Extreme Change

by Gary Beck

  Peter excused himself and went into his room and came out a moment later with a bottle of wine and paper cups. "We may be too busy tomorrow night to celebrate, so let’s drink to our new apartments." Everyone heartily wished each other ‘good luck,’ finished their wine, then said good night.

  Beth and Peter talked for hours, too excited to sleep now that they would soon be leaving the hotel. Beth just bubbled over with ideas. "I’ve been thinking more and more about opening a day care center once we’re set at the new place. Miss Lily is wonderful with children. Kiesha is available part time and I can work part time. I can start giving piano lessons again. I picked out a spot in the apartment for the piano and I’d like to get it right away. I need a piano."

  "We’ll get you a piano as soon as you like. I just wish we could get you a concert grand." Peter was curious about her interest in a day care center. "What started you thinking about a day care center?"

  "When we first got to the hotel, we realized that we had so many kids that it seemed like a natural extension to take care of them as a business. Kiesha and I talked about it, but it was more of a fantasy then."

  It was very quiet in the hotel that night, without the usual oppressive feeling of imminent threat. It was a refreshing change to feel completely at ease and both of them enjoyed it thoroughly. The time flew by and Beth finally noticed it was midnight. Peter made overtures for lovemaking, but Beth said she was still too tense from the near rape and murder. She told Peter she was going to take a shower and went into the bathroom. After the water had been running for a few minutes he went in and started washing her back. At first, she stood there rigidly, but the soothing hot water and gentle massage gradually eased her tension and Peter felt her relax. His stroking slowly changed to caresses and when his fingers slipped around to her breasts and belly, she sighed with pleasure. She turned and helped him undress and they made love in the shower, the way they used to in stolen moments when they were back in college.

  Afterwards, they snuggled together and casually discussed their needs for the new apartment. Beth was delighted when Peter told her that he had called the storage company in Detroit and their furniture would be delivered on Friday. She was concerned with the expense, until Peter explained that it would be a lot cheaper than buying everything they needed, and the cost was less than six months storage. They took turns remembering what they actually had in storage and came up with beds and dressers for them and the children, a living room set, rugs, complete kitchenware, a TV and a CD player. They played who could name the CDs, and Beth giggled so loudly at some of the titles that Peter had to put his hand over her mouth, so she wouldn’t wake the children. She froze instantly, then yanked his hand away. He realized how sensitive she still was to being manhandled and quickly apologized. It took a few moments for her to calm down and then they went to sleep.

  About 3:00a.m.Beth woke up with a scream that snapped Peter wide awake. "What is it? What’s wrong?"

  She clung to him fiercely. "I had an awful dream that I was in a dark room and men were cutting me with knives. One of them was aiming at my eye and I woke up."

  Peter patted her gently. "It’s all right, hon. You’re safe." Jennifer sat up and asked if everything was all right. Once she was reassured, she went to the bathroom, but on the way managed to wake Andy, who normally could sleep through a buffalo stampede. Peter tucked them in again, but it took a while for the children to get back to sleep and Jennifer kept popping up to stare at them. Finally fatigue and young growth needs prevailed, and sleep descended on the innocents.

  "I feel so foolish," Beth whispered.

  "After what you’ve been through it’s not surprising that you have bad dreams. If you don’t feel better in a few days, you might want to talk to someone."

  Beth started to shiver and Peter realized that she had been sweating and was chilled. He took her into the bathroom and gave her a quick sponge bath, then vigorously toweled her dry. Her nightgown was soaked and she didn’t have another, so he made her wear his pajamas and he slipped on a t-shirt and shorts. She stood there for a moment with her hands lost in the sleeves and her feet hidden in the legs, and finally grinned at the comic spectacle. He helped her roll up the cuffs and tucked her into bed as tenderly as he had tucked in the children. They were both wide awake and they lay there quietly for a while and Beth began to feel better. She spoke so softly that he had to strain to hear.

  "I was so terrified when I realized what was happening. I didn’t think about Kiesha, or you, or the children. I was paralyzed. I didn’t start to get any control until they knocked me into the wall. Then I knew that if I didn’t do something, I’d never see you again."

  He didn’t say anything for a minute, then looked at her lovingly. "It was a miracle that you got a chance to escape. Then you saved yourself and Kiesha. You were brave, resourceful and determined. I hope I can do as well, if I ever have to."

  "Oh, Peter. I hope that nothing like that ever happens."

  "So do I, but you never know…. You’ve got to understand that no one could have done better."

  She nodded. "I’m proud of how I functioned once they left the room, but I keep thinking about what would have happened if they didn’t leave the room, or if I didn’t find the dumbwaiter. The thought of them sticking their filthy things into me makes me sick." He held her close and petted her hair and she didn’t say anything more. Her breathing grew regular and she drifted off to sleep. He didn’t move, even though his arms were aching from holding her in an awkward position. He silently gave thanks that the woman he loved had been spared.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  The school bus driver was very agreeable when Kiesha asked him if he would pick up the children at the new address. He confided to her that he had another pickup nearby, so it wasn’t really out of the way. The group watched the bus drive away with a feeling of relief that another problem had been solved.

