In Powder Blue

Levittown, New York, 2016

The black SUV was still there. Two cars back, a Crown Vic lingered. Farther behind, a blue pickup hung in the shadows.

 “They’ve been on us since the diner.”

Lucy glanced at me, catching the edge in my voice. “What?”

“The black truck. The Crown Vic. That pickup back there.”

She straightened, leaning toward the side mirror. Her foot tapped nervously on the floor. “You’re sure?”

“Yeah, I’m sure.”

She hesitated. “It could just be—”

“It’s not nothing,” I snapped. Her shoulders tensed—the kind of reaction that made me hate myself for dragging her into this.

Her voice dropped. “What do they want?”

She knew. We both did.

The SUV shifted lanes, closing in, and I pressed the gas harder. The V8 growled, but the knot in my chest didn’t loosen.

“Vin,” Lucy said, softer now. “What do we do?”

“We keep moving.”

The car surged forward, slicing through traffic. The SUV matched me move for move. The Crown Vic drifted closer, testing me. The pickup stayed back, just far enough to blend in with the night.

My grip on the wheel tightened until my wrists ached. Every glance at the mirror felt like a countdown.

 “Vin, who are they?”

“You know who,” I said.

The color drained from her face. Her voice trembled. “What are they gonna do?”

I didn’t answer. Couldn’t. Saying it would make it real.

The exit ramp flashed past the headlights. Without thinking, I yanked the wheel hard right. The tires screamed, the car lurching as it cut across lanes and onto the ramp.

“Vin, no!” Lucy shouted, panic breaking in her voice.

“Hold on,” I barked.

The rear fishtailed. I corrected it, my eyes darting to the mirror. The SUV followed without hesitation, headlights bearing down. The Crown Vic turned. The pickup stayed behind, waiting.

I floored it, the ramp curving hard. Too hard. The tires strained, the grip barely holding.

Lucy grabbed the dashboard, “Vincent!” she yelled.

The ramp spit us onto an industrial road, the warehouses and factories rising like gravestones on either side. The SUV clung tighter, its headlights boring into the back of the car. The Crown Vic slid into place. The pickup stayed far enough to keep me guessing.

“They’re still there,” Lucy whimpered, her voice breaking. “Vin…What if this is it?”

“Then I guess we find out.”

She turned to me, tears pooling in her wide, glassy eyes. “This isn’t how it ends.”

And then everything stopped. The car. The chase. Even time. Every decision, every misstep, every crack in the foundation of my life came rushing back at once. To understand how it came to this, we have to go back to the beginning, when the cracks in everything were still small enough to ignore.

Chapter 1

They called it the bubble. Back in the day, it wasn’t just a place—it was an idea. A promise. A town built from nothing, sold as everything. Levittown. The first suburb. A place where life was safe, simple, perfect. Or so they said.

The streets were laid out like grids, rows of homes sprung up like weeds. It started in 1947 with Bill Levitt and his family. They didn’t just build houses—they built a system. Abraham Levitt, the father, took inspiration from Henry Ford’s assembly lines, creating a way to mass-produce homes with speed and precision. Pre-cut lumber, prefabricated walls, and trucks that rolled in with everything ready to be assembled like a giant jigsaw puzzle. At their peak, they could build a house every sixteen minutes.

Bill Levitt, the showman of the family, sold it like a dream. Eight grand for a house. No down payment for veterans, thanks to the GI Bill. Everything a family could want— a modern kitchen with brand-new appliances, heating that actually worked, and pre-seeded lawns so you didn’t even have to grow your own grass. The houses weren’t fancy—Cape Cod or ranch style, take your pick—but they were neat, orderly, and affordable. To families moving out of crowded apartments or war barracks, it felt like a palace. The streets were clean, and sidewalks lined the quiet neighborhoods so kids could ride their bikes without worrying about cars flying by. Levittown was designed to feel safe, predictable, and comfortable.

