She thinks back to the biology field school she attended in Australia two years ago. It was an easy way to earn some extra course credits, and she got to tour the surfing beaches of the country for a few months after class was done. One day, a group of students rode a rickety old bus from the university to some beach outside of Melbourne to try to count penguins. The difficulty of the task seemed to be lost on the mustachioed, middle-aged professor who had dedicated his whole life to studying the little creatures. They’re all colored the same, and they became a dazzling blur of black and white as the huge waddle made its way onto the beach. It made counting them a near impossibility, which left Faye’s mind wandering from how many hundreds there were milling about the beach in front of her to what they tasted like. She wondered why nobody ate penguins because there are a lot of them and surely they would be pretty easy to round up. She thought back to the class and there was never a mention of anyone eating them. Not even the Aborigines. Surely, someone had tried one at some point in time.
As she passes the eighth floor, she sniffs her hand again and wonders if the smell is getting stronger. She resolves to not use the handrail anymore, deeming it unsanitary and particularly malodorous.
Then she wonders if it’s because penguins are cute. She ponders a moment and decides that can’t be the reason. Baby cows are cute, and people eat them all the time. There’s lamb too. Perhaps someone did try a penguin once, and it wasn’t very tasty, so it became a taboo.
Faye is pleasantly surprised by the “Floor 4” sign bolted to the wall as she rounds the next flight of stairs. As she carries on, she remembers a documentary she saw that said penguins are one of a few species that mate for life. Truly mate for life, not just serially monogamize the hell out of one another. And she thinks of being tied to Connor for decades until one of them dies and decides that it’s not for her. She’s only interested in the physicality of him. If she could be truthful, if she could forget her mother’s expectations and just be real, he holds little more to intrigue her than that.
Faye knows she would make a bad penguin because, as Connor-penguin grew old, she would be looking for a way out, perhaps a convenient ice floe to leave him on … or a well-timed orca attack. Besides, as a penguin, Connor would lack the point of his being. He wouldn’t have a dick, as penguins don’t, and she imagines the intimacy of their brief cloacal kisses would get pretty tiresome pretty quickly.
No, Faye reasons, cloacal kisses are an insufficient source of pleasure, and that’s just not in her. Now, Connor’s girlfriend, from all Connor has said about her, she would be a good penguin. Faye doesn’t understand the draw though. Connor’s just a dick.
I mean it’s just a dick, she thinks, nothing to get overly excited about. Half the human population has one, and it’s not like it ever saved a nun from a burning building or anything. And, she reasons, just because you order from the tap doesn’t mean you need to buy the whole keg.
Faye passes the “Floor 2” sign affixed to the stairwell wall. Her legs tremble because, after the vigorous bouts of fucking she shared with Connor, there really wasn’t twenty-seven floors’ worth of descent left in her muscles. Regardless, she is almost there. With one floor left to the lobby, she swears that’s the last time she will ever take the stairs. Anywhere.
Next time, if he wants to hide me from his girlfriend, Faye thinks, he can carry me down the fucking stairs … and he can take out his own garbage.
Faye stops as she steps through the stairwell door into the lobby. A silent and uncommon commotion unfolds outside of the building that gives her cause to pause and contemplate.
40
In Which Jimenez Heroically Acts on the Final Service Request
By the twentieth floor, the elevator’s trembling has ceased and the compartment is running smoothly. The rattling of the fixtures has quieted, and the elevator lights no longer flicker. Jimenez feels good, looks good, smells good, and is of elevated spirits. His mind is made up to go out on the town tonight, and even if he has to do it alone, he will do it alone amid a crowd of people. Nearly dying fixing an elevator has instilled in him a desire to live and a need to do it daringly.
His brow furrows when he raises his eyes and watches the numbers ticking by above the doors. He leans back against the handrail and crosses his feet at the ankles, proud of the work he did to get this machine moving again.
What was once broken is now fixed, Jimenez thinks. From the safety of hindsight, he chuckles at his misadventures prompting the elevator into motion.
And so it all begins again, he thinks.
