Tabloid City

by Pete Hamill

  Briscoe stares at Elwood.

  –The Watsons have a son, Briscoe says. In his early twenties.

  Elwood shakes his head slowly.

  –They didn’t mention that. I mean, would a son kill his mother? Like that? I guess, maybe. Like you told me once: It’s a tabloid city. But, ah, hell, I know they never tell everything to people like us. Until they’re, like, sure.

  Elwood rises abruptly.

  –You want coffee, Sam?

  –Sure.

  Elwood goes to the door, opens it, whispers to the receptionist. He comes back, but remains standing. He breathes in heavily.

  –Sam, I hate to say this. But I’m closing the paper.

  A pause.

  –When?

  –Now. Today.

  He lifts the paper, holding each corner with thumb and forefinger.

  –This is the last issue of the New York World. My mother’s paper.

  He bends and lays the newspaper on the low table. He turns his back and faces Queens. Briscoe rises, removes his jacket, and drapes it on the back of his chair.

  –That’s a mistake, Richard. We own this story. They’ll want more.

  Elwood turns, a smile on his face.

  –On Saturday? Maybe snow coming tonight? Come on, Sam. Get real.

  Briscoe comes up beside him. They can each see the dumb blank faces of high-rise apartment houses, a sliver of the East River, condos where there once were squat fuel tanks on the Queens side. A fragment of the 59th Street Bridge. A shard of distant Citi Field. Briscoe thinks: Where is the Pepsi sign?

  –It’s inevitable, Sam. Closing the paper.

  The door opens behind them and the receptionist crosses the room holding a tray with two cups, a silver pot, some pastries.

  –Just leave it on the table, please, Elwood says.

  –Yes, sir, she says, and goes out.

  Elwood is quiet for a beat. Then:

  –Where was I?

  –Inevitable.

  –You know, the delivery system is changing, very fast. The ads have dried up. And eighty percent of our expenses go to paper, ink, and delivery. Eighty percent. Not to journalism.

  –You need to—

  –I need to close the thing, Sam. But that won’t be the end of the World. I’ve been working for months on the plan.

  –What plan? I haven’t heard about any plan.

  –Let me show you. We have a website already, as you know, so—

  Briscoe has almost never looked at the website. Thinks: The kids who do the mechanics work right here, in this building. The three of them combined as old as I am. He has met them once but can’t remember a single name. He wonders if they smoke. Elwood walks to his desk, Briscoe behind him, and sits before the computer to the side of his desk. Briscoe knows what’s coming. Then it’s before him, the home page, in handsome Caslon, bold and medium, a photo from Afghanistan, a local angle on health care.

  TheWorld.com.

  Elwood keeps talking fast, excited now, all about the changing business model, the market share, the younger audience, about availability on electronic readers, about the way the Times now has more hits on its website than it has daily sales, and how the Wall Street Journal is charging money for access and… Briscoe has heard it all before, from all sorts of people, and he flashes on Elizabeth Elwood all those years ago in Paris, her enthusiasm, her sense of possibility and purpose. She never once used the phrase “business model,” although she surely had one. Elwood keeps talking, clicking on a traffic jam in color video, on the sports section, on style and gossip and how you could blow up the pictures of the stars and print them out.

  Then both are silent. Elwood turns to Briscoe, who remains standing.

  –So?

  –It looks good.

  Briscoe turns away, hands in his back pockets.

  –That’s all? Elwood says.

  He rises now, the computer locked on the home page.

  –We need the Saturday paper, Briscoe says. We need a chance to say good-bye.

  –Sam, you don’t get it, do you? It’s not good-bye. On Monday morning, we say hello. There’ll be no good-byes. We’ll have ads starting Sunday morning on New York One, and every day next week. Right after the weather! Channels Two and Four too. It will be a media sensation. The first month will be free to everybody, then they pay six bucks a month. We’ll be out in front of the pack. We’ll—

  Briscoe walks to his chair and lifts his coat.

  –Good luck, Richard.

  –What? I want you to be part of this, Sam.

  –You mean, you want me to be the guy that lays off people?

  –There have to be layoffs, Sam. But you are the World.

  Briscoe buttons his jacket and smiles.

  –Richard, I’m a newspaperman.

