Volume 29 - Issue 5

First look at James Prosek's New Book • Race and Retail at the Chapel Square Mall

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Daphna Renan C4rolint AdAms • Lorm Brody • Slmt HarkaiiJ Yuki Noguchi • Gmny Taft Mnnbm and Dirtct()n: Consrance Clement Joshua Civin • Peter B. Cooper • Brooks Kelley Suzanne Kim • Kathy Reich • Elizabeth Sledge Fred Strebeigh • Thomas Strong Fritnds: Steve Ballou • Anson M. Beard, Jr. • Edward B. Bennett, Jr. • Edward B. Bennett Ill • Blaire Bennett • Paul S. Bennett • Gerald Bruck • Jay Carney • Jonathan M. Clark • Constance Clement • Peter B. Cooper • Andy Coun • Jerry and Rae Coun • Mesi Denison • Mrs. Howard Fox David Freeman • Geoffrey Fried • Sherwin Goldman • David Greenberg • Stephen Hellman Brooks Ketley • Roger Kirwood • Andrew J. Kuzneski, Jr. • Lewis E. I...duman • Jim Lowe • E. Nobles Lowe • Hank Mansback • Martha E. Neil Peter Neill • Sean O'Brien • Julie Peters • Lewis & Joan Platt • Julia Preston • Lauren Rabin Fairfu C. Randal • Rollin Riggs • Nicholas X. Riropoulos • Arleen and Anhur Sager • Dick and Debbie Sean • Richard Shields • W. Hampton Sides • Lisa Silverman • Elizabeth & William Sledge Thomas Suong • Elizabeth Tate • Alex & Betsy Torello • Allen and Sarah Wardell Daniel Yergin & Angela Stent Yergin

F E A T U R E S -------~---

8

The Magical Mall of Make Believe Fancy plans for the Chapel Square Mall threaten to displace the people who shop there in favor ofattracting a more affluent clientele.

BY VANESSA AGARD-]ONES

12

p.8

Folk Explosion The Nields play for larger audiences as they prepare to release their first album on a major label, but the band still remembers its roots at Yale.

BY CATHERINE OLENDER

16

Slow Motion in the Court The Connecticut Civil Liberties Union sues Governor john Rowland in an attempt to improve Connecticut's public defender system.

BY DAN M URPHY

20

Faith, Hope, and Charity The relocation ofone AIDS care organization onto another's turf raises charges from the surrounding community ofdisrespect and racism.

BY B EN SMITH

p. 12

Taunton Lake A Yale senior reminisces about his first fishing trip with his mentor joe Haines. An excerpt from Joe and Me, the author's second book.

BY }AMES PROSEK

s

T A N D A R D $ _____________________ 4

5 6 p. 26

24 31

From Our Perspective Letter to the Editor Points of Departure Between the Vines: A Passage to India BY SAMITA SINHA Endnote: Meat the Beetles BY ALEC BEMIS

Cover design by Ted Gesing.

THE NEW J OURNAL is publi>h«l five times during til<: ac:odemic year by The New Journal at Yale, Inc.. P.O. Box 10J.4J1, New Haven, Cf o6s1o. Offia addres>: 1S> Park Street. Phone '•oJl 4J1-19S7· All con ..nu copyright 199 by The New Journal at Yale, Inc. All Rights Reserv«l. ReproduCtion either in whole or in part without wrinen pennillion of the publisher and «litor in chief is prohibit«!. While this 7 magnine is publish«! by Yale College studenu, Yale Univenity is not resporuible for its contenu. Ten thousa~d copies of eacb illue are distribur«l free to memben of the Yale and New Haven community.

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Degrees of Change "\VJhen the voices of the Yale establishW ment, like professors Gaddis Smith (PC '54, GRD '61) and H. Bradford Westerfield (TD '47), and the spokespeople for the Graduate Employee Student Organization (GESO), find themselves in complete agreement about the future of the university, something strange is going on.

But there they were last month on the front pages of student newspapers, letting the campus know their views on the Kutzinski Report, a proposal generated by a faculty committee co change how the teaching assistant program runs at Yale. And to the surprise of many, their opinions came out sounding identical.

"There's absolutely no justification for this sort of complete overhaul of the system," Antony Dugdale (GRD '99), a co-chair of GESO, told the Herald even before the report was officially released.

"I'm very, very opposed to this proposal.

It simply will do away with most section teaching and turn cla.sses into straight lecture courses," Professor Westerfield fumed to the

Yale Daily News.

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The Kutzinski Report, written by a committee chaired by Vera Kutzinski, professor of English, makes the point that GESO and others have made for years: the teaching fellowship program does not work in its present form. The Kutzinski Report contains few concrete proposals, but instead offers three valuable principles for the complete restructuring of the teaching assistant program: first, the financial aid that graduate students receive should be separated from teaching duties; second, no graduate student should teach more than four sections while they are at Yale; and third, university departments should not depend on graduate students to fill their staffing needs.

Under the current system, the fact is that departments t/Q depend on graduate students to meet their teaching staff needs. And grad-

uate students in need of financial assistance have little choice but to take on additional sections-usually far more chan the Kutzinski Report recommends. To satisfy the objectives of the report, the university's current system requires drastic change, or in the words of the report itself, "overhauling the entire Teacher Fellowship system in the Graduate School."

Sure politics makes for strange bedfellows, but GESO may be shooting itself in the foot by cozying up with quintessential Old Blue figures. It is understandable that professors such as Smith and Westerfield are opposed co the plan. They are, after all, the guardians of the university's pedagogical traditions. But GESO's cry for moderation runs counter to its stated objective: to change the face of the Academy. Is GESO taking a posicion as a matter of political expediency instead of honest principle? Is GESO just trying to save its skin?

They seem to suspect that the university's recent willingness to restructure is a calculated response to the upcoming National Labor Relations Board suit filed against Yale for its actions during GESO's grade suike last year. No doubt, the prospect of the federal government ordering Yale to permit its teaching assistants to unionize has made the administration much more willing to consider change. But determined to win the argument that graduate students should be considered employees when they act as teaching assistants, GESO has ignored the fundmental question which is whether graduate students should be employees in the first place.

It has blinded them to the fact that the Kutzinski Report could provide an opportunity to modify the current system for the benefit of all concerned. GESO, and anyone else interested in restructuring the university, will lose this chance for change if it continues to bluster about the need to moderate reform.

-The Editors

THE NEW JouRNAL

To the Editor: I am writing to share with you my sincere disappointment regarding Gabriel Snyder's recent article (TN}, February 14, 1997, "The Two-Parry System").

I am the president of the Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity at Yale; and I was offer ied by your inaccurate characterization of fra,ernities and their brothers.

It is quite apparent from your uninspiring article that you are wholly unf.uniliar with fraternities at Yale. Your lack of experience is betrayed by the stereotypical descriptions that you resorted to in describing fraternity brothers at Yale.

Alpha Epsilon Pi, like almost all Yale fraternities, represents a strong brotherhood of men, the likes of which you are obviously quite unfamiliar. My brothers are my closest friends at Yale. We share common bonds; similar interests, goals, and desires. We have joined together in an effort to better our Yale experience, and we have succeeded. My fraternity, like most Yale Greek organizations, takes part in extensive philanthropy projects. We fundraise. We hold private social events. And yes, we occasionally hold a parry and open it to Yale undergrads.

Parrying is not the central feature of our brotherhood. In the Fall 1996 ~emester, we have held a grand total of four parties open to the campus. That is not what AEPi is all about.

Mr. Snyder, your article served only to perpetuate unwarranted stereotypes of fraternities. And each time such nonsense is propogated, it is invariably done by a person with a complete lack of understanding of brotherhood. Such irresponsible journalism is rampant; however, I have come to expect better from Tht Nw jqurnal

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APRJL x8, 1997

Whalley Avenue in the new Walgreen's Shopping Center • 397-3516

Rubber Soul It 'is like an episode in a dream: six fullbodied Emotions loll around inside a large plastic bubble, quivering at the advances of a violent Soul Surgeon. I hear the stifled words of the national anthem, indistinct and warped. But this is not a dream. The Emotions-Feara, Verita, Apathea, Sofrosuno, Guiltea, and Free Association-are actors dad in rubber suits, singing under the direction of Hilary Koob-Sassen (DC '97).

"Beautiful...we're so ready!" he applauds and assures the voluntary captives. Only the overhead lighting, which illuminates the peeling walls and creates shadows of the set and actors reminds me tha~ this is real, that I am in fact awake.

Hilary, the acting coach and artistic director for this unusual student film, began the screenplay during the summer afrer his freshman year. Since then, the project has evolved into a full-length film, incorporating over 40 students and alumni. Most of the ¡set design and filming occurs at Hammond Hall, the sculpture building rooted between Grove Street cemetery and Science Hill. _ During the late hours of the night and E early morning, the cast and crew has free reign ::::. ~ in the virtually empty building. Actors and ~ technicians wander about, each absorbed in his or her own particular task until the filming ~ begins. Silt covers the floor, a remainder of ¡e last night's scene, in which, I am told, the ~0 Genes frolicked and slithered in a vat of day. ~ Tonight the Emotions have taken over and }; they scurry around in their quarter-inchE thick, flesh-colored rubber ~ suits. These suits give

!

the actors maternal figures: large bosoms, stomachs, and rumps stuffed with poly-fil.

The Soul Surgeon wears a metal collar and has accordion arms made of aluminum tubing.

He shouts at the Emotions and warns that, like a gooey cheese croissant, Free Association will ooze all over them unless it is removed.

So what is the film really about? When I ask various actors about the plot, the question is rebuffed by amused faces and quips of, "I think Hilary knows best ..."

The plot is thick and involved, pivoting around a cryptic ideological message. Hilary lights up when I ask him if it is political: "Yes, we're breaking down some manifestos with this film!" He recommends multiple viewings.

Part of the film's ideology is its collaborative element. Hilary distributed the screenplay to participating actors, cameramen, musicians, designers, and directors, and adapted it according to their feedback. The spirit of community encourages everyone to contribute their ideas, critiques, manpower, and cigarettes. So when Hilary urges, "Let's rock the scene!" the saggy Emotions are invigorated. No one gripes about the time, disjunctive dialogue, or bizarre context.

The movie is being filmed on a digital video can1era. This, along with the technical proficiency of the students filming, should make the film visually comprehensible and appealing. The film will debut on May 1 in Davenport College with another screening scheduled for May 2 in Davies Auditorium.

The title is not yet fixed, but Hilary is thinking about deriving it from Waiting for Godot.

"Like, Waiting for G/ob()-you know, globo, like the global economy."

-Genny Taft

Dear Mr. President While most of my friends spent spring break sun-worshipping in Mexico, I had more pressing issues to attend to. The Clinton Administration tapped me to perform the sensitive work of a communications liaison between the White House and the American people. Of course the weather was a lot drearier in Washington, DC, than in Mexico. But as it turned out, the northeastern climate didn't matter much since I couldn't really tell what the weather was like from my basement cubicle in the Office of Presidential Letters.

And anyway, as I reminded myself on occasion, I was there for the honor of serving my country, not to get a tan.

