Crust Heaven

By Vincent Tanner

Crust Heaven—a strange name.

Crust Heaven is a retrospect, looking back from an adult’s perspective to a nine-year-old’s visions of the world surrounding him. Travel back in your mind to a time before computers, before cell phones, even before most homes had televisions. Back when life was simpler.

My grandson Joey had just turned nine years old. One day he said to me, “You know, Papa…. You cook so good you should open up a restaurant!” “I would if I could,” I told him. “You could call it Crust Heaven,” he stated. I have no idea where or how he came up with that name, but it stuck in my mind, so I started to write this story. I only wrote down the first chapter. After that, it just sat there. That was almost twenty years ago. I resurrected the story, but going back in time to the early fifties, to a simpler life when I was growing up.

I used my grandson Joey as the main character, basing much of the story on things he did and said as he was growing up. Other happenings and characters are fashioned after things the kids and I did that I grew up with. All the things that happen in this story are centered on real-life experiences. My life’s experiences blended in with Joey’s. There’s very little fiction in this story—most of it happened at one time or another. I am offering you the chance to live and grow up around Crust Heaven, and if you’re a baby boomer like me, you might get a few laughs. One of the many people who do proofreading for me and who grew up at the same time as I did wrote to me after reading the first drafts and said—

“Thanks for the memories.”

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: May 31, 2022
• ISBN: 9781662475306

Book preview

Chapter 1

Candle wax and pieces of string. Little toy soldiers; playing Cabbages and Kings, King of the Hill, Mother May I? One, two three, red light—one, two, three, you’re out. Yeah, I remember those days! Oh yeah, those were indeed the days! Hide-and-seek. Tag, you’re it. Buck, buck, how many fingers up? Huckle, buckle, beanstalk. You’re getting warmer—you’re getting colder.

When I was only nine years old, days long ago, just a kid growing up in the city. Days when finding a nickel on the sidewalk made you feel like a millionaire.

I found three pop bottles on my way home! a friend tells you, and you feel resentful because you didn’t spot any discards yourself. Together you go to the corner store and redeem the two-cent deposit on each and watch with jealousy when your friend places the six-copper Lincoln head coins in one plop down on the counter to pay for a small assortment of penny candy. Boy, were you green with envy until…

What are friends for! your pal says as he hands you a half of a Bit-O-Honey. He gives this treasure to you just ’cause you’re friends.

Life was tough then, and those tough times made us get tougher along with them. As tough as they were, those were great years! They were the greatest moments of my kidhood. The best days of my life! Days filled with wonderment, awe, and discovery. Times filled with experiences to be lived and learning about just about everything. It was a time of growing up. A magnificent time, a time that molded me, formed me. A time that now I can reflect on with joyful remembrance. A time I wish I could relive, but that’s impossible. Therefore, it is a time I wish to share with you.

I can’t go back to those wonderful, harrowing, and magical years. Still, I find I can offer you just a slight glimpse of what it was like to grow up in that particular era and share with you the experience of living in a world centered on Crust Heaven. This was before Xboxes, Wi-Fi, computers, the internet, HDTV; as a matter of fact, television was only beginning to come on the scene.

The birds are chirping in the tattered trees lining the litter-strewn sidewalks. Trees that at first sight appear to be more dead than alive. Withered branches play host to the songs of countless sparrows and finches. In the early spring, the trees, blackened by the soot of the city and struggling to hold on to life, slowly recover from the snows and being constantly sprayed with salt from the cars splashing through the puddles left by the melting ice and slush. They are just now starting to bud. Their branches are just beginning to exhibit small bits of green. Bits of green that, if they are fortunate enough to survive and not be nibbled on by the birds and squirrels, will soon blossom into leaves. Tiny buds appear on each branch, fighting to break their way through the grime and out of the winter-hardened bark and into the shadowed canyons between the buildings where the sunlight only occasionally manages to reach down on very clear days to the dank curbsides. During the peak growing season of summer, these poor, scrawny stalks will have to fight harder and harder to remain upright as the everyday traffic around them increases.

Pigeons furiously flutter out of my way. I continue my determined run along Lincoln Street. Rats with wings, my pa calls them. The confused and frightened birds dart back and forth in front of my feet, turning every which way. Some try to outrun me, running as fast as their tiny legs will carry them straight ahead. Others take to flight with a thunderous flurry of wings, as if I would ever be able to step on them if they didn’t move out of my way fast enough.

Yeah, fast enough! Right! I spend many an hour running around in circles, trying to catch one of these rats with wings. I would try to grab one of the birds with my bare hands, only to have their short, two-inch legs outrun and outmaneuver my two-foot-long limbs at every turn. I end up being the one sitting there huffing and puffing, plopping down on my butt in the middle of the sidewalk, trying to catch my breath, my head dizzy from spinning around in circles chasing after their fluttering feathered bodies. In frustration, I watch the pigeon I had been pursuing strut around me, its head bobbing back and forth, calmly pecking at the ground for whatever pigeons peck at the ground for—and not more than two yards away from me. I’ve learned not to break stride for these feathered sidewalk inhabitants.