There’s a song stuck in Jimenez’s head, an old song and a happy song that he hums toward catharsis. It’s a good tune that was originally a folk song but was later used in a scene from an old black-and-white song-and-dance movie he saw many times as a kid. That’s the association he makes with the tune whenever it plays, little Jimenez watching a fuzzy image on a black-and-white television at his abuelita’s house. At the time, he understood only a few English words, but he fell in love with the characters and the vibrant motion of the show. He liked all the old song-and-dance movies; he didn’t need to know English to understand them.
Jimenez hums a baritone “Chiapanecas” and thinks of the beautiful Lupe Vélez in her role as the stunning and vivacious Carmelita Fuentes in The Girl from Mexico. He loved her vivacity, that same energy that earned her the nicknames “Spitfire” and “Hot Pepper.”
In the scene from the movie that runs behind Jimenez’s humming, Señorita Vélez spins on the polished tile of the hall, dancing, sole to sole, with her reflection on the floor. It’s as if there are two of her whirling in opposite gravities, dancing on either side of a pane of glass, and if one of them were to misstep, the other would stumble and fall.
Señorita Vélez wears an elegant gown. Her sequins flash in the spotlights and are only outshone by her smile. That gown—Jimenez shakes his head to the memory. Tiered ruffles run around her body from her waist to her ankles. The lace bindings flare like fabric on fire as she spins circles and kicks her feet past one another. The dress lifts from the floor, exposing her perfect ankles, the marvels of divine engineering they are. The strongest collection of the most delicate bones, alone pointless, but arranged perfectly and working together, they support the beauty of her movements.
Jimenez sighs. She was the pairing of subtle strength with grace.
The elevator chimes and jolts to a stop, announcing its arrival at the twenty-fifth floor. The doors slide open, revealing that the elevator car and the floor are badly misaligned. Jimenez ducks and hops the foot down onto the carpet in the hallway. Still whistling, he glances at the misalignment from the outside as he walks down the hall. An unappealing mass of mechanical bits hangs in the thin, dark gap underneath the elevator. They are the things no one ever sees and don’t even deign to think exist. Those things that make the machine work, they’re exposed now for anyone caring to look.
The ugliness that keeps everything moving, it can stay exposed for now, Jimenez thinks. I’ll deal with it tomorrow. After fixing this sink, I’m going to find an old-time movie playing in some small theater. I’m going to get popcorn and watch whatever show is playing. All the better if there’s singing and dancing, even more so if the film is in black-and-white. All the more to lift the soul. And after the movie, I’ll go dancing.
Jimenez pulls the crumpled service request from his pocket and double-checks his destination. Apartment 2507. At the end of the hall, on the left. He knocks on the door, whistles, and rocks from heel to toe and back again as he waits for an answer. He thrusts his hands into his pockets, causing the tools hanging from his belt to jingle.
The next-door neighbor pops out of her apartment and locks the door behind herself.
Jimenez nods to her.
She nods back and smiles before making her way up the hall to the elevator.
Jimenez knocks on Apartment 2507 again and watches the neighbor clamber the foot up into the elevator. She stubs her toe on the
step and almost falls forward into the compartment. She recovers though and disappears inside. Then the doors slide closed.
Jimenez knocks on the apartment door again, louder and longer this time. A few more moments and Jimenez pulls his key loop from his belt, fingers several keys around the ring until he finds the one for this apartment. He knocks once more and then unlocks the door. If anyone were home, surely they would have answered by now.
Normally, residents have the right to their privacy. It would be considered an unlawful intrusion for Jimenez to enter any apartment, and he had always respected that. The only occasion when he is allowed to enter uninvited is when there is an emergency threatening other residents or when there’s a request for service. It is in the building’s bylaws that, on those occasions, the superintendent can enter an apartment in the following forty-eight-hour period to perform the repair.
Jimenez calls into the apartment, “Hello, it’s the superintendent here to fix up the leaking sink.”
There is no answer.