Unfortunately, the privilege of working in the Office of Presidential Letters did not include the privilege of being paid, but I had known that when I applied. I was looking more for the experience than for the money.

And besides, what better way is there to remedy a case of mid-semester academic burnout than to work long hours in a high security environment?

As it turned out, I found that few people outside the confines of the Yale campus are familiar with the idea of a working spring vacation. I could tell from the Presidential Letters staff's disbelieving looks that they had never raced out of their dorm rooms in order to beat a 5 p.m. Association of Yale Alumni externship application deadline. But that didn't prevent them from giving me work to do.

Most of my time at the White House was spent in strategic paper flow management. I was entrusted with the task of conveying the President's letters to the typing office, or "support" as they are known to us insiders. And, when the letters were typed, it was up to me to make sure that they got back to the editors in their newly typed form. When I first got to the White House, I thought that would be the extent of my work. But no-my job had only just begun. When the editors had ensured that each letter was free of typos and misprints, I brought the newly edited letters back to support to be typed on the President's per-

THE NEW JouRNAL

.. sonal stationery. When I had made sure that the corrections had been entered, I once again brought the letters back to the editors for review. Despite losing the chance to play beach volleyball, I managed to keep in shape running up and down the hallways of the Old Executive Office Building.

During my stay at the OEOB, I was also called to do some very important work alongside the members of the President's cabinet.

While walking down the hall, I passed Vice President Gore on his way to a staff meeting. I smiled at him and he nodded back. Consider- ¡ ing the Vice President's noted reticence, it was obvious how much he was trying to say with just that one movement of his neck. Maybe he had heard of my reputation as a valued member of the Presidential Letter Writing

Team.

My work with the presidential cabinet continued about two hours later, when I was called into a meeting with Donna Shalala, Secretary of Health and Human Services.

Though all the other interns were there as well, and Secretary Shalala didn't acknowledge my raised hand during the question-andanswer time, I knew how much my presence meant to her.

But my work at the White House was not limited to high-profile decision making. I also had to remain (:ool under the pressure of sudden changes in the presidential schedule. The day after the President injured his knee, I sat in on a press briefing where Press Secretary Mike McCurry deflected questions about the President's injury. As the network news cameramen slowly awakened from their sleep in the back of the room, McCurry duked it out with the reporters who, contrary to the impression given to CNN viewers, were practically on top of McCurry in the tiny press room. To get an idea of its acrual dimensions, a Yale student must look no further than her own dorm room.

The reality is that in all likelihood, the press conference could have gone on without me. And, to be truthful, I wasn't exactly instrumental in the Clinton machine. But the externship was a political aspirant's dream: I had the chance to see top officials up close

APRIL 18, 1997

and to get a glimpse of how the Wh.ite House runs. T hough my spring break didn't leave me golden-brown from the sun, I'm glad I got a chance to work there. Maybe some day I'll be back to live there, too.

-Sara Harkavy

A Stitch Through Time In a room tucked away in the basement of Morse College, Mindy Goodfellow lectures on decreasing. Intense concentration meets meditative calm. The subject is not economics and the students do not appear stressed or bored: Morsels are learning how to knit.

Goodfellow, a veteran knitter, walks between 15 casually situated students.

Also traversing the room, Marcia Chambers, the Mistress of Morse College, utters words of gentle encouragement.

Ten years ago, after putting down her pen as a full-time journalist, with more time on her hands as a freelancer, Chambers picked up her needles and yarn and resumed knitting. Concerned that knitting is an endangered art form, Chambers recruited Goodfellow to revive the art among Morsels.

Goodfellow notes that until recently, many women resisted needles and yarn in a conscious effort to escape archaic female stereotypes. At a time when women were trying to liberate themselves from the confines of the home, women associated knitting with domesticity.

Goodfellow's mother, sitting in on the class, agrees. "Knitting seems to come and go like waves over the years." But the class, which was received with plenty of enthusiasm, reveals that the popularity of knitting is now at high tide.

Goodfellow learned to knit from her mother at age seven. She later took over her mother's knitting store, The Yankee Knitter, which shut down three years ago due to flagging sales. When the store first opened, times

were different. During World War II knitting at home was a family custom. In 1970, Goodfellow's mother decided to combine her hobby with a search for independence from the home. While the knitting business has exhausted Goodfellow's mother, Goodfellow still speaks of knitting with an artist's passion.

"Even ifit's just a pair of mittens, I get excited."

Such passion is infectious for students like Karen Abrecht (MC '00). She confesses that she has even taken her knitting into lecture. "I only did it once," she assures, "but I got lots of funny looks." Here lies the greatest manifestation of knitting's evolution: exchanging thoughts about Kant or modern China between stitches has replaced the exchange of recipes.

Moreover, these women are joined in their new hobby by men.

"In my generation you didn't really see men knitters," Chambers recalls.

"Men make very good knitters if they get over the masculinity problem." Scott Javor (MC '99) grins broadly as he shows off his first "cast on," the primary stage in the knitting process. Just a generation ago, men shyed away from the matronly image of knitting. Now they, too, find it relaxing and fun.

Abrecht calls knitting "pleasantly mindnumbing." She appreciates the way knitting allows her thoughts to wander. Chambers agrees. "It's like taking a nice walk." While finding the proper weather and time for a walk may be difficult, knitting provides a calming and productive alternative.

Knitting only becomes relaxing, however, when the students realize that it is okay not to be perfect, Chambers explains. She assures a distressed woman that ripping out stitches builds character. Knitting, however, no longer defines one's character. That, Goodfellow comments, just might be why both women and men are beginning to take up the needle.

"We enjoy doing it because we don't have to," Goodfellow says.

- Daphna Rman

7

The Magical Mall of Make Believe Vanessa Agard -Jones Once upon a time there was a mall that sat near a square with a chapel on it, sroeral chapels in fact. The rqyal bureaucrats in a nearby office bui~ ing decided to call it the Chapel Square MalL For some time it remained there, existing in 4 relativeLy unremarkable manner, butyears later instability reared its ugly head. The businesses in the mall alternately flourished and withered. Retailers came in and retailers pulled out. Corporations owned the mall and corporations disowned the mall There were periods offamine and there were periods ofabundance. These fluctuations damaged the public image ofthe rqyal bureaucrats and their court.

Across the lawn, behind the crawling ivy, there stood an ivory tower populated by wise men and women who were also disturbed by the lack of consistent prosperity at the mall The institution, Yale University, came to lead the battle to rroitalize the community which surrounded it. Their strate~they called it "urban develapment "-calledfor the reconstruction of this retail space. There were arguments and issues, supporters and dissenters, winners and lasers, an upperclass and an underclass. And this is how the struggle unfolded. .. ew Haven faces the particular challenge of being at once a depressed city and a university town. The city is forced to reconcile the conflicting needs of its permanent residents with those of the students who reside in the city only for the school year. The town-gown tension intrinsic to the Yale experience is one result of the struggle for space and resources in which these two groups engage. One of the current battlefields of this struggle is the Chapel Square Mall.

The retailers currently established in Chapel Square Mall-stores like Hair Braiding Heaven, Nails Plus, Cross Flava Records, Chapel Discount, and a host of other small businesses catering to the urban shopper-reflect the needs of the permanent residents, as opposed to the stores of Upper Chapel whose produCts and prices are tailored to

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the college community's checkbooks. T his may soon change.

A sign in a window display at Chapel Square Mall reads: BUILDING A UVABLE NEW HAVEN OMNI NEW HAVEN HOTEL AT YALE OPENING FALL 1997 Mayor John DeStefano wants to attract fashionable retail stores to the Chapel Square Mall as part of his three-pronged development plan: corporate activity in Nmth Square, retail activity at Long Wharf, and arts and entertainment downtown. According to his plan, instead of everyday clothing stores and nail salons, the mall beneath the hotel would house fashionable stores selling vases and fine jewelry, picture frames and designer clothing. When hotel patrons return from cultural excursions in the Elm City, DeStefano hopes they will stroll through the mall's charming boutiques en route to the hotel lobby Boors above.

Yale's administrators have expressed interest in seeing retail stores around the Green, but their vision of a retail future doesn't match the reality of the streets. As the city's most profitable tourist attraction and one of New Haven's largest employers, Yale plays a central role in the decision-making process of the Chamber of Commerce.

The planning of a city and its retail space is driven by politics: racial politics, class politics, and social politics. Developers of the Omni Hotel sought to move the bus stops away from New Haven Green in order to reduce the number of bus riders waiting by the mall. Long Wharf, rather than downtown, has been earmarked for less specialized retail because of its highway access. The city wants to attract the spending base of the suburbs that it feels no longer comes downtown. Planners hope to snag potential shoppers whizzing down I-95 with the bait of brand-name stores like Marshall's and Filene's Basement. The artsy stores, like the ones currently on Upper Chapel, would carer to Omni and Schubert patrons (the more sophisticated suburbanites) as well as the Yale community.

THE NEW jOURNAL

Community leaders question where the changes at the Chapel Square Mall leave economically disadvantaged New Haven residents.

Across town, the Broadway scrip is also undergoing a period of drastic change in a shift towards national corporate retailers. Expectant Yalies await the completion of a Brueggers' Bagels eatery and the Starbucksrun cafe within th~ new Barnes and Noble bookstore. The larger question then becomes, should New Haven's downtown retail space belong to Yalies and day-tripping suburbanites or to its year-round residents?

N

ew Haven's story is not a fairy tale. The reality is that 18.2 percent of New Haven's families live below the poverty line, 45.4 percent of New Haven's children live in single-parent households, and the median household income in 1990 was $25,811-less than a single year's tuition at Yale. The city is still ranked among the country's poorest, yet the urban development in the works means that many New Haven residents will not be able to afford to shop in their new-and-improved downtown. In shon, Yale's influence may simply be pushing New Haven and its residents further away from its ivory tower.

Susan Godshall, Yale's representative to the Executive Committee of the Greater New Haven Chamber of Commerce and second-incommand to University Secretary Linda Lorimer, doesn't think that the downtown development poses a problem. "The mall, currently, as a collection of stores, is haphazard," Godshall says. Haphazard, many would agree, but not unlike any other mall. It is distinct only because it operates on a different economic scale-the scores cater to those with

APRIL 18, 1997

smaller pocketbooks, those unable to afford typical mall fare.

In essence, every mall is like an exploded Wal-Mart: a place where a family can fulfill all of its shopping needs, no matter how obscure.

Chapel Square Mall has fast-food eateries, clothing and shoe scores, jewelers, a hair salon, a pharmacy, a music store, and a produce shop.

Perhaps because Radio Shack isn't the Sharper Image and Rite Aid isn't Clinique, the retail composition of Chapel Square is labeled "haphazard." Godshall's voice hardens and assumes an exasperated tone as she discusses what she considers the non-issue of the Chapel Square Mall. ''I'm not sure that New Haven residents have an entitlement to any particular turf."

