Harlene - Shakespeare & Zindel dies -PT 9

But getting back to the present, it is now July and Harlene and I are meeting in Central park in order to get free tickets to see Shakespeare's, "Twelfth Night" at the Dellecorte Theatre, starring Ann Hathaway. The stage is in Central Park and it is just magical to sit under the stars and watch for the most part, great theatre. They give out two free tickets at 1pm to the first 1200 people and we can see, as we walk, that the line stretches for about 30 blocks. Still we are confident we can score.

Harlene, known as Kim by her friends, and I, agree to meet at at 6 AM. We learn that the line began around 4am but we are confident we can score two free tickets as we are there so early. Most people are on mats, folding chairs, even hammocks. After sitting on the hard ground for 4 hours, sure as hell that any minute we will have our tickets, a theater assistant came out to the line and told us we did not have a prayer to and we might as well go home. He said the line would be cut 4 people before us. Damn! And I had just paid $5.00 to rent a fold-up chair as my behind was sore as hell.

Harlene changed her name to Kim when she started her career in television as a Director; one of the first women to direct prime time soap operas. I think she thought the name Kim would look better in screen credits and also it would not be read instantly as a woman's name. Lots of sexism in the TV business . I know, as I myself made a career in talk shows and documentaries. Have many awards as a matter of fact, but Harlene was in the fun side of the business, the fantasy side. She directed many of the top rated nighttime soap operas. Remember, Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman?. She did that too. Norman Lear saw her direction of a Shakespeare play out in LA and put her into a training situation immediately so she could direct Mary Hartman. She had never even been in a TV studio before. He knew she was a rising star. But she was always just Harlene to me. I am the one who introduced her to the theater actually, and had her running lights when she was just 13 years old for a summer stock show. And I had her audition for a Broadway show that came to Atlantic City, looking for people. She had an incredible voice, like Ethel Merman actually. Anyway, I could never call her Kim. Even today.

My father married her mother, Ethel, from Philadelphia, shortly after he got out of prison which was in 1945. Ethel had never been married and had a brother, Sam who had a bar in Philadelphia. He was well connected to certain 'people' if you know what I mean and he and my Dad knew many of the same. My Dad and Ethel were introduced by either Sam, or one of his best friends and business partner of my Dad's, a man named Jimmy C. We called him Uncle Jimmy.

I heard that Uncle Jimmy was part of an Italian New Jersey syndicate. I was crazy about him and his wife Aunt Del. All I know is that suddenly one day, I found myself living in a real house at 26 S. Windsor Avenue. It was white with red trim and had red concrete front steps that led up to an inside porch which led into a large living room. Walk straight through and it led to the dining room and a large kitchen where we ate most of our meals. If you did not walk through to the dining room but instead walked up the stairs, on the right, from the living room, you found my bedroom which I shared with my Aunt Betty.
The house had a back yard. I buried my turtle in that yard with Popsicle sticks as a cross to mark its grave.

I stopped by that house, last Summer. Parked in the driveway was a car with a man standing by the steps. I asked if the house was his and when he said yes I explained I would give anything to visit inside as I was raised in that house. He said yes! I went in and found the rooms exactly as I remembered them. I asked to go in the back yard but it was all paved over. I asked to go down in the basement to see the spot my father died on, but it was now a private apartment and there was no access. I never told the owner why I wanted to go down to the basement. By the way, I asked him what he did and he said he was a cop! Funny, isn't it?

My family was already living in the house before I moved in. I know my father was living there right after he got out of prison. I think I was living in the house before he brought in his new wife, who became my step-mother. I was enrolled into the public elementary school which was just down the street from us. I just remember him standing in front of me and saying, "this is your Mother now and you must call her Mother." Here I had never had a mother. Didn't know anything about mine if there was one and now I am to call a total stranger, 'Mother'. That was a tough pill to swallow andI gagged on the word.

