by Dan Barry
Every day except Monday, her daughter, Ines Bates, who tries in vain to get her fragile mother to cut down on these 70-hour weeks, drives her across the Taunton River to Fall River. Past the triple-decker houses and ghostly mills, the run-down housing project and the Portuguese bakery, to here: the St. John’s Athletic Club, a social anchor of the Maplewood section since before the Depression, and the place where Vovó has run a restaurant for 30 years.
On one side of a wall: the bar, where Quaker Fabric factory workers once lined the counter two deep; no bar stools necessary. But the factory, which employed more than 2,000 people just a few years ago, closed in 2007, forcing the shot-and-beer bar to adjust. There is Friday night karaoke now, and if for some reason you suddenly crave an appletini, the St. John’s can provide.
At 8:30 this morning, though, only a few men disturb the emptiness, a couple of them presiding over shot glasses with Dunkin’ Donuts chasers.
On the other side of the wall: the kitchen-and-dining-room domain of Ms. De Costa, now chopping kale. She slices away the spines with surgical precision, rolls several leaves together, then chops, her gold wedding ring winking from the dark-green mound. Her cherished husband, Manuel, died 20 years ago; he too made a good soup.
She could buy the kale and cabbage already chopped, but she insists the strips sit better in the bowl when cut by hand. All leavings, by the way, from tired cabbage bits to day-old bread, are set aside for a man in Westport who keeps goats.
“Like St. Francis,” she says.
The club is silent, save for knife-blade clicks in the kitchen and billiard-ball clacks in the bar. Ms. De Costa rarely goes into the bar, and only then to raise money for one of her many causes: an orphanage in Calcutta, a local nursing home, the occasional destitute dead in need of a coffin.
When asked if she takes a drink now and then, the saintly, knife-wielding Ms. De Costa snaps, “Hell, no.”
The pot burbles. She reaches up with a spoon and stirs the brown broth.
Outside the club spreads a city of 95,000 that is all too familiar with hard times. Once a textile manufacturing capital, the city has spent most of the last century trying to adapt, as the industry moved away, as fires burned the downtown, as revitalization plans remained only plans. Its motto, “We’ll Try,” sounds almost apologetic.
The mayor, Robert Correia, is the latest to try. This month he announced a many-faceted plan to turn Fall River into a center of renewable energy that would attract businesses, create jobs and make use of the city’s many old mills. It includes the ambitious and expensive proposal to “daylight”—or unearth—the muscular Quequechan River, once the generator of power for all those mills, but diverted long ago into pipes beneath the city.
The city clearly needs daylight, hope—a plan. In the meantime, how about some soup? The mayor has known Vovó for nearly 40 years; he knows all about her charitable works, her influence on local-boy-made-good Emeril Lagasse, her portions so plentiful that customers usually leave with leftovers.
“She’s one of these people you never hear from because they’re too busy holding up the rest of us, and we don’t realize it,” he says. As for her Portuguese soup: “In Fall River you would say it’s the kind your mother made.”
At 11:10, Ms. De Costa removes the shanks to dice their meat. As she trims the fat, she remembers how her father used to love a piece of fat in his Portuguese soup, topped with a splash of red wine. When she arrived here in 1952 at 19, he told her: “Everybody in America drinks from the same glass”—meaning everyone’s the same.
“As I find out, this is not the case,” she says.
Soon Ms. De Costa has mixed all the ingredients together into the pot: kale and cabbage, beans and beef, some ground chorizo, and salt; just the right amount. She stirs again, then taps the spoon against the pot’s lip, as if instructing the ingredients to cooperate with one another for the next two hours. She can be stern; just ask her waitresses.
The Tuesday lunch crowd arrives, if it can be called a crowd. Times are tough too at the club, where the motto on the lottery machine—“This is your lucky day!”—can seem like a taunt. A couple of years ago, though, Ms. De Costa bought a ticket, won $1,000 and immediately sent it all to those orphans in Calcutta.
Her daughter, Ms. Bates, has given up cautioning her mother about her endless giving of money and, especially, of food. Some days the business makes money, sometimes it does not. “She says God will provide,” the daughter says, smiling a helpless smile.
Says the mother, “I like to see everybody leave full.”
