The Sacrificial Circumcision of the Bronx
Page 21
He pressed on for a couple more hours before he started shivering. Fortunately, he came upon a dried-out tree, so he snapped off some of the smaller branches, peeled strips of dried bark, and rolled them into a tight bundle. Using matches he still had with him from the underground storage depot, he lit a fire at the base of the tree. After a few minutes, the trunk was up in flames. He flopped the dead lizards on the fire and warmed himself while they cooked. Soon their skins were black and bubbling. When they cooled down, he ripped the short little limbs from one of them and chewed slowly. They were rubbery as hell, but they tasted good. He intended to save the other two cooked reptiles for later, but after months of C-rations, the roasted meat was just too tempting and he gobbled it all down. He spent the remainder of the night and most of the following day in a cool little rock hollow resting up for more hiking. Without even thinking, he drank through nearly half the container of water.
44
At the main branch of the library on 42nd Street, Paul began reviewing published dissertations and scholarly articles to try and figure out how to turn a hundred-plus cylinders of radioactive material into a bomb. All bombs required a shell, an explosive element, and a detonator, but instead of shrapnel, the most deadly part of Paul’s creation would be the pitchblende. The lead safe that Leon had gotten for him could serve as a bomb shell. The real trick was finding enough dynamite to blow it open along with the lead cylinders inside. It all came down to cash. When Paul mentioned this to Leon, his friend asked how much was required.
“Maybe a thousand dollars for a box of dynamite.”
Leon told him they could earn it scrapping.
That summer, the two men worked hard at cutting, grinding, and compressing ferrous and nonferrous metals from Leon’s yard, then hauling them down to a blast furnace and other recycling plants.
“You know,” Leon said tensely, seeing the yard clearer than he ever remembered it, “I wish to hell your brother would cut the crap and allow O’Malley to build that fuck-ing stadium in Brooklyn.”
“I wish my brother would die painfully.”
“I mean, think about it, the Brooklyn Dodgers should be in Brooklyn, not Queens. Am I right?”
“Sure, but hell, O’Malley’s not being particularly flexible on location.”
In the hot days of August, Paul woke up one afternoon with a hangover and realized that Leon was still in bed. His buddy had been nauseous for several days in a row.
“You should lay off the sauce for a while,” Paul suggested that evening, after working the entire day on his own.
“I don’t think that’s it,” Leon said, struggling to get out of bed. Aside from his increasingly pale complexion, Leon was suddenly losing his hair. When Paul went to the bathroom, he saw that the sink was splattered with blood. Leon said it was nothing—his gums were bleeding, big deal. It was obviously more than that, and Paul convinced him to go to Cabrini Hospital. Leon was immediately diagnosed with late-stage leukemia.
“I was healthy as an ox till a few weeks ago,” Leon said, barely able to breath.
“It’s very odd, getting leukemia so quickly,” the doctor said. “Do you know if any other members of your family had it?”
“No,” Leon said tiredly.
“You must’ve been exposed to something that brought it on,” the doctor speculated. He prescribed Leon a full menu of painkillers and antibiotics. Because he didn’t have much money and didn’t want to die in the charity ward, Leon asked Paul to help him back to his yard. Paul cared for him attentively, never voicing his fear that the crap in those shoe-fitting machines was somehow responsible. The following month consisted of nonstop nosebleeds, diarrhea, bedsores, and significant weight loss since nothing stayed in or down.
“I think that this might’ve been my own fault,” Leon finally confessed.
“What do you mean?”
“I think this is what happens when you get radioacti-vated. Shit!” he mumbled, coughing. “I knew I shouldn’t have …”
“Shouldn’t have what?”
“One day while you were down at the library, I took one of those things from the safe.”
“One of the cylinders?”
“Yeah.”
“What did you do with it?”
“Nothing, really. I mean, first I drove out to Queens …”
“Where?”
“Flushing.”
“Why?”
“So the Dodgers would have to stay in Brooklyn,” Leon said.
“Where’s the cylinder? Leon, you didn’t empty it, did you?”
“No. I opened it and poured a little onto some newspaper.”
“It just poured out?”
“Just like dark sand. Then I poured it all back in.”
“How’d you get it open?”
“The little side panel slides open easily with your finger. It’s held shut by a spring.”
“Where is it now?”
“I put the cylinder back in the safe—but I never even touched the stuff!”
Paul said not to worry. Leon apologized.
Later, Paul took the old Geiger counter apart and carefully checked its bottom board lined with test tubes. When he prodded one of the old wires, the needle of the counter started bouncing. He managed to get the thing working again, so he put on the lead smock and walked around the scrapyard, where everything seemed fine. Checking inside Leon’s truck, however, the dial flipped all the way to the red side and stayed there. Paul then went to the lead safe and opened it up. Again the Geiger counter’s dial swung into the red. He closed the heavy door.
Paul carefully hosed down the interior of the truck, then tossed his clothes into the garbage bag and took a long shower. He got dressed, made some chicken soup for Leon’s lunch, and helped him to the bathroom and then back to bed.
“I have something to tell you,” Leon said later that afternoon in a hoarse whisper. “I put the house and yard in your name.”
