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Steven Chanzes
Copyright 2012 by Steven Chanzes All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher or author. Printed in the United States of America The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows: Chanzes, Steven It Never Rained In The Bronx Copyright Pending
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Every building had its own list of characters and people who stuck out in your mind. Certainly ours was no different. I don't even have to search my memory for some of them because they made such an indelible impression on my mind. On the second floor there lived Sam and Irene Kleinrock along with their son Ira. Ira was a brilliant young man. He was extremely proficient in the subject of chemistry. I'm quite sure though that one of his experiments had gone amok because his hair bore a striking resemblance to boxing promoter Don King. Because of his hairdo my father nicknamed Ira, "the mad scientist." Ira also possessed a different type of laugh than most people had. His lips would curl up and his face would resemble a pumpkin's with its broad smile and big teeth showing and you would hear Ira's infectious laugh, "hee, hee, hee, hee, hee, hee." Back in the 1950's Ira was two years older than me. Come to think of it he still is. Back then we kids used to pal around and play with other kids our own age. The only time that I can think of where age didn't come into play in our relationships was in the schoolyard. All you needed in the schoolyard was the ability to compete. Age had nothing to do with it. Yet I never saw Ira in the schoolyard. I used to run into him in the hallway in our apartment building and there were also times when his family and mine would go out to eat together on a Sunday.
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PHILLY Whoever thought that I would be writing about my sister Phyllis, or as I called her, Philly, in the past tense. She passed away in June, 2008. She was only 60 years young. She died from the disease that is slowly eradicating my familycancer. God forbid if someone in the family should die from a good old fashioned heart attack. Nope. Cancer. Thats what we have to look forward to. Oh boy, I cant wait. Philly had the most severe form of brain cancer that one could get. Its called glioblastoma, a stage four cancer and the average life expectancy once diagnosed is a mere two years and thats just about how long my sister survived..two years. It was about three months before Philly passed away that I found out how severe her cancer was. Up until that time I was led to believe that the disease was in remission and at the time I didnt know that it was a glioblastoma. When the disease surfaced again, I started going up to New York every other week to spend as much time with Philly as I could. Anyone who has seen a loved ones condition deteriorate knows what I and everyone close to my sister went through. At first youre in denial. It cant be as severe as the doctors make it out to be. Its my sister Philly. Shes only 60 years young. She has always been the epitome of health. Very conscious of what she ate. And her exercising was power walking, her arms moving to and fro, back and forth and her legs moving as fast as they could without breaking into a run. How could my sister Philly be sick..but she was and slowly denial became reality. Seeing her deteriorate right in front of my eyes. Not being able to conduct a conversation with her. Questioning the existence of the Almighty. Staying up half the night on the internet hoping beyond hope to find some answers that will lead to her cure. Finally it sets in and you realize that theres nothing you can do but let nature take its course and in the interim make your loved ones last days as peaceful as is humanly possible. I was in Hawaii when Philly passed away. I eulogized her and asked Cousin Paul to read it at the funeral, which he did.
