Kitty Genovese: A True Account of a Public Murder and Its Private Consequences by Catherine Pelonero

too.
    The beer, for one thing—he’d been drinking quite a lot of it these past couple of months. The refrigerator was crammed so full of it there was barely room for food. Often in the evenings, from the time he returned from his father’s shop at around 9:00 p.m. until Bettye left for work, Winston would sit, drinking beer, thinking. About what, he never told her. “Just thinking,” he’d answer flatly. It seemed he always had a beer in his hand these days, drinking and brooding in his waking hours.
    It wasn’t that he was getting drunk; on the contrary, his bearing never seemed to change. If Bettye hadn’t seen him drinking beer or had not seen the quantities of it he stocked in their refrigerator, she may never have known that he had had any alcohol. What bothered Bettye was the change. Why all of a sudden, over the past three months, had her husband begun drinking so much beer? And drinking alone—that was never a good sign.
    Then there were the changes in his personal habits. Winston had always been a man who prized cleanliness. He kept himself well groomed and their home immaculately clean. He had been even more particular than Bettye about keeping the house absolutely spotless, frequently washing walls, organizing cabinets, insisting that things be kept in order. He was never critical of Bettye’s housekeeping, but he took it upon himself to do a good deal of cleaning, just to make extra sure that things were as tidy as could be. Unusual for a man, especially one who already worked two jobs, but this was the way Winston had always wanted it. His fastidiousness in the way he kept their home was perhaps a rebuke to the emotional messiness of his parents’ lives. But lately he hadn’t shown any concern for either his own appearance or for the housework. He seemed to care less and less about either. He didn’t even go to the barber anymore. When Bettye suggested he get a haircut, he asked her to cut his hair. He had never done that before, so particular was he about his hair. In the past two weeks Bettye had even had to remind him to take a bath. A dramatic change for a man who had previously been well groomed to a fault.
    Bettye asked him what was wrong. Nothing, he’d tell her, when he answered at all. But of course she knew there must be some problem. Even Fannie, normally so consumed with her own affairs, had noticed something amiss with her son, but he wouldn’t tell her anything either. Bettye asked Alphonso if he knew what was bothering Winston, but he had no idea.
    Bettye Moseley had gone so far as to speak with a doctor about these recent odd behaviors in her husband and had then spoken to Winston, expressing her concern for him, suggesting he go and get checked by a physician. To this, Winston replied that there were a lot of people sicker than him on the outside.
    What did that mean?
    He would not elaborate, he would not tell her what occupied his mind, and he would not see a doctor. So Bettye Moseley was left staring helplessly at the silent, impenetrable shell her husband had become, dutifully cleaning up the beer cans he left all over the once spotless house, and hoping that whatever was wrong would become right again.
    There was little Bettye could do. Winston still went to work every day, both Raygram and his father’s shop; still behaved gently (if somewhat absently) with the children; still paid the bills, ate, drank, and slept. Technically he still functioned. But it was more like living with a docile zombie than a human being. Bettye could not figure out why these changes had come over her husband. While things between her in-laws were never good, they were at least at a low ebb, certainly better than the horrible time last summer, when everything seemed to be spiraling madly out of control.
    Perhaps if Fannie and Al could forge some sort of lasting truce, they could all finally have some peace. Maybe if Fannie would move back to Pittsburgh, where she had lived during Winston’s teen