HOMAGE TO SHERMAN AVENUE

HOMAGE TO SHERMAN AVENUE

By Andrew Paul Grell

“Hi, Nick! Bye, Nick!” Nick valved off the garden hose and waited for the rest of the greetings, seventeen more, all present and accounted for, Lydia, Jack, Sam and Sammy from two buildings up, his own building’s kids, to Nora, Carter and Em from the corner building. When the school bus showed up and eighteen kids boarded, the hose came back on, as if by magic.

“Careful there, Mr. Hemmings. Petunia’s probably right around the corner. I think she may be in a mood.”

“How can you know that? Around the corner from here is what, 200, 250 yards?”

“Fafner told me.”

Garrison Hemmings looked down at his eleven-pound ‘better half,’ a tuxedo Rat Terrier waiting patiently to start their walk, but not, as usual, pulling on the leash, trying to read and answer his pee-mail. The six ears present outside the building’s front entrance heard a shriek and a series of sharp barks. Nick ran up the street, hose in hand, yard butler uncoiling (not very safely) behind him. Nozzle on high pressure, he managed to get the pretty girl Pit Bull’s paws with the spray. The giant muscle with a flower in her collar stopped everything to lick her feet. Then around the corner came the source of the potential disaster: Eddie Earl, an as-yet-unneutered, informally rescued, and re-homed Parson’s Russel Terrier from, where else, around the corner. “Around the corner” could be treacherous on this shoulder of Indian Hill, the northernmost point of Manhattan Island. The hill was a patchwork of remarkably similar six-story apartment buildings differentiated by whether they were co-ops, condos, or rental properties. Each set of residents had their own agendas.

Nick sat down at the center of the triangle described by Eddie, Petunia and Fafner. He wiggled his fingers in a complex pattern none of the people outside the triangle could follow, but the dogs did.

“Miss Julie,” Nick said. “If you’re not standing him for stud, he should be, you know, fixed.

“How did you do that?” Julie ignored sagacity and safety in favor of what was essentially smoke and mirrors.

“A gift to my family from King Alfonso VII and Pope Pius XI. If you believe in such things. If you don’t, you can read about Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. My nephew, he lives in Desert Hot Springs now, after three tours in Afghanistan he can’t live anywhere but a desert, had his PTSD cured with EMDR. When Stella and I had Putney, she had a huge scare from a much bigger dog. It seems that EMDR works for dogs as well. If, of course, you believe in such things. But you of all people should know about eye movement!” That earned Nick a smile and an impressed look from the Art History professor and condo owner.

“Well, if we’re all happy, we can grant the dogs freedom for their ablutions and we can each get to work. I’m going back to my landscaping. Short trip for me. And you might want to take the A train instead the 1 train if you’re heading downtown, even thought it’s a bit longer walk to the station.” 

The grass on the devil strip in front of the rental building was lush. Behind the building, there were no slugs on the tomato vines, choral bells, hydrangea, and American Beauty berries were all doing well in what used to an alley primarily used by, well, alley cats. Of multiple species. Nick knew that if the owners budgeted for a garden, there would soon be a move of some kind. Sale to Columbia University, always a possibility since Kraft field, where the Columbia Lions would go to lose their games, was right across the street. The only exciting game of the year was the FDNY-NYPD football game, traditionally ended by vomit and fisticuffs. Co-op or condo conversion were most likely, though.

Back in his apartment, he made breakfast for himself and Stella, café con leche, bollos with jam and cheese. Stella apparently figured out before Nick that the winds were blowing in a different direction across the Main.

“Maybe the tips will be bigger, Niceto.”

“Perhaps they will disappear altogether; who will have money left over after paying $200,000 for an apartment within the sound of the elevated train on the last block before the treacherous Spuyten Duyvil?” Nick knew what was coming. He looked around the cozy eat-in kitchen, hanging dried citrons harpooned with cloves, pictures of Catalonia on the walls, souvenir plates on display. Three, two, one.

