by Rita Lakin
This Jack now takes my hand in his.
And we are here. In front of my old apartment building on 124th Street.
We get out. Everything seems to look the same. I notice the building now has a doorman. I lead Jack around the corner where our apartment faced the side street. I point to the window where I looked out and watched my husband every night when he came home from the university. Where Emily and I used to wave to him. The coffee shop on the corner is now a Starbucks. I slowly walk Jack down the alley. I haven’t spoken a word, but it isn’t necessary. His policeman eyes dart every which way, taking everything in. He sees what I see in my heart and soul.
Such a nondescript place for a man to die.
I bend down and touch the spot where so much of my husband’s blood was shed. I think I can still see traces, but maybe it is just the accumulation of nearly fifty years of traffic. It all seems so benign in the bright sunlight.
We stand there for a while. I turn, slowly absorbing my old world. I hear birdsong, but I don’t know which birds are singing. It reminds me of when a robin built her nest on our fire escape. Emily excitedly watched for hours, waiting for the babies to peek out of their eggs. There is the tinkle of a bell and a woman comes out of Starbucks sipping her drink. A couple of teens ride by on bicycles. I smell the cooking of many different cultures emanating from open windows above me. Of course my old curtains are long gone from my windows. Now there are drawn Venetian blinds. Did the people who bought that apartment (I assume it is a co-op now) know of that tragic death on a New Year’s Eve so long ago?
A wind suddenly whips around the block blowing leaves and bits of paper in miniature tornados. It always was a windy corner.
Or is it ghosts?
Jack stares at me with such kindness and understanding, I can hardly bear it.
“Enough?” he asks.
“Enough,” I say.
THE DARTFORD HOTEL
At hotel that Jack is staying in, he says, “It’s really old and shabby. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“How can I, Jack, dear, since you’ve already warned me at least ten times?” I give him a peck on the cheek. “I don’t care.”
In a panic, he starts to pull me away from the revolving door. “Let’s go to the Carlisle or the Sheraton. There are a dozen hotels around here. Anything will be better than this.”
“And what makes you think they’ll have a room, last minute? And with no luggage? Can you imagine what they’ll think? And what they’ll charge?”
As we are about to enter the lobby of the hotel, Jack says, “I can’t take you into this dump.”
“Jack. Enough already. Let’s go inside. I promise you I won’t judge you by how dismal your hovel is.” I smile sweetly, teasing him.
He gives in and we walk through the lobby. Walking is not quite accurate; he’s dragging me to the elevator. He doesn’t want to give me time to inspect its shabbiness. We hop in just before the door closes. There’s another couple already inside. Typical tourists: three cameras around his neck, too many suitcases, still wearing shorts though the weather’s changed, looking very small-town; harried. I smile at them. They smile back.
“First time in New York?” I ask.
They nod. They press the button for the twelfth floor, Jack presses the ten.
Just as we pass the ninth floor, I snuggle up to Jack, pretend to chew gum, and say in a Brooklyn accent, “I still don’t know why they charged us full price if we’re only using the room for an hour.”
By the time everyone has had a chance to react and Jack turns beet red, the elevator doors open and I pull him out. “Welcome to the Big Apple,” I call back to the shocked faces receding in the closing door.
I giggle. I can’t believe the lightness I feel. Ever since we left my old neighborhood, something’s changed in me. Something wonderful. I’ll have to think about this later.
Jack is still stunned for a moment, and then he begins to laugh. “Gladdy Gold. I can’t believe you did that.”
“Hurry up,” I say, “get me inside that cheap room, fast, before our time is up.”
He pulls me along, shaking his head in amazement. “I’m shocked.”
“Yeah, sure,” I say, a huge smile still on my face. “I wish I could read the postcard they’re gonna write from the big, bad city.”
We get to the room. He pauses with the key in his hand. “I have something else to warn you about.”
“Not another word. Just open it.”
Jack opens the door and I enter.
He groans as I look around. I’m puzzled. “These decorations came with the room?”
