Breaking Out (Part Two)

W.S. found an ad in the newspaper, “Third floor, one-bedroom, walk-up---middle apartment available.” “Perfect!” he yelled. “We can afford the rent. Let’s grab it.” We contacted the landlord, who said he would meet us early the next morning. And, he informed us that another couple had scheduled to look at it tomorrow afternoon. That presented a problem. W.S. had a class with a scheduled exam, and I had to go to work.

We had to be out of our potential landing pad by the end of the month, cheap apartments were hard to find, and we knew we’d lose this one if we didn’t act fast. So, W.S. said into the phone, “We’ll take it. I’ll drop off the rent on my way to class tomorrow morning.”

The outside of the building looked presentable, but the third floor walk-up stairs seemed a bit steep. With promises of beer and fried chicken, W.S. rounded up two fellow students to help us move. “Couldn’t you have found two bigger guys?” I asked. Little Stu must have weighed 100 pounds, and gangly Marty had a bad habit of falling over his own feet. After helplessly watching our mattress tumble down the stairs twice, I decided not to watch what was going on.

We had splurged on a pretty nice flea market sofa. It didn’t smell of mold or cigars. And we had purchased an overhanging lamp that needed to be screwed into the ceiling. W.S. wasn’t handy, but, “This I can do!” he happily exclaimed, screwing in the lamp, which he plugged into the outlet on the wall. We were finally home.

 After sending Stu and Marty on their way, we fell into bed exhausted; anticipating our first good night’s rest in months. Our bed was firmly braced against the wall and no airplane would be shaking our floor.

A light rain pitter-pattered against the window as I drifted off.  A few minutes later, I awoke to the unmistakable sound of overly heavy breathing. “You’re snoring,” I mumbled. Whereupon the snoring turned into rhythmic snorts. I rolled over and saw that W.S. was sitting up in bed, and now we were being entertained with a cacophony of sputtering, wheezing and an occasional whistle thrown in for variety.

“It’s not me,” W.S. groaned, ”I was kind of hoping that it was you.” “Well, I’m awake,” I said, “It must be the guy next door. Let me try a little knock,” So, I tapped on the wall, and was rewarded with blessed silence---just long enough to fall back to sleep before the symphony began again.

A few hours later, after our knuckles began to ache, we decided to move the bed to the other wall. It wasn’t a perfect solution, but the snoring became a distant rumble. The sprinkle outside had now developed into a major deluge with intermittent thunder and lightning. Just as I was falling asleep---one more time, W.S. poked me, “Did you leave the water running in the bathroom?” “No,” I growled, “but if you are worried, get up and take a look.” Reluctantly he got up and went into the bathroom. Returning to bed, he said, “It’s okay.” “Good,” I replied, “Can we go to sleep now?”

When I awakened the next morning the sun was shining, W.S. was fast asleep, and no one was snoring from behind the wall. Life was good---except---except; I still heard the unmistakable sound of running water. “How can that be?” I mused looking out of the window, “It’s not raining outside.” At that, I walked into the living room and discovered that our hanging ceiling lamp had transformed itself, in the middle of the night, into a dangling fountain, and water was spraying in beautiful streams all over our new flea market couch.

W.S. the unhandiest of handymen had screwed our new lamp directly into the middle of the three-apartment rain gutter. Grabbing a bucket, I yelled, “I think we just lost our deposit,” as my chagrined husband came into the room and offered me a towel.

The next night, there was no sound from the other side of the bedroom wall---no snoring, no wheezing, and no whistling. “He’s dead!” said W.S. “What do you mean, he’s dead?” I asked. “Someone must have smothered him,” W.S. replied, “I’m sure of it."

“ I think this place is trying to tell us something,” I mumbled, ”Let’s move!” “Okay,” he replied, as we both drifted off to sleep, not realizing that this was only a foreboding of things to come.

Esther Blumenfeld (Dead men tell no tales.)

CROSSING WITH THE BLUE LIGHT, Blumenfeld c. 2006

BREAKING OUT (Part One)

Sometimes the old homily, “There’s no place like home,” really means,” There’s got to be a better apartment than this!”

Shortly after our wedding, W.S. and I moved to the second floor of a married student-housing apartment on campus. All the allotted university funding had gone into the uninspired red brick structures, and there was no money left for landscaping---let alone grass seed. The one-bedroom place was sparsely furnished. The bedroom had a bed and the small main room had a table, a desk, two chairs and a bamboo curtain which, when opened, revealed a Lilliputian stove, refrigerator and sink. The bathroom sink, shower and toilet were also undersized, fitting the dimensions of the pretend room.

