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I
need my rent money before the fifteenth this man says to me. He's my
landlord and he lives beneath me in the basement apartment with his wife
and dogs. I don't know how many dogs and I don't know what they look
like because I've never seen them but I've heard them. I've heard them
at three, four, five o'clock in the morning. Howling and moaning. It
sounds as if they are conjuring demons. I've told my landlord about the
dogs that howl and moan in the middle of the night and my landlord
wiggles the toothpick that's plugged into the side of his mouth and
looks at me like he doesn't know what I'm talking about, and I look at
him like how could you not know what I'm talking about when I hear the
dogs howling upstairs in my flat and you live in the same room as them, I
guess, unless him and his wife are not home at three, four, five
o'clock in the morning. There is no way they could not hear the dogs
howling. And I can't think of a reason why they wouldn't be home at that
ungodly hour. What could possibly be going on down there?
I've seen my landlord in his ugly light blue van out on the street.
It's a beat up old Dodge with a mangled wire coat hanger antenna. I've
seen it idling near our apartment and I've looked in the window and seen
my landlord in there, just sitting there staring straight ahead as if
he's forgotten that he's sitting in a van idling. My landlord's name is
Owen Cabot. He looks like a gnome and is squat and has one of them thick
mountain man beards and a thick bowl cut brown head of hair like he's
out of some Hobbit movie or something. I can't complain to the Hobbit
about the dogs right now because my rent is months overdue. He tells me
this, he tells me I'm months behind and then he tells me he needs his
rent money by the fifteenth and now I have to avoid him and check up and
down the block when I enter and exit my apartment building because I
don't want to run into him. My brother paid his portion of the rent but
he's not trying to put up for me and I don't blame him. My brother put
up for me before and this is the way it is, I don't have money. I gotta
find a job.
When my landlord showed us the apartment there were these disturbing
paintings in the common stairwell. And when I say disturbing I mean
awful garish colors and portions of faces all distorted and snarled
looking and thick oil paint that looks slapped on too thick. They look
like some demonic nightmare from hell. I purposely look to the ground
when I enter and exit my apartment because they aren't what you want to
see when you're starting or ending your day. They are the landlord's
wife's paintings. I'm shocked that she considers herself a painter. I'm
shocked that she has the audacity to put these framed images in the
hallway of their apartment building. The only use I can see, and this
isn't much of a stretch, is that if I was a thief and I was breaking
into this building and I looked up and saw these fucked up paintings I
might turn around and leave. My brother has threatened more than a
handful of times to take them down. That lady who is married to our
landlord runs a florist business and does big high-end corporate jobs
and I just don't get it. My brother says he's seen her walking the
streets drunk and mumbling to herself and I'm like, where? And he tells
me up and down Seventh Avenue and I'm like, shut up, and he shrugs his
shoulders as if to show me that he doesn't care if I believe him or not,
and so I say, get out of here, and he just flips channels on the
television and then I ask him, why?, because I want to keep the
conversation afloat and figure out who the hell lives below my room, and
he's like, why what? And I can't seem to make sense of these two folks
and their demon dogs that howl through the night.
I come home and my landlord's wife is parked on the steps in the common
stairwell and she smells like vodka and not like a couple of drinks
vodka, she smells like she's been binging for a couple few days because
it's coming out her pores and her lips look all glossy and wet and
swollen and red like folks who drink vodka for days look. I know she's
there because she needs to collect my rent money and now is drunked up
and who knows what kind of trouble she's going to start. I'm thinking
she must want some cash to get another bottle of vodka. I'm cold busted
because she's been there waiting for me to come home and I don't have
the money because I can't find a job. I'm trying to think of the best
way to tell her this when she tells me she lost her key and can't get
into her apartment. I'm relieved but then I'm thinking that I hope she
doesn't think she's staying in my place. I'm feeling all put on the spot
because it's cold out and she's looking all pathetic like she's
homeless and I'm like, do you want to use the phone? I'm trying to sound
all accommodating and hospitable because I owe them a whole gang of
money and she's like, I want to get into my apartment and she tells me
she can get into her place through the back door in our kitchen and I'm
like, oh? Then I remember the door in the kitchen, and I remember that
it doesn't have a lock on it so my brother had shoved a bunch of crap up
against the door so no one could get up into our place. I move all the
crap and that lady stumbles down into her apartment and I'm like, see
you later, and I catch a glimpse of their apartment that looks all dark
and musty. I shut the door and put all the crap back up against the door
and I'm wondering why these folks live down in the basement when they
own an entire brownstone and I'm thinking what kind of a place is it
down there because it sounds as if they have three or four dogs and then
the two of them and the place can't be all that big.
