The Ryer Avenue Story: A Novel

by Dorothy Uhnak

  When Willie finished producing his most artistically acclaimed film in France, he wrote to Monsignor O’Brien, expressing pleasure that the filthy case had been dropped.

  Monsignor Eugene O’Brien never answered the letter.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  MEGAN WAS PUZZLED AT FIRST. THE VOICE on the phone wasn’t familiar, although the name certainly was.

  “Of course, Willie. It isn’t Paycek anymore, right? It’s Peace?”

  He was pleased. “Well, hey, I wasn’t sure you’d make the connection. I’ve been working in Europe for a couple of years, but now I’m back home in the good old U.S. of A. You know the old saying, home is where the heart is, right?”

  She tried to picture Willie Paycek, a grown man of forty. All she could visualize was a small, squinty-eyed, gray-looking kid with a shifty manner. He came right to the point of his call.

  “I have this screenplay with me. That’s why I’m on the East Coast, trying to raise some backing. It’s different from all my other projects, and I don’t want the usual Hollywood people involved. It’s sort of a psychological drama, Megan, that’s why I’m calling you. I’d like you to read it for me, before I take it around to the money guys. I want to make sure it’s technically, psychologically correct. I do research on all my work, but I really want an informed opinion on this. So, since I’m here in New York, I thought of you. You’ve got quite a reputation in your field, Megan. I’ve read a couple of your articles; and you lecture and teach and all that, am I right?”

  She was stunned. How the hell would he know any of that? She was gaining a certain reputation, but not on any greater scale than any other fairly ambitious, hard-working professional in her field.

  “So, I’d like you to read it and give me your opinion.”

  Megan protested. She knew nothing about screenwriting. She wasn’t an expert on psychological drama. Surely he knew people who did this kind of thing professionally.

  “Yeah, but you see,” he said, “when I pay for an opinion, I get the opinion I pay for, understand? You’re the ideal person to read this for me. No ax to grind. And you’ll bring a fresh approach to it—non-Hollywood, objective. Megan, I’d really appreciate it.” And then, as though telling her a secret that would hold special meaning or interest for her, he added, “It’s about a father and son.”

  Out of curiosity, she agreed to read it. In little more than a hundred pages, it told the story of a father-and-son robbery team, up against hard times and fairly new at their trade, in desperate straits for money. The son has a gun, which he promises not to use; he wants it for backup, just in case. The jewelry store is closed and deserted at midnight. No one in sight, but the theft backfires. As they exit the store, a passerby, walking his dog, confronts them suddenly. There is a brief struggle. Desperately, the father wrenches the gun from his son’s grasp. A struggle ensues between the father and the stranger. A shot rings out. The passerby falls, seemingly mortally wounded, as his dog whines piteously over him. The son takes the gun from his father’s bare hands, holds it in his own gloved hands, tells the father to run; go home. I’ll take care of things here; meet you later.

  When the father is out of sight, the son, realizing the man is still alive, leans down and fires a shot into his head, then shoots the whimpering dog. He drops the gun and leaves the scene.

  Eventually the father, having been traced via an anonymous phone call to the murder scene—his fingerprints on the death weapon—is tried, convicted, and sentenced to the electric chair. He believes, completely, that he actually committed the murder. He finally admits his guilt, and spends days getting right with his Church and his God. He is prepared to meet his fate; he is reconciled to his punishment.

  The night before his execution, he is visited by his son in his death cell. In a scene of terrible cruelty, the son tells the father not only that he killed the man, who was only stunned by the first shot, but also that he framed his father and reveled in his conviction and impending execution.

  Payback for a lifetime of cruelty. And thank you, Pop, for once in your life protecting me. Not telling anyone I was with you that night. You bastard, as though you could make up to me for a lifetime of your vicious abuse.

  The father, who has been stoically anticipating his impending death, loses control, screaming, striking out at his son, sobbing as the stunned guards fight to restrain him and rescue the younger man from serious injury.

  The movie ended with what was called “CU on Son”: the expression of a victorious, vindicated man who has seen all the scores of his life settled in one joyous last encounter with a hated father.

