by Triss Stein
“You flew away, all the way to Manhattan?”
“Certainly. I went to graduate school at Columbia. It was quite the scandal for me to move into my own apartment. ‘What would people think I wanted to do there?’” She flashed a mocking smile. “I did have my big brother as a role model, though.
“I worked hard and got on with my life. My parents had no clue about any of it, of course. They could barely explain to relatives that I was becoming a college professor, not a public school teacher.” She smiled. “Working for the Board of Ed was about the highest aspiration for a girl that they understood. They did work ‘my daughter at Columbia’ into every conversation, though.” She sighed. “And of course you’ve read my famous brother’s books.”
I nodded, afraid to say a word. If I admitted to how much I admired them, would that bring the conversation to a crashing stop? In Professor Boyle I had found a time machine; I wanted to listen for days.
She waved her hand dismissively. “In time, he turned into a foolish man. Maybe if he’d lived as long as I have, he would have acquired some wisdom. Or at least maturity. Good writer, mind you, but silly man. He feuded with everyone, and that included my very prominent second husband. They had a fight about politics and never made up. Politics really meant everything then.”
She paused and sighed. “Or so we believed. He made me choose sides and of course I chose my husband. What did he expect? But he was on his third wife by then—maybe his fourth?—he didn’t take marriage as seriously as I did. Still, I read everything he wrote and his book about Brownsville was a good one.” She gave me another challenging look. “Did you find what was missing in it?”
“Girls’ lives?”
“Ah, ha! I sensed you were a sharp one. He didn’t have a word to say about what it was like for me or girls at all. It was different.”
Then we talked about that, how they were encouraged to do well in school, but discouraged from big dreams. We talked about immigrant parents making rules for daughters who were growing up, it seemed, on a different planet.
“Of course that story is the same in every immigrant generation, is it not?”
We moved on to other memories. The desperate times when money was so short, boarders slept in the second bedroom and she slept on the sofa. The year her father and big brother shared one winter coat, going out at different times. The times her mother made her brother’s clothes over to fit her.
“I was embarrassed, going to school in a skirt made from his outgrown suit pants, but you know? I wasn’t the only one. We were all struggling. And when I started making a salary, I went right into Lord & Taylor and opened a charge account with a card that had my name on it.” She laughed lightly. “I could only afford the sales, and barely that, but it was a long way from buying underwear at a Pitkin Avenue pushcart! I was so proud to have a slice of apple pie in their restaurant and say ‘Charge it.’”
She talked about friendships that were forged in poverty, and that lasted a lifetime.
“I found an old friend right here! We ran into each other in the orchestra. We have an orchestra here, you know, and we are pretty damn good. It’s mostly women, like everything at our age. Men are scarce. And they called us the weaker sex! Ha. Anyway, she plays the flute and I play violin. First violin, I might add. I invited her to join us later.”
We looked at a street map of Brownsville and she pointed to one location after another and remembered them all: her favorite candy store; the dentist who took out a diseased tooth; the corner where a cousin had met an Italian boy, causing a huge family scandal.
“They were all sure he was a gangster.”
I was about to say to that, “By the way, about crime in Brownsville…” when we were interrupted by another elderly lady, very thin and pale, using a walker, but brightly dressed in a hot pink velour running suit.
“Lil, my dear, meet young Erica Donato, PhD in training. Erica, this is my dear friend Lillian Kravitz. Now Lil, Erica wants to hear about Brownsville. I’ve been talking her ear off, but you can help with more details. I’m giving her the good times and the bad.”
The other woman’s pale face warmed into a big smile. She patted her old friend’s hand. “We had friends, and we had fun, as girls will always find a way, but it was hard. We were so very poor. Remember when we made a little social club? You, me, and those girls from your building?”
“They were cousins. The Kaufman girls?”
“Yes! And we wanted matching club sweaters, but my parents couldn’t afford that.”
“That’s right. So we all pitched in a few cents for you and you earned the rest. But how?”
“Working in a shop at holiday time. We worked and went to school, too. I don’t know if we could have done it without our friends. Am I right, Lil?”
“Right as rain. We encouraged each other, again and again. Lots of support and no excuses.” She shook her head. “Home was not so happy because our parents struggled so hard, there wasn’t much energy left for anything else, even children.”
“So we swore we would get to college and work hard and get out.”
“Moved up and away, I would say. Right? We had better lives in time, and we earned them.”
“What about the ones who didn’t take that path?” I was trying to steer this wide-ranging conversation back to the subject of crime. “It’s no secret that Brownsville was a hotbed of mob activity. Some of your classmates and neighbors became quite famous.”
“For all the wrong reasons!”
“Did you know any? Your cousin’s boyfriend you mentioned? What did you think of all that?”
“I never thought about it at all. Not one minute.” Ruby gave me a hard look. “The boyfriend turned out to be a real sweetheart. Brownsville was made notorious because of the rotten few. Yes, there was crime, of course there was, like any poor neighborhood with desperate people. But you would think there were murdering gangsters on every block, carrying Tommy guns in plain sight.”
