Christmas Showers

December 25, 2008

Suddenly, a whoosh, then angry screams punctuated with shrill question marks.

"What the fuck is wrong with you? Who the hell does something like that? How old are you? Where do you think you live? I'm sick of this place! What kind of idiot…?"

Deborah and I poked our heads into the hallway to investigate.

"—All my shit! You're paying for it, you fucking asshole!" A girl was stomping in circles outside our door, her olive skin glowing red like a Warner Bros. cartoon, steam from her ears. She was screaming at a guy at the far end of the hallway. The sprinkler pipe, which runs down the middle of the hallway, had exploded a black splatter of pent-up muck several feet in all directions and continued spraying an umbrella-shaped wall of water at who knows how many gallons a second all over the guy's head and the hardwood floor. The floor turned black as the water splashed down over it and flowed under the doors of the surrounding apartments.

"Yeah, I know. I fucked up, okay," the guy said, ducking back and forth beneath the spray.

"That genius there threw a baseball at the sprinkler pipe," the girl told us. "What the fuck kind of fucked up asshole does something like that?” She yelled at him again, “How old are you?"

The guy didn't respond; instead he pulled a cellphone from his pocket and made a call. He didn't seem to be calling the building's Super, or 911, but rather a friend, or maybe his father—a way to appear occupied and shield himself from the wrath.

I called the building superintendent and left a message on his voicemail, and then Deborah and I walked downstairs to see if the water had reached the first floor yet. Three guys surrounded the shower spray, mulling over the situation.

"What floor are you guys from?" one of them asked.

Deborah pointed upwards, "Second," she said.

"Do you guys have water, too?"

"Yeah," I said, and explained as much as we knew. "I called the Superintendent, left a message."

"This happened two years ago," said the tallest guy, who apparently lived in one of the middle apartments — not in the direct line of the deluge, but increasingly at risk as the area of saturation grew. "The super won't do shit. You have to call the fire department, so, uh, you guys better get on that."

We lived on the second floor, at the dry end of the hall, and had nothing to do with creating the fiasco, nor were we directly affected by it. "Uh, yeah," I said, "We'll get right on it."

Someone had apparently already called 911 because a moment later, a fire truck pulled up outside. Then the cops. After knocking on every apartment door that wasn't already open with a head poking out, the firemen eventually found the sprinkler shut-off valve and closed off the water supply. It took several minutes for the residual water to stop gushing. Slowly, slowly, it turned to a trickle, then a drip. One of the cops pointed to a cable junction box fixed to the hallway ceiling. It was dripping water. "I don't think that's supposed to get wet," he said, laughing to his partner.

Back on the second floor, the girl who had originally alerted us to the disaster was still on the scene, yelling, pointing fingers, telling the cops what happened and who was responsible. She wanted justice. Vengeance. Her night was ruined, she said.

Deborah and I returned to the calm of our apartment, thankful that the guy hadn't aimed the ball at our end of the sprinkler. Knowing Deborah, the guy should be thankful, too.

All of my shopping was crammed into a single last-minute rainy Christmas Eve afternoon, which was fine, since I only had a couple of things on my list to buy. After nearly breaking the bank on an extravagant new purse for Deborah, there wasn't much money left. But since the only thing that says Merry Christmas more than an expensive purse is a fire-resistant work apron, that was next on the list. A lot of Deborah's jewelry-making these days involves either a torch or a kiln, and her current apron isn't up for the job. Home Depot seemed like a logical place to find one — the only place, actually, that I could expect to be open on Christmas Eve.

I found a salesman in the tool department and asked if they sold aprons. He cocked his head like a cocker spaniel trying to figure out whether I had just asked him if he wanted to go for a walk. Eager, but confused. "A work apron," I said, "Like the one you're wearing."

He was Asian, Chinese, I think, and spoke with an accent. He seemed to hear with one too. "Oh, these?" he laughed, tugging at his orange Home Depot apron, "No, this is only for employees. We no sell." He started to walk away.

"No," I said, "Not exactly like that. Not a Home Depot apron. A work apron. A fire-resistant one, for like a welder or something."

"No, no. We no carry."

"No aprons at all?"

"No." He called to a woman employee who happened to be passing by, "Do we sell apron?"

"No we don't got no aprons," she said, without stopping.

It seemed possible that Home Depot wouldn't carry welder's aprons, but the fact that they didn't carry any aprons at all seemed absurd. I scratched it off the list.

One last thing before I go:

Deborah called her parents for Christmas. While talking to her father, the subject turned to television Christmas specials. Although Deborah's father is Pentecostal and believes in the true "reason for the season," it doesn't stop him from enjoying an animated television show involving pagan rituals now and then. A Charlie Brown Christmas, Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Frosty The Snowman, and so on. He enjoys them all. Almost.

"What about The Grinch?"

"I never liked The Grinch," her father said. "That one is too far-fetched."

The end.

Merry Christmas, everyone.