Cleaning Up New York (2 page)

I wash windows and wax the floors in a West End apartment newly occupied by two civil liberties lawyers soon to be married. I fatigue myself buffing a paste-waxed floor by hand and I take enough dope for a couple of joints from their modest supply of marijuana. I get called out to Bayside, Queens. An hour and a half on subways and a bus leads me to fresh air, grass and trees, and incredibly long rows of bungalows with six-digit house numbers. In my appointed house, I learn the use of acrylic floor wax. I have to clean and wax the floor in the large
recreation-basement room. Some of the brown-and-white asphalt tiles are bent to right angles with the floor. The atmosphere is dark and dank; the plastic wood-paneled walls hold large oil canvases, each picturing a particular fat naked man. He is the man who let me in the door; his wife must be the artist. The acrylic fluid splashes over my hands and dries into thin sheets of shine. I have to learn how to distance myself from this cosmetic cleaning product because it is dangerous to the user. Inhaling acrylic floor wax fumes clogs the lungs and prevents breathing for a few moments. Upstairs the artist gives me a tuna fish sandwich; I tell her that her paintings remind me of Alex Katz, because of their big flat colors. She hates Alex Katz, wowee! I go to the medicine chest and take some valium. It keeps me from worrying about if I will ever get done. I still have the downstairs and the upstairs left to do. As I vacuum the living room, she drinks a beer and watches a soap opera on TV. She lifts her feet and I vacuum under them, then she offers me a beer. A long day's pay plus tip and carfare convinces me it was a good performance. “I pulled this caper off!”

A businessman rents and sublets a studio in the East Fifties. The last person had left the place totally disheveled. The businessman tells me to throw out all the junk lying around or take it for myself. He thinks it is going to be a near impossible job and promises me a $10 tip. He goes on to work and I start to reconstitute the apartment. In about four hours, I have everything clean and straight and I have a BOAC bag filled with select items for me to take home. I have a new plant sprayer, new plant food, new earth, new Band-Aids, new shampoo, new blue jeans,
new tools, and a little new grass. I meet my boss in the lobby of his office building and hide my bag of goods behind a desk in case he should reconsider that tip. He does think hard about the tip because I am faster than he thought possible; of course, he can't see the finished product. I give him a look full of expectation; he shoots back a pained expression and hands me the tip. I tell him that he will love it and jump down into the subway rich with expensive household items plus hard cash.

These capers teach me quick perceptions as to where dirt is and isn't and how to organize a cleaning plan. When I go into a strange apartment, the standard procedure is for the employer to explain what is to be done and where the materials are kept. I learn how to begin. Beginning promptly builds trust in employers and relaxes them. Once I have begun, I find that the plan formulates itself from common sense and natural body movements. These perceptions coupled with insights into people develop in me a talent for cleaning a place the way the employer wants it cleaned. I find that I become a slave to my own intuition of another person's will. The talent for knowing how to clean differently for different people makes me feel skilled. Most people are frank with their appreciation for my work except those people who consider themselves among the wealthy. I discover for myself that the one way rich people stay rich is by not appreciating true skill in common workmen. I do a good job in an East Sixties penthouse and the lady asks me if I know how to make a bed. I say, “I guess I know, sure I can make your bed.” Her bed has a complicated system of undersheets and oversheets and a bedspread, all which have to be turned in precise ways. I do a
passable job though not a lady's maid's job with the bedding and she complains about it just before she pays me. I realized later that she complained just so she wouldn't have to tip me.

