Bronx Boy — A Novel (Part Eleven): Benny and the “Bullet” (Conclusion)

Bottom feeder par excellence: German shepherd dog barking

The real trouble, as Sonny saw it, wasn’t so much Benny Junior or his father Benny Senior, the surly super, but their full-grown dog Bullet. Named, appropriately, after the loyal and highly intelligent German shepherd once owned by TV and motion picture cowboy star Roy Rogers, this South Bronx variation on the black-and-tan hound was as mean and vicious a mongrel as Benny and his sort-tempered dad had been – more so, in their canine’s case.

      Bullet had the unfortunate tendency of hiding out in the darkest regions of their basement. Coincidentally or not, both Stratford Avenue complexes shared the same basement and laundry facilities; and each were connected by long, dark passageways that allowed residents as well as outsiders easy access to the two buildings. To gain entry, anyone, including Sonny and his family, could climb down a short set of steps into a narrow tunnel-like structure that opened up onto a claustrophobic courtyard revealing the twin complexes’ backsides. From there, pedestrians could follow one passageway to the left and into 1245 Stratford Avenue, or the other passageway to the right into 1255 Stratford. Rows of empty or half-filled garbage cans lined both pathways, which made walking to the adjacent elevators somewhat treacherous, given that the basement lighting was of poor quality.

        Somewhere along those two dimly-lit shafts – equivalent, in Sonny’s mind, to the monster Grendel’s legendary lair – lurked a growling modern-day facsimile in the German shepherd Bullet. Why the beast was allowed to roam free among the empty garbage cans and around unsuspecting tenants was a mystery few if any of the neighborhood’s residents could provide an easy answer to. There was no doubt the dog’s prowess as the guardian of their realm, a makeshift Cerberus in charge of the South Bronx Underworld, gave tenants peace of mind in that its presence was deemed sufficient enough to ward off strangers and unwanted intruders. Maybe so. But it did next to nothing in easing Sonny and Juanito’s concerns for their safety, or those of their close friends.

       Sonny hated to go down to that basement. For one, he was afraid of the dark (and it could get extremely dark under the poor lighting conditions); for another, that mangy mongrel sensed Sonny’s fear, which made his apprehension about going there that much worse.

       In retaliation, Sonny invented all sorts of excuses for avoiding that dreadful place. Poor Sonny! He couldn’t help it if he was afraid of both dogs and the dark. Unfortunately, Sonny let his imagination run wild with surreal visions of his being attacked by a wild mongrel named Bullet; of his being torn apart, limb from Puerto Rican limb, while that ferocious beast gorged on his skinny innards, chewing his arms and legs as if they were meatless chicken bones. Just the thought and image of that mangy mutt devouring his extremities gave Sonny the shudders, which never helped when Mami insisted loudly that he go down there and take care of the laundry. Pronto!

       Sonny’s fear of dogs stemmed from an early encounter with a ferocious boxer. Walking in his usual leisurely gait from his family’s apartment to the Clason’s Point Branch of the New York Public Library building, just under the elevated Number 6 Pelham Bay line subway station at Soundview Avenue, little Sonny had once been accosted by a leash-less beast prowling the front yard of some lax neighbor’s homestead.

Soundview area of the South Bronx, near Clason Point

       “Oh! Damn it!” Sonny shouted. “Freaking dog! You scared the crap outta me!” was all he could say to the barking but belligerent animal. “Okay, I’m outta here,” Sonny muttered under his breath. “Asshole neighbors, why can’t you keep your mangy mutt bottled up?” The boxer’s massive form, certainly not as large as the super’s German shepherd Bullet, was formidable enough to thwart any potential thieves from operating in the vicinity of the local subway station. Under cover of darkness and with the passing noise of clanging subway cars overhead, any burglars worth their salt would be able to do their dirty work undetected. With the boxer on patrol, however, they were forced to think twice, maybe three times at that, before committing any offences under its watch.       

