Gypsy Council

By Nicholas C. Eliopoulos

Gypsy society, for millennia traditionally nomadic, and having a tightly knit social structure with a most natural communication system, was convulsively rocked in the years following World War One as they were taking to settle in American cities. A handful of certain gifted, but dedicated and God-fearing individuals among them, rose to save their people from destruction, from certain dangerously power hungry aspiring dictators. As a cultural dictum, There can be no Gypsy of fame, so these saving heroes were allowed to fade away, never to be remembered, and never to be deified, as true Gypsies incognito to history, only the Lord being their Judge.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Aug 2, 2006
• ISBN: 9781465330369

Nicholas C. Eliopoulos

Nicholas C. Eliopoulos, a retired architect, writes on varied subjects. Interests are history, linguistics, matriarchal-patriarchal social development, theology, folk medicine, arts and sculpture. Spending time in books we are permitted by the “establishment” to see, as well in books dubbed “politically incorrect’, he finds conflicts of information, lapses in logical sequences, general failure to synthesize available information, and cover-ups. In his travels in Europe, Near East and South America, he likes to go native, to stay in hotels where no English is spoken (“always cheaper this way”), to prefer riding streetcars, instead of taxis, and at times is mistaken for an immigrant.

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Copyright © 2006 by Nicholas C. Eliopoulos.

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the

product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to

any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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Contents

INTRODUCTORY

GYPSY & ROARING TWENTIES

I     

II     

III     

IIII     

V     

VI     

VII      

GYPSY & FLOWER CHILDREN

VIII     

VIIII     

X     

GYPSY & THE BOOMERS

XI      

XII     

GYPSY THROUGH THE AGES

XIII     

XIIII      

XV     

In memory of Dr. Mitchell Zadrozny,

Professor of geography and sociology.

INTRODUCTORY

Epic of a social revolution among Gypsies. The two virtues of mercy and forgiveness sacredly are kept alive to survive through the violence as the heroic beacon of light for perpetuating human values and peace, and as well for other troubled societies, without setting up monuments or seeking justification for revenge.

Gypsy society, for ages was nomadic and non-confrontational, and in spite of having a tight social structure with an unbelievable communication system, in the years following World War One, the Gypsy folk was convulsively rocked as they were taking to settle in the cities throughout America. A certain few gifted individuals, dedicated and God-fearing, were charged by their people to save their people from destruction, from the insidious temptations of urban life, and from certain dangerously power hungry aspiring dictators from among their own that rose, so to say, to take over.

A cultural dictum is, there can be no Gypsy of fame. So, these saving cultural heroes, after accomplishing the pacification of their people, were thanked and honored, and allowed to fade away, according to the fashion of true Gypsies, never to be memorialized, never to be deified, and to remain persons incognito to history, only the Lord knowing and being their Judge. Gypsy folk lore, however, may incorporate only the accepted standing advisements of theirs to the body of oral tradition of their nameless Wise Men of Old.

GYPSY & ROARING TWENTIES

I     

IN CHICAGO

The scattered Gypsy communities in the United States are rocked by a violent internal convulsion spanning the pause between the two World Wars. As they are beginning to settle into a semi-sedentary way of life in the big cities with the deterioration of the times, or so-called changing of times, the price is losing the struggle of maintaining their traditional Romany culture and social fabric. From among their own, on the one hand, the struggle is against a reign of terror to have their lives brought under a usurping strong man and, on the other hand, from without against Gazho society, that is, non-Gypsy society, welcoming them to assimilate and disappear into the common milieu and become Gazhos, too. There really is no choice in either direction, only intransigence, because of an immutable oral tradition rooted in their peaceful nomadic way of life; for so are their Romany souls molded from ancient times.

A ray of hope begins to show when a young gentle man, John, son of Paul, dedicates his life to save his people and their primordial and unwritten democratic ways. His remarkable feat is that ultimately he prevails without having violated any of the age-old Gypsy ways and moral precepts, or Laws of the Romany, in the face of legal frame-ups, assassination attempts, threats to dishonor the womenfolk, and from whatever flows out of the limitless imagination of an autistic and diabolic adversary that springs forth from among Gypsies.

LAST OF THE TRUE GYPSIES

Everybody in his family drops whatever he or she is doing, from the moment Kyrillo expires into the embrace of the Creator. No one works, no one cooks, and no one eats. Food is left out abandoned and spoils and dishes remain unwashed. The men go unshaven. Everybody’s hair is left uncombed and all messed up from pulling. For three days they do not look after themselves, nor wash themselves. The children are crying from hunger. The babies in swaddle are smeared in their own mess until some of the women friends of the family come over and clean them up.

They eat only some stale bread happening to lie around. The family friends bring over more bread and water. It is improper to bring anything else. With old man Kyrillo’s death, the visiting friends spill out any water, milk, soup, wine or other liquids that are not covered because they are considered contaminated, since he happened to die inside the house-wagon where these were at the time. His sons are gnashing their teeth because they wanted for him to die in the open air, and missed the opportunity to carry him out.

