Cleaning Up New York (5 page)

Ding-a-ling. “Bawb, got a job for you.” “OK, give it to me.” The name here is Robert Duck. The job is to vacuum the staircase in a brownstone on the Upper West Side off Central Park West. I talk to Robert Duck at his business phone number. The long and the tall of it is a newly carpeted staircase in his co-op building. I'll also sweep the front sidewalk and wash the windows in the doors. This will be three hours/$10.50 every other week. The hours are loose because I work without supervision. A maid in one of the apartments will buzz me in. On the first effort, I meet Robert and he shows me around. It is a newly remodeled building with a bright orangey-red carpet. There are eleven straight sections of stairway with ten small landings that climb the five stories to the roof.

The vacuum is a little Hoover the size of a football but not as fat. Its suction is moderate for its size. A short, wide hose provides an adequate suction in the rug attachment. There is enough electrical cable to vacuum the entire space without
changing outlets. There are so many steps that it is immediately apparent that I must figure out the least number of trips up and down them. The Hoover is kept at the top of the stairwell. I come in, leave my coat in the laundry room, and climb to the vacuum. I unscrew a light bulb and remove it. I insert a converter and plug in the extension cord. I run the line up half a flight and into the vacuum. I start at the motor, grab the handle, and climb to the top. I attach the rug attachment directly to the flexible hose because vacuuming stairs is a gymnastic event that requires total flexibility. By keeping the vacuum two steps below where I am cleaning and my feet two steps below the vacuum, I can keep my back straight and tilt forward from my ankles. On the landings, I must get down on my hands and knees to be comfortable in body. If you film me on my descent and then speed up the film, I would appear like a huge inchworm, humping backwards down the stairway, eating everything behind it.

This job isn't bad once I learn the ropes. It is clean and warm and private. It only takes me an hour and a half to do and I get paid for three. I find an intimacy with the Hoover in the single-minded exercise of vacuuming stairs. The work is warming and the carpet is a warm color. There is a skylight at the top of the stairwell that heats up the steps on a sunny day. I only have to climb the staircase twice, once to begin and a second time to put Hoover away.

One day—all grand events happen one day—I go to work stoned and out of uniform. I'm dressed in my good blue jeans and I don't have my sneakers. The carpet is clean enough for me to work in my stocking feet. I am also wearing my first pair of
boxer shorts. Hoover and I are starting at the top. There is never traffic in the halls but this section is the most private. It is also bright from the sunny skylight above. We start down the steps and because of a bad design in the boxers, my cock falls through the slit and rubs up and down the soft denim. After a few steps go by, I begin to lose my concentration. I won't cop out and tell you I'm really high but … I turn over and sit down on a step. I unzip my fly to see what's happening and a great erection grows out of it. Hoover is buzzing, humming next to me. I pull the rug attachment off and contemplate the bit on the hose. Now in my adventures, I can go all the way! I fuck the sucking vacuum. The suction is just strong enough to give realistic tension to the skin of my cock. It is nice. But it doesn't go anywhere, there is only one speed. I try altering the air valve on the side but it is boring. Fantasy might do, but I start to become too aware of Hoover and my best fantasy of an obliging vacuum cleaner doesn't do anything for either of us. So I pack it in. “We really came close!” I reflect while putting the rug attachment back on the Hoover.

Cleaning a floor or wall creates a progression of triangles. One side of the triangle is the floor. The second side is you leaning over the surface to be cleaned and the third side is the broom, mop, or wall. Triangles that stretch and contract along the surfaces with the best geometry produce the best cleaning.

Murphy's is a good soap to wash a wall with. Use a sponge and then wipe dry with a second cloth. You can use a harsher chemical like Spic & Span on hard enamel paint. The product Varnex is good for wood paneling. You wipe it on, let dry, and polish it off. It is a wax besides being a cleaner. I have used Scott's Liquid Gold and found it objectionable to human lungs and skin.

Sweep a floor from one end to the other or sweep it outside to inside. Take broad strokes to avoid making dust fly. Centralize the dirt into one spot by circling around it and sweep it into a dustpan.

Sponge mops are best on an already clean linoleum floor. String mops are better on any floor. The best string mop I've ever used is a Fuller Brush mop that cost $6. I own one myself and am still content with it. I even enjoy not using it. The mop has tough strings made half out of string and half out of sponge. The stringiness is good for getting into cracks and pulling dirt
out of corners while the sponginess is good for the flat, smooth surfaces. And, the handle is a bright, gay color! Mop the floor and remember to wring out the mop completely before the second sweep. It takes a second going over to really pick up the dirt that the first swab loosened. On linoleum or tiled floors, use a liquid cleaner of ammonia in water. Ammonia is equally effective and costs half as much as a liquid cleaner such as Mr. Clean or Top Job. Use Murphy's on wood floors with a second mopping of clear water.

I really dislike acrylic floor waxes. They aren't in any way beneficial to the flooring itself and their use as protection is limited by the amount of wear and difficulty of application. Since they are liquid, they tend to roll with the slope of the floor and build up in some spots as they thin out in others. It is very difficult to remove these built-up spots. One can buy a paste wax for linoleum floors, which is both good for the floor and pleasant to use. The idea of a time-saving cleaning product is usually to skip the essential reasons for using the process and instead rush to a finished but cosmetic look.

