The Draft House 1

Here's a piece I'm working on

“How to Handle Broken Glass” 

Just outside of Washington, DC in Bethesda, where one can see the white peaks of monuments like snowy mountain caps through flat suburban houses, I pull up to Riverview Psychiatric Center. I spot my two younger siblings, Joe and Juniper by a row of Peace lilies lining the concrete walk to the facility, and flip a coin before I decide to begin my parking lot descent toward them. Joe greets me with an awkward square hug that almost knocks me over sideways. He has a glorious round pot belly that is accentuated by the sleeveless argyle sweater vest he wears over a white stained undershirt. He’s always been really quiet and anti-social. Juniper rolls the tips of her fingers, in a wave like a crowd at a ballgame. She stubs a cigarette out with her other hand in a pebble stone tower and I notice a pink scar on her lip from an old piercing.

We were all given “J” names, a trend that has been passed down for generations in my family. According to dear old dad, it was tough to come up with something fresh, hence, Juniper, the third of the Jones clan. Me? I’m not a J. I go by my middle name, Burke, but James Senior who we are here to see today, was not happy about that. At a young age it was pretty clear I was no Junior, or Junior Junior for that matter. Being a Junior leaves one vulnerable to all sorts of nicknames, mostly Jay, or Jay-Jay, or worse yet Jay-Jay Junior.

“So family meeting?” Juniper says.

“We should take a picture,” I say.

“I’m just glad mom’s not here to see this,” Juniper replies. I picture my thin mother, always in self-depriving mode on a cabbage soup or beet or toast diet. She used to keep walnuts in a ziplock bag in the freezer and pop two or three a day like vitamins, as if they were all the nourishment she needed. My pant-suit wearing mother had an elegant long slender nose, bangs that covered her bulgy eyes, and highlighted hair, big with hairspray. She wore too much mascara, so it clumped her lashes. “You have to look the part to get the part,” she would say. Her expression was often neutral and she had a sour smile, with wrinkles all around her thin lips. When she pouted, her mouth looked like a spoke wheel.

“Shall we?” Juniper skips and lets her arm lead the way to the lobby doors.

“Sure Junie, hold on a sec,” I respond.

I touch the coin in my pocket, and ponder giving it a flip, but to avoid their judgment, I decide to look out for a sign instead. There is a man out front wearing hospital scrubs, a grey hoody, and sneakers with no shoelaces. He may be a patient being discharged. If he lights his cigarette with matches, we all go in. If he uses a lighter, I wait outside. I squint from the sun and see his glary haloed figure striking a matchbook. We proceed to the sterile white lobby together. I know Joe and Juniper would have followed my directives either way. I have a natural way of getting people to do what I wanted, something as I’ve gotten older, I’ve been cautious about- “Am I turning people on to my agenda, yet again, or is this what they really want to do?”

In my old neighborhood, we invented a maze of a bike race. We would Velcro up our high tops- and June with her fluorescent handle bar tassels and spoke wheel beads- and take off from the very top of the street, ride past Mr. Ray’s scary looking shedding blind old Husky with milky blue eyes, cross over the street for the dip and jump in the pothole in front the patio donning hunter green siding. Next we’d ride straight up Ms. Steely’s newly paved steep driveway and loop back down. We rarely left our own beloved Steinford Road, to those streets parallel to us, and we considered ourselves very fortunate to have the street with the dead end. Our fate in friendships was sealed by proximity. Me, Joe, Juniper and the other neighborhood kids, the mountain bike crew. Down at the dead end, where no adult was watching, private things would happen. And to us there was another universe over there on Planet Ferndale Street, where the kids were foreigners with presumably snottier noses and tattered clothes. They didn’t come over to us either, except for Alexander Lesser, who was older than me, but smaller, something that didn’t quite compute to me back then.

In our bike race one day, fourteen year-old Alex was taking the lead. I was so focused on catching up that I felt a brief moment of elation when I made some headway due to Alex being catapulted from his sea green mountain bike face first to the cement. He had run in to a nearly invisible clothing line in Ms. Steely’s driveway that caught him by the neck and flipped him. I carried him home fireman style, but Alex never came back, and our moms stopped chatting by the bus stop.

