The Outcasts of 19 Schuyler Place Read online

“Would be a waste of time.”

  “That never bothered you before.”

  “When you get older, édes Margitkám, you’ll realize that all you have is time. You have time and your side of history. And that’s all you have.” He slapped his hands on his thighs and stood up. “Blintzes,” he said. “I’ll fry up the extra palacsinta batter and fill them with cottage cheese. We’ll have blintzes for lunch tomorrow. Do you think Jake will like that?”

  Of course he would, I thought, but I couldn’t answer. I was aching with uneasiness. Something was wrong. It was in the kitchen and in the Tower Garden. It was in the air. All of 19 Schuyler Place was uneasy, but I didn’t know why. Uncle asked me again if I thought Jake would like blintzes. He didn’t even look at me to see me nod yes. He just went about scooping the cottage cheese out of the carton.

  thirteen

  At the library I went first to the art section. I found a rose rose in The Roses, by Pierre-Joseph Redouté. It should have been perfect. It should have been the rose I wanted. It was artistic, and I wanted Jake to think I liked artistic. It was historical, and I wanted Jake to think I liked historical. It was scientific, and it was pretty, but it was not passionate. I looked in other art books, but none of the painted roses had the moist, fleshy look of a single one of the roses on my uncle’s bushes. So against my very own wishes, I went to the gardening section.

  There, in the first book I pulled from the shelf, was the rose rose I wanted. It was multiple shades of passionate rose. Many multiple shades. It looked as if touching the page would stain your fingers. Even though it was a photograph and not a painting, even though it was not historical, even though it was not the rose that should be right, even though it came from the gardening section and not the art section, it was exactly the rose I wanted on my ceiling.

  As I waited at the checkout counter, two copies of the Epiphany Times were on a horizontal rack nearby. One copy had the metro section facing out, and I was drawn to it, but I heard “Next,” so I stepped up, had my book stamped, and left the library excited about the ceiling project and the thought of Jake’s return visit.

  I entered 19 Schuyler Place through the Tower Garden, as I usually did. Uncle Alex had left for work by the time I got back. I walked through the kitchen and through the front hall on my way upstairs. I laid the book of roses on the front hall table and picked up a numbered list that Uncle Alex had left:

  1. Took your clothes out of the washer

  2. Put them in the dryer

  3. Weren’t dry yet when I left

  4. Help yourself to anything in the refrigerator

  5. Please walk Tartufo

  6. Anytime this afternoon will be fine

  7. Be careful crossing the streets

  8. Glad you’re here

  I studied his Old World handwriting. His 1s had little flags and his 7s had crosses. I read number 8 twice.

  I found Tartufo’s leash and headed outside. The mail had been delivered and was lying on the floor just inside the front door. I picked the letters up—mostly envelopes with little windows—but there was a postcard with a picture of the Andes. It was from my mother.

  Dear Uncles,

  The dig is going well. It seems strange that we are here cherishing the smallest shard of an ancient city when Epiphany is about to tear down the best monuments it ever had. I guess the towers are not ancient enough. Keep your spirits up. Have you heard from Margaret?

  Love,

  Naomi

  I couldn’t believe what I read the first time, so I read the card two times more:

  Epiphany is about to tear down the best monuments it ever had.

  The towers! The towers were coming down.

  And there in the hall with only Tartufo to hear me, I howled. My roar filled the hall, climbed the stairs, and echoed back. Bubbles of rage swelled and burst inside the hollow that the Alums had scraped bare. I hugged my stomach and doubled over in agony. I collapsed on the bottom step. I tried to read the card again, but the words stung my eyes. I clutched the postcard to my chest and began to rock back and forth in a pulse as primitive as pain. With no one but Tartufo to bear witness, I began to moan. I rocked and moaned, motion and sound keeping time with the spasms of my aching heart. I gave voice to all the deep, sad sounds I had tamped into silence since summer began. I gave voice to the cries I had suppressed when the Rockette Alums had herded me up to my bunk. I gave vent to the answers I had crippled inside me when Mrs. Kaplan and I had had our little chats. I moaned and rocked and did not stop until Tartufo nuzzled his nose into the bend of my arms. He needed comfort, too. “The towers are coming down,” I said. I could speak now, softly now, and I said it again. “The towers are coming down, Tartufo. Why didn’t I guess?”

