"Sol?" "Solly?" "I just made some fresh lemonade, Solly." "It's going to be a nice day." "Not too hot." "Ohh!" "Your back again, Papa?" "Aww." "Why don't you move into the shade, Sol?" "Good morning, Uncle Sol." "Mother, I was thinking." "If we could only afford it," "Danish modern would be so perfect." "Solly?" "The editorial section." "So, Solly... what do you think, huh?" "About what?" "What I told you at brunch." "After all, you live here, too." "You're paying for it." "It really is up to you." "Buy it and keep it." "What?" "I said buy it... keep it... the am-FM television." "That's not what I mean." "I mean about the trip to Europe." "♪ I don't wanna be... ♪ turn it down, Joan." "This music bother you, Uncle Sol?" "You sure you wouldn't like some lemonade?" "Did you sleep long enough, my son?" "I wasn't sleeping." "No." "He was drawing his pornographic pictures." "Give me that!" "Oh, look at it!" "My God!" "Look!" "It's a nude girl!" "Look at that, Uncle Sol!" "My God!" "What have you been doing?" "Ha ha!" "Give it back to me!" "Look what your son's been doing!" "Don't you know girls aren't built that way!" "All right!" "Enough already, will you?" "Why can't you leave me alone?" "As soon as you come around, my son, there's a disturbance." "Morton, comb your hair, Morton." "You look like some kind of character with your hair like that." "Edward's picking me up in 10 minutes, and I don't want you to frighten him." "What happens to the time?" "25 years." "Do you realize it, Sol?" "Do I realize what?" "25 years next Thursday." "Did you know that, Sol?" "Yes." "My sister." "My poor sister Ruth." "Mother." "25 years." "My sister Ruth was beautiful like a picture." "Uncle Solly knows how beautiful, mother." "He was married to her." "Sol, all you have to do is say yes or no." "A final yes or no." "A final yes or no about what?" "The trip to Europe." "You want to go to Europe, Bertha?" "Not me, so much, but they have family plans now, so why not?" "It's a 17-day tour." "And why do you want to go to Europe?" "Mostly, it's him." "He says it'd be very good for his standing with the school board." "And he's always wanted to visit there, anyhow." "The shrines and the old cities-- there's an atmosphere we don't have here." "Something mellow." "Age lends its own charm." "Why, you can almost smell the difference." "It's rather like a stink if I remember." "Allí esta tu jefe, Jesus!" "No Spanish, mama." "No Spanish." "English." "You hurry now." "Couple of weeks working for him ain't long enough for you to be late." "Mama, you know what your trouble is?" "you know your trouble?" "you worry!" "You worry." "Now, me, I don't worry, mama." "You know why?" "Because I am going a long way, mama." "Yeah!" "A long way." "Jesus... no more trouble." "No more things like that, Jesus." "no." "No more, mama." "No more stealing, no more numbers, no more peddling, no more nothing." "Strictly legit, ok?" "Ok." "Mister?" "How much will you give me for this?" "I'm here!" "Let the business now commence." "Ah, come on, now, Mr. Nazerman." "Don't look that way, now." "Listen, I'm going to insist" "I insist you dock me exactly 20 minutes I late." "On the other hand," "I'll work so hard for the next few hours that you'll wind up giving me time and a half." "To start with, I'm going to open the front." "It's an award for oratory." "I won it in a citywide oratorical contest five years ago." "It's gold." "$1.00." "$1.00 for an important award like this?" "20,000 started." "50 semifinalists, and I won." "I recited "the raven."" "I was 1 of 20,000." "$1.00. still at the same address?" "Uh-huh." "But it's gold." "Plate. $1.00." "Man the lifeboats!" "Here I is again." "All right." "Gimme a dollar." "Honest and true, it's like bailing out an old leaky boat filled with holes." "You pawn something, you buy something else, and then you pawn that." "Each time, the boat's gettin' deeper into the water." "Ha ha!" "Ain't it a wonder a body stay afloat as long as it do?" "Aw, come on, Mr. Nazerman." "Smile." "Here I am with a load of profit for you." "They's heirloom." "Makes a table look like a table." "I'll sell them for $10 a pair." "$2.00." "My goodness!" "Why, these candlesticks is very high quality." "Cost $25 when new." "Now, I could get $15 easy down at triboro pawn." "I suggest, Mrs. Harmon, that you take them down to triboro pawn." "Ha ha ha!" "You a merciless man for sure." "$2.00!" "Oh, I'm too pooped to haggle, Mr. Nazerman." "Sold!" "Oh, you's a hard man." "God pity you." "He's the only judge, after all." "Be seeing you again, Mr. Nazerman, and that's for sure." "Take