The Fourth Floor Window
By Lee Feiner
Selected for COM 201 Spring Memoir Reading
Start with an extremely heavy oil based paint. In fact, the more lead the better. Carry that open bucket of paint into a wet, concrete building that had been on fire only a few days before. The wooden studs are charred and exposed and the remaining dry wall and fiberglass insulation is soaking wet, and showing signs of mold. It’s the kind of smell that chokes you, makes you hungry, and makes your teeth hurt at the same time. It’s the kind of smell that gets in your hair and clothes and eyes and throat and stays there no matter how many times you shower and wash everything you own. It’s the kind of smell that gets in your head and stays there.
I used to get headaches the moment I got out of the shower every morning. They would build as I got dressed and took the elevator down to the marble and mahogany adorned lobby of the Rhiga Royal Hotel. The headache would simmer as I descended the steps into the A train at 59th street and found my spot in the morning commute. It would start to throb at West 24th street, and sear as the train pulled into 14th. As soon as I got outside for the three-block walk to the Lab School on 17th, the smell I just described would snake its way up my nostrils and I could barely keep my eyes open.
About a month earlier I was sitting in my fourth floor science class, which was by far the best room at I.S. 89, and I had by far the best seat in the house. The red brick and glass building is pressed up against the corner of the West Side Highway and Warren Street. This classroom has a corner view with the Hudson River to the right, and the financial district to the left. The sun pours into that corner of the classroom so Mr. Webster had the roll-up shades pulled down except for a tiny sliver. From that sliver I had a million dollar view of lower Manhattan that Joe, Vickie, and Brianna hated me for having. It was just the fifth day of sixth grade so the four of us at our corner table in the corner classroom wanted nothing to do with one another. Nobody knew anybody and I was the only person able to escape back to the cerulean sky, glassy water, and the 77 degrees of summer outside that window that school was taking away. There was a street vendor selling honey roasted peanuts on the sidewalk below, and the smell was lazily wafting its way up the side of the building and in through my window.
Fast-forward back to 17th street and the Lab School and there’s a lovely view of the Covenant House across the street. My school on the water was a toxic wasteland, so they built three classrooms in the cafeteria of the Lab School. We could hear the other kids eating through the hastily constructed sheetrock walls, and smell the Sloppy Joes and Jamaican beef patties.
The first few days were spent packed into music rooms and storage spaces with anywhere from 40 to 90 students depending on the day. The rooms were hot and the teachers had almost as little interest in teaching as the students did in learning. They didn’t sign up for this, and neither did we. So when we came back one Monday to find those three classrooms in the cafeteria nobody complained about the noise, or the smell.
But like I said, I was at a beautiful new public school in Lower Manhattan first. From my seat by the window I inched up the shades so I could see the sky. It was an endless blue without the thought of a cloud. There wasn’t much traffic on the West Side Highway so the sound of tires pulling pavement and taxicabs jostling loose manhole covers was quick and consistent. I thought about going to Washington Market Park after school and grabbing a medium coconut Italian Ice from Danny the Italian Ice guy. The background of my daydream was the hum of the street. The hum became a cartoon-like whistling. Faint at first, but it built quickly like an anvil falling from some great height to put a lump on Elmer Fudd’s head. My eyes came back into focus and the daydream ended, but the noise did not. The whistle became a deafening roar. My pencil began to vibrate and fell off of the table. I turned my head sideways to look at the sky, and saw the underbelly of a plane go by really low. Then the shadow of the plane came across my face. I closed my eyes as the roar stopped for the longest split second in history.
I had been in one fight before. A bully named Adem had been calling my friend Jackson names and stole his football in the park. Tale of the tape was as follows: I stood four feet and three inches tall with two pair of socks on, and a strong wind gust could have knocked me down. Adem was big. How big I can’t tell you, but I swear he was the biggest ten-year old of all time, and if he didn’t beat me up one of his sons definitely would have. I threw the first punch and connected with a layer of fat and muscle that I didn’t have. That layer that makes a person “husky.” I didn’t even look up at him to assess the damage. I just closed my eyes and waited to get punched in the face. The split second between making contact, and accepting that I was about to get the shit kicked out of me had been the longest split second in history up until today.
Sitting by my fourth floor window in Mr. Webster’s science class, the fight had been replaced. I closed my eyes and got rocked by a thunderclap that shook the building and everyone in it. The world was silent for a few seconds. Then a woman on an adjacent rooftop began to shriek at the top of her lungs and run in confused circles. The class bum rushed the window. My window. They were pushing and shoving each other to get a better look outside.
I didn’t understand what I had just seen. But I had seen more than enough. I got up from my seat and slowly walked to the bathroom. I didn’t bother to fill out a pass and Mr. Webster didn’t stop me. I dropped to my knees on the cobalt blue tile, gripped the toilet bowl like a steering wheel and threw up everything I had ever eaten.