  Grokking sounds came from deep inside Tartufo. I took him off the leash and said, “You have to stay here, Tartufo. I’ve got to go back to the library.” I lightly touched his back, and he understood. He sat, statue-like; without my even having to say Stay, he stayed. I slipped the postcard into the book of roses and stacked the rest of the mail on the hall table, and I was out the door.

  There on page one of the Metro News section of the Epiphany Times was the headline:

  DEMOLITION SCHEDULED

  The three-year battle to save the clock towers on Schuyler Place will come to an end in ten days. The city has awarded the contract to demolish the structures to Foscaro Brothers of Albany.

  Concern about the safety of the structures initiated a petition by the Home Owners Association of Old Town to have them taken down. They were built without permits. The city grants permits only after approval of building plans that guarantee safety. Morris Rose and his brother, Alexander, built the towers over a period of the last forty-five years without plans.

  The Home Owners Association of Old Town is concerned that high winds could topple the towers and destroy property adjacent to the towers as well as several houses nearby. At a council hearing on April 4, Kenneth Hawkins, chief of the Building and Safety Department, said that because they were built without blueprints, there is no way to ascertain if the structures are safe. To avoid risk, Hawkins recommended that the towers be demolished.

  Taylor Hapgood, one of the pioneers in the restoration of Old Town, praised the decision. “These structures simply do not fit the historical integrity of the neighborhood. They are unsafe, and they have become a blight on the neighborhood. They detract from the dignity of Old Town.”

  On behalf of the Home Owners Association, he has asked the city to defray the costs of the demolition as part of the Greater Comprehensive Redevelopment Plan, the city-funded initiative to restore downtown as well as the neighborhoods around Town Square.

  The Rose brothers made their last appeal at the April 8 meeting of the city council. The council voted in favor of the Home Owners Association and posted for bids for the demolition. Foscaro Brothers estimate that removing the structures from such a high-density urban area will take three weeks. Money for the project will come from the Historic Downtown Trust Fund.

  I put the paper back on the library rack, ran outside, and bought one from the coin box on the corner. I sat on a bench in Town Square and read the article three more times. Then I tucked the paper under my arm and crossed the street to City Hall.

  I stopped at the reception desk in the front lobby, introduced myself, and, pointing to the article in the paper, asked for directions to the section of public records. “I need a record of the city council meeting for April eighth of this year.”

  The receptionist said, “We are afraid that for security reasons, we cannot allow you into the records room without a pass.” I listened to her we, and I looked at her smile—a twin of Mrs. Kaplan’s—and I knew that the desk between us was her shield, and the rules, her sword.

  With a lot more assurance than I felt, I said, “I was taught that council proceedings are a matter of public record. I am a public, and I need to see that record.”

  She repeated, “For security reasons, we cannot al
low anyone without a pass into the records room.” Repetition often serves as reason among the desk-empowered.

  I was not about to back down. “Then please get someone who has a pass who can get the record for me.” I reinforced my excellent manners with another “Please.” I sat down on one of the chairs that were set against the wall. “I am prepared to wait all day today, you know.” I crossed my arms over my chest and added, “And all day tomorrow, if that’s what it takes.”

  The receptionist said, “Let us see what we can do.” She picked up the phone and, holding her hand over the speaker, asked, “What did you say your name was?” I gave her my names, all three of them—slowly, syllable by syllable—and nodded each time she repeated it into the phone.

