City Of Fire Trilogy 1 - Dreamland (74 page)
MITZVAH:
Yiddish.
A good deed; a divine command.
MIZRACH:
Yiddish.
A framed religious picture placed on the wall of a synagogue, religious school, or private home, to indicate the direction of Jerusalem—and hence in which direction one should pray. Literally, from the Hebrew for “east.”
MOLLIES:
Bowery.
Women, and usually the friends of gangsters, as in “molls.”
MOMZER:
Yiddish.
A literal and figurative bastard. An untrustworthy, impertinent, difficult—and usually very clever—individual.
NAFKEH:
Yiddish.
A prostitute.
NAYFISH:
Yiddish.
An innocent, a weakling—or a coward.
NEBACH:
Yiddish.
“The poor thing.” A victim, or sad sack.
NEDDY:
Bowery.
A slung shot, or blackjack.
N
ER
T
AMID:
Yiddish.
The “everlasting light” of God—represented in synagogues by oil lamps hung by the altar.
NU:
Yiddish.
An interrogative, as in “So?” or “What’s up?”
ONGEPOTCHKET:
Yiddish.
All mixed up, slapped together.
OY:
Yiddish.
An exclamation, often expanded to
oy vay iz mir
(roughly, “Oh, woe!”) or
oy gevalt!
(more or less, “oh, good God!”)
PAYEHS:
Yiddish.
The long side curls and sideburns worn by very Orthodox Jewish men and boys.
PEANUT POLITICIANS:
Bowery.
Small-time politicians, usually associated with Tammany Hall—though not as closely as they would like.
PHYLACTERIES:
Two small leather boxes filled with strips of parchment containing bits of Old Testament scripture and worn strapped to the forehead and left arm by Conservative and Orthodox Jewish men during morning worship, save on the Sabbath and religious holidays. The straps are tied in seven knots.
PISH:
Yiddish.
Literally, to urinate. Hence, a
pisher
refers to a bed-wetter—or more generally, a “nobody,” or a young whippersnapper.
PITSEL:
Yiddish.
A little piece, a morsel—often used to refer to a pregnancy, or an infant.
POP:
Bowery.
A pistol.
RABBIT SUCKERS:
Bowery.
Young, drunken sports, out on a toot—and thereby ripe for the taking.
REFORM:
A term used to describe any and all of the myriad crusaders, from all lengths of the political spectrum, Socialist to Republican, who tried to reform Tammany Hall’s own particular brand of city government. Often the reformers would try to work together in grand coalitions, which, until the advent of Fiorello La Guardia, enjoyed only fleeting success.
ROLL OUT THE VELVET:
Bowery.
To blab, or inform, “velvet” meaning “tongue.”
ROOMERKEH:
Yiddish.
Roomer, or boarder.
SACHEM:
Bowery.
An Indian wise man or chief, it was adopted by Tammany Hall in its elaborate aping of Native American ceremony and titles. Tammany’s foot soldiers were commonly referred to as its braves, the leaders as its sachems. Mr. Charles Murphy, the head of the entire organization, was officially the Grand Sachem.
S
HABBOS:
Yiddish.
The Jewish sabbath, observed, from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday, with prayers.
S
HABBOS GOY:
Yiddish.
A gentile recruited to perform certain chores around a Jewish home or synagogue forbidden to the observant on the Sabbath. These might include starting a fire, putting out candles, turning on a light switch, or ringing a doorbell.
SHADCHEN:
Yiddish.
Literally a marriage broker, it was used in the garment trades to indicate a subcontractor, or anyone else who “makes a match” between an employer and a worker.
SHAMMES:
Yiddish.
Literally the “servant” of a congregation—the sexton or caretaker of a synagogue. More colloquially, though, it refers to a flunky, a sycophant, or a stool pigeon.
SHANDE FOR THE GOYIM:
Yiddish.
“A shame before the gentiles.” Someone who discredits all fellow Jews through his or her actions.
SHAYGETS:
Yiddish.
A male gentile. Usually derisive.
SHEYNE YIDN:
Yiddish.
Literally, “beautiful Jews,” and used to describe dutiful and pious Jews. Also used sarcastically, though, to refer to the richest and most pretentious residents of the ghetto.
SHIVAH:
Yiddish.
The traditional seven days of intense mourning following a Jewish funeral. Friends and relatives “sit
shivah”
in the deceased’s home, where they pray, mourn, and eulogize the dead.
SHLIMAZEL:
Yiddish.
An unlucky person, or born loser.
SHMATTE:
Yiddish.
A rag. Often used self-deprecatingly, to refer to an old dress or other garment.
SHMEER:
Yiddish.
To smear, or paint—but also to bribe, as in “greasing a palm.”
SHOFAR:
Hebrew.
The ceremonial ram’s horn, blown in the synagogue during the high holidays of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.
SHOHETIM:
Yiddish.
A ritual, kosher slaughtering house.
SHPREKL:
Yiddish.
A little sprinkle, or in this instance, a little nothing.
SHTARKEH:
Yiddish.
An enforcer, or strong-arm type. A tough guy.
SHTETL:
Yiddish.
The poor, isolated, rural villages and towns where most Eastern European Jews were forced to live up to the Holocaust.
S
IMON
P
URES:
Political reformers.
SKIN:
Bowery.
In this context, to cheat or con.
SLUNGSHOT:
Bowery.
A type of blackjack.
T
ALMUD:
Hebrew.
The massive, 63-book commentary and interpretation of the first five books of the Bible—or the “Five Books of Moses”—compiled over a thousand years by a wide range of Jewish scholars. One of the world’s great religious works, the
Talmud,
in Leo Rosten’s words, “embraces everything from theology to contracts, cosmology to cosmetics, jurisprudence to etiquette, criminal law to diet, delusions, and drinking.”
