Notes on a Cowardly Lion Read online

  “I remember running after my father who was boarding a trolley to work. I wanted some money. He just pushed me away.” When Jacob gave his son a dollar to have a tooth extracted, Lahr saved fifty cents by having it done without an anesthetic. If his mother gave him a nickel for lunch, he would save three cents by purchasing a seeded roll and a banana for a penny apiece to make banana sandwiches. The petty thefts began out of desperation. He pilfered change from his father’s pocket, school supplies from the neighborhood store, and then, finally, made a large vegetable cadge. Lahr and his friends on Eighty-eighth street (his family had moved there after Cele’s birth) stole from local stores on the weekdays in order to resell the produce on Saturday mornings at the open markets cluttering First Avenue. Once Lahr stole a pumpkin from a policeman’s garden, only to have the officer knock on his door minutes after the theft demanding the return of the vegetable, which was sitting on the fire escape.

  He rarely recalls what gaiety there was in childhood: setting up high hurdles in the alley by his apartment and running them until the women complained in fear that their laundry would topple; swimming off the mossy pilings in the East River, where once he had to come home in a crate when someone stole his clothes. And there were Magic Lantern shows (a dime admission) where Tommy Lark would project slides on a sheet set up in the basement of his apartment, with Solly Abrahams beating a drum for musical accompaniment and Lahr taking the tickets. “He was a jokester, always kidding around,” says Abrahams. “He was well liked. Even then he was doing that shuffle he still does today. He had motions—like he has today. He probably doesn’t remember it. I recall it vividly.”

  Augusta worried about her son—often to his face. As Cele remembers, “Mother felt he couldn’t elevate himself. She thought his friends were ordinary, far beneath him.” Augusta was also confounded by her son’s actions. He showed little interest in school, and acted impulsively, with a curious disregard for the family. Once, after Jacob had refused him money to have a tonsil operation, Lahr walked to Manhattan Eye, Ear, and Throat Hospital on East Sixty-fourth Street and had himself admitted for a free operation. His parents knew nothing about it until he walked home twenty-four hours later. (The operation had not been completely successful—a hemorrhaged tonsil kept him in the hospital overnight.) They were assuaged by the story of the experience, which Lahr could only vaguely articulate. “While I was in the hospital, it was crowded; they put me next to a man who was dying. He was going through the death rattle. I was right there. I watched him die. I was eleven.”

  Lahr remembers only his confusion. He had seen death; and he was surrounded by images of failure. He saw it in his father’s hands, already cracked and dry, in his mother’s taut face, in his own frayed clothes. “I used to ask myself—‘What’s going to become of you?’” There was never a satisfactory answer. In the summer, he sat with friends and watched criminals and drunkards, prostitutes and vagrants being arraigned at the Fifth Precinct Station across the street. He understood the warning in his father’s eyes when he returned from work to find his son ogling at the offenders. To Lahr, the dank smells and spiritless labor of the upholstery business seemed only another repugnant but sadly plausible destiny.

  He read voraciously, the only boy among his Yorkville friends to have a library card. His escape into fantasy was total. Cele recalls him reading quietly in the living room after dinner, and suddenly yelling, “Hit him! Knock him down!” to the printed page. And once she found him in tears when Frank Merriwell’s life seemed doomed. But the Horatio Alger stories and the exciting tales in Pluck ’n Luck haunted him. Even his friends had glimpses of a despair Lahr usually camouflaged. Solly Abrahams, who looked down on Lahr’s bedroom from the kitchen of his own apartment, remembers rushing to the window one night after he and Lahr had been treated to the movies. It was not unusual for them to holler to one another across the alley, but these were different noises. “He started to yell—or cry—I couldn’t tell which. I thought he was having a bad dream. I screamed, ‘Irv, shut up and go to sleep.’ He was quiet for a while after that.”

  Lahr developed an enthusiasm for the theater that was as obsessive as his love of the penny dreadfuls. The quarter admission fee hampered his eclectic tastes for escape; but when he could afford a ticket, nothing offered greater pleasure. He walked to 107th Street and Third Avenue regularly to see the traveling melodramas. He was known to hitch a ride on the back of his cousin’s horse-drawn express cart to Broadway, watch a vaudeville show from the balcony, and meet the wagon on its return trip uptown.

