House of Ghosts

by House of Ghosts (epub)

  Danny’s was a little hole in the wall on the east side of Washington Square kept alive by the campus trade. Cigarette smoke wafted through the open door. Paul and Dave angled themselves to the counter. Dave tried to order two regular coffees but was ignored. The burly counterman finally poured two mugs and placed them on the stained and scratched wood counter. Thirty years of resting elbows had burnished the finish to a fine patina.

  Paul claimed two unoccupied stools at the window ledge. “Don’t just sit there, take one of these,” Dave said, holding out the steaming mugs. “They’re taking the skin off my hands. I’m amazed the mugs don’t melt.”

  “My theory is scalding coffee toughens the lining of the stomach, thereby allowing consumption of the entrees on the menu,” Paul explained.

  Looking through the greasy smoke-streaked window, they surveyed the activity in Washington Square Park. The normal crowd rapidly thinned as heavy dark clouds drifted over. Sudden high gusts of wind sucked discarded newspapers from trashcans, plastering the wire fence surrounding the seesaws with newsprint. Paul checked his watch. “It’s ten minutes to eight, by the looks of that sky, it might as well be midnight. We better get moving.”

  The building entrance was only three hundred yards across the park. Dave’s ever-present Dodger’s cap was ripped from his head and sent flying toward the fountain in the middle of the square. It disappeared from sight.

  The cornerstone of the Commerce, Accounts, and Finance building read 1900. The building showed its age. While the Depression caused a monetary crisis in the city, the university wasn’t lacking for funds. A decision was made by the board of governors to curtail cosmetic renovations until the economic despair of the city’s population was assuaged. Maintenance was done only to prevent building code violations.

  Room 404 was a huge amphitheater capable of seating five hundred, with lectern and three movable black boards. “Welcome to Calculus 101” was still visible on the top of the middle board.

  Paul knew they stayed too long in the coffee shop. They were off to the side where it was difficult to see the middle board, the favorite of Dr. Ina Goldsmith. Goldsmith, entering her 26th year of teaching Calc I, appeared to be as bored as her students.

  Observing the welcome message, Dave said, “It’s the same message that the Indians sent to Custer at Little Big Horn.”

  “Compared to you, Custer had a better chance,” Paul whispered back.

  Dr. Goldsmith approached the lectern and proceeded to explain the previous homework assignment before covering the next topic. Dave began to squirm in his seat. Not one of the answers she chalked on the board resembled his. He glanced at Paul and placed his hands together like he was praying, except that he was begging.

  A collective sigh reverberated through the hall as the clock approach the hour of ten. Bodies struggled to rise from their wooden cells, with arms and legs stretching in all directions. Paul led the way to the exit left of the lectern. The narrow corridor was lined with faculty offices, and most importantly, the men’s room. For the last thirty minutes of class, Paul needed to use the facilities. He swore to himself that he would stay away from Danny’s coffee.

  While waiting, Dave checked the sports page for the Yankee score: 5-2 over the White Sox. Gehrig and DiMaggio accounted for all five runs. He had to face the fact that the Yankees were going to win the American league pennant again. They were fun to watch, great entertainment. His Brooklyn Dodgers were also entertainment, some said a mystery. The question each year was how close to the cellar would they finish. The suspense for the current campaign was over: the “Bums” would wind up in seventh place out of eight.

  Paul rejoined Dave at the end of the hall. “I’ve got to get over to Brown for English Comp. I’ll meet back at the cafeteria around 12:20.”

  “I’m glad I have to stay in the building for German. Try not to drown, it’s pouring.”

  Paul went down the back staircase, entering the main rotunda. He left Brooklyn without a raincoat or umbrella. The forecast said nothing about a downpour. Brown Hall was two blocks over on Green Street. Cutting Comp wasn’t such a bad idea, except a critical analysis of Homer’s Odyssey was due. He put his jacket over his head and walked down the street.

  Paul paused to read the bronze plaque commemorating the sacrificed lives of the Triangle fire, which proudly proclaimed that Clark Brown had donated the building to the university in 1929. It was considered an architectural marvel at nine stories with a high-speed Otis Elevator part of the central design. Classrooms and lecture halls were located on floors 2-6, with faculty offices occupying the remaining space. The building faced an easterly direction, and an attempt was made to utilize the sunlight by having the facade composed of large windows. Brown sorely required a facelift. A petition was posted on a bulletin board demanding at least a coat of paint to lighten up the gloomy interior.