  They started to go back into the hotel, when Hector stopped them. "I just thought of something. We have to tell the district that we moved."

  They were all surprised and Kiesha asked, "Why? I just arranged for their pickup and delivery."

  "I know. But what if there’s an emergency? The district will have our address here at the hotel."

  There was a long silence while everyone digested his statement, then Kiesha said, "They can notify us on our cell phones."

  Beth shook her head. "Hector’s right. We can’t take a chance with our kids. What if the district doesn’t call and just sends them home? We’ve got to tell them." After a moment’s thought, the others agreed, and they set off for the district.

  The staff of the school district office obviously remembered their last visit and wasn’t happy to see them. The staff went about their business, scrupulously ignoring the group, until Hector said loudly, "Excuse me," which froze them in their tracks.

  A timid clerk turned her head to him. "Can I help you?"

  "We’d like to see Ms. Pastor, please." The girl looked apprehensively to her colleagues for guidance, but they wouldn’t meet her eyes.

  "Uh, she’s not in right now. If you want to leave your name, I’ll tell her you stopped by."

  Hector smiled pleasantly. "That’s all right, miss. We’ll wait for her."

  The flustered girl didn’t know what to say and just stood there for a moment.

  "She may not be back until after lunch. You might want to come back tomorrow."

  "We don’t mind waiting. It’ll give us a chance to see our district staff in action." The girl gaped at him, then fled to an inner office.

  The group gathered in the same place as their last visit, but this time Kiesha got a chair for Miss Lily without asking. The staff watched her take it but didn’t say a word.

  Beth smiled at Hector. "You’re becoming quite a negotiator."

  He nodded. "I guess we all are. If we want things for our children the system isn’t going to hand it to us, so we have to learn how to ask."

  A few minutes later Mi
ster Anante came out of the inner office and greeted them cordially. "How nice to see all of you parents again. I hope you’re happy with your children’s progress."

  Hector spoke for the group. "Thanks, Mister Anante. We’re very happy with how our kids are doing. That’s why we’re here today."

  "What can I do for you?"

  "We’re moving from the hotel to our own apartments and we don’t want any disruptions to our children’s education." The rest of the group nodded agreement.

  Mister Anante looked at them appraisingly. "None of us want disruptions to any child’s education, but if you move out of the district, we’ll have to transfer your children to the new district. Where are you moving to?"

  "East 11th Street."

  "All of you?"

  "Yes."

  "Is it a homeless shelter?"

  "No. They’re individual apartments that we’re renting in the same building."

  "That’s a bit unusual, isn’t it?" Hector was starting to get impatient with the questions.

  "Maybe. But what we want to know is can our children stay in the same school?"

  "That depends."

  "On what?"

  "Well, you’re still in the district, but there are schools that are closer to your house."

  "We don’t want to transfer our kids in the middle of the term."

  "I don’t know if our school buses go that far."

  Kiesha sensed he was running out of resistance. "One of the kids’ classmates lives nearby and the bus picks him up."

  "I’ll be glad to look into it and get back to you."

  "That’s not good enough," Kiesha said. "We’re moving tomorrow, and we need to resolve this right away."

  Mister Anante wasn’t happy with their insistence, "I’ll speak to my supervisor."

  Hector thanked him. "We appreciate that. We’ll wait right here until this is settled." Mister Anante went into the inner office and the group gathered together for a quick strategy meeting.

  "Hector’s doing a fine job dealing with the staff," Beth told them. "Unless someone has a better idea, I suggest that he keeps handling things." Everyone agreed to leave negotiations to Hector and Beth continued, "Let’s remember that we got the district to accept the kids by our willingness to sit-in until they gave in. If they don’t agree to let the kids stay in their current school, we’ll sit-in until they change their minds."

  "Does that mean that if they say no we stay here, even if we get arrested?" Kiesha asked.

  "They know how determined we are. They won’t have us arrested," Beth asserted. Miss

  Lily leaned forward and whispered with a confident smile, "They were scared of us last time. They’ll give in."

  The rest of the group grinned at Miss Lily’s tough talk, but they realized she was right. They had successfully compelled the district to admit their children. Now it seemed very realistic to expect that they could get their cooperation again. The group chatted together comfortably as they waited for the return of Mister Anante. They let the children start roaming around the office without calling them back, and the staff was too intimidated to rebuke them. A few minutes later Mister Anante came out, followed by the Hindu woman who had decided to admit the children after their last negotiation. She greeted them cordially and without further discussion informed them that their children could stay in the same school. She asked them to give their new address and phone number to the clerk and accepted their thanks. She went back to her office after solving their latest problem without any indication how she felt about their threatened protest.

