No Lease on Life

by Lynne Tillman

  The young Korean woman at the dry cleaners had elaborately painted fake nails. They didn’t interfere with her picking up dry cleaning slips, writing them and handing customers their cleaning.

  The young woman frowned as she handed Elizabeth her cleaning. She was ordinarily oppressively happy, especially after she’d gone shopping and found something great. But her previous customer had accused her of deliberately destroying his best suit.

  —He’s paranoid, Elizabeth said.

  —I don’t care he’s annoyed…

  —Par-a-noid…

  —Whatever, he shouldn’t talk to me like that.

  Elizabeth left, carrying pasta, bread, milk, and a long and heavy bag of cleaning encased in plastic. It touched the ground. She felt burdened.

  Everyone was hanging out, expecting a cooler night.

  A grizzled waste of a man, around sixty, ambled toward her, he nearly collapsed, then raised himself up and hit into her, hit hard against her, bounced off her, and grunted. He produced other guttural sounds. His trousers were down around his thighs. He was blind drunk. A young Hispanic guy was chasing after him. He had a ring in his ear.

  —Fucking pervert, fucking pervert! he yelled.

  The Hispanic guy stopped. He was enraged, steaming. He rubbed the ring in his ear.

  —What’s up? Elizabeth asked.

  —The fucking pervert was taking his pants down in front of the kids—FUCKING PERVERT—I can’t stand that shit.

  —The Boys Club?

  —He’s going up to the kids and saying, Want to see a big one? A real big one? FUCKING PERVERT!

  The Hispanic guy kept looking down Avenue A and yelling at the drunk. The old man was laughing, holding his trousers with his hands, rambling and hitting into other people.

  —I fucking hate those guys.

  The Hispanic guy spit. He strutted in circles. Neck straining, veins popping, bug-eyed with fury, he watched the drunken man. Elizabeth watched with him. Nothing to do. They both walked away. She wondered how many men were exposing their penises to kids, at any one time in the Western world, the part that was awake when she was.

  A man goes to his doctor. The doctor looks grim and says the tests have come back. There are two pieces of bad news. You have cancer and you have Alzheimer’s. The guy’s stunned. He says, I have cancer. But at least I don’t have Alzheimer’s.

  The shit was still in the vestibule. It had hardened. The stench permeated the small space. A junkie in a suit was on the floor. He was winding a tie around his arm. She startled him. He looked up. She frowned. He quickly started unwinding the tie. She looked down at him with disgust. Her lips curled.

  —That’s it, Elizabeth said.

  —I’m sorry, I’m going, he said.

  He was a middle-class junkie, probably just off work, scored on the corner. A weekend habit.

  —I’ve had it, Elizabeth said.

  —I’m sorry, I’m going. Don’t call the cops.

  —It’s not just you.

  —I’m sorry, I’m going. I apologize.

  He scurried off. He didn’t look back and tidied himself running. He straightened his jacket.

  Perverts and weekend junkies and weekend warriors and useless Hector and the room and a pile of dried-up, stinking shit.

  Elizabeth tramped up the filthy stairs. A tenant had torn down her sign asking everyone not to put their cigarettes out on the floor. The tape was still there. Some tenants didn’t deserve a place to live. She bent down and picked up a pack of matches some slob had thrown on the stairs.

  Elizabeth reached her landing. She didn’t look down, she stepped down. She stepped on the plastic bag covering the drycleaning. She slid forward and hit her head on Oscar’s doorknob. Hit it hard. She fell to the floor and landed on her knee. Her knee crushed the carton of milk she was carrying.

  She was knocked silly. Finally she raised herself up, holding onto the doorknob. She searched for her keys, opened her door, and, rubbing her head, went to the sink to find a sponge to clean up the milk.

  There was almost no milk on the landing. Nothing on the floor, except a few drops of milk and the nearly empty carton. She stood there.

  A door opened downstairs. The Lopezes’ grandmother came out. She’d heard the crash against the door.

  —Lizbet? You are there?

  —I fell down. On my milk. Don’t worry. I’m OK.

  —Something’s dripping here, Mrs. Lopez said.

  She didn’t want to explain it to Mrs. Lopez. There was no trace of the milk. There was some milk dripping downstairs. There was no place to go but down.