I lived in a hotel uptown for weeks. We showed up at the front desk with all we had - the clothes we were wearing, and a few suitcases of clothing with tags still on- and the manager put us in a deluxe suite. Nobody was staying in a fancy hotel then anyway. The toilet in the master bathroom (yes, master bathroom) had more buttons than a stealth bomber. There was a thermostat that controlled the temperature of the toilet seat and a remote control for the satellite TV. There was a telephone with a direct line to room service and concierge within arm’s reach of the rainfall steam shower.
I stayed in that shower as long as I possibly could before school every morning, praying that my mom would forget I was in there. She’s a singer and has impeccable control of her voice. With each knock on the door the tone of her request for me to exit stage left, changed. I usually waited until I could feel her getting ready to take a hacksaw to the bathroom door before I acknowledged her. The minute I admitted defeat and started to choke the flow of hot water the headache would set in. Once the smell of the hotel provided eucalyptus shampoo dissipated with the steam, the charred, moldy, concrete building covered in lead paint would come back with a vengeance, and so would the migraine.
When I woke up one Saturday morning my Dad told me he was going home to get some clothes and paperwork, and asked if I wanted to come. I hadn’t been home in a long time, so I said I’d go. We took the A train downtown like I did every morning, but this time as we pulled into 14th street we stayed on the train. We passed West Fourth, Spring Street, Canal, and finally got out at Chambers Street. I was so busy thinking about what my apartment looked like that I forgot about the smell. We walked up the stairs and emerged a couple of blocks from my school on the river.
Where the friendly African-American crossing guard (who strongly resembled a basketball with arms and legs and long hair) used to be was a big National Guardsman with a semi-automatic assault rifle. I guess he wasn’t scary enough so a couple of his buddies were behind him; a mean looking big guy holding a stop sign directing traffic, and a friendly looking little guy perched atop a Humvee behind a .50 caliber machine gun. The soldier asked my dad for ID, and then requested the same from me. He laughed with my dad for a few seconds and they exchanged pleasantries. I didn’t get the joke, but I guess my pallid complexion and horrified stare was enough because he let us through.
We cleared one more checkpoint by City Hall and then we were in the clear. I could see my building for the first time and I relaxed a bit. I took a deep breath for the first time since I left the hotel and was rocked by the smell. Grace Church was visible against the sky, and there was nothing tall between it and the Hudson River. The onshore breeze stoked the fires burning deep in the heavily guarded pile of rubble. I had to clear security to get to my house. I was in an active war zone. We loaded up a few suitcases with clothing and other necessities. My dad got some papers. We got out of there as fast as we could. We got back to the hotel and I crawled into bed. Everything smelled like the world I used to live in.
The Poor Little Rich Kid
By Lee Feiner
Narrative Journalism/ Profile
Colin Scully removes his Ray-Ban Aviators from their perch on the top of his straw fedora. He guides the gently used Volkswagen Passat down United States One toward his second house in Key Largo. He drives with a confidence that reeks of muscle memory. He drives with sandals and no shirt with the windows up and the air-conditioner blasting. The pop radio station Y-100 fades in and out as we travel south.
Michael is a sophomore paying full tuition at Boston University. He has an older brother attending the University of Miami, about five minutes away from his full time house in the Miami suburb of Palmetto.
The frosted air inside the Passat is laden with the scent of sunscreen so thick it could prime drywall. This nine-dollar bottle of Panama Jack is the first sign that Colin is not comfortable in his own skin. That he doesn’t belong on United States One the weekend after Thanksgiving.
His skin has the hue of a tourist on his first day of a short winter vacation, devoid of pigment and begging to be burnt to a crisp.
“I didn’t even know they made 70 SPF,” he chuckled as I picked up the bottle for closer examination.
The reason he needs such strong protection from the sun is because he’s Irish on his mom’s side. He doesn’t know about his dad’s side. He needs such strong protection because he lived in Minnesota for a few years while his father worked at the famed Mayo Clinic. His dad, Sean, was doing cutting edge research and treating rare forms of bone cancer before clashing with management and relocating the family to South Florida.
The long winding road to Palmetto began after medical school when Sean completed his residency at Massachusetts General Hospital, and moved his wife and two sons to North Carolina. He set up shop in the Duke University Medical Center.
“My dad’s a little bullish, kind of strong willed. He doesn’t really get along with a lot of people so he’s always clashing with his bosses,” Colin explained. He tells the story of his childhood with nonchalance befitting a retelling of a day at school. He’s moved more times than he can count, and nearly every adult he’s ever trusted has let him down. He harbors no resentment or ill will, but there is concision in the way he speaks about his past that borders on discomfort. Every story is bare bones on details and the pace is agonizingly quick, but he pauses as he reflects on his life in Minnesota.
