Gabriel Doyle

WRIT 319: Fact, Fiction, Truth

Fall 2020
Professor Masha Gessen
Portfolio
 Gabriel Doyle
WRIT 319 #1

Never Married

Lisa grew up in Syracuse, New York. She lived in a mid-century home on

Scottholm terrace at the crest of a hill so steep it was paved with brick to keep cars from
slipping come winter. In the first bedroom on the right side of the second floor hallway,
there is a picture of her Uncle Sydney hanging on the wall. This was Lisa’s room before
her brother was born and she took over the far too cold study off the back of the dining
room. Later on, her mother would work the loom there. Lisa slept here before it became
a guest room and all four Guisbond children went off to college and moved out for good.
The picture was not a photo but hand drawn. It hung to the right of the doorway
above a wicker nightstand next to a bookshelf that stretched from floor to ceiling. The
portrait is in pen and watercolor. It’s a headshot from just below his shoulders to the top
of his head. Like Lisa’s father Monroe in his Air Force photograph, Sydney looks like a
gentile. He wore a tan suit, his head turned slightly to his right shoulder and his hair
slicked back.
He looked like the rat pack’s forgotten sixth member, or a cross between a lounge
singer and a Hollywood star. The picture remained in the bedroom long after Sydney
passed away, after all four children moved out, after the Thanksgiving when Monroe
died, and after Scottholm Terrace was sold.

---

Lisa’s mom Annette called out to her from the landing. “Sas, There’s a package
for you!” It was a large cardboard box, too big and unwieldy for her to carry on her own,
so her brother and her father helped lug it up the two flights to her room. The return
address read 30 Rockefeller Plaza, New York City, NY, 10111. F. A. O. Schwarz.
Thanksgiving was just a few weeks past, so it was a little early to be a birthday present
but just in time for Chanukah. Lisa tore into the box. She used her brother’s switchblade
to cut the packing tape and cardboard and pulled aside the red parchment paper and

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packing peanuts that filled the box. Below the heaps of thin red paper was a small white
postcard with glitzy blue and gold trim and black cursive lettering across the middle.
“Dear Lisa, I wish you and the whole family a happy Chanukah and a wonderful
holiday season. I went to see Maria in ​Duo Concertante​ at Lincoln Center last week and
thought of you. It was a marvelous piece. I’d love to take you next time you’re in the Big
Apple. Lots of love, - Sydney” Underneath the note and a few more stray peanuts was a
bright blue and pink Easy Bake Oven. Lisa lifted it out of the box. She turned it over,
examining every inch of her new present from her favorite uncle. Like Sydney, it was,
sturdy, immaculate, and breathtaking. His presents were always lavish. Each year he
outdid himself, and this time was no exception.
---
In 1969 or 1970, in the middle of December, Lisa and Annette went down to the
city for a weekend vacation. The air was frigid, a touch warmer than it was in Syracuse
but cold nonetheless. Lisa and her mom got in Grandpa’s Toronado and made the four
plus hour drive down to the city. They were staying with Annette’s brother, Uncle Irving,
and his wife Aunt Terry at their cozy Stuyvesant Town apartment on Manhattan’s east
side, but they were all dining with Uncle Sydney, at a restaurant on 56th and 8th.
Uncle Irving chose a new hibachi place in midtown on the west side. It was
poorly lit, whether for the sake of ambience or the lack of light fixtures. It was kitschy, it
was schlocky, it was dramatic; half having dinner and half seeing a show. In hindsight, it
was the kind of place you took your backwater Syracuse relative during their stay in
Manhattan, but Irving insisted, and so they went.
Irving had a bit of an oriental fixation. His work required infrequent trips to
Kyoto, Beijing, Shanghai, all sorts of East Asian locales. He went to import goods, to
facilitate business ventures, but his interest wasn’t entirely fiscal. On one occasion, he
brought Lisa and Annette matching kimonos as souvenirs from Tokyo. When Terry
called their house in Syracuse to ask where they should eat out in the city, Irving
hollered that they must go to Benihana of Tokyo on West 56th st. He was perched in the
living room when Terry took the call on the kitchen landline, but he made his preference
known.
In the center of the restaurant was a circular flat-top grill with a large gap in the
middle where four chefs in white toques stood and cooked. A bar with stools wrapped

