Spitting Off Tall Buildings (6 page)

WINDOW CLEANERS IN New York City are mostly wine drinkers and head cases, the ones that work freelance non-union on the high-up buildings. And fools too. They’re an overlooked demographic and someone should do a study.

I applied for the job cleaning glass with a firm called Red Ball Maintenance. The company held a contract to clean all the windows of all the state office buildings north of Fourteenth Street in Manhattan. They did apartment buildings too. Large buildings.

I got the interview because of Brad O’Sullivan who I had met at the staple-pulling assignment at the TV ad research place on Madison Avenue. Brad lived in my neighborhood in Hell’s Kitchen and it turned out that we were both boxing enthusiasts. Once or twice on Tuesday night, fight night on TV, I’d run into him at Gleason’s Bar on Ninth Avenue. The saloon showed boxing. Braddie’s uncle was Johnny Murphy. A huge guy with a great, protruding belly. Murphy was the shift manager at Red Ball.

When I came in and sat down in his office, Murphy glanced at me from across his desk, scooped up my job application and began reading. He knew already from talking to Brad that I needed the gig, that I’d been out of work for weeks.

He completed reading and looked up. Studied me. My face, my hair, giving me an embarrassing once-over. Then he glanced back down at the top of the application where
my name appeared. It happened to me a lot at job interviews, especially in New York. My name, contradictory appearance and coloring would cause people to do double-takes. Murphy’s aggressive leer made me feel like a lab specimen.

‘Your name’s Dante?’ he asked.

‘Correct, Bruno Dante.’

‘You don’t look like a Dante. You don’t look like no I-talian.’

He was right. But he was being too pushy with his authority. He twisted his gelatinous neck around the side of the desk to see the rest of me. Because of my shortness my legs barely touched the floor when I sat upright in the chair. Murphy noted this and grunted. I watched his big lips curve downward and form a sneer. Hating him instantly was no problem.

‘My mother’s people are English-German,’ I said. ‘I get my light coloring from her side.’

You’re not from New York either, are ya?’

‘Los Angeles.’

Another sneer. ‘Oh, Hollywood?’

‘I was brought up in L.A.’

‘Everybody in the city would give their dick to get to the sunshine. And you go the other way?’

I didn’t answer.

‘Okay,’ he said. ‘I talked to Braddie. Braddie says you’re okay, that you’ll give me a day’s work. It so happens I may have an opening.’

‘I appreciate Brad’s recommendation.’

‘A lot of men apply here, Hollywood.’

‘Anyway, I’m appreciative.’

‘You are, huh?’

‘Correct.’

‘Ever do glass before, Hollywood? High-up work? Forty, fifty, sixty floors up?’

‘No. But it’ll be okay.’

‘Did Braddie tell you about how it gets when you’re up there?’

‘We didn’t discuss how it gets. What Brad told me was what you just said; that some of your buildings are over fifty floors. He mentioned that he worked for you for a while.’

‘Yeah, for about fifteen fuckin’ minutes. Braddie ain’t cut out for this deal. Did he tell you about cleaning the outside glass?’

‘You mean about using the belt to hook on? I know about that. We talked about that. I’ve seen it done.’

‘You scared?’

‘Scared? No. I need the work.’

‘I start my new guys off on the state contracts. Smaller jobs. Smaller buildings.’

‘Heights don’t bother me.’

The fat fingers of Murphy’s hands came around from the top of the desk and knitted themselves behind his neck causing his gut to thrust toward me like a charging sandbag. ‘Not yet, Hollywood,’ he cackled. ‘You ain’t eighty floors up in five degrees temperature with the wind up your ass yet, either. I pay good. I bet he told you that, didn’t he?’

‘Right. That’s what peaked my interest.’

Murphy was a true asshole. ‘Peaked…your interest? Peaked?’

‘Is there something wrong with wanting to make money?’

‘I pay by the pane; inside and out, up and down. A full window. Three bucks a pane. Sometimes we get more depending on the size of the windows. Four bucks, sometimes more.’

My mouth now said something stupid. I regretted the words immediately and wanted them back. ‘So we earn by the pane. That’s how most people learn, isn’t it?’

The fat man’s instincts were prehistoric. What amused him
most was another human’s discomfort. ‘How tall are you,’ he sniggered. ‘Five-four, five-five?’

‘Approximately.’

‘What does that mean? Approximately. Then approximately how much do you weigh? Approximately?’

‘One fifty.’

‘Approximately?’

‘One fifty…How much do you weigh?’

Suddenly two massive, moist fists were clasping my wrists, effortlessly flipping my arms face up. I struggled for a second but realized I was pinned. ‘Let’s see your hands,’ he snarled.

