LOSING THE FEELING OF COOL: PUBLISHED IN A GROUP OF NEWSPAPERS

Robert Isenberg

Words:583

2/29/2016

“LOSING MY COOL”

I grew up in Dorchester Mass. We wanted more than anything to be cool,mostly because we weren’t. If cool were Texas, we were Tokyo. I moved to Manhattan in my early 20’s and realized very quickly I’d better be at least semi-cool to survive in Manhattan. I had a very blond girl friend. I had a job. I had my own apartment, and a tiny swagger to go with all of this. I could sense a smidgeon of cool taking hold.

Every Saturday I would go to the Bronx office where I worked during the week. I did this to impress my bosses with my sense of purpose. I also would pick up my clothes at the dry cleaners. In order to get to the dry cleaners, I had to pass a Jewish deli, as I passed by it I could smell the aroma of half sour pickles, smoked salmon, corned beef, an aroma that could only come from a truly Jewish deli.

Saturday afternoon was an event at my Dad’s apartment in Dorchester. He would bring home bagels, smoked salmon, cream cheese corn beef, some Friends, and lots of hungry relatives.

I longed for something similar in N.Y. However deli was a problem to buy for one person. My girlfriend said she hated deli. She had said many times, she would never go to a place that displayed pickled tongue as an edible food.

One Saturday I could no longer resist. I could not handle the aroma any longer. I had to get my courage up and go into this deli. I waited in a long line, where I was assigned a number to assure my turn. Finally, my turn came. The older man behind the glass counter seemed to be very tired. Our eyes met. It was very apparent by his glare that we were off to a rocky start. I mustered up all of my courage and said, ”I’ll have about 30 cents worth of smoked salmon.” He looked up at me as if I were speaking in a foreign tongue, which actually, in this deli, I was.

He said, “We don’t have smoked salmon here, Sonny Boy, we have LOX!” After he sliced a very tiny piece, he said, “It’s a little over is that okay?” I nodded, “Yes. I’ll also have about 20 cents worth of cream cheese.”

He cut a slab of cream cheese weighed it and said “it’s a little under, is that okay?”

Again I nodded, “Yes.” “I notice your potato salad and coleslaw are both 29 cents a pound could you mix the two in one container?”

He then made a point of showing me the scooper he would normally use, and took out a teaspoon, which he preceded to wave threateningly at me. He then very slowly and carefully measured out the slaw and potato salad into one container. I could feel my cool slipping rapidly away.

Quietly I said, ”I’ll have one bagel please.”

He went over to the cash register and glowered, “Eighty six cents, SONNY BOY.”

Then in an even louder voice, he yelled, ”WHAT ARE YOU HAVING A PARTY?”   

I was sure it was heard all the way into Manhattan. As I slinked, past the long line that had been waiting behind me, I knew that in that moment, the “cool” I had so carefully acquired in N.Y.C. was now completely gone.

Although, I now had a new girlfriend who adored deli, it took many years of serious therapy to regain enough cool to re-enter that deli in the Bronx.