That Ol' Jack Magic - Unconditional Love in a Faulty Structure: Part Two

A NOTE BEFORE READING: This is the second installment of a three-part essay. To begin at the beginning, go here. (Or just scroll down to last Wednesday's post.)

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It’s weird for me to think back now on that short dialogue I had with Tim during the pre-Elizabethan era. He had moved into the apartment below mine probably about a year after me. We knew each other’s names, and we had had a few inconsequential conversations, but we were hardly friends. One day, we were both in the stairwell at the same time. I was at the top of the stairs, about to go into my apartment. He was at the bottom of the stairs, leaving his.

“Are you alright?” he asked, in an angry tone. “Because last night, your music woke me out of a deep sleep.” (He was pissed, and he had the right to be.)

“I’m sorry,” I said.

And I let him vent a little more. I apologized again. But I didn’t give the full explanation.

Because I didn’t know Tim then, I didn’t tell him what had preceded that night of loud, let-me-forget-the-day music. I had to put my cat to sleep that day. I had to say good-bye to Kitty, the cat I adopted in New York when I was only 20 years old.

Kitty had been a remarkable presence in my life. When I adopted her at the New York SPCA, I assumed I was bringing back to my college residence a little feline who would entertain my five suitemates and me. A toy; an object for our amusement. But, the tiny black kitten that returned with me to 116th Street wasn’t entertaining. In fact, as I would learn from the vet I took her to a few days later, she was dying.

She had not been weaned properly, and – despite the fatal prognosis – I was given some instructions that might work: I was to combine baby food with appetite enhancer and force it into her mouth with a rubber syringe. My friend Aileen’s boyfriend, Phil, immediately came to the plate to help me with this task, and we were a team. In spite of our teamwork, there always was a lot of sloppy goop tucked between Kitty’s tiny whiskers. But because of the teamwork, Kitty lived. For more than 18 years.

We had gone through a lot, Kitty and I. And part of what we had gone through was what she taught me those first few weeks I knew her: that I could take care of something; that I could give that something unconditional love.

It’s weird to think now that I couldn’t share with Tim what I had gone through the previous day. I only could apologize weakly and walk into my apartment, feeling guilty for having woke him up with the music I was blaring well past midnight. Were I going through the same thing today, he would know it. He would know, long before that last trip to the vet, that my cat was dying. And, just as he has offered to drive me to the airport in the years since, he probably would offer to drive me to the vet. And I would accept. I would be able to share the experience with him. Because he is not just my neighbor; he is my friend.

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And it’s weird to think what my apartment might still look like if Deb hadn’t moved into the building. Deb, whose eye and sense of daring, immediately pushed the envelope in her own apartment. Deb, who set a precedent for those who might say, “This is my space.”

I didn’t know Deb very well when I sought her advice regarding the painting of my living room, but I trusted her instincts. So I let her pick out the colors, and I followed her every direction. She helped at times, too, and we giggled as we worked together – something about those fumes, something about the whole endeavor. There’s nothing like moving your entire world into the middle of a space and changing the colors around it. Debbi showed me how energizing those changes could be.

And less than a year later, she again would drive the color scheme. I pointed to Colby, my red tabby cat, and said, “That’s the palette I want for my bedroom.” She fanned through her book of paint chips, starred two colors (neither of which actually exists on Colby), and gave me quick verbal instructions as to how to do a particular faux finish. Then, she was off to Colorado for Christmas. I would spend Christmas painting my bedroom, always with her cell phone number close at hand.

By the end of that week, a phenomenal transformation had taken place in my bedroom. And like some 21st Century cubist Cinderella, I would – from that point forward – sleep peacefully inside something that resembles a square pumpkin.

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Something was happening, during that time. I was not just changing the color of my apartment. I was changing the color of my life. The unexpected support from the people with whom I shared a roof was kicking in. The comfort was allowing me to open up, to see what the universe had in store.

I had held nonprofit staff jobs for 12 years, and they were never without their share of problems and frustrations. In August 2000, after an unusually lengthy search, I accepted a Development Director position that commanded a high salary (by nonprofit standards). But a bizarre thing happened at about the same time…

I had plans one Saturday to meet my friend Maria in Santa Monica. We’d agreed to a loose agenda. We would eat brunch wherever, and then we’d walk down Main Street. Browse through the shops. My personal agenda was to treat myself to a bracelet – a memory wire bracelet, specifically. (And this was a rather odd agenda for me to entertain. With the exception of earrings, I had never been one to buy – or care much about – jewelry.)

Maria and I picked a brunch spot randomly, and after we ate, we headed south on Main Street. The first store we came upon had window displays that were seductive. Window displays that implied jewelry. We walked in. And I realized immediately that we had just walked into a bead store.

“Hmm…” I thought, scoping the room. “Maybe I’ll just make a bracelet.”

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It’s no secret that I have an addictive personality, and by the time I shared my creations with Julie, who was the first of the neighbors to see them, my bowl o’ bracelets already was teeming.

“I’m so proud of you,” she said, in her warm and compassionate way. “You’re going outside yourself.”

Debbi had just returned from a production trip, and Julie saw her before I did. “Katie’s doing something completely different,” Julie told Deb. “And I’m not going to tell you what it is. You just have to see!”

I remember that night in late summer when I debuted my bowl o’ bracelets on Debbi’s stoop. I watched as my neighbor friends pawed over the new collection, trying them on and modeling them for each other. Julie already had bought one. Now Deb and new neighbor Sara would make their selections.

to be continued on September 7th.

That Ol’ Jack Magic – Unconditional Love in a Faulty Structure: Part One

A NOTE BEFORE READING: Today’s post and the two Wednesday posts that will follow it come from a memoir project: five Catalysts and five Constants. The project’s essays are all quite a bit longer than my usual posts, so I am going to share this one in three installments.

