THE HOARDER
Noir was a satiating place to be sad, Olga thought as she sidled up to the bar and ordered her usual. Filled with regulars who seemed to have nowhere to be and no one who cared if they made it there, it lacked the sense of possibility that the newer spots in her rapidly gentrifying corner of Brooklyn conveyed. There were no reclaimed woods or cleverly reimagined industrial lamps with Edison bulbs lighting the place. Noir was more like a well-insulated garage, illuminated by mismatched lamps and filled with old kitchen stools, in a completely unironic way. The air-conditioning was weak, so on warm days like this one, you were never quite hot, but never quite cool, either. Its major draw, for Olga anyway, was its jukebox, filled with old funk and R & B from the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s. She paid for some songs she thought Jan might like and Syreeta’s “Keep Him Like He Is” filled the small bar. When she made her way back to her seat, she felt a hovering presence behind her.
“Can I help you?” she turned to say.
Before her was a swarthy, unfamiliar fellow. A sad sack who, though she had never seen him before, had escaped her attention because he blended in so well with the other pouty faces.
“Hey, so … You know, I was just finishing up a meeting and I stopped in here and then you went and played one of my favorite songs. Did you know she was once married to Stevie Wonder?”
“Everyone knows that.”
“Do they?” He tapped a woman named Janette on the shoulder. Janette, who practically lived at Noir, particularly in these summer months when she was on break from her job as a public school administrator. “Excuse me, ma’am, but do you know who this artist is?”
“Yeah. It’s Syreeta Wright. She’s one of Stevie Wonder’s ex-wives.”
Olga didn’t know what to do. On the one hand, she was amused that this musically smug stranger had been so efficiently smacked down. On the other, she knew that once anyone said anything more than hello to Janette, they were in danger of having to listen to her oratory on the problems of the Department of Education for the next four hours. A speech that, no matter the variation on the details or grievances, always ended with Janette proclaiming, yet again, “The shit of the whole thing is we traded a corrupt democracy for an inept autocracy,” delighted by her clever rhyming.
She picked her battle; before Janette could open her mouth again, she jumped in.
“See, common knowledge. Anyway, I appreciate your truly excellent taste in music, but I came in here to clear my head and have a drink, so if you don’t mind…” And she turned away.
“Well, seems more like you want to cloud your mind.”
“Excuse me?”
“Just that drinking isn’t what anyone does for real clarity, is it?”
“Isn’t it?” Olga answered. “I think there are about a million writers and artists who would beg to differ.”
“Are you a writer or an artist?”
“I’m a wedding planner.”
“I’m a Realtor.”
“I didn’t ask.”
Yet something about that descriptor made her give the stranger another look. He was disheveled. His button-down shirt wrinkled, a rolled-up tie spilling out of his pocket. He carried under his arm an oversized ledger notebook with dog-eared pages and Post-its and business cards sticking out of the ends. He was wearing a massive JanSport book bag, stuffed like that of an overachieving eighth grader from an era before laptop computers.
“Wait, you’re a Realtor?”
“Yeah. You looking for a place? Interested in exploring life in New Brooklyn?”
She was insulted. “Psssh. Fuck outta here! I bleed Old Brooklyn, thank you very much. My family’s been in Sunset Park since the sixties. One of the first Puerto Rican families in the ’hood and we owned our house.”
Now the stranger appraised her. “Really, now? Impressive given the redlining going on back in the day.”
“My grandmother was gangster. Never involved a bank. Bought our house from her landlord, cash. He sold it to her for a song when the area got too Brown for his taste.”
“Is that right? Well congratulations to your abuela for taking advantage of white flight.”
Olga couldn’t help but laugh. “？Salud!” She raised her glass and drank the last of the wine in it.
“I’m from South Slope,” the stranger offered. “In case you were wondering.”
She hadn’t been, but now paused. “Really? Born and raised?”