Butcher Boy

I confounded my old man's expectations when I blew off college and decided to go to work full time. Since I had low self-esteem, instead of getting an administrative clerk's position which I would have excelled at, I went for something low and menial. I got a job as a delivery boy.
I had a halfway decent car that could get me around, so I applied for the nearest business in the neighborhood. It was a kosher butcher shop, Zimmerman's Meats, run by Morty Zimmerman, a gaunt man with a pot belly and a mustache that looked Hitlerian. His behavior was fairly Hitlerian, but I needed money, bad.
Zimmerman was cranky and acted like he was always on the rag, and looked it too with his bloody butcher's smock.
"Sevrin!" he yelled at me. "Mrs. Scheinblum of Cashio Street ordered five pounds of brisket. Here's twenty dollars and make sure you get exact change. Did you hear me, Sevrin?"
"I'm on my way!" I grabbed the twenty and the pink wrapping paper of five pounds brisket.
Twenty minutes later I came back with exact change for Zimmerman. Zimmerman was chopping wings off chicken bodies, and stopped to look at me. The first thing that came out of his mouth was, "Nu, how much did she tip you?"
"She tipped me fifty cents", which was normal back then. A pound of meat was only two dollars fifty cents.
"That cheap son of a bitch!" he yelled. "Only fifty cents. God damn it!"

Zimmerman was punk rock before there was punk rock. He showed me the ropes at depositing the store take for the week by walking with me to the bank across the street. Zimmerman didn't give two shits about propriety, he kept his bloody apron on. There we were in line, me frightened young yid-mod alongside Jewish hitler moustache with a bloody apron stinking of dead flesh, the customers moving far away from us in line. Zimmerman was oblivious to his effect on the crowd.
"Now listen, if they offer you a glass tea with cookies you tell them Mister Zimmerman has more meat you HAVE to deliver", he hissed so loudly you could hear him in Calabassas. "Take the money and get the fuck out", his voice rising with Semitic rage, people parting away from us even more.
I was disgusted by him, but then I lifted my arm and realized I had dead cattle and chicken stink on me, too. We both had the stink! I looked down at my shoes and noticed the reddish-brown hue of dried blood, too.
"Look, Sevrin", he went back to hissing, "The next assignment when we get back I have for you is you're going to hose the floor and I want you to sponge the freezer, then we have to prepare for the Shabbos rush!"
The teller waved us over with a terrified look on his face and took the cash. I think I worked for Zimmerman for two months and finally I got tired of taking scalding showers that barely got the bleeding meat smell off me. Zimmerman hated paying me anyway, I think that's why he threw a pisspot tantrum over my tips. I don't think he missed me and I KNOW I didn't miss him.

Pico and Robertson

I forgot to put the bobby pin on my yarmulke, so the skull cap kept slipping off the back of my head again and again. I had to keep readjusting it on my head to keep it from falling off. I walked down Pico Boulevard doing this as the carnival of the damaged and depraved passed me by.

There was Mr. Exploded Eye, the Dog Lady, even old Moe Howard, decades away from Three Stooges fame. He’d hang out by the news stand and talk to the battered old vendor in his frail voice, a small, meek old guy with the spittoon haircut, all white now, too tired to throw a pie or poke a Shemp eye to save his life.

Mr. Exploded Eye had a severe case of conjunctivitis that was never treated, so he had one eye that protruded from his head like an enormous fried egg that exploded. He always wore a baggy suit with a crushed hat and looked like an old baggy pants comedian straight out of a burlesque show.

The Dog Lady was a gnomish woman of indeterminate age who always wore a heavy coat regardless of the weather. She continuously walked four mongrels on a leash. The dogs were so tired and inbred they didn’t resemble any identifiable breed to anyone.

Advancing towards the large intersection of Robertson Boulevard one could hear the shrill wail of Morey Branovan’s alto saxophone. Branovan was an insane little Jew with platinum blonde hair and a baby face who hated children and teenagers. And we hated him. He would play “Hatikvah” in an excruciatingly loud bray that sounded like a horse being tortured. In between notes he’d scream “HEY!” He’d wear a Hawaiian shirt with rotting old leis around his neck and have a sign in front of his sax stand that said “I LOVE GOLDA MEIR”. Even the Rabbis avoided this no-talent creep, stepping around him as you would a big dog turd.

Naïve idiot that I was, I tried to talk saxophones with him. BIG mistake.

“Hey, man, what brand mouthpiece do you use?”

“#@xT&%!” he mumbled insanely, clearly not interested.

“Do you double on tenor, also?”

“Kaftaferogoondoolabob”, he hacked in my face, a loogie just barely missing my pan. I was getting kinda steamed at his phoney crazy ass act.

“Did you blow your Daddy to get that horn, you old freak mother?” I leaned into him.

“GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE MOISHE DAYAN SHIT PISS HEBREW NATIONAL!” he roared, his fat pugly face turning beet red.

“Oops!’ I kicked his sax case over, causing nickels, dimes, and quarters to spill out onto the sidewalk, coins rolling into the gutter and further out into the street.

“I’LL KILL YOU!” he screamed so loud everybody stopped in their tracks and turned around. “YOU DAMN KUGEL MATZO BALLO VOOTY BASTARD FUCK SIDNEY MENDEL KATZENBERGER!”

I strolled down the road and felt a little bit better than I did ten minutes ago. I turned for a sec and saw Branovan chasing his change into the street, shiny new Cadillacs almost plowing into his stocky frame and honking angrily at him. The world was crazy and I didn’t care anymore.