“Well, yes, actually I did.” It took some self-control not to add, “you condescending prig.”
He had the good sense to flush a bit. “Of course you must know that. Forgive me for lecturing. So, do you see what we need to do?”
“Sort of. I could get started, send you some ideas, I guess, and you can tell me if I’m pointed in the right direction?” I tapped his computer. “But isn’t this guy a public relations issue?”
“Certainly. We’ll have someone on that, but now I can also assure them we are going to get ahead of the substantive issues, too.”
The buzz of the doorbell startled me right out of the conversation. I found Joe standing on my steps.
“How are you doing? I thought you might be lonely with Chris gone.” He looked guarded, not quite his usual self. It’s true; we had had a fight. Or if not a fight, at least words.
“And I thought I should check on the kitchen progress.” He could see all the way from the doorway straight though to the deck.
He was already moving toward the back as he spoke. Then he stopped when Richmond stood up and walked toward us. “I guess you are not lonely.”
I know Joe so well, I forget how fit and attractive and plain big he is, until I see him with someone else’s eyes. This moment I was seeing him through Steven Richmond’s. And Joe certainly didn’t expect to see me having coffee with a well-dressed stranger. He looked like a wolf with his fur bristling.
It would have been funny if it hadn’t been so annoying. No, it was funny.
“Joe, this is Steven Richmond. Steven, this is Joe Greenberg, my neighbor and also my contractor. He’s the guy who’s going to turn this neglected house into something beautiful. Or at least, comfortable.”
Steven smiled, slightly. “You must be a busy man doing contracting in this neighborhood.”
Joe nodded. “The right business in the right place even in a recession. This particular job is a labor of love, of course.”
“What? My bank account says otherwise!”
“Hey, kidding. I’m kidding. But squeezing you into my schedule really was a favor.”
Steven broke in. “Was it you who found the skeleton? We were talking about that earlier.”
“More or less.” His chilly tone telegraphed, “End of discussion.” Bless him. Angry at me or not, he knew how I felt. “I’ll be back soon to look at the kitchen. Give my love to the princess.” And he was gone, letting himself out with his own key.
Richmond was gathering his belongings. “I’ve taken up enough of your time for a Sunday and I appreciate it a great deal.” He shook my hand and was gone too.
I was all alone at last, and still, or again, not at all comfortable with it, but I had no desire to call anyone. The sofa beckoned insistently. I fell asleep and must have missed the phone ringing because later, it was the insistent beeping of my answering machine that pierced right through the fog.
Ohmigod, Chris! I fumbled for a light, and punched the play button, eyes wide open now and holding my breath.
An elderly but firm voice said, “This is Nettie Rogow. I am calling for Miss Christina Donato. She left a message at my daughter’s office number and said she had questions about my late husband’s business. I’d be happy to talk to her, no matter what my daughter…well, never mind that. Please feel free to call back.”
It wasn’t a call from Chris. Or about her. I got that, and that was all that mattered. All the rest could wait. I would call sometime tomorrow, or even the next day, to thank this Mrs. Rogow, tell her that Chris was away for the rest of the summer and she need not concern herself further. That’s what I would do. As I walked up my creaky old stairs, hand on the banister for balance, eyes not quite focused, I did wonder what she meant by “no matter what.”
The morning sun sent a knife into my brain. I pulled the pillow back over my head again, but it was useless. There were loud male voices coming from downstairs, and the sounds of furniture being moved, hammering, tools being dropped. Joe’s voice. Did they have to be so loud? I gave in to the inevitable, fumbled for a robe, and carefully negotiated the stairs, squinting again at the sun and trying to keep my head motionless.
Joe was in my kitchen setting out his tools.
“You look like hell.”
“Thanks, Joe. Good morning to you too.”
“Were you out tying one on last night? I can see it in your face. Lucky girl! Was it that preppy-looking guy? I didn’t think he looked like much fun.” He didn’t say it with his usual good nature. Oh, yes, we’d had a fight.
