Somewhere in this building is a guy who looks a lot like me. I saw him the other day leaving the kitchen. I came in through the one door, and he climbed into the dumbwaiter and raised himself up to some other level. He winked at me right before he went up.
He left food behind—an omelet with mushrooms and green peppers and cheese, all ingredients which I normally hate, but I ate the omelet anyway because it was there and because I can’t cook. It was delicious. Recently I’ve been having trouble eating.
I’m in the kitchen now. The alarm screeches, and I have to stop thinking about the man and get to the intercom. The alarm either means that I can take a break to eat, or that my boss needs to give me an order through the radio. Now it’s early afternoon, so it has to be my boss. I make my way to the communications room.
“They’ve decided to switch the ballroom and the kitchen,” his voice crackles through the old speaker. “We need you to take all the furniture from the ballroom and move it to the kitchen, and get all the stoves and refrigerators and whatever the fuck other shit is down there, and get that all upstairs to where the ballroom is now.”
“Do you want me to rewire the ballroom so that the kitchen appliances work up there? Like I assume that the stove needs a gas line. And the kitchen we have now, the one in the basement, its freezer is a walk in one. It’s like a full room. It can’t be moved. And I’d think that freezer would damage anything we tried to store in there.”
“Just get it done,” he says. There’s a click that means he’s ended the conversation. I make my way back to the kitchen.
The tools I have are limited. “Get in the car right now,” my boss had said. “Get here as soon as possible.” So I grabbed the toolbox I had lying around. I have a drill, some screwdrivers, a hammer, and a wrench. I’m trying to figure out how to disconnect the gigantic refrigerator with the wrench. It’s bolted to the floor and the wall. The wrench will work on the bolts, but on either side of each bolt is a thin brass rod. I can turn a bolt maybe a sixteenth of a turn and then the wrench hits the rod.
I’ve gotten one of the bolts about halfway out when I notice I’ve bent the rod next to it, and I hope that wasn’t important. I’m trying to decide if it’s worth it to empty out the refrigerator, and then the alarm rings.
The kitchen is in the basement, and the communications room is in the top corner of the building. That’s the third floor, on the west wing. I’m on the east wing. I run because a few days ago my boss told me that his boss told him that people are commenting on how long it takes me to respond when they buzz me.
“How’s that ballroom coming?” my boss asks.
“I’m on the kitchen right now. I figure we need to get these big appliances out before we start—”
“We need you to set up the ballroom first,” he says.
“Okay, but—”
“Because we need to have that room for when the guests arrive, but we can spend all day getting the appliances and shit out of the kitchen or wherever.”
“But you want the ballroom things to go in the kitchen right? You want the kitchen to be the new ballroom.”
“Sounds like you’re finally on the same fucking page.”
“So then don’t the two things have to happen at the same time? You want me to set up the ballroom in the kitchen, and then take everything out of the kitchen?”
“Just make it work.”
I start bringing chairs down from the ballroom. The ballroom is on the third floor. I can take chairs faster one at a time, or go slower but take two at a time. I take two at a time. On the fifth trip down I time myself. It takes three and a half minutes to get from the ballroom to the kitchen carrying two chairs. There are four hundred twenty five chairs in the ballroom.
I start trying again to get the refrigerator unbolted from the wall and floor, because if I bring any more chairs down they will be blocking the door to the kitchen. It takes sixty six partial turns to get one bolt out. There are thirteen bolts.
The buzzer goes again, and I drop the wrench and run out the door, tripping over a chair on the way.
“Hello?” my boss says when I respond over the intercom.
“You buzzed me?”
“Oh. That was for your food and water break. Which is half over, by now.”
“Hey, do we have a dolly or something for moving those big appliances?”
There’s a pause long enough for me to think the connection’s gone down, but then he says “Let me call you back about that.”
Twenty minutes pass and I head back down to the kitchen and finish unbolting the fridge. If I pull on it hard, really strain myself, I can drag it across the floor. I start doing that, and I’m about a quarter of the way to the door when I hear voices outside.
It’s the owner, and a young guy in a suit. The owner is showing him around.
“And this is our ballroom,” the owner is saying as they come through the door. A look of dismay crosses his face.
“Oh. I guess they’re still working on moving things around. But anyway, this space will be our ballroom. And... oh...” Now he’s looking at the floor near the fridge. I notice that the fridge has left big white scrape marks on the cement. The owner rubs his foot over the scuffs.
“Oh yeah... these are really damaged. Okay, well...” He turns to the guy in the suit. “This fridge has antique brass coolant rods. Originals.” The guy in the suit raises his eyebrows and nods. The owner rubs his hand through his hair.