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around the central grill and black matte cone shaped lamps hung from the ceiling at
three-foot intervals. Terry, Irving, Sydney, Lisa and Annette walked into the somewhat
overwhelming establishment and sat in that order on the banquette.
Lisa ordered a ginger ale, Grandma had a glass of Riesling, Irving , Terry, and
Sydney, as if it was tradition, ordered May Tais. They came in crystal coupes with pink
umbrellas. Lisa was thrilled to sit next to Sydney.
Uncle Irving would talk your ear off about his latest visit to the Far East, if you
gave him the chance. He had a penchant for exotic gifts and jogging about his tiny
apartment for exercise or, as he put it, “calisthenics.” He was interesting, but not Lisa’s
favorite interlocutor. Aunt Terry, on the other hand, was a lifelong smoker. She wore
comically large spectacles, and her skin was dark bronze from years of beach vacations.
Her heavy New York accent melded with her smokers’ rasp. Terry and Irving were
certainly fun, but they couldn’t match Sydney when it came to charm and conversation.
Sydney took great pride in the way he dressed. For Lisa, the dictum, “dress to impress”
immediately brought up an image of her favorite uncle.
That evening, he wore a tan seersucker suit, a thin blue tie, and a white dress
shirt. His cap rested between his right hand and knee and his hair was slicked back with
pomade. He smelled of cedarwood and anise. Sydney twirled the Mai Tai’s pink
umbrella, took a sip and laid the parasol to the side of the glass.
“Lisa, how are you? It’s been far too long since you’ve come down to see us.
You’re not scared of Manhattan are you?”
“Of course not! I love New York and we love visiting you, Uncle Irving, and Aunt
Terry. I’ve been meaning to come down. You can ask Annette. I’ve been bugging her for
weeks.”
“Sounds like a lot of excuses, Sas.”
“I’ve been meaning to call you, Sydney.”
“I wish you would.”
“Uncle Sydney, I’ve been very busy. I have ballet five days a week, that on top of
school, I barely have time to sleep let alone call you.”
“So I’ve heard. Annette tells me that you are quite the exceptional young
ballerina.”
“I don’t know if I’d call myself exceptional, but I'm working at it. I’m alright.”

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 “I’m sure you’re more than alright. Speaking of exceptional dancers, have I told
you about the girl I’ve been seeing lately?”
“No you haven’t. What’s she like?”
“Well, we’ve been going steady for a couple of months now and just like you, she’s
a ballerina.”
“That’s wonderful! Where does she dance?”
“She’s not a principal, but she dances with the American Ballet Theater, and she’s
something of a regular at Lincoln Center.”
“She sounds lovely, Sydney.”
“She’s gorgeous Lisa. I’m sure you’d love her. We met at a bar downtown, I took
her out to dinner the very next night and we’ve been mad about each other ever since.”

---

“Mom,” Lisa tapped Annette on the shoulder. Annette was washing carrots and russet
potatoes in the sink in the corner of the kitchen. She was facing the small window that
overlooked the porch. Lisa came from behind, out of the living room and past the large
tile covered island. She squeezed her mom’s arm. Annette stopped rinsing the vegetables
and turned around. “When’s the service going to be for Uncle Sydney?” “I’m not sure,
Sas. Irving said three weeks from Friday, but nothing is set in stone. There’s a lot that
needs to be organized and taken care of first.” “Okay. I was just curious.” Lisa paused,
took a breath, and looked around the kitchen before she continued. Monroe was at
work, and Andy, Geoff, and Jon weren’t home. “Are you, Irving, and Marion going to go
clean out his apartment? There’s family stuff, photos, heirlooms, important things there
right?” “We don’t have any family heirlooms Lisa, but yes, Irving has started to do that.
We talked on the phone a couple nights ago and it seems like a lot to handle. I’m not
sure how long it will take or whether I’ll go down to help.” “What do you mean, it’s a lot
to handle? His apartment isn’t that big, is it?” “It’s small, but it's not very clean, or at
least when Irving went in there to organize Sydney's things for the first time it wasn’t in
the best condition.” “Sydney’s apartment was messy, really?” “Not just messy, it was
filthy. Irving said it was a pigsty. He said it reeked of Pall Malls, b.o., and rotting food.”
“Sydney was so well kempt though. He was the best dressed person I know.” “I know he

4
was.” “I’m just a little shocked to hear that his home was in disrepair. I’m not sure if it’s
surprising or if a little bit of me just wishes that it was otherwise.” “ He was very sick at
the end. I don’t think he had energy to take much care of anything, whether it was
himself or the apartment.” “Didn’t he have a girlfriend or somebody to take care of him
and his place? Was there anyone to check in on him?” “Irving and Marion would check
in on him sometimes, but no, he never married.”

---

“Oh my god, that’s wonderful!” Lisa was downstairs video chatting with her brothers
from her usual spot at the end of the dining room table near the door to the basement. “I
thought it went missing or someone had sold it.” Geoff and Jon were cleaning out
Grandma’s independent living apartment at the Nottingham retirement home in
Syracuse. She was moving into the nursing home section for 24-hour care and they had
to move, divvy up, and sell anything she couldn’t take to her new room. “Gabe, come
look!” Lisa craned her head back to the stairway and yelled upstairs. “They found Uncle
Sydney’s portrait!” I was a little taken aback. I assumed someone had spirited it away
when Scottholm Terrace was cleaned out and Grandma first moved to the Nottingham.
“Where was it?” “Geoff found it in the back of her closet, under some winter coats and
behind a couple boxes of photos and other crap. I was so worried someone took it or
sold it.” “Me too, mom.” “Thankfully it was just hidden, not lost. ”

