Tabloid City

by Pete Hamill

  –Aquí, señor, she says, taking his painting hand and placing it on the handle of his cup.

  –Qué milagro, he says, chuckling. What a miracle! Coffee in a cup! Not cardboard! A true miracle.

  –Sí, señor, she says. Y bagels también!

  –Watch out for that dog. He might think they’re for him.

  He feels for the plate, takes a bagel, and pulls it into halves. Then pauses.

  –Okay, what kind of help, Consuelo?

  –A job, Señor Lewis.

  –Start from the beginning. When you went home to Oaxaca.

  She tells him the short version of the long tale. Huajuapan. Raymundo. Marriage. The two of them slipping across the border west of Laredo. The long ride north in a bus. New York. Cleaning houses, then cleaning offices, studying English in the church, teaching English to Raymundo, who found work in a coffee shop, first delivering orders and washing dishes and cleaning grills. Then cooking. Getting paid more each year. Not a lot. But more. After little Eddie was born, they moved to a one-room studio apartment in Brooklyn, and after the second child, the girl Marcela, they found this house in Sunset Park. Two floors. Parlor floor and basement, the Irish woman called it. Pretty high rent, for a place that was a wreck, but with Consuelo and Raymundo both working, they managed. They fixed up the rooms. They made the little back garden bloom with flowers. Then, three years ago, the Irish lady died and they started sending the rent money to some company. Money orders. Then everything started to collapse two years ago, and now she had lost her job. Now they could be evicted. With three kids now. Eddie, Marcela, Timmie.

  –I thought you might know about a job. Maybe I could even work here. Clean your place once a week, and the halls, and other apartments. Maybe you know other places, señor. That’s what I thought. Businesses, offices. Anything. Well, not anything. Nothing with… cómo se dice, vergüenza?

  –Shame? Never, Consuelo. Never with you.

  He is quiet for almost a minute. Maybe longer. She hopes he can’t hear her heart beating. He still holds the bagel. His face says nothing.

  –Let me think, Consuelo. You know, this goddamned recession…

  –Sí, yo entiendo. I understand, señor. That’s why I lose, uh, lost my job.

  He bites the end of his bagel, gnawing it, chewing intently, then swallowing. Thinking.

  He says, Do you know the computer?

  –Sí. My son, he—

  –Good. I don’t have a clue about it.

  He leans back, staring at nothing he can see.

  –The people I know, he says, the people who buy my paintings—they’re all very quiet right now. Como se dice, laying low. Waiting. The very rich ones don’t give a rat’s ass. The money keeps rolling in. But others, they’re cutting back. They’re afraid. One of them just died. Yesterday. An awful death. A wonderful woman. I guess it’s on television too.

  She feels herself going limper, softer. He’s trying to say that he can’t help. Pues. Ni modo, ni modo. No surprise. And looking at the mess of the studio, she is certain that a loan is impossible.

  –Even here at the Chelsea, they’re cutting back. Some people, they lived here for years, they can’t pay the rent. Painters give the hotel paintings instead of rent. Others, they just pray, even the atheists. None of them want to live in a homeless shelter.

  Consuelo sees his eyebrows tense as he sips his coffee, both hands wrapped around the cup for warmth. She can’t bring herself to press him, and begins to feel regret about coming to see him.

  –I need to make some calls, he says.

  –Gracias, señor. But don’t, please don’t, uh, go out of your way.

  –No, no, it’s no bother. It’s just, you know, it should be a job with a future. You’re young, mi vida. You’re beautiful. You speak English real good, Consuelo. You know the computer. You’re smart as hell… I don’t know… You don’t have to clean up after people. Maybe—

  –I’m illegal, señor, she says, in a flat voice.

  –What the hell? Half the guys I grew up with were illegal—and they were born here!

  He laughs out loud.

  –And those malcriados from Wall Street, that Bernie Madoff—what the hell are they? Legal?

  Consuelo smiles. She knows three women who worked on Wall Street.

  –Sí, pero—

  His face is flushed now, the way it used to be in Cuernavaca when something on TV set him off about politicians and the pendejos of the world.

  –Your kids are Americans, right?