  Dazed, she noticed the wide gap under Oscar’s door. The door was set incorrectly. The tenement building, with age, had shifted drastically. The floors weren’t level. They were so uneven Elizabeth had to shove a thick shimmy under the file cabinet, otherwise the drawers would slide out. Their weight could topple the cabinet. A heavy, metal drawer could hit you in the head as you walked by. A file cabinet, dead weight, falling on you could crush you to death.

  The milk had flowed under Oscar’s door, into his apartment. Elizabeth knocked. He wasn’t home. She phoned him, left a message.

  —This is Elizabeth, from next door. When you come home tonight, you’ll see some milk on your floor near your door—I hope it’s not curdled—that’s mine. I fell on my milk carton after I slid on my dry cleaning and hit my head against your door. I’m sorry. ’Bye.

  Elizabeth put on a CD, the soundtrack from Taxi Driver, and sat down at the rectangular table in the kitchen. It was hotter inside than out.

  There was a note from Ernest. He’d slid it under the door the way he’d done the first time he’d contacted her, to fight the increase.

  Dear Elizabeth,

  If you’re around I’d like to discuss the latest—strange woman vomiting on third floor; and who’s got the boiler key now that Hector’s in disgrace; and of course this door problem, defecation in the vestibule; also someone taking dumps on the roof. Landlord, claims he will switch intercom to outside and give us a new locked outside door in two weeks. Do we believe this?

  See you. Ernest

  Hector’s in disgrace?

  There was a form letter from Gloria. It was a City regulation that if tenants had kids under the age of ten, they were required to have guards on their windows. Children ten and under were legally protected from falling out windows. Children over the age of ten, who cares.

  “Elizabeth Hall, you’ve won a million dollars. You only have to phone us to get your prize.”

  “When decisions are made before death, everyone can have input.” Larry had sent her name to a cemetery in Queens, to receive its monthly newsletter. He got it too.

  Elizabeth opened the pack of matchless matches she’d picked up. There was a handwritten message on the inside cover:

  YOU, LOWLIFE DIRTY LITTLE PERVET PEEP HOLE BIG LOUSY SCUM SUCIN NOSE HOW BAG BUTT FUCKIN BEEF BOY! What’s your phone #?

  A cop left a message on her answering machine. He couldn’t have been paying attention.

  —Mark, this is Sergeant O’Hara calling from work. Your work vacation—you still got it, but your assignment’s been changed—give me a call tomorrow, Saturday, during the second platoon. I’ll be in working. ’Bye.

  He might be the one who said he was sending cars when they never showed Up. Maybe he thought he’d sent them.

  Messages from Larry, Helen, one freelance job, one party, and one plaintive wail from Greta. Regreta.

  I have to tell her, end it.

  Then the breather. He left heavy breathing messages. He couldn’t experience her response. It didn’t figure even as a perversion.

  Roy came through the door. Fatboy was excited.

  —You staying in tonight?

  —Watching the game.

  —Me too.

  —You have eyes for Chinese or BBQ?

  —BBQ

  —Beer?

  —I had some beers with Paulie.

  —Street Paulie?r />
  —His mother was murdered, and his brother died in Nam.

  —No kidding.

  —Paulie’s stepfather did it.

  —Yeah? The Confidence Game’s finished. It’s shit.

  Roy wrote computer software.

  —Don’t mention shit.

  Roy sniffed sarcastically.

  —I went to the room.

  —Did Proofroom Fats pop you?

  —Why?

  —Your forehead’s black and blue.

  She looked in the mirror, then told Roy about sliding on the dry cleaning and falling on the milk carton.

  —What if Oscar slides on the milk when he gets home? Roy asked.

  Roy laughed in the shower. When he came out, wrapped in a towel, light brown hairs were stuck to his wet, white legs and chest. She liked his body. She didn’t know if it was because it was him or not.

  —You like me because I make you laugh, she said.

  —I prefer that, he said.

  —To what?

  —To the alternative.

  —Want to have sex?

