But I intended to keep my options open.
I was born in Chicago, on a kitchen table that I made with my own hands. At least, my mother, Natalie, insisted it was so. Natalie was my North Star, my comforter, my protector. I was her first child, and she never got over the miracle of birth. She could not talk about me without the aid of a thesaurus. I was brilliant, talented, handsome, and witty—and that was before I was six months old.
I never addressed my parents as ‘Mother’ and ‘Father.’ They preferred that I call them ‘Natalie’ and ‘Otto,’ possibly because it made them feel younger.
Natalie Marcus was born in Slavitka, Russia, near Odessa, during the reign of the czars. When she was ten years old she escaped a Russian pogrom against Jews, and was brought to America by her mother, Anna.
Natalie was a beauty. She was five foot five inches tall, with soft brown hair, intelligent gray eyes, and lovely features. She had the soul of a romantic and a rich inner life. She had no formal education, but she had taught herself to read. She loved classical music and books. Her dream was to marry a prince and travel around the world.
Her prince turned out to be Otto Schechtel, a Chicago street fighter who had dropped out of school after the sixth grade. Otto was handsome and charming, and it was easy to see why Natalie had been attracted to him. They were both dreamers, but they had different dreams. Natalie dreamed of a romantic world, with castles in Spain and moonlit gondola rides in Venice, while Otto’s fantasies consisted of impractical get-rich-quick schemes. Someone said that all it took to be a successful writer was paper and a pen and a dysfunctional family. I was raised by two such families.
In this corner I would like to present the Marcus clan: two brothers, Sam and Al, and three sisters, Pauline, Natalie, and Fran.
And in the opposite corner we have the Schechtels: two brothers, Harry and Otto, and five sisters, Rose, Bess, Emma, Mildred, and Tillie.
The Schechtels were extroverts, informal and street smart. The Marcuses were introverted and reserved. The two families were not only dissimilar; they had absolutely nothing in common. And so, fate decided to amuse itself.
Harry Schechtel married Pauline Marcus. Otto Schechtel married Natalie Marcus. Tillie Schechtel married Al Marcus. And if that were not enough, Sam Marcus married Pauline’s best friend. It was a marital feeding frenzy.
Otto’s older brother, Harry, was the most formidable member of the Schechtel clan. He was five foot ten, muscular and powerful, with a commanding personality. If we had been Italian, he would have been the consigliere. He was the one that Otto and the others went to for advice. Harry and Pauline had four young boys—Seymour, Eddie, Howard, and Steve. Seymour was only six months older than I, but he always seemed older than his age.
In the Marcus family, Al was the charmer, good looking and amusing, the family bon vivant. He liked to gamble and flirt. Sam Marcus was the solemn elder statesman who disapproved of the Schechtels’ lifestyle. Sam’s business was running checkroom concessions in various Chicago hotels.
Sometimes when my uncles got together, they would go into a corner and talk about a mysterious thing called sex. It sounded wonderful. I prayed that it wouldn’t go away before I grew up.
Otto was a spendthrift who enjoyed throwing money around, whether he had it or not. He would often invite a dozen guests to an expensive restaurant, and when the bill came, borrow the money from one of them to pay the tab.
Natalie could not stand borrowing or owing money. She had a strong sense of responsibility. As I grew older, I began to realize how totally unsuited they were for each other. My mother was miserable, married to a man she had no respect for, living an inner life that he could not understand. My father had married a fairytale princess, only to find himself bewildered when the honeymoon ended.
They argued constantly, but these were not normal arguments; they were bitter and vicious. They found each other’s weak points and tore at them. The arguing became so savage that I would run out of the house to the public library where I escaped to the peaceful and serene worlds of The Hardy Boys and the Tom Swift books.
One day, when I got home from school, Otto and Natalie were screaming obscenities at each other. I decided I couldn’t stand it any longer. I needed help. I went to my Aunt Pauline, Natalie’s sister. She was a sweet, loving dumpling of a woman, pragmatic and intelligent.
When I arrived, Pauline took one look at me and said, ‘What’s the matter?’
I was in tears. ‘It’s Nat and Otto. They fight all the time. I don’t know what to do.’
Pauline frowned. ‘They’re fighting in front of you?’
I nodded.
‘All right. I’ll tell you what you do. They both love you, Sidney, and they don’t want to hurt you, so the next time they start to fight, you go up to them and tell them that you don’t want them to ever fight in front of you again. Will you do that?’
I nodded. ‘Yes.’
Aunt Pauline’s advice worked.
Natalie and Otto were in the middle of a shouting match when I walked up to them and said, ‘Don’t do this to me. Please don’t fight in front of me.’
They were both immediately contrite. Natalie said, ‘Of course. You’re right, darling. It won’t happen again.’
And Otto said, ‘I’m sorry, Sidney. We have no right to put our problems on you.’
After that the arguments continued, but at least they were muffled by their bedroom walls.
We were constantly on the move from city to city, with Otto looking for work. When someone would ask me what my father did for a living, my answer always depended on where we were. In Texas, he worked in a jewelry store; in Chicago, it was a clothing store; in Arizona, it was a depleted silver mine; in Los Angeles, he sold siding.
Twice a year, Otto would take me shopping for clothes. The ‘shop’ was a truck parked in an alley, filled with beautiful suits. They were so new that they still had their price tags on them and they were remarkably inexpensive.
In 1925 my brother, Richard, was born. I was eight years old. We were living in Gary, Indiana at that time, and I remember how thrilled I was to have a brother, an ally against the dark forces of my life. It was one of the most exciting events of my life. I had big plans for us, and I was looking forward to all the things we were going to do together as he got older. Meanwhile, I raced him around Gary in his buggy.
During the Depression our financial situation was something out of Alice in Wonderland. Otto would be away, working on one of his fantasy mega-deals, while Natalie, Richard and I lived in a dreary, cramped apartment. Suddenly Otto would appear and announce that he had just made a deal that paid him $1,000 a week. Before we knew it, we would be living in a grand penthouse in another city. It seemed like a dream.
It always turned out to be a dream, because a few months later Otto’s deal would have vanished and we would be back living in a little apartment again, in a different city.
I felt like a displaced
