I turn left just past a Dollar General and come to a stop at a two-story apartment building with moldy white vinyl siding and a handful of cars parked on the grass where the landlord was apparently too cheap to create a parking lot. I call Kaitlyn and tell her I am outside. A moment later a girl with a phone to her ear opens a ground-floor door and waves. I tuck my notebook and pen in the pocket of my jacket, lock Saul’s car, and greet her.
Kaitlyn is barely five feet tall; she probably weighs less than a hundred pounds. One side of her head is shaved and the other is dyed a faded pink over blond. Her apartment is shabby-a low ceiling and cheap Berber carpet-but like Mellie’s place, well taken care of. A vanilla scented candle is burning on the kitchen counter, and a futon and two fold-out camping chairs face the TV, which is tuned to E! Joan Rivers is making fun of someone.
“You want something to drink?” asks Kaitlyn.
“I’m okay,” I say.
“You’ve kinda got me nervous,” she says, sitting on the futon, leaning forward. Her left arm is covered with a sleeve of flower tattoos. “When did Pessie die again?”
“March fourth.”
She thinks a minute. “That’s right around when Sam stopped coming to work.”
“You guys work together?”
She nods. “At a big nursery outside Catskill. It’s kind of seasonal. We’re out on a crew doing gardens and stuff May to, like, October. Then we do shifts at the store in the winter, but the hours are erratic. Sam’s been sorta… different since he got back from prison. Gina-that’s our boss-she took him back, but he kept showing up late. And sometimes he’d be high. I thought she fired him but she said he just stopped coming in.”
“Why was Sam in prison?”
“We all got arrested-him and Ryan and me and this other girl-about four years ago. It was really stupid. The neighbors called in a noise complaint and the cops found all the pot we were bagging for Ryan’s dad. Plus a couple guns, which I didn’t know they had. I got lucky ’cause it was my first arrest. I just got probation and the landlord even let me stay here, thank God. But Ryan and Sam had priors and they both got jail time. Ryan got out after like six months and he totally straightened out. He stopped working for his dad and got back in school. Now he’s doing vet tech work in Hudson. Sam was in for a lot longer, though. He just came back around Thanksgiving.”
“Why was Sam in longer?”
“Something happened in there. I don’t know the details, but they sent him up to state prison. Which is a whole other ballgame.”
“Do you know where he was living after he got out?”
“I think he has a sister in New Paltz.”
“Aviva?”
Kaitlyn shrugs. “Maybe? I didn’t know her. I think he was back and forth between her place and Ryan’s.”
“How long have you known Ryan?”
“Since we were kids. My mom and his mom were close. Ryan had it really rough. It’s a miracle he turned out as normal and nice as he is. His dad was in prison for a lot of his childhood. And his mom killed herself while he was gone.”
“Wow.”
“It was really fucked up. She shot herself and Ryan found her. He was, like, eleven, I think. Him and Hank pretty much ran wild out there. Their grandma and grandpa took care of them until Connie-that’s their dad, Connie for Conrad-came back. The grandpa was from the South, I think. He was in the KKK. I heard he moved here because he’d, like, killed some black guy down there. He died of a heart attack or something before Connie got out. And the grandma… she drank a lot. Got both legs amputated from diabetes or something.”
“I think I met her.”
“I can’t believe you went out there,” she says. “Connie used to come to Little League games and yell at people and start fights with the other parents. My mom totally blamed him-and the grandma-for Beth’s suicide. She said they treated her like a servant. I think she had a couple miscarriages after Ryan and Hank and they were, like, pissed she didn’t make more Aryan babies.”
“Aryan babies?”
“I told you, they’re crazy. Hank dropped out in tenth grade but Ryan graduated and they always gave him shit, saying he thought he was better than them. He got a job at the hardware store but it was just part-time, not enough for rent or anything else. He ended up going to work with his dad to make enough to move out. Ironic, right? That’s how him and Sam met. Sam worked at a place on Connie’s route.”
“Connie’s route?”
“Connie’s got a gig delivering beer for a distributor in Albany. I mean, that’s, like, the cover. He’s always got whatever else you want, too. Pot and pills, heroin.”
And guns, I think.
“After Ryan got out of jail, he cut ties with his dad. He was like, I’m not going back in.”
“So when did Ryan come out to his family?”
“Are you kidding? They don’t know he’s gay. They’d probably kill him.”
“The girl I met out there, Mellie?” Kaitlyn nods. “I think she knew. She was like, tell them not to come around here. She seemed really pissed.”
“Fuck,” whispers Kaitlyn. “I can’t believe Ryan didn’t tell me. I wonder if he even knows. Him and Sam were pretty careful. They only went to clubs and stuff down in the city or up in Albany and they never hung out at the bars Hank and Connie and their friends go to. Sam was kinda messed up about being gay, too. Actually, the one time me and Pessie really talked, that’s what we talked about. She came over right after Sam got out of prison. We had kind of a welcome home party. She brought some really good food and she was telling me about where they grew up. I didn’t know anything about Jews and Sam never talked about it. Anyway, she said she used to think gay people were evil. But she and Sam were really close-I actually thought they were brother and sister at first-and she said she realized that Sam, like, couldn’t help how he was. That he must have been born that way and that if God made him that way he must have had a reason. She was really nice. I can’t believe she’s dead. I can’t believe Ryan didn’t tell me.”
“When was the last time you talked to him?”
“Ryan?” She sighs. “That’s the thing. We had a fight a few weeks ago. I love Sam, I do, but I told Ryan I didn’t think their relationship was healthy anymore. I was, like, Sam needs help. Ryan knew, but… I mean, they’re in love. And Sam wasn’t always the way he is now. He changed a lot in prison. We used to kind of make fun of all the shit the Halls believe-race war and Obama the monkey and whatever stupid cliché crap they spout. Ryan doesn’t believe that stuff at all. I don’t think he ever did. But after Sam got out, he was talking like Ryan’s dad.”
“You didn’t think that was weird? A Jewish kid talking like a neo-Nazi?”
“Of course I thought it was weird! It’s fucking insane. But, I mean, that’s how it is. Was.” She pauses. “You know, Ryan and Sam used to talk about running off together. Going down South, someplace warm where nobody knew them.”
“You think they might have left town?”
She shrugs. “If they didn’t, maybe they should.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Sammy moved into the pot apartment. He stopped working at the gas station and, for the next few months, every time the phone rang I thought it would be the police or the hospital. But when Sammy finally did get arrested, he didn’t call me: he called Conrad Hall.
“It was no big deal,” Sammy told us a couple weeks later. Every month or two he showed up, usually without notice, for Shabbos dinner. Isaac and I have been OTD for a long time, but we both keep Shabbos, in our own way. We like to make dinner, and, if we can help it, we don’t drive. I make my own schedule, and I do not take jobs on Saturday. Isaac’s work with the contractor was sporadic and he got a part-time job at one of the shops on the main street near campus, selling t-shirts and incense and CDs. He couldn’t always take Saturdays off, but when he could, we spent the day together. We both like science fiction books, and sometimes we read aloud to each other while we cook. Sometimes I just sleep, or drink wine or take a bath. I try to take time for myself, to remember to be calm in my mind. Sammy doesn’t keep Shabbos; he once told me that he makes it a point to expend as much energy as possible on the day of rest. When he came for dinner, he was always on his way somewhere else.