care now, you hear?" "Wait a minute, Mrs. Harmon." "You forgot your ticket, and you forgot your $2.00." "You know, I've been thinking." "Them suits in the back?" "I'll make a list of them, first according to the size, and then another one according to condition, and then the type." "You know, what I mean by that is summer or serge or gabardine." "You know, that way any suit anybody wants, pow!" "Put my finger on it right away." "I'm just filled with good ideas, man." "Good morning, Mr. Nazerman." "Good morning." "$2.00." "Quite incidentally, Mr. Nazerman," "I've just been reading a very remarkable book" "Herbert Spencer's 'Genesis of Science'." "Yes, but then you probably know it well." "It's a very good book." "I" " I particularly like his insistence that science is born of art, not the other way around." "To me, this was refreshing, coming from a man that most modern thinkers called old-fashioned." "Did any of your students think of that while you were at leipzig?" "But Spencer didn't come up with anything very new, really." "Pythagoras, an artist at heart and a great lover of music, made the discovery that the pitch of sound depends upon the length of the vibrating string." "That was six centuries before Christ." "I..." "I, uh... from time to time," "I like to drop in here because, Mr. Nazerman, a man gets hungry for talk." "Good talk." "There's your ticket, and there's your $2.00." "Mr. Nazerman... $2.00 will be..." "quite all right." "I..." "I apologize for talking so much, Mr. Nazerman." "D-d-did... forgive me." "Yes?" "Nazerman?" "how's business, Nazerman?" "Business is the same as usual." "We spend more money than we take in." "Good." "Pretty soon Uncle Sam will have to pay us money, subsidize us." "Can't expect taxes from a losing business, can they?" "Ha ha ha!" "That's funny, huh?" "That's pretty funny, huh?" "I asked you a question, Professor." "Pawnshop." "Nazerman?" "Yes, sir." "It's for you." "Yes?" "We get disconnected or something?" "No." "I hung up." "The word Professor." "I don't like it." "You were a Professor once, weren't you?" "What about that?" "I asked you a question, Nazerman." "I don't like the word Professor from you." "I don't like the way you say it." "Something else bothering you?" "Listen... there'll be a new man in later tonight." "He'll give you an estimate for some repair work." "You give him a check." "He'll give you your change in cash." "What's his name?" "Savarese." "You be there, Professor." "Good morning." "My name is Marilyn birchfield." "I'm introducing myself around." "In a sense, I'm a new neighbor." "Yes?" "I'm with the new youth center down the block." "I thought I'd make myself known to the shopkeepers in the vicinity and perhaps get some kind of help." "Support." "And?" "Well, to get down to it, Mr. Nazerman," "I'd like to put your name down as a tentative sponsor." "Later on, we'll see what you'd be willing to do and give." "Perhaps you could see your way clear to sponsoring one of the children's teams." "You might even like to devote evenings to coaching." "Have you any experience with basketball?" "Basketball." "You must be joking." "Well, uh... come to redeem, Uncle!" "Possibly with one of the crafts." "You don't have to make up your mind right away." "Perhaps you'd like to think about it." "I just wanted to introduce myself." "That's always the hardest part for me." "I get very tense when I have to introduce myself to people." "We all have to do things we don't like sometimes." "If you're looking for a handout, why don't you say so?" "That's $18.75." "I don't regard these contributions as handouts, and I'm very sorry that you do." "I think that anything one can do for these children is an investment in one's own future." "I'm not particularly concerned with the future." "How much do you want?" "I'll take anything you're willing to give, regardless of how it's given." "Is that the name of the organization" "I make the check out to?" "Yes." "The important thing is the money will be well spent." "do you always think the worst of everyone?" "A lot of people come in here collecting-- blind people with 20/20 vision, deaf people who could hear the tumblers on my safe when I dial the combination." "So with this experience, I say why not you?" "All right." "Why not me?" "How much are you willing to give?" "You see, I have no pride." "And since you've been so cooperative," "I'll come back again... and again...and again." "Mr. Nazerman... when are you going to?" "What?" "To teach me." "Later." "Listen, your ad in the paper said," ""a bright, willing- to-learn young man."" "that's