Baller

A quick run-down of my weekend, then a special treat.  On Friday night, a colleague invited me to see our city’s basketball team.  She failed to mention that YMGK (that’s a complicated acronymn for something industrial) is a women’s team.  Not to sound sexist, but it was still a very exciting game!  Both our and the opposing team included as many black people as I’ve ever seen in Russia -- four on each side.  When I inspected the ladies’ jerseys, I noticed they all had American-sounding names.  I’d heard that American basketball players are sometimes lured to Russia by the promise of more rubles than they were making in dollars.  I guess it applies to the WNBA too.  The most surprising thing about the game was something I didn’t even notice at first -- the arena was dry!  In Russia, they don’t sell alcohol at sporting events.  Everything else was the same: big costumed mascots, skimpily-clad cheerleaders, silly halftime games, blaring Queen songs, it just wasn’t fueled by alcohol.  Imagine, in a country where drinking is practically ubiquitous, it was absent from the one place where I considered it integral.  Way to avoid sporting event-induced violence Russia!

Saturday I went to temple and got acquainted with the three new Chabadniks, Mushka, Chaia Mushka, and Batsheva.  They are very sweet girls from Jerusalem and Tzfat.  I brought them a gift, “Easy Russian for Travelers,” not knowing that gift-giving is forbidden on shabbos.  The girls accepted it though, saying they’d consider it a loan until after shabbos.  Whatever lets you sleep at night Chaia Mushka.

Today I went to give a speech at the university’s Open Door Day.  Turns out we also have native German and French speakers.  Who knew?  I didn’t mind doing them this favor, even though I won’t be here next year and they severely cut my hours this semester, but I must say, I was expecting some refreshments.  I mean, in the States, an event like that would have cookies and coffee, right?  After that, I went over to the market to stock up for Wednesday, when some friends are coming in from Petersburg.  Lauren is one of my dearest friends (you may remember her from the European adventure), and she’s coming with two other awesome Fulbrightnitsi, Anna and Liz.  I can’t wait for their visit--guests give me an excuse to shirk my responsibilities and wild- (weil)-out.  When I got home, my kitchen light was burned out.  I replaced the lightbulb, but I guess the problem is more profound than that.  I called my handy-man, but there was no answer.  I should’ve tried some more avenues, but instead I fell asleep, and by the time I woke up, it was too dark for anyone to fix anything.  Good thing I have a big window in the kitchen and a light in the refrigerator!

So, readers, you’ve been promised a treat.  As I’ve mentioned before, I’m teaching creative writing this semester.  The first assignment was to write a memoir, focusing on setting and using all five senses to add detail.  In one of my groups, I had no volunteers to workshop this assignment, so I took the task on myself.  Here, ladies and gentlemen, is my memoir.  Enjoy!

Landlords and Ladies

When we moved into our house, it contained years of other people’s shit.  Yes, yes, we had let our friends store their stuff there over the summer.  But that only went so far to explain the abandoned bikes, medical encyclopedias and suitcases tagged with the names and addresses of students who had dropped out after our freshman year.  Not to mention the inches of grime that decorated every surface in the house, letting us know that none of the former residents were very diligent about cleanliness.  The dirt was so thick, I didn’t realize the sink was white, not gray, until I cleaned it.  But that’s how college houses are--full of other people’s shit.  

So, in those first few August days of our inhabitance, my housemates, Maida, Jessie, Ailey and I did the most thorough cleaning of our young lives.  On our hands and knees, we vacuumed, swept, mopped and scrubbed for hours every day.  In the waning summer days, we hauled box after box of unclaimed crap into the basement that reeked of mildew.  Then, in the evening, we would drag our tired bodies onto the porch, the nicest part of our house.  There, looking out onto the main street in this small town, we had placed the most disgusting couch we’d found in the house.  There we sat, eating the last of the summer’s crop of watermelon, its sweet juices dripping down our still sweaty chins.  There we watched the sun set, alighting the sky with every shade of red and purple, and when it was dark enough, we switched from drinking water to beer.  As it got chillier, the autumn winds reminding us that school would soon be starting, we’d put on sweaters, bring out a stereo and dance until we warmed up.  Those days--college without the classes--were some of the happiest I’ve known.

