by Andrew Gross
The heartbreak of the Jersey shore and Staten Island seemed a million miles away.
But driving across the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge three days later and seeing the devastation for the first time, it looked to me as if the storm had just happened yesterday.
Homes along the shore were split wide open. Streets were still blocked with whatever the tides and winds had thrown around. A tanker was aground, with the famous message written on the hull: FEMA CALL ME! There were mountains of random debris. From the bridge I could see boats and cars still piled in streets and driveways like discarded toys. Power lines twisted at right angles. My mind flashed to the angry residents who appeared on the news, screaming about how FEMA hadn’t come around yet, how insurance companies were ignoring them, how they were living in cramped, remote motel rooms, unable to even gain access to their own battered homes. The rebuilding hadn’t even begun.
I swung off the bridge onto Hylan Boulevard. Midland Beach was about two miles south.
Where Joseph Kelty had his home.
I was lucky to even make it to St. Barnabas’s, ignoring what the GPS was telling me, searching for any street that was open. I had to walk the last three blocks on foot. The church was on Rector Street, a few blocks inland from the demolished shore.
There was a line of people leading into the church, an old red-stone Romanesque-style structure with a bell tower. I took a seat in the back and waited while the pews filled in. Finally the organist played a hymn and people turned; the family began to file down the main aisle. I saw a nice-looking man in his mid-thirties with his arm around the shoulders of a young boy. He had to be Kelty’s son and a grandson. He followed a woman who looked around my age with her husband and two kids. They took their seats. Maybe a hundred people were there. The organist stopped. Finally the priest stood up.
“O God, you are my God, I seek you,
My soul thirsts for you;
My flesh faints for you,
As in a dry and weary land where there is no water.
So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary,
Beholding your power and glory.”
“We are here today to celebrate the return of our friend and neighbor Joseph Kelty to his immortal father.”
A few people wept in the first rows. The priest went through his blessings and prayers, and when it was time to remember the deceased, he called Kelty “a little rough around the edges, except where it counted—in his heart and in his deeds.” He called him a “salt-of-the-earth, good-hearted man, who came into this life without much and would have left the very same way were it not for the bountiful blessings of his family he had built up.”
A coworker stepped up to the altar, a round-shouldered black man with a graying beard who introduced himself as “Carl. From the tunnels,” who said, “Joe Kelty was as solid and dependable a man as any who ever worked the lines.” He said he would pick up any shift when someone called in with a problem, rain or shine. “Except for his grandson Chris’s birthday. We all knew that day, June seventh.”
Several people in the pews laughed.
“And when he worked his way up to supervisor, even becoming our union rep, Joe didn’t lead by bossing people around. He had a quiet way of leading by example. He’d as soon grab a pick as quickly as any of us ‘tunnel rats’ down there. Show you how it was supposed to be done.”
Carl said they had a kind of ritual in the tunnels that when someone who had spent his life working the lines died, someone they wanted to honor, they named a section of track after him. And that “a quarter mile of the Staten Island Railway between New Dorp and Midland Beach would from this point on be known as Joe Kelty Way.”
People clapped.
“ ’Course, only those people who work in the tunnels will ever know that.” Carl laughed. “But to Joe, those were his family. After his beloved Paula, Patrick, Annette, and his grandkids. We’ll miss you, man.”
Carl sat down, and the man I’d noticed coming down the aisle stood up and went to the altar.
“I’m Patrick,” he said—a pleasant voice, short dark hair, nice build—“in case you didn’t know. And my dad was one of the quietest, most stubborn, good-hearted, but exasperating men I’ve ever known.” Several people in the pews murmured their agreement. “It was hard to get a good word out of him. ’Course, it was hard to get any word out of him at times,” he said, which drew more laughs. “That was just the way he was. Old school. He’d rather break an arm than break his word. If he told you he’d be there, he’d drive through a snowstorm for you, as he did many times when it came to his beloved MTA, to which he devoted his life. My father always said he didn’t have much, and he was right. But he always gave whatever he had. When I was young, he used to drive me out to the island for CYO hockey . . . even up to Boston, and we’d ride up together in his Ford—he always bought American!—and we’d barely exchange a word on the trip. Maybe around New Haven he’d turn to me and say, ‘Y’know, you shouldn’ta passed on that shot! Next time take it.’ I thought we were going to have this conversation, and then he wouldn’t say anything again for the rest of the trip.”
A few in the crowd chuckled.
“When Mom got sick . . .” He hesitated and cleared his throat. “. . . When my mom got sick, he took early retirement and he went with her, two times a week, every week, to the clinic. It ate up a lot of his pension, certain medications, getting her home care. Anything she needed. He didn’t flinch. And then it was his turn . . .
“I think everyone here knows, after the storm, even in his condition, there wasn’t a person who worked harder for his neighbors. For Mrs. O’Byrne . . .” He looked around for the person he was referring to. “Right, Mrs. O’B? I know she’s here somewhere. Her house was devastated and he practically cleared it by himself, brick by brick. When he went to my graduation from the academy, I know that his was the proudest face in the crowd. And he still didn’t say much!” That brought more laughter. I even found myself joining in. “But what he did say, what always stuck with me, was ‘You’re a cop now, Patrick. Be a good one.’ It was exactly who he was. Right?
