Red Hook Read Online Free PDF Page B

piles on the floor, and on a large pine table under the window. There was a computer on it. Sid’s green book bag lay beside a mason jar stuffed with roses that had shed most of the petals on to the table and a neat pile of manila folders.
    An old-fashioned wooden desk chair with wheels was in front of the desk. In the corner was a round table covered with dozens of photographs, all in old silverframes. Opposite it was a worn leather couch covered with a faded blue and red kilim over it. On top were a blanket and pillow.
    Sid returned in a pressed dark blue shirt, sleeves rolled up, crisp new chinos and Topsiders on his feet. He turned off the stove, poured some coffee into mugs and handed me one. He leaned against a small table where newspapers and magazines were arranged in rows.
    â€œI’m a newspaper junkie,” he said. “Always have been. I read three, four of them a day. I don’t know who I am if I don’t read them.” He smiled.
    I looked around. “No TV?”
    â€œI hate the noise,” he said.
    â€œSo you live here?”
    â€œNo. This is commercial space, not residential, like I said, but I publish a few little things, arcane local history, monographs about Whitman, pieces about black newspapers. Things I love and no one else cares about.”
    I drank the coffee and got out my cellphone. It was getting late.
    â€œIt makes me legit here, though not quite for living,” Sid said. “I have an apartment in Brooklyn Heights, and a house in Sag Harbor. A man of property, Artie.” He looked at the ceiling. “You hear the music? Cuban pottery guy. I like that, I like the sounds of other people in the building, you know?”
    I knew.
    â€œIt keeps away the demons,” he added.
    â€œWhat demons?”
    â€œLoneliness,” he said.
    â€œYou stay here nights?”
    â€œI don’t really sleep. I sit on the sofa and look out at the water. I bought this place to work in and because I like the water and nobody knows I have it. Hide in plain sight,” he said. “I can be here and no one cares, not the people who live at the front of Red Hook in the housing projects or the people who run little businesses, the pie-makers, the radical embroidery lady, the other one who makes kites out of silk, the glass-blowers, the painters, you know? No one minds what I do. It’s the freest you can feel in New York City. Back of beyond. It will change. It’s changing. We’re getting a supermarket. Can I offer you something more than coffee? A beer? Is it too early?”
    Behind the good manners he was strained, his face tight, the eyes distracted by some kind of inner terror. I looked at my watch. I had promised I’d be ready early; I promised.
    None of it fit: Sid wandering the waterfront at night; his sleeping in the half-furnished loft; the crumpled clothes he had been wearing. It didn’t fit with the soft formal speech, the good manners. He was scared. Something about the eyes. He had turned inward, for self-protection maybe, and part of him had disappeared from view.
    â€œThe dead guy, Sid. You think it could have been race? You think that? The dead guy? Let’s talk about him, OK?”
    â€œI don’t know. Possibly. In the old days, sure. But now? Why? Ninety percent of Red Hook is Hispanic or black.” He put his mug down and sat on the edge of the desk. “I can’t stop thinking that someone got tired of menosing around, and came for me, and got the poor bastard who’s now in pieces in a bunch of body bags, you know? I like talking to people, I like hearing the history of the docks, I like knowing what’s going on. I’m in favor of development; I like the idea of the place coming to life. There are people who don’t like it. There are people who fight over it. I thought about writing a book, I take notes. Perhaps someone thought I knew too much. Or not.”
    â€œDo