The Brothers Fox

Every now and then one meets a person or persons who are so rare, the mere mention of their names, or sighting of that person, evokes a unique emotion inside of them. For example, when one meets a glamorous movie star, they generally wind up acting like a fool, gushing inanities in their direction, hoping to be acknowledged by the celebrity. Same thing happens with well-known politicians and athletes. Contrarily, if one meets a particularly odious criminal, they are immediately struck with a paralyzing fear and speak only in somber, hushed tones.

            So it was with the Fox Brothers. Martin Behrman and J. T. Fox lived in my section of town during my formative years. I have no idea what the initials J. T. stood for, but Martin Behrman was named for a short pudgy man, who was mayor of New Orleans in the early 20^th century. Presumably, Behrman Fox’s parents knew or liked the mayor and named one of their newborn twins after him. Yes, they were twins; and no twins I have ever known acted as they did. For instance, if any mother caught her child committing an adolescent misdemeanor, her immediate admonition would be, “Don’t ever do that again. Do you want to grow up like the Fox Brothers?” That should tell you they were not held in the highest esteem by the mothers of my neighborhood. The fathers didn’t particularly like them either, for that matter.

            They were both ugly creatures; physically and morally. When, later in life, I was reading Charles Dickins’ Oliver Twist, I laughed to myself realizing Fagin was replicated not once, but twice, in the form of the Brothers Fox. They spoke in the heaviest of New Orleans accents, generally shaded their mouths with their hands and flicked their eyes from side to side in a conspiratorial manner. It may have been to disguise their teeth, which began rotting at an early age, lending an even more sinister look to those boys. With their dark teeth, their pocked faces, and nasty red hair piled on top of their heads like well-used mops, the Fox Brothers could immerge as the arch-villains of any nineteenth century novel.

            Instead, they chose to live near me, and I was terrified of them. They were older than my friends and me, and a lot stronger, as evidenced by their tall frames and wiry torsos. I will not regale the reader with stories of their criminal behavior, suffice it to say, they spent a great deal of their adult life, either dodging incarceration, or participating in it.

            The one story I will relate, which I think best exemplifies the personalities of the twins, is as follows. About five or six miles up river from my community, was a home for boys who were abused by their guardians or parents, or were neglected and had no place to live, or were simply delinquent youths, abandoned by everyone. The Catholic Church named this place Hope Haven; as if anyone there had any hope at all, or viewed it as their personal haven.             

            The building was a Spanish Colonial Revival mansion which, from the outside looked impressive. Once inside, the austere walls and open rooms left much to be desired. The only décor was a faded picture of Jesus hanging on the cross and prominently displayed at the entrance. One of the delinquent kids residing there told me, “The cross hanging was going to happen to him if he didn’t behave.” They slept in dormitory rooms. One of those rooms, the institutional room, slept forty or fifty boys, robbing them of any privacy.

            We played a game of baseball against the inmates of Hope Haven and the game ended with us in a huge brawl over whether or not one of my teammates was out or safe at second base. We all came home with bloody noses that day, as we lost both the game and the post game fistfight.

            But the Fox Brothers were undeterred by the violent reputation of the boys at Hope Haven. One night, they crept across the wide expanse from the street to the basement of the main building, where the good brothers of the Salesians of Saint John Bosco had stored all the musical instruments used at the school. The Fox Brothers had located their henhouse, and in they plunged. They were there to steal the musical instruments and steal them they did. Martin Behrman was seen creeping across the front lawn with a clarinet tucked under one arm and a trumpet under the other. J. T. was trying to run with his arm hooked through a tuba and drum sticks protruding from his back pocket.

            I was sitting at a local hangout for teenagers, called Da Wabbit, probably regaling them about my romantic failure with the town’s punchboard, when an off-duty police officer entered the front door. “Ya aughta see what them Fox Brother done now,” he said to the man behind the counter. “Them crazy bastards stole instruments from the Hope Haven and are playin’ um on toppa-da bridge.”

            That was enough for my friends and me. We jumped in someone’s car, and sped off to see the Fox Brothers playing musical instruments they had stolen from a delinquent boys’ home, on top of a bridge, in the middle of nowhere. In those days there was only one bridge the cop could have been talking about, and it was a vertical lift span drawbridge across the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway located in Belle Chasse, Louisiana. One had to climb several hundred feet to get to the top.

            About twenty minutes later we arrived at the bridge and a crowd had begun to gather; mostly other teenagers who were there for the show. On a dare, I once climbed to the top of the drawbridge, and believe me, I was one tired puppy when I got there. How those Foxes got to the bridge top, packing all those instruments, is a testament to their leg strength and endurance. Behrman was blowing his trumpet and J. T. was oomphing his tuba so you could hear it for miles away.

            We watched as an overweight and out of shape policeman attempted to climb up the stairs to the top. He quit about half way up, saying, “Screw this. They have to come down sometime.”

            We all left about two hours later with the unrepentant Foxes still blasting away on their instruments. I heard later, as they climbed down into the waiting arms of the law, they were hit with an initial question. “Why did you steal those instruments?”

            “What instruments?” said the incredulous Foxes. They had left the instruments on top the bridge and assumed the police had no evidence against them and certainly were not willing to climb up to get some.

            Years later, while practicing law in the City of New Orleans, my secretary buzzed through on the intercom. “There’s a man here to see you.”

            “Who is it?” I asked.

            “He won’t give me his name. He said he knows you and wants to talk with you.”

            “Send him in.” My curiosity got the better of me.

            In sauntered this little, bent, wizened old guy with dirty gray hair, pale face, and a malevolent look that crept out from behind his sneer. “Whereyat, Peter?” he said, with his accent pegging his upbringing.

            “Who are you?”

            “I’m Boiman, man. Morton Boiman Fox,” he repeated, acting as though he couldn’t believe I didn’t remember him.

            I can’t recall what his legal problem was, but the fear that man struck my heart as a kid had evaporated. Father Time had extracted a grave revenge on the Brothers Fox.