After inspecting my palms, seeing no calluses, Murphy sneered again. ‘Small hands! This is a hard job, Hollywood. You gotta bust your ass here. We ain’t chauffeuring people in an airport van…or seating guests in the loge…This ain’t a fucking clerical employment opportunity.’

I freed myself and yanked my arms back against my body. ‘Am I hired or not?’

‘My new guys top out at thirty to forty panes a day. That comes out to roughly a hundred bucks, your end. Take home.’

‘I’m ready.’

He glanced back down at my application. ‘Yeah, well, I ain’t there yet…Tell me something; what’s the “S” stand for? The “S” here in your name on the paperwork? Bruno S. Dante?’

‘Just “S.”’

‘“S” what? A letter in someone’s name stands for something. What’s the “S” mean?’

I completely despised this prick. ‘The “S” stands for Smart.’

A new sneer. Murphy crossed his arms and rocked back in his boss’s chair, his fat body oozing over the arms, his bulk popping out between the slats on the sides. ‘What’s a Smart?’

‘My grandfather’s name was Smart. It’s an English name. Look…’

‘Smart?’

I got up. I had had enough.

‘We’re not done. Sit down.’

‘I’m done. I don’t need this shit.’

‘You got the job, Dante. Sit down.’

I sat down.

Murphy picked up a red-leaded pencil and made a check mark at the top of my form. Then he swiveled his chair around to face the wall and began passing me different items; a pail, a brass squeegee with extra blades, several sponges, a pole for the squeegee, a heavy-smelling can of soap concentrate, a thick window cleaner’s leather belt with straps fastened to the sides. Rags.

After each item was passed he made a check on a box on his form.

Then we were done.

‘Be in front of the building at four forty-five tomorrow morning. You’re working the early shift. See Ben Flash.’

‘Ben Flash.’

‘The first time your count goes under thirty panes a day, Dante, or you miss a day without calling in, you’re fired. I pay on Fridays. Every other Friday.’

Our eyes locked. He was smiling now. His best fuck-you smile. ‘Have a nice day, Hollywood,’ he said.

I was by the door with the equipment and the pail hooked in the vee of my arm. I smiled too. ‘Okay, Bronx,’ I hissed. ‘Over and out.’

I WAS A few minutes late the first morning because of the trains. And it was freezing waiting underground on the platform. The Times Square Shuttle only runs every half-hour at 4 a.m., which I hadn’t expected. Then, after I took the shuttle, I transferred to the uptown IRT Lexington Avenue Express which took more time.

As I came up the stairs of the Eighty-sixth Street station, I saw a tall guy that I assumed was Ben Flash leaving the ticket booth on the southbound side. He saw my cleaning bucket and harness at the same time I saw his.

‘Hey,’ his words cracked the frozen air, ‘you the new guy?’

‘Yeah, Bruno…You Ben Flash?’

‘Ya late, Bruno. Let’s go. Let’s hit it.’

I climbed the rest of the stairs then crossed over to the southbound side.

We waited together for the downtown local.

Flash wasn’t much for small conversation. He sipped from a coffee container and nervously kept his eyes on the subway tunnel to see if he could make out the head beam of the next train. Finally he turned to me. ‘Ya new at windows, right?’

‘Right.’

There was silence for another couple of minutes. Then, ‘Meet Johnny Murphy?’ The words startled me and stabbed through the cold expanse of the platform.

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Yesterday. He interviewed me. He’s the one that hired me.’

Flash considered my reply. After another long interval he spat down at the tracks then clenched his jaw. ‘Pisser, ain’t he?’

I didn’t answer right away. I wasn’t going to say something about fat Murphy and have it get back to him and cost me the gig. So I just said, ‘Yeah. A pisser.’

Our train came.

It wasn’t yet morning rush hour. Flash opened his
Daily News
and began reading. He didn’t speak for the rest of the ride downtown. I was left to stare at the faces in the subway. Faces that clashed against the orange hard plastic seats. Old people. Homeless. A transit cop. Night faces.

I’d only slept an hour or two so I closed my eyes too. My brain was resting, pleased to be earning money again.

When we arrived at our stop Flash stood up and shook me awake. When he got off I got off too.

We followed the length of the dark underground platform along the block to the Twenty-fourth Street exit. He was staying below street level to avoid exposing us to the icy sidewalk and the biting air outside.

Once up the steps and on the street, steam funneling from our faces as we shuffled along, Flash talked again. He didn’t like talking but he did it as he appeared to do other necessary things: thoughtfully, with effort.

He went into what for him was a complicated deal, an explanation about his last partner. The guy had left the job to run an errand during lunch one day and never come back. When Flash got to the part about his not coming back he half surprised me by suddenly halting on the sidewalk, raising his palms and rolling his eyes, as if to say, ‘I couldn’t believe it.’

