— That’s it, Elizabeth said.
— I’m sorry, I’m going, he said.
He was a middle-class junkie, probably just off work, scored on the corner. A weekend habit.
— I’ve had it, Elizabeth said.
— I’m sorry, I’m going. Don’t call the cops.
— It’s not just you.
— I’m sorry, I’m going. I apologize.
He scurried off. He didn’t look back and tidied himself running. He straightened his jacket.
Perverts and weekend junkies and weekend warriors and useless Hector and the room and a pile of dried-up, stinking shit.
Elizabeth tramped up the filthy stairs. A tenant had torn down her sign asking everyone not to put their cigarettes out on the floor. The tape was still there. Some tenants didn’t deserve a place to live. She bent down and picked up a pack of matches some slob had thrown on the stairs.
Elizabeth reached her landing. She didn’t look down, she stepped down. She stepped on the plastic bag covering the drycleaning. She slid forward and hit her head on Oscar’s doorknob. Hit it hard. She fell to the floor and landed on her knee. Her knee crushed the carton of milk she was carrying.
She was knocked silly. Finally she raised herself up, holding onto the doorknob. She searched for her keys, opened her door, and, rubbing her head, went to the sink to find a sponge to clean up the milk.
There was almost no milk on the landing. Nothing on the floor, except a few drops of milk and the nearly empty carton. She stood there.
A door opened downstairs. The Lopezes’ grandmother came out. She’d heard the crash against the door.
— Lizbet? You are there?
— I fell down. On my milk. Don’t worry. I’m OK.
— Something’s dripping here, Mrs. Lopez said.
She didn’t want to explain it to Mrs. Lopez. There was no trace of the milk. There was some milk dripping downstairs. There was no place to go but down.
Dazed, she noticed the wide gap under Oscar’s door. The door was set incorrectly. The tenement building, with age, had shifted drastically. The floors weren’t level. They were so uneven Elizabeth had to shove a thick shimmy under the file cabinet, otherwise the drawers would slide out. Their weight could topple the cabinet. A heavy, metal drawer could hit you in the head as you walked by. A file cabinet, dead weight, falling on you could crush you to death.
The milk had flowed under Oscar’s door, into his apartment. Elizabeth knocked. He wasn’t home. She phoned him, left a message.
— This is Elizabeth, from next door. When you come home tonight, you’ll see some milk on your floor near your door — I hope it’s not curdled — that’s mine. I fell on my milk carton after I slid on my dry cleaning and hit my head against your door. I’m sorry. ’Bye.
Elizabeth put on a CD, the soundtrack from Taxi Driver, and sat down at the rectangular table in the kitchen. It was hotter inside than out.
There was a note from Ernest. He’d slid it under the door the way he’d done the first time he’d contacted her, to fight the increase.
Dear Elizabeth,
If you’re around I’d like to discuss the latest — strange woman vomiting on third floor; and who’s got the boiler key now that Hector’s in disgrace; and of course this door problem, defecation in the vestibule; also someone taking dumps on the roof. Landlord, claims he will switch intercom to outside and give us a new locked outside door in two weeks. Do we believe this?
See you. Ernest
Hector’s in disgrace?
There was a form letter from Gloria. It was a City regulation that if tenants had kids under the age of ten, they were required to have guards on their windows. Children ten and under were legally protected from falling out windows. Children over the age of ten, who cares.
“Elizabeth Hall, you’ve won a million dollars. You only have to phone us to get your prize.”
“When decisions are made before death, everyone can have input.” Larry had sent her name to a cemetery in Queens, to receive its monthly newsletter. He got it too.
Elizabeth opened the pack of matchless matches she’d picked up. There was a handwritten message on the inside cover:
YOU, LOWLIFE DIRTY LITTLE PERVET PEEP HOLE BIG LOUSY SCUM SUCIN NOSE HOW BAG BUTT FUCKIN BEEF BOY! What’s your phone #?
A cop left a message on her answering machine. He couldn’t have been paying attention.
— Mark, this is Sergeant O’Hara calling from work. Your work vacation — you still got it, but your assignment’s been changed — give me a call tomorrow, Saturday, during the second platoon. I’ll be in working. ’Bye.
He might be the one who said he was sending cars when they never showed Up. Maybe he thought he’d sent them.
Messages from Larry, Helen, one freelance job, one party, and one plaintive wail from Greta. Regreta.
I have to tell her, end it.
Then the breather. He left heavy breathing messages. He couldn’t experience her response. It didn’t figure even as a perversion.
Roy came through the door. Fatboy was excited.
— You staying in tonight?
— Watching the game.
— Me too.
— You have eyes for Chinese or BBQ?
— BBQ
— Beer?
— I had some beers with Paulie.
— Street Paulie?
— His mother was murdered, and his brother died in Nam.
— No kidding.
— Paulie’s stepfather did it.
— Yeah? The Confidence Game’s finished. It’s shit.
Roy wrote computer software.
— Don’t mention shit.
Roy sniffed sarcastically.
— I went to the room.
— Did Proofroom Fats pop you?
— Why?
— Your forehead’s black and blue.
She looked in the mirror, then told Roy about sliding on the dry cleaning and falling on the milk carton.
— What if Oscar slides on the milk when he gets home? Roy asked.
Roy laughed in the shower. When he came out, wrapped in a towel, light brown hairs were stuck to his wet, white legs and chest. She liked his body. She didn’t know if it was because it was him or not.
— You like me because I make you laugh, she said.
— I prefer that, he said.
— To what?
— To the alternative.
— Want to have sex?
Even a familiar body was different. It was never safe. Sex was an acceptable risk most people took. It wasn’t acceptable, it was uncontrollable. She was part of Roy’s fantasy life, it was terrifying. It was frustrating when she couldn’t score her own fantasy. Be her own fantasy. If she tried too much, she couldn’t get into the sex, because she wasn’t concentrating on what was under her hands or on top of her. She had the same mind scripted in her cells, it didn’t turn out new material. She wanted to be hot and cold, icy fingers stroking her overheated body, men frozen erect in stupefaction, husky men and furry dogs with long pink tongues. Alaska, maybe. That wasn’t her fantasy. The dumb show of hands, tongue, penis prevailed. A perfume, surrender, overtook her, surprised her. Her flesh sometimes failed her, mostly didn’t. Roy didn’t fail her.
— aaah—
If she wasn’t having sex, the sounds of sex were exciting or annoying.
The Pope arrives at Kennedy Airport. He’s late for a speech at the UN. He gets into a cab and asks the driver to drive as fast as he can to the UN. The driver’s afraid he’ll get a ticket, so he doesn’t drive fast enough. The Pope’s annoyed. The driver says, You’re the Pope, you drive, they won’t give you a ticket. So the Pope gets in the driver’s seat, and the driver gets in back. The Pope floors the car. But a police car stops them and pulls them over. The cop goes over to the car, takes out his pad, and looks in. He sees the driver and phones his precinct. The cop says, I think I just made a big mistake. I pulled over a car for speeding. I don’t know who’s in the back seat, but the Pope’s driving.