why I answered it." "And right now, Mr. Nazerman," "I feel special bright and special willing." "Hey!" "Olé!" "Ooh!" "Aay!" "Ya-ha!" "Later." "When?" "Tonight." "That's good enough for me!" "I just got to learn this business!" "I just got to... what's you saying, Jesus?" "How you doing?" "Ain't it wild?" "This thing is brand new." "Never been used." "Blades shiny, sharp, cut grass down to the skin." "Yellow paint, gold paint, last a lifetime." "Where'd you get it?" "What?" "Why, it's a gift." "Yeah, a gift." "I would've returned it to the store my friend bought it, only I was embarrassed to ask him where." "Ain't that the truth, man?" "You understand the police have lists of stolen merchandise?" "Oh, now, man, I ain't stole it!" "A friend, a friend give it to me." "Now, he figure I make use of it." "Where'd you get these numbers tattooed, Uncle?" "Aw, come on, now, Uncle." "Will you take the thing?" "Will you please take the thing?" "I'll give you $30." "Sold." "I ain't no trouble at all." "Pleasure to do business with you, ain't I now?" "We be in again, Uncle." "See you later, Ortiz." "Friends of yours, Ortiz?" "Oh, I know them." "Give me the number on that contraption." "It's, uh..." ""1-0-7..."" "1-0-7..." ""1-2."" "1-2." "Mr. Nazerman... you want to tell me something, Mr. Nazerman, what is that?" "That." "Is that a secret society or something?" "Yeah." "Yeah, well, what do I do to join?" "What do you do to join?" "You learn to walk on water." "Mr. Nazerman." "Mm-hmm." "Teach me gold." "Huh?" "Well... all right." "I'll teach you gold." "You know, I got this Uncle, he lives in Detroit, he's been in business for 42 years." "Grocery store." "You know, my old lady tells me that that man is as solid as the rock of Gibraltar." "Every time his business is getting bigger and bigger." "Even the cops call him mister." "And he got this son." "He's about my age." "That kid in the store is going to get it all when my Uncle kick off." "You know what I mean." "That business makes him solid." "Like a king a little." "He passes his crown down to his kids." "Me, I'm going to get me a business." "I got that in my mind for sure." "All I need is the loot." "Well, you save your pennies." "I'm going to do that." "yes, sir, I'm going to do that." "In the meantime," "I'm learning business from a master." "You'll never learn it unless you pay attention and stop talking." "Ok, I'm a clam." "Teach me gold." "Pay attention." "You take an object like this watch." "This is a touchstone." "Rub it on the touchstone like that." "See that?" "That leaves a mark there." "Then you take a little acid, and you put it on that mark on the touchstone like that." "Now you watch it, you see?" "Now, if that turns a bright green, then that means it's brass." "Let me write it down." "All right." "Bright green means it's brass, right?" "If it turns a milky white, that means it's silver." "The name's savarese." "Redecorate the whole damn place, Uncle, say, 5,000 bucks." "Who do I make the check out to?" "The acme contracting company." "That's a-c..." "m-e." "Be a good job, Uncle." "Paint the whole damn place pink and yellow." "Pink and yellow." "That's marvelous." "Your change-- 5,000 bucks." "Count it." "Don't touch that." "What?" "Getting ready for Monday." "Back here on Monday, it'll be October." "Let's leave it September, shall we?" "How come?" "Don't ask me how come." "Just do what I tell you." "Leave the calendar alone and go home." "I'll see you Monday, and you sure will be here on time, you hear?" "I'm going to be here practically early." "Get him!" "Tessie!" "Tessie!" "What are you, a nut or something?" "You moron!" "Let's just go up and sit down and talk awhile." "I'm tired." "You know, my boss... my boss been working my back off all afternoon." "Oh, I don't like you working too hard." "I don't like you using all your energy." "Do you know me not to have enough energy?" "So don't worry none, baby." "All you got to do is be around when I do this." "Come here." "Come here." "Ha ha ha!" "Hey, Ortiz." "Hiya, tangee." "Talking about you a second ago." "You know what else?" "Robinson couldn't believe one word I told him." "He say, "how come a smart boy like Ortiz working in the pawnshop?"" "ain't it what you say?" "How come a smart boy like Ortiz working in the pawnshop?" "That's my business." "Now, now, now don't get uptight." "Just how come?" "That's all." "I mean, how come you work there?" "He's got his plans!" "Shh!" "He's learnin'." "It's a good business." "It's a chicken business" "$2.00 loan, $5.00 loan." "Peanuts." "You think?" "Peanuts." "Try $5,000, man, 'cause