  –Sí, Señor Lewis.

  –Well, they ain’t going anywhere. And neither are you. You already cleaned enough offices to make sure they never have to clean them. You need a job that helps you get them into college… I have a lawyer friend. Specializes in immigration cases, Irishmen, Chinese, Mexicans… Named O’Dwyer. I think he can help straighten this out, this illegal stuff…

  He sips his coffee. She sips hers too. A slight bitterness lies in the dark liquid at the bottom of the cup. She looks at him, his knotting brow, his slackening jaw. Pity rises in her. A man who loves pictures and cannot even see his own work. A man who loves poetry and cannot read. A man who loves friends and company and women, and is here, in this place, alone.

  She places the cup on the chair.

  –I mus’ be going, Señor Lewis. My children…

  –Of course.

  And then, almost urgently, he touches her forearm.

  –Consuelo, mi vida. I want to say something. Just to you… I truly loved you… I did… I was way too old for you, even then, but you made me feel younger. More alive. It showed in my work. In my eyes… When you went away, I thought, I should have married her. I should have married you.

  –You were married, señor, she says softly.

  The sentence hangs there.

  –Yes, I was. And the truth? I loved her too. I loved my wife, Gabrielle. And you. Most people don’t understand how that’s possible. Except in some goddamned telenovela… If I could have had both of you, I’d have been happy… In the same house. At the same table. But she would never go for that and neither would you. Pride is always stronger than love. Or maybe love is impossible without pride. I don’t know… But there was another thing. She was sick. The doctors in New York, they said, she… Ah, ni modo. Never mind… I was too old to follow my heart. And all these years later, I still think of you. And here you are.

  She tries breathing softly, relieved that he cannot see her face.

  Forrest drains his cup, lays it down gently, feeling for the edge of the chair before him. Then he rises, pushing on the arm of the couch, and stands. The dog stands too. So does Consuelo. She wishes she could begin cleaning now. Send him to the lobby with the dog. Open the windows. Call her friends. Bring brooms and pails and soap and mops, bring Pledge and Windex, make everything shiny, make the air as sweet as the house in Mexico, give him a new clean life. Bring music. Bring Don Cuco with his harp. Bring José Alfredo with his cantina songs. Bring him joy.

  –You gave me many gifts, Señor Lewis.

  –And you… did that for me, Consuelita… After you, I did my best work.

  –I’m sorry for coming here to bother you.

  –No, no. It’s been a delight. Corazón…

  He turns his head to where her voice is.

  –Now, mi vida, go to that desk. Write down your married name, your husband’s name, the three children and the years they were born and where. Write your address and telephone number. And what do they call it? E-mail. I want to talk to this lawyer, O’Dwyer. And I want to start calling my friends about work.

  –Sí, Señor Lewis.

  She begins writing with the lead pencil. The point is blunt. Forrest is silent, but she can hear his dry breathing. He must have stopped smoking. There is no odor of nicotine in the dirty air. He can hear when she finishes writing.

  –Now, listen to me, muchacha. When you go downstairs, see Jerry. Make sure you see him. The bald guy at the front desk.

  –Señor, I…


  –See him.

  He embraces her. She kisses his leathery cheek.

  –Mil gracias, Señor Lewis. Para todo.

  She takes her coat, pulls it on, adds the hat. She feels as if she will never see him again.

  –This is not good-bye, he says. No es adios. Es hasta muy pronto. Until very soon.

  –Sí, señor, she says. And opens the door.

  –Mucha suerte, she whispers.

  He chuckles and says: Luck is what we both need.

  And she’s gone. Forrest can hear her steps receding on the tile of the hallway.

  He picks up the telephone.

  10:10 a.m. Malik Shahid. Sixth Street, Gowanus, Brooklyn.

  Jamal sits at the kitchen table, his back to the bright garden, facing Malik. He is trying to look relaxed, dressed in a cashmere sweater, white J. Crew turtleneck, slacks, his left foot encased in a desert boot, perched on his right knee. He peers at Malik through slightly tinted yellowish glasses. His beard is neatly trimmed. Buppie of the month, Malik thinks, another infidel fuck. My friend Jamal. My jihadist comrade.

