The Sunshine Crust Baking Factory. Stacy Wakefield
third night, Lorenzo showed up after midnight. He whispered, “C’mon,” and I jumped out of my sleeping bag and laced up my boots.
* * *
Delancey Street was just one block south of ABC No Rio. And there it was: the Williamsburg Bridge. I’d never thought about where it went. Squatters never left the Lower East Side, never took the subway. Everyone bragged about how many years it had been since they’d gone above 14th Street. The bridge rose huge and monstrous with a wide iron staircase right in the middle, traffic sweeping around on both sides.
We climbed up the stairs and the walkway twisted and turned and got really narrow. I was hyper-alert but Lorenzo seemed relaxed, humming a bass line under his breath. He wasn’t a big guy, he was just a little taller than me, compact and scrappy, with black dreadlocks that grew forward over his face. Above the river the walkway widened.
“What’s that one?” Lorenzo pointed up the East River.
“Queensboro Bridge.”
We were up high enough now to see past the projects and tenements on the East River to the lights of Midtown. The Empire State Building was lit red, white, and blue for the Fourth of July. I bit my tongue to keep from pointing it out, afraid I’d sound like a tour guide. I was so relieved Lorenzo was back, I had to watch it or I’d gush.
Across the water, the Domino Sugar factory smoldered on the river, smelling like burnt toast. The rest of Williamsburg was in shadow. Low buildings, dark. We climbed down rickety caged stairs under a dripping highway overpass and now we were in Brooklyn, with none of the fanfare of the Manhattan side. Donny had said Williamsburg had once been a thriving industrial area but now most of the factories facing the bridge were boarded up and derelict.
Lorenzo walked back toward the water, staying close to the bridge. A mangy dog with no collar passed, head low, eyes tilted up suspiciously.
We turned north on a street near the water and found ourselves drawn to a narrow brick building. It rose out of an overgrown lot like a weed, on a little street that sloped down to the Domino factory. The windows on the first floor were bricked over and upstairs they were covered in plywood. It was very exposed and alone in its little yard, but its small scale was appealing.
When we got closer we could see the spray-painted square above the front door, with one line across it. Donny said a square with an X meant the fire department had cut holes in the roof to ventilate in case of fire. A square with no X meant they hadn’t cut it open yet—that was the symbol to look for. But one line? What did that mean?
We climbed a weedy cement stoop to the front door. It was padlocked from the outside but the wood was so old Lorenzo was able to slip his Leatherman under the screws and pry the whole thing off the frame while I watched for cars. There was no one around.
Lorenzo pushed inside and then stood holding onto the doorframe with his sinewy arm. I looked over his shoulder. My tiny Maglite illuminated the threshold and then, past that, no floor at all. We were standing above a black pit of rubble. A little streetlight filtered down through the loose boards over the windows and our eyes slowly adjusted. Above us, what must have once been three stories had collapsed into the basement.
“It’s like being inside a chimney.” My whisper echoed through the tall space.
* * *
We explored the neighborhood until dawn, and then the next night, and the next. There were blocks tight with shabby vinyl-sided row houses, bicycles and cats outside. Low concrete warehouses with metal roll gates that were probably in use during the day. There were plenty of boarded-up buildings, but they were all too huge, too well-sealed, too close to inhabited buildings.
I kept notes of addresses to watch in my sketchbook. I wasn’t sure we were getting anywhere but I liked hanging out with Lorenzo. I felt cool just walking next to him. We fit together so well, we walked at the same pace, and we had so much in common. We’d both given up trying to be vegan, we both thought the Ramones were overrated and secretly loved Guns N’ Roses, we both had Infest and Born Against patches on our backpacks. The difference was, Lorenzo actually knew those guys. He’d met and played with all my favorite bands, he’d stayed at their houses and borrowed their gear. And now he was here with me.
We kept going back to the building we called the Chimney to check on our matchstick, and it hadn’t budged. One night while we stood outside, Lorenzo gave me a sly look, his dark eyes shadowed by long lashes. He said we should spend the night inside. I was game. Really, when he looked at me like that, I was game for anything.
I held my flashlight in the doorway while Lorenzo got the door open. We let our eyes adjust standing on the edge of the stoop by the door, then he maneuvered around the rubble pit to the bigger ledge in back, nimble as a rock climber.
I held tight to the wall, finding footholds in the brick. It reminded me of the abandoned railroad bridge where the kids from my high school hung out drinking beer. I was the one who couldn’t wait to climb to the top first. Which made the boys mad because then they had to climb as high as me. It was easier for them, they didn’t have boobs getting in the way. From the platform near the ground, the girls would cry at us not to go too high, missing all the fun. This ledge might not be high up but it was narrow and I was slow and awkward. I’m not big because I’m a lazy slob, like everyone thinks fat people are. It’s just how I’m built, there’s nothing I can do about it.
Lorenzo held out his hand from the platform in back and I took it even though I didn’t need help. His grip was warm and tight and made my head feel like it was going to explode. Luckily it was too dark for him to see me blush. A scurrying sound in the pit made us flinch. Lorenzo let go of my hand and sat against the wall. The platform was like a deck over a lake. He pulled his knees up to his chin so skin was visible through the holes in his Carhartts.
“We get boards, we can stretch them across,” he said, pointing, “put in a new floor.”
I eased down next to him. It smelled foul. Where would we get boards that long, and how would we get them into the building unseen? How much would they cost? I wondered if the squat Donny had told us about was close by. They must have had to do these things too. I wished we could ask them how.
I pulled the sketchbook out of my backpack, stretched out with the big flashlight next to me, and drew a floor plan of the space, so we could organize materials later. I marked where the windows were and the front door. The scurrying came and went. The night was hot, the air in the building thick and stagnant, but I pulled my hoodie around me to cover my skin. I shut my eyes for a moment.
A sound startled me, shrieking from the pit. I jerked up, my back stiff.
“What happened?” Lorenzo growled, all groggy. He’d dozed off.
“My pencil,” I said. It had rolled into the pit. I didn’t want to fall asleep again. Next it would be me rolling in there.
* * *
We left to get some air, plodding through the neighborhood, all sweaty, not talking. I tied my hoodie around my waist and sipped from my water bottle, wishing I had gum to kill the dead taste in my mouth. We crossed a highway overpass above the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. Thin, late-night traffic flowed below us, a few trucks. On the other side Lorenzo flicked my arm and stopped short. I froze. He was looking at a man framed in a circle of lamplight a block away.
We eased back, staying behind a short fence around a little playground. The man was wearing a sweatshirt with the hood up despite the heat. He had a flashlight gripped in his teeth and he was crouched at the lamppost with tools.
From around a corner a dog appeared. She paused, paw up, alert. The man was intent on what he was doing, he didn’t see the dog or us. The dog walked toward him, head down. From the corner two more dogs appeared behind her, then another, even more starved and skinny, with a limp. They approached the man with surprising speed.
Lorenzo moved in a flash. The man looked up and saw him and fell back from his crouch, catching himself hard on one wrist. The flashlight hit the pavement. The dog was on the man already, jaws aimed at his hand on the ground. Lorenzo’s boot connected