Sometime around 2, with drab skies threatening rain, Susan Bertrand, a nurse, and John Arruda, a cement truck driver, arrive for lunch. It’s been a tough year, they say, as they count all the friends and relatives who have lost jobs. Mr. Arruda, in fact, just started working after a three-month layoff.
She orders the steak sandwich, he orders the chorizo sandwich, and they both order the Portuguese soup, now ready to be served. Out come two sustaining cups of Vovó.
Delicious, they say.
After Lifetimes Selling Pontiacs, Feeling Sold Out
HOUSTON, PA.—MAY 4, 2009
The Arnold Pontiac dealership is not one of those glass-encased bazaars winking from the main drag, with a showroom the size of a parking lot and a name that sounds like a law firm with too many partners: “Acme Chevrolet Buick Jeep Hyundai Volkswagen Kia Saab. How may I direct your call?”
No, Arnold Pontiac pretty much says it all.
The dealership sits exactly where the Arnold family began a car business back in 1916: on the corner of North Main and East Pike in the pit-stop western Pennsylvania town of Houston, right next to the First Presbyterian Church, where Arnolds are baptized. Small showroom downstairs, service and parts upstairs, free Pontiac calendars everywhere.
Until a few days ago, the Arnolds had a plan. In the tradition of his father and grandfather, Bob the white-haired elder, 74, would be turning the dealership over to his son, Bob the dark-haired younger, 44. The handoff would have happened sooner if not for the embezzlement of $400,000 a couple of years ago by a longtime employee who was like family and who, it turned out, liked to gamble.
But a far deeper betrayal came last week, the Arnolds say, when another family member and poor gambler, General Motors, announced that by 2010 it would close its Pontiac division and 2,600 of its 6,200 dealerships—all to convince a doubtful Obama administration that it had a business plan strong enough to beat a bankruptcy deadline of June 1 and to deserve more government loans.
Pontiac: The Official Car of the 2009 Economic Crisis.
Small, out-of-the-way Arnold Pontiac sells only Pontiacs, GMC trucks and used cars, so the Arnolds figure their G.M. warranty is about to expire. “It was just like getting kicked in the stomach,” says the elder Mr. Arnold, who sold his first car in 1950, to a local man named Paxton. (“Pontiac Catalina. Two-door hardtop. It was cream and rust.”)
His son, who started working at the dealership when he was 6, using a step stool to dust the tops of gleaming Bonnevilles and GTOs, is still trying to process the apparent evaporation of this chunk of his inheritance. “I’m not going to entertain that just yet,” says the younger Mr. Arnold, who sold his first car in 1987. (“Green Sunbird.”)
As Detroit and Washington work to save the car industry from going over a cliff like some roadster in a black-and-white melodrama, entire families have been upended—families that long ago linked their surname to the name of Pontiac in commercial banns of marriage.
For example, the Arnolds are friends with the Mikans, a longtime Pontiac family in Butler, about 60 miles north of here. Robert Mikan, 76, and his son, David, 39, watched last Monday’s devastating news conference on a computer screen in their dealership, in a back room where an old plaque from the Pennsylvania Automotive Association hangs tilted on the gray paneled wall.
After a while the son, whose first sale was a used white 1988 Pontiac Grand Prix, turned to his father, whose first sale was a gray 1946 Pontiac T
orpedo, and said, “Dad, I think that’s it.”
They knew the end had come to a legacy dating to Robert’s father, Ivan, who started a car business in the town of Trafford in 1924, sold Chryslers and Hudsons for a while, then settled on Pontiacs. That was 70 years ago.
Such excitement back then. Every year Ivan Mikan would paper over his showroom windows, building excitement, before unveiling the new Pontiac models at a reception where men wore suits and women wore dresses. Ladies and gentlemen, introducing:
Your 1951 Pontiac Chieftain! And yes, that hood ornament lights up! Your 1958 Pontiac Bonneville! America’s No. 1 road car!
Your 1968 Pontiac GTO! We call it The Great One!
“That’s a lot of years working for a brand and for a division that is now going to be defunct,” says Robert Mikan, who keeps a 1975 Pontiac Grand Ville convertible, red with white interior, in a garage out back.