But there was a villain, because every story needs a villain.  In this case, it was our landlord.  Gary DiMauro was notorious at our college for renting houses to almost everybody who lived off-campus.  Short, balding, rather resembling a Neanderthal, Gary did not own these houses.  He owned a real estate business and was in effect a middle-man with a storefront.  He made his living by charging students rent at an incredible profit, confident that their parents would never question the cost.  He did very little to improve these houses or address the residents’ concerns.  When we told him about the poison ivy growing all around the house, he replied, “Don’t worry, it’ll die at the first frost.”  So why did we rent from him?  Why would anyone?  Because he’d put his name on every property in our quaint little town of Tivoli, and if you wanted to live there, you had to go through him.  It was like getting a hot dog at a baseball game.  Yes, they are ridiculously over-priced, but when you’re in the stadium, you have no other choice.  So my friends and I, like hundreds before and after us, rented from Gary.

After a cold, dark, endless winter, the sun came out again.  We had all survived the school-year, written our senior projects, taken our exams, in a word, graduated.  It was June, and once more warmth filled our humble home.  At the end of the year, the house was undoubtedly in the best condition it had been in years.  Despite our many parties and house-guests, we’d always maintained an impressive level of tidiness.  We’d made many improvements to the house, such as the compost heap we started in the backyard behind the mysterious, covered-up well.  So we were in high spirits about moving out, confident that Gary couldn’t possibly find any damage.  Damage, that is, that could inspire him to deduct money from our $500 deposits.  Our last encounter with him would be a “walk-through,” when he would literally walk through our house and survey it for any problems.

The fated day came, after another bout of manic cleaning.  The house that had once smelled of mildew and grime now had the pleasant odor of chemical lemon and pine.  It glistened with evidence of our labor.  Gary arrived, glanced at Ailey’s packing boxes and said, “Well, obviously, you’re not ready for a walk-through.  Your stuff is still here.  Don’t you know how to move?  You hire a truck and put your things there.”  We were flabbergasted.  Did he honestly expect us to clean the house, move all our things out, then wait around for him to check our work?  He almost walked out, but we convinced him to go ahead with the process.  It was difficult for us, especially big-mouthed me, to contain our criticism and bitter comments.  At one point he said, “Where’s all this hostility coming from all of a sudden?”  Obviously, he didn’t know we’d been cursing his name since the day we moved in.  Another time, he said, “I hope you all have sons of bitches for your next landlords, so you’ll know how good I’ve been.”  Wise, even-keeled Jessie replied to this, “Why would you wish that upon us?”  He may have been decades older, but we were more mature by far.

Despite our hours of cleaning, Gary was not satisfied with the condition of the house.  According to him, when we’d signed the year lease, we’d come into permanent possession of everything the house contained.  That meant that the bikes, the medical encyclopedias, the suitcases, it all belonged to us now, and unless we disposed of it, we would be charged for its eventual removal.  How could this be?  How could he threaten us this way, when all this junk had been there for years?  Hadn’t he given previous residents the same speech, or had we somehow earned his particular wrath?  These questions were moot--the point was we had to get rid of the crap, or we would have to pay.

Ailey and Jessie both had cars, so after Gary left, we began loading them up with garbage.  In shifts, the girls drove to the dump with years of other people’s trash.  As the sun set, we were exhausted.  We prepared to install ourselves on the porch with beers and watermelon like we had all those months ago.  That’s when we spotted them--two human-sized floor lamps standing innocently in the backyard.  Somehow they had escaped our notice, and we’d be damned if we were going to make another trip to the dump.  It was just Jessie and me, staring at those lamps as if in a show-down.  Then it dawned on us--we didn’t have to get rid of them, we just had to put them where no one would ever look.

Slowly, carefully, we lifted the huge stone slab that covered the mysterious well.  The stone was heavy, it took all our combined strength to lift it.  Jessie and I looked into the abyss, and spit down there as a scientific trial.  It was deep, deep and dark.  Slowly, carefully, we lifted the lamps up to the well.  We dropped the first one down, heard it fall but didn’t hear it land.  There wasn’t even a splash.  The well must have been even deeper than we imagined.  Deep enough to hide the mutilated body of, say, a hateful landlord.  We dropped the second one down.  Again we heard the whoosh, loud at first, then growing softer until it disappeared entirely.  For a few moments, the backyard was purely, deathly silent.  Then, suddenly, it was filled with the sound of maniacal laughter, that of two girls who had outsmarted an evil genius.  

We told no one, not even our housemates, who, being environmentalists, might not see the humor in our prank.  It was the perfect crime, and no one would ever know.  Until now.

February 14, 2009