But some community leaders do believe residents of a city deserve a say in what goes on in their community. "The stores that will replace what's in the mall now certainly won't be catering to the minority community of New Haven," says Joyce Poole, president of New Haven's African-American Women's Agenda and a former city alderman. She voices the community's concerns over the removal of the more affordable retailers that currently inhabit the mall. "New Haven is quicldy becoming a city divided along economic lines," Poole says. Her observation points to the heart of the issue. There is a community of color that lives in New Haven. It is largely poor and does not feel connected to or noticed by its elecred leaders or the instirutions that hold the reins of money and power in the city. Instead of representing their constiruents within New Haven, some feel New Haven's leaders are catering to a wealthier white suburban community outside the city.

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··~~­ The Lower Chapel shopping disp-ict currently marks a distinct town-gown division.

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The issue of the Omni Hotel itself is more complex. "The hotel will be beneficial only because there are jobs attached to it and then only if New H aven residents are hired to fill those jobs, not people from the outside," Poole remarks. "Residents must be given more than menial work." The construction of the Omni presents a conundrum for New Haven community leaders. On one hand, it offers the promise ofjobs that are desperately needed. But even if residents do get work, what good it do them if they have no place to buy clothes?

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T

he main walkway of the Chapel Square Mall's first floor is flanked on one side by Radio Shack, the Athlete's Foot, and Burger King, and on the other by Rite Aid and an empty storefront. In the center of the walkway is a huge staircase, and close to that, a fountain where a number of black and Latino teenagers are sitting, eating, and talking loudly together. Security guards prowl from floor to floor, attempting to look severe in their faux police uniforms. Despite the trappings of authority, the guards are taunted by the loitering teenagers and their jabs clearly become challenges to the guards' control. Young women push strollers and drag waddling toddlers from store to store.

On a display in Sam's Dollar Mart is the slogan, "Beautiful doesn't have to be expensive." If mall developers have their way, Chapel Square Mall will soon be both. There

are almost 20 people in Sam's this morning, mostly women with small children, picking up everything from dish towels to greeting cards to sunglasses, most priced at $1 or less.

T here is one Yale student who tries not to be noticed. She creeps unobtrUsively to the back of the store to price imitation Tupperware, as if she doesn't want anyone to catch her shopping in a 99¢ store. .

Across the main walkway from Sam's is Pat Santino's shop, VideoTek. At 10 a.m., the store is empty. T-shirts hang on the walls with airbrushed pictures of 2Pac and Bob Marley emblazoned across them. On a shelf above the counter sit samples of the plaques that Santino makes for funerals and- weddings. These plaques, complete with photo and poem, mourn those who have died and celebrate marriages. Santino, dressed casually in denim and cotton, talks on the phone, fiddles with a camera, and rearranges a shelf all at once. As a young black family enters Santino's store, his attention shifts to them. Santino leans across the counter and says thoughtfully, "We, the tenants here, don't know anything about what's going on, but I feel like there has to be a comfortable medium. This mall needs to be both safe and affordable." He implies that although the mall now provides an inexpensive shopping option for local residents, it has a crime problem that cannot be overlooked.

The high school kids who hang out in the mall during the day, instead of attending school, leave retailers feeling anxious and

THE NEW JouRNAL

shoppers feeling clueatened.

In Just For You, a clothing and electronics store at the front of the mall, a woman comes in with two little boys to look at shoes. She picks up a pair of bright orange patent leather mules, turns to manager Richard Estrada, who is standing behind the counter, and asks, "D'you got these in a ten?" Estrada sends another woman to the back of the store to search for the size as the customer waits and her children play among the racks of clothing, chasing each o~r and pretending to shoot the mannequins. Estrada describes the mall simply: "It's all about safety. Yale students ace afraid to come down here to do their shopping." Yalies ace unlikely to shop at the mall except to dress up for H alloween and theme parties. Since the departure of the stores that attracted Yalies to the Chapel Square Mall, like B. Dalton, the Pack Plaza Hotel, and Macy's department score, Yalies rarely stray to Lower Chapel to fulfill their shopping needs.

An increase in crime may very well be the key issue behind the dramatic shift in clientele that the mall has experienced in the past few years. Inner-city residents currently make up 65 percent of the mall's shoppers.

Community activists, undoubtedly aware of the safery problem, nevertheless feel that it's important to serve New Haven's permanent residents. The merchants, whose obvious interests should make them favor keeping the mall in its current state, believe that their business opportunities ace being limited, in part, by the very customers they attract.

In the end, the players in the Chapel Square drama go on telling themselves fairy tales. The Yale administration tells itself that there is no issue. The city of New Haven tells itself that urban development is being done in the name of positive economic change. Community activists tell themselves that the mall is ideal as it is. The retailers ace perhaps the only ones telling themselves the truth.

THREE CHIMNEYS INN

change so that he'll be able to afford a meal in the food court. A block away from Chapel Square, well-dressed Yalies mill about in Ann Taylor trying on silk shirts and business suits.

On the next corner hungry students indulge in $6 bean and cheese burritos at Claire's.

Leaving Chapel Square Mall and returning to Yale is like moving from one world to another. Karl Kani is replaced by Karan couture and the faces change dramatically from black to white in a matter of blocks. While a homeless New Haven resident wonders if he will be able to afford a meal at Burger King, urban developers insist that it is in the entire community's best interest for the mall's retailers to sell more expensive goods.

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hile spending a semester abroad in Nepal, Katryna Nields's foreign language teacher asked her what she wanted to do for a living. She asked him the word for "lawyer." Her teacher protested, "That doesn't make any sense." Katryna had spent the last few months playing and listening to Nepalese music. "You're going to be a musician," he said.

"Yeah, you're right," Katryna thought to herself, and quickly wrote her older sister Nerissa a letter about her change of heart: after her graduation from Trinity College she would take her sister up on the idea of forming a band. This was one of the first steps the Nields took toward becoming a three-Nields, three-Dave, five-person folk rock band.

Nerissa Nields {SM '89) sits in the WWUH-FM radio station at the University of Hartford. Surrounded by shelves full of records, Nerissa crosses her legs carefully, adjusting her big, blue walking cast.

Although the foot she broke two and a half weeks ago prevents her from helping the rest of the band as they set up for their concert, Nerissa manages the clunky cast easily, as if every rock star wore a navy blue orthopedic shoe with her snakeskin jacket and zippered lycra pants.

"When you're at Yale, freshman year is when you get your bearings and you sort of feel like nothing quite belongs to you. I was in Silliman, you know, we were the youngest kids in the college and nothing was really ours. So by sophomore year we were beginning to get a¡ sense we could actually do something that could make a difference."

As a sophomore at Yale, Nerissa began a folk group caJled Tangled Up in Blue (T.U.I.B.) to sing the Bob Dylan and Peter, Paul, and Mary songs her family had enjoyed around the dinner table. "The guitar was a constant sixth member of the family," Abigail Nields (DC '96)-who continued the T.U.I.B. tradition-reminisces about her family's folky tendencies. T.U.I.B. staned out as an informal group of Nerissa's friends, meeting every so often to hang out and play music for fun.

"I brought my guitar and we sat around and sort of made up arrangements," Nerissa says. "I was studying music so I had learned how to write music notation. There was always, from the very beginning, a great spirit-it was fun and loose, but at the same time everybody was musical enough to care about sounding good." It didn't take TU.I.B. long to get its first gig.

"Somebody in Branford College asked us to come and do a show.

She'd started a little coffeehouse caJled Fred's." They were the only singing group on campus to use instruments: guitar, mandolin, sitar, and tin whistles. T.U.I.B. showed the singing group scene that good music doesn't have to be performed a capella. Nor does it need to be performed in tuxedos and gowns; flannel and India cotton do just as well. "There was this great feeling of'We're doing this ourselves,"' Ner-

12

Catherine Olender issa remembers, "'We're doing something new and different. It's all ours.

By Nerissa's senior year, the folk group had firmly established itself on campus. More people came out for TU.l.B. auditions than for many of Yale's other singing groups. Nerissa's experience with T.U.I.B. encouraged her as a singer/songwriter.

"I started writing seriously at the end of my sophomore year, but I was so shy about my songs that it took until March of my junior year when we were on tour in Washington, DC, for me to even play them for any of the people in the group. I remember so dearly playing one of my first songs and the warmth of the response that they gave me told me that I should really be doing this."

...

T

he first word Katryna Nields uses to describe her older sister is "strong." "Nerissa's really the person that's in the center, making sure that everything's okay all the time. She's a trooper."

The story of Nerissa's fractured foot, Katryna says, illustrates her sister's fighting spirit. Before The Nields' February 13 show in Charleston, South Carolina the band was attempting to maneuver around a monitor to get to the dark stage when Nerissa fell three and a half feet off the edge, injuring her foot. Someone offered her a chair for the performance, but she stood on one foot through the entire show. Only after the band had finished for the night did she admit that the bone was probably broken and ask to go to the hospital.

"It must have hurt like hell," Katryna says. "But that's why I ca1l her strong." Although behind the scenes she is a leader, when Nerissa performs she stands off to one side.

Center stage at the University of H artford, Katryna swings her long, brown hair over her shoulder-s. She wears a black and white psychedelic print shirt. "This is a nice little love rune," she announces. The band opens into "Fountain of Youth," a bass-driven tune about a love affair gone sour. Katryna picks up a fish-shaped wooden instrument, a guiro-which the album credits caJls a "Scratchy Fishie"-and scrapes a stick up and down its corrugated stomach keeping time as she dances around the stage. To her right, David Nields plays the guitar. When he married Nerissa, he changed his name from David Jones because, as he says, in the music industry you don't want to be confused with a Monkee.

David was pursuing his master's degree in theater studies when a mutual friend introduced him to Nerissa. The summer after she graduated from Yale, David and Katryna both accompanied Nerissa on T.U.I.B.'s cross-country tour from New Haven to California and back.

In Elkins, West Virginia, on one of the tour's final stops, Nerissa and

THE NEW JouRNAL

David decided to get married.

While waiting to see whether Katryna would join the band, Nerissa taught English at The Madeira School in Maryland. After Kauyna graduated, the three relocated to Williamstown, MassachusettS, where David worked at a summer theater festival to support them. The sisters wrote music and worked the Williamstown restaurant scene, hoping for a break.

"Katryna and I literally walked up and down Spring Street and knocked on the doors of any restaurant and said, 'Do you want to have live music? We'll play for free. ' Most places said no."

L

ittle by little, the breaks came. The band began playing regularly as a trio at coffeehouses and open-mike nights. Although they found themselves allied with the local folk music groups, there was something about The Nields' music that separated them from the pack. "We were always a lot more energetic than other people on the circuit." David Nields says, "Even if we had stayed a trio I don't think we would have stayed in the folk scene."

In 1994, two Daves-not-Nields transformed the band from a folk trio into a rock quintet. Dave Chalfant came on board to produce and play bass on the band's album Bob on the Ceiling. Dave Hower joined

APRIL 18, 1997

the group at the same time to play percussion on five tracks. "Dave Hower and I bring sort of the noisy element to the band," Dave Chalfant says. The two Daves-not-Nields' noisier influences include Pancera, Smashing Pumpkins, and Frank Zappa.

The Nields have "gone electric" and moved from church halls and open-mike nights to national venues in the last six years, but the group still attracts audience members from ages five to 50. "The audience hasn't changed that much," Nerissa says, "It's just grown."