  Megan finished reading the screenplay and shuddered. She wondered about Willie. About his father. Had anything anywhere near this scene actually taken place, or was this the abused child’s final, fantasized revenge against a monstrous childhood? In either event, she was awed by Willie Paycek Peace and his grasp of the emotional implications of the story.

  He had insisted they meet in a very expensive French restaurant in midtown. She could bring her husband if she wished; he’d like to meet the famous children’s book writer and illustrator. But Megan saw nothing unusual about dining with another man on her own. This meeting was of no concern, or interest, to her husband. She and Mike led their own professional lives; so she spared her husband, and herself, the strain of a group meeting, and had Willie make a reservation for two.

  He looked, as Gene had told her years ago, more like Alan Ladd than Alan Ladd. She noticed heads turn, saw people whisper, puzzled, yes or no? It was eerie. He was movie-star handsome and affected a careful, bland pattern of speech. Standing straight, he was a good two inches taller than Megan, and every inch of him was easy and self-assured. His dark suit was obviously expensive, his tie was of a heavy silk, his wristwatch a flashy gold. He smiled, showing a flash of white teeth, dazzling, unfamiliar.

  “You didn’t recognize me, did you? C’mon, admit it.”

  Megan nodded. “I admit it. I never would have known you, Willie.”

  “I’d have known you. Some people never really change. Same short red hair, same freckles, and of course …” He stopped himself, but it seemed a deliberate blunder.

  “Yep. Still wearing a brace on the same old leg. It’s okay, Willie, I’ve lived with this for a long time now.”

  “But you do seem different—your limp, I mean. It isn’t as bad as it used to be. Has there been some improvement? Is that possible?”

  Megan brushed the subject aside quickly. “New kind of brace.”

  The maître d’, smiling, pleasant, obviously familiar with Willie, led them to a table in the corner, where Willie directed Megan to a chair across from him.

  She studied him frankly and grinned. “God, it’s amazing.”

  “Yeah, considering they didn’t have much to work with.”

  “No, that’s not really what I meant, Willie. But, God, you do look good, really. You look … happy. Are you happy, Willie?”

  “Hey, I got it all,” he said easily. “That stupid mess, with that lying dame and her lying daughter—it’s all straightened out. You heard about that? It was in all the papers.”

  She nodded.

  “And I got my own production company, so many movie prospects I can’t even start to choose. How about I order for both of us? I’ve been here a few times, I know the kitchen.”

  She realized this was important to him. She thanked him, lavished praise on whatever was put in front of her, whether she liked it or not. The food didn’t interest her; Willie fascinated her.

  Yeah. He’d been married—twice, in fact. Not counting that first fiasco in-name-only with what’s-her-name, you remember her? He had two kids by each subsequent marriage, and another kid or two, so it was claimed, by a girlfriend or two. Who knows? Everybody’s got a scam. He had a nice new girlfriend; no more marriage for him. Life was lived differently in his worlds, in Europe and on the West Coast. He believed in the fast lane; get while the getting was good, because it didn’t las
t forever, right?

  Hey, the neighborhood kids had all turned out pretty good, hadn’t they—the Ryer Avenue gang.

  “Jeez, look at Danny D’Angelo. Quite a step up from shoemaker’s son to newly elected senator from New York. What the hell, maybe Danny would be the first Italian-American President. What a background: war hero, assistant DA, successful private practice, U.S. congressman. Married to the gorgeous, bright daughter of a wealthy Italian wine merchant and real-estate bigwig. And now he has three little daughters.”

  Megan was amazed—and a little uneasy, without knowing why. “You sure seem to know a lot about Danny.”

  “I keep track,” Willie said quietly, “of those people who interest me. People I grew up with, especially. After all, how many people grow up with someone who might become President? And that Ben. Benny Herskel. Another smart Ryer Avenue kid. I don’t know how the hell he managed, after he got hit so bad by that bomb.”

  “Ben has managed quite well.”

  Willie knew all about Ben, it seemed—about all of them.

