newyorker--2020-11-09--What Makes the Difference Between Getting Out of Prison and Staying Out?

“ I couldn ’ t fix him ?
” Rivera said , with some vehemence .
“ I can ’ t fix him .
I can ’ t fix you .
I can ’ t fix anyone .
Nobody fixes you but you .
That ’ s why I say , If you ’ re going around me—to smoke or get high or whatever—you ’ re not fooling me .
I ’ ll accept you any way you are .
The only person you ’ re fooling is you.
” Rivera emphasizes that change happens only hour by hour and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ you can wake up one day and find that the hours of work have accumulated into months and then years .
“ That ’ s the only way it happens .
You ’ re always coming home.
” He has a favorite aphorism about those whom he always calls his “ clients , ” which on another afternoon he stressed more fiercely than his usually equable tone allows .
“ The quote is mine , so I ’ m gon na own it , ” he said .
“ ‘ The crime is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s what you did.
’ David said once , to a journalist who asked , ‘ How can you work with these violent criminals ?
, ’ ‘ Well , how would you like to be identified for your entire life by the one worst thing you ’ ve ever done ?
If your editor made you put at the top of every column you ever wrote , Written by Tom the Bed-Wetter .
Or by Tom , Who Drove Under the Influence.
’ I ’ ve worked in D.C. , where people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ went to this school ’ —and that ’ s what it ’ s about .
And sometimes people of color introduce themselves that way— ‘ I was in prison.
’ But that ’ s not you !
The crime is what you did .
The crime is not who you are.
” “ Part of what I have is the contradiction of my appearance , ” he explained one evening .
“ I ’ m a big man , and I can look intimidating.
” He crossed his arms and looked out at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ when I ’ m there , like this ” —he became the man he is in meetings , hands relaxed by his sides , a half smile on his face— “ then I ’ m sending the message that you can be both , a tough guy who is open and not frightened .
‘ If Sam is like that , then I can be like that.
’ It ’ s about me taking control of what my own experience is .
I had a mentor once , and I was telling him @ @ @ @ @ @ @ said , ‘ Where is Sam in this ?
’ That was hugely helpful to me .
Seeing yourself from outside.
” Rivera was sitting over dinner at Trufa , an eclectic little restaurant at Broadway and 140th Street .
The neighborhood , which had been poverty-stricken , filled with abandoned buildings , and therefore affordable when the Fortune Society salvaged the place , in the late nineteen-nineties , is now , as Columbia University pushes north and west , an ever more desirable area , dotted with restaurants and the inevitable espresso @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be unaffordable now .
“ There ’ s an architecture of the room that I rely on—E .
being firm in the corner , Easy kibbitzing from the side , ” Rivera went on .
What had seemed an accidental weekly arrangement was purposeful .
“ You can ’ t emphasize enough things that may seem superficial .
The look of a room , the kind of food we serve , which doesn ’ t look or taste like institutional food .
Remember , a lot of our residents are people who went @ @ @ @ @ @ @ eating institutional food in prison and that ’ s all they know .
No one ’ s ever spoken to them empathetically .
No one ’ s ever asked them how they feel.
” Rivera grew up on the Lower East Side .
“ My mother had me when she was fifteen , ” he said .
“ But we were always working poor .
My parents always had jobs.
” He speaks with the ancient , “ r ” -less , broad-vowel speech of a New York working class .
In prison @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for sick inmates during the height of the AIDS crisis , and he has done the same sort of work ever since .
Rivera first visited Fortune as a client , in 1991 , and then began a career in various post-prison and advocacy groups , including a long stint at Exponents , a leading drug-rehab organization in New York .
Since then , he has been back and forth between Fortune and another nonprofit .
“ I ’ m a four-time recidivist here , ” he has joked .
He lives in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ two teen-age sons and a daughter in her twenties .
“ That you ’ ve got to hit the rock-bottom moment ?
” he said , reflectively .
“ It ’ s something I ’ ve been thinking about for a long time .
I ’ ve looked at programs that were created around recovery protocols , and the theory was : If there was ten per cent left of your rock bottom , they would intentionally bring you down to that zero , and then build you back up .
My view @ @ @ @ @ @ @ still have ten per cent after being through prison and abuse of many kinds , then we can start .
“ So , I tell the story .
I was with my boys , watching a show where they ’ re imploding a casino , and I ’ m kind of into it .
It ’ s all dramatic , and they hit the thing—old school !
—you know , the box with the plunger ?
And at about the third floor it caved in and the guy said , ‘ Wow !
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ destroy this building , the foundation was so strong that it wouldn ’ t go down.
’ And I ’ m , like , ‘ That ’ s it !
’ If we can find your foundation , you won ’ t fall .
You ’ ll lean !
You ’ ll trip , but you won ’ t fall .
So that ’ s my work , finding the foundation that remains .
Let ’ s not make it about the dynamite .
Let ’ s work on your foundation—what will keep @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to use drugs again , even if you went back to prison .
So that ’ s the only bottom I want to hit .
That foundation that ’ s still there.
” David Rothenberg founded the Fortune Society almost by accident .
In the late nineteen-sixties , at the peak of his career as an extremely successful Broadway publicist , working with the likes of Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor , he produced a Canadian play about rape in prison called “ Fortune and Men ’ s Eyes , ” and realized @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by the play were ex-cons , as they were called then .
Almost as an afterthought , he began a help line for such people— “ Really , only an extra desk in the office ” —and watched it blossom into a lifetime ’ s work .
Yet he remains spiritually on both sides of the doorway .
This makes his conversation a singular braid of show-biz anecdotes and social-activist exhortations .
Holding out his right arm , he might say , “ This is the arm that Liz Taylor cried on at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s ‘ Hamlet ’ in 1964 , ” and then avow , “ The mistake you make is thinking that they ’ re ever honest about crime numbers .
The city will bring them up and down as they want , according to the politics of the moment.
” The turning point , for him , took place on “ The David Susskind Show , ” in 1968 .
“ Everyone watched Susskind on Sunday nights , ” Rothenberg recalled .
“ They always had six of a kind—six ex-alcoholics or six prostitutes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ year .
I called the producer and said , ‘ Have you ever had six former prisoners ?
’ She said , ‘ I want ’ em but I can ’ t get ’ em.
’ I said , ‘ I can.
’ So we went on , and the next morning , after the show , I got call after call after call .
It was overwhelming !
There was an endless line of men snaking up the stairs of this theatrical building .
And I began to transition from full-time press @ @ @ @ @ @ @ prison activist and part-time press agent .
Well , no-time press agent.
” Rothenberg takes a late lunch or an early dinner most days at Trufa .
“ Thursday meetings are always essential—we realized that if we had rooms and no services we were just a hotel , ” he said .
“ What Sam does at the meeting is he gets people talking who are comfortable talking , but sometimes he ’ ll say , ‘ Hey , Joe—what ’ s happening with you ?
’ And Joe starts talking and doesn @ @ @ @ @ @ @ never been given permission .
Joe ’ s never been asked how he is in his life !
” Rothenberg chuckled .
“ You know ‘ The Green Pastures , ’ the movie ?
” The 1936 film relates Bible stories as Black American folklore .
“ Yeah , there ’ s a line , I think it ’ s from there , that I always repeat .
The Lord , who ’ s represented as African-American , says to an angel , ‘ We have to take care of that planet , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the sparrow over there.
’ Sam is one of the people taking care of his portion of the planet by taking care of the wings of the sparrow.
” “ The Castle began when we kept seeing that there was an urgent need for housing for people released who became homeless , ” JoAnne Page , the president and C.E.O .
of the Fortune Society , explained from her office at the society ’ s administrative headquarters , in Long Island City .
“ More than half the people coming out of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ now are being dumped in shelters .
HUD defines people who are coming out of incarceration as not homeless , so no HUD-funded program can take them in .
They have to be sleeping under a bridge before they can officially be classed as homeless.
” In the late nineteen-nineties , Page came upon the empty Catholic girls ’ school .
“ The city took it from the nuns and left it vacant , with the idea that it would become a TB hospital , but they gave up on that idea , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ drug dealing.
” In 1998 , Fortune bought it for $ 1.2 million .
Page emphasizes the society ’ s “ open doors ” policy .
“ We ’ re bound by laws about sexual offenders and proximity to schools , ” she said .
But applicants are screened for “ current risk of violence , not a history of violence .
We have some of the people with the worst records in New York City coming for active services , but no metal detectors .
We offer people something they really want @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have to behave peaceably if they want it.
” The Fortune Society holds most of its job-training and vocational-education programs at its Long Island City offices , with the Castle offering its own approach to social services .
“ It ’ s valuable that Sam has lived experience , ” Page said .
“ He knows prison faces .
He can tell the difference between someone who looks tough and someone who ’ s a threat .
And most of the people coming home will see somebody in that room they did time @ @ @ @ @ @ @ residents of the Castle admired Rivera for being as reliable about small things as he was about big ones .
E. , the longtime resident with the basso-profundo voice , put it bluntly : “ Sam is the difference between leadership and leadershit .
If you have leadershit , everything ’ s going to be shit , and that ’ s the primary reason why the shelters are such hellscapes .
Sam watches the simple things that improve the outlook , improve the humanity.
” Hilton N. Webb , Jr. , another long-term @ @ @ @ @ @ @ who is studying for a master ’ s degree in social work , and writing a memoir titled “ Dancing in the Midst of Nothing , ” said , “ Whatever Sam says is going to happen , it ’ s going to happen .
I remember when I was having problems with my roommate and I had to move to a single room .
Sam said , ‘ You ’ re going to have the same river view , ’ and , to make a long story short , it happened .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
That it was a little thing didn ’ t mean he thought it was nothing .
”

