by Greg Smith
“Pulaski.”
Sheila beamed up at him. She’d missed her tall stranger.
“Have you eaten yet?” she asked, latching onto his arm, dragging him toward the door.
“C’mon, Oshkosh. I’m craving some genuine New York City street-vendor food. A dirty-water dog and a soda sounds so good right now.”
“Ugh,” the jogger shivered. “Seriously? I’m not putting that crap in this body.”
“You didn’t mind cramming a Nathan’s Famous down your throat at Coney Island.”
“Don’t even think about comparing a Manhattan dirty-water dog to a Nathan’s Famous. That’s blasphemous!”
“Well, this girl has needs, Oshkosh.”
She continued to tug him. When he resisted, she offered options.
“I’ll settle for a salted pretzel then,” she pleaded.
“Not a meal,” the tall man vetoed. “No way.”
“Okay, a slice of ’za.”
“’Za.”
“As in pizza? You sure you grew up in Brooklyn?”
“I know what ’za is, dummy. Christ, Korner’s was just a hop, skip and a jump from our house on Beverly. I lived on the stuff from the time I was twelve ’til I was in my twenties. Before I had an epiphany, of sorts. Realized what I was doing to myself.”
He shuddered.
“I’m questioning your choices, Pulaski. Dirty-water dogs…salty pretzels…’za…”
“Oh, c’mon.”
She yanked his arm playfully. He let her win the tug-of-war.
They found an old street vendor selling Slices o’ Life from The Zaman, ordered two slices, two sodas. When the jogger opened his wallet to pay, his driver’s license fell out, landed on the pavement near Sheila’s feet. Sheila quickly snatched the license up. The jogger held his hand out to retrieve the card, but Sheila held back, stole a peak at his name.
“Steven…Bag-days-a-run? Is that it?”
She tripped over the name.
The jogger closed his eyes, tilted his head to the sky, grimaced.
Cat’s outta the bag now, he grumbled to himself.
Sheila made a second attempt at the name.
“Bag-das-airy-un?”
“That’s actually very close.”
He reluctantly pronounced the name, enunciating each syllable slowly.
“It’s Bag-duh-sair-ee-un. And it’s Step-un.”
“Stepan,” Sheila repeated as though committing the name to memory. “Stepan Bagdasarian.”
“It’s Albanian.”
“It’s a mouthful,” she laughed. “Nice to know your real name, but I think I’ll just keep calling you ‘Oshkosh.’ If you don’t mind. It’s a lot easier.”
He considered telling her the truth right then and there. Explain that he was Aleks. That Step was the twin who’d died in the North Tower. It just seemed easier to let her think he was the twin on the license. In a way, pretending to be Step kept his brother alive a while longer. So he let it go.
“Fine by me. Pulaski.”
They found a bench, sat, enjoyed the pizza. Savored the sunshine. Appreciated just being in each other’s company.
“So…whataya been up to?” Aleks asked casually. “Haven’t seen you around for a while. Thought you might have found an authentic cheesehead to hang out with.”
Sheila finished her pizza, sipped her soda.
“Naw,” she muttered. “Been keeping company with The Dead Wives Society. Attending funerals, memorials. Uplifting events like that.”
“Dead Wives Society?”
He had no idea about the descriptor assigned to 9/11 widows. Sheila took the opportunity to nudge their relationship forward.
“Tell ya what, Oshkosh. You’re officially invited to dine with the Cahill gals. This Friday, my house, six-thirty. You can finally meet Jacqui. And I’ll tell ya everything you want to know about The Dead Wives.”
“I accept. On one condition.”
“No dirty-water dogs, salty pretzels or ’za,” Sheila responded, in anticipation of the tall man’s request.
“That’s three,” he pointed out. “And no, no and no. The condition is that I bring the wine.”
Sheila had a twinkle in her eye as she retorted.
“I don’t find it particularly masculine, but you can whine all you want, Oshkosh!”
Looking back later, Aleks thought that was the exact moment he fell in love with Sheila Cahill, the brown-haired woman from Pulaski, Wisconsin.
