Sunset Park

Miles is hungry after the long trip, he leads him a few blocks down Fifth Avenue to what he calls his favorite lunch place, a scruffy beanery that serves fish and chips, shepherd’s pies, bangers and mash, a full menu of authentic Limey grub. No wonder Bing has broadened so much, Miles thinks, lunching on this greasy slop several times a week, but the truth is that he is famished just now, and what could be better than a hot shepherd’s pie to fill you up on a cold day? Meanwhile, Bing is talking to him about the house, about his band, about his failed love affair with Millie, punctuating his remarks every so often with a brief word about how well he thinks Miles is looking and how glad he is to see him again. Miles doesn’t say much in response, he is busy with his food, but he is impressed by Bing’s high spirits and lunging goodwill, and the more Bing talks, the more he feels that his pen pal of the past seven years is the same person he was when they last saw each other, a little older, of course, a little more in possession of himself, perhaps, but essentially the same person, whereas he, Miles, is altogether different now, a black sheep who bears no resemblance to the lamb he was seven years ago.
    Toward the end of the meal, a look of discomfort comes over Bing’s face. He pauses for a few moments, fidgetingwith his fork, casting his eyes down at the table, apparently at a loss for words, and when he finally speaks again, his voice is far more subdued than it was earlier, almost hushed.
    I don’t mean to pry, he says, but I was wondering if you have any plans.
    Plans to do what? Miles asks.
    To see your parents, for one thing.
    Is that any of your business?
    Yes, unfortunately it is. I’ve been your source for a long time now, and I think I want to retire.
    You already have. The moment I stepped off the bus today, you were given your gold watch. For years of devoted service. You know how grateful I am to you, don’t you?
    I don’t want your gratitude, Miles. I just don’t want to see you fuck up your life anymore. It hasn’t been easy on them, you know.
    I know. Don’t think I don’t know.
    Well? Are you going to see them or not?
    I want to, I’m hoping to…
    That’s no kind of answer. Yes or no?
    Yes. Of course I will, he says, not knowing if he will or not, not knowing that Bing has talked to his parents fifty-two times in the past seven years, not knowing that his father and mother and Willa have all been told he will be landing in New York today. Of course I will, he says again. Just give me a chance to settle in first.
    The house is like no house he has ever seen in New York.He is aware that the city is filled with anomalous structures that have no apparent connection to urban life—the brick houses and garden apartments in certain sections of Queens, for example, with their timid, suburban aspirations, or the few remaining wooden houses in the northernmost parts of Brooklyn Heights, historical remnants from the 1840s—but this house in Sunset Park is neither suburban nor historic, it is merely a shack, a forlorn piece of architectural stupidity that would not fit in anywhere, neither in New York nor out of it. Bing didn’t send any photographs with his letter, didn’t describe what it looked like in any detail, and therefore he had no idea what to expect, but if he did expect anything, it certainly wasn’t this.
    Cracked gray shingles, red trim around the three sash windows on the second floor, a flimsy balustrade on the porch with diamond-shaped openings painted white, the four posts propping up the roof on the porch painted red, the same brick red as the trim around the windows, but no paint on the front steps or handrails, which are too splintered for a paint job and have been left as bare, weathered wood. Alice and Ellen are both still at work when he and Bing walk up the six steps to the front porch and go inside. Bing gives him the grand tour, clearly proud of all they have accomplished, and while the house seems cramped to him (not just because of the size of the rooms or the number of rooms but because of the many things that have been jammed into them—Bing’s drums, Ellen’s canvases, Alice’s books), the interior is remarkably clean, with apatched-up, freshly painted brightness, and therefore perhaps even livable. The kitchen, the bathroom, and the back bedroom downstairs; the three bedrooms upstairs. But no living room or parlor, which means that the kitchen is the