that's what Mr. Nazerman must've put in his safe." "Is he here?" "Can't he sleep again tonight, Tessie?" "Is that why he came here, to bring joy to his dead friend's wife?" "Shut the door, Tess." "Close the door and shut me off from the two of you." "Shut me off from the land of the dead." "He'll never forgive us for sleeping together, Sol." "To him, I'm still Reuben's wife." "Honey?" "You like me, huh?" "Oh, honey, you know why you do that?" "'cause you and me, honey, when that happens, you and me can't be nothin' better." "He's asleep." "That man Nazerman... he knows things." "Baby, I wonder how much it takes to open a pawnshop." "Hey, do you think 5,000?" "Do you think 5,000, baby?" "Yeah." "Must be." "I can help you get that money." "I can." "I can give private sessions and no splits to the boss." "Honey, I can make us an extra 100 or 2 a week." "I can go in with you." "I can be a partner to you." "You know?" "Yeah." "That could be." "That could be, baby." "We'll see." "Is it your play or my play?" "Yours." "Mine." "I'll fix the calendar." "No." "Mr. Nazerman, are you all right?" "you... you look...bad." "Don't stand there." "Find something to do." "Go on." "Find something to do." "Hey, Uncle, how much you give me for this radio, huh?" "Now, this hot little old radio, man, is worth plenty of rubles, man." "It's got lots of juice." "It's got short wave, police call, boats." "Late at night, man, you get outer space." "Come on, Uncle, just make me an offer." "Now, this is a hundred-dollar radio." "It's got a clear tone." "Boy, that's clear as a mother's old bell." "Come on, baby." "Show the man your power, baby." "Blast him!" "Give him some of that tone!" "Oh, man, you radio, you mother!" "I'll give you $2.00." "You turn chicken on me, radio, huh?" "you always play better than that!" "It must be on account of the heat, you know?" "I'll tell you what." "You give me $8.00, huh?" "I mean, that's--that's my mother's radio." "I said I'll give you $2.00 come on. $5.00, you blood-sucking cheater!" "You money-grabbing kike!" "5!" "Still live at the same address?" "Mm-hmm." "Aw, man, I'll" "I'll take the 2 rubles, man." "you just give me the 2. take it." "I'm sorry, Mr. Nazerman." "For what?" "For what that young man said to you." "Sell your sorrow somewhere else, miss birchfield." "I came here mainly to apologize." "For what?" "I was tactless the other day." "I forced myself on you." "I got angry." "It's bothered me the whole weekend." "I suppose you think I'm rather silly." "Walking over here though," "I had a sensible conversation with myself." "Would you like to hear it?" "How nice I thought it would be if you and i had lunch together." "Like Wednesday?" "Thursday?" "I'll bring some sandwiches." "We'll have them in the park." "Certainly you must be joking, miss birchfield." "Oh, no, I'm not." "Don't you think it's rather-- no." "No." "Please, don't say stupid." "Don't demean it." "I came to apologize." "So you came to apologize and..." "I accept your apology." "You have to excuse me." "What can I do for you?" "Well, what do you want?" "My diamond engagement ring." "I want to borrow." "It's glass." "Glass?" "He said it was real." "Wednesday or Thursday?" "What?" "Lunch in the park." "Wednesday's better for me." "Wednesday, Thursday, whatever you like." "All right." "I'll see you then." "Fine." "Fine." "Teaching time, Mr. Nazerman." "Time to teach." "Now, last time you taught me gold, right?" "What are you going to teach me tonight?" "Tonight I teach you to save your pennies." "I'm going to do that, Mr. Nazerman." "Yes, sir." "Now, in the meantime," "I'm learning business from a master, right?" "So I got to know one thing, something I've been thinking about." "How come you people come to business so naturally?" ""you people"?" "Oh, I see." "Yeah." "I see." "I see." "You, uh... you want to learn the secret of our success." "Is that right?" "All right." "I'll teach you." "First of all, you start off with a period of several thousand years during which you have nothing to sustain you but a great bearded legend." "You have no land to call your own, to grow food on or to hunt." "You have nothing." "You're never in one place long enough to have a geography or army or land myth." "All you have is a little brain." "A little brain and a great bearded legend to sustain you and convince you that you are... special..." "even in poverty." "But this, uh... this little brain-- that's the real key, you see." "With this little brain you go out and buy a piece of cloth." "Cut that cloth in two." "Sell it for a penny more than you paid for it." "Buy