Jay Fox - THE WALLS

“Joe promised to give us back our deposit. And he did, too. He even put in a good word with my next landlord. The fucked up thing, though, was that on the day we moved out, we saw about half of the other tenants doing the same fucking thing. After another month, all of the tenants had been cleared out. And then the contractors started appearing. The whole building was completely renovated. By the end of the year, my apartment was being rented out for way more than what I had paid. It wasn't double or anything like that, but it was a pretty serious increase. It was some bullshit, man.

“Joe's father, it turns out, had died right around the time Mordy moved in, and Joe had inherited the property. Within a couple of days, some reps from a real estate firm by the name of Abram and Keens came to him. They offered Joe twice the market value on the building on the condition that he find a way to get rid of all the tenants within ninety days.”

“How the hell did you hear about this?”

“I only moved half a block east, so I was right there to watch all of this shit go down. Plus, my new landlord, Rosa, was the neighborhood gossip. You'd be surprised just how much information these people pick up. She should have been a journalist.”

“And Mordecai moved out to Greenpoint, right?”

“Yeah, moved into this Polish dowager's house. Weird lady.”

“How long was he there?”

“I'm not really sure. I'm sure he's moved now, but I couldn't tell you where to. As I've said, I could never get in touch with him — he's never owned a phone.” He shrugs. “Yeah, but that's like him.”

“What do you mean?”

“He's a private guy,” he chuckles. “You should know that much by now.”

“I can understand being private, but he doesn't seem to have any connections to anyone. You're the first person I've met who knows him personally. Or knew, rather.”

“I didn't even know him all that well. He never talked about his art until I caught him in the act one night. I just happened to walk in on him when we were out at the bar. I think we were at the Paulmil Café—perhaps the seediest place in all of Manhattan. Come to think of it, we had just talked with Joe, and were trying to decide whether it was best to stay or to go.” He shakes his head. “But that's beside the point. When I came back to the table after I was finished taking a piss, I told him that I thought his drawing was really clever. It had something to do with the bad press the Clintons were receiving on account of Whitewater, but I don't really remember the specifics of the piece.”

“So this was, what, ninety-six.”

“Try ninety-four, man.”

“So you lived together then — obviously.”

“Yeah, he moved in on the first day of…let me think…March. Yeah, because winter was ending, and I finished out the semester in the new place. So I lived with him for the March and the April of ninety-four.” He laughs. “It seems as though the interview has officially begun, huh?”

I laugh, too. Daphne and Sean had made him out to be some kind of misanthropic intellectual, but, in reality, he doesn't strike me as any different than most of the people I've met in the past weeks. True, his accent is not as thick as most of the other New Yorkers I've come across. Also, he's one of the few black people that I have met as I've scoured the dives of the city.

It seems as though black people don't go to the bar to fraternize as often as white people do — unless, of course, they are out with their white friends. I have seen a lot of black people at places that like to call themselves lounges. The disparities between a lounge and a bar are few, but, from what I can gather, the main distinctions are the price of the drinks, the comfort of the furniture, and the age and volume of the music.

“So what else would you like to know?” he asks.

“Anything you can tell me, really. Do you know if there's a way to find his parent's house? Do they still live in the same place?”

“As far as I know.”

“And you say that they lived on Avenue M?”

“I'm not sure. Mordy always said he lived off the Avenue M stop on the Q. He could have lived on any street around there. If you haven't noticed by now, Brooklyn people, especially those who have spent their whole lives here, have a fucked up conception of walking distance.” I furrow my brow. “Well, they tend to think that everything is a lot closer than it actually is — especially when it comes to trains. I dated this one girl who always said that she lived 'right by the train'. Turns out she lived nine blocks away from it. I measured it out — it was just under a fucking mile,” he exclaims. “A fucking mile,” he adds to Scooter, who gives back an expression of a deer caught not only in the headlights of a semi, but its grill.

“Fucking stoner,” with facetious contempt.

“What about the last time you saw him? Did he mention anything that…I guess I could use to find him?”

“Let's see…I saw him in February. Like I've said, I have no way of getting into contact with him or anything — we just randomly ran into each other at some bar just south of Columbia. I don't remember the name. He wouldn't shut up about this lawsuit against his dad's store. Apparently, it was a slip and fall accident. The plaintiff and her husband were demanding something absurd — like three million dollars or some shit.” I nod. “Anyway, he was there with his cousin.”

“What's his cousin's name.”

“I was kind of drunk at the time,” he shrugs with a grin. “I think she was working on a Ph.D.,” he begins. “No!” he jumps. “She was in med-school. She was specializing in neurology.”

“Do you know if she has the same last name as him?”

“I really have no idea. She had a really Jewish first name. Yeah, and the two of them were debating whether or not he should attend an I.S.M.—”

“What's the I.S.M.?”

“The International Solidarity Movement. It's a pro-Palestinian organization.”

“Okay.”

“Well, yeah, that was kind of the joke. Mordecai didn't really want to go; he's not particularly supportive of Israel's expansionist policies, but he didn't think he'd be welcome on account of his being Jewish and all. She said half of the people there were going to be Jewish. She was a bit more militant in her views, too, accusing the Israeli government of everything short of Holocaust. She was especially pissed because some guy was trying to get an injunction to keep the P.M.I. from holding their conference at Columbia.”

“On what grounds?”

“Typical right-wing shit. Supporting the oppressed is supporting terrorism. Same type of language the Apartheid government used whenever they spoke of the A.N.C.”

“I see.”

“I don't know what happened with the injunction. I'm guessing the judge threw it out.”

“Did Mordecai end up going to the event?”

“I have no idea.”

“He spends a pretty good amount of time up around there, you know.”

“That's not all that surprising. He was close with that cousin of his.”

“He recently did a piece that Sean has entitled Glass Onion .”

“Sean?”

“Winchester.”

A roll of the eyes.

“What?”

He shakes his head. “Nothing.”

“So he was close with her, then?”

“Maybe.” He laughs, this time with what almost seems like hostility. “Look, I know you want someone who can lead you to Mordy, but, really, I barely know the guy. I've never met any of his friends. For all I know he doesn't have any. I've only met his cousin, his uncle, and his father. His uncle and his dad helped moved him in and out of the apartment, and his dad came by another time to take us out for dinner.” He gives a bit of a wince. “Really, I wish I could help you out a bit more.”