“Why?” Paul asked.
“I don’t have any other relatives, so I thought you’d be best.”
“But I’m an old man,” Paul replied.
“You still need that box of dynamite, right?”
“Oh God.”
“We didn’t start this battle,” Leon rasped.
“I guess not.”
“They can’t just tear a community in two … and expect to get away with it.”
“That’s true.”
Leon looked strangely content.
When they heard the news on TV that the Dodgers were indeed leaving Brooklyn at the end of the year, neither man said a word. On September 24, 1957, Paul and Leon watched as the Dodgers played their final game in Brooklyn against the Pittsburgh Pirates. They won 2-0.
A few nights later, Leon said he had something to tell Paul.
“I’m listening.”
“Remember that first time …” Leon was having difficulty breathing and could barely keep his eyes open. “Remember that morning when you came into the kitchen at Lucretia’s … and you saw me sitting there eating breakfast?”
“Yeah.” Paul remembered feeling his heart break, assuming she had slept with him.
“I just want you to know … we didn’t … we didn’t do nothing.”
“What do you mean?”
Leon smiled softly and said, “It was her idea, and I probably shouldn’t tell you, but she … she was trying to … to make you jealous. She called and asked me … to come by early and tiptoe in …” Paul chuckled. “Hell, we waited an hour before you … before you entered the kitchen.”
“What are you saying?”
“She loved you and you wouldn’t …”
“But you were her boyfriend, weren’t you?”
“Never really been a ladies’ man,” Leon said softly. “Anyway, I guess Lucretia’s plan worked.”
“And all this time I thought—” Paul broke out laughing, as did Leon. Paul spent the rest of the night reveling in how clever—if not conniving—Lucretia had been. She had always
seemed so naïve.
Leon died six days later. When Paul found the empty bottle of sleeping pills under the bed, he wasn’t wholly surprised. He called the police and had the body taken away, then arranged a funeral. Among others, Lori, Bill, Charity, and Bea came. He hadn’t seen his daughter in nearly a month, so she rushed up to him as soon as she arrived. He lifted her in the air and kissed her face all over.
Seeing his daughter in a pink outfit that matched Charity’s dress, he knew that Lucretia would never have bought something so gaudy. That thought brought on a flood of memories of Lucretia’s death six years earlier, and sitting across from Leon’s open casket, he started weeping softly for his wife.
Two days later, Paul used Leon’s pickup truck to purchase a bunch of supplies, then returned to the scrapyard. With a jackhammer, he tore a small square opening through the pavement at the outer edge of the property. The next morning he dug a hole six feet into the earth.
Using two-by-fours, Paul slowly hammered together a frame. That week, he mixed and poured several bags of concrete, fashioning a small container in the earth. When it dried, Paul carefully lowered the lead safe with the 103 cylinders down into the shaft. He topped it off with an additional bag of concrete, then covered the shell with dirt.
He didn’t want to ever think about building a bomb again. His friend had died because of it—he didn’t want to kill himself and Lord knows how many others just to get back at his brother. Most importantly, though, he certainly didn’t want his little girl to become known as the daughter of one of the most evil men New York had ever produced. All plans to build a bomb were officially off.
Soon afterwards, he sold the pickup truck. Next, he took the title to the property to the Mark Lukachevski Real Estate Agency on East Tremont and put the scrapyard and house on the market.
“How much do you think you can get for it?” he asked Lukachevski, a man he had come to know in the neighborhood over the years.
“At this point, you’d have a difficult time even abandoning it,” the man replied earnestly.
Paul packed his few things at Leon’s house and moved back down to the old Times Square dive where he had lived when he first met Lucretia years ago. It was as if he had only been gone a day.
Uli felt relieved that Paul had abandoned his suicidal plan to attack the city. He had come to assume that this bombing scheme was the very reason he was having these memories, so he wondered anew what his relationship with Paul Moses signified.
Uli crawled out of his nook and scanned the horizon for any sign of his hallucination. As usual, she was being coy.
While he slovenly marched forward into the barren landscape, a symbol kept popping into his head:
He had seen it on the sign of Water Station 27. He figured it must be pointing to the next station. But then he froze. They’re probably all in a direct line! Uli had been too distracted by Paul’s grief and the Armenian guide to recognize the clue. He had to go back. Only from Water Station 27 could he hope to find 28.
45
Sitting on a wheeled cart at the library, Paul noticed a bound collection of back issues of University of Pennsylvania Alumni Quarterly. While perusing through several recent editions, he spotted an item from three years back. Under the heading Class of 1915, it read, We’ve established a fund to assist one of our dear colleagues who is in special need. Millicent Sanchez- Rothschild worked tirelessly on behalf of the poor in Mexico and now needs our help. Please donate to …
There was a name listed that he didn’t recognize, Irena Martinez-Smith, along with an address on the Upper East Side. At first he was going to write a letter. But since it was a nice day and the woman lived only a mile or so from the library, he headed up to her apartment on 69th Street and First Avenue. He stopped at a diner along the way to comb his hair and straighten out his ruffled suit in the bathroom. Then he located the building and rang the bell. A handsome young man answered.