another cloth." "Cut it into 3 pieces." "Sell it for 3 pennies profit." "But during that time you must never succumb to buying an extra piece of bread for the table or a toy for a child. no!" "No, you must immediately run out and get yourself a still larger piece of cloth." "So you repeat this process over and over, and suddenly you discover something." "You have no longer any desire, any temptation to dig into the earth to grow food or gaze at limitless land and call it your own." "No, no." "You just go on and on, repeating this process over the centuries." "And suddenly you make a grand discovery." "You have a mercantile heritage." "You are a merchant." "You're known as a usurer, a man with secret resources, a witch, a pawnbroker, a sheeny, a mockie, and a kike!" "You're really some teacher, Mr. Nazerman." "You're really... really the greatest." "Jesus?" "Yeah?" "¿Como va tu trabajo?" "Va bien, mama." "Muy bien." "¿Sí?" "Sí." "¿Te gusta tu jefe?" "Quién, Nazerman?" "Sí." "Uh-huh." "Sabe muchas cosas." "Sí?" "Estoy apprendiendo muchas cosas por él." "Ay, que bueno." "Algun día voy a tener mi propio negocio." "Ay, que bueno." "Uno no va salir del tapo careo apartamento." "Entonces quiere decir que de ahora en adelante vas hacer buen muchacho." "Of course." "I am a very good boy." "I am a good boy." "Un buen muchacho." "Ok, good boy." "Say good boy." "Pero..." "Good boy." "No es lo mismo que decir goodbye?" "No, es otra cosa." "Ven aquí." "Ven aquí." "Good boy." "Say good boy." "Good. boy." "Boy." "Right." "I am..." "I am... a good--I am." "I am." "I am..." "I am... a good... a good... a good... a good boy." "A good boy." "Nazerman..." "I can't even look at him anymore." "I start to blush." "...Nazerman of leipzig." "Look, Tessie... don't be an hysterical woman." "Neither one of us has done anything that we should feel guilty about." "You'd better go and see him." "I was in Auschwitz, too." "I came out alive." "You came out dead." "I'll have some coffee for you when you come out." "Yeah." "Yeah." "Guilt." "And there it is." "Guilt to find yourself alive." "And so you wrap yourself in a kind of shroud and feel you share the dignity of death with those who really died." "Tell me... does blood ever flow through you, Sol Nazerman?" "Can you feel pain?" "No." "you are a fake." "You breathe, you eat, you walk." "you make money." "You take a dream and give a dollar... and give no hope." "I survive." "Survive?" "A coward's survival, and at what a price!" "No love." "No passion." "no pity!" "Dead!" "Sol Nazerman, the walking dead!" "It's Wednesday." "Yeah, so it's Wednesday." "We were to have lunch together." "In fact, you set the day yourself." "Had you forgotten?" "Yes, I'm afraid I had." "Well, it-- it doesn't matter." "Here I am." "Miss birchfield, I feel I must be honest with you." "I do not wish to inflict a failure on you, but I do not welcome your interest." "You were in a concentration camp, weren't you?" "That's no concern of yours." "Would you like to hear a little about me?" "It really doesn't matter." "No, I don't believe you when you say that." "when I was a little girl," "I was fat and amiable, and everyone liked me." "The boys used to think I was a great sport." "I remember some of them even told me solemnly that I reminded them of their sisters." "Well, in that odd category," "I went to lots of parties and I had loads of friends and there was nothing wrong." "Until one day I discovered that I'd acquired... a most excruciating malady... loneliness." "One day there was a young man." "We fell in love." "we got married." "He died." "Like that." "His heart just stopped." "And I found out that loneliness is the normal state of affairs." "For most people." "My dear miss birchfield, how touchingly naive you are." "Oh!" "You have discovered loneliness!" "You have found outthat the world isunjust and cruel." "Let me tell you something, my dear sociologist-- that there is a world different than yours, much different, and the people in it are of another species." "Now, I ask you a question." "What do you know?" "I guess I'm out of my depth." "Oh, I would say so." "But what happened to me-- is nothing." "No!" "That's not so." "What makes you so bitter?" "Bitter?" "Oh, no, miss birchfield," "I am not bitter." "No, that passed me by a million years ago." "I'm a man of no anger." "I've no desire for vengeance for what was done to me." "I have escaped from the emotions." "I am safe within myself." "All I ask and want is peace and quiet." "Why haven't you found it?" "Because people like you will not let me!" "Miss birchfield, you have