He is waked in a family tent set up next to his house wagon. All the men and women relatives wear faded dull-colored old and tattered clothing. They wail and wail and keep ripping their clothes. One of his sons-in-law, lamenting with tears flowing, removes his glasses and smashes them on a stone. They are singing funeral dirges at the wake, and these keep thickening the atmosphere with sadness. As each sympathetic friend and acquaintance files by the wooden casket, he or she deposits a coin therein with the understanding that the departed will pass it on to the depositor’s kinfolk in the other world.

Those estranged from the deceased for any number of reasons, as through some misunderstanding or offense or simply allowed too long of a time to pass without contacting one another to break bread together, stay back from the casket a sufficient distance. Such may ask a friend if he would deliver his coin and toss it into the casket. And if he refuse, he would ask another; for one may refuse not always for personal reasons, but for any extenuating causes.

The arrangements for the funeral include the church. The Graeco-Russian Orthodox Cathedral on Leavitt Street a landmark of Chicago is chosen. Just as Russian Gypsies used to do in Holy Russia, the most convenient time to catch the priest with all the liturgical retinue, with cantor, reader, altar boys, steward, sextant, is during any service.

So it is two days after the old fellow’s death, on a Sunday morning, about ten of the more distant relatives go into Chicago and demand to talk to the priest, Now. They have trouble understanding why they have to wait to the end of the long service to ask the priest. After all, a simple yes or no is all that is needed to prepare for tomorrow’s funeral. It is obvious, the priest is not doing anything while the cantor is doing his musical solo and then the reader is reading aloud from his book. He could easily squeeze in a moment that is so important for the bereaved family. They simply have to wait, and be idle. And they are forbidden to light up a cigar while waiting in church. As for some of the prejudice they experience from the congregation during these moments, well, that comes with life. But very rarely is a Gypsy who is baptized Orthodox refused a funeral service. That, too, comes with life.

The following day a brass band playing mournful music leads the cortege to the church. The church fills with Gypsy folk. Save for the immediate family, everyone else there is happy, because the deceased had lived to a ripe old age, and tasted the fullness of life, with many great-grandchildren.

The service typically is in the ancient Slavonic language. There are no seats in the church. The casket lying in state is in the middle of the nave. At the rear of the church one man stands alone, keeping his distance from all others. He is a cousin of the deceased. Neither will he join the rest to the cemetery, nor later eat and drink with them. He will leave alone, not to show his face, perhaps for another two years, until the term of his banishment from Gypsy society will have expired and he would be formally reinstated. Inside the church are gathered people who haven’t seen each other for a spell.

The priest interrupts the service: Quiet! You are in church! A funeral! And he continues with the funeral service.

Then in a faint murmur, a genre of questions begins between the Gypsies.

Did he say something? To us? What does he want?

Oh. We know that. It is a funeral.

He wants us not to talk. He doesn’t? What for? He wants us to stand still!

Why can’t we talk? We’re not stopping him. We are not breaking anything. Did we do wrong?

Within minutes the din is just as loud and disturbing as before. They seem perplexed as to why the priest should demand their attention when he was going right back to what he was doing for Kyrillo’s soul.

Some are still crying and wailing. Some men and women are smoking. Though trying to heed, to them the objections and protests cannot make sense. All about them they see candles and incense; and these are burning, giving off smoke, too. In fact the altar boys carry lighted candles around and the priest is still swinging that censor to get more smoke out of it. And we cannot smoke?

The band standing at the church’s entrance, tunefully leads the casket to the horse drawn hearse off to downtown and into the railroad station. All board the funeral car attached to the end of a regular run. At the cemetery the stop is just long enough to let them and the casket off. The band plays, leading the way through the big gate and up to the opened ground. Dirges and wailings now cease, lest the deceased’s soul be disturbed. Intermittently any good news is sung to the dead or a confession is made to absolve one’s conscience.

The deceased’s money, jewelry and violin are placed into his casket. He was as well a musician. As the casket is slowly lowered, a slow rhythmic song and dance around the casket begins, growing faster and louder in the sacred Romany language to entice Kyrillo’s spirit to depart through the seven little holes in the lid. Upon the coffin’s reaching down and touching bottom, the song and dance stop instantly. The coffin is covered with earth as all watch.

They have a picnic of fruits and bread. It will be several hours for the evening train to the city. So the band picks up to entertain the consoling guests. The close family does not participate in the merriment and dancing.

After the third day the bereaved wash up, put on clean clothing, have some substantial food and begin doing some chores. Because he died inside his house wagon, before they had the chance to bring him outside, his sons burn it along with all his clothing and personal property.

His widow will be in mourning for a full year. According to degrees of relationship, some will mourn until the sixth months’s commemoration, others until the forty days commemoration, and others until the nine days’s. That is, they will abstain from joyous occasions and wear nothing red, nor jewelry.