Next to the window on a small table is one of those cheesy little statues of a hula dancer. I turn the switch and suddenly there are revolving colors and the hula girl is dancing to the “Hawaiian Wedding Song”!
On the bed are two matching colorful green muumuus, laid out next to one another. On the hotel pillows is a shiny white taffeta throw pillow with some kind of sea theme featuring sharks. The lampshades have plastic colored beads thrown over them. I stroll into the bathroom and there are matching shark towels.
When I walk back into the bedroom, Jack is still standing at the door, stricken, as if by lightning.
“Don’t say it. I know it’s tacky.”
“You did this decorating? To perhaps make up for the lack of decorating?”
He almost blushes. “I was trying to re-create Pago Pago. This was all I could find in one of those touristy T-shirt shops.”
Ah, Pago Pago, I think wistfully. Our almost-perfect fantasy getaway. Stopped at a crucial moment of passion.
I peer suspiciously at him. “I have two questions. When did you find time to shop?”
He smiles, embarrassed. “Last night after I left you. A lot of these joints on Times Square stay open late.”
“And how did you know I would come up to your hotel room?”
That stops him. He grins shyly. “I could only hope.”
“It’s adorable. You are adorable,” I say as I pull him over to the bed and push him down onto it.
We tear off one another’s clothes, piece by piece, rolling all over the bed, laughing and kissing as our passion builds. Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful...
And Jack’s cell phone rings.
For a second we stop, startled. But then I keep kissing him madly, all over his face and neck. “Don’t you dare answer that!”
“Don’t worry, I won’t,” he says, nuzzling me and running his fingers through my hair. But he slows down.
Jack suddenly lets go of me. “Oh, God, what if it’s Patty Dennison’s cousin?”
“No, please no,” I gasp, grabbing on to him again. “Don’t pick up that phone! Remember what happened last time?”
“Just let me look at the caller ID.”
As Jack crawls over to the night table where he left the phone, I hang on to his back and drag myself with him. Jack squints to read it. He obviously needs his reading glasses. I throw my arms around his neck.
“Damn,” he says. “It is Barbara.”
He pulls himself up to a sitting position, drops his legs to the carpet, and answers the phone. I throw myself back against the pillows, gasping for breath.
I hear him say, “Yes, Barbara, the two of us can make it by three. Yes, we’ll meet you there.”
He turns and looks at me as miserable as I am. “First we have to rent a car.”
“First,” I say, “I have to scream.”
He leers at me. “We might have time for a quickie.”
But we don’t.
Why do I always think of my sister and movies she loved in times like these? Today’s movie quote would come from the end of Chinatown when everything goes wrong and Nicholson’s told, as if to explain why: It’s Chinatown.
For us, it’s Pago Pago.
STOP OR WE’LL SHOOT
“No!” Ida and Bella both say in disgust. Sophie is voted down and she sulks.
“I don’t know why you won’t
let me lie down on the steps and play the drunken rich lady.” “Because you look ridiculous,” answers Ida. “Our perp wouldn’t go near the church with something the likes of you lying there. Either he’ll be blinded by all that greenness or burst out laughing and run away. And because you already made a fool of yourself, trying to capture that nice-looking priest who did not look one darn bit like the thief.”
“Yeah,” says Bella. “I should be on the steps.”
Ida disagrees. “Bella, dear, you look suitably pathetic, but you’ll get hurt. I’m stronger than you are, and besides, I’ll get him with the rolling pin or the bug spray. Or Sophie will hit him with the toilet plunger. Then you can start whistling with your toy police whistle and wave your fly swatter.”
This discussion takes place across the street from Sophia’s Ristorante, next to St. Luke’s, where the girls are hiding in the recesses of the doorway of a small quick-copy printing establishment with their chosen weapons.
“Well, we better decide because it’s almost three o’clock,” Bella says.
Ida shrugs. “The more I think about it, the more I’m sure this will be a waste of time. What are the odds he’ll come to the place we chose? Especially in broad daylight.”
