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Authors: Matt Witten

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I wondered, also, if there might be some other unspoken reason why Dennis wasn't signing my petition. After all, Pop was one of the foot patrolmen for the beat that included Arcturus—and Pop knew how to read a signature.

 

I headed over to Cherry Street to try to get hold of Lia Kalmus. Maybe Dennis hadn't come through, I thought, but one signature from Lia would be worth a hundred signatures from ordinary mortals.

You see, five days a week, Lia was a mild-mannered billing clerk at Saratoga Hospital. But when she got off work, she put on her Superwoman cape and magically transformed into the president of the Save Our West Side Association.

Lia was of average height and weight, with light blond hair, but she was emphatically not a pretty woman, due to a horrible burn scar that discolored the left half of her face and gave her left eye a bloodshot, drooping look. Rumor had it that when she was a child in Estonia forty-some years ago, her house was burned down as punishment for her father's political dissidence.

Possibly in response to her scar, Lia made no effort to look good. She cut her hair short and wore clothes that looked like they came from Kmart's half-price bin. Nevertheless, she didn't seem like an unhappy woman. S.O.S. was her family.

When she came to the front door to answer my knock, she was on a cordless phone doing her community organizing thing. She waved me inside.

I'd never been in her house before, and I glanced around. The place was chock full of velvet-covered sofas, quasi-Chippendale chairs, and ornate paintings and statues of a host of saints that my Jewish eyes didn't recognize (of course, maybe they were special Estonian saints). I've noticed this with other people who live alone: They tend to load up their houses with all kinds of
stuff
. Some of Lia's stuff was probably expensive, paid for with all the money she saved by not having kids, but I still didn't like it much.

Meanwhile she was talking on the phone. Or rather, shouting. "You
have
to come to the meeting tonight! Look, I don't give a hoot about your niece's piano recital, I don't care if she's the next
Liberace
for God's sake, this is the future of the West Side we're talking about!"

I couldn't help grinning. I pitied the poor soul on the other end of the line, feeling the brunt of a Lia Kalmus onslaught.

After successfully browbeating the other person into submission, Lia hung up the phone and started working on me. "Now, of course
you're
coming tonight, right? Eight o'clock."

"Well—"

"You've
got
to come. It's our most important meeting of the year. We're voting on whether to accept the Grand Hotel proposal."

I had to admit, this truly
was
a big deal.

Every city or neighborhood has some issue that defines its future. For us, the issue was: What do we do with the Grand Hotel?

The Grand Hotel was a four-story affair on Washington Street in the heart of the West Side that had housed visitors to Saratoga for over a century. Now when I say "Grand Hotel," please don't be misled into imagining a
grand
hotel. And when I say "visitors," don't think "Vanderbilts." No, the hotel in question was the domicile of choice for over-the-hill prostitutes, drug-abusing pimps, and minimum-wage racetrack workers with gambling problems.

The building itself was once reasonably attractive, judging from old photographs. Even if it wasn't really grand, it wasn't an actual embarrassment to the working class families who lived nearby. But for the past three decades or so no one had bothered with maintenance, and the building had begun crumbling apart, brick by brick, roof tile by roof tile. Ever since the hotel went bankrupt five years ago, the building's decay had been even more rapid.

Two years ago some new owners bought the building from the bank for a song—well, maybe more than a song, maybe a whole CD. They were investing in the future of the revitalized West Side, I guess. But so far they hadn't lifted a finger to fix up the place. The windows were still broken, the graffitied bricks were still turning into powder, and now part of the roof was caving in. Soon, unless the owners began working on the place themselves or sold it to someone who would, the building would be beyond hope, suitable only to be condemned.

But last month, miraculously, a potential buyer surfaced: the Saratoga Economic Redevelopment Council. The SERC was a semi-public, semi-private, semi-who-knows-what nonprofit corporation that wanted to purchase the hotel and renovate it. They even had the money to back up their talk, thanks to some federal HUD grants.

The owners of the building were no doubt thrilled at this surprise windfall. And you'd think all of us on the West Side would be thrilled, too. A giant abandoned eyesore blighting our entire neighborhood would become a viable building once again.

But there was a catch. A big catch. The SERC plan called for the top floor to house
single homeless
men.

Talk about your archetypal nimby issue.

Tell me, would you want a bunch of single homeless men living right close to you? If so, then you're a better person than I.

