The Real Lords of Flatbush – The Inspiration

WHEN I WAS SINGLE and dating I would regale girls with these stories of my childhood and the guys I hung with. I became aware of which stories and which characters held their attention and which didn’t. That was truly the genesis of the making of the “Lords of Flatbush,” to impress the girls.

My childhood was misspent cutting classes, playing pool and sitting on perhaps a stolen motorcycle and hanging out with guys who were Juniors for the second or third time. We called ourselves the “Lords of Flatbush.” In reality we were paper hitters, not real hoods. We never hurt anyone and the worse thing that could ever be said of us was that we were involved in joy riding some cars and a bike or two. My chopped motorcycle was bought for sixty dollars that my grandmother gave me. It never had license plates. I never asked where it came from. All I could think of was that I had wheels. I was fifteen years old and I was cool.

I was dating a girl with a very large bosom who was fondly known by the gang as “Knockers.” Well, Knockers came from a good but low income home and her father was adamant about not letting her go out with a guy on a motorcycle in a leather jacket. Mind you, I didn’t even have a driver’s license. I was a skinny kid who had no fear, but was confused. I was an only child and one from only two broken families in the neighborhood. No father.

My mother left my father when I was either six months or two years old. The stories conflict depending on who you ask. My mother refused to talk about it. “He’s a bum!” she would say and that was the end of the conversation. She found lipstick on my father’s collar, and in one motion swooped me up under her arm and moved with me to my grandparents’ house in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn. My mother, Florence, took no prisoners. In those days no single woman lived alone with her child. At least not if she still had living family. The Second World War was on.

It was there that I shared the middle bedroom with my grandfather. My mother shared the back bedroom with her twin sister Dorothy. My grandmother shared her big front bedroom with my aunt Rose, Rebecca and Mildred at various revolving times. Rebecca was a schoolteacher who graduated college and married a southerner. As soon as she could she moved to South Carolina. My Aunt Rose was there for some time along with the youngest of my mother’s siblings, the always overweight Aunt Mildred. We all shared the small one bathroom upstairs house in the middle of the block, on East 9th street in Brooklyn.

Ellen a.k.a. “Knockers” and I were in deep lust. In those days good girls didn’t “put out” like later generations. Anyway, there was no way I could pick her up for a date with my chopped Indian bike in a leather jacket adorned with gang symbols. So the boys got together and decided to “borrow” a car for me. I was totally unaware that they were doing this.

I was then called Chico, because it meant little boy. As I was slight but agile I had the gang’s respect. Not to mention that I would fight anyone. I was really good with my hands, but I guess somewhere down deep, psychologically, I was lost and trying to find myself. I never understood if it had anything to do with my father’s meandering. Or if he was even guilty of what my mother charged. I never saw him again from that day back in Springfield, Illinois. Somehow we made the trek from Illinois to Brooklyn without one memory.

The war was on in Europe. In my grandparents’ home, Europe was where children were starving and so I was pushed to eat everything on my plate. As I learned when I got older, all of those old corny expressions turned out to be wrong. Actually milk wasn’t good for me. Eggs made me tired. I had food allergies that were unknown and undetected. And when I made my first trip to Europe as a nineteen year old I never ate better or lived better. I didn’t understand. I knew that my grandparents and my mother loved me. But they were so wrong about life abroad. I didn’t understand it. There were many things that I never understood when I was younger. Could they have lied to me? Or were they just not aware themselves? I often questioned authority. And yet I respected authority. I certainly knew right from wrong. But my elders were not giving me all that I needed. So I turned to the gang for solace and advice. I was in conflict and there was no one better to help me answer my questions. Most of the time, though, I turned inward. I kept to myself. I would flare up into anger at the drop of a hat or a snide look. I was to be feared, respected, and talked about. My 140-pound frame was a live wire and my reputation was growing. In a way I enjoyed that. It made me popular with the girls. And at fifteen that was everything.

From age fourteen to sixteen I don’t remember my saying much. I would only recall that I sat on my chopped bike and I spit. I acted tough, but inside I was a mess of anxieties.

One of the members of the “Lords,” Louie Levine, was known as the “Sheriff.” His family owned a small hotel in the Catskill Mountains called the “Glory,” and one summer they made Louie the Deputy Sheriff. They even gave him a gun. He was my age, fifteen. When the summer was over no one bothered to ask for the gun back. Louie, the “Sheriff,” kept it. But I will say he kept it responsibly. None of us were ever allowed to touch it, or to use it to intimidate, or even to show off. Not even to “Knockers.” Louie the “Sheriff” took his job very seriously.