Vacuum cleaners are very useful and a powerful model can replace a broom entirely. The vacuum doesn't cause the dirt and hair to fly up in your face. It pulls the dirt out of corners and cracks. It can dust high places for you. Sweep the vacuum across the floor or carpet with long slow strokes that allow suction time enough to pull up more dirt. Vacuum the upholstered furniture and sneeze less. If you do not have a vacuum cleaner and there is a very dusty floor to clean, wet a string mop and quickly run it along the floor so that the dust will become damp and rolled
into balls. Sweep up the balls of dirt and then mop the floor with vigor. Floors are often the last thing to be done because they are at the bottom. When the floor is done the whole room snaps like a photograph into a sprightly shape.

Time is a pothole. Every business occasionally must fall and sprain an ankle. There are more cleaners now because of recessions in other job markets, and for the same reasons there are fewer cleanup jobs. I have to call Barbara every day and ask if any jobs came in until she gives me one. After a week of calling and waiting, there is still no work. I decide to advertise on my own. The likely candidate for my pitch is the
Poetry Project Newsletter
. This is a monthly mimeographed bulletin, which lists events and small-press book and magazine releases. The
Newsletter
goes out to a few hundred people, many of whom are artists and poets. I dream about washing Larry Rivers's studio floor or cleaning out John Ashbery's notebooks. I think the
Newsletter
of the arts could use an abject note. I submit for publication the following: Bob Rosenthal cleans house, cleans anything. Available for hire. The
Newsletter
prints: Poet Bob Rosenthal cleans house, makes everything immaculate.

After a week of circulation, I get my first response. A cheerful, girl's voice says she's going to get married and the party is at a friend's loft. The loft has to be cleaned up before the party and then again the day after the party. The friend's name is Pete Abelman; he lives on Broadway near the Strand Bookstore. However, the bride to be tells me that the loft is above the Strand. I ask her if the loft is as big as the Strand and
she says it is. With trepidation I call Pete up. I throw him for a loop when I ask some roundabout questions concerning the size of his loft. To clear matters up, I tell him about his loft being the size of the Strand. Pete laughs and deflates my conception of his loft to its proper size. I come over on a Saturday to clean the loft for the wedding party that evening.

Walking into a loft as a cleaner expands my mind. I usually feel like a small carp as I swim in to clean the typical New York City goldfish bowl, but here I feel like a dolphin dumped into a large marina. Here is Pete, a freelance journalist with a background in radical magazines. He is slightly balding, in his thirties, divorced, lives with a big white lady dog. Pete is very genial and we sit down to have a cup of instant coffee. I start to feel the inertia that sits around this dirty loft. Everything seems too big, corners and spaces under huge worktables are wholly forgotten about because of their remoteness. Pete isn't too sure what has to be done, so I take charge and tell him that I have a routine and I'll just do it. I get a giant bucket and fill it with hot water, some Mr. Clean, stuff a rag in my pocket, grab a sponge, pick a corner, and start dusting-washing everything I see. Pete is dumbfounded. I feel like a maniac but know that it is the only way to be. The floor is covered thickly with white dog hairs and a warehouse variety of dust. I clean, sweep, vacuum, do the kitchen and washroom. I'm happy everything is turning out so well for a wedding. Pete tells me his ex-wife would love me, cleaning being something that helped break them apart. He says the place has never looked better. High and deserved praise, I think to myself as I pinch a bit of Pete's dope.

I come back the next day to sweep up the plastic cups, gather the paper plates with multicolored stains, shuffle the plastic forks, and dump the ashtrays along with everything else into green plastic garbage bags. I sweep up the floor and sample the leftovers in the refrigerator. I get a nice tip from the newlyweds and Pete takes my number. He calls me up a month later. I start to clean the loft with the same thoroughness as I had for the party but Pete soon stops me. “This is a loft, not an apartment. Little things are unimportant here. Just clean the big areas.” Pete's speech breaks my pace and I gather that he is scared that I'll be there all day. Being thrown out of my pace really slows me down. I can't see what is big or little. I don't know what to do next and I end up walking back and forth pondering what to do. I decide to sneak in my former thoroughness just so I can work fast and easy again.

Soon after my first
Newsletter
job, the phone rings in my second job. Olivia Bee has a repairman in her house and I get the cleanup. She lives a half a block from Needle Park, 72nd and Broadway. I travel up by subway and pop my head into the gray atmosphere of exhaust fumes. The subway exit is on an island. I peer around and spy Papaya King, MacDonald's, and cheap trinket shops. I try to find a donut shop that appears in the movie
Panic in Needle Park
. I saw the movie on TV and paid strict attention to the donut shop scenes because I knew someone who played a hustler ordering some donuts. I find the same shop (same scene) and coffee-up with a donut. Not even a chocolate-covered donut lifts off the oppressive feelings generated in this bloodless area.

I climb up the old staircase, each step sunken with wear, and am beckoned inside by Olivia, a short red-headed woman. She says, “Please, excuse me but I have a private call. Could you wait in here.” She ushers me through a door into a little bedroom and leaves me. There is a sad rumpled single bed with another forlorn bed that stows below it. There is a little dust-covered bookcase. The books are either plays or music scores. The walls are a drab beige and the single window is filthy, almost black. I sit and wait, reading Ionesco. Olivia liberates me and acquaints me with the work. The apartment is filled with old, depressing, and broken furniture. Tables can't be moved because their legs are not fully attached. The space is cramped and the vacuum cleaner doesn't work.