Even worse, it felt to many West Siders like our neighborhood was being flooded with one do-gooder organization after another, bringing a huge array of screwed-up people along with them. Sometimes I felt that way too, I must confess. It seemed like every other block now contained a shelter or halfway house for drug addicts, battered women, "nonviolent" parolees. . . . Sure, these folks need help, but couldn't some of the places devoted to their welfare be located on the
East
Side for a change?

I still had enough liberal guilt that I supported the SERC plan—but without enthusiasm. We lived five blocks away from the Grand Hotel; and to be honest, if we lived closer I might have been on the other side of the issue.

Lia herself lived a mere one block from the hotel. "So how do
you
feel about it, Lia?" I asked.

"I have very mixed feelings," she said, troubled. "I mean, that building makes the whole West Side look like a dump. I feel like crying every time I walk by. If the SERC takes it over, at least they'll turn it around. But how much control will they really have over those homeless men?" She sighed heavily, then shook away her doubts. "The main thing is, the West Side has to go to this meeting in force and make ourselves heard. We're taking a vote tonight, and the mayor and city council have agreed to abide by our decision."

"That's terrific." Boy, Lia was getting more and more powerful all the time. "I do wish I could come—"

"Of course you can!"

"—but I have a meeting at seven that I was hoping you would come to." Then I told her all about it, and confidently handed her my petition and my pen.

But she handed them right back. "No, thank you," she said quietly.

Et tu, Lia?
I stared at her. "Why not?"

She squirmed, uncomfortable. "Pop isn't a bad guy. He takes decent care of his properties—"

"Are you kidding? Every house he owns is unsafe, full of illegal apartments—"

"He's better than a lot of the other landlords around here. Look, I wish I could talk more, but I've got a lot of calls to make."

Lia didn't exactly slam the door in my face.

But she came close.

 

Feeling like Don Quixote on an especially windy day, I headed back to Elm to continue my one-man petition drive. Three houses down from Beekman, I stepped around a heap of mildewed boards and rusty nails and knocked on the front door of a dilapidated duplex.

Answering my knock was a runty nine-year-old boy with a stuffy nose and dull eyes that brightened considerably when he saw me. "Hi, Mr. Burns," he called out happily.

This was Tony Martinelli, a kid I was tutoring through a Literacy Volunteers program. Andrea is on their board of directors, and she twisted my arm into working with local kids for a couple of hours per week. Tony M. couldn't read worth a darn when I started with him three months ago. Now he still couldn't read worth a darn—he just wasn't into it—but he was definitely into
me
. I was the new father figure in his life. Come to think of it, maybe I was the
first
father figure in his life.

Lately he'd been coming by our house every single afternoon after school, filling up on Cheerios, peanuts, and whatever else we had in our kitchen. I was happy to feed him, although the kid had a habit of committing petty larcenies, so every time he came over I had to make sure there were no purses, wallets, or other easily liftable items lying around. Still, I truly liked the little shrimp.

"Hi, Tony," I said. "How come you're not at school?"

"I'm sick," he told me, giving a big gooey sneeze to prove it. He wiped the snot on his sleeve and I started to say something, then remembered I was just his father figure, not his father. Besides, there was probably no Kleenex in the house, and only a fifty-fifty chance of toilet paper. Next time he came to my house, I should give him some. Actually, there were a lot of things I should be doing for this kid, and it was starting to gnaw at me.

"Where's your mom?" I asked.

Tony shrugged. I didn't push it. "What's that?" he said, pointing to the sheet of paper in my hand.

"A petition."

He wrinkled his forehead, confused. "A position?"

I explained what it was, and he instantly got so excited he literally jumped up and down. "Cool, I
hate
Pop! He's always doing a police harassment thing on me. One time he beat me up really bad!"

"You're kidding."
Was
he kidding? Or was Pop actually beating up nine-year-old kids?!

"No, for real. And I wasn't even
doing
anything. Hey, can I come to the meeting tonight so I can boo him and stuff? Maybe I could put thumbtacks on his seat!"

I started to say no, but then it hit me that having kids at the meeting would emphasize the "family character of the neighborhood." So I said, "Sure, if it's okay with your mom."

He gave another shrug. Again I didn't push it. His Mom didn't give a flying Fig Newton what Tony did or where he went, as long as it didn't interfere with her partying.

I promised to pick him up at 6:45 and said good-bye. Tony stood at the rotting doorway watching me as I walked away.