5
 Gabriel Doyle
WRIT 319 #2

Envy Me

It was just a hallway. The entrance led to a small sitting area where we took our
meals. On the right was an office with two women making phone calls and entering
data. Just outside the “dining room” was a stretch of floor to ceiling cabinets stocked
with juice, snacks and medical supplies. Apart from the office and sitting area, the space
was a long windowless hallway. On one end were bathrooms. I can’t recall whether there
were showers or just a toilet and sink, but there were no locks on the doors and one
restroom was out of commission. The right side of the hallways, as far as I can
remember, didn't have any bedrooms for patients, just the lavatories and some more
supply closets. The other end housed a nurse’s office and ten bedrooms, each with a
number stenciled in black ink on the door frame. There were no windows, even in the
bedrooms. Each was about 8 by 6 feet with an exam table “bed” covered in a thin blue
blanket. The lighting was a strip of heavy-duty fluorescents stretching from the back of
the room to the doorway where the wall met the ceiling. Everything was blindingly
bright, from the fluorescent lights to the white walls.
Each room had a half-door. They weren’t doors in the traditional sense but
partial foam barriers dividing each room from the hallway. Each partition had three feet
of clearance from the door frame and the floor. The bedroom doors, like the bathrooms,
had no locks. There was a small piece of velcro halfway up the foam partition that could
latch onto a bit of velcro on the door frame, but that was it. The lack of privacy was not
shocking, given the circumstances, but it made you wonder why they even bothered to
put up doors in the first place.
The doors had the only bit of decoration. The illustration on each barrier was
surreal if not funny. Each door had a beautiful vista on the front and back. Some
depicted lush valleys between snowy mountain tops, some sunny tropical beaches with
palm trees, while others showed peaceful meadows, flat and full of flowers. They were
the sort of images you’d find cycling through a flat screen in the lobby of a spa retreat or
Long Island nail salon, or on a postcard sent by a relative from a sunny vacation

6
destination in the dead of winter. The images themselves were pretty and broke up the
monotony of the pace, but amid the hospital scrubs and borderline lunatics, they were
hard to enjoy.
There was nothing to read, and your phone was taken upon arrival, so the only
way to pass the time, other than eating and sleeping, was the television placed in the
uppermost corner of the sitting area. Though there weren’t any projectiles on hand, the
TV was covered in a layer of shatterproof plexiglass and a plastic cage to prevent
tampering. For a 20-inch standard definition psych ward television, it had quite the
selection of channels. There was nothing high brow, but Judge Judy, ESPN, HGTV, all
your standard cable choices were there. I don’t recall and I didn’t ask whether any
particularly triggering or violent shows were blocked.
It was nice to focus on something besides the tile floors and beige stucco walls, to
stave off my One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest moment. Like Randle, I felt I was out of
place in the ward, and worried that the longer I stayed there, the more I would belong.
The food wasn’t great, but one of the other patients, Eddie, said it was better than prison
fare. (Eddie and I were both vegetarians.) Apart from us, there were 3 other patients.
When I arrived, one patient was being restrained by the nurses and orderlies. He was
writhing about and saying that he wanted to die, but come dinner time he was sleeping
soundly, either from exhaustion or sedation. A nurse sat in a plastic chair outside his
room keeping watch. They did the same thing with me when I arrived in the ER. When I
asked why the nurse had to sit outside my room and stare at me, they said it was to keep
me safe.
There was a young girl who never left her room in the corner of the hallway. She
had her own TV and someone, who didn’t look like a hospital employee, sat in a chair
bedside. The second girl and last occupant of the ward seemed the most detached. She
walked up and down the hallway, bobbing her head to and fro while she spoke or
hummed a song I couldn’t make out. Whether this was a particularly bad day for her or
par for the course was beyond me. She ate dinner with Eddie and me, but she wasn’t
much for conversation. While Eddie and I chatted, and he took the parts of my meal I
didn’t want, she ate in silence, then resumed her song and dance.
---

7
 I was awakened by loud pounding on my door. At 5:30am, it was way too early
for guests. The knocking persisted. It took me a moment to get my bearings. I peeked
out the floor to ceiling windows then opened the front door. There was a Dutchess
County sheriff standing in the entryway. A double door led from the front porch of the
two-story apartment building to the “foyer.” Another door connected the foyer to my
two-bedroom apartment. The man, large and white, had a crew cut and a bulletproof
vest. He stood a few feet back from the threshold, in front of the stairway to the second
floor and halfway between my neighbor Suzie's apartment and my own. The noise
ordinance in Tivoli meant the county sheriffs or Red Hook cops (Tivoli lacked its own
police force) would arrive any time there was too much noise or revelry, but this was
5:30am, and in my sleep-deprived state, I couldn’t make heads or tails of why the officer
who busted last night’s function was standing at my door.
Both men were pleasant, though the subject was not. They introduced themselves
and asked how I was doing, if anyone else was home and what I planned to do for the
day. One officer arrived at first, another came 20 minutes later. The night before this
rude awakening, at about one in the morning, I watched a short documentary about
Florida’s Brady bill. I found this coincidence hilarious, but the officers weren’t as
amused. The Brady bill allows the involuntary seizure of minors for a 72-hour hold at a
psychiatric ward if they are deemed a danger/threat to themselves or others.
After the documentary and before I fell asleep, I reached out to the suicide
hotlines that my therapist had recommended a couple of days earlier as my temperment
and state of mind took a turn for the worse. Larry had given me a slew of resources for
mental health and suicide prevention. I made use of just two. First I messaged the
Family of Woodstock hotline until it ended at 2am. Then I switched to the far more
clinical and action-oriented Dutchess County hotline. I messaged them until I fell
asleep. Given the nature of the conversation, my sudden silence alarmed the counselor I
was talking to. Since I didn’t have a Hudson Valley area code, their efforts to track me
down were long and arduous. While I slept soundly in my Tivoli apartment, they began
a four-hour-long hunt for my whereabouts, to save me from myself. The hotline traced
my phone to eastern Massachusetts and contacted the police department in my
hometown.
Those cops in turn called and visited my parents home in Brookline, Mass., to