I have to find a job and this one lady named Anika tells me to go to a
temp agency because they'll pay you that week, which is exactly what I
need, so I have got to get to that temp agency. I don't have money for
the train. This is how broke I am. I'm so broke I don't even have money
to get on the goddamn train to go and try to get a job from this temp
agency. I go up into my brother's room and shovel change off his dresser
into my hand. I see some silver and some quarters so I'm thinking I'm
in pretty good shape. I ride the F train to Forty-Second Street and get
up out the train and look for number Four-hundred and Fifty Madison
Avenue, which is actually on Forty-Second Street not Madison Avenue. I
go up into this outfit called Quality Temps. I go in the door and there
are all kinds of folks sitting in chairs looking as pathetic as myself.
The guys have leather jackets over shirts and ties, print sweaters with
buttoned down shirts poking out of the collars, worn-looking black
shoes, worn-looking brown shoes, the ladies are in dresses, solid muted
colors, with half-ass looking hems that are bunched up just over the
knees and platform shoes that look torturous on their stocking covered
feet. I'm a bit disturbed by the age range of these folks who are out of
work. Some of them look to be around my age but then there are folks
that look middle-aged and in their forties, and it's just sad, and then
there are folks who look to be in their fifties and sixties and that
just bothers me and what if I'm like fifty and out of work and I have to
go to some sad ass place called Quality Temps to try and find a job,
but that's never going to happen because I'm in a band and once we get
our record deal I'll be set up for life.
I go to what I think is the front desk and there is a lady behind the
desk who talks on the phone and doesn't look at me. She says to whoever
she's on the phone with, no you di-in't, and then she says it again an
octave higher and then that lady behind the desk says, nu-uh, a couple
of times, smacks her gum three times quick, and then swivels her chair
and flips one leg up over the other leg and pushes a clip board in my
direction without looking at me. This lady has nails that stick two to
three inches off the end of her fingers and are a mixture of three
gaudy, unmentionable colors and there's sparkly stuff and a little fake
heart diamond stud in the middle of her thumbnail. Her hair is slapped
across the front of her forehead in either direction and pushed towards
the ears and then falls not quite to her shoulders and I bet she pays
someone good money for this hairstyle. I bet she gets her hair did once a
week to look like this. I bet she coughs up a whole gang of cash to
have this done to her hair.
There is a sheet of paper on the clipboard that looks as if it'd been
photocopied eight hundred times and I strain my eyes to make sense of
it. It has all the usual stuff about name, address, phone number, recent
employment and what not, all the stuff that is on my resume, so after a
while I began filling in the blank spaces with the words, "see resume".
I hand the lot of it back to the lady with the nails who ignored my
presence, and she glances at the paper, flips it over and frowns. Then
she does the unthinkable and speaks to me. She tells me I need to fill
out each section and I try to tell her that the same information in
those sections is in my resume but she has already gone back to her
phone conversation and swivels her chair away from me. I do what she
tells me to do because that's what you do when you're unemployed, you do
what you're told to do and you do it with a smile on your face.
II
I'm
trying to get a hold of my brother and I can't and this is a terribly
messed up situation I'm in and I really need to speak to him. I really
need him to bail me out but he's not answering his phone and I can't
figure out why. Where could he possibly be? How could he possibly not
answer his phone? If I can't get in touch with him I'm screwed.
I'm in a wrinkled blue dress shirt that I found in the back of my
brother's closet and grey tie and I'm wearing a v-neck undershirt
beneath this shirt and I have pleated khaki's on that are bloused and
church socks that make my feet sweat inside these stupid, uncomfortable
shoes. I'm in this room by myself and there are no windows.
