by Sandra Hill
Mrs. Chancellor gave a short hoot of laughter. “And the nine-year-olds in this neighborhood are figuring out how to steal them.”
“—or where they’ll go on vacation this summer, the shore or the mountains.”
Mrs. Chancellor’s face revealed infinite sadness. “Most of my kids will never have a vacation. They either die young or never leave the ghetto.”
Paula knew that. Surely, Mrs. Chancellor didn’t think she was an insensitive do-gooder with no understanding of the life-and-death struggle urban children faced every day. That was one of the reasons she yearned to help.
Raising her chin stubbornly, she continued to explain herself. “I always intended to go to graduate school right after college, but then . . . well, I got married . . .” Oh, Lord! When I met Nick, it was like being hit with a Mack truck of sexual attraction. Those were the days! Nick couldn’t keep his hands off me. Heck, I couldn’t keep my hands off him. School was the last thing I was thinking about then.
She gulped and went on. “My plans were put aside for a few years. I worked and went to school at night.” She held the social worker’s eyes with a level stare. “This is my dream, Mrs. Chancellor. I want to really make a difference in young people’s lives. Children in desperate need.”
“It’s not safe here for a woman like you,” she said flatly.
Like me? Paula bristled. “If I were black, would it be any safer?”
“No.”
Paula tossed her hair back over her shoulder, forgetting it was still in a ponytail. “Because I’m a woman?”
Mrs. Chancellor made a rude snorting sound. “I have just as many women as men on my staff. In fact, sometimes women do a better job reaching these children.”
“My age? I am twenty-nine, you know.”
She shook her head.
“Then what?”
“Your background. Girl, you have no idea what it’s like to grow up in a project. To see death on a daily basis. To hunger for a better life and know it’s hopeless.”
“I can learn,” she protested. “And I refuse to accept that it’s hopeless.”
“Perhaps.” Mrs. Chancellor smiled at her vehemence and tapped her pencil thoughtfully on the desk. “Nick would never forgive me if I hired you.”
Paula gasped. So that was the reason for Mrs. Chancellor’s attitude. “Nick called you?” she asked incredulously.
“Oh, yes, Nick called. Threatened to have me arrested for breaking some law or other. Challenged my morals for even considering your application.” Mrs. Chancellor chuckled. “Said he’d stop volunteering for the youth basketball program.”
“Nick threatened you? Oh, this is too much! How dare he?”
Mrs. Chancellor waved Paula’s indignation aside. “I’ve known that husband of yours since he was five years old. He doesn’t scare me one bit.”
Paula thought of something else. “Nick plays basketball with the kids? How long has he been doing that?”
“Two years.”
Two years? Before she’d left him. How was it possible that she’d never known? So, all those nights she’d thought he was playing one-on-one at the gym with Skip, he’d actually been down here in the ghetto. Why wouldn’t he talk about such an admirable activity?
The answer came to her immediately. He knew she’d want to come along to the projects, and he’d spent years trying to prevent her from doing just that.
“Mrs. Chancellor, Nick and I are getting a divorce. He had no right to call you or—”
“He’s worried about you. Don’t blame him for caring about your welfare,” Mrs. Chancellor chastised her sternly. “Ninety percent of the women in this project have no husbands. What they wouldn’t give to have a man—anyone, for that matter—who wanted to protect them! So don’t knock the protective instincts of a good man to me, girl.”
Paula stiffened. “But Nick goes too far. He—never mind, I didn’t come here to discuss my personal problems.” She picked up her purse from the floor and stood. “I can see now that this interview was doomed from the beginning. You’re never going to hire me with Nick breathing over your shoulder.”
“Now, I never said that,” Mrs. Chancellor interjected quickly with a sly smile. She pulled a set of keys out of her drawer and stood, towering over Paula. “C’mon, I want to show you something.” Without waiting for Paula’s agreement, she led her through the door of her office, making sure to lock the three dead bolts. Then she walked briskly down a corridor to the stairway, bypassing the elevator. “Half the time the elevators don’t work,” she explained, “and the smell inside their close confines is enough to gag a maggot.”