At the University of Hartford show, fifty-something folkies sit sideby-side with Generation Xers and gum-chewing, Nields' T-shirc-wearing teens. Kevin Sullivan, a counselor and learning specialist at the University of Connecticut, watches the concert with his three daughters who are ages 13, 22, and 24. He has been following The Nields' career for about five years, since he heard them sing at a New Year's Eve show in Hartford. His daughters introduced him to their music, Sullivan says, but he has his own reasons for continuing to follow them. The Nields make him think ofThe Beacles. Like the legendary foursome, Sullivan says, "There's a simple perfection between their music and their words."

This "simple perfection," a delicate balance between subject matter and presentation, is most apparent was The Nields perform. While

13

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many of the band's songs deal with the dark themes of betrayal and loss of innocence, their stage presence is playful. But there's a point to this juxtaposition. "Best Black Dress" tells the story of a young woman who is sleeping with her married boss:

Mr. George Fox requests the pleasure ofmy company By pointed envelope marked "Special Delivery" And I know what this means, most certainly This means tonight Mr. George Fox will take me to Club Century In my best black dress In my best black shoes Why should I refuse? . Most days are not like this, you understand Most days find me taking ideas in shorthand In a room alone with a man with changing wedding bands I've got better things planned In my best black dress In my best black shoes What have I got to lose

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He says, "That's what's wrong with this generation YtJu're supposed to be making something new But it's so much more fim to play in your parents' history/and" Speaking ofwhich Mr. George Fox has a daughter just my age I've seen her once or twice at the other end ofhis

estate She has long purple skirts and an old mutt she got in college I wonder ifshe's seen me creeping home at night through the foliage In my best black dress In my best black shoes Would she be confosed? '"Best Black Dress' is about a fucked-up woman who is basica1ly whoring herself," Nerissa says. "It's a twisted song and yet we per· form it with big grins on our faces and we do that on purpose because that's what life's all about. It's about surface and it's about reality.

Sometimes it's just better at the end of the day to put a big grin on your face and realize that, you know, your parents are alcoholics and there's drug abuse, but you're still a family and you all need to hug each other."

Although the balance The Nields' strike is an uneasy one, Sullivan is one of many fans who thinks it's simply perfect. The Nields have developed from a folk group struggling to play for free into a rock band about to make irs major label debut. Guardian Records, a subsidiary of EMI, will release Gatta Ga Ovtr Greta, The Nields' fifth album, on May 6. ver a cup of hot cocoa, Samantha Godbey (ES '98), current co-director of music for T.U.I.B., talks about the Joan Baez/Joni Mitchell question. "Joan Baez has a nice voice but mostly sings other people's songs. Joni Mitchell has a great voice and writes her own songs." Among current T.U.I.B. members there is a split regarding which singer is better. How important is it for a singer to write her own music? For Nerissa Nields me answer is clear. "Joni Mitchell is up in me stratosphere. I mean I worship her," she says.

Along with Bob Dylan, Pete Seeger and her

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THE NEw JouRNAL

own family, Nerissa counts Joni Mitchell among her major influences.

In addition to these musicians Nerissa's Yale English classes also greatly influenced her songwriting. She concentrated on Shakespeare and modern poetry.

"Studying English at Yale was fabulous. I loved studying Shakespeare so intensely. I don't know how it has affected my songwriting, but I know it did. Something about the way we studied-we were really looking at the words, and weighing the. words, and taking every word very, very seriously. With songwriting that's a natural thing to do because in a song, at least in my songs, I try to tell the story as simply as possible with the fewest number of words possible.

I feel I learned that from Yale."

Although she helps define The NieldS' sound, Nerissa is reluctant to put any kind of label on it. "I can't imagine any group defining their own sound because I think every group thinks that what they're doing is making totally original music. I hope that's what were doing."

Although the group certainly hopes for the success of Cotta Get Over Greta, the band will continue to enjoy touring no matter how the album sells. 'We've always been a live band," Katryna says. "It's fun to hear a song on the radio, but it's nothing like playing to a live audience where everybody's singing along."

At last count Moby, The Nields' threeyear-old white van, had 130,000 miles to its crediL A tour bus is high on the band's wish list should Cotta Get Over Greta become a hit. In the meantime, Nerissa says, they'll continue to tour and take me baby steps that have marked their career thus far. "The thing bands really need to be careful about is that success too fast can spin you around and confuse you and make you think you're more important than you really are," she says. "For better or for worse we haven't had that experience yet.

Everything's been really hard work I mean it's like growing a garden. A garden doesn't happen Overnight, and that's what the whole band has ~very much a growing process."

Although Gotta Get Over Greta may be The Nidds' first visible blossom for many music lovers, long-time fans know it is just one more sprout in a garden that's been growing for

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APRIL 18, 1997

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Slow Motion in the Court Dan Murphy tanding outside of Courtroom 4 of the New Haven Courthouse on Elm Street, David Kaplan, a public defender for the last 18 years, patiently answers questions from some of his clients while struggling to hold a two-foot-high stack of bulging folders. Private lawyers zip by, holding one or two files. Along with one other public defender, one investigator, and one secretary, Kaplan handles all the public defender cases for Geographic Area 8 (GA 8), which includes East Haven and its environs. Kaplan wl_ll represent approximately 100 clients thiS month; the American Bar Association prescribes 300 as the maximum that defense attorneys should in a year. Projecting from figures for past months, Kaplan will handle over 1,100 cases between September 1996 and September 1997.

Regardless of their caseloads, GA public defenders like Kaplan do a remarkably good job. According to the Chief Public Defenders Office, of the 68,000 cases handled by public defenders in the GA courts last year, more than one-third were thrown out of court, while fewer than 24 percent resulted in incarceration. While there are no comparative statistics for private lawyers, such a low incarceration rate is impressive by any measure. : But because of public defenders' heavy caseloads and slim resources, the Connecticut Civil Liberties Union (CCLU) feels that Kaplan's clients, and all public defender clients in Connecticut, aren't receiving the adequate representation guaranteed to them by the Constitution and by Connecticut law. State law stipulates thaf any individual charged with a crime punishable with incarceration and whose weekly income falls below prescribed Limits (roughly $200 a week for a single person) is eligible for a public defender. The CCLU has sued Governor John Rowland and the Public Defender Services Commission on behalf of"all indigent persons who are or will be represented by public defenders." The lawsuit, /?jvera et ai. v. Rowland et ai., calls for an increase in funding and a reduction of caseloads for public defenders.

The CCLU's complaint puts public defenders like Kaplan in an awkward position, forcing them to keep one foot on either side of the lawsuit's legal divide. While their sympathies may Lie largely with the plaintiffs who are their clients, public defenders must answer to their bosses who are the defendants in the suit-the Public Defenders Service Commission and Governor Rowland. And, in order to get the increased funding and reduced caseloads that the CCLU demands, the public defenders must prove they're not doing their jobs. The CCLU is trying to save the public defender srstem by destroying it, emphasizing its shortcomings and pointing out where it has failed, while ignoring its record of success.

Gerard Smyth, Connecticut's chief public defender, was one of

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THE NEw JouRNAL

The Connecticut Civil Liberties Union sues Governor John Rowland in a n attempt to improve Connecticut's public defense system .

~

those forced to choose between his clients and his bosses. In the Connecticut Law Tribune, Smyth criticized the CCLU's suit as misleading.

His opposition to the suit is somewhat ironic because he shares with the plaintiffs in the case the ultimate goal of improving public defense. But Smyth's commitment to improvement is secondary to his conviction that public defenders already provide effective representation. He wrote in his article, "While [the public defender system's] most significant accomplishments can be detailed and celebrated, its greatest success lies in the small victories that are attained on behalf of clients on a daily basis by attorneys, investigators, social workers and support staff across the state who have dedicated their careers to this effort."

K

aplan's small daily victories occur inside of Courtroom 4 where dark wood paneling, a high ceiling, and a large marble wall clock hearken back to a time when justice was establishedimposing and blind. The entire building with its tall Corinthian columns and surrounding statues of sage Roman lawgivers faces New H aven Green. At the center of the ciry, the legal system used to be one of the pillars of sociery.

Nowadays, the ceiling of Courtroom 4 is green with circular marks due to water damage. No one has bothered to plaster or paint over the holes that have been drilled to drain the water. Next to the gallery where spectators sit, the paneling has been carved up by rudimentary graffiti, exec.uted hastily with pens and keys, despite the vigilant glares of armed representatives from the New Haven Sheriff's Office. The marble clock face mounted high on the wall has no hands on it. Maybe this is intended to send the message that justice is timeless. Maybe it indicates that the court is behind the times. Maybe it just reveals that nobody has bothered to fix it.

Courtroom 4 reconvenes for the afternoon after those in "lock-up" downstairs have been brought up in shackles and placed inside a large cage next to the expressionless marble clock. Lock-up holds people transported from local prisons as well as last night's arrestees awaiting arraignment. The gallery fills up both with people who have business with the court and with spectators, mostly the friends and family of those in lock-up. The men in the cage try to catch glimpses of their loved ones by sranding on tiptoe and peering over a piece of plywood which has been put on one side of the cage to prevent visual contact with the spectators in the gallery. The sheriff's deputy doesn't see~ to mind that throughout the whole session three men in the cage Stram to see over the board, knuckles turning white as they pull themselves up against the cage and silently mouth words in English or Spanish to their family and friends. The plywood obscures each man's lower lip so that

APRIL 18, 1997

the meaning of his words is lost.

Kaplan calls one of his clients over to the corner of the cage, and with the aid of a Spanish translator, discusses the man's case. When the case is called, the sheriff's deputy unlocks the cage so he can approach the bench with the shuffiing half steps his shackles allow. Kaplan walks up to join him before the judge and has the man sign forms verifying that he is indigent, that he wants Kaplan to represent him as his public defender, and that he'll pay the $25 fee Connecticut law requires for public defender representation.

The prosecutor informs the judge of the specifics of the case.

Kaplan's client was charged with drug possession after the police arrested him and two others who were driving in a car containing more than 200 packets of marijuana. Evidence in the car indicated that the drugs belonged to the other two men. Afrer a brief discussion of the case by Kaplan, the judge, and the prosecutor, the man enters a guilty plea to a lesser count than the one he was initially charged with. Before accepting the plea, the judge, through the translator, asks the man two questions: "Have you had enough time to talk to your lawyer about your plea?" and "Are you satisfied with your lawyer's representation of you?" The man nods to both questions and then shuffies alongside the deputy back downstairs to lock-up.

The CCLU claims that cases like these, which only occupy about five minutes of the court's time, represent much of what is wrong with the public defender system. Kaplan's high caseload kept him from visiting this client while he was in prison. The environment of the courthouse has no space for Kaplan and his client to talk privately. No expert witnesses or investigative reports were used to analyze the evidence.

And the defendant pleaded guilry without a mention by anyone in the

17

courtroom of taking the case to trial.

The CCLU blames these shortcomings on the state's stingy budgeting. They point out that in 1994, Connecticut spent only $156 per public defense case, ranking the state 45th in the nation. In a letter to the Con~ necticut Law Tribune, CCLU lawyers wrote, "Having little, if any, confidence in their legal · representatives and a limited understanding of the. proceedings, many clients plead guilty, even if they are innocent or have valid defens~ es."