“Wow. Okay, well, let’s get on the phone with the company and see what they can do about this. And you,” he pats me on the back, “you just sit tight, okay?” He speaks slowly and loudly, like I don’t speak English.
He turns to the other guy and leads him out of the kitchen. I can hear him saying “Don’t worry, we’ll get that straightened out in time for the event. I’ve just gotta’ call the company and talk some gosh darn sense into them.” I can hear them going through the great hall, and then the front door slams.
There’s not much I can do now except wait for them to call and yell at me, maybe fire me. They only trust me enough to give me one task at a time, so I never know what comes next.
“There’s a better way to do that, you know,” says a voice. I turn and see it’s the guy from the dumbwaiter. He’s eating something that smells great.
“Mango goat cheese tamale?” he offers. I suddenly realize I’m starving because I waited for a dolly through food and water time. Of course the tamale is delicious.
“Do you have paint?” he asks me when I’m done eating. I nod.
“What you have to do is paint the kitchen the color of the ballroom, and paint the ballroom the color of the kitchen.”
I wait for more, but that’s all he says.
“That’s it?”
“They’ll never know the difference.”
“Man, if they come in and find me painting rooms when I’m supposed to be moving furniture, they’ll fire me,” I say.
“It’ll be easy. Look, I’ll help you out. I’ll do the kitchen while you do the ballroom. It’ll cut the time in half. It’s better than standing around.”
“Okay, whatever,” I say. “Let’s do it.”
The kitchen is yellow and the ballroom is red. The ballroom is massive but at least I can see my progress. I make big sweeping strokes across the walls. I put a lot of paint on the roller. It’s therapeutic to lay down a big fat yellow line over the dark red walls. In a little bit I’m halfway through. In a little bit more I’m done.
I head to the kitchen to see how the other guy is doing.
He’s just finishing up the last red corner. “Wait,” I say. “I must have messed up. I thought I was supposed to paint the ballroom and you were supposed to paint the kitchen.” I surveyed the huge carpeted red room, full of chairs, complete with bandstand, and bouquets on each table.
“Exactly,” he said.
“But this is... this furniture. This is the ballroom.”
“I told you it would work. Now the ballroom and kitchen are switched.”
It must be the paint fumes.
“I don’t... where’s the fridge. Where’s...”
“Upstairs.”
“Did you move it?”
He sighs, exasperated. “We switched the walls of the kitchen and the ballroom. Doesn’t it make sense that the ceiling and the floor and the stuff on the floor would switch too?”
“But... that... why would that work?”
“Why wouldn’t that work? What else would happen?” he asks, genuinely.
“Do you work here?”
“What do you mean by work?” the guy says.
“I don’t even know your name. I’m Jeff.”
“Geoff,” he says. He pronounces it Joff.
“Ha – what a coincidence!”
Geoff looks at his watch. “Ooh, sorry – I’ve gotta run.” He jogs over to the dumbwaiter and climbs in. “See you around.” And before I can say anything else, he’s gone up to some other floor.
The alarm buzzes. I run out of the ballroom, and down the hall, and then realize I’m going the wrong way because the ballroom is in the basement now, and not on the same floor as the communications room.
“Jesus Christ, you’ve gotta’ get that response time down,” says my boss.
“Sorry, I was carrying somethi—”
“You’re killing me today! My boss just got off the phone with the owner, and the owner is not happy. He says there’s a fucking gash in the floor, and that some fucking... antique brass coolant rods on a vintage industrial refrigerator are damaged.”
“I was trying to–
“He. Is. Pissed! What the fuck are you doing over there? Did you at least get the ballroom set up?”
“Yeah. I just finished that.”
“Okay, well, you need to get your act together and fucking figure out how to fix that floor and those rods. We need this shit done now.”
“Do you have anything I could—”
“Figure it the fuck out!” he says, and there’s a click. Then before I’m out of the room the alarm buzzes again.
“Yeah?” I say.
“Stay all night if you have to.”
I stare at the gouged floor for a long time. I’ve never worked with concrete, or with antique brass coolant rods. I can’t decide which one to start on.
I rub the scrape marks with a damp cloth for a long time. It looks like it’s doing something, but as soon as I let it dry the scrapes look just as bad. It’s very late at night, or very early in the morning.
My apartment is an hour drive from here. Tonight I’ll stay here, and sleep in my car, if I ever get this figured out. This job pays the rent.
The controller for the dumbwaiter is a big black box dangling from the ceiling. It has an up button and a down button. I press the up button and nothing happens. I close the wooden door. I press the up button again and it works now, and I go to the third floor. Geoff’s not there. I go down to the second, the first, the basement. When I get to the basement, I keep holding the down button, and the dumbwaiter keeps going down. Apparently this building has sub-basements.
