Harry left the courtroom. It was rush hour in the rain in downtown New York. He walked crosstown to Chambers Street where crowds were descending the steps to the subway. Well-dressed men and women in suits stood on the subway platform not looking at each other. Harry looked away from the tracks and saw seven men standing against a wall. They were small and dark-skinned, playing panpipes. There was a straw hat at their feet. Harry could hardly hear the music over the screeches of the trains and the announcements. He dropped five dollars in the hat and pushed his way onto the subway as the doors closed.
He got off the subway at Queens Boulevard, went up the subway stairs, and crossed the street. There was a line of subway commuters waiting for a bus. The secretaries stood in wet sneakers, their high-heeled shoes in their handbags. The clerks took off their ties. Harry walked past them on the sidewalk, got under the awning, and took the elevator up to his office.
His secretary brought in the mail. On the top was a letter from his lawyer. He knew the contents, but hesitated to open it. The letter contained his suspension from the practice of law for one year. It was no surprise. He had attended the disciplinary hearings before the Bar Association.
Harry had purchased one hundred negligence cases from a disbarred lawyer. He had accepted the proposed suspension on the advice of counsel and his own awareness that, although his conduct was common in the culture of the bar, it was prohibited and could result in disbarment. In a world of fixers and con men, he felt his transgressions were minor.
He left his office and took the elevator down to the corner bar and ordered a Manhattan. Detective Costello was sitting next to him. They had met while working a case involving a drug dealer who’d been robbed. Harry, a young prosecutor, was the first officer on the scene. They went to the crime scene and prepared the case for trial. After jury selection, the defendants pleaded guilty. They had worked well together and knew the ins and outs of their jobs.
They saw each other often at the local watering holes. Harry and the detective had some things in common. They often skirted the boundaries of the law. They dealt firsthand with criminals and degenerates with all the various shades of decency and deceit.
Harry bought Costello a drink and, abandoning his usual reserve, told him of his troubles. The detective offered some advice. “In the end, he said, watch out for number one.”
Harry didn’t usually think that way, but in that moment he took it as a revealed truth. Perhaps survival instincts trump all others. Harry had a few more drinks and drove to the town of Roslyn on Northern Boulevard. Harry had been living in various motels since his separation from his wife. He had been at Mary Dutchnowski’s motel for several months.
The motel was a hot sheet place, a faded, yellow clapboard building on a small hill outside of town. He had to tell the chambermaids not to change the sheets every day. The parking lot in the back shielded the cars of lovers, revelers, and cheaters from the views of passers-by. The area was still ungentrified.
Harry entered his motel room. He heard music from the next room. It was unlike the music he usually heard from his neighbors. It was a low murmur and sounded of thin air and high mountains.
He walked slowly along the path which fronted the units and peeked into his neighbor’s window. Several small men with big chests were seated with their heads up and backs against the wall. They were playing lutes, pipes, and a small drum. He saw seven reeds on the panpipes that one man was playing. He knew the Greek legend of Pan, of the god’s pursuit of a water nymph, whose sisters turned her into a reed. Not knowing which reed she had become, Pan cut seven reeds in graduated lengths, bound them together and made the instrument that bears his name.
Harry went to sleep listening to the music.
In the morning there was a light rain. Harry walked into town for breakfast, then went to his office to shut things down. That evening when he returned to the motel, two men wearing suits and carrying badges approached him on the porch.
“Have you seen any Peruvians?” they asked.
“No, never,”
“Little men with big chests?” they said.
“This isn’t even a Peruvian neighborhood,” Harry said.
They were not amused.
Later that evening he heard the music again. He knocked on his neighbor’s door. One of the Peruvians answered.
“The immigration police were here,” Harry said.
No comprendo.”
“Policia immigration esta aqui!” he said.
“Gracias,” the man said and closed the door.
The next morning the maids were cleaning his neighbors’ room. He walked into town for breakfast. It was fall. Wet leaves on the path were underfoot and there were ripples in the lily pond. He thought he heard the sound of panpipes or perhaps it was just the wind.
The Panpipes by Al Uris was one of the selections for the Best of The Burlington Writers’ Workshop in 2014. Uris lives in Waitsfield and shared this piece of writing in light of current presidential policies regarding immigrants and immigration.