GOODBYE NEW YORK, HELLO FLORIDA In late 1970 I moved into my bachelor apartment in Queens, New York. It was a quadplex owned by a German landlady who lived in one of the units. The name of the street, ironically, was Normal Road. I had turned twenty-six that previous summer and I had a lot of free time on my hands as I had saved up a couple of dollars. So I decided to take some welldeserved time off from work.....At least I thought it was well deserved. Since I had so much free time I thought I would get the most out of my self-imposed vacation by catching up on my reading. I had heard about this new publication that had come out that was getting lots of unfavorable reviews in the media. My thirst for knowledge was so absorbing that I was determined to find out once and for all if everything that the press was saying about Allan Goldstein's new publication was true or a complete fabrication. And so I bought the most recent edition of his weekly paper called "SCREW." Mr. Goldstein's paper in many ways resembled Playboy magazine. Both were adult in nature with many pictures of women's naked bodies. Of course Screw was by far more graphic in detail than Playboy and definitely appealed to one's prurient interests. They both published articles or commentary detailing the sexual revolution, but Screw published one feature that Playboy did not and that was a personal column. Both men and women detailed, sometimes quite graphically, exactly what they were looking for. I saw one ad that appealed to me. It said, "Let's meet over coffee, tea or me." A woman in Pennsylvania authored the ad. I wrote back to her and said, "Let's skip the coffee and tea." About two weeks later I got a phone call from her. Not only was she in dire need of male companionship but she had one other distinct quality that attracted me to her. Her father owned a major, well known department store in Pennsylvania. In other words, the bitch had bucks. What a quinella. She's in heat and she's got money or she's got money and she's in heat. Either way it's a no lose situation for me. We made arrangements for her to meet me. She was going to fly into Kennedy airport in New York on a Friday and stay with me the entire weekend. She told me that once I got to the airport I should look for a woman with a name tag on her
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THE JOURNEY Paul took one suitcase with him. When we opened up the trunk of my car he noticed that I had everything but the kitchen sink in there. He wondered why. I didn't want to tell him that I was evicted so I just said that you never know what the weather is going to be like in Florida at this time of year and I just want to be prepared. He bought my explanation, put his suitcase in the trunk of my car and off we headed down south. It took us exactly twenty-four hours to drive down to Florida as we drove straight through stopping only for gas, a quick bite or a rest room stop. Once in Florida we settled down in a Ramada Inn on Federal Highway in Fort Lauderdale. We would have preferred the Holiday Inn on the beach, but they weren't accepting the B.P. credit card. And so that night we decided to venture down to Miami to go to one of their singles bars. No sooner did we leave the hotel room and get in our car when another auto with two young women pulled alongside us and honked their horn. When I looked at them the driver resembled the wicked witch of the east. Her companion looked like she was from the west. The Bobsey Twins. I smiled and kept driving. The girls pulled behind my car and kept on honking. Paul told me to pull over because the girls obviously wanted some action. I told Paul to clean his glasses and take another look at the women. But Paul couldn't care less what they looked like. His philosophy was, "In the darkness of night every woman looks like Marilyn Monroe." It was hard to find fault with Paul's philosophy except that it wasn't completely dark and I knew what they looked like. As things turned out I owed Paul a deep debt of gratitude for making me stop to talk to the women that night although I didn't realize it then, but I would within a week. All we did that night with the girls was buy them a soda and get their phone numbers. I took the drivers phone number. Her name was Ann Taylor. The next time I saw Ann was a week later. It was a memorable night as well it should have been. After all how could you expect me to forget the night I proposed to marry someone?
THE TAYLOR'S I had been in Florida for about a week. In that short period of time I decided that somehow, someway, this is where I wanted to settle down. I felt that there were enough opportunities here whereby I could achieve some form of financial success and enjoy a lifestyle much different from my native New York. So I called my parents and Granma and told them that I wasn't coming back to New York other than to visit as I had made up my mind to stay in Florida. I tried to get Paul to stay but he missed the warmth of his bed in his parents home. So there I was. All alone, some 1250 miles away from where I had spent the first twenty-six years of my life. It was very sobering. Reality was setting in. I had some pressing problems that I knew had to be taken care of as quickly as was humanly possible. For starters I knew that the Ford Fury that I rented for one week was now one week past due. Then there was the matter of my B.P. credit card. I was charging my motel room to the card and also the food that I ate. And of course my gasoline purchases. Normally that wouldn't be a problem except I wasn't making any payments to the card company. You didn't have to be a rocket scientist to understand that this couldn't go on forever. I had less than $200.00 to my name. It was time to go to work. While I didn't know exactly what I wanted to do, I did know that I definitely had to increase my cash reserves, so I applied for a job at the labor pool. I reported at six in the morning. Me and ninety-nine other men, most of whom were alcoholics. There were more people there than there were jobs. The regulars were chosen first. As luck would have it I was