Some of the older guys in our group would make an occasional trip to one of the burlesque houses in Newark, either Minsky’s or the Empire. The minimum age for admission was 18, so that left me out.
Later I learned the dancers at Minsky’s would show their breasts sometimes, not so much at the Empire. At Minsky’s, a headliner like Lili St. Cyr might have hers out for most of her act. Wowzers.
And, oh yeah, there were some great comics, too.
At intermission, the house lights came up and the ushers walked the aisles, hawking overpriced candy and Crackerjack. Sometimes we’d spot one of our teachers in the audience – once Mr. Tischler, who taught social studies; on another occasion Professor Lewis, who taught biology.
I don’t know how Professor Lewis came to be called “Professor”, but that’s what they called him, even the other teachers. Maybe he lost a college position and the high school decided he could keep the title.
In class, the Professor was always dropping things and trying to look up the girls’ skirts – especially the skirt of Grace Scuderi, who sat in the front row and seemed cooperative and well aware of what the Professor was up to.
Sorry, I got ahead of myself there, let’s backtrack.
Being only 16, I worried that if I joined my friends on one of their expeditions, my age might be challenged, so I made a fake birth certificate. I already had an official one, so I knew how it should look. I sent to Newark for two fresh copies (one extra in case I made a mistake), and set to work.
The handwriting on the forms was just regular fountain pen ink. A quick dip in diluted laundry bleach made it disappear; the form’s printing and fancy embossed seal of the City of Newark remained. I rented a typewriter from the stationery store next to the library and filled in the now-empty form with my name and an improved birth date. The only thing still missing was the signature of the Newark city clerk. It’s tricky to imitate someone else’s signature, but after a lot of practice I was able to make a decent copy.
Until I got to be really 18, I carried that fake certificate in my back pocket each time we went to Newark. As it turned out, my worries were groundless – my age was never questioned, and I never needed to show it. But always, in the back of my mind, was the fear that I might need to show it one day, and I’d hear “Wait a minute, that’s not the signature of Harry S. Reichenstein!”