Emerging from the womb of Murder Inc, the yesterdays of hustling bottled sodas to the WPA craftsmen and builders, theirtalents of Meyer Lansky and his aide de camp Bugsy Segal never went unnoticed…Brownsville, Las Vegas, Beverly Hills.
II
But for a 30 day coma of typhoid fever and a death dwelling fever of 106, the powers to be at Beth El Hospital (Brookdale)on Linden Boulevard in East Flatbush, gave an about face, upon your narrator, when a last minute blood transfusion by a Berderchev born Kaminsky,
an uncle, brought out our ten year old blue eyes to open wide and seize our soul socking and relocking into our frail psyche from whence it had about vanished into the higher strata of consciousness.
III
“Believe me, brethren. There’s no more formidable foe than the day to day struggle confronting the inevitable debacle, the very demons of the departing soul.
IV
Whatever the Wily Loman attributes of our unselfish Uncle Philfrom Bereditchev (a village outside Kiev, Ukraine, with his boisterous personality (from Odessa, in steerage, to Buffalo,N.Y. with his four sisters and brother, mother and father, he was a hero in our once dying blues.
“Do not give your nephew any transfusion! Type A?” dictated his wife and mother of their two boys.
“ You have your own family. Think of them! Why go out of your way for a nephew you hardly ever broke bread with. Did he ever think of our needs? “
Throw his carcass to the hyenas, the wolves of Jack London’s “Call of the Wild”. Jack Larue’s menacing gang of outlaws in Studio City, outside Gene Autry’s Republic Studio.
“It’s that kind of dog eat dog planet, lissen to me Phil. I’m your sweetheart, wife, mother. Don’t expose yourself to his death dwelling microbes and bacteria. No penicillin or drugs exist.Think of your family. Those who love you,” said his wife, mother of their two boys, ….years later working behind a department store jewelry counter in down town Brooklyn.
Not that far from the stricken boy’s father. The Name Detective, the official interpreter at the Surrogate’s Court,(Judge Wingate and his alter ego Mr. Stapleton) and probate administrator of Barbra Streisand’s father’s estate.
V
So Brethren in the name of the four Warner Brothers, your narrator was bugged with blessings. “Louis Pasteur” “Dr. Erlich’s magic bullet” “*Emile Zola” …a “Yellow Jack:” flick on malaria, from another studio.”Madame Curie” “Devil’s Island”…and the *Dreyfus case…..no yellow fever here, but a moral cover up of complicity in the inhumane disease of a”Doctor Jekyl & Mr Hyde bipolar split personality, the bully character trait within the cream cheese bandit’s soul, finding his way from Safeway’s market on Pico and South Western to Mulholland Drive, in the Hollywood Hills.
VI
What brings me to Gregory Peck’s revelation, brethren.
Working as an usher at Radio City Music Hall, he got his boot camp yearnings for the acting game(Brando, Stella Adler’s method? Shelly Winters Paul Newman’s Stanislavsky) and those synchronized leggy dancers between the flicks.…..
The Radio City Rockettes? would you believe it, brethren?
VII
Post Word War 2, he emerged as a leading man, his star into a submarine constructed home, on a splendid Holmly Hill Sunset Boulevard site, several miles West of the mansion at North Beverly Drive, opposite the Beverly Hills Hotel, where Bugsy Segal was gunned down.
VIII
Here a UCLA coed met this once frail typhoid fever stricken law student. Little knowing that the scene belonged to “the killing of the mocking bird ”legal eagle, the Radio City Music Hall usher, pre World War2 History, evolving…
Gregory Peck in to his second marriage, bonded with “Twelve O’clock High” with Dean Jagger, a WW2 Air Force co pilot, living near Zucky’s deli in Santa Monica several Avenues from the Palisades and Shangri-la, where the Name Detective’s wifelived…. mother of their once dying Typhoid Fever ten year oldson….
IX
Which brings to mind a cyberspace “coincidence” of August 9i, in our century of 21.
“What is your name?” your narrator asked of the technician,playing out his diagnosis of the “Flying Philosopher”…. like a surgeon at Maimonides Medical Center, of computerconfigurations, electronic tracking of blood clots…..the computer analysis beyond mortal uncertainties into the sublime of disease and mortality.
X
“My name is Ishmael” he said, his voice tingling with an earthiness and joy, that embellished his whole navigational cruise..
“Lissen my friend and you shall hear the mid night ride of …no not Paul Revere but your own “chat E mail phone” technician’s links..
“Out of Moby Dick…My name is Ishmael!” “
XI
A quality human being! .With a quiet mind and the openmindedness of all of us, who should be proud to rub off on, in our own metamorphosis, engaging our personas to computer threshold on the good ship “Moby Dick” .
XII
Gregory Peck starring in “Moby Dick” alongside “My name is Ishmael”.
.August 15, 2015 The City that never sleeps
(815 East 14th Street, opposite Art Carney’s (Jackie Gleason’s alter ego) parents apartment, above Bohack’s grocery)