“And there weren’t?”
“No, of course not! We knew. We knew what those bums were. They were people to avoid. And you know what? We were the good, smart girls. We weren’t looking for nightclubs and flashy jewelry, so those nogoodniks weren’t looking for us.” She added with a laugh “It’s been many a decade since I used a word like ‘nogoodnik.’”
Lil was looking away from her friend, as if her thoughts were somewhere else altogether.
Ruby went on. “I can say this: we could walk home from work, from the subways, late at night, even carrying money, and never be afraid. There were always people out and about who knew us and wouldn’t let any harm come our way.” She thought for a moment. “And the truth is that they did not bother upstanding, normal citizens. It was one gang against another. As I said, much-exaggerated.”
Her friend was still staring off into space, and I wondered if we had lost her, when she turned back to us and said, “Ruby, you are full of crap.”
Ruby gasped. Had we heard that right?
“Just full of it.”
Chapter Four
Ruby turned pinker than her makeup.
“Lil, you are getting tired. I’m going to walk you up to your room.” She turned to me, her self-control unaltered, but her voice now shaky. “Erica, it’s been lovely. Call me if you have any questions. Now, Lil, let’s get you up.”
“I’m not going anywhere.” She looked right at me, her face pale and her hands clenched. “Ruby’s spinning you a nice story about the good old days. Old people like to do that, and she’s old, we both are. Really old now. The only thing wrong is that it isn’t true. I have a different story for you.”
“You’re calling me a liar?”
Lil shrugged. “You can hear liar, or you can hear losing your marbles, or you can hear telling a ‘nice’ story.” She made air quotes with her fingers. “Your call. It doesn’t matter to me anym
ore.”
This had mysteriously turned into a conversation that didn’t include me.
Ruby stood up, fumbling for her flower-painted cane. “I am very hurt by your attitude, Lillian. After all these years! Erica, thank you for coming here to see me. Come back any time.”
She walked away, back straight, head high.
Lillian looked at me and smiled wearily. “She’ll get over it. She’ll decide I was affected by my meds. You can decide that for yourself after you hear my story.”
Her tired blue eyes looked straight into mine, and I already knew what I thought.
“Do you have the time today? It’s a long story, but I don’t know if I myself will have the time to tell it again.” She smiled, a little wry smile without much joy in it. “I am dying, you know.” I said something that came out as in incoherent murmur.
“Oh, no, no, don’t try to say something comforting. We are all dying, of course, but some of us have a more definite checkout date. Mine is coming up soon. I’m not sure I’ll get to see those tulips I watched them plant last fall. Do you knit?”
I shook my head, surprised by the sudden change of subject.
“We all used to. A very useful skill. These days I’m thinking about dropped stitches. I want to pick up some of mine.”
She shook her head as if to clear it. “If I tell you a true story about those days, will you do something for me?”
“Yes. Of course.” I thought she meant, maybe, fetch her a coffee. Or do some outside shopping. Bring her a nice plant for her apartment.
“If you come across my brother’s name in your research, tell me.”
“I don’t understand at all.”
She held my hand and again, looked at me deeply. “You are researching Brownsville and you are interested in crime? Maybe you’ll know how to look for this, for my lost brother. I always meant to do it myself, but then I ran out of time. The last time I saw him was dinner at home, July 16, 1936. He was twenty-two and I was ten.”
She leaned back and closed her eyes, as if her story was finished.
I wanted to grab her and shout, “What are you talking about?” underlining each word. What I did say, softly, was “I think I need to know a little more. Like his name.”
Her eyes flew open again. “Well, of course you do! What was I thinking? I should tell it from the beginning.
“People like Ruby say the crooks never affected us, their neighbors. It’s a shonda they think, a shaming of the whole community. And there are people who even romanticize them. Back when I still thought I could dig this up myself, I read a book that turned them into heroes, almost. Phooey on that. A lady doesn’t spit in public or I would.”
She was silent for so long, I thought she’d fallen asleep, but then she went on.
“Believe me, they were thugs, greedy, lazy lowlifes who would rather live off hardworking, honest people than do any work themselves. Some of them were smart, though, and they organized the thugs into a business. Assassins for hire, that’s what they were. It was the papers that named them Murder Incorporated, when Dewey finally dragged them to trial. Now that was some brave man. The only time in my life I voted for a Republican was when Dewey ran for governor.
“They called it business, but you know, some of those hoods got into it because they liked it, liked hurting people. Them, I would call psychopaths. And I should know.”
I gave her a puzzled look.
“Before I turned into a little old lady with failing body parts, I was a psychologist. Dr. and all. That was later, after the war.” She smiled at my surprise. “Yes, I was. Some of us went to school and worked hard and got out the honest way.”
“And your brother? How did he fit in?”