  The group walked down Third Avenue to the thrift shop where they ran into a surprising piece of luck. Someone had just donated four children’s mattresses a few minutes earlier and they took them all. They found some blankets and quilts that they also took. They had gotten to know the clerk and she agreed to hold them until Thursday afternoon. It seemed to be one of those days when things went their way for a change. At the second thrift shop between East 28th and 27th streets, they found towels, sheets, pillowcases and several pillows. They decided not to leave them and they carried them out in large shopping bags. They stopped at the pizza place next to the thrift shop, which delighted the always hungry youngsters. While they ate, Beth called Ms. Cummins, the social worker at the King Charles Hotel and told her that they’d like to stop by her office and speak to her. She was agreeable and Beth told her they’d be there in fifteen minutes.

  They had an interesting conversation in the pizza place. They had chatted with the counterman several times before and he had been very pleasant to the children. Today he was muttering to himself, and when Peter asked what was wrong, he told them about a labor union strike that just ended.

  "I work at the Domino Sugar Company in Brooklyn. We’ve been on strike for twenty months and yesterday we were forced to give in to the bosses and go back to work. We had to sign the same contract that caused us to go on strike in the first place."

  The group sympathized with the man. Peter thought it might be an interesting story for public radio. "What made you go back after all that time?"

  "We didn’t get any support from the major unions, including our own parent union, the Longshoreman’s union. Nobody cared. Not the mayor, the media, or the public."

  The children had finished their pizza and were getting restless, so Peter suggested they wait outside, or go ahead without him, because he wanted to hear more about the Domino Sugar strike. The counterman morosely described what it was like to walk the picket line for two bitter winters.

  "The factory is right on the East River and we had to keep moving just to stay warm. If we didn’t maintain the picket line the company would have beaten us, so no matter how cold it got, rain or snow, we kept carrying our signs, hoping for help that never came."

  "Why do you think no one helped?"

  "This giant international corporation owns Domino Sugar and the big unions didn’t want to fight them and lose. The mayor and the media support big business, not the blue-collar working man, so they ignored the strike and left us on our own. The strikers stayed united for the first six months, then their unemployment benefits ran out. A few months later some of them crossed the picket line. The rest of us held out as long as we could, but we finally had to give in."

  Peter didn’t know whether or not the station would be interested in the story, so he didn’t mention it to the counterman and just thanked him for talking to him. He said goodbye and went outside where everyone was waiting for him. It was almost school bus time and as they walked back to the hotel the children noticed that a number of people had black marks on their foreheads. They asked why the people didn’t wash their faces. Hector explained that it was for a religious observance called Ash Wednesday that occurred once a year. The children seemed satisfied with the simple answer, so he didn’t go into any further detail. By this time, they had been out for a while and it was getting chilly. The group rushed the rest of the way to the hotel to meet the school bus and see the social worker before she left.

  Ms. Cummins was waiting impatiently, but was very pleasant once all the bodies, large and small, crammed into her tiny office. She suggested that it would be less crowded if some of the adults took the children upstairs, but Beth insisted that they were all staying together until they moved from the hotel. Ms. Cummins efficiently prepared all the paperwork to transfer their various assistance payments to the new address. She promised to expedite the bonus payments to the new landlord as quickly as possible, to ensure his satisfaction with them as tenants.

  They settled all the details of their cases and were just getting ready to leave, when Kiesha urgently requested that no record of their new address be kept in the hotel. "We’ve had some terrible experiences here with the gang upstairs and they abducted Beth and me a few days ago. We were lucky to escape with our lives. I hope you don’t think we’re being paranoid, but we could be in real danger if they broke in here and got our new address."

  Miss Cummins said she understood
and promised to send all their case files to the main office in the morning.

  The group felt reassured that the gang wouldn’t be able to find them once they left the hotel, but they knew they couldn’t relax as long as they were still living there. Everyone was hungry, so Miss Lily and her girl helpers prepared an early dinner of macaroni and cheese. The boys played in Hector’s room, Beth and Kiesha started packing and Peter kept an eye on things in the hall. They ate in the usual two shifts, children first, then adults. Miss Lily made strawberry jello for dessert, which she served with whipped cream. It was a special treat for the adults, but the children were more blasé because they got jello regularly at school. The children didn’t know for certain that they were moving in the morning, but they sensed that change was coming, so it took a while for them to fall asleep once they were put to bed.

  The adults gathered in the hall for coffee and a final review of preparations for the move in the morning. Peter phoned Leon and arranged for him to be downstairs with his van at 10:00 AM. Leon was just as casual as the last time they talked, but he assured Peter that he would be on time. The adults went over all the details of getting everything out and downstairs. Peter suggested that they take all their belongings into the hall, then stage them to the lobby, where the women and children would wait while Peter and Hector brought the rest of their things down. He also mentioned that if everyone made a check list before they went to bed, they wouldn’t overlook anything in the rush to get out in the morning. Miss Lily offered another round of coffee and when she came out with the pot, she was carrying a bottle of wine.

  "This is the second time we’re movin together, so a little celebration is called for."

  Whether it was the wine, the company, or their imminent departure, some of their ongoing tension eased. They chatted happily about the new apartments and what it would be like living in the east village. Peter knew a bit about the neighborhood and described the area around Tompkins Square Park.