* * *

An era comes to an end with the earthly end of Kyrillo Krasny, son of Matthew. He is the last of the colorful Gypsies that refuse to settle into a city, into a home with no wheels, in spite of his livelihood in Chicago’s south side. Settlement to him is entrapment into the Gazho ways of life. His counseling on traditional freedom, for he held the dignity of Counselor of the Romany among his people, was well taken by a few, but considered an obstacle by the few aspiring to set themselves up as spokesmen for the urbanized Gypsy communities. Kyrillo’s end is the beginning of a long intermittence of gloom.

URBANIZING OF GYPSIES

Modern progress of the early twentieth century in the cities is paralleled visibly with soot blackening the sides of all buildings to almost a uniform dullness. Invisibly the sulfur of the coal burning is etching away on both man’s and nature’s works. Trees inside the cities seem to want to die. Grassed patches and lawns offer the only settled contrast against the dulled man-made structures and struggle not to lose their greenness. Winter’s nice blanket of fresh pristinely white snow gives an emotional releaf, alas for that day only. Even the moving picture theaters that now come into vogue offer scenes to expand the public’s imagination, but only in black, gray and white.

All such, however, serves as a backdrop for the brilliantly colored and lighted commercial signs of all sorts, their credibility being qualified by human voices standing and barking out their wares and products, the spectacularly colored public and private fast-moving, horn-blowing and break-screeching rectangular-shaped vehicles, and the very noisy red and yellow electric streetcars with their motor announcing their coming from two blocks away and when drawing near their metal to metal noise is sweetened with their bell-clanging.

A circus here, a parade there, however, always seeming to defy the surrounding grayness, are like a shining jewel in the making at a large scale.

Americans from the countryside and immigrants from diverse lands flock anxiously into the dreary cities, studded with their tantalizing bits of sporadic sparkle. Some come to participate in the rhythm of progress, each according to his imagination of what is progress. Some come due to circumstances, but they, too, are drawn into the undefined tune of the mainstream, with all its obvious good and all its subliminal evil.

People, in those days, are to be seen in large numbers on the sidewalks, at doorways, on street corners, rushing, standing in groups to talk; all is alive.

World War One is ended and the merciless battle of peace, as it is being told by the media and politicians at the time, is beginning. It is the era when the whole world is changing: gas, faster trains, electricity, finances, a telephone in one’s own house, radio, cinematography with sound, machine guns, airplanes, automation, central heating, and on and on with tempo and mass increasing to such magnitude, seriously and threateningly to alter the scale of the whole human environment. In the 1920’s, money flows in abundance like never before in human memory; all there, either to be earned or stolen. Human society, whether at home or outside, is made drunk with practicality and numb to ideality. Education itself begins turning to kill the classics, and to elevate the white-collar trades to baccalaureates, master’s degrees and doctorates. Logic and order appear as hate and incarceration, while disobedience and a conforming rebellion are translated as individualism and freedom.

Big timers in all phases of life, from actors to business tycoons, legitimate and illicit, in the United States, Europe, Argentina, and elsewhere, would arise overnight to popularity, nationally and internationally.

Germany had agreed to an Armistice. Then experiencing internal problems and blockade, the Allies grab the opportunity to put her under. Hence, the victors rise to set a new pace of rhythm and a new, pricey and tragelaphic definition of truth and morality for all the world to follow, to permeate the last man, woman and child, with a new kind of world-wide ethic in the making.

* * *

Big-time criminals rise to grab at all material and abstract benefits and with especial notoriety in the sprawling big cities in the United States. For what is there to make such persons an exception and hold them back? The rise of official hypocrisy in one gigantic surge sweeps from Versailles to the smallest hamlet having a road into it from anywhere in the world. The media popularize big-time criminals; it seems they admire them, as they become models of success and individualism for the underprivileged. Such criminals rise from among most minorities in America, and often come to compete with each other and with their peers of other ethnic immigrants in a power play, or to form symbiotic underworld relationships. As the international financiers blanket over society with a Depression, the multifarious ethnic criminals in the United states develop reputations, each among his own people, of being protectors and benefactors of the poor among their own, the widows and the children who are allegedly at the mercy of big bad American society, or according to the brave

Father Coughlin, at the mercy of the big bad international bankers. Eventually most of the acclimatized ethnic minorities gain their respect, in spite of certain stigmata, except, alas, the Gypsies.

Even the mechanics of the law are crunched in the rising interrelationships of various judicial territories. More perceptively, the law in theory no longer allows the practice of justice to remain the internal affair within the assortment of ethnic communities, that is, whenever such is obviously about to happen, but in practice it is ambivalent. The law becomes more complicated legally in America when a criminal now can quickly move back and forth between states, with bribery being more easily concealed, because of the changing human scale. Intergovernmental cooperation is on the verge of total break down.

