Claude Simon To: Amy Lorber (E-mail 2) Subject: Story Hi Amy- I wanted to write you and tell you of this very cathartic incident. Its not what you think. Please read on. I don't know how much of this you will remember. It is so fresh in my mind because it happened to me but maybe not so fresh in yours. At 6 Edwards Lane in Glen Cove, we had and still have neighbors named Joe and Roseanne Sheehan. We never did get along with them. Over the years, we had a number of 'incidents' . The old man, Joe, used to throw rocks at our kittens. Once I saw him and told him to stop. I was about twelve. He came after me, started climbing the fence and Roseanne called him off, "Joe! Stop! We'll call the police!" And they did. They called them then and on other occasions. Cats in their yard, a party that got too loud, a tv set that was turned up too loud, firecrackers on July 4th, and when my father drove his bicycle across their front lawn. They were strict disciplinarians with their three adopted children; Kevin, Joey and Mary. One cold November day I heard screaming from their yard and found Roseanne hosing down little Joey who was crying and shivering. David and Gary Rosenberg were there and maybe Darryl and Robert Mandel. She screamed, "YOU WANT WATER! I'LL GIVE YOU WATER!" All the children went to Catholic school. Mary went to high school in Manhasset and took the bus. My father was commuting to Manhasset and would give her a lift sometimes but she could never be seen getting in his car. She used to tell him that as soon as she turned 18, she was outta there. We really didn't like Joe and Roseanne and they REALLY didn't like us. Two weeks ago, my mother was playing bridge and ran into a former neighbor who lived just around the corner on Helen Place next to Tuthill. Paula Blum. They had 2 children. Steve was older than us. Allison was younger. Mrs. Blum as asking my mother about the old neighborhood and who was still there. My mother said that people had moved out and others had moved in and, "The ones you WANT to leave, don't" Paula asked her who and my mother mentioned the Sheehans. "Oh?", she said, "You don't like the Sheehans?" "No!", my mother said, "They were always calling the police on us." Paula says, "They have a lot of nerve calling the police on you after what happened." Vicki said, "What's that?" Paula replies, "Didn't I ever tell you? One day I came home and went in the house and little Joey, 8 years old, had broken into the basement through the window and I caught him there with a book of matches and some paper trying to start a fire." In 1979, when our house burned down, the first person on the scene was Joe Sheehan, the father. He came right over to me as the house was burning. I had just gotten there. I hadn't said a word to him and vice versa for 8 years or so. He told me he smelled smoke and went out to see what was going on. He told me the house was full of smoke and he broke the glass patio door down with a chair to let the smoke out. Of course they never found out what started that fire. They knew it wasn't an oil burner fire and suspected it might have been electrical because they found nothing else. They said it wasn't arson because there were no signs. But of course, there were signs of arson. There was a broken patio door and a man with a story. And there was a pushed in basement window which I noticed right away and thought was the firemen. But why start trouble? Insurance won't pay in arson. What started twisting this mind? Put up for adoption? By who and why? Adopted by rigid disciplinarians who put the hose on his little body when he asked for water one cold October day. "You WANT WATER?", she boomed. There was that horrid woman employing her perverted behaviorial science with a hoseful of icy cold water on a thirsty little boy. "I want water. I will get water. I'll show them", he thinks. Then too, at the dinner table, stories of the Simons. "No discipline. Sinners. Godless. God will punish." and Joey plots. Joey set the blaze and came home smelling of smoke with blood in his eyes. Joe grabs him and shakes him, "What have you done?" and runs next door to see if he can stop it or to make sure no one was in the house or to cover up evidence. Or Joe smells smoke like in his nightmares and goes out to investigate like he's done so many times since the Blum incident. Only this time its real. His son has set a fire! Is he still inside? Is anyone inside? Better break the door down. "IS ANYONE INSIDE?" On television, the narrator participated in a controlled burn with FDNY for training purposes. They set the fire and he remarked, "Its amazing how quickly it gets going." The firewoman, "A housefire doubles in size every 10 seconds." Or Joey climbs in through the basement window and sets the fire but he doesn't want to or doesn't have time to get out the same way he came. He runs to exit the nearest exit, the patio door and unlocks it. But it still won't open because there's a baseball bat in the track that he can't see. He grabs something, a chair, maybe, and breaks the door down. Or Joe is already at the door having smelled the smoke. "STAND BACK!" he says as he breaks down the door with a patio chair. Or Joey exits through the patio door but can't lock it behind him and runs home. Joe comes back to see what he can do. Its too late, the house is too far gone. But the patio door is open! Someone will see! I'll close it! NO! I can't lock it from the outside! They'll KNOW! I'll break it down! I'll tell them I broke it down. And he did. Came right over to me. Never said a word to me in ten years but he has something he has to say. He told me he broke it down. He told me there were no flames so he thought he'd better let the smoke out! Let the smoke? In the back of my mind gnawing away, "Let the smoke out?" He LET THE AIR IN! He gave a starving fire the air it needed to live and grow! And when that patio door opened, whether by Joey's insane hand or his father's only sin, the white cat, the only eyewitness, soiled by smoke, makes his escape and the secret stays locked in his tiny mind until his final act which he plays by an open garage door where he drags himself to die. "I'll tell them", he thinks. "Cats go in and out through OPEN doors!" "You must leave. You can't stay here after what you have done. You're not our son. We disown you." But where? "I'll show them. I'll show everyone." and he joins the Army 101st Airborne Division. Airborne Ranger. He comes home once. Johnny, the neighbor, gives him a ride from the station. Nothing to say. Can't say a word. Bad visit home. Still rejected. Same old, same old. Never coming back again. And then he disappears into oblivion... Don't misunderstand. I'm not out for revenge or even angry. I remember that poor little boy shivering while his mother turned the hose on him. The parents are ignorant, grasping on to what they know, what their parents taught them. DISCIPLINE! Discipline that morphs into cruelty. But I do want to find Joey Sheehan. I want to find out if he's alive or dead or if he's in jail or not. Is he an arsonist? Did he do it again? Has he killed anyone? I've been trying without success to locate him on the internet. All leads turn up dead end. I found his brother who spent a year in jail in Arizona and has moved around quite a lot. I think I found his sister too but no confirmation yet. But there is no sign of Joey. After the fire, he was never around anymore. Years later, my brother picked him up walking home from the station in Glen Cove. He was dressed in Army fatigues with the 101st Airborne screaming eagle insignia on his shoulder. My brother said he never said a word until he got out and then just a thank you. Claude