I open the door and find a library. It’s bigger than the ballroom. They never told me about this part of the building.
I find Geoff in the stacks, in one of the ballroom chairs, reading a book. He’s sitting upside down in the chair, so his back is on the seat and his legs are draped over the top.
“Hey, uh, what are you up to?” I ask.
“I have to read this book,” he says.
“Do you think you could give me a hand for a minute?”
“I really have to read this.”
“It’ll just take a second. I need your advice on something.”
He lets out a long sigh and puts the book down. “I’ll see what I can do.”
When we get to the kitchen he only looks at the floor for a second. Then he says, “I don’t know. I guess what I would do is drag the refrigerator all over, so the whole floor looks like this. Then these scrapes won’t stand out.”
“But the owner saw them already. He knows how the floor is supposed to look.”
“Well tell your boss the owner is lying,” he says.
It doesn’t make a lot of sense, but neither did the paint thing. He agrees to help me move the fridge, so it will go faster.
“Lift with your knees!” I say. He’s trying to pull the fridge towards him, and it’s tipping over. It’s taking all my strength to keep it from falling.
“What?”
“Lift it. With your knees.”
“How?”
“How? Just ... use your knees. Bend them.”
“I’m gonna drop it, okay?”
“No, wai—”
He lets go, and the fridge smashes to the ground. The door flies open and food and broken glass spill out everywhere.
“Ooh. That sucks,” he says.
“Yeah. Okay, take this side and let’s get this back up.”
“Listen man, I’ve really gotta get back to that reading.”
“Just help me get this up first?”
He’s in the dumbwaiter already. “Sorry—I’ve really gotta get back.” He pushes the button and leaves.
My back almost gives out and I hear something pop, but I manage to get the fridge standing again. Now there’s a huge crack in the cement floor. I start mopping up the ketchup and mayonnaise and pickle juice.
I sleep in my car, and as soon as I think he’s probably awake, I call my boss on the intercom.
“You’re there awfully early,” he says.
“Yeah, well, I’m trying to figure out this floor, and—”
“Good for you. I remember when I was in your position. You know I started out just the same way? These exact kind of jobs. This is the fucking business, you know?”
“Yeah. So anyway, I’m having a problem with this floor. I think it’s outside my area of expertise. You might want to bring in someone else for this part.”
“Okay. Not a problem. Don’t worry about it – here’s what we’re gonna do. You take a look at it. See what you think it’s gonna cost to repair. Then type up an invoice and send it to me. We’ll get this all taken care of.”
“Wait—an invoice? For me, or for a company, or—”
“Yeah, exactly. An invoice for how much it will cost to fix the floor.”
“Okay, but—”
“And then just fax it on over.”
Click.
I stare at the floor some more. A hundred dollars? A thousand dollars? I don’t even know where there’s paper I can write on, let alone a fax machine. And the kitchen smells now from all the condiments that seeped into the cracks.
I hear the owner’s voice approaching the kitchen door. “And this is our state of the art kitchen!” The doors swing open as he backs through them. He’s leading a group of three men and four women, all wearing pale pink suits. He sniffs the air, and then looks at me.
“Smells like our employee here has used it already to fix himself some lunch!” he laughs to the pink suit people. One of them says something quietly to him and points at the floor.
“Yes, oh yes,” the owner says. “We’re getting that fixed soon, and... oh...” now he sees the much bigger crack left by the falling fridge. “Oh. This one looks new!” He looks at me but he says it to them. “Well, not to worry. While we’re fixing one we can fix the other. I’ll just let the company know about this new one.” He hurries the pink suit people out of the room.
Five minutes later that alarm goes off. It reminds me I haven’t eaten anything since yesterday afternoon, but I as soon as I detect my appetite I lose it because I have to run to the communications room.
“I thought we agreed you were going to do something about the fucking floor!” my boss says. “You know how much shit I’m getting for this? The owner just called us in hysterics. Can you handle this job or not?”
“I thought I was supposed to write an invoice and we’d bring in an outside contractor.”
“An outside contractor! We’re over budget as is. If you want to write up an invoice, write up one for us, and then send it to yourself, so you can pay for this shit out of your own goddamned salary! You’re fucking killing me with this shit,” he says, and clicks off.
“If what you need is a new floor, that’s an easy fix.” Geoff’s voice comes out of nowhere and startles me. He’s sitting under a table.
“Have you been there the whole time?”
“There’s a bunch of extra floors in the basement,” he says.
“Hey thanks a lot for last night. You really screwed me over, you know?”
“If you want I can take you right now to get another floor. I’ve got a free minute.”
“Great, a free minute. What the hell are you talking about?”
“Do you want to come now or not?”