The first thing I noticed was that there was no covering on the windows, but the un-air-conditioned place was hot, so I opened a window. With that, a swirling cloud of dust blew in and comfortably settled on everything including my hair and face. W.S. figured out that if we coordinated the opening of the windows, by opening the window on the other side of the apartment, with a little luck, the dust storm might just blow through before touching down.

That evening, “Touchdown!” took on a whole new meaning. We hadn’t had time to shop for a lamp, and it was too early to go to sleep, so we sat in our two chairs looking out the window. Getting up and heading toward the refrigerator, W.S. said, “Look at that moon. Isn’t that beautiful? I love a full moon.” “It’s pretty, all right,” I answered. But it looks as if there are two of them, and they are getting closer.”

“What do you mean?” he asked. “I’m not kidding,” I replied. “Come look at this!” The approaching moons were getting closer, and suddenly our whole apartment was awash with light, as we felt a rumble, and heard the unmistakable roar of an airplane engine. That plane was heading right for us.

“Hit the deck,” W.S. yelled, as we both dove for the floor under our wobbly table waiting for the impact. But there was no crash. The nose of the plane lifted, the pictures on the wall tilted, and it roared up and away leaving the roof over our heads intact.

The next day, we learned that the property where married student housing sat was cheap, because it was directly in the landing pattern of the airport. We got shades for the windows and earplugs, but neither of those things helped when the college band began their daily blaring of horns and marching at 6 a.m. on the field next door. It was definitely time to move. Breaking our lease due to sleep deprivation and fear of flying might have worked, but the waiting list for the clueless, looking for cheap housing, allowed us to make a rapid escape. Little did we know that we would soon become nostalgic for the good old days of approaching airplanes and loud trumpets.

 Esther Blumenfeld (To be continued-----)

CROSSING WITH THE BLUE LIGHT, Blumenfeld c. 2006 

NORTH INDIA, THE COCKROACHES AND ALVIN

Alvin Garfinkle fought the problem---any problem---and if there weren’t one, he’d beat the bushes until he scared one up. Beginning each morning with lox and cream cheese on a Brillo pad, a glass of imported Hudson River water, and fists raised against the world, this feisty Brooklyn graduate student wasn’t about to let anyone, in a little Midwestern college town, put something over on him.

Alvin’s first problem was the telephone company, and he often fired letters off threatening to disconnect them from his apartment. Sadly, they just didn’t seem to care at all.  However, as much as he disliked the telephone company, he despised the student housing authority more, and for awhile, things got pretty personal when he told them what he was going to do to their plumbing with his handy-dandy plunger. Bureaucracy, however, has a way of waiting you out. In this case, all they had to do was to placate Alvin until graduation.

Since Alvin wasn’t a drinking man, W.S. and I knew the situation was serious the day we received his desperate call to come over to witness roaches, which he claimed were swaying across his kitchen counters following the vibrating sound of a North Indian Shehnai.

This woodwind instrument, capable of producing a sound similar to the human voice, with a pitch range of two octaves, played 24 hours a day, and drifted in through the vents from the apartment next door. Alvin swore that no one lived there (he’d never seen anyone) and that the housing authority was conspiring to drive him out. Admittedly, 24 hours of someone else’s music takes some getting used to, but neither W.S. nor I witnessed the dance of the roaches, because we refused to look.

Shehnai music in constancy didn’t seem to bother Alvin’s wife, Bunny at all. She was a librarian from South Dakota who would smile and nod a lot. They seemed extremely well matched. Some would say, “Bunny is attractively quiet.” That was because Bunny never talked---not even a little bit. However, being married to Alvin made her one heck of a good listener.

Finally, North India and the cockroaches won the battle, and the Garfinkles decided to move. It was a monumental decision, because now they became the movingest, unpackingest people in town as they began the great apartment odyssey. It wasn’t that they disliked all of their apartments, but their dancing roaches had become attached to them, and Alvin, in spite of all of his innovative ideas, for the first time in his life, couldn’t come up with a single way to get rid of them. The Garfinkles finally settled for an old stone house with a root cellar handy for storing boxes filled with household pests.

In the ensuing years, we never saw a single roach anywhere---probably because the Garfinkles had all of them.  After graduation, they moved to New Jersey. We figure they did it just to spite the bugs.