Then we walked on. Flash wanted to say more words
about why the guy had left, perhaps advance a theory, but his syllables began mixing with the steam coming from his mouth, then stopped, cautious to interrupt the stillness of the early-morning air.

New York State’s deal with Red Ball was that no disbursement would be authorized until the whole job was complete. Flash and the last guy, Lawrence (he pronounced the name Low-rinse), had spent three days on the building but, before they’d finished up doing all the glass on the administration floor, Lawrence had done his disappearing thing. Now, in order to receive the eight hundred dollars that the company had technically already earned, to get paid, Flash had to complete the admin windows.

It was still half an hour before dawn. Ben Flash tapped with his keys on the building’s glass entrance door until the night security guy, who knew him, heard us and let us in. We took the service elevator to twelve.

We got off and I followed Flash down the hall to a door labeled ‘Maintenance.’ Inside, the room had a deep sink and mops and a shelf of tools and two or three aluminum ladders and more cleaning equipment and overalls for the other service people working in the building.

Whatever Flash did he did in ponderous slow motion, as if he were an imbecile who’d rehearsed himself again and again to avoid error. He turned on the hot tap full blast, then stood for a long time staring hypnotized at the running water. Then, with his pail in the sink, he measured out and poured in what looked like way too much ammonia and stinky cleaning solvent.

As the bucket was filling he explained about the proportions. Using this strength mixture, he said, the solution would take longer to freeze when we began doing the outside glass. I was instructed on the best way to tighten a cap on a plastic bottle,
the way to wipe the excess ammonia off the container, what rag to use. On no account should I ever fill past the third mark from the top on the bucket.

When he’d completed his, my bucket was next. We repeated what we’d just gone through, including the stuff about the plastic caps and the ammonia bottle. I knew the lesson was important because Flash had used up at least a hundred words.

Finally, we rolled our buckets single file over to the exterior access window where we would begin work. Flash stared at the window for a while, then looked at me, then back at the window. I was beginning to be able to read him. I could feel when he was preparing to speak. ‘Your job,’ he said, ‘for the first hour is to watch me and pick up what I do. Okay?’

I nodded. ‘Okay. Sure,’ I said.

He climbed out the window onto the ledge. It was an older building and the windows were tall and sealed. Each pane was five feet by three feet, one on top of the other.

Window washing was where Flash became an artist. An acrobat.

First, to get to where he’d left off, he had to work himself a quarter of the way around the outside of the building in the frozen air. He glided from window to window with the bucket hanging from the crook of his arm. Like a gymnast he hooked his belt onto the thick spiked nipples protruding from the sides of each window frame and bounced effortlessly along the ledge.

In less than a minute he’d vaulted his way to his leave-off spot. Then he clamped on and pushed backward as far as possible to take the slack out of his harness. His body was almost at a right angle to the building. A spider on a wall.

Then he began cleaning, swaying, like the sax player in the old Johnny Otis Blues Band, washing two sets of the
up-and-down panes at a time. For the top sections he used a six-foot wooden extension.

He’d squeegee the glass on the left, then unhook and flip himself to the next frame while the panes were still wet, bouncing out and clamping on in one fluid motion. Window ballet.

He did the next two panes and the next two after that until he had to hop back around the building because the cleaning solution in his pail was dirty.

Arriving back at the access window he motioned and I handed him out the second bucket, my bucket, and watched him bound his way back and start cleaning again. In less than an hour all the exterior panes on the twelfth floor were clean.

By six o’clock I was on my own.

Watching Flash do so many sets of glass had taken away my nervousness about falling. He’d told me the secret. It was simple: never look down and keep at least one strap hooked on at all times.

I filled my bucket and started on the eleventh floor. Flash filled his and went down to ten.

Right away I realized that window washing was a tall man’s deal. I was inept by any comparison. Bumbling.

I knew that I would never be able to match my partner’s level of competence but, until I was outside on the sheer, frozen concrete landscape by myself, I hadn’t fully grasped what I’d be up against.

Flash was an aerialist, he’d bounded along easily on the ledge. Not me. My runty, short legs would scarcely stretch the distance between window frames. To compensate, instead of swinging out I had to push off the ledge I was on, grope and grab for the top of the next window with my fingers, dangle
momentarily by one strap, then flip myself and the bucket on my arm to the next sill in one lunge.

For a while in the beginning I told myself that I was doing okay because what was motivating me was tallying up another three bucks in my mind after completing the outside of each set of the up-and-down panes.

But there was another awareness. Fat Johnny Murphy had warned me; the real problem was the cold. My right hand was constantly numb. As I’d be swabbing a pane with my sponge extension, the cleaning solution would flow down along my pole and soak the sleeve of my jacket. I was wearing heavy rubber gloves but the liquid ran past them. As a consequence, when I’d put the hand down the other way to re-dip the sponge into the bucket, the freezing chemical goop would drip inside my glove and numb my fingers. I tried switching hands but the problem just duplicated itself.