So in total there was my Father, frankly, a total stranger to me, then my new mother, Ethel, my uncle Bernie (the alcoholic), my aunt Betty, my grandfather Frank, my brother, Mike and our housekeeper Lena. In those days she was called 'the maid' and behind her back and sometimes, not so behind her back, 'the shvatsa'. It was the fifties and prejudice was rampant. Not in obvious ways but it was always there and as young as I was, I was aware of it and it bothered me. Lena had her own room off the kitchen. I remember she always used to hug me and made me feel very loved. I got hugs from her, my Aunt Betty and Uncle Bernie. Ethel never touched me. Nor my father. And I cannot forget my Uncle Label. A taciturn man, single but living with a woman called, Peggy. "Shhhh! don't talk about it, the kinder is here". That's what I used to hear when her name was mentioned, as she too was a 'shiksa'. In fact I can remember so well hearing those words, " shhh,the kinde Of course, whatever it was I was not supposed to hear I tried even harder to listen to.Uncle Label eventually married Peggy She got pregnant. I know he loved her and no matter what his sisters and brother said, he stood by Peggy to the very end of his life. Seems all the men in my family loved non-Jewish women.

Once I went into Lena's room and I sat down on the side of her bed. I asked her if I could touch her breast. I have no idea why I wanted to do that, but I definitely remember asking . Lena said I could and she opened up her blouse and I did. I reached out, touched her large very dark breast and said thank you. She reached out to hug me and said "I love you Dolores". Then I left her room. I don't remember anyone saying that to me other than Lena. Even Aunt Betty. I always felt she loved me but none of them ever said those words.

Lena used to cook wonderful Jewish meals. Pot roast, brisket and always on Friday nights, chicken. The men would first have a shot of schnaps, whiskey straight down, before the meal. After dinner, a glass of hot tea with a sugar cube held between their teeth as they drank it. Russian style. Nobody spoke to me or asked me what I did that day. Nor to Mikey. It's like we were not there. They only asked if I wanted more food.

Ethel had new furniture moved in. A big drum table, which was the fashion of the times and she had the walls painted a deep forest green with white woodwork trim. The carpets were deep forest green as well. Not long after, she gave birth to my little sister, Harlene. I remember Ethel pacing back and forth in the living room and the front porch. She told me she was in labor and had to do this to ease the pain.

Ethel tried in her own way to be nice to me but she never smiled and never touched me. She was cold. I remember my Father screaming at me once again to call her "Mother". I just couldn't get that word out of my mouth. I was on the stairway looking down at him and he screamed, "I said to call her Mother". I was 10 years old. I ran upstairs and wrote "MOTHER" with lipstick on my dresser mirror. From that day on that's what I called her.

Ethel had a best friend from Philadelphia. A woman she grew up with, Aunt Evelyn. I once told Evelyn that I didn't think Ethel really loved me. That she never told me or never made me feel I was loved. I told her in confidence and never thought she would repeat this but she did. She told Ethel who then yelled at me for saying such a thing to her best friend, and embarrassing her. She never tried to correct me or say I misunderstood, that indeed, she did love me or say she was sorry I felt that way. She simply yelled at me for saying it. I knew then I was right.

During that time in my life, it seems I would never say "I'm sorry" if I did something wrong. What I ever did wrong to her I will never know because I was really a very good little girl. I was much too timid to purposely do anything 'bad'. At any rate, I apparently would NOT say those words. And I can still hear them both insisting I say those words for something I did. But.... I never would. Not even when soap and mustard was put in my mouth when I lived in the Ventnor Private School.

I remember there was a candy store on the corner of Windsor Avenue. In the early morning a truck would drop off of piles of comic books that the owner would remove from outside his shop when he arrived to work, and place them in his store. He must have seen me take a few while he was walking to the shop. I did but I thought I had hidden them under my dress. He told my Father and I got a good spanking for it. I remember as if it was yesterday. I did not cry and I did not say I was sorry.

Then there was the time I and a friend of mine decided to enter the house next door as we knew the family that lived there were away on vacation. We somehow got the back door opened. We first went into the kitchen and found some chocolate pudding in the refrigerator. We proceeded to eat it all. Then we went upstairs and went through all their drawers and tried on the woman's jewelry. We never took anything and put back everything we touched. As we were going down the stairs, I could see through their stairwell window, across the narrow alley between our houses into our stairwell window and there she was - Lena! staring right back at me. She did not tell my Father but I think she told Ethel and so another spanking but again, no "sorry". That was it, the only 'bad' things I ever did.

