Eric Dinnocenzo - The Tenant Lawyer (10 page)

“I say we take it to them,” he said. “The way I see it, this is like a robbery. They’re reaching their hands into the pockets of the poor and handing it over to the rich. It’s like a robbery.”

“It’s like a skyway robbery,” I remarked dryly.

I looked around the table and saw a number of blank expressions, with the exception of Father Kelly who gave a muffled laugh. “You know, there’s the expression highway robbery, but this involves a skywalk, so it’s like skyway robbery.” I looked around the table. “No good?”

Ignoring me, Lawrence suggested, “I say we picket city hall, since the city council and the city manager are the ones who hold the purse strings. That’ll get their attention real fast.”

“I understand the desire for action,” Father Kelly responded diplomatically, “but I think we should try some other less confrontational methods first. Community groups and non-profits have to go to the city council with their hands out each year to get funds, and if we rub them the wrong way, it could make it difficult for us in the future. That’s the political reality we face. That’s not to say at some later point we might want to take a more aggressive stance, but I think we shouldn’t escalate things at this point.”

“But we sent the letter to the city manager and city council, and we didn’t even receive a response,” Lawrence countered. “At some point we have to act. We may have pissed them off already, anyway.” He looked around the room as if trying to stir up agreement, but no one responded.

“True,” Father Kelly said. “But my disagreement is based on the fact that I don’t believe now is the time. I think if we continue to let them know this is a concern for us, we might be able to get some traction. If not,” he turned to Lawrence, “we could always try something else. I’m not suggesting we take your idea off the table, but rather that we should wait.”

Nancy
Brightman
, the director of a domestic violence outreach center, was the next to speak. “I think publicity would be a good next step. It could put pressure on the city council if suddenly, say, just as an
example,
they were in the newspaper being accused of impropriety. Or, if we were to hold meetings highlighting this issue, it might grab their attention.”

I had stolen a few glances at Nancy during the meeting. She was an elegant and attractive woman in her early forties with a slender figure and loose, curly brown hair that fell just past her shoulders. I had a little crush on her—a harmless one, given that she was married with two children and I was in a relationship. The crush was no doubt fueled by the fact that the romance had faded between me and Sara. I could count on one hand the number of times that we had sex during the past year.

“I have a question,” Gloria said tentatively. “How are both the city council and the city manager involved with this? What are their respective roles?”

“We’re not entirely sure,” Father Kelly responded. “We know the city council had to authorize the funds. The city manager can’t do that
on his own
.” Father Kelly looked around the table to see if anyone else had anything to add before continuing. “Again, I hear what Lawrence and Nancy are saying, but I remain concerned about taking on the city council.”

Lawrence
Geuss
shrugged and then leaned back in his chair.

“I think we should try to schedule a meeting with the city manager and the city council,” Father Kelly suggested.

“I agree,” I said.

“I think it’ll make us look weak and pandering,” Lawrence said, “but if that’s what you want to do…” He lifted his right hand and then let it fall on the table.

After a little more discussion our group agreed to give Father Kelly’s idea a try, concluding that the worst that could happen was that the city would refuse the meeting—or that if it was held, nothing would come of it. His was the conservative approach that might yield gains but would not cause us to suffer any losses. If it didn’t work, it wouldn’t foreclose the other options that had been mentioned.

After the meeting was over, we all briefly mingled in the conference room. Then people began to take their leave until finally Father Kelly and I were the only ones left. It dawned on me that it was the first time we had been alone together since I was in high school.

“How is your work going?” he asked me.

“It’s okay.”

“So are you more fulfilled than at your last job?”

We had never talked about my last job, so I figured that my mother must have told him about it.

“Yeah.
I’m helping people, which I didn’t get to do before. I guess on the downside, though, the work can be tough. Most of my clients have bad cases and are in dire straits. Sometimes you just can’t help them. Or sometimes
you can help them, but due to their problems, they end up in the same situation again. But putting that aside, I like it.”

Father Kelly smiled and then crossed his arms in front of himself. “Working with the poor isn’t easy, but it’s a worthwhile thing to do with one’s life.”

I nodded. “Yeah, it is.” I felt a little nervous and uncomfortable. It seemed that Father Kelly was leading me somewhere with the conversation, but I couldn’t quite figure out exactly where.

“So is there any chance of your moving back to these parts or are you a Bostonian now?”

“I like Boston. There’s more for me to do there than here.”

“Well, it’s nice to have you involved with this. I was just talking to your mother about it after mass last week, as a matter of fact. You know, she always speaks of you with such pride.”

I shrugged indifferently. “She’s not enthused by the fact that I’m a legal services attorney. She’d prefer it if I were at a private firm making more money.”

“Well, she wants what’s best for you in her own way, but she’s still proud of you.”

“Her own way being the key words.”
Wanting to change the subject, I said, “I understand the approach you want to take with CDBG. I think we do have to make certain overtures at this stage and appear diplomatic. Having said that, to be honest, I’m not terribly optimistic that anything will come from a meeting.”

At this point we had drifted into the hallway and were making our way toward the side entrance. Father Kelly had been at St. Mary’s for three months when I first met him. I was fourteen years old and my best friend’s father had died in a car accident. Even though he didn’t know the family, Father Kelly had sat with them at their kitchen table until late into the night. That gesture gained him the trust of many people in the parish, and it was then that I stepped up my involvement with the church. Father Kelly spurred the youth group into action after years of inactivity. I became very involved in it, finding it a welcome refuge from a high school environment where I had a tough time fitting in. I wasn’t a total geek or anything, but rather an awkward kid with lackluster social skills who tried too hard to be liked.

