Among the boys in my class, it was quite clear—without anyone having to say so aloud—that whoever hadn’t ridden the Cyclone before they were eleven years old, and then the Parachute Jump before they were twelve, would never be a man. In the Jump’s ticket booth, in fact, there was sign forbidding anyone under the age of ten from riding, but because it was difficult to confirm a kid’s age, there was a notch at a certain height on a metal post, and when it came down to it, this was the only valid method to determine who could and couldn’t ride. Although I was already of age, the first year my grandfather and I made our rounds, he never gave me a chance to express an interest in the Jump. But toward the end of the second summer, I put my foot down and told David I wanted to try it. There wasn’t that much time left, and I didn’t want to wait any longer to prove my manhood, even if nobody would know but us. I didn’t tell my grandfather why I wanted to do it, and although he’d warned me that he considered the Jump unsafe, when I told him I wanted to try it, he said yes, and said that he would even go along. When we got to the ticket booth, an attendant wearing military dungarees approached us, measured me against the post, and gave his approval. He helped me get settled, and once I was in place on the worn-out canvas seat, he adjusted the leather harness with a brass buckle. Three of the four other chairs were occupied. When the attendant confirmed that everything was sufficiently safe, he pulled on a lever and I began to rise in fits and starts. A few seconds later, I saw David rise. I felt a tingling in the pit of my stomach as the cables lifted us into the air. The people grew smaller under our feet as the music coming from the attractions grew fainter until it was silenced completely by the plaintive screeching of the cables. The amusement park shrunk. The people became a mass of black particles covering the beach and the boardwalk. My ecstasy turned into a momentary panic when, at very nearly the highest point of the tower, I saw the shape of one parachutist plummet right beside me, and then another and another. When I reached the top myself, not exactly knowing what I was feeling, I took in the beauty of Coney Island in all its splendor. This new rapture was interrupted when I heard a metallic cracking sound under my seat. It seemed as if everything—my life, the world—had stopped, and the silence grew thick around me. This was followed by a dry pop and the indescribable terror of knowing I was collapsing into the void. I thought about death, and after an immeasurable period, I was enclosed in a pocket of hot air and heard the strident screams of the people watching us fall. I’ll never forget it: the ground rose toward me and the blotches that were faces got rushed at me, a sea of featureless masks. I crashed into the springs of the platform, and bounced, once, twice, maybe up to six times. The attendant who had tightened my harness rushed in to rescue me. He passed his hand over my head and said, Are you okay, son? My legs were shaking and I could hardly walk. If the ride had been too much for me because I was a child, it had been just as bad for David because he was an old man—but to admit as much would have violated the manly code of Coney Island. My grandfather was pale. Without saying anything, he put his hand on my shoulder and led me to the boardwalk, where we held on to the railing for a long time, taking in the beauty of the sea.
At the beginning of August, the publisher of the Brooklyn Eagle called David to tell him he regretted to inform him that his column would be cancelled come September. Something about restructuring, nothing to do with the quality of his work. He was leaving the door open to the possibility of reinstating him as a staff writer in the future. My grandfather didn’t take it too badly, but the suddenness of the news put him in a difficult position, from a technical point of view. Which of his stories should he publish of the many he had yet to tell? His column came out on Saturdays. He only had space to publish three more. I have them with me. I’ve just now read them through, one after the other, and when I was done with them, I didn’t feel nostalgia, as I had anticipated, but joy that I could share something so important to me with Nadia.
The article dated August 16th, “A Stroll on West End,” is a meditation on the destiny of the great hotels of yesteryear, of which there were barely any left at the time of writing. On the boardwalk, up on 29th Street, David stops in front of a visibly deteriorated building (the structure is still majestic) that had been converted into a Navy Hospital during World War II. Given its current state of abandonment, its fate, as approved by the municipal commission, was to become an old-age home. Do any passersby know that this building was once the most opulent hotel in Coney Island’s history? asks the columnist. Leaving the question unanswered, he proceeds to describing the Half Moon Hotel during its period of splendor, when the cream of society took a trip all the way from Manhattan to attend the fancy balls thrown in its grand rooms. David speaks of the elegance of the women, the opulence of the decorations, and the audacity of the building’s architecture, with its Ottoman dome covered in colorful mosaics and topped with a weathervane in the shape of Henry Hudson’s ship, from which the hotel took its name.
In “Kid Twist,” published on August 23rd, David Ackerman returns to one of his favorite subjects, the golden age of Murder, Inc. when its gangsters, also known as the Brownsville Boys, did as they pleased all throughout Brooklyn. The authorities were powerless to put a stop to the machinations of the bloodiest and most calculating gang in the history of New York (more or less). The article ends retelling the story of an event that made the Half Moon Hotel headline news in all the papers in the country:
Although it was as meticulously engineered as any powerful corporation, Murder, Inc. was doomed to collapse due to an act of betrayal. One of its historic capos, the gangster Abe Reles, aka Kid Twist, decided to cooperate with the authorities. He had so much to tell that the New York Police Department filled 75 notepads with the details of hits on all sorts of clients carried out by efficient assassins on the payroll of organized crime. After the interrogations Kid Twist was taken to the infamous “Rat Suite”: aside from being heavily guarded to prevent its tenants from giving in to the temptation of suicide, as well as to protect them from any attempts on their lives, all the windows faced the ocean. As it was, in Abe Reles’s case, all precautions were in vain. One morning, Kid Twist went out the window. Whether he committed suicide or was murdered has never been determined. The bed sheets with which he allegedly attempted to descend from his golden cage are preserved in the police archives at 32 Chambers Street in Manhattan along with the 75 notepads that cost him his life . . .
