“You’re leaving,” I said to the back of the couch. “Summer is over, and you’re leaving.”
I felt the couch shift as you sat on its arm, and I felt your hand on my foot, and I felt a chill when you finally spoke. “I was working.”
“Working where?” I asked, risking a glance at you, but the security light in the back garden cast a halo over you, and I couldn’t see your face. “Doing what?”
You shrugged. “There are some things I know how to do.”
“Scout…” I sat up. “Tell me what you were doing.”
You stared at me, and I hated it. Your eyes, for all the power they hold, could take me to the sunrise and the sunset, across night and day, all across the universe and back. But then they bored into me, leaving me tattered and guilty and ashamed.
You spared me, though, and your eyes went soft again. “I’m not Jonny.”
“I know you’re not Jonny,” I said, dropping my chin.
“I’m not Felix, either.”
I went to the back door and just stood there a second looking out. A few kids were still hanging around at Fish’s tables. I wanted a cigarette for an instant, so I fiddled with my sticks and turned around. You were inches from me then. “I lost Felix….”
My hands were shaking and tears were starting, so I couldn’t look in your eyes. You took my sticks and tossed them onto the couch, then put a hand on my face.
Somehow I raised my chin and you moved closer, and I felt the heat of your breath on my face before your lips finally touched mine, so gently.
When it was over, you answered me. “I was singing.”
“Singing?” It hurt a little that you’d sung when I wasn’t around to hear it, to bask in it. You nodded and let your hands fall to my waist. I leaned forward so my cheek was against yours and I could smell your hair.
“I went into Manhattan before you woke up. I walked over to Long Island City, up to the 59th Street Bridge, and across to Times Square. I found a corner and just started singing. People stopped, Kid. They stopped and watched me, just me—no band, no guitar. They liked me. They didn’t know who I was, or where I’d come from, but when I sang, they liked me, and they gave me money. A cop watched for one song, and he gave me a buck, but then he told me to beat it. But I didn’t mind. I set up again, and then again, at different corners in different parts of town. I needed a lot of money. I needed it for you.”
“For me?”
You pulled away from me and I felt cold, but you reached into your back pocket and pulled out an envelope. “I needed it for this.”
“What is it?” I stared at the envelope, waiting for you to hand it to me, but you just held it and watched my face. I moved closer to you to warm myself again.
“I want to take you to the sunrise, just once before the summer ends.”
“We see the sunrise nearly every morning, Scout—since I found you in front of Fish’s bar. Don’t you remember?”
You shook your head. “No. You haven’t seen it properly. You haven’t seen the sun rise up from the end of the world.”
Finally you handed me the envelope and I tore it open. Two yellow and blue cards were inside. “MetroCards?”
You smiled and said, “We have to hurry.”
…
I’m not sure when I was asleep and when I was awake. There were subways. There were worried looks from strangers as we switched off sips from our can of Mello Yello, but I stared them down and smiled. We’re in love, I thought. You can’t hurt us.
There was the Long Island Rail Road, there was a chill at Jamaica when you led me onto and across the platform, and we kissed before the doors closed. I fell asleep again with my head on your lap. The conductor was young, without a cap on, and you handed over our tickets. I looked up at your face and saw pride there, and felt proud myself, because your eyes were right there—open—with me instead of flying off.
And then we walked. It must have been miles, around the Harbor, watched over by a rich-looking hotel from a different time, and through hilly neighborhoods of winding roads and more trees than I’d ever seen, and I was amazed you knew where to go. It was desolate, and if not for the smell and sound of the ocean, we could have been anywhere in the country—except for the city, except for Brooklyn. Still, every turn you had the way memorized and I knew this was your home, so I held your hand and we reached the beach, with its lighthouse and rocky coast, just as the sun was creeping up from the water.
I squeezed your hand and looked at your face. It was lit up, not from the rising sun, but from within, and I knew mine must have been too. We smiled at each other, and without a word ran the last hundred yards to the rocks and the sun, and the constant roar and crash of the Atlantic as it struck the end of the world.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Although Brooklyn, Burning is a work of fiction, it takes place in a real neighborhood and centers on an actual event. Very early on the morning of May 2, 2006, the Greenpoint Terminal Warehouse in Brooklyn caught fire. It burned for days, eventually earning ten alarms and requiring hundreds of firefighters. Investigators suspected foul play. After a month-long investigation, two homeless men were sought for the crime, and police claimed to have a confession from one of them. He later said they misunderstood him, and that he had not confessed. Still denying his guilt, he was sentenced to three years of probation and alcohol rehabilitation. That man has since returned to his native country, Poland.