selected that day for one reason only. I was a rare commodity. I was an individual seeking employment who also had a car. Because I had transportation I was therefore able to transport some of the men to the job site. I drove four of my new found buddies to a highway that was being enlarged in Miami. Once there the "boss" of the project gave me a yellow flag. I asked him what it was for. He told me to stand by the medium and direct the traffic. I was on the job at eight in the morning and except for a thirty minute lunch break I worked or rather stood continuously until seven at night. I worked over eight hours that day and netted less than $5.00 an hour after taxes. At that rate I didn't have to be overly concerned about a night life because first of all I couldn't afford one and secondly when I got home I was so tired that all I wanted to do was take a long hot shower and go to sleep. I got up the next morning and said to myself, "This is not a job for a Jewish boy." If they wanted me to be the boss,
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THE HAWK There's an expression that is used to characterize people who are a bit ditzy or not all there and the expression is, "They're out to lunch." Well I have a friend by the name of Patty who is not only out to lunch,............but breakfast and dinner as well. His real name is Patty but if you saw his nose then you would know why they call him The Hawk. The Hawk is a Philadelphia boy, living there most of his life, except for six months when he came to live with Joy and I. To say that The Hawk is different from most people would be the understatement of the year. I mean do you know anyone who tips toll booth collectors? The Hawk does. Do you know anyone who goes to the barbershop two or three times a week? Yep, The Hawk does. Joy and I made arrangements for The Hawk to fly down to Florida and stay with us for a spell. The night he arrived was one of the most memorable nights of our lives. I had a gizmo about three inches by six inches that operated off of a remote. I planted the gizmo in Pattys room, plainly out of sight. Eventually Joy, I and Patty said goodnight and went into our respective bedrooms. We peeked out our bedroom door and waited for the lights in Pattys room to go off, signifying he went to bed. Thats when the fun began. I pressed the remote and all of a sudden in Pattys room we heard, Get the fuck up. The light in Pattys room went on and immediately thereafter I pressed the remote again and we heard, You lazy bastard. With that Patty ran out of his room and went into the kitchen. Joy and I were bent over in laughter. We came out of our bedroom and asked Patty what was all the commotion about. He told us that someone was outside his bedroom window shouting obscenities and he was going to get a knife, go outside and scare the intruder away. Joy and I couldnt contain our laughter and eventually we told Patty what we had done. The Hawk put the knife back into the drawer and went back to bed.he didnt share our humor. The Hawk is a major gambler. Hell bet on anything. Hell bet if the sun will come up tomorrow, how many times youll go to the bathroom, total number of points scored in a basketball game, etc., etc. You name it and hell bet it. One time he was given the name of a horse that couldnt lose. Patty told all his friends about it and before you know it he had a small fortune that they all had given him to place a bet on the horse. Keep in mind that The Hawk has been betting his entire
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WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH YOUR HAND? I have a tendency to get bored with whatever Im doing..except making love. It has no bearing on how successful I may have become, because I know that Im going to become bored. It has happened time and time again. Well, one day I was sitting in my office, very successful and very bored. I started giving thought to what I would like to do.and then it hit me. Why not become a Concert Promoter. And so I had a couple of people in my office do the necessary due diligence and before you know it I was ready to book my first act. Now I didnt want to book just any act before if we didnt sell a lot of tickets then Id be in serious trouble, so I went after major acts. I subscribed to an entertainment periodical which lists what venues various artists or groups would be playing and I saw that The Beach Boys were scheduled to perform in Orlando, Florida. I was a couple of hundred miles south of Orlando so I thought that as long as The Beach Boys were going to be in fairly close proximity then maybe they would entertain the thought of playing in Fort Lauderdale or Miami. I got the name of their manager through Pollstar and we opened negotiations. It was exciting. Faxes being sent back and forth. One of the faxes said that I had to furnish food for the group prior to the show and amongst everything else they wanted M & M candy. No problemBut without the red ones. Everyone in the office was excited..except the person I chose to pull out the red M & Ms. Well, we were about ready to sign the contract when I got some bad news. The groups management new that I was not only a novice promoter but that this was the first time that I ever booked an act, so they decided to go with someone else. I was pretty down and I decided not to tell anyone just yet.
There was a club not too far from my office which featured a female piano player. I saw the advertisement for her in the newspaper. I told most of my staff what my intentions were and they thought that there was only one person that was fit for this job and that person was Jim Bell. I told Jim that it looked like The Beach Boys were a certainty and I needed an opening act for them. I told him about the female piano player and that I wanted him to go up to see and evaluate her for me. Jim felt honored to be put into such a position of trust and he readily accepted. As you probably can guess by now, I didnt quite tell Jim everything.
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THE END
I HOPE NOT
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