by Gary Beck
"It looks that way. We’d have to take the landlord to court to get the apartment back and the fire marshal said it would be hard for us to make a good case if the fire was our fault. There’ll be a complete review in a few days."
Beth refused to be upset. "Then we’ll just have to make the best of things."
Peter and Hector ate their dinners, then Kiesha asked, "What were the hotels like? Tell us about them."
Peter gestured to Hector to speak. "We went to three hotels. Two of them were on the west side. One of them was on West 22nd Street. It was rundown and the manager ran the place like a prison. We spoke to some of the residents and they warned us not to go there. The other hotel was on Eighth Avenue and it was filthy, smelly and full of prostitutes and junkies. It’s no place for us. The third hotel, the King Charles, is on East 28th Street, near Fifth Avenue. After seeing the other hotels, it looked clean and orderly. Nobody was hanging around outside, or in the lobby. The front desk had a plastic shield around it, but the manager claimed it was from a few years ago, when the place was really bad. Out of the three hotels, that was the best. It’s a lot better than any of those motels."
"What’s the neighborhood like?" Kiesha asked.
"It’s a business district in midtown Manhattan, so I guess it’s pretty quiet at night and on weekends."
Before they could talk about it further, the guard announced, "Lights out," and plunged the room into darkness. He sat down at the entrance desk, reading by the light of a small lamp that cast ghostly shadows on the walls of the room. The only other light was the red glow from the emergency exit signs that hinted of an entrance to hell.
The clients slept fitfully. The snores and sounds of trips to the bathroom prevented deep sleep. Restless bodies shifted constantly, trying to get comfortable on the hard floor that was slippery with food spillage. Dreams were unsoothing, and cries and whimpers pierced the uncharitable night. Only the children slept soundly, because they were too young and inexperienced to know how badly they were being treated by an uncaring system. While their elders writhed in shame and discomfort on the uncomforting floor, the children accepted the unacceptable, tolerated the intolerable and snoozed peacefully. The children of the poor absorbed abuse, neglect, stress, poor diet, rejection, contempt, violence, drugs and abandonment. They developed asthma, tuberculosis, bad teeth, hypertension, bi-polar disorder and an endless array of crippling afflictions. Then they were required to attend school, interact socially and become functional, when they were already pre-programmed for failure and the system continued to build more prisons to contain our youth, because it is not profitable to save them. While the clients slept fitfully, most of America slumbered comfortably.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Beth tried to get other families to come to the park with them, but when they left the E.A.U. office after breakfast only Kiesha’s and Hector’s families had joined them. But The cold spell had passed, and it was almost 40 degrees, even though it wasn’t quite 10:00 AM. The sky was a clear, vivid blue shield that concealed the hazards of space that lay beyond the cluttered earth. Beth felt like a mole emerging from the lower depths into an alien environment of sunlight and fresh air. Well, freshly polluted air. They walked up Walton Avenue where they drew the stares of the courthouse workers, other government drones, area employees and shoppers.
Beth didn’t know enough about the neighborhood to recognize local residents, and she asked Kiesha, "Why is everybody staring at us?"
Kiesha laughed, "We look like shelter folk."
"How can that be? I’ve only been here for…. What day is it?"
"Thursday."
"Three days. Can we look that shabby so quickly?"
"Missy, it doesn’t take long to look poor."
They walked into a park area on Walton Avenue and 153rd Street and sat down on an empty bench. Jennifer and Latoya started an imaginary mommy/baby game, with Jennifer playing mommy and Latoya playing baby. The boys ran around a snow-covered grassy area nearby. Within a minute or two, a park attendant rushed up to the boys and ordered them to get off the grass.
Beth tried to reason with him. "They’re not hurting anything. They really need to blow off steam. Can’t you let them play?"
The man gestured abruptly, "Can’t you read English, lady? The sign says keep off the grass. That means them."