 Later that day, James Senior cornered us by the unkempt bunk bed in our room. His brown raccoon eyes, with heavy dark circles, were rabid, and his olive skin glistened. He always seemed to have tiny dewdrops of sweat on his upper lip, nose and forearms. His facial hair was so thick it grew in dark green like pine needles. I was taking the brunt of his fury, being the oldest. His jowly cheeks shook as he screamed. My pale, skinny mother was out in the hallway, just lurking, her glacial eyes peering in to the bedroom from time to time. Inevitably, we’d see the back of her blond mushroom bob disappear in retreat through the door frame. Sometimes Dad would scold us for these risky behaviors and then beat us worse than any bike accident could do, saying we were “lucky.” “Lucky?” I thought, “I saved Matt, by myself.” From then on I went by my middle name, Burke. I must have been about ten. I stepped in front of Joe before the first smack came down and Dad said, “You want a backhand?”

***

Back in the lobby, a skeletal nurse in Tweety Bird scrubs, donning a straight bob, holds up a fuchsia manicured finger with pointy nails, indicating we should wait there a moment. Joe shifts his weight and tugs at his grey argyle sweater.

“Joe,” I turn to him, “do you think dad is ready to go?” as we all sit down in the pastel colored wait room chairs, with smooth lacquered wooden arm rests. Joe slouches and let’s his head hang low as he shrugs and mumbles, “I don’t know.”

The lamp in the lobby wait room flickers. Two flicks on, one flick off, two flicks on, one flick off. I turn it off and back on again. If it flickers again within 10 seconds, I will enter Dad’s unit with Joe and Juniper.

A group of two male nurses and one female are leaning at the nurse’s station chatting. One says, “I got this omega oil from Norway. ‘Sposed to make me smarter.” He looks like he is from the Philippines and he has an accent.

            “Walnut is all the omega you need,” the taller male responds. “I challenge you to take five walnut a day.”

            The woman stands up straight and states that the walnuts from China are chock full of chemicals. “They have zero regulations there,” she says.

            “Oh because you are American, you know everything. I am just as American as you. You not Native American,” says the short one.

            “Excuse me, I was born here. You were not!” She responds.

            “American or not” the taller one says, “your brain gets smaller when you age. The blood vessels becomes crooked. Can not be prevented” he says pointing and thrusting a finger up and down, and then he nods his head in the direction of the unit entrance.

             “That’s why I don’t eat no sugar. And I lift weight,” states the shorter Asian man.

            He shrugs, “Meh, eventually the brain will stroke anyhow, muscle or no muscle. You can be big and strong in body, but not the mind.”

            “That’s why there’s God,” the Black woman says raising her eyebrows and pointing up to the heavens. “If God wants to take you, that’s it, BAM,” she says and claps her hands in his face.

            The light stops flickering, and the lamp glows a furious orange. I wait five extra seconds, just in case. June is suggesting that we go out to see a documentary after the visit, “you know something Morgan Freeman would narrate,” and I jump in and state that I will wait in the lobby for them.

            “Just do a different one, try another thingy,” she protests.

            “June, it’s final,” I say and place my hands together as if in prayer against my lip and under my nose. Joe pulls Juniper by her gothic white sleeves, and walks with her, their arms entwined. She staggers slightly behind, and is shaking her head at me as they walk past the psychiatric nurses still huddled in conversation.

 “God is busy with other things, like thugs and violence or Mayor DiBlasio election up in New York City,” the shorter male states. The taller male nurse pushes a shelled walnut toward them, as if they would not be able to see it unless it was gyrating seductively in front of them.

 “Walnut look just like a brain too.”

            While waiting, I flip through an Architectural Digest Magazine, covering mainly futuristic furniture, exotic getaways, and ecofriendly inventions such as a boat that floats around the world covered in foliage and solar paneled sky scrapers with plants on top. I am lost in thought about how one day there will be whole cities underground, a second earth built above us on roofs, when I come across an article on 18^th and 19^th Century homes in Salem, Massachusetts.

