Nancy Ruhling's Astoria Characters

On the gleaming coffee table in the surgically spotless living room, there are only three items: a scrapbook, a binder and a pamphlet. They’re lined up like soldiers standing at attention. Beatrice Frish, a white-haired woman with blue eyes and an ear-to-ear smile who wouldn’t top five feet even in stilettos, unfastens the white ribbon of the scrapbook and starts flipping through the pages. Things begin on Aug. 13, 1874. That’s when her maternal grandparents got married. Beatrice…

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Who’s that guy? The one at the back of the pool hall. See him? You can’t miss him. He’s the big dude, the one with the scary scorpion inked on his arm and the spiky porcupine hair the color of the 8 ball he just sent flying across the felt like a meteor. Before the answer comes, he trains his eye on the nine ball. He’s right on the money. He pockets it and cashes in. Alaska. That’s what everyone calls him. If you’re gonna be a big-time pool player, ya needa nickname.…

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Modest. Gil Fagiani, master of singular syllables, gets right to the point. Maria Lisella isn’t so stingy with her speech. She lets her sentences run in circles like water whooshing down a drain as she searches for the single word that best defines her. Adaptable. That’s it, she finally says. Gil and Maria, husband and wife, are poets. As the word “modest” suggests, Gil is the quieter one. He lets his brown eyes, intense enough to bore a hole through a steel beam, do a lot…

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On the picnic table, there are four empty beer bottles lined up like bowling pins. Larry Spacek grabs the quartet of Corona Extras, and before you can say “cheers,” he tosses them into the trash. It’s early Saturday morning, and the Bohemian Hall & Beer Garden is still picking up the pieces from last night’s party. Larry, a Czech immigrant, is new at his job as the general manager of the city’s oldest beer garden. He’s here six to seven days a week at all…

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There will be poop. Laurie Lieberman pops open the top of the green plastic carrying case, which looks like something Lady Gaga would use to tote her stuff around in. She asks for a roll of paper towels. Let’s get a couple of things straight; this story is not about Laurie, or at least that’s what she says. It is, according to her, about Zeus, who has just hopped onto her fingers. Zeus is her 4 ½-year-old Congo African grey parrot, who is ruffling his feathers to stretch his cooped-up,…

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