       That early encounter soured Sonny’s taste for dogs as pets – but not for cute little puppies – to a noticeable degree. For the moment, though, he was happy to give the animals a very wide berth.

       One afternoon, as usual, Mami charged him with dropping off the trash. Sonny had performed this service a hundred times (a rough but no less exaggerated count on his part) and was at the least willing, for the time being, to help his mother out while the vacationing Papi was absent. Not that Papi was any more delighted to be taking out the garbage, which he felt was purely “woman’s work.” No matter, what had to be done had to be done, and Sonny was the one to do it. Sonny took a deep breath and sucked in his gut. It would be over in a minute, he reassured himself. After all, dogs don’t stay in one place for long, now, do they? Nah, not a chance! They move around a lot. Always pacing back and forth, especially German shepherds. It’s in their blood, in their makeup. Sufficiently pumped up, Sonny convinced himself that all would be well. In and out. That’s the ticket. Nothing to be concerned about.

       “WOOF! WOOF! WOOF! ARGH!!!!!”

       Caught completely by surprise, Sonny was startled. No, he was scared out of his wits! Bullet’s massive head and shoulders, those prominent black-and-tan markings on its upper back, that big brown snout, those salivating jaws of death growled menacingly at Sonny from the darkest nether regions of the basement entrance. “Crap, crap!” Sonny shouted to himself. “Freaking bitchy dog was outside all this time!” He began to panic. “What the hell do I do now?”

       Its mouth agape, Bullet gave out a warning snarl, the kind that was typical of the breed but reminded Sonny more of those nasty Doberman Pinscher’s he had heard so much about. Bullet continued to growl noisily at him, the drool dripping from its curved jaws. It was sending out a signal, and the message was: don’t mess with this beast. No dummy, Sonny got the hint. This was the break he had been waiting for. He knew, from bitter experience, that dogs (most of them, anyway) warn you ahead of time regarding their intentions. Take the hint, he reminded himself, and you will be fine. Maybe. Keep the hell out of their way, go about your business, and they will get the idea you pose no threat to their well-being. Uh-huh.

       “Keep your distance,” an agitated Sonny whispered to himself. “Good advice for me, good advice for Mr. Bullet here.” Storybook images of the Big Bad Wolf with Little Red Riding Hood, and of Peter and that Russian Wolf, filled Sonny’s imagination. Still, he stood his ground, petrified, unable to react or to move. At any second, Sonny expected this guardian of its realm would pounce on him with all its vicious might, sinking those monstrous jaws and dagger-like teeth into his scrawny little forearms. Or worse, into the pulsing veins in his neck, the blood gushing forth every which way, his heart throbbing, his vessels popping out from his sweaty bead-filled brow and forehead. Copious drops of blood gushing forth unchecked onto the basement floor. The beast’s hot breath, spewing fire and brimstone and God knows what else it had, onto his lineless facial features…This was it! The end! Goodbye, world!!!

       “Bullet!” A sharp, irritated voice sounded from nearby. “Bullet!” the voice shouted again. “¡Para te! ¿Me eschuchas? ¡Para te con esso! Bullet! Stop that!” the voice repeated, over and over again. Until the chastened German shepherd backed off its attack. “Good dog. Good dog, Bullet,” repeated the voice. Sonny stopped to listen. He couldn’t see very well in the dark, another of his minor faults. But within a few seconds Sonny was able to focus long enough to make out superintendent Benny’s hulking form. His voice, now palpably soft and tender, was communicating with Bullet in Spanish, reassuring the frightened animal that all would be well.

