No Lease on Life (2 page)

The man in the third-floor window turned his light off.

Elizabeth didn’t know if he was a potential enemy. She had some enemies. A couple had been friends of hers. It’s hard to make a positive ID even when you’re up close. Her best friend had been the worst. Her mother hated Elizabeth. Elizabeth was a threat. She remembered that and her friend’s big, placid, lying eyes, her laugh, and that her friend hated to vomit. Now, whenever Elizabeth thought about her, she thought about vomit. Another friend schemed behind her back. Elizabeth found out. The friend manipulated everyone. She had no friends. She didn’t know that.

A few enemies were strays, accidental acquaintances. Accidents are sometimes dressed up as people. She’d had sex with some accidents. Accidents were always waiting to happen. Maybe she’d looked at someone funny once. Maybe she’d sided with someone in an unimportant bar argument and another person she hadn’t even noticed became enraged. This person was plotting against her secretly. She had a few secret enemies.

A couple of her enemies were blatant. They were disappointed, dangerously overweight men. She worked with them one week on, one week off, in the proofroom. She read proof with them. It was an outdated occupation. The two fat men taught her not to sympathize automatically with unhappy people. The emotionally crippled and downtrodden can be vicious. She worked with a lot of miserable people. There were many miserable people in the company, misery wants company. Proofreading didn’t make her miserable. She liked focusing on typos and misspellings, on periods, commas, quotation marks, neutral characters in her life.

Five out of ten working days she rolled out of bed and over to the proofroom and worked late into the night. Ten hours, twelve hours, silver time, golden time, good overtime. The first time she saw the proofroom, she was in the building to take a proofreading test. She’d prepared and memorized the symbols, for delete, add, cap, small cap, wrong font. They were listed in any adequate dictionary.

Elizabeth didn’t know it, but on the way to the test, she passed her future co-workers. They were sitting in a small room, with no door, at a long table, reading aloud to each other. Doing hot reads, she learned after she had the job. When you read silently to yourself, it’s a cold read. It was confusing, six voices going simultaneously, people reading business articles to each other. Others were eating take-out food from different restaurants, but all the restaurants used the same plastic or Styrofoam containers. Some were reading the paper. Some were waiting for copy to come through a slot in the wall.

There’s a field of ostriches. They all have their heads stuck in the ground. Another ostrich comes along. He looks around and says, Hey, where is everybody?

The proofreaders were low down in the company. It was obvious from their exposed quarters. The proofroom was similar to a stall in a barn, there was no privacy. No door, no windows. Company status was exhibited by the size of the office, the number of windows, closeness to the boss, a door that shuts others out. Status used to be access to the telephone, but now even janitors in the company had remotes.

The proofroom had one phone for twelve people. Even though proofreaders might do nothing for hours, might be waiting for the editors to edit, for the writers to finish writing or the fact checkers to check facts, they weren’t supposed to be in touch with the outside world.

During their work time they were supposed to be available. They were supposed to be ready for copy that dropped through a slot in the wall like slop thrown at pigs or food shoved under the door for prisoners in isolation. When the pages would finally drop through the slot into the metal basket, they produced a swishing sound. All the proofreaders would hear it. The person nearest the slot in the wall was the supervisor or the next in command. One of them took the copy out of the basket, logged it in, and handed it out.

The proofreaders were a despised minority, a rung above the lowest group, the mailroom workers. The mailroom was in the basement. The mailroom workers were male, mostly black or Hispanic. Occasionally, when Elizabeth mailed one of her own letters and didn’t want it routed through the system, because she wasn’t supposed to use the company’s system, she hand-delivered it to the mailroom. She went down in the elevator. She saw the black and Hispanic men. They were always surprised when one of the people from above came down. They stopped sorting the mail briefly to take in her presence, or anyone’s. Though she was a nothing in the company’s eyes, she still came from the world above, two floors up. It was pathetic.

