Motherless Brooklyn: One Mind Summary & Analysis

Lionel recalls that in the wake of Minna’s return from “exile,” he would not disclose to any of the Minna Men the nature of his exile, the circumstances of the day Gerard hurried him away, how he met and married Julia, what happened to Gerard, or his relationship with The Clients—even though Rockaforte and Matricardi continued to dole out odd, shady “assignments” that the Minna Men completed. These jobs—combined with Frank’s increasingly paranoid behavior—reminded Lionel and the other Men that they were just pawns in a larger scheme. 

Lionel recalls one job that he and the others undertook in the early days of L&L’s existence—they were assigned to stand guard in broad daylight around an old Volvo parked near the Brooklyn Promenade until a tow truck came to collect it. All day and most of the night passed, and no tow truck came. Danny began to speculate that there was a body in the truck, while Gilbert ventured it was full of money. Danny threatened to give up the assignment and leave—but just then, the tow truck came rumbling down the block. Lionel knew that as Minna Men, they’d inherently failed—even if The Clients didn’t get wind of their failure. 

As the assignments increased in frequency, Lionel recalls, he and the others stopped questioning The Clients’ involvement and wondering which jobs were for them and which were random. One assignment that took place about a year before Frank’s murder, however, was utterly mysterious, and so Lionel knew that The Clients had to be behind it. The Men were charged with destroying the Ferris wheel at a carnival frequented by Brooklyn’s Hispanic and Latino residents that had sprung up in an abandoned parking lot on Smith Street using bats, crowbars, and wrenches. Lionel recalls that as he, Gilbert, Tony, and Danny, under Minna’s watchful eye, worked cooperatively to destroy the wheel, a group of Latino teenagers looked on from the sidewalk.

Now, Lionel sits visiting with Matricardi and Rockaforte. In the antique parlor, Lionel listens as The Clients tell him how much Frank loved him. The Clients, dressed as twins, are sitting close together on the old couch; Lionel swears that when he walked in the room, they pulled their hands apart into their laps. After a moment of silence, The Clients ask Lionel what has happened between him and Tony. Lionel explains that Tony is trying to stop him from solving Frank’s murder—but given how ardently they try to reassure Lionel that Tony, too, wants to solve Frank’s murder, Lionel begins to believe that Tony and The Clients are in on something together.

As Lionel grows angry, Rockaforte and Matricardi entreat him not to suspect Tony of Frank’s murder, and to work with Tony rather than against him. Tony, they tell Lionel gently, has taken over Frank’s role in life. Lionel should not act against Tony, they warn. Lionel, incensed, declares that he is going to keep looking with or without the help of Tony—or The Clients. The Clients urge Lionel to find Julia and bring her to them—they asked to meet with her, and instead, she ran. Now they want to see her. They entreat Lionel to find Julia and learn her secrets—without telling Tony. Anxious, Lionel begins belching and performing tics. The Clients urge Lionel to repress the “freak” within him and instead do what they’ve asked using the part of him that is like Frank.

When Lionel walks back to his car, he finds Tony sitting in its driver’s seat. Lionel walks around to the passenger side and gets in, furious that The Clients set him up and told Tony where he was. Tony smacks Lionel and tells him that he’s not a Hardy Boy—he’s a “Hardly Boy.” Lionel feels trapped in a nightmare. He decides to let Tony play out his aggression until it passes. Tony insults Lionel and calls him terrible names, even threatening him physically, as Lionel tics and cowers.

Tony asks Lionel what Matricardi and Rockaforte told him. Lionel says they told him to stay off the case—the same as the doormen at 1030 Park. Tony, incredulous, asks when Lionel was at that building and what he saw inside. Tony demands to know if Lionel told The Clients about visiting that building. Lionel dodges Tony’s questions, ultimately revealing only that The Clients want him to find Julia. Tony pulls a gun on Lionel. Lionel realizes that Tony suspects that Lionel is colluding with the Clients—the exact mirror of what Lionel believes. “Wheels within wheels,” Lionel thinks as he tries to figure out the opaque connections between The Clients, the Park Avenue Building, Tony, and Julia.