  Paul managed to navigate the two blocks staying under storefront canopies. As usual, out of four elevators, three were under repair, and the fourth completely mobbed. He decided to climb the four flights. Paul handed his paper to Professor Florence Grill then took a seat in the second row. The room quickly filled, and the discussion of Homer’s Odyssey continued. Paul watched the sky turn from gray to midnight black. Dr. Grill also noticed the change, deciding that ninety minutes was enough for the day.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, if you look to your left, you will see a sight that might depict what the end of the world will look like. The assignment is to read the next five chapters. No matter what the United States Weather Bureau has forecast for today, I suggest you consider going home or wherever you wish to ride out this storm.”

  The off-hour dismissal afforded Paul an opportunity to ride an elevator to the ground floor. He checked the student activity bulletin board: The N.Y.U. basketball team was scheduled to play Columbia Friday night at home, one of the biggest basketball games of the season. Ten cents admission. Proceeds to be used for new uniforms. Czech students were to hold a rally against German aggression that afternoon at four.

  Paul meandered to the windows at the right side of the main doors. The left windows were plastered with flyers for the student government election. He didn’t know any of those running. The freshman class had a slate of four to pick from—all from the Bronx. They might as well have been from Louisiana. The rain was hard and steady.

  It was futile to keep under the awnings on the way back to the Commerce building. Covering his head with his jacket, the wind-driven rain smashed his face. Umbrellas were either turned inside out or ripped out of hands. Roth’s Deli provided refuge from the storm. Intending to buy lunch at the cafeteria, Paul decided to order a corned beef sandwich to go.

  With the severe weather, the usual lunch crowd was non-existent. Paul was the only customer. He removed his sopping wet jacket and dried his face with a napkin. From a radio behind the counter, the Andrew Sisters were singing their hit song B’Mir Mis Du Schoen. The CBS announcer warned the audience to stay tuned for an important announcement. “That bastard Chamberlain has gone back to Munich to talk to Hitler. The English and the French are selling out the Czechs,” Louis Roth spat.

  “Only the other day, the British warned Hitler it would be war if he moved against the Czechs,” Paul said. “How did everything change so fast?”

  “It is very simple. The French and English have allowed their armies to turn to shit. Deladier and Chamberlain don’t have the balls to stand up to that Nazi bastard,” Lou said as he wrapped the sandwich in wax paper. “I forgot to ask, do you want a sour or a new pickle.”

  “I’ll take the sour,” Paul said, putting his jacket on.

  Roth handed Paul the sandwich and pointed to the store’s window. “Be careful.”

  Paul placed the sandwich into his book bag and ventured back onto the sidewalk. Violent gales rattled the windows. Finding it almost impossible to walk against the wind, he moved from doorway to doorway between blasts. The seven-minute walk turned into a half-hour. Paul skipped going b
ack to Commerce and proceeded straight to the cafeteria located in the student lounge.

  Dave waved from a corner near the Coke machine. “My God, you’re going to get pneumonia.”

  “I’ve been taking a leisurely stroll through the park, and I decided to take in the sights from a bench near the arch on Fifth Avenue.” Paul put his bag down and carefully removed the wax paper prize.

  Dave’s mouth watered as he inhaled the aroma. He looked down at his jelly sandwich. “You wouldn’t consider sharing some of that precious creation with your good buddy?”

  “I risked my life for this sandwich. First, you beg me to tutor math, now you beg for my sandwich. This is starting to become a one sided relationship.”

  The other members of the table broke out in laughter. Dave turned to a petite brunette to his left. “Sarah Greenbaum, allow me to introduce my best friend Paul Rothstein.”

  Paul looked squarely at Dave then pushed his sandwich to the other side of the table. Dave tore off a quarter. “Don’t push your luck old buddy and eat any more of my lunch,” Paul warned as he left to go to the soda machine.

  “Paul Rothstein, you’re an ingrate,” Dave yelled.