The proofreaders were white, college graduates, middle-class misfits who accepted inferior jobs and were not ambitious. They had no future except the copy desk. The copy desk was allowed to change sentences. Proofreaders could only correct mistakes in spelling or find errors in fact. Any other change had to be reported to the desk. The proofreaders were beneath the desk, beneath contempt. The proofreaders were also beneath the janitors, who called the head of the company Boss. The janitors lived in houses in the suburbs and had two cars.

Elizabeth had won the steady part-time job over many applicants. She’d scored high on the test and the head of the room liked her best. Elizabeth had worn black socks with heels, a black jacket, and black pants to her interview. The socks made her a weirdo in the supervisor’s eyes. The supervisor decided she’d fit in with the room. The proofreaders referred to their quarters as “the room.” It was a correctional facility, Roy said.

A doctor said to his patient: I’ve got some good news and some bad news. The bad news is that you have two weeks left to live. The good news is that I fucked my secretary this morning.

Elizabeth joined the proofroom with reluctance. She was getting older, freelance didn’t cut it anymore, and the room provided health insurance. If she was hit by a car or contracted HIV or MS, she was covered. The company also had a pension plan.

The room didn’t let outside light in, it kept them separated from the world. While Elizabeth did hot reads and cold reads, even while she focused on the little black marks on shiny white paper, she deliberately thought about other things. She tested herself. It was possible to catch mistakes without being resigned. She never entirely submitted to the page at hand.

Elizabeth liked some of her fellow workers. Even one of the disappointed fat men had his moments. Everyone does. The other disappointed fat man was her sole implacable foe. He was unattractive and self-righteous. He collected stamps. He was easy to hate, and he hated her. He despised her. She could see it in his eyes. He was a company boy. Every time Elizabeth used the company mail he was offended, outraged. She flaunted it in front of him whenever she could. She liked having him as an enemy.

—Enemies last longer than friends, enemies define you, friends don’t, Elizabeth said to Roy.

—They’re both under dickheads in the dictionary.

—Dickheads won’t be in there.

Apart from her enemies who had been her friends, and apart from some of her co-workers who hated her, Elizabeth had pretty good relations with friends and with most people on the block.

Except her landlord’s manager, Gloria. Elizabeth complained to Gloria about the upkeep of the building. There was no upkeep. Gloria was married to the owner. She had a vested interest.

Elizabeth modulated her voice when she complained to Gloria. The Big G always smiled. It was a careful, broad smile. It was plastered across a too-rouged white face. Elizabeth would let them know when there was a gas leak, if there was the sick smell of gas in the building. She’d tell them there was no heat or hot water that day. Gloria always thanked her. Gloria was blustery and bad-tempered. She enjoyed deceiving tenants, renting and not renting, evicting or threatening eviction, delaying work on broken-down apartments, stalling tenants about the boiler in the basement being fixed or replaced.

Elizabeth didn’t want to linger next to Gloria in the office. The Big G reeked of discontent, of frustration. From Gloria’s point of view, she was made to sweat unnecessarily. She was the one who was wronged. When the Big G spoke about how hard it was being a landlord, how many things they had to take care of, how many boilers were broken down and how many tenants in their buildings didn’t have heat and hot water, she rustled with indignation.

We don’t have the time to get to the halls. But, dear, we’ll get to it as soon as we do. We have emergencies right now. I’ll talk to Hector when I have the chance.

Hector was the super of the building. Hector lived on the first floor. He’d been the super way before Elizabeth and Roy moved in. He was entrenched. Hector was a courtly man, part French, Greek, and Spanish. Talking to him about cleaning the halls, which was his job, was like talking to the morons on the street, Hector was imperious to dirt. He was completely unmoved by and indifferent to dirt and emergencies. He caused dirt and emergencies. What Elizabeth wanted was modest. Relatively clean halls and stairs.

Elizabeth tried to reason with Gloria.

—Our halls need to be cleaned weekly.

—The people in apartment F, they’re the problem. It’s their cigarettes. They’re pigs.

—It’s not just them. The halls get dirty. They need to be cleaned weekly.

—The super’s too old.

—Why don’t you hire someone to help Hector, once a week for twenty-five dollars?

—We can’t afford that.

—We shouldn’t have to live with garbage in the halls.

—Hector has a drinking problem.