David Mikan, who runs the dealership now, says their sales of Pontiacs have steadily declined: 100 sold last year, compared with twice that in 2000. Although the emphasis has shifted to their Volkswagen line and their used cars, he says, the Mikans have always considered themselves a Pontiac family.
Still, a few days ago he removed all the preening Pontiacs from the front of the dealership and replaced them with shiny Volkswagens. Partly out of anger, he says, and partly because Volkswagen, not Pontiac, is central to the Mikan future.
Back in Houston, there is no Volkswagen fallback. The Arnolds have been hitched to Pontiacs since 1926, the year the car made its debut. Because of Pontiac, Bob Arnold the elder attended the General Motors Institute in Flint, Mich., more than a half-century ago. Because of Pontiac, then, he happened to meet his future wife, Angela, at an institute dance.
“Girls got in free,” recalls Ms. Arnold, whose first car was a 1955 Pontiac Star Chief Catalina, turquoise and ivory. Now she drives a 2005 Pontiac Bonneville, candy-apple red.
It is quiet now in the dealership’s office, save for the whoosh of passing cars outside, few of them Pontiacs.
A man pops his head in long enough to say: “Thanks, Bob. That was a good deal you gave my sister.”
The visit underscores what Mr. Arnold has been saying about how small dealerships have cultivated relationships that span generations. Yes, Pontiac made mistakes, but Pontiac traditionally enticed younger people to join the G.M. family.
Mr. Arnold wonders about the future—what about their 20 employees?—and soon that wonder turns to complaint. G.M. should never have gotten rid of the Bonneville. G.M. sacrificed Pontiac to save Buick. It’s all about the Buick market in China, which comes at the expense of American jobs. In the end, G.M. betrayed its family.
But Susan Garontakos, a G.M. spokeswoman, responds with a sobering perspective. The Pontiac line has been unprofitable for several years, she says. G.M. is trying to develop a survival plan under the government’s deadline. Plants are closing and people are losing their jobs—including her son-in-law.
“It’s hitting everyone,” she says.
Mr. Arnold walks across the still showroom, shoes squeaking on the treated floor. He passes a display case of family memorabilia. Portraits of his parents and grandparents. A row of souvenir pens. A hood ornament whose amber glow once announced to the night: Here comes another Pontiac.
He starts talking about how discouraged he is, but interrupts himself long enough to hand a visitor a 2009 calendar, courtesy of Arnold Pontiac, Houston, Pennsylvania.
Under Gavel, Where Loss Transforms into Gain
SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH—JULY 6, 2009
Bid, Bid, BID, the auctioneer implores, serenading the curious and meek with the trills and yammers of his trade. Nearly 20 foreclosed properties are up for auction here in the great state of Utah, ladies and gentlemen, and now is your chance to turn an empty house back into a home.
Dozens of potential bidders sit before him in various states of intimidation, clutching bidding cards as thin as paper and heavy as brick. A few of them scribble out notes like racetrack rookies posturing as touts, calculating the odds of some dark-horse deal.
Whenever a bidder manages to lift a card, or nod, or wave, an auction assistant prowling the aisles gives praise—“Yes!” He wears a tuxedo, as if to bestow class upon an indelicate process in which one’s gain comes from another’s loss.
“Yes!” the assistant yelps again and again, making the Grand Ballroom of a Hilton hotel somehow less so. He challenges bidders in the throes of uncertainty with the cock of an eyebrow and the jut of a finger, as if to ask, Is there something wrong? Are you crazy? Don’t you want to own your dream home?
“Yes! Yes! Yes!”
If it’s Tuesday, then this must be Salt Lake City for a California company called the Real Estate Disposition Corporation; R.E.D.C., for short. Its employees barnstorm the country like a carnival troupe, staging auctions for banks and other lenders eager to reduce their groaning inventories of failure.
Since May 2007, the company has held more than 400 events, putting up for auction more than 50,000 houses and condominiums that fell into foreclosure during these singular times. But beware, you buyers with checkbooks in trembling hand. Each property has a minimum sales price unknown to bidders; if the auction doesn’t hit that number, the lender can reject the sale.