            Our home, built in 1865, was more like an old creaky manor from Massachusetts than a typical plastic siding paneled Maryland home. It was tall, square, and flat in front. We inherited it from our great-uncle, who had no children. Our home had four stories with a functional basement that my father set up for playing pool and darts, and hosting drinking nights with his cop work buddies.  My mother could often be seen walking up and down the winding stairs to the laundry room. She would practically scale the walls to stay out of the way of my father and his officer friends, who would huff in frustration if she spoke.  “She just wants attention,” he would say to his friends and then to her, “No, I don’t want no sandwich woman, I already told you!” And his friends would cackle.

The attic was also functional, and my father had a dusty twin bed as well as a large flat table and stacks of paper strewn about. He had dozens of model trains, planes, and cars on another large solid oak table. I remember the oily chemical smell of the decals and glue. Sometimes my father slept up there. We were never allowed up. On braver days one or two of us would pop our heads up the hatch like ground hogs, to peek and then retreat with celerity.

Despite this ostracizing rule, we had a lot of fun exploring our home’s “secret passages.” These were storage closets and pantries that connected in strange ways via creaky stairs, from one pantry space to another and even to different floors. We could go in to a small closet in the kitchen and follow a set of stairs to a door in an upstairs hallway. This made for elaborate spy games, and especially complicated rounds of hide-and-go seek.

One time I accidentally entered the attic through one of these secret stairwells and found my father at his desk, the ceiling so low and slanting that its wooden beams almost touched his bald head. He was licking an envelope, when he looked up and saw me. My eyes went wide, as he lunged toward me like a wildebeest, and screamed. I was out the door before the papers that he had shoved from his desk had landed.

We had a clawfoot bathtub that was fascinating to me. I used to sit in it and soak up the soapy, warm water. I would slip in a trance and pretend the tub was a lion carrying me away. Often I’d be jolted from a peaceful inquisitive moment like this, to Dad’s jarring entrance, slamming doors and shouting. This time he yanked me from the tub by pressure points on my spongy naked body. I’m still scared sometimes when I hear a doorknob turn. It’s just a strange conditioned response like one of Pavlov’s dogs. I remember Joe kicking our taut dog, round like a traffic drum, in the gut and he skidded sideways down the wooden hallway, like a shuffleboard piece.

            My dad taught us to make paper airplanes of various models. He wrapped us in a sepia feather down blanket and carried us around the house singing, “Come fly with me.” He read us bedtime stories, like “The Fir Tree” by Hans Christian Andersen. He tossed us in the air and caught us by the armpits. He played airplane hoisting us effortlessly with the thrust of his thighs. He gave us hot cocoa with small marshmallows, and if we got up, he’d sneak larger ones in. We’d squeal at the magical transformation. He painted ordinary rocks gold and sent us, unwittingly, on a treasure hunt following a burnt and coffee stained homemade map. “We’re rich!” June shouted when she found the metal tackle box buried in our yard.

Dad taught me and Joe to ride a bike and carve shapes in wood. We helped him build and paint a tree house in the backyard amidst sprouts of bamboo. He taught us to fish. I remember the pop of a worm’s flesh as we stuck a hook through it, still wriggling. I remember feeling starved and eating kettle cooked potato chips, despite my stomach turning at the thought of having worm gut remnants on my fingers. I remember thinking I was not a man for feeling this way. For a discontent and overlooked Juniper he got an easy bake oven, and brought home cotton candy from Hockey games. She stopped complaining as the gifts continued. She seemed to have convinced herself that this was enough.

Our backyard had an above-ground oval pool made of plastic resin, a rickety wooden swing set, a tire swing from a large oak that later had to be cut down due to root rot, a full size trampoline, and the tree house all built with a piebald assortment of plastic, aluminum, rope, wood, plaster, paint, and nails. It was like a Lego land constructed from varied box sets and colors, and no manual.

We didn’t think twice when our father would line us up out on the porch and belt out instructions, like a drill sergeant, on how to hide in case of a break in. We’d do a walk-through in the house as he pointed out numerous hiding nooks, in pantries, storage bins, and coat closets. He said in a desperate moment we could hide under the bed, and pull the cover down over the side to be fully concealed. I secretly hoped for a home invasion so we would have a chance to prove how very clever we were, hiding under the bed with a phone strewn through the living room and in to the closet, whispering to a 911 emergency responder. How I longed to outsmart a burglar.