—I know.

—You get rid of Hector. Get a petition going with the other tenants.

—I don’t want to get rid of Hector. Your job is to keep the building clean.

The Big G clenched her teeth.

—Do you know Hector hates you? she said.

—What?

—Hector hates you.

—Why are you telling me this?

—I think you should know.

—Why do I need to know?

—I think you should know.

—Have you told Hector I’m the one complaining about the halls?

—You must have complained to him.

—I haven’t talked to him, except to say hello, in two years. You told him I was complaining.

The Big G was trapped in a discoverable lie. People lie about the obvious. People do the obvious. Elizabeth lifted her head high and told the Big G she was cruel. Then she walked out of the office. Hector’s alcoholism and indifference to filth, and the Big G’s obnoxious presence, were preferable to nothing, to no super at all. For a long time Elizabeth avoided the Big G and hardly ever called the office. If she saw Gloria on the street, Elizabeth pretended to be blind.

She was no more blind than most people. Elizabeth noticed other buildings in the neighborhood. Some of their halls gleamed. They shocked her with their simple cleanliness, which was just an absence of filth. Her friend Larry’s building was clean. He paid less rent than she did. He liked her apartment better. It was bigger. Maybe her friend Larry’s hallways were clean because he had a super who was like her aunt and uncle. They cleaned their apartment the whole weekend, together. They enjoyed it. After she found out what they did every weekend, Elizabeth stopped visiting them.

Maybe, Elizabeth decided, the point was to hire someone who’s compulsive about dirt, someone who has to clean. Someone who’d be happy to do it for nothing. Some halls and buildings were immaculate. She’d seen them. Some garbage cans were not overflowing. Some buildings had enough garbage cans, and garbage wasn’t all over the street. If they had someone who was obsessed with dirt, who was driven to be clean, someone you wouldn’t want to know, but someone who was essentially harmless, and they hired him or her to help Hector, life would be better.

Roy told Elizabeth she was crazy.

A man goes to Hell and the Devil says, I usually don’t do this, but I’ll give you your choice of room for eternity. So he takes the man to the first room. All the people are ankle deep in shit. In the second room all the people are knee-deep in shit. In the third room all the people are waist-deep in shit, and they’re drinking coffee. The man says, I guess I’ll take the third room. The Devil says, OK. Then he turns to the people in the third room and yells, Coffee break’s over. Back on your heads.

Elizabeth knew the halls could be maintained, even in her degraded neighborhood. It couldn’t be accomplished if the super, whose job was to clean and maintain the building, was a pathological junk collector.

Hector was incapable of throwing anything out. He was attached to garbage. He was like a vampire running a blood bank or a pyromaniac firefighter. The firefighter goes rushing to a fire, he knows what his job is, to put out the fire, but he’s on the fire-red engine, where he’s wanted to be ever since his mouth was snatched away from his mother’s breast, and now he’s racing to a fire, he’s along for the ride, for the thrill of it, and once he’s there, he doesn’t want to extinguish the fire. The flames shoot up around him, they engulf him like a large woman, he’s swallowed up and warm. But he looks around, and he sees his buddies in danger, and they see him. He’s hanging back, or worse, he’s feeding the flames, so he has to pretend to fight the fire he loves. If there aren’t enough fires, he sets them. He’s unfit for his job.

Hector the super.

Sol Wachtler was chief justice of New York State. He stalked and threatened a woman who’d rejected him. You’d think that a judge who jails people for committing stupid, venal acts, who get caught by making asinine mistakes, would not make them himself. He can’t stop himself, can’t help himself. He’s possessed, obsessed. Wachtler threatens her—her name is Joy—over his car phone. Traceable. Stupid.

Hector the super and Gloria.

There was a Mets catcher, Mackey Sasser. He had to quit playing. He developed a block against throwing the ball back to the pitcher on the mound. He couldn’t throw it. He could throw the ball over the pitcher’s head, to the second baseman, but not to the pitcher. The Mets put him in the outfield for a while. It wasn’t his position. His position was behind the batter, squatting. But he was neurotic, blocked. His time in baseball was over.