Bed-Stuy Is Burning

by Brian Platzer

  The high school kids politely applauded. Amelia was going to ask a comparable question and would get her answer now, even if she wasn’t called on.

  “Well that’s perception more than reality,” Bratton said. His chest was thick, but he spoke through his nose. “In New York City, the abusive cop is an exception, and we make it our priority to root him out. Come tell us about these attacks you’re referring to. We’ll book the perpetrators with assault. Put a cop there to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

  Amelia’s hand shot up along with the others.

  “Yes, you?” the press guy said, revealing a lake of sweat beneath his armpit.

  “Amelia Lehmann, New York Times. It’s not just violence. Daily public embarrassment is why they don’t call the cops. Broken-window policing is why the riots happened. Why a kid murdered my neighbor in my house.”

  “In your house?” Bratton was in a gray suit, looking a decade younger than his midsixties.

  “Yes. The victim’s name was Derek Jupiter,” Amelia said. “You mentioned him in a speech a few months ago. You met his son. The father was murdered in my house right in front of me. The reason people don’t call the police is because they get shamed by the same police officers on a daily basis. The broken-window policing you’ve staked your reputation on makes it so people endure violence on a daily basis and have nowhere to turn.”

  “That’s not a question,” the press guy said.

  “Then,” Amelia asked the commissioner, “why do you think these riots occurred?”

  “Oh—you’re the one who wrote that series in the Times, aren’t you?” Bratton said.

  “I am,” Amelia said.

  “Well good for you. You did a great service to the city. And to that girl, Sara’s her name, if I’m not mistaken.”

  “Thank you, Commissioner,” Amelia said.

  “I read she’s attending private school now? Thriving?”

  “Private donors have been very generous to Ms. Hall since my articles,” Amelia said.

  “And her brother, too?”

  “That’s right, sir.”

  “He attacked police, if I remember correctly.”

  “Your department dropped all charges.”

  “Thanks to your excellent work,” Bratton said. “You must be proud of yourself.”

  “I am. I mean, her story—and that of Mr. Jupiter—found its way to me,” Amelia said, smiling. She couldn’t suppress the smile. She didn’t need to.

  “You are becoming quite well known as well,” Bratton said.

  “Thank you, sir,” Amelia said. “Now my question, sir. If not because of a culture of embarrassment and fear perpetrated by your department, why do you believe these riots occurred?”

  “Because of individuals within the community who chose violence. With all due respect to you, and especially to Mr. Jupiter, who was an upstanding man, an individual decided to take a gun to your house, point it at your neighbor, and shoot him. Maybe that individual did have an interaction with the police that was unsettling. And I agree that training could lessen the tension in those interactions. We’re in the process of reimplementing that training. Also, of putting more African-American officers on the street. And we’ve just received a federal grant for body cameras. But are you insinuating that it wasn’t his fault that he picked up an illegal weapon, brought it to your home, and killed an innocent man? You’re telling me that is my department’s fault?”

  “I’m telling you,” Amelia said, “that you are focusing so much on punishing people for the way they choose to live their lives—issues regarding drugs, child support, school violations, jumping turnstiles—that they won’t report real violence. It wasn’t just one individual who acted out after an ‘unsettling’ interaction with the police. Thousands rioted. Their lives are saturated in violence, so when they get angry, they act violently. It’s a bad situation that you are making worse.”

  The high school kids applauded politely again.

  “Do you have a question?” the press guy said.

  “Yes. Do you feel,” Amelia said, “as the top cop in the city, and as someone positioning himself for potential higher office, that you bear some responsibility for all these deaths that came under your watch? That you will revisit the police methodology that makes these kids’ lives more violent and antagonistic?”

  “To be honest, no, I don’t. I feel as though I’ve saved lives. We’ve done our best under the circumstances. And I will continue to put the cops on the dots. To make sure we’re where we need to be. To foster community relations. To decrease violence. To punish the perpetrators. And to do our best to ensure nothing like this ever happens again.”

  “Ever happens again?” Amelia said. “Your cops are—”

  “That’s enough,” the press guy said.

  “It’s fine. Please continue,” Bratton said.

  “Your cops are getting shot,” Amelia said. “Another two this week. Thirty since the riots? It is happening. And as much as I blame that kid who shot Mr. Jupiter. As much as I blame him every night I try to go to sleep, and I fear him—even though he’s shot dead, too—I fear you more. I fear that you and your tactics are making more and more of him. And that my son will be shot in Bed-Stuy by someone like him. Or that because your officers now believe their lives are in danger in my neighborhood, they won’t come when real help is needed. It’s your job to keep us safe, and I don’t believe you’re doing it. Can you tell me that you’re changing policing so you’re not creating any more angry, disenfranchised kids?”

  “We are doing our best to catch the perpetrators and bring them to justice. And we’re doing our best to keep Bed-Stuy safe for you and your son from people like him.”

  “Please tell me that you’re not just making them angrier,” Amelia said.

  “Them? They are individuals, Ms. Lehmann. Individuals who don’t need to choose violence. I’m doing everything I can do to keep this city safe.”

  The high school kids applauded politely.