  –What are you gonna do, Malik? he says.

  –Whattaya think I’m gonna do?

  –I don’t know. I know what you should do.

  –Yeah? What’s that?

  –Call your father. Go see him. Don’t run.

  –Shit, Malik says, dragging the word across three syllables.

  –You know they’re looking for you, Jamal says.

  –Why me?

  –Malik, your mother’s been murdered by someone. Along with the woman she worked for. A rich, well-known woman. It’s all over TV. It’s on the radio. The cops want to talk to everyone who might know why. Or who.

  –You know how I feel, Jamal. My mother’s been dead for years.

  –Stop shittin’ yourself, brother.

  Malik goes quiet, his eyes wandering to the sink, the dishwasher, the stove. Jamal has been a dark silhouette against the brightness of the garden. Now he flattens his foot on the kitchen floor, and leans forward.

  –You can’t stay here, man. You know how my wife—

  –I came for our stuff, Jamal. The box. You know, with—

  –It’s not here, Malik. You think I’m nuts?

  –Where is it?

  Malik’s face hardens. Jamal jerks a thumb to his left.

  –Down there, a block and a half. Been there three years, at least. At the bottom of the Gowanus.

  –What? You never asked me if—

  –You were in the wind, man. How’m I suppose to find you? Facebook? Call information? Google?

  –You coulda buried it in the yard.

  –You think my wife wouldn’t notice? Get real.

  Silence. Jamal stands, folds his arms across his chest. The tree in the garden is skeletal, with an icy sheen.

  –Can I sleep here a few hours?

  Jamal turns. Without his beard, Malik looks younger, even forlorn, or lost.

  –My wife is due back soon. She just dropped my daughter at nursery school, then went shopping. I mean, you said you seen her leave. The house is too small for you to sleep here without her seein’ you.

  He doesn’t have to spell out the rest. Malik knows that Jamal’s wife is the kind of infidel bitch would call the cops on a Muslim.

  –Why would you want the stuff? Jamal says.

  Malik doesn’t answer. He rises, stands aimlessly, folding and unfolding his arms, then leans against the stove.

  –I hope you’re not planning some fucking show, Malik. Kill yourself, take a lotta people with you.

  –Shut up.

  –Like these dumb-ass white guys, all packing heat, walk into a gym or a church or a campus, start shooting, kill a bunch a’ people, then shoot themselves. Two-day wonders in the tabloids. Then nobody knows their names.

  Malik whips around from the stove, slicing the air with a carving knife.

  –Shut the fuck up, Jamal!

  Silence.

  Jamal’s face trembles. He eyes the five-inch blade.

  Then Malik lowers the knife.

  –Sorry, he whispers.

  He lays the knife on the stovetop, turns, and walks quickly down the hall to the gate under the stoop. He zippers his coat.

  Jamal waits, hears the gate clang. He feels his body go rubbery and boneless. He struggles to breathe.

  10:15 a.m. Sam Briscoe. New York Luncheonette, 135 East 50th Street, Manhattan.

  The waiter takes the plates away, with their traces of scrambled eggs and crisp bacon and the crust of an English muffin. He puts the check beside Briscoe’s cup and refills the cup with black decaf. Briscoe tries to remember what he has forgotten in his need to fill these coming hours with details. Clerking death. The process he first saw when he was ten and one of his Irish aunts had to arrange a wake for her dead husband. Don’t grieve, or at least not now. Take care of details. Deal with the boring parts. Get too busy for weeping. The aunt said to Briscoe’s mother: I’m too damned busy to feel sorry for anyone, even myself.

  Using the hated cell phone, Briscoe had called Matt Logan first, waking him up, telling him what had happened. I don’t want you to hear the news from the new media, Briscoe said.

  Logan laughed: I already did. That CelineWire one. You know, Wheeler, the schmuck you fired a couple years ago.

  Briscoe laughed, and said, Never fire a guy who can type. He explained that he would cash out, and recommend to the publisher that Matt run the new online version of the World.

  –Am I being punished? Logan said.

  –No, Briscoe said. But you’ll be getting paid.