 

I was glad to make it back up Elm Street toward my own block, with its (except for the blot next door) well-kept homes, trimmed hedges, and mowed lawns. I finally got my first signature, from Lorenzo, the retired blacksmith across the street. Unfortunately, Lorenzo had had a stroke recently, which made his signature illegible.

It was 3:00, almost time to go pick up Babe Ruth at the bus stop. But first I played the one trump card I had left. I called up Judy Demarest, my wife's bowling buddy, who is also the editor-in-chief of the
Daily Saratogian
. Judy and I get along pretty well, especially considering that I once accused her—falsely, as it turned out—of murder. Fortunately she has a good sense of humor, and gets a kick out of the idea that she used to be a real live murder suspect.

“Jude. Major scoop," I announced into the phone. Judy tends to speak in clipped phrases, trying to sound like a hardboiled newspaperwoman I guess, and sometimes I adjust my dialogue to match. "Dishonest cop. Neighbors outraged. Tonight—live at seven."

"Dishonest cop. Neighbors outraged," Judy repeated. "We like. We like
mucho
. What's the deal?"

I told her.

"Pop?!"
she asked, incredulous. "You're going up against
Pop?!"

I stiffened. "Why the hell not?"

She hesitated. "No reason. I'll be there."

"Thanks, Jude."

"Good luck, Jake." Then she added, "You'll need it," and hung up.

You'll need it.
What the hell was I setting myself up for, anyhow?

As I hung up the phone, I felt a cold shiver crawling down my spine. But hey, if Jimmy Stewart could fight City Hall, then by golly, so could I.

 

3

 

Six fifty-nine. The hearing was about to begin.

We were in a venerable second-floor meeting room in Saratoga's venerable City Hall. Portraits of famous dead politicians and racehorses covered the walls.

Six somber-faced men in jackets and ties and one somber-faced woman in a navy blue suit sat behind a long oak table up front. These were the accountants, lawyers, and businessmen who served for a nominal fee on the Saratoga Zoning Board. No doubt they were all East Siders.

To be charitable, maybe the board members were simply good-hearted folks who liked doing public service. To be cynical, there was probably money in it—and not just that nominal fee, either.

The audience, some forty strong, was sprinkled throughout the wooden pews that filled the room. In the front row, to my left, sat the man himself.

Pop.

Pop Doyle was stubble-faced and jowly, three inches shorter than me at five nine but forty pounds heavier. Some of those pounds were fat—this was not a guy who worked out at the World Gym—but some of it was leftover muscles from his younger days. He was decked out in a pinstriped, vested suit, but with his short arms, blunt fingers, flat nose, blond hair fading into pale pink cheeks, and mean, beady eyes, he looked like . . . well, there's no better word . . . like a pig.

Sitting to Pop's right was his legal eagle, Matt Wells, Saratoga's most expensive real estate lawyer. He's the gun Wal-Mart hired when they bullied their way into town. To Pop's left was Genevieve Rendell, the town's slimiest real estate broker, who swindled some friends of mine out of $3000 when they bought their house. Unfortunately, the swindle was (barely) legal.

And who was opposing this powerful threesome? Well, there was myself; little Tony Martinelli, spilling snot into the Kleenex I brought for him; Wayne Gretzky and Babe Ruth, playing with their Ninja Turtle action figures; and Andrea, who'd had to stay late at school and was now gobbling down a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for dinner.

A hell of a lobbying group.

Occupying neutral territory, on an aisle seat toward the back, was newspaperwoman Judy Demarest. The rest of the audience came in a variety of ages, clothing styles, and economic status, but they did share one thing in common: they all looked nervewracked. There was a lot of agitated whispering, nail-biting, and nose-picking.

When the hearing began, I found out what caused this frantic behavior. These folks were all petitioning for zoning changes—a new garage here, an additional bedroom there. There were so many petitions that I wondered if the board would ever get around to us tonight, but most of them sailed right through with no hassle whatsoever. All that nose-picking for nothing. So it was still only 7:30 when the chairman of the board, a smooth up-and-comer with blow-dried hair and a Boston Brahmin accent whom I disliked immediately, asked Pop's lawyer to come forward.

Matt Wells stood up, adjusting his sport jacket—not that it needed adjusting, it fit his broad shoulders perfectly—and stepped gracefully around the railing that separated the board members from the plebeians. Wells looked perfectly at ease, like he played golf on Saturdays with half the board. They were all gazing at him respectfully. My heart sank. How could I ever hope to beat this Robert Shapiro lookalike? And why hadn't I remembered to get dressed up? I was wearing blue jeans and a faded old Pogo T-shirt.