One day Barbara calls me up with what she calls a “goody.” A Mrs. Cunningham in the Village needs a cleaner plus a little care in the home for her husband who had recently suffered a stroke. “A real sweet gal,” Barbara describes her. On a bright, sunny morning, I walk through Washington Square Park with five Frisbees buzzing around my ears. Mrs. Cunningham lives just off Sixth Avenue below the Waverly Theater. The door to the building has brass plates shining my golden complexion before my eyes. I buzz up and my reflection swings away into the most organized apartment I've ever seen. The floors are natural wood stained dark brown with a few handcrafted throw rugs carefully placed. There is built-in wood cabinetry that cleverly holds books, a hi-fi, liquor closet, and desk. A folding table sits squarely at attention flanked by two matching wood chairs along the side wall. Next to the table is a small working fireplace with a marble slab for a hearth. Across from the fireplace is a soft brown upholstered couch with a round wooden coffee table in front of it. Near the front windows is a dull gold upholstered chair with three end tables that fit under one other. On the walls are large canvases of geometric forms precisely colored. The paintings are so subtle that it is hard to see how they are good. The kitchen is in the front with a window over the street. It is small with built-in cabinets, a big sink, and a tile floor with a design of dark brown tiles that smacks of the paintings. The bathroom is brown with a brown carpet. The bedroom is in the back, brown wood
bookcases built around the windows and a cork floor. The big king-size bed has two built-in lights on the wall above the headboard, one over each pillow, and separate switches. Here is my dream of a perfect marriage realized!

Mrs. Cunningham is middle-aged, wears red lipstick and a short haircut. She is slim and petite and gracious with a strong sense of justice that animates all her qualities. She introduces me to her husband, Ben. Ben has had a couple of major strokes leaving him able to take care of himself in simple matters but unable to paint anymore. Ben is the painter of the canvases on the walls. He is in his mid-sixties, white-haired with a big white moustache. He is tall and gaunt with a confused look in his eyes that sometimes focus into a clear sparkle. Mrs. Cunningham has been housebound since Ben's illness and plans to use me in order to allow herself to step out for a few hours. She leaves me a detailed list of everything to be cleaned in each room and the proper product to use for each task. I make Mrs. Cunningham comfortable in her mind that I am not uptight about keeping an eye on Ben. I am more worried about the cleaning. When I can see a room as well as I can see the living room, I know that it is already clean. For me, learning to clean the clean will be the challenge.

The Cunninghams own the building and one of my duties is to sweep the staircase and polish up those brass plates. Above the apartment, separate only as a separate reality, is Ben's studio. Here laxity of order and individual quirks rule; here is the TV. Giant paintings are stored in racks and all around are tools, artist's supplies, toys, and a bugle. The attic walls slant up into a skylight and the light comes down around me, putting my roots
into Greenwich Village. I feel the sense of times before me and the dignity of an older way.

Mrs. Cunningham's first name is Patsy—I find out when Ben calls me Patsy—Patsy likes the way I clean and eagerly engages me again and with handsome terms. I am to receive four hours at the cleaning rate of $3.50/hr. and $3.00/hr. for any time over four hours when I would sit with Ben. During my second day's work for the Cunninghams, someone rings the doorbell and I buzz the person into the building. A frumpy man is walking up the stairs. I open the door and the man just walks in. Ben seems to recognize him. They both sit down on the couch in very similar distracted manners and I sit in the other chair intent on what would ensue. After the visitor utters a few words, it is apparent that he is crazy and in fact his conversation is primarily concerned with his last five years in a mental hospital. I gather that the man had once been Ben's student. Both he and Ben speak their own way for a while, neither one comprehending the changes in the other. I suggest to Ben that he may be tired; he assents with a clear look, knowing it is an excuse. I usher the fellow out and get his name in order to report the story to Patsy. She is pleased with the way I handled the situation and her confidence in me is boosted. Soon I am working at the Cunninghams' four times a week.