  He walks to the door.

  –Where are you going?

  –I’ve got to make some calls. I don’t want my people to hear about this from some fucking blog. And I have to get my lawyer to call your lawyer about severance and all that. Good luck with everything.

  He salutes the photographs of Elizabeth Elwood and walks out.

  9:20 a.m. Consuelo Mendoza. Chelsea Hotel, Manhattan.

  She waits for the light to change, because she always obeys small laws, and when it’s green, she crosses Seventh Avenue. In the distance, Consuelo sees the sign for the Chelsea Hotel, which looms large and brown and dark. It’s on the south side of 23rd Street, but she stays on the north side. The cold wind blows hard from the river. Her breath makes small gray clouds.

  She stops in front of a clothing shop but doesn’t look into the window. She stands with gloved hands jammed in her coat pockets and stares at the hotel. This is surely the place whose name he wrote on that piece of paper long ago. That time when he went to New York and came back with his wife and broke her heart. Fifteen years ago, when she was still almost a girl. If you need anything, Señor Lewis said, call me. Three days after he returned with his wife, Consuelo fled to Huajuapan, eight hours on three different buses, full of anger and bruised pride.

  On this cold New York morning, she doesn’t know if he is here, and both the anger and the pride have long vanished. Who can insist on pride if the children will end up on the street in the rain? She called the hotel anyway and it was still the right number but the man who answered said that Mr. Forrest was still sleeping, try later. So he was there, and still alive. Y pues, estoy aquí. I’m here. He’s here too, up in one of those rooms with their iron balconies.

  Consuelo knows he must be very old now. Un gringo muy viejo. He was old back then too, but full of life. Staring at her nakedness in his studio, wearing shorts and sneakers behind his easel, drawing or painting her breasts, her waist, her buttocks. Her long hair. Her uncallused feet. Her hands. Laughing about how hard it was to sleep now in his cama de piedra. His bed of stone. Singing songs by Don Cuco, singing about the anillo de compromiso, the engagement ring, and wailing, full of lonely hurt, “A dónde estás?” Oh, where are you?

  Si necesitas algo, llámeme, he said. If you need anything, call me. Those were his words that time, when she thought he would come back alone, to her.

  She thinks: I need help now, Señor Lewis.

  A job.

  Or a loan.

  Now.

  Fifteen years later.

  She waits, as people go by in both directions, most hurrying, some strolling, more people in twenty minutes than she’d see in Huajuapan in a month of fiestas. Taxis honk and cars too, and the buses push hard, bullying the others. On the sidewalk, nobody bumps into anyone else. They turn sideways, or pause, or stop. But nobody challenges another to get through. A black man with one leg swings by on crutches. Two light-skinned Latinas go by giggling but Consuelo can’t hear the jokes. They are walking quickly so Consuelo knows they have jobs that must start at ten. Nobody looks at her. Ni modo, Consuelo thinks. No matter: I want it that way. I am nothing to most people, to all but a few. Raymundo. The kids. My friends. But she doesn�
�t move from her place in front of the clothing store, afraid now that if she sees Señor Lewis he too will not know who she is. For good reason. She is no longer the girl he painted long ago.

  Then she gathers herself. She walks to the corner of Seventh Avenue, waits again for the light, crosses with a dozen other people, and moves right on the south side of 23rd Street. She goes past the main entrance of the hotel, which is flanked by brass plaques. She peers casually through the glass doors to the lobby. People talking. A desk at the far end. She walks on. Then stops, and turns and walks back, through the doors. Nobody turns to look at her. A young woman is talking to the balding man behind the desk. His beard is trimmed. He wears a necktie and a jacket. Behind his glasses, he has kind gray eyes. She removes her gloves and shoves them into her coat pocket.

  –Thanks, Jerry, the young woman says, lifting mail and a newspaper. I’ll see you later.

  –Sure thing, he says, as the woman steps into a waiting elevator.

  Then he looks at Consuelo.

  –Can I help you, ma’am? he says.

  Consuelo clears her throat. It’s hot in the lobby.

  –Yes, please, she says. I wan’ to see Mr. Lewis Forrest.

  The man behind the counter shrugs.