Other members had handles instead of names. There was Bones, Crazy, Skitch, Nick the Greek, Paulie C and Vom, short for vomit. We hung out next to the Cyclone roller coaster ride in Coney Island. Or Barney’s Pool Room off Kings Highway. Or if we were really feeling like peacocks we would strut over to Dubrow’s Cafeteria.

In Coney Island we lined our bikes up along the side street of the Cyclone and sat there and waited for some unsuspecting girls to walk by. Then we would get all tough looking and pucker up our lips and make horrible sounds. We thought it was funny. The girls rarely did.

If another gang came to ride the Cyclone they were very cautious about starting anything with us. We were feared. For what reason I don’t know. Maybe it was our association with tougher street gangs like the Noble Lords, or the Fordham Baldies, or the truly frightening Chaplains. They were bad. On the other hand the Lords of Flatbush never did anything serious, except spit.

I rode with these guys for almost two years and the worst thing that I remembered was a few minor skirmishes with other schools’ football teams. That was it. Nothing like you read about today. No one was shot. No was killed. No one was beaten within an inch of his life. The silliest thing we did was to get this guy Stanley drunk. One beer and a shot of booze and he was a goner. Legs wobbly, dizzy and easily manipulated. Then we would dare him to go on the roller coaster. Not wanting to be called chicken he got on. Invariably when he got off he would run to the corner and throw up. Hence, his new name Vom. We didn’t feel right about calling his house and asking his mother is Vomit home? So we shortened it. And it stuck.

Then there was “Farmer” Green. His real name was Barry Green but for some reason he had that handle without every leaving the grayness of Brooklyn. Barry the “farmer” was very good looking. In fact there was an incredible resemblance between him and Elvis. And he used it to charm the girls. Today you would think that having the name the “Farmer” he grew pot or coca leaves. In those days you were lucky if you had a window box with a geranium.

The “Farmer” was the first to lose his virginity. Well, almost his virginity. When I was thirteen and two weeks after my bar mitzvah, my uncle Irving, who I adored, took Barry and I to a whorehouse in Spanish Harlem where we both had a hooker named Juanita. I don’t remember who went first, only that it lasted about two minutes for each of us and we were soon the heroes of the School. But we went without bedding a girl for two years after that and we were so horny living on our one moment of fucking.

Then the “Farmer” met Sheila Salt and before you knew it he was in her pants and she was pregnant. I was still wetting my pants dry humping. The school was buzzing with the news of the impending nuptials. Barry was fifteen and had to drop out and get a job to support his new family. Sheila dropped out but I don’t think she worked. It’s strange how life turns so quickly.

The “Farmer’s” father, a real character, sold wedding dresses as a traveling salesman. He wangled another road job for his young son Barry and before you knew it the “Farmer” was making real money, over a hundred a week. We were all thinking we should quit school and get jobs and make money like the “Farmer.” Plus, and almost as importantly, the “Farmer” was getting laid every day. Or at least we thought. So we all thought about marriage. We looked at our girls and contemplated getting laid anytime we wanted. The girls had other ideas. Thankfully no one else rushed in to follow.

As I said, we lived in a private house in the middle of the block. There were six other private houses on either side of us. The “Farmer” lived on the top floor of a five-story walkup on the corner. Ong before he was impregnating the neighborhood, his mother, Yetta, used to call his dick a cookie. Somehow we learned that little tidbit from the “Farmer’s” older, weird brother Charlie.

Sheila and the baby moved in with the Farmer and his brother and parents. But that didn’t last long in the cramped two bedroom apartment. Soon the “Farmer” and his new family had an apartment of their own. Before that, I still remember Yetta leaning out the window of the walkup and yelling to Barry and I that we should come up for cookies and milk. The “Farmer” always got ribbed about his cookie. The “Farmer” was a terrific pool player, probably the only one beside me that was really good years before we were old enough to legally enter a pool hall.

When I was almost thirteen and I wanted a pool table, but my mother refused to buy me one. They were expensive. So I decided to build my own. I started bringing home orange crates and scraps of wood. Hey, I took shop. My uncle Leo, My mother’s oldest brother, helped me build a tool bench and gave me some things to work with. The rest I got from my grandfather. I started to build it in the basement. The knocking, hammering and constant noise was driving my Aunt Rose and my Aunt Dorothy crazy. So they complained to my mother and my grandfather. For my thirteenth birthday my mother and grandparents gave me a real pool table. Rose used it to dry her falsies on. She would lay out a towel and neatly spread out her foam falsies in rows every night. Meticulous was an understatement. I was always fighting with her that she would ruin the felt. But she didn’t listen I was only a kid. Nobody listened to kids.

