Nancy Ruhling's Astoria Characters

There’s a guitar right in the middle of the living room floor. On the bookcase, there’s a mannequin’s head marked up with acupuncture points whose colored lines make it look like a subway map. And in the art studio, visible through the glass-knobbed French doors, there’s an unfinished oil painting of bright yellow flowers in a vase. The lights are low. The sweet scent of incense fills the air with Zen serenity. “Let me sing for you,” says Kenny Lockwood. Kenny…

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Where’s Harry? That’s what we’ve all been asking since spring, when Harry Fiegelson didn’t show up on his usual corner at 31st and Ditmars to sell us his used books and to show us that everything was right with the world. At first, when he didn’t pop out with the crocuses, I wasn’t concerned. Perhaps he was waiting until the weather was warmer. But when his spot was taken over by an interloper selling fruits and vegetables, a thousand alarm bells went off. Harry…

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At the end of Hazen Street, where the cars on Astoria Boulevard whoosh by like rockets, a garden center grows. Verni’s, as it is called, is shaded by a green awning that is the color of a woodland forest. The sun is out, the plants are panting for a cool drink, and Frank Verni puts down his breakfast, a bowl of cold cereal, and takes up the hose. He and his brother, John Verni, divide up the daily duties, and he is the water boy. “To do it right,” he says, “you have to go…

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The sound swells like an ocean wave until it fills the room with its eerie, otherworldly vibrations. At its height, it screams like a Siren then suddenly sinks into a soulful sotto voce. Does this tune come from heaven or hell? It emanates from a saw — the carpenter’s tool that’s used to cut wood. “People tell me that it doesn’t sound anything like they thought it would,” says The Saw Lady, who gives the instrument its voice. “Some people even think I’m…

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At the top of the stairs, Dexter the pit bull is waiting exactly where Wendy DeSarno told him to sit when she went to answer the door. His pencil-thin tail is wagging, and he’s sniffing and licking me as I stand as still as a statue, but his cute little butt is glued to the floor until she gives the word. Wendy is a dog trainer. She has CPDT and CTC behind her name. But Dexter doesn’t know that. He also doesn’t know that CPDT stands for Certified Professional Dog Trainer and that…

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