* * *

With the close of World War One, the Gypsy tradition of being outdoors in campsites changes to renting indoor space, mostly storefronts that double for offices and living quarters. They learn from examples in the business society to solicit and become high-pressure salesmen in their traditional vocations, as well as in newer vocations, for now they must pay rent on a regular basis. Money at large is circulating at a higher velocity. One sees people with whom he had relationships for a long time suddenly become rich and predatory. The Gypsy sees social progress being accompanied with a proportional rise of professional hypocrisy; while some, too, become tainted with the new hypocrisy and many remain immune. Perhaps the change is too great and too sudden and upsetting to their fundamental way of life. Among themselves they are known as the Romany, or simply Rom, and by outsiders as Gypsies. Many Gypsies continue wandering during the warmer half of the year, nursing their nomadic instincts, but during the colder half of the year begin accustoming themselves to indoor heated quarters. Some still head south to where they are more so hated, but where they could ply their trades with less struggling. Other Gypsy families leave their indoor dwellings, during the fruit picking and harvesting seasons, to seek employment in God’s open nature.

Abandoning their traditional wagons and horses in favor of gasoline and touring automobiles, new possibilities open up. For symbiotic conformance, Gypsies now use a new set of given and family names, which to English-speaking ears would sound familiar and negotiable.

Gypsy men learn to trade cars, as the horse is slowly retired. They repair cars as they did harnesses, saddles and horseshoes. Automobile body and fender work is easily learned from their age-old experience in repairing pots and pans and other metalworking. The old spiritual readings, which passively offered a living supplement by the womenfolk in the vicinity of Gypsy camps, now turns into aggressive fortune telling schemes for bigger profits at the concession booths in amusement parks and storefront offices. Keen little Gypsy girls sell flowers on the streets. Men collect scrap metal of all sorts for smelters, or anything that could be repaired and resold.

What portion of education any Gypsy man, woman, or child has, is figuratively from the University of the Road. But with their adaptation to indoor life, indoors in a storefront and indoors in a speedily traveling automobile, the practical education of Gypsies, in nature and in people, as experienced in the past centuries, now more isolative, falters. Their children, decade after decade, are learning less and less about the natural way of life; therefore, their innocence begins yielding more and more to the arts of cunning for survival.

CHICAGO’S MAXWELL STREET

The older Gypsy families in Chicago have thinly spread themselves throughout the whole city, having established, so to say, territorial limits for their businesses, particularly in metalworking and spiritual reading.

After World War One the newer influx of Gypsies into Chicago colonizes around Halsted and Maxwell Streets in the inner city, a mile and half southwest of the Loop, a little to the south of the Italian and Greek settlements.

Maxwell Street is notorious for its street vendors and booths set up on the streets, selling anything, from jackknives, yoyos, men’s suits, tools, car jacks, jewelry, hot dogs, candy floss, ladies’s hats, all at insanely cheap prices, mindfully of European flea markets. Never proven, always rumored, merchandise on that street is stolen, fenced from factories and reputable merchants, highjacked in transit, some factory defective or from bankruptcy closeouts. Chicagoans from all corners of the city flock there, which seems never to have been cleaned, to see what could be gotten at a bargain from the Jewish merchants and to have their fortunes told at a bargain at Gypsy storefront offices.

Jewish merchants are pleased that Gypsies take up quarters on their street, because after hours at night the Gypsies keep some life on the street going, instead of leaving the street in abandonment to the mercy of burglars.

Because of a rumor that a Jewish entrepreneur must succeed in making a sale to the first customer in the morning to have-good luck the rest of the day, Maxwell Street is flooded with shoppers from the very moment of opening for business, each trying a hand at bargaining. Sunday mornings, it seems, give the best bargains.

SPYRAKO’S COFFEE HOUSE

Many Gypsy men hailing from the Balkan countries gravitate toward meeting and having their coffee at any of the Greek coffee houses in Greek Town, and pass on to each other whatever is new, for newspapers is not part of their Gypsy world. Greek Town is in the inner city, a mile west of the Loop, and centered on the five corners formed by Halsted and Harrison Streets, and the angular Blue Island Avenue which leads off to the southwest.

Balkan men, when taking a few hours of leave from their families to see the boys, as a habit will not meet at a tavern, but at the coffee house. These places of leisure are unattractive, with bare wooden floors, nothing on the walls, no fancy lighting, plain square tables with an oil cloth cover, bent wood chairs, a ceiling-mounted fan, in summer some hanging sticky tapes to catch flies, and a radio going which everybody ignores, except for the news. There loitering is acceptable and has dignity. There the gentlemen discuss politics and religion, transact some of their business, play backgammon or poker, but hardly ever do they discuss sports. They sip, whenever they are good and ready, a demitasse of thick, strong and foaming Turkish coffee. In some coffee houses one may order a sweet zwieback or a rusk to dip in his coffee and munch. Occasionally one will order a shot of ouzo, an anise-flavored clear alcoholic beverage which when mixed with water turns almost milky white.