After school you either came to my house to shoot pool or you went to my friend Paulie C’s house. Paulie’s father had a chauffer-driven Chrysler Imperial with a wheel on the trunk. We never understood why Paulie’s father would let someone else drive, when that was our greatest desire next to getting laid.

Stuie Silvers was one of the smartest kids in the neighborhood. He was versed on almost any subject. He had a flair for art and the finer things. His family was very understanding and communicative. He even spoke some French. Sometimes, the Farmer used to say, we wished we had that kind of relationship at our homes.

When we were fifteen, Silvers’s father used to have little shows in their antique-filled apartment. He invited “Superman” to come and screw a couple of Cuban girls in their living room. He would charge $15 per head. No pun intended. Superman was known for his immense penis. We would set up bridge chairs in the living room and Stuie would collect the money. I think we were there to intimidate any of the older and paying customers from acting up. After a few costly drinks at the private bar, another venue Silvers’s father ran, he would stand up and announce with great pleasure that Superman had come all the way from Havana. “Performing” with him today will be, Stormy and Sunny. We were very disillusioned when we learned that they weren’t really named “Stormy” and “Sunny.”

Superman would stand there with his robe closed. The girls would come running in from the bedroom to the living room “theater” naked. They danced around him and eventually they opened his robe and exposed his enormous erection.

The men, and that was all there were in the audience, quietly grew very uncomfortable. Us young ones were in shock. We had to work hard to be cool and not to have our mouths open and drool stain the carpet. Not to mention a sign of an erection in our jeans. I probably chain smoked two packs in two hours.

The girls would run their hands up and down Superman’s thigh and eventually they performed what they were paid to do, have sex with him. Looking back in hindsight, they overacted their pleasures way and above any B porn movie. This same type of event was portrayed by Francis Ford Coppola in “Godfather Part Two” when Al Pacino goes with his brother Freddo to Havana to see Superman and learns about Freddo’s involvement with Johnny Aolla. Our secret desire that none of us ever voiced, was that the girls would be so frustrated when they finished with Superman that they would want one of us young studs. Of course that never happened, especially since we had no money of our own to pay them.

Anyway, we all used Silvers so that we could be the ones to be at this momentous event free of charge. I was never sure why I was always asked as I certainly wasn’t intimidating looking. Of course I did have a motorcycle jacket complete with skull and cross bones on the sleeve.

Silvers went on to avoid the draft by moving to Canada and then when he was pursued by the Police for God only knows what, he changed his name to Rain and moved to London where he affected one of the best English upper crust accents imaginable and became a successful antiques and art dealer. Maybe Sunny and Stormy had something to do with his changing his name to Rain.

“Bones” was a year or two older than me, but still in my class. A social senior is what we called it. He should have graduated two years earlier. It wasn’t that he was stupid, just the contrary, it was his conduct that caused him to be a senior for three consecutive years.

“Bones” was like his name implied, tall and very thin. But he had an indelible expression on his face that could send chills up your spine in an instant. I never wanted to cross “Bones.” In fact I went out of my way to stay on his good side. He reminds me of the crazed character in Michael Mann’s “Manhunter” the precursor to “Silence of the Lambs” and the tall blond guy who chopped up bodies in a wood chipper in “Fargo.” A pretty scary guy, of very few words.

One day “Bones” pulls up with a station wagon. He says “get in.” God only knows where he got the car from or why I got in. But you didn’t want to question “Bones.” In the back and mounted on a tripod was a rifle. I don’t think it was an automatic, as I was not familiar with guns in those days. Anyway, “Bones” wants to warn the kids at the neighboring high school that we were not to be fucked with. So we drove over to Midwood, a “good” school. “Bones” lowered the tailgate and we fired into a closed door. It was a long weekend and the gates to the school were closed. We knew there was no one there, otherwise I don’t know if I would have gone through with the intimidation.

Not only was no one was hurt. No one even heard the shot. We drove off and of course word spread like wildfire about the incident. I don’t know how, as I never said anything and “Bones” was not someone who volunteered anything except a good beating.

“Bones” went on to be a teacher in the public school system in the Bronx. I have pity for those poor students if they did to him what he did to his teachers.

Stanley Kirkland came from a good home. His family had money. His father owned Rayco seat covers. In those days when you got a new car you drove immediately over to Rayco and got the seats covered in plastic. Actually everything in Stanley’s house was covered in plastic. He was like the boy in the bubble without the bubble.

