Daily Blague

My eye was caught by a headline on page B4 of today's Times: "Amid Luxury, Domestic Strife Apparently Took Deadly Turn." Alan Feuer's story reported that seventy-one year-old Ben Odierno, of 422 East 84th Street (that would be on the south side of the block, between First and York Avenues), killed his wife, Christine, with one kitchen knife and then tried to, what, disembowel himself with another? The suicide attempt failed. There had been several altercations in the recent past to which police had been summoned, but no charges had been issued. According to the story, Mr Odierno is in real estate, and by that I do not mean realty. He owns buildings here and there. Perhaps because I was on my way to the barber shop, this reminded me immediately of the barber shop's owner, George, who cuts hair if absolutely necessary but largely uses the shop as a rental office for his scattered walkups in the neighborhood. And hey, look: there's George himself!

Neighbors said they did not know why the relationship went sour, although Mr. Odierno's barber, George Ventura, who has cut his hair for eight years, said he was no longer "happy at home."

"He's depressed all the time," Mr. Ventura said, sitting on a chair in the Clermont Barber Shop on First Avenue at 83rd Street. "Ben tells me: 'I can't continue like this. She comes home, she don't even talk to me.' " Several neighbors said Mrs. Odierno had recently told them that she had filed for divorce, although no record of a court filing could be found. The couple had two sons, Stephano, 26, and Marcus, 23. They have an address listed in Ulster County, but a telephone call to the home went unanswered

Why, old George is so cagey that the story doesn't even identify him as the barber shop's owner, much less a local landlord. Because I feel safe that George will never see this page, and that his tenants already know what's what, I do not fear that my revelations will have any consequences.