made the afternoon very tedious with your constant search for an answer." "And one more thing." "Please..." "stay out of my life." "You shouldn't have done that." "What's the matter, Uncle?" "Don't you like wednesdays?" "You shouldn't have touched it." "Well, it's done." "The boss wants you to sign these." "There'll be no papers signed today." "Look, maybe you don't understand." "I understand you perfectly." "I said no papers signed today." "Leave them, but no papers get signed." "The boss ain't going" "I said no papers get signed today!" "Ok." "You're a tough man, Mr. Nazerman." "I mean, he looks tough, but-- why don't you mind your own business?" "You know... you worry me when you look like that, Mr. Nazerman." "What--what is wrong with you?" "Hmm?" "I don't know." "Good afternoon, Mr. Nazerman." "Mr. Nazerman, for some days now" "I've been trying to give an idea some sort of shape, a--a pattern." "Now--now, Mr.--Mr... socrates..." "socrates himself was on the very borderline of drama, right?" "Right, and look at Baudelaire." "Baudelaire and all his strange, sacred mysticism." "And who knows?" "Perhaps the marquis de-- exactly what was it that you came to pawn, Mr. Smith?" "Pawn?" "Oh, of course." "To pawn." "I--I did bring... i...i..." "I had it somewhere." "Just stand still." "Stand still for a minute." "Now, think." "Just for once in your life, try to be rational and think exactly what you came in here to pawn." "I... nothing." "I had nothing to bring." "I..." "I will miss talking to you." "What makes creatures like that exist?" "Why--why did you call him creature?" "Because he's black?" "No, not because he's black." "I don't care what he is." "I'm nondiscriminatory, nonsectarian." "Black, white, or yellow, they're all equally... equally what?" "Scum." "Rejects." "You're a mighty hard man, Mr. Nazerman." "I mean, after all, they are children of God." "Ain't they?" "You believe in God, Ortiz?" "I don't know, Mr. Nazerman." "But you believe in God, and I make book on that." "I do not believe in God or art or science or newspapers or politics or philosophy." "Well, then, Mr. teacher... ain't there nothing you do believe?" "Money." "All right." "Then you teach me about money then, Mr. Nazerman." "All right, Mr. Ortiz." "Now, come here." "Firstly, money can increase or decrease in value." "Secondly, money is risky, but at a given moment, one has some idea of its worth." "Thirdly, money can buy you many things-- comfort, luxury, relief from pain, sometimes even life itself, and now you listen to me, and you listen very carefully." "Next to the speed of light, which Einstein says is the only absolute in the universe, second only to that, I rank money!" "Well... you believe me, that's all you need to know." "That's what life's all about?" "That's what life is all about." "You mean, money is the whole thing?" "Money is the whole thing." "I'll see you later, Mr. Nazerman." "Please, please?" "Please, please, listen to me." "Honey, I can get you the money." "I got some gifts I could sell." "Extras from the customers." "You know." "Baby, you don't need them others... tangee and buck, most that Robinson-- they just poison." "Baby, nothing they do for you won't hurt you." "Oh, please, please, let me chip in." "I can get it for you." "I know I can." "Money." "Money." "That's the whole thing." "Sure." "Sure, honey, only no going back to them others." "Oh, baby..." "I'm just thinkin' of you." "Damn loot." "I'm going to get it." "I'm going to get it and fast!" "Chico!" "Come." "Sit." "How come you don't join with us?" "I got some thinking to do." "Oh?" "You know what I think?" "I think you got something on your mind you want to talk about, or you wouldn't be here in the first place." "You want I should romance you a little before you talk." "Listen, you hear me, tangee." "I got nothing to say, see?" "I just got to think." "I just got a lot of thinking to do." "All right." "Ain't nobody pressuring you." "And if-- if I decide to do anything at all," "I got to call the moves." "We had you figured for that." "And if the thing goes," "I say if... there'll be no shooting." "Ok, man." "You need a piece, but just for show, because shooting is trouble." "It's stupid." "We can do without it." "No matter what, understand?" "If I decide to go ahead with it, if..." "I say when and how." "If." "I got some stuff to pawn." "We'll start off with this." "That's an expensive locket." "No sense in fooling around with it." "It's gold." "I'll give you $20 for it." "$20?" "it's worth at least 100." "Maybe it is, but not to me." "This locket was a present, a gift