• • • • •
CHAPTER 65
Fifteen-year-old Jacqui looked nothing like her mother, was, in fact, obviously bi-racial. She was a beautiful girl with clear, smooth mocha skin, striking green eyes and a warm smile even braces and adolescent self-consciousness couldn’t spoil. She was all arms and legs, already taller than her mother.
Sheila introduced her tall new friend as “Stepan.”
“But you can call me ‘Step,’” Aleks told the girl.
Looking about the modest house, he noticed a family picture on the fireplace mantle. In it, a young Sheila seated between a very young Jacqui and the husky red-haired man whose picture he’d seen at St. Paul’s shrine.
“John’s not her biological father. Obviously,” Sheila chortled. “I, uh, I got pregnant senior year of high school. Clifford Stewart. Big Dawg, they called him. All-state everything. I was young. Foolish.”
She glanced over at Jacqui, who was sitting on the sofa.
“She takes after her father. Got all the good genes, not too much of the bad.”
The teen girl rolled her eyes. She’d heard the story a hundred times.
“Mom means I got the athletic genes, not the criminal ones,” Jacqui remarked. “My bio-dad’s in prison. Mom’s worried I’ll end up like him. Fat chance,” she scoffed.
“Mom’s more worried she’ll end up like mom,” Sheila corrected.
Jacqui got off the sofa, walked up behind her mother, put her arms around her.
“Wishing me away, mother dearest?” the teen girl joked.
She gave Sheila a quick kiss on one cheek.
“Never, babydoll,” Sheila answered, stroking her daughter’s hand affectionately. “I just don’t want you making the same mistakes I made. Or your father.”
Again, Jacqui rolled her eyes. The universal teen sign of annoyance with parents, any figure of authority. She disentangled from her mother.
“I’m pretty sure I can stay out of prison. And I can manage not to get pregnant before I graduate. What else? Just say no to drugs. Don’t drink and drive. Be cool, stay in school.”
She rattled her list off with a theatrical flair, one hand dramatically flicking the air to tick off each item. She ended by holding the hand out, as though awaiting a high five from an imaginary cohort.
“Am I leaving anything out, mom o’ the year?”
“Nope. You got it all covered, darling,” Sheila answered with a smile. “You just stay as smart and sweet and sugary as you are right now.”
“You left out innocent and chaste.”
“And innocent and chaste, sweetheart.”
Aleks was reminded of how he and Oak had bantered back and forth. Seemed liked a millennium ago. He didn’t know women ribbed each other in like manner. Especially mothers and teen-age daughters. He’d always assumed women were being catty when they mocked one another. He didn’t sense any animosity between Sheila and Jacqui, however. No resentment on the part of either one. In fact, they seemed to have a very healthy, mature – if not unique – bond.
“So, Jacqui,” he said conversationally. “Those athletic genes. Your mom tells me you play soccer? And…basketball?”
“Yep. Sweeper on the varsity soccer team. Struggling a bit at guard in basketball, so only playing JV. But right now, volleyball is my passion.”
Aleks stuck out his lower lip.
“Volleyball, huh? Interesting.”
Jacqui considered his height, got that he probably had some
experience with the sport. With basketball, as well.
“You play?”
Aleks shrugged.
“I’ve been known to put down a spike or two,” he said modestly.
He didn’t see any point in bragging that he and his brother had been legendary beach volleyball players in Brooklyn. The Terrible Towers Two, or T-Squared, as they had been known oh those many years ago. This wasn’t about the Bagdasarian brothers. This was Jacqui’s moment.
“Did you play in college?” the girl asked.
“Naw. Binyak…my brother…and I chose to focus on school. Get our MBAs. Start a business together.”
“Binyock?” she said, screwing up her face at the strange sounding name. “That’s a funny name.”
Unfamiliar with Aleks’s background, his family history, she had no idea he had a twin brother. Aleks focused his attention entirely on the teen.
“Binyak is Albanian for twin. It was…it’s a term of affection my brother and I use for one another. He called me Binyak. I called him the same thing.”
“You’re a twin? Cool!” Jacqui exclaimed. She thought a moment before going on. “And you’re Albanian? I have no idea where that is. Somewhere in Europe, I’d guess.”