  “Member of the Israeli parliament, right? That’s a step in the right direction. I guess as long as a guy’s got his brains, he doesn’t need all his arms and legs. Boy, wouldn’t it be something if one day Dante was President here, and Benny was Prime Minister of Israel?”

  “Yeah. We’ve all come a long way, Willie. You’ve certainly been successful.”

  But he wasn’t finished informing her yet. “And your cousin Gene. Back in Rome now, isn’t he? Probably gonna be made a bishop any day now, and then, one day, cardinal, and who the hell knows? Maybe the first American Pope. How’s that for a kid from the Bronx?” He tapped his fork for a moment on his nearly empty plate. “And you, of course, Megan. Not only a doctor, but a psychiatrist. You sure didn’t follow the normal neighborhood-girl route.” He paused, as though deciding whether or not to ask the question. “Do you think, Megan, you’d have gone on to medical school and all if, you know, you hadn’t gotten polio? Would you have gotten married right away, right out of high school, like your old pal—Patsy, right? And just settled down to the normal life of all the other girls you grew up with?”

  “We’ll never know, will we? Things are the way they are. You’ve sure kept tabs on us, Willie. I was surprised you knew so much about my career. My articles—on women’s rights and things—aren’t really that well known.”

  “Oh, I read magazines, all kinds of stuff. Keeps me up to date. Funny how, of all of us, only Charley is a flat-out failure. A fireman, for Christ’s sake. Not much of a move up from his father’s generation.”

  “As a matter of fact,” Megan said coldly, “Charley is a lieutenant in the fire department. And the happily married father of three great kids who adore him. And he is the happiest, most well-adjusted guy I know. How can you call that failure? You’ve got a funny measuring device, Willie. Doesn’t happiness count?”

  Willie shifted easily into a neutral tone. “I guess I’m talking in relative terms. Measured against how the rest of us Ryer Avenue kids turned out:”

  With an effort, Megan relaxed, offered a smile. “Well, look at you, Willie. The janitor’s kid all grown up to be a movie mogul. You’ve done everything but act. Ever think of that—acting?”

  Willie smiled back a cold, wolfish glint of teeth. “Why, I act every day of my life, Megan. Don’t we all?”

  Carefully she said, “To some extent. I guess so.”

  “Yeah,” he said softly, leading the conversation back where he wanted it. “We were quite a group, the Ryer Avenue kids.” He hesitated, then leaned toward her and asked, “You ever think about that night, Megan? On Snake Hill?”

  Megan took a careful sip of white wine, put the glass down, and wiped her lips, raised her brows. “What night was that, Willie?”

  “Ah. So that’s the way it is. Okay by me.” He seemed to shift gears, relinquish the past, get to the present. “So now tell me. What did you think about my screenplay?”

  As a newcomer to reading scripts, she told him, she’d had a little difficulty at first with the form; but yes, she came to a point where she could visualize what she read, and when she did, it seemed to become a movie. It was very powerful stuff. Yes, psychologically correct. Yes, she said, the action of the son toward the father was credible, a form of patricide, as old as mythology.

  Willie beamed. “Great. I’m gratified, Megan; I’m very thankful. Now, here’s what I’d like you to do for me, Megan. On your letterhead, I’d like you to write that down. That it is valid psychologically, that in your opinion as a psychiatrist—”

  Megan interrupted him sharply. “Hold it, Willie. I said I would read it and discuss it with you. Period. It would not be professional for me, as a psychiatrist, to involve myself in this.”

  He snapped his fingers. “Easiest thing in the world, Megan. Just a short letter. I’d just use it to show to prospective backers, who would want to be sure it’s correct, and would be impressed as hell by your credentials and—”

  “Willie. No way. Hell, you could get that kind of letter from anyone out on the West Coast. Surely you know people.”