from a man for a private session." "Pawnbroker...you got it in your power to make me a beat up old woman." "What makes you say that?" "'cause if my boss finds out" "I've been messing around in private-- he don't hold still for nothing like that, so if it was to get out to him, he'd make me old before my time." "Hello." "Mendel is dead." "My father's dead." "Did you hear what I just said?" "Yeah, I heard what you said, yeah." "Uh... just a minute." "Hang that up, would you, please?" "Hello." "Papa is dead." "What am I going to do, Sol?" "Well, you bury him." "There's nothing else to do." "Nothing?" "Nothing." "Nothing." "When you talk like that, you're not human." "You want me to come cry with you?" "Yes." "The hell with your crying." "I need someone to help me." "I can't come now." "I can't leave the store." "The store." "Big...important...store." "Where do you think your money comes from?" "you wouldn't get your father's corpse into the ground if not for the store." "Papa is dead." "Papa is dead." "That's what you wanted, isn't it?" "I'm good, pawnbroker." "I'm real good." "I know things you haven't never even dreamed about." "Just $20 more." "I make you happy." "Like you've never known." "I'll show you how pretty I am." "Don't you say nothin' about this, you hear?" "Nothin'." "Like I said, if my boss was to find out" "I been messin' around in private... so don't tell Rodriguez nothin'." "Rodriguez?" "Rodriguez..." "the big man... the boss." "The biggest in Harlem." "You mean... you work for Rodriguez?" "Oh, yeah." "oh, he's got lots of irons in the fire." "He's a powerful man, so it's better if you don't tell him a thing." "But I got to get me some money." "Look." "Look." "That's it." "Look." "Look." "Look." "That's it." "Look!" "It don't cost you nothin' to look." "That's it." "Just look." "Look." "Look." "Aah!" "I can't tell you, Nazerman, how I've looked forward to this." "People I come in contact with... they're dumbheads." "You've got background." "The real thing." "Me, I never had a regular education, but I've got a feel for things." "You... are a welcome change of pace for me." "Say... if all you wanted was to come here and stare," "I could've sent you a picture." "Ok, partner... what's your beef?" "That whorehouse down the street from me-- do you own it?" "You wouldn't be trying to get-- it's your whorehouse, isn't it?" "Assume it is, then what?" "I don't want your money if it's from there." "Say that again." "I don't want your money if it's from there." "Why?" "It's money that comes from filth and horror!" "That's what it is, Professor." "Then... we can have no longer anything to do further" "Professor... you don't know it, but the lecture is over." "Now, you're going to listen to me." "Where do you think the money you've been living on comes from, Professor?" "Money you pay for an old Jew's keep, money you give Tessie." "Money you pay for a nice, fat house on long island and the nice, fat family you support there?" "Oh, I know all about you." "And how." "I know where your money comes from-- from me." "And one of the places I get it most is from whorehouses and bowling alleys and parking lots and hotel linens and tenements." "Now tell me where you thought it was coming from." "I don't know." "That makes you stupid, Professor." "You're living right in it!" "Right in the middle of one big whorehouse, right in the bosom of the world!" "How do you say it-- filth, horror?" "Right in the middle and you don't know it." "Or maybe something else-- because you don't want to know." "Are you that kind of man, Professor, that doesn't want to know about things, feel about things?" "Are you that kind?" "That makes you nothing!" "A ton of nothing!" "You give me a front, and I give you money, so don't hang up on me, Professor." "Not again." "Look at me." "Look at me!" "I said... those papers you haven't signed... by tomorrow morning, signed." "What?" "Yes." "Yes?" "Yes." "Yes?" "Yes?" "Yes." "Yes?" "Yes." "Yes." "Yes, yes, yes, yes." "Oh, yes." "Happy dreams, Uncle." "Come in." "Can I get you something?" "Coffee?" "No, I thank you. no." "I was out on the terrace when you phoned." "I couldn't sleep." "Would you... it's very lovely in the morning." "That's why I got this apartment-- this terrace." "The city and the river." "We had a... we had a river in Germany." "Tell me about it." "That was long ago." "That was... that was before Europe became a graveyard." "What made you come here?" "I don't know." "I don't know." "Just... things have been happening lately, and..." "I felt I needed to be with someone." "What things, Mr. Nazerman?" "Well, it's