“That you’ve got to hit the rock-bottom moment?” he said, reflectively. “It’s something I’ve been thinking about for a long time. I’ve looked at programs that were created around recovery protocols, and the theory was: If there was ten per cent left of your rock bottom, they would intentionally bring you down to that zero, and then build you back up. My view is just the opposite. If you still have ten per cent after being through prison and abuse of many kinds, then we can start.
Cartoon by Seth Fleishman Copy link to cartoon Copy link to cartoon Shop Shop
“So, I tell the story. I was with my boys, watching a show where they’re imploding a casino, and I’m kind of into it. It’s all dramatic, and they hit the thing—old school!—you know, the box with the plunger? And at about the third floor it caved in and the guy said, ‘Wow! With all the dynamite we used to destroy this building, the foundation was so strong that it wouldn’t go down.’ And I’m, like, ‘That’s it! ’ If we can find your foundation, you won’t fall. You’ll lean! You’ll trip, but you won’t fall. So that’s my work, finding the foundation that remains. Let’s not make it about the dynamite. Let’s work on your foundation—what will keep you standing, even if you start to use drugs again, even if you went back to prison. So that’s the only bottom I want to hit. That foundation that’s still there.”
David Rothenberg founded the Fortune Society almost by accident. In the late nineteen-sixties, at the peak of his career as an extremely successful Broadway publicist, working with the likes of Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, he produced a Canadian play about rape in prison called “Fortune and Men’s Eyes,” and realized that the men who were most stirred by the play were ex-cons, as they were called then. Almost as an afterthought, he began a help line for such people—“Really, only an extra desk in the office”—and watched it blossom into a lifetime’s work. Yet he remains spiritually on both sides of the doorway. This makes his conversation a singular braid of show-biz anecdotes and social-activist exhortations. Holding out his right arm, he might say, “This is the arm that Liz Taylor cried on at the opening night of Dick Burton’s ‘Hamlet’ in 1964,” and then avow, “The mistake you make is thinking that they’re ever honest about crime numbers. The city will bring them up and down as they want, according to the politics of the moment.”
The turning point, for him, took place on “The David Susskind Show,” in 1968. “Everyone watched Susskind on Sunday nights,” Rothenberg recalled. “They always had six of a kind—six ex-alcoholics or six prostitutes or whatever was coming in sixes that year. I called the producer and said, ‘Have you ever had six former prisoners?’ She said, ‘I want ’em but I can’t get ’em.’ I said, ‘I can.’ So we went on, and the next morning, after the show, I got call after call after call. It was overwhelming! There was an endless line of men snaking up the stairs of this theatrical building. And I began to transition from full-time press agent and part-time prison activist to full-time prison activist and part-time press agent. Well, no-time press agent.”
Rothenberg takes a late lunch or an early dinner most days at Trufa. “Thursday meetings are always essential—we realized that if we had rooms and no services we were just a hotel,” he said. “What Sam does at the meeting is he gets people talking who are comfortable talking, but sometimes he’ll say, ‘Hey, Joe—what’s happening with you?’ And Joe starts talking and doesn’t shut up. He had never been given permission. Joe’s never been asked how he is in his life!” Rothenberg chuckled.
“You know ‘The Green Pastures,’ the movie?” The 1936 film relates Bible stories as Black American folklore. “Yeah, there’s a line, I think it’s from there, that I always repeat. The Lord, who’s represented as African-American, says to an angel, ‘We have to take care of that planet, but don’t forget the wing of the sparrow over there.’ Sam is one of the people taking care of his portion of the planet by taking care of the wings of the sparrow.”
Housing programs for an offender’s reëntry into the community usually involve a bewildering array of bureaucracies, and often result in former inmates being placed in halfway houses and homeless shelters that replicate the conditions of prison. Almost three-quarters of the released population are arrested again within three years.
“The Castle began when we kept seeing that there was an urgent need for housing for people released who became homeless,” JoAnne Page, the president and C.E.O. of the Fortune Society, explained from her office at the society’s administrative headquarters, in Long Island City. “More than half the people coming out of state prison to New York City right now are being dumped in shelters. HUD defines people who are coming out of incarceration as not homeless, so no HUD-funded program can take them in. They have to be sleeping under a bridge before they can officially be classed as homeless.” In the late nineteen-nineties, Page came upon the empty Catholic girls’ school. “The city took it from the nuns and left it vacant, with the idea that it would become a TB hospital, but they gave up on that idea, and instead it became a magnet for drug dealing.” In 1998, Fortune bought it for $1.2 million.
Page emphasizes the society’s “open doors” policy. “We’re bound by laws about sexual offenders and proximity to schools,” she said. But applicants are screened for “current risk of violence, not a history of violence. We have some of the people with the worst records in New York City coming for active services, but no metal detectors. We offer people something they really want, and the condition is that they have to behave peaceably if they want it.”
The Fortune Society holds most of its job-training and vocational-education programs at its Long Island City offices, with the Castle offering its own approach to social services. “It’s valuable that Sam has lived experience,” Page said. “He knows prison faces. He can tell the difference between someone who looks tough and someone who’s a threat. And most of the people coming home will see somebody in that room they did time with. That changes everything.”
The residents of the Castle admired Rivera for being as reliable about small things as he was about big ones. E., the longtime resident with the basso-profundo voice, put it bluntly: “Sam is the difference between leadership and leadershit. If you have leadershit, everything’s going to be shit, and that’s the primary reason why the shelters are such hellscapes. Sam watches the simple things that improve the outlook, improve the humanity.” Hilton N. Webb, Jr., another long-term resident, sixtyish and intensely serious, who is studying for a master’s degree in social work, and writing a memoir titled “Dancing in the Midst of Nothing,” said, “Whatever Sam says is going to happen, it’s going to happen. I remember when I was having problems with my roommate and I had to move to a single room. Sam said, ‘You’re going to have the same river view,’ and, to make a long story short, it happened. The river view is a nice view. That it was a little thing didn’t mean he thought it was nothing.”
The residents recognized the difficulty of Rivera’s role. “I’m aware of the stresses on him,” Webb said. He described a man trying to get into the building, and screaming at Rivera. “Sam was talking back to him in this very mellow, in this Zen way,” Webb went on, “but I noticed that he was holding a radio, and it was physically impossible that he could have tightened his hand on that radio any harder than he was. Knot-tight! I couldn’t have stood there with this guy spitting in my face saying the things he was saying. Yet I know that Sam wasn’t afraid, and he could have whipped this guy’s ass. So he’s, you know, the whole deal—the warrior-monk kind of guy. Sun Tzu said if you know the outcome of the fight anyway, you have no need to fight. I know and you know, so why don’t we pretend the fight is over and move on?”
One critical part of transitioning is to help someone involved with the justice system get involved with the employment system. “I got my job and my apartment” is a motto of success. As the sociologist Erving Goffman wrote in the nineteen-fifties, “A status, a position, a social place, it is not a material thing to be possessed and displayed”; it is “something to be enacted and portrayed.” That idea is profoundly relevant to the work of the Fortune Society. Coming home means learning the language and the rituals shared by the society outside prison walls. Weekly workshops at Fortune prepare clients for job interviews, and, particularly, help them address the obvious question: Where have you been for the past four or five (or thirty) years? It is against the law in New York City to ask a job candidate about his or her criminal record, but it is legal, after a job has been offered, to run a search on the prospective hire.
People who have just come home meet interviewers in mock interviews. What is your greatest strength in a work situation? (The right answer is: “I love to work with others.”) What’s your greatest weakness. (“Uh, my greatest weakness? Females,” one newcomer says, a candid but very wrong answer. The right answer is Clintonesque: “I try too hard to get it right.”) A young man who wants to be a restaurant cook is guided through an interview in which it becomes apparent that he doesn’t know much about cooking. (“You get in the good habit of bullshitting white people,” Rivera remarked later. “And you start bullshitting yourself.”) Interviewers like detail: about work programs upstate, about roofing or custodial work or how to operate a forklift.
Near the end of one mock interview, the questioner said, “You seem like a fine candidate for the job. I’d like to offer it to you. But, of course, I’ll run a background check on you. Tell me, if I do will anything come up?” The candidate, trained in previous classes, struggled to recall the ideal answer, which is something like: “Yes, when I was younger and behaving stupidly, an unfortunate situation occurred and someone got badly hurt. This led to my becoming involved in the criminal-justice system. But I studied hard and attended several programs while I was in jail. That person I was is not who I am now.” That, the interviewer explained, is a version of the perfect answer, which the residents work to adapt. Among the central skills that the Fortune Society teaches is how, in a job interview, to tell the truth while putting the best face on a previous failure.
All of us, of course, have to learn to navigate the waters of such interviews by telling the truth while putting the best face on previous failures. (“I did get a C on that Spanish test, but it was the result of some issues in my personal life and, as you can see, I pulled it right up in the following term” is what a kid raised with good fortune learns to say.) The broader task, as Rivera sees it, is to instill new habits of response among the formerly incarcerated. “You have to relearn all your reflexes,” Rivera said. “When you feel threatened, don’t react. If I find myself threatened by the possibility of a confrontation on the street—just a car-cutoff thing, you know; happens every day—I’ve found myself literally running in the other direction to remove myself from those reflexes and that risk.” The aim is to learn a new language of performance in order to have a new chance at life.
The theatrical side of the Castle is self-evident to its sharper-eyed residents. “The Fortune face—that’s what I call what you see in the Thursday-night performance space,” E. explained. “I don’t say that in a disparaging way, but that’s what it is—people are auditioning for acceptance into the program and they’re bringing their A-game to be accepted. And then you get to know the person, as opposed to the audition. Sometimes it’s the same person. With some people, it was just a façade, a performance to get in. And those people really don’t last that long. They shouldn’t.”