Meanwhile, skeptical New Yorkers had their eyes on a real-estate developer. Greenpoint, a Brooklyn neighborhood that bordered on the recently hip Williamsburg, looked primed to be the next cool Brooklyn waterfront area. Many cried “scandal,” “arson,” and even “conspiracy.” After all, the warehouse sat on prime real estate, but it was also a historic building and therefore protected. No developer would have ever been able to build towering apartment buildings on the site. With the warehouse a burned-out shell, though, it was suddenly possible. The investigation became headline news. Although the case is still open when Brooklyn, Burning ends, in reality it is very closed, having been ruled an accidental fire started by a homeless Polish immigrant.
The Greenpoint Terminal Warehouse had been a popular hangout and shelter for homeless people, some of them likely young. The primary reason for youth homelessness is difficulty at home. According to the National Coalition for the Homeless, “more than half of the youth interviewed during shelter stays reported that their parents either told them to leave or knew they were leaving and did not care” (http://www.nationalhomeless.org/factsheets/youth.html). Among homeless youth, LGBTQ youths are disproportionately represented. It’s not a great stretch to assume that these kids’ sexuality and their parents’ inability to accept and approve is the core of the problem. To help, or if you need help, visit nationalhomeless.org.
Beyond that, the geography of Greenpoint is as accurate as I could make it, using my own memories of the place when I lived there—and a little help from good old Google Maps. Several real businesses are alluded to or even mentioned by name, but—to my knowledge—there has never been a bar on Franklin run by a woman called Fish. The Pencil Factory, Jonny’s other favorite watering hole, does exist. It’s a very nice bar, and they were serving excellent grilled sandwiches the last time I was there. They were not, however, serving people under twenty-one. (Sorry, Kid.)
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks first, once again, to Andrew and Edward. I think we make a fine literary, musical, and culinary critical trio. Let’s do it again soon.
Thanks also to my faraway family: my mother and brother, for so many years of support. And to my Minnesota family: MIL, FIL, and SILs; this book was written almost entirely during your relentless babysitting work.
Thanks to the Loft, for existing, and to my Loft classmates, the first people to read this, before it was probably worth reading. Thanks also to the Minnesota writers whom I’ve had the pleasure of meeting and sometimes working with over the last couple of years; it’s amazing to be part of such a strong
and present community of writers, especially writers of literature for young people.
Some of the earliest readers of this book—in its earliest draft: before there was even a fire—were my short-lived online writing group, the Otters: Josh Berk, Jonathan Roth, Kurtis Scaletta, and Jon Skovron. They helped me see that two kids kicking around Brooklyn isn’t a story. Thanks for the notes, guys.
Thanks to two other communities, as well—one large, and one small: one, the first generation of Lab Rats, Ilsa J. Bick and Blythe Woolston, and two, the Tenners. How writers ever survived without such support is beyond me.
Finally, thanks to the two wonderful and constantly amazing people I have the pleasure to share a little house with: Beth and Sam. You are my inspiration every single day.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Steve Brezenoff is the author of dozens of chapter books for younger readers and the young adult novel The Absolute Value of -1. Born in Queens, Steve has lived in the suburbs on Long Island, on a couch on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, a few feet from the 7 train in the Sunnyside neighborhood in Queens, and across the Hudson River in Jersey City—but none of those places has stuck with him or been missed as acutely as Brooklyn, where he lived on and off for much of his twenties and early thirties.
Steve left an apartment in Greenpoint, the northernmost Brooklyn neighborhood, when he moved to Minnesota with his dog, Harry (who was rescued from East New York—the tough Brooklyn neighborhood where Steve’s father grew up). It was in that apartment that he proposed to his wife, Beth (the reason he moved to Minnesota). If you ask, he’ll admit that yes, he hopes, intends, and expects to move back to Brooklyn some day. For now, he lives in St. Paul, with Beth, their son, Sam, and Harry.
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