'Shalom Aleichem Yid.'
Three boys were sitting on the steps of a tenement, wearing hoodies, their breath visible in the February gloom; the sky was like a slate board never fully erased.
'Oy, I told you boys to get off the steps a thousand times' said the Shammes, 'I don't like to kvetch but the block is hotter than a blech. The Police still looking for the nogoodniks who stuck up the cafeteria.'
'That Shtick on East Broadway? Do I look like a Romanian, Yid? You smell pastrami or mamaliga on my hands?' one of the toughened, wizened youths replied, sullenly staring at the pavement.
The Shammes went inside and as a retort slammed the metallic synagogue door.
Louie, Arnie and Sam were the boys' names and they claimed to be part of a gang. Their exact involvement in crime was unclear but they had sprayed up the neighborhood with their tags of the old Galician coat of arms-a jackdaw over three crowns. A hipster who had pasted his own artwork over one mural had been found, face down, emo glasses broken, vintage pants soiled and was shipped back to his parents in Connecticut.
Another boy emerged from a nearby building, jumping down from the fire escape.
Sam scowled. 'Who is this?
Arnie slapped hands with the youth and said 'This is Morris, he wants to be down with the
Galician Get Money Gangstas'
'A lil' pisha like this wants to be down with triple G?'
'We need a soldier on Rivington.'
'A pawn more like.'
Louie scrutinized Morris carefully, inspecting his facial features.
'Your people really from Galicia?'
'Yeah, my great-grandmama was from Volhynia.'
'Wasn't that under Russian control?'
'Nah, it was disputed.'
'You suspect. A punk tried to infiltrate us two months ago, we found out his family was really Russian so I smacked him with my Hebrew National, Yid.'
The rest of the crew laughed.
'Russians ain't shit' Morris said. 'Remember the heist? I held a brick for Arnie. You can trust me.' Louie looked at the expectant faces of the crew.
'Should I bochen him?'
'Drash!'
'Yid, Triple GGG be fo' life. It ain't all lokshen kugel with raisins and schnapps. You could end up on a plaque, on a bronze bar in some synagogue, or even worse sold for scrap metal, your electric Yahzreit candle popped if you don't have back. Yids get shot every day, Yid. We represent Grand Street. We fuck with Litvaks, Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, Carpatho-Ruthenians, gangbang with the po-lice, Nigerians, Bessarabians, Colombians, we got connects in Borough Park, shit we run the meat markets. Ax around Yid.'
'I ain't scared. I'm a street Yid fo' real' Morris replied.
I think it's time for the Shvatim, said Arnie. Morris, who had assiduously been watching the Lower East Side version of the Dozens on the playgrounds since he was able to walk. Sometimes he walked through the street, muttering lines to himself. Now he licked his lips, ready to share his ribadlry with the crew.
Morris began.
'Eyo, get your herring and cream eating ass back on the D train and don't stop til you hit Lvov or Lemberg or wherever yo mom turned tricks in the cornfield, you bitchass, suckass jive turkey!'
I'll go when your father stops that wack country Hungarian accent every time he gets an aliya, oy, oy, he sounds like a retarded, catarrhal version of Yossele Rosenblatt.'
'Bitch, my father got Maftir Yona. Recognize.'
'That's because he pays people to go to Shul with him with forged checks.'
'Ho, your mama ate half of Jonah's Whale and turned the rest into gravalax for Kiddush.'
'Yeah? Yo mama so fat that when she wants to make brisket, she goes to Postville, Iowa.'
'Yo mama so fat, that when she sits around the neighborhood, she uses the Eruv for a G string'
'Your mama is so hairy that when she sheds it, she makes two Shtriemels from that shit.'
'Yo mama so ugly that she isn't subject to Yichud rules.'
'Your mama is so fat that when she has to go into the Mikvah she goes in the swimming pool.
They paused, breathing in the cool air, the winds. 'Not bad, young un'.' 'Holla.'
Arnie took out a thermos.
'Lemme get a sip of that Borscht?'
'Oh, is it spiked?'
'Ain't nothing like Borscht with some greenery in it!'
'Where Yo at?'
'Yosef?'
'In school. Probably taking a class in computers or something.'
'Fake-ass Y. What happened to the street Yid we used to slang with?
'Don't playahate, like a Misnagid.'
If Yo wants to get out of the ghetto, show him love!'
'That boy on some ignant, Am Ha'aretz shit.'
Their ruminations were interrupted when Yetta walked by, shtetl fabulous, her hair permed up, a shiny Magen David pendant, no doubt given to her by some local playa.
'Ooh, girl, I like the way yo Tuchus fit in them jeans'
'Work it, work it...'
'Daaaamn that girl could make Tony Kushner straight!'