I felt outgunned, outmanned, and alone. Andrea had taken our kids for a walk around the block because they were making too much noise, so the only person I had with me for moral support was little snot-nosed Tony. I looked over at Judy, but she didn't look back; she was too busy being an impartial journalist.

"Gentlemen," Wells began in a pleasant, confidential tone, "and gentlewoman," he added, nodding pleasantly to the one woman on the board, "this is a very straightforward petition. Mr. Doyle, or as we all know him, Pop"—here Wells smiled, Pop smiled, and the board all smiled back—"wishes to officially rezone his property on 107 Elm Street as a three-family unit.
Un
officially, the property has been three-family for over ten years, with no problems or complaints from the neighbors—"

What?! Screw you, you lousy East Side slimeball—

"—and now we're merely requesting that you formalize the arrangement. As you can see from this map"—here Wells passed around Xeroxes to the board members—"most of the other houses in this area are also two-family or three-family units—"

Wait, that's a total lie!

"—so Pop's dwelling fits perfectly into the neighborhood—"

"Excuse me," I interrupted, standing up. All seven board members turned and frowned at me. I belatedly remembered the grape juice I'd spilled on my shirt at dinner; hopefully it hadn't left too big of a stain. "May I see that map?" I blundered on, with what I hoped looked approximately like an ingratiating smile.

The board members frowned even harder, and out of a corner of my eye I saw Pop stiffen. But then Wells said, "Of course," and with the utmost graciousness handed me a copy of the map.

I had an inspiration. "Perhaps the editor of the
Daily Saratogian
would like a copy, too," I suggested.

If any of the board members hadn't known before that there was a media watchdog present, they knew it now. As Wells handed Judy the map, they all sat up straighter in their chairs. I snuck a look at Pop; he was glaring straight at me, and his face flamed bright red with anger right before my eyes.

Clearing his throat, Wells went back to the railing and resumed his confident baritone monologue. But I didn't hear what he was saying. I was busy staring at the map.

The map was baloney. It may have been true, but it was still utter baloney. There's lies, damn lies, and statistics . . . and then there's damn lying maps.

Wells's map showed a small slice of Elm Street from the cemetery northward to 107, where it stopped abruptly. And sure enough, slightly over half the houses in this carefully selected slice were indeed two-or three-families.

But.

By stopping where it did, the map obscured the fact that 107 was the only two- or three-family on our entire block. Because if you charted Elm Street
southward
to 107 instead of northward, absolutely none of the houses were multi-families.

Furthermore, though the map didn't show this, every single three-family on Elm was much, much larger than the house at 107. No other landlords had been nearly so greedy, subdividing their places into such Lilliputian apartments.

Tony nudged my shoulder sharply, and I looked up. I suddenly realized that Wells had finished his speech and the chairman was already asking for audience comments. I'd been so wrapped up in the map, I hadn't raised my hand.

"Since no one has any comments," the chairman was saying, looking pretty happy about it, "we will now proceed to—"

"Wait!"
I yelled. Oops, I hadn't meant to yell. "I do have comments, Mr. Chairman," I continued, more quietly.

The chairman sighed. "All right. Please be brief."

I stood at my pew and started to speak from right there, but then went up to the railing instead and stepped around it. If Wells thought that was the best place to stand, then by God, that's where I'd stand, too.

Behind me little Tony began whistling and clapping loudly. Great, just the kind of support I needed. I looked back and scowled until he finally got the message and shut up, embarrassed, and blew his nose. On his shirt.

Meanwhile I located the grape juice stain on my own shirt. It was right above my belly button. I tried to hide it with my hand, doing the Napoleon pose.

I cleared my throat and nervously commenced with "Gentlemen," then realized I was squeaking. I was so rattled, and so intent on lowering my voice a few octaves, that I forgot to add the smooth "and gentlewoman" like Wells did.

But then somehow, out of sheer desperation, I managed to find a rhythm. Waving that dishonest map aloft, forgetting all about my grape juice stain, I attacked. I tore the map's lies and half-lies to shreds. I described the Third-World living conditions at 107—"the nightmare on Elm Street," I called it—and used all the skills I'd honed during my years as a writer to vividly depict the late-night screaming, brawling, horn honking, and drug dealing. When I happened to turn sideways at one point, I noticed Tony beaming at me proudly. On the center aisle, Judy Demarest furiously took notes. I was cooking with gas.