The last article, “The Island of Dreams,” dated Saturday, August 30, 1947, is in front of me, top of the pile. It’s about Dreamland, the amusement park that, according to David, really captured the spirit of Coney Island. How like him not to have chosen the legendary Luna Park, or Steeplechase, the two most emblematic parks in Coney Island’s history. No, David preferred to dedicate his final article to a failure. Dreamland had been designed to be the grandest park of them all, but it ended up being the most ephemeral.
The columnist tallied up the facts: Founded in 1904, it was razed by a fire seven years later, in 1911, which didn’t leave a trace behind. The fire started at Hell Gate, appropriately enough, the same place David always talked to me about as we came out of the subway, after it had been rebuilt. The article goes on to recount how the fire devastated the incredible Lilliputia, a miniature city inhabited by three hundred midgets and designed as a half-scale replica of fifteenth-century Nuremburg, albeit with all the modern conveniences. For reasons I’ve never understood, my grandfather doesn’t say a word about the fate of the inhabitants of Lilliputia, just as he doesn’t mention what happened to the premature babies who were exhibited in the Baby Incubator attraction overseen by the celebrated Dr. Courtney.
As always, in the middle of September, the Haven of Dreams began to empty out. In a matter of days, the majority of the installations had been disassembled and the bathhouses closed; the boardwalk was already half-deserted, and the beach practically empty. The neon signs stopped flashing. The doors and windows of hundreds and hundreds of wooden buildings disapp
eared from sight, blinded by gray boards nailed up by the owners. By October, only a handful of stores remained open, and the human element was reduced to the yearlong residents, of which there weren’t too many. Before I met Nadia, I had only gone there in the off-season a few times. There are wintry images stored in my memory, views of a ghostly Coney Island swept by an icy wind, but never had I witnessed the unusual phenomenon of the beach covered with snow.
Still, even in the middle of the winter, there are people on the sidewalk. Saturday it was sunny and we went out for a stroll. We saw men and women in the solariums, tanning with the aid of tinfoil sheets. A group of middle-aged Russian bathers, male and female, even risked the beach. After doing some warm-up exercises, they plunged into the water and swam, indifferent to the floes of ice bobbing along the crests of the waves. We continued walking west. I wanted Nadia to see the Kensington Hotel (the articles don’t mention it), which had survived so many vicissitudes. Its structure was intact under the skeleton of the Thunderbolt. When this roller coaster had been built, the engineers had been very careful to ensure that it would in no way affect the Kensington building. We continued walking, keeping to the edge of the shore until we arrived at the Sea Gate. Near Dead Man’s Rock, a spot where many swimmers had drowned over the years, we saw the rusty shell of a shipwrecked ferry. I walked Nadia to the subway (she had a rehearsal at Juilliard), then wandered around until four that afternoon, when it began to get dark.
It’s midnight and Nadia is asleep. I watch the ocean from the living room. It’s the view that I had never seen as a child: the lighthouses twinkling, the ships glimmering in the distance, the sea shrouded in darkness. To the west, sparkling, the tiny red dot of the Norton’s Point lighthouse. Further out, toward the south, I see three more lighthouses whose names I don’t know. I would need David here to tell me that sort of thing. It’s a clear night and the crisscross of reflections on the water—with some ships near the shore and others far away—makes the ocean look like a map of the firmament. I think about Nadia, sleeping in the adjacent room, and it continues to astonish me that of all the lost corners of the five boroughs of the city, she came precisely to Brighton Beach when she arrived in New York. The last time I was here must have been ten years ago.
Returning to the world of my childhood fantasies has been such an intense experience that I want Nadia to share something similar from her own life with me. I ask her to tell me about her childhood, and she does, but it’s hard for her. She had just turned four when she arrived in the United States and it was as though a door had closed between her and the memory of Siberia. She says that at times a handful of unconnected images come to her: a house in Laryat, her parents’ bedroom, the community vegetable garden full of frostbitten purple cabbages, snowflakes stuck to the classroom windows in her school. Then after they left, she recalls the deck of a ship, her mother lying on the canvas of a folding chair, reading. After that it’s Boston Harbor; the silent hilly streets lined with trees. A tea shop, her brother Sasha playing with her in a small park. As soon as I let her, she goes quiet; she prefers when I tell the stories.