The girls look around. There isn’t a soul on the streets.
“We’re already here,” says Sophie spitefully. “So go ahead, Ida, you go lie down. I’ll wait for you in the restaurant they named after me and get a bite to eat.”
“Don’t you dare,” says Bella worriedly. “You see better than me. I need you to watch, too.”
“All right,” Sophie says grudgingly. “Besides, it looks likes it’s closed until dinnertime.” She glances out. “There’s someone walking up to the church now. So I guess we better wait.”
Ida peers out, then grabs Sophie’s arm and punches her. “It’s him! It’s him!” She looks Sophie right in the eyes. “Exactly the way I described him.”
“Where?” asks Bella. “I don’t see anyone.”
“He just walked into the church,” says Sophie. Then, realizing it, “He just went into the church!”
Reality hits. The three of them jump up and down in excitement.
“Places, everyone!” Ida yells, as she rushes across the street.
“What places? I forgot,” says Bella, turning around in circles. “Wait a minute, we never rehearsed.”
“Every man for himself,” shouts Sophie as she dashes across the street after Ida, plunger at the ready.
Everything seems to happen all at once. The thief dashes out the door of the church, his hands full of bills. He runs right into Ida, knocking the rolling pin out of her hands, but her other hand has the spray can at the ready. She squirts him in the eyes. He stops, momentarily stunned, then twists and turns in agony, rubbing his eyes and stumbling down the stairs. Where he trips over the hem of Sophie’s lime green extravaganza and falls down, knocking her down as well.
Meanwhile across the street, Bella is blowing the whistle as hard as her old lungs can manage. With her other hand she is excitedly waving her fly swatter.
Sophie and the thief are entangled as they roll down the steps together. She bats at him with her toilet plunger as they roll. “Get off my gown,” she shrieks.
“Help! Help! Someone save me!” the poor-box thief screams. “These lunatics are trying to kill me!”
What a night. It is the big finale everyone has been waiting for: the San Gennaro religious parade and pageant. The floats are gorgeous. Every restaurant on Mulberry Street has outdone itself to be the most grandiose. The neighborhood florists have been emptied of decorations.
Several bands march and play the stately “Triumphal March” from Aida, as the religious part of the ceremony, the carrying of the statue of the Patron Saint of Naples that gives the holiday its name, moves slowly down Mulberry Street.
But everyone is waiting for the last float. The news of the capture of the church robber has spread everywhere. Even the Daily News and the Post have their cameras ready. They eagerly await La Regina della Festa.
And here it comes: the biggest and grandest float of all. Sponsored by Ristorante Firenze, the entire float is decorated with poppies otherwise known as white lilies, the national flowers of Italy, and is surrounded by a hundred Italian flags. The huge float is drawn by the Pasquale Funeral Home’s polished- to-perfection black hearse. Sitting proudly in the front seat, next to her brother Gino, is Philomena Pasquale, home from the hospital with her entire head bandaged. The hearse itself is crowded with many Pasquales, family quarrels now forgiven.
Sitting high on her throne and wearing her silver tiara is the guest of honor, La Regina della Festa, Mrs. Sophie Meyerbeer, visitor from Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
It was decided to pick Sophie to be the queen since she already had a gown (slightly soiled and ripped) with the three colors of the Italian flag: green, white, and red.
Her ladies-in-waiting, Bella and Ida, have dressed up as best they could from their limited travel wardrobe. Sophie smiles down at her sulking “ladies,” and whispers, “I told you not to buy those shmattes.”
Then she turns grandly to her adoring public, and throws them kisses.
PATTY DENNISON
I look around as Jack drives down the main street of Fair Lawn, New Jersey. We are following his exact trip of a week ago.
“The good part is I have you with me this time.” Jack pats my knee. He is grinning, I assume, recalling our twenty-minute bedroom almost-adventure.
“If you hadn’t been so secretive, I could have done this with you the first time. And stubborn,” I add, thinking of how our relationship stalled, and blaming him for it.