  Within a few minutes, a woman wearing a picture ID on a chain, which swung like a clock pendulum with every step, hurried toward me. She was only halfway across the lobby when she called out. “Margaret, Margaret Kane, how are you, dear?” I hardly had time to answer before the woman said, “I feel so bad. I’ve been meaning to tell Peter what is happening. I promised myself I would, and then, what with one thing and another, I just haven’t. Just haven’t. It’s Mr. Vanderwaal and the dialysis, you know. I thank God for the medical profession and dialysis, but his condition is chronic, you know, and the dialysis, it’s up to three times a week at this point.” She paused for breath. “You’re here about the towers, aren’t you?”

  I nodded.

  “When I read today’s paper, I knew I should have said something sooner. Peter loves those towers. He visits the old neighborhood every time he comes home. I know I should have told him, but . . .” She looked at me expecting a nod of understanding, but I was sorting things out: Vanderwaal. This was Mrs. Vanderwaal. And the Peter she referred to, the Peter who loved the towers? He was my mother’s childhood friend.

  Mrs. Vanderwaal was saying, “. . . I didn’t want to give Peter anything more to worry about. He has enough to worry him, you know. His job, his papa, and the dialysis.”

  I was bewildered. How could everyone know—have known—and not say anything? They had all known for months, for years, and no one—no one—not one single person, relative or stranger, had uttered a word to me. Not everyone had the dialysis excuse. It was a conspiracy of silence.

  Mrs. Vanderwaal stopped excusing herself long enough to look at me. “You didn’t know, did you, dear?”

  I shook my head. “Not until today.”

  “Well now, you just come along with me.” She put her arms around my shoulders and said to the receptionist, “Lillian, please give this young lady a temp pass.”

  My pass was a different color from Mrs. Vanderwaal’s, and it didn’t have my picture. The chain was so long that it got caught between my legs when I took my first step. I didn’t say much. Didn’t have to. Mrs. Vanderwaal talked as we mounted the flight of stairs and as she filled out a request slip to obtain the records for the council proceedings of April 8. “I’ll get you a printout, dear,” she said. “I know I should have sent Peter printouts of everything, and I hate myself for being so neglectful, but I’m just months away from retirement. Mr. Vanderwaal—he’s already retired, you know—we were going to get a Winnebago and travel around the country, but then this dialysis thing, three times a week now, came up, so I guess our Winnebago dreams are over. They’ve asked me to stay on here, and I think I will. Beats sitting around the house all day waiting for Mr. Vanderwaal’s dialysis three times a week.” She put the pen down. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll take this over to Eric and get things started.”

  I waited in her cubicle. On her desk was a picture of my mother, Peter, and Loretta Bevilaqua standing in front of Tower Two. My mother and Loretta looked to be about my age; they had no breasts. They were mugging for the camera. Peter was sitting on top of the tower, which was not much taller than either of the girls, and he had a hand on the top of each of their heads.

  Mrs. Vanderwaal returned, and before she could say dialysis one more time, I asked about Peter.

  “Peter actually got into his line of work because of those towers.”

  “What work is that, Mrs. Vanderwaal?”

  “Museum work. He went to Brown University. That’s the Ivy League, you know.”

  I didn’t know, but I nodded. “Where is he now?”

  “He lives in Wisconsin. Town by the name of Sheboygan. He’s director of an art center there.”

  “I would like to call him.”

  “Yes, you should. I’ll give you his number,” she said. “Such a shame about the towers. I should have called him about them long before this.” She wrote a number down on a Post-it and handed it to me. “These Post-its are wonderful. I think they were invented in Wisconsin. No, maybe it was Michigan. I know it was somewhere out there in the Midwest, so even if it was Michigan, it would be close to Peter in Wisconsin.”

  I asked about Loretta Bevilaqua.

  “I don’t know too much about her since she’s grown. I know she got married”—here Mrs. Vanderwaal leaned in close to me and whispered—“and divorced. I think she has some kind of big job in New York City. A real career woman. Right in Manhattan. I heard that in one month she pays so much rent that it would go for a whole year’s taxes if she lived in Epiphany. Her mother is still living here. Not in the old neighborhood, of course, but she’s still local. Assisted living, you know. You can call her. She’ll tell you how to get in touch.”