At such places men of several nationalities congregate, but hardly fraternize. Armenians, Bulgarians, Assyrians, Serbs, Albanians, Syrians, Greeks, Rumanians and Gypsies sit at tables with their own and argue or laugh in their own language. A loner may be sitting at a table, finding a moment to read the house’s latest Greek or his own foreign newspaper or simply to be meditating. Absent are the brass spittoons which otherwise properly are found on the floor in taverns where American men chew tobacco. Women are not seen at these coffee establishments because: There, men talk like men.

Spyrako’s coffee house in Greek Town has the name for hosting writers, liberal thinkers, actors and artists of the ethnic theaters, and upon occasion a woman writer, an actress or a female artist, famous in the Greek community. Spyrako personally cultivates contacts with the counterparts of his clientele in the American mainstream of society, even though the latter do not frequent his coffee house for reasons of social decorum. Perhaps all the better that they don’t, for as proprietor he tries to be discreet about his contacts with politicians, police officials and certain other kinds of individuals. Quite a few of his contacts are such that must not be seen with each other, at least not in public.

Spyrako is quite discreet about his personal life, to many it is a mystery. An immigrant from Greece, Spyrako reputedly understands the ways of Gypsies. Many Gypsies seem to favor Spyrako’s. With intuitive skill, he does not allow any of the Gypsy feuds to be vented out at his place of business.

II     

TAKE-OVER IN CHICAGO

There emerges an individual Gypsy upon the Gypsy scene in Chicago in 1926, who notoriously moves about from city to city in most of America. The record of activities and methods, the genius for wrongdoing, the ability to destroy the power and prestige of all his aspiring competitors and as well of officers of the law, government officials, key corporate personnel, and for bringing people to his own will, way and control should make an excellent encyclopedic chapter on evil.

He declares himself, The King of the Gypsies. They all laugh at him. There is no such thing in the Romany tradition, for theirs is a nomadic tradition. A Gypsy king on another’s territory? That is, at first they laughed at him, not now. He forces royal marriages between his own kin and his subdued enemies so as to secure his power. He forces divorces among his victims for new marriages of convenience to inure to his power and financial gain.

Young Gypsy women of marriageable age, from thirteen upwards, are kept secluded, not to be seen at any social or religious functions, funerals, or council meetings, lest they be targeted for such unfortunate marriages of fealty.

Operating from his two epicenters, Maxwell Street and Spyrako’s coffee house in Greek Town, within one year Busy Binny, the step-son of an ordinary Gypsy immigrant from the Red Soviet Union, has humiliated and subjected all the chiefs of renown of the various Gypsy clans in the Chicago area.

* * *

In different parts of Chicago, Gypsy woman after Gypsy woman is bestowing curses upon Busy on behalf of relatives and the many victims.

One woman, just turns past her child-bearing age, approaches the lien and aged Ruby Harlem and anxiously asks: Teach me how to put a curse on one with evil in his mind, I want to learn to put curses on my family’s enemies. No other recourse. I will not use a gun or ice pick.

The old woman extracts a solid word from her: You will keep the wording and the workings and the wonder ingredients a secret? Especially from your own family? You will apply the curse only against offenders deserving the curse? You will exhort only the due punishment for them and not more than the due? You will not take money or gifts for your services? Thus she is inducted into the ancient craft, passed down from pagan times from elder woman to elder woman.

The most effective and fastest-acting curses are hurled directly against the recipient, and especially when to his or her knowledge, though not to be noticed by other bystanders. But all women fear throwing a direct curse at Busy, lest he kill a member of their family in revenge, so generally the more distant kinds are used. One woman watches carefully the spots where he steps, especially on grass and dirt, and after he is gone she follows exactly into his footsteps, mumbling her damning incantations for his being the cause of suffering for her loved ones. Another picks up a handful of dirt, mumbles into it, and strews it across his usual path. A very daring old woman tries to catch Busy’s eye, looking directly into his eyes, and at that very moment mumbles under her breath the magic incantations without his realizing what is happening.

* * *

Busy causes the revival of swindling tricks for profit that certain Gypsies of ill repute had used in the Old World. Such are brought back into full blossom, through the Gypsy fortune telling women that come under his domination, such as: A method to remove a curse from money that clients have in their pockets is by burning a few token bills, but actually having pulled a slight-of-hand to burn other paper. The victim’s money is wrapped in a magic cloth to be locked in his own safe for forty days and only then to discover that it had been switched for a stock of paper, instead of enjoying the desired effect. Tests are paid for to reveal whether a person is under a spell, by using a live chicken and surreptitiously pressing a vein below the chicken’s neck to kill it to show there was a curse. A glass of water is turned over to show it changed into alcohol, but actually turning over boiling water yields bubbles. An egg is broken to find a hair inside, which is previously inserted through a carefully drilled hole. By slight of hand a devil’s head is thrown into the exposed yoke of an egg. Women are trained in new techniques for pocket picking. A policeman is sent to investigate a situation at some Gazho’s business and when he leaves a woman comes in to intimidate the business man by saying that cop is my man and you pay or else. Policemen are shaken down, by using attractive females to entrap them. More ideas each day keep coming to Busy.