just that suddenly, in the last few days, I feel afraid, and... it's been a long time since I felt... anything." "Fear." "Fear, fear." "That's what I felt." "And then I, uh..." "I called you." "I'm sorry that you're so alone." "Oh, no, no, no." "You don't understand." "It's just that there have been memories that I have..." "Well, I thought that I had... pushed them far away from me, and they keep rushing in... and then there are words..." "Words that I thought I have kept myself from hearing and...now..." "Now they... flood my mind." "Yeah." "Today is an anniversary." "What happened?" "Happened?" "Yes." "I didn't die." "Everything that I loved... was taken away from me and..." "I did not die." "Mr. Nazerman... there was... nothing I could do." "Ha." "Nothing." "Strange?" "I could do nothing." "No, there was nothing I could do." "Why do you sit like that?" "I got...chilled." "I got chilled listening to you... and not being able to do anything for you." "Sol!" "Sol, don't let him fall!" "David?" "Sol, he's falling!" "Oh, God, David!" "Sol!" "Sol!" "Ruthie!" "I can't do anything!" "Oh, my God, I can't do nothing." "David." "David!" "David!" "David!" "Mr. Nazerman." "Mr. Nazerman." "Are you all right?" "You--you don't look good." "Listen, I..." "I" " Is there anything I can..." "Mr. Nazerman." "Do you remember me?" "The oratory award." "Just to carry me over until i... well..." "I have this for you." "Don't scratch them." "They're surely worth $10." "$50." "$2.00." "You're crazy." "$2.00 for a Leica camera?" "What the hell are you saying?" "$1.00." "That's better?" "You're out of your mind for sure." "Whatever you want to give." "I've got no use for them anymore." "How much do you want to borrow?" "Oh, i--I don't know." "$20?" "$50." "I'll let you have it for $2.00." "Why, yes, I'll just take that watch." "Now, just wait a minute." "This says, uh... it says 12 1/2 bucks, lady." "You got a mouth, boy." "Pawnbroker says" "I don't care." "you want this article, you come up with $12.50." "That's what the sign say." "Mr. Nazerman." "Mr. Nazerman, are you ok?" "Huh?" "Leave me alone, Ortiz." "Ok, I'll do that, Mr. Nazerman." "I'll do that." "First I want to know, are you ok?" "I'm ok." "Are you sure?" "Yes, I'm sure!" "I'm ok." "Now just leave me alone." "That's all right." "I'm just concerned, that's all." "After all, you're my teacher." "Ha." "I'm your what?" "You're my teacher." "Hmm." "I'm a student to you." "You're nothing to me." "For true?" "For true." "You mean, I'm like... the rest of them out there?" "That's right." "You're like the rest of them out there." "You're nothing to me." "I'll go for lunch now." "Go to lunch." "Do what you please, but just leave me alone." "Now, go!" "See you later." "It's at closing time." "Hmm?" "I said it's at closing time." "How come?" "That's when it's got to be." "Now I said it, and I'm saying it again." "No shooting'." "What's the matter, you worried about the Jew?" "No." "I'm worrying about Jesus Ortiz." "Now..." "I got a plan." "Then this jive cop, he said," ""mon, I'm sympathetic to the problems of your race."" "you were supposed to deliver the papers this morning." "They better be signed." "Sign them." "And if I don't sign the papers... what do you do to me then, you kill me?" "Oh, yes." "So kill me." "Pardon me, Uncle." "Professor... you have to kill me." "That's what you want." "That's what you really want, Professor, isn't it?" "I'll tell you what." "You'll die... but not when you want to." "Not when you want to so bad." "One day it'll happen to you... just the time when you wish it hadn't." "I'd like to borrow some money on this." "I--I want to borrow $10 on this." "I collect them." "You'd be surprised how many people use them for decoration." "There's a monarch in here." "And the great spangle fritillary." "The mourning cloak... and... the one with the eye design, tha" "thank you." "Well, gentlemen, what do you want?" "The money." "The money." "Now, we ain't playin'." "Now you open that safe fast." "Well, come on!" "Well, come on!" "Look... go home." "We ain't jokin', mister." "You get that money out of that safe." "You get it." "Hey, no sweat." "It's open." "Step aside, Uncle." "What do you want to die for, Uncle?" "The money don't mean that much to you, does it?" "Now...you move." "Get out of the way of that safe" "No shooting!" "Back up!" "Back up!" "Jesus!" "Jesus!" "Jesus!" "Jesus!" "¡Ay, ay, ay!" "¡Dios mío!" "I..." "I said no shooting'." "I said no..." "not to hurt you." "No... no, don't hurt you." "No." "No, don't hurt you!" "Back it up, back it up!" "Let's go!"