I Live In Brooklyn

Residency? Day Two

The morning of July 7, we awaken to the sound of the J, M, and Z trains rushing overhead outside our hotel room. I'm reminded that this is no longer a fantasy—that as of this morning, I am in residence in New York City for the first time since 1975. I update my Facebook status:

I LIVE IN BROOKLYN.

It ain't pretty, it ain't profound, but it's all I've got. Well, maybe it is a little bit profound in the sense that exactly one month ago we decided to embark on this endeavor. In one month's time, we've managed to coordinate a major cross-country move, rid ourselves of huge quantities of STUFF, pack the remainder into a gas-sucking giant, and arrive (more or less) in one piece. Remarkable. But, I'm also reminded as I slowly regain consciousness, none of this matters now. What matters is that we've got an apartment that's completely jammed with stuff, with a solitary air conditioning unit propped on a box in the kitchen having full responsibility for cooling the place off, and its actual installation not for another 24 hours.

This being the case, we've already chosen not to try and “move in” any further today. Instead, I've used my very good Priceline karma to get us a room at the Algonquin tonight for a hundred bucks and we'll just spend the day screwing around in Manhattan after we pop by the apartment to grab a few necessities. I take the Algonquin reservation as an indication from the city itself that we're going to be okay. (This is interesting, because in the coming days I begin to see omens everywhere. I slowly convince myself that if you're tuned in to it, you can hear the city telling you things. Many of these things, as you'll learn if you read subsequent entries in this saga, say something like “GET THE FUCK OUT. WE ALREADY HAVE TOO MANY PEOPLE. GO HOME.”) We pile into the car and head back across the borough towards 5th St.

My memory of this is now hazy, but I think we're greeted by Dave, our upstairs neighbor. Jess has already met him, but I haven't. I immediately love Dave. He's a stay-at-home dad who writes children's books. He and his wife, Jennifer, have a two year-old boy named Kyle, whom we will later discover begins and ends each day by running laps around their apartment for a couple of hours and exploring his vertical jump directly above wherever we happen to be sitting. Anyway...Dave tells us that the power in the building was out most of last night. Unprecedented, he says. Maria, our landlady, spent most of the night at the next door neighbor's house trying to get an electrician whose yellow pages ad claimed “24-7 service” to actually wake up long enough to get to the house and restore power. Apparently, she finally did and the lights (and AC) went back on in the wee hours of the morning. As he tells this tale, two things strike me:

1. Dave is an angel, a zen master, or has an unlimited supply of barbituates. He is completely calm, despite having spent the night in the dark and slowly roasting.

2. What did we do?

I will learn very quickly that the chaos into which the brownstone is hurled over the next days is due entirely to our presence in it. The only difference between Monday night and Tuesday night (when the power was lost) was us. Specifically, our air conditioner, which we left running. This does not bode well either for the future of electrical use in the apartment or for any chance we have of being liked by the other tenants in the building. I can hear them now:

OTHER TENANT 1: You know, as soon as those....COLORADO people...or whatever they are...moved in, everything went to hell in a handbasket.

OTHER TENANT 2: Yes. What on earth was Maria thinking? They're so...primitive. Did you see? They've got RECLINING FURNITURE. Oh. My. God.

OTHER TENANT 3: Well, colleagues. Our course of action is clear, and we must not wait.

OTHER TENANT 4: No, I suppose we have no choice.

OTHER TENANT 1: Do you mean...

OTHER TENANT 3: Yes. It's time....

OTHER TENANT 2: ...to convene...

KYLE (running laps): THE SUPREME COUNCIL.

OTHER TENANTS (in unison): Yes. The Supreme Council.

KYLE: (still running) We must draw upon the powers of our ancestors in order to force these...Colorado people...out of our beloved building. And we must do it soon lest their energy-hoarding, Coors-drinking, love seat-reclining ways infest our own homes.


But Dave doesn't let on that the Supreme Council has been convened. Instead, he reassures us that nothing we've done could have caused the power outage, and in fact it's probably a good thing because the electrician has also discovered that the building's circuit breaker system is 20 years away from being up to code and will be back Saturday to fix the entire thing. This, of course, will mean that there will be another power outage that will last the entire day, but again Dave seems nonplussed by any of this.

I wonder how our fourth-floor neighbors, Pasquale and Jaclyn, feel about this. Not only do they have to traipse up four flights of stairs to their apartment, but it must be the hottest one (given what I know about heat rising, which is very little but I know it does because my teacher said so). And, to make things even more FUN, Jaclyn happens to be eight months pregnant. I'm sure they're DELIGHTED to have spent an evening in hot, hot darkness and to be exiled for yet another day so the electricity can be made to accommodate the...Colorado people. When we meet them, though, another miracle—they are as gracious and unflustered as Dave was. Wow. Maybe there's a barbituate co-op in the building. These people are WAY too calm about all of this. I know that I would be raising holy hell were I in their shoes. Then it hits me. Lesson:

When it's 103 degrees in a city of 12 million people, one needs to weigh very carefully which events will spark an intense emotional reaction. In fact, one probably needs to do this anyway and has for some time.

See? It's the city again, this time speaking through Dave and Pasquale and Jaclyn. If we're calm when you show up and cause the power to fail, they seem to say, maybe you need to redefine what's worthy of a temper tantrum. And I hear this, loud and clear. The reason I think this to be important is that I'm looking at this move not only as a way to reset my professional life, but also my deeply personal one. I feel like I've developed or solidified a number of less-than-desirable habits over the past years and I want to be able to use the location change to make a significant personal shift. I want to get fit. I want to be more actively learning. I want to drink less. I want to mitigate my tendency towards anger as a first response to intense stimuli. And in this moment, these kind neighbors of ours are showing me a path. Over the next days, I will have many, many opportunities to lose my shit. MANY. And lose my shit I will, to be sure. But my shit will not have been lost as often as in the past, because I keep jumping back to the image of what I think ACTUALLY transpired the night the power went out:

DAVE: Well, the power's out.

JENNIFER: Oh, my. Yes, it is.

DAVE: Do you suppose it's because of the people moving in downstairs?

JENNIFER: Oh. Y'know, it may be.

DAVE: That's too bad. I hope Maria's able to get it fixed right away. Let's get the candles out. Those poor people...I don't even think they're there tonight, but they're going to wonder what they've gotten themselves into.

JENNIFER: Yeah. You should talk to them tomorrow and reassure them that this is not normal. They're probably going to be freaking out.

DAVE: Yeah. Yeah, that's what I'll do.


See there? There IS no Supreme Council. We're going to be just fine. Bob the handyman will be here tomorrow morning to install the air conditioners, and then we'll get started moving in in earnest. Within a few days, we'll be good to go. So we pack up a few toiletries and a change of clothes and head to the Algonquin. We meet up with our friend Megan tonight at Dave & Buster's, drink quite a bit of Stella, and crash on the incredibly comfortable hotel bed. In the morning, I will rise early and get back to Brooklyn in time to greet Bob. And we'll be off and running. And yet, as I drift off to sleep, I'm troubled by something. Something that's missing in the revised dialogue above. Sure, Dave and Jennifer may have that conversation, but...where's Kyle?

KYLE (to himself, after his parents have fallen asleep): I think I'm gonna start my laps about 5:30am from now on. Yeah. That's it. And while I'm at it, I really need to work on landing REALLY HARD when I jump. (drifting off) I can't wait.....

And the city that never sleeps—it sleeps tonight. It's got to get some rest, because it's got war to wage on us come morning.