Bedtime with Bike Helmet
I’ve been in New York City for about five years and have remained relatively unscathed in the apartment department. Sure, there were some rough patches. Like, say, when I was handed my diploma from Columbia University, had no job, and was going to get kicked out of my cozy university apartment in two weeks. But I prevailed in what would be considered a New York success story. I secured a spot in a spacious three-bedroom apartment in Washington Heights. I can tolerate the neighbors’ salsa music because I’ve got a great view of the Hudson River from my bedroom, have both a professional chef and former masseuse as roommates, and pay ridiculously low rent.
So what am I here to whine about? To share the story of New York housing that doesn’t end once you’ve found an affordable apartment and properly socialized roommates. In fact, that is when warfare in the trenches truly begins.
***
“Oh yes, yes, big problem here…biiiiiiig problem…ooohhhhh…yesssss…”These were the mumblings from my super as he inspected the ceiling of my bedroom after receiving an S.O.S. call from me a few days before. Prior to his arrival, he probably thought I was just another crazy, overreacting blanchita, out of place in this heavily Dominican neighborhood. What did he expect to find? A hole in my ceiling the diameter of a Starbucks Frappuccino straw?
***
While I live in a great, affordable apartment, we have an ever-so-slight issue with leaky radiators. As in, one night I woke up with a gentle spout of warm water emanating from my radiator spraying my face. Problem, as in, this is not a solitary incident limited to my radiator, but a disease that has infected all the radiators in our apartment complex that has resulted in ever saaaaaaagging ceilings from water pools collected in the floorboards of the apartments above. I try to make the best of it. In this nature-deprived environment, I sometimes gaze up at the white, bubbly ceilings and pretend they are inverted rolling hills covered with snow. I’m mentally ready to go skiing, until the problem progresses and I look up to see the Rocky Mountains and come back to reality—I cannot ski, nor are these friendly bunny hills, but rather volcanoes ready to blow.
Friends at work, the ones who envision themselves as having a secret talent in plumbing, have tried to figure it out for me. “Old radiators…how old are those radiators?” This comment/question that doesn’t really help, as I’ve already deduced that my radiators are old, perhaps from the Greco-Roman era. The replacement of them with new ones (if my super wasn’t so cheap) would probably solve everything.
I’m certainly not the only New York resident with this problem. I’ve got a friend at work whose elderly father calls her whenever he gets out of the shower to confirm he has gotten through his wash unscathed, with the ceiling still intact. My roommates and I were at risk once already—one day I arrived home from work to find our bathtub filled with ceiling plaster. But I took it all in stride, coming up with solutions such as showering at my local YMCA. I just blocked out the idea that I could have been in the shower at the time of the collapse, and instead pretended that these accidents happened only when no one was at home. And so I lived in this haze of ignorance, of innocence if you will, until the ceiling above my bed began to change shape entirely.
***
It began with the telltale brown water lines slowly spreading out from the corner of my ceiling. At first it was entertaining. I pretended that they were like clouds, and used my imagination to determine what U.S. states they resembled. It was frivolous fun when I saw Hawaii or Rhode Island, but I realized the problem was getting more serious when larger states such as California and Texas began to appear. Suddenly, quite unexpectedly, I was gazing at entire continents. Do you know how easy it is for water lines to look like Australia?
Along with the waterlines, of course, came the buckling ceiling. I started calculating my chances of being in bed when the ceiling broke apart and quickly analyzed they were far greater than the odds of being in the shower when the plaster collapsed. Better get the super.
Getting your super to come over is like waiting for wine to ferment. Time and patience are the magic ingredients. So after my initial call, I knew I’d have a few more days before he’d appear. And of course, it was in those one or two days that about a quarter of my ceiling collapsed, with much of it falling strategically onto my bed. When my super eventually arrived, he was correct with his analysis of it being a “biiiiiiig problem…oh yes…biiiiig problem” as he stared fearfully up at the thin layer of wood separating me from my neighbors upstairs.
***
I went to work that morning assuming that by the time I got home all would be repaired. Wrong. I came back to a room with an even larger, gaping hole in the ceiling. The only difference: other than the increased size of the hole, there was a plastic garbage bag taped over it. Was this garbage bag for my protection? Was it going to prevent the neighbors from falling through the floorboards and springing onto my bed at 2 AM? My roommate passed along the super’s message that the “temporary repairs” would be safe for one night.
We stared at one another and, without a word, my roommate went into his room and returned with an army-issued Desert Storm helmet one of his military buddies had given him. “Maybe you want to wear this tonight,” he said. I laughed, he laughed, oh, how we laughed, laughed, laughed. So funny to face bodily harm when one is sleeping! After we parted ways and I entered my bedroom (having declined the helmet, thanks anyway), my imagination started getting the best of me. I could see myself as yet another cautionary tale written about in the New York Post. People would read about my death as they sat on the toilet, shaking their heads and thinking, Why wasn’t that woman more careful? Didn’t she know that the phrase ‘temporary repairs’ means nothing in New York? It was with this in mind that I gazed around my room for an old bike helmet given to me by a former roommate. So I got on my pj’s, put in my retainer and earplugs, and strapped on the last line of defense between me and the weight of my neighbors and all of their furniture.
***
I awoke the next morning—glad to be alive—but having a slightly sore neck, as I suppose the average bike helmet isn’t designed for usage over eight hours straight. Staring warily up at the plastic garbage bags, I had one of those rare moments when you can look at your life from the outside. I’m 30. I’m getting out of bed wearing a bike helmet. Exactly when and where did my life take such a turn?