn that he cannot be a Yankee.
He is so much of a Yankee that he cannot be a green-horn.
He sits. He plays cards.
It is an outworn habit. None the less, it’s a habit.
He sits. He plays cards.
He knows of nothing else to do.
The player has sired many sons. He has sired no successor.
Gaze at the modern generation. Look at him—the Young Prince.
He is a member of a frat. He wears two-tone shoes. He chews Bubble Gum. He listens to Superman. Also, to Information Please. He necks. He plays pin-ball. He dances the new Latin dance. He bets on basketball games. He utters the fashionable catch-word. He drives his old man’s car. He twirls his watch-chain on the index-finger. He knows about the ballet. He has Miss Betty Grable’s autograph. He is writing a brochure on the incunabula of Swing—
Ah, how lovely are the sweetmeats that Life gives him for his delectation!
He doesn’t bother to play cards.
My generation—we, we are different. We—a dunner lot—we, we do play cards. But it is only one of several things we do. We, we are merely people who like a game of cards.
We, we are of another breed.
The player, the Perennial Player—he was sui generis.
Was. He is leaving the scene.
He is a member of a genus which is aging. Which is vanishing.
_____________
It is his daughter who plays. She doesn’t do the house-work. She no longer suckles a baby.
As they sat—by the well, by the quern, the spinning-wheel—the women sit. They play gin.
Day out. Day in.
After Shirley has her hair-do. After Gladys has her manicure. After Sylvia, her massage. After Thelma’s done her shopping for her husband’s second cousin who is having a Bar Mitzvah at the Waldorf.
After they have lunched at Schrafft’s—
They sit. Play gin.
There are candies on the table—There are little sliver sandwiches.
As they sat by the spit, as they sat by the cauldron, they sit. They play cards.
It is a nice adjunct to chit-chat.
The old man—the Player—sits.
He uses a dainty score-pad. Uses a dainty, little pencil.
Once—a card was blue. Or red. Once—when cards belonged to men—there were two or three designs. Good. Manly. Honest. Geometrical designs.
Now—a card is Technicolored. A card is Joseph-colored. Pretty pictures on its back. A dog—with lush, feminine eyes. A naked girl, with greyhound grace; pert, Esquire-like breasts.
He sits. He plays cards.
He plays. For small stakes.
If he wins, he tries to feel good. If he loses—he tries to tell himself that it’s just a couple of cents. It is just a game of cards.
He sits. His House of Cards is only a house of cards.
He is petulant. He nags his partners.
He is bored with what he’s doing.
A man has to do something!
He sits.
He plays cards.
_____________
IV
This essay has been written because of Mr. Isaac Rivkind.
Mr. Rivkind has been gathering data on the Jewish gambler as a cultural phenomenon. After twenty years, he now has enough material to fill three volumes. Yivo has issued the first—The Fight Against Gambling Among Jews. (New York, Yiddish Scientific Institute, 1947).
He covers the last five centuries, but he gives the most space to the recent decades in America. When he discusses this period, he shows the most feeling.
The author is far from being objective. The Fight Against Gambling Among Jews. —The very title of his book is a bit of special pleading.
Mr. Rivkind detests gambling. To be precise—it is not gambling; it is card playing that he detests.
He feels that cards have stunted the mental, moral, and spiritual stature of the American Jew. Because of this, he—properly—loathes them.
Mr. Rivkin is an eminent librarian. His book is a librarian’s book. A compilation of source materials. These materials are not affected by Mr. Rivkind’s feeling of animus. His citations speak for themselves. Mr. Rivkind’s bias, however, gives the book a certain deficiency.
Mr. Rivkind sees his book as a study in cultural history. And, so long as he stays in East Europe, he is a cultural historian. He provides a setting. A soil. We see how the why stems out of the background; how the how, the where, the when, are related to the environment.
As soon as we gaze upon America, there is—suddenly—no context. Mr. Rivkind no longer bothers to build up the scene. He has some blistering citations. And, armed with these, he leaps into the fray.
Now, Mr. Rivkind—I have no objection to the fact that you do not admire the card player.
I like a prejudice. The more crabbed the prejudice, the better I like it.
Mr. Pinski disapproves of cards and card players. Mr. Liesin disapproves. Mr. Niger disapproves—You quote ’em with relish.
I enjoy these quotations. I enjoy your relish. The only thing I object to is the way that you put the player into a vacuum.
People—Mr. Rivkind.
People. Not straw men.
I have watched ’em for thirty-five years. I swear to you, they are people.
There were reasons why they played. They did not do it only to annoy you.
They were part of a time and a place.
Whenever time and place changed, there were changes in the way they played.
The study of how they played is the study of how they lived!
Please, Mr. Rivkind—do not misunderstand me.
This is not an attack.
You have written a learned book. There are indices. There are foot-notes. There are three appendices.
Only—as I read it, I felt that there was a little something that was missing.
This is my shy attempt to supply that little something. This is my humble try to give you the Hamlet for your drama.
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