newyorker--2020-11-09--“Ways of Being Lonely,” by Kim Addonizio

Like a haunted river no bridge wants to lay itself down over .
Like a taxidermied grizzly in the student @ @ @ @ @ a frequency only subatomic insects can hear .
That time with him in Houston .
@ @ @ @ @ scary flower .
An eruption of coherence in the postmodern seminar .
You stand in @ @ @ @ @ reflection floats slowly downstream without you .
An unclaimed suitcase of miniature toiletries , burst @ @ @ @ @ .
Like an amoeba without an e-scooter .
An extra in an epic battle scene @ @ @ @ @ horse .
You ’ re a red-breasted flute , but everyone else is a dowel @ @ @ @ @ parlor of an abandoned friendship .
You ’ re the queen , but you ’ @ @ @ @ @ into the pool ’ s filtration system .
Like a version , touched for the @ @ @ @ @ wake up alone to a bird reciting Keats .

Audio: Read by the author.
Like a haunted river no bridge wants to lay itself down over.
Like a taxidermied grizzly in the student union.
You cry at a frequency only subatomic insects can hear.
That time with him in Houston.
Sometimes you flame into a scary flower.
An eruption of coherence in the postmodern seminar.
You stand in a shallow creek and your reflection floats slowly downstream without you.
Alcohol is your emotional-support animal.
The fan hums erratically.
An unclaimed suitcase of miniature toiletries, burst open on the baggage carrousel.
Like an amoeba without an e-scooter.
An extra in an epic battle scene, trampled by a non-Equity horse.
You’re a red-breasted flute, but everyone else is a dowel.
A Zen koan growing in the White House Rose Garden.
Sun-damaged curtains in the parlor of an abandoned friendship.
You’re the queen, but you’re a bee being swept into the pool’s filtration system.
Like a version, touched for the very last time.
Spooky piano music rising from the dishwater.
You wake up alone to a bird reciting Keats.


newyorker--2020-11-09--“Hansa and Gretyl and Piece of Shit”

“Hansa and Gretyl and Piece of Shit”

She doesn ’ t ask to stay home .
Her mother ’ s warned her that she knows the girl feigns illness because she ’ s unpopular—a loser !
—because she ’ s lazy and unlikable .
The girl knows better than to whine about a stomach ache .
As Gretyl leaves , her mother turns in bed upstairs , groans and snorts .
A scrawny calico slinks out from an overgrown shrub .
Gretyl retrieves a fistful of kibble from her pocket , whispers to the cat , and tosses it into the bowl hidden under the shrub .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ cold October wind , down the mountain road .
She passes her grandparents ’ chalet .
A sleek fox lopes through the meadow that abuts the road .
The sky is pale and crisp .
Today again , at the bottom of the hill , sits the dented yellow Chevy .
The man in the bone-colored leather coat leans against it .
He towers over the car and is skinnier than a praying mantis .
He has tilted black-brown eyes , olive skin , a large nose , and a bearlike black beard @ @ @ @ @ @ @ old .
Under the coat , he wears brown jeans and boots .
Beside him , a huge , muscular brown dog pants .
A bear-dog , the man has explained .
His partner , Charon .
The dog lunges toward the girl .
Its ruby tongue lolls .
The man grips the leash .
Good morning .
Cold today .
Are you warm enough ?
He smiles bemusedly .
I ’ m sorry to bother you .
Almost bus time .
We must hurry .
Two weeks ago , the man ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Gretyl to lend him her scrunchie to jerry-rig it .
That night , her mother smacked her for losing it .
Last week , the man ’ s fan belt snapped ; he asked Gretyl for a paper clip to hold it together .
Gretyl gave him the clip that bound her history report , and her teacher changed its grade from an A to a B-minus because Gretyl hadn ’ t fastened the pages .
Now the man says , in his soft growl , The front wheel ’ s stuck in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , he says , if she ’ d steer the wheel and pump the accelerator while he pushes .
Gretyl hesitates .
Rifles fill the back seat .
If she gets in the car , he could abduct her .
He looks Arab .
His Chevy ’ s parked on her father ’ s land .
Her parents would order her to alert the sheriff , not help him .
But she likes his face .
And has four minutes .
She steers and pumps the accelerator while the man pushes .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The man thanks her .
No prob , she says .
Why does she hold her stomach ?
he asks .
Is she ill ?
No , she says .
Just a tummy ache .
Maybe she ’ d like a doctor ?
He indicates the Chevy .
He ’ ll take her , he says .
He opens the car door , grabs a rectangular object , and pushes it toward her .
Maybe you want a BlackBerry ?
It ’ s a phone with a computer inside , he explains .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
He works for a company , has dozens .
Someday , he says , everyone will own a BlackBerry .
No , Gretyl whispers .
My parents have a phone .
Then take this .
He presses something hard into her hands .
A plastic orange whistle .
Sorry , the man says .
It ’ s Charon ’ s storm whistle .
He hears it from across the continent .
He grins .
He has a fantastically wide smile .
If you need help , he says , blow it .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ mumbles thanks and hurries to the bus stop .
When she looks back , she sees them jump the fence that lines her dad ’ s woods .
The man raises a glove .
On the bus , she clutches her schoolbag to her stomach .
She lives with her father , a pilot , and her mother , a homemaker , in an A-frame on the mountain .
Around them are meadows of mule ’ s ears and purple lupine , sagebrush fields , and thick forests that dip to a river @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Deer wander the forest—also wild turkeys , coyotes , bears , and elk .
The father has posted “ No Hunting ” signs .
Though Gretyl ’ s older sisters ’ college tuitions were paid long ago , the family ’ s strapped .
They live in an eternal “ not enough.
” The mother , Grethilda , treks to the local goldsmith ’ s shop and peers for hours at his wares .
But , once the ruby bracelet hangs on her wrist , she desires with unquenchable longing the emerald earrings @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , her husband , Hans , contends .
She doesn ’ t need to buy ten-gallon tubs of ice cream and overpriced chicken fingers from the Schwan Man .
She doesn ’ t need organic butter and jumbo shrimp .
He eats canned tuna happily .
Why can ’ t she ?
I do like canned tuna , Grethilda replies .
I also like jumbo shrimp .
I also like lobster .
I want to dine out more , at nicer restaurants .
And I want to take a tropical vacation , without @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Hans has a yacht .
When home , he ’ s always fixing his Jaguars or sailing his yacht .
You have your things , Grethilda explains .
My things are jewelry and tropical vacations .
Hans groans .
He doesn ’ t know how they ’ ll survive .
Grethilda wants Gretyl to go to boarding school .
The girl makes life difficult , she says .
She ’ s thankless and rude .
She ’ d thrive at private school !
And you and I , she adds , would have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ doesn ’ t want adult time with his wife .
He doesn ’ t want to banish his daughter .
She ’ s overtall , but he enjoys looking at her .
Of his children , she ’ s disappointed him least .
He says , We can ’ t afford it .
Well , Grethilda says , we could sell your yacht .
Her husband ’ s preference for their daughter ’ s company has not escaped Grethilda .
But she never objects when Hans praises Gretyl ’ s math skills , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rope burn per week .
Privately , Hans agrees that the girl ’ s awkward .
She slouches , doesn ’ t play sports , seems morose .
Sometimes observing her causes him pain .
She used to hug him voluntarily , call him Daddy .
Sometimes he thinks , It ’ d be good if she were gone .
See the nurse , they say .
Honey , the nurse says .
Women get pains all times of the month .
No , the girl says .
She won ’ t bother @ @ @ @ @ @ @ unyielding love for her mother .
The mother ’ s repeatedly told the girl—while sobbing—that she suffered a terrible childhood .
She was orphaned .
She lived with cousins , then strangers , then at a hairdressing school !
If it weren ’ t for the daughter , the mother explains , she ’ d be a doctor now .
She got an A-minus in college biology .
The daughter feels guilty .
She does not mention that the mother bore Gretyl at forty .
When the mother slaps her , she does @ @ @ @ @ @ @ five-three , weighs a hundred and fifty pounds .
The girl , five-nine , weighs a hundred and ten .
It ’ s too late for me , the mother sometimes says , sighing .
Gestating you destroyed my metabolism .
Now I can ’ t practice medicine .
Gentle snowflakes fall as the girl walks home .
She sticks her tongue out as she climbs the hill .
Approaching the house , she removes kibble from her schoolbag .
She calls , Here , Mihos , come , Mihos , and pours @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Inside , she bites into a cracker , then feels nauseous .
An ivory Tibetan-wool rug covers the floor of the living room .
Bookshelves bear Encyclopædia Britannicas , Bibles , a stereo .
Two couches , their cream-colored upholstery inlaid with hundreds of turquoise-and-gold-feathered peacocks , face each other .
They are the mother ’ s pride and joy .
On one , she sleeps .
Storm tonight , she says .
Ten inches .
Your father has a trip .
I hope he ’ ll be O.K.
, Gretyl says @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t feed that cat , did you ?
Why do you hold your stomach ?
Jesus , the mother says .
It never ends with you .
Later , the girl sneaks down to the cellar .
With difficulty , she carries up an old wooden playhouse .
She hides it under the shining willow at the edge of the yard and covers it with a tarp .
She brings over the now empty bowl and calls the cat , but nothing comes .
More for me !
the father says .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ toward him .
She asks how Gretyl ’ s doing .
Hansa explains that , when an appendix gets infected , it must be removed .
If not , it ruptures and leaks toxic goo into the gut , which causes sepsis , organ damage , and , within a day or two , death .
Hansa says that she had these symptoms two years ago .
She went to the hospital , she says , despite her partner ’ s skepticism .
The doctors scoffed and tested Hansa for eight venereal diseases @ @ @ @ @ @ @ her abdomen , spied her enlarged appendix , and removed it .
Six months back , Hansa adds , their middle sister , Piece of Shit , developed pains .
Hansa called , heard her symptoms , and urged her to find a hospital .
Piece of Shit refused , because she wanted to teach her Kaplan class .
She went only because her boyfriend insisted , and after the doctors tested her for ten venereal diseases they scanned her torso and saw an infected appendix .
It seems unlikely , Hansa muses @ @ @ @ @ @ @ within two years .
Particularly since they all live in different states , and no known relative has ever had appendicitis .
It sounds , Hansa says , like a fairy tale .
But life , she adds , is strange .
Stress affects the immune system in mysterious ways .
They all grew up in the same isolated , anxious house .
Perhaps their bodies , though separated by distance , communicate with one another .
Who knows ?
Go to the hospital , tonight , she says .
If you don @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The parents are watching TV , eating chocolates , and drinking Irish cream .
The father ’ s adjusting the picture-in-picture function , which malfunctioned just as the mother wanted to use it .
The father ’ s eyes widen .
Of his daughters , he hates the eldest most .
Ha !
he says .
Nice that she makes the decisions from three thousand miles away !
Does she think she ’ s a doctor ?
Does she know how expensive the E.R .
is ?

