by Gini Koch
He had a spark in his eyes, the one that meant that things were looking up, that we were on to something, and that ideas were bursting outside of the three seams of his skull. I wished I’d had a better night’s sleep, but the effects of the weekend were still resonating.
“Uptown, John. In Spanish Harlem, on Thursday. Let’s get some newspapers and refresh our knowledge of what we missed over this weekend. I think it might prove useful.”
He paused, and looked at me, thinking.
That look of his was annoying. “Go on. You want to say something to me. Spit it out. Don’t soften it up or dance around it. I’m a big boy.”
He narrowed his eyes. “You remember when we talked to Joseph in the diner in midtown? When we go uptown, just... keep your opinions to yourself. Listen for a while. I don’t have any idea who’s going to be up there, and neither do you. Observe. Reserve judgment. See what you can see, and draw conclusions unsullied by your personal prejudices.”
I didn’t know what to say—I didn’t actually have anything to say—so I just nodded.
THURSDAY AFTERNOON, WE braved the heat of the subway all the way uptown, exiting into the east side of South Harlem at 125th Street. The subway blew a blast of hot air as we came through the turnstiles and up the stairs, and it was like we’d entered a war zone.
“Jesus, Holmes. I don’t think I can breathe here for long.”
The stink was overpowering. The smell of unwashed people in the summer, excrement, and the crud from the bottom of a thousand dumpsters. The overwhelming sweet smell of rot that could make a thousand people sick in an instant. I could see the cause. Stacked by every vacant lot, burned-out shop, and apparently bombed-out building was a pile of black plastic bags boiling in the heat, oozing black sludge into the gutters.
“That’s gotta be a public health hazard, Holmes. Why doesn’t the city get on to these people to clean up this garbage? That’s just... the bacteria alone, much less the rats...”
And that’s when I saw them: the rats, swarming over the piles of garbage, almost obscured by flies, visible only by their shocking pink tails. It was an echo of a nightmare I once had in country, and I turned around and grabbed the rail of the subway exit, leaning over it to breathe in the hot air exiting from the incoming train. I never thought I would be refreshed by the smell of burning grease and ozone, but it worked, kind of.
Sherlock put his hand on my shoulder and gave me his handkerchief to put over my mouth. His voice was calm, the voice he used with me in private. “Come on, John. Let’s get moving. Let’s hope that Bill’s friend lives up some stairs where there’s a breath of fresh air.”
We walked two blocks uptown and one block east until we got to a six-story walk-up. There were garbage cans and piles of black plastic bags outside of every building. “Five-twelve. Fifth floor. I don’t think there’s going to be an elevator, do you?” The security door was shut, but opened when we tried the handle. “Kicked in.”
It wasn’t any cooler inside, and the air was stifling, though there was a tiny bit of breeze. Somebody must have left the door to the roof or some windows open. The smell was stronger. It was dark inside: the only light was a few floors up. We trudged up the stairs to five, Sherlock stopping to look out the window at each floor. He stopped at the landing, holding his hand up for me to stay still, and crouched down, looking along the floor. Satisfied, he stood up and walked down the hallway, knocking on the door to 512.
A tall light-skinned black woman with an afro that was a yard wide if it was a foot answered the door. “You Bill’s people? I’m Juanita. Come on in.” She had a Spanish accent. Puerto Rican, maybe. There were seven people around the room: Juanita, Bill, Joseph and two other Black Panthers, one with a chinstrap beard that neither of us recognized from the last trip to Harlem, and another one, taller and thinner, standing back watching us. Two Hispanic men were sitting, holding purple berets and listening to the Black Panther with the chinstrap beard, captivated by the urgency in his voice. Joseph was watching him with frank admiration on his face.