“I’m looking for a Mrs. Martinez-Smith,” Paul said.
“What about, may I ask?”
“I saw that she posted a notice for funds for a Millicent Rothschild—”
“Mom!” the man shouted upstairs. He quickly vanished and an older woman came to the door.
“Can I help you?”
“I used to be good friends with Millie years ago, and I saw your notice. Since I live nearby,” he lied, “I thought I’d just knock on your door and ask how she was doing.”
“You knew Millie in Mexico?”
“No, here. I went to Princeton though I ended up going down to Mexico with her. That was over forty years ago.”
“What’s your name?”
“Paul Moses.”
“Yes, Pablo, I remember her writing about you.” She invited him inside, offered him a cup of tea and scones, then told him, “Millie was disinherited by her family.”
“You’re kidding.”
“They completely turned their backs on her when she went down there to join the revolution. She was fighting against people her own father had put in power.”
“I remember. Is she okay?”
“She came back from Mexico a number of years ago. She had problems there. She got arrested in the ’30s and spent a few years in jail, where she lost her sight.”
“She’s blind?” Paul felt numb at hearing this.
“Yes. After a while she was finally getting along, but then she had to move …”
“Where is she?” Paul was trying to hold back tears.
“She just got a new place, but it’s all the way down in the Battery. On Bond Street.”
“Is there a phone number?” Paul asked eagerly. “Can I call her?”
“She doesn’t have a phone yet. That’s one of the reasons I’m trying to raise money for her. She was so popular and beautiful back then. There were so many boys chasing after her. I remember one of the Rockefellers was gaga over her. He was good looking too. Would’ve given her the world, all she had to do was take it.”
“I know,” he said, almost ashamed to be among them.
“Did you know she scored number one in her sophmore class?”
“I didn’t know that.” At least if he did, he had forgotten.
“Smart, attractive, she could’ve really been something,” the woman said sadly.
Paul knew that she meant Millie could’ve been married to a powerful man, because he also knew that Millie couldn’t have lived her life any other way than she had.
Millie now resided on 98 South Bond Street. He thanked the woman for her time, then walked over to Lexington Avenue and caught the 5 train down to the last stop in Manhattan. Forty-five minutes later he was walking around the Battery looking for her address.
When he finally found her building, which had no downstairs doorbell, it was already 5 o’clock. It was located behind Fraunces Tavern, one of New York’s oldest pubs. The ancient warehouse looked like it had been built back when the English ruled. Staring up, he wondered how he could get inside. He considered yelling out her name, but if she was on the top floor he didn’t want to make her come all the way downstairs, particularly if she was blind. Wall Street workers were just leaving their offices. Paul waited as the rush hour crowds passed by, hoping someone might enter the old building. After an hour or so, he approached the chipped and warped door. When he pushed it, it rattled. With a sharp thrust of his shoulder, the door popped open.
Paul slowly climbed the long, steep, splintery wooden steps. Halfway up the exhausting ascent he began remembering the last time he had seen her. He had left her in anger in revolutionary Mexico and was returning to New York to take his rightful place as the prodigal son of a privileged New York family. Now, other than the fact that he was still alive, he had nothing to offer her.
When he knocked on the door, he could hear someone rumbling around inside.
“Who is it?” a rusty female voice called out.
“Millie, it’s me!”
“Who?”
“It’s Paul, Paul Moses.”
“Millie, I can’t believe it.”
“Paul!” She reached out and grasped him. He hugged her so hard he realized he was hurting her, but she didn’t utter a peep.
“I’m so glad you’re still alive,” he said cheerfully.
“It took me years to understand that I took you for granted!” she replied, tears streaming down her face.
“I can’t believe you’re back in New York.”
Her hand grazed along his face to feel his expression. As he smiled, her fingers danced along his lips and cheeks and he kissed them.
“Do you know how many times I prayed that I had left with you all those years ago?” she said, hugging him. “Almost every day since you left.”
She brought him inside and made some tea. In the fifteen years after he left Mexico, various revolutionary governments had abused the sacred trust of the country’s people and were quickly replaced. She had attempted to keep a foothold, working with different regimes who supposedly shared common goals.
“Tens of thousands died during those years of infighting,” she explained. “At some point you realize that you’re no better than those you’re fighting against.”
Eventually, a coalition government was established. She thought the worst was over and was soon appointed to the government as one of the three Under-Ministers of Education. Everything seemed to have stabilized for a short while. In 1932, however, one of the more ruthless generals who she had briefly collaborated with was brought to trial.
“It’s ironic—we all celebrated when we heard the son of a bitch was arrested.”
But in an effort to gain his own freedom, the general had implicated Millie and three others. He was ultimately executed, but she was indicted as a coconspirator in a complicated debacle that had led to the slow death of thirty orphans. Millie ended up spending five years in a women’s prison outside of Mexico City. It was there that she started going blind, developing something called macular degeneration, which went untreated. She was also under constant attack as a convicted child killer, and after one of the many prison riots, she was brutally beaten and raped by several guards. When she was released in 1938, she was so sick she was unable to walk.