Audio available Listen to this story Audio: Rebecca Curtis reads.
Gretyl wakes at 6 A.M., as usual, but her stomach feels crampy. These are not what her mother calls the “normal” cramps, which gnash her abdomen for four days each month. These fissures poke her midsection with acidic fingers as she dresses. She hunches while she brushes her teeth, unloads the dishwasher, and mops the kitchen. She walks down to the cellar, carries up stacks of logs, and feeds the woodstove. She toasts bread, but finds she’s not hungry, so puts it in her heavy schoolbag.
She doesn’t ask to stay home. Her mother’s warned her that she knows the girl feigns illness because she’s unpopular—a loser!—because she’s lazy and unlikable. The girl knows better than to whine about a stomach ache.
As Gretyl leaves, her mother turns in bed upstairs, groans and snorts. A scrawny calico slinks out from an overgrown shrub. Gretyl retrieves a fistful of kibble from her pocket, whispers to the cat, and tosses it into the bowl hidden under the shrub. Gretyl hunches as she strides, through cold October wind, down the mountain road. She passes her grandparents’ chalet. A sleek fox lopes through the meadow that abuts the road. The sky is pale and crisp.
Today again, at the bottom of the hill, sits the dented yellow Chevy. The man in the bone-colored leather coat leans against it. He towers over the car and is skinnier than a praying mantis. He has tilted black-brown eyes, olive skin, a large nose, and a bearlike black beard. He’s about thirty years old. Under the coat, he wears brown jeans and boots. Beside him, a huge, muscular brown dog pants. A bear-dog, the man has explained. His partner, Charon. The dog lunges toward the girl. Its ruby tongue lolls. The man grips the leash.
Good morning. Cold today. Are you warm enough? He smiles bemusedly. I’m sorry to bother you. Almost bus time. We must hurry.
Two weeks ago, the man’s carburetor malfunctioned, and he asked Gretyl to lend him her scrunchie to jerry-rig it. That night, her mother smacked her for losing it. Last week, the man’s fan belt snapped; he asked Gretyl for a paper clip to hold it together. Gretyl gave him the clip that bound her history report, and her teacher changed its grade from an A to a B-minus because Gretyl hadn’t fastened the pages. Now the man says, in his soft growl, The front wheel’s stuck in mud.
He’d be grateful, he says, if she’d steer the wheel and pump the accelerator while he pushes.
Gretyl hesitates. Rifles fill the back seat. If she gets in the car, he could abduct her. He looks Arab. His Chevy’s parked on her father’s land. Her parents would order her to alert the sheriff, not help him. But she likes his face. And has four minutes.
She steers and pumps the accelerator while the man pushes.
The car slides out of the mud.
The man thanks her.
No prob, she says.
Why does she hold her stomach? he asks. Is she ill?
No, she says. Just a tummy ache.
Maybe she’d like a doctor? He indicates the Chevy. He’ll take her, he says.
Her head jerks down. Nah.
He opens the car door, grabs a rectangular object, and pushes it toward her.
Maybe you want a BlackBerry?
She stares.
It’s a phone with a computer inside, he explains. With it, she can contact anyone. He works for a company, has dozens. Someday, he says, everyone will own a BlackBerry.
No, Gretyl whispers. My parents have a phone.
Then take this. He presses something hard into her hands. A plastic orange whistle.
The huge dog licks her gloves.
Sorry, the man says. It’s Charon’s storm whistle. He hears it from across the continent.
He grins. He has a fantastically wide smile. If you need help, he says, blow it. Maybe we’ll come.
She mumbles thanks and hurries to the bus stop. When she looks back, she sees them jump the fence that lines her dad’s woods. The man raises a glove. On the bus, she clutches her schoolbag to her stomach.
Gretyl’s fourteen, but by the hunter’s moon she’ll be fifteen. She’s five-nine, slender. She has long white-blond hair, a sweet oval face, a Roman nose, and violet eyes. Because kids teased her, she plucked her thick eyebrows, so that they no longer meet above her nose. In her room, on a shelf, are a hundred quartz figurines. Counting them makes her feel safe. She bought them with money she earned busing tables at a restaurant in Markleeville, to which she rides her bike. She enjoys solving problems, helping people, reading, doing math, playing Dungeons & Dragons, and talking with friends—about the Iraq War, capitalism, the Y2K apocalypse. Gretyl wants to grow bigger, so she can leave this small Northern California town to study something useful, so she can do something useful.
She lives with her father, a pilot, and her mother, a homemaker, in an A-frame on the mountain. Around them are meadows of mule’s ears and purple lupine, sagebrush fields, and thick forests that dip to a river, then surge up the peak. Deer wander the forest—also wild turkeys, coyotes, bears, and elk. The father has posted “No Hunting” signs.
Though Gretyl’s older sisters’ college tuitions were paid long ago, the family’s strapped. They live in an eternal “not enough.” The mother, Grethilda, treks to the local goldsmith’s shop and peers for hours at his wares. But, once the ruby bracelet hangs on her wrist, she desires with unquenchable longing the emerald earrings.
Grethilda spends too much on groceries, her husband, Hans, contends. She doesn’t need to buy ten-gallon tubs of ice cream and overpriced chicken fingers from the Schwan Man. She doesn’t need organic butter and jumbo shrimp. He eats canned tuna happily. Why can’t she?
I do like canned tuna, Grethilda replies. I also like jumbo shrimp. I also like lobster. I want to dine out more, at nicer restaurants. And I want to take a tropical vacation, without the girl.
Grethilda, Hans yells, we’re broke!
Grethilda points out that Hans has a yacht. When home, he’s always fixing his Jaguars or sailing his yacht. You have your things, Grethilda explains. My things are jewelry and tropical vacations. Hans groans. He doesn’t know how they’ll survive.
Grethilda wants Gretyl to go to boarding school. The girl makes life difficult, she says. She’s thankless and rude. She’d thrive at private school! And you and I, she adds, would have adult time.
Hans grimaces. He doesn’t want adult time with his wife. He doesn’t want to banish his daughter. She’s overtall, but he enjoys looking at her. Of his children, she’s disappointed him least.
He says, We can’t afford it.
Well, Grethilda says, we could sell your yacht.
Public education’s good, Hans protests.
She’s miserable, Grethilda repeats. She fakes gross illnesses to avoid school!
Her husband’s preference for their daughter’s company has not escaped Grethilda. But she never objects when Hans praises Gretyl’s math skills, and she limits herself to one Indian rope burn per week.
Privately, Hans agrees that the girl’s awkward. She slouches, doesn’t play sports, seems morose. Sometimes observing her causes him pain. She used to hug him voluntarily, call him Daddy. Sometimes he thinks, It’d be good if she were gone.
At school, the girl hunches. It lessens the pain. She aces her geometry test. During shop, she sands her chair slowly. At lunchtime, she doesn’t eat.
What’s wrong? her friends ask.
My stomach hurts, she admits.
See the nurse, they say.
Honey, the nurse says. Women get pains all times of the month.
She offers to send Gretyl home.
No, the girl says. She won’t bother her mother. The girl has an unyielding love for her mother. The mother’s repeatedly told the girl—while sobbing—that she suffered a terrible childhood. She was orphaned. She lived with cousins, then strangers, then at a hairdressing school! If it weren’t for the daughter, the mother explains, she’d be a doctor now. She got an A-minus in college biology. The daughter feels guilty. She does not mention that the mother bore Gretyl at forty. When the mother slaps her, she does not slap back.
The mother, five-three, weighs a hundred and fifty pounds. The girl, five-nine, weighs a hundred and ten. It’s too late for me, the mother sometimes says, sighing. Gestating you destroyed my metabolism. Now I can’t practice medicine.
“If my client is guilty of anything, it’s loving tax evasion too much.” Cartoon by Jason Adam Katzenstein Copy link to cartoon Copy link to cartoon Shop Shop
Gentle snowflakes fall as the girl walks home. She sticks her tongue out as she climbs the hill. Approaching the house, she removes kibble from her schoolbag. She calls, Here, Mihos, come, Mihos, and pours it into the bowl under the bush.