  A skinny young man with a health-food-style, vegetarian-skimpy beard approached holding a few long sheets of paper with ratchet marks on both long sides. He handed them to Mrs. Vanderwaal and then disappeared without uttering a word. “This is for you, dear,” she said, separating the pages and tapping their sides until all the edges were even. “Your uncle was eloquent,” she said as she handed them to me. “Absolutely eloquent. But, of course, it did no good. No good at all.”

  I put the Post-it on the top page of the transcript and got up to go. Mrs. Vanderwaal leaned in close and whispered in my ear, “In this town, my dear, the lawyers always win.”

  “But there’s always a first time, Mrs. Vanderwaal.”

  “Right you are, my dear. I’m proud of you for trying. Don’t forget to turn in your badge on your way out.”

  —the best monument

  I found the same bench in Town Square. I sat down and read Uncle Alex’s statement to the city council:

  The city says that we built three tall structures without a permit. The city refers to them as structures. If you’ll permit me, like everyone else, I’ll call them towers.

  The city says that without a building permit, the towers are illegal. And the city also says that we couldn’t have gotten a permit unless we had a plan. The city says, “No plan, no permit.”

  Does it surprise you that every house in what you are calling Old Town was built without a permit? Look it up. You’ll see. The Tappan Glass Works owned the land where they built our house and every house on Schuyler Place, and all the other houses in the neighborhood were built without permits. The glass factory built them for their workers, and they built them without permits because they owned the land, and they were the boss, and nobody was going to tell the boss what it could do and not do on its own land.

  Now the city council has declared that the Glass houses are a zone. And the zone has a code. When we started the towers, my brother and I, we had no zoning code—or zip code or area code, either, for that matter. We had an address: 19 Schuyler Place. And we had a neighborhood. We loved our neighborhood and everything in it—our houses and our streets paved with bricks in the herringbone pattern. We loved the chestnut trees that lined both sides of the street. The branches of the trees make a canopy from the odd-numbered side to the even. And we loved our backyards, too. Some of the backyards had vegetable gardens of cabbages and tomatoes. Some had gardens of hollyhocks and irises, and in one of those backyards there was a garden of towers. The neighbors shared the cabbages and holly-hocks and Mrs. Bevilaqua’s tomatoes. Mrs. Bevilaqua’s
tomatoes were so special, we called them by the name pomo d’oro, “golden apples.” The neighbors loved those tomatoes. The neighbors loved the towers too. You see, when we were a neighborhood, there was not a zoning code, there was an unwritten code. That unwritten code was: Love thy neighbor. But when we became a zone, we got a zoning code, which is written into law. And the city council says that the towers don’t belong inside the zone because they don’t fit the code.

  Since we are now a zone and not a neighbor-hood, we also don’t have neighbors. We have home owners. And just as the zone wrote a code, the home owners formed an association. The Home Owners Association. Very official. It has bylaws. The Home Owners Association says that the towers lower property values for the professionals who have bought these old houses as an investment. When the Glass Works put the houses up for sale, people like my brother and me, we bought these Glass houses to live in, not to invest in.

  But now the Redevelopment Authority is saying something worse. The Redevelopment Authority is saying that the towers don’t fit the history of Old Town. My brother and I wonder, How can anyone—any authority—have the authority to say that the towers are not part of history? How can anyone say that something that happened, didn’t happen? My brother and I ask, Where does this history begin? The Redevelopment Authority answers that history begins with the first house in the Old Town zone. So then my brother and I ask, Where does history end? The Redevelopment Authority answers that history ends when the first permit begins. In other words, the history of Old Town begins when the Glass Works built the houses and ends when the towers begin.

  How can you say that? History has no end. As soon as I say this word history, it is part of history.

  No one should be allowed to take away someone’s history. No one.

  My brother and I ask you to do one thing: Don’t take away the history of the towers. Instead, take a good look at it. And if you look, really look, you will see that the towers fit the times and the zone and that the history of the towers is part of the new Old Town.