With this much work, I no longer need the agency. I tell Barbara of my good luck and she heartily congratulates me. Patsy always leaves the house when I am working, so soon I feel in control as cleaner and sitter. I could give Ben a tranquilizer if I want, though I don't unless he gets terribly frustrated
and irritated. Ben sits all afternoon smoking
BETWEEN THE ACTS
little cigars. He has a problem striking the match; lighting his cigars becomes a gracious part of my cleaning movements. Swinging by with the vacuum, throwing a courteous arm and hand with lit match, pulling the vacuum back with the other hand as Ben lights up. Ben and I never converse but he is up to pulling a good trick on me. I am vacuuming the living room and the machine is plugged into a socket located in the washroom. Suddenly the machine goes dead and I turn to see Ben with the plug holding it under the open faucet. My first thought is, “Aw my God, he's gonna plug it back in—wet!” I run up to Ben and calmly ask him what he is going to do. “I mean, Ben, it's great and everything but I'm just curious to know why you did it.” He looks deep into me and his eyes become clear as pinpoints and he says, “To confuse you.” That's the right answer and I fall in love.

Being the housekeeper at the Cunninghams' allows me to play around with the cleaning a bit. There are certain things I do every week, but there are other things that only need doing every so often at my discretion. Occasionally I shampoo the rugs, or wax the floor, or concentrate on all enamel surfaces. My initial trepidations about the cleaning soon dissolved in this freer state of cleanliness. This is the model house to learn housekeeping in because it is so well organized that there is no clutter or interference from human frivolities. I learn how to arrange little surprises for Patsy to find a few days after I've cleaned. I clean out-of-the-way areas such as a shelf behind the shower curtain or a row of books. Sometimes I imagine the things I clean may not be discovered for weeks or months. I work steadily at the
Cunninghams' until Shelley and I plan to leave town for the summer. I am saddened to leave such a gracious home, especially one where there are people I love; Patsy and I arrange to contact each other about work in the fall.

In New York City, we really live like worms. There is dirt above, below, and on all sides of us. The air is a constant fine mist of dust and soot. Filth is creeping up from every basement. Cockroaches and insects are constantly chewing things into little piles of dirt. Pigeons! Dogs! Dirt is puffing between floorboards and under walls and down from ceiling cracks. Corrosive chemicals in the air eat away the faces of statues and crumble the bricks about us. The subway blasts subterranean filth up through air grates. People throw their dirt everywhere. There is garbage and cigarette and cigar ash in the streets; rooftops are often junk heaps. Now back into our wormhole: the apartment. We tread dirt inside on the soles of our shoes. Our clothes literally shake with dust. Our hair is a broom that sweeps in the city atmosphere. We come in like bombshells.

Dirt distributes itself by the motion of rise and fall. Dirt enters an area with some impetus. Air coming under windows sends dust floating around the ceiling, which slowly sifts its way to the floor. This dust will settle on any crevice no matter the size. This means bumps in the paint on your walls have tiny motes of dust just hanging around. (Let me toss an aside into the dust storm. This all sounds neurotic but it isn't. It is just the
heightened perception created by the direct contact of my labors. I don't dislike dirt. Far from it, I feel very comfortable working with dirt.) Dirt is heavier than air so it settles down on every surface from the ceiling to the floor. The rim of your lampshade is doing a good business right now. As you shuffle across the floor, you are kicking up particles that jump up and fall down a few feet away. Cooking often sends a film of grease through the air that sticks to anything it can touch. As you soak in the bathtub, dirt floats along the surface of the water and spreads over the walls of the tub as it is drained. The toilet bowl is the scene of miscalculations that send dirt down the wrong side of the bowl! Your ablutions spatter the walls and get the tiles dirty. Water is one of nature's best solvents; if you splash the floor while doing the dishes, then the water will strip the dirt off the bottoms of your feet.

Pets are as bad as city environment or people when it comes to getting things dirty. Dogs and cats shed their coats everywhere they go. They shred up pieces of paper, knock over flowerpots. Cats kick and scratch at their cat litter until it is littered all over the floor. No dog is above having accidents. Dogs run along the walls blackening them and furiously beat dust up into the air current with their tails. Birds throw shelled birdseed out of their cages and if you let them fly free—well! All pets use their unnaturally confining space to its utmost.

Getting dirty is a process of natural inertia. Dirt moves by force and then rests. Cleaning has no natural inertia unless you telescope your thinking into geologic time and everything gets washed into the sea. The washing we do is toward a more limited end. Dirt will always win in the end.