Busy’s daughter-in-law, Lola, being encouraged, cultivates distractive techniques for stealing jewelry, furs, expensive clothing and whatever from exclusive shops; for instance with an insubordinate child about to go potty, or a little tiger of a doggie which sends one up a chair, or coughing in one’s face, or reacting violently pretending to have seen a mouse, or beginning a squabble with another customer. She then boldly takes what she wants, runs out, timely jumps onto an on-coming street-car through its open door rear platform, while it is slowing down, pays the fare to the conductor with a Keep the change! amounting to two or three pennies, does not worry about being seen by those chasing after her, throws her hair down, changes her hat and scarf and gloves, pulls out a bag from her purse, puts her purse into it, removes her high heeled shoes, and puts on old beaten sandals. When the police stop the streetcar a block down, she is not recognized as she gets off with a limp, a horrible cough, shabbily clothed and a frenzied look, while they are looking for a rich lady.

The notoriety of the Gypsies in Chicago comes to its worst; for the already established and well-publicized magnitude of their internal feuding and the unlimited trumped up charges between Gypsies, flowing in torrents through the court system, and the fulminating incredibility of their word. Even the police come to some justifiable reassurance that Gypsies are ripe game for shakedowns. Gypsies are now constantly harassed, raided and locked up on charges without merit. Busy of course makes arrangements with certain cooperative police officers to appear as a hero to his loyalists, who now pay Busy for protection against the police.

The law? The law chooses not to meddle with internal Gypsy affairs. Sometimes with good reason, but more often the law is powerless to act on behalf of a Gypsy because of certain irreconcilable cultural habits of theirs.

RAMONA’S PARTY

Marquetta Zells, the widowed old woman of Chicago, by acclamation through the grapevine, assumes power and authority in place of the humiliated clan chiefs, now having sunk into the background. She is a respected matron of wisdom; hence she is recognized as the protector of traditional morality among the Gypsy clans in Chicagoland. In her own right she is the leader of a group of related families, numbering over a thousand individuals. She has a son of marriageable age, Eddie.

Busy’s bid for total control is hampered by this female. He has to change tactics to bring her down. With a stratagem, he goes to her directly and asks in a demanding voice: Your son, Eddie. He will take the hand of my daughter.

Jalepeña is attractive, quick witted, peppery, resourceful at making money, and right for my quiet Eddie, thinks Marquetta.

That Marquetta becomes a part to such flagrant violation of custom is shockingly surprising to the whole Gypsy community. Busy had not sent a messenger to seek permission to see her. Nor did he wait, according to tradition, passively for a marriage broker to approach the maiden’s father on behalf of the groom’s parent. Marquetta let slip by the requirement of having a couple of her female relatives physically examine the bride-to-be for her moral purity. To all, this looks like a bid for a truce, that Busy is ready for peace and that so is Marquetta. Accompanied with two of her senior nephews and in accordance with tradition she brings over to Busy, at his storefront place of business and residence, the bridal money agreed upon and the bottle of whiskey decorated with the long red ribbon, in acceptance of the deal.

The wedding celebration resounds in the neighborhood for three days. On the fourth night, when the marriage is to be consummated, Jalepeña stays up all through the night talking with her mother-in-law, not allowing her to go to sleep, even long after Eddie and some of the out-of-town relatives staying over had gone to sleep. Properly, after the others fall asleep, the bride would be free to slip into her husband’s bed.

Marquetta, tired, impatient, tells Jalepeña directly: Go to sleep now.

Jalepeña repeats at each repeated demand: But I have just one more story to tell you. And you must hear this one!

Marquetta falls asleep in her armchair. Sunrise comes. She awakens. Where is she? No one is around. She runs to Eddie’s room.

Eddie replies: No, mother she did not come to bed.

She waits until noon sharp and heads straight to Busy and confronts him.

He: Yes she is here.

She: Why did she come here? Did you advise her?

He: You told her ghost stories. You frightened her. She could not sleep. I don’t want my daughter to go back to you.

She: You got it backwards! And she presses: Let us come to a settlement right now.

He: No. No restitution! You get no money back. I’m busy now. This last statement especially was offensive, for it is unheard of for a Gypsy to have no time for a fellow Gypsy.

Jalepeña had taken off untouched by Eddie. Marquetta fell for a confidence game. Three and a half thousand dollars is her loss and Busy’s take. Marquetta’s reputation is downgraded, and Busy rises closer toward an awe-inspiring infallibility, all in that same afternoon as the grapevine is buzzing.

Marquetta angrily returns home, rips her clothes to look like she was violated, breaks open her trunk, and calls the police. She accuses Busy of robbing her of three thousand five hundred dollars, and swears out a warrant for his arrest. She is violating tradition by not taking her case before a council of the Romany, but instead is resorting to outer authority, the law courts of the Gazhos. She is throwing the book at him, not only in revenge, but as well on account of her social obligation to get rid of this social menace.