  Jacob and Augusta rarely knew of their son’s excursions—most of the time he traveled the city alone. He became increasingly moody and difficult to control. The teachers in his school complained about his lack of discipline, and worse, Augusta had discovered that he was smoking. Lahr would always savor his smoking adventures, amused at the names of the cigarettes he puffed so confidently and the thrill of a new-found “maturity.” “A box of Helmars were classy. I was a real dude. You could go into a cigarette store, and they’d break open a pack for you. You could get one for a cent. They were a nickel a pack. They were called American Beauties.”

  Since Augusta suspected the neighborhood boys of leading her son astray, there was only one alternative—to move. They decided on a twobedroom apartment on Wilkins Avenue in the Bronx. There, Irving would have his own room and Cele could sleep on the sofa in the living room. It was a forty-five minute subway ride uptown from Yorkville. But the Bronx was more spacious, and offered a completely new area where their son could breathe fresher air, make new friends. “It was semi-country. I remember there were very few apartment houses, and many acres of greenery. I can even remember chickens in the garden.”

  And Lahr did make friends on Wilkins Avenue. Joey Berado, the shoemaker’s son, shared his enthusiasm for boxing, and Sam Berkowitz, the butcher’s boy, frequented the same candy store. In 1907 there was already a list of famous Bronx personalities that Lahr watched in awe. Emile Mosbacher, who became the boy genius of Wall Street, walked home from his job at the Stock Exchange practicing the signals used on the floor. There were athletes, too, older and unapproachable. The most famous were the Zimmerman brothers—all nine of whom played professional baseball and one, Heine Zimmerman, who became one of the New York Giants’ greatest third basemen. Other boys who seemed harmless and no different in their prospects from Lahr were to manufacture their own celebrity with reckless crimes. “Crazy Fat” would graduate to underworld immortality, only to be burned alive in the middle of Wilkins Avenue in 1921 by a rival mob.

  Lahr’s first inheritance from his Bronx environment was a new nickname. “Irving” was forgotten the day Lahr squared off against a burly Swede, cursing, “You Swedish son-of-a-bitch, I’ll wipe the streets with you.” From that moment, despite his nose and his unruly crop of curly black hair, he became known as “Swedish,” and his ferocious bravado became a neighborhood joke. His cronies remember him for his prankish good nature and his dog, Fanny, a brown and white mongrel with a sagging belly: she was the strongest emotional attachment of Lahr’s youth.

  Wilkins Avenue was a change of location, but Lahr still teetered on delinquency. He recalls the fun of baiting policemen who patrolled on bicycles. The boys stood their ground against policemen, realizing that once an officer was off his bike they could easily outdistance him. Lahr remembers immobilizing policemen by sticking a shaft of wood through the spokes and running. There was a regular caper, known to his friends as “the Feinstein trick.” It originated at a local restaurant whose owner, Arthur Feinstein, served the best kosher food in the area. When the boys needed a good meal, they went to the restaurant, and, after eating, staged an argument. The fight brought the aging proprietor from behind the counter to escort them bodily out the door. The tactic earned them a handful of free meals throughout the neighborhood.

  Lahr discovered street singing in the Bronx. On Halloween he put on white gloves and blackened his face with burnt cork. He and a few friend
s proceeded into Wilkins Avenue to sing. The first outing was so profitable that Lahr tried it often. He and a friend borrowed two guitars, which neither of them played. They were careful not to sing too close to their own homes in case their parents should hear of their antics. Lahr had a strong baritone voice; his balladry and his aloofness earned him the reputation of a “character.” He was never unaware of the group sentiment toward himself, and he allowed his friends to create a role for him. He liked to make them laugh, often revising popular songs for comic effect. The role brought an easy but satisfying security.

