The Outcasts of 19 Schuyler Place Read online

  “Peter Vanderwaal says that the towers are an artistic treasure.”

  “Peter Vanderwaal? You’ve talked to Peter?”

  “I have.”

  “When?”

  “Today.”

  “How is he?”

  “He’s fine. He says that the only values these lawyers and home owners know are property values. Their property values. They care about profit, not art, and Peter Vanderwaal says that the towers are art. Outsider art. They are my uncles’ personal expression, and my uncles have the right to express themselves. Freedom of expression is part of the law.”

  “And so is something called the ‘commonweal’—the welfare of the community. Some years ago, an artist by the name of Christo—a Bulgarian—put up something he called Running Fence, which was twenty-four and a half miles of a white curtain running up and down the California hills north of San Francisco into the ocean. It took him forty-two months and eighteen public hearings—”

  “My uncles never had hearings—”

  “—and permission from fifty-nine ranchers—”

  “My uncles didn’t know they needed permission—”

  “—to approve his plans—”

  “My uncles never had plans—”

  “—and a four-hundred-fifty-page environmental impact report—”

  “My uncles never impacted the environment, just the neighborhood—”

  “—and bore all the expense to put it up.”

  “My uncles never asked anyone for a penny.”

  “And two weeks after completing the fence, he took it down. Today, no sign of Running Fence remains on the face of the land.” I thought about that for a long time until Loretta asked, “Margaret? Are you still there?”

  “I’m still here,” I answered. “And this is what I have to say about forty-two months. Forty-two months is a lot different from forty-five years. And here is what I have to say about taking down Running Fence. Taking it down was part of it. Taking it down was an important part of its history, but that’s not so for the towers. My uncles never meant for the towers to come down. They’re not even all finished. My uncles were ready to start a fourth tower, but they never did.”

  “Speaking of fences, will they let your uncles keep the fence?”

  “Yes. None of the fence shows from the street. Which goes to show that they are not as interested in the commonweal as they are in appearances.”

  “Would they let your uncles keep the towers if they removed the sections that peek over the top of the buildings?”

  I was shocked. “I wouldn’t even ask,” I said. “That would . . . that would destroy the whole . . . the whole . . . majesty of them.” I had never used the word majesty before. It came from some deep, knowing, inside part of me. Words can be part of your soul before they are part of your vocabulary. The thought that my mother’s old friend was taking the other side was making me sick. She was making me sick. “Are you a lawyer?” I asked.

  “Yes, I am. I started at Infinitel in the legal department.”

  “Now I know why you’re on their side.”

  “Whose side are we talking about?”

  “Theirs! The lawyers and the home owners who live all around my uncles.”

  “I’m sorry that’s what you think.”

  “Well, I do.”

  “Your thinking is wrong. I do love the towers, and I am going to save them. Now tell me what Peter said.”

  “He said he’ll form a committee, the Cultural Preservation Committee. He’s going to get signatures from important art authority rainmakers on a petition to have the towers declared a landmark. We’re going to call it the CPC because acronyms are so over.”

  Loretta laughed.

  “He didn’t laugh at me.”

  “Neither am I. I am laughing at Peter. It’s so like him to form a committee. Rainmaker art authorities! That’s an oxymoron.” She laughed again. “And what are you going to do?”

  “I’m to keep them from destroying the towers in the meantime.”

  “Now, that,” Loretta said, “is sound advice. That’s what I recommend, too. Stop them from destroying the towers until I can save them.”

  “How are you going to save them?”

  “I can’t tell you yet. I have a lot of behind-the-scenes work to do first. We will have a three-phase plan.”

  “We?” I asked suspiciously. Was this another royal we?

  “Yes. You, Peter, and me. Phase One: Stop. Phase Two: Stall. Phase Three: Save. You are the most important player in Phase One. You must stop the demolition.”

  “How do I do that?”

