*
I’m not much interested in our past this morning and my inspection of our body is cursory. I’m Martha, family functioner. Without me, the rest of the assholes wouldn’t have food on the table, clothes on their backs, a roof over their heads. They wouldn’t have electricity or a telephone or toilet paper.
Victoria, if you talk to her, will claim that she’s the one who got us on disability, food stamps, Medicaid, and a Section 8 rent subsidy. The four engines of our economic survival. The only problem is that she’s full of shit. Yeah, she went to the interviews (and did a good job), but I filled out every form and there were hundreds. I also made the necessary calls when things went wrong, as they usually did. And I kept track of the bureaucrats, their names, their phone numbers. And I wrote the goddamned appeals and deposited the checks and created our tight, tight budget. And I’m still the one who pushes a shopping cart over to the food bank when no amount of budgeting can turn our monthly fifteen hundred dollars into a living income.
*
What I am, when I think about it, is a nasty old lady trapped in a young woman’s body. (Not the worst, really. My brother, Kirk, is a heterosexual male trapped in a woman’s body. His few friends think he’s a dyke.) Still, bottom line, joy is not part of my game plan. I’m a drudge, by necessity and inclination. This is my value, toilet paper on the roll in the bathroom, a clean towel hanging on the rack, a shiny white sink. I know it—we all know it—but at least I’m not a pompous asshole. Like Victoria.
Today is laundry day at the Grand residence, a tiny apartment in a crumbling Fort Greene tenement. I grab the laundry basket, empty the hamper, change the sheets in the bedroom. The same routine tasks that none of the others will do. Instead, they toss their clothes on the floor and leave dishes in every room. If I didn’t clean up and go heavy on the Combat, it’d be cockroach heaven up here. As it is, I trap a mouse in the apartment at least once a week.
Changing the sheets on our bed isn’t as simple as it seems because the room is barely wide enough for the bed frame. There’s not even space for a night table and I have to wiggle my way down to the head of the bed, my ass jammed against the wall. I’m about halfway down when someone knocks on the door in the other room.
I think I know who it is. Our deal with Section 8 requires us to pay $200 a month toward the rent, our $1,500 income ($1,400 from disability and $100 in food stamps) too grand for a total subsidy. In New York City, housing crisis capital of the goddamned world.
Our check from disability is direct deposited into our checking account on the first Wednesday of each month. That can be as late as the sixth when the rent’s due on the first. My landlord is aware of this, but he always sends Doyle, his scumbag super, to break balls. Doyle instinctively realizes there’s something wrong with us. He’s been at the door too many times, met too many of us. That includes Eleni, who blew him off for the pitiful jerk he is.
I open the door, but it’s not Doyle. It’s a black woman about my age extending an ID from the Human Resources Administration.
“Ms. Portman,” she announces. “From Adult Protective Services.”
My hand, the one on the door, twitches. That’s how much I want to slam the door in her face. I pretty much dislike everyone—Victoria insists that I’m not fit for human company—but I actually hate bureaucrats. We come to them as beggars and they never let us forget it. Or lose an opportunity to display their power over us.
I make it as simple as possible: “What do you want?”
“To inspect your apartment.”
“Just like that?”
Portman shakes her head. She’s tall and thin, wearing a midnight-blue pants suit over a lavender blouse. An expensive leather briefcase hangs from a shoulder strap. When she speaks, her tone is sympathetic yet firm. So sorry, but step aside.
“The inspection is court mandated,” she tells me.
“And that gives you the right to come here without calling ahead?”
Her lips move, but she doesn’t speak for a moment. I know she’s choosing her words, but, again, her tone is not unkind.
“I’m not your enemy,” she claims. “Our mission at Protective Services is to protect. That means evaluating your everyday living conditions, which doesn’t work if I call you in advance.”
“What if there was no one ho—” I have to close my eyes for a moment as Doyle appears at the head of the stairs. The moron’s wearing his customary T-shirt and a pair of faded jeans belted across fifty pounds of quivering blubber. He’s flashing his customary smirk, too. Displaying a row of large, nicotine-yellow teeth behind a pair of wet lips.
“What the hell is that?” Portman asks.
I glance at her, noting the faint smile on her face. “That’s Doyle, the super. He’s after the rent.”
“You’ve fallen behind?”
“Yeah, four days.”
The farce intensifies when the door across the hall opens to reveal Marshal, my neighbor. He steps into the hallway, closely followed by a cloud of marijuana smoke. Marshal’s apartment is usually Kirk’s first stop when he’s in control of our body. Nevertheless, Marshal is hard not to like. He’s a dedicated slacker who supports himself by selling small amounts of weed, a thirty-year-old boy obsessed with the electronic music he creates in his bedroom.
“Hey, what’s happening,” he mutters as he heads for the staircase. Doyle, an aspiring slacker himself, turns and follows.
“Yo, Marshal, got a minute.”
*
“Another morning at Chez Nazari,” I explain. Our building, our home, was named Chez Nazari by a defunct identity. Muhammad Nazari is our bastard of a landlord. He’s adopted a simple business model. Provide only the most basic services (every ten days or so, his tenants go without hot water) and evict tenants whenever possible. Our building is rent stabilized, so the rents go up slowly, if at all. On the other hand, the law authorizes a 20 percent jump whenever an apartment becomes vacant. Throw in a few bullshit improvements and you can easily get to 30 percent. Turnover is the name of the game.
The disgusted expression on Portman’s round face as she surveys the corridor’s peeling walls tells me all I need to know. I gesture for her to enter and she saunters through the doorway. We catch a lucky break here. I’ve been piloting our body since early last night and the apartment’s in good order, which is not always the case.
Portman’s taller than me by a good three inches. I follow in her wake as she conducts her inspection. Feeling the way I feel when I watch our body perform and I’m not in charge.
“These are lovely,” she says, indicating a half dozen flower arrangements. The flowers are artificial, the arrangements courtesy of Serena, our resident artiste. They’re quite restrained, single blossoms mostly, surrounded by narrow leaves and a sprig of berries or a trailing vine. From somewhere deep inside, I hear Serena stir. She’ll want to know why I didn’t mention her name.
Portman’s thorough. Not content with a clean living room and kitchen, she examines the refrigerator, the kitchen cabinets and the oven before checking under the sink. I can almost hear her mind working: Bleach, check; laundry detergent, check; floor cleaner, check.
Meticulous or not, Portman’s done inside of ten minutes. We’ve basically got a two-room apartment with a turnaround kitchen and a bathroom so small the toilet touches the side of the tub. Our sparse furnishings and most of the prints on the walls were rescued from the trash on garbage pickup day.