“Why didn’t Jim Grant represent Sharon Solarz?”
That’s all there was. That simple question.
I mean, I didn’t know about the divorce, and the custody battle, or any of that. If I had, would I still have asked the question? It’s impossible to answer.
And if I had known the answer to the question, would I still have published?
I don’t know, Isabel. I don’t know. The question comes down to this: If I had known how much my work, that spring of 1996, was going to fuck up your life, would I have gone ahead?
But see, I didn’t even know that you existed, then, and if I had known, I was too young to understand. What the hell did I know about children? What the hell did I know about the fact that next to a child, nothing political matters a good goddamn?
Not knowing that, on June 16, 1996, it became, for me, the most urgent matter in my life to answer that question.
Jim Grant was the kind of lawyer who should have gotten moist over the chance to negotiate Sharon Solarz’s surrender. It had news value, it had political value, it had moral value, it had historical value. And what did he do? He handed it over to a competitor.
Why?
I stood, stretched, and knocked over my desk lamp again. This time, however, I didn’t bother picking it up but instead pocketed my car keys and cigarettes. Then, leaning over my keyboard, I looked up Billy Cusimano’s address and telephone number in an on-line phone book, and walked out of the newsroom.
It’s worth noting, by the way, that on my way out, while quite a few people said hello to me, none of them seemed to expect me to respond. And none were disappointed, either. Benjamino Schulberg, it was quite clear, was more or less expected to live in his own world.
4.
Arriving in Tannersville toward midmorning, I found Billy Cusimano in his front lawn, kneeling in a flower bed. With some trepidation—the guy was
huge
—I approached, and he looked up, a questioning look on his face.
“Mr. Cusimano.”
“Yes, child.” He spoke in a baritone and, as he spoke, began the slow process of rising while I, trying to absorb that I had just been called “child,” tried to find my tongue.
“I’m Ben Schulberg. From the
Times
in Albany.”
“Well, well. You’re the only paper on the eastern seaboard who doesn’t seem to have concluded that I’m guilty of supplying half the minors on the East Coast with marijuana all the while harboring dangerous fugitives. That your doing?” Cusimano was standing now, hands on his hips, and I had a chance to appreciate just how massive he was—in all directions.
“Well, I like to think so. I mean, you haven’t actually come to trial yet.”
“That doesn’t seem to bother anyone else.” Cusimano paused, still staring down. “So?”
“Pardon me?”
“So what do you want?”
“Well…where do you know Sharon Solarz from?” Knowing how lame that sounded, I struggled for control. But once again it eluded me as this monstrously large man, without expression, stepped out of the flower bed and began to walk away, out of the driveway and across a very large, very green lawn. And because he was talking, I had to follow if I wanted to keep listening.
“You don’t really expect me to answer that.” It was a statement, not a question.
On the lawn, I became aware in quick succession of three things. The first was how enormous the lawn was, sloping down a gentle series of hillocks to a line of trees. The second was the size of the sky, a floodlit blue, above the range of mountains that stood away over the trees, the colors nearly fluorescent with early summer sun. And finally, the fact that a row of poplars now ensured that, just at the spot where Billy stopped and turned around, forcing me nearly to walk into his huge belly, no one could see us from the road. Then he went on.
“I mean, if you have a Nexis account and you’re not a fucking idiot, then you know how I know her. And you do have a Nexis account, don’t you?”
That’s all there was. That simple question.
I mean, I didn’t know about the divorce, and the custody battle, or any of that. If I had, would I still have asked the question? It’s impossible to answer.
And if I had known the answer to the question, would I still have published?
I don’t know, Isabel. I don’t know. The question comes down to this: If I had known how much my work, that spring of 1996, was going to fuck up your life, would I have gone ahead?
But see, I didn’t even know that you existed, then, and if I had known, I was too young to understand. What the hell did I know about children? What the hell did I know about the fact that next to a child, nothing political matters a good goddamn?
Not knowing that, on June 16, 1996, it became, for me, the most urgent matter in my life to answer that question.
Jim Grant was the kind of lawyer who should have gotten moist over the chance to negotiate Sharon Solarz’s surrender. It had news value, it had political value, it had moral value, it had historical value. And what did he do? He handed it over to a competitor.
Why?
I stood, stretched, and knocked over my desk lamp again. This time, however, I didn’t bother picking it up but instead pocketed my car keys and cigarettes. Then, leaning over my keyboard, I looked up Billy Cusimano’s address and telephone number in an on-line phone book, and walked out of the newsroom.
It’s worth noting, by the way, that on my way out, while quite a few people said hello to me, none of them seemed to expect me to respond. And none were disappointed, either. Benjamino Schulberg, it was quite clear, was more or less expected to live in his own world.
4.
Arriving in Tannersville toward midmorning, I found Billy Cusimano in his front lawn, kneeling in a flower bed. With some trepidation—the guy was
huge
—I approached, and he looked up, a questioning look on his face.
“Mr. Cusimano.”
“Yes, child.” He spoke in a baritone and, as he spoke, began the slow process of rising while I, trying to absorb that I had just been called “child,” tried to find my tongue.
“I’m Ben Schulberg. From the
Times
in Albany.”
“Well, well. You’re the only paper on the eastern seaboard who doesn’t seem to have concluded that I’m guilty of supplying half the minors on the East Coast with marijuana all the while harboring dangerous fugitives. That your doing?” Cusimano was standing now, hands on his hips, and I had a chance to appreciate just how massive he was—in all directions.
“Well, I like to think so. I mean, you haven’t actually come to trial yet.”
“That doesn’t seem to bother anyone else.” Cusimano paused, still staring down. “So?”
“Pardon me?”
“So what do you want?”
“Well…where do you know Sharon Solarz from?” Knowing how lame that sounded, I struggled for control. But once again it eluded me as this monstrously large man, without expression, stepped out of the flower bed and began to walk away, out of the driveway and across a very large, very green lawn. And because he was talking, I had to follow if I wanted to keep listening.
“You don’t really expect me to answer that.” It was a statement, not a question.
On the lawn, I became aware in quick succession of three things. The first was how enormous the lawn was, sloping down a gentle series of hillocks to a line of trees. The second was the size of the sky, a floodlit blue, above the range of mountains that stood away over the trees, the colors nearly fluorescent with early summer sun. And finally, the fact that a row of poplars now ensured that, just at the spot where Billy stopped and turned around, forcing me nearly to walk into his huge belly, no one could see us from the road. Then he went on.
“I mean, if you have a Nexis account and you’re not a fucking idiot, then you know how I know her. And you do have a Nexis account, don’t you?”
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