I got a call from that temp agency and they sent me to this address and
told me to see some lady named Lucy LaTerra, so I go there and tell
that to the receptionist and this lady comes out from the glass doors
and she's all pleasant and chipper and everything and says her name is
Lucy LaTerra, and she tells me to follow her, so I do what she asks. Her
hair is what they call frosted and the roots are black like she could
care less and I could care less because I really, desperately need cash
from this job because it pays fifteen bucks an hour and with that bit of
change I'll be able to pay my rent and then I can complain to my
landlord about his dogs that keep me up in the middle of the night
howling and whatnot.
Anyway, I follow this lady with the black roots like she doesn't care
back through the glass doors and she walks really fast and she's
balancing a coffee that has a big pink lipstick print on the plastic lid
and I'm trying to walk with her but then I let her get a few steps in
front of me which seems to work out okay because she talks loudly and I
can still hear her. I'm extra polite and amiable because I need to work
and I'm desperate and that's the way you act when you're out of work.
This lady tells me she has this job that lasts three days and this is
the first day. I act all interested when I could give a fuck. She points
out the kitchen area where she tells me there are beverages and snacks
and coffee and tells me to help myself to anything I want and then we
turn up a hall and make a right up another hall and everything looks the
same and there are tons of these little cubicles with carpet on the
walls and there are a bunch of empty desks with empty chairs and I'm
trying to remember which way we came so I can get back to that kitchen
with the snacks and then she opens a door, flicks on the fluorescent
lights and tells me this is where I'll be sitting. There's hardly anyone
else in the entire office and I'm wondering what kind of operation
they're running but I'm not going to ask her because it's none of my
business.
Lucy LaTerra asks me if I'm proficient in wizzy-something or other and
I'm like excuse me? And she says they told me you're familiar with
wizzy-wig, and she's starting up the computer that's on the desk and
she's arranging the keyboard and whatnot and I'm like yeah, definitely,
and she seems pleased with this, so I'm thinking it must be some kind of
computer thing. I discover that it is some kind of computer thing and
it's something that I'm not familiar with and now I can't go back to
Lucy LaTerra and tell her I haven't a clue what wizzy-wig is because I
already told her that I am familiar with it and I've been sitting at
this desk for close to three hours and that's forty-five bucks and I
can't go up to her now after all this time has expired because she'll be
like what the heck have you been doing all this time? I should've told
her I didn't know what wizzy-wig is right off the bat and maybe I
would've gotten the job anyway and maybe I wouldn't have got the job but
at least I wouldn't be sweating it out in some office feeling like I
feel.
So I sit in the office and look busy when Lucy LaTerra passes by and
she's passed by a number of times and smiled and is very pleasant and
she asks me how things are going and I try to look all busy and I tell
her everything is fine even though it's not fine because I'm in some
program called Wysiwyg and it makes no sense and there's a stack of
papers and I have no idea what the heck I'm supposed to be doing with
all these papers but I shuffle them around and make three different
piles and when that lady pokes her head in the door and looks at the
different piles she seems pleased so I keep arranging papers every so
often and I call my brother each and every five minutes because he is
the only person who can make sense of this stupid computer thing but
he's not answering his phone.
Lucy LaTerra tells me I should take a lunch and I'm like, I'm okay, and
I make a face to suggest that eating is a silly idea because I am here
to work and I go through all this rigmarole because I don't want to
leave my desk because if she comes into the room while I'm gone and
looks at my computer screen, I'm fucked. She tells me she's going
downstairs to get lunch and asks me if she can pick anything up for me
and I'm starved to hell and back but I have about two dollars and thirty
cents in nickels and dimes and first of all that's embarrassing to give
someone all that change to pick you up some chips or whatever and
second of all I need that money to get back home on the train. Lucy
LaTerra tells me that I should eat and I'd love to tell her she's right,
then she asks me what I want, she says it again, she says that I should
eat, you have to eat she says, and I wave her off and tell her I'm fine
because I don't know what will happen if I ask that lady to pick me up a
corned beef sandwich on rye with mustard and a pickle, which is what I
want more than I've wanted anything in my entire life, but she might be
like, that's eight-fifty so I lie and tell her I'm fine and I do my best
to look as though I'm fine. I do my best to look as if eating is absurd
even though my stomach is growling like a hog in heat.