The smells were pretty bad in the halls, too, Paula thought, recognizing spaghetti sauce and urine and God only knew what other odors. Graffiti marked the walls, and the sounds of crying children and arguing adults echoed through the thin walls of the units.
She felt like crying.
Hurrying to catch up, she followed the energetic woman up one flight of stairs after another, till they got to the fourth floor.
“This apartment is empty right now,” Mrs. Chancellor told her as she inserted a key in the door and entered, motioning for Paula to follow.
Paula looked around at the small combination living room and kitchen. The two windows overlooked the dumpsters on one side and the brick walls of the next building on the other. Sun would rarely brighten these drab rooms.
In the single bedroom, two double beds took up almost the entire space except for a dresser with a cracked mirror. The grimy bathroom had only a sink, a toilet, and a tub with no showerhead.
Coming back to Mrs. Chancellor, Paula raised an eyebrow questioningly, unsure what her prospective employer wanted her to see.
“This is the apartment where Nick grew up with his mother and four brothers and sisters.”
Paula clasped a hand to her heart, and tears welled in her eyes. Oh, no! Oh, God, no! Such a dismal place!
“Actually, they weren’t as crowded as most families here,” Mrs. Chancellor went on. “You know, of course, about Lita?”
Paula nodded. Nick had told her his little sister had died when she was a baby.
“Lita passed on when Nick was only five years old. That’s why the authorities called me in. Too bad the little one had to die to bring about any change here.” She shook her head woefully in remembrance.
The fine hairs stood out on Paula’s neck. She knew the little girl had died, but apparently Nick had left out a few facts. “How did her death bring you here?”
Mrs. Chancellor looked surprised at Paula’s question. “You don’t know how Lita died?”
Paula hesitated, not sure she wanted to know.
“Rat bites,” Mrs. Chancellor informed her bluntly.
Paula exhaled loudly with dismay and sank down to the sofa, realizing immediately that it had a broken spring, and moved to the other side. “Tell me.”
“The old superintendent—Wilson—was skimming money out of the projects for years. One of the areas he stole from was pest control. His idea of rat eradication was to bring in cats, dozens of the rat catchers, which, of course, weren’t sufficient to curb the rodent population.”
Cats? So, that’s why Nick hates cats. They remind him of the projects. And rats. She laced her fingers together in her lap to stop their trembling.
“Lita was only one year old, sleeping in her crib. Her mother was out somewhere. Drinking, no doubt. And Nick was in charge of the younger children.”
Oh, poor Nick! And only five years old.
Even the hardened Mrs. Chancellor seemed shaken then as she recalled the past. “That summer was especially bad here in the projects. Unrelenting heat. A sanitation strike. And rats.” She sighed deeply. “The bottom line is that Lita was bitten repeatedly by rats. Nick didn’t understand the
seriousness; he was only a kid. And his mother was negligence personified.”
“No!” Paula resisted what she suspected was coming next.
“Yes. A rampant infection set in, which wasn’t treated for days. Lita died within a week of blood poisoning.”
Paula gagged and rushed for the bathroom. When she emerged a short time later, Mrs. Chancellor appeared apologetic. “I shouldn’t have told you all that.”
“Yes, you should have. Actually, Nick should have told me himself, but—”
Mrs. Chancellor patted her shoulder. “You have to understand the shame, my dear.”
“Shame? Why should he feel ashamed? It wasn’t his fault.”
“I know, I know. But he’s a proud young man. The last thing he would want is pity.”
Yes, Nick was proud. And stubborn.
“And he felt guilty.”
“Guilty?”
“Of course. He’d failed to protect the ones he loved.”
Understanding rushed over Paula in a torrent. Now—now when it was too late—she’d been given a reason for Nick’s overprotectiveness. A clue to his obsessive behavior. He’d never lied to her about his past, but, oh, he’d omitted so much.