newyorker--2020-11-09--The Curse of the Buried Treasure

The Curse of the Buried Treasure

The next day , Powell returned to the Leominster area and visited the home of Mark Conod , the tenant farmer , excitedly recounting to him and his wife , Amanda , that on a recent scan of their property he had found some jewelry , which was now at a museum .
He showed them photographs and said , “ There might be money in this.
” They all went outside , and , from a distance , Powell pointed to indicate that he ’ d discovered the items at the top of the field belonging to Conod ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Reavill alerted the West Mercia Police to the possibility of a heritage crime , and , because of the potential multimillion-dollar value of the alleged find , an investigation was launched .
Around this time , Simon Wicks , the coin dealer , returned to Dix Noonan Webb with nine equally remarkable coins , which the auction house also took into its custodianship .
All the coins were soon turned over to the police .
The next month , the British Numismatic Trade Association issued an unusual warning to its members , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an undeclared hoard were sneaking onto the market , and that buying any of them would violate the Treasure Act .
On August 18 , 2015 , a little more than two months after their trip to Leominster , Powell and Davies were arrested .
Powell warned the police , “ I ain ’ t gon na make it easy.
” Powell told the police that he was a longtime hobbyist , having started metal detecting with his father .
He insisted that the gold he had handed in to Mark Lodwick at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ occupied by the Conods , from whom he had permission to detect , although he acknowledged that he had not sought permission from the Cawleys— “ Lord and Lady of the Manor , ” as he characterized them .
Powell denied all knowledge of a hoard of coins .
“ They are telling people I found three hundred coins , ” he said .
“ Why would I hand in the gold and keep the coins ?
” The homes of Powell and Davies were searched .
Both had display cases containing finds @ @ @ @ @ @ @ inside .
“ They didn ’ t have the silver coins , and things like that , that you ’ d expect from detectorists who went out on a regular basis , ” Reavill told me .
There was certainly no sign of a large cache of Anglo-Saxon silver .
Davies gave the police an account in line with Powell ’ s : the pair had recently found just the three pieces of Saxon gold and a couple of stray coins—all of which they had declared to Lodwick .
When asked about the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Sallam , Davies claimed that he and Powell had been lying when they ’ d said that the coins were from a large hoard : Powell had actually owned the coins presented at the café for years , and the hoard story had been concocted merely to help him “ get rid ” of them .
A few weeks later , Gareth Thomas , an officer with the West Mercia Police , visited Wells at home and discussed the encounter at the café .
Wells insisted that he , Sallam , and Davies @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be declared , but that Powell had other ideas .
“ George Powell was in it for the money—that was obvious , ” Wells said .
He also revealed that , some days after the café meeting , Davies had asked him to retain five of the coins for safekeeping .
Wells then showed the officer a leather case for a magnifying glass .
On one side , the stitching had been unpicked then glued back together : it was a secret compartment .
Wells opened it up , and all five silver @ @ @ @ @ @ @ called his supervisor to ask what he should do .
Arrest him , the supervisor replied .
“ I knew it would come to this , ” Wells said , as he was taken to the station .
Late that summer , Tim Hoverd , the archeology-projects manager for the Herefordshire Council , was dispatched to Eye to survey the territory .
If , as Powell and Davies claimed , the items had been scattered at different locations , that might mean the presence of a significant new site : a Saxon cemetery @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
But seasonal changes made clues hard to come by .
“ By the time we got there , most of the area was covered with maize , which grows damn fast , ” Hoverd told me recently .
“ It was way over my head .
And how do you find holes people have dug two or three months before when you can ’ t actually see the ground ?
” Hoverd and his colleagues paced the fields , dug multiple test pits , and conducted an aerial survey by drone .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ were no formal structures—no royal burials—that this material could have come from , ” he told me .
Powell and Davies hadn ’ t yet been charged with crimes , but the case against them grew considerably stronger in 2016 , when a forensic examination of their mobile phones revealed deleted photographs of glimmering objects being extracted from the ground .
In addition to the jewelry , there were hundreds of coins .
In Davies ’ s original interview with police , he had asserted that he hadn ’ t taken his phone @ @ @ @ @ @ @ confronted with the photographs , he declined to comment .
When Hoverd examined the deleted images , he immediately keyed into two snapshots of the landscape .
“ They were designed to fit together , ” Hoverd said .
“ I went back to the field with copies of the photographs and stood where they must have stood to take them.
” The hoard ’ s location had been found—and it was decisively within the borders of Lord Cawley ’ s property .
Nevertheless , apart from the two dozen coins recovered during @ @ @ @ @ @ @ had disappeared .
The trial , which lasted for two months , offered the jury and others present in the courtroom an extended seminar in numismatics and in Viking history .
Gareth Williams , the coin specialist at the British Museum , declared on the stand that the hoard had almost certainly been deposited sometime between the summer of 878 and the autumn of 879 , when the Great Army fled northward from Wessex after Alfred the Great ’ s victory over Guthrum , the king of the Vikings , at the Battle @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Wiltshire .
This battle , Williams explained , laid the groundwork for the establishment of England as a unified country by Alfred ’ s grandson King Athelstan , in 927 .
Williams explained to me that while the Vikings were on the move “ they would seize somewhere , normally either a royal estate or monastery , and stay there for the next few months , eating the food that someone ’ s gone to all the trouble of gathering together.
” Although the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle doesn ’ t mention Leominster , its @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Viking fighters during that winter , before they moved on to settle in East Anglia .
The coins told the story .
The detectorists , however , offered a different tale : there had never been a hoard of coins .
Davies testified that their only finds in Eye had been the gold jewelry and a few coins , and that the dozen coins they had taken to the café came from Powell ’ s own collection .