Lionel’s tics abate as he confronts the gun in front of him. Tony continues questioning Lionel about 1030 Park. Lionel, in turn, asks Tony what’s going on with Julia and who Ullman was—but Tony won’t answer Lionel’s questions straight. Lionel asks Tony outright if Tony killed Minna. Tony tells Lionel to “go fuck [him]self.” Lionel, Tony says, knows nothing of how the world really works—he learned everything from Minna or a book, and because Minna was two different men, Lionel learned the wrong things. Frank, Tony says, surrounded himself with clowns and freaks—Tony doesn’t plan on making the same mistake. Someone taps on the window—the homicide detective orders Tony and Lionel out of the car.

The detective frisks Tony and Lionel, confiscates Tony’s gun and Lionel’s phone, and then grows frustrated when Lionel compulsively tries to frisk him back. The detective takes the keys to the car and orders the two Minna Men to put their hands on the dashboard and sit quietly. He’s learning a lot about their neighborhood very quickly, he says, as this part of Brooklyn isn’t usually in his jurisdiction. He believes that Ullman, who kept the books for a property-management firm in Manhattan, was offed by Gilbert in a kind of “tit-for-tat”—before the detective can finish his line of thought, however, Tony asks his name. The detective at last reveals that his name is Lucius Seminole. The intriguing name causes Lionel to begin performing tics wildly.

Seminole asks Lionel about what Julia is up to. She’s booked a flight to Boston; Seminole asks what’s there. Lionel and Tony both insist that they don’t know. Lionel hammers home the fact that they’re detectives, not gangsters, and that Gilbert couldn’t have killed anyone. Seminole, however, calls Frank a “penny-ante hood” in the pocket of Matricardi and Rockaforte—and suggests that someone other than hospital staff tipped Julia off about Frank’s murder. Tony responds to Seminole’s accusations by making one of his own: he suggests that Seminole himself is in someone’s pocket. Lionel marvels at how the point of another man’s gun has brought him and Tony closer together than they have been in years. Lionel wonders if Julia is the one missing her “Rama-lama-ding-dong,” what exactly that might be, and whether it’s in Boston.

Seminole tells Tony and Lionel that he resents the coincidence that this case fell in his jurisdiction—he doesn’t want to get tangled in any Italian mob business. As Tony, who takes offense to the statement, and Seminole verbally spar, Lionel begins to perform tics. Seminole orders Lionel out of the car so that he can have a talk with Tony. Tony tells Lionel to go back to the office and wait for him. Lionel, performing tics, utters a goodbye to Seminole and skips down the street. As he continues down the block, he thinks about how his “meta-Tourette’s” affects his life—he is always touching touching, counting counting, thinking about thinking.

Lionel takes the subway to the Upper East Side. On the street, Lionel calls Loomis to check in—Loomis has the scoop on 1030 Park. The building, he says, is ultra-exclusive. To just get on the waiting list for an apartment, Loomis says, someone would have to have $100 million at least. The second homes of people who live in this building, Loomis says, are islands. Lionel asks about Fujisaki. Loomis reports that he’s getting there—1030 Park is just a collection of mansions stacked on top of one another, with secret passages and sprawling amenities such as private kitchens and swimming pools connecting them. The building is an underground economy” for “old-money people.” Fujisaki is the management corporation—and a lot of Japanese people live in the building. Loomis surmises the residents of 1030 Park must “own half of New York.”

Ullman, Loomis says, was Fujisaki’s accountant. He asks Lionel why Gilbert would go after such a man. Lionel says that all he knows is that Minna was supposed to see Ullman. Loomis wonders if they were supposed to kill each other. Lionel is unable to answer or even speculate. Loomis comments upon Lionel’s shoddy detective work, and Lionel ends the call.

