the lovely lady. A knight who still had a fine, friendly relationship with Connie. It was a stroke of good fortune all around. Connie's guilt over putting me through hell would be removed. Emily would be happy. I would be happy. Yes, Connie took it all in casual, good-humored stride, natural to her upbringing.
My parents, on the other hand, proceeded directly to the window of their tenth-story apartment and competed for leaping space.
'I never heard of such a thing,' my mother wailed, rending her robe and gnashing her teeth.
'He's crazy. You idiot. You're crazy,' my father said, looking pale and stricken.
'A fifty-five-year-old
'I love her,' I protested.
'She's more than twice your age,' Uncle Louie yelled.
'So?'
'So it's not done,' my father yelled, invoking the Torah.
'His girl friend's mother he's marrying?' Aunt Tillie yelped as she slid to the floor unconscious.
'Fifty-five and a
'What are they, Moonies?' Uncle Louie asked. 'Do they have him hypnotized!?'
'Idiot! Imbecile,' Dad screamed. Aunt Tillie regained consciousness, focused on me, remembered where she was, and passed out again. In the far corner, Aunt Rose was down on her knees intoning Sh'ma Yisroel.
'God will punish you, Harold,' my father yelled. 'God will cleave your tongue to the roof of your mouth and all your cattle and kine shall die and a tenth of all thy crops shall wither and…'
But I married Emily and there were no suicides. Emily's three children attended and a dozen or so friends. It was held in Connie's apartment and champagne flowed. My folks could not make it, a previous commitment to sacrifice a lamb taking precedence. We all danced and joked and the evening went well. At one point, I found myself in the bedroom with Connie alone. We kidded and reminisced about our relationship, its ups and downs, and how sexually attracted I had been to her.
'It was flattering,' she said warmly.
'Well, I couldn't swing it with the daughter, so I carried off the mother.' The next thing I knew, Connie's tongue was in my mouth. 'What the hell are you doing?' I said, pulling back. 'Are you drunk?'
'You turn me on like you can't believe,' she said, dragging me down on the bed.
'What's gotten into you? Are you a nymphomaniac?' I said, rising, yet undeniably excited by her sudden aggressiveness.
'I have to sleep with you. If not now, then soon,' she said.
'Me? Harold Cohen? The guy who lived with you? And loved you? Who couldn't get near you with a ten-foot pole because I became a version of Danny? Me you're hot for? Your brother symbol?'
'It's a whole new ball game,' she said, pressing close to me. 'Marrying Mom has made you my father.' She kissed me again and just before returning to the festivities said, 'Don't worry, Dad, there'll be plenty of opportunities.'
I sat on the bed and stared out the window into infinite space. I thought of my parents and wondered if I should abandon the theatre and return to rabbinical school. Through the half-open door I saw Connie and also Emily, both laughing and chatting with guests, and all I could mutter to myself as I remained a limp, hunched figure was an age-old line of my grandfather's which goes 'Oy vey.'
Confessions of a Burglar
Sure I stole. Why not? Where I grew up, you had to steal to eat. Then you had to steal to tip. Lots of guys stole fifteen per cent, but I always stole twenty, which made me a big favorite among the waiters. On the way home from a heist, I'd steal some pajamas to sleep in. Or if it was a hot night, I'd steal underwear. It was a way of life. I had a bad upbringing, you might say. My dad was always on the run from the cops and I never saw him out of disguise till I was twenty-two. For years, I thought he was a short, bearded man with dark glasses and a limp; actually, he was tall and blond and resembled Lindbergh. He was a professional bank robber, but sixty-five was the mandatory retirement age, so he had to get out. Spent his last few years in mail fraud, but the postal rates went up and he lost everything.
Mom was wanted, too. Of course in those days it wasn't the way it is now, with women demanding equal rights, and all. Back then, if a woman turned to crime the only opportunities open to her were blackmail and, once in a while, arson. Women were used in Chicago to drive getaway cars, but only during the drivers' strike, in 1926. Terrible strike. It lasted eight weeks, and whenever a gang pulled a job and ran out with the money they were forced to walk or take a cab.
I had a sister and two brothers. Jenny married money. Not an actual human being-it was a pile of singles. My brother Vic got in with a gang of plagiarists. He was in the middle of signing his name to 'The Waste Land' when the feds surrounded the house. He got ten years. Some rich kid from a highfalutin family who signed Pound's 'Cantos' got off on probation. That's the law for you. Charlie-that's my youngest brother-he's been a numbers runner, a fence, and a loan shark. Never could find himself. Eventually he was arrested for loitering. He loitered for seven years, till he realized it was not the kind of crime that brought in any money.
The first thing I ever stole was a loaf of bread. I was working for Rifkin's Bakery, where my job was to remove the jelly from doughnuts that had gone stale and transfer it to fresh goods. It was very exacting work, done with a rubber tube and a scalpel. If your hands shook, the jelly went on the floor and old man Rifkin would pull your hair. Arnold Rothstein, who we all looked up to, came in one day and said he wanted to get his hands on a loaf of bread but he absolutely refused to pay for it. He hinted that this was a chance for some smart kid to get into the rackets. I took that as a cue, and each day when I left I put one slice of rye under my coat, until after three weeks I had accumulated a whole loaf. On the way to Rothstein's office, I began to feel remorse, because even though I hated Rifkin his wife had once let me take home two seeds from a roll when my uncle was dying. I tried to return the bread, but I got caught while I was trying to figure out which loaf each slice belonged to. The next thing I knew, I was in Elmira Reformatory.
Elmira was a tough joint. I escaped five times. Once I tried to sneak out in the back of a laundry truck. The guards got suspicious, and one of them poked me with his stick and asked me what the hell I was doing lying around in a hamper. I looked him right in the eye and said, 'I'm some shirts.' I could tell he was dubious. He kept pacing back and forth and staring at me. I guess I got a little panicky. 'I'm some
I learned everything I knew about crime at Elmira: how to pick pockets, how to crack a safe, how to cut glass-all the fine points of the trade. For instance, I learned (and not even all professional criminals know this) that in the event of a shootout with the cops, the cops are always allowed the first two shots. It's just the way it's done. Then you return fire. And if a cop says, 'We have the house surrounded, come out with your hands up,' you don't just shoot wildly. You say, 'I'd prefer not to,' or 'I'd rather not at this particular time.' There's a right way to do these things, but today… Well, why go into all that?
For the next few years of my life I was the best damn burglar you ever saw. People talk about Raffles, but Raffles had his style and I had mine. I had lunch with Raffles' son once. Nice guy. We ate at the old Lindy's. He stole the pepper mill. I stole the silverware and napkins. Then he took the ketchup bottle. I took his hat. He got my umbrella and tiepin. When we left we kidnapped a waiter. It was quite a haul. The original Raffles