If you’re lucky enough, I’ve heard people say, you just might nail one, and then we’ll be cursed with one less! No chance! They move too fast. I run along, oblivious to the wavering of wings erupting in front of my steps. I make a quick movement to the right, avoiding a rather-large deposit left by the pet of someone who does not know what curb your dog means. Almost skidding into a trash can protruding out farther into the walk than it ought, I continue on my fast pace toward the Heaven, settling back into a fast straight run.

School wasn’t that bad today. We got stuck with a math quiz and some vocabulary we were supposed to memorize over the weekend, but I didn’t. At least a bit of it stuck in my mind. We have to work on some spelling, and that book report is due in a couple of days, but the fire drill broke up the day. No one knew it was coming, even the teachers.

I don’t know why they shone that strange purple light on all our hands as we left school today, but Thomas Smith seemed very upset when he was taken out of the line to go home, and he had to go with Ms. Weathers to the principal’s office. Something to do with his fingers glowing under the light or something. Oh, well!

Boy, am I glad school is out for the weekend! I get to spend the next couple-a days in my most favorite place. I can’t wait for summer and school to be out for the next two and a half months. Then I get to spend all my time in Crust Heaven. I haunch my backpack up higher to make running a bit easier. Boy, I’m glad I’m not Tommy Smith, I say to myself. I bet his mom and dad are gonna have to come and get him, and then he’s gonna get what-for!

Rushing along the trash-covered sidewalk, I hurry past one of the nondescript bad people Ma says I oughta keep away from. Hey, boy, a gravelly voice calls from beside me, ya got any change? Without stopping, I glance at a dirty-looking man sitting—no, more actually lying—on the steps of a dilapidated old brownstone. He motions to me. I hurry on my way, passing him without slowing, giving him a wide berth, rushing to get past him and all the other sidewalk bums, as my ma calls ’em, to the place I know I will be safe. To my own safe Heaven.

Safe and away from the street beggars, always pushing their hands out to try and grab away from you a little bit of what they didn’t earn, even if it means taking away what little bit you worked so hard for. I turn the corner onto Fourth Avenue. Only three blocks more, and I will reach my destination. My own little Heaven.’

These sidewalk bums have received their fair share of free meals from my ma’s own hand at the counter of the small restaurant I am heading for. My ma knows just from the sight of them when they walk through the door that they don’t have enough or even any money for that matter, to pay for their meal. They set down on the stool, and she still don’t hesitate to put the plate of food in front of them. She patiently waits until they finish eating every last bit of their meal before she hands them the bill—a bill she already knows they can’t pay. The ensuing argument almost appears to be rehearsed. My ma seems to become quite irate over their lack of ability to pay an laces into them. After much banter back and forth—the customer tries to act as though he left the home that he don’t even have—without his wallet he never owned and promises to return with what he owes later on—which they never do—and then leave with a full belly. My ma just smiles at the unfortunate homeless passing through the door to the street.

This mild confrontation does serve a number of purposes. It offers a deterrent to most of the street beggars. Keeping them from making all too frequent visits to the counter at Crust Heaven. And Ma gets to feel she actually gets the upper hand by giving them a good scolding, and she gets comfort in knowing at least she gave some unfortunate person a good meal, even if it isn’t paid for. Yet even with the occasional forgetful street bum who errs in returning too soon, Mom still doesn’t hesitate to put the full plate down in front of him.

Working back in the kitchen, fixing all the meals, my dad grumbles as he prepares the dish, knowing it will go unpaid. My ole man gripes while he dishes out the dinner, but if you watch closely, you might notice that those particular plates, the ones he knows will be placed before the street bums, usually are filled a little more than all the rest of the dishes.

Maybe that’s one of the reasons my folks never have problems with broken bottles all over the sidewalk and with glass and garbage scattered in the doorway. Moreover, they’ve never had anybody try to break the locks. Ma and Pa never had to put grates up on the windows and door like many other places do. Even the street bums know where they can find a little bit of heaven. At the place called Crust Heaven.

Two blocks to go and there’s Stinky swatting pebbles with an old broomstick. Hey, Joey, you gonna play some stickball?

Stinky! When I think back on it now, what a terrible nickname to be stuck with as a kid. It sounds like something from The Little Rascals. Stymie, Spanky, Stinky, and Buckwheat.

He tosses another stone into the air, taking a mighty swing; he misses the pebble by several inches. Stinky never could hit very good. Maybe that’s how he got his name. I don’t know. He picks the stone up again for another try, swings, and misses.

Be out soon! I holler back to him. Gotta drop my stuff off at the Heaven.

When and if I do come back out, there will no doubt be several other of the guys getting ready for a game of Big League stickball. There will be, without question, a lot of argument about the rules, bases, sides, out-of-bounds, and whose ball we would use. Jeff will want to use his Pinky, Larry, his hard handball, and then there is Roger. Roger has this old golf ball that the outer sheath has peeled off. It amounts to nothing more than a mass of thinly stretched elastic rubber bands wrapped around some kind of a core. Each time this frayed projectile hits the ground, splinters of rubber spiral in every direction and the ball becomes even smaller. Makes it harder to hit, he says. I do have to admit that Roger’s old golf ball adds a bit of interest and adventure to the game.

Almost there! Already I can smell the aromas from Pop’s