by Todd Cohen
Alex had a loving wife, Joanna, and three adorable little kids. He was on his third marriage, and this one turned out to be a real doozy. “Maybe I’ll have better luck like Alex the second time around,” I said to myself.
“Alex, I need your help.” I gave a big man hug to him with my weepy eyes. Alex knew everything about me. “First, I lost my money, and today I lost my job, and now my wife! I was literally fired from Mount Sinai and came home early to find Shari screwing someone half my age.”
He just hugged me back and said, “The living room couch is all yours. I’m there for you, man.” He said it with all his heart. “C’est la vie, c’est la guerre!” There was no way I was going to sleep at home, and Alex’s was the only place I could go.
Oh, and by the way, news predicted a Frankenstorm called Sandy, a confluence of a tropical storm, coming up from the Caribbean, meeting with a Nor’easter. It was supposed to hit New York!
“Never will happen,” I thought. “Just another overhyped media blitz!”
Chapter 23
Unlike almost every other storm, Sandy did hit New York on that Monday night. I was at Alex’s place, on the living room couch. Windows rattled all night, and at seven a.m. a tree crashed onto the roof. Water started pouring into the dining room. Alex grabbed a bucket and put it under the roof leak. The bucket quickly flooded, and the water cascaded over their floor. I grabbed some bathroom towels and Alex emptied the bucket and brought it back. We were fighting a losing battle; the floor would soon buckle from our failed efforts.
And then I got the call!
If I had any doubts about where I was headed with my life, Sandy helped solidify the issue. Hurricane Sandy, that is. Yup, the big one that hit New Jersey and New York at the end of October! Like Hurricane Carter, this one delivered a knockout punch to Long Island, with massive power outages and flooded basements and floors.
Then it happened!
My cell phone rang.
Charley called me in a panic. “Dr. D., I’m in Asia and my house watcher phoned me and gave me the news. First floor is under water. Corbusier, Knoll, Eames, all the stuff under water. And the basement—submerged. Hot water heater, burner all replaced after Irene, and now this! You gotta help me out!”
“But, Charley, I have to check out my patients,” I said.
After this knee jerk response, I realized: I don’t have any patients. What was once a flourishing medical career is now over. Ended! Finito! Gone! And my marriage—another finito, gone as well! I wasn’t even thinking of my place. What if that was gone?
“Charley,” I backtracked, “I can be out at your house in an hour!”
Alex had a spare generator and leant me his Honda Pilot. He always had a bunch of gadgets and gizmos to make things happen. He threw a Generac 5500 generator in the back of the Pilot as if it was nothing. Then he placed a couple of filled gas cans, blowers, a water pump, a fire hose, and a few heavy-duty extension lines in the back. “Nice to have friends like you,” I thought.
Chapter 24
One hour later, I zipped past the Bridgehampton Bank and went to grab a cup of Joe at Hampton’s Coffee. I was surprised to see it open, but it was running fine on their back-up generator. Hampton’s Coffee was where locals regained some sense of normality, plus there was an added bonus. Outside the shop there was a large handwritten cardboard sign that read:
We Survived Sandy, Please Enjoy a Free Beverage and Pastry on Hampton’s Coffee
“MD, back so soon?” said Terry, the store’s owner. She was a true Westhampton gem who made everybody feel like family. Every summer she would house exchange students and give them a summer job in her café. She was always quite benevolent, and this time was no exception. Here’s your decaf Hazelnut latte with steamed skim milk and one Splenda. Just the way you like it!” said Terry. “Hey, how’d you make out in the storm?”
“Not so good back home. Power still out, and trees destroyed my pool and spa. I’m out here to check out both my place and the Weisbergs’. Lucky for Mr. G,” I said.
“Hey, who is that, your house guy?” she said.