I wait a couple of minutes and then I venture out to find the kitchen
with the snacks. There are a few people in the cubicles now and they
seem to be working on their computers or whatever. One man takes a look
at me and it is pretty apparent that I'm lost so he asks if he can help
me and so I tell him I'm looking for the kitchen. He tells me to take a
left and then the second right, so I do what he tells me and I find the
kitchen and I don't see any snacks. There's a candy machine with a base
price of seventy-five cents and that is out of my league. Someone was
kind enough to leave some saltine crackers in a drawer that must've been
left over from their soup or something. I shove those in the pocket of
my pleated pants, then I rifle through another drawer and come up empty,
just condiments, sugar, powdered creamer for coffee and such. I crank
open the refrigerator door and rummage around. I catch a foul whiff of
some bad food, and my eyes rake across a Chinese take-out container that
has a dark grease stain on the bottom and a wilted bean sprout hanging
from an opening in the top. There is a sign on the door that declares,
food left past Friday at Four pm will be trash. I find a brown paper bag
with the name Roger scrawled across the front on a piece of masking
tape, an old banana, a couple of yogurts, and a piece of lemon. There is
half a sandwich inside Roger's bag and I'm thinking I could slide out a
piece of the meat and slap in on my crackers. I open the sandwich and
the meat smells gamey so I shove it back inside. The slap, slap of heels
startles me and I spin around cold busted. It is Lucy LaTerra and she
has a bag of food in one hand and a fresh coffee in the other. She asks
me if I want part of her sandwich, and she tells me she'll never finish
it. I have to tell her no because I already told her I'm not hungry. I
already went through this whole thing about how I'm not hungry and now I
have to stick with it. I tell her I was looking for a soda and she
tells me there is a soda machine right there and she points to the
machine next to the snack machine. I look at the oversized machine as if
seeing it for the first time and then I rummage through my change and
start counting out nickels and dimes and I'm hoping she leaves so I
don't actually have to buy a soda because that will leave me with no
money to get the train home, but she doesn't leave, she fusses with her
sandwich and tosses out the overabundance of meat which just kills me.
She carries on about this and that and now another lady is in the
kitchen and she's carrying on as well, and I'm still rummaging through
my change, killing time, praying she leaves so I don't have to purchase
the soda, and then Lucy introduces me to that other lady who says her
name is Olivia and she's a big lady with big sweaty hands and I shake
her sweaty hand that's the size of a catcher's mitt and now I have to
buy the soda and get the hell out of there, so I do.
Anyway, this is the way my life is but it's okay because I'm the
drummer in this kick ass band and one day we are going to be huge and
we'll have a video on MTV and this lady will be like, I remember him,
that guy who is playing drums in the video, he was that guy who didn't
eat and lied about knowing Wysiwyg.
I type stuff into the computer and save it and then I have no idea
where the information is saved but that doesn't matter anyway because
I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be doing but it makes me look busy and
I'm just biding my time until my brother answers his goddamn phone. I
try rebooting the computer, I try to find a help menu, I call my
brother, I unplug the computer and then plug it back in and then I call
my brother, I scroll down and enter information into a box and then I
call my brother. Lucy LaTerra comes back into the room and says that I
can save my material to this disk that she hands me. I try to smile back
at her and then tilt the computer screen away from her like it's no big
deal. She leaves and I call my brother and he answers the phone and
he's like, what? And I'm all panicked and trying to sound calm and I ask
him if he knows what Wysiwyg is and he says it's a computer program and
I'm like yes it is a computer program and then I ask him if he is
familiar with it and he says why? And I really want to reach through the
phone and choke him but I have to remain calm and even-keeled and see
if I can get my brother to play ball. I tell him that I'm on a temp job
and I need to use Wysiwyg and he tells me it is an application that
stands for what you see is what you get, and I want to scream because I
don't care what it is I just need to know how to use it very quickly
because it is three o'clock in the afternoon and I have no idea what I'm
doing and I'm starved and irritable because all I've had is some stupid
crackers and a can of orange soda that I couldn't afford and now I have
no train fare so I either have to jump the subway turnstile and
possibly get arrested or walk eight miles home to Brooklyn in the dead
of winter. My brother tells me he doesn't understand how I got the job
if I didn't know the application and then I tell him I didn't know that I
