Harry Muntz!

In the mid 'seventies I was in my mid teens. I used to go to the local pub (bar) - it was a place where my group of friends met and where we met various girls, if we were lucky enough to have a date.

One evening, I was standing in the pub waiting for a girl who had foolishly agreed to go on a date with me.

Little did I know, but the girl in question had a burst appendix that day and was rushed into hospital (or she’d had a better offer) so I ended up standing by myself, looking like a lost sheep.

As I looked around the bar, I noticed a man reading a newspaper; the headline of the paper read "Zeppelin!"  Because I was an avid Led Zeppelin fan, I tried to read the article.

The man holding the paper noticed me looking, so he put down the paper and said in a thick New York Jewish accent, “What? you want to read the paper?”

“Yes,” I replied, thinking I could kill a bit of time while I waited for my date that wasn’t going to turn up.

“Well go across the street there and buy yourself one from the shop, you can read until your eyes fall out!” was his unexpected reply.

He then picked up his paper and carried on reading it. This was my first introduction to a man who I would later change my outlook on life, Harry Muntz.

He was a short thin Jewish guy in his mid sixties; if Google had existed in those days if you had typed in ‘typical American Jew’, it would have replied ‘Harry Muntz”.

How he ended up in a small Yorkshire town I will never know. I don’t even think his real name was Harry Muntz; he told me his name was Harry, but it was someone else, years later, who told me his full name.

I would also later find out that he wasn’t even American; I never could find out where he came from.

That evening, I couldn’t help but to keep on trying to read the article. I was dressed in the fashion of the day; baggy flares, fancy shirt with long lapels, and I had long thick hair (fuck knows how I had got a date).

Harry again stopped and looked at me, “You waiting for a girl?”

I nodded, he looked at the way I was dressed then added, “Are you sure you’re not just an ugly broad that’s waiting for some poor sap?” Honest, this was like something out of a 'thirties gangster movie.

“Don’t worry kid, I’m just messing witcha, I can see you’re a guy; let's hope the girl notices.”

Any normal person would have moved away by now, but this man not only looked like a lot of my Old Italian Uncles he was also as mad as a box of frogs just like all my old Italian uncles. I loved him!

“Look kid (he always referred to me as ’Kid’) I know you want to read my paper, but why should you get something for free that I have to pay for, and when you meet your girl you’ll be getting something else for free at the end of the night that I have to pay for!”

“Are you always this tight, or is it just the time of month?” I asked him.

“Look get me a whisky and you can have a read."

So, that’s what I did. I bought him his favourite tipple, single malt, and then spent he rest of the night chatting but not finding anything about this strange man. This was the start of a very strange friendship.

Harry had a wicked tongue, and he knew how to use it. He was quite a dapper man, wearing an expensive suit, topped with a gangster hat. He looked every inch like a 'thirties gangster. He smoked large cigars, drank whisky, and talked tough. All the locals mocked him, calling him ‘Al Ca Moan’ because to others that’s all he ever seemed to do, moan!

He used to say, "A man can go a long way with the right clothes and cigars”.

I once asked him why he didn’t ever take his hat off, “It covers my most valuable asset kid” he replied.

“What’s that?”

“My head, you schmuck!”

Schmuck was one of his favourite words. Another favourite saying was "You’re as dumb as a pickle on a Babka!” I don’t know what that means, but I like it.

I would often sit with Harry. My friends didn’t get him, and avoided him, although my brother John loved his company, it must be genetic.

When Harry went to the toilet he would give me his hat and say, “look after this kid, I’ll be back soon.” if he gave you his hat, you knew he would be back

When he had had enough, he would just get up and walk out, without a good bye or even an acknowledgement.

I later found out by accident that he wasn’t American. A large woman who decided she wanted to chat to both Harry and myself started to babble on without taking a breath.

Harry gave the impression that he was a tough New York mobster type, but I knew by conversations that we had that he was a very intelligent and articulate man. I don’t know why he felt the need for the American pretence. I later found out that he had moved to America after the war to find fame and fortune. I think he tried his hand at script writing for the film industry, but again, like everything with this man, it was all just speculation.

Harry was polite but his patience was wearing thin, finally his patience snapped when she said,

“I hardly eat anything but I still put weight on, I must be big boned.”

Harry shook his head and sighed, he had had enough.

“You know, lady, big boned people are the most intelligent people in the world? I was in Birkenau-Auschwitz for three years and in that time the Gestapo never once found a big boned person; it was full of skinny-arsed schmucks like me!” 

The woman got the message and left.

Harry would never talk about his time in Auschwitz. He would also never say anything bad about the German people, either. He always said that the German people were good people, who had fallen in with a bad bunch. "Once a German lady gave me a sausage and bread.” I don’t know what he meant by that, but whenever he got drunk he would often say that.

He blamed the Gestapo for what happened; “Little men, little brains but big guns!” was how he described them. But he would also add, “The Gestapo were just a bunch of low-life shits!”

One evening, he was showing me his suntan he had got by sitting in the park that day. I noticed a crude tattoo of a number on his arm. I was only seventeen at the time, and, although I thought I knew everything, I had a very juvenile outlook on life. I knew about the Holocaust, but had a very simplistic view about it, Germans gassed Jews! That is what I thought.

I didn’t know who else they hated, or that they were made to work to death, or that they all were tattooed on arrival.

