I couldn’t sleep all night with the radiator spitting steam and the pipes knocking and banging like Tony Orlando on acid. It was maniacal. Every time I’d fall into a dream: hiss, knock, bang back out of it. By dawn, I was beginning to nod out in exhaustion when the Lady from 5A called to tell me that her radiator had just spat tobacco juice across her white rug.
I went down to the boiler room and sure enough the valve had gotten stuck again and the whole system was flooded with opaque rust-red water. I had to drain that scalding mess into bucket after bucket and pour it down the slop sink. There is a sort of terror you get when draining a pot of spaghetti: the awareness that you too could get cooked. It was like that, only dirty and more frequent.
I drank coffee which was more or less the same color and temperature as the boiler mess, but I missed breakfast and I missed lunch and by dinner I emerged from the lower depths in need of a clean well lighted place. So I went down to Bar 51 and ordered a Bloody Mary. Something about the tangy blood smell of hot, rusty water had given me a tomato juice craving… plus it was still breakfast by my count.
The great thing about 51, is that Paul was from Beirut before Brooklyn, and he puts out pistachio nuts. I can’t get enough of them.
So I sat there nursing my drink and watching little Olympic skaters twirl and whirl and fall all over the ice until there was a pile of red shells like ladies’ lacqured finger nails. No one bothered me and there was no way to tell how much time passed except for the deepening red dying my hands.
Kirby came over and tried to engage me in a discussion on the physics of ski jumping. He was on and on about arcs and trajectories and certain formulas used for artillery. I’m sure there are more boring topics of discussion in the world, but I can’t think of any.
I said, “Excuse me, but I’m starting to look like Lady Macbeth..â€
I went home to wash my hands and try to sleep.