            “When you grow up, you should hide your wallet in the popsicle box in the freezer,” he would say, “And carry two wallets at all times, one fake and one real. In case you get robbed, you can hand over the fake one. And put a note in it that says, ‘Haha, got you sucker.’ Just remember to run away before he sees it.” We wholly believed that his post-it notes and ideas strewn about the attic were elaborate and brilliant schemes for something fabulous and important. It is only clear now how paranoid he was, and often teetering on the verge of breaking. It’s like realizing that Pee-Wee Herman and Barney are not the beloved characters they play on TV, and that the evidence of their perversions was there all along. “I love you, you love me,” and Pee-wee, come on.

            Dad played an imaginary game with us “Good Dad, Bad Dad,” he called it. We would turn a light on and off and he would feign being nice proper Dr. Jekyll, or raging and delirious Hyde. He was acting, and we never knew which personality we’d get. It was an exhilarating rush to run from him playing a hulk-like “Hyde,” only to reach a safe haven light switch, to turn him back to sweet, soft-spoken Jekyll. You could almost envision him wearing a dignified pair of round wire-rimmed glasses. He takes Lithium now for rapid mood shifts.

             “Hey remember that time you were going to buy a 31 gallon storage bin so you could bathe in your tiny New York apartment. Why did you even move there?” Juniper punches my shoulder and I leap.

“June!” I scream. “You scared me. I’m reading this.” I hold up my rolled up magazine above her head, and feel my nostrils flare. She flinches, and I snap to, and give her a playful tap on her shoulder.

 “Oh, sorry, Dad just brought it up in there and I thought it was funny,” she says. Joe has his hand over his mouth and I can tell from his eyes, he is smiling.

“How’d it go?” I ask.

            She tells me that he seems better. “You know he’s still pissed. He talked about how they have him locked up in there like McMurphy, and what not, the usual rant.”

I know the rant. He’s always glorified free spirit types, Jack Nicholson, Kerouac, Hunter Thompson, any 70’s classic rock band: “Don’t ever get tied down by a conniving woman, like your mother. A pretty little woman can steal your soul,” he would warn.

            “And,” I respond, “You think he’ll keep taking his meds?”

            Joe looks at June, who doesn’t respond and begins to twirl and pick at the hair on the side of her head. She plucks a few strands, looks at them, and drops them.

            “What?” I ask. I should have gone in with these two.

            “He was doing one of his funny muscle man poses. We were all laughing.” I can picture my father’s sinewy arms flexing through a hospital shirt, engaging the visitor room with his gregarious humor.

 “Ok, so what’s the problem?” I say, feeling my neck tingle and grow hot.

 “When he flexed his shirt rode up….” She slowly peels a long piece of skin from her ring finger with her mouth.

“And, what?” I throw my hands up and rise.

            “His fly was down.”

“So. The fuck. What.” I respond, leaning toward her and feeling my arms tense at my sides.

 “Jesus, Burke, sorry I said anything.”

“No, please enlighten me June, who knows everything.”

“Burke, are you kidding me? Don’t you remember how he’d walk through the grocery store that way, fly down all exposed, completely oblivious. Or answer the door for a deliveryman, without thinking to cover himself? I just think it might mean something, that’s all.”

            “Or,” I respond, lips clenched tightly, “it could mean nothing. You said he’s better,” I said pointing my finger in her face. “Joe,” I say turning to him, “Speak!”

            Joe starts to leave all hunched over, and then turns back around, his closed hand outstretched toward me. I just stare at him bewildered. When he opens his hand, it is shaking. He has a coin in his palm, and is pushing it at me, like a pulsing heart, or a subway beggar trying to get me to feed his tattered change cup.

***

Back at my place, I’m thinking about how today was so different from my usual routine. The curtain is moving in the wind and I imagine a creature reaching toward me in the shadows. I’m not easily spooked, but the silence is unnerving. There’s usually at least a few mini vans driving through the night to pick up the last lingering prostitutes on this block. I had actually been thinking about getting a gun for the apartment. I’m not going to let some thug get the best of me. Just as I'm replaying the evening, appraising if I locked the front door when I came in, I hear a thud and glass shatter.

