This Place of Prose and Poetry. Lucian Krukowski

a Jewish nick-name, it put me squarely between the Catholics, who were mostly Italian and Irish, and the Jews, who were mostly Polish and Russian. What to do? The first Lewis, was Jewish, and although older and more sure of himself than I, did sometimes talk quietly with me, lend me comic books, and show me toy soldiers from his collection. The other Lou-ee, my nemesis, who was Catholic and Italian, could only talk by shouting—and systematically roughed me up whenever I showed-up on the street.

      One day, he and some other boys grabbed me, pulled my pants down, and started beating me with a stick. The other Lewis was there too, as a charter member of the block—but he was appalled at this turn and loudly insisted that they stop. He was large, and so they let me go. I showed the marks to my mother who then dragged me to the house where Lou-ee lived and pulled down my pants again to show them to Lou-ee’s mother. After much shouting, the mothers agreed it would be nice if we all walked—Lucian and Lou-ee and their mothers (no fathers were ever mentioned)—together to Mass on Sunday. This would show a solidarity, despite ethnic quarrels, within the common faith. The walk happened three times—as I remember. The mothers spoke in sing-song although they had nothing to say of interest to each other. Lou-ee remained silent and sullen—but he did leave me alone after that.

      The anti-Semitism in my family was deep-rooted but passive, and it was voiced mostly through imported Polish cliches, quietly, indoors, after supper. But my social precariousness pushed the issue outdoors. I was first enrolled in the Catholic cub-scouts, but they also shouted a lot and fought, and it made for long walks to the church basement every friday night. So I resisted. My mother then did something the enormity of which I did not sense until much later. She went to the Jewish temple on the next block, which also had a cub-scout troop, and tried to enroll me.

      Understand—this was an orthodox synagogue, rich in ritual and clothing, with a faith so demanding that its services were well attended. My mother never spoke to me of that experience—how she walked in, who spoke with her, what was asked, how answered. I still don’t know what that silence meant, whether she felt ashamed, heretical, emancipated. But I imagine her walking up those heavy stairs with her threadbare coat, no scarf, no jewelry—so Gentile—to talk with a man in a double-breasted suit and white shirt with no tie, wearing a yarmulka; a thick man, more powerful and, yes, more sensual than any in our meager tribe. How did her voice sound? Did it crack? Did she speak English, Polish, or the bit of German she knew that let her communicate with the old ones on the block who spoke only Yiddish?

      Recently, I found my mother’s citizenship papers and learned that she stood all of five foot one. What could she have said to those men, those large suspicious men—that her Catholic son Lokshen would be safer among the Jews?

      However she said it, it was done, and in a few days she took me with her to the synagogue and turned me over to Mr. Moses, the scout-master. He was hearty in a somewhat unfocused way, had a constant bead of sweat on his upper lip and spoke in stentorian tones; but the troop—more precisely, “pack,”—was actually run by women. They were mothers of the scouts and I remember them as quick, plump, elaborately dressed, well-perfumed, and very verbal. Everyone, in fact, talked a lot, and so I began to talk too, and I discovered that it is a good way to make my way with people who will talk and listen. I don’t remember what we talked about but I do remember learning how to substitute words for feelings as well as things.

      “Lokshen” was the first of the many names devised by people who thought to make me more comfortable in my skin. A later example of this benevolence was “Luscious,” a name awarded me by a woman in an accounting firm where I had my first summer job. She was, of course, much older—easily twenty-five. But I sought her out—although I didn’t know how not to blush and stammer everytime we spoke. She had the secretarial tight skirt, and tan sinewy feet in high heels, and she wore a gold watch pinned to a scarf, and bracelets around her wrists, and she smelled like flowers in the early morning.

      I think she somewhat liked my gaping sniffing fumbling. And, who knows, she might have fleetingly entertained the thought of trying sex with me—as I had just passed the age of first consent. Well, she should have, no matter how awkward. With her, I would have been the pupil who offers unripe apples to mollify the regrets that will come in her later years, and I would have quickly learned what usually takes so long—how to travel up and down the length of her, how to watch, when to leap, and how not to fear the closeness of someone else’s flesh. But she was getting married; I was too gangly—all knees elbows and premature ejaculations. So she gave me the name instead—“Luscious,” a name that had we actually shared it—said it to each other during all those hidden hours—would have been the catalyst for sounds and movements (and epiphanies) that we could both have had—for all the however many times to come.

      As I grew older, my naming became more neutral—less wound or shield, and more the simple label I needed in college classes and among my now more friendly friends. The name that survived the early shifts of hope and pain and became my standard for those years was “Looshun”—“Loosh” for short. It was not the one I would have choosen as the exemplar of my qualities—but it did identify me without malice.

      But sometimes, choosing a version for a naming is a serious matter. These circumstances are typically divided into whether the asker is male or female. When a man asks: “How do you pronounce your name?” I am on guard: Be careful how you answer; don’t give away too much; make sure your voice is slightly growly. So what did I say? Usually, I said “call me Lou.” Other times however, feeling more theatened than usual, I would roll out my heavy weapons: “Actually, when I was in the Marines they called me `Ski’ —all the Polacks (heh, heh) were called ‘Ski.’ There was private Ski—me; there was a Captain Ski—Tarski; and there also was a General Ski—Dombrowski.”

      “You were in the Marines?”—the fellow would yodel. “Well actually I was drafted.” I said. “I didn’t know they drafted into the Marines,” he said. “Oh yes, Korean war; when the Chinese came over the Yalu, they needed men fast you know, one out of three at the induction center—bam, bam boom—I was boom.” “Did you go to Korea?” “Well, no, (heh), I stayed in North Carolina, missed the fighting—too bad, (heh, heh).”

      On the other side of gender, I took a woman’s asking “How do you pronounce your name?” as an opening to the erotic. It seems to me that the men ask the question aggressively and the women ask it suggestively— pronunciation as seduction. “Now that you ask,” I would say, “shall I tell you, in passing, how interesting I am? The Polish `Lucjan’ is actually a modification of the Latin `Lucian’—of course you know the Roman poet of that name.” “Well yes,” she would say, “I remember reading him, but that was some time ago—a little while ago in college.” “Yes, yes” I would answer—“the French made the ‘a’ into an ‘e’ as in ‘Lucien Lelong’ and the Italians countered by keeping the ‘a’ and adding an ‘o’ as in ‘Luciano Pavarotti.’ But I would prefer that you call me whatever sounds best to you.” “Oh yes, I’ll do that, I’ll try them all on you.”

      I have constructed—for myself as well as others—a real heritage, not entirely false but admittedly embellished, with a name for every occasion, with comrades both international and historical, alluding to a colorful and checkered past. It is a testimonial to the value of the liberal arts that my changing names became a way of life—a reasonable way to survive in war, love, and the confusing years that followed.

      NAMES IN POEMS

      Dearest Loosh, you are so louche.

      But I’ll not meet you in the hay today.

      Perhaps tonight, when the bed-bugs bite—

      although we must remember

      that they like us best

      those times we scratch and sweat—

      before the light returns at morning.

      So they do; it’s true; and so do you—

      like me that way too.

      But a little blood and