Hallway of Death
January 10, 2008
Work has resumed in the stairwell of my apartment building, and once again our apartment is engulfed in toxic fumes. Apparently, the paint stripper that's being used isn't effective unless the ambient temperature is above 50°F, so at least when they use it, it's warm enough for us to open the window to get some arguably fresh air.
While the workers had a few days off, I went into the stairwell to see what they were up to. I found a tub of Sure Kleen Heavy Duty Paint Stripper D, and went online to see if I could find the manufacturer’s safety data sheet. I did, and it wasn't pretty. Kidney damage, nerve damage, chemical pneumonia, death, et cetera, and so on. As bad as the fumes have been in our apartment, it's nothing compared to the stairwell itself. I talked to one of the workers to ask how much longer the job was going to take.
"The fumes are unbearable," I said.
"I know, I know," he said, googly-eyed.
"You don't have a respirator?" I said.
"Huh?"
"A mask."
"Oh," he said and pulled a cheap dust mask from his back pocket, useless against the organic vapors currently turning his internal organs into Swiss cheese.
"That's not gonna cut it," I said.
He just laughed and rattled his googly eyes some more.
There are two entrances to our building, and since the work began, the east side entrance has been closed. The door to that entrance has been broken for months now -- broken by the tenants themselves so that the kids in the building can run their flophouses without making extra keys to the obscure lock. But when that entrance was closed by the workers, dozens of the so-called tenants were left stranded, either calling to their roommates on their cell phones -- "Hey dude, I'm locked out, let me in." -- or to simply wait for someone with a key to come by, like I did the other day. "Thanks, man," they sometimes mumble.
Someone tired of this routine managed to bust a small window near the door handle, making it possible to simply reach through the window and open the door without a key. "Cool, man, keys are for squares."
The other day, when I came home from work and checked my mail, there was a note taped to the wall warning people not to do laundry by themselves because someone had been held up at knifepoint in the laundry room.
Big surprise.
"I wonder if the punk who broke the window to avoid the extravagance of making a key feels bad about the guy who got mugged," I said to Deborah when I told her about the note.
"Are you kidding?" she scoffed. "They don't care about anything."
"I wonder if the same guy who broke the window is the same guy who got mugged."
"Ha! Now you're talking."
Deborah is tired of toxic fumes, broken doors, dog shit in the hallways, trash-strewn streets, erratic and incompetent mail service, the fast encroaching bed bug epidemic, and muggings in the laundry room. She's had enough, she says, it's time for us to move.
I have to agree.
The other night, when I was out to dinner with my friends from RISD, Brian asked Maud if he'd told her about the photos of her ex-boyfriend.
"Who?" she said. "What photos?"
"About a year ago, I guess, I was walking along Avenue A and saw all these photographs scattered on the street. A bunch of them, all over the sidewalk and in the street for about half a block. When I got closer, I looked down and realized they were modeling or acting headshots. They were Don's. I guess he threw them away when he moved to his new apartment. Some homeless guy probably ripped open the trash bag, and they got blown all over the street. Fucking Don."
Maud just laughed and rolled her eyes.
"What's Don doing these days?" I said.
"I didn't tell you about his apartment?"
"No."
Fourteen years ago, around the time he and Maude were dating, Don put his name on a list for low-income housing. After living on the Lower East Side, tending bar at various dives scattered around lower Manhattan, his name finally came up. He still qualified and moved into a rent-controlled housing project.
"Just think, Maud," said Brian, "If only you'd stuck with him—"