Busy gets out on bond and quickly finds some necessary witnesses and has Marquetta, in turn, arrested on equally false charges. Her relatives put up bond and she is released. Rather than forgetting the whole affair, the contenders escalate their skirmishes.

That a man of means and ability, not hungry, not desperate, would dare to swindle a widowed woman out of her money, to profane her dignity and standing in society, and even to have her arrested, thereby having put her to shame, is an insult to the Romany race and an affront to four Gypsy tribes. A council of the Romany is called. Counselors are chosen and agreed upon by the two factions, from among the known and accepted Romany counselors, from other cities as well, that are unrelated to either side. These designate Paul Joseph to preside. All know beforehand that the accuser, the old woman, is demanding restitution of the bridal money and a reprimand against Busy.

Counselor Paul opens the meeting: I wish to allow my son, John, to preside over this council in my place. All agree to his privilege to do so, showing their affirmation with a slight bow from their seated or standing position. The young John, a promising novice to the class of counselors, humbly takes his position, with his back to the display window of the storefront with drawn drape. The elder Joseph knows that impartiality on his part would undergo doubts and questions once the council proceeds. Because of the magnitude of emotions, not only the Chicago Gypsies, but as well all of Gypsyhood in America virtually is split. Young innocence to preside might be the answer.

John begins by affirming what always has been religiously axiomatic: We will proceed in our God-given Romany language, in which none dare to speak but the truth. This case is twice thrown out of the Gazho courts of law, where as an accepted standard everybody exercises lying.

Both factions nurture second thoughts. Neither Marquetta nor Busy is willing to make the required declaration that each will abide with the council’s decision. The former could not give her word for fear of a railroaded council and the latter for fear of being ignominiously censured for having ulterior motives. Being tainted with the demon of revenge by now, neither side is of mind and heart for reconciliation; seeing all this, the counselors have fear and are not willing to continue sitting in council. Should they proceed and come to a verdict, none among them would volunteer to be the herald and go find Busy to deliver the council’s pronouncement to his face, as tradition requires. Besides, he will revenge against each and every one of them. Should they peradventure rule against the Old Woman, even if strictly on the merit of this case, then Busy for sure would be out of hand and the Old Woman then would be laying curses upon all those counselors and their families.

Young John experiences first hand an impasse, a frustration. He realizes, and his father agrees: the Romany community can no longer handle its affairs internally. He sees now that his much older half-brother, from his mother’s side, Herald, who has a reputation of fraternizing with the Gazhos a little beyond the accepted limits, according to the tradition of the Romany, really is not as unjustified as he is made out to be.

A quasi-truce of three years creeps into the atmosphere. It is disrupted here and there, such as the time when Marquetta throws a pair of pliers, hitting Busy on the head upon crossing his path at a busy corner, and the times when members of the opposing families pummel each other upon crossing paths on the sidewalks, parks and coffee houses. But no bombings or shootings are being registered, and for this, some take it as a truce of a sort, while in and out of Gazho courts on petty matters. Both sides are hiring crooked lawyers, and endlessly heaping false charges on each other, all charges being thrown out.

One charge alleges that one of Busy’s daughters was raped by the Zells males at a wedding between two families belonging to opposing factions. While the jury is deliberating, almost a half-dozen scores of Gypsies fall upon each other with clubs while in the courtroom, the corridor, and outside in the vicinity of the courthouse. The desk sergeant at the local police station refuses to accept any more charges: You’re Gypsies! Get out of here!

* * *

The time has come, Busy decides, to prove that he can carry out his normal family life and that one of his sons must now get married. Busy has his eyes fixed on a certain young woman and tells his wife: She must come from one of the Argentine families who are of good stock. The Argentine Romany have a reputation for staying out of trouble with the Gazho authorities and yet survive very well. They always have healthy girls and boys.. The female that Busy has in mind is presently married. The rumor is circulated that her husband and in-laws are incessantly beating her. Busy especially likes her character because she is a very strong woman, strong in her thinking, strong in her action. One morning Busy decides to spring a surprise visit. Busy wants all to believe: According to Romany etiquette, they stopped the fighting and beating and screaming in respect for my visit. Busy is offered to sit and one sister-in-law is ordered, Go buy coffee! Busy interrupts: No, send Lola to get coffee, she is from Argentina. They know coffee. Busy later is triumphantly to announces: That was her chance. Away she ran. On the way to the store, alone and feeling insecure, momentarily she spots a half-dollar silver coin lying on the sidewalk, camouflaged somehow by the shadow of a gum wrapper. She picks it up without thinking. That coin was face down; she should not have touched it. Bad luck! Busy quickly finds her, calls her parents about the beatings, and declares: I annul that wedding. I want the hand of Lola for my son. For those objecting, not healthy!

Her parents and seven brothers go over to fetch her. They see Busy with many of his armed clansmen staring them down. Lola’s parents wink at her. Lola winks back, surprisingly, in affirmation. Her parents accept. Married again, this time it is to Rex Binny. Some of the Binny women begin showing jealousy. Lola sees herself worse off than before, rather than upgraded as she secretly hoped. He did not give the bridal money to her father, as required.