8
explain the situation. My parents gave them my Tivoli address and, with that in hand,
the Dutchess County sheriffs arrived at my front door at around 5:30 Friday morning.
The sheriff asked permission to enter my apartment. I declined, so we spoke in
my foyer. The conversation dragged on for an hour and a half. I checked my phone to let
my parents know what was going on and that I was alive and well. I even took a selfie
with my new friends in uniform. From time to time, the two sheriffs (I always thought
that there could only be one sheriff in any given town, let alone county) stepped out of
the entryway to discuss the situation at hand. Just after 7am they decided to take me to
the hospital in Poughkeepsie, NY, for further evaluation. I had the choice of waiting for
an ambulance or riding in the police cruiser. I opted for the cop car, and the sheriff even
let me ride sans handcuffs.
Eddie was the only patient I talked to, and the only one I got to know. My stay at
the hospital was 13 hours, rather than the normal 72 hour observational hold. I arrived
at 8 in the morning and left before 9 pm. Still, my stay felt neverending. Initially, Eddie
scared the shit out of me, but as time dragged on he became a source of comfort, a
distraction even from so much nothing, the nothing that dominated the hallway. Eddie
was an imposing if not frightening fellow. He was 6’2” if not 6’3”, large, muscular and
heavily tatted from his hands to his face. He had the words “Envy Me” above his left
eyebrow in blue and orange ink. His patient scrubs were ill fitting. They were so tight he
looked more like a psych ward-themed porno actor than a patient.

I avoided him at first. In truth, I nearly cried when I saw him. Between Eddie, the girl
who paced and sang, and the suicidal man in restraints, I thought I might lose my
marbles.
One of the nurses who let me use the landline as much as I liked, said if I didn’t
get a grip and calm down, they’d just keep me longer. I felt a certain kinship to Randle in
moments like these. I wasn’t crazy, or in my case as depressed and suicidal as they
thought I was, but rather than cure my depression or keep me off the ledge, being there
only made me more and more nutty the longer I stayed. I didn’t think I was at risk of a
lobotomy or being smothered with a pillow, but I wasn’t terribly keen on staying any
longer than I had to.

9
 Eddie and I officially met at lunch time, which we all took in the sitting area. I
had my breakfast in the general ER while one of the nurses sat watch outside my room
and kept an eye on the other suicidal patient to make sure we didn’t do anything rash. I
had a bagel, yogurt and a fruit cup for breakfast after they brought me a ham sandwich
and I told them I didn’t eat meat. The cop who brought me to Poughkeepsie spent the
first 30 minutes or so “checking me in” or giving background info on how I arrived there
to the front desk. Three nurses crowded around him like he was weaving a fascinating
yarn. I was too far away to hear a word he said, and he left without saying goodbye. The
insurance intake person chuckled whenever I called the cop a piggy. His beard was
sharply cut off where his chin met his neck. He wore a dress shirt, slacks and a tie rather
than scrubs. I couldn’t help but perseverate over the bakery, whether or not I’d make it
back in time to get a bialy and a saskia. When I first arrived, I didn’t think I could
possibly be there more than an hour or 2. The cops had woken me up before 6, so if I
hadn’t gone to Poughkeepsie, I would have had plenty of time to make it to the bakery
before everything sold out. Even taking into account the journey to Poughkeepsie, if I
could get back to Tivoli by 10 I should still be able to get my daily bread from Brother
Michael.
The meals were bad. My vegetarian offering was a riff on Thanksgiving dinner.
There was mashed potatoes, a meat-substitute, mushy roasted vegetables and a
blueberry cobbler for dessert. Eddie complained to the nurses. He wasn’t upset by the
quality, he told me that prison food was much much worse, but the quantity was
disappointing. He was a big man with a big appetite, and he lobbied for more food,
saying he was larger than the other patients and needed more calories. The nurses were
not convinced. He and everyone else got the same meals, apart from dietary restrictions,
so the same total calories each day.
Eddie was intent on knowing why I was at the psych ward, he asked me 3 or 4
times “what are you in for” before I gave him a fuller reply than “some shit.” Only after
we spent a few hours together in the dining/sitting/tv room did I feel like giving him a
full explanation of what brought me there.
When I first arrived in the psychiatric portion of the ER, I used the landline to
call my mom and freak out for 20 to 30 minutes. After that, Eddie needed to use the
landline. He had misplaced something in his home and whoever was on the other end of