  –I’m afraid he…

  –Please, Consuelo says. I’m an old friend from Mexico. He painted me many times. I nee’ to see him, please.

  The man squints at her.

  –Y’know, I think I’ve seen his paintings of you, señora.

  –I was much younger then, she says, and smiles a thin smile.

  –So was Mr. Forrest, the man says, and laughs. Much younger.

  –But he’s here?

  –Yes. He just doesn’t answer the telephone.

  –Please, I—

  The man squints harder.

  –Tell ya what, he says. Just go up there and knock on the door. What the hell? It’s eight-oh-two.

  –Thank you very much.

  She turns to the elevator, presses the button, her heart beating faster now. The doors open. She steps in. The doors close. She presses 8. The elevator jerks, and starts up, rising slowly. Consuelo thinks of getting off at 8, waiting for a moment, then leaving again. The doors open. She steps out.

  The hall of the landing is wide and high and badly lit. There is brown wood everywhere, with doors all shut. In the center of the hall, she can see the railing of a staircase. She steps to the railing and looks down. It seems to be descending into hell, or at least purgatory. There are paintings on the walls as far as she can see. She turns away, fighting off a shiver of dizziness. She hears footsteps on stone, from another floor. Then she walks to the first door on her right, sees the number, sees the next, and starts walking toward the bright rectangle of window light at the far end. The numbers must start down there with 802. She can hear talk from the rooms, the sound of a television set, classical music, laughter.

  She stops at the last door, within a small dark alcove. Here it is. Eight-oh-two. There is no bell. She knocks. The old knock, from the house in Cuernavaca. En clave. Bop-bop. Bop-bop-bop. Nothing. She knocks again. She hears the low ruff of a dog, the sound of a dog’s nails on wood. Then a shuffling sound. Slippers, perhaps. Or callused feet.

  Then from beyond the door:

  –Yes? Who is it?

  –It’s me, Señor Lewis.

  –Who?

  –Yo.

  She hears a chain falling against wood. Then a heavy lock turning.

  The door opens. He’s standing there, as old as the earth. She realizes that his eyes see nothing. Un ciego. Hijole.

  –Consuelo? he whispers, disbelief in his low, trembling voice.

  –Sí, señor.

  He looks frozen.

  –No. Is it you?

  He reaches with both hands to her face. She takes his hands and places them on her cheekbones.

  –It’s you, he whispers. Tú, Consuelo. Mi corazón.

  Tears begin leaking from his blind eyes.

  He walks her into the apartment, holding her hand tightly, the dog clearly knowing that she is friend, not foe. He helps her off with her coat, and she stuffs her hat in one of the sleeves. The odor of the place seeps into her: dried sweat, socks, stale air, the large black dog. They pass the huge easel, with its wild angry painting on the crossbar, move around chairs, ease past a stained couch. Then Lew Forrest pauses. He points with his right hand, his painting hand, up to the wall, to the portrait of Consuelo as a girl. Beside it is a portrait of his wife. La Señora Gabriela. La Francesa. Both of them are young. Consuelo feels a pang of old hurt. He squeezes her warm bare hand. His hand is cold.

  –Eres tú, no? he says. The one on the left. It’s you, Consuelo.

  She can see her own smooth younger flesh, her thinner neck, her more delicate shoulders, the green and orange shawl from Huajuapan draped over one shoulder and one breast, sees the hard dark nipple of the other, and remembers sitting for hours on the edge of the bed in the studio in Cuernavaca, while music played, and Señor Lewis stared hard at her, all of her, and made a feathery caressing sound with his brush on the canvas.

  –Sí, Señor Lewis, she says. It’s me.

  –After my wife died, I could put you both together. First in the lobby. Then here. On that wall. For an audience of one. Me.

  It is her turn to squeeze Forrest’s hand. And then they are talking in a mixture of Spanish and English, as they did long ago. The hurt eases. She hopes her English is now better than his Spanish. She can see his lips making words that he does not say. Uncertain. Unable to remember. Then he clears his throat.

  –How old were you then, Consuelo?

  –Seventeen.

  –Diez y siete, he whispers. Seventeen. Hijole!

  –Y tú? she says.

  –Old, he says, and laughs. Un gringo viejo. Even then.

  She laughs too.