“Look, I don’t want to get into your own internal conflicts. This is up to you, not us. We’ve had good work building the Rainbow Coalition in Chicago, the people building on their shared experience of poverty and having been kept down by the Man, but in my experience, you gotta stop waiting for the Man to come up here. All that garbage down there? Look at what our Black Panther brothers and sisters are doing a few blocks over. The people and the city can’t feed their children? We’ll feed the children, like we’re doing in Chicago and Oakland with the free breakfast program. Nobody can afford a doctor? Get together and run a free clinic. Children can’t get to school because of an unsafe road? Turn up in uniform with your guns and escort the children across that road. Find some people who want to help bring power to the people. Help the people stand up and demand respect.”
The people were nodding, talking amongst each other. The woman who let us in looked around. Chinstrap beard said, “Speak up, sister. The voices of the women should be just as outspoken as the men. And you all, don’t you interrupt her, neither.”
Juanita spoke up. “Why can’t we get our brooms and everything together and sweep all that stuff up? I bet the churches would help us out.”
One of the two men waved his purple beret. “No, now, that’s their job. We pay our taxes. How can we make them do their damn job and come get the trash we been putting out for months?”
Chinstrap spoke back up. “Now hang on, brother. First, of all, let the sister speak, and second of all, the whole Black Panther party got started because Huey Newton and Bobby Seale got tired of seeing kids in their neighborhood get run over trying to get to school. They wouldn’t put in a stop light, so Huey and Bobby got some other black people to escort those children. Power from the people, to the people, for the people. Getting the people together to take care of their community. You want to see power to the people? Get the people working on something they can believe in. Look, now, I gotta go, but you can swing by the Panther office tomorrow before I get on the train back to Chicago.”
He stood up and left, nodding at us on the way out. The taller, thinner man followed him out.
“Hello, Bill. Who was the inspiring gentlemen who just left?”
“Mr. Holmes, Dr. Watson. You’ve met Juanita. The gentlemen are Paco, Ricardo, and George, and you know Joseph. That was Fred Hampton, chairman of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther party, and his bodyguard, William.”
We all nodded to each other.
“Fred left us with these newspapers. Look here, they’ve announced their Rainbow Coalition in Chicago. All the political movements of poor people are getting together, sharing knowledge and resources. Publishing together, too. The Young Lords: supposedly used to be a gang over in Chicago, but now very similar to the Panthers. They’re the Puerto Rican community. They’re doing free breakfast and all kinds of things. And they’ve got these Young Patriots.” Bill looked up at us. “They’re basically rednecks from West Virginia. There’s the Brown Berets, the Hispanic—”
“Chicano.”
“Right, right, sorry. The Brown Berets are a Chicano organization also in Chicago. They’ve announced that, and Fred came out because he heard about the garbage situation going on here in El Barrio. How long’s it been since the city picked up the trash?”
Paco looked up. “Seven weeks now. They got plenty of trucks. They drive right past it all on Third Avenue every day going downtown. They keep saying they don’t have the hours to do it, with all the strikes and everything.”
Juanita said, “Now look, what we need to do is make up a list of important things. Windows not working. The garbage in the streets. Food for the children in the community. What else?”
George stood up. “Lead paint all over these houses. Nobody knows what’s what, and our kids be getting lead poisoning.”
“Yeah. Health in general. Maybe we should make up a program for health.” Juanita seemed very organized.
Sherlock and I sat down in the corner, and he rolled up cigarettes for both of us, and then, at a nod, one for George. Joseph came over and sat next to us. “You see what I’m talking about, gentlemen? This is the power of the people coming together, here. These ideas are like a seed, made by the people, watered with their tears. That seed can grow and create fruit for the people. You met a good man tonight. Fred Hampton, he knows about the people. You get the chance, you should talk to him. You saw the Panther office here? You should see the one in Chicago. Dozens, hundreds of people. They been fighting the pigs for years. Fred’s Rainbow Coalition? He’s bringing all the gangs in Chicago together. Thousands of soldiers to get educated and fight the Man for the people, you know what I’m saying?”
We sat and smoked and watched Bill and the Puerto Ricans discuss what needed to be done. Bill had a slight smile on his face, and he occasionally looked out the window.