10
the call was trying to find it under couch cushions or behind a stack of papers. We got to
know each other over a good game of college softball. I was rotating between Judge Judy
and HGTV when Eddie asked if we could watch something else. We settled on ESPN. My
cousin appeared on Judge Judy once and loved it so much that he tried to get on again,
and my family used to have a habit of watching House Hunters on HGTV, yet I wasn’t
particularly attached to either channel so a change in programming was more than okay.
Eddie and I were surprised that we had vegetarianism in common. Growing up,
he spent time in Tivoli, though he was born and raised in Poughkeepsie. He had family
in Tivoli so he would visit from time to time. Much of what is there now wasn’t when
Eddie was a kid. The bookstore, crystal shop, and yoga studio weren’t there, and the
craft ice cream place was a tattoo parlor. Broadway pizza was the only thing that
remained from his time in Tivoli to mine.
I explained to Eddie that watching sports was nostalgic for me. I was never
coordinated or competitive enough to be good at sports but I watched them with my
dad, everything from football to grand tour cycling. I told him that I liked the structure
of sports. I was interested in linguistics and theory and I saw the structure of grammar
of language in a host of different things, from chess to college softball.
Eddie listened intently while watching the game unfold. After a short silence he
replied that he just liked “watching females.” Eddie was something of a lothario if not a
horndog. Nothing we discussed was overtly sexual, but he made a pass at every nurse or
administrator in the psych ward. He was determined to know where in Poughkeepsie
one nurse in particular lived.
This wasn’t Eddie’s first time at the hospital and one of the nurses on duty was
working during his last visit. She told him that she lived in town not too far from Eddie’s
place, so when she passed through the hallway, Eddie made his move. He yelled after
her “Ay yo, what’s your address? Give me your phone number.” The nurse chuckled
while another chastised him for his advances. He assured me that she was into it.
Perhaps the most interesting thing about Eddie was his reason for being in the
hospital. Eddie was on parole. He didn’t say what for and I didn’t ask. He was fresh off a
PCP and Cocaine-fueled bender at a local casino and was due for a piss test in 3 days,
the following Monday. Eddie was in a tough spot. He decided to admit himself to the
psychiatric ward and elect for the 72-hour hold to solve his problem. Eddie claimed he

11
was hallucinating blue lasers and felt on the verge of a psychotic break. Eddie’s scheme,
as cockamamie as it may sound, wasn’t thoughtless. Most hard drugs only stay in your
bloodstream for a day or two, so a 72-hour stay at the hospital was more than enough
time for Eddie to get “clean “ before his parole-mandated drug test.
Eddie was a vocal advocate for my “release.” He seemed to think that I was in a
good place, had plenty going for me, and shouldn’t be kept any longer than I wanted to
stay. He communicated this to a nurse who was skeptical of just how ready I was to be
let go. The digitally in-house psychiatrist echoed this sentiment.
Most of my time at the hospital, both in the ER and the psych ward, was spent
waiting. I waited to have my blood drawn, pulse and blood pressure taken, to give a
urine sample, and I waited to be admitted to the psych ward. I waited to speak with the
social worker, to be evaluated by a nurse, and I waited a good while to speak with the
psychiatrist. To clarify, the hospital didn’t have its own psychiatrist or psych
department. The on staff shrink was in Westchester. It wasn’t clear to me if she ever was
physically in Poughkeepsie or just skyped in from time to time.
She was a small Polish woman with thick spectacles and a heavy accent. She
spoke very fast, and at times I could barely understand what she was saying. Our 2pm
meeting was pushed to 3, then 4, then 5, because the doctor, either a professor at med
school or a teaching hospital, had to finish giving a lecture before she could evaluate
me.
The evaluation itself was terrifying. The nurses explained to me that the
psychiatrist would determine whether I could be released or would be admitted for 72
hours observation. I was nervous in the leadup to the meeting and scared shitless during
it. A social worker, who was quite kind and had a lot more EQ than the doc,
accompanied me through the meeting, but the psych seemed unmoved by anything I
said. Much of the meeting she spent looking at notes or a pad of paper below her laptop
camera. Her poker face, whether intentional or not, was impenetrable to me. I had no
idea if these evaluations were a joy or a burden for her. Whether this day was
particularly bad, good or average was beyond me.
All things considered, the psych decided to admit me with one caveat. I could
either stay for 72 hours or a family member could pick me up and take me back to
Boston. The psych didn’t tell me the news herself. I was given the landline and told to

12
call my mother by one of the admins. She explained what the doctor decided. I didn’t
take the news terribly well. I didn’t scream or cry, but the doc’s decision and the choice it
left me was a worst-case scenario. It did not occur to me, when I arrived at the hospital,
that I would stay for more than a couple hours let alone three days. I was worried that I
would lose my job or that a longer stay would further deteriorate my already fragile
mental state.
My mom decided to come pick me up, and one nurse told me that I didn’t
necessarily have to go home. I just needed a family member to come in order to be
released. Eddie once again advocated for my readiness, my state of mind. He told the
nurses that I was smart and capable and that I was better off outside the hospital than in
it. I had dinner, took a nap, watched some more softball with Eddie and by 9pm my
mother arrived. My mom and Eddie met. She cried when she saw me in the hallway.
Eddie assured my mother that he knew he looked a little scary at first glance. We filled
out the release paperwork, left the hospital and went to find the car in the parking lot.
It was just our luck that it was commencement weekend for Vassar, Marist, and
Bard. Finding a hotel room was easier said than done. My mom remarked that I picked
the best weekend to get committed in the Hudson Valley. I told her I was thinking about
doing it the week before but something had come up.
I didn’t have a spare bed in my Tivoli apartment and my mother wasn’t keen on
staying at my messy college digs, so we made a reservation at the Howard Johnson Inn
across the river in Saugerties. We had dinner at a Thai place down the road from Vassar
in Arlington, NY. My mother hadn’t eaten since noon and the psych ward offerings left a
lot to be desired. We shared massaman curry with tofu and vegetarian egg rolls. The
neighboring table was a Vassar grad and his family going over the weekend festivities
and their plans for commencement. Our respective conversations struck different tones.
I paid the bill out of some guilt and my newfound windfall from work. We left the
restaurant and made our way to HoJo’s.