He glances over to me. “Truly? Wouldn’t you have thought this was an impossible scheme? Besides, I was afraid to drag up your past and make you unhappy. If I failed, I’d never confess; you wouldn’t be the worse for it.”
I lean my head against his shoulder. “I can’t believe I’m actually going to meet Patty again after all this time.”
“You’re nervous, aren’t you?”
“Yes, very.”
He gives me a quick kiss on the forehead. “Have courage, my sweet.”
Jack turns into the motel parking lot. “We’re right on time and so is she. There’s Barbara standing next to the blue Ford station wagon.”
“You certainly have terrible taste in hotels and motels,” I say, making jokes in an attempt to cover sweaty palms and a tension headache coming on.
“Hey, I’m a practical man.” He grins. “That’s a virtue.”
I peer out the window. “She’s exactly as you described her.”
Jack parks the rented Toyota and we get out. Barbara Sutterfield is skittish. With a cigarette dangling from her mouth, she watches as I move toward her.
“Hello,” I say, trying to seem calm.
She examines me for a long moment. “You’re the wife.” It’s not a question. It’s as if she needs to verbalize this bizarre reality.
“Yes, I’m Gladys Gold.” I almost expect her to ask for proof of identity.
“Patty wants to see you.” Barbara doesn’t try to hide the fact that she is upset about it, but she’s apparently following orders.
Jack doesn’t try to pretend to be surprised. “Where is she?”
“I’ll show you the way. You’ll never find it yourself. You better follow me.”
We get back into Jack’s rental. Barbara’s station wagon is already heading down the highway, not waiting for him. He skids out of the driveway, tires squealing, and catches up to her.
“Touched a nerve with her, didn’t I?” I say to Jack. “She must really care about her cousin.”
Barbara turns down one deserted dirt road with no street signs after another; churning up dust clouds billowing behind her. Jack’s car is covered with it. He can hardly see out of his windshield.
Finally, she comes to a stop.
“She was right, we’d never have found this place,” Jack comments.
I feel myself tensing up.
We arrive at a run-down farmhouse, small, dingy, dreary, overpowered by woods so dense one would hardly know it was daytime.
Jack and I get out of the car. Barbara backs up until she’s parallel to where we stand. She lowers her window; her voice is tight. I can see tears forming in her eyes. “Welcome to the family mansion. I hope you get what you came for.” With that she reverses the car and races back down the road, spewing clouds of dust.
For a moment we stare at the house. Jack comments, “Guess it must have been built about a century ago.” It’s a wreck of a building. Rotted boards. Paint long gone. Torn window shades drawn on every window. Kids would call it a haunted house. And perhaps it is. This is a house of desolation. I don’t want to go inside. There can be nothing but pain in there. Anyone who would live inside is not living but merely existing.
Jack and I look at one another. “We can leave now,” he says, as if reading my thoughts.
“You know we can’t. It’s taken this long to arrive at the end of this godforsaken road. There’s no turning back.”
Jack takes my hand in his. “Whatever is in there... we have each other...”
No one answers when he knocks. We wait. The door is open. We enter into dimness. Although it’s afternoon, it seems like twilight in here. The smells of age and rot assail us. I need to breathe shallowly.
And there she is, walking toward us in the unlit hallway. More like an apparition than someone real. The ghostlike figure turns, and we follow her.
I have the silliest thought that I’m in a Stephen King novel, and in a moment the hall closet might open and reveal a monster made of coat hangers.
Patty Dennison leads us to her old-fashioned, almost primitive kitchen, where there is some light filtering in through the trees into one small window. Now we can see her. She’s sixty-three, by my computation. She looks like an eighty-year-old cadaver in a thin shapeless housedress. She wears no shoes. I think of the life I’ve led, alive and vibrant and living it to my fullest. This is a walking dead woman. Barbara knew it and had wanted to prevent me from seeing what that once eager college girl had become.