WE SAT THROUGH hours of ideas and planning based on hope. I kept my mouth shut, like Sherlock asked. We smoked and filled ashtrays, and when Juanita went to clear them, I jumped up and found the garbage cans in the corners. I emptied the ashtrays twice, before the Young Lords left. Juanita came back from letting the men out.
“You guys need anything? Water? Coffee? I’ve got to get to bed, I think.” Juanita stretched with a yawn.
Bill smiled at her. “It was good work here, I think. This is the kind of stuff that changes things, you know? We’re okay. We’ll take a pitcher of water but we’re just going to talk about some stuff.”
“You do what you want,” Juanita said. “You know where everything is. I’ll see you in the morning. Your sheets are there behind the sofa. At least all this smoke will keep away the smell from the street.”
We bid Juanita good night and went to sit down.
“Well, Mr. Holmes? What have you discovered?”
“At the least, Bill, someone’s opening your mail. At least some of it. You’re being watched, by persons unknown, and you should be very, very careful with what you do and say.”
“What? Why? Who?” Bill seemed calm, calmer than I would be. It was almost like it was an intellectual exercise, to understand the forces at work around him. Like it was just confirming that the world that he knew was actually just as awful as he’d thought it was. “How do you know?”
Sherlock opened his bag and pulled out the thick envelope that Bill sent us, the one that, months before, he’d dissected with such attention.
“I didn’t just tear open this envelope when I got it. I examined it. Look, here, where the flap was glued down. See that? That’s been steamed open and re-glued, but you can tell it’s a different glue from the original, if you look on the inside. I suspected as much, so I slit it open with a knife rather than tear it. Whoever did it was careful enough to line up the glue on the outside. It’s careful enough to pass an average examination, but when you peel it away from the inside, you can see it right away. See where it peels, then sticks again? That’s the re-gluing line.
“Then, when you get to the contents, look here, at the corners of each of your photocopies. See that faint crease? That’s where someone picked them up one by one. They’ve been put on a copier glass, photocopied, and picked back up. Someone’s hands pinched the same corner of each paper. I assume you didn’t copy your copies? No. I didn’t think so. You can see two sets of thumb smudges on your notebooks—yours, and someone with larger hands. Remember how I showed you on your other notebook? We haven’t even got into the actual contents, but we have evidence, Bill. Someone’s reading your mail, and I can only hope that they haven’t figured out who we are. I rented the PO box under a pseudonym but if they were watching it... well, we can’t stop that.
“I reviewed the papers that were published out from under your nose. You’d appear to be right. None of the people who published your research seemed to be a particular expert in number theory or set theory, but they did groundbreaking work, seemingly out of nowhere. They’re from all over the country, some top-tier institutions and some second-tier. I can’t find any pattern as to why these academics would take your work, or why someone would send it to them. There are a couple of interesting points, though. First, I can’t find out who’s funded the research in any of these cases. That may not be unusual for a single paper—sometimes people forget, or it isn’t significant enough to mention—but in six papers, it suggests a pattern. Second, I’ve read the papers and gone over your notes and in two of the six cases you have notes on additional pages that go beyond what’s been published. They’ve published papers based on flawed reasoning, reasoning which you’ve already solved in your notes. There may be more, but I didn’t have the entire contents of your notebooks. I would hazard a guess that you could publish responses, cleaning up the others’ work; show your work as evidence and get the credit for yourself. But I’d ask you to wait. There are a number of possibilities as to who’s watching you, most of which are unpleasant, if not downright dangerous. I’ve got an idea, though, how to flush them out, if you were willing to work with us?”
“If you’ve figured out all these things, Mr. Holmes, then you’ll know that I’m not one to resist tweaking the nose of those in power. I’m a fan. As long as it gets results.”
“Excellent. Did you bring your notebooks? I have some suspicions and I’d like to spend some time with them.”
