The Calamity Convergence

It was six am on a Sunday morning when the doorbell ripped me from sleep. I fell out of bed, zombie-walked to my door, and came face to face with the wheezing custodian.

“Miss, I'm afraid the builders renovating our cellars have busted a water pipe and when they tried to repair it, they, um-” He wiped the sweat of his face with a sigh. “They caused a small gas leak. I must ask you to stay in your flat and inform you that as of this moment you have no access to water.” He ended bending over, propping himself up on his knees in exhaustion. And all my sleep-addled brain could come up with at this much calamity before sunrise was: “...good morning?”

He spluttered, face turning red when he noticed my kimono and bare feet. “Oh no... did I wake you?”

“...yes?”

He let out an uncomfortably faked laugh. “Oh...well, off to bed you go, nothing to worry about, Miss! We'll fix it straight away!”

And with that he jumped down our wet hallway with remarkable zeal. I blinked after him while my brain started to register the cacophony of drilling, water torrents, and bilingual cussing in Arabic and German. The door opposite of mine opened and my neighbor Rahim peaked out. I had only ever seen him in Berlin business-casual, so I was stunned by his robe; it looked like one of those old smoking jackets in the movies, even better in color - blue silk with a golden shawl collar.

“Hey Joanie...what's happening?” He blinked owlishly. “Was that your doorbell or mine? Are you okay?”

I nodded and informed him of the various catastrophes in our house. Rahim's grogginess disappeared at once as he looked down in worry. To soften the blow, I screamed over the louder getting drills: “Nice look by the way!”

He looked down on himself and hastily hugged his arms around the extravagant piece of clothing. “Oh, yeah, that, um- I bought that at a theater auction in Egypt. I just thought, well it's really cozy and it would have been a shame- “

“Its alright man, I meant it. I mean, look at this.” I made a show of trailing my hand down my turquoise kimono and Rahim blinked as if he had a sudden realization.

“Wait - is it cultural appropriation when we wear these?”

I laughed, then gauged the seriousness on his face and laughed even more. The man was a true jitterbug. “That's what you're worried about? Now?”

He wrung his hands nervously and I smiled. “Well, to rest your worries; a friend from Japan gave me this for my birthday and the country that invented the smoke jacket colonized yours, so I think we're good.”

He seemed to earnestly consider that, before both our gazes snapped down at the Arabian curse that echoed through the hallway mightily. Rahim winced, I asked him what it meant, and he shook his head, his mustache bobbing. “I couldn't say that in front of a lady.“ At that thought he brightened considerably. “Hey, want to come in for a cup of coffee?”

I groaned inwardly at the return of that particular tone of his, at the present circumstances at that. I liked the guy, but as guys do, he really never got the hint. At least this crisis provided a conveniently soft letdown.

“Do you have water?” I asked with an arched eyebrow.

“Shoot.”

Even though I already had a strong headache forming, I was grateful when a door above us slammed open and neon red sneakers floundered down the stairs. It was the bespectacled teenage grandson of the elderly couple living on the top floor, who froze at our sight. I only ever saw him when he sourly collected parcels I accepted for his grandmother and I didn't know his name – when I'd asked him once he had mumbled something intelligible and shuffled off. But now, for a second time this ungodly hour, a guy looked at me with wild hope – unlike Rahim in crumpled boxers and a dirty looking t-shirt. He jumped down the last stairs to our level. “Do you have water?” he asked with the desperation of a fish in the desert.

“No? Didn't the custodian tell you-”

The boy rushed to Rahim, who took a step back.

“Do you have water?”

Rahim asked him if he understood what a pipe burst was and the boy looked close to tears, so I took mercy on him and asked what was wrong. He turned back to me with pure misery in his eyes before they widened and he grabbed me by the shoulders. “You're a girl!”

The hell? I nodded warily. “...yeah?”

He squeezed my arms and his eyes became doe-like. “Tell me honestly: if you were going on a first date with a boy and he looks like he hasn't showered in three days but it wasn't his fault because a pipe broke – would you still give him a chance?”

My shock turned to amusement while the cough Rahim hid in his arm sounded suspiciously like snickering.

“You have a date this early in the morning?”

He mumbled something.

“What?”

He snuffled. “...she likes morning walks. And I haven't showered.”

I grinned. “The pipe only broke this morning, though.”

The teenager blushed and looked down at his toes. “Please, just – answer me?”

I cleared my throat. “Well, I only date women, so probably not. You might have to ask a different girl.”

Now I had turned both their eyes and mine to plates.

“Sakrament, kruzifix und auch noch mal!” sounded a Bavarian curse from downstairs and honestly? Amen.

Two years I had successfully omitted that information, as people like me do even when we're cool with who we are. Having potentially homophobic men living next to you and knowing? Simply a risk too prone to escalate real quick and ugly. But there was that – and naturally it slipped out during the apocalypse of our house, when I was wearing the kimono my girlfriend had gifted me just last week for my birthday. So, I carefully appraised their reaction with that darkly familiar twinge of fear.

The boy looked to Rahim.

Rahim blinked at me in confusion.

The boy shuffled his feet. “But – you have long hair. You wear lipstick.”

I couldn't help but laugh at that. “Oh god - how old are you?”

“Sixteen?”

“You were born this century boy, act like it.”

With fake confidence I let my gaze slip to Rahim; he looked downright heart-broken and his mustache trembled - but there was no visible trace of anger or disgust in his eyes, which put me at cautionary ease. I sighed and grabbed the boy's shoulder.

“What's your name?”

His eyes were still round. “Tobias?”

“Okay Tobias, can't you go to a friend and shower there or something?”

Now he looked at me like I was mad. “What? No! Never.”

“Why?”

“We all go to the same school, I don't want them to know. Also, they won't be up this early in the-””

“You don't want your friends to know about your first date?”

“Of course not! What if it goes wrong? They'd never stop making fun of me.”

That seemed to bring Rahim back to the living, as he looked at Tobias with compassion. “You need better friends,” he told him seriously.

I nodded in agreement and Tobias promptly dialed up his teenage mode in response; he groaned, threw his hands, and marched down the stairs, a blond bespectacled storm cloud entirely disagreeable with the world. Rahim and I exchanged a look and jointly cocked our ears to the hallway window. And sure enough, Tobias voice shrilled up:

“What's taking you so long, huh? It's just a water leak for god's sake, not brain surgery!”

My eyes widened and I grabbed Rahim's arm; damn, that smoking jacket was soft, I wanted one. “Please go down there before they kill him.”

He nodded tersely and turned around, but I held him back. “Rahim... are we cool? I mean – you're cool with me being... you know?”

People don't tell you, but that moment, that trial on whether you still deserve to be treated right - it's the eternal groundhog day for gay people. You go through it your entire life, again and again, and still, it never gets any easier. My pulse beat up a storm as Rahim cleared his throat and stroked his mustache. But finally, through shyness and disappointment, he gave me an honest smile – and I took a shuddering breath. He awkwardly squeezed my arm. “I mean, I wouldn't have thought- that is, you know, you don't seem, um – ah, that sounds wrong. But it's not! Wrong I mean. It's cool. I mean- “ he gestured helplessly to the general mayhem downstairs, Tobias' voice turning squeaky under the united tenors of the understandably annoyed builders. “We really have other stuff to worry about.”

I smiled and squeezed his arm back, before I let him go. “Get down there, I'll see if I can find dry shampoo for him. Hey, I can make us coffee for when you get back?”

Rahim grinned slowly. “...do you have water?”

“Damn it!”