[If you ever find yourself in Brattleboro, Vermont with nothing to do, I recommend a visit to the Estey Organ Company Museum on Birge Street. You will learn a lot and see even more. SB SM]
2018
Ryan Keogh, 20, starched and pressed in his blue uniform, crosses the creaky porch and knocks on the front door of a ramshackle, wooden-frame home. Badly in need of paint, it overlooks the former manufacturing operation of the Estey Organ Company in Brattleboro, Vermont. Founded in the mid-1800s by Jacob Estey, it had once been a global powerhouse in the musical instrument industry. Skilled craftsmen, operating out of slate-roofed warehouses, churned out hundreds of thousands of reed and pipe organs that were shipped around the globe.
You can find them now on eBay.
But the industrial powerhouse met its match as changing technology, first in the form of the Victrola and later as electronic instruments, took its toll. The last organ was shipped in 1960. Since that time, Vermont winters have had their way with the structures. Current residents include business start-ups looking for cheap, affordable space, a small museum that keeps the Estey name alive, and an assortment of addicts, homeless, and n’eer-do-wells, which are now the growth industry in Brattleboro.
The “gateway” to the Estey complex is Birge Street, a ghostly, weather-beaten remnant of a better age, now a monument to industrial decay that rhymes with “dirge,” as in funeral. There are a couple of sad-looking retail businesses–a quick-stop and a laundromat– at its entrance, then a series of wood-frame homes that share the characteristics of peeling paint, graffiti, and forgotten lives.
“They ain’t home,” says a young woman, anticipating his question. She wears a T-shirt, jeans, and purple fuzzy slippers as she looks out, appearing entirely unexpectant of company.
He already knows that. He knows Tommy and Kenny Barcoa are at their respective girlfriends’ houses, sleeping off an epic night of drinking at the Sportsman’s Lounge that culminated in a Saturday night brawl in the parking lot. That, in turn, had led to a trip to the station where they were held until their release at 7:30 a.m., just as Keogh was coming on duty.
“Probably a good time to visit the sister,” one of Ryan’s fellow officers had mentioned in the locker room in the basement of the station. He had heard about Tommy and Kenny’s sister, and how she would do anything to curry favor with Brattleboro’s finest, of whom Ryan was the newest and youngest one.
“How about your father?” he asks.
“Gone huntin’,” she says.
“And your mother?”
“Workin’.”
But Keogh knows those things, too. He knows from the locker room chatter that Sunday mornings are the best time to check up on the notorious Barcoas. “Fuckin’ animals” is the most commonly used phrase when the family became the subject of group discussions.
“I have a couple of questions. Mind if I come in?”
She opens the door wordlessly. She knows the drill.
“When are people coming back?”
She shrugs. The front living room is filled with tattered, overstuffed furniture that looks salvaged from the street on trash day. The room hasn’t seen a broom for weeks, and a vacuum cleaner, maybe never. A newish flat-screen television, however, is playing cartoons. The sound is much too loud, and the sound effects– doodely-doot and BOING-G-G-G– are in sharp contrast to the setting. Ryan recognizes the cartoon asTeenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
“And your name is…?”
“Jennie,” she mutters. He knows that, too.
Keogh does not introduce himself; his name tag is safely nestled in his shirt pocket. “And how old are you?”
“I’m nineteen, Sir,” she says wearily. He dislikes being called “Sir,” but doesn’t react.
“Nineteen,” he repeats. There is a moment of silence.
“What do you want?” she asks. She wears no makeup. Her shoulder-length hair—not-quite-blonde but definitely-not brunette—is pulled back into a scraggly ponytail. He is not prepared for the question and gropes for an answer.
“What do you want to do?” she repeats, asking if the answer is obvious.
Ryan clears his throat and answers unsteadily, “I might be able to help Tommy and Kenny out. You know, put in a good word…”
She looks at him steadily, assessing, then a flash of recognition, then she says, “Okay, listen. Pull down your pants. You’re going to have to take off your gun, but let’s make it quick, because I’m missing my show,” she says flatly.
Ryan is slow to respond, finally saying, “Right here?”
“The rest of the house is a mess,” she says. “Let’s go.”
Ryan knows the protocol, or what they call at the station “the drill.” You say, “Thank you for answering these questions. We’ll let you know if anything further is required.” Then you leave and forget you were ever there.
But Ryan can’t forget. In truth, he thinks of little else other than Jennie, the squalid house, the name tag hidden in his pocket, the loud cartoons, and the peeling paint. The memory chokes him with a speedball of shame, guilt, pity, and disgust.
Ryan meets Sam Kudarowski at the Sportsmans. They sip draft beers. Even though Ryan is not yet 21, the staff at the bar know better than to card a man who wears the blue. Sam Kudarowski, “Sarge,” is a retired Brattleboro police officer who runs the Friends of the Blue, an organization that recruited Ryan as a high school sophomore. Their mission is to strengthen community relations so that young people will think of law enforcement as allies rather than adversaries. Ryan, whose ambition at the time was to become a Marine, joined because he wanted an opportunity to shoot guns and learn self-defense. Sergeant Kudarowski became a mentor for Ryan, whose own father was a county bureaucrat whose main interests were the local newspaper andTV Guide.
Kudarowski wrote the letter of recommendation that helped Ryan get into Springfield College. Then, when college didn’t work out for Ryan after a single semester, he repeated the favor when Ryan applied to join the local police force. Now, it was Kudarowski to whom he turned.
“Sarge, I visited Jennie Barcoa.”
A quick “Aww-w, Jeez!” escapes him before he regroups and shakes his head. “I thought you were smarter than that!” His disappointment is obvious. He takes some time to transition from benign community member to someone who knows the code. “Did you cover your name tag? Did you ask her age? Did you use protection?”