“Perhaps it’s time for you to retire, mi amor. We can certainly afford it.”

“Mamacita, I would go with you anywhere. Manuel is teaching at MIT, Lilliana has our grandchildren in Philadelphia. We have relatives all over, I could drive us in caravan, a, what do they call it, a Recreational Vehicle. But you know the money is not ours. And there is a reason I hide here in a back-of-the-building, ground floor apartment in spite of the Devil. If you believe in such things.”

“Such things, Niceto. You are not a brujo, and I am not a strega. Spuyten Duyvil Creek is the Harlem River Ship Improvement Canal.”

“And the derailment in 2013? Are you sure the Devil didn’t make the motorman sleep before the hairpin turn? If you believe in such things as Devils. Mi amor, things are happening. There will be a use for the King’s money and there will be a Devil to spite.” Nick headed towards his desk to see his job list, and Stella retired to the sitting room to continue sewing masks. On his way Nick asked his beloved why she kept sewing masks.

“What if it comes back? Like a hundred years ago. Especially since it was from Spain. Don’t we have some responsibility? This is a lesson you know well. If we sorted ourselves out by 1932, 1933, and prepared in advance, there would still be a Spanish Republic today.”

“Not again, carajo,” Nick swore quietly into a cubby of the pigeonhole desk. Mrs. O’leary wanted the dumbwaiter fixed again. The building hadn’t had dumbwaiter service for fifty years. Nick called her grandson at his law firm and had a little chat. There were no clogs of any kind reported. Mr. Levinson’s living room lights were out and he couldn’t find where to put a fuse he had. Nick went up the three floors and showed the old man how to use the breaker box. There was a popular front for the marriage of David and Maureen; they would save money and his apartment could be turned into something communal, possibly. Unless the building converted and someone wanted conjoined apartments.

Lunch was two doggie bag tapas plates from two days ago when they introduced Yi Lin and George to a low-key local treasure. Yi Lin decided it was worthy of being Spanish Dim Sum. This was the time allotted for him to fulfill personal, off-book requests. Today it was leveling a table and redoing a countertop. Back on duty, he checked the lollipop column valiantly attempting to re-align the west staircase. Nick gave the column its daily quarter turn of the screw, then decided to shine up the brass a little bit in the “grand entrance.” 

The Warfield kids were waiting for him when he got back.

“Mr. Zamoro, Mr. Zamoro!” the two home-school kids shouted in glee.” Their parents insisted that he address Nick as “Mr. Zamoro.”

“Mom gave us this seersucker to give to Mrs. Zamoro for the masks. She said it would be highly effective in keeping the inside of the masks dry.” Heidi carried one bolt, blue and white pucker squares, and Amy had two, green and white pucker squares and another bolt in all chrome yellow. “Why does Senora still make the masks?”

“A fair and good question, young ladies. For the same reason you put the change from when you buy ice cream from the truck into the green piggy bank. In case you need it later.

“How did you know we had a green piggy bank?”

“Well, I’m the super, aren’t I? Shouldn’t I be allowed super powers? For those who believe in such things.”

“Mr. Zamoro, what flag is that on your door? I’ve never seen it before. I thought I knew all the flags. Did you know that Chad and Romania have the same flag?” Heidi and Amy were looking at a flag with three horizontal stripes, from the top down, red, yellow and purple with a coat of arms in the middle of the center stripe.

“I’ve never seen a flag with purple on it,” Heidi commented while putting the bolts on a table.

“Most people haven’t. It only lasted for eight years.” Amy wanted to know about the coat of arms.

“It has four quarterings, Castile, Leon, Aragon, and Granada, and a fanciful crown behind, they called it the chess piece. The columns are Scylla and Charybdis, the…”

“Pillars of Hercules!” both girls shouted simultaneously.

“Very good, ladies. It fell to Spain to safeguard the little ocean where civilization started.”