Yetta just waved her fingernails and flicked her pallid hand as if to say, forget you. She was going uptown.
Mo bobbed his head and began to rap:
My life is full of stress-a
mackin' it with Vanessa
Black Sea like Odessa
girl tripping thinking I gonna fress her
I'm just gonna undress her
She Lo Asani and bless her
let Mo go and finesse her
after I bounce like a bad check
can you may pay bills but a lokshen kugel don't get no respect
Glatt kosher chops let off us shots at yo' V-Neck
'That was hot, yo, lemme get a turn' said Sam.
'I'm hot like chraine
bringing the pain
always got game
call me Honi HaMa'agal
cuz I make it rain
and you get in my circle
soda I jerk you
you jerk you
you take who
I fake you
you snake you
I get the green like cabbage
you a white herb like horseradish
call me MJ, I am the baddest
knight me like I'm Gladys
Arnie chimed in.
Cash rules everything around me
so my cream is Halav Yisroel
like my Ice Cream Nikes
living the dream
sweet like an egg cream
gotta a lot of C.R.E.A.M.
cookin like Latkes
and Sour Cream
til they say El Ma'aleh Rachamim
my dream don't sour
L.O.X. money and power
you eatin' shrimp
Well fuck dat shit
I roll like a Blintz
It's Yung Schwartz of course
fuck Michener, cuz I am the source
'Oh!' The entire crew danced around, waving their hands, giving props.
'That's it. Enough! Get!' said the Gabbai, waving his broom. 'You have a minute to leave or I call the police.'
'What? Them Co-ssacks? Is you shittin' me? This Melamed trippin!'
Louie lifted up his chain that read 'Stop Snitchin', no Mesirah' and it glinted in the sun against his Hakoach Vienna throwback jersey. 'Crazy ass, didn't this man read the Rambam? What the fuuuck? He didn't read the Rambam?'
'Dina D'Malchut Dina' the beadle retorted.
'Look at you, cursing in front of a shul. A Shanda. Go home, play stickball, video games, study, work on an album, hustle tourists in Williamsburg, do something.'
Louie pouted.
'I'll tell your mother. Scat' the Shammes said and the boys flew away like piegons.
Arnie, the quiet one, told Sam 'I gotta take some bids, oh.' He walked two blocks and sat in a bus stop, flipping through a Gemara, upside-down.
A hipster whispered 'Yo kid, you got any P'tcha?
'I don't know what you mean sir' said Arnie with the hint of sarcasm in his voice 'I'm on the way to McDonald's.'
'It's OK, I know Velvl.'
'Velvl? Yid, you gotta do better that, Yid, do you know how many goddamn Velvl's there in New York?'
'Um...he's kinda stocky, I know him from the club'
'How much you want?'
'A She-bosh special?'
'Shabbos. We still waiting for a shipment from up north.'
'OK.'
'Give me fitty now, I'll be back.'
Arnie ran into the Teitelbaum Houses and screwfaced, emerged with a packet of jello and a brown paper bag.
'Enjoy.'
Arnie hurried back to the block, clenching the wad of bills in his fist. Sam counted it 'Not one, not two, not three, Zwanzig, Nun' they counted together, little paper cuts on their chapped hands.
'What do these hipsters want with the P'tcha anyway. Most of them just get to show their friends, not even eat it with Gribenes. They wouldn't know what to do with chopped liver if it came with an instruction manual. They be trying to take our women, too, Yid. They the enemy on the real, Yid.'
'You see this?' Louie said and slipped him a newspaper article.
'Police bust International Calf Foot Jelly Smuggling Ring'
WINDSOR, ONTARIO-In a routine customs search, Ontario police spotted 70 pounds of Petcha, hidden inside a printer. Worth at least $3,000 on the street, Calf foot jelly, also known as 'Petcha' and 'Holishkes' is a traditional food among those of Eastern European descent. Petcha was banned in the US and Canada due to fears of foot and mouth diseases. In a joint effort with the Royal Mounted Constabulary, the police have been monitoring unusual movement of meat and gelatin. Jewish areas of Montreal are riddled with labs cooking up this forbidden delicacy according to a local source. Ringleader of a Montreal gang, Leon Rabonivicz, 21 was held without bail. Neighbor expressed dismay. 'Leon had parents who cared, he such a sweet little kid, but with his mother at the market and his father working as Mashgiach, I guess the street life and temptation of that easy Petcha money got the best of him. New York legislator Bernie Gold is looking into the allowing of imports of disease-free Petcha from Moldova.
'Do you know what this means?'
'That means no connects from Detroit. Price gonna rise. People be selling. Everything gonna be coming through Buffalo and that means we need to work with the Belarussians...'
To be continued...
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