Free Kitty Genovese: A True Account of a Public Murder and Its Private Consequences by Catherine Pelonero Page B

out of it had not worked when he was a child; it definitely wouldn’t work now that he was an adult, capable of being squeezed into service tendering messages or diffusing confrontations. He listened to whichever parent came to him and then insisted, no matter what new strife had arisen between his parents, that he loved them both and always would. The reply he most often received was a look of admonishment and hurtfollowed by a variation of “But how could you, after what he/she has done to me?”
    No matter how hard he tried to remain a neutral peacemaker in his parents’ quarrels, no matter how much he did to show his love for both of them, helping out every night at his father’s repair shop or building a room for his mother in his own home, peace never settled upon the complicated union of Alphonso and Fannie Moseley. There were lulls in the drama, but these were temporary—brief respites heavy with an undercurrent of dread anticipation of the next blowout. There seemed to be no shelter from these tempests spawned by Al and Fannie, least of all for their son. Even in periods of relative calm, he knew full well it was only a matter of time before he’d once again be thrown asunder by the next parental cyclone sure to come whipping through.
    Winston did not have the personality to lay down the law with his parents or extricate himself from their grasp, much as he may secretly have wished to. It was as if he, and now Bettye too, lived in a familial tornado alley with no means of escape.
    Bettye certainly would have preferred to stay out of her in-laws’ marital discord, but it really wasn’t possible at times when her father-in-law was driving slowly back and forth in front of the house, waiting for his wife to emerge so he could confront her. Or with her mother-in-law hounding her husband, complaining to him that his father had once again brandished a gun, threatening to kill Fannie and her boyfriend.
    The worst occasions, mercifully rare, were perhaps when Al and Fannie were in the house at the same time, presumably to visit their grandson, actually to snipe and spy on each other. Similar nastiness ensued when Fannie dropped in at Al’s shop, though why she ever chose to do so was anybody’s guess. Like two Siamese fighting fish in too small a tank—though their tank was none other than New York City—Alphonso and Fannie could not, would not stay away from each other, forever sparring and retreating, carping and charging, and God help any guppies who happened to be in the way.
    Bettye may have wondered how two people of such quarrelsome and confrontational disposition had produced her gentle husband. Itwas near impossible to imagine a man more placid or less confrontational than Winston. The difference in the marriages of the elder and younger Moseleys was striking. Winston and Bettye had never had a single loud fight, much less a violent one. Winston even showed infinite patience with the children, never raising his voice with them either, not even with his two older, more active boys on the occasions when he saw them. By this point in his life, Winston seldom voiced complaints about anything, not even about his warring parents.
    But he brooded. Quite a lot.
    Many times Bettye would find him sitting alone, silent, staring. When she asked him what he was doing—or, as she had asked more recently, what was wrong—he would reply only that he was thinking, offering nothing more.
    Winston had always been a quiet, thoughtful type of person ever since Bettye had known him, and, according to his parents, ever since childhood. But lately Bettye had begun to worry. She detected changes in him, particularly over the last three months. Since around January, Bettye thought, Winston hadn’t quite been himself. The fact that he spent even more time deep in thought wouldn’t necessarily have aroused her concern—after all, he’d always been “moody,” according to both Fannie and Al—but there were other changes