       Where did the super come from? Where was he hiding? Amazingly, Benny Sr. must have materialized out of the shadows, in time to exert control over the miscreant mutt, now docile and at his beck and call. Bullet stopped in his tracks and went over to its master’s side, licking Benny Sr.’s hand and fingers and nuzzling its huge head into the super’s underarm. “Good boy, Bullet,” Benny the super repeated. “Good boy. Good Bullet…” The super continued to pet and reassure the animal for what seemed minutes. Whatever brought the vicious beast to heel and resolve itself not to cross the line of decorum came as a godsend to Sonny, who for a split second thought he might crap in his newly bought Wrangler jeans pants. Sonny stood there for the moment, his mouth slightly agape, and thanking the Lord for his good fortune. He had noticed that, in a flash, old Bullet had transformed itself from the hound from Hell into man’s best friend, as it was meant to be.

Playtime on the old South Bronx backlot baseball

         The threat thwarted, Sonny remembered that he still had the trash to drop off. Never mind that the trash can he chose wasn’t from their building’s complex. What the hell! Sonny dropped the trash bags into whatever receptacle was available and ran, with all the speed an eleven-year-old could summon under the circumstances, right to their building’s elevator. Lady Luck continued to smile at and rain down on young Sonny’s form. For there, waiting for him with hands on her hips, was Mami – holding the elevator door open and beckoning her son to go in.

      “Santiago, ¿qué pasó? ¿Por qué te esta tomando tanto tiempo? What took you so long?” she insisted.

       “Sorry, Mami!” Sonny blurted out. “I didn’t mean to stay out so late!” Sonny was glad to see his mother. Glad? He was ecstatic. He gave Mami the warmest, lovingest hug his sore arms could manage. Sonny would never again take out the garbage. Not in that building, he wouldn’t, nor in any other building. And in no way, shape or form would he ever, EVER, insist on their getting a dog or any animal for a pet. Not if he could help it.

(To be continued)

Copyright © 2024 by Josmar F. Lopes

Stream of Consciousness: Leonard Bernstein, an American Master “Revealed” in Bradley Cooper’s ‘Maestro’ (2023)

Young Lenny Bernstein (Bradley Cooper) at his Carnegie Hall debut, in ‘Maestro’ (2023)

Conducting One’s Life in Public

What is this we’re watching? Lenny snorting cocaine? Lenny having affairs with young men? Lenny getting married, Lenny having children? The gala premieres, the boisterous nightlife, the concerts, the debuts, the banter, the repartee? Where’s the “radical chic”?

In the new film Maestro (2023), Bradley Cooper stars as the dearly beloved American-born conductor, composer, and lively raconteur Leonard Bernstein, first as a young prodigy (in appearance, not so much), then in middle age (better), and finally at age 70 (best!). The gray hairs and wrinkles complement the overall picture.

At the start, Bernstein gets a 9:00 a.m. wakeup call to take over the Boston Symphony later that day from an indisposed Bruno Walter at Carnegie Hall. He’s lying in bed with another man, so audiences are clued in right off the bat as to where this biopic is going: to Lenny’s intimate, indiscreet side.

Not to mistake Lenny for Lenny Bruce, the foul-mouthed standup comic interpreted by Dustin Hoffman in Bob Fosse’s 1974 film, the title of which has already been used. But “Lenny” as in Leonard (born Louis) Bernstein, our titular maestro. This Lenny made classical music history in Carnegie Hall, leading the orchestra in Robert Schumann’s “Manfred” Overture.

In the next section he’s with choreographer Jerome (“Jerry”) Robbins working on their ballet Fancy Free, about three sailors on shore leave in New York City. The two of them are laboring over the score, spouting rapid-fire dialogue analogous to the work’s free-flowing dance movements. So far, so good.

Bradley Cooper, who also directed, cowrote and coproduced the film, gets the manic nature of the man down pat, that visceral, ever-vacillating disposition, and his high voltage personality; a veritable ball of fire, restless, urbane, full of pent-up energy and vigor. Lenny, his dynamic as well as his bombastic sides – all present and accounted for in his best scores.