  “You are creating criminals,” Amelia said.

  The press guy stood and whispered something to the commissioner. Bratton whispered something back.

  Bratton leaned into the microphones. “We are protecting the good people of New York City from criminals. I’m like a doctor. I diagnose a problem, and I go through the possible cures. What medicines might treat the disease. In this case, local street policing combined with . . .”

  But Amelia had stopped listening. She’d come to get a quotation from the police commissioner for her book, not to win an argument. She’d calm down in time, and she and Aaron were planning on mashing up a banana for Simon that night before bed.

  “Ms. Lehmann?”

  “Yes?” Amelia said.

  “I want to publically invite you to join my advisory commission on police-community relations. As a respected public intellectual, a resident of Bed-Stuy, and a friend of Mr. Jupiter’s and Sara’s, you’d be an invaluable advisor to the department on these issues. Do you accept?”

  The high school kids leaned forward.

  Amelia’s heat beat faster. She felt the kids behind her, and Commissioner Bratton in front of her, and the real journalists to her side. She knew she shouldn’t accept. She wasn’t qualified, and Bratton was trying to co-opt her. But her one story had found her. The fact that she was at the center of it—that it had occurred in her home—meant the Times hadn’t been able to turn it down. But even if her book was successful, she didn’t know how she’d ever find another story like this one. Bratton’s offer could be a stepping-stone to real power. She didn’t want to be the only one who turned down an opportunity. She didn’t want to be the sucker who was given a seat at the table and let some impossible-to-articulate principle stand in the way.

  “I do,” Amelia found herself saying, the world opening up before her. She could come to know the man. Be a voice for her neighbors and her community. It could help her write her book.

  “No more questions,” the press g
uy said, wiping his brow. “It’s too goddamn hot in here to continue.”

  The high school kids applauded politely and stood up to stretch out their legs.

  Chapter 63

  Aaron sat in the office. The molding had been removed, along with the stained-glass window. The contractor said irreparable damage had been done. The mahogany, carved to look like columns holding up a frieze, had been cracked when the girl had swung the glider into the window. The upper corners, into which had been carved little torches surrounded by wreaths, could no longer remain. The windows were now double paned with argon gas inside. They’d keep out more noise and keep in more heat. It was a more practical room now, better for working, Amelia said. She was in the TV room at the moment, singing to Simon.

  Aaron was watching them live on the cracked computer screen. He had just finished watching Antoinette with Simon from the month before. He limited himself to one viewing per day. Antoinette burying Simon in a tomb of Scripture—the giant Mishnah below him, various Tanakh on all sides—and Aaron’s own voice coming in faintly from the street. Empowering Antoinette to perform her insane ritual. It was the stuff of three thousand years before. Aaron would watch it every day for the rest of his life to understand it. It was the day that changed everything. Maybe it was the power of God on-screen. It was Aaron’s voice. He could hear his tone, if not the words, and he was able to follow the emotions. And then Amelia rushing Sara down the stairs. All on the screen. The computer functioned, even though the screen was cracked in half with a few large lines that quaked from the main one, and a dozen cracks splintered out from there. The upper left quarter of the screen was mostly clear. In the present, Simon was on Amelia’s lap. Simon’s back was to the camera, Amelia was facing forward. The back of Simon’s head obscured Amelia’s face.

  Aaron hadn’t spoken to his father in weeks, though his father had called every day and left messages. Aaron hadn’t wanted to lie to his father, and he hadn’t wanted to worry him with the truth. He also wanted to show Amelia that his life was his own. Even if it made his father suffer, he would wait a week, each week, to respond to his calls. Though Aaron planned, at the end of this week, to call his father and tell him about the engagement and the wedding that they all would plan together. It would be small, only what they could afford.

  On the computer screen in front of Aaron, Simon was crying, but like a normal baby cries. And when Amelia rocked Simon, Simon quieted. It was funny how eating and sleeping and all the things that mattered in a baby had nothing to do with kindness, intelligence, hard work, and everything else that defined an adult.

  Aaron watched his beautiful, famous fiancée and his healthy baby boy on the cracked computer screen while he tinkered with his rabbinical résumé. Life wasn’t perfect, but they had started sleeping together again. And with a new intensity. As if she was showing him he belonged in the house, with her, in this new life. He had a long list of responsibilities ahead of him. He had to find and keep a job as a rabbi; he had to build up some kind of faith or not let the lack of faith ruin him; he had to stay with Gamblers Anonymous and keep himself away from any kind of gaming (though he had to head back to the track to claim his winnings from the fifth race at Belmont on that awful day); he had to pay the mortgage; and then he and Amelia had to maintain their love for each other forever. But life was good, or at least it felt better now than it had been a month before.

  Chapter 64

  New York Post

  OPINION

  POST EXCLUSIVE:

  * * *

  New York Times Pays and Threatens Sources

  By Sara Hall

  You already know about my life. I’m the girl from last year’s New York Times series on the Bed-Stuy riots. You know my house smells of mint fresheners, my kitchen table is broken, I dropped out of high school, and my tenth-grade teacher said I had potential. You know I drink orange soda flat because my mother prefers soda like that so she leaves the caps off the bottles in the refrigerator. You know I wear black and I’m gay but I haven’t had a girlfriend in months because I don’t want to.