It must have been an unwritten sin to not cover your furniture and car seats. God forbid they were not protected. I never understood why. It stuck to your back in the summer and were cold in the winter. And why bother with leather seats or your choice of fabric if you were going to hide it under a plastic that eventually turned yellow?

In our house, we had slipcovers on the couch. We also had two large chairs that were covered in a different fabric. Thankfully, they were in fabric not plastic.

I never understood why you would buy a chair with a specific pattern and then cover it to protect it and never see the original until you were ready to sell it. Especially after you waited weeks to have it upholstered in some horrible floral print. What do they say, God made the earth in six days and then waited twelve weeks for the carpets and drapes and slip covers. What I don’t get is why not just cover it with a slipcover in the same fabric? You were never going to see the original. Now you could have a cover at the same time looking like what you wanted in the first place. I figured it would also be cheaper to have the same print since you are already buying the fabric and a few feet more or less wouldn’t change the cost that much. I amortized everything. I was taught that from the time I first heard my family speak. “Do you know how much this costs?” was a constant mantra around the house. So I amortized the fabric and thought the reason they did it was for resale value. Our family always thought of the money. It ruled. The greatest sin in our family was not to have money. If you were unfortunate enough not to have it, you were a “schnook.” That was about as low as it got.

Stanley was very smart so he was elected to help me with my homework, which I used to wait till the last minute to do. I was very close to him and enjoyed his sense of humor. He was also a wonderful pool player which gave him more respect in the gang. He was also the only one who wore glasses. But for some reason he was never known as four eyes, or professor.

It was only when we got him drunk, which was often that he reverted to being “Vom.” Poor Vom was always on the receiving end of our jokes. He eventually married his high school sweetheart, an Italian beauty named Annette. It was the first cross breading of an Italian girl and a Jewish guy. In fact I would say that most Jewish guys ended up marrying non Jewish girls. As far as I know, Vom and Annette are still happily married and living in Florida with lots of money.

Frankie Morandi’s family owned meat markets. We used to tease him that if he worked at the market long enough he would surely lose a finger. Hence the handle, Frankie Four Fingers.

Frankie was one of the Italian kids in my class. My neighborhood was all Jews and Italians. There were no Puerto Ricans, no Blacks or Asians, except for Sammy Chin, whose father owned the Chinese restaurant on Kings’ Highway. But no one hung out with Sammy. I always thought he and his food were Jewish as every Sunday, no matter what, unless it was Yom Kippur we had Chinese food. Sometimes from Chin’s, other times from Joy Fong on Avenue J. It was really better but Sammy’s was in walking distance.

Our house was the seventh house from the corner, no matter which way you came down the street. On one side of us were the Goodmans and on the other side were the Rothsteins, both Jewish and known by name. But on either side of them were Italian families. When my grandmother needed something and she knew that the Goodmans weren’t home or Rothstein was out she would send me to the Italians on Rothstein’s side, or the Italians on Goodman’s side, to fetch. None were ever known by their name. They were only the Italians on one side or the other.

In those days you never, but I mean never, locked your front door. It was perhaps the safest neighborhood in the world. That is until I went to gym class.

I was a Junior and one of the classes you never missed was gym. I remember walking in and not seeing any of the Italian kids, like Frankie Morandi, Paulie C, Vinnie, and Skitch. I said to Vom “where is everybody?” He looked at me and said, “Don’t you read the papers?” “Don’t I read the papers? What kind of a question was that?” I replied. Well, all of the Italian kids who made up half of the “Lords of Flatbush” were pulled out of school as their fathers were all arrested in Apalachin. “What the hell is Apalachin?” I asked.

It seems our quiet neighborhood where we were innocently living was also the home of the mob. No wonder we had that unspoken safety net. You had to be totally crazy or lost to come to our neighborhood and do something stupid. Instead, of course we did it ourselves.

It was here that Louie the “Sheriff” and Phil “Hook Shot” Brown and Dickie Eastridge and Skitch Scorrezelli and Frankie “Four Fingers” Morandi brought me a brand spanking new 4-door Cadillac Fleetwood with a magnificent two-toned mint green finish, with all the bells and whistles, so that I could take “Knockers” out properly.

Like so many other things in the finished movie it became a Packard. They said it was Louie’s uncle’s car and he was up at the Hotel and wasn’t using it. I believed them. It never dawned on me that it was stolen. It wasn’t until almost a week had gone by when it finally dawned on me that I had been had.

By then “Hook Shot” was saying “Hey, Chico has a car. I want a car”! So did Dickie Eastridge, Frankie “Four Fingers” and Roger “Four Eyes” Stein and Skitch Scorrezelli, and Bruce North, Neal “Toys” Saul, Vinnie “the valise” Vinci and “Crazy” Cohen and on and on. In fact the entire gang wanted cars. So little by little the neighborhood was relieved of a bunch of new or fairly new cars. Driving up to Bedford Avenue across from James Madison High School was like pulling into an upscale parking lot of new vehicles.

