Sunday, October 16, 2005
apres le deluge
The rains are over. Out on Grand Street, the tubes that carried water from the basements to the sidewalks are quiet now. A few days ago, all of the pumps were going at once, transforming the curb into a gigantic kiddie pool. Water poured from holes in the stoops, forming rivulets pockmarked by falling raindrops. Ripples and crosscurrents on the surface of the pool were pulled by tides. Trailblazers in rainjackets felt the waves lap against their boots. And then it stopped.
Me, I was sick throughout. I had the Consultants-MTS cold. I tried to get out of the house here and there, to fetch a can of olives, or to ride the train, or just to get wet. Rain puddled up in my messy hair, and slid down my runny nose. I tried my best to avoid the greasy cafe next door, but I was sucked inside. The windows fogged up with steam, and the smell of burnt coffee beans sat in the courtyard like a cement block. A tube stuck out of the sidewalk loading doors, spitting water all over the steps. The basement of the cafe had flooded, too.
I'd left the house to grab the brolly we'd stashed in the back of the Bubble. Sniffling and coughing, I'd stumbled down the steps, past the bicycles and soaked athletic gear that littered the hallway, and out the door and into the rain. There, on the sidewalk, stood our landlord, looking at the soaked house. Rain poured down the peanut-colored frontage like a filthy waterfall. The landlord stared at his home in the same way that gamblers, hypnotized by the wheel, continue to absently watch the action even after they've been wiped out.
I like our landlord. He has four excellent and talkative children whom he does not appear to have destroyed. It has come to my middle-school educated attention that he likes his smoke. I have seen him when his eyes are the color of Pepto-Bismol. At those moments, peering into the great stoner beyond, he is not at his most conversational.
But as the rain splashed on his flannel shirt, he wanted to talk. These were all warm rains, thick and moist and gummy. The water glued together my puffy eyelids, and coated my cheeks with a slippery film. The basement, my landlord told me, was an absolute wreck. How are our leaks?, he'd wanted to know. I informed him that new corners of the ceiling were soaked, and that water was dripping into the outside hallway. He promised intervention. A man would arrive during the weekend and install gutters.
I wondered how gutters could help. Our interior wall is decaying; most likely, it will have to be removed outright if the house is to be saved. There is a crack in the sheet-rock from where the black mold broadcasts its cancerous message. As I rowed up Grand Street, it occurred to me again: our landlord seems to have no idea at all that our lease is up. He is impossible to read: if I'd told him we were history, he might have implored us to stick it out. Or he might knock on our door on November 1 to introduce us to the tenants who are taking our place.
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# posted by 
: Monday, October 17, 2005 3:41:00 AM
: Monday, October 17, 2005 3:41:00 AM
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# posted by : Monday, October 17, 2005 4:42:00 AM
: Monday, October 17, 2005 4:42:00 AM
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: Monday, October 17, 2005 6:15:00 AM
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: Wednesday, October 19, 2005 9:03:00 AM
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