smile, unexpectedly shifting the subject,
“do Jewish men want to be called by their full, Biblical names?”
Julie didn’t know the answer but said, to amuse Nancy, “It has something to do with circumcision, I think, the need to keep it all whenever they can.”
Ultimately, after Nancy told him she would go to the police by herself, Benjamin had “caved.” When they finally approached the police, through a telephone call to a hotline number established for any information about Tom’s murder, the police didn’t react immediately. She and Benjamin were asked to give their names, their address, and their telephone number, and then five days later they received a call from McGlynn, who asked them to come down to his office at St. Andrews Plaza in Lower Manhattan. Benjamin complained, “See, look at the time this has already taken, and they don’t even give a fuck.”
D E AT H ’ S W I T N E S S
As she sat in the kitchen sipping coffee, Julie was fascinated by the wide-eyed, eager, subject-shifting way in which Nancy Lichtman spoke. A little off-the-wall, but warm, Julie thought, as Nancy mixed her personal history with a description of what she and Benjamin had narrated to McGlynn in his cramped, windowless office. She told McGlynn she and Benjamin were daily runners.
In winter, they preferred dawn runs in Central Park. In the other seasons, late afternoon or early evening runs.
That evening was the warmest of the season so far. They started late. They entered Central Park from 85th Street on the 73
Upper West Side. They disagreed at the start about which direction to take. Benjamin wanted to run north, to the upper limits of the park at Central Park North. (“Can you believe it?” Nancy exclaimed to Julie. “Central Park North. How many people, white people, do you think, even know there is a Central Park North ?”) Nancy wanted to run south. Dusk was coming on, and if they headed north they would be on the hills in the upper forested area of the park at night. That was not a chance she wanted to take. If they ran south, she’d feel safer. Fewer trees, more people, more open spaces, more vitality. Benjamin relented: they ran south to the 72nd Street transverse that crossed the park from west to east. Then they turned gradually north on the eastside road that passed the Boat Basin, the rear of the Metropolitan Museum from 79th Street to 84th Street, and the Engineers’ Gate at 90th Street. Finally, they reached the transverse, the paved roadway closed to traffic, that dissected the park from east to west below the northernmost rim of the park where the steep hills were and where, at night, the terrain looked like a jungle, “complete with wild animals,” Nancy Lichtman said.
By the time they turned into the roadway it was almost night.
These lengthy, sweating, rhythmic runs kept them at their clos-est, and the night had been ideal for running—warm, humid. The liquid darkness and their bodies’ motion seemed to merge, as though they were swimming in an ocean at night or “having great sex,” Nancy said. Although the transverse was empty, she P A U L B A T I S T A
had no sense of the kind of fear that made her, at the outset, argue with Benjamin about avoiding the far northern regions of the park. She knew, in any event, that they were bound to encounter other runners somewhere along the transverse on the first good night of the spring.
She saw two runners approaching them: two strong white men. Benjamin immediately recognized Tom.
“Do you know him?” Benjamin asked.
“Who?”
“The dark one.”
74
“No.”
“Football player,” Benjamin said.
“Well, I’ll be,” Nancy teased, short-breathed.
In the dusk she briefly stared at the man with dark hair. Gloriously handsome, she thought, but no name, no recognition came to her mind. “I knew it wasn’t Joe Montana,” she said, smiling her delirious, expansive smile at Julie. It was the other man who gestured: a wave, a word, a
“do Jewish men want to be called by their full, Biblical names?”
Julie didn’t know the answer but said, to amuse Nancy, “It has something to do with circumcision, I think, the need to keep it all whenever they can.”
Ultimately, after Nancy told him she would go to the police by herself, Benjamin had “caved.” When they finally approached the police, through a telephone call to a hotline number established for any information about Tom’s murder, the police didn’t react immediately. She and Benjamin were asked to give their names, their address, and their telephone number, and then five days later they received a call from McGlynn, who asked them to come down to his office at St. Andrews Plaza in Lower Manhattan. Benjamin complained, “See, look at the time this has already taken, and they don’t even give a fuck.”
D E AT H ’ S W I T N E S S
As she sat in the kitchen sipping coffee, Julie was fascinated by the wide-eyed, eager, subject-shifting way in which Nancy Lichtman spoke. A little off-the-wall, but warm, Julie thought, as Nancy mixed her personal history with a description of what she and Benjamin had narrated to McGlynn in his cramped, windowless office. She told McGlynn she and Benjamin were daily runners.
In winter, they preferred dawn runs in Central Park. In the other seasons, late afternoon or early evening runs.
That evening was the warmest of the season so far. They started late. They entered Central Park from 85th Street on the 73
Upper West Side. They disagreed at the start about which direction to take. Benjamin wanted to run north, to the upper limits of the park at Central Park North. (“Can you believe it?” Nancy exclaimed to Julie. “Central Park North. How many people, white people, do you think, even know there is a Central Park North ?”) Nancy wanted to run south. Dusk was coming on, and if they headed north they would be on the hills in the upper forested area of the park at night. That was not a chance she wanted to take. If they ran south, she’d feel safer. Fewer trees, more people, more open spaces, more vitality. Benjamin relented: they ran south to the 72nd Street transverse that crossed the park from west to east. Then they turned gradually north on the eastside road that passed the Boat Basin, the rear of the Metropolitan Museum from 79th Street to 84th Street, and the Engineers’ Gate at 90th Street. Finally, they reached the transverse, the paved roadway closed to traffic, that dissected the park from east to west below the northernmost rim of the park where the steep hills were and where, at night, the terrain looked like a jungle, “complete with wild animals,” Nancy Lichtman said.
By the time they turned into the roadway it was almost night.
These lengthy, sweating, rhythmic runs kept them at their clos-est, and the night had been ideal for running—warm, humid. The liquid darkness and their bodies’ motion seemed to merge, as though they were swimming in an ocean at night or “having great sex,” Nancy said. Although the transverse was empty, she P A U L B A T I S T A
had no sense of the kind of fear that made her, at the outset, argue with Benjamin about avoiding the far northern regions of the park. She knew, in any event, that they were bound to encounter other runners somewhere along the transverse on the first good night of the spring.
She saw two runners approaching them: two strong white men. Benjamin immediately recognized Tom.
“Do you know him?” Benjamin asked.
“Who?”
“The dark one.”
74
“No.”
“Football player,” Benjamin said.
“Well, I’ll be,” Nancy teased, short-breathed.
In the dusk she briefly stared at the man with dark hair. Gloriously handsome, she thought, but no name, no recognition came to her mind. “I knew it wasn’t Joe Montana,” she said, smiling her delirious, expansive smile at Julie. It was the other man who gestured: a wave, a word, a
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