  Even a familiar body was different. It was never safe. Sex was an acceptable risk most people took. It wasn’t acceptable, it was uncontrollable. She was part of Roy’s fantasy life, it was terrifying. It was frustrating when she couldn’t score her own fantasy. Be her own fantasy. If she tried too much, she couldn’t get into the sex, because she wasn’t concentrating on what was under her hands or on top of her. She had the same mind scripted in her cells, it didn’t turn out new material. She wanted to be hot and cold, icy fingers stroking her overheated body, men frozen erect in stupefaction, husky men and furry dogs with long pink tongues. Alaska, maybe. That wasn’t her fantasy. The dumb show of hands, tongue, penis prevailed. A perfume, surrender, overtook her, surprised her. Her flesh sometimes failed her, mostly didn’t. Roy didn’t fail her.

  —aaah—

  If she wasn’t having sex, the sounds of sex were exciting or annoying.

  The Pope arrives at Kennedy Airport. He’s late for a speech at the UN. He gets into a cab and asks the driver to drive as fast as he can to the UN. The driver’s afraid he’ll get a ticket, so he doesn’t drive fast enough. The Pope’s annoyed. The driver says, You’re the Pope, you drive, they won’t give you a ticket. So the Pope gets in the driver’s seat, and the driver gets in back. The Pope floors the car. But a police car stops them and pulls them over. The cop goes over to the car, takes out his pad, and looks in. He sees the driver and phones his precinct. The cop says, I think I just made a big mistake. I pulled over a car for speeding. I don’t know who’s in the back seat, but the Pope’s driving.

  Last night Roy and Elizabeth were watching TV. In a commercial, a woman and man were about to have sex or just had sex. He comes to her from behind, drapes a silk robe around her shoulders, and nuzzles the back of her neck.

  —You never do that to me, Elizabeth said.

  —We’ve never been in a commercial together, Roy said.

  No one obliterates the rage and empty craziness that ignites want. Your release is dressed up as pleasure, and it relentlessly tries to limit its damage and change its image.

  Your soundcheck is in the mail, one musician said to another.

  What’s the first thing you do when you see a spaceman?

  You park, man.

  Her need was ugly to her, a salivating, gaping mouth. Commercials addressed the sloppy void, and Elizabeth liked commercials. They were anti-death. You had to be alive to buy things.

  Elizabeth heard the orgasms of the women below. They could hear hers. The tenants acted as if they didn’t hear anything, as if they lived in soundproof boxes, otherwise being in close quarters couldn’t work. Thin walls make bad neighbors.

  Tenants pretended to be deaf and blind to each other. For sounds like orgasms and fights, acknowledgment was taboo.

  Cool orgasm you had last night.

  That fight about washing the dishes—when you threw the dishes on the floor—incredible.

  Music volume was something else. There was a rock musician who used to live above her. His band started practicing at 2 A.M.

  The guy was stoned when Elizabeth appeared in a robe at his door at 3 A.M.

  —This has got to stop, she said.

  —Is this waking you? he asked.

  He asked his question at the door with a roomful of musicians behind him, and all of them had to turn down so he could hear himself and her response. A microphone was plastered to a woman’s open mouth. Stacks of black equipment were mounted everywhere. The gaggle of musicians gaped at the sleep-deprived female intruder.

  —Your drummer’s playing a full drum kit, you’re all amplified, you’re right above me, and you’re asking me if this is waking me? Are you out of your mind?

  He was too lamebrained to respond, too drugged-out.

  Now, she concentrated on the matter at hand and the matter in her. Elizabeth came, Roy came. Roy always delivered. Then he turned on his computer. He entered cyberspace where no one knew his name.

  BBQ didn’t deliver. She’d pick up dinner tonight, she felt more generous after sex. She switched on News Channel 4. Al Roker. Sue Simmons. News was nothing without them.

  Everything was as stupid and smart as the best show on TV. TV was a plain place, a plain face. People trusted a plain face. TV voices were sonorous, electromagnetic. TV was a habit and a bunch of regular guys, always available. She was a TV baby and TV was home away from home at home.