“He’s a friend of Darcy. He hired me for some work. And I was up late cause it was weird with Chris not being home. So there.” I squinted at him. “You’re awfully noisy this morning.”
“Oh, we’re just getting started. It will get worse.” He sounded happy about it. “We’re going to rip out your kitchen today. Hey, you are supposed to be happy about our progress.”
I managed to mumble, as I turned back toward the stairs, “Guess I’d better get out of here.” Then I turned back.
“Joe.”
“Yes?”
“I’m sorry I didn’t give you a heads up about the cops calling.”
“Yeah, well, it would have been nice.” He didn’t look at me, but he sounded less chilly. I was going toward the stairs when he said, “Hey. I’ll keep the noise down until you leave.” Now he was laughing at me. What nerve.
I guess that meant we were friends again.
An hour later, showered, dressed, hydrated, medicated, I was in a coffee shop, inhaling a large, heavily sugared iced coffee. I was almost back to normal, and ready for my interview with Brendan Leary, former reporter, Brooklyn expert, curmudgeon. I found my way to his neighborhood, one that had seen better days. The address was a grimy brick apartment building, with cracked front steps and overflowing garbage cans. It too had seen better days. I rang the bell labeled Leary and he buzzed me in.
When I emerged from the creaky elevator he was waiting in the hall, a fat, unshaven man wearing a stained t-shirt, sitting in a wheelchair. I was startled to see he had only one leg. I hoped I hid my surprise.
“Ms. Donato? You’re early. Guess you found your way. Welcome to my palace.” He turned the chair deftly, and preceded me into the apartment.
Newspapers and magazines were stacked in piles on the floor. Dirty dishes were stacked on every surface. An odor made me wonder when the garbage had last been taken out. It was dark. On this bright summer day, all the blinds were drawn.
He shrugged. “A housekeeping aide comes once a week. I don’t bother much in between.” His smile was sarcastic. “Of course if you hadn’t showed up early, I would have had time to make it all nice for company and bake a cake.”
“No traffic,” I said absently. This mess was certainly beyond the abilities of a once a week aide.
“Let’s hit the road. I’ll grab a shirt.” He lifted a gaudy Hawaiian pattern from a pile of clothes on a chair. “Hand me my sunglasses on that table—light hurts my eyes —and my crutches are there by the door.”
He wheeled himself into the elevator and out again. When we got to my car, he used the crutches to maneuver himself into the front seat and explained how to fold up the chair.
“I hope you know how get from here to there. It’s way past my lunchtime, but I’m saving myself for Nathan’s. I can’t put up with getting lost and eating late.”
Mmm, I thought. Mr. Charm. I responded with false calmness, “I’ve lived here all my life. I kind of think I can find my way out to the beach.”
“That so? Turn left up here, then right, and we’ll be on Ocean Parkway. It’ll take us right out.” He opened a car window without asking, turned on my radio, changed the station, and closed his eyes.
Exactly as I’d planned to do without his advice, I turned onto Ocean Parkway, the tree-shaded boulevard connecting Prospect Park to the ocean. We’d be able to zip there in twenty minutes, barring traffic problems, as I knew very well.
He woke up with a start when I parked, barked commands to me about getting his wheelchair set up, and led the way down the paved path to Nathan’s vast snack stand.
Gigantic signs shouted the availability of every fairground food known in the northeast. After Leary had put away two of the famous foot-long hot dogs, with mustard and sauerkraut, a couple of knishes, and a large order of French fries, he seemed marginally more cheerful. However, when I tried to ask him some questions, he said, “Put the damn notebook away. Can’t you see I’m eating?” One frozen custard later he said, “Take me for a walk. Maybe I’ll feel up to questions then. Maybe not.”
We meandered along the boardwalk, where he could use his wheelchair. I knew the surrounding neighborhood had become tough over the years, and even dangerous, but on this bright summer day the amusement park itself didn’t look so different from what I remembered.