“You guessed right. Albania is forty-five miles across the Strait of Otranto from the heel of Italy. Just north of Greece,” Aleks informed her.
“Oh, it’s a Mediterranean country.”
“Technically, a Balkan country.”
“Oh. So, if Binyak means twin, what’s your brother’s real name?”
Aleks choked up a bit, took a deep breath, exhaled before attempting to answer. Sheila grasped his hand.
“Step’s brother died in the 9/11 attacks, honey. He was working at the Trade Center.”
“Oh. Gosh. I’m…I’m so sorry, Step,” the teen said. “Was he a first responder?”
Aleks wagged his head.
“No. Nothing like that. He was in our office. In the North Tower.”
His voice was distant, pensive.
“He, uh, he didn’t make it out.”
There was an awkward moment when no one seemed to know what to say. Aleks finally broke the silence.
“I’m really sorry about your dad, Jacqui. He was a hero,” he told the girl. “I’m sure he was a great man.”
“Well, he wasn’t my dad, but thanks. Also, he wasn’t so great. Just a little bit great. If and when he wanted to be. When he wasn’t drinking.”
The last sentence was said quietly, almost under her breath. Aleks waited to see how Sheila would respond. He had no way of knowing how much of a disruptive force John’s drinking problem had been in the Cahill household. That Sheila had been planning to leave the man because of it. She ignored the remark.
“Uncle Mikey was my hero,” Jacqui said sadly. “I…I really, really miss him.”
She gazed off into the distance, sniffled back tears. Sheila went to her daughter, gave her a quick hug.
“We both miss him, honey. Uncle Mikey was one-of-a-kind.”
She wiped away a tear. Forcing a smile, she changed the subject.
“Let’s eat, shall we?”
After dinner, the three worked together cleaning up. Jacqui was glad to see her mother enjoying herself. The past month-and-a-half had been traumatic. Her mother didn’t believe in being secretive about her feelings, had expressed herself openly after 9/11. They’d both been devastated by the loss of Mikey. The brother/uncle hero. They’d shared a similar opinion about John Cahill, as well. The drunken Irishman who hadn’t been able to fight the stereotype. The man who’d been so hard to love. Though neither would voice it, both had had the same thought, at some point, after John Cahill had been crushed in the North Tower.
Problem solved.
It was a thought that came with a legion of emotion. Guilt topping that list. Relief running a close second. Of course, grief, as well. Sadness, anxiety, worry. The list went on and on.
Now, a sliver of joy seemed to have slipped into Sheila’s life. A flicker of hope. In the guise of a tall man she called “Oshkosh.”
Jacqui nested the last dried dish in a cabinet, atop its white, flower-patterned clones. She hopped up to sit on the countertop, eyed her mother and the tall man curiously.
“Okay. W-h-a-t’s going on?”
Aleks and Sheila both turned in the teen’s direction, raised their eyebrows
“What’s with the names? ‘Oshkosh.’ ‘Pulaski.’”
Aleks and Sheila glanced at each other, snickered like school children. Sheila patted her hands on her apron, took it off, laid it on the countertop. Aleks folded a dish towel neatly, hung it on a towel bar.
“I mean, I know those are cities in Wisconsin,” the teen girl continued. “We’re from Pulaski. I was born there. Gramma and Grampa Zimmerman lived there. Uncle Carl and Aunt Emma are still there.”
“And Uncle Rudy…Aunt Helga…Auntie May,” Sheila added. “Several of your cousins.”
“So, why do you call each other that? Are you from Oshkosh, Step?”
Aleks smiled.
“Nope. Brooklyn born and bred.”
His eyed Sheila warmly.
“First time we met, your mom thought I was Russell Kummerhall from Oshkosh, Wisconsin. She wasn’t attracted to me. She just liked that I was from Cheese Country. Or so she thought.”
He glanced from Sheila to the teen.
“I was wearing a stolen nametag,” he added, unapologetically. “I call her ‘Pulaski’ because, when she told Russell Kummerhall she was from Pulaski, he thought she was telling him her last name.”
He winked at Sheila, held up both fists.
“Fighting Red Rovers.”
“Raiders,” Sheila corrected.