Powell did not testify , but he appeared surprisingly confident as he arrived in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ guards as he passed through the metal detectors .
Hegarty , the prosecutor , told me that Powell was clearly the ringleader of the four men , and “ saw himself as a bit of a character.
” When Davies was asked to explain the images recovered from his phone , he offered a new twist to his story : the image showing a large cache of coins in the ground was actually a staged photo .
“ George had the coins in his rucksack , and he said he wanted to get @ @ @ @ @ @ @ told the court .
“ He put some coins in the ground , to make it look as if they were found there.
” Davies claimed that he hadn ’ t been happy with the idea but had gone along with it .
When Hegarty asked him what Powell ’ s motivation for staging such a find might be , Davies said only that Powell wanted to “ show off.
” ( Hegarty told me , dryly , “ He was never able to explain why you would come all the way from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Herefordshire to dig a hole , and put things in it , and cover them up , and dig it up again.
” ) Simon Wicks and Paul Wells also denied any wrongdoing .
Wells , who was charged with the lesser offense of concealing the five coins in his possession , explained that he hadn ’ t sought to hide the coins inside the magnifying-glass case—he ’ d just wanted to protect them .
Some of his testimony must have displeased Davies and Powell .
Wells insisted that he had urged both @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the café meeting , Wells said , he had spoken with Davies , who , indicating that there might be a problem with the landowner , told him , “ I ’ m either going to be very rich or spend a long time in jail.
” A turning point in the trial occurred after Gareth Williams , the British Museum numismatist , explained that Anglo-Saxon coins were struck by hand , with a hammer on a die , and fashioned by a named moneyer—Torhtmund , say , or Hygered .
As a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ variations that an expert eye can identify .
A photograph recovered from Powell ’ s phone showed a Two Emperor coin lying in what a fingerprint expert confirmed was Powell ’ s palm , taken the day after Powell and Davies had made the find .
Hegarty told me , “ Williams was able to look at the Two Emperor in the photograph and say , ‘ No , that is not one of the coins that has been recovered.
’ So that proved beyond any doubt that there were more coins.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bring to the courtroom—most were less than a millimetre thick .
So Hegarty showed the jury slides of the coins .
“ They were really beautiful , ” he recalls .
The Anglo-Saxon kings looked almost Cubist : Alfred the Great with a large nose and deep-set eyes , Ceolwulf II long-chinned and grimacing .
Hegarty told me , “ When you realize that this is something that was handmade twelve hundred years ago , you gasp.
” Not only had Powell and Davies stolen the hoard—the value of which , intact , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and fifteen million dollars—from Lord Cawley , the judge went on ; they had cheated the public of its heritage , and deprived residents of Herefordshire of the illumination the find might have offered about the Kingdom of Mercia in the ninth century .
Another constituency damaged by the plundering was the metal-detecting community , where news of the conviction was welcomed on online message boards .
“ I hope the law starts to come down heavily on these lowlifes , ” one contributor posted .
The hobby ’ s reputation had been @ @ @ @ @ @ @ granting permissions .
“ They ’ ve spoiled it for the large percentage of genuine detectorists , ” another contributor posted .
“ They ’ ll think we ’ re all a bunch of crooks.
” At the close of the trial , James Tucker , the barrister for George Powell , said , of his client , “ It is clear , from his point of view , he wishes he had never found the treasure .
It became a temptation—and , for him , a curse.
” In an almost unbelievable @ @ @ @ @ @ @ found in October , 2015 , just four months after Davies and Powell made their discovery in Leominster .
A detectorist named James Mather was scanning a field in Watlington , in Oxfordshire , when he came across what turned out to be hundreds of coins , and also ingots and jewelry .
Mather followed protocol to the letter , informing the local Finds Liaison Officer as soon as he determined that there was something unusual in the ground , so that scholars could excavate the site .
John Naylor , the National @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Coinage at the Ashmolean Museum , in Oxford , told me that when he examined the Oxfordshire coins , a few days after their extraction , he was amazed to see several Two Emperor coins featuring the visages of King Alfred and Ceolwulf II .
“ It really reinforces the case that Ceolwulf was accepted by Wessex as the Mercian king , ” he told me .
Press accounts described the Watlington hoard as having rewritten British history .
The Ashmolean , which acquired the hoard for $ 1.75 million , now has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ citing James Mather ’ s contribution to its recovery .
Three years ago , more than a thousand people in the Watlington area attended local events in which Ashmolean curators talked about the hoard .
“ That is the side that the public has really missed out on in Leominster , ” Naylor said .
“ The interest and excitement have been taken away.
” Despite the fact that the Leominster hoard was discovered first , the Watlington hoard has stolen its thunder , reducing it to a footnote in the ongoing reëvaluation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ time being , the Leominster jewelry and several of the coins have been put on display at the British Museum , in a gallery featuring recent archeological finds ; visitors have been able to see up close the chunky gold ring , the slender armband , and a handful of coins that look as thin and delicate as if they had been punched from sheet metal .
The county museum in Hereford still hopes to acquire the Leominster hoard , but any display of it will inevitably be colored by the botched circumstances @ @ @ @ @ @ @ main allure may be as a cautionary tale—of a heist gone awry .
The investigation into the missing coins continues .
Last year , the Durham Constabulary reported that , in raids of several properties in the North of England , a silver ingot and a large number of Anglo-Saxon coins had been recovered , including some minted by Alfred the Great and Ceolwulf II .
The objects were collectively valued at nearly seven hundred thousand dollars .
No other details of the raids were offered , and the Durham Constabulary recently declined @ @ @ @ @ @ @ connected to the Leominster cache .
But several people with knowledge of the case told me that the coins are , indeed , believed to be part of the hoard—though likely just a fraction of it .