13
 Gabriel Doyle
WRIT 319 #3

an Article; an Outrage

Susan woke up at 6 am in her second-floor master bedroom in her two-story,

single family home in Brookline, Massachusetts. Her house is two streets over from
where Coolidge Corner transitions to Washington Square, and the Devotion school
district becomes Driscoll. She set an alarm for 6:30 am, but morning panic usually woke
her up a few minutes before her alarm clock.
Today, pings from her cell phone roused her. Her Wine Wednesday group chat
had 30 unread messages, a frenetic pace for this early on a weekday, or anyday. She
opened the chat and read through the messages. Her friends, fellow Brookline moms
and coworkers, were up in arms about a Slate article that had been published that
morning less than an hour before Susan woke up. The piece was about Brookline and its
handling of the COVID crisis with respect to the debate over reopening the public
schools.
The girls were not pleased with the article’s portrayal of their beloved town.
Helen was particularly furious. She had just messaged the group, “I don’t mean to sound
like the Mango Mussolini, but this Slate writeup is totally fake news. Brookline is the
best place on earth and the ‘journalist’ who wrote this is clearly just jealous that she
doesn’t get to live here.” The rest of the Wine Wednesday girls agreed enthusiastically.
Karen noted that the only reason they were trashing Brookline is because that false
narrative sells. She ended her message with “they are making reality television in print
out of our precious town. If it bleeds it leads indeed!” The messages were coming in
faster than Susan could read and make sense of them. The chat was popping off, as the
kids say. As soon as she had finished the first 30 some odd messages there were 15 new
ones she hadn’t read.
Norma had been silent up until that point, but as the girls turned their attention
from the article’s despicable content to its atrocious graphic design, she chimed in.
“Ladies, have any of you been on BPSDP on FB yet?” Radio silence. Norma had quite the
affinity for acronyms, both creating and employing them without much explanation or

14
context. Susan and the rest of the team had no idea what she was talking about. Karen
once again played the role of mediator and asked, “Norma, can’t speak for everyone else
but I’m not familiar with that acronym. What in the name of Barbara Streisand is
BPSDP on FB?” Norma sent a crying laughing emoji and then explained her cryptic
message. “OMG LMAO! Sorry girls, that’s Brookline Public Schools Discussion Page on
Facebook. It is going absolutely bonkers right now, and the article has only been out for
an hour! If you ask me, the only thing worse than the article itself is the way people are
responding to it on BPSD, oops, I mean the schools discussion page. Steve and Caroline
are at each other's throats already. Nelson hasn’t even commented, but he has angry
reacted to every other comment, so you know it is only going downhill from here on
out.” Economy of language was never Norma’s strong suit, but she wasn’t one to fib,
especially when it came to the Brookline Public Schools Discussion page. The girls were
regular commenters on the page, institutions even. They felt it was their duty to speak
out as residents and Brookline moms, and they didn’t mind reading through the often
juicy arguments that erupted on the page. Helen had even volunteered to be a mod for
the page when one longtime moderator stepped down, but the current admins told her
she was a little too fiery and opinionated to play the role of peacemaker.
Susan was engrossed. If it weren’t for the group chat’s early morning fervor, she
would have checked Facebook and Tikok first thing after waking up and made her way
to the Public School’s discussion page soon after that. She was more than excited to see
what was going on there while she was busy talking to the girls.
The article had been shared a mere 10 minutes after it was posted on the Slate
magazine website. Brookline residents as a rule got up early and were eerily attentive to
any Brookline-related content on social media.
The post itself had 45 likes, two sad reacts, a sole haha, 25 angrys and one curious
love react. There were already 65 comments, and more appeared each time the page was
refreshed. The first comment lamented the state of Brookline, as the article portrayed it.
“I am sad to see our lovely town tearing itself apart. We need to do some real soul
searching.” Fourteen people liked this heartfelt expression. One reply suggested that
Brookline wasn’t actually tearing itself apart, that the author was trying to snag her 15
minutes of fame by trashing Brookline and that the town was less tearing itself apart as

