Eric Dinnocenzo - The Tenant Lawyer (14 page)

According to federal regulations, a proper use of CDBG funds is to use them to create jobs for low-income people, but community leaders claim there is no evidence that this will be the result of the skywalk project.

“No one has given any hard evidence that jobs will result or that they will be given to low-income people in Worcester. It’s all speculation,” said Lawrence
Geuss
, executive director of the South
Main Neighborhood Center. “And the amount of money at stake is much greater than any benefit to the poor that would result from the project.”

Construction is slated to begin in the fall. For several years city officials have been trying to implement plans to give a boost to the flagging downtown. The last project was the Worcester Commons mall located downtown which has recently seen stores close due to a lack of business.

The day it came out, I read the article over a few times. I had never before been quoted in a newspaper, and it gave me a bit of a rush to see my name in print. On the whole I considered it to be a decent article, though I was of the opinion that the issues could have been more fully explored. I also thought that the ending made it seem like something had to be done to rehabilitate the downtown area, thus kind of legitimizing the use of CDBG funds for the skywalk. True, the downtown was flagging and had been for years, but to my mind, it hadn’t reached the point that CDBG funds needed to be used immediately as part of the solution. And I still didn’t see how building a skywalk would satisfy that objective.

I was seated at my desk drafting a set of interrogatories in an eviction case when the colonel came into my office with the newspaper in his hand. “Why are you quoted here?” he asked.

“We met with the reporter and he quoted me. I told you we were meeting with him.”

“Yeah, but I’ve told you that I want the office to keep a low profile with this.”

I was a little taken aback, thinking it should have been obvious to him that meeting with a reporter meant that I might get quoted. “We met with the reporter and we all explained the situation to him, and I got quoted. It just happened. I had no intention of putting the office in an awkward position.”

He took a seat across from my desk. “All right,” he said, as if recognizing that he had overreacted a little. He lightly tapped the newspaper against his free hand. “At any rate, the article was pretty good up until the end.”

“I agree.”

“It’s like the journalist is saying that something needs to be done to the downtown. So someone reading this could think, well, maybe it’s not so bad if CDBG money is used to help out.”

“I know.
My thoughts exactly.
And it’s just a walkway between two buildings. It’s not like the Eiffel Tower or something.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong. I don’t want you to think that’s what I’m saying. My point is that if we ultimately don’t get involved, then this article won’t exactly help us. We’re still a non-profit in this city. We’re not insulated from politics. The council will read this and know we’ve been involved.”

“Well, the thing is, we signed the letter before, and right now I think we are involved. I’ve been to so many of these meetings that if we back out now, I think it’ll hurt us on the other end with the community groups who work in our same circle.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” the colonel replied. Suddenly he seemed lost in thought, leading me to suspect that he had thus far only considered possible repercussions with the city and not with the community groups.

When I arrived home that evening, Sara was sitting on the couch reading a book with her legs curled up underneath her, Phil Collins playing in the background. It was a large couch, and at five-feet six and 110 pounds, she looked rather petite on it with her legs curled up. Without her noticing, I observed her from a side view. Her hair framed the side of her face, highlighting how her jaw line was free of any fat or loose skin.

She turned and saw me. “Hey there,” she greeted me.

“Hi.”

“Were you just standing there looking at me?”

“Yeah.”

“Don’t. You know I don’t like that.”

“Why not?
I like looking at you. You look pretty.”

“Yeah, right,” she responded with an incredulous laugh. “You know I don’t like it.”

“Anyway, check this out.” I handed her the newspaper article. “The CDBG project made the newspaper.”

“Really?”

When she finished reading the article she said, “Wow, that’s exciting. You were quoted.”

“See how important a person I am,” I joked.

“You are.”

I laughed. “You’re funny.”

“Look at you, changing things in that city.” She looked up at me lovingly and like she was really impressed.

I sat down next to her. “I don’t know about all that. It doesn’t seem like anything is getting changed. But I guess it’s something. We’ll see how it goes.”

She mentioned that I should clip the article and save it which hadn’t occurred to me.

“So what are you reading?” I asked.

She showed me the cover of the book:
Interpreter of Maladies
by
Jhumpa
Lahiri
.

“I heard that’s good,” I commented.

“Yeah, it is. I just started it. My friend Ayesha recommended it.”

The evening passed as it usually did with us—we had dinner together, watched some TV and read before going to bed. After turning off the lights and settling in to go to sleep, Sara said, “I’m worried about my Mom. She seems depressed.”

“Did you notice it when you visited?” My irritation at her visiting her parents without me had for the most part dissipated.

“Yeah.
She basically told me that she is.”

When Sara was between the ages of five and ten, her mother was an alcoholic. When sober, she had been a fun and loving mother, but when she drank she would turn into a different person, one who was angry and destructive, even breaking and smashing fixtures in the house on occasion. More than once her father had been forced to physically restrain her mother. After going away to rehab for a month, a time when Sara’s grandmother moved in to take care of her, her mother was able to quit drinking. But ever since, according to Sara, it was like a switch had flipped inside her mother, and she had become a quiet and depressed.

“Well, she doesn’t really do that much, you know?” I said. “Maybe she’d benefit from volunteering or getting involved with the community or something? And certainly it’d be good for her to go to therapy.”