Maybe I was cooking with too much gas. Fueled by my eloquence, and by my two-months-long anger at being awakened nightly, I threw caution to the winds. I forgot there must be a reason why half of Saratoga seemed to be scared of Pop. I let him have it with both barrels.

"Furthermore, gentlemen," I continued, "and gentlewoman," I added gracefully, "you all heard Mr. Wells inform you that,
unofficially,
this house has been a three-family unit for over ten years. But, Mr. Wells"—I turned to him—"and Mr. Doyle"—I turned to Pop—"and members of the board"—I turned back to them—"let's cut the crap. It wasn't just 'unofficial,' it was blatantly
illegal
. This man is a cop—a
cop
for God's sake, and yet he has broken the law with impunity for ten years. Now his lawyer shamelessly stands before you and declares that this man should be rewarded for his illegal actions. He actually wants you to approve Mr. Doyle's misdeeds, so he can sell his property at a huge profit and make even more money from breaking the law than he already has. Members of the board, on behalf of my wife, my children"—they'd come back in a moment ago, and Andrea was staring at me, astonished by my oration—"my neighbors, and the people of this city, who are represented here today by the esteemed editor of the
Daily Saratogian"
—I figured it wouldn't hurt to remind the board again that they were being observed—"I urge you to reject this man's appeal. I urge you to go even further," I proclaimed, bringing my fist down hard on the wooden railing, "and take steps immediately to force Pop Doyle to obey the law as regards his property. Thank you very much."

Then I went back to my seat.

The room was so silent you could hear Judy Demarest scribbling away in her notebook. The board members sat there stunned. Andrea, Tony, and my kids were still staring at me. The kids didn't know what was going on, but they knew it was something very weird.

Everyone else was staring at me, too. Especially Pop.

And Pop's face wasn't bright red anymore. It was dark purple.

 

"Mr. Wells," the chairman finally asked, "is there anything you wish to say in reply?"

Wells set his jaw. "There most certainly is." He advanced resolutely to the railing, but I noticed he stayed on the audience side of it this time. Maybe his confidence that he and the board were on the same side had been shaken.

Or maybe not. His voice sounded just as self-assured as ever. "Members of the board, I will ignore the incendiary remarks with which Mr. Burns ended his impassioned though inaccurate speech. As you know, they are totally outside the purview of this board.

"Let's move on to the
real
issue," he continued, oozing greasy sarcasm. "Since Mr. Bums claims to represent the people of his neighborhood, I have one simple question. Where are they?" He stopped, peering theatrically around the room. "I don't see them. Why aren't they here?"

"I'm
here!" little Tony called out. Thanks a heap, kid. A wave of laughter broke through the audience, and several board members chuckled.

Wells chuckled himself, and pointed a disdainful thumb at Tony. "So this young man, members of the board, represents the total extent of the community support for Mr. Burns."

Unable to contain myself any longer, I jumped up. "There's a big West Side meeting tonight about the Grand Hotel. That's why no one's here."

Wells gave me the kind of look you'd give a mosquito. "Mr. Burns, don't insult my intelligence. You know as well as I do, that meeting doesn't start until eight. If your neighbors were truly on your side, they could have shown up here for an hour. And besides, where are the petitions? Where are the letters of support?"

"Hey, I didn't hear about this damn meeting"—no, don't cuss, get a grip—"until this afternoon. I'll bet no one else did either."

One of the board members cleared his throat loudly. He was a fat-cheeked guy with big ears, bushy eyebrows, and an officious manner who managed to look like a stuffed owl even though he was only in his mid-thirties. "Sir," he said to me, making that salutation sound like an insult, "we mailed out official notices regarding this hearing to all homeowners within one hundred yards of 107 Elm Street exactly one month ago, on September first. We followed the customary, legally mandated procedure." He held up a fistful of papers. "If you so desire, I will be glad to show you documentation."

"Hey, I'm not saying you didn't send them, I'm saying we didn't receive them. And the other thing is, my neighbors are scared to go up against Pop. They know his rep: he's crooked and he likes to hurt people."

Someone in the audience gasped. Andrea eyed me in alarm. Shit, had I just gone too far? Had I slipped into some late 60s "off the pigs" time warp? Had I been watching too much Court TV for my own good?

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