My guard dog, Frodo, a stiff old cairn terrier, with fiery red hair like dancing flames, does not move- he is content asleep huffing and sprawled out on his mat. I am a little disappointed in him as I plod past, while he puffs curt breaths from his snout in a dream world. I peek out my bedroom door and see what's left of a wine glass- it’s stem and glass bits, sprinkled about the square, grey tiles of my kitchen floor. The cutting board tipped, knocking the wine glass to the ground from the dish rack. Groggy, drunk, and shoeless, I creep around the shattered glass and sweep.

Frodo approaches and sniffs at the air. I snap my fingers and point him to the living room. I remember the way my mom used to shoo us away, similarly, in such a panic that I felt punished. My tender three year old pink toes, “piggies” she called them, could not handle a piece ingrained. My feet are hardened and calloused now, like a dried out orange rind. I have dealt with broken glass plenty of times before. I know how to tread lightly looking for slight reflections on the tile. It could even feel good, to step on a piece, the jagged sharp bit stinging and burning as it enters me. If I accidentally step on glass, I call June and Dad goes home. If I don’t, he stays. Once I had a sharp sliver in my calloused heel for three days before it worked it’s own way out.

Extra details/ background:

June has a pink scar on her lower lip from an old piercing and her left ear dons a large swollen keloid. She has a small round nose that crinkles when she smiles, and her bottom lip is thinner than her upper lip, perhaps more pronounced due to her full fat cheeks. Juniper smiles revealing pink gums and small Chiclet size teeth. She has small round narrow set blue eyes, and too much black eyeliner. Juniper is small framed, but doughy and soft. She is striving to be an artist and has been working on a sticker line. She draws about two dozen unicorns daily, in various poses under mystical objects like rainbows, hearts, and dewdrops. I am certain that her year of raving and Ecstasy contributed to this venture.

Joe is a large solid guy, bigger than me with paws for hands. He’s rather hairy too, sprouting kinky hairs from his knuckles to his toes. Joe has large blue eyes that are straight at the top and round on the bottom so they look like half-moons. He has a glorious round pot belly that is accentuated by the sleeveless argyle sweater vests he often wears over a white undershirt. The hair on his head is curly and thinning, and he has eczema around his neck and ears, leaving rough dark splotches. He is less forthcoming about his career path than June, but I assume he is living off mom’s trust since he rarely leaves his apartment- the apartment in Bethesda that she also bought him. He says he’s working on his music, and when I last visited, I remember a dusty music sheet or two on a cold metal stand. His bow and violin slouch lazily in a corner.

            Dad’s checks say “James the Giant Peach.” Or “James the Great!”

Corfu, Greece

I was so fucking sick of Pink Palace (which will be referred to as Puke Palace from now on), but had long ago given up on getting to another town for night life.
"How late can I rent a 4-wheeler?" I asked
"Until 6pm everyday!" the chipper receptionist chimed, batting her eyes, oblivious. A thin worm-like trail of smoke crept over her face before dissipating, revealing the ashtray that she kept hidden behind the desk. This was a woman who knew she was in limbo.
Too late to access an escape vehicle, I sat down for dinner. I loaded lasagna (not a local dish) on to the chrome camp plates and poked about it with the dented flimsy silverware. Before I had a bite, campers began to lead songs and chants. If I didn't put my hands in the air when directed, there was a fresh, smiling blond who would pull them up for me, and ask why I was "so glum."

"Because," I said, "Fuck off, I fucking hate this place," imploring the 25 year old camper to kindly fix the situation for me, or at least acknowledge with me how cheesy this place was. This was a hostel, that I paid for to stay, like on vacation, not somewhere my parents sent me to be tortured.
Unable to stand it, I passed up a free meal and went to get dinner in town. Relieved I felt like an adult again, and a woman- I was wearing a scarf after all. I was not shy and chose my seat in a high spot perched in the corner, leaving me feeling royal.
The owner took a notice and kept asking if I was okay up there- was the breeze too much, etc. I said I was fine and he insisted I come taste a few dishes before making a decision, so he spoon fed me. Three hours before I had to catch my ferry to Bari Italy I was able to try every type of food I think that island had to offer. An unlikely and brief friendship developed between us, me being so grateful for the hospitality and he a lonely middle-aged man. We spent the next hour bar hopping in his town, driving up and down the mountain with the roof down- Really happy I got to see the nightlife too without a 4-wheeler and without helmet hair too.