Reavill obtained the e-mail addresses of Powell and Davies from a detectorist society, and wrote to them on July 6th, a month or so after their adventure. If they’d made an interesting find, he reminded them, they had a legal obligation to report it. Though the Treasure Act requires detectorists to contact the authorities within two weeks, it allows for a delay should the finder not recognize the value of an artifact (or claim not to). Administrators are sympathetic with detectorists who are reluctant to surrender exciting discoveries, sometimes for reasons more emotional than monetary. Ian Richardson, the treasure registrar, told me, “Obviously, people make a personal attachment to an object.” The elasticity of the law’s deadline is intended to encourage compliance. Historically, even in cases where a finder mistakenly strayed onto territory where he lacked permission to search, the Treasure Valuation Committee, which decides the apportionment of a reward, has been forgiving, with the finder dividing the prize equally with the landowner. Davies, in particular, might have been expected to respond to Reavill’s prompt: over the years, he had brought more than a hundred detecting discoveries to his local Finds Liaison Officer, Mark Lodwick, an archeologist at the Museum of Wales, in Cardiff, who regarded him as a responsible detectorist. But Reavill didn’t hear back from Davies and received only an affronted e-mail from Powell—who claimed that he didn’t know what Reavill was talking about, and warned, “I won’t tolerate any slander.”
In fact, the coins were already being quietly sold off. Two days after making the find, Powell and Davies met with an acquaintance named Paul Wells, a retired builder from Cardiff who traded coins. Wells had asked a friend with whom he sometimes did business, Jason Sallam, to join them, and the four men met at the café of an antiques market in a repurposed Victorian municipal building in Cardiff. Powell and Davies took about a dozen coins from their pockets and explained that they had found perhaps two or three hundred more—though it was hard to tell how many, because they remained clumped together in the exhumed earth. Wells was astonished by the coins. “It was as if they had been put in the ground on the day they were minted,” he later said. “They had never been used to buy a loaf or a pint of beer.” When Powell brought out the gold jewelry, which he’d wrapped in tissue paper, “my eyes nearly fell out of my head,” Wells said. Powell became so excitably loud that Wells told him, “Shut the fuck up, and go out and have a fag!”
Sallam, who owns Antiques at the Green, a shop in the harborside Welsh town of Tenby, told the detectorists that they had to report their find to the authorities, but he agreed to take the items to be seen by a more knowledgeable numismatic colleague, Lloyd Bennett. A few days later, Sallam went to Bennett’s home, in Monmouth, for a consultation. Bennett, pointing out the pair of kings depicted on the coins, identified them as dating from the late ninth century, and said that they were in very good condition. He then told Sallam that he didn’t want to see any more of the hoard, and that the detectorists needed to declare it as treasure as soon as possible. “Everything here needs to be in a museum,” Bennett warned. Sallam returned the coins to Wells and repeated Bennett’s injunction, adding, “Get in touch with these boys. It needs to be declared. Tell them, ‘Don’t fuck around.’ ”
But Powell and Davies didn’t contact the authorities, and nine days after the discovery Powell travelled to a gas station on the M4 motorway, which connects South Wales with London, and met with Simon Wicks, a coin trader and a detectorist from Sussex. Wicks has a blighted reputation, having been convicted in 2014 of nighthawking. “He is, without question, not a dealer,” Chris Martin, the chairman of the British Numismatic Trade Association, told me. “He’s a vest-pocket person who happens to buy things from people, but doesn’t really know what he’s buying, and doesn’t really care what he’s buying. He could be buying coins today, motorbikes tomorrow, and old military-cap badges the next day.”
On June 18th, Wicks went to London and took seven of the coins to Dix Noonan Webb, a blue-chip auction house in the Mayfair area. James Brown, a coin cataloguer there, later said, “One coin like that would be an incredibly lucky find. To have seven offered at one time is really unusual.” It was obvious to him that he was examining objects from a hoard: such items are exposed to the same soil composition, and all seven coins featured rusty-brown staining. Hoard coins often bear a half-moon imprint indicating where one coin has overlain another. Those in the middle of a cache can be in almost pristine condition, having been protected from soil exposure by surrounding coins. Brown told Wicks that he could not give a valuation on the spot, and he retained the objects in a safe on the Dix Noonan Webb premises. Later, Brown estimated that the consignment of seven coins was worth nearly four hundred thousand dollars.
Powell and Davies did make one gesture toward legitimacy after receiving Peter Reavill’s e-mail. Two days later, on July 8th, they went to the Museum of Wales to meet with Mark Lodwick, the Finds Liaison Officer with whom Davies had often dealt. Usually, Davies was chatty, but Lodwick noted that on this occasion he seemed anxious. Powell did most of the talking, and at one point produced a plastic takeout container. Inside, wrapped in paper towels, were the three items of gold jewelry: the bangle and the faceted ring, both later confirmed to be from the ninth century, and the crystal orb, which is from the fifth or sixth century. Powell seemed ignorant of the objects’ provenances. Lodwick printed a map of the area where Powell said that the items had been found, and the detectorists marked several spots on it, claiming that the jewelry had been buried under a tree. When Lodwick later checked the area on Google Earth, there were no trees to be seen.
“Let’s have a drink from the toilet, sniff around a little, and then leave.” Cartoon by Mary Lawton Copy link to cartoon Copy link to cartoon Shop Shop
At the end of the meeting, Powell and Davies showed Lodwick two silver Saxon coins, of a style known to collectors as cross and lozenge. The pair was worth perhaps forty thousand dollars. Although the surface tint of the coins suggested to Lodwick that they had been buried together, the detectorists insisted that they had found one coin each, in separate fields, thereby obviating any need to declare them as treasure.
The next day, Powell returned to the Leominster area and visited the home of Mark Conod, the tenant farmer, excitedly recounting to him and his wife, Amanda, that on a recent scan of their property he had found some jewelry, which was now at a museum. He showed them photographs and said, “There might be money in this.” They all went outside, and, from a distance, Powell pointed to indicate that he’d discovered the items at the top of the field belonging to Conod’s mother, Yvonne.
That July, Reavill alerted the West Mercia Police to the possibility of a heritage crime, and, because of the potential multimillion-dollar value of the alleged find, an investigation was launched. Around this time, Simon Wicks, the coin dealer, returned to Dix Noonan Webb with nine equally remarkable coins, which the auction house also took into its custodianship. All the coins were soon turned over to the police.
The next month, the British Numismatic Trade Association issued an unusual warning to its members, stating that coins believed to be from an undeclared hoard were sneaking onto the market, and that buying any of them would violate the Treasure Act. On August 18, 2015, a little more than two months after their trip to Leominster, Powell and Davies were arrested. Powell warned the police, “I ain’t gonna make it easy.”
It’s impossible to measure how much of a role the black market plays in archeological finds made by detectorists, but it isn’t hard to turn up dealers who promise discretion. Nor is there any shortage of collectors who, in their eagerness to create a set of coins, may be willing to overlook a sketchy provenance or two. Coins are simple to move around, including overseas, and the fact that the Treasure Act permits the retention of single-coin finds means that a cunning detectorist, over a period of time, might sell a number of valuable coins one by one, without drawing undue attention. But such an approach is not foolproof. In 2017, a detectorist from Norfolk, David Cockle, was sentenced to a sixteen-month prison term for theft, after selling off a hoard of ten extremely rare Anglo-Saxon gold coins, having previously declared them as individual finds from various sites around the U.K. Cockle happened to be a police officer, a circumstance that likely added to the vigor with which his case was pursued. Prosecutions of rogue detectorists are uncommon, as criminal-investigation departments contending with cases of rape, murder, and armed robbery are disinclined to dedicate their limited resources to the disappearance of objects whose original owner might have been dead for more than a millennium.
Powell told the police that he was a longtime hobbyist, having started metal detecting with his father. He insisted that the gold he had handed in to Mark Lodwick at the Museum of Wales came from lands occupied by the Conods, from whom he had permission to detect, although he acknowledged that he had not sought permission from the Cawleys—“Lord and Lady of the Manor,” as he characterized them. Powell denied all knowledge of a hoard of coins. “They are telling people I found three hundred coins,” he said. “Why would I hand in the gold and keep the coins?”
The homes of Powell and Davies were searched. Both had display cases containing finds, but there were no valuable objects inside. “They didn’t have the silver coins, and things like that, that you’d expect from detectorists who went out on a regular basis,” Reavill told me. There was certainly no sign of a large cache of Anglo-Saxon silver.
Davies gave the police an account in line with Powell’s: the pair had recently found just the three pieces of Saxon gold and a couple of stray coins—all of which they had declared to Lodwick. When asked about the café meeting with Paul Wells and Jason Sallam, Davies claimed that he and Powell had been lying when they’d said that the coins were from a large hoard: Powell had actually owned the coins presented at the café for years, and the hoard story had been concocted merely to help him “get rid” of them.
A few weeks later, Gareth Thomas, an officer with the West Mercia Police, visited Wells at home and discussed the encounter at the café. Wells insisted that he, Sallam, and Davies had agreed that the coins needed to be declared, but that Powell had other ideas. “George Powell was in it for the money—that was obvious,” Wells said. He also revealed that, some days after the café meeting, Davies had asked him to retain five of the coins for safekeeping. Wells then showed the officer a leather case for a magnifying glass. On one side, the stitching had been unpicked then glued back together: it was a secret compartment. Wells opened it up, and all five silver coins slipped out. The police officer called his supervisor to ask what he should do. Arrest him, the supervisor replied. “I knew it would come to this,” Wells said, as he was taken to the station.
The golden ring found by Powell and Davies was later confirmed to be a rare example of Anglo-Saxon jewelry from the ninth century. It is currently on display at the British Museum, in a gallery featuring recent archeological finds. Photograph courtesy © the Trustees of the British Museum
Late that summer, Tim Hoverd, the archeology-projects manager for the Herefordshire Council, was dispatched to Eye to survey the territory. If, as Powell and Davies claimed, the items had been scattered at different locations, that might mean the presence of a significant new site: a Saxon cemetery, religious settlement, or royal palace. But seasonal changes made clues hard to come by. “By the time we got there, most of the area was covered with maize, which grows damn fast,” Hoverd told me recently. “It was way over my head. And how do you find holes people have dug two or three months before when you can’t actually see the ground?” Hoverd and his colleagues paced the fields, dug multiple test pits, and conducted an aerial survey by drone. “It quickly became apparent that there were no formal structures—no royal burials—that this material could have come from,” he told me.
Powell and Davies hadn’t yet been charged with crimes, but the case against them grew considerably stronger in 2016, when a forensic examination of their mobile phones revealed deleted photographs of glimmering objects being extracted from the ground. In addition to the jewelry, there were hundreds of coins. In Davies’s original interview with police, he had asserted that he hadn’t taken his phone with him to Herefordshire. After being confronted with the photographs, he declined to comment.