One Friday night “The Glen Miller” story was playing at the Avalon theater. We all went to see it. In those days you didn’t go to a movie with just one couple – you went with anyone and everyone you knew. There were probably 30 of us in the balcony carrying on. And I mean carrying on. You also went to a movie like the “Glen Miller Story” with musical instruments. We were going to play along with the clarinet playing band leader. Not that I had any musical talent but I could bang on the balcony railing as good as the next guy. Peter Beck, a certifiably loose cannon brought a drum. That was all we needed to start off the evening. He and Frankie took turns hammering away. No one dared to quiet us down.

About twenty minutes into the movie the film stopped, obviously causing more hoots and howls. The lights come up and an announcement is made that they found the wallet of Peter Beck and would he kindly come down to the manager’s office to retrieve it. Beck was so stupid that he never bothered to look in his pocket. I remember his cocky grin as he stood up as if it to take a bow and with arms raised in the air like “Rocky,” he headed downstairs to the cheers of his cohorts. Downstairs he was confronted by two plainclothes detectives and arrested. Not for disturbing the film, but for stealing cars. Peter was hauled off to the 16 th Street Precinct on Avenue U.

After a number of minutes his girl friend Judy went down to check on him. Stunned by the news she came running back to the balcony to warn us with tears in her eyes. Like locusts fleeing a fire we were out every door. Screw the movie – we were on the run. We decided to leave the cars as they were on to us. Only “Nick the Greek” could legally drive. We poured as many of us as possible into the Greek’s black Plymouth and were off. But where to? The girls headed home on their own, while we men deliberated.

Vegas was brought up. We thought we’d be safe in Vegas. But the Greek had no reason to go. He had a license. He was sixteen and had taken Driver’s Ed. He never stole a car. We pleaded with him that he was obligated to protect his friends. He had a loyalty to the “Lords of Flatbush.” But he was unmoved. About three in the morning with no place to go and fear encircling us we headed to the only place left—home.

The first thing Saturday we all met at Barney’s poolroom to discuss what we should do. Word spread like wild fire that Roger “Four Eyes” Stein squealed. Roger the biggest of all of us was caught when he took a car with a manual shift. He popped the clutch and hit a bunch of garbage pails. Dickie Eastridge was with him but he was faster and able to get away. Roger was so big and clumsy that the Police caught up to him very quickly. He was brought to the 16th Precinct where he saw a rubber hose hanging off the back of a door. Imagining the worst, Roger broke down. When they asked him “who else was with you,” he rattled off everyone’s name in the “Lords of Flatbush” phone directory.

Saturday was spent figuring out what we were going to do with a rat in our midst and where we should head to if the cops come. The cars were all left on the street by the movie theater. It was considered safer not to touch them.

Saturday night and Sunday were spent in angst. By Sunday afternoon “Nick the Greek” was starting to soften about driving to Vegas. He needed a new scene and Vegas seemed like a place he could handle. We imagined Sinatra and the “Rat Pack” and how they would embrace us if we came. After all we were like them — cool.

We planned to leave Monday, so the Greek could quit his part time job after he punches out his boss. We all talk, but none of us really do, especially something like that. After Ed Sullivan ended that Sunday night I remember going upstairs to take a shower. When I came out I heard the front doorbell ringing. Somehow I knew what to expect. I went into my grandmother’s room in the front of the house and opened the window. I looked down and saw three men in hats with an unmarked black car in the driveway and a Paddy Wagon on the street. There was also a Police car with a red light blinking but thankfully no siren. I asked them what they wanted. They each raised their right hands up to me and showed their badges. “Detective Ryan, Detective Shay, and Detective O’Leary.” they declared. I said “I’ll be right down.”

I ran down the stairs before my grandfather could open the door. My mother came to the door and asked “Who comes to the house at this hour of the night?” I quickly admitted: “ I went for a ride with Dickie Eastridge and Frankie Morandi and I didn’t know the car was stolen. The Police want to talk to me.” “Oh my God! My mother exclaimed as my grandfather stood there silently taking this all in and still holding the evening newspaper in his hand. I don’t remember making eye contact with my mother or my grandfather who definitely ruled the roost and whose respect I so desperately didn’t want to lose.

I was put in the black car in the front seat and not the Paddy Wagon. I remember my mother and grandfather standing in the door watching as we backed out of the drive…