Sherlock and Bill shook his hands, and we spoke late into the night. I had known that he was brilliant, but now I realized I should never, ever get on his bad side.
eight
GARLANDS ON A STONE WALL
JUDY GARLAND DIED that Sunday, and the world went into mourning. A least, that’s what you would have thought if you put on the television or picked up a newspaper. We got a message, via Tyrone: we were summoned to the presence of Andy for the funeral. Andy was going to tape record everyone’s reaction as they passed by the casket, and we were an essential part of his vision. It would be some sort of happening, or something. Bring Obetrol.
“Why don’t we blow it off, Sherlock?”
“No, John, I think there’s something in it. We should go. Believe it or not, there might be the thinnest of threads between Bill and his young people and Andy’s world downtown. It’s definitely worth a little time to have a look.”
We took the subway uptown and went to the funeral home on 81st Street until we realized just how long the line was going to be. It went out and snaked down to 80th at least.
We wandered down the line until we saw Andy and Candy Darling. Candy had her hair curled in finger waves and Andy was, despite the heat, in a white turtleneck with a tape recorder over his shoulder, pointing his microphone at people and fiddling with the buttons.
“Mind if we join you?”
“Oh, hello, Doc. Yes, I’ve been saving a space for you. We hardly see you around anymore, do we, Candy? Why is that, Doc?”
“What do you mean? I come around, but no one lets me past the desk out front. It’s all turned into business.” I had an idea for a joke. It was stupid, but I liked the idea of stupid at this moment. “Speaking of, Andy, look: Andy. Candy.” I pointed at each of them, and then opened my hands. “Andy Candy.”
Andy smiled daggers at me, but he helped himself to what was in my hands. Candy wasn’t shy either. They both looked like they could use a cup of coffee, or something stronger. I didn’t have any coffee, just something stronger.
“Oh, look, there’s Ondine. Hello, darling. You haven’t been around much at all. Where have you been keeping yourself? Got yourself lost in a big old orgy? You know you should let me watch.”
Ondine looked tired. Not in a strung-out Factory sort of way, he looked like a normal person who was just tired after a long day. It was odd. He’d put on weight: the hollows in his cheeks were gone, and he had the color of someone who saw the sun, and not just after a long night out.
“Hey, Andy, Doc, Candy Darling.” Ondine performed a perfect cheek kiss with Andy and Candy, raising and lilting his hands. He stood there smiling. �
�How are you, Holmes?”
Sherlock nodded and looked him up and down. “How’s life over in Brooklyn, Ondine? Working for the postal service, are you?”
“I just can’t see how he does that. Do you know, Doc? Andy?”
Andy actually looked surprised, for a second, before settling back to his typical sneer.
“Uniform pants, and the shoes. I’m sure you wouldn’t be caught dead in polyester otherwise. You’re spending time outside and it hasn’t killed you. That smudge of mud on your feet has the characteristic multi-colored hues of Gowanus mud. Letter carriers start off in the worst routes of New York, figuring that if you can’t handle the canals and back streets you wouldn’t be of any use. Rites of passage, hazing, whatever you want to call it. How am I doing?”
Ondine smiled the stupidest grin I’d ever seen. It reminded me of Ward Cleaver. This was a different person from those who had tossed us out of the Factory back in October. This was someone I didn’t even know.
“It’s amazing, Holmes. You know just what to tell a girl.”
“I never thought you’d be the monogamy type, though, Ondine. You were so free-spirited. I assume you’ve stopped taking speed completely, or just for a bit?”
“See? Right again. Can you imagine that? Me, off speed and with just one steady lover. Freddy. We started off less exclusive, but he was the first person that wasn’t interested in getting into the Factory scene, you know. It’s nice, though. Yeah, Andy, I’m working as a mailman, can you believe it? I’m in Brooklyn with Freddy, and we’ve got this place, just a little place, half-basement of a brownstone, really, but it’s ours. Steady job, hot in the summer, cold in the winter, but neither drugs nor orgies nor crazy art will stop this courier from his appointed rounds. Something like that, anyway.”