“It was mehitabel the cat who said toujours gai.”
“I know that. I’m the one who made you read that book.”
“I somewhat liked it, I have to admit.”
“I find that very encouraging.”
“It was funny to see how little New York changes through the centuries.”
“So true. If you disregard it being underwater and storm-racked.”
“As of course one should. Character remains despite one’s circumstances. As mehitabel always said.”
It’s a sunny day, some clouds over Jersey. Vlade appears out of the service elevator, pushing a wheelbarrow of black dirt. Idelba has been using her gear to salvage some of their farm’s soil from its resting place on the bottom of the canal between the Met and the North building. A few more people unknown to Mutt and Jeff follow with more wheelbarrows.
Jeff says, “Here, this box is ready.”
Vlade helps his team fill the new box with soil. “Idelba says she can pull up some good mud to mix with our compost. We should be okay for soil.”
“You’ll need seeds,” Mutt points out.
“Sure, but the seed bank is ready to provide. They want us to try out some new hybrids they’ve got. And some new heirlooms.”
“New heirlooms?”
“They rustled them up somewhere. The call has gone out. Anyway, we’ll be okay. Back in business in time to get a late-fall crop, anyway.”
“What about our hotello?”
“What, isn’t that up yet? You can put that up in an hour. That’s the point of those things. It’s in the storage closet back of the elevators.”
“We didn’t know where it was,” Mutt confesses.
“Sorry, I should have told you. Where are you staying now?”
“Nowhere.”
“In the common room.”
“Oh hell, let’s get you up here. I need you here to serve as night watchmen. And you need your place.”
Vlade is as good as his word, so when the current load of dirt is shoveled into the new planter boxes, he goes to the storage room and pulls out what looks like an oversized suitcase. This, along with a trunk containing all their bathroom fixtures, is their hotello, packed to move. All its parts are off the shelf, modular, easy to assemble. Plastic everything, including the air mattresses on cots, the walls that look like thick opaque shower curtains, because they are; the chem toilet; the light fixtures that are LED strings, and often strung on the structural elements, which resemble PVC tubing, now spangled as with Christmas lights. Festive in the dark.
Vlade takes a look around and declares the place rebuilt. It has indeed taken an hour.
“It seems kind of breezy up here now,” Jeff remarks to him.
“It was always breezy up here.”
“But now I’m noticing it more. After the hurricane, I guess.”
“Sure,” says Vlade. “We feel it now.”
“What are you going to do about that, by the way? I mean next time there’s a big storm. In terms of protecting this floor.”
“I don’t know. I’m still thinking it over. I think the whole city is, in terms of windows and how to deal. I don’t know if there’s any great solution, if we’re going to get storms like that one. I’m hoping that was a once-in-a-lifetime thing. It’s gonna take years to rebuild.”
Mutt and Jeff nod.
“Meanwhile, if you don’t like living out here anymore, you should get on the list for a regular bed inside. Or maybe you can take Charlotte’s room.”
“Her so-called room has walls thinner than ours.”
“Well you might be able to be her room sitter if you want, if she wins this election and has to go to D.C.”
“Would she really do that?”
“I imagine she’d commute as much as possible, but I don’t know. If you’re in Congress, don’t you have to be there sometimes?”
Mutt and Jeff shrug.
“I can’t believe she wants to do it,” Mutt says.
“I don’t think she does. She’s just mad right now.”
“Somebody’s got to do it,” Jeff pontificates.
“We can be her finance ministers without portfolio.”
“I want a portfolio.”
“Then you’d have to go with her to D.C.”
“Okay, not. But I always wanted a portfolio.”
“Well, she is going to need some finance advice. Because the shit is hitting the fan.”
“It’s working,” Jeff says. “I knew it would. It’s like that Franklin says, the only problem is if it works so well it wipes out civilization. Aside from that it’s working fine.”
“Banks must be freaking.”
“Totally. The line between cash and not-cash has abruptly moved. Like only cash in hand is cash now. Because people are definitely not paying their rents and mortgages.”
“And student loans?” Mutt inquires.
“They never paid those. So now there’s nothing at the bottom of the house of cards. The dominoes are falling.”
“The falling dominoes are knocking over the house of cards?”
“Exactly. The whole shithouse is coming down.”
“Good. And look, meanwhile we have our little home back!”
“I know. It’s good.” Jeff stands in the open doorway of it, looking south at Wall Street. “If only everyone realized all you need is a hotello.”
Mutt moves past him and stops by the south railing. “The view helps.”
“It does. It’s a nice view.”
“I love this city.”
“It’s not bad. Especially from the thirtieth floor. Here, I’m going to build another planter box.”
“Watch your thumbs.” Mutt regards Jeff moving slabs of wood into position on a long worktable. “You’re a carpenter now, my friend. Have you noticed that we’ve gone from being coders to being farmers? It’s like one of those dreadful back-to-the-land fantasies you kept giving me. Everyone goes Amish and all’s right with the world. Unreadable horseshit, I’m sorry to say.”
Jeff snorts as he lines up two slabs. “Hold this sucker in place while I nail it.”
“No way.”
Jeff shrugs and tries to do it himself. “The idiocy of village life, isn’t that what Marx called it? The idiocy of rural life? Something like that.”
“And here we are.”
“Come on, I need a hand here. And we’re at Twenty-third and Madison in New York City, on the thirtieth floor of a grand old skyscraper, so it’s not as rural as you’re saying.”
“And you like hammering nails.”
“I do,” Jeff admits. “It’s like hitting the head of your worst enemy, over and over. And you drive them right into a fucking block of wood! You can feel them go! It’s very satisfying. So get over here and help hold this piece in place.”
“We call it a vise, my friend. Two vises and you’re set.”
“Two vises don’t make a virtue. Come hold this!”
“Hold it yourself! Practice your William Morris craft skills, your Emersonian self-reliance!”
“Fuck self-reliance. Emerson was a fool.”
“You’re the one who made me read him,” objects Mutt.
“He’s a holy fool, and you should read him. But he couldn’t string two thoughts together if his life depended on it. He’s the greatest fortune cookie writer in American literature.” Jeff snorts with amusement. “Self-reliance my ass. We’re fucking monkeys. It’s always about teamwork.”
“That would make three very good fortune cookie fortunes. Maybe we could start a company.”
“Teamwork, baby. You do the work and I’ll join the team. Come hold this slab of wood here!”
“All right already. But then you owe me.”
“A dime.”
“A dollar.”
“A call option on ten zillion dollars.”
“Deal.”