"There’s a foot of snow on the ground and the grass is probably dead. Besides, they’re just kids having fun. Please let them play for fifteen minutes. Then we’ll call them."
"Those are the rules, lady. You call the kids now, or I call a cop."
"Is there a playground nearby where we can take them?" Hector asked.
"There’s one at the other end of the park. Keep walking north and you can’t miss it."
The E.A.U. seemed far away and they began to feel almost human as they strolled. The two girls walked with Beth and Kiesha, and Peter and Hector presided over the pack of boisterous “puppies”. The boys saw the playground and enthusiastically charged off with Peter and Hector bringing up the rear. The playground was deserted, and the boys played their version of tag on the sliding pond, racing up the steps guided by Pablo, shrieking as they hurtled down, then climbing up again for the fun descent. Jennifer and Latoya went to the swings and took turns pushing each other. The adults sat quietly for a while, content to bask in the warming sun that was a blissful change from the dank E.A.U. office. Beth noticed that Kiesha and Hector were very alert to their surroundings, constantly monitoring the kids and aware of the people going by. It heightened her awareness of the need to be watchful and she made a mental note to mention it to Peter.
This was the first time since the fire that they had relaxed. She looked around the sterile park, an unnatural recreational speck in the concrete forest. The last snowdrifts, blackened by city soot, yellowed by dog urine, grayed by chemical emissions, were slowly melting as the temperature went up. A curious feeling of lassitude prevailed. The other adults were also detached from any urgency to do anything. They lolled like seals on an ice flow, a temporary refuge from dangerous seas.
"Wouldn’t it be nice if we could take the kids to McDonalds?" Kiesha said.
"How much would it cost?" Beth asked.
Kiesha calculated, "About three dollars each."
Beth shook her head regretfully, "That’s eighteen dollars, more than half of our money. We have to save it to help us get out of the E.A.U."
Kiesha sighed, "I know. I just thought it would be nice for them."
Beth didn’t normally let her children eat fast foods, but she agreed, "As soon as we have some extra money that’s the first thing we’ll do."
"And we should all have dinner at a nice restaurant," Hector added, "as soon as we can afford it."
"It’s good that we’re becoming friends in a place like the E.A.U." Beth remarked. "We can look out for each other. I’m glad you joined us, Hector. I’m sure we’d all like to get to know you better. Will you tell us about yourself?" Peter and Kiesha echoed her.
"Okay. I was born in Puerto Rico. I never knew my father. He was killed in Vietnam when I was two years old. My mother worked in a guesthouse on the beach in San Turce. As I got older, I helped around the house. The tourists, mostly gringos, treated us like servants. I hated them. I joined a gang when I was sixteen. I dropped out of high school in my senior year and started doing some wild things. One night we had a fight in a bar with some gringos and I was arrested. The judge gave me a choice: jail or military service. I joined the Marines, got my G.E.D. and made lance corporal. Then we deployed to Saudi Arabia for Desert Storm. We sat in the sand for months, because the Arabs wouldn’t let us infidels go into their towns. We finally chased Iraqis for a few days, then we came back to the states for a big parade in New York City."
Peter had been getting more involved in the story and exclaimed "I remember that. I saw it on TV. You must have been proud."
Hector shrugged, "It felt good, but it didn’t last long. I couldn’t get a job right away
and I thought about re-enlisting. When I learned that I could get G.I. benefits that would pay for school, I enrolled in a business course at Bronx Community College. I got a room in a house in the Soundview section of the Bronx and got a part time job at the Hunt’s Point market. I met my wife─ well, she wasn’t my wife yet, at the local supermarket. She dropped something and I helped her pick it up, then we started talking. She invited me to meet her family and they were old-fashioned type Puerto Ricans who were very strict. They didn’t like me, and they didn’t want her to see me, so we had to meet without their permission. When I graduated from college, my boss hired me as his bookkeeper, and we got married. Her family disowned her, and we lived in my tiny room until we rented an apartment in Clason’s Point. It’s this isolated community on the East River, not too far from my room in Soundview, but it didn’t seem like the Bronx…."