On some counts, the CCLU assessment is undoubtedly correct. Like the entire court~ house, the public defender facilities desperate~ ly need the improvements that increased funding could bring. In Kaplan's office lead paint peels from the window frames and pigeon feces, caked on the skylight, block out the sun. Kaplan acknowledges that he would like to meet with his clients more than he cur~ rencly can. "Because our office is so small, we have to work efficiently," he says, ')\nd that's meant sacrificing a sweet bedside manner with our clients in order to be lawyers."

But Kaplan doesn't agree with the CCLU's position that the profusion of plea bargaining means that justice isn't being served. "Trials aren't going forward any~ where," he says: "If creative, hon~t lawyers of integrity can reach a just result without a: trial, then I think that's a good thing. In real life, as opposed to TY, trials tax a lot of resources and trials also tend to reach unpredictable results.

From a practical point of view, a trial would seriously hurt this office by tying up an attor~ ney and our one investigator for a few weeks."

For these reasons, among the thousands of cases Kaplan's office has handled in the past six years, only one has gone to trial.

r8

In order to dramatize their claims, the CCLU has employed anecdotal evidence both in the complaint and, subsequently, in the press. One of their motions cites the case of a defendant who pled guilty because his public defender didn't have the time or resources to uncover the fact that he had been classified as mentally retarded. In their letter to the Con~ necticut Law Tribune, CCLU attorneys referred to three public defender clients and the wrongs that they'd suffered because of the shortcomings of their council. In two of the cases mentioned, the public defenders were depicted as bad attorneys who didn't care about the particulars of their clients' cases and forced them into guilty pleas and harsh sen~ tences in the interest of expediency.

While the CCLU makes it clear that these are only the most extreme cases, their methodology reveals the paradox that all pub~ lie defenders must negotiate. Before the suit was filed, Smyth, the chief public defender, had perennially lobbied the state for increased funding, repeatedly pointing to the high case~ loads of the public defenders working under him. Smyth doesn't deny that more funding .would help, but he also claims that public defense across the state is more than adequate.

"Our public defenders are specialists in crimi~ nallaw," said Smyth. "Because of the volume that we handle, to ·get through the day, you have to take shortcuts. But shortcuts don't necessarily mean short~change."

The state Attorney General's office, which is representing the defendants in the suit, agrees with Smyth's assessment. After the law~ suit was filed in January 1995, the state entered a motion to dismiss the case. In response to that motion, the CCLU presented the court with more details for the suit, responding directly to some of the state's claims. The CCLU succeede9 when, in Octo~ ber 1996, the motion to dismiss was rejected

by Connecticut Superior Court Justice Dou~ glas S. Lavine, who was specially assigned to handle the entire case. Lavine wrote that the determination of the constitutional questions in the suit is "manifestly in the public's inter~ est" and he set the trial date for June 1998.

Despite the rejection of their motion, the state does have some powerful arguments in its favor. Smyth points out that public defend~ ers are an experienced group--averaging more than ten years apiece at the job-and he claims their familiarity with the various

options available to defendants allows them to handle larger caseloads than one might expect. Smyth also feels that the CCLU's claim of inadequate expert resources is entire~ ly unfounded because it ignores a $600,000 fund which public defenders can draw upon to pay witnesses. According to Smyth, no reasonable application for these funds is ever denied, and there is a legislative provision to cover approved expert expenses if the $600,000 budget is ever exhausted.

The state also points out that public defenders only handle 50 percent of the criminal cases in Connecticut's courts, while the other half are dealt with by private defense attorneys. Yet the state's prosecutors, who handle 100 percent of cases, receive a budget comparable to that of the public defenders. In response, the CCLU has tried to differentiate between criminal prosecution and criminal defense by pointing out that while prosecutors can always call upon a state official or police officer to testify, defense lawyers have to pay for everything from expert witnesses to psychological testing. Kaplan notes, "(Public defenders) have nothing but the resources of indigent clients who are facing jail."

Kaplan also emphasizes that the stakes are higher for those who defend the accused.

"We're personally, morally, and legally responsible for defending a' person, while a prosecutor has no client or personal accountability.

We represent a person while they represent a case." It's the nature of our judicial process that defending the accused is almost always more costly than prosecuting ·them. Prosecutors only need to fit an incljvidual's act into the legal definition of a crime, while defenders must take into account an entire individual in order to demonstrate to the court why such a person does not fit into that criminal category.

The nuanced merits of this argument, however, aren't likely to convince politicians elected on get~tough~on~crime platforms that Connecticut needs a berter public defender system. Over the last ten years the number of cases handled by public defenders has increased by 40 percent but staff increases have not kept pace. In the stagnant judicial system, any change, including something as simple as putting hands on a dock comes about slowly. Smyth's years of lobbying for increased funding have had little effect.

It's surprising then that, even while it is still pending, Rivera v. Rowland seems to have

TH£ NEw JouRNAL

brought about some posmve changes. In 1995, when the suit was filed, almost none of the public defender offices had access to computers. Since then, a capital appropriations committee has provided funds to equip all the public defender offices with computers and a Cast Bast CD-ROM for research purposes.

The suit also pointed out a lack of communication between public defenders at different levels of the system, but many of those organizational concerns have also been dealt with.

Smyth is cooyinced that though difficulties persist, the system is working. "We have addressed some of the things in the complaint," says Smyth, "not just because they're in the complaint, but because we've wanted to change these things for years. It just took us a while to get the funding."

The CCLU may have already managed to increase the budget of Smyth's department.

Governor Rowland's proposed budget for 1997-98 contained few surprises; the budgetcutting Republican slashed state expenditures almost across the board. Connecticut's judicial branch is slated to receive $5 million less than the amount required to ma.t.'ltain services at their current level, and the amount allotted for criminal justice prosecution dropped by over $1 million. Yet amidst all these cutbacks, and a political climate that favors punishment, the public defender department received a 3.8 percent boost to keep pace with inflation.

Meanwhile, both sides in the lawsuit are interviewing witnesses and preparing materials for the 1998 Rivtra v. Rowland trial date.

The most recent development in the case came in Jariuary when Justice Lavine refused a motion by the state that would have prevented the CCLU from talking to any public defender. The Attorney General's Office had argued that because the CCLU was suing the Public Defender Services Commission, all public defenders were party to the lawsuit and therefore were ineligible to provide information to the CCLU. Though Lavine rejected this broad motion, he did issue a protective order to prevent the CCLU from speaking to top managerial people in the public defenders system. A further bearing, not yet held, will determine if the CCLU can speak to intermediate managers like Kaplan.

The debate over whether public defenders are party to the suit exposes the difficult position that public defenders have found themselves in. "If the outcome of the lawsuit results

APRIL 18, 1997

Hamden Plaza 2100 Dixwell Ave. Hamden 230-0039 - open 7 days in increased staff and increased resources for our department, then it is favorable for us and our clients," Smyth says. "But our method has been to request these things through the normal political procedures. Was a lawsuit necessary to get them? I don't know."

Kaplan, who is more supportive of the CCLU suit, has found a tenuous position for himsel£ "There is a common ground where I can say that I do provide adequate representacion for my clients but only at a tremendous toll to myself and my staff," Kaplan explains.

"It seems to me that there's much more room for agreement on how w address these underlying problems. The aim of the lawsuit, as I understand it, is to define and put parameters on what the problems are. The solution isn't to deny that the problems exist or say that they're manageable."

From Rowland's perspective, "the solution" may be to boost the public defender budget just enough to neutralize the CCLU's main complaint-underfunding. Whether this is a tacit acknowledgment that the public defender office has been underfunded for years, or just a sign that Rowland doesn't like being sued, remains unclear. The true measure of Rivtra v. Rowland's success will be if it manages to bring about any lasting change in Connecticut's public defender system.

Some of those who know the system best remain skeptical. One day outside of Courtroom 4, a man charged with assault for getting in a fight with a co-worker waits for his case to be called. He approaches Kaplan to ask the time and then jokes, "I think I'm going ro become a lawyer. I'm here a lot anyway."

Kaplan, half-jokingly replies with the advice ofsomeone who's already familiar with the ailing system: " Become a doctor."

181

Dan Murphy, a junior in Timothy Dwight Colkgt, is publishtr ojTN].

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James McMackin

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New Haven Advocat~

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James Prosek

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Samita Sinha

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Ben Smith

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Junellen Sullivan

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Philip Tegeler

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Tom Ullman

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Heidi Vogt

19

Elsie Cofield (center), fountkr and president ofthe Aids Interfaith Network, stands at a February candlelight vigil to protest the rewcation ofAIDS Project New Haven to a building across the street from her organization's office.

20

THE NEw JouRNAL

The relocation of one AIDS care organization onto another's turf raises charges from the surrounding community of disrespect and rac1sm .

...-

Faith, Hope, and Charity Ben Smith

T

he innocuous green and ye!low Victorian house at 1302 Chapel Street gives no sign of its recent role in a neighborhood controversy. Nor is there any visible sign on its acrossthe-meet neighbor, 1303 Chapel, which might reveal the tumult of its occupants' history. This is fitting, since Elsie Cofield, founder and president of the AIDS care organization housed at 1303, is trying to put the past behind her. She does not dwell on the conflict that ultimately split her organization-the AIDS Interfaith Network (AI)-from its former parmer-parent organization AIDS Project New Haven (APNH).

Cofield has not, however, forgotten the past. She is, in fact, the only party to the conflict who was present at the beginning. And she has kept a careful record: of the paternalistic treatment of AIDS Interfaith-which traditionally serves blacks-by the traditionally white and gay-oriented APNH; of the persistent understaffing of the organization, of APNH's abrupt curtailment of their parmership; of the difficulty she had in re~tablishing her organization independently; and, finally, of the unannounced change of address which brought APNH right onto her hard-won territory in the Dwight neigborhood.

All this memory is stored in a black leather bag, in the form of letters and newspaper clippings. Cofield maneuvers through her big, cluttered office to return with her "bag of history." She expresses her uneasiness with the decisions of APNH by collecting and remembering, but resists becoming mired in conflict. She has stopped attending the demonstrations and vigils organized by black community leaders from outside AI who object to the racial disrespect they see in APNH's treatment of Al- most recently, in the relocation of APNH to 1302 Chapel.

The protesters are concerned that APNH intends to displace AI, and to replace the self-sufficient black organization with a white charity.

Despite the fact that APNH now serves black, white, and Latino clients in equal numbers, some vocal members of the black community still identify it with the gay, white community from which it was born. This misconception is perpetuated by APNH lore: it was New Haven's first public response to the epidemic, after a conversation in a gay bar in 1983 prompted its foundation.