  Paul returned with two ice-cold bottles of Coke, handing one to Sarah. “How come we haven’t met before?” Sarah flirted, dressed in a navy blue skirt and light gray sweater that accentuated her figure.

  “The answer is simple, I’m a putz,” Paul stammered. Turning serious, he continued, “Chamberlain is in Munich to talk to Hitler again.”

  Dave grabbed his copy of the Times. “There’s no mention of a trip in today’s paper.”

  Paul told them what transpired in Roth’s Deli. The topic of conversation became the grand sellout of the Czech democracy. Their heads were turned by the sound of a crash made by a garbage can slamming into a window.

  “Does anyone know what is happening with this storm?” Sarah asked. “This morning, the radio said there was a chance of rain. It looks like we’re having a hurricane.”

  “The wind gusts must be 75-100 miles per hour,” Dave said. The rain pounded the windows. “We don’t need anymore water. The paper says we’ve already had four inches this month.”

  “This is Dean Lyman,” broke from the public address system. “A hurricane is moving up the coast. Long Island is going to bear the brunt of the storm before it turns toward New England. Local news is reporting power outages and street flooding. Classes for the remainder of the day are cancelled. Buildings will remain open for both faculty and students if travel is deemed too hazardous.”

  Despite the downpour, Paul, Dave and Sarah decided to go home. The subway system was inviolate; it always ran. They made the trek through the park, stepping around tree limbs strewn along the walkways. Water cascaded down the steps to the subway. People climbing up the staircase told them that the tracks were flooded. The trio continued downward, wanting to see for themselves. Three feet of standing water occupied the tracks. The token booth cashier announced the entire system was shut down.

  With many of the streets under water, bus service was, for all practical purposes, non-existent. There really was only one choice, return to the student union center and wait out the storm.

  The entrance to the center was deserted but for a maintenance man mopping the floor. Wind driven rain had found its way under the double doors and fanned across the marble floor.

  “I thought we’d have to elbow our way in,” Dave said as he scouted the hall leading to the cafeteria.

  Sarah slipped on the wet floor and was stopped short of landing on her rear end by Paul who caught her by the waist. “It’s like an ice skating rink,” he said, helping Sarah stand up.

  “Thanks for saving my tuchas,” she said with a laugh as she locked eyes momentarily with Paul who still had his hands on her waist.

  “The place is deserted,” Dave called out, drawing their attention. “Let’s go to the lounge.”

  Paul awkwardly removed his hands from Sarah’s waist. Embarrassed, he changed the subject. “He runs ahead on the subway too.”

  Fifty feet past the entrance to the cafeteria, Dave made a right and disappeared. Paul and Sarah peeked into the cafeteria. “Are we the smart ones for staying or the chickens that did?” Paul asked. The maximum occupancy was three hundred. There were four very unhappy faces congregating around the Coke machine.

  Sarah didn’t answer. Instead, she slipped her arm under Paul’s. Benny Goodman’s Sing Sing Sing came loud and clear through the opened door. The lounge, half the size of the cafeteria, afforded a collection of armchairs, sofas, a billiards table and a juke box that rarely worked.

  Four males known to spend more time in a pool hall off Washington Square than in class were attempting to play a game of eight ball. A stream of curses and laughs drifted from the far left hand corner of the lounge as balls encountered the ripped and shredded green felt on the playing surface.

  Paul counted twelve others spread around the room either sleeping or reading. The music wasn’t coming from the jukebox. “Mr. Rothstein and Miss Greenbaum!” rang out.

  Paul and Sarah froze. The voice belonged to their political science professor. To the right of the entrance, two green plaid sofas positioned in an “L” arrangement were complimented with a pair of wingback armchairs covered in a haphazard floral pattern. A walnut coffee table completed the ensemble. Dave was nestled into one of the armchairs directly across from Dr. Allan Shaw who had taken over a sofa. The radio was on the counter of a refreshment kiosk. Its wire snaked between two large urns.

  “Grab a cup of coffee or tea. It’s on the house,” Shaw said, holding up a steaming mug. His class was the most requested section in PoliSci I. In his mid-forties, Shaw walked with a pronounced limp of his right leg. A jagged facial scar running from under his chin to his right ear added an element of intrigue to his husky voice and chiseled features. Lectures peppered with jokes and an occasional four-letter word assured full attendance.