  What you don’t know is that the writer, Amelia Lehmann, paid me to tell her these things. She paid me cash, so I don’t have receipts, but every time she paid me I went home and had my neighbor take a picture of the cash. One time, I had my neighbor take a picture of Amelia Lehmann handing me the cash, which is the photo under this article. This was after Amelia Lehmann wrote me a check for fifty thousand dollars that I couldn’t cash. Also, Amelia Lehmann shot at me with a pistol when I was in her house. She tried to kill me. What if she’d hit me? What if she’d killed me? Would she be famous then?

  I’ve wanted to write this since day one, since I saw how easy it is to be a writer. I’m writing this now because Amelia Lehmann can’t affect me anymore. People aren’t giving me donations anymore, anyway. I’m going to graduate high school next year, and my tuition has already been paid. I’m doing well in school, and they say they won’t kick me out no matter what. And my brother is never going to fully recover, no matter how much physical therapy he gets. His life is ruined no matter what.

  I get to graduate from private school, and that’s good. I’m going to be a lawyer. My new teacher, Mr. Keating, says I’m good at school, and he says law school is just more school, so I’ll be good at that, too, after college. But my brother is never going to recover. My mother has been depressed since she spent five months in jail. She got fired and can’t get another job. I’m going to need to spend all the donations on a new apartment for her. Mr. Jupiter is dead. And Amelia Lehmann is famous. I see her on TV talking about black people.

  When I’m a lawyer I’m going to make sure people like Amelia Lehmann can’t get away with the crimes they commit. My brother and mother got punished for hitting cops. I get that. Amelia Lehmann should get punished, too, for shooting at me and paying me to be a source for her story. It hasn’t been fair that everyone knew everything about me, and no one knew anything about Amelia Lehmann. They’re not good people, her and her husband. They use people. They care about themselves and nobody else.

  Chapter 65

  Amelia looked out the parlor window. Snow had been plowed into giant blackening hills divided by stomped-out pedestrian valleys of newspapers and ice.

  She’d cried when she’d first seen the article.

  “I just heard,” Aaron said. “I just saw the op-ed, I mean. I came home right away. Why didn’t you call me?”

  Aaron paid Sara one hundred thirty grand and she condemned him in the tabloids.

  “You gave that speech,” Amelia said, nodding to the stoop. She meant she’d fallen in love with him again that day.

  “Uh-oh!” Simon said, “Uh-oh!” A mess of blocks scattered around him. The nanny heated chicken nuggets in the kitchen. She had dressed Simon head to toe in Brooklyn Nets gear. Socks, shorts, shirt, two wristbands.

  Ice thickened the iron bars between the windows and street. Her editor at the Times had left a message.

  What I keep coming back to—and Joan was practically hissing here—is why didn’t you tell me you paid your source?

  Amelia had felt her cheeks go hot with shame as she listened to the voice mail. But come on—if she had disclosed paying Sara, the Times would never have run the piece, and Amelia wouldn’t have gotten the book deal. She had no authority to write about Bed-Stuy without Sara as the hook.

  And the book itself was everything Amelia had dreamed it could be. It was about Sara, sure, but it was also about her brother and mother, and case studies of almost a hundred years of police violence, from the waning days of Tammany Hall through the present. It was about how Bed-Stuy residents reacted again and again to reassert their own authority and stand up to those in power. The book gave shape to what had previously been formless to Amelia, and it did so through the stories of individual lives. She’d done research, conducted interviews, spoke to cops and her neighbors, and, along the way, she illuminated the inequities of redlining, bail, stop and frisk, and gentrific
ation, which she illustrated through her own family’s arrival in Bed-Stuy. She was proud of what she’d written, and she’d made friends in the process. In the six months since finalizing the manuscript, she’d had dozens of neighbors over. Simon had played with the children of police officers and sanitation workers, and Amelia had established herself as a regular on NPR and MSNBC. So yes: she’d paid one source in the beginning. But who hadn’t bent the rules? She’d gotten here. No matter the censure, she finally felt like she belonged.

  Still, she couldn’t—

  “Amelia,” Aaron said. “It will be okay.”

  “Do you feel his body here sometimes?” Amelia said. “Because I don’t. I can remember it. But the feel of it is completely gone. I’m trying to make myself remember the feel of it. But I can’t. I can picture what he looked like, but not what it felt like.” Her career had been made on the man murdered in her foyer. She owed it to him to remember what it felt like. That bothered her.

  And maybe she hadn’t needed to shoot at Sara. She sometimes wished that away.

  Aaron hugged her. He’d been staying late at funerals, at bar mitzvahs, at Torah study. He was counseling grieving family members and giving Amelia time to prepare for media spots and Bratton meetings.

  “The New York Post,” he said “won’t be enough to tarnish the reputation you’ve built over this last year and a half.”

  Did Joan think it would it have been better for Sara if Amelia hadn’t paid her? At least this way Sara benefited, too. If Amelia hadn’t paid, would the information have been more valuable to the readers? Would it have been more accurate?