needed to use the program and this lady was misinformed and thought I
knew how to use it and I just went with it and what difference does it
make anyway and he goes on and says, I don't get it, and I feel like
telling him that there's nothing to get but I let him go on about how he
doesn't understand and everything because if I get him pissed he won't
help me. I ask him if he could talk me through the program so I can
enter this information into the computer and he tells me that I'm a
buffoon and I don't respond because what difference does it make? He
tells me that he only has a minute because he is working on a
programming assignment that is due in the morning and I'm glad that he
doesn't have much time so he can be quick about helping me out of my
situation. He asks me what I see on the screen and I describe what I see
and I can hear that he doesn't really feel like doing this but it is
somewhat entertaining to him that I should be at some office in midtown
Manhattan and I don't know what the heck I'm doing. He asks me what I'm
supposed to be doing anyway and I'm trying to tell him I have no idea,
and he says he doesn't understand. Finally he talks me though the basic
functions and menus and it's of no help and I'm starting to think that I
should probably figure out some kind of exit strategy because it's
almost four o'clock and the real problem is that I wasted six hours
futzing with this program and now it's almost time to go home and I'm
nowhere near where I should be with my assignment and how do I explain
this to Lucy LaTerra and still fill out a time card with good conscious
and get paid and I'm thinking that isn't going to happen so I ball up my
coat and head like I'm going to the bathroom and slip out the exit and
go home.
It's a hell of a long walk from midtown Manhattan to Brooklyn. A hell
of a long walk. Bad shoes. Bad. Bad shoes. I can no longer feel my feet.
I could cry from the ache. My feet are numb.
When I get home my brother is like, what happened with that job and I
tell him nothing happened and he turns and goes back upstairs. My feet
are cramped and sweaty and I am going to burn these shoes but I'm too
damn tired from walking eight miles on cold, hard concrete.
I call after my brother and ask him why there is an orange power cord
dangling over the railing from upstairs and going all the way back to my
room and he tells me not to touch it and to just leave it alone, don't
touch it he says again. He pokes his head downstairs and I ask him what
will happen if I touch it and he just looks at me all serious and
deadpan and that's supposed to show me that he is for real. My brother
tells me he has to run some kind of deck and another computer upstairs
for this assignment due in the morning and there's not enough power up
in his room so he needs to tap into another circuit which happens to be
in my room, and then, as if on cue, the power dies out in the entire
apartment. It's pretty dark outside so I can only see my brother's
silhouette but I'm willing to bet good money his face is crimson. He
stomps up into his room and I call after him and ask what happened
because I want to hear just how frustrated he is and I want to laugh but
it's not time for that just yet. I hear him up there fussing with plugs
and everything and he is making a racket and I'm thinking he's pretty
frustrated but the kicker will be if he lost everything he was working
on and that'd suck because he's been working on whatever it is he's been
working on all day. I see a flashlight beam poking through the darkness
up there and I go to the refrigerator and it's dark in there too and
I'm thinking about food going sour and then I remember there isn't much
food in there anyways just some condiments and a pitcher of water that
needs it's filter changed because there's black pebbly things all in the
filter chamber and on the floor of the pitcher.
My brother stomps back downstairs and he's all salty and he's searching
for the circuit breaker and he says something about patching into
something else or whatever and he's shining that stupid light in my face
and I block the light with my hand and he searches the walls for clues
as to where the circuit breaker is. He walks out into the hallway and
when he opens the door a shaft of light spills into the apartment and I
hear him go up the stairs and he's continuing up and up and then after a
while he stomps back down. He tells me the lady who lives upstairs said
she thinks the breaker is down in the basement and my brother goes out
to the front of the building and rings on the bell of the basement
apartment where the squat landlord and his drunk wife live. Then he goes
to their door and knocks and then knocks again harder. No one answers
just the demon dogs howling and everything and my brother comes back
inside and flicks on that stupid flashlight and now he's rummaging
around a drawer in the kitchen and he asks me if I have a number for
that man downstairs and I tell him no. He finds their number after a
while and dials the number into the phone and we can both hear the phone
ringing downstairs and it just rings and rings and the stupid dogs are
down there fussing around and howling.