  Dave looked uncomfortable, his Brooklyn bravado evaporated with Shaw’s beckoning to have a seat with the wave of his ever-present bent briar pipe. The day before, Shaw peppered him with questions that the future lawyer couldn’t answer. Dave nervously ran a finger around the lip of his coffee cup. The new arrivals removed their jackets and draped them over the arms of a nearby sofa. “Fire Island has been leveled,” Dave said, turning to Shaw.

  Shaw nodded in the affirmative as he tamped the smoldering pipe tobacco with his finger. “A few minutes ago, NBC reported there are widespread power and phone outages throughout the region. One hundred fifty three of the one hundred seventy nine houses on the beach at Westhampton, Long Island were swept away. Fire Island wasn’t as lucky. Every structure is gone.”

  “How many dead?” Paul asked.

  Shaw sighed deeply. “Twenty-nine. Have to be scores more.”

  “What’s going on in Brooklyn near Sheepshead Bay?” Paul asked. “I’m going to call home.”

  “Forget it,” Dave said, “The phones are dead.”

  “I’ve got to call home, my parents are going to be crazy,” Sarah said.

  Dave shook his head. “Can’t get through to the Bronx either. I tried my cousin who lives near Yankee stadium.”

  “Get a cup of coffee and relax,” Shaw said, pointing his pipe to the coffee urns. “The train tunnels out to New Jersey are flooded. I’ll be spending the night here.”

  “Dr. Shaw!” boomed from one of the miscreants at the pool table. “Want to play a rack?”

  “Maybe later,” Shaw answered with a wave of his pipe. He was one of the few faculty members who ventured into the student union. His ability to handle a cue stick against the ivory balls as well as to the side of a human skull was honed in the hardscrabble section of Manhattan known as Hell’s Kitchen, “when I get the urge to whip your ass.”

  Paul and Sarah helped themselves to coffee and settled down on the unoccupied sofa to Shaw’s left. Sarah, shivering in her wet clothes, sipped the hot coffee. She removed her onl
y pair of dress pumps. “Dr. Shaw, are you finished reading the paper?” she asked. A disheveled edition of The Daily News lay on the couch next to the professor.

  “Not mine,” Shaw said, wrinkling his nose at the notion that he’d read the tabloid. He handed her the paper.

  Sarah stuffed two sheets of newspaper into each shoe in an attempt to dry them out.

  It was 2:15, and it was obvious that the storm had developed into a hurricane of a magnitude not seen in the history of the United States Weather Bureau. Shaw flinched and turned ghostly pale as a metal trashcan slammed into the brick façade above the lounge windows overlooking a small courtyard. The few trees growing in the courtyard were pruned of their branches by the howling winds.

  The storm played havoc with reception as static drowned out the NBC announcer. After a few minutes, NBC went off the air. Shaw tuned the radio to CBS. “CBS put up an experimental antenna on top of the Empire State Building,” he explained. The announcer came in loud and clear. “The other stations coming out of the Jersey meadowlands must be swamped.”

  A couple of the snoozers and readers ventured over to listen to the storm updates. The hurricane moving northward had killed 250 in Connecticut. The death toll from the killer storm was expected to rise to 700. Thousands were injured, more than 63,000 left homeless with property damage estimated at $382 million.

  “And that’s the good news,” Shaw said as he limped to the kiosk to pour another cup of coffee. “Ed Murrow and Bill Shirer will be on the air from Europe. I hope we’ll be able to hear them.”

  All eyes followed Shaw as he walked back to the couch. “There’s a storm blowing through our neck of the woods now,” he said in a controlled bellow, “but a storm is ready to move through Europe, a storm that will affect the continent and work its way to the United States.”

  Shirer reported from Prague that a deal had been brokered by the British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain: The Germans would occupy the Sudeten part of the country the next day. The mood in the city was one of utter disbelief. The man on the street couldn’t fathom how the British had capitulated on the issue, and the French followed suit. It came as no surprise. Three days prior, Chamberlain said, “If we have to fight, it must be on larger issues than this.”