Jimenez whistles the last few bars of his song as he enters the apartment and shuts the door behind him. He slips off the heels of his shoes with the toes of his opposite foot and leaves them on the doormat. He wanders the short hall, past the kitchen, and into the living room. The bedroom door to his left is closed. He thinks he hears a whisper of movement behind it, so he calls his greeting again.
“Hello? It’s the super here to fix up the leaking sink.”
When there’s still no response, he figures he is alone. There’s no way a resident couldn’t have heard him. Jimenez turns his attention back to the view and lets out a low, appreciative whistle. There’s nothing blocking the sunlight here like there is in his apartment. The view sprawls to the horizon, and Jimenez marvels at the density of the city. So many people living piled up from the ground, stacked on each other, moving all around each other.
He checks his watch and spins back to the kitchen. It’s a tidy apartment, which pleases him. There are a few crumbs on the counter near the toaster and a full drinking glass with a lipstick smear catching the faucet’s drip, but nothing more is out of place. Jimenez contemplates the drip and then takes out a wrench and unscrews the spout. The rubber washer looks good, not cracked, just caked with calcium carbonate buildup from the hard water. Jimenez rubs the washer between his thumb and forefinger. It’s gritty and crusted with minerals. He finds some vinegar under the sink, dumps the water from the glass, and fills it a finger deep with vinegar before dropping the washer in it. The buildup begins to fizz.
Next, he plugs the basin and runs it full of water. Then he pulls the plug. As the basin drains, he slides the garbage can out from under the sink and hunkers his head and shoulders into the cabinet. There’s no leak and no puddle under the sink. He runs his fingers from slip nut over p-trap to the elbow and can’t feel any moisture. He frowns as he rubs his dry fingers across this thumb.
It’s dark under the sink though, so he grabs his flashlight from his belt. He clicks it on and nothing happens. Of course, the batteries are dead.
Jimenez mutters, “Tonto,” to himself. He puts the flashlight on the floor beside him and turns his attention back to the plumbing.
Jimenez jumps when a voice comes from behind. He bangs his head on the sink, which retorts with a hollow, metallic resonating ping.
“Gracias por arreglar el lavamanos,” the voice says.
“No hay de qué,” he says, rubbing the back of his head while extracting himself from under the sink.
He sits back on the floor and turns to see who thanked him.
41
In Which Garth Steels His Nerve and Performs the Most Courageous Act of His Life
Garth zips up the gown. The smooth buzz of the zipper travels up his back. He turns his back to the mirror and looks over his shoulder to check out Floria’s handiwork. The steam from his shower has receded to a muted frosting at the upper corners of the mirror and a sporadic powder of moisture across the surface. It evens the edges and frames him with an antique Gaussian smoothness.
Garth admires the gown and thinks of what a gift Floria is in his life. She has made him seem subtle and strong, just like he wants. The dress is uncanny, and Garth can’t help but slide open palms over his carmine second skin. He runs a blow-dryer through his hair and applies a little styling paste to maintain a roguishly styled mess. He pulls a comb through his beard and applies his razor to some errant hairs that have sprouted up on his cheeks. A little spray of deodorant under his armpits and a drop of cologne to his collarbones, then to makeup.
Garth has found deep neutral tones complement his skin and thick bristles. He can’t abide the garish war paint he sees in fashion magazines and music videos. Makeup is to enhance beauty, not to be beauty. Nearly Nude lipstick, a bit of foundation to even out the skin tone, a subtle blast of earth tones above the eyes to enhance the contrast, to add a bit of mystery. Something to thicken his eyelashes is the last thing needed. A final appraisal in the mirror and Garth knows this is how it’s supposed to be done. He’s beautiful. He flips the light dark, retreats to the bedroom, and shuts the door behind him.
He sits on the bed, his heart pounding in a way it hasn’t since he kissed his high school crush at the spring dance. They had dimmed the lights in the gymnasium. Savage Garden’s “Truly Madly Deeply” played in the dark. It had been a quick kiss, she leaned in to him, wanting, and he put his lips to hers. It had to be a quick kiss because there were three chaperones circling the gym, monitoring for such things. The illicit act, the anticipation of the touch, the uncertainty of that night, floods back into Garth’s veins.