We squeeze together into the dumbwaiter. He takes the control and flips open a tiny panel below the up and down buttons. In the panel is a little pad with buttons for the numbers one through nine.
“I don’t think Six is being used for anything,” he says. He pushes six and the dumbwaiter goes down.
We emerge into a big empty room with a concrete floor like the one in the kitchen.
“Will this work?” the guy says.
“Yeah, I guess. But how—”
“Get back in.”
I climb back in the dumbwaiter. He holds down the six button, and then presses up. We rise back up to the kitchen level.
He slides open the wooden door and there’s a shiny unblemished floor in the kitchen now.
“So that just works that way here?” I ask.
“What do you mean here?”
“How come we didn’t just do that last night?”
“I didn’t realize you needed a new floor. I thought you just wanted something done about those scratches.”
I ponder that for a minute, but then move on to the next issue. “Hey, while I’ve got you, do you have any ideas about these antique brass coolant rods?”
He takes a look.
“If I were you, I’d just take them all off and throw them away.”
“Throw them away?”
“Or hide them at least.”
“And what, then they magically grow back or something?”
“What? No. But when someone looks at the back of the fridge, they won’t see any damaged coolant rods.” He opens the fridge and pulls out a jar of garlic-stuffed olives. He takes one out, carefully removes the garlic and eats it, and drops the olive back in the jar.
“Hey, so what’s your deal?” I ask. “You don’t work for the company, do you?”
“I’m freelance.”
“Do you have any need for a partner?” I ask. I laugh so he can take it as a joke, but I leave room for him to take it seriously.
He doesn’t laugh. He looks like he’s thinking very hard. “You mean you?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, I’ll be honest, you’ve got a lot to learn. But you seem to know about lifting things and using intercoms. Practical stuff.” He eats another piece of garlic. He paces the room.
“Let me think about it. But tentatively, I’ll say yes, I think I could use someone like you.”
Just then the alarm rings. “I have to get that,” I say. But Geoff is already gone.
My boss says, “Listen, the owner decided he doesn’t want the kitchen on the third floor. So switch the rooms back.”
“Yeah. For now. How’s that floor coming.”
“The floor is fixed. Nothing to worry about.”
“And how about those coolant rods.”
“What coolant rods?”
“The owner said something about broken antique brass coolant rods.”
“He’s lying.”
“Huh. Okay. Good catch. Cocksucker’s trying to furnish his antique collection on our dollar? I don’t think so. Good fucking catch. So you get started on switching those rooms. And take a break when you’re done.” He clicks off.
I stand at the intercom for one minute. Then I call him back.
“Hello?”
“Hey – I just wanted to let you know, something else came up. Another offer. Fell into my lap. So I guess, consider this my two weeks notice,” I say.
There’s silence on the other end, and then I can hear my boss telling his boss. There’s an angry, muffled discussion. Then he comes back on.
“Okay,” he says. “Bye.” Click.
I go looking for Geoff to see if he has a minute to help me paint the rooms, but I can’t find him. I check the library and he’s not there. So I go back up and do it myself. It takes twice as long.
When the rooms are switched again I return to the kitchen. I’m starving. There’s nothing left in the fridge except olives that once were stuffed with garlic. I start eating.
“I was going to make some spinach ravioli with walnut pesto in a minute,” says Geoff when I close the refrigerator. “If you want to switch from olives.”
Geoff steps out of the dumbwaiter. He has a paper grocery bag, and he sets it on the table. He removes a basil plant, some flour, a plastic container of walnuts, a block of parmesan cheese.
“So listen, Geoff. It looks like I’m off this project pretty soon. I don’t know if you still need any help...”
“Yeah man. Welcome aboard!” He starts chopping basil.
“So... what needs to be done?”
“Right now I need to make this pasta.”
“And then?”
“I never know until right before. But you’ll be the first person I update, once I know.”
“Okay,” I say. “So do you know the owner?”
“I’ve seen him around, but I’ve never talked to him.”
“So... does someone pay you to work here?”
“Pay me?”
“Yeah,” I say. “Or do you live here?”
Geoff cracks some eggs and starts mixing them into a pile of flour he’s made. Then he looks in the bag.
“Damn! I forgot olive oil,” he says, looking into the bag. “Hmmm. Well, I guess we’re having baked basil walnut sandwiches instead.” He takes out a gallon of milk and starts pouring it over the pile of flour and egg. It’s a mess.
“Do you want a bowl to mix that in?” I offer.
“See – that’s the kind of practical advice I hoped I’d get from you!” I go to the other room to get a bowl. “We’ll see if these things are worth eating,” Geoff calls to me.
“If all else fails, you could probably make some money as a chef,” I laugh.
“What’s money?”
BB