Hector looked away sadly and Beth asked, "What’s your wife’s name?"
"Elena."
"Where is she?"
"She’s dead," he replied softly. There was a lengthy silence after that.
"If you don’t want to talk about it," Beth said gently, "we’ll understand."
Hector sighed, then sat up straight. "I don’t mind. It just hurts to remember. We loved each other very much. When Pablo was born, I named him after Pablo Casals, the great cellist. One of my Marine buddies listened to his tapes in the desert and I got to like his music. My boss gave me a raise and we bought a used car and a new couch. We were very happy. My boss made me an assistant manager, with more responsibility and a larger salary. Then Tito was born, and Elena insisted that we name him after Tito Puente, the bandleader, because she liked his music. We started talking about buying a house in Clason’s Point. It seemed like we were getting a piece of the American dream. Then Elena got sick."
Beth could see how much it pained Hector to talk about Elena. "I didn’t mean to pry into your personal life. It’s just that we like you and want to know more about you."
"It’s all right, Beth. This is the first time I’m talking about it to people who care."
"You told us you didn’t have any family, but did you have friends?"
"Not really. I knew some guys at work, but we never got close. I didn’t go out with them because I was always in a hurry to get home to my family."
"What about Elena’s family?" Kiesha asked. "Did they help?"
"They wouldn’t even talk to us," he answered bitterly. "At first we thought she had the flu and she’d get over it in a few days. Then it got worse and I called the doctor. He told me to bring her to his office in the morning. A few hours later her fever went up, she had trouble breathing and she started coughing up blood. I didn’t have anyone to watch the kids, so I had to take them with us to the emergency room. It was a tough night."
Peter had been listening intently. "What was wrong with her?"
A look of anguish crossed Hector’s face. "They said she had bronchial pneumonia. They pumped her full of antibiotics and the next day her temperature started going down. I had to take care of the kids, so I couldn’t stay with her all the time, but the doctor told me she was getting better. My boss was real nice about my taking time off and he didn’t even deduct the days from my vacation time. A few days later they discharged her from the hospital and I brought her home. She was weak, but she seemed to be improving. Two months later she got sick again and this time she was even worse. I took her to the hospital and they started her on antibiotics and took a chest x-ray. They discovered she had tuberculosis…."
Kiesha gasped, "Oh no."
"Yeah. They immediately tested me and the boys. Thank God we were all right, but Elena was seriously ill."
"That must have been a very difficult time for you," Beth said.
"Yeah, but it was worse for her. She got sicker and sicker. They said the lining of her lungs was too thin and the walls were perforated from the disease. She didn’t respond to treatment and it ate her away…" He sobbed and tears flowed down his cheeks.
Beth leaned over and put her arms around him, "Easy, Hector, easy…. That’s terrible for someone who loved her, especially with your having young children."
He wiped his eyes and muttered, "I didn’t mean to cry like a baby."
Kiesha hugged him. "Real men don’t have to be ashamed of crying."
"It’s good that you can show your feelings," Peter added.
Hector nodded gratefully, "Thank you, my friends. I’ve had this bottled up and it’s ripping my guts out."
Beth patted his shoulder. "Let’s just sit quietly for a few minutes. Then, if you feel like telling us the rest, we’d like to hear."
Hector looked at her woefully, "Are you sure? I don’t want to burden you with my troubles."
Beth spoke for all of them, "It’s no burden, right?"
"Right," Peter and Kiesha echoed.
Hector took a deep breath. "Elena got weaker and weaker. Nothing that they tried helped her. She just wasted away in a few weeks, and she was like a skeleton just before she died. The boys didn’t understand what was happening to her. They only wanted their mami back. I didn’t have enough money for a nice funeral, so she was buried in Potter’s field, on Staten Island…"
Kiesha interrupted, "What’s Potter’s Field?"