I should make one thing clear from the start: I don’t like Jack.

In fact, there have been times when I really have not liked Jack. And there have been times when my feelings for him have gone way beyond “really not liking.” His behavior and his firm inaction are unfathomable, and because he is nothing more than my landlord, I shouldn’t have to entertain feelings about him – ever. But, on occasion, I have had no choice.

Like that time my kitchen faucet essentially exploded at half past midnight, shooting water across the room. Thank God I had not gone to sleep yet, and thank God my neighbors weren’t sleeping too deeply. Though I didn’t know any one of them very well back then, they responded to my calls for “HELP!” Several of them bailed water out of my kitchen while another figured out how to turn off the flow to the entire building – the only way to end the potentially decapitating stream that was bursting out of the wall.

Jack’s got some messed-up pipes, I want to tell you.

And then there was that really scary time that my leg went through the deck/walkway outside my second-floor kitchen door. When I realized I couldn’t pull it out of the hole it had created, I yelled “HELP!” once again. Neighbors responded. Among them were a few who had become friends.

“Call 9-1-1!” I blurted out, realizing – for the first time in my life – that when you need 9-1-1, you know it. And although it should have been a relief to have the fire department arrive, I couldn’t help but feel even more vulnerable at that point. With five firemen surrounding me, I believed there was no way the deck would hold up. And when it collapsed, I’d still be stuck in the wood. My head cracked open on the pavement below.

But the deck didn’t give, and the firemen did get me out. They had to use an electric saw that I watched as it cut the wood just inches from my leg. By then, a crowd from the neighborhood had gathered. I was convinced after that evening that I would probably be a feature of “Show and Tell” in a few local classrooms the next morning.

Jack’s got some soft wood, I want to tell you.

About four months after the deck incident, I was in my living room with my Mom, who was visiting from Virginia. It was a typically hot October day in L.A., so we had the air conditioner running. (A window unit that came with the apartment; something that could probably get a nice chunk of change at the Antiques Roadshow.) Suddenly, there was a funky smell. I saw smoke coming out of the wall socket into which the air conditioner was plugged. I quickly turned off the unit and called the fire department. They arrived within minutes, checked it out and told me not to use the outlet again until an electrician could make the necessary repairs. I immediately called one, and he came over that afternoon.

The electrician replaced whatever needed to be replaced, and I wrote him a check. When I sent Jack my rent the following month, I enclosed the electrician’s receipt, deducted the cost, and explained my math in a note. The next week, I received a bill from Jack for the amount I had deducted. It stated that no repairs can be made without the landlord’s prior approval.

Jack’s got some strange wiring, I want to tell you.

But there’s one other thing about Jack that I cannot deny or overlook. He brought to this building the most amazing tenants. And he brought to this tenant the most amazing friends. It’s magic. It’s bigger than all of us. And it’s definitely not something that I made happen.

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“I’m not a friendly neighbor,” I once confessed to my mother, some months after moving from my marriage into Jack’s building.

“That’s because you lived in New York,” she responded.

Maybe there was truth to her theory. For someone else. But I think, for me, the embracing of privacy came first. I think that the reason I chose New York – for college, and for the eleven years that would follow college – is that I craved the option of being anonymous. After growing up in a small town in Virginia, I didn’t want people to know me or to know my business. Sure, I always would have close friends, and they would know more about me than they probably cared to know, but I still guarded my privacy. And as a tenant, I cultivated it. Until…

“Hi, Katie!” Therese calls out through her first-floor living room window.

“Hi, Therese!” I respond, smiling, as I head to my car in the back lot.

(So much for Mom’s theory, I think. Therese lived in New York, too.)

But Mom’s New York theory was not disproved by Therese. It was disproved by Elizabeth, who had moved into the building several months earlier than Therese. Elizabeth, in her own inimitable style, introduced us all to each other. Elizabeth – who also had lived in New York, by the way – brought to Jack’s building her unique brand of Texan hospitality. She had an indefatigable ability to inspire us to pool our resources for a night of partying. Before we knew it, we all chipped in for a grill. And once we were fed, we gathered in her living room for party games. It became a weekend routine, and one that I welcomed. A nice way to relax and interact without going out.

I still didn’t feel particularly close to any of my individual neighbors, but I was enjoying the communion. It was good to become friendly with these people with whom I shared a roof – with whom I shared the pipes, the wood, and the wiring that were unique to Jack. We always had landlord stories to swap, that’s for sure. And Elizabeth seemed to have more of them than anyone.

Of course, where she was concerned, Jack did have a case. Whether we liked it or not, every eviction notice he ever posted on her door was issued validly. She always seemed to be behind on her rent as she pursued a career that might be worthy of her phenomenal singing voice. And I would miss that voice. I would miss hearing her hit every note perfectly, never requiring musical accompaniment.

And I would appreciate always what she had brought to the building.

The first Christmas season after she moved in, I taped a holiday card to her front door. “Dear Elizabeth,” I had written inside, “When I tell my friends about the new energy in my building, I always tell them that one person made it happen. She’s our building’s ‘Fraulein Maria.’ Because of her, there’s music in the house again. I thank you for that, and my only regret is that Jack bears no resemblance whatsoever to Christopher Plummer. Those are the breaks. Love, Katie.”

Remembering that note now, what strikes me is that when I referred to “friends,” I was thinking about the people I knew outside the building.

…But something would happen around the time Elizabeth moved. The bonds that had been created during loud parties and competitive party games would become stronger. Among a few of us, there would be more quiet, one-on-one moments. We would share problems, secrets, and dreams. We’d still have the larger gatherings on the stoop or around the grill, but something deeper than simple socializing among neighbors was emerging.

to be continued on August 31st.