A vinyl record of Billie Holiday plays while a rust ring tub collects water from the galvanized faucet. The water, too cold to be comfortable, thanks to the building’s hot water supply. It’s as reliable as the drunk superintendent–an ex-navy career guy that drinks himself into a salt & pepper pickle daily and occasionally fixes a leaky pipe for one of the cat-loving widows on the 3rd floor. In return, he gets a one-room matchbox in exchange for his services. Fitting.
The man pours a pot of boiling water into the tub and uses his hand like an oar to blend the tap with the heated water. The cold wins, but loosens its grip some. It becomes bearable. A second pot added. That’s better.
The man tiptoes into the tub and settles in which gives him a low, wide panoramic view of his one-room kitchenette apartment. A stove, a twin bed on rusted springs holding a lumpy mattress, probably acquired from a closed mental hospital. Fitting. It sits next to a four burner stove, two of which are reliable on most days. No thanksgiving meals cooked on this gas box. This sad excuse for a kitchen is not the center of family memories like a Rockwell painting.
The man laughs while sneaking a taste of some savory treat off of a proper stove. The beautiful woman catches him and gives a wry smile. The smile brings him back to the flicker of the pilot light on the stove.
The man scans above the stove to a shelf holding one cup. A cup that was once clear, soiled by the years of scotch, coffee and calcified tap water. Hardening the cup’s promise of what once was. He’d like to also blame the tap for the calcification of his own life. He’s lost his shine, he’s become dull and lifeless. Like water, still flowing, but not pure and clear. How to clean the grit and haze off his life to make it shine again? It seems almost pointless, useless. Fitting.
The building is holden to those that are forgotten or wish to be forgotten. It probably had a drab facade even the day the masons lay the final brick on the building. No ribbon cutting ceremony here. This won’t be in any of those fancy architecture books. Instead, some depressed draftsman is spilling his gloomy idea to low-rent edge of towns across America. Chained to a drafting table, if his life is bleak, so shall the tenets of his buildings. Fitting.
At a dinner party in a nice flat overlooking a city. He’s scanning a bookshelf, pulls a beautiful book of architecture off the shelf. Thumbing through, scotch in one hand, the beautiful buildings leaf over and pages fall one by one. She walks up and says, “Beautiful, right?”
He looks up and does a quick scan of her from head to hips and back again, scanning the rolodex of his mind to see if he recognizes her. No, he doesn’t.
“Yes, quite beautiful.” he replies.
“To think that someone must create from nothing–Tabula Rasa–and by the end, this stunning masterpiece. Not only to be seen but to be explored, shared, enjoyed intimately and from afar.
Back to the one-room apartment. Water cooling. Now on the dull side of lukewarm, he scans right and see the makeshift nightstand, an old card table, a lamp, black telephone and a picture taped to the wall.
The picture, fighting against the smoke stained tape, trying with all its might to curl in on itself and cover the image it holds, as if the photo itself is ashamed of what it holds. Somehow, the scotch tape prevails and gives the man the only physical memory of a time that the world forgot. Up to the card stock, the photo would’ve curled and withered away. Believe me, the man has felt the same way. Who’d miss him? Who’d miss this anyway? Besides, it would give the old navy vet something to do. Earn his keep.
Like the tape, he refuses to let himself fold. Instead he remembers the photo, a time that was a lifetime ago. Another time, another place, another person.
He pulls a long drag off the cigarette. Holds it a beat to let the smoke fill every capillary of his lungs. Eyes closed. Exhale. He slides deeper into the water and reminded of the river in Cordoba, Spain where the giant sculpture of a man that calls the river home. They would drive by there, picnic along her banks and talk about the man in the river. Hombre Rio.
Soaking, relaxed relief. Life was good.
Her coal black hair spills over her shoulder and covers half her face. The other half open to enjoy all its beauty. Her ear acts as a prop as it holds her thick, black locks like a follicle dam, Half covered, half exposed. Just like much of her life.
He feels the cold air on his knees and sinks his chest lower, raising his knees more, accentuating the rise of the knees, like monoliths rising along a rocky coastline. Lower still, he sinks until completely underwater.
The music takes on a new pitch as it reverberates through the porcelain tub and water. He relaxes and listens to Billie Holiday submersed.
The record whirrs as they dance. Her hand on his lapel, she adjusts his pocket square. The other olive skinned hand rest gently in his. They dance. A slow rhythm. Slow enough so their eyes are able to remain locked. He’s lost in the deep ember of her eyes, the full crimson lips with a delightful interruption by her alpine white teeth. He pulls her close, touches nape of her neck and wishes Billie Holiday could sing forever.
Forever seems like a lifetime ago.
He closes his eyes as he rests his chin on her shoulder and exhales.
The man rises from the water, lungs burning, screaming for oxygen. The needle performs this stubbornly rhythmic dance with the record and the inner paper of vinyl. The song is over and so is the bath.
And so is the girl. Fitting.
Great piece…beautifully written