"That’s where the city buries you if you’re poor. I didn’t even have enough money to take a car service to the cemetery. We went by subway and two buses."
"What about your boss?" Peter asked. "Why didn’t he help you?"
"He fired me the second time Elena got sick. He said he needed someone who would be there every day."
Peter cursed him, "The bastard."
"I don’t blame him," Hector said. "I guess he had a business to run. What really hurt was that Elena’s family didn’t even come to the funeral. I was so angry that I wanted to kill them, but the boys saved me. I couldn’t give in to hate when they needed me."
Beth nodded, "That must have been hard, but it was your only choice. I’m glad you were strong enough to make it. What happened next?"
"I couldn’t afford day care and I didn’t have anybody to watch the boys, so I couldn’t work. I applied for welfare, but they treated me like I was trying to rip off the system. I tried to explain that with a little assistance I could put the boys in day care and get a job, but they rejected me because I was still getting unemployment insurance. Then that was canceled because I was unable to make a job search. I tried welfare again, but they claimed I wasn’t eligible because I refused to look for a job. Then I ran out of money and the landlord evicted us. It was a nightmare. We had no place else to go, so we went to the E.A.U. That was two weeks ago. They tried to send us to that motel in Queens, but when I saw what went on there I refused to stay. I can’t bring my boys to a place like that."
"You were right not to bring them there," Beth said. "That’s no place for kids. We have to talk about the hotel you and Peter saw, but right now we have to bring the kids back to the E.A.U. for lunch." The others nodded agreement and they collected the kids and slowly walked back down Walton Avenue, enjoying the last few minutes of comparative freedom.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Beth hadn’t really looked at her surroundings on the way to the park. She remembered the drive in the police car just a few nights ago that now seemed light years away from her former comfortable, optimistic life. She imagined that the massive government building that was ominous and forbidding when she saw it in the deserted darkness, now teemed with busy hordes, swarming in and out of unwelcoming portals that were designed to consume the hopes of supplicants, rather than comfort them. None of the employed or unemployed shoppers or idlers that she passed looked happy. The frantic buying sprees of holiday time were over, and the dissatisfied accumulators were in their usual mode; grim, unsmiling, envious of the material prosperity of others, and suspicious that fate was against them. Beth saw shoppers trudging by, on their way to the slightly seedy neighborhood stores, laden with worn shopping bags, returning their unwant
ed Christmas gifts, intent on acquiring other jewelry and junk they didn’t need.
She wondered fleetingly, ‘If people are unhappy during the season to be jolly, when are they happy?’
The group turned onto 151st street and the day was so clear that Beth could see a long way off into the nether regions of the Bronx. The vista of low, drab, stultifying tenements made Beth wonder if they were tombs of the living, or homes of hope, sheltering eager youngsters full of aspirations for the future. When Beth saw the graffiti-covered façade of the E.A.U. she resolved to do whatever had to be done to protect her children.
She paused and the others stopped. "Before we go in, I just want to tell you that I’m sorry we met in these circumstances, but I’m glad to know you. You’re the kind of people to be with in a difficult time. If we stick together and help each other, maybe we can solve some of our problems. We should go back to the park after lunch so we can talk, while the kids play."
Kiesha impulsively hugged her. "Right. Let’s do it." Peter and Hector nodded agreement. They walked into the constricting office more determined to endure their situation.
Just as they were walking out the door after lunch, Ms. Weller rushed up to them. "Where do you people think you’re going?"
"Out," Kiesha answered.
"You can’t come and go as you please. This isn’t a hotel. You’re disturbing the other clients."
Beth asked the clients who were huddling miserably on uncomforting benches, "Are we bothering anyone?" No one responded and Beth told Ms. Weller, "See. Nobody minds. Is it against the rules for us to go out?"
"We can’t have you disrupting our routine. It makes it more difficult to deliver services to our clients."
Beth refused to give in, "We’ll make sure we don’t disrupt anyone."