A Small Brooklyn Memory

So in Brooklyn when I was a kid we used to make prank calls, and some of them were mean, and I am not saying I am proud of that. Others weren't very bad at all:

“Hello?”

“Good Evening, Ma’am. We’re calling from Con Edison. We are sorry to trouble you but we've had a report that the streetlight directly outside your window is not functioning properly. Is there any way you can just quickly check to see if the light is on?”

“Certainly. Just one moment….Yes, the light is still on.”

“Good. Then blow it out.”

Disconnect.

Silly. Dumb. But fun. Of course you needed an older kid for that one, or at least a kid who could sound a bit older.

Then there were the other tricks designed for the people you really hated. The one’s who complained to the police about you and your friends playing stickball in the street just because a red rubber Spaulding ball (red---they should have seen it coming!) smacked them in the face and broke their eyeglasses. The old Italian lady we called Signora was one for that. And we didn't even break her glasses, all she got was a good whack and a bit of a bloody nose. What did she expect, it was a foul ball. So for a week a so in the high hot days of summer the cops kept cruising by and threatening us with life in prison (if not the electric chair) if they ever caught us so much as bouncing a ball on the sidewalk again. We were terrified. Then after a few weeks, in the normal way that these things go, the cops forgot to come around and hassle us, and we forgot to be afraid, and so soon we were back at stickball and punchball in the streets again.

We drew First and Third base and Home Plate with chalk, but the sewer plate halfway up the street was Second Base. But that’s all beside the point. The point is we couldn't let the Signora’s attack upon us go unanswered. So one morning a small Maytag truck from all the way out on Long Island pulled up in front of her apartment building and two burly repairmen got out and rang the old lady’s bell. We of course were watching from a distance. What ensued as Signora stepped out onto the stoop to confront her visitors was as fearful a battle---and as rewarding a payoff!---as you’d ever want to see. The old lady denied any knowledge whatsoever of the call, while the repairmen showed her a piece of paper with her name and address and insisted they were going to come inside. Italian swear words echoed down the Brooklyn street, and even from where we were standing we could see the infuriated Signora’s face turning as bright red as a bowl of Campbell’s tomato soup. Moochie started taking bets that the old girl was going to pop her cork and drop dead right there on her own front stoop, but then Moochie had no father and his mother never took him to church at St. Mary’s on Sunday mornings, so he didn’t have the natural fear of going to hell for his sins that the rest of us had. We were starting to think we’d maybe gone too far this time when Signora finally allowed the two repairmen to enter her apartment and see with their own stupid eyes that in fact she didn't even own a washing machine, and therefore had no possible reason on earth to call for their services. Only then did the unhappy repairmen climb back into their truck for the long drive back to Long Island. We breathed a sigh of relief as watched the old Signora shaking her fist at the departing truck and cursing in both Italian and English the stupidity of washing machine companies who sent men all the way from Long Island to harass a poor old lady who had spent a lifetime washing her dishes by hand over a hot sink for the benefit of her lazy husband and ungrateful kids.

After that, we mostly confined ourselves to innocuous pranks like ordering a large anchovy pizza or a box of diapers for our specially selected victim. And after a while the local merchants got to know our voices and would merely hang up on us whenever we called. And as the summers marched along we became older and other things occupied our minds, and so our phone pranks went the way of spinning tops and toy soldiers.

Oddly enough, I myself was brought down when I pulled the mildest and most harmless prank imaginable. And in the process I learned that the one person in the world you couldn't play tricks on was the telephone operator. In those days you dialed “O” instead of “411” to get information.

“Do you have the number of the Rainbow Theater?”

“Certainly.”

“Well call them up and let me know what’s playing.”

I was maybe eight at this time, and thought I had reached the heights of wit and hilarity. I would have considered myself the Noel Coward of Maujer Street  if I’d had any idea at the time who Noel Coward was. I hung up the phone walked away convulsed with laughter. But a few seconds later the phone rang and my mother answered it and it was the operator wanting to know who had made the prank called. I hadn't known that they could see the number that was calling. So I got yelled at. But at the same time I had been given one of the most precious gifts one can receive in life: the gift of paranoia. The knowledge that Those in Authority might be watching you even as you think you're watching them is perhaps the greatest incentive for staying on the straight and narrow path that has ever been devised.