TEN-TWENTY-THIRTIES:
Large popular theaters in cities and towns around the United States at the turn of the century, showing plays and variety shows. The name reflected the price of the seats, ranging from the cheapest, dime seats in the balconies, down to the best, thirty-cent seats by the stage.
TOCHIS:
Yiddish.
Bottom, or buttocks.
TOCHISES AFN TISH:
Yiddish.
Literally, “buttocks on the table,” it is used to mean “Let’s get down to business,” or “Put up or shut up.”
TOKHTEr:
Yiddish.
Daughter.
TREIFE:
Yiddish.
From the Hebrew for “torn to pieces,” it refers to any nonkosher food—and also to an untrustworthy or nonkosher person or enterprise.
TRIMMERS:
Bowery.
Thieving prostitutes.
TSITSER:
Yiddish.
A habitual kibbitzer.
UBERMENSCHEN:
German.
Supermen.
V
ENUS CURSE:
Bowery.
Venereal disease.
VITZER:
Yiddish.
A joker, a wiseguy. A smart-ass.
WHEEZER:
Bowery.
A joke, particularly an old joke.
YAHRTZEIT:
Yiddish.
The anniversary of someone’s death, commemorated in Judaism with prayers and fasting, and with the burning of memorial lamps and candles.
YARMULKE:
Yiddish.
The skullcap worn by observant Jewish men as a way of showing respect by always covering one’s head before God.
YEN GAH:
Chinese.
The little rack on which the opium pipe bowl is placed before and after it is smoked.
YEN HOCK:
Chinese.
An opium dipping needle.
YEN NGOW:
Chinese.
The tiny spoon used to scrape opium bowls.
YENTA:
Yiddish.
A gossipy, interfering woman, often a shrew or a vulgarian.
YENTZER:
Yiddish.
Literally, “one who copulates,” and often used to describe a slut or a Lothario—but in this instance refers to its alternative definition of a crook or swindler.
YESHIVA BOCHER:
Yiddish.
A scholar from the
yeshiva,
or religious school. Beyond that, it means a shy, inexperienced, innocent young man.
YIDDISHE:
Yiddish.
Refers to all things Jewish. See
goyishe.
YOK:
Yiddish.
An ox, a clumsy fool. Usually a new arrival from the old country.
Z
EESER
G
OTTENYU:
Yiddish.
“Sweet God!”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS,
AND A NOTE ON SOURCES
I have found that, as a rule, you can’t beat reality; the best you can do is try to rearrange it. I have found this to be generally true as a writer, and particularly true in writing about the American past, where the facts often sound so novelistic that I was often at pains to make the reality sound even vaguely plausible.
The first obligation of historical fiction, like any other fiction, is to tell a good story—a real story, one that engages the reader. Its characters should walk and talk, lust and crave, disappoint and surprise. But this leads to another, inevitable question: What obligation does a writer of historical fiction have to the truth, that is, to the historical record? To me, this obligation is the same for any writer, whether the setting is historical or contemporary. That obligation is to what I would call an essential core of truth.
For the most part I have stuck close to the historical record, as best I could determine it. I have tried to depict as accurately as possible how one part of the world in America, circa 1910, looked and smelled and sounded. I have tried to show, as best as I understand it myself, how people of that world lived and died, what they dreamed of and aspired to, what they loathed and feared.
What I have felt bound above all to get right is human nature. That is, how people—actual historical personages and fictional characters alike—really thought and behaved, and not just how I would have wished them to act and think.
In some instances I have changed names and places, constructed composite characters and altered chronologies. The visit of Freud, Jung, and Ferenczi to America, for instance, actually took place in the summer of 1909, while both the Triangle Fire and the Dreamland fire occurred in the spring of 1911. I have, as well, changed the order in which certain events in the life of Freud—such as the tribute he received in the Prater, and his descent upon the psychoanalysts’ congress—took place.
George McClellan had already passed from City Hall in favor of William Gaynor when the Herman Rosenthal affair reached its crescendo, and the resulting trials and execution of Rosenthal’s killers, real and otherwise, took a few years more—by which time Big Tim Sullivan had also passed on. I have also (slightly) altered the timing of several cultural events in American history, such as the advent of Chaplin’s Little Tramp and Mack Sennett’s Keystone Kops, and the construction of New York’s Municipal Building.
Readers who notice these—and others—are to be commended for their knowledge of American and New York history, but they should realize that such choices have been made intentionally. I hope that they will further amuse themselves sniffing out the real, unnamed, historical personages I have snuck into the narrative.
Of course, many of the characters in
Dreamland,
great and small—Freud and Jung, Kid Twist and Gyp the Blood—are real people. Others are purely fictional creations. And then there is Matthew Brinckerhoff, an amalgam of the great Coney Island entrepreneurs George Tilyou, Fred Thompson, Elmer Dundy, and Capt. Paul Boynton—all under the noble rubric of my brother-in-law.
Again, though, I have tried to explore essential, vital truths. The account of the Rosenthal murder herein, and the beginnings of Freud’s break with Jung are, as far as I can determine, both accurate and not widely known. Much of the dialogue between the fathers of modern psychology, and the particulars of Freud’s time in America, are verbatim as it has come down to us.
I have tried as well to capture the spirit of the age. Hence there are some passing homages to the coming of the modern in American life and letters—to Whitman, Melville, Eliot, Fitzgerald, Kafka, and others. I have also tried to put into words some of the more striking visual images of the time and place, to incorporate the photographs of Alfred Stieglitz and Edward Steichen and others, and the paintings of George Bellows and Edward Hopper and the Ashcan School.