In the kiddie section, tiny screaming children rode the miniature rides and begged in Chinese or Russian or Spanish, as well as English, to please, please go again. Groups of tourists—or were they recent immigrants?—in saris or Muslim scarves or bright African head wraps took photos in front of the famous roller coaster, holding up souvenirs gaudily decorated with feathers and sequins. Groups of teenage boys challenged each other to win a teddy bear while their girls giggled and egged them on. Didn’t I have one of those bears stashed away somewhere? Now probably moth-eaten and moldy.
I was jerked out of my reverie when Leary snapped, “Stop now. I’m tired of moving the chair.” We parked it at the end of a bench and sat silently, taking in the waves, breeze, and sun.
I was surprised when he said softly, “I grew up not far from here. I watched them build the Aquarium, when they moved it out from Manhattan.” He sighed. “I always loved the beach. Nothing like it to calm you down. I’d be running all over the city, chasing stories, drinking too much—getting crazy—sometimes I’d get home about dawn and come out and…ah, well, it was a long time ago.”
After another quiet few moments, he said, “We had a deal. Whadda you want to know?”
“You knew Park Slope really well back when. I’ve pulled all your old stories that I could find, but I don’t know if I found all of them, and then I bet there were stories you never wrote, too.”
“Well, you’re a smart little one, aren’t you? Oh, yes, there were plenty. Of course my specialty was landlords and tenants and the G word.
”
“What?”
“Gentrification, of course.”
“I should have known.”
“Yeah, you should have. Obvious. So you already know, I would hope, that in the fifties and sixties everyone who had even a prayer of being middle class wanted a nice new ranch house? Modern kitchen, air conditioning, patch of lawn?”
“Suburbia called and they listened. Mostly the people still there were ones who couldn’t figure out a way to go, or didn’t care.”
“Oh, sure. Pardon me for forgetting you are a historian. So, in the seventies, some young families wanted more space than they could get, or afford, in Manhattan, but they were the ones who grew up in the suburbs—they’d slit their wrists before moving back to
conformityville.”
“And that’s when things changed again. They looked at those old brownstones and saw the potential for life in the city, but with space and a garden. And cheap, back then.”
“You got it. Lots of those old houses had been chopped into apartments, or even rooming houses, pretty crummy, and landlords were making a nice, nice living owning slum housing, more or less.”
“Wait! I know what happened then. I found it in old news stories. The landlords wanted to sell out, now that there were buyers, so they were harassing tenants to get them to move.”
“Yep. That’s the one that ended up in court. A couple of them went to jail and my stories helped put them there. At least I liked to think so, and they sure did, too. Hated my guts, I’m proud to say. Yeah. Rogow, Lensky, Donnelly, couple others I can’t remember. Equal opportunity slumlords.”
“That Rogow name keeps coming up in my life. I got a call from a Nelly Rogow—it’s not worth explaining why—and I’m going to go talk to her.” I decided to do it at that moment, as the words came out of my mouth.
“Yeah? Could be same family, his wife, or maybe his daughter. That old s.o.b. died years ago, but I have an idea his daughter went into the family business. Ahh, it was so long ago, I don’t remember anything else about those crooks. Read what I wrote back then.”
He turned his chair and started rolling. “Come on! All this strolling down memory lane has been swell, but I need a beer and then I want to go home.”
He suddenly speeded up, rolling headlong into a flock of gulls, laughing when they rose into the air in feathery, squawking panic.
He watched them and shrugged. “Got to get my excitement where I can.”
Later, he dozed off in the car. He didn’t look well. His color was off and when I woke him, he was sweaty and disoriented. He finally shook his head and mumbled, “I need a shot. Get me up into my apartment, and damn quick!”
I tried to hurry, fumbling with the chair. When we got upstairs he angrily refused my offer of help and disappeared into the bathroom for a very long few minutes. I paced back and forth, unwilling to sit on his filthy furniture and not sure what to do.