  Lahr still found himself drawn to the theaters for excitement and escape. “We’d have to walk two miles to the McKinley Square Theater and the Boulevard Theater. On the other side of the park was the Crotona Theater and there I saw Willie Howard’s brother, Sammy. The theater was over in the Jewish section, and it was a Jewish audience. He was with the Newsboy Trio, I think. They did an imitation. In those days, the dance craze was the ‘Texas Tommy,’ which was like the ‘Frug’ or the ‘Monkey’ today. They used to have troupes of ‘Texas Tommy’ dancers. The Newsboy Trio performed the dance as well as imitating the format of the amateur-night routine. At the finish, they’d have all the amateurs line up on the stage. If the prize was five or ten dollars, they’d put the money over the amateur’s head. The audience would judge who was the best. Every time it came over a new head, the audience would applaud. When they put the money over Sammy Howard’s head, he went down to the footlights and said, “Ich bin ein Yid.” Naturally, he won. I screamed, the incongruity of it. I’ve remembered it all these years.”

  The Bronx did not change Lahr’s life as Augusta and Jacob had hoped. He brought to his new home the same vacancy and irresolution. “I went alone a lot of the time. Always alone. Proctor’s 125th, Proctor’s 58th, Minor’s 153rd … I’d go all over the city if I could get my hands on a quarter. I loved the theater, not for me to get into, but the acts. I was entranced by them. It was just entertainment for me. Barber shops in those days used to get free passes to the shows for displaying posters announcing the acts. Every time I’d see a billboard in a window, I’d go in and buy the passes from them. They’d sell for a dime or a nickel. I walked all over. In those days, you’d walk great distances to save a nickel.”

  Other incidents assured Lahr his reputation for eccentricity. “The Fairmont A.C. was down on 138th Street. My pal was Joey Berado, who liked to box, and I was his second. All I knew was I had to fan him with a towel. All the kids who wanted to box used to go down there and they’d give them fifty dollars worth of tickets. You’d sell the tickets to the boys (two dollars a ticket and you got half). One day when we were down there Eddie Glick came in. He was sort of a dull-witted guy and a plumber’s helper. He said, ‘I get six dollars a week, and I’m loosening toilets and radiators. I’d like to make a few bucks. I’d like to fight.’ So we said, ‘Sure. Go down and get the tickets and we’ll train you.’ He got the tickets and started training. I said, ‘We got a new way of training. Eat cheesecake and beer and run around Crotona Park.’ He did. He could get cheesecake for a dime and beer we all drank. He’d run around Crotona Park. After four days, he came to us. ‘I’m sick,’ he says. ‘That’s what we want, it’s getting the bad blood out of you.’ We finally got him a fight against a little kid from Christ’s Church. He’s been doing this for a week but nobody’s been teaching him how to box or anything. He came in the ring, and I went over to the opponent and said, ‘This guy can’t take it in the stomach.’ The kid from Christ’s Church comes out, feints him, and punches Glick in the belly. He threw up all over the ring.”

  His friends found Lahr’s humorous incompetence often funnier than his calculated pranks. He rarely confided his family troubles to friends, but once he decided to run away from home. He got no further than the home of his nextdoor neighbor, “Butch” Berkowitz, who offered him a bed after hearing of his plight. He arranged for Lahr to sneak into the house around ten o’clock, just after Berkowitz’s father had gone to sleep. His room was to the right of the front door, so there would be little noise to disturb the family. Berkowitz quietly fixed a bed for his friend, bringing a cot up from the cellar. In his small room the cot and regular bed consumed the width of the floor.

  When Lahr arrived, he came complete with a pair of pajamas and a dime novel.

  “What’ya bring that for?” said Berkowitz.

  “I figured I’d read because I don’t sleep good.”

  “We can’t use the lights, dummy. It might attract attention. We’ll just have to go to sleep. The cot’s yours.”

  Finally, the chatter tapered off. Berkowitz was asleep.

  Lahr tried to go to sleep, trying his mother’s remedy of thinking happy thoughts. He remembered diving into the East River, the curious silence under water, cutting off the city noises, and then surfacing, to a world miraculously fresh. He thought of Frank Merriwell, and horses’ hooves, a noise that captivated him on the riding paths of Central Park. He simulated the clip-clop with his tongue against the cavity of his cheek. He usually could lull himself to sleep, but not that night. He began to itch.

  “Hey, Sammy—what’s on the cot? C’mmon, Sammy, wake up!”

  “Shut up, Swedish, I was almost asleep. You’re dreamin’ or somethin’.”

  “No kiddin’ Sammy, what’s wrong with this cot? I’m gonna scratch myself to death if you don’t tell me. Put on the light, will you.”

  Sammy got up and reached for matches.