I want to think you are Beautiful

When I was young I wanted to know everything. I would ask people their thoughts and deny them any of my own. In that way I was a mind-reader. I would put these thoughts away in glass jars collecting until I could say the shelves were full- that's it mind, that's all the room I have.

 It went something like this, Me, at age 4:
"Dad, what are you thinking right now, this instant?"
Him: "What am I thinking? Oh I don't know."
Me: "Just tell me exactly what is going through your mind.The exact words and everything."
Him: "That I love you, that's all I'm thinking."

I didn't believe him at the time, but didn't probe further. When he asked me what I was thinking I responded my usual, "Nothing," protecting my mind from the intrusion. Now perhaps more naive than before, I tend to believe that he was telling the truth and spent most of his time thinking about how much he loved us.

Also now, less naive, I learn there are some things I would rather not know. Some that stir up the past, and many that create deep aching in my gut. And this one had me waking with a gasp. .. And thinking -- "How DUMB am I?"

To the Nanny

Things are going pretty well for me, but after developing blistering skin and rashes I have to cut down on the cleaning, so I begin looking for other things. “Nanny wanted.” I don’t want to go back there. Needy, overprotective parents, nagging children. You want to read, they want to play, no time to get lost in your own thoughts. I love kids, but what I love more about cleaning is the meditation I do. Cleaning for eight hours straight by myself, I would go crazy if I didn’t get lost in thought. So I play music, paint, pray, chant, read, write, sing, dance, all in my head. It’s impossible with kids. I remember my mom ranting, “Can’t you leave me alone for two minutes? I just want to be able to hear myself think!” We’d stare at her as if she was an escape mental patient, then would laugh and chant, “Mom’s crazy! Mom’s crazy!” We’d chant, and she’d storm off. We really did a number on her, but to this day despite what she endured, she is the most sane person I have ever met.
I don’t know that I have that same strength as my mom, so I am hesitant to reply to the ad, but something about it really stands out. Maybe it is the part that reads “We are laid back parents,” or “We have two great girls, age 9 and 5,” or “We need you for 35 hours or more a week.” Whatever it is, I feel this is my job, for the summer at least, until I start school. The pieces fit so well, I know it is my transition out of cleaning. I stopped cleaning Fiona’s apartment, and Mitfan’s obviously. Vinny hasn’t called in a while, he’s probably too high. And Helena, the only person who pays me decent wages, only needs me twice a month for a few hours, so I’ve really given up on this business and lowered my ambitions there. There’s only one thing to do to prevent my skin from undergoing an unpleasant chemical peel. I have to play with kids.
I meet with Linda at a small coffee shop in my neighborhood called Café 474. We get fancy iced tea that takes 3 minutes to brew and serve. Mine is Blood Orange and tastes really good. It’s cold and refreshing. She gets Roibos and doesn’t know it’s supposed to be red. I do know that, but I don’t want to step on her toes, so I say “That’s weird.” Linda has a slight and withering frame. She is papery and wobbly, so thin yet she looks solid, but it’s just bone protruding. She does not strike me as anorexic, just someone who doesn’t like to eat much. She has a horse shaped face, but is very pretty and feminine with wirery blonde hair flowing every direction and light purple eye shadow. I sense that she’s done a lot of emotional work on herself. It is clear that her tendency is to be type A controlling, but she’s conscious of it and has tried to lead a more relaxed and laid back existence, which panned out to her just being a people pleaser. Still the potentially controlling nature is a concern. Once intimidated by potential employers especially Type A’s, this year of unemployment has taught me to be more confident and honest. I tell Linda the absolute truth about my style working with kids, my experience, my concerns, and the genuine delight I take in being a caregiver. She looks fearful and like she’s hiding a smile at the same time. When we part she tells me she has a lot of good candidates to consider so she’s going to think it over and will get back to me in the next day or two. I want this job, but I am going to be okay if she does not select me.
The next day I get a text from Linda saying she and her ex-husband are talking it over and can she write me later that night. I know then that I got the job. She is keeping a close snag on me and just needs a few hours to convince her ex that I’m the one. I tell her Sure, and sure enough a few hours later I have an email, telling me that for the next few months I will be a full-time Nanny.
Things are looking up. Instead of being on my knees scrubbing I will be on the couch with lemonade and a book bossing kids around.

