[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

granola and sipping their coffee while my voice rattles over
the machine.  Sorry about last night. I was out with Stuart.
Haven t heard on the commercial yet. But I was thinking,
hey, maybe I could rent a car and drive up there Saturday.
Let me know what you think. Hey Jack, Mina. Catching any
fish, Jack? So give me a call when you get a chance, sweetie.
We re doing great down here. Puck misses you. Even be-
fore I hung up, I was wishing there was some way to erase
the tape and start over. This time, try to sound a little less
like a used car salesman. And lose the pathetic line about
188
dan in the gray flannel rat suit
Puck. What was that supposed to mean? The dog misses
you, but I m doing fine?
The dog.
I lurch upright and search the floor for my shoes. Puck s
tail thumps twice in gratitude. He follows me down the hall
and, when I hook the leash onto his collar, makes a sort of
stiff-legged curtsy, a substitute for sitting and then having to
clamber all the way up again. I find the keys on the hall table,
stuff a couple of plastic bags into the pocket of my shorts, and
we head out to the elevator.
Our building is old and slightly shabby, but if one can
look past the naked bulb on the landing and the gouged and
whitewashed walls, there are still hints of its grander begin-
nings. The worn marble landing is the size of a spacious
studio apartment, and the scrolled plaster ceilings are twelve
feet, echoing a time when space was not at such a premium.
The building is rent-controlled, so nothing has changed in
years, not the tenants, not the paint.
While we re waiting for the elevator, I hear what sounds
like movement behind Mrs. Doherty s door. There s no light
coming from under the doorsill, but I wouldn t be surprised
if, even at this hour, she is eyeballing me through her peep-
hole, alerted by the groans and squeaks of the elevator as
it heaves its way up from the ground floor. She leaves her
apartment only every few days for groceries, pushing her
wire cart in front of her like a walker and glaring at me
suspiciously whenever I greet her. When we first moved in,
189
debra dean
I tried to win her over with friendliness, but six years later,
she persists in regarding me warily, as though I might one
day force her back into her dusty foyer and rob her of all the
china figurines and crocheted doilies that can be seen crowd-
ing the dim interior of her rooms. Robin has gradually gained
her confidence, however, at least enough to discover that her
first name is Mary, that she raised three children here, and
that she can recite the dates and apartment numbers of every
burglary, every change of tenants through death or divorce,
every mishap that has occurred in this building over the last
several decades. Until our break-in, the fourth floor held the
record for the fewest burglaries.  And none of them came in
through an open window. Robin thought she heard accusa-
tion in Mary s voice, as though our carelessness has spoiled it
for everybody.
The elevator is one of the slowest rides in the city, and
while we descend, Puck paces the confines of the bronze
cage, in a hurry to get outside and relieve his aging bladder.
I am nowhere near so eager. This late-night descent into the
streets charges me with enough adrenaline to keep me alert
for the rest of the night. As we emerge from the relative
safety of the building, I check both ways down the avenue.
That I don t see anyone in no way eases my anxiety. Puck,
oblivious, lifts his leg and drowns a weed that has sprung up
through a crack in the concrete.
It is actually a beautiful street, edged on this side by
graceful limestone buildings and, on the far side, by Prospect
190
dan in the gray flannel rat suit
Park. All of the buildings but ours have gone co-op over the
past ten years, sandblasting the grime from their gargoyles
and unfurling fresh awnings onto the avenue. But the quiet
prosperity is misleading. This pocket of gentrification is a
scant few subway stops from half the projects in Brooklyn
and an inviting destination spot for the criminally minded.
The length of the avenue is a particular favorite with mug-
gers, because they can hit their target and then disappear into
the foresty expanse of the park across the street. Last winter,
a man on the second floor was held up at gunpoint right
where I m standing, in the shadow of our awning.
We move into the peachy glow of the sodium streetlights,
and Puck shuffles slowly toward the curb. The curb glitters
with safety glass, where car windows have been smashed in
search of phones and tape decks. I wait impatiently while he
sniffs the leg of a newspaper box and then waters it. Next is
the bus stop sign, and then the light pole and mailbox on the
corner. Usually, this is as far as we go at night, just twenty
paces to the corner and back, but it takes a good ten minutes
to inspect and mark each stop on the route. When I try to
hurry him, he gives me a wounded look and, I swear it, ex-
aggerates the arthritic stiffness in his gait. Then he gives his
end of the leash a small tug toward the tree trunks down the
slope.
Something is fluttering from a lower limb of the old
plane tree. I can t make it out from this distance, but then
I notice that the trees all the way down the block are fes-
191
debra dean
tooned with paper. On closer inspection, they turn out to be
crayoned drawings of the trees themselves: row after row of
green lollipops, some with bluebirds and yellow ball suns.
 Save Our Trees is lettered in a careful, childish hand across
this first one. Taped to the next trunk is another drawing,
but its message is lost in the deep shadows.
Early this spring, a utility crew showed up unannounced
and started surveying the block to install new pipeline. The
project would entail digging into the gnarled root system
that underlies the entire length and width of the block.
From the city s perspective, the old trees are a nuisance
anyway their roots curdle the sidewalks and push up as-
phalt but when they blithely started ribboning off old wil-
low oaks and plane trees, they severely underestimated the
depth of the neighborhood s affection for those trees. They
also didn t take into consideration that half the newly reno-
vated brownstones are inhabited by attorneys with inflated
property values to protect. Wham bam, the city was up to its
eyeballs in court injunctions before they could even finish
staking.
A sheet of butcher paper has been wrapped around one [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

  • zanotowane.pl
  • doc.pisz.pl
  • pdf.pisz.pl
  • thierry.pev.pl

    •