As Cooper envisions, Bernstein is a man possessed, one who pours every ounce of resources into his music and into his conducting duties, which blossomed after his history-making debut. Early on, lyricists Betty Comden (Mallory Portnoy) and Adolph Green (Nick Blaemire) are pictured entertaining the gang at a dinner party for theater folk.

Into this urban setting comes the lovely Felicia Montealegre (vulnerable Carrie Mulligan, well cast and richly deserving of an Oscar) of Chilean-Costa Rican-Jewish descent. Bernstein’s talkative sister Shirley (a marvelously loquacious Sarah Silverman) is there, too. She introduces Felicia to big brother Lenny. An equally incessant and lively chatterer, Lenny and Felicia are shown chain-smoking and making small talk. They’re the life of any party.

Felicia Montealegre (Carrie Mulligan) with Lenny (Bradley Cooper) in the park

Scenes depicting Lenny and Felicia’s lives whizz by in haphazard fashion, the early portions of which are captured in high-contrast black and white, while subsequent episodes are imbued with a richer color palette. We witness the couple’s first kiss and their manic reactions to one another. But already we feel the manifest tension present, the clash of iron wills: Bernstein trying to analyze Felicia and getting the basis for her lack of theatrical success all wrong. It’s not “fear of success,” as Lenny hints to her, but an unfortunate lack of luck.

Well, no, it’s not that either. Lenny compares his situation to that of fellow conductor Artur Rodziński moving in and Bruno Walter falling out of favor. Surely fate, one gathers, must have had a hand in Bernstein’s success. But it hadn’t rubbed off on Felicia. Still, both he and Felicia fall deeply in love and get deserved ovations for their respective performances. Inevitably, Lenny misses his wife’s last minute Broadway stage appearance which leads to increased friction between them.

In Cooper’s vision, Bernstein is comparable to an electric light bulb gone wrong: You can’t turn him off, since he’s always turned on. He needs to be at the center of everyone’s attention. For instance, we see Lenny together with composer Aaron Copland (Brian Klugman), a fellow closeted gay man, who develop a lifelong friendship. But where are Samuel Barber and Gian Carlo Menotti? Oh, look, there’s Serge Koussevitsky (Yasen Peyankov) giving some advice. One situation leads to another, when suddenly we’re whisked off to where Fancy Free is being rehearsed. “Not serious music,” is someone’s critical assessment.

Next, we see “Three Dance Variations” performed in a dream sequence that, if Cooper had viewed the Coen Brothers’ farcical Hail, Caesar! (2016), would ring a bell with anyone over its “gay” thematic. Did this sequence actually occur? Not likely. But even if it did, what does it have to say about Leonard Bernstein the maestro, the first great American conductor of a major American orchestra; the never-at-a-loss for words, vivacious and ubiquitous homegrown talent, the concert and television personality?

Dance sequence from ‘Fancy Free’ in Bradley Cooper’s ‘Maestro’ (2023)

We hear the song “New York, New York,” and indeed it is a wonderful town. Yes, we get it. Life and art will mesh, no doubt about it. They complement each other and ultimately blend together (as songwriter Cole Porter’s song “Friendship” once informed us) until one becomes inseparable from the other.

This leads viewers back to our couple, who decides to give marriage a whirl, even if Felicia confesses to Lenny that “she knows exactly who he is.” Meaning: She’s on to his closeted lifestyle. Later, Lenny and Felicia, along with Jamie and Alexander Bernstein, their children, are interviewed by Edward R. Murrow at their apartment in Manhattan. There’s talk of his turning Romeo and Juliet into a musical (the inevitable West Side Story), a film score for On the Waterfront, and the early TV program Omnibus, but also precious little context or insight into any of these productions. Where are the televised Young People’s Concerts? Where is Bernstein’s rabbinical obsession with having to explain everything to everyone? You’ll have to look elsewhere for them.