“What about his brothers and sisters?”
“Teresa died of a drug overdose when she was thirteen. Anthony was killed in a gang fight. And Frankie is in prison for grand larceny.”
“Nick has a brother who’s alive?” Paula didn’t know if she could take any more shocks like this today.
Mrs. Chancellor nodded slowly. “You really should talk to your husband.”
“No, Nick really should talk to me.” And he would. Oh, yes, he definitely would.
After that, Mrs. Chancellor showed her around the rest of the projects, including the youth activity rooms where Paula would work if she was hired. Her heart wept as she pictured a young Nick in this setting, scrambling about the makeshift gym after a volleyball game, playing checkers with one of the counselors, fighting off the encroaching decay and evil that hovered outside—and within.
Mrs. Chancellor finally told Paula, “We have a desperate need for help here, Mrs. DiCello. If you want the job, it’s yours. But think about it for a few days. Talk to Nick—now, now, don’t get your hackles up—he’s in a position to give you good advice. Listen to what he has to say. Then call me.”
As Paula walked toward her car, she pondered all she’d seen that morning. She put her fingertips to her lips, still bruised from Nick’s many kisses. Her body, as well as her emotions, had been battered the past week. The upcoming divorce. Her job search. Nick’s refusal to accept the end of their marriage. His persistent, endearing efforts to woo her back.
Through the mist of her tears, she had to smile, picturing the impossible erotic fantasies he had created for her. Who would have imagined Nick going to the trouble of making an Arabian Nights oasis on a New Jersey beach? Or the Senior Prom dream—come-true? Or the Highway Sex Scene?
Hmmm. A pattern began to emerge in Paula’s mind. What was the big lug up to here? Was it merely seduction, trying to get her back? Or something more?
Well, she had more important things to discuss with him now. How dare he call a prospective employer and try to undermine her job efforts? The interference reeked of his obsessive protectiveness. And she planned to put a stop to it now. Obviously, their divorce was the only way to convince him of her seriousness.
“Well, well, well. If it isn’t Mrs. Dickhead—I mean, Mrs. DiCello. I saw that asshole cop driving this bug . . . uh, car off the lot last week.”
Paula was jarred from her deep thoughts by the drawling remark of a youth with a red bandanna tied around his head, gang style. He couldn’t have been more than fourteen years old, but the deadness of his dark eyes bespoke no youthful innocence.
“Kindly step away from my car,” Paula demanded, refusing to show her fear. He half sat on the hood, his long, jeans-clad legs crossed at the ankles, his arms folded over his chest.
Paula wanted to scoot inside the protection of her car’s interior—not that the tiny VW, with its soft top, would give her much protection. Oh, Lord, she wished she’d driven that damned, practically bulletproof Volvo. Pretending a nonchalance she didn’t feel, she sidled around to the driver’s side, but the boy straightened ominously and stepped in front of her.
“Where you goin’, pretty lady?” he crooned, reaching out an arm and pulling the rubber band from her pony tail. Her hair spilled out around her shoulders. She tried to knock his hand aside, and his fingers locked on her wrist. “What’s that mark on your neck, baby? Your hubby been givin’ you hickeys, huh? I didn’t think the old man had it in ’im. Maybe the dick has some lead in his pipe, after all.”
His two friends, whom Paula just noticed leaning against a concrete wall, laughed at the crude joke.
He jerked on her wrist and pulled her closer. Paula could smell the musk of body odor and danger on his sweat-coated skin. “I think I got me a fine piece of tail here.”
She struggled, in vain, and he laughed, enjoying her fear. Raising her other hand, she tried to swing her heavy purse at him, but one of his friends came up from behind and grabbed it, handing it to a third boy, who began to rummage through its contents.
“We gonna do a train on her, Lewis?” the boy behind her asked, rubbing his hips against her bottom, pressing her closer to Lewis, who was now propped against the driver’s door, holding the soft flesh of her upper arms in an iron grip against her rib cage. She was now sandwiched between the two hoodlums.