“How do you pronounce the motto? There’s not enough vowels!”

“Good question, Amy. There’s no ‘u’ in Latin so they use a ‘v.’ Plus Ultra. Like the kids would say, Mo’ Better. Everyone rallied around that flag. All of Spain wanted to be a normal liberal democracy like most of the other countries either were or were becoming. But different factions wanted the same thing in different ways. Some wanted improvement for the peasants, some wanted free trade, the Catholic Church got involved as did the Communist Party, there were issues with the Basques and Catalans, as there still are today. It became a bureaucratic mess, and nothing got done until Germany decided to try out their shiny, new planes and tanks using Spain for a proving ground. And after 30 years of Fascist dictatorship, they went back to having a King. And not a particularly good one, either. Enough ancient history. The bus will be here soon.”

Eighteen kids headed out this morning. Twelve came back at 3:30, one in tears. Six had sports, chorus or Math Team. The five latchkey-kids waited for Nick to take them behind the building, what everyone was now calling the Terrazzo, some facetiously, some sarcastically, some proudly.  Nick had promised to teach them soap carving today. But first he had to attend to Carter, hysterical because he couldn’t locate his satchel. Nick walked him back onto the bus. The bus driver told him that all of the kids, herself, and the matron went over every seat, under and over each of the double benches. Nick moved his fingers in a pattern similar to what calmed the three dogs this morning. His fingers looked like they moved of their own accord. One index finger started pointing randomly, then settled on pointing straight up. Carter’s book bag was attached to the bus’s roof. A warning to “look out below!” accompanied by a different finger wiggle pattern preceded the book bag crashing down into the bus’s aisle.

“How did you do that, Nick-O?”

“I can’t tell you, Lisa. But I can tell Carter. Maybe he’ll tell you”

“Alright, go ahead.”

Carter beat out all the other “How’d he do that” questions. Nick bent down and whispered in the nascent Poli Sci major’s ear.

“I am the super of the building, Carter. As the super, I have super powers. It’s only right, isn’t it? If you believe in such things.”   When he turned to leave the bus, he glimpsed Garry Hemmings, returned from the wars of what was left of Seventh Avenue’s Fashion District, expecting to be safe yet another evening, but instead venting steaming ichor. It was that time for 622 West. Nobody had told him, but he could have told them first. Rona Jaffee, children’s book author and illustrator, as well as hereditary Duchess of 218^th Street, was passing out the red herrings, large volumes describing your dreams of home ownership coming true while conveniently neglecting that you could wind up fucked more than a farm mink. The Prospectus for the Conversion of 622 into a co-op. And after the third day, in which eight buildings were trying to beat each other to the punch of conversions, The Devil presented his own punch. A freak weather inversion caused a waterspout to skip from retaining wall on the north to parkland on the south and back again, and again, until it launched itself over Kraft field and up Indian Hill, causing significant, but not too significant, damage to the eight converting buildings. Everyone present that day recalls that the waterspout had horns and a tail. Everyone who belived in that sort of thing, anyway.

They all wanted the same thing: To live in the safety and comfort of a home they could afford either to rent or to own, rental, condo, or co-op, and truly believed that everyone was entitled to a comfortable living situation. “The Corner” splintered on three sides. Some wanted to have their real property, condos, available as a piggy bank – cum -tax break. A Center-Left  second phalange wanted the best for everyone, as long as they could keep their own rent stabilized apartments at their stabilized rents. A Fifth Column of fellow travelers truly belived in the idea of a cooperatively run building inhabited by “real” cooperators. The fools.

“Gary, are you just going to leave that there?” Absent Petunia, Eddie Earl and Fafner happily sparred physically while Garrison and Julie sparred emotionally. Fafner’s daddy took a look his phone.