Lionel arrives at the Zendo in time for the monks’ special session. Kimmery greets him excitedly and shows him to the sitting room, where she provides him with a pillow and a spot to sit in and then sits beside him. The room, Lionel notes, is full of over 20 Zen practitioners. Kimmery closes her eyes and begins to meditate—but as Lionel closes his eyes, he can only think about what the Zendo means and how it ties in with Minna’s death. He ponders the concept of One Mind and the joke about the High Lama named Irving.

When Lionel opens his eyes, he sees more people have gathered in the room—and that Pinched and Indistinct are sitting a row ahead of him. Not wanting his stolen cell phone to go off, Lionel takes it out to silence it—and someone smacks him on the back of the head. Lionel looks up and sees a procession of six bald Japanese men dressed in robes—monks—filing to the front of the room. Once the monks are seated, a seventh man enters the room. He is not Japanese, but American, yet he takes the most important spot at the front of the room. This, Lionel realizes, must be the Roshi. Lionel is again reminded of the joke about the High Lama named Irving—and he begins wondering even more intensely what connects Minna to the Zendo.

Lionel closes his eyes again and tries to meditate—but after a few minutes, a sound at the door startles him. He turns around to see the giant standing by the entrance, eating a Ziploc bag of kumquats. Before Lionel can figure out what to do, one of the monks at the front of the room stands and bows to the Roshi, then to the other monks, then to the audience. The giant sits down on a cushion, taking no notice of Lionel. The monk at the front of the room begins speaking about his excitement to be in New York with his friend “Jerry-Roshi.” Lionel tries desperately not to perform a tic as he looks closely at the Roshi and finds something familiar in the man’s face.

As the monk continues talking, Lionel’s brain makes lightning-fast connections and he stifles the desire to get up and touch the face of the Roshi—who he now realizes looks like Minna. Suddenly, Lionel is overcome by the realization that “Irving equals Lama, Roshi equals Gerard.” Frank’s brother was the voice on the wire all along. Lionel realizes that Minna used the joke to snag Lionel’s unique brain and force it to puzzle over the Irving clue endlessly while the other Minna Men chased their tails. As Lionel’s anger and confusion mount, he begins to perform verbal tics, shouting things like “Zengeance” and “Ziggedy zendoodah.” The monk tries to ignore Lionel’s outburst at first—but as it continues, the monk reprimands him.

Another monk with a paddle approaches Lionel. The giant stands. Gerard looks directly at Lionel but does not seem to recognize him. The monk with the paddle whips Lionel. Lionel pulls the paddle away from him. Gerard nods at the giant, who lifts Lionel from the floor, carries him outside, and drops him onto the sidewalk. The giant offers the startled Lionel a kumquat and asks what’s wrong. Lionel replies that he has Tourette’s. The giant says that “threats don’t work” on him. He orders Lionel down some concrete steps at the side of the Zendo, into a narrow alleyway. Lionel obeys the giant’s command. As Lionel continues to perform tics, the giant attacks him, knocking him out.

Lionel wakes from his blackout to the sound of Kimmery’s voice. She has Lionel’s shoes with her. Kimmery helps Lionel to his feet and hails them a cab. During the ride across Central Park, Lionel passes out again. He wakes up out front of Kimmery’s apartment building, and Kimmery helps him inside, to the elevator, and supports him as they ride to the 28th floor. Kimmery hurries from the elevator into her apartment. Lionel asks if they’re being followed—but Kimmery, confused, replies that she’s subletting the place illegally.

Inside Kimmery’s apartment, which is spare and small, Kimmery instructs Lionel to have a seat on her bed—a mattress she’s set up in the foyer rather than the empty main room, which she says makes her uncomfortable due to its large windows. As Lionel sits down on Kimmery’s bed, he feels dazed but safe. He enjoys being in Kimmery’s space, and he feels he is beginning to know her as he looks around. As Lionel looks through books stacked next to Kimmery’s bed, he finds a pamphlet for Zen Buddhist retreat center in Maine tucked between one book’s pages. The heading on the pamphlet reads “A PLACE OF PEACE.”