The result was that it took me three or four times as long as Flash to do a set of panes. And moving from window frame to window frame became even slower going too because of having to contend with the unsureness of my numb fingers. An hour into my first assignment I was frozen stiff and exhausted. I was unsuitable for the occupation. I hated the deal.

Each time I made my way back inside from the ledge to change my cleaning solution in the maintenance closet sink, I’d have to thaw my hands under the tap, gradually increasing the water temperature until the sensation in my fingers returned.

It was just after eight o’clock. I’d completed about half the outside windows when I decided it was time for a break - an interlude to settle whether I should go on working or walk off and leave the fucking job.

After I thawed out at the sink, I walked the inside perimeter of the floor, examining my glass. It seemed to me that the windows I’d done were no improvement over the unwashed
panes. Murky serpentine vertical squiggle blotches divided the clean sections on each of my panes. I felt disgusted. Beaten. A complete, dickless, abysmal failure.

I couldn’t make up my mind what to do so I decided to walk around. I made my way down the hall until I came to a door labeled ‘Employee Room.’ Inside, I found a table and sat down after helping myself to a cup of coffee and a free donut. The donut was the last one in the box - a gay, preposterous-looking multi-sprinkled reject. Perfect for me.

I had lighted a cigarette and begun reading the discarded Employment section of the
Times
when a squench-face-looking female state employee, stopping at the coffee urn, tapped me on the shoulder to point out the ‘No Smoking’ sign on the wall.

I drank down the last of my coffee then made the decision to go back out by the elevator, smoke some more, and finish the want-ads.

The admin floor I was on seemed to be the hub of the building’s activity. People getting off the elevator and getting on, going into the office, reporting or punching-in or whatever government workers did, then coming back out and taking the elevator down.

I sat on my window sill observing the activity through the glass door of the office, watching and smoking, forming dislikes and opinions about the faces that entered and came out. One woman going in looked a lot like Vanessa del Reo, the old porno star. I remembered the movie where Vanessa gave a blow job to a three-foot-tall midget.

The next person leaving the admin department was a heavy-set black lady wearing a business dress and carrying a briefcase. Important-looking. Definitely a supervisor or manager of one of the battalions of laborers.

She was getting into her furry winter coat, pressing the
‘Down’ elevator button. When she saw me sitting on the sill wearing my harness with my bucket at my feet, she smiled, then made small talk to avoid the awkwardness. ‘Cold this morning,’ she said, ‘isn’t it? Out there…outside.’

I nodded. ‘Anti God.’

‘What time do you fellows start?’

‘Before dawn. Arctic Circle Standard Time.’

She was big, standing at least six feet in her heels, with even teeth and a friendly way about her. ‘So,’ she went on, noticing the crushed-out cigarette butts by my feet, ‘by now your day must be about half over.’

‘I need an opinion,’ I said, half surprised at myself for speaking the words. ‘Will you answer a question for me?’

She folded her arms then smiled again. ‘An opinion? That depends, doesn’t it?’

‘Not expert analysis. Just your point of view. About windows.’

The smile was still there. ‘Building maintenance isn’t my field.’

‘This’ll only take thirty seconds. Okay?’

The big lady chuckled then looked up at the number displays above the three elevator doors. None were within four or five floors of the eleven numeral. ‘Okay,’ she said, ‘Thirty seconds. What do we do?’

I pointed down the hall at the last set of upper and lower panes I’d cleaned. ‘Those windows over there. The ones in the corner, I’d like you to walk over to them and tell me what you think.’

‘What I think?’

‘If they’re clean.’

She studied my expression. ‘Okay,’ she said, then walked the fifteen feet to the set of glass. I followed.

‘Now what,’ she asked, after quickly checking the two.

‘Clean?’ I asked.

‘They look okay. I’d say…satisfactory.’

‘Yeah but, what about the streaks? Don’t you see streaks?’

She examined more closely until she seemed to make out the dark snaky blotches that, in my opinion, disfigured each pane. ‘You’ve cleaned these? Correct?’ she asked.

‘Twenty minutes ago.’

Her smile was back. ‘Soo…how long have you been doing windows?’

‘My first day.’

‘Well, to be honest…’

‘You’re right,’ I said. ‘Screw it! The hell with it!’ I began unhitching my belt.

‘You’re quitting?’

‘Thanks for helping me to decide.’

Just then an elevator car arrived, clunking to a stop. The big lady hurried over, picked up her briefcase, then looked back. ‘I have to go.’

I watched the doors close. She smiled goodbye, shaking her head from side to side. I smiled back.

Less than a minute later, an ‘Up’ car arrived. I was back sitting on the sill. Smoking. A group of employees got out and headed toward the glass office doors. Flash was behind them.