by Archer Mayor
That's how it had been for young Willy Kunkle, growing up. Washington Heights had been his entire world, what had helped form him as a human being. Midtown Manhattan, just a subway ride away, had remained as foreign to him as if he'd lived in Germany.
And the comparison was relevant, since Willy's own roots were German. His parents had emigrated before he was born, part of a huge exodus stimulated by Hitler's ascent. The world where he'd begun his childhood had been highlighted by the sights of Hasidic Jews in the streets, the sounds of German and Yiddish in countless stores and apartments. One of his early struggles within the family had been his refusal to speak in anything other than English and his insistence that his parents wake up to the realities around them. Not only was Washington Heights not the Germany they'd left, now so long ago, but it wasn't even the neighborhood they'd created by sheer force of numbers after stepping off the boat. For one thing could be said about Washington Heights without doubt: It was a community in constant cultural flux.
Once a retreat for the city's mega-rich, famous for its sprawling nineteenth century estates and sweeping views of the two rivers bordering it, it had again and again undergone radical changes, influenced variously by urban expansion, the arrival of the subway line, the ebb and flow of foreign immigrants, and the spread of affordable housing. In 1965, the little piece of the Old Fatherland was where Malcolm X was assassinated before a local rally of African Americans, and where, just a few decades later, the Dominican community here and in next-door Inwood was recognized as the largest of its kind in the entire United States.
Washington Heights had seen race riots, poverty, overcrowding, rampant crime, and drug dealing, and yet, through it all, had maintained a thriving business section, kept its many parks from being paved over, and had managed to sustain a definable, if transient, sense of identity.
Stepping forth from the subway, Willy Kunkle, the erstwhile child of these streets, both warmed to the familiarity of it all and was swamped once again by the sense of suffocation it revived in him. He had fought with his family for independence and freedom, had broken away from this world he linked to his early despair, and yet, enveloped by its embrace once more, he couldn't deny the influence it had on him still.
But he didn't like it, and it soured his mood.
He was here to meet his brother, Bob. He'd called him earlier, using the Westchester number on Mary's phone bill, but Bob's wife had told Willy, not bothering to hide her displeasure at hearing his voice, that Bob was in the city, visiting their mother.
He'd received the news with mixed emotions. His mother and he hadn't spoken in years, not because of the sort of vitriol and disappointment that had soured Mary's link to her mother, but instead to keep a door shut he never wanted reopened. It didn't matter to him that such an act merely emulated his father's abandoning the family when Willy was a child, compounding the pain inflicted on his mother. For much of his adult life, and subliminally before then, Willy had been in survival mode-not a great place to breed empathy for others.
So, he'd called the house, grateful that Bob had answered, and arranged to meet him in Wright Park, at West 175th, cautioning him to keep their get-together to himself.
Not that Bob would have instinctively shared the news with their mother. He was the protective son, who'd trod the straight and narrow. He hadn't known their father as Willy had, hadn't felt the loss and witnessed the fallout. By the time Bob had become conscious of the world around him, Mom was back in the saddle with a vengeance, guaranteeing she'd have at least one bond in the family that would stick. And stick it had.
Willy wasn't complaining. It had worked for those two, and had allowed him to absorb a little less guilt in the process, although not enough to want to look his mother in the eyes.
He saw Bob just outside the small park, ordering up a hot dog from a sidewalk vendor across from the public school, paying no attention to his surroundings and giving Willy a few unobserved moments to reacquaint himself with his sibling.
Although Willy's junior by ten years, Bob didn't look it. Prematurely bald, with a soft middle and a permanently pale complexion, he looked much like the men's clothing store manager he was. He spent his days dressed in a fine suit, dividing his time between well-heeled customers in a fake Victorian decor and working the books in a windowless, concrete-walled office jammed with filing cabinets and a desk bought cheap at a fire sale. He had a wife, two kids, a dog and a cat, an aboveground swimming pool, and a ten-year-old car, and was utterly convinced he'd grabbed hold of the gold ring. Willy, despite a natural tendency to dismiss such notions, thought that in Bob's case it might be the truth.
He came at him from an oblique angle, noticing how his brother was ogling the hot dog just handed to him.
"Hey."
Bob turned, his round face open and smiling. "Willy. Hey, yourself. Gosh, it's good to see you."
He moved to give Willy a hug, discovered the hot dog still in his left hand, laughed with embarrassment, and settled for a quick handshake followed by a pat of Willy's left shoulder, which his face then showed he instantly regretted.
"It's okay, Bob," Willy told him. "It won't break."
Bob's face reddened. "I know. I'm sorry. Would you like a dog? My treat."
Willy looked at the multihued mess he was being offered and shook his head. "I'll pass."
Suddenly selfconscious, Bob stared down at his meal. "Yeah, I guess this isn't too appetizing. I can only eat the stuff when Junie's not around. She gives me hell otherwise. I'll buy you something else, though. What would you like?"
Two minutes into the conversation, and Willy was already getting restless. "Give it a rest. I'm not hungry."
Bob looked crestfallen. "Okay. Sorry. Well, let's sit down, at least."