15
much as the union was using the pandemic as a staging ground for new teacher’s union
strategies and tactics. This received one like and one sad react.
Susan scrolled through the ever-growing thread. If keeping up with her Wine
Wednesday group chat was a difficult task, reading the BPSDP comments as fast as they
appeared was a Herculean one. Another comment called on members of Brookline to
consider how they could have better handled the pandemic and the school opening
question and listed off some wishes the poster had for what teachers, parents, and
administrators alike could have done better. A few local residents had a back and forth
on what they perceived to be the article’s pernicious tone. They tried to make sense of
the author’s animus toward their hometown.
A Brookline Public Schools’ nurse, parent, and resident noted her dissatisfaction
with the idea that Brookline parents disliked and disrespected Brookline teachers. This
received 12 likes. Another post decried the acrimony and avarice that had become a part
of Brookline’s reputation. A few residents disputed this, and a 50-comment debate
ensued as to whether teacher’s unions could have a positive impact on social/political
change or not. Brookline parents had some strong opinions on this.
After scouring the comments for a little over an hour, Susan found a particularly
enraging thought from Steve, a former banker and current resident of Brookline who
often came to digital blows with Susan and her group of gals. He had a way of getting
under your skin, but something about Susan and her opinions or the way she expressed
them really got Steve going. Steve in turn brought out a great deal of rage in Susan that
usually lay dormant. Steve opined that you couldn’t just throw money at a problem and
expect it to go away. That if you understand the laws of economics you’d see that we
can’t just print our own money and pay everyone whatever we or they want. Steve didn’t
believe that teachers were as underpaid as other commenters seemed to think. Susan
moved from her iPhone to her MacBook. She would need a full keyboard if she was
going to trade barbs with Steve on Facebook.
“The teachers are the heart and soul of this town Steve. Maybe you would
understand that if you had children in the public school system, but clearly you do not!
They are severely underpaid in my experience, and don’t even get me started on the
paraprofessionals. Their wages are borderline criminal!” Steve haha reacted to Susan’s
opening diatribe and responded with something even more polemical. “Silly Susan, if

16
you would consult the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary
Education database on payroll, you will see that the average salary for a Brookline
teacher is well over 100k, which is far more than most Boston and metro-area teachers
make. I wouldn’t call 100 stacks paltry, would you?”
Susan angry reacted to Steve’s comment. She knew Steve pushed her buttons, but
she wasn’t ready for this sort of aggression so early in the morning. “I don’t appreciate
your tone, Steve. *Angry emoji* Your statistics are clearly false or including
administrators who make far more than most teachers do. Some teachers who have been
working for decades and have multiple Master’s degrees or a PhD may make over 100k,
but most make closer to the base salary of 50k or so. Paraprofessionals, who do some of
the hardest and most mentally/physically taxing work in our schools, get paid closer to
25k annually. Anyone with half a brain can see that 100k is not an accurate mean for
Brookline teacher’s salaries. We understand that you have some disdain for public
school teachers, hence you sending your kids to BB&N, but there is no reason to lie
about the educators who spend well over 60 hours a week nurturing and supporting
OUR children.”
Steve didn’t reply for a little while. About an hour after Susan made the last
comment, her computer pinged. Steve had sent her a direct message on Facebook. “Hi
Susan. I know this isn’t the first time that we have gotten into it on FB, but I don’t
appreciate you calling me a liar in front of the entire town. I don’t think a thread on the
Brookline Public Schools Discussion page is the best place to settle this.” Susan was a
little taken aback. This was the first time Steve had messaged her directly. She had seen
him in passing at Whole Foods, but they had never interacted in person or outside of the
various Brookline Discussion Facebook pages. “What are you suggesting we do?” Susan
replied.
“Meet me at the Dean Park basketball courts at 8pm tonight. No guns or knives.
We will settle this like adults.” Susan took a moment to consider the offer. She typed out
a few responses before settling on one to send. “I’ll see you there *purple devil face
emoji*” Steve haha reacted to this message and exited the chat. Susan smiled and
searched her golf bag for a particularly weighty iron. She would finally have her
tête-à-tête​ with Steve.

17
 Gabriel Doyle
WRIT 319 #4
Jim’s Neurotic

“First I pick up all the crumbs from your zealous use of seasoning. Once every bit
is collected, I lift up the stovetop grates so they lean against the wall. Then I take the top
off each burner and set them to the side. Here you have to wipe down the burners, then
the stovetop itself. You can get industrial degreaser at Home Depot. It’s strong, but if
you dilute the stuff, it will work just fine. Spray a little bit, wipe it down, then wipe up
the remaining gunk with a wet paper towel. Then you reassemble the burners, give it all
one last dust and put the grates back down.” My father Jim, explained his nightly
routine of cleaning the stovetop. By cleaning, I mean wiping, spraying, scrubbing, dis-
and reassembling every burner and flat top component until the stove glistens like the
granite countertops on each side. Some people clean periodically or regularly because
they like a clean living space. They clean as often as their space gets noticeably dirty. My
father cleans every single nite at 11pm before he reads and goes to sleep, whether he
needs to or not. As a result, the stovetop sparkles each and every morning.
Jim would never describe himself as neurotic or OCD, and he takes exception to
anyone else labeling him so. Still, I can’t help but think his nightly stovetop ritual was
more about the satisfaction he gets from thoroughly cleaning the stove than some
practical desire to keep the kitchen clean. He is more fixated on the process than the
state it brings about. The stovetop cleaning is good for a laugh each night before bed, but
it is one of Jim’s more banal obsessions. He gets upset whenever anyone cooks, when
salt or red pepper flakes or oil spills over the pan onto the stove, or if an unattended pot
of water boils over and leaves a stain. It’s an easy habit to mock and no one gets hurt.
The same can’t be said for some of his other preoccupations.
My father’s latest fixation consists of a mystery dumper and a camouflaged
wildlife camera. Our home sits on the corner of a three-way intersection. Two streets
form an obtuse angle and a third cuts across that angle. It looks like an upside-down see
saw, where two legs jut up and away from a straight base. We live in the first house on
the right. The whole strip of sidewalk from our neighbors up on Gardner Road around to
the first house on University is our jurisdiction. It’s all our responsibility save for a strip

