No jazz 'round here

You know, rain is deceptive. Back in Georgia, it was always sunny while it rained. The rain was softer, less concrete, more like in the movies. Disney always has a cheerful little ditty to accompany the rain. But here? A funeral dirge would be more appropriate. New Orleans style, on the way to the cemetery--not the jazz on the way back. In a place like this, there is always a rain check on the jazz.

Which is why the clanging, discordant crash of symbols brought me to my window. Looking down, I saw a garishly painted ice cream truck just cruising up to the curb. So I decided to go down and have a look, maybe get an ice cream. Of course, to counter-act the calories, I decided to trek down the stairs.

I made it to the fifth floor before my knee replacement started troubling me. So I exited the stairwell and slipped into the elevator just as a young woman headed past toward her apartment. On the end of the leash was a little dog, waddling to keep up. The woman reminded me of myself. She looked a little out-of-place in this neighborhood, a little lonely, and a little bit in need of a friend--which reminded me my 60th birthday is coming up, and I still don't have anyone to celebrate with.

Dante's Elevator

I feel like I've been buried alive today in this musty, dingy, dirty building. As far as the weather, it's more of the same, casket gray skies and  intermittent sleet. It never rains cats and dogs on this side of town--more like cockroaches and snakes. Something that hides in the dark corners like I do. Hindered by the rain, without an escape route. In a gloomy, crumbling hole in the stucco walls. The only variation is a route up and down the quietly deteriorating elevator lurking in the rear of the building.

Right after my husband's 50th birthday, I decided to redecorate the kitchen again as a surprise. Henry was livid. Told me to quit spending so much  of his money, told me I was nothing to no one but an aging face. Thought I should get some culture. He sent me off to some literature class to learn about the world. All I know is that is what the elevator reminds me of. 

The trip up to the top becomes gradually darker. The hallways have a rank odor and putrid shades of paint on the walls. The people become stranger, more foreign to an old woman like me--outside a seventh floor window, a young woman drops a bag and chases a hat. The eighth floor displays a black panel van rolling slowly down the street. The view from the ninth floor is of a small boy heading off alone toward the park at dinnertime. By the tenth floor, windows reveal only shadows creeping along the alleys and hovering on street corners. 

The trip down, now that's another story. Try imagining Dante's levels of hell all in one apartment building. We have the pagans, the lustful, the miserly, and the abusers--all separated by a few thin walls of chipped concrete and a rust-encrusted elevator. A creaking, straining, decrepit old elevator.

Locked Out

I woke up this morning itching to get out. Finally the week-long rain had stopped, and my old legs needed to walk. So I thought I'd go to church. My mama raised me Catholic, and although I don't practice anymore, I miss the morning service. It gives me something to think about during the day. Unfortunately, there is no church on this side of the interstate except the synagogue down the street. My mama always warned me to stay away from places like that, but I was desperate, so I got all gussied-up and took that rickety old elevator downstairs. The sky was casket gray and the wind was chilly. By the time I crossed the street to the synagogue, my toes were numb and my skin was translucent. But I trudged on, determined to attend the morning service. I walked right up to that front door and yanked on the handle. No one was going to keep me out--regardless of my religion. 

The door was locked. Those rabbis wouldn't let me in, and the other parishioners hid inside. I didn't see a single soul. Just as I turned to make the long walk back to my apartment, a small grocery receipt flew by on a gust of wind. I watched it bounce up and down the street, jerking this way and that, like a marionette pulled by unseen hands. The wind suddenly quieted. The paper dropped. Right in front of a hole-in-the-wall store I'd never seen before.

A cheap sign out front advertised THE WRATH. I peered in the store window and saw a small woman bent over an oven. She was holding a few weeds and a cylindrical bar of something melty and white. All around her loomed cases of odd objects: old playing cards, odd candles, crystal balls. . . . Not the sort of place a woman of my age and upbringing should enter, but I was tempted. After being rejected by the people at the synagogue, a new friend like this might be nice. As I squinted to see into the shop, the receipt that brought me there blew up in my face and bounced down the street. I followed it, wondering where it would lead me next. It bounced down to the corner by Washington Heights, ricocheted off the traffic light and fluttered all the way to Manny's Grocery. 

I looked up, and there in the window was a sign. NO ALCOHOL SALES ON SUNDAY.