* * *

The related families of Marquetta Zells agree that action must be taken to have her complaint resolved once and for all. Busy learns about this, begins grooming witnesses, leaks it out that he is already making his own move, and recruits messengers to have all those guilty summoned to a Gypsy council. In the meantime, the senior citizens of the Gypsy community of Chicago, including the old men who formerly were willing to sit in council, now try desperately to get out of reach of Busy’s summons to appear in council, stacked by his counselors. As well they are diplomatically trying to avoid another set of summons for a council called by Marquetta’s people, to be stacked with her counselors. None want to be part of a mistrial or perjury to the ruin of their reputations and sacrilege against Romany tradition. To avoid being button-holed without breaking any Gypsy laws, for that would leave their children and wives outside the protection of any future council and vulnerable to anything, the elders agree to accept Ramona Gypsy-Smith’s good offer to come to her house on Maxwell Street for a celebration. Though not living with her husband, Ramona has her three sons with her. There the old men gather to discuss their business, their problems, their children’s future, their negotiations with one another, their aches and pains, their recent experiences and those of their parents and grandparents, and Gazhos in general. They eat and drink, and keep eating more and drinking ever more until they fall asleep, having accomplished from relatively nothing to absolutely nothing. The next day the same thing, and for one year this is in the process of happening. Each time a messenger with summons from Busy Binny arrives, he sees them all inebriated, out of their minds and belching through the smiles on their slaphappy faces. Their answers to him are varied.

Can we come to a council like this?

We’re intoxicated, we can’t answer that request.

Come back tomorrow.

Yeah, come back tomorrow when we can see better who you are.

Here, have a drink with us.

They indeed have a lot of time. Visitors, friends and relatives come to celebrate with them and to deliver certain bits of news. Those among them versed in the traditional fairy tales tell of the experiences of these clans, their joys, hardships, and all that happened of old, fact and legend, in a breath-taking air. They sing friendship songs, fun songs and, with enough to drink, sorrowful and hardship songs which put them into a contemplative mood.

Generally, they are never in the mood to talk about recent council judgments, rulings, banishments and the oral records of social matters, all of which normally are of prime interest. But they feel embarrassed due to their inability to do something about Busy. One thing could be said in their favor; they certainly are catching up with all their traditional lore and all the historic costs of fodder and flour.

The sons of the perennially well-gorged, well-sotted and weight-enhanced senior citizens, in disgust one day get their own meeting going.

Our fathers are cowards!

They can’t face him.

They can’t face reality!

They violate the traditions they were showing us! Horse care and horse trading is all they talk about.

And apples their horses used to eat.

They clap and cheer and they, too, take to eating and drinking and toasting: To the excellent idea! We’re not afraid of Busy, even if our fathers are. Their exuberance escalates to using profanity against Busy and against the mother who gave him birth. Busy’s spies give a full and most detailed report.

Busy now has a firm case. He appoints himself, prosecutor, judge, spokesman for each of his handpicked puppet council members from among his following, and then he names himself the enforcer of his rulings. He sends his designated heralds to Ramona’s house to pronounce the findings and verdicts of his caucus council, what transpired with their sons for which they were accused, tried, found guilty, and thereby: These are their sentences and, because none of them appeared, you their fathers are responsible. A few senior citizens are each assessed one thousand dollars, some five hundred, some three hundred, some two hundred, and he threatens all: God bless your wives and children up to the second day. After the stipulated time there would be no protection against any beatings, rapes, maimings or robberies for them or any of their family members, as they would be outcasts.

But to Paul Joseph, Busy has this message: You don’t pay. Your son, Tony, will have his nose and ears cut off. He threatened my life. He dared.

Paul asks by return messenger the exact nature of the charge on his son.

Busy’s messenger returns: He said, Kill Busy Binny! Blow his head off!

By return messenger again, hoping on a plea of insanity, Paul tells Busy: He is crazy.

Busy back to Paul: I am glad you told me. I will not cut off his ears and nose. But I will reduce the sentence to one thousand dollars payable immediately by you through my messenger.

Paul asks his wife for the money. She turns her back to all and turns back around handing him the money. Thus ends the grand party at Ramona’s. Many Gypsy families leave Chicago. Marquetta abandons her lawsuit against Busy, and, too, leaves town, taking her son Eddie to marry him off to a nice Romany girl somewhere else.

Another woman of very advanced age, Ruby Harlem, will not forget the wrongs done to her family. The next day at high noon she stands at the door, behind which Busy’s caucus council was held. She mumbles, then stands in the middle of the street, faces the sun, her back to the house. With one great sweep of her hand across the sky, like wiping out the sun, she mumbles more incantations to punish Busy by having the sun blotted out of his life.

Celebrating his victory, Busy picks out another daughter-inlaw, Betina, the daughter