Esther Blumenfeld

CROSSING WITH THE BLUE LIGHT, Blumenfeld c. 2006

AND WHOSE LITTLE BOY ARE YOU?

Joy Jordan could scattershot words faster than a sudden hail storm on a summer’s eve. And, like many bright people with brains in overdrive, she assumed everyone could keep up with her verbal barrage. Talking with this dynamo redhead was not an unpleasant experience, because she enjoyed a good laugh and could respond with a funny story. However, since there was no reverse shift in her oral gearbox, if you missed a sentence or two you’d be left on your own to fill in the blanks.

W.S. shared a graduate university seminar with Joy’s husband, Jerrold, a shy, likable fellow, yet neither of us had met Joy until we were invited to a party at their apartment. All we knew was that they had a two-year-old son and a dog.

When we arrived, the festivities were already at full decibel, and Joy opened the door cradling a sleepy, honey-haired toddler in her arms. Scooting across the floor, close at her heels was a creature that looked like a tiny, white, handle less floor mop. Joy breathlessly greeted us with, “Hi, I’m Joy, and these two characters with me are Buddy and Rex. Have a beer and some munchies.” Taking her at her word, I eased toward the buffet table leaving Joy chatting with W.S. who was gingerly trying to figure out which end of the dog was pointed at his left shoe.

Returning with my plateful of food, I overheard the tail end of the conversation. “Sometimes I don’t know what to do with Rex,” Joy complained. “He gets into everything. Today, while I was getting ready for the party, he climbed up on the sofa, spilled coffee all over Jerrold’s class notes, and then trotted into the kitchen and ate half of Buddy’s dinner.” Laughing, I interjected, “Well, if Buddy’s food tasted as good as what I have on my plate, I guess you can’t blame Rex for being tempted.”

“Buddy puts up with an awful lot,” Joy continued, “Sometimes he’s more patient with Rex than I am.” W.S. nudged the little dog and suggested, “Maybe you should tie Rex to the clothes line and let him run around outside, or put him into the bathroom when he gets on your nerves.” “I’ve thought of that,” Joy responded, “but the last time I left Rex alone in the bathroom he tried to dump Buddy down the toilet.”

At that, Rex, the toddler rubbed his eyes and demanded, “Down!” He slid out of her arms and chased Buddy, the mop, into the kitchen. Several months later we heard that Rex bit a playmate, and Buddy pooped on a neighbor’s doormat.

Or, maybe it was the other way around.

Esther Blumenfeld

CROSSING WITH THE BLUE LIGHT, Blumenfeld c. 2006 

Mutiny Has Its Perks

For me, simple pleasures are sometimes the best. I belong to an organization that supports our library system, and look forward to member book sales at their enormous “BOOK BARN.” I especially enjoy purchasing book tapes that are becoming obsolete, but are still available at the “BARN.”

Yesterday, I arrived for the opening at 8 a.m., and found a long line of Bibliophiles patiently awaiting the beginning of the sale that is manned by all volunteers.  When the doors opened, I rushed to the book tape shelves, but was disappointed to find a selection of rather slim pickings.

I spied a friend, who is a regular volunteer at the “BARN,” and asked her if there were more book tapes available. “Sure,” she replied. “They are right behind this door.” She opened the door, which was located next to the shelf, found a box filled with tapes and began to bring them to me. Suddenly, a loud voice boomed out, “You there! Stop talking and bring out more C.D. discs. That is your job!”

Looking up from the tape in my hand, I came face to face with a tall, stern-faced woman, who glared at my friend and me. She stood there with her arms crossed, tapping her foot impatiently. I said, “Wait a minute, my friend is bringing out some book tapes for me.”  The officious woman ignored me, and said to my, by now, cowed friend, “Go do what you are assigned to do!” At that, I said, “Well, can I go through the box myself and pick out some tapes? I will put the rest of them on the shelf.” “No,” she said.  “You are not allowed to do that!”

“Who made you the boss?” I said. She stuck out chest, pulled herself ramrod straight and said, “I am the Captain!”  Dumbfounded, I looked at the volunteer “Captain” and said, “Big Deal! Captain of what? Where’s your ship?”  

She turned on her heel and marched away. I got my book tapes and found the actual person in charge of the “BOOK BARN.” I suggested that she decommission her volunteer “Captain.”

I found out a long time ago that the “meek may inherit the earth,” but that the bold feel so much better before the will is read.

Esther Blumenfeld (Didn’t they eat Captain Cook?)