The film’s formula is this: Bernstein as composer/creator versus Bernstein the performing artist. As a conductor = the public life; as a creative force = sitting alone in one’s room. Viewers are treated to Lenny’s intimate inner life instead of his much grander outer one. With his ever-present lighted cigarette in hand, puffing away at every opportunity, Lenny’s life it seems goes up in smoke.

Now, about that “prosthetic nose” controversy: It’s not as large or prominent an issue as the press has made it out to be. In fact, Bernstein’s most evident physical characteristics, in this author’s view, were his unusually large earlobes. As far as Bradley Cooper’s interpretation is concerned, it both “is” and “isn’t” Lenny. He does a better job of conveying the crustiness of the conductor’s 70-year-old persona than he does with the younger, flashier dynamo.

As for Felicia, Ms. Mulligan depicts her as sacrificing her professional life for a dual role as dutiful wife and mother to the maestro and their children. There’s lots of talk between them, some of it involving namedropping, most of it nonstop, fast-paced, rapid-fire staccato, furiously delivered – verbal hemorrhaging as my friend Gerald Thomas once put it. In fact, the best scene in the picture concerns the couple’s Thanksgiving Day quarrel, hurled at top speed in a stream of consciousness give-and-take of allegations, charges and countercharges, all at a literate level far above your standard husband-and-wife banter. The intellectual heft is breathtaking, to say the least.

We’re also privy to bits and pieces of music associated with the maestro, i.e., the Adagietto from Mahler’s 5^th Symphony; there’s Bernstein’s friendship with his mentors Copland and Koussevitsky; and Lenny’s gushing pride in his wife and young son.

Carrie Mulligan as Felicia Montealegre in ‘Maestro’ (2023)

In the Mahler piece, we see Felicia’s superimposed image, tiny in comparison and overshadowed (as it were) by Lenny’s larger form. The thought is that she is losing her husband to his profession. That her own career was dwarfed by his more towering one. About a third of the way in, we’re treated to glorious color, the light and dark giving way to and replaced by luscious greens, yellows, blues, gold, aqua, and okra.

Cookie Cutter Boys

Bernstein struggles with concert appearances, and doing recordings when he should be composing. Whoops, there goes the sex life again! At this stage, Bernstein’s dalliances with handsome young males get to be a bit much, even for Felicia’s endless patience. Interviews, discussions about his lack of creativity, one-on-ones with an author wanting to write a book about him or getting Lenny to write one – it’s a losing battle.

Yet, where is the genius behind all this activity? It’s all on the surface, the substance of which gets buried in an avalanche of words, words, and more words that struggle to connect with viewers yet do little to help illustrate the conducting and compositional bent of the genius that was Leonard Bernstein.

Lenny’s compulsive work ethic is there, in spurts and in separate or related scenes, jumbled together and in between his encounters with interviewers and such – sort of a “file association” technique which must have been how the real-life Bernstein operated, in competition with the movie version.

Part of his struggle to be a composer of merit was his overwhelming love for individuals, for being around and with them; his loathing of being left alone, forgotten and tossed to the side. But where was Bernstein’s connection to Judaism and his Jewish heritage, his passion for Israel, his work with the New York Philharmonic, and his support of liberal causes, among them his controversial association with the Black Panther movement? Besides the above activities, what we are missing in Maestro is the context.

There’s a scene of his rehearsing a chorus for Candide’s “Make Our Garden Grow,” a wonderful choice. Felicia looks on admiringly. Lenny, too, is carried away, pouring his whole fiber into the piece, done a cappella. There’s the Prelude to West Side Story, played over a scene of Felicia in the park (in Massachusetts where the couple had their summer residence), with Lenny driving up in his pale blue convertible (and with R.E.M.’s “It’s the End of the World” heard on the car’s radio) with another lover. Lenny waves to Felicia and embraces his youngest daughter by the poolside. But the perspective is off, the angle is all wrong, a non sequitur.