Helena and the Promotion

Miraculously, Helena e-mails asking when I can come in again to clean the hallway and if I can do a big job for her before the 1st of the month when a new tenant is moving in. She offers $100. I just got a promotion for shitting on her floor. Maybe she’s just unable to hire anyone else since I inadvertently marked my territory.
The apartment I clean takes up the entire 1st floor of her building. It is the apartment of my dreams literally. Since living in NY I’ve had various dreams where my small apartment has a secret door opening to a giant room or numerous giant rooms. One opened to a skate board park that was my real bedroom, another to a magical garden, another just a huge open, empty room with great floor to ceiling windows, all open spaces too grand to know what to do with. This apartment was like that, mind blowing. There are three entrances. The first entrance leads to huge bedroom with two floor to ceiling windows and a walk in closet. There’s another bedroom next to it, then a frosted door leading to an open living room with a fire place and tall ceilings, a foyer, bathroom donning a bidet (toilet and bidet combo- Amazon), a dining room, full kitchen and then a separate little nook. The whole apartment has modern coral and sparkly black marble tile floors that contrast well with the gothic romantic look of the tall ceilings and the paisley moldings that line the starch white walls, plus the country kitchen with the fold out window just above the sink. When I think I’ve seen it all I step outside to a real magical garden, two floors of exotic plants galore, garden hoses, spiral staircases, great blooming colorful tropical flowers. I nearly passed out right there, but amidst my fainting two little yuppies younger than me walk in directing movers on where to put their couch. How do they afford this place and why aren’t I friends with them? I’m humiliated.
The cleaning is pretty standard, fantasizing about how I could squat there and make it my own home, me hoping I’ll work fast without distraction so I can go home soon, and me getting distracted by a foreign object. It is one of the few times in my life I’d seen a bidet. I have to look the name up on my phone’s web browser. I type in “thing that cleans your ass after you shit.” Some quote from Fight Club comes up first. Then I try “toilet” and a link for a toilet and bidet combo on Amazon pops up. Bidet. Bidet. Bidet. I could use a bidet, but isn’t it gross to share that with others. I become curious, lean in close over the bowl and give the knob a turn. A burst of water explodes straight up like a geyser in to my right eyeball. I’m a little freaked out, but so far no sign of eye coli.
I’m not superstitious, but two bad luck things happen to me on this cleaning. First I’m cleaning the kitchen sink, looking out the cute country window, and a black cat jumps over the fence right in front of me. An all black cat. Also, I have a tall ladder to clean fans, light fixtures and cabinets. I have it squeezed so tight in the kitchen that I have to walk under it to get the mop that is on the other side of the room. And finally comes the time to handle the heavy awkward mirror that the previous tenant left behind. I see why. It’s heavy, awkwardly shaped, and hard to carry. I am sure I am going to drop it, sealing my bad luck karma of the day, but I don’t drop it. I spend the rest of the day waiting for something evil to happen to me, but it doesn’t. Nothing good, nothing bad. Nothing. I am still waiting for something to fill the nothingness. After work I go to Spanish class and have a good time. I go home and have a nice night with Nathanial, go to bed early, and that’s it!

Squeaky clean

I am cleaning Helena’s apartment. Instead of chanting wax on, wax off, as I wipe, I recant Forgive Mitfan, Free yourself, Forgive Mitfan, Free yourself. I can do this forgiving thing. I never have to see him again.

Helena is great. She buzzes me in and leaves me to do what I want. Cleaning products are arranged in the hallway of her building, and I see myself out as long as I lock the door. This time however, things were not so smooth. For some reason every time I go to Helena’s building, I have to use the bathroom. Maybe it’s because it’s 10am, maybe because of the bending and squatting I do cleaning her railing rusty jagged annoying square knobs. Whatever it is, I usually end up going down to the basement, where her sister in law lives, to do my business. I feel more comfortable because she’s elderly and Italian and I think I am getting away with something, and I am scared to ask to use Helena’s bathroom. Still it’s kind of embarrassing that I’m there to clean and I take this ritual bathroom break, so this time I lie to the little old Italian sister in law and say I just have to rinse these rags. She says sure, but use this bathroom, someone’s in the other. It’s a smaller bathroom and I give it a test flush to make sure it works and then I go at it. What happened next is described best in my g-chat with a fellow unemployed friend, Neve (“ncintolini”). She’s studying to be a nurse and we have a common interest in poop:

“me: um i clogged a ladys toliet whos house i clean today (4:32 PM)
ncintolini: hahahah
me: i think she might fire me
ncintolini: thats really funny. maybe you should have saved the poop for me to assess (4:33 PM)
me: ASSess (4:34 PM)
oh my god but you should have seen the ladies little granny italian mother in law trying to plunge it
like i flooded their place for reals
ncintolini: nicoles you should have plunged that shit!
youre the cleaning lady!
me: dude A) I couldn't locate a plunger. B) I didnt know the toliet was BROKEN
already
so it just flooded everywhere
seriously, I came to clean and ended up flooding thier house in my shitwater
ncintolini: hahaha LOL!
i guess youre nto cut out to be a cleaning girl (4:38 PM)”
Six minutes after talking to Neve it hits me, I’m not too good for this job. I’m not good enough! White cleaning lady who thinks she can go in to people’s houses, break their things, barely clean, barely get paid, clog their toilets, cause more trouble in the long run. I am not a good cleaning lady at all.

The dirtiness I love

NY is like a sweaty jungle right now and it's beasts are going crazy with the heat. Birds are flopping in the subway tracks or just parking themselves in the middle of a busy sidewalk, too exhausted to move as people walk right past them. I understand, I too am dizzy, nauseous, and delirious with mental fog. The heat brings cockroaches, mousies, fuming feces, homeless, trash, etc. Men in the streets talk about how it rained a little, "but that didn't help none. Just made it hotter!" I find a roach in my apartment for the first time in the two years I’ve been here. It is a great brown mass sitting with it’s front legs perched on my laptop, all perked up like it is posing for me. This roach is not scared like most, out in daylight staring me down. I think she’s a mama roach, she has that maternal glow, divinity and calmness. So I do what anyone would do to a pregnant roach, spray it with Lysol and put a plastic cup over it for Nathanial to take care of later.

Being back in NY means back to work, Cleaning. I check up on craigslist to advertise so I can fill a full work week, but Mitfan has flagged my craigslist ad for removal (see post "Freaking out Fiona"). The petty bastard. I know it’s him because besides flagging my cleaning ad, he has flagged the one I posted warning girls of his true intentions. Additionally he has posted two new ads, one looking for a person to give massages for 15$ an hour (cheap asshole) “no need for professional experience,” and another for a cleaning lady. I received many a thank you for posting that warning from others who had responded to his ad, but Mitfan won’t give up so I don’t flag his ads this time and I don’t respond with warnings. I go to facebook, look him up, and copy the names of his 44 friends and save it in my g-mail. He better not fuck with me again or he will be ruined.

After planning my sneak attack on Mitfan I dose off. I tend to sleep for days after returning from a road trip. Sleeping so much scares me, but I can’t get out of bed. Gravity weighs me down and I am sucked in to my dreams. Today is a recovery day and I am determined to do nothing at all except wipe down a few dusty counters in my apartment, dream and watch Netflix instant. I begin to watch a documentary called “Forgiving Dr. Mengele." The intro is a holocaust survivor being interviewed. She says “Forgive your worst enemy. It will heal your soul. It will set you free.” I wonder who my worst enemy is now. After scanning a few names of people I resent, I realize they are nothing compared to Mitfan Habril, a man so repulsive I never even considered forgiving. I want to fight him to the end. As I reflect I realize that doing that has made me hateful and unpleasant. I frown in disgust at any man in the street who resembles him. The slightest brush on the shoulder in a crowded area, and I’m ready to throw down, determined never to be harassed again. My stomach turns when I hear someone speak with a similar accent. I have not been at peace since Mitfan took advantage of my rare naïve moment, but I do know I need to stop battling and begin forgiving, now. Supposedly a key to this is in knowing I don’t need to justify his behavior, just forgive him: “Forgive them father, they know not what they do,” right? The problem is I believe Mitfan does know what he do, and that’s the sickening part.