AT THE HEIGHT OF the morning rush hour, Ben Leightner’s neighbors hurried toward the Bergen Street subway station and their jobs. They paid little attention to the visible world—they pondered what to buy for dinner, or why their spouse had refused them sex the night before, or how to make the boss appreciate their work. They hurried down the sidewalks looking inside, instead of out.
Ben walked slowly surveying the world.
Once he’d seen an incredible, perfect rainbow arcing from the clock tower of the Williamsburg Savings Bank to the caged roof of the Brooklyn House of Detention. Nobody else noticed it because nobody looked up. A woman saw him standing on the corner, staring at the bright arc. She stopped, someone else did—soon they were a group of strangers, smiling up in awe.
A few people did look. On his block an old Puerto Rican grandmother leaned out of her third-story window all day, her massive bosom resting on her forearms, her forearms resting on a pillow. She wore a pink nightgown and had her hair pulled back in a tight bun. She watched everything that went on—the street was her private movie.
Best of all was a little kid who lived a couple doors down. Ben often paused to watch him playing by the curb, The boy spent hours just moving sticks and pebbles around the base of an old sycamore tree. It made Ben remember what it was like to be five or six: you could look at a rough, cracked square of side-walk and imagine you saw canyons, valleys, rivers. Grains of sand were people, pebbles were cows.
There were others on the street who passed much of their time alone.
By nine A.M., he was deep in Red Hook.
He stopped to film a little fenced-in garden with overgrown rosebushes leaning over a sky-blue statue of the Virgin Mary. He concentrated so hard on framing the shot that he didn’t hear the front door of the house open.
“Why you wanna take a picture of my yard?”
A round little old guy dressed in a blue Adidas running suit stood on the porch. He’d owned the suit so long it had gone in and out and back in style again—some young hipster would probably pay a fortune for it now. He squinted up at the morning sun, then down at Ben.
“Whatcha wanna take pictures around here for?”
“I like your statue.”
The man grinned widely, “You like it? It’s the real thing: I got it in Italy.”
“It’s great.” He was not the kind of person who could just walk into a bar and strike up a conversation. Especially not to pick up women—he didn’t have much luck with that. But this was one of the good things about his work: people liked talking to him.
“Whaddaya taking the movies for?”
“I like the neighborhood.”
“Bahh.” The man waved a hand past his nose. “This neighborhood’s crap—excuse my French. “You shoulda seen it in the old days. We had movie theaters, grocery stores, bars all up and down the street.”
Ben realized that in his travels around Red Hook he hadn’t seen a single theater or supermarket and only a couple of bars.
“Really?”
“Oh, sure. We had the shipyards goin’ and all the workers and their families. Hundreds of sailors walkin’ around. “You could go out on a Friday night and drink in seven different places without goin’ more than a coupla blocks.”
“Have you lived here a long time?”
“My whole life.”
Ben froze, struck by a sudden thought. So far he had only a vague plan for a broad documentary about Red Hook. But what if he personalized it, made it more about his father—and maybe even his grandfather? The notion made him nervous, but excited.
Shy now, he took a step forward. “Did you ever know somebody named Jack Leightner?”
The man chewed his lower lip. “Leightner, yeah, I remember.”
“Did you know him well?”
“Jack? Nah, he was just one a the neighborhood brats. But his brother—that kid was an amazing ball player. Shortstop. I used to go over to the diamond over there on Bay Street sometimes and watch them play. I’d bring ’em sodas.” The man shook his head fondly. “I worked down by the water at the White Rock plant. “You know White Rock?”
“Isn’t that a soda company?”
“You bet. But the plant closed. The whole neighborhood has gone to hell.” The man shrugged. “Whaddaya gonna do?”
“Do you remember anything in particular about Jack Leightner?”
The man flapped a hand, a little crabby now. “I told ya. I didn’t really know him. He was just one a the kids that used to run around here.” He brightened. “Hey, listen—you wanna take a picture, take one of me and my wife. Don’t go away.” He disappeared inside the house.
Ben checked to make sure he had enough tape left in the camera.
A minute later, the man came out on the porch leading his wife, a plump little orange-haired lady in a faded housecoat.
“This guy’s makin’ a movie about the neighborhood,” the man said. He turned to Ben. “This gonna be on TV, or somethin’?”
“Who knows?” Ben said. “Maybe someday. Is it okay if I film you?” he asked the woman.
“I guess it’d be all right,” she said. “Wait, let me take this off.” She removed the housecoat to reveal a Let’s Go Mets T-shirt.
“You ready?” the man asked. He put his arm around his wife.
Ben nodded.
Instantly they transformed themselves into the stiff little plastic couple on top of a wedding cake.