Ryan nods, even though he is lying about the third question. “It’s nothing I’m proud of,” he says. “It’s just the opposite. It’s something I want to do something about.”
“Do what? Here’s some advice, whether you want it or not. Stay out of it. Put it behind you. Don’t go near those people; they’re trouble. You want as little to do with them as possible.”
Ryan is on the verge of tears. “I want to do something.”
“Give it up, kid!” Kudarowski says, more emphatically. “Don’t be a schmuck, and don’t try to be a hero.”
Ryan nods. He knows that this session is over, but he hasn’t lost his conviction.
Kudarowski, however, hasn’t finished with him. “And if you’re looking for help keeping your pecker in your pants … Buddy, I can’t help you with that.”
That night, Ryan can’t sleep. He lies in the same bedroom he has had since he was a little boy, discounting the summers with Uncle Henry and Aunt Grace and that disastrous first semester of college. He still lives with his parents and little sister, but he can’t talk to them—not about Jennie Barcoa, and certainly not about the terrifying realization that he does not want to be a cop anymore. Finally, he slides out of bed and drops to his knees on the floor, mumbling the only protection he remembers: “Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep…”
The Birge Street Circus
Ryan arrives at the station at 7:00 a.m., walks into the locker room, and begins changing into his uniform. He nods to his partner for the day, Chet Mulcahy, who is only half-dressed, but their usual morning greeting is drowned out by loud, echoing laughter coming from the showers.
“Did I miss the joke?” Ryan asks, unbuttoning his shirt.
“Jordan and Smith,” Mulcahy says, nodding toward the steam filtering out of the shower stall. “I guess the circus came to Birge Street last night.” He leans against a row of dented lockers. “The way I hear it, Tommy and Kenny Barcoa come home with a few of their friends and start creating a hell of a ruckus on the front porch—lots of drinking, screaming, music. We get the noise complaint. Jordan and Smith get dispatched, and when they roll up, the boys are still out on the porch, laughing their asses off.”
The two other officers step out of the showers, towels wrapped around their waists, still grinning.
“Just filling Ryan in on last night’s shit show,” Mulcahy tells them.
The two newcomers are giddy, practically tripping over each other to tell the story. “Apparently, the old man was dead drunk,” Smith chimes in, wiping moisture from his face. “Come out on the porch barefoot, totally naked from the waist down, and starts chasing the kids across the lawn with a baseball bat.”
“Wasted to the waist!” Jordan interjects, guffawing as he throws his gear into his locker.
“He’s too shitfaced to actually catch any of them,” Smith continues, “but he’s in such a blind rage that he starts beating the hell out of the car with the bat.”
“But the dumb fuck is so out of it,” Jordan laughs so hard he takes a moment to collect himself, “he doesn’t even realize he’s wailing on his own car!”
The locker room erupts into another round of chuckles. Ryan manages a small, tight smile.
Smith shakes his head. “When the old man finally realizes what he’s done, he gets even madder. He storms back into the house, takes a couple of whacks at the girl along the way, grabs his pants, and takes off in the car—broken windshield, busted headlights, and all. Probably holed up in some deer camp now.”
“By the time we arrive,” Jordan says, “Kenny, Tommy, and their friends are laughing so hard they are about to pee their pants. They’re all shitfaced, too.”
“What a bunch of morons,” Smith mutters. “Fuckin’ Barcoas.”
Ryan stops organizing his duty belt. “What did you guys do?”
“Nothing to do,” Smith shrugs. “The old man is long gone, and there’s no law against getting drunk on your own property. I told them to keep the noise down and make sure they clean up the broken glass in the morning. The girl is just sitting on the porch, crying and holding her arm, which is obviously busted. Musta held it up to protect herself. We gave her a lift to the ER since her Ma works nights at the hospital anyway.” Now dressed, he turns back to Jordan and changes the subject. “What that girl does best ain’t done with her forearm!”
The room explodes in laughter as Smith and Jordan head to the Sportsmans for a liquid breakfast.
Ryan turns to Mulcahy. “Will she press charges?”
Mulcahy lets out a cynical snort. “A Barcoa rat out another Barcoa? Not likely. Not for just a broken arm. Just another day at the shit show, Ryan.”
Ryan is in a troubled stew that day, the next, and the next. He needs to talk to someone. Mulcahy is much too dicey. His talk with Sarge Kudarowski didn’t go as planned. His parents are out of the question. He turns to the internet, searching desperate terms late into the night for alternative pathways, shelters, or places of absolute isolation.
A week later, he is on quota duty, which is cop code for a speed trap. By noon he has written up four violations. On a whim, he diverts from his lunch break to swing by Birge Street. There are no cars in the driveway.
The morning is a dull, October grey, the kind of New England weather that foretells an endless, bleak winter. As he crosses the rickety porch, he can hear the low drone of a television humming through the thin walls. This time he does not remove his name tag. He knocks. No answer. He knocks again, harder this time, and then a third time, rattling the glass on the door.
The door cracks open an inch—just enough for him to see Jennie’s pale face. Looking down, he sees the heavy white plaster cast encasing her forearm.
“I can’t do anything today,” she whispers, barely audible over the television.
Ryan looks at her directly, his own voice dropping low and steady. “I’m not here for that. I’m here to tell you that I’m going to get you out of here. Don’t ask me how or when, because I’m working on it. But I am working on it, and I am going to get you out of here.”
Through the crack, he can see her cast. It is festooned with obscene drawings and scribbled swears, undoubtedly the creative work of her loving brothers.
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