Famous Nathan by Mr. Lloyd Handwerker Read Free Book Online Page A

or three to get coffee.”
    In this slow, laborious manner, Nathan Handwerker learned English. He would call out orders before he knew what the words meant. “Milk” became the next vocabulary entry, and then “pie” and “cake.” The clientele flung unintelligible phrases at him: “half a coconut pie,” “half an apple pie,” “a cheesecake.” Rush hour in a busy Manhattan luncheonette, a trial by fire. Somehow, Nathan made it through.
    On the afternoon of his first day, as the tide of customers ebbed, Nathan’s boss came over to take charge of the money the new busboy had collected during lunch. Proud of his honesty, Nathan was exact with the count: “Not a penny short, not a penny over.”
    The boss was happy. “Go eat, Benny,” he said.
    Nathan motioned that he needed to be shown how he could take a meal. The manager gave him a small measure of the unbelievable bounty of the New World: three sandwiches, one stuffed with sliced beef, one a cheese sandwich, the third a hamburger. The employees were charged three cents for half a pie and a penny for glass of lemonade. As generous as the staff lunch was, it didn’t satisfy the new immigrant’s bottomless hunger.
    â€œI could have eaten three times as much, but I was afraid to lose the job,” Nathan recalled. Cheese and beef together? His kosher dietary strictures went by the wayside.
    On the cook line ahead of Nathan/Benny was the frankfurter man, a veteran who had more seniority. The newcomer worked on one side of the counter, the frankfurter man was on the other. Frankfurters with sauerkraut cost two cents. With a toasted roll added in, the tally went up to three cents. The job of dishing up the sausages would represent a step up the ladder for Nathan.
    The next Saturday was payday. Nathan stood last in line to receive his money, four and a half dollars for the week. When his turn came, the owner, Max, gave him five dollars.
    â€œBoss, you gave me too much money,” Nathan said, still speaking Yiddish. He displayed his pay.
    â€œI’ll give you a raise, but next week, you work on the frankfurters.”
    Once again, Nathan had to protest, citing his lack of the native tongue.
    â€œYou don’t have to speak English,” the boss said. “All you have to say is, ‘All hot, get ’em while they’re hot.’”
    He made the newly promoted dishwasher say it. “All hot, get ’em while they’re hot.”
    â€œGriddle frankfurters three cents,” the boss said. “Boiled frankfurters two cents with sauerkraut.”
    Nathan repeated the lines until he had them down cold. The phrases were probably among the first hundred or so words that Nathan learned in English.
    When he came into the luncheonette the following Monday, he worked the frankfurter counter. Nathan might not have known it at the time, but it was a match made in heaven. He had been in America all of two weeks.

 
    4
    The Tenth Ward

    â€œHow long is he going to stay with us? He’s eating up the food.” Lower East Side, New York City, ca. 1912.
    THE WORLD THAT Nathan stepped into when he came to America—the early twentieth-century Lower East Side community of Jewish immigrants packed into a teeming, flavorful, overcrowded ghetto—has long been distorted by nostalgia. The memory of it is rose colored, but the reality was oftentimes dreadful. Nathan was a “ greene Jew,” a “greenhorn,” as opposed to the “ gelle, ” the yellows, experienced residents who had a few years in the country. His fellow immigrants both disparaged and embraced such newly arrived figures as Nathan Handwerker.
    The ghetto was crowded with poor Jews, poorer even than the greenhorn from Galicia. The average amount of money brought to America by Russian Jews was eight dollars, and Nathan had three times that. New York City was a shock to the immigrant’s system,