“Honest job. He was a butcher, a good job in those days, and he was a union man. Those guys. Besides the assassin business, they were in the protection racket, and the unions, too. They’d say ‘Give us a job at the union—good pay, no work—and we’ll protect you from those gangsters the bosses hired.’ Of course they made the same offer to the bosses. Whoever had the most money got their so-called protection.” She stopped and dabbed at her eyes.
“What happened?”
“He left the house for a union meeting and never showed up. End of story.”
“No! Come on. No one looked for him?”
She nodded. “His friends, around the neighborhood. My pop. And some of his union pals, that same night. After a while word was passed around that they should stop looking. I learned all that much later, after I was all grown up.”
“But I don’t understand. Didn’t your parents tell you anything? You must have been asking questions. And didn’t they go to the police?”
She shook her head. “They sent me away, right after, to my uncle in south Jersey. He had a chicken farm, if you can believe that. I really did not want to go. I didn’t understand until years later that they were protecting me. And of course I asked questions! Of course I did, but family life was different then. Grown-ups would say, ‘Stop with the questions or you’ll get such a smack!’ And they meant it.” She smiled again, sadly. “It’s not an accident that I went into psychology, of course.”
“But what happened when you came home?”
“They never mentioned his name. They had taken down his only picture and they never mentioned his name. Believe me, I got the message to keep quiet about it.”
“I don’t believe this. I don’t mean I doubt you. It’s just hard to accept that no one raised bloody hell about it. Pardon the expression.”
“They were afraid. Everyone who knew those guys was afraid.” She paused, considering. “This is how it worked—they ate in a diner and left big tips. Was the owner about to say no? They walked the streets like big shots. They’d ask a kid to watch the car or run an errand and give him generous money for it. Then, if the kid was eager, there would be other jobs.”
“And the law?”
“Well, a lot of the cops were in on it too, so where could you turn for help? And everyone knew not to talk about them. You couldn’t be called as a witness if you didn’t see or hear or know anything. And if you were called, you’d better swear you didn’t see or hear or know anything. Years later, when my parents were both gone—personally, I think they died of heartbreak—believe me, I asked everyone else and they were still afraid.”
“And now?”
“I don’t give a good goddamn. What can they do to me now that’s worse than the cancer? They’re all dead now anyway, and if there is an afterlife—which I doubt—they are most certainly not where my brother is.”
She was quiet so long I thought she had drifted off but then she said, “Lately I feel like he’s with me. Strange, isn’t it, considering I’m an unbeliever? I feel like he wants me to know what happened, and I am ashamed I waited until now.”
What could I say but yes? I tried to explain that my main responsibility was to my own work but she just hushed me.
“You’ll be looking around in all those old records. Maybe you’ll see something. Who knows? Maybe you’ll run across someone who’s an expert and might have answers? Or know where to look? Who knows? His name was Frank Kravitz. Write it down.”
She tapped my arm, her polished nail surprisingly sharp. “Write it down. And come back if you see something.” She smiled, a bitter raw smile. “Pretty soon it won’t matter anymore.” Her eyes closed, opened, closed again and this time stayed that way.
An aide with a wheelchair looked in, saying Mrs. Boyle had told her Ms. Kravitz was here. “I’ll just take her back to her room. It’s time for her pre-dinner meds.”
She didn’t need my help and I left, carefully finding my way through the complex of parkways.
Home and dinner. I had the television on, catching up on the news. When I heard the word Brownsville, I took a look. And then I couldn’t move away.
A reporter on
location, talking into a mike. “In the predawn hours a badly beaten young girl was found in this empty lot. She was spotted this morning by workers passing by on a sanitation truck, and police and EMS were called. She is now at Brookdale Hospital in critical condition and has not regained consciousness.”
I could not tear my eyes from the screen.
“She has been identified as Savanna Lafayette, a resident of Van Dyke houses and an honors senior at elite Brooklyn Technical High School. Sources at her employer, the Stone Avenue branch of Brooklyn Public Library, reportedly told police that local gang members have harassed her recently.”
And they introduced her mother on a film clip.
She spoke carefully, with tears in her eyes, and a wavering voice. “Someone knows the truth. Someone out there saw them, saw something, and knows what happened. Please, please step up and tell the truth.” She looked at the reporter, who pointed, and then she looked right at the camera.
“I quote John 8:32, ‘the truth shall set you free.’ It would set all of us free, all of us who cannot have a moment of peace, not knowing what happened. All of us who know my daughter and all of us who have children we want to keep safe. And we are not the only ones who need the truth. All of you who know, really know, that you will not have peace unless you stand up for truth and justice, too. Please.” Then she turned away, weeping, and was surrounded by a comforting crowd.
Ah, damn. I sat there for a few minutes, unable to move. That nice young woman. The girl who was going places. I remembered how Savanna talked about her mother with exasperation and respect. And I reached for the Kleenex.
Only a few years older than my Chris, who was at that moment safely on her bed, doing her homework. Or perhaps texting with her friends in spite of my social media blackout rule on school nights.
