Super in the City Read Online Free PDF Page B

amount about each other. I knew she was waiting for her boyfriend, also deaf, to finish his stint in prison so they could try to move upstate and sell herknitting and start a better life. She knew I had lived in Greenwich Village my entire life, that I had gone to the same public school my dad had attended, and that I still lived in the same building I’d grown up in. I knew she’d quit taking her meds and preferred to be on the street than in the shelter. She knew I’d tried medical school for a year, then quit. I knew she had a daughter back in Haiti who had inherited her manic depression. She knew I’d packed a moving truck to go to law school, and then unpacked it before I ever turned the key in the ignition. I didn’t know where she went when she wasn’t in front of the drugstore and she didn’t know which building on Twelfth Street I lived in. In a life of phone call and e-mail obligations, of constant social upkeep—coffee, drinks, dinner, brunch, lunch—my no- expectation acquaintance with Braids was a unique pleasure.
    Tonight, though, instead of waving back, Braids frantically gestured down the street, her eyes wide. I hurried to the corner and saw two police cars, an ambulance, and three fire trucks, their red turret lights turning the block into a silent disco. My curiosity flash- froze to panic when I saw that the hub of activity was immediately outside number 287. Adrenaline flooded my veins and I took off as fast as my Nine Wests would allow. I imagined my father on a stretcher, my mother slung over the shoulder of a fireman, my apartment filled with smoke, water, and broken glass.
    Ever since September 11, I’d had a “go” bag ready, packed with a checkbook, credit card, notebook and pen, some photo albums, a bank statement, underwear, extra contact lenses, my passport, and some yellowing iodine pills my mother had wrapped up in a little baggie and pressed upon my brother Gideon and me. I wondered if I could get to the bag before my childhood home burned to the ground. I was crying by the time I reached the front door. But even as tears flowed, Icouldn’t help thinking how convenient it was that I didn’t wear makeup, because that meant there was no eyeliner running down my face; at least if I ended up being comforted by a husky fireman, I’d still look decent. We’d have a great story to tell the kids so long as it didn’t involve the untimely death or disfigurement of their grandparents. I’d explain to them that it was their father’s heroics that had inspired me to start a nonprofit devoted to restoring the lives of fire victims in New York.
    Just as I grasped the curlicued iron railing, the door at the top of the stoop swung open. Out burst a tangle of cops escorting James, our super, who was in handcuffs. James had always spoken with the diction of an Eton alum and had been unfailingly courteous for the ten years he’d been caring for the seven apartments in our building. He took out trash, repaired leaky faucets, and cheerfully produced spare keys at all hours of the night. At that moment, however, he was cursing a blue streak in a distinctly outerborough accent.
    “You pickin’ ME up first?” he bellowed at the cop leading him out by the elbow. “You better fuckin’ pick up Richie Pantone, too. He said those was Christmas gifts from Fuel Masters’ fuckin’ CEO.” He spat out each letter as if at a bingo hall filled with deaf people. “That muthafucka’s gonna eat my balls for breakfast!” He added for emphasis, “Mutha FUCKA!”
    Aside from the perp walk being staged on my steps, I think I was most shocked by the instant dissolution of James’s pristine grammar before my very ears. As the procession pushed past, James, apparently no stranger to personality disorders, called out in familiar clipped tones, “Zephyr, love, this is a case of mistaken identity. No worries, love, no worries. Your uncle James will be back in a jif. You look smashing in that dress, smashing!