tenements, overcrowded cemeteries, and decrepit warehouses with rotted wooden facing only an arsonist could loveis enough to make me pine for the Santa Ana Freeway. At this hour, though, darkness served as a drop cloth over the worst of the view, leaving to be seen only the lovely cliché of the illuminated Manhattan skyline, promising absolutely everything.
I hate New York in June, how about you? Lanny asked, staring out the window. It was August, but I assumed he was paraphrasing the song.
I like it, I said. Whats the matter with it?
He shrugged. My life here, as a kid in Brooklyn, wasnt very pleasant. I was brought up as a nice, middle-class Jewish boy, which was not the greatest idea since we were extremely poor and lived in a rough Puerto Rican slum. A handful of Italians, a few tough Irish. My aunt couldnt afford to live anywhere else. I owned two always clean white shirts, two pairs of corduroy pants, two black yarmulkes, and one green corduroy zippered jacket. Imagine if in Nazi Germany there had been only one Jew, and he was me. There you have my childhood.
He reached into a small ice bucket by the decanters, tossed a couple of cubes into a cut-glass tumbler, took out a decanter of vodka, and poured it over the ice. This isnt vodka, its bottled water, he advised. You want some?
I was dehydrated from the flight and joined him. As he fixed me a water on the rocks, he continued, Look,Ive met a few Jews I didnt like. My second wife, for example, was Exhibit A for the defense at the Nuremberg trials. What I minded was that not only did everybody in my neighborhood hate me, but they all tried to do something about it. Cheers.
I clinked water glasses with him.
Every part of my career has been an effort to escape that neighborhood, those gangs You ever have the dream that youre back in high school?
Once or twice a year, I confirmed. Usually naked.
The limo slipped into the Queens Midtown Tunnel. The lighting was so brightly fluorescent that it penetrated our tinted windows, turning Reuben a sickly color and making Lanny pale. He mused, Every week or so, I dream Im a kid again, and Ive made the mistake of coming back to New York. Theyve got me. All of them, in the alley behind the chop shop with the high wall and barbed wire on top, and this time theyre going to use knives, not fists, and this time old man Quinn isnt going to see whats happening, so he wont run to get a cop.
We sipped our water until we came out of the tunnel and turned up a dark, narrow street of nondescript apartment buildings. There were no storefronts, restaurants, or (at the moment) pedestrians. There were only a few streetlamps, and one of those had burned out. Imagine if you had waited all your life to see Manhattan and someone told you this was it.
I could hardly see Lannys face now. He was lost in another borough, another time. He downed the last of his water. Michael Dougherty lowered the divider window and asked over his right shoulder, Number 235, miss, is that between Third and Second Avenue?
Mmmmm, I said in what I hoped was a noncommittal voice that might be taken for affirmation or negation, because I honestly wasnt sure of the answer.
Lanny continued softly, One of the reasons Im telling you this is because sometimes when you talk about something, you dont dream about it.
He didnt have my full attention. I was straining to see which side of the street 235 was on. I saw 217. It was a Laundromat. The next doorway led to apartments above the Laundromat.
Along here? asked Lanny.
A lit sign in an opaque storefront window readTHE VELVET TOUCH MASSAGE$12AND UP and below it the wordsLet our fingers do the walking. (The presence of a massage parlor was, by the way, no indication that the neighborhood was bad; they had sprung up absolutely everywhere in the last few years.)
I see 237, but not 235, Lanny murmured.
I looked back
I hate New York in June, how about you? Lanny asked, staring out the window. It was August, but I assumed he was paraphrasing the song.
I like it, I said. Whats the matter with it?
He shrugged. My life here, as a kid in Brooklyn, wasnt very pleasant. I was brought up as a nice, middle-class Jewish boy, which was not the greatest idea since we were extremely poor and lived in a rough Puerto Rican slum. A handful of Italians, a few tough Irish. My aunt couldnt afford to live anywhere else. I owned two always clean white shirts, two pairs of corduroy pants, two black yarmulkes, and one green corduroy zippered jacket. Imagine if in Nazi Germany there had been only one Jew, and he was me. There you have my childhood.
He reached into a small ice bucket by the decanters, tossed a couple of cubes into a cut-glass tumbler, took out a decanter of vodka, and poured it over the ice. This isnt vodka, its bottled water, he advised. You want some?
I was dehydrated from the flight and joined him. As he fixed me a water on the rocks, he continued, Look,Ive met a few Jews I didnt like. My second wife, for example, was Exhibit A for the defense at the Nuremberg trials. What I minded was that not only did everybody in my neighborhood hate me, but they all tried to do something about it. Cheers.
I clinked water glasses with him.
Every part of my career has been an effort to escape that neighborhood, those gangs You ever have the dream that youre back in high school?
Once or twice a year, I confirmed. Usually naked.
The limo slipped into the Queens Midtown Tunnel. The lighting was so brightly fluorescent that it penetrated our tinted windows, turning Reuben a sickly color and making Lanny pale. He mused, Every week or so, I dream Im a kid again, and Ive made the mistake of coming back to New York. Theyve got me. All of them, in the alley behind the chop shop with the high wall and barbed wire on top, and this time theyre going to use knives, not fists, and this time old man Quinn isnt going to see whats happening, so he wont run to get a cop.
We sipped our water until we came out of the tunnel and turned up a dark, narrow street of nondescript apartment buildings. There were no storefronts, restaurants, or (at the moment) pedestrians. There were only a few streetlamps, and one of those had burned out. Imagine if you had waited all your life to see Manhattan and someone told you this was it.
I could hardly see Lannys face now. He was lost in another borough, another time. He downed the last of his water. Michael Dougherty lowered the divider window and asked over his right shoulder, Number 235, miss, is that between Third and Second Avenue?
Mmmmm, I said in what I hoped was a noncommittal voice that might be taken for affirmation or negation, because I honestly wasnt sure of the answer.
Lanny continued softly, One of the reasons Im telling you this is because sometimes when you talk about something, you dont dream about it.
He didnt have my full attention. I was straining to see which side of the street 235 was on. I saw 217. It was a Laundromat. The next doorway led to apartments above the Laundromat.
Along here? asked Lanny.
A lit sign in an opaque storefront window readTHE VELVET TOUCH MASSAGE$12AND UP and below it the wordsLet our fingers do the walking. (The presence of a massage parlor was, by the way, no indication that the neighborhood was bad; they had sprung up absolutely everywhere in the last few years.)
I see 237, but not 235, Lanny murmured.
I looked back
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