Aleks kept his fists up.
“Fighting Red Raiders,” he amended, turned his attention back to Jacqui.
“So, there you have it. Nothing complicated. Just pet names for each other.”
“Like Binyak,” Jacqui noted.
“Yes. Like Binyak.”
Jacqui accepted his answer with indifference.
“Okay,” she said with a shrug, jumped down from the countertop. She stopped before heading out of the kitchen. “Sooooo…why were you wearing a stolen nametag?” she asked inoffensively.
Aleks hesitated.
“Well, that story is complicated,” he told her.
“Are you wanted by the police or something?” Jacqui asked with the indelicacy of youth.
Sheila intervened.
“Enough questions. Jacqui. Where are your manners?” she scolded her daughter. “You know it’s rude to interrogate a guest like that. Don’t you have some schoolwork to do?”
Jacqui reluctantly admitted that she did.
“It was nice meeting you, Step. My mom really likes you. I can tell. Sorry about the interrogation.”
“Apology accepted. It was a pleasure meeting you, young lady. I hope to see more of you down the road. If you’re right about your mother, that is.”
With dinner over, the dishes done, Aleks and Sheila moved to the Cahill front porch, where they sat together on a hanging swing. Aleks poured them each a glass of wine from the bottle he’d brought along outside.
“Thank you. For that,” Sheila said. “That was…that was the way I always imagined family life should be. We never had that. Not with John. We came close with Mikey, but that was different. Mikey was my brother, not my luh…uh, not someone I could see myself in a…in a close relationship with. Like John.”
She sipped her wine.
“Or you.”
She laughed, covered her mouth with one hand, obviously embarrassed.
“So, uh, The Dead Wives,” she said, changing the topic.
She began by trying to explain the clan-like atmosphere of families that were bound through the common connection of having a husband who was an FDNY fireman.
“I think you have to be part of it to understand. It’s like one big, extended family. The guys have some kind of brotherhood
thing going. As a wife, you’re just dragged along. Participation by association.
“I’ve gotten to know some of these women pretty well. They’re very close friends.”
She paused occasionally to drink from her glass. Aleks understood his role of listener. He didn’t speak, let Sheila ramble. The more she talked, the less he had to. The wine helped.
“You don’t understand how this life sucks you in. We’ve always been there for each other. Like when we lost McMurphy to a backdraft in ’98. Or when Mary Ann Ferguson got breast cancer. Or…oh my god, I almost forgot,” she sobbed. “Katie O’Shaunessy. She’d be eighteen now. Starting college. She went missing when she was six years old. They found her body in Cobble Hill Park. She’d…she’d been raped. And strangled. She was only six years old, Step. Poor little thing.”
Tears pooled in her eyes at the memory of Collin and Noreen O’Shaunessy’s horrible ordeal. Their only child abducted. Molested. Murdered.
Five months later, Collin had fallen through a hole in a roof while battling a five-alarm blaze in a Downtown Brooklyn high-rise. Though his death was ruled an accident, John Cahill had confided in Sheila that he’d witnessed Collin staring into the opening for several seconds before he simply stepped forward, plunged to his death.
Noreen O’Shaunessy had died of an overdose of Valium the day after burying her husband next to their daughter. Three days later, she joined them in the family plot in The Evergreens Cemetery. Sheila shook the memories out of her head.
“We’ve been through some pretty rough times together. None worse than 9/11.”
She stopped talking only long enough to pour herself more wine, take a sip. She was beginning to feel the effects of her third glass in less than an hour.
“We spent so much time grieving together, we all became part of this weird clique. The 9/11 widows. Some groups are calling themselves ‘The Dead Wives Club’ or ‘The Grieving Widows.’ My group is ‘The Dead Wives Society.’”
Aleks finally spoke.
“That doesn’t make sense. The wives aren’t dead.”
“I know! It’s so bizarre. Calling wives with dead husbands ‘The Dead Wives.’ As opposed to those with husbands who are still alive. ‘The Alive Wives.’ We’ve disassociated ourselves from them entirely, by the way. They think they do, but they really don’t get it. We’re the only ones who really understand how it feels. Who really know what we’re going through.”