APRIL 18, 1997

Sources at both organizations confirm that their clients are mostly addicts, both women and men. The guidelines for providing care are not drawn on the basis of gender or sexual orientation, or even race, though AI still serves mostly black clients. Nonetheless, the protesters see APNH's move as motivated by competition for grant money, clients, and power. ofield digs into the leather bag. As she rummages, she recalls the beginning of her involvement with the fight against AIDS. In 1987 Cofield was three weeks from retirement afrer a 31-year career as a public school teacher when a black Yale Divinity School student approached her. Allison Moore (DIY '90) asked for Cofield's help in developing a program aimed specifically at helping African Americans infected with HIY. Cofield is a religious woman, married to Dr. Curtis Cofield, the prominent minister of the Immanuel Baptist Church; she meditated and prayed on the request for three weeks. At the end of that time, she told Moore that fighting AIDS was her calling from God. She wears a pin on her colorful sweater that reads, "If you believe AIDS is a plague from God, you haven't met my God." AI got its initial financial support from APNH, and spent its first four years under the patronage of the older organization. 'They gave us that first $12,000 just for the asking," Cofield said. APNH gave the money gladly. Alvin Novick, a Yale biology professor, one of the founders of APNH, said that APNH had been trying to help black New Haven help itself since 1984. '1\PNH didn't see itself as not serving minority clients," Novick recalled. But APNH soon recognized that the black HIV-positive community would be better served and feel more comfortable with an organization from within their own community. The partnership with Cofield brought APNH closer to that goal.

Cofield's association with Immanuel Baptist gave her the credibility within the African-American community that APNH lacked. She worked to minimize the black community's discomfort-her own included-with AIDS and homosexuality thar had crippled APNH in its efforts to reach black clients. Cofield took congregations by surprise, preparing them for a video on condom use with the reminder, "As you all know, I've been teaching the Bible for a long time, but tonight is

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something different." She crossed out the name of the Gay Men's Chorus on a fundraiser's posters, "because I knew that if my people knew that it was the Gay Men's Chorus, they weren't coming."

While Cofield was contending with issues specific to the African-American community, her relationship with APNH was deteriorating. APNH was dearly the senior partner, writing the grant proposals and allocating the funds they received &om organizations like the New Haven Foundation, as well as &om state and federal governments. Cofield chafed at the control, which she o&en found patronizing. "APNH said to me, 'You know you're one of us.' I didn't mean to be one of them, but since they were giving me money, that was the way we had to do it."

APNH had intended to establish an organization based in the black community. But there was an inherent contradiction: AI's dependence on APNH compromised its identity as an authentically black organization.

Black leaders outside AI accused APNH of neglecting the black community by neglecting AI, pointing out that Cofield was assisted by only one full-time staffer. By March 1990, tension between the organizations prompted a warning &om the New Haven Foundation that "if further tensions are evident between APNH and AI ... the remainder of the grant will be cancelled."

Cofield pulls out of her bag of history her July 1990 letter to then-Director of APNH Thomas Butcher, in which she wrote that the "constant bickering" between -the organizations was bringing them both down. On September 6, that same year, Butcher responded with his fear that, "APNH will continue to be perceived as the 'white oppressor.'" Citing racial tension, as well as AI's "unorganized and seemingly haphazard methods," Butcher asked that, "we acknowledge and celebrate our differences," and urged that AI be organizationally and financially independent of APNH by March 15, 1991.

Cofield had not expected such abrupt action, and she scrambled to get grant proposals written and to hold her own fundraisers.

"It was a beauti.ful break. I didn't see it then, but I see it now," Cofield says. 1303 Chapel now houses approximately eight full-time employees: case-workers, educators, and mental health specialists. According to Cofield, however, "They didn't think that I would

THE NEw JouRNAL

make it." She feels that she survived despite APNH; now she is confident that she can succeed despite their presence across the street.

She sees APNH's move as misguided, at best.

"Two addresses, 1302 and 1303-can you imagine? I don't know what they're thinking."

Cofield and AI have backed away from actively protesting APNH's relocation, but other black community leaders continue to protest the perceived intrusion. Reverend Bosie Kimber, head of the Greater New Haven ClergfAssociation, organizes the vigils and has become their unofficial spokesperson.

Reverend Kimber is a solid man whose title and deep, loud voice make him an imposing figure. His office displays three framed portraits, one of Martin Luther King, one ofNelson Mandela, and one of Reverend Kimber himself He states the protesters' position: the move reflected "blatant racism" on the part of APNH, and was an attempt to put AI out of business. Furthermore, APNH assumed a white prerogative while demonstrating its disrespect for the local community by failing to consult with community leaders. "It's all about finance," he suggests, and he sees APNH scheming to benefit at the expense of AI. If he views this in historical terms, it's the history of white racism.

Though Cofield is less adamant about the racial implications of APNH's move, she still feels hostility from APNH. "This is the impression I've been getting, 'What can we do to keep her down? What can we do to stop her?'" Now that her initial anger and concern have subsided, she wavers between upset and philosophical. She is resigned to the permanence of her new neighbors. "Now there's a lot of healing that needs to be done," she says.

Cofield's new neighbor, Susan Chudwick, the executive director of APNH, agrees with her on that point. Chudwick is a white professional in her late thirties who left the forprofit health care industry when AIDS rook the life of her closest friend. Contrary to protesters' accusations, she isn't in it for the money.

Chudwick's building smells like paint.

Two workmen install a back door--even the carpets are a little shiny. Upstairs, her office Is large and nearly bare, with a Georgia O'Keefe print gracing one wall. Neither Chudwick nor any of her staff witnessed the 1991 split with AI. The burnout rate is high at service organizations, and the history of poor relations

APRIL x8, 1997

between APNH and AI has little significance here. Chudwick believes that the racial politicization ofAID S care can only do harm. "Our mission statement says that we're here to provide services to the HIV-positive community, and it doesn't say anything about skin color," she says firmly.

The folks at APNH don't see why everyone is so upset. They dismiss any questions of ulterior motives for their move; it was just a great bargain . According to Chudwick, they closed the deal so quickly that they simply didn't get a chance to inform AI. Chudwick had even hoped that this location would help them "build bridges" to AI and develop a close working relationship.

APNH had shared its former building on Grand Street with Hispanos Unidos Contra el SIDA, an AIDS service organization which prim arily serves Latino clients, to the benefit of both groups. Chudwick doesn't understand Reverend Kimber's accusations: "We're a nonprofit. We're not going to make any money anyway." Frustrated, she remarks, "It's hard to defuse a situation that you don't have a part . " m.

It would be easy to see this situation in white and black-white racism and black innocence, or white innocence and black paranoia. The choice of interpretations comes down to a judgement about the value of history. On the side of the past and of memory stand Cofield and Reverend Kimber. From their perspective, and in light of Cofield's bag of history, APNH's move was deeply insensitive. But APNH, suffering from instirutional amnesia and benefiting from a focus on the future, has no place for the memory that Cofield keeps in her bag. To them, the move was not an aggressive act, and they are surprised at the reaction their move caused, a reaction they even consider paranoid.

APNH's ignorance of history reflectS their secure statuS as an organization identified with the white majority. AI's ties to the black community, on the other hand, entail a heightened attention to minority issues, including America's history of white racism, and in this case, to the racial tensions that caused the split between AI and APNH. How you see it depends on who you are.

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23

A Passage to India Samita Sinha

I

watched my mother's lean figure stride confidently ahead of me, impatiently waiting for her to answer my question. Distracted, she glanced at me over her shoulder. "What did you say?" Since my mother was¡ at least ten paces.ahead of me, our valiant attempts to communicate were repeatedly thwarted during our walk along a poorly' paved road in Serarnpore, India. Exasperated, I caught up beside her and managed to express my surprise at the vigilance of the fruit vendors over their wares. I had barely completed my thought before I was harassed by shrill rickshaw horns, temperamental cows and ¡dogs, and uncompromising pedestrians, all attempting to weave through the crowded marketplace. My mother instinctively shoved me ahead of her.

"One line!" she scolded, anxiety edging into her voice and tensing her body.

During my travels to India this past winter break, the anarchic activity of the market overloaded my senses, leaving me virtually immobilized. A stunning, sun-beaten woman in a tattered sari walked gracefully on the opposite side of the road with a straw basket balanced on the crown of her head; I attempted a friendly smile to justify my indiscreet curiosity when she caught my eye. The tempting aroma of deepfried snacks mingled with the offensive stench of feces, but the oppressive smog formed a layer of grit in my mouth which overpowered both.

A five-year-old boy carrying an inf.uu stood at a busy intersection in front of me. He cupped his hands, staring through me with a chilling combination of pride and desperation.

That little boy was omnipresent-sometimes I shelled out rupees from the neatly sewn pockets of my Calvin Klein jeans to fill his tiny hands, other times I smiled at him apologetically. Sometimes I cried quietly, other times I inhaled the polluted air and continued toward a jewelry dealer or sari boutique. Invariably, I was physically and emo-

tionally taxed by the time darkness cast a pathetic veil over my fiveyear-old friend-by the time I was safely indoors.

Five years had passed since my family and I had last visited our extended family in India, and we all noticed the changes that had occurred in that short time. My mother asked beneath her breath, "Hamara desh ko kya ho gaya?" What has happened to our country?

"Hai bhagwan," she whispered, calling to God for an answer.

Our? I flinched with surprise at her choice of pronoun, and stole a sidelong glance at my sister. Our? My compassion toward the people I encountered in India stemmed from the frequent use of this kind of vocabulary in_my household: "your" people, "our" kind. Standing on this poorly paved road in Serampore, I had difficulty directly associating myself with the foreign scene I witnessed. I was experiencing a mild identity crisis, reaching a point where categories no longer applied. Being Indian seemed as irrelevant to what was important about my identity as being American or even Indian-American. These labels suspended and trapped me.

Granted, Floral Park, a Long Island suburb, was not an environment which encouraged me to explore my Indian culture. I remember my youthful pangs of resentment toward my "differences" and immature jealousy toward my friends when Christmas and Easter came around. When I approached my mother about curfew for junior prom, butterflies fluttered in my stomach, "But evn-yone stays out until breakfast, it's just a thing, Mom!" As my feelings of alienation were subtly but continually reinforced, I turned to the Indian "half' of my culture for solace. Every weekend, I escaped to a¡ temple on Kissena Boulevard in Flushing, New York. The familiar scent of agra batti and the quiet chanting of prayers provided a peaceful setting in which to train myself in classical Hindi music. I dressed in luxurious Indian clothing for wed-

THE NEW JouRNAL

dings and special holidays and attempted to learn Hindi in erratic sp urts throughout junior high and high school. My Indian culture made me separate, special, important. When I couldn't be wholly American according to the skewed definicion I had formulated, I could always be Indian.

But standing outside my grandmother's house in Serampore, I got my jeans soaked while trying to wash my hair, using only a manual water pump and buckets. Unable to master this seemingly simple task, I eventually sought out the local beauty salon. Along the way, I had to concentrate s-o hard on sidestepping manure and avoiding rabid animals that even walking proved to be a trial. I opted instead to ride in a rickshaw pedaled by a shoeless, toothless man. The hard skin on the soles of his feet entranced me until the vehicle came to a halt in front of "Glamourous Woman." Upon observing the perverse irony of this situation, I overpaid the rickshaw driver. I was simply attempting to relieve the guilt that weighed on my conscience, but I could not shake the feeling of desperation I felt when I conceived of the unbridgeable distance between my world and his.