newyorker--2020-11-09--Rebecca Curtis on Fantasy and Reality

Rebecca Curtis on Fantasy and Reality

In “ Hansa and Gretyl and Piece of Shit , ” your story in this week ’ s issue , Gretyl is the youngest of three sisters who have grown up in a slightly disturbing family .
One notable thing about them is that , when the story begins , Gretyl—like the other sisters before her—is experiencing the pains that accompany appendicitis , a condition that her parents seem intent on ignoring .
Some of the names , of course , are taken from fairy tales , and some elements of the story seem fairy-tale-like .
How do you go @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and what kind of considerations come into play ?
Many things that some might consider fantastic I consider reality .
Things like one of a pair of twins , or siblings , or just close friends , sensing , across great distance , when the other one ’ s in danger or need seems “ real ” to me ; that some people might have ESP , or have dreams that foretell the future , or be able to use tarot cards to predict and know things , seems “ real.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and I ’ ve never seen a ghost .
But I know people who do , or have , and I believe in these things .
My belief makes mixing the “ real ” and “ fantastic ” easier , because I ’ m simple enough to believe that it ’ s all real .
Biology is a soft science .
There is so much that we don ’ t understand—the connections between intention and physical manifestation , the power of the human mind .
There is a book I love called @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Lloyd Mayer , about studies done in the area of ESP and the efficacy of directed intent that is fascinating .
I wanted to write a story about a teen-age girl with appendicitis , and I wasn ’ t sure how to tell it .
I wanted it to be simple and linear .
I feared that , by itself , the story might be too spartan or grim .
I ran through various plot frames in my mind—all the classic fairy tales , fables , and classic novels , like “ Dracula @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Hamlet ” —to see if any might mesh with an appendicitis story .
“ Hansel and Gretel , ” which I ’ ve always loved , seemed to fit .
I reread the Grimm Brothers ’ version and also a much older version called “ Finette Cendron , ” in which both parents are blood parents ( no evil stepmother ) and an ogre , not a witch , lives in a castle made of gems , not a cottage made of sweets .
I identified common threads .
I felt that my @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in “ Hansel and Gretel ” ) might feel too deprived or needy to be able to support children—might feel , for various reasons , that getting rid of a child would aid them .
Setting a house in a wooded area was easy .
Using names from the fairy tale was easy , and would let the reader know that I was trying to tell ( or retell ) a “ Hansel and Gretel ” story .
I thought of how “ Pan ’ s Labyrinth ” uses a young girl ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ things to “ happen ” without breaking the rules of reality .
I hoped that letting Gretyl go on magical trips to the mountain in her dreams/delirium broke up the housebound claustrophobia of the story .
It also allowed me to insert some “ Hansel and Gretel ” elements ( the ogress in the cottage of gems ) .
I borrowed two lines directly from the fairy tale : “ He who says Yes to A must also say Yes to B , ” from the Grimm Brothers ’ version , and “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s not here , I ’ m better than him , ” from “ Finette Cendron.
” And what about the third sister , Piece of Shit ?
How does that name , with its plain bluntness , play into the story ?
I think there ’ s a literary tradition of having a character in a story or novel who is a writer , clerk , or journalist ( to some extent , a stand-in for the author ) and a “ loser , ” with a matching name .
In Gogol @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” the narrator explains at great length that Akaky Akakievich ( the story ’ s protagonist ) is such an unlucky baby that his family can ’ t even find a name for him , and he ends up with the worst possible one .
Isaac Bashevis Singer sometimes gave his characters ridiculous names , most famously Gimpel the Fool .
Sam Lipsyte ’ s protagonist in his unforgettable and hilarious novel “ Home Land ” is called Teabag .
In the most contemporary version of “ Hansel and Gretel ” there are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ earlier version , “ Finette Cendron , ” there are three , so I decided to add a sister and give her a ridiculous name .
Certain details—talk of Y2K , the presence of BlackBerrys , the picture-in-picture function on the TV—indicate that we ’ re around the turn of the century .
What made you set the story in this near-past time frame ?
Setting the story around the “ turn of the century ” —sounds so romantic !
—was easy-ish , because I was around then and remember it .
Setting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the late nineteen-nineties , there were no cell phones ( or very few ) .
So Gretyl wouldn ’ t have her own phone , and she couldn ’ t necessarily access her parents ’ phone without their consent .
Why are all the adults in the story—save , perhaps , one or two—malevolent ?
If Gretyl survives into the world of adults , what kind of world is she growing up into ?
I have what my husband tells me is a very “ liberal ” belief that there are no @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and ones who are genetically mentally deficient .
We don ’ t blame people who are born with Down syndrome for being the way they are , but we do blame serial killers for being the way they are .
Yet , according to some studies , we can track genetic differences in the brains of serial killers and psychopaths that clearly show deficiencies—of gray matter , in the areas of the brain devoted to remorse , recognition of social prohibitions , empathy , etc.—that control , perhaps even compel , their actions @ @ @ @ @ @ @ her parents are not the best .
But people like them certainly exist .
And if Gretyl had nicer parents ( and better pediatricians ) there would be no story .
I believe that , when Gretyl grows up , she will meet nicer adults and more competent doctors .

Photograph by Sean Hemmerle
In “Hansa and Gretyl and Piece of Shit,” your story in this week’s issue, Gretyl is the youngest of three sisters who have grown up in a slightly disturbing family. One notable thing about them is that, when the story begins, Gretyl—like the other sisters before her—is experiencing the pains that accompany appendicitis, a condition that her parents seem intent on ignoring. Some of the names, of course, are taken from fairy tales, and some elements of the story seem fairy-tale-like. How do you go about mixing the realistic with the fantastic, and what kind of considerations come into play?
Many things that some might consider fantastic I consider reality. Things like one of a pair of twins, or siblings, or just close friends, sensing, across great distance, when the other one’s in danger or need seems “real” to me; that some people might have ESP, or have dreams that foretell the future, or be able to use tarot cards to predict and know things, seems “real.” I don’t have ESP myself, and I’ve never seen a ghost. But I know people who do, or have, and I believe in these things. My belief makes mixing the “real” and “fantastic” easier, because I’m simple enough to believe that it’s all real. Biology is a soft science. There is so much that we don’t understand—the connections between intention and physical manifestation, the power of the human mind. There is a book I love called “Extraordinary Knowing,” by Elizabeth Lloyd Mayer, about studies done in the area of ESP and the efficacy of directed intent that is fascinating.
I wanted to write a story about a teen-age girl with appendicitis, and I wasn’t sure how to tell it. I wanted it to be simple and linear. I feared that, by itself, the story might be too spartan or grim. I ran through various plot frames in my mind—all the classic fairy tales, fables, and classic novels, like “Dracula,” “Frankenstein,” “Hamlet”—to see if any might mesh with an appendicitis story. “Hansel and Gretel,” which I’ve always loved, seemed to fit. I reread the Grimm Brothers’ version and also a much older version called “Finette Cendron,” in which both parents are blood parents (no evil stepmother) and an ogre, not a witch, lives in a castle made of gems, not a cottage made of sweets. I identified common threads. I felt that my protagonist’s parents (like those in “Hansel and Gretel”) might feel too deprived or needy to be able to support children—might feel, for various reasons, that getting rid of a child would aid them. Setting a house in a wooded area was easy. Using names from the fairy tale was easy, and would let the reader know that I was trying to tell (or retell) a “Hansel and Gretel” story. I thought of how “Pan’s Labyrinth” uses a young girl’s dreams and imagination to allow magical things to “happen” without breaking the rules of reality. I hoped that letting Gretyl go on magical trips to the mountain in her dreams/delirium broke up the housebound claustrophobia of the story. It also allowed me to insert some “Hansel and Gretel” elements (the ogress in the cottage of gems). I borrowed two lines directly from the fairy tale: “He who says Yes to A must also say Yes to B,” from the Grimm Brothers’ version, and “You’re lucky my husband’s not here, I’m better than him,” from “Finette Cendron.”
And what about the third sister, Piece of Shit? How does that name, with its plain bluntness, play into the story?
I think there’s a literary tradition of having a character in a story or novel who is a writer, clerk, or journalist (to some extent, a stand-in for the author) and a “loser,” with a matching name. In Gogol’s story “The Overcoat,” the narrator explains at great length that Akaky Akakievich (the story’s protagonist) is such an unlucky baby that his family can’t even find a name for him, and he ends up with the worst possible one. Isaac Bashevis Singer sometimes gave his characters ridiculous names, most famously Gimpel the Fool. Sam Lipsyte’s protagonist in his unforgettable and hilarious novel “Home Land” is called Teabag. In the most contemporary version of “Hansel and Gretel” there are only two siblings, but in the earlier version, “Finette Cendron,” there are three, so I decided to add a sister and give her a ridiculous name.
Certain details—talk of Y2K, the presence of BlackBerrys, the picture-in-picture function on the TV—indicate that we’re around the turn of the century. What made you set the story in this near-past time frame?
Setting the story around the “turn of the century”—sounds so romantic!—was easy-ish, because I was around then and remember it. Setting the story then helped me because, in the late nineteen-nineties, there were no cell phones (or very few). So Gretyl wouldn’t have her own phone, and she couldn’t necessarily access her parents’ phone without their consent.
Why are all the adults in the story—save, perhaps, one or two—malevolent? If Gretyl survives into the world of adults, what kind of world is she growing up into?
I have what my husband tells me is a very “liberal” belief that there are no evil people, only sick ones, and ones who are genetically mentally deficient. We don’t blame people who are born with Down syndrome for being the way they are, but we do blame serial killers for being the way they are. Yet, according to some studies, we can track genetic differences in the brains of serial killers and psychopaths that clearly show deficiencies—of gray matter, in the areas of the brain devoted to remorse, recognition of social prohibitions, empathy, etc.—that control, perhaps even compel, their actions. Gretyl is unlucky, insofar as her parents are not the best. But people like them certainly exist. And if Gretyl had nicer parents (and better pediatricians) there would be no story. I believe that, when Gretyl grows up, she will meet nicer adults and more competent doctors.