Kimmery’s cat walks into the room and sits on Lionel’s lap. Lionel begins to perform tics. Kimmery comes back into the room and apologizes for the cat, fearing Lionel doesn’t like cats—but he insists the opposite is true. Lionel privately recollects on a cat he once owned. The cat, Hen, enjoyed Lionel’s unique attentions at first—but eventually became startled by his jerks and utterances. As Lionel’s tics urged him to pat and tap the cat in strange ways, the cat became agitated and skittish. After six months, Lionel rehomed the cat. 

Lionel asks if Kimmery has lived in the apartment long. She tells him she’s only been here a month—she just broke up with the “Oreo Man.” Kimmery says she doesn’t like the apartment very much and is hardly ever here. Lionel asks if she locked the door when they came in; Kimmery observes that Lionel is really frightened of the giant. Lionel asks if Kimmery saw the man take him outside—she says that she didn’t.

Lionel tells Kimmery that he knows who the Roshi really is. He tells her that Roshi Jerry is involved in a murder. Kimmery insists that such a thing can’t be true. Lionel asks what the cat’s name is. Kimmery tells him that it’s Shelf—but that it’s not her cat, and that she’s just watching it for a friend. She’s in a self-described “period of crisis”—and that’s why she’s so into Zen. Lionel begins to realize just how rootless Kimmery is—she is not detached in a Zen sense, she’s merely alienated from her own life. Lionel begins to perform tics. Kimmery is intrigued, though, rather than off-put. 

Lionel tells Kimmery that Roshi’s real name is Gerard Minna—he is the brother of Frank Minna. Kimmery asks who Frank Minna is. Lionel replies that Minna is a man who was killed. Kimmery is distressed, and she takes the cat into her arms. Lionel begins telling Kimmery about the circumstances of Frank’s murder—including the fact that Gerard set his own brother up. Kimmery insists that Roshi has taken a vow of silence—he couldn’t have been speaking over a wire yesterday, because he isn’t speaking at all. Roshi is, she insists, a gentle man.

Frustrated and furious with Gerard, Lionel begins performing tics. Kimmery, still intrigued, leans in closer to Lionel and asks what it feels like when he performs tics. Lionel insists that he doesn’t feel anything—he’s just uttering words that don’t mean anything. He compulsively reaches out to tap Kimmery, and she touches his hand back. Lionel, embarrassed by the attention, asks Kimmery what she knows about 1030 Park. She replies that a lot of the Roshi’s students do work service in that building. Kimmery, a little perturbed, says she realizes now that Lionel doesn’t really have an interest in Zen—he just wants to make trouble. Lionel retorts that he came to the Zendo because of trouble.

Kimmery says no matter the circumstances, she’s glad she’s met Lionel—he is “strange in a good way.” Lionel doesn’t respond. Kimmery tells him that he doesn’t have to censor himself—he can say whatever he needs to. Lionel realizes that Kimmery is touching his hand. She turns off the light and moves closer to him. Lionel touches Kimmery’s leg. Soon, they are kissing. As Lionel grows aroused, he find that his impulse to perform tics is squashed.

As Kimmery unbuttons Lionel’s pants and takes his penis in her hands, she urges Lionel to talk and make sounds freely. Lionel allows himself to speak free-associatively, uttering the phrases “One Mind” and “Fonebone,” the latter a reference to wacky cartoon characters Lionel loved as a child—cartoon characters he now feels represents his clumsy, erratic state of arousal. Lionel, already dreading the “bic tic[s]” that he knows will come after he climaxes, asks Kimmery to promise him she’ll stay away from the Zendo for a few days. Kimmery agrees. Lionel and Kimmery stop talking and begin having sex.

Later, Kimmery falls asleep. Lionel gets up from bed, taps Shelf a few times, and locates Kimmery’s keys in the kitchen. He leaves her apartment key with her, but takes all of the others, knowing that one is bound to let him into the Zendo.