T

hat is not to say that poverty defines a culture; rather, the rapestry of Indian culture is intricate and richly woven. Therein lay the crux of my dilemma. Despite my appreciation of the beautiful sarees and songs and foods, the immediacy of daily life alienated me from what I possessively considered to be my country (my other country, at the very least). I feigned a comfortable stroll down the streets of Calcutta. but I even stuck out physically: I was taller than the average Indian woman and had a noticeably different physical carriage. When speaking Hindi, my American accent was glaring and elicited affectionate giggles from my family. In forgetting to aspirate a "ch" sound, I

wound up asking for a bracelet, "churi," instead of a knife, "chhuri." ?; These ostensible differences were only a small part of my alienation. !l More obvious was the strength and confidence with which my sister ~ and I moved and spoke, in contrast to the much milder, more submis- ~ sive behavior of my younger female cousin, Ri nky. As my sister spoke ~ excitedly of her post-graduate plans, Rinky unobtrusively cleared the E kitchen table and prepared tea with downcast eyes. This image spoke ~ loudly to me. I turned over a single thought: I was an outsider in Floral ~ Park; I was an outsider in my native country. Did my identity float ~ within an abstract concept of being Indian-American, existing more at ~ the hyphen than within the words on either side?

Thoroughly jet lagged, I returned to Yale with this question weigh- ~ ing on my mind. I smiled weakly each time someone casually asked me about my break, and following my cue, recited a condensed version of my trip. As I recounted my experiences from the perspective of an Indian, an American, an Indian-American, a woman, a student, I realized that I had cultivated a personal perspective not formed by belonging to any of these groups. My experiences have thus far formed who I am fundamentally, but these experiences live and breathe independent of labels. The voice and person of Samita transcended one-dimensional categories, and soared above the necessity to be pinned down.

Gathering personal identity from contrived labels creates unnecessary apoplexy. Had I observed my native country without pigeonholing my perspective into that of an "insider" or an "outsider," my experience could have simply been about c:perimcing. The tears I shed for the desperate and proud five-year-old boy become more real when they are not 18] shrouded by the self-pity borne of a false identity crisis.

g

Samita Sinha is afr~hman in Saybrook Co/kg~.

\ APRIL I8, 1997

25

Taunton Lake -

James Prosek

H

.)/(. ~

.t ~ ~

1> ~

aines kept his promise to take me fishing. I hadn't thought he was going to call, but he did, one Saturday afternoon. The initial invitation was a bit awkward for both of us.

"I like to take the kids I catch fishing," he said to me over the phone, "to show them that there are just as many fish in legal waters."

Something about his tone of voice told me that Haines wasn't exactly telling the truth. I doubted he made a habit out of taking kids he had caught fishing illegally, but he wasn't sure how to ask me, so he made it sound like part of his job as a game warden for the Bridgeport Hydraulic Company.

He said he was taking me to a private lake in Newtown called Taunton. Coming to pick me up in an hour, if that was okay. It was. & we drove, he commented on the things we passed; he knew the owner of Swanson's Fish Market, had pruned trees every spring at Slady's

Farm, and had bought lumber at Henderson's. From the moment he picked me up at my house in his old black Chevy truck, I began to see things through his eyes.

By the upper reaches of the Pequonnuck River, where I had fished many times before, Haines spotted a large snapping turtle crossing the road.

"Hold on a minute," he said, pulling off to the side and getting out of the truck. I followed him out, leaping from the Chevy's high platform.

"Don't want it to get hit," he said, grabbing the turtle by the tail and holding it out from his body so that its long neck and claws couldn't reach his leg. He moved it to safety, and I watched the turtle waddle off into the damp swampy woods.

"Would have kept it to eat," Haines said, once we were back in the

THE NEW jOURNAL

An Interview with James Prosek 1NJ: What is

the new book, joe

and Me, about?

Prosek: It's basically just 18 stories about this old guy Joe Haines, a game warden, who caught me fishing illegally when I was 14 years old at the local reservoir.

When he arrested me, or whatever you do_.with a fishing criminal, he started.-taking me fishing. He's become a good friend. I think what happened was that his son had recently moved out to Colorado, and he was maybe five years older than me, and I kind of became a replacement. The book doesn't really rry to be anything.

It's a very simple book. It's written very simply. There's 18 illustrations that do their best to accentuate a particular moment in a story.

1NJ: In virtually every review of Trout: An Illustrated History, reviewers either called you the "Audubon of fish" or said that the claims that you were the ':Audubon of fish" were overblown, but they all dealt with that issue. How do you react to that kind of comparison?

Prosek: Well, I don't feel worthy. Especially since Audubon spent a lifetime with birds and didn't publish his works until he was at least, I don't know, 45. I'm 21 years old. Audubon was really the reason why I did a book like the trout book. As a kid, I started painting Audubon's birds or copying them. My dad would bring home Audubon's volumes of Birds of North America, which are these fantastically colorful bird drawings. So, to be compared with Audubon is very nice. I enjoy it more from a business perspective because I know that it's good for publicity. I know it's a good kind of line, but I don't really think you can compare Audubon to, well, I aon't know, anybody this century.

TNJ: Most kids your age who want to write or do art for a living

truck.

"What, the turtle?" I asked him. "You eat turtles?"

"Sure, but my freezer's packed with meat as it is. I got some heavy eating to do." He cleared his throat.

"How would you eat a turtle?" I asked Haines. "Are they any good?"

"Snappers have got sweet meat. I've got some friends that love 'em.

I usually bring 'em to Danny Lee or Earl, and they prepare 'em and bring me a container with turtle soup. You could make a lot of soup from a turtle the size we just saw."

"How big would you say that turtle was?"

"Oh geez, that one'd go probably 40 pounds. Lots of meat on that one. I've cleaned them myself before but it takes a lot of work."

"What do you have to do?" I asked. I had already figured out that APRIL 18, 1997

think about doing a book sometime in the distant future. You have your second book coming out when you're 21, what do you want to be doing 20 years from¡now?

Prosek: Playing rock music. No, seriously, I'd very much like to write. I want to do a book on the trout of the rest of the world.

I've been to Europe fishing for trout. I'd like to go to Japan and Siberia. And, there's a few trout in the first book from Mexico, but I think there could be some more exploration done down there along the west coast of Mexico and Baja. And I'd like to write some fiction. I have some stuff I'd like to write about, like murders in Baja.

1NJ: Fishing stories?

Prosek: It'd probably involve a fishing trip somewhere-a fishing trip gone bad. Also, I'd like to be known at some point as a reasonable fine artist, canvas art or sculpture. I'm going to do more large canvas oil paintings. I'm interested in the line berween illustration and fine art. But writing and painting are rwo things I'd still like to be doing in 20 years.

TNJ: Do you want to be known as the "trout guy" or do you want to do work other than fishing?

Prosek: If I do a second book, the trout of the world, it'll come out in the next five years, and then unless I'm terminated by forces beyond my control, I'm going to continue to produce other things. I'd like to be known eventually as more than a trout person. The thing about being involved with trout all the time-talking about it to you, answering whatever questions I can answer-is that I'm talking about something I enjoy so much that I'm sick of talking about it. Not that I'm sick of doing it, I love fishing and I always will. But, if for no other reason, I don't want to be the "trout boy" forever because I fear I run the risk of losing this passion which has been with me for my whole life and I hope will continue to be. But I'm perfectly fine if these rwo books are the only ones I ever publish. I will be very happy and satisfied, but I will be doing other things whether it's painting or architecture or whatever.

-Interview by Gabriel Snyder

the best way to keep a conversation going with Haines \vas to ask him questions, and sitting in silence with him still made me a bit nervous.

"Well, some'll shoot off the head with a shotgun, or take a pitchfork and put it through their head to stretch the neck out, and then chop off the head with a hatchet. Then you got to hang the turtle by the tail on a tree and let it bleed out a good, long time. You can take that turtle off the tree in rwo days, lay it on the ground, and it'll still walk around." ':Are you serious? With its head cut off for rwo days?" I had trouble believing it, but couldn't help picturing the gruesome scene in my head.

"Yeah, it takes them about four days to die, their heart beats so slow. They got a real slow metabolism."

At the flagpole in Newtown, just past the police station, we took a left and drove down a long, steep hill. We came to the lake and circled around part of it, and then drove up a road to a steep sloping lawn with

_,., ~

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~ ~

~

a small, plain brown clapboard house perched on it. There was a dock in the distance, with one lone white pine in front of it.

The lake was flat, except for occasional ripples as fish broke the surface. I could piccure the lake coming alive with feeding trout.

Haines started carrying equipment down the hill to the dock and I followed hlm. On the second trip, I asked if he wanted me to carry the battery, but he had already grabbed it and was straining down the hill with it. I followed with his tackle box in a whlte bucket and the electric trolling motor.

The lawn was soggy and smelled like spring. "Thls house belongs to my friend Red Wagner," Haines said.

"He like to fish?" I asked.

"Yeah, but he don't get out as much as he used to. He's fading a bit, getting old."

I followed Haines to the edge of the property, where there was an aluminum boat up on wooden sawhorses. We lifted it, turned it right side up, and carried it down the sloping lawn, sliding it into the water. Tiling the bowline, Haines led the boat to the dock and tied it up, and we filled it with our gear. He walked to a nearby shed and pulled out his key chain, which must have had 30 keys on it.

He released the padlock and then 6Wllng open the door. Inside, we grabbed two seat cushions, a pair of oars, and two orange badges with pins.

"This is a backpatch," he said, holding a piece of orange paper, "which says you're a guest at the Newtown Fish and Game Club.

You can thank old Red for that when you meet him." Now I was legal, I thought, and somehow, a new member of the club. After all, he wanted to introduce me to his old friend. I had been wondering if thls was a one-cime thing, but it seemed that Haines already had plans to take me fishing again.

We got in the aluminum boat and pushed off. Haines clamped his small electric trolling motor to the stern and then rowed us out.

"Oh," he said as he was putting his twopiece fishing rod together, "I met your friend Stephen's mother the other day at Greiser's store." When Haines came upon us fishing, Stephen attempted, unsuccessfuUy, to run away. "Boy, is she proud of her son. She said to me, 'You won't catch my Stephen again; he can sprint like a deer and swim like an otter.'

I couldn't help but laugh; this was typical of her. Haines concinued, "And I said to her,

'Ma'am, your Stephen can swim, but he's got to come to the other side at some point.' She shut up for a while, and then she insisted that she was my classmate down in Bridgepon, but I never went to the school she was talking about." He dipped the oar in the water and stroked and then stopped to hook up the trolling motor to the battery.

"Stephen's mom means well," I said.

"When did she think she knew you?" Haines strung the line through his guides and selected a fly.

"I guess grammar school. I never liked school that much," Haines said. "I had to make money, my teachers never understood that. Trapping was how I made most of my money as a kid."

"What kind of stuff did you trap?"

"Muskrat mostly. Occasionally I'd get a mink and get a load of money for it. Trapped a few fox. But the compecition started getting stiff, guys were overlapping my territory, and eventually I stopped. There were very few houses north of your house in the Tashua area back then. I could walk through th~ woods from my house to the Merritt Parkway and hunt squirrels all day. I had it all to myself" I watched Haines rig up hls rod.