  “This’ll have to do,” he said, holding the flame above the cot.

  “Look at that!” Lahr stood up from the cot. “I told you I wasn’t dreaming—bugs.”

  “Well, what are we going to do about it?”

  “Look at the little things move. They’re walking from my cot right over to your bed.”

  “So what’s your idea?”

  “Let’s just pull the beds apart, and then the lice will break their necks when they fall between.”

  They swept away the lice and returned to bed. Lahr lay awake. He could hear the low whine of a dog. It persisted for several minutes. Berkowitz remembers Lahr yelling, “That’s Fanny. That’s Fanny. She’s calling me.” Lahr ran to the window and pushed it open, thrusting his chest far out of the window and scanning the alley.

  “Here Fanny! Here Fanny!”

  “Swedish, will you shut up for chrissake, it’s nearly two o’clock.”

  “It’s Fanny. I know it is. Listen. I’m sure it is. She misses me.”

  Lahr began to call again. When there was no answer, he grudgingly lay back on his cot.

  “I hope you’re satisfied, Lahrheim. You just woke up half the neighborhood with your yelling. Go to sleep and forget it.”

  “I’m tryin’, I’m tryin’.”

  He imagined Fanny being left unfed or perhaps being given away for messing up the living room floor as his mother sometimes threatened. Finally, Lahr jumped from the cot and groped for his clothes.

  “What’ya doin’ now, Swedish?”

  “Gettin’ dressed.”

  “What the hell for?”

  “I’ve got to get some sleep,” he said. “I’m goin’ home.”

  Besides his father’s platitudes about idleness and the intimidation of the city he walked so often, school was the bane of Lahr’s early years. He had never been a good student, but at P.S. 40 in the Bronx, he seemed to get worse. His parents were outraged by his curious inaction. He did not work; he would not even try. “I was like a caged animal in school,” he says, remembering his teacher Miss Shea, who found his books tucked back in his desk after class and brought them home to Mrs. Lahrheim with stern admonitions about her son’s behavior. Lahr had tacked her attendance book to the table, and had been called before the principal for throwing a book at her. He could not explain to his parents about the classroom—the anxiety over gray walls and long rows of wooden seats, the sadness of the winter stench of damp clothing and mothballs. In school, Miss Shea and others like her were watching,
judging, ready to scold him for his obvious inadequacies. “I didn’t feel free at school; it just didn’t mean anything—nothing.” The careless instruction in every lesson from mathematics to civics for an adult life in commerce upset him. “What do numbers mean, when you have nothing to count?” The only discipline Lahr enjoyed was penmanship. He had a fluid hand; he practiced writing out his name, spelling it in different styles, and always in dignified arabesques.

  The only memorable event in Lahr’s academic career was the Eighth Grade class show. It was the first time he had ever participated in a school activity. Although Lahr harmonized on summer evenings with friends on the benches of Crotona Park, he had never performed. The entertainment at P.S. 40 was a Kid Act, modeled on the popular Smith and Dale routines, which spoke not only to the boredom and rebelliousness subdued in school life, but also with the babble of familiar dialects. Lahr remembers the laughs he and his group of friends got on stage, mimicking the deeper, more outrageous accents of their parents, and wearing penciled mustaches like pintsized adults.

  He remembers how nervous he was waiting for that first cue and wondering if he could growl the broad “Dutch” dialect with the panting “h” and the rolled “r” like his father. But on stage, the words seemed to speak themselves. Gestures happened smoothly, impelled by a laughing audience. Lahr liked other people laughing at him. He was amazed at the effect of even the ordinary words he spoke. These same words which had seemed so matter-of-fact when he had memorized them now moved people to laughter. He found himself making up new movements that had nothing to do with the script. When the boys rushed off the stage after their final gag, the audience applauded until they had to hurry back for a bow. Lahr recalls how the experience filled him with a satisfaction. He felt completely in control on stage, proud and curiously powerful. He had enjoyed it all—the make-up, the clowning, the noisy laughter. As he left for home after the performance, his teacher stopped him at the door. “Well, Mr. Lahrheim,” she said, “if you don’t go on the stage, you’ll probably go to jail.” Lahr was astonished that Miss Shea talked to him about anything except his laziness. “All I could think to say was—‘thank you.’”