  People want the facts, the news, fantasies were news, facts were fantasies. All fantasies were true, all news was good news, no news was bad news. A father beat his child to death, a dog found its way home, a country has a famine. Everyone wants some excitement, but not too much. No one wants to have to leave home, no one has to, TV’s a domestic animal. Elizabeth’s appetite for food, news, disaster, gossip was healthy or unhealthy. She adjusted to disasters, watched them become less alarming over time. The unusual mutated into the usual. The grotesque was homey. They sent in the serious news clowns when things were really bad.

  O.J. Simpson had been charged for the murders of his exwife and her friend. New York was charged up for the Knicks game. It was an OK news night.

  Elizabeth walked down the dirty stairs and out the disgusting vestibule. Fatboy was with her on a leash. He slowed her up, sniffing and pissing. Everyone’s less threatening with a dog, unless it’s a pit bull.

  The street was holding its collective breath. We won’t breathe until the night says yes. Humidity hung in the at, dampening Elizabeth’s low spirits. People were getting off work sporting a weekend mentality. Others were working, dealing, others were buying their good time.

  A man who lived in New York City couldn’t stand it anymore. So he moved to Montana. His closest neighbor was ten miles away. The first month was great—he didn’t see anyone. It was quiet. After three months he started to get restless. After six months he was so bored, he thought about moving back to the city. A neighbor called. He invited him to a party. The neighbor said, Get ready for a lot of drinking, fighting, and fucking. Great, the man said. Who’ll be there? You and me, the neighbor said.

  Hector shot a jaundiced eye in her direction. He tipped his hat. It inspired the usual panic. His courteous gesture was meant to obscure his hatred of her. All gestures disguised something worse.

  Hector’s in disgrace.

  Maybe he was humiliated by the Big G, maybe she used her big mouth to tear him down in front of his wife. Maybe he’d take his revenge like one of those postal workers who returns a week after being fired with an AK-47 and slaughters his former boss and five colleagues. Walking into any post office, arguing in a post office, was tinged with the possibility of a civil service employee going berserk.

  Elizabeth didn’t want to be in Hector’s line of fire when he went psycho. She’d complained about the halls, Gloria had opened her big mouth to him, compromised her, and now he’s in disgrace. TENANT MURDERED BY DISGRACED SUPER.

  The acerbi
c super waved her over.

  —Did you see that filth Jeanine in the doorway last night?

  —I don’t think…

  —She was giving a blow job right out there in a doorway. She’s filth.

  —She’s OK.

  —She’s an animal.

  The acerbic super sneered. He thought everyone was an animal. He cleaned up after people. He bagged garbage and placed covers on garbage cans. During the snowstorm of 1993, no garbage was collected for days. The acerbic super bagged and rebagged garbage, tried to keep his sidewalk clear, hosed the blackened snow away with hot water. Late at night, homeless and poor people scavenged and tore the bags apart and spilled the trash over the sidewalk. The acerbic super had to bag it all again.

  She didn’t blame him for being pissed off.

  Some scavengers didn’t tear bags apart. Some searched through the garbage and retied the bags. Most didn’t. Supers were responsible to landlords and landlords to the City for the careless actions of the desperate who didn’t give a kissless fuck about the block. They were hungry, scrounging for scraps, and everyone acknowledged that and blamed them without fury. The acerbic super had to clean up after them. He hated them.

  Paulie was home with Hoover. They lived in a storefront, behind a window to the street. Elizabeth could always see in. They could see her seeing in. Hoover was lying on his side, his legs apart. He wasn’t panting. Some Filipinos were congregating in the new Filipino-owned cafe. The West Indian guys were loading out for a gig. They’d been busted some nights ago. Everyone was back.

  Jeanine was on the corner. Weekend busy. The other drug runners noticed Elizabeth and Jeanine, took the scene in, no hostile comments or looks. One of them petted Fatboy. Fatboy rolled over and spread his legs obscenely.

  —You see this, Liz, people getting high on the block. The boss doesn’t want it, so we don’t get high on the block, but the customers come and they’re so desperate, they’ll smoke on the block. They’ll just pull it in the doorway and take a crack pipe and smoke the crack in the door, and that’s not right. We argue with them, tell them to get off the block. It scares people walking down the street. They know us, but they see people they don’t know, and it scares them. It’s bad for us ’cause it’s like always our fault. That’s what’s probably bringing the cops down on us a lot too.