Red Hook Read Online Free PDF Page A

America, loving jazz, listening to Willis Conover’s Jazz Hour on Voice of America under the covers—my father used to find me there and yell at me, but my mother liked it that I was rebellious that way—because of the music, you had all kinds of fantasies about American black people.
    Sid said, “I thought it was charming, I had been in Moscow as a reporter, and I knew that there were two kinds of Russians as far as I was concerned: the racists who were more racist than anyone I had ever met,including when I was a boy and went south to Virginia to stay with some cousins, I mean those Russians quite literally saw us as animals, a different species; and the other kind who thought we were wonderful, usually because of the music. You were the second kind. I was only insulted when you asked me if I knew Charlie Parker because you thought I was old enough. It was fine because I was obsessed with Russia, so there was a kind of quid pro quo, I wanted to talk about Pushkin and you wanted to ask me about music,” he said. “You came to the party with a very nice woman with red hair. Someone I knew a little. Lily Hanes. That’s it, wasn’t that her name? Whatever happened to Lily?”
    I didn’t answer. I could see by the way he rambled that Sid was pretty shaken up. Near the entrance to the building, he put his hand out towards me as if to steady himself.
    He looked old. Older than he was, and the flesh on his face was loose. His clothes, khaki shorts and a faded green polo shirt, were wrinkled as if he’d slept in them. I had known people like Sid whose sanity almost depended on the shell, on keeping it sharp. I looked at him again and saw a guy who was falling apart.
    I held the door, and he leaned on me. The way he looked now, Sid seemed beaten. We climbed the stairs and he unlocked the door slowly, opening it as if it was too heavy for him. We went in. He put his cane down and then put his book bag on his desk.
    I felt bad for him. I remembered how much I had always liked Sid. He was good company, smart, curious, ironic, a little mournful.
    Inside the large loft space, an old poster for a Paul Robeson concert hung behind glass on one wall. Next to it was an oil painting, an authentic piece of Soviet Realism, with a triumphant Lenin pointing to the future and a crowd of workers looking up reverently as if at God.
    Sid saw me looking and said, “I used to collect that stuff,” then led me to the far end of the loft where the big industrial windows looked out on the river.
    I glanced around. “What is this place?”
    â€œMy office,” he said. “I run a little publishing company. One-man press, things that interest me. Also, it’s my bolt-hole. My escape hatch. End of the world, you know? See people, not see them, whatever I feel like. Sit, please, Artie.”
    â€œEscape what?”
    He didn’t answer, and I stayed where I was, leaning against the window.
    â€œLet me get this straight. The dead man was a homeless guy everyone knew, and you think someone killed him instead of you,” I said. “Is that it, Sid? Why the hell would anyone be after you? You were scared enough to call me, what two, three times yesterday at least? You thought whoever killed that poor bastard out there was coming for you, right, but you didn’t call the cops, you called me the day before I’m getting married. Come on, Sid. We’ve known each other a long time.”
    He walked over and stood next to me, face against the windowpane, closed his eyes, then opened them.
    â€œThe last stop in America,” he said, looking out at the water. “Or the first. The edge of the world. You see allthat? I look out, I see the old docks and shipyards, the warehouses and factories, the inlets and canals, a whole square mile, most of it empty now, a couple of miles from Manhattan. Red Hook’s one of the last great places in the city. Some of these buildings are a