Goldie and Sam were a round couple. Everything around them was round, round faces, round bodies, and big round arms and legs. They lived in a house at the corner of our block, attached to their gas station. I never saw Sam dressed up in anything but his oil-stained striped Mobilgas overalls, never without grease on his hands. A rolled up dirty orange rag was either held or stuffed in his back pocket. He wiped his hands with the rag before shaking your hand, then replaced in the back pocket. This was accomplished in one continuous fluid movement, practiced at all times, since he was a social guy who constantly stopped to greet people, by shaking hands with them.
I shake hands with low-lifes and big shots, with tiny children and the old and bent.
All the neighbors knew him as the “mayor of Ridge Avenue neighborhood.”
So Goldie was the “first lady” who mothered everyone in the four square block radius. She had orange curly hair that was covered her head in natural springs. You could see the pale white skin between the tufts, and the skin of her face and exposed arms and legs were white and freckled. Her bright orange lipstick to match her hair was her only makeup. She was a continuously smiling Halloween jack-o-lantern. She worked hard around her home, and always had company to talk with as she worked. The kitchen was the first room that attached to the gas station. There were always neighbor women sitting around on bridge chairs as she ‘held court” in her flowered house dress and oil cloth apron. She had smocks for them to wear as she gave Toni home permanents to at least three at a time. As she worked Goldie gabbed non-stop with a Pall Mall cigarette bobbing at the corner of her lips.
By the time they were curled completely they were starving and rushed home to eat. Although Goldie always offered lunch and snacks, no one partook because the chemical smell of the permanent solution took away one’s breath and appetite. Goldie had naturally curly hair that the women envied. They all wanted curls like Goldie’s. It was the style, and Goldie was the paragon of fashion at the time.
Thus, Goldie had her own full time occupation. Sam was busy doing his and earning money to support the family as a master automotive mechanic. Though his business appeared to be a corner gas station, he did not do much filling of gas tanks. His hobby and side business accounted for the most income, and there was a great deal of income. He bought and sold, and invented the latest mechanical and electronic gadgets. People came from all over to play with and if possible buy his latest appliances. He had microphones, all sizes of wires, motors, recording machines that could produce voices on coated paper record disks. People came just to record their own songs or play musical instruments. The records were expensive but were considered historical items for a family to take home and treasure.
There was a huge store room containing hundreds of automobile parts small gears, to entire motors, fenders, windshields and leather seats. These parts were the necessities for the most lucrative part of Sam’s business, selling restored antique cars for wealthy collectors. His latest completed models were parked in front to the gas station and the works in progress were in the bays of the garage.
Every weekend some rich, very rich customer would arrive from New York or Washington to inspect his latest perfect restoration, test drive it, and almost always purchase it before someone else beat him to the punch. These cars were in great demand and there were waiting lists even to inspect them. He had a regular clientele of automobile collectors who looked and purchased. Many were famous, most not, but all were rich.
Sam’s cars sold for a lot of money, more than three times what a new car would cost. Those cars wire perfection inside and out, paint and chrome shiny with hand-rubbed polish. When Sam stood next to one his masterpieces, in his greasy greyness, the cars seemed to shine more brightly. Lookers came during the day, but buyers arrived at night when the flood lights made the cars sparkle. No potential buyer could resist the spectacles of the automotive classics at night. Cash payment was required in crisp one hundred dollar bills, which Sam added to his roll of hundreds held with a wide rubber band and stuffed into the deep pocket of his overalls. He always carried large amounts of money in his front pocket until the end of the evening, when he placed the wad in his huge iron combination safe. He was never robbed or even almost robbed. Everyone knew he carried in his other pocket a police style 38 caliber revolver, upon which his right hand rested whenever he did business.
Goldie and Sam had five children, 3 boys and two girls, all of whom were scrawny, red haired and covered with freckles. Although the family was well to do, the children were shabbily dressed, except for Friday evening when they all went to Sabbath services as a formidable orange mob.
Just as their father, none of the children wanted for anything. All the latest toys and gadgets were theirs for the asking, and there were lots of items available to play with when the neighborhood kids came over to play inside and out. I loved to spend time at their stoop playing with their stuff.
One son, Ronnie was a few years older than I and particularly discriminating in his choices of treasures. At least I appreciated his stuff the most, especially his brass saddled horse statue that he had on top of his chest of drawers in his bedroom. Anyone but me and Ronnie would have considered the horse a garish monstrosity. It was heavy and the saddle was removable. For some reason this made it even more desirable to me. It reminded me of my cowboy hero, Roy Rogers’ horse, Trigger. I had to own it. Ronnie was so lucky.
One day…I didn’t know how (sic), I suddenly found it in my possession. No one was looking and Ronnie wasn’t around, so I carried the heavy treasure home to my room on the second floor of our home up the street. I had not the slightest notion of what I was going to do with it. I didn’t know how to play with a heavy, clunky horse, now that I was close to it. I had no rider to put on its back, and no way to make pretend I was riding it. I was a small kid of 4, but too big for that horse. All I could do was admire it and fantasize a real horse of my ow that I could ride. I was staring at it for at least half an hour until Mother came home from the store with Ronnie right behind her. I could hear him following her into the house, whining about the disappearance of his horse. Mother called out to see if I was home. I was silent, and crept with the horse in my arms into the bathroom, locking the door behind me. I hugged the horse to my chest and sat down between the bathtub and the toilet.
I’ll never give it up!
Mother, Ronnie and my brother came upstairs and knocked at the door, calling my name. I kept silent. The door knob jiggled, followed by:
I know you’re in there with Ronnie’s horse. You have to come out and give it back to him. It’s his and not yours. I hesitated, then answered with a resolute:
NO!
My brother, Harry threatened. Ronnie cried and called me names. Mother cajoled. I budged not one inch and said nothing. Soon I heard more footsteps on the stairs: Marvie, Ronnie’s older brother, Goldie, his mother, and Miss Yearsley our next-door neighbor, all calling my name. Still I was silent and immovable.
I heard the clinking of a screw driver in the door lock along with annoyed huffing and puffing, as Marvie, a teenager tried his best to open the lock from the outside. Finally I heard heavier footsteps as Sam, the father arrived with a hammer, and started to remove the bolts from the hinges of the bathroom door. As the door opened from the opposite direction, everyone burst into the bathroom, a big crowd in a small space with little me feeling two inches tall, jammed between the tub and toilet clutching what felt like a life-sized metal stallion in my lap.
Ronnie grabbed it away from me, calling me a few more nasty names. Suddenly everyone left the bathroom, went downstairs and out the front door, except for Mother and Harry. Harry chuckled and called me criminal. Mother said nothing. She just watched me with disappointment and disapproval as I crawled to my feet and walked past her. Then I turned at the top of the stairs and asked:
So, can I get a horse like Ronnie’s? Mother’s eyes rolled up toward the back of her head as she threw up her hands with a resolute (like mine a short time before)
NO!
From then on I never asked for a horse like Ronnie’s again.
That quickly, I no longer needed or wanted it.
My thieving days were over.