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of asphalt and grass that belongs not to one of our immediate neighbors but a house
further up the hill, on a road 300 feet up and parallel to our own called Winthrop. The
house is set behind another home in what used to be a massive wooded backyard but is
now a three unit luxury condominium construction. The 10-foot strip of land between
our neighbor’s (and state representative) home and our own, belongs to this condo on
Winthrop, and my father suspects that the resident of that condo has been dumping
items, trash, and detritus late at night and in the early morning for the past eighteen
months. This does not sit well with my father.
Since the dumping happens in the dead of night or the morning before sunrise,
we (Jim) only notice the trash the next day. The printer, keyboard, roller blades, lazy
susan, or rock em’ sock em’ robots are illuminated by the rising sun and my father’s
blazing fury at 9 or 10 am, 2 to 4 hours after the dumper places them there. The strip
may belong to our distant neighbor, and perhaps the dumper lives in the Winthrop
Street condominium, but in Jim’s eyes, the act is still improper, immoral, illegal even. It
is against civic rules and regulations. It is not how things ought to be carried out, and
James Nicholas Doyle is always a stickler for rules and regulations, except when he’s
not.
He reported the criminal acts to the Brookline Department of Public Works. I was
not present for his complaint so I don’t know if he did so by email or phone, and I don’t
know whether he was calm or enraged in reporting the misgiving. Either way, the report
did not bring change.
Jim figured if he could record the dumper in the act, figure out who was leaving
trash on the sidewalk, then he could confront and stop him once and for all. With this
goal in mind, he went to the one place where he could find the instruments to catch his
newfound enemy red-handed, Dick’s Sporting Goods. Jim is far from a gun nut. He has
never owned a rifle, and camo doesn’t flatter his physique. His only strong belief
concerning fashion is that cargo shorts look good on no one and should be illegal. Jim
bought a camouflaged wildlife/hunting/big game motion-activated camera to hang from
the side of our red brick home and get photographic evidence of the dumper in action.
Once Jim had made sense of the wild world of SD cards and acquired the proper
one for his big game camera, his operation was ready to begin. He affixed the device to
the side of our home closest to the dumping ground. He rigged when and how fast it

19
would photograph the perpetrator. Now all he had to do was wait. Jim checked the
results each night at 9pm, a few hours before he would clean the stove and go to sleep.
For the first few days, he had no luck, but on the fourth day there was debris in the
tell-tale spot and new pictures on the SD card. Unfortunately, the pictures were of the
back of the man’s head. There was nothing to identify the dumper and nothing to aid
Jim in his fight for justice.
So he changed his approach. Jim explained the situation to our neighbor up on
University Road, whose patio had a perfect view of the dumping area and the would-be
dumper’s face if he continued to approach and depart in the same manner. He affixed
the camera to a new position, hanging from our neighbors porch and waited for a
change in results.
Long before Jim debated angles and placements for his hunting camera, long
before he even decided to buy the camera, he would peer through the gap between the
two blinds in the living room window that overlooked the dumping ground. Ever since
the dumping began, Jim was attuned to it happening. He didn’t know who was doing it
or when it would happen; he wasn’t prescient, but he was certainly attentive. Three
times a day, once in the morning, afternoon, and evening, like taking his meals, he
would peek and see what if anything was dumped on the devil’s strip. As the offense
became more regular and the size and number of things left behind grew, Jim’s curiosity
turned to anger and obsession.
Three days after moving the camera, The dumper did what he does best, and left
a pile of debris and old kitchen appliances on the sidewalk. Jim was thrilled. When he
saw the waste, he took down the camera and loaded up the SD card reader. The pictures
were as clear as they were gonna get. He didn’t know who this man was but he had proof
of who was leaving trash out front of his domicile and doing so with reckless abandon.
Jim emailed the pictures to all of our neighbors, every resident in every house
and apartment on every side of our home. He sent the pictures to the Department of
Public Works, the fire department and the town police. The Brookline police
commended him on his dedication and ingenuity, and expressed their surprise that he
was able to catch someone illegally dumping in the act. Nevertheless, they didn’t have
any Bourne Identity-esque facial recognition software, and without a license plate or

20
some identifying features, they couldn’t figure out who this man was and where to find
him. They couldn’t help him.
Jim was disappointed by this development but not deterred. If his photos weren’t
proof enough for the local authorities to apprehend the dumper, then he would just have
to catch him himself.
Jim came back from his shopping spree at Bass Pro Shops on a Saturday at noon.
I was likely asleep, Max would be at the park walking his dog and Lisa, on her lengthy
weekend walk. No one would be home to see his haul and he would have just enough
time to set up and cover each snare with sticks and wet leaves. It took a little over an
hour to set up all 6 metal bear traps and cover them from sight. Jim finished the task
just as Max finished his run.
At 5am the next day, we heard metal clang, a loud crunch and someone scream
out in pain. The vandal was caught.

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