"Ever use lead-core line?" he asked, holding up the rod.

"No." "Well, the line is heavy and it gees the fly down if the fish are deep." He cied the fly to the line and laid it in the water. Starting the

THE NEW jOURNAL

engine again, he let out about thirty feet of line. "Why don't you get out your fly rod and tie on something about two inches long," H aines said. I put a fly on my line and let out as much line as he had. "Your line should be closer to the surface than mine," he said.

"That way we can cover more water."

Haines put his rod in a holder by the edge of the boat so he could steer the engine. It was the first time this year I'd noticed the sun was getting higher .in the sky. The shadows were strong. We'd [rolled about three hundred yards before anything happened.

"I think I had a bite," I said, holding my fly rod in my hand.

"Does it feel like a good fish?" Haines asked.

"I can't tell," I said, and then 1 felt it jerk again. "There he is again."

"H e gave you a second chance."

"Yeah, he's on now." I reeled the fish up to the boat with ease. It wasn't a trout, which is what I was expecting. It was a largemouth bass.

"Mudsucker," Haines said as he netted it.

"Mudsucker?"

"Yeah, them bass aren't good for anything.

People go nuts over 'em but I don't see what the big deal is; they make one effort to fight, then they give up. And if you eat them in the summer they taste like mud. The only time of year they're any good to eat is in winter, when you catch them through the ice and their flesh is good and firm."

"Bass are what I mostly fished for all my life," I said to Haines. "I think they fight well."

"Well, they don't fight like a trout, and they don't taste near as good. Oop, there's one," he said, hooking a fish and reeling in his line. I let the bass go and then netted his fish, a lovely little yellow perch with bright orange lower fins, a yellow-green body, and dark vertical bands along its sides.

"Barred trout," H aines said.

"Barred trout? Don't you mean yellow perch?" I asked him.

"Barred trout are better than bass. They've got real nice white meat that flakes off when you cook it. This one's too small," Haines said, tossing it back into the dark water.

"That was a perch," I said to Haines, trying one more time, "right?"

"Barred trout," he said.

"Okay," I murmured. I soon learned that

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30

Hrunes had his own particular way of naming things.

"That fish must have gone, oh, six, maybe eight pounds ... I mean inches," Haines said, laughing, and I saw a playful side of him I hadn't yet seen. He began to rummage through the white bucket where he kept all his equipment. Pulling out a fly box, he opened it, picked out a fly, and handed it to me.

"Here."

"What kind of fly is this?" I asked.

"It's top secret. Don't even hold it out over the water or a trout will jump out and take it," he srud, smiling. "It's a Joe Hrunes Special.

Do you tie any flies?" he asked.

"Yeah, I've been tying since I was eight," I srud and turned the buggy black fly in my hand. "How do you make it?"

"I tie on the black marabou r.til first," Hrunes srud. "Then I wrap the hook with lead, 'cause you got to get it down there if you want to catch anything. Then I take about a foot-long segment of black wool and divide it into four strands. Take one of the strands and tie it in the front part of the hook. Start wrapping it back and then wrap it over itself again.

You got it so far?" ''Yeah, sounds a lot like a woolly bugger," I srud, referring to a popular fly.

"Just wrut till I finish, James. You got it in your hand, you can see it's not just a woolly bugger." He paused to remember where he'd left off. "Then tie in the gray hackle in the front and, bringing the thread to the back, wind the feather to the rear and tie it off.

Now, here's the part that counts," he said, pointing to the fly in my hand. "See that marabou collar that runs on top of the fly in a half-moon?"

"Yeah."

"Well, you make it by. tying in three pieces of marabou, one on one side, one on the other, and one on top, and then clip them down even, to about a quarter inch long.

Now, when that collar gets wet," Hrunes srud, taking the fly back out of my hand and dunking it in the lake, "It looks just like the shell on the top of a hellgrammite, see?" I leaned over the side of the boat to look. "And the last thing I like to do is trim the hackle so that it's kind of rough and spindly. It looks more like little legs that way. I'm telling you, when nothing else is working, this will. That's all there is to it. Just don't go telling everyone

'cause then there won't be any fish left for us."

"Can I keep it?" I asked Hrunes.

"Use it as a model," he srud to me. "It's yours."

"Then let me give you a fly," I srud and pulled out a small Adams dry fly that I had tied and handed it to him.

"You tied this?" Haines said, examining it between his fingers.

"Yes." "I could never tie anything this small, my hands aren't steady enough." I was flattered that Hrunes acknowledged my skill. It gave me the confidence to fish with him, someone who'd been around a long time.

We let our lines out again until we swung around to Red Wagner's dock, where we had started. We cast for another hour in the cove by the dock and Haines caught a larger perch and put it in the bucket.

"You always keep the fish you catch?" I asked him.

"I never keep more than my limit, James.

It amazes me how greedy people can be." He cast and began to retrieve his fly. "One day my son Joey and this doctor friend of mine were out fishing on Taunton. Joey was young then, maybe eight or nine. The doctor caught his legal limit, five fish, and when he caught a sixth he threw it in the bucket with the minnows. Joey didn't say anything to the doctor, but he told me when he came home. I'd had other problems with this guy too; all he'd do was take take take, never gave anything back.

Greedy. This last thing topped it off for me.

You gonna just take like that, that's not friendship." From the tone ofHaines's voice, I knew at some point he'd been good friends with the doctor. He didn't say what happened, but I assumed things had changed. Hrunes took another cast.

We fished a bit longer, and when the light grew dim, Hrunes rowed us back to the dock.

"Sorry we didn't get any trout," he said, laying one of the oars on the dock.

"No, that's all right, I had a great time."

"Well, we'll have to get you out again," he said. I hdped unload the equipment, watching the sky grow dark around us, hopin~ would stick to his word.

181 jam~ Pros~k

is a senior in Branford Co/kg~.

This pi~c~ is an excerpt from Prosek's s~cond book, Joe and Me, which is to b~ publish~d in May by Rob Weisbach Books.

THE NEw JouRNAL

Meat the Beetles The "terrifying" tale of the BUG ROOM!

by Alec Dear Mr. Craven, Boy, have J•got a movie for you. You're not gonna believe it, 'Wes. It has it all: a dashing hero, a prestigious American research university. and, get this, FLESHEATING BUGS! Best of all, the whole damn thing's ~!Do yourself a favor and take a moment to go over my rough proposal I'd love to bringyou in on the project.

Yours truly, ·

""~

Fade in: Newsroom of The New journal, New Haven, Connecticut.

Synopsis: Establishing shot of hero, Alec Bemis, intrepid reporter for The New journal Alec chats with a fellow reponer about a possible

Bemis dean off mammal skulls or any other manner of ~ corpse. "Some people still use the older method," he o says. "You rot the animal, boil it, wait for the flesh to .!i rub off, and then scrub it gendy. You just lose a lot of ~ the little bones. That's why the dermiscids are really g' good on smaller birds." ~· Alec asks if the dermistids really do eat animals ;! only bones in their wake. "They don't eat connective tis- ~ sue and they don't eat cartilage which is a good thing in a way," Sibley ~ says. "It means you have a lot of material left on a big skeleton." Alec ~ cringes. He wonders if there's much demand for bigger skeletons as Sib- ~ ley eyes his mid-sized frame. [Scene ends with the sound ofscreeching vio-

lins playing over an extreme close-up ofAlec's terrifiedface.}

story lead. They are discussing "the bug room." The reponer tells Alec that a colony of vicious flesh-eating insects is stored in the basement of . Cut to: The bug room. T he sound of dripping water virtually drowns Yale's Peabody Museum and that, when hungry, the bugs can dean the out conversation. Dingy metallic sinks are on full blast. A small laboraflesh off a mid-sized animal in under a day. tory oven is in the corner of the room. Skulls and bones covered with Alec immediately calls the Peabody to inquire about the bug room. bits of DRIED AND ROTTEN FLESH litter the floor.

The receptionist is entirely candid about the room's existence. Alec is Synopsis: Alec winces at the smell of rotting animal hides. Sibley, apparinvited for a "visit" on the upcoming Friday. As he puts down the endy accustomed to the scent, is unfazed. "This would actually be receiver, his face tenses. He mutters to himself nervously, "What if this called the prep room," he says. "That is the bug room." Sibley points to is how they take care of inquiring minds? What if I'm scheduled to be a door in the corner. Alec asks to get a look inside. the next VICTIM OF THE FLESH-EATING BUGS?" As Sibley opens the door, releasing a harsh gust of rotten air, Alec "It's spring break," he says to himself, visibly calming. "There will grabs his nose, unable to cope with the stench. The bug room is about be no distractions. It's the perfect time to break my big story and eradithe size of a small walk-in closet. Thousands of pill-shaped inseCts cate this perversion of nature." [Triumphant, sexy orchestral score kicks in. weave their way through the sinewy flesh of various unfamiliar carrion.

Alec is vulnerable and defenseless. He is BEETLE MEAT. His eyes go Midway through, the tenor ofthe music shifts and becomes ominous as the wide as pie plates staring at the carnage. screen fades to black} Sibley speaks about the bug room with a kind of wild enthusiasm, a depraved relish. "In there right now is an emu, an ostrich, a great egret, Cut to: Basement of the Peabody Museum. Construction sounds, dripa snowy egret, a red-tailed hawk, and a tuna head. All road kills or natping water, and the hum of electric circuitry are audible. ural deaths. They've been in a long time because the heat is not right Synopsis: Alec, tape recorder in hand, walks through the labyrinthine and a lot of the bugs have died. If the colony was really working the corridors of the museum's basement. Next to him is Fred Sibley, collecroom would just be one mass of larvae. The floor would move and a tions manager for venebrate wology. Sibley wears a slighdy rumpled bird skeleton would be cleaned in a day or two at most. Individual beebutton-down shin, tan workpants, and black shoes splattered with a tles work very, very slowly chewing off that flesh. In these conditions it white powdery substance. His eyes are a dear, electric blue and his gray could take a month." and white hair is balding in spots. Picture Sibley as a mad scientist type Alec confronts Sibley. He asks if the bugs are a threat to living, but cool and calm, almost too hospitable. The two men converse about creatures-perhaps to people? Do they savor FRESH breathing the history of the bug room. [This bit is sort ofboring, but it will clear up MEAT? Alec is determined to get to the bottom of Sibley's devious so~ niggling tktails for the audience.} plans.

Sibley shares some of the history of osteology-the study of bones.

"Oh, no they're not going to do anything to a living or breathing In the 1920s, Sibley tells Alec, a group of scientists at UC Berkeley disanimal," Sibley says. "They don't want anything wet or moist because covered that dermistid beedes eliminated the need to spend hours they'll just drown in a damp environment." scrubbing down carcasses. The dermiscid survives by feasting on the "Oh," our fearless hero says. "Cool."

181 flesh of dead animals. Scientists found that the beedes would e.fficiendy Alec Bemis, o junior in Berkeley College, is o mono9in9 editor ofTNj.

APRIL 18, 1997

31

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