THE DUKE OF SEVENTH STREET (Part 1) by Judith Fabris

“Okay youse bums, listen up. I want da white guy!” My uncle Duke yelled at the sea of black faces around us in the stadium.

The air hung heavy on this hot, sweltering August night in 1951. Standing by our fifth row ringside seats, Duke pulled a wad of green from his pants hip pocket. He held it tightly tucked in the palm of his extended left arm. All the blacks around us started jeering and pulling out their money.

“Hey Vinny,” he yelled at me. “Write deez bets down.” He handed me a small spiral notebook and a pencil.

    I was twenty-two years old, finishing a thirty-day leave after nineteen months on the line in Korea. Duke treated me like his son since my own father died when I was twelve.

    “Jeez, are you getting’ all dis down?”

    “Yeah, Duke,” I mumbled. I was petrified. Even though I was prepared for war. I wasn’t ready for a fight in the middle of Yankee Stadium. If Duke won, I wondered how the hell we would get out of there alive. Joey Maxim, the light heavyweight champion of the world was up against Sugar Ray Robinson, a triple-crown champion of the world. I can remember seeing him in his pink convertible Caddie, driving around Harlem. He owned several businesses, a cleaning place, a bar, and a candy store. But right now, my thoughts were on how Duke and I would get away if he lost his bets. There he stood, taking bets and laying off bets almost as fast as I could write them down, and the odds on Maxim were going higher and higher. I thought he would never stop betting.

    My uncle Duke was not quite 5’10”. The women loved him with his flashy clothes, barrel chest and swarthy complexion. He was one handsome guy. When we’d go anywhere on the Jersey shore, good looking babes were always finding ways to meet him. His piercing blue eyes never missed a pretty face. I was no slouch with the girls either. But I couldn’t hold a candle to my uncles as a ladies’ man, despite my being in the best shape ever as a combat-ready infantryman. Of course, my tan khakis and white shirt made no fashion statement whatsoever.

    Born Daio Joseph Pucci, he was Duke to his family, and Joe to those who didn’t know him. My aunt, his sister, named him the Duke of Seventh Street. The Duke, or el Duco, because he was so fastidious about his person and clothes. Seventh Street, because that’s the street we lived on in Union City, New Jersey. My father died when I was twelve, and Uncle Duke became the closest thing I had to a father. From the time I can first remember celebrating Christmas, the only toys I ever received as presents were from my Uncle Duke. He saw to it each year there would be something special just for me. In high school and in college, before I was drafted, Duke made sure I always had spending money or his car to drive when I had a date.

    He would bring my mother groceries at least once a week. I had three other uncles, Duke’s brothers, who also had cars. But it was always Duke who took her shopping or to her doctor’s appointments. My other uncles never even offered.

    Duke had seen so much action during World War II that he was mustered out early in ’45. Neither Mom nor I, nor the rest of the family had eaten real butter, eggs or meat since 1941. He knew where the black market was. He saw to it that our icebox was filled with butter and eggs, and Mom could put meatloaf on the table. That first week he was home was like Thanksgiving, Christmas, and the Fourth of July all rolled into one.

    Duke had trained me to keep book for him while I worked in one of his gas stations before I went into the service. He always wanted me to take over his businesses, talking about it all the time I was growing up. Running his book, handling his gas stations, and fencing stolen property were only a few things I knew about. He was very secretive and told me never to ask him anything. If he wanted to tell me something he would—and not just about business. In his straight-forward way, he passed on advice—even wisdom—about life.

    I didn’t want to know about all his nefarious practices and illegal racketeering. I loved him dearly. I’m glad I didn’t know.

    Most early mornings if I wanted to find Duke, I would head for Dottie’s Diner at the transfer station. This was in the boiling pot of the area, where pimps, prostitutes, gamblers, street vendors, and bars were the usual. It was where Patterson Plank Road, Eighth Street, Summit Avenue, and Hudson Boulevard all converged. People said you could bargain for anything there or get a bus to anywhere in the world.

    Duke would be sitting in a back booth with his three closest friends teasing each other mercilessly. On days the horses were running, he’d be bent over the pages of the racing form, handicapping every race. I acted as his bagman, picking up chits and money bet on the races from the various barber shops and shoeshine stands, whose customers placed their bets through my uncle. He wouldn’t let me collect from the bars or liquor stores.

    I grew up around Uncle Duke’s cronies. They were as colorful as their names, and I loved them all. There was Georgie the Pooch. He looked like a bulldog to me. I guess that’s how come he got his name. He was a fierce supporter of my uncle Duke and was Duke’s second in many of his deals. Pooch accepted his nickname with alacrity.

    “Nap, you look like you’re sleeping.” Duke would chide.

    That was Patty Napolitano. Patty stood as tall as he was wide. He wore horned rim glasses, a porkpie hat and spoke in a breathless voice.

    “How could I sleep? Your tie is giving me nightmares.”

“What do you think of Isaroma in the eighth?”

“That grey nag, he can’t find his way out of the barn.”

“Have you looked at Sling Sang in the sixth?”

“Yeh, with those odds, it looks like a good bet.”

Duke would be sitting with his cup of espresso, “Medaglio d’Oro please,” spiked with rye from the flask in Patty’s hip pocket. He and his cronies would not only take bets for the book, but they would be making and laying off bets of their own. Once all the horse races were handicapped, they would go to Patty’s house which was conveniently located near the diner. Duke would call a secret number in Chicago to get the line: point spreads on all the games, odds on the horses. He made book from the gas stations he owned, or through several barber shops and shoe shine stands.

“Kid,” he said to me, “you can’t have this number, and if you ever overhear it, forget it as fast as you can.” Duke was adamant about this. Sometimes after I delivered my bag run, he would let me sit with all the guys while they did their handicapping. Leroy, known as Peckerhead, because of his cone-shaped head, was especially nice to me, although I had seen him in action as their enforcer. He’d slip me a fiver to run an errand for him while they worked, or just because he had heard I had a hot date and thought the money might help. Peckerhead kept his car in a garage at Nonno’s and Nonna’s. I learned later that was where the guys kept all the receipts from the books and numbers games.

A couple of times a week, Duke would go into the city to lay off bets at the Ringside, a popular bar across the street from Madison Square Garden. It was the hangout for gamblers, fight men, trainers, and cut men. Going to the fights was a regular activity for my uncle.

Tonight, Duke was wearing a light blue suit with pegged pants and some kind of pin stripe running through the fabric. He must have spent fifty dollars on his white shirt, thinking nothing of it. Cocked to the side on a full head of shiny black hair was a gray-blue fedora. A loud, garish tie completed his sartorial splendor.

“Hey whitey, I’ll take Sugar Ray and give you four to one,” the black guy told my uncle.

“How much?” Duke replied.

“Hundred bucks.”

“You’re on. Give da money to Vinny here.”

I put the money in a brown paper bag. I was afraid to count it. The bag grew larger and larger. After the first round, the odds against Maxim were even higher. I figure I was holding at least six grand in that paper bag.