I have recently been working with another Holocaust survivor,  Iby Knill. She was a political prisoner in Auschwitz, she’s eastern European and, like Harry, has a wonderful outlook on life and a wicked sense of humour. Her book is called A Woman Without a Number, as for some reason she was never tattooed. 

On noticing this crude tattoo, I asked Harry something that makes me cringe even today, “Harry where did you get that tattoo? It’s the worst tattoo I’ve ever seen.”

He looked at me in disbelief, then he smiled and replied, “See the man who did this tattoo, he was the busiest tattooist in the world during the war. But his work was so bad that, after the war, they took him out and shot him!”

I still had no idea what he meant (I was a complete fuckwit!). “So what is it supposed to mean? I asked again”

“What this?” he replied pointing to the crude tattoo.

“Yes”

“That, my friend, is in a long forgotten language, it says ’Jew’ in Gestapo!”  When he said the word ’Gestapo’ he spat out the syllables, and he always pronounced it as ‘Geshtapo’

I never found out what Harry did for a living in England, he was probably retired. but I think he was a writer he always had a note book with him and would always make a note if he heard something funny. He would never laugh he would just say, “funny” and note down what he heard.

He once asked me, “Why do you keep hanging around with an old bum like me, kid?”

“Look, Harry, you’re so old and ugly, you make me look good. And the girls love it because they think I’m so kind taking out my Granddad for a drink.

“I like your style, kid, you're only a moron by oxy,” he replied.

I didn’t know what he meant by this, so I said, “Don’t you mean proxy?”

“You don’t know what an oxymoron is?”

“Is it going to be me, by any chance?”

“I’ll show you; go get me a drink, I’ll have a double single malt.”

I got him a drink, still not knowing that this was a lesson in my own language.

Harry realised this, so he said to me, “How much did my free drink cost?”

I told him the price; he gave up the lesson after that.

Harry taught me about the power of comedy. It can be used to build bridges, knock down barriers. It can heal wounds and bring people together.

Harry always said that Bullies and oppressors were defenceless against humour. If you can laugh at them they loose their power. But he warned me that humour can be the drunk in the room that says all the wrong things and spoils the party. I can vouch for that!

I hope that the people of Boston realise this at the moment. The city has had a terrible time, my heart goes out to the people that have suffered. But just like Harry wouldn’t ever blame the German people for what happened to him, they must rise above what has happened and not use this for the blame game.

If it is proven that it was an Islamist plot, it was not perpetrated by all Muslims. It will have been perpetrated by young men that have been marginalised and then used by some beardy weirdy puppet master. Most of the American Muslims will be just hard working people trying to get on with life like the rest of us.

If you have read my previous blogs, you will know that I don’t much like religion. I think it’s just intellectual custard, but you will also know that I believe passionately that people should have a right to believe and practice what they want without the fear of persecution.

The family of the young men are also innocent of any blame, any blame should be laid firmly at the feet of the radical puppet masters. These young men will have been passionate and impressionable, the puppet masters know this, that is why you never see a fat middle aged beardy weirdy with a suicide bomb strapped to him, it’s always a young person who has just slipped through the safety net of family and friends.

When Harry always spoke about the lady who gave him bread and a sausage, it was no doubt at a time when he was starving and scared and frightened. This act of kindness changed his view of a whole nation of people. If it ever happened.

If the people of Boston can find it in themselves at this terrible moment in time to do one act of kindness to a stranger, the bogey man will soon loose his power to threaten and scare.

One evening, I went to the local pub as usual with my friends. Harry was in his usual chair reading his paper.

I walked over to him to say hello, but before I could say anything he snapped, “Not tonight, kid!”

I left him alone, the crotchety old git. I soon noticed that he didn’t have his usual single malt on the table in front of him. And that the ash tray was empty, without his usual cigar. One thing that I did find out about Harry was that he was a serious gambler, but with his life who wouldn’t be.

I walked over to him and asked, “not drinking or smoking tonight then?”

He replied, “Piss off kid!”

I also noticed that the news paper he was reading was from the day before.

I gave it ten minutes, then walked over to his table and put a double single malt on the table, along with a pack of his favourite cigars. I was shocked how much they cost me, no wonder the old bastard had no money!

I walked away, leaving them there for him. He put down his paper,  looked at the drink and the cigars, then  looked across at me. He waved me over, I smiled at him, not wanting his thanks, which was a good job really, because when I spoke to him he snapped, “I don’t have a light, you schmuck!”

He didn’t show no thanks or emotion, that’s just the way he was.

We spent the rest of the night getting pissed out of our minds, me paying of course.

At the end of the night rather than just walking out like he always did he tapped me gently on the side of the cheek and said, “Did I ever tell you that a lady in Germany once gave me bread and sausage?”

He then turned and left. I never saw Harry Muntz again.

I have no idea what happened to him, why he ended up in a small Yorkshire town or why he just disappeared.

I often think about him while I write, and when I’m trying to think of a comedy routine.

I only hope that when the end came for Harry there was someone there with him. Someone to hold his hand. Someone to give him reassurance that he was a good man who had lived an extraordinary life; he at least deserved that.

I wish that I had been there at the end, I would have held his hat, then I would know that he was coming back!

PS: Just looked up Babka; I now get the phrase, ‘as dumb as a pickle on a babka’ I think?