“No, that’s the portable generator I borrowed from my friend. It’s a lifesaver. Bailed me out with Irene, and got my sump pump going. Other neighbor has a 100,000-watt industrial-sized generator, dwarfing this little 5,500-watt guy, but it does the job. About time I put in a fixed generator, but I just don't have the cash. I’m here to help out Mr. Weisberg. His place is a mess I hear.”
“Good luck, and here’s your sugar-free corn muffin,” she said.
Her sugar-free corns are a local legend. Apple juice for flavor, not the refined glucose that leads to diabetes.
Chapter 25
I headed down Mill Road, past the Seafield Estate. That one survived the Great Hurricane of 1938 and the Perfect Storm of 1991 and is still standing. Their dock was way up on their ten acres of lawn, but otherwise no worse for the wear. Like the majestic East Egg mansion from the Great Gatsby stared out upon the Long Island Sound, the Seafield Estate stared out on Quantuck Bay. But now it was all boarded up with plywood.
“Nice to have a crew to put that up all over that sixteen thousand-square-foot monster,” I thought. Still, the cedar-shingle facade looked unfazed by this disaster. “Yup, the Seafield lives and breathes for another day,” I surmised.
I turned, right past Turkey Bridge, then down Homans Avenue. What was normally a well-hedged Hampton’s lane had multiple downed trees cut in half to allow cars to pass. The flooded road had sea debris, but the water had receded back to the bay, and I was easily able to pass. There was still no power in the neighborhood. Only occasional candlelight flickering in the window or a dim generator-driven house light could be seen, but almost all the houses were pitch black. Black, partially from the storm but partially from the fact that they were second-home toys for the rich and famous. I first pulled into my driveway and quickly looked at my home, the so-called “shed on the block” the sea debris had not reached the first floor. One downed tree and some minor basement flooding, but not much to speak of, given the circumstances. The worst of it was the mangled dock, which broke apart and wedged against the wetlands. My house was okay. I grabbed my cell phone out of my pocket to take a snapshot to send to my kids. I saw a text from Jason:
“House in Port is okay, just no power. We’re staying warm in front of our gas fireplace. Have hot water. Great for showers, and we’re cooking on gas stove. Bridgette says Hi as well. Mom’s been acting weird. Crying a lot! Do you have a clue, Dad?”
I snapped a picture of our vacation house and sent it back to Jason with the following text:
“Glad to hear from you. Here’s our place. It survived. No power out here. Let everyone know I’m okay.” I wasn’t going to get into any of the crap that happened between their mother and me.
I drove next door to Mr. Weisberg’s compound. His place was also hedged. “Must have been his yearly bonus at Goldman Sachs,” I thought. To me, his place was enormous. Unlike “my shed,” it sat lower on the property and was a total washout.
Moving past the hedges into his private retreat, past broken branches, dock remnants, even half a dingy, I parked on the side. I had never been past the entryway of the Weisberg compound.
Now I would finally see what was inside.
As I walked up to the door, I reached beneath the mat to retrieve the key. The mat was damp, but the key was still there. I took the key and opened the door. What was once an opulent Vanderbilt-style interior with contemporary furniture was now a complete wreck! Large puddles flooded the oak floors. The furniture was still wet, and there was sea muck everywhere.
I opened all the doors and windows to air out the foul smell.
“Imagine, a guy of Mr. Weisberg’s stature without a backup generator,” I thought.
Chapter 26
I was so upset by the scene I forgot to look at the wall. And there it was, staring right at me, the pure example of the wealth of the Hamptons, hanging right above the fireplace.
Not even out of kilter. And across from the Pollock was a characteristic Lee Krasner work from the same period, sitting over a large, open breakfront. Pollock and Krasner were husband and wife, and like me, Krasner had to endure the hardship of her spouse’s drinking and infidelity. “Could my marriage survive the same?” I thought. “Fuck, no!” I shouted, even though there was no one to hear me. This couple comparison was not helping my mental status. Better focus in on the job ahead, and more precisely, what was up on the wall, right in front of me.