Ethel wasn't long in the house before she soon made my brother Michael move out and into a private boarding/prep school not far from Atlantic City. I had heard it was for troubled boys. When I learned as an adult, what kind of life he led while our father was in jail, it was no wonder he was troubled. My family had completely ignored him and he lived on the streets, in a Catholic school and with friends. When my father returned to the house, from jail, he brought Michael back into the house. But Mikey started to steal cars, and stuff like that. The police would see him and call my Dad. My Dad was crazy about him. That was clear.
Remind me to tell you about my brother Michael and the time he came to visit me when he was 70 years old and how he died right in my apartment.

Ethel also fired Lena and she never replaced her with a live-in again. I never learned why she fired Lena but I think it was because Lena was loyal to my Father and other family members and not to her. I don't think Lena really liked her and she probably sensed that. Lena knew too many secrets. At least that's my feeling. It took me a long time to get used to not having Lena in my life and I really missed her. Someone else in and then out of my life.

I have in my possession a copy of a petition for divorce that my father gave to the court, so he could legally divorce Sally, sometimes called Sara, in order to marry Ethel. Seems he and Sally were legally married at one time. The petition for divorce says she deserted him according on or around May, 1940. I do not think they were really married, but rather lived in a common-law state as my Uncle Bernie always said, but for the sake of getting a legal divorce, so he could legally marry Ethel, it was written that they were married. I think Sally fled the Coop when he went to prison as he could do her no good in there. And she could not run her brothels without him.

The date of the divorce is June, 1947, seven weeks before he married Ethel. So he married Ethel in 1947 and killed himself two years later. Shot himself in the head, in the basement cellar of our house and I found him......sprawled on the floor, on his back, with blood pouring out of his mouth, his arms flung out to the sides, spread eagle. That is my last vision of my father.

The reason I was even down there, and he must have done it right before I got downstairs, was that I had seen him sitting at he kitchen table in his robe and writing something. Something did not seem or feel right to me. It's almost as if I had a premonition ...which I have had many times during my life about different things. When I could suddenly no longer see him in the kitchen, I decided I would go downstairs to the basement and see if he was down there and what he was up to..If he asked me what I was up to, I would simply say I had to get my gym socks which were hanging on the laundry line. They were my responsibility to wash every week and that would be my excuse just in case he asked me what I was doing there.

When I got to he bottom of the stairs, I turned towards the door that leads to the outside, and not far from the door and not far from the washing machine and dryer, he was laying spread eagle, with blood spurting out of his mouth. I did not rush over to him. I did not ask Daddy, are you okay? I did not scream. I did nothing. I froze, looking down at him... and then I ran up the cellar stairs screaming, "Grand pop, Grand pop, Daddy's lying on the floor with blood coming out of his mouth". I remember every word, every action, every detail as if it happened yesterday. I find it interesting that I did not scream for my step-mother. And even more interesting that she never did go downstairs to see for herself and possibly try to help him. I did not know he had shot himself. I only knew he was on the floor spilling out blood.

I was asked to call my Aunt Betty at the cigar store and tell her to come home... and I did. The words I said were exactly this: "Aunt Betty you must come home right away. Something terrible has happened to Daddy. Hurry!" Then I was asked to go back downstairs and open the cellar door for the police so they could gain access into the basement. Nobody gave a thought as to what this little girl of 11 was going to see again! And I have never been able to erase the picture in my mind. Ever.

I should explain that I never spent much time with my Dad when he was alive. He rarely spoke to me anyway. He once took me on a father/daughter event that my school had arranged and I guess Ethel told him to take me. I only remember driving in the pouring rain at night, and I was way over on the passenger side, staring over at him. I don't think we talked much. I know he would take my little sister Harlene with him on his business runs in the morning, when she was a tot. She made him smile, I remember that. He never once took me. But I was used as a shill. He would tell me to stand in front of one of the boardwalk games that he ran and hold a great big doll, as if I had won it so people would stop by and look at me holding the huge prize and then they would want to play also. I was his shill so he could rip people off on those ridiculous games.

The newspapers had a field day the next morning about his suicide. When I read the paper, it was the first time I knew what my father was really all about. It read like a novel to me. My poor brother Mikey was called to come home and they had him wash up the basement floor of all the blood. I remember watching him do this. He was crying. How thoughtless and cruel of them to ask him. I am sure that this was the final straw to his holding on to his sanity