No Lease on Life (4 page)

When a 1930s vintage stove stops working, though its oven wasn’t ever regulated—if it was on, it was always 500 degrees—Elizabeth’s type of tenant doesn’t buy a reconditioned one on time through the landlord. With some money in the bank, her kind of tenant buys a stove for four hundred dollars rather than pay four or five dollars extra each month for the remainder of the lease, and all other leases. You pay forever for one stove. The extra money raises the base rent and increases the amount on which the next rent hike will be figured. If you have four hundred dollars, which Elizabeth and Roy did, you didn’t do this. As Elizabeth explained to Gloria, It doesn’t make sense to increase our rent base. Gloria’s mouth fell open.

The Big G hoped to obstruct them. She’d catch Elizabeth on the street. She’d sidle over and say with a sympathetic smile, But you know you can’t put that stove on the street, or she’d ask, Who’s going to remove that old stove, or she’d insist, more aggressively, You’ll have to move it out of your apartment yourself, you know, we can’t help you.

They bought a new stove anyway. They had never wanted a stove. They owned one now. This made them different from the Lopez family downstairs. The Lopezes had to pay on time.

What do you get when you cross a Mafioso with a deconstructionist?

What?

An offer you can’t understand.

What do you get when you cross a Puerto Rican with a Jew?

What?

A super who thinks he owns the building.

Most of the time Elizabeth couldn’t look Hector in the eye. She couldn’t talk to the Big G. And nothing was accomplished. Nothing was done. Fuzzballs grew fat and fluffy in ancient grease-encrusted corners. Cigarettes and paper bags collected on the floors. It was like living in the Port Authority and paying rent.

On occasion Elizabeth phoned the housing department. Hardly anyone else did. You’re not supposed to expect clean halls in the poor part of the city, or if you don’t own your apartment.

—I’d like to report a violation by my landlord.

—What is your name, address, the name of the landlord? What is the complaint?

—Dirty halls.

—Where?

—The halls.

—All the halls?

—Yes. Six floors of halls and a vestibule. Sort of a vestibule. It’s not really a vestibule. It’s an entrance. You have to enter the building. Six halls and stairways, let’s say.

—For how long has it been like this?

—Weeks and weeks. More.

—What kind of dirt? Caked-in, grease, litter?

—Yes. All kinds of dirt.

—How would you describe the dirt?

—Cigarettes, dust, blood, dope bags, loose dirt, garbage, gum, crack vials, needles, matches, paper bags, condoms, gum wrappers, hair, straws, just plain filth from weeks and weeks of people using the halls, city air is very dirty, and dust accumulates fast, you know.

Describe the dirt.

The conversation magnified the futility of having a conversation with the City. Every time she had one, which wasn’t often, because she didn’t want the City to think she was a lunatic, Elizabeth changed her attitude about civil servants. They were not just incompetent, unhappy, petty bureaucrats, or idiots, they were administrative sadists, sit-down comedians, they were functioning fools.

Invariably, two months later, Elizabeth would receive written notification from the City. An “Acknowledgment of Complaint” was printed on a sheet of hot pink paper.

This acknowledges receipt of your complaint. The owner has been notified to correct this conition: Unsanitary conition in building, No lock on frnt door bldg.

The complaint had been made to the landlord. The landlord’s name on the notice was not the one she’d given the Department of Housing Preservation and Development. This meant either that no complaint could’ve been served, because no landlord was found by that name, or that legally the landlord had a scam going and had many different names for the many buildings it owned. So who was responsible.

The other tenants were amused, bored, or surprised by her efforts. She wasn’t tough or cynical enough, she wasn’t hip to the way things were, the way it all worked. She’d grown up in a house in the suburbs. She’d never accept the fact that sometimes landlords don’t fix buildings with tenants living in them. Some of the tenants were too numb to notice or respond, though. Some of the tenants had different expectations or no expectations. Some of the tenants thought she was an asshole. One tenant smiled at her and secretly hated the dirty floor she walked on.