He led the way into the park, giving his hot dog a tentative bite and dropping a glob of fluorescent mustard onto the sidewalk. Willy walked around it in disgust. As with Ward Ogden earlier, he was going to have to mind his manners to get what he was after, but with Bob, he wasn't so sure he'd be able to pull it off. The older brother's impulse to slap the younger one down was going to be hard to resist. He'd had so many years of practice before leaving home-something Bob should have remembered and resented, as Willy would have in his place, but never had.
Bob took them through the playground nearest the street, filled with screaming, running kids, past several benches lining the curving walkway, and up a flight of steps onto a broad, paved observation platform at the back of the park. This had been built expressly for its commanding view of the George Washington Bridge, which spanned at an oblique angle the width of the Hudson River into New Jersey.
Bob settled onto a bench facing the view, patting the seat next to him as if inviting a pet to jump up. Willy remained standing, slightly off to one side, so they were looking at the same scenery.
Bob was now holding his meal as if wondering how it had appeared in his hand. He glanced quickly at Willy. "I was really surprised to hear your voice on the phone. I couldn't believe you were back in town."
"In town, or that I called you up?"
Bob looked away. "Both, I guess. It's been a while."
Willy snorted. "No shit."
"You been okay?"
"Yeah. Terrific. You been seeing Mary?"
Bob's head jerked up. "What?"
"Mary. You know. I was married to her."
"No. I mean, yeah. I was just surprised is all. I mean, you and Mary. That was so long ago."
"So, you've been seeing her?"
"Talking to her, really. Junie, too. She'd call up, just to chat. Didn't seem to matter which one of us answered the phone. Why? What's up?"
Willy ignored the question. "What did she talk about?"
"I don't know. Nothing in particular. She asked about you a few times. She was happy you were doing better."
"Not a drunk, you mean?"
"Yeah. Well, that and getting the new job."
"You told her about that?"
"Sure
. It wasn't a secret, was it?"
"How did she seem? Up, down? What?"
Bob thought a moment. "Pretty much up, I'd say. Junie told me that wasn't always true. Maybe she was more honest woman-to-woman. But it seemed like her biggest trouble was money. Things were tight. She was getting along otherwise, though. She liked her job, she'd kicked her habit, she was talking about finding a new place to live when she'd saved up enough."
"Tell me about the job."
Bob hesitated. "What's going on, Willy?"
"Later. The job."
As if in protest, Bob took a large bite of his hot dog instead of answering, forcing his older brother to stew in silence for several minutes.
"It was at a place called the Re-Coop," he finally said. "A drug rehab center run by some nonprofit setup. I don't know who. Anyhow, she'd gone there to straighten up, and did well enough that they offered her a job. Nothing fancy, but she was pretty proud of it."
"She ever talk about her social life? A boyfriend, maybe?"
Bob shook his head. "Not to me. At least not recently. Last boyfriend I knew about was Andy, but that was a few years ago."
"Andy Liptak?"
"Sure. You keep up with him?"
Willy didn't answer. Andy Liptak and he had been in 'Nam together. Both from New York, both from workingclass families. Liptak had done well for himself later. Willy thought he lived in Brooklyn somewhere, near his old neighborhood. He'd known Andy and Mary had hooked up years ago, after the divorce and Mary's moving to New York. Hell, Willy had introduced them at a party she and Willy had attended in the city, what seemed like a lifetime ago, and Andy had dropped by their house in Vermont a couple of times on skiing trips. Mary had always liked him, which Willy had written off to his highroller city ways and Mary's hunger for something bigger and better than the rural life she'd been born to.
"What was between them?"
Bob was looking increasingly confused. "Geez, Willy. They were boyfriend /girlfriend-for years. She lived with him. You know how it goes."
"How'd they break up?"
"Same as always, I guess. I don't know the details. She wasn't calling us back then. Well, she did early on, after the divorce, but then she stopped for a long time. I suppose they weren't compatible, finally. She was still on dope in those days, you know? That must've made it tough. I don't think it was anything he did, though. He sounded like a decent enough guy."
"When did she start calling?"
Bob shrugged, resigning himself to never hearing the reason for this grilling. "The second time? About six months ago, after she got the job at the Re-Coop."
"Out of the blue?"
"Yeah. She told us, now that she was putting her life back together, she wanted to reopen some of the doors she'd shut behind her, or something like that. I didn't care about her reasons. It was just nice to hear from her again. Oh, yeah, she also said something about our being almost the only family she had, since she and her mom don't talk and you were out of the picture. I just figured it was a nostalgia thing."
"And you last talked pretty recently?"
Bob looked at him wide-eyed. "How'd you know that? If you've seen her, why all the questions, Willy? Just ask her this stuff yourself."
"Would if I could. She's dead."
Bob's mouth dropped open. "What?"
Willy's voice was a monotone. "Overdose. They found her with a needle in her arm."
"My God," Bob murmured. He caught sight of the partially eaten hot dog still in his hand and dropped it into the trash barrel beside the bench.
"I'm just trying to figure what she was up to," Willy added.
