I’ve called the owner of the building because I want to let him know how wet it has become, how a sheet of water constantly covers the wall in my apartment like a cut of tapestry, how broken pieces of plaster drop from the ceiling like jagged, irregular stars that crumble into fine powder when I accidentally step on them.
How did you get the number? he demands to know, referring to his personal cell phone number.
Your secretary gave me this number, I say.
I don’t have a secretary, he says.
Yes you do, I say. She gave me this number.
I don’t have a secretary, he says, and then wheezes.
It is an asthmatic wheeze, a forced huff resulting from the accumulation of cigarette tar and grease smoke from indulgent breakfasts with bacon and sausage, of incremental residues from around the city—bits of glass, dewy chemicals, traces of paint from around WET PAINT signs in subway stations.
You do have a secretary, I say. Otherwise, how could I have gotten this number?
I don’t have one, he says. But I do hire a part time staff on the weekends to manage my office.
Aha! I say. So you admit that you have some sort of secretarial workers in your employ.
I consider them clerical temps, he says. Anyway, he says, they should not have given you this number. It is a private number, only for emergencies and my own personal use.
I tell him what’s what: This is an emergency, I say. There is a leak in my room, which is actually your room, inside of which is your ceiling, which is turning brown and is bubbling and falling to the floor from the moisture. The rug I bought two weeks ago is rotten. My computer had to be replaced because it got wet. My trousers are soaked, as are my socks. When it doesn’t rain, the leak slows to a trickle but doesn’t stop. When it does rain, my room turns into a river basin. I am not a farmer. The silt that results does me no good.
Hmph, he says. I am in a meeting right now and you are interrupting important business transactions. There are proper channels for this, he says.
Those fucking channels.
I’ve been on the phone all day, I say. I have a list of phone numbers to offices that lead to other phone numbers in other offices that ultimately lead to you. I have followed the proper channels.
Without a retort, I hear the phone hang up. When I call again, the owner of my building answers again.
Why are you calling me? he says.
I answer: If you’re in a meeting, why did you answer your phone? Why didn’t you ignore the ring or turn off your phone knowing that I wouldn’t be satisfied with the way our prior conversation ended?
I’m in a meeting, he says. But I have to keep my phone on for emergencies.
I don’t think you’re having a meeting at all, I say.
I look at my watch and see that noontime has just passed.
You’re probably having lunch at some posh spread, I say. You fat fuck, I add after another moment.
He wheezes again before saying that meetings can happen over lunch and how dare I use that kind of language. Don’t I know who he is.
You’re the owner of my building, I say, and you’re buying lunch with the money that I pay you to keep my living space habitable. I bet it’s nice and dry where you are, I say.
Then he gets belligerent: If only you were here, he says. If only I could say to you what I want to say to you to your face, he says.
Fine, I say. Tell me where you are, and I’ll be there, tough guy.
Oh yeah? he says.
Oh yeah, I say.
The owner of my building tells me his location. I know the address. I have passed the establishment many times before, while walking from work to my apartment. I have marveled at the pictures of succulent roast duckling in the windows, glazed, glistening, encircled by wedges of orange and green papaya.
I’m coming, I say as I hang up.
Carefully, I draw up my pants as I step off my bed onto my floor, the ocean that it has become. The cold ocean, two inches deep and still an ocean. I take my shoes from the top of my dresser, where they had been relegated, exit the apartment, and put them on. In the ground floor supply closet, I find a white bucket. This is his bucket (the building owner’s). I proceed outside to the spigot where the maintenance men attach hoses on summer mornings to wash off the sidewalks with the water pressure. I fill the bucket to about three-fourths capacity. This is his water (again, the building owners’s, and just like the water on the floor of my apartment). I walk and then turn one way, walk and then turn another way, and then walk until I reach my destination. As I enter the doorway toting this bucket, I am stopped by a short, black, mustachioed man in a red suit.
You can’t come in, he says.
I have a meeting to go to, I say.
He doesn’t want to see you, the man says with an accent.
I think he is from Africa, maybe from the island of Madagascar. My television is also an island. My television is Madagascar.
I have to see him, I say.
No, you can’t, he says.
I look into the restaurant and instantly spot the owner of my building. I know it is him because he is the only shithead in the place. He’s balding and fat and wearing a bib with a lobster on it. The lobster on the bib is wearing its own bib, this one also with a lobster on it. The third, tiny lobster is wearing a bib as well, but its bib has a shiny green apple on it instead of another bibbed lobster.
That’s him there, I say. It will only take a second.
The fat fuck is giving me fearful glances. He hides his blubbery face behind a teacup saucer.
Give me your message and I will deliver it, the black man says.
Fine, I say.
I take the bucket, hoist it up onto my shoulder, and empty its contents onto my head. I place the bucket down on the ground and wipe the water from my eyes.
See what you’ve done, I say finally as I point a shaking finger at the security guard. See what you’ve done.