Davy The Punk A Story of Bookies Toronto The Good The Mob and My Dad 1st Edition Bob Bossin Full Access
Davy The Punk A Story of Bookies Toronto The Good The Mob and My Dad 1st Edition Bob Bossin Full Access
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Davy the Punk spins his tales tall and true to the circle of Jewish hoods in
1940s Toronto, mesmerizing them and us. In this memoir of a childhood
that is the stuff of dreams and movies, Bob Bossin pays loving tribute to a
father whose name alone conjures up a lost world. With a songwriter’s ear,
a performer’s sense of timing and a poet’s grace, he brings that world back
to life. The apple (or, in this case, the apple strudel) doesn’t fall far from
the tree. — Si Kahn, author, musician and organizer
I loved this. This generation [Bossin ] writes about has now vanished, but
the colourful, hard-talking comedic experience of life on the edge comes
back. Bossin is a great storyteller, and these are great stories. I can hear the
voice of that generation clearly. Wonderful! — Clayton Ruby, lawyer
Bob Bossin’s father Davy lived in the seamy underside of Toronto the
Good between the wars—a Runyonesque milieu of bookies and baseball,
horses and payoffs, right in the zone where crime buys a drink for enter-
prise. Bossin’s memoir of Davy is fascinating, funny, dark and poignant
—a vividly readable portrait of an unforgettable man in a remarkable
habitat. — Silver Donald Cameron, author of The Living Beach
Davy the Punk is a thoroughly enjoyable and revealing romp through the
historical underside of Toronto the Good. With verve and enthusiasm,
Bob Bossin brings a performer’s skill to the tall but true tales in what is,
ultimately, his family’s story. — Lilian Nattel, author of Web of Angels
We acknowledge the support of the Ontario Arts Council and the Canada Council
for the Arts for our publishing program. The financial support of the Government
of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and the Government of Ontario
through the Ontario Media Development Corporation is also gratefully
acknowledged.
For Davy and Marci,
3. A gold coin 25
4. Mister Orpen 37
9. Annenberg 75
11. Marci 97
—7—
‘Is that true?’
— A. J. P. Froehlich
—8—
• 1. The best way to not get hit by a baseball •
—9—
‘Benny the Shoykhet? With the book in the little butcher shop in the
alley off Kensington?’
‘Yeah, exactly. Benny’s gone, alev ha-sholem.’
‘Did he ever get pinched? I don’t think he ever got pinched. He had a
hell of an operation. You could make a bet, have a drink and buy a chicken.’
‘Did he actually sell chickens?’
‘Sure he did. They were good kosher chickens. Of course he always
kept a few in the back in case of a raid. He had one of the kids out at the
street, who’d whistle if the cop turned into the alley. Then the bubba would
come downstairs and they’d stick the bottles in her apron and throw a cou-
ple chickens on top, and she’d shuffle down the alley, smiling and nodding
at the cop. Benny stuffed his betting slips up the ass of one of the chickens.
They never caught him.’
‘Yeah, they did. Herbie Thurston pinched him. Remember, Harry
Thurston’s boy who became a cop.’
‘Nah, you’re all mixed up. Herbie never pinched Benny; the guy he
pinched was Murray the Rug.’
‘In the old dry cleaner’s on Dovercourt!’
‘Exactly. When he was a kid, Herbie used to go in with his father,
when the old man placed his bets. Then when he became a cop, he went to
Murray, and he told him, ‘‘Murray, I’m a policeman now and I’ll arrest you
if I have to. You’ve done well, it’s time you retired.’’ Of course Murray
didn’t listen. He looked at Herbie, and saw the little pisher tagging after his
old man. And nobody had ever been able to charge him, because they could
never find his slips. But Herbie knew from his father that Murray kept
them under his toupee. So he nailed him.’
The stories go back and forth, of this bookie who got busted, of that
one who never did. My father sits there reading the paper. The conversa-
tion flows by him, like water around a rock.
‘What was the name of the guy ... the one they arrested over and
over?’
Silence. Nobody remembers. Then a new voice says, ‘Shnooky Schnei-
der. It was Shnooky Schneider.’ The voice is my father’s.
When Davy speaks, it is as if he were a king. Heads turn. This is
because he speaks so rarely. And because, when he does, he is a natural-
born story-teller. He folds his paper, none too quickly, and begins to
recount how Arnie the Shnook Schneider was busted for bookmaking
sixty-seven times, every one a first offence.
— 10 —
‘In those days Arnie was working for Manny Feder,’ my father begins
quietly, ‘back when Manny and his brothers had the big horse room on
Queen Street, before they opened the Brown Derby. It was a pretty
smooth operation, as it oughta be, since Manny had half the cops in town
on the pad.
‘But every now and then, the heat would be on. Old Reverend Domm
would get up in Bathurst Street Church and preach a fire-and-brimstone
sermon on vice, and then Holy Joe Atkinson would publish the whole
damn thing in the Star: ‘‘Sunday morning, in Bathurst Street United
Church, the Reverend Gordon Domm warned of the wave of corruption
loosed on the city by gambling racketeers.’’’
My father gives the Star the voice of Walter Winchell. As the plot
heats up, so does his delivery.
‘Then the next day they’d send some cub reporter down Queen Street
to lay some bets at some of the bookie joints, as if that was news to any-
body, and they’d run that on the front page. And that would get the
Decent Citizens riled up, and they’d start demanding that the police do
something.
‘So the cops would call Manny and say, ‘‘Sorry, Mr Feder, but we’re
gonna have to raid.’’ And they’d tell him when. Then Manny would call
Shnooky and tell him to get ready.’
Here my father pauses, pretending to some interest in what is happen-
ing on the field. The men around me wait for him to go on. It seems to me
all Maple Leaf Stadium does.
‘Manny’s joint was on the second floor and it would be going full blast
with punters betting, smoking their cigars, the phone ringing, odds com-
ing in and getting chalked up, the loudspeaker blaring—‘‘They’re at the
post. And they’re off ...’’.
‘But upstairs, on the third floor, there was another room with just a ta-
ble, an unconnected phone and a folding chair. And that’s where Shnooky
would wait for the cops. They’d come charging in, up the stairs, past the
horse room, straight to the third floor. They’d arrest Shnooky and grab the
telephone, so they could report that ‘‘gambling equipment was seized’’.
Then they’d go back downstairs, past the horse room again, and take
Shnooky to the station, where Manny would be waiting with Shnooky’s
bail. Then, when Shnooky was convicted, Manny would pay the fine,
which was, by standing agreement, a hundred bucks. It was like a tax.
‘Of course the law said that, on a third conviction, bookmakers go to
— 11 —
jail. But the cops would misplace Shnooky’s priors, or the magistrate
would be one of Manny’s customers, or both. So every time, it went down
as Shnooky’s first offence. And the government got its hundred bucks,
which was good money in those days.’
Sometimes the laughter from our section was so raucous the pitcher
would turn and look up.
— 12 —
That was no small thing for a boy in the 1950s. My father tried teaching me
to catch a baseball. It was painful for both of us. ‘Getting hit by a baseball
hurts,’ he would shout to me across the grass. ‘Joe DiMaggio said that. And
the best way to not get hit is to catch it!’ It didn’t help. But we were back at
it the next day.
— 13 —
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