“And if any of you want to honor his name, you can make a contribution to the Hurricane Sandy Relief Fund. Or better, come out and volunteer and join the rest of us down on Baden Avenue. We’re all pitching in to get these homes back in order. He’d love that. He really would.
“So bless you, Pop. You and Mom both. Whatever you were doing up there when you went off that road, I know it was for someone’s good. But I’m sure Mom is probably yelling at you now, ‘Why the hell did you even have to go up there . . . ?’ ” He glanced apologetically at the priest. “Sorry, Father Steve . . .” More chuckles.
“Well, you can work that out with her for eternity, Pop. Down here, bless you for who you were. We’ll miss you.”
He sat back down and the mass finished up. At the final hymn they wheeled Kelty’s simple casket back up the aisle, the family following behind.
His son glanced appreciatively from side to side as he went past, recognizing most, shaking a hand here and there, thanking them for being there. He stopped for a second to give a hug to someone in the row in front of me.
As he passed by, he even gave an appreciative nod to me.
As I rode back home, conflict rattled my thoughts. On the one hand, I felt guilty, hearing what a down-to-earth, honest guy Joe Kelty was. A guy who would rather break an arm than his word.
And I’d taken his money.
On the other hand, I didn’t hear a thing about anything missing from the crash site. About Kelty having lost his nest egg or his retirement funds. No appeal to the person who had taken it to turn it back in. Patrick said his father had spent the large part of his pension on his wife, who had cancer.
So where did this money come from?
No one seemed to have any idea what he was doing up there all that way from home. With half a million dollars in cash.
A salt-of-the-earth guy, I thought, as I crossed the Verrazano-Na
rrows heading back to Westchester.
Still, one thing I knew:
Joseph Kelty may have been the Rock of Gibraltar to his family or in the New York City subway tunnels.
But aboveground, he was definitely hiding something.
CHAPTER NINE
Twice a week, I take a kickboxing class at a gym in White Plains in the afternoons. That Friday I wasn’t exactly eager to go.
Finally I just decided that the best thing I could do for myself was to let off some steam. And there was nothing that did that better than delivering a spinning roundhouse sidekick combination into an eighty-pound bag.
I’d always kept myself fit. I grew up playing soccer and running cross-country in high school. In my twenties, I moved on to spinning and hot yoga. I took a little break when Brandon came along. But nothing I’d tried made me feel as strong or as empowered, or let out the stress when I needed it to, or built up the sweat like an hour of spinning, grunting, gut-crunching sidekicks—kicks that sprang not from my legs, but from my core, from deep inside my abdomen. I may be only five feet four and 115 pounds, but I’ve put my instructor, Maleak, who’s cut like a linebacker, on his back plenty of times. “Damn, girl,” he’d say, shaking his head from the mat, “there’s a whole lot of anger in you.”
“Divorce’ll do that,” I’d reply, helping him back up.
After class, I’d sometimes catch a latte with Robin, who was forty-five, and whose husband bailed on her five years ago while she was in the process of going through chemo treatments for ovarian cancer, leaving her with two kids in high school and a failing party-planning business. She was able to beat it, and was in remission now, and she’d somehow built her business back up after declaring Chapter 11. Now both her girls were in college. We’d gone out a bunch of times. For drinks or to the movies. Robin was pretty and funny, but also one of the toughest women I knew.
That day we had started talking about Brandon, and then about some guy who had asked her out, when I caught her looking at me and she finally stopped and asked if anything was wrong.
It took about three seconds for me to blurt out what was happening. Not everything, of course. But losing my job and how my finances were hitting rock bottom, and how desperate I was to keep Brandon in school. I’d always prided myself on being a person who could hold it together when things got tough. But I just couldn’t there. In my damp tights, my hair a sweaty mess, my makeup smearing, it just all came out of me.
“You’re preaching to the choir now, honey.” Robin took my hand. “We all hit bottom, but you’re a gorgeous, capable woman. And smart. I know it sounds like a cliché, but they’re only clichés because they’re generally right. You just have to suck it up and pull through.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, dabbing my eyes with a napkin. “It’s all just kind of crashing down on me right now, and I haven’t talked about it to anyone.”
“You know what they say . . .” She grinned. “The world always looks bleakest through a double mocha latte and a Starbucks napkin. Or maybe it’s at three in the morning and through a glass of vodka? I do forget.”
“Is that what they say?” I sniffed in and laughed. “You mean it’s not just me.” I took another sip of coffee and picked at a muffin. “I can adapt to anything. But it’s Brandon. I mean, what do we do, give the house to the bank, pull him out of a school that’s totally making a difference in his life, file for bankruptcy . . . ?”
“No. You definitely don’t want to go down that road. That’s your last resort.”
“Without a job, I can’t afford to even stay in Armonk, Robin. Even if I did put him in public school.”
“Hil—” She took my hand again. “It took me six years to build myself back up. My health. My credit rating. And I’m not even talking about who I was inside. What about your ex? Can’t he come to the table?”