  “Listen, Margaret, I am willing to work on saving the towers, and I am willing to lay out a plan, but I do not micromanage. Capisci?”

  “Yes, capisci.”

  “No. Capisci means You understand.”

  “I do.”

  “Do what?”

  “Understand.”

  “If you understand, you must say capisco. Cah-PISS-CO. That means I understand.”

  “I already told you. I understand.”

  Loretta Bevilaqua groaned audibly. “Then you understand that you must stop the demolition?”

  “Yes.”

  “After you’ve stopped them, Peter and his petition from the CPC will tie their hands for a while and slow up the legal work long enough for me to start Phase Three, saving the towers.” She paused only briefly before adding, “In order for me to complete my part—or even to begin it—you must buy the towers.”

  “I can’t afford that.”

  “Yes, you can. Have your uncles sell them to you for a dollar.”

  “A piece?”

  “All right, a dollar a piece.”

  “They are worth a lot more than that.”

  “Of course they are. Actually, they are priceless. That is why I want to save them. Pay whatever you want to for them. The important thing is that you become the owner. The law understands ownership. Until someone from the government serves you with a court order that the towers are to come down, you own them. As long as you own the towers, anyone who tries to occupy them without your permission is a trespasser. Possession is nine points of the law.”

  “Nine points out of how many?”

  Quickly dismissing the question as unworthy of further thought, she said, “It doesn’t matter. Get a bill of sale and have it notarized.”

  “Where do I do that?”

  “Wherever there is a notary public. I told you, I strategize, I plan, but I do not micromanage. I’ll get started on my part the first thing in the morning. Remember, if you want to save the towers, you must buy them and stop the demolition.”

  “I definitely want to save them.”

  “So do I.”

  Driving up the stakes, I added, “I need them.”

  “So do I,” Loretta Bevilaqua replied, and quickly added, “So do we all.”

  She hung up before I could even say good-bye. Loretta was used to getting in the last word.

  —Whenever them big shots at Infinitel hear Bevilaqua, they know it means something.

  And so did I.

  seventeen

  It was almost midnight when the phone rang. My uncles were still working on the scaffold. Uncle Morris picked up the upstairs phone before I picked up the downstairs one. It was Jacob Kaplan. Stagestruck, I did not even say hello.

  Jake said, “I’m sorry to be calling so late, but when I tried to call earlier, the line was busy.”

  “You must have had the wrong number,” Morris said. “Nobody here was on the phone. I don’t use the phone.”

  “You’re using it now.”

  “An accident of proximity.” In my mind I could see Uncle Alex trapped on top of the scaffold, forcing Uncle Morris to answer.

  Jake was saying, “I called the operator and had her check the number. She confirmed that the line was busy.”

  Morris said, “It was Tartufo.” Then, still holding the phone, he called to his brother, “That dog of yours knocked the pho
ne off the receiver.”

  I heard Uncle Alex reply, “Couldn’t be the dog.”

  Then Uncle Morris called downstairs, “Margaret, would you come up here a minute, please?”

  I had not hung up, so I said into the phone, “What is it, Uncle?”

  “Where are you?” Uncle Morris asked.

  “Downstairs.”

  “Why do you sound so close?”

  “I’m on the phone.”

  Morris said, “I thought this was Jake on the phone.”

  Jake said, “It is.”

  “It’s both of us, Uncle. I’m on the extension.”

  “Say hello to Jake, Margitkám,” Uncle Morris said.

  “Hello, Jake,” I said, and my heart did a grand jeté.

  “Tell me, Margitkám, did Tartufo take the phone off the stand?”

  I hated telling a lie. I hated blaming Tartufo—especially to Uncle Morris—but I could not tell the truth. “He did. I didn’t notice it until a minute ago.”

  Morris turned away from the phone and said, “What did I tell you? It was your mongrel.”

  “Tartufo is not a mongrel. He’s registered.”

  “He should never have been allowed into the country.”