“Weather Underground has it raining in the next 20 minutes. It’s going to wash away, and it’s one less plastic bag in the municipal waste stream.” Julie had never seen Gary fail to scoop the poop. In fact, over the next few days, she spotted more un-scooped poop than she had since she arrived from Duluth. And litter. And broken glass. She complained to Community Board 12, and they relayed her complaint as well as 15 others to the 52^nd precinct. On her way back from the Community Board meeting, she ran into Felicity, Petunia’s mommy. Petunia gave Eddie some friendly licks as the women talked.

“You didn’t hear this from me. The rent stabilized faction is deliberately trashing the block to keep people from buying here or participating in conversions. I didn’t hear it from a guy you might like. Have a safe walk and a nice night!”

Their point made, the stabilized switched from dog shit to bullshit, organizing marches around the block with people holding signs that looked like housing rights advocacy but without cluing in the casual observer that the sign-holders were essentially beneficiaries of state policy that in effect transferred potential wealth from landlords to tenants. Not a lot, but enough to matter.

“Who are these people?” Mrs. Warfield bumped into David in the grand entrance.

“They’re the Cuban Closers from Miami. When heavy lifting needs to get done, they do it. If you go see a time share in order to get the free $100 Target gift card, they’re the ones who hog tie you until you agree to write a check for a down payment. Ever consider buying leisure property in a converted hotel in the Catskills? The Cuban Closers will be there to see that you close the deal. It looks like the big guns have come onto the field.”

Two sets of big guns. An expeditionary force was sent from the 52^nd precinct to  Sherman Avenue and 218^th Street, where the last street demonstration was in the 30s; a labor action by the Iroquois steel workers still living on their native land in Indian Hill. Niceto Zamoro watched from a perch atop of the bleachers of the university’s sports complex. He could smell the brimstone already, and saw clearly where te trouble spot would be. One instant the old Partisan was high up, the next instant in the street. Em had taken his soap carving lessons seriously and had made an accurate replica of a 25 caliber Beretta lacqured in black, which he was now playing with. All four officers experienced safety holster failure, giving Nick time to be between the boy and the people with real guns. He needed to take of his shoes for this; it would need a pattern of both toes and fingers. A white-shirted commander, a new one Nick didn’t know, showed up to see what happened; everyone was looking at Nick, since there was no longer anything tense to observe.

“What did you do to my men?”

“They were tense. I got them to relax with a mandala pattern. They’ll be fine but embarrassed”

“You can do that? Who are you?”

“Alcalde Niceto Zamoro y Santa Maria. I am the super of this building. Don’t you think the super should have super powers? For those who believe in such things.”

Nick may or may not have had a bag of tricks, but if he did, they did not cover PowerPoint presentations. Stella stepped up to help her husband.

“Sewing machine, computer, they’re all the same.”

Stella seamlessly stitched together the provenance of the deposing of Alfonso VIII, El Africano, and Pius XI’s elevation of a Catalonian line of apostolic successors to oversee a fund dedicated to justice. A piggy bank available when needed. She then added a flow chart of money coming from the Fund to sponsor truly cooperative conversions repaid by de-escalating flip taxes. The remaining cards established Nick’s Earthly authority as an Apostolic successor. A Bishop without parish or portfolio. Not everyone understood it, but it seemed, somehow to please everyone. Nick went to St. Ann’s to borrow clerical garb to perform the wedding ceremony of David and Maureen. In the new community room that used to be David’s apartment.

[Political correctness notes: I’m no longer clear on what is or is not acceptable. The Cuban Closers are a real thing. Think Glen Gary Glenn Ross starring Desi Arnez. It is not historically clear why Alfonso VIII was called El Africano. Speculation has it that the reason was his frequent absences from Palacio Real de Madrid in favor of the local flora of his Morrocan territory, and the fauna as well. In 1983, the super of my building was a veteran of the Spanish Civil War. He had no bag of tricks but he could fix anything. The Indian steelworkers were also a real thing. My mother and Henry Kissinger went to George Washington High School with them]