A few days ago, going by Hampton Road, we ran into Chuck Walsh’s grocery shop; he was an anarchist buddy of my grandfather’s. Every time we went in, in those days, Chuck gave me a handful of ginger candy. When the dark blue wooden storefront appeared ahead of us, I was overcome by the usual wave of emotion. We went in, of course. The man behind the counter was a young man who looked nothing like Chuck. He asked how he could help us and I turned to Nadia. She looked around a bit, then pointed to a box of oranges that were individually wrapped in tissue paper; once the clerk had handed it to her, she put it away in her bag as if it were a very valuable object. Back on the street, she told me that the first time she ever saw an orange was in a market in Boston, not long after arriving in America. She would never forget the delicate taste of the juice in her mouth when her mother gave her a slice to try.
Twelve
NÉSTOR
He lost his head over her . . .
Frank was going to add something when Nélida hung up the phone, rushed toward him from the other end of the bar, and whispered something in his ear. The gallego nodded and waved the waitress away before he finished what he was saying.
There’s no other way to describe what happened, Ness. He lost his head over her.
He took a sip from his cranberry juice and added:
Maybe we should talk in my office. By the way, I have a surprise for you. Did I tell you that Larsen is here? His ship just came in from Havana.
He turned on a floor lamp once we were in his office. On top of his desk was a box of Cohibas.
Every time Larsen docks in Cuba, he remembers his old friend Frankie Otero. A nice touch. Of course, I don’t treat him too bad myself. There was a movement at the door. Víctor! Frank shouted.
Good morning, boss, his assistant said.
Look what we’ve got. Geez, you must have smelled them! Come on in.
Víctor greeted me with a nod and stepped behind Otero, leaning against the wall like a bodyguard. Frank tore the paper seal and opened the tin latch of the box with his thumbs.
Do me a favor, open the window, will you? he asked, turning toward Víctor. Let in a little air.
The mulatto put up the blinds and pushed the shutters out, exposing a damp brick wall covered in dirty moss and crisscrossed with wires and tubes. The light from the courtyard was so dim that Frank left the floor lamp on. He carefully lifted the wooden lid, rolling back his eyes and taking in the aroma that came out of the box. He stroked the top layer of cigars, and finding the texture to his liking, picked one out and offered it to me.
Thank you, Frankie, I said, but it’d be a waste. I wouldn’t appreciate it.
I’ve never been able to understand how anyone exposed to such a pleasant fragrance can resist succumbing instantaneously to the temptation of smoking. All right, your loss.
I heard the flick of a lighter. Víctor’s gold tooth glimmered in the dark. Frank brought his cigar to the flame. Pulled by the force of his lungs, the fire penetrated the rolled leaves of tobacco forming a circle of live embers at the tip. A cloud of blue smoke enveloped Frankie Otero’s silhouette and broke up in thin wisps that were dragged out through the open window by the breeze.
Víctor, why don’t you drive out to Astoria and have a look at Raúl’s Camaro? I don’t know what the fuck’s wrong with it, but he couldn’t get it started this morning. He just called to tell me, and since there’s never much to do around here till later in the afternoon, I thought that maybe you could help him out. And don’t give me that face, Frankie is not going to forget about you. Here, take one of these for yourself, give the other one to my son.
You didn’t have to do that, boss, but I sure appreciate it. Putting both cigars in the top pocket of his jacket, Víctor turned to me. Take it easy, Chapman, he said, before heading out.
Frank took a tentative drag from his Cohiba.
Where do you want me to start? he asked, savoring the smoke.
There’s a gap in the notebooks and I’m having trouble reconstructing the part of the story I’m working on. I’m not sure whether the material was lost or if Gal got rid of it on purpose. I’ve found a few clues, but that’s about it. I’m lost in the fog. But, you know, apart from that, and despite all the loose ends, for the first time since I set up shop in the Archive, I feel like Brooklyn, the novel that Gal had in his head, is really beginning to take shape.
Which part of the story are you talking about?
The bit when both of them were living in Brighton Beach. The trail breaks off all of a sudden.
And what can I do for you?
I really don’t know. Just talk, I guess. Tell me what you remember. Something will come of it, I’m sure.
Don’t be so sure. I barely knew him then. But I’ll tell you what I know.
When exactly did he start coming around the Oakland?
Exactly a year after that time you’re talking
about. It was ’74. He usually dropped by in the afternoons. I remember him sitting in a corner, writing while he sipped from a screwdriver that he liked to have continuously refreshed, not talking to anyone. The second or third time I saw him, I went up to his table, introduced myself as the owner of the place, and bought him a drink on the house.
Did he ever come in with Nadia?
Almost never. Those early days I must have seen her three or four times altogether. Many nights, Gal didn’t come to his room. I imagined he was staying in Brighton Beach. That was before they went on their first trip.
What trip? There’s no mention of a trip in the notebooks. Where did they go?
Oh, here and there—a few places, over their time together. On that occasion, specifically, they went to Oaxaca. Gal had spent quite a bit of time there before they met. He loved it.
Oaxaca?
Yeah. He had been to other parts of Latin America, but he liked Oaxaca because the weather was nice all year round and it was full of expats and Gal felt at home around them. He always said they were the only people he liked—but his main reason to go was to be in touch with the Spanish language. He never told you about that?
No.
He needed to feel that his Spanish was alive. It was his only connection to the past. He never talked to you about any of that? Really?
Call Me Brooklyn Page 20