But safety came at a cost. The Levitts made sure Levittown stayed white. Restrictive covenants written into the deeds barred black families from buying homes there, no exception. It didn’t take long for banks and real estate agents to keep the system going, redlining neighborhoods and deciding who could and couldn’t get a mortgage. Black veterans who fought the same war as their white neighbors were told their GI Bill benefits weren’t enough. The bubble wasn’t just about what Levittown gave people—it was about who it shut out.

In 1968, the Fair Housing Act made racial covenants illegal, but by then, the damage had been done. The system wasn’t written into the deeds anymore, but it didn’t need to be. Neighborhoods had already been divided. Old habits, unspoken rules, and systemic barriers made sure the lines stayed intact. By the time I was in school, there were a few black kids in my class. We didn’t really think much about color. Kids are funny like that. They notice things, but they don’t always care the way adults do.

My mother, Maria, was one of the lucky ones. Her parents were from Corona, Queens, where her grandparents had owned a small deli on 108th Street. They’d come over from Sicily, straight off the boat, chasing that classic American Dream. Hard work, good food, and a better life for their kids—that’s what they believed in. My mom always said she was just average, though. Average looks, average grades, average everything. But she wasn’t entirely average. She was the first person in her family to go to college, and they never let her forget it. To her parents, she was proof that everything they’d sacrificed was worth it, even if she still doubted it herself sometimes.

My dad, Sal, came from a different world. He grew up in Far Rockaway, a place that wasn’t much better than where his family started. His uncle, from what I’d heard, was into some shady shit during all the Gambino family stuff. Arrested a few times but never locked up for long. My dad didn’t talk about him much, but you could tell there was always this unspoken line between them. Whatever his uncle was into, my dad stayed out of it. As far as I knew, Pop kept his hands clean. He used to run a Wonder Bread route in his twenties before deciding to open the liquor store near the Bethpage train station. It was a smart move, steady work.

My parents met in 1975 at a Led Zeppelin concert at Nassau Coliseum. I never heard them shut the fuck up about how one of The Rolling Stones joined them on stage. It was the kind of story they’d bring up at family parties, always finishing each other’s sentences, both of them acting like it was the best night of their lives. They married a few years later and stayed at my dad’s apartment in Far Rockaway for a while, but in 1982, they decided to mortgage a house in Levittown for seventy-five grand, A far cry from what these houses used to cost—and still nothing compared to what they go for now. Back then, it was still the best place they could imagine for starting a family. But by the time I came around in 1989, the dream didn’t feel as bright anymore. The houses, once new and uniform, were starting to show their age. The paint was peeling, fences were rotting, and not everyone could afford to keep up with the Joneses. Levittown wasn’t the escape it used to be—it was just another place where people worked, struggled, and hoped for something better.

Even as a kid, I noticed people in their thirties, even forties, still living with their parents. I’d see them mowing the lawn or bringing in the mail like it was normal. I’d think there was something wrong with them. They were stuck in the bubble. Maybe they wanted to leave, but they didn’t know how—or maybe they’d tried and realized there was nowhere else to go.

Levittown wasn’t alone. Bill Levitt took his blueprint to Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and even Puerto Rico. But none of them ever got the attention of the original. Levittown, New York—that’s where the dream took root. It was the heart of Long Island, sitting smack between the city and Jones Beach. You could be walking Fifth Avenue or swimming in the Atlantic in thirty minutes.

But Levittown wasn’t the North Shore. We weren’t Manhasset, Roslyn, or Great Neck, where the lawns were bigger, the houses grander, and the money older. Just a few towns over, you had Hempstead, Roosevelt, and Wyandanch—the places no one talked about in the sales brochures. Levittown was the bubble. It was built to keep everything outside exactly where it belonged. But bubbles don’t just keep the bad out—they keep you in, too. It’s funny. For all the promises, Levittown couldn’t save anyone—not from themselves, not from each other. And sure as hell not from what was coming.