Two masterpieces! Priceless treasures from two of the greatest artists ever to be seen in the East End of Long Island, or the world, for that matter. Who would imagine putting these pieces on the wall of a waterfront home? I remembered a number years ago in the New York Times a write-up of a similar Pollock painting selling at Sotheby’s for $140 million.
Pollock No. 5. The actual name was No. 5, 1948. I had an uncanny memory when it came to numbers. I did this by linking an image to the number. Visualization was the trick. The image here was of my Pollock-esque Uncle Billy creating the Pollock painting. You see, Uncle Billy’s birthday was July 5, 1948. And he always had us down for a Fourth of July party down at his White Meadow Lake house. Just seeing the painting unleashed the specifics stored within my cerebral cortex. Pollock No. 5, 1948.
Weisberg could have bought a dozen Hamptons waterfront estate compounds with the price of just that painting. And there it was, staring out with its brown and white drips, built upon black and yellow drips, with greys and oranges. I think there were even a few red splatters and what appeared to be two cigarette butts right on the canvas. You probably couldn’t tell the difference if seaweed and salt water hit this drip painting—maybe it would even have added to the effect.
The Krasner painting was four by seven feet and like the Pollock was also an abstraction. But Krasner’s abstract curvilinear and triangular shapes built upon raw canvas were far less recognizable even to a seasoned art lover than the Pollock. Lucky for me, while attending a cardiology meeting in the late 1990s, I went to the Krasner retrospective at Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Krasner was more than just Pollock’s wife. Her collages were from the early 1950s. She used her color field paintings from the Betty Parsons Gallery and applied torn shapes on top of the surface. This one had curved black collage elements placed over a green, blue, and orange color field painting. At the bottom, I could make out the initials L.K. blending in with the oval figures. She was the only woman in the so-called New York School, and her art stood on its own. Much more geometric than the Pollock, her piece was heavily impastoed and seemed to be playing with the Pollock across the room.
I pulled out my iPhone and snapped two photos of the Pollock, one in ambient light, the other with the flash. I proceeded to take two shots of the Krasner and then a dozen more of the damage to show Mr. Weisberg. I left the paintings on the wall, not wanting to try to lift them off, fearing more damage. Plus, where would I put them, on the sea-soaked ground? These paintings did not even shift one inch. They were both securely coupled to the wall. And that was the safest place for them for now.
Heading past a black, yellow, and red metal hanger-like contraption that was twisted on the floor, I remembered it greeting me when I first met the Weisbergs in their entryway. A classic black, white, and red Calder mobile, now twisted beyond recognition, swimming amongst the muck on the floor. I plucked it out of the debris and wiped the painted coat hanger-like metal on my shirt, then placed the mangled stabile on the granite island in the kitchen. What was a perfectly balanced mobile was now a bent, colored mess.
The next job was to pull each piece of furniture onto their deck and some of it onto the driveway. Then I trekked down to the basement. The flood came halfway up the stairwell. I unraveled my three-inch-thick fire hose, placing one end deep underwater, and fed it up the stairwell to my pump out back. Once connected, the water pumped briskly onto their lawn.
As I walked out the front door, I heard a scream from across the street!
Chapter 27
Get help. Mr. Vicks is down—he’s not breathing!” shouted a voice from across the street.
Samuel Vicks was a senior statesman. The Vicks once owned the whole entire peninsula but eventually sold off lots to developers, leaving their Tudor estate as the central domicile of the neighborhood. Blessed by being off the water for this storm, but cursed perhaps by the stress of the disaster and the blackout.
I ran out the Weisbergs’ gate, across the road, past a century-old wooden barn on their property, to their Tudor-style estate. The door was open. There lay Mr. Vicks, ashen grey and shaking. Their two tall, lanky sons, Maxwell and Jared, were by his side in a panic. They worked in some form of “high finance” according to Samuel, whatever that meant!
“Were they smoking crack and blowing their investors’ money like other swindling hedge fund managers?” I humored myself.