After leaving home for college I drifted away from the church. In my sophomore year I took a philosophy course in which we read Nietzsche’s
Genealogy of Morals,
which blew me away. It was my first introduction to any substantive critique of Christianity, and reading it made me feel like one of Plato’s cave dwellers suddenly taken out into the light. At the time, I was smoking large quantities of marijuana and experimenting with LSD, and that, together with my philosophy readings, sent my mind hurtling in new and exciting directions. After that semester I became a philosophy major, approaching my studies as if each new book held the key to understanding life. And I came to view religion as a meaningless collection of myths, something that fooled people rather than exposing the truth. It was a point of view that did not sit particularly well with my mother. She thought I had become a little “weird,” as she once put it. I had grown my hair a little longer and returned home with new and controversial ideas about life. I was a different person from the Mark she had known for the first eighteen years of my life. And her reaction to me caused me to dig in my heels even more, refusing to even go to mass on Christmas and Easter.

Just as I was about to exit the church, Father Kelly said, “By the way, I have something in mind for the CDBG money, but I haven’t shared it with anyone yet.”

“Oh yeah?”

“There’s a building for sale in South Main, near Clark University, that I think could be bought for less than a million dollars. It needs work, but it could hold between six and nine apartments. I was thinking it could be made into transitional housing for single mothers and their children, specifically those women who need to get away from domestic violence.”

“That sounds like a good idea.”

“Well, we’ll see. We have a long road ahead of us.” He smiled warmly. “Take care, Mark.”

9

Th
at evening my mother prepared chicken pot pie for dinner, her signature dish that she was famous for with our relatives. Whenever she brought it to family gatherings, people made a bee line toward it. It was comfort food at its best, with tender chunks of chicken, carrots, and potatoes encased in a soft and flaky crust. For unexplained reasons, she rarely made this dish at home. So when I arrived at my parents’ house and found out that she was preparing it, I felt certain that she was sending me a message—I didn’t visit often enough. It had, in fact, been over a month since I had last been home.

Seated at the kitchen table, I felt my stomach rumble as she took the chicken pie from the oven, the thick brown gravy bubbling up from underneath its crust. It felt like ages since I had last had a nice home-cooked meal. Because Sara and I each possessed only rudimentary cooking skills, we cooked at home infrequently, and when we did, we usually made simple things like hamburgers and pasta.

“Have you finished setting the table?” my mother asked me.

“I haven’t started it,” I responded.

My father was sitting next to me at the table and we were both drinking red wine. He usually drank two or three glasses in the evening after work. It was somewhat of a sore spot between him and my mother, who was of the opinion that he drank too much. She often brought it up in a bitter way when they had little spats.

“Well, we’re going to eat soon, so let’s get a move on,” my mother said good-naturedly.

“Since I don’t live here anymore, technically I’m a guest in your house,” I joked. “The polite thing would be for you guys to serve me.”

My mother laughed.

“Is that what you think?” my father said, raising an eyebrow.

“It’s not what I think,” I said. “It’s what I know.”

My father smiled just a little, while my mother laughed.

At home when we ate, we kept to the same assigned seats that we had back when I was a kid: clockwise from the seat closest to the kitchen it went my mother, sister, father, and then me. My sister was two years younger than me and lived in Sterling, a small town fifteen minutes north of Worcester. She was married with a five-year-old daughter and a three-year-old son. My father and I both got up from our seats and helped set the table. Soon my mother served the chicken pie and we all sat down to eat.

“So it must be nice to have a home-cooked meal?” my mother asked.

“It is. Especially your chicken pot pie,” I said, giving her the compliment I knew she was looking for.

“Thank you. I made it because you were coming over for dinner. We hardly see you anymore.”

Just as I thought, I told myself. Now
comes
the guilt trip. “I know. I guess that I usually just instinctively head home after work.”

“You could always stay overnight here once in a while,” my mother suggested. “You wouldn’t have to do such a long commute.”

“I am staying over tonight.”

“Or you could move back home with us,” my father joked. “I’ll get you working on chores right away.”

“Great, when can I start?”

My mother smiled. “We just miss seeing you.”

“C’mon, don’t try to make me feel guilty.”

“I’m not trying to make you feel guilty.”

“I’m just busy. I have stuff going on at work. I have to see Sara, too.”

“Well, you two are together quite a lot,” my mother said in a slightly negative tone.

“I don’t want to get into it, Mom,” I responded. My mother was not a big fan of Sara’s and hadn’t been since the early days of our relationship. We were staying overnight at my parents’ house for Thanksgiving, our first one as a couple, and were in my bedroom and got into an argument and Sara began yelling at me, and my parents heard it. From that day forward, my mother branded her a wild and out-of-control person. She never said it outright, but I was certain that she didn’t want the relationship to last.

“Anyway, let’s change the subject,” my mother said. “You said you saw Father Kelly at St. Mary’s. How was that?”

I made an effort to keep my irritation in check and keep the conversation going in a pleasant manner. “It was fine. There are a lot of meetings, though, with this particular case, so things are moving kind of slowly. But it was good to see him. It’s always a little weird, though, since I don’t go to church anymore.”

“Well, you should go, at least on holidays,” my mother said.