When Michael was ten they moved to a suburb of Minneapolis, and this time the relocation felt permanent. The family purchased a 40-acre spread and Michael started to make friends in middle school. Michael loved Minnesota,
“That was the one place I really didn’t want to leave.”
When eighth grade ended Sean informed the family that they would be moving again, this time to Miami. There was no discussion, and there was no choice. Sean had worn out his welcome at Mayo and he decided Florida was the place to go.
Michael thought for a long time about how he would tell his friends that he was leaving. Sean was busy tying up loose ends with business and real estate to complete their move, and Michael’s mother Cindy was spending all the time she could with her kids; the terminally ill children that she educated.
“She treated those kids like they were going to survive and change the world,” Michael said. He thought for weeks and weeks and weeks until he was sitting in his brand new house in Florida and most of his friends never even knew he left,
“I realize now that I just didn’t want to say goodbye, so I didn’t.”
U.S. One is moving well. It never moves this well according to Michael. The highway is one lane in either direction, squeezed between miles of dense coastal mangrove that obscure the view. What a shame it is that the tangled mess of weeds covers the miles of beach and turquoise water. Michael explains how they hold the land together and keeps driving.
He’s making this drive for what could be the last time. His parents are splitting up and his mom moved up to Syracuse, making the house in Key Largo expendable.
“I told you about my parents right?” he asks matter-of-factly.
He did not, and I tell him I’m sorry. He shrugs and says it’s probably good for his mom. We talk about what it’s going to be like to call yet another city home. What it’s going to be like to pack up his life into cardboard boxes one more time. Mostly we talk about what a pain in the ass it is to move.
Michael can paint a room with surgical precision. He explains how he gets professional lines by using two-inch painter’s tape and disposable foam rollers and then detailing the difficult corners with a hand brush; something his mom taught him.
He brings up his mom frequently when the conversation lapses or a bad song comes on the radio. He speaks about her with a glowing admiration that puts life in his eyes. He only talks about his dad after he calls. Fur Elise and a violent vibration bring Michael’s generic Nokia brick phone to life,
“Hey dad…driving with Lee…no we’re going to the Keys…no…is there food in the fridge? Ok, we’ll go grocery shopping then…ok.”
Sean Timmons is a world-renowned orthopedic surgeon who specializes in bone cancers and musculoskeletal tumors. He has published over 100 journal articles about his research. Michael’s father Sean is also a recovering alcoholic. His relationship with his family has always been strained. He separated briefly from his wife when Michael was 12 but moved back in a few months later.
Michael casually drops his phone into the cup holder,
“Best phone I ever bought,” he says, “cost 30 bucks and it can survive anything.” He’s worked at Starbucks since he was 15 and pays for almost everything, including the groceries that are not in the refrigerator. Sean had to go into the office in the afternoon, so we’d be making dinner for the family.
The Timmons family hit the ground running in Florida. Sean and Cindy started working right away, and Michael started at the public high school down the street. To help him make friends Cindy took Michael to a local youth group where he met a 19-year-old volunteer named Jeremy. Michael says Jeremy was his best friend for the year-and-a-half that the two were around the youth group. Michael has no idea what Jeremy’s last name is. Jeremy was arrested and convicted of statutory rape for a relationship he had with a 14-year-old girl, and Michael got dragged into the legal proceedings.
“I told you about that right?” Michael asks me as we fly through the strip malls and stagnant boat stores of Islamorada.
He hadn’t, and I had no idea what to say. He didn’t seem to mind. We talk about what it’s like to be in a courtroom under oath. We talk about how annoying it is to get a jury duty summons. Mostly we talk about what a pain in the ass it’s going to be to get back to Miami against the traffic. In fact it seems every time he’s about to get comfortable enough to talk about something important in his life, he moves onto something new. He finds a way to turn the conversation, and deflect the inquiries into his past. He’s very good at this. He’s also very good at cooking dinner.
“I’ve made chicken parmesan for you right?” he asks me as we turn into a supermarket parking lot.
He has not, but I tell him how great my mom makes it. We talk about what ingredients she uses. We talk about how that brand is too expensive and how this brand is just as good. Mostly we talk about how awesome it’s going to be when we get back to school and the dining hall will have everything we need.
The finish on his aviators is dark green and reflective, but not mirrored. As the lines on the road and oncoming cars flash across the lenses, his eyes match the indifference being broadcast by the rest of his body. It is hard to find empathy for a 19-year-old college student driving a nice car, sporting designer sunglasses and shuttling between Miami and the Florida Keys. But he’s got boxes in the trunk.