Who knows, but it definitely meant they were not in the medical field.
“You’ve got to do something!” Max pleaded. Max was the older and taller of the two. He was flanked by his petrified younger brother, who just stood there in shock like a deer in the headlights. Both brothers were not spring chickens. Max must have been in his mid-to-late sixties, and Jared in his early to mid-sixties. And you could only guess where that put our senior statesman’s age.
I checked his breathing and his pulse—there was neither. So, I promptly began CPR, but not via the ordinary method. I had a bad back after wearing lead year after year at Mount Sinai, and after all the hauling at the Weisbergs’ I needed a mechanical advantage. Immediately I thought about a novel invention I learned from doctors at the University of California San Francisco. Those doctors applied a plunger to the chest, what was first called “Plunger CPR” and eventually became Active Compression-Decompression CPR. This method sucked more blood into the chest and pumped more to the rest of the body. And like many a great Bay Area idea, it also became a great Bay Area story.
“The plunger,” I thought. “Guys, can you get me a toilet plunger?” I asked. Within seconds, Max handed me a brown plumber’s helper, which I quickly applied to the middle of his father’s breastbone. Then I proceeded to plunge him, the way I had my clogged toilet the past summer. But this time I plunged his chest at a hundred plunges per minute up and down. Still no pulse! Then I proceeded with another maneuver that was also not a part of any current American Heart Association, or American Red Cross, recommendation. One that had been removed from the American Heart Association Basic Cardiac Life Support CPR course, but I had seen it work time and time again, the “Precordial Thump!” In yesteryear we would make a fist and punch (i.e. “thump”) the breastbone, hoping to reset the heart rhythm, but most studies showed that this did not work. Miraculously, the thump followed by two minutes of “plunger CPR” got Mr. Vicks going again. There it was, his pulse and breathing had returned, and so did his color.
I picked up my cell. One bar, but enough to call the Sons of the Beach, the official nickname of the Westhampton 911 Rescue Squad, which was plastered on each of the village’s fire engines. They came within minutes and brought Mr. Vicks to the Southampton Medical Center. Both sons left with him.
As a cardiologist, I’m well aware of what you as the reader are thinking. Another heart attack? Hell, no! Most people when they collapse have a heart rhythm problem in which the lower chambers of the heart beat very fast. The technical term is ventricular tachycardia or ventricular fibrillation. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred you need to shock or paddle that person to get them out of the bad rhythm. But not Mr. Vicks. He was the one in a hundred that made it without being shocked. The good old “toilet plunger” and the good old “Precordial Thump.” Hey, what do I know? Just an old-time cardiologist in the new-fangled world of medicine. And like the Seafield Estate weathered the storm, Mr. Vicks lives and breathes another day.
As I walked back to the Weisberg estate, I
saw two local men going door to door, looking for work. These two were approaching the Weisbergs’ front door.
“May I help you?” I called to two rather large dark-complexioned men walking up the driveway. Each man was over six feet tall and weighed over two hundred fifty pounds. Both had black hair. One had a black elongated mustache!
“Looking for some work. Do you need a hand?” asked Mustache Man with a Spanish accent.
“Sure can. Need some hauling help and some muscle. Two hundred bucks each for the rest of the day,” I said.
“Deal,” said Mustache Man’s sidekick.
The rest of the afternoon we hauled, pumped, scrubbed, hosed, and dried anything and everything we could except their wall hangings. The blowers helped dry the floors and the rest we toweled down. By the end of the day we pulled everything into the garage. There was still no power. I closed up the house and left with the two along my side.
There was no way I could have cleaned and dried up the Weisbergs’ place without their help. We turned a tattered mess into a reasonably dry, clean place, though I was uncertain that any of the rugs or furniture would be salvageable. The floor itself was beginning to buckle, and many of the mechanicals in the basement were beyond repair. Nonetheless, Weisberg would be appreciative of my help, and I was pleased by the help of Mustache Man and his sidekick.