  For the first time his voice went low—street-kid tough and smart. “I know people all over. All kinds of sources who can give me all kinds of information. You’re becoming pretty well known, Megan; don’t be modest. I think one day you’ll be the most important woman shrink in the country. Listen, I could get from you what I can’t get from the professional yes-men on the coast. Megan, listen, I would make it well worth your while. I have contacts with God knows how many movie stars and big-shot executives who freak out when they come east because they have to leave their shrinks behind. People who will pay outrageous fees just to have someone sit and reassure them, for fifty minutes at a time, that, yes, they’re still beautiful, still desirable, still talented, still wanted. You have the credentials; I can supply you with patients who can double or triple your normal fee, and they’d eat it up. These nut cases are very lavish with their presents—you wouldn’t believe it. You’d be on easy street, Megan.”

  “Willie, you don’t seem to get it. I’m not for sale. Thanks a lot for respecting my opinion. I told you what I thought of your manuscript, which is what I said I’d do. I have a pretty full schedule, with my private patients and teaching assignments, and lectures and articles and some VA work. My professional life is well in hand. So that’s it, okay? Thanks a lot, but no thanks.”

  Willie Paycek from Ryer Avenue appeared, as if from her memory, through the handsomely crafted face; the angry, desperate boy hunched toward her, his speech patterns finally familiar, his old personality reemerging whole.

  “I’m asking for a favor, Megan. For old time’s sake. As a friend.”

  She shook her head. “We were never friends, Willie. And I’ve given you my answer, so knock it off.”

  He pulled his lips back into a bitter grimace. “You’re just the same, aren’t you, Megan? Just what the fuck makes you think you’re better than me? Your degrees? Your old man’s connections? Your family? Listen, you’re still the same crippled kid everyone made things easy for, that’s what you are. I didn’t ask much from you, but you really enjoyed turning me down, didn’t ya, Megan? Well, I remember things and people, and I have ways of finding out things about all of you. I got a latch on all of your friends, your pals, your cousins and buddies from the old days. I got stuff on all of you. I gave you a chance to do something for me, not for nothing. I was willing to do you some real good. I could do plenty for you. Huh, crippled little Megan with the peg leg everyone’s supposed to pretend isn’t there. That how you deal with it? And your husband, how does he deal with it? Can’t be very nice, having a wife who—”

  Megan pulled herself to her feet. She felt suddenly awkward, angry at herself for being clumsy in front of him. In the voice of a furious, tough twelve-year-old, she surprised herself. Her words came spontaneously. “Willie, go fuck yourself!”

  He watched with some satisfaction as she laboriously worked
her way through the narrow aisles between the closely placed tables.

  “I can also do plenty of things to you. Someday,” he whispered to himself. “Someday. All of you. Same lousy bastards you always were. Bastards.”

  Years later, when The Dark Night was produced in France, it became not only an instant hit, a prize-winner in every competition in which it was entered, but the prison film against which all future prison films would be measured and found wanting.

  The Dark Night became a classic—Willie Paycek Peace’s masterpiece.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  THE LAST TIME MEGAN HAD SEEN PATSY Wagner was at her wedding to Randolph Fenton, nearly twenty years ago. The phone call, early in the morning, had been strange. It wasn’t just the words; her voice was bright and chipper, and slightly manic.

  “Boy, I wasn’t sure you’d even remember me. I don’t know, I’ve been thinking about you—us—lately, and I’m going to be in Manhattan later today and I’ve never even seen Greenwich Village. I can’t believe you actually live there. I thought it was all a big tourist attraction—but to actually live there!” And then a long silence, and then the distress became evident not just in the voice but in the words. “Megan, could we have lunch today? Or just get together, maybe for an hour or so? Megan?”

  She hadn’t changed very much physically. Within minutes the thin, pretty face with the dark blue eyes and the perfect nose, the slightly tough mouth, became the Patsy of old, still slender and wiry.

  Everything else about her was unknown to Megan Magee.

  Patsy scanned the room, glancing at the clutter of magazines and books and paintings, at the pillows thrown around casually. It was obviously not what she was used to.

  With a grin, she said, “This place looks like something in a magazine room makeover—before.” She put her hand over her mouth, shook her head. “Oh, God, Megan, I’m sorry. I’m not at my best right now. I seem to pop out with things I should just keep my mouth shut about.”