Connections Read Online Free Page A

overlooking the Hudson. By the time they moved to Long Island “to give the children a better place to grow up,” changes had already taken place. Then they had grass and trees and beaches and parks, and his three older sisters considered the suburbs their realm. In the Jewish American Ruderman castle, there were only princesses. But Jason had felt deprived, because he longed for the noise, the traffic, the broken sidewalks, the blinking traffic lights, the commotion of the city.
    When he was old enough, the great thrill on a Saturday night, while his sisters were dancing at a country club or a party, was to go downtown. To watch the couples strolling on Broadway, all dressed up, on their way to a theater or restaurant. To join them, pretending he was going somewhere too. When it got late, he’d go into one of the arcades or suck the foam off a beer at the all-night Grant’s on 42 nd Street, electrified with excitement. Or take the subway down to the Village, pocket his tie, open his collar, and mingle with the Bohemians—later, the hippies—terrified someone would recognize him and tell his father. It was different then, a time when it was safe to walk the streets and ride the trains.
    When his sisters married and moved to better suburbs, his parents bought a small place in Florida, a novel thing to do at the time. It was only natural for him to move to the city where his roots were planted when he got out of college. In those days, the only place to live was the East Side. The glorious old buildings on the West Side were falling apart, bulging with the poor, the rent-controlled, and the Puerto Ricans swarming into New York. The plaster fell, the gilt trim peeled, the walls cracked, the bathtubs still stood on clawed feet, sometimes in the kitchen, and upper-middle-class people didn’t want to live with the cockroaches—or with the Spanish.
    So like everyone else, Jason looked for an apartment in the other direction. Although he was lucky to find something in a pre-war on 52 nd Street off Second Avenue, in all the years he would end up living there, he never really thought of it as home. Turtle Bay was only a geographic area to him, never a neighborhood. Surrounded by commercial buildings and people who came there at nine to go to a job and left at five, he considered them all transients. Then he moved north to the 80s, which felt more like a community.
    Jason had managed a photo shop on 39 th Street for eighteen years. When the lease was up for renewal and the rent practically tripled, the owner decided to pack it in and retire, leaving Jason in a panic. It was Chris who convinced him to use his savings to open his own place. It was Chris who decided that Columbus or Broadway would be perfect and went with him to check out locations. And actually found an old camera store for sale. It was Chris who figured out that he’d have enough money to carry the store for seven months without taking in a cent.
    Of course, it helped to know that if worse came to worst, Chris could at least pay the rent. Just in case the business didn’t work. But it did work, had been working, for two and a half years. He would never get rich, but the store was certainly providing enough of an income for him to be comfortable. And even he realized that no matter how much money he would ever have, he’d never be secure. That was Jason Ruderman’s nature.
    Chris was an editor but also did a lot of writing at home. After he moved in, they were cramped, with his desk set up in the corner area of the living room, where the clacking of the keyboard interfered with the television sound, and the television sound interfered with the clacking. When they decided to get a bigger place—after all, it seemed like they were going to stay together—Jason thought he’d just look on the West Side. So during the post-lunch lulls in the store, he walked up and down the side streets, talking to people and doormen to learn what was available. Chris didn’t