  Then he called Janet, his secretary, and told her to call a staff meeting for five o’clock today. They’ll all have the news already, he said. But there’ll be forms to fill out, applying for the jobs that will be left. And we have to say good-bye. He told her to call each of them. To meet in the city room. Everybody who could make it. Sportswriters and photographers and advertising guys and pressmen included. Closed to outside press. He gave Janet the news too, of course, and told her not to worry, she’d still have a job.

  –Yeah? she said. But I work for you.

  In a way, that was true. She’d worked for him about a dozen years, a lifetime in newspapers. He told her everything would be okay. At least for now, he added. But he wanted her to start packing his office things, the books, and photographs, and files. The Hermes 3000. The pica rule. You know, he said. The stuff.

  He told her that he would call Helen Loomis himself, later, since she had worked a double shift through the night.

  –Let her sleep, he said. Janet started to get weepy, and said, This ain’t right.

  –No, it’s not, Briscoe said. But you have to eat.

  Then he called the publisher back, making sure that it was okay to name Matt Logan the new editor. Elwood said yes, but only if Briscoe agreed to become editor emeritus, serving as an adviser to TheWorld.com. Briscoe said he wanted to think it over but would have his lawyer call about details. Elwood said: Don’t worry, Sam. Either way, you’ll get everything that’s due you.

  Now Briscoe sits in the coffee shop. For the first time in years, he is in a coffee shop without a newspaper on the table. There is nothing else to read except the menu and the check. He thinks: I need a slim volume of Yeats to carry around with me.

  He pays the check and walks out into the cold sunshine. The sidewalk is less crowded now. The people with jobs are all squatting above the street in front of their computers, trying to will a Big Score out of the bouncing numbers. But there are very few shoppers entering the stores, and no tourists at all. The sky is now darkening in the west. He starts assembling a list of other calls to make. His daughter, Nicole, first. In Paris. Haberman at the Times. Myron at the Post and Ng at the News. Or just call Mike Oreskes at the AP. Briscoe will call Susan Jones at the museum and ask her to send a crew to pack the cartoons and the old typewriters in the hall. To ask for Janet.

  But who does he call about Cynthia Harding? She h
ad no children. Except maybe Sandra Gordon. The girl Cynthia adopted, without papers. That party in Montego Bay… what year was it? The tall blonde woman and the small black girl pulling books off shelves… He pauses, takes a deep breath. Tells himself, Clerk this fucking thing. Now. Will there be a memorial? Surely yes. Probably at the library. Maybe Janet can find out. All of us can walk past the lions, past Patience and Fortitude, and enter her cathedral. Is there a will? Call Cynthia’s lawyer. First thing. Soon as I get home.

  Jesus Christ. Stop. Go home.

  He hurries down the steps to the 6 train but can’t look at the offerings of the newsstand. He swipes his Senior Citizen Metro-Card, the card he calls his New York passport. Moves along the waiting area, hands deep in his coat pockets. He fingers the card, then imagines sweat ruining its surface, and returns it to his wallet. Thinking: If only I’d gone to Cynthia’s party at Patchin Place. Stayed over. Walked Mary Lou Watson to the car. But no. I had to work. Like so many other nights. Still, if I’d taken the night off, maybe none of this would have happened. Maybe I’d be calling Cynthia now, explaining about the World, and asking her out to a late dinner. Instead of snacks in bed. Or takeout. Or dim sum on Saturdays. Maybe… ah, fuck it.

  At Grand Central, four graying black doo-woppers come into the car, in rough winter clothes, sneakers, men in their fifties or sixties. They begin to sing.

  Why, oh why, do I

  Live in the dark?

  (day and night, babe)

  A woman in her fifties smiles, but won’t make eye contact. A girl in her twenties looks amused in another way. Where she comes from, they never see such an act.

  Why, oh why, do I

  Sleep in the park?

  (can’t pay no rent, babe)

  The doo-woppers have the look of men who spent too many years rehearsing in the yard at Attica or Green Haven or Dannemora. They smile but their eyes are sad. One grips a blue plastic bucket. Briscoe drops a fiver into it, and the surprised man smiles brightly, showing yellowing teeth. They keep moving to the far end of the car.