Ryan's Renovation

9780373751792_PL.inddExtracted 1 threads from 9780373751792-exw.PDFUntitled Article 01: UntitledRyan McKade, president of the New York City branch of McKade Import-Export, stood on the chipped- concrete sidewalk in north central Queens and studied the 1950s brick-and-stone building that housed Parnell Brothers Rubbish Removal. As a five-year-old he might have dreamed of becoming a garbageman, but he was thirty-six years old, for Gods sakewhat had his grandfather been thinking? The building reminded him of an old fire station. An extra-wide automatic door, with windows along the top half, faced the street. Two sanitation trucks sat parked inside, Parnell Bros. Inc. 1952 painted in bold black let- tering across the red brick above the doors. A smaller entrance to the right of the garage area had the word Office etched into the glass pane. A dingy American flag sagged from a polea victim of air pollution. Ryan had noticed the difference in air quality the moment hed stepped off the train. He was accustomed to cab exhaust across the East River in Manhattan. Here in the industrial Flushing area, a heavy metallic taste flavored the air. Faded plastic flowers filled a pot next to a dented garbage can chained to the downspout against the building. Ryan commiserated with the fake yellow daisieslooking as out of place as he felt. The sky rumbled for the third time in as many minutes. Flushing was home to LaGuardia Airport. During the pre"9/11 years, Ryan had attended several Mets baseball games at Shea Stadium, which had been built in the flight path of the airport. It was a toss-up what annoyed the visiting team morethe rowdy fans or the deafening air traffic. A quick check of his watch convinced him that if he ran the four blocks to the train station he could catch the M line and return to his Wall Street office in Lower Man- hattan within the hour. Or hire a cab ride across the Queensboro Bridge and arrive there in forty-five minutes. Grandfathers right. Youarea coward. Arguing with the ninety-one-year-old man had ac- complished nothing. The family patriarch had embarked on a mission to teach each of his grandsons a life lesson before leaving the earth and hed refused to allow Ryan to negotiate a way out of his. Not that Ryan had really tried. He owed his grandfather big-time. Patrick McKade had raised him and his brothers, Nelson and Aaron, after their parents had perished in a private plane crash when Ryan was two. But more im- portant, his grandfather had never left Ryans hospital bedside while hed recovered from injuries sustained the day terrorists attacked the World Trade Center. Not even Ryans wife had had the fortitude to stick by him. In truth, Ryan hadnt been upset with the old mans crazy scheme as much as hed been devastated by the lesson he believed Ryan needed to learnbravery.Evi- dently, rescuing a woman from the North Tower had failed to gain him hero status. Ryan believed it was no coinci- dence that his grandfather had arranged for him to begin the new job on September 11six years post"9/11. oeLife goes on, his grandfather had argued. Maybe for people whod watched the disaster unfold on television inside their homes. But for the unlucky ones, those whoThomas, Marin is the author of 'Ryan's Renovation ', published 2007 under ISBN 9780373751792 and ISBN 0373751796.