He laughs at himself for feeling like that kid again but, at the same time, is relieved that he can still feel such things. To him, it proves that life still has surprises and challenges left that can make his heart pound and set his stomach aflutter. He hopes he never gets old enough to lose these occasional moments of adolescent giddiness.
There’s a knock at the apartment door.
Garth’s thoughts and pulse freeze.
He’s here, Garth thinks. He’s at the door, knocking to see if anyone’s home.
Garth had fully planned to answer the door. He had wanted to be brave, but now that the moment has arrived, he bites his knuckles and wants nothing but to disappear, to crawl under the bed and hide and hope to be magically transported somewhere else.
There’s another knock, this time louder.
Garth regains his courage, steeling it by reaching into his nightstand drawer and pulling out a delicate silver necklace. He decides he won’t answer the door. He has second thoughts whether revealing himself like this is the right thing for him to do. He needs every second left to think and fortify his nerves. The necklace clasp is fiddly, such a delicate contraption for such beefy and trembling fingers. On the fumbling third attempt, the loop slides through the clasp and then is secured.
“Hello,” comes a call, so close, separated only by an inch of bedroom door. “It’s the superintendent here to fix up the leaking sink.”
He’s a good man, Garth thinks. He works so hard to keep this place operating. He fights the battle daily, unnoticed and unappreciated, a struggle every waking hour just to keep things the same. He sees the dirty underbelly of the building, wrestles with its shorting electrical wiring, its overflowing toilets, and its plugged sinks. He sees the ugly underside so the residents didn’t have to, and he still manages to give everyone a passing smile.
And he’s whistling some song. The last few faint bars filter through the bedroom door, something familiar yet unknown to Garth.
He’s a good man and I’m going to tell him so, Garth decides as the song ends and a single, low whistle comes from the other side of the door. I’ll tell him so, but not without the proper footwear.
Garth snatches a shoe from the bed beside him. In his haste, the straps become entangled, and while he has a good grip on the one shoe, the other swings with it, dangling precariously before falling to the floor. It lands
on the carpet with a muffled thud. Garth stops breathing. He freezes, all muscles contracting in fear and his mind scolding his clumsiness.
How could he not hear that? Even through the door it must have been audible.
Sure enough, the super calls out again.
“Hello? It’s the super here to fix up the leaking sink.”
Now is the time, Garth thinks. He stands, shoe still in hand, and strides the three steps toward the bedroom door. He reaches for the handle and then stops with his hand on the doorknob. Clanking and banging sounds come from the kitchen. Jimenez has moved on to the task at hand.
Garth realizes he’s holding his breath. He slowly lets it out. His hand falls from the doorknob, slowly too, as if deflating with the exhalation.
Garth returns to sit on the bed. He leans forward and slips his foot into the shoe he had been holding. It fits beautifully, and as he buckles the strap into place, he can’t help but embrace the shoe in both hands for a second. There is power here. Everything fits and everything feels perfect. There’s no danger here, no shame, he realizes. He retrieves the other shoe from where it had fallen and dons it like a piece of armor.
There’s nothing here but me, he thinks. This is me.
He stands again and puffs up his chest a bit. He smooths the fabric by running flat hands from chest to knees. He fastens the crepe drape as a scarf. He will not dampen the impact of the gown by using it as a midriff sash, even though Floria designed the gown so it could be used as such. He takes one manly stride toward the door, then another, his pace building speed and his mind building confidence with each step. The two-inch heels are easy to maneuver in, easy to swagger in, much more manageable than the ostentatious four-inchers he had ordered the first time.
Subtlety always wins out.
I’m as tough as that woman that Danny pointed out at the construction site, Garth thinks. The one who walked past on the other side of the chain-link fence. The chain-link fence wasn’t there to protect her from me and Danny; it was the opposite. Or Faye, the one from the stairwell who had been so strong and seemingly lost in love. Garth pitied her boyfriend. He was no match for her. Most men didn’t know what to do with that beauty, that innate righteousness. That which is flowing now through me.
Fishbowl: A Novel Page 18