“Yeah, I know. I think my father should be more attentive to her. He should be helping her, but he isn’t. And he’s a doctor.”

“Well, their relationship is what it is. You know how your father is.”

“Yeah, I do. I feel like there’s something more I should do, but I don’t know what.”

“Well, you visited just recently.”

“Yeah, but that’s nothing special. I should be seeing them more than I do.”

“Well, you do a lot for them. They don’t come up here to visit you.”

“I know, but it’s different for them. They’re older and more entrenched in their ways. They’re not as mobile as they used to be.”

I paused for a moment. Then I rolled over so that I was facing her in the dark. “I think things are a bit one-sided, to be honest.”

Sara propped herself up on an elbow. “What do you mean?” she asked in a tone that indicated I should be careful what I say.

“It’s always you running to help your mother, but quite honestly, your parents didn’t do a lot for you when you were growing up. For some reason you feel the burden is on you, but it shouldn’t be.”

“I don’t run to help my mother,” Sara said defensively. “You’re not listening to me. The point I’m making is that I’m not helping her enough.”

“Okay, fine. I’m just trying to help.”

“You don’t know my situation. People in your family aren’t depressed.”

“Yeah, they are. They just don’t know it.”

Sara sighed. “Sometimes it’s just impossible talking to you. My mother has problems. You don’t understand these types of problems because you’ve never had to experience them.”

“I represent poor people every day who are facing terrible things in their lives and have all sorts of problems,” I countered.

“Yeah, but you don’t know what it’s really like for them. You see them in court and in your office, but you don’t really know them.”

Neither of us said anything more. We lay there with our backs to one another. We were both still awake and each of us knew it. I realized that what Sara had just said was true. I didn’t really know what my clients’ lives were like. I just tried to help them solve their problems—their legal problems, that is.

13

Af
ter what seemed like weeks of gray and overcast skies, the sun finally came out of hiding and the temperature rose to the
mid-50’s
, higher than it had been for months. It was Saturday afternoon and I decided to go out for a jog. I took my usual route, heading west on Commonwealth Avenue past Massachusetts Avenue and then past Kenmore Square into Brookline, finally turning around at the St. Paul “T” stop. My feet hit the pavement and then energetically sprung forward, jubilant in their freedom away from the dull absorption of the treadmill which they had become accustomed to during the winter. It felt cleansing to my system to push myself on the open road, the cool fresh air filling my lungs, my heart pumping and muscles working. It felt like taking a car out on the highway and really flooring it after for months only driving it at slow speeds in the city.

The city seemed more alive with the change in the weather, as if it was awakening from hibernation. More people were out walking on the streets, many wearing sunglasses, and some shops even had their doors propped open. A few nut-jobs went so far as to wear shorts. It never failed to amaze me how Bostonians, when there was a slight spike in the temperature during the winter, acted as if it were a balmy summer day.

Sara was working at the real estate office, so I was on my own for the day. In the past she had infrequently worked on the weekends, but since last summer, she had begun to on a regular basis. Nothing had changed insofar as the dynamics of her office were concerned, meaning that her boss didn’t require her to come in on weekends, and there wasn’t more business than in the past. I knew she did it to create some space between us. It was her way of telling me that she was unhappy. It irritated me, and a few times I hinted to her that I knew the reason.

When I got home, I went into the bathroom to take a shower. I looked at myself in the mirror naked, observing the shape I was in. My stomach was relatively flat and there was a little definition to my abdominal muscles, though
not to the point where I had a six-pack or anything. I had some muscles, but not too many. I didn’t really do any strength training, except for an occasional set of pushups and sit-ups. My exercise regimen consisted almost exclusively of jogging. I failed to understand why guys devoted lots of time and energy to lifting weights in order to bulk up and get muscles. Doing calisthenics to stay fit, that was one thing, and that I could understand, it was what I did myself, but lifting weights to become a muscle guy, well, that I didn’t understand. It seemed like a complete waste of time. It all turned to fat and flab when you got older, anyway. Standing in front of the mirror, I reflected on how at my old law firm I had been fifteen to twenty pounds heavier, most of it settling in at the mid-section and also filling out my face. Back then I didn’t exercise as much, and I didn’t eat as well, either.

After finishing up in the shower, I sat down on the couch with a tall glass of water and read
The Boston Globe
. Sara had told me she was going to head straight to the gym after she left the office for the day, and the plan was that I would meet her there at eight, and we would go to dinner and perhaps a movie afterwards. When eight o’clock arrived, I was standing outside of her gym waiting for her to come out. Five minutes passed, then ten minutes, and there was still no Sara, so I decided to call her cell phone.

“Where are you?” I asked. “I’m waiting outside.”

“Outside where?”

“Outside at your gym.”

“Why are you here?” she asked with surprise.

“Because we agreed that I’d meet you here at eight.”

“No, we didn’t. I was supposed to call you at eight.”

“That’s not true. Anyway, you didn’t call me at eight.”

“I’m exercising. I was going to call you in a couple minutes.”

I sighed. “So you’re not done?”

“No.”

“All right, well, how long are you going to be?”

“I’m in the middle of exercising,” she replied defensively.

“I’m just asking. Geez, you don’t have to bark at me.”

“Well, you’re usually upset when I’m late.”

“
Which is most of the time.
”

“Yes, which is most of the time,” she repeated with annoyance.