Three men—a black, a WASP, and a Jew—were walking along the street. One kicked a can, and a genie appeared. The genie said, I can take all of you back to where you and your people came from. The black man said, You can take me and all my people to Africa? The genie said yes. Do it, the black man said, and he disappeared. The Jewish man asked, You can take me and all the Jews in the world to Israel? Yes, the genie said. Do it, the Jew said, and he disappeared. Then the genie turned to the WASP. The WASP said, I’ll have a Diet Coke.

The street was devastated, a war zone, neutralized for the moment, like Elizabeth when she’d had too much to drink at a party and was lying on a couch, her clothes messed up, her lipstick smeared, her mouth parted, her eyes closed. The street looked like a woman who’d seen enough of life and wanted to sleep it off, push the guy away from her, go home, except she couldn’t. She was home.

A few people, one at a time, were walking down the street. They dragged themselves along. A lanky guy with a jacket over his shoulder, a lounge lizard, appeared to have just come from a club or a party, maybe the one where the woman was lying on the couch. His tie was loose. Elizabeth waited to see if he scratched his arm. He didn’t. Sometimes two or three drugsters walked fast down the street, stopped abruptly, huddled together, doing a deal, and one of them shouted, one of them was pissed, and one of them quieted him or her, then they moved on.

Roy woke and grunted.

—Get in bed.

—I can’t

—Get away from the window.

—No.

—Have you called the police?

—No.

—Come to sleep.

—I can’t.

—What’s the matter with you?

—Nothing.

Sleep was for untroubled people, the guiltless. Elizabeth didn’t remember all her crimes. They went somewhere, an orphanage for abandoned crimes. Sleep was for the blameless. The shameless knew shame late at night and didn’t sleep soundly. People reassured themselves with their own lies. Lies were inescapable, they were their own awful truth, necessary illusions.

Dreams tell lies that are true. The day’s nightly news. Heavy sleepers escape every night. Roy did. He said dreams were the mind shining. Elizabeth couldn’t escape, and she couldn’t remember what she was escaping. She sat near the fire escape. She watched the amorphous street. It absorbed everything, her attention, her tension. She could run away. She didn’t want to go anywhere. Everywhere was wrong. She was a native, she was restless and reckless. She was also fickle and impulsive. And sometimes she was very bad.

Elizabeth yawned. She wasn’t sure if she was hungry.

Outside, a bad drug deal was accompanied by outrage and howls of anger.

—You get what? You shittin’ me, you better not fuck me, man, this is bad shit, man. Don’t take me for no fool. You dissin’ me, man, don’t dis me, man, I’ll kill you.

She expected one of them to pull a gun any second, except another dealer ran all the way down the block from the corner. He grabbed the arm of the screaming one and pulled him away, pulled him down the block, still screaming.

—You dissin’ me, I’m gonna cap you.

Junkies and junkie dealers were active, busy. They had something to do, somewhere to go, someone to meet, they were always meeting someone, somewhere, and they had something to take care of every minute of the day. It wasn’t the best life, a life stripped of everything but the substance they craved and would become sick without, it was life though. All their needs were contained in one little plastic bag, and they could buy different-colored bags. They didn’t have to consider what they’d like to do each day. They knew what they liked and what they had to do. Even rich junkies had to score. It wasn’t like buying a pack of cigarettes or a bottle of alcohol. It occupied them, totally, she saw it on their faces.

Some middle-class junkies sold her a rug, and when she handed the guy a twenty, any pretense at civility slid off his expectant, sweaty face, and he grabbed the bill, jacked up the price by five dollars—it was still a deal because they’d probably stolen the carpet from their parents. They said they were poor. They couldn’t wait another minute, they’d take any amount of money for something that was worth more. Elizabeth handed him the twenty too easily. He could get another five. The way he grabbed the twenty out of her hand, the way he didn’t say thanks, the way he and his friend—a woman as ragged and dragged—looked at each other, they had enough to score, get straight, get well, whatever, it was a dramatic, insular moment, all to itself, extreme.