Bob finally stood up and faced his brother. His pale features were splotchy with anger, but as he spoke, his words were almost calm, barring a slight tremor. "That's really big of you. You are one son-of-a-bitch, you know that? You walk through life with your own little black cloud, like you were the only one who had it tough, and you treat people like shit as if we all owed you something. Well, we don't. In fact, we deserve a little courtesy for putting up with your crap. You threw Mary away. You beat her, climbed into your bottle, and pulled the cork in after you."
He smiled bitterly at Willy's slight grimace. "Oh? You didn't know we knew that you smacked her? Sure. She told us about it, and about a lot more, too. You were a total bastard, and she still loved you anyway. That's why she was calling us lately: not so much because we were the only family she had, but because we were your family, and she wanted to know how you were doing."
He sat back down, his elbows on his knees, and shook his head sorrowfully. "And then you come around like Dick Tracy, playing twenty questions and not even telling me she'd died. You are some piece of work."
Willy didn't respond at first. He stayed rooted in place, his exterior rigidly placid. In all their years as brothers, Bob had maybe spoken to him like that three times-and that was probably an exaggeration. Willy had always lorded over Bob, using his powerful personality to cut him off even if he had no reason to.
The sad thing was that Willy admired his brother for keeping his life together, for not letting the factors that had derailed Willy affect him. Bob's wasn't an exciting life. He hadn't done anything that would merit comment on a plaque or stimulate a rousing memorial speech. But he'd been stalwart and honest and faithful and responsible and had created a life Willy could only envy.
Not that Willy would ever tell him even part of that.
He did sit beside him on the bench, though, and lightly punched his shoulder as he said, "Some speech, Bobby."
Bob swung his head around to glance at him and give him a sour smile. "You are such an asshole."
Willy laughed. "Don't I know it. How's Mom?"
Bob straightened and sat back, sighing deeply, his hands in his lap. " 'How's Mom?' he asks. You called her house to talk to me. You could have asked her yourself, you know? There's another woman you abuse and who still thinks you're the perfect son. I visit her every week, bring Junie and the kids by on a regular basis, have her up to the house for weekends during the summer. All she talks about is you. What the hell is it about you that makes people care so much?"
Willy had been staring straight ahead, waiting for Bob to finish, until he noticed his brother was looking right at him, actually expecting an answer.
"Give me a break, Bob," he said.
After a telling pause, Bob let out a small laugh of defeat. "Who am I kidding? You have no idea what I'm talking about. Even I love you, and you're probably the most unpleasant person I know."
"Thanks," Willy responded. "So, how's Mom?"
"She's got emphysema, a bad ticker, and her hip hurts so bad she can hardly walk, but she won't go for replacement surgery. Other than that, she's great. She's still as domineering, short-tempered, and impatient as ever, and still knows everything about everything, even when she's dead wrong. You ought to drop by and see her. The two of you might kill each other and let the rest of us get on with our lives."
Willy smiled. "Gee, Bob, you've become quite the sentimentalist in your old age."
"Yeah."
They sat side by side for several minutes in silence, staring at the enormous bridge and its steady burden of anonymous humanity, surrounded by the muted sounds of the city enveloping them.
Finally, Bob asked, "Why'd she do it? She talked like life was getting better."
Willy thought back to some of the things his brother had accused him of, and of how it had never occurred to him to deny them.
"I don't know, but I intend to find out. It may be too little, too late, but that much I can do."
Chapter 6
The Re-Coop didn't open until midafternoon, which, given most of its clientele, was still probably early. When Willy appeared across the street from its entrance, recognizing it not just from the sign but from the photograph he'd removed from Mary's apartment, it looked empty.
Of course, all the other buildings on the block looked empty, too. The Lower East Side was distinctive that way, one block
being a bustling bazaar, merchandise spilling out onto crowded sidewalks already festooned with clothes and fabrics hanging from overhead signs, while the very next street was silent, closed up, and virtually lifeless.
Unlike Willy's old Washington Heights stomping grounds, though, the Lower East Side had been a catchment area for the poor and the dispossessed since its birth. And yet, perhaps for that very reason, it had also once thrived with life and creativity, with thousands of families jammed into single blocks, fomenting radical thinkers, social activists, and talents like the Gershwin and Marx brothers, Jimmy Durante, and Al Jolson.
But not lately. Nowadays, minus the spark of sheer numbers, that contradictory clash of creativity and despair had melted into something more numbing. While the occasional bustling street still flourished, especially on weekends, the overall neighborhood seemed locked in a permanent funk of poverty, drug abuse, and hopelessness.
The Re-Coop, in other words, was truly a product of its environment.
Willy crossed the street and walked through the door under the brightly painted sign-the only thing distinguishing this entrance from any of its equally dark and brooding neighbors.
That, thankfully, was where all comparisons stopped, however. Once inside, Willy was pleasantly surprised at the light and cheerful atmosphere that greeted him. The walls were colorfully painted and decorated, plants and flowers plentiful, and toys and children's books piled in the corners. It reminded him of an upbeat day-care center in some well-heeled suburb.
"How can I help?" a young woman asked from behind a reception counter. The only doors in the room, other than the one he'd just used, were located behind her on either side, and the front windows, so blank from the street, he saw now had been painted in, further ensuring privacy.
