Notebook
Schumer, ‘The Finger,’ pest control and Trump
BY HARRY PINCUS
I must admit to a good chortle as I
watched Senator Chuck Schumer
extract a tantrum from Donald
Trump the other week. Our Senate
minority leader managed to provoke
the president into such a pique that
his usual shade of orange turned into
a version of pull-me-over red, just as he
admitted that he was willing to “shut
down the government” if “I don’t get
what I want!” Yes, said The Donald, I
will take full responsibility!
Since Chuck is from my old neighborhood,
and his father Abe was our
exterminator, I thought I had a pretty
good idea of the trick that managed to
turn our president into an overgrown
infant hurling the most intemperate of
admissions, thus proving once and for
all that Trump is merely from the borough
of Queens, but Chuck Schumer,
alas, hails from the borough of Kings!
As far as I could see, the fi rst thing
Senator Schumer did was to point a fi nger
at the president, an old trick back
in the neighborhood. THE FINGER!
Well, just as in “The Sunshine Boys,”
THE FINGER represents a major affront.
After that, the senator cleaned
up by leaning forward, like an old man
cleansing his soul in the schvitz at the
Brighton Beach Baths, and avoiding eye
contact entirely. This drew Trump forward,
and into his foolish admission.
Alas, mission accomplished.
Schumer is a few years older than
me, but was most likely still at Madison
High School when my school, Wingate,
battled them in tennis. There I was,
the tenth man on the squad…though
I still maintain that there were at least
two others even worse than me! At any
rate, Chuck Schumer was representing
Madison in another arena, on the “It’s
Academic” television quiz show. Only
three of the brightest were chosen from
each school, and in my case, all three
were my friends and classmates, but I
was nowhere near the top.
These days, I get street cred for just
having attended Wingate, a midcentury
banjo-like edifi ce situated across
the street from the psychiatric building
at Kings County Hospital, where
Woody Guthrie was incarcerated. A
few years after I graduated, the school
was featured in a double-page spread
in New York magazine called, “The
Worst School in New York.” In the accompanying
photo, it looked like every
window had been knocked out and replaced
with plywood! Now all I have
to do is tell any youngster I meet in
Brooklyn that I went to Wingate. It always
elicits the same squeal of delight:
“Yo, dude went to the ’Gate!” Another
graduate, Barbara Levy, class of ’58,
The writer had a revealing elevator conversation with Chuck Schumer,
above, whose father took care of a situation for the writer, below.
moved to California and became Barbara
Boxer, the former senator.
I’ve always followed Chuck Schumer’s
career with some interest, especially
after his father Abe fi rst came to
exterminate our building in Soho on
U.S. SENATE PHOTOGRAPHIC STUDIO-JEFF MCEVOY
Sixth Ave. in the late ’70s. The city was
overrun by cockroaches, but our building
was especially infested, as my nextdoor
neighbor, a well-known Downtown
character, refused to kill any
insects, claiming that the word “roach,”
which he pronounced “roh-ach,” meant
soul in Hebrew. I still don’t get it, as
“nephesh” is the Hebrew word for soul.
But, anyway, it meant business for Abe
Schumer and Acme Exterminators.
I fi nally met the giant of the Senate a
few years ago at a political event sponsored
by the Downtown Independent
Democrats on Bleecker St., during the
lead-up to the 2016 elections.
At the D.I.D. get-together, I had spoken
out forcefully on a foreign policy
issue, after which I decided to take a
break. So I left the room and waited by
the place’s side entrance for the main
event, which was Senator Schumer.
When a tall, familiar fi gure alighted
from a car and came over, I introduced
myself as a former customer of Abe’s,
and followed him into the elevator.
“You knew Abe?” he asked.
“Yes, we always used Acme. I even
have a letter from him. How is he?”
“He’s fi ne,” Chuck Schumer said.
“He’s 92 now.”
I mentioned our similar backgrounds.
“You know,” the senator said, “people
don’t understand it when I tell them
that, in our house, DDT was the smell
of love!”
I then asked him why he wasn’t supporting
Bernie Sanders, another alumni
of Madison High School.
“I like Bernie, and he’s a friend,” said
my new friend Chuck. “But you have
to understand that, if Hillary wins, I’ll
be Senate majority leader. Imagine me,
the son of Abe, who never fi nished high
school, as Senate majority leader.”
When we got off of the elevator,
a harsh light greeted us, and I pulled
out the little camera I had brought.
The senator looked very tired, his face
lined, and his back stooped. He later
apologized for having had a long day,
something about a wedding or a bar
mitzvah, but I wondered about what it
must take to be a leader in the Senate.
He introduced me to everyone.
“This is my friend, Harry, who likes
to take pictures!”
So here was my friend, in the Oval
Offi ce, talking to the son of the guy
who owned Trump Village and Steeplechase,
the beloved 19th-century amusement
park near my father’s handball
courts in Coney Island.
Just as Donald Trump proudly vowed
to shut down the government — and
then did — his father bought Steeplechase
Park, then distributed bricks to
his friends so that they could destroy
the ancient glass pavilion.
Certainly, Chuck Schumer’s dad
Abe, who turned the smell of DDT into
love, wouldn’t have done that!
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