City Boy

The headline on page three read: FOSTER BOY TURNS KILLER, KILLS SELF, and I would have missed it if I hadn’t seen the photo. Even in that grainy texture there was no mistaking the eyes, but still I scanned the page for a name. Stephen Schaeffer, the article said. It was him. I pulled out my cellphone, called my editor, told her I’d be late for the meeting. Then I sat down on the steps of St Michael’s Church. I had quit smoking six years ago, except for an occasional cigarette after I’d had a few drinks, but suddenly I wanted one so badly I could taste it. Some kids were walking by on their way to school and I paid one of them a dollar for a Marlboro Light. I lit up, coughed twice, and continued reading.

I was in another life that I’d known him, ten years ago, when I lived on East 7th Street, between First and Avenue A, a section famous for winning Block Association awards because the windows of the brownstones sparkled in the sunlight. (Rain or shine, cold or sweltering, the Ukrainian women were out there, cleaning them with newspapers and vinegar.) I was involved with a writer who kept empty milk cartons in his refrigerator. He, in turn, was in love with a short girl who lived in Rhode Island, who’d stopped seeing him because she felt his lifestyle was unstable. I was drinking too much and working part-time at the Yiddish Actors’ Association on 2nd Street. The building had, at one time, been a theatre, and now the upstairs floors were rented to the Pantheon Palace, which featured strip shows and dancing girls who arranged themselves in small booths lined with black velvet.