Money had a single purpose. Junkies were relentlessly goal-oriented. Misguided achievers were joined by their need, and that need united rich and poor the way nothing else did. One night she walked behind a rich and a poor junkie. The rich one was in a wrinkled Armani suit, the poor one wore greasy black jeans. Their heads were close, they were perspiring and bonded, brothers in addiction.

The street addict stage-whispered to the rich addict:

—Man, he took a look at your threads, and he raised the price a hundred.

They slouched along and consoled each other, the rich guy apologizing, but it didn’t matter, because they’d scored, they were just talking until they could shoot up.

Elizabeth didn’t want to care about everything.

A Jewish grandmother is walking along Jones Beach with her grandson. A big wave comes along and sweeps her grandson out to sea. The old woman gets down on her knees and prays to God. Please, God, give me back my grandson. I’ll do anything. Please give my boy back to me. She wails and moans and suddenly a big wave crests and at the top of it is her grandson. He lands at her feet. The grandmother looks up at the sky and says, He had a hat.

She suffered fools, landlords, enemies, and junkies. She had to wait around for similar and dissimilar male and female junkies to get up from the vestibule floor, after they’d slumped there, after they’d shot up, she had to wait for them to get off the floor of the dark vestibule almost every night. They left blood on the floor, bright red dots of blood. Caught in the act, they lied to her. They weren’t shooting up. They were waiting for someone to come home.

—We’re waiting for Cathy.

—There’s no Cathy. You’re going to shoot up.

They’d struggle to stuff their paraphernalia back in a bag and pull themselves up from the floor. They’d agree to leave. They’d walk past Elizabeth.

—We’re just being nice, because there is a Cathy.

Some cleaned up after themselves, not because they were neat. If they left no trace of their works and bloody business, they could return. Some attempted permanent invisibility. They were spectral characters. They were young and drained of life, they were alone, desperate, and hollow. Elizabeth didn’t want them there, she didn’t want to walk over them, and she hated seeing the blood on the floor and on their legs as they furtively rushed to cover the place where they’d just shot up.

One of them was asleep. She was about sixteen, blond, cute. Elizabeth woke her. She was sprawled on the floor. Elizabeth couldn’t open the door and get inside her own building. The girl roused herself finally.

—Don’t you have a home? Elizabeth asked.

Elizabeth delivered the question like a guidance counselor or social worker. The girl was stunned. Someone didn’t think she had a home. The girl didn’t know how low she’d sunk in someone else’s eyes, how she looked to someone else. You need other people to feel humiliated. I have a home, she said truculently. She slunk away and moved dejectedly down the street like a wounded baby animal.

A friend of Roy’s told him a story. The friend was a reformed or recovering addict. One night when he was still getting high, he was waiting on line in a drug store, a hole in the wall farther east. A woman behind him said, Isn’t it funny? The more I do, the more I want. Roy’s friend repeated the story to Roy. His friend said, she didn’t know she was a junkie. Roy wasn’t surprised by that. He thought people were stupid.

Junkies in the vestibule every night or every other night and puddles of blood and tiny scraps of tissue with blood on them and round little bright red drops of blood on the stairs were part of her environment. Junkies liked the vestibule. It was cool. The door and vestibule situation was another fight Elizabeth had with the Big G.

Elizabeth phoned at least five times, over any year, suggesting in a pleasant voice into the landlord’s answering machine—they never picked up—various ways to keep junkies out.

—Hello, this is Elizabeth Hall. I’d like to discuss the junkies in the vestibule. If you would just give us a lock on the outer door, and place the intercom on the outside, or, and this would be less expensive, a glass door or a heavy plastic door, or even cheaper, as an alternative, cut out panels from the bottom of the existing door…

No one phoned her back.

Elizabeth noticed other front doors along her block. All of them were made of thick glass. That way junkies couldn’t hide and stick needles into old collapsed veins or new bouncy ones. They couldn’t slump on the floor and disappear. They weren’t the disappeared. They were visible behind glass. They were as visible as on the street. But sometimes, even on the street, they huddled close together like Russians on the steppes and stuck needles into their arms, sheltering each other under blankets or stained coats.