  “Morris!” Uncle Alex said. “Find out what the young man wants. He didn’t call long distance to hear you insult my animal. Do you think he’s paying Ma Bell for you to argue with me?”

  “I’m not on Ma Bell,” Jake said. “I use Infinitel for long distance.”

  “And you’re going to tell me that they don’t charge?”

  “They do.”

  “So what is it that you want?”

  “I want to tell you that I will be there about nine o’clock tomorrow morning and that I am six foot one inches tall, so please don’t set the scaffold too high.”

  “All right,” Morris said. “We’ll be ready.”

  “See you soon,” Jake said, and my heart, which had sped up even more from lying, slowed down enough for me to catch my breath and say:

  “Good night, Jake.”

  I went upstairs. Welcoming an opportunity—any opportunity—to say his name, I said, (as casually as I could), “I knew Jake was tall, but I didn’t know he was over six feet.” To a family of modestly sized males, he was a giant.

  Uncle Morris said, “What does he mean, not to set the scaffold too high? I thought he would be painting on his back. Like Michelangelo in that chapel.”

  Uncle Alex said, “Maybe he doesn’t want to have his elbows akimbo.”

  “What means akimbo?”

  “It means bent.”

  Uncle Morris persisted, “So how can you paint without bending an elbow? When we paint, our elbows bend.”

  “Maybe he means to be sitting.”

  “So listen. He’s here early tomorrow. Before work we can adjust the scaffold to a quarter inch of how he wants it.”

  Uncle Alex said, “It will be exactly how he wants it. Exactly.”

  “That’s what I said. Exactly.”

  “To within a quarter inch,” Uncle Alex repeated.

  “Did I say a quarter inch?.” Uncle Morris asked.

  “You did. So did I.”

  “I said it first.”

  “A quarter inch it is,” Uncle Alex replied.

  Uncle Morris turned his back to his brother and said, “I’m going to bed.”

  I laughed to myself. There’s more than one way to get in the last word.

  eighteen

  I had been up since seven, waiting since eight. At a quarter to nine, I brewed a fresh pot of the special blend of coffee that Uncle Alex ordered from the Dean & Deluca catalog, which was where he had learned the price of truffles. I set the table for four and had the cream in a Herend pitcher chilling in the refrigerator. Next to the place where Jacob was to sit, I put the library book, opened to the rose rose I had selected. I had visions of sitting across the table from him, asking, Would you care for a little more coffee? and then having an extremely knowledgeable conversation about outsider art.

  As soon as Jake arrived, Uncle Morris whisked him upstairs to examine the scaffold to see if it needed adjustment. It was, Jake decided, exactly the right height: masterfully built and designed. The struts were X-shaped, which gave it added strength and stability, and they were placed at close enough intervals that he could climb to the top as easily as he could climb a flight of stairs. Jake said, “Perfect. It doesn’t need anything more—it is perfect.”

  Uncle Morris said, “That’s all I needed to hear.” Of course, that was not all he needed to hear. Perfect was the least he needed. Perfect suited him just fine.

  I invited Jake to come downstairs and have a cup of coffee before he started work. I watched him close his eyes and inhale deeply of its aroma. I waited as he added cream and sugar and took his first long sip. I was hoping he would say, Perfect, but he didn’t. Just as I was beginning to think that he would never look at the book of roses, he did. From the bib pocket of his white painter’s overalls, he took the slip of paper with the room dimensions, a small ruler, and a pocket calculator. With the ruler, he measured the rose I had selected. He did a few rapid calculations. “Works out pretty well,” he said.

  I was worried. Could I have gotten a perfect instead of a pretty well if I had chosen the Redouté?

  Then, looking at Uncle Alex, he said, “If you will help me with the preliminary work on the ceiling, I may even be ready to start the painting today. Would you mind?”

  “Of course not,” Uncle replied. “I much prefer helping to just sitting around.”