I shook my head. “He’s broke. He’s closed down his business. I guess we’re both broke.”
“Shit—I’d call a lawyer on his deadbeat ass anyway.” She chortled. “Trust me, beats kickboxing any day for getting the endorphins going.”
“Jesus . . .” I blew out a sip of my latte, laughing. “Remind me not to get in your way.”
“Think I’m joking? For two months, I had my girls at my sister’s and I was sleeping in our warehouse,” she said, her eyes fixed on me. “Getting myself to chemo twice a week. For years, who do you think it was I visualized every time I was hitting that hundred-pound bag?”
“It was hard, huh? I mean, obviously what you went through with your health . . . But the rest. Watching the life you built up around you fall apart. Losing everything you counted on?”
Robin looked at me. This time she wasn’t smiling. “Killer. Hardest thing I’ve ever gone through. And I hope you’re not looking for any fairy tale, take-home nuggets like it was all worth it in the end. ’Cause it wasn’t. It sucked. You just do what you have to do. And first order of business, you protect your cubs, right? That’s what drove me. I’d do anything I could for them. And I did. And you will too.”
“What if there was something you could have done . . . ?” I put down my cup. “Something you didn’t want to do, but that you had kind of in your back pocket, that could have changed things. Changed everything. I mean, financially . . .”
“You got some rich dude who wants to marry you you’re not telling me about?”
“Not even a broke one,” I said. “Just if somewhere I could find some money . . .”
“Legal?”
I just looked at her.
Her eyes narrowed. “You’re not thinking about putting yourself out there, are you? In that case I change what I said. Try Chapter Eleven first.”
I laughed, and shook my head. “Gimme a break. Of course not, Robin.”
“You’d be surprised. There’re a lot of suburban moms who are finding all kinds of ways to pay for Pradas these days.”
“Well, that’s not me. Yet.”
“Good.” She took a sip of coffee and then shrugged. “Look, there’s this . . . and then there’s the other side of the road. I’ve been on both sides. And it’s dark over there. Short of maybe killing someone or robbing a bank . . . I’d do whatever you had to fucking do to take care of yourself and Brandon, Hilary. No one else will.”
She took a last gulp of her latte and there was only the slightest hint of humor in her eyes.
CHAPTER TEN
In terms of money, things were only getting worse. I threw myself into finding a new job. Steve Fisher knew someone in the market for an ad manager. I just hadn’t done that kind of work in years. All my contacts from back then had mostly moved on or were ancient history by now.
Someone else told me about someone who was looking for an accounts payable manager for a local wine distributor. The problem was, it paid only around half of what I’d been making. Enough to pay the mortgage, but no way I’d be able to cover Brandon’s school. Anyway, they were looking for someone with an accounting degree, and mine was in cultural anthropology.
I called up Karen Richards, the head of school at Milton Farms, to see if I could qualify for some financial aid. Brandon was one of their success stories and I always tried to pitch in on school events. The past two years I paid tuition on an extended monthly plan, the only way I could handle it even when I had my old job. But now I was hopelessly behind. And the spring payment months were coming up.
“Hilary, I’m afraid it’s just too late for this semester. Our funds are all allocated. And to be honest, our financial support isn’t really designed for your sort of situation anyway.”
I hesitated. “My sort of situation . . . ?”
She cleared her throat. “I’m sorry, but look at the home you live in, Hilary. Your ex-husband comes here on Father’s Day driving a new Porsche. I know I don’t really know what’s going on, but I honestly think the best solution is to work this out with him. I wouldn’t normally say this, but I noticed you’re several months behind in tuition payments . . .”
> “That’s why I’m calling, Karen.”
“Look, you know we love Brandon. We’ve all seen the improvements since he’s been here. But this is something you need to address. I’ve already spoken to the tuition company. I can only keep them at bay so long. You understand what I’m saying, don’t you, Hilary?”
“Yes. I understand.” The vise was closing.
“We’re a needs-blind school here, when it comes to aid. But I’m not sure I can run with you if this continues into next semester.”
“I hear you. I’ll figure something out,” I said.
I told Margaret Wheeler and Eileen Pace, Brandon’s social behavior and physical therapy tutors, that we’d have to put things on hold for a while.
“But he’s doing so well,” Margaret said, her disappointment clear. “Look, if this is what it’s about, you don’t need to pay me right away. We’ll work something out.”
Margaret was a retired special ed teacher. Her husband was a cop. Ten days ago I was bringing in more than they did together.
“Just for a couple of weeks, maybe,” I said. I hugged her. “Thank you, Margaret.”
I put together a balance sheet of my finances. You didn’t have to have an accounting degree to see that it was bleak.
I had twenty-six thousand left in the bank, including the thirteen and change I’d received in severance. Forty-two hundred was due every month for the mortgage. And zero chance of refinancing that now. Utilities were another six hundred. Not to mention the sixty-five hundred due next month to the town of Armonk for property taxes. Jim used to pay that, like the mortgage. But no longer. If I made Brandon’s school current, that left me only ten thousand.
The house payments alone would eat that up.
I couldn’t go to my folks again. They owed as much in unsold boats as I had in debts and it was bleeding them dry.