  –I was madly in love with you, Consuelo. Muy, muy loco.

  There’s a beat of grave silence.

  –Yo también, she says, her voice lower. Me too.

  He must have heard the note of sadness in her voice.

  –I… I don’t know why I…

  –Ni modo, Señor Lewis. Como se dice, it was a long time ago.

  Forrest stands there for a long moment, as if seeing nothing at all. Not the old paintings. Not her. Not anything in the world.

  Then he takes her elbow.

  –Come, he says. Sit beside me on the couch. I’ll call down for coffee.

  –You have a coffeepot and all that? I can make it.

  –No, no. I gave the damned thing away. You know, I can’t see much, mi vida, and I keep making a mess. Pouring coffee on the floor instead of in the cup.

  He chuckles and then goes on.

  –Anyway, I gave the pot away, and kept the cups. I’ll call Jerry, down at the desk. What do you want, querida?

  They talk it over. Just black coffee? Sí. A bagel? Sí. Con mantequilla? Sí. How about a cheese Danish too? No, no, Señor Lewis.

  He picks up the old black telephone from a table and talks to Jerry downstairs, while Consuelo gazes around the long narrow apartment, at the shelves full of art books and volumes of poetry, at the paintings leaning against each other beside the walls, the long flat metal cabinet that she knows from Cuernavaca must be full of drawings and prints and watercolors. He hangs up the phone and walks her to the tan dirt-streaked couch, which is three cushions wide. The cushion on the far right is stacked with more drawings. Forrest grips the left arm of the couch, turns around to sit with a sigh, and points Consuelo to the center cushion. She sits straight up on the edge, hands clasped on her lap. The dog moves around to the side, and stretches his legs on the floor. There is a silent awkward moment.

  –Well, Lew Forrest says, what brings you here, Consuelo?

  She waits for a long beat, gathering words, and strength, and will. Telling herself: Just say it. Say it straight out.

  –You said, that time, the last time, when you went to New York,
you said to me, Consuelo, if you need help, call me. You wrote the name of this place for me. On a small piece of paper. I was so hurt I just went away. I kept the paper.

  She shows him the folded sheet from a composition book, but then holds it, for he cannot see.

  –I thought I was coming back, he whispers. Alone.

  She lets those words grow cold in the stale air.

  –Pues. Here I am, señor. I came back to see you again.

  –You did. Why?

  –I need help.

  –What kind of help, Consuelo?

  She starts to speak but the doorbell rings. Forrest grips her hand.

  –Could you…?

  -Sí, Señor Lewis.

  –Here, he says, taking bills separately from each pocket.

  He hands her four bills.

  –That’s a ten-dollar bill, and three singles, verdad?

  –Sí, señor.

  –Okay, that includes the tip.

  She walks to the door, the dog first stretching, then padding after her. She opens the door. The delivery boy is Mexican, wearing a Mets cap. Well, maybe he’s un guatemalteco. He squints at the dog, but seems relaxed. He is holding a gray corrugated cardboard tray with slots for the two coffee containers and the wrapped bagels. He seems surprised to see Consuelo’s face in this doorway that he has come to in the past.

  She takes the tray and hands him the bills.

  –Gracias, joven, she says.

  –Por nada, señora, he says. Then smiles and adds: Y que viva México!

  She bows, holding the tray with both hands, and smiles, closing the door with her foot. She moves across the studio to the small kitchen.

  –Hay tazas, señor? Cups?

  –Sí, sí, Consuelita. On the shelves.

  The sink is filthy. She takes two unmatched cups from the shelf, rinses them in the sink, dries them with paper towels from a roll lying on its side. She can hear Lew Forrest singing in a dry choked voice. A scrap from the past.

  A dónde estás,

  A dónde estás…

  She is washing a grimy plate, blue designs on white, her eyes suddenly wet. A song from those days. Cuco Sánchez again. A dónde estás. Where are you? She dries the plate with a fresh paper towel and uses its dry edge to tamp the corners of her eyes. She unwraps the bagels and puts them on the plate. She moves to the couch, pulls over a chair, and lays the plate on the seat of the chair. She goes back quickly for the cups. Forrest stops singing. The aroma of coffee is winning against the sour odor of the room.