Bernstein (Bradley Cooper) leading the chorus in “Make Our Garden Grow” from ‘Candide’

Felicia tries to get him to clear up the rumors to his daughter Jamie of his seeing other men. Lenny, for his part, is willing to spill the beans about his sexual proclivities, but Felicia insists he keep it to himself. “Don’t you dare tell her the truth!” she emphasizes. And so, he doesn’t. He is most convincing in his denials. Again, what is the connection to the main storyline? It’s all random dialogue, arbitrary and without sufficient justification. But isn’t life that way? One has to wonder.

In most films, music is used as a means to unify the action, to add clarity or substance to a given work. But here, it beggars confusion amid silent shrugs of the shoulders, leaving audiences clueless as to what association a particular piece of music has to the action onscreen. Even to those familiar with Bernstein’s life and accomplishments, the film seems wanting, the emotions left at sea to cast about for explanations where, to be perfectly honest, none exist. This is all to Maestro’s deficit – and it’s a major one, next to the wandering screenplay (worked on by both Cooper and John Singer) that takes the viewer every which way except the path of coherence.

Lenny and Felicia continue to argue about his bringing the young man Thomas to their summer home to meet the kids. Should Lenny have done that? And why is this important in telling Bernstein’s overall story? Is this what Cooper and Singer labored so valiantly to bring to the screen? Could Steven Spielberg or Martin Scorsese have done a better job of it, or taken a different path? Both ended up as executive producers on the project, and both had been penciled in to lead it, prior to giving up the reins to Cooper.

Cooper, for his part, has released a major motion picture that morphed into a passion project. Seeing Cooper on the CBS Sunday Morning program with the three surviving Bernstein children, Jamie, Alexander and Nina, one grasps the simple fact that he was emotionally attached and committed to capturing Lenny’s intense but troubled relationship with Felicia, along with the conductor’s family dynamic. You can see and feel the rapport he had with the adult siblings, it is that palpable.

Bernstein leading the orchestra and chorus in the conclusion to Mahler’s Symphony No. 2

Given all the above, there’s decidedly too much of the “man” and not nearly enough of the “artist.” For instance, Mass was one of Bernstein’s most accessible “serious” works and is given prominence later on, but audiences are left wondering as to the point of it all. As is the climax to Mahler’s Symphony No. 2, subtitled the “Resurrection,” the reenactment of which captures much of its inner fire and spiritual heft, but lacks the framework needed to provide clarity as to why this specific sequence matters for today’s audiences. Yes, it’s a magnificent effort but to what end?

Gustav Mahler, an Austro-Bohemian Jew who converted to Catholicism later in life, lived in difficult times and experienced similar issues (as Bernstein surely had) between his art and his religion, his troubled marriage to the lovely Alma Mahler, and his pursuit of a conducting career contrasted with his composing works of unimaginable emotional breadth and purpose. He could be the model for our modern-day Mahler, that is, our own Leonard Bernstein. Then why not do a film about Mahler? Well, one reason is that Ken Russell had done it before in 1974 (and none too successfully).

The last third of Cooper’s film is taken up with Felicia’s bout with and treatment of cancer, leading to her poignant passing (based on the surviving siblings’ account). This segues briefly into Bernstein’s teaching conducting classes to young aspirants, with his impulsive unruliness moderated somewhat for that final frame. For indeed, the remaining few minutes of Maestro return Leonard Bernstein to the beginning of the end, where he is being interviewed about his life and work.

The older Leonard Bernstein (Bradley Cooper) in ‘Maestro’ (2023)

With that characteristic gleam and twinkle in his eyes and that wrinkled, wizened expression we know so well from his many television and concert appearances, a slightly irritated and prematurely older Lenny turns directly to the camera (but not to the audience) and asks, quizzically: “Any questions?”

Oh, yes! About several dozen or more! Only, we will never get the chance to ask them. One must look elsewhere for the answers.

Copyright © 2024 by Josmar F. Lopes