My brother shines the light on me and tells me to go downstairs and
flip on the breaker. I look at him because there's no way I'm going down
there and I contort my face to suggest this and my brother tells me to
get down there and there's no way I'm going down there so I just lay
back on the couch and fold my arms behind my head so he knows that it's
absolutely out of the question. I tell him to go down there and I ask
him what's the big deal, just go down there I tell him, and he says,
exactly, it's no big deal, go down there and hit the breaker and he's
trying to be all convincing but it's not really my problem because I
don't have an assignment due in the morning and I can do without power
for the time being. We go back and forth like this for a bit because
that's what we do and it's pretty clear that I'm not going down there
and it's pretty clear that nothing is going to happen unless he goes
down there. I'm praying that he does because there's really nothing else
happening because I can't watch television and I can't listen to music
and it'd be really entertaining to me if my brother went down into the
landlord's apartment and got bit by one of those mangy dogs or it'd be
pretty funny if the landlord came home while he was down there fussing
about and was like what the hell are you doing in my place? I encourage
him to get down there so I ask him things like, what time is the
assignment due? and I ask him where he thinks the landlord is? and stuff
like that. I tell him, go down there, what's the big deal and he tells
me to go down there and I'm like, yeah right. Then he goes over to where
the door leading downstairs is and he starts to fussing with the crap
in front of the door and I'm like, good, and this gets me up out of my
seat and then he tries the door knob and it's open and he peers
downstairs and shines his flashlight down there and I can hear the claws
of those mangy dogs moving across the floor down there and they move
towards the stairwell and I'm thinking maybe he shouldn't go down there
because those dogs start to growling and whatnot and I'm thinking that
maybe my brother should wait until the landpeople come home because he
probably will get bit. My brother takes a few steps down there and I'm
thinking he's crazy because those demon dogs are getting all moany and
everything and my brother apparently doesn't give a shit because he
heads down there and I can hear him moving shit around and the dogs
barking and carrying on and I'm thinking I should go down there with a
kitchen knife or something and I call down there and ask my brother what
the hell is going on and I'm watching the front of the house because
some headlights rake the window and I peer out onto the street to see if
it is the landlord's blue van and it's not.
After a while my brother comes back up the stairs and his eyes are wide
and unsettled and I'm like what happened? And he brushes past me and
goes into the living room and drops into the couch. I ask him again what
happened because the lights and power didn't come back on and he's not
saying or doing anything in particular and then my mind starts to
wondering what the hell happened down there. He tells me I'll never
believe what he saw and he goes on and says it was the most disgusting,
disturbing thing he's seen in his entire life and I'm like what? What
happened? And he tells me the place downstairs is the most disgusting
thing he's ever seen, he goes on to tell me there are piles of dog fur
and dust and dirt and it's like a floor but not finished or anything
it's like maybe cement but maybe it's dirt and there's a bed in the
corner but like a prison cot and a toilet, but not like a toilet with a
door or anything just a bowl sitting in the middle of the room and
that's it. No sink or fixtures or basin, just a blank toilet and I'm
imagining that man who looks like a gnome sitting on the toilet taking a
dump while his wife is in some cot in the corner drinking vodka and it
turns my stomach and then my brother tells me the dogs look sick and
mangy and malnourished and the place reeks of dog shit and there's urine
on the floor and dog crap and piles of fur and dirt as if someone just
swept it into piles and left it there and I'm thinking about the fucked
up paintings in the hallway and it all makes sense and it's not a
pleasant thought at all and I feel nauseated and then my brother says he
will never be the same after what he's just seen and I'm glad that I
didn't go down there.
As it turns out the breaker was right there in our kitchen on the
inside wall and my brother feels pretty stupid because he went
downstairs and everything and it turned into this whole big thing and he
has those images in his head now and probably thinks about the basement
now and again when he's trying to get to sleep and there was no need to
go down there at all.
My brother works through the night and bangs out his assignment. The
following morning someone calls from that place Quality Temps. My
brother answers the phone and he tells me it's someone from Quality
Temps calling for me and hands me the telephone, and I'm not really sure
what to say so I press the button on the phone that says, end. My
brother looks at me for a moment then looks back at his laptop computer
and tells me I'm a buffoon.
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