  “Do you know where there’s a color copier? I will need two copies of this page. They should be able to copy it double size.”

  Uncle had to think. Finally, he thought of the office supply store two blocks from the courthouse. He looked the number up in the phone book and called.

  “They can do it,” he said when he hung up.

  “How much?” Jake asked. “I’m just curious.”

  “Twelve ninety-five each,” Uncle said.

  “I could make do with one. The second is backup.” “Always have a backup. I believe everyone should always have a backup. Besides, twenty-five dollars and ninety cents is not much for raw material for a work of art.” He took a sheet of notepaper from the counter by the telephone and marked the place in the book before closing it. “I’ll drop it off on my way to the mall and have Morris pick it up on his way home. He’ll be home after six.”

  “Let me go,” I said. “I, too, prefer helping to just sitting around.”

  “Good,” Jake said. “I always like to know what you prefer.” I was embarrassed but pleased. “Now, Margaret, if you’ll pour me another cup of that excellent coffee before you leave, I’ll take it upstairs and get started.”

  Jake climbed up and down the scaffold, moving it along like an old lady with a walker. He measured off the ceiling in six-inch intervals on both sides. He had to fudge a little so that there would be an even number of squares.

  After he finished making his marks along two perimeters, he and Uncle each held the end of the piece of chalked string that Jake unwound from a small reel. When Jake was certain that the string was taut, he asked, “Ready?” And when Uncle answered, “Ready,” Jake snapped it so that it left a blue line from one marker to its mate across the room. They went from marker to marker, making parallel lines. Then they turned ninety degrees, so that they could make lines perpendicular to those they had just finished.

  By the time I returned from picking up the color copies, they had finished and both men were sweating profusely. Uncle Alex had to take a shower and get ready for work.

  Before he even looked at the color copies, Jake wrapped a red bandanna around his forehead to keep the sweat out of his eyes. “Do you think you could find an electric fan somewhere?” he asked.

  Coffee. Fan. I was happy to be his gofer.

  I knew there was a fan in the unused dining room. I found it in a box behind the old display counter that Uncle Alex had
used during the time that Jewels Bi-Rose had operated out of 19 Schuyler Place. It was dusty, of course. Everything in the unused dining room was. I picked the fan up and decided to test it before I cleaned it up and carried it upstairs. I began looking for a wall socket. The house was over sixty years old and, at best, had one outlet per wall.

  Crawling behind the old display counter, I bumped into another box. I opened the flaps, and a fog of dust dimmed my view. I waved my hand in front of my face and sneezed at least three times before I could see what was inside. There were the handcuffs, the ones my uncles had kept handy for the crooks. The key was looped onto the chain with a piece of string. Deeper in the box was the roll of duct tape and the clean (but now dusty) socks for gags. I had to smile when I remembered that night before last when the Uncles had laughed as they told Jake about how they had learned to help the robbers in order to spare themselves.

  I pushed the box aside and continued creeping along the floor, looking for a wall socket. I found one across the room under the front windows.

  The fan worked. I cleaned it in the kitchen and carried it upstairs. Jake was sitting on the scaffold, looking over the tattersall of blue lines on the aged white of the ceiling. He clapped his hands together to shake the blue chalk dust from them.

  I pointed to the empty socket in the center of the ceiling where Jake had taken down the glass shade and had unscrewed the lightbulb. “What are you going to do there?” I asked.

  “Look at the picture,” he said. I did as told. “See where the center comes?” I nodded. Then he said, “On the plain glazed surface of this old glass shade, there will appear the succulent heart of the rose.”

  I gasped. “Does that mean that the succulent heart of the rose will be lit up whenever I turn on the light?” I asked.

  “It means just that.”

  I grew faint at the thought. “It also means that I will have a glass ceiling after all.” Even if Jake didn’t say it, I knew I had chosen the perfect rose rose—the one with a succulent heart. “Jake,” I said, “this ceiling is going to be better than the Sistine.”