Beautiful Lies by Lisa Unger Page A

you belong. And today I did belong. I was looking for Ace.
    On Avenue D and Fifth Street, I came to the building where he’d told me he’d been squatting the last time I saw him. It looked better than most buildings. After World War II, there’d been a rush to put up as much housing as possible in the East Village for the boys returning home. The result was a great deal of shoddy construction, and now many buildings, like my own, were sagging in the middle, facades crumbling, pieces falling onto the sidewalks below. This one looked pretty solid, heavy white stairs leading to an entryway flanked by Doric columns. A black man the size of a refrigerator sat sentry by the door, his tremendous girth completely enveloping the chair beneath him, making it look as though he were levitating. He wore a New York Rangers jersey and a red baseball cap turned backward. His carefully faded denims were clean and pressed. His sneakers were a riot of color and wound up his ankle; he tapped his foot to an invisible beat. I stood at the bottom of the stairs and looked up at him. His eyes were already on me. I could see him sizing me up. Was I five-oh? He gave me a nod and his three black chins knocked against one another lazily, his eyes yellow and flat, revealing nothing.
    There was a time when I would have judged this man, this gatekeeper to the hell behind him, in his pockets or hidden somewhere near him the stash of crack cocaine or heroin or whatever it was he was selling. I would have felt the hate rise in my throat like bile. But the relationship between the addicted and the dealer was so complicated, so delicate. Who was worse, the people who wanted or the people who supplied? What about the rest of it? The poor parenting, bad socialization, racism, poverty that created the pain that created the junkies and their dealers. Even I had my place in the chain as the enabler; in giving Ace money, didn’t I have some part in this? See what I mean? I
did
belong here.
    “Whatchu want, girl?” he said, not unkindly. His eyes had narrowed and a smile that was more a reluctant turning up of the corners of his mouth puckered the flesh of his face.
    “I’m looking for my brother. Ace.” My voice sounded foolish, naive even to my own ears.
    He gave a little chuckle and his whole body shook. “If he’s in there, he ain’t your brother no more.”
    There was a wisdom in that statement that surprised and hurt me. I felt my face flush at the truth of it. I walked up the stairs and his expression registered a mildly amused surprise, as if he’d expected me to turn away. I looked at him when I reached the top and he shrugged, apathy slackening all the features on his face.
    This was not the first time I’d ventured into a building like this looking for my brother; once in a fit of worry I’d taken the train to Spanish Harlem. The streets seem harder above Ninety-sixth Street, the anger and the desperation crowd the sidewalks, dangle like legs from fire escapes. People are out, driving loud cars, hanging out windows, yelling. The danger is like the humidity in the air before a storm, no doubt that the sky will erupt, only a wondering of when and how and who will be left standing. The air in the East Village here seemed less electric, the violence lazier, slower to ignite. Still I felt a flutter of fear as I stepped from the light into the dark vestibule. The air around me turned stale but alive with the odors of human waste, too many bodies in a poorly ventilated area, and a ubiquitous smell of something burning, something chemical and poisonous. In the walls I heard murmurs, low groans, somewhere the sound of a radio or television, the cadence of a measured and professional voice delivering information. I made my way into the semidarkness and headed toward a staircase.
    As children, we’d shared a bedroom wall so thin, I could hear Ace turn or sigh in his sleep. Our bedrooms had once been a much larger room in the old house, and as part of the