Yesterday was Colorado, tomorrow will be Michigan, but tonight is Utah, where an R.E.D.C. representative begins the auction by commending those in the audience for being “part of the solution to the current economic crisis.”
And now the auctioneer is singing his way down the brick-and-mortar list, sharing little more than the number of bedrooms and bathrooms in each structure.
So a modest $215,000 condo in Heber City (once owned by an electrician, said to have been a good father, dead of lung cancer at 38) is sold at $110,000. And a tired $139,100 condo in Orem (where a man sexually assaulted a woman one night, then lost his government job after being convicted) is sold at $95,000. And a hilltop mansion in Draper (where a man who calls himself a “preservation mechanic” mows the lawn and makes the creepy, cavernous place look both neat and lived in) is overvalued at $3 million and sold at $605,000.
Halfway through the night, the auctioneer comes to Item No. 1104: an eight-bedroom house in South Jordan. The bidding quickly hits 250, as in $250,000, then rises to 255, 260, 265, 270, while the auctioneer pleads and the assistant kneels before a potential bidder, as if proposing.
“I’m at 270!” the auctioneer calls. “Don’t lose it! Don’t lose it!”
But before another hand rises to bid, and before the auctioneer’s gavel slams down in confirmation of deal closed, next deal, it might be instructive to visit this vacated house in South Jordan, on West Rambouillet Drive. A man named Paul Furse, who knows this house’s every inch, stands at its locked door and begins to tell its story.
Years ago a developer bought an old sheep ranch and carved it into lots for sale. In the spring of 2002, Mr. Furse bought a third-acre parcel on a corner for $68,000. Then he set out to build a house by hand, although not alone; he had the assistance of his wife, Teri, and their four children, the oldest just 15.
Mr. Furse was 40, blond, sturdy, and nothing if not determined. He had never built a house before, but he had been in and around construction most of his life, remodeling rooms, jobs like that. “I got a bee in my bonnet and just wanted to build a house,” he says.
The family, living then in a small house in a nearby town, assisted the architect by sketching out what they wanted: the bedrooms, the second-story catwalk, the office, the crafts room, the sprawling family area with a wood stove. A construction loan was secured, the foundation was laid—and just like that, the Furse Family Construction Company began to build.
The whole endeavor sounds improbable, but the family filmed the seven-month construction. Here is Kelsi, 15, using a pneumatic nail gun to assemble a wall; Kira, 13, holding steady a beam that will help to support the second story; Haylie, 10, nails in her mouth, applying shingles to the roo
f; Dean, 7, handing his father some wood, playing with a toy truck.
They listened to FM radio, broke for sandwiches at lunch, scraped knees, played on a makeshift swing, drenched themselves in water to keep cool, tried to keep up with schoolwork. Kelsi and Kira sometimes used carpenter’s pencils to do their math-assignment calculations on the unfinished walls and floors.
Most of all, everyone just worked, sun-up, sun-down, six days a week. And when they were done, the Furses had built a home in time for Thanksgiving.
Peering now into the locked house, his head beside a “Warning—No Trespassing” sign, Mr. Furse recalls it all. The wedding portrait on display in the master bedroom. The color schemes chosen by each child for their bedrooms: Dean, a bright green; Haylie, a sky blue; Kelsi, a tan with a rag-rolled look; and Kira, a crazy, Pollock-like spattering of blue, green and purple. The window view of a Mormon church’s gleaming white steeple, set against the backdrop of the Wasatch Mountains.
It is difficult to say when the house that had become a home became just a house again. Mr. Furse used the property as security to finance a couple of business deals that foundered—mostly, he says, because of betrayals by partners. The money wasn’t coming in, the tension built, and everyone sensed this wondrous family accomplishment turning into a burden.
“I could feel it slipping,” Kelsi recalls.
Foreclosure proceedings came in 2006, followed by a bankruptcy filing to buy some time, and then, finally, a strangely welcoming release. Mr. Furse likens the experience to the last lingering days of a sick, older relative. “You hate to see them go,” he says. “But what a relief.”
Today the family is renting a much more modest house a few miles away—it has no view to speak of—while Kelsi, now a married mother of a toddler, lives nearby. Not long ago she drove past the house she helped to build, only to find it, she says, “remarkably alien.” A home, she has decided, is where your family is.