Lewis leered at her and thrust his crotch toward her. “Yeah, I think this slut would enjoy a gang bang.”
She gasped.
He grinned evilly. “Then we’re gonna mark her up a bit. I warned DiCello. Maybe this time he’ll lis—”
“Maybe this time you’ll listen, Lewis. Man, we don’t need this kinda shit. Let the lady go,” a harsh, unfamiliar voice shouted behind her. Paula looked over her shoulder to see a gangly, black-haired boy approaching with two friends. They all wore the same red bandannas. And they were wielding ominous-looking knives.
“Stay out of this, Casale. This ain’t your problem.” Lewis stepped away from the car, still holding on to Paula’s upper arm. The other hand pulled a knife from the waistband of his jeans.
Paula’s heart thudded madly. With a spurt of adrenalin, she pulled out of his grasp. But immediately he backhanded her across the face, and she landed against the hood of her car, jarring her hip painfully. She tasted blood on her cut lip.
“Don’t move,” he warned, “or you’re dead.”
Paula could see that he was serious. He would have no compunction at all about killing her. So she remained still and watched in horror as the six boys, three against three, circled each other.
They struggled, slicing at each other with wary attacks and withdrawals. Harsh, vicious curses and ethnic slurs were thrown into the otherwise silent street. Threats of dire consequences if one or the other didn’t back down.
In the end, they seemed to realize they were evenly matched, and there were going to be no easy winners. The fight was over in seconds. Both sides backed away, not surrendering, just putting off the outcome for another day. It appeared there would be no mortal wounds struck today.
Paula exhaled on a deep sigh.
Lewis bolted with his two friends, calling over his shoulder, “I’m gonna get you for this, Casale. And you, too, Mrs. DiCello. I’m coming after you both.”
Casale’s two friends chased after Lewis, but Paula’s rescuer stayed behind. Not out of any concern for her, she realized immediately. He was bent over at the waist in pain, bleeding from a thigh wound, and his bare arms and neck bore minor slice marks from the deadly knives.
“Get in the car,” she ordered. “I’m taking you to a hospital.”
&nb
sp; “It ain’t nothin’. And I’m not goin’ to no friggin’ hospital. Just go.”
Paula clucked at his false bravado and looked about for her purse. It was gone, of course. Well, at least, she still had her car keys in her skirt pocket. She unlocked the passenger door and pushed the youth inside. He was too weak to protest.
Quickly, she scanned the now empty street and walked around the front of the car. Soon she had the car in gear and was driving out of the city toward the hospital.
“I told you, I ain’t goin’ to no hospital. Besides, I just need to stop the bleeding. I’ve had worse than this lots of times.” The boy had torn open the rip in his jeans, exposing a six-inch cut that was already coagulating. The cut couldn’t be very deep. Pulling the dirty bandanna off his head, he wrapped it around the wound and winced.
“Well, it will have to be cleaned, and you need an antiseptic. Where’s your house? I’ll drive you there. Then we’ll go to the police to report this crime.”
The boy shot her a look of disbelief. “Are you nuts? I’m not goin’ anywhere near my . . . place. Lewis will be on the lookout for me. And the police . . . hell, I ain’t gonna squeal to no pigs.”
Paula started to protest, then decided that taking care of his wound was the most important thing. Looking down at the key ring in the ignition, she realized that she still had the keys to Nick’s apartment—the ones he’d given her a year ago in hopes they could reconcile. Making a quick decision, she said, “We’ll go to Nick’s place. It’s nearby. Then we can decide what to do. What’s your name, by the way?”
“Casale.”
“No, I mean your first name.”
The boy jerked his head toward her in surprise. At first, he balked, then he admitted in a soft voice, “Richie.”
“Well, Richie,” she said, turning to him as she pulled to a stop at a red light, “I want you to know that you are my hero. And I’m going to make damn sure no one hurts you again.”
