Cleaning Up New York Read Free Page A

clean may not be discovered for weeks or months. I work steadily at theCunninghams’ until Shelley and I plan to leave town for the summer. I am saddened to leave such a gracious home, especially one where there are people I love; Patsy and I arrange to contact each other about work in the fall.

CHAPTER 2
How Things Get Dirty
    In New York City, we really live like worms. There is dirt above, below, and on all sides of us. The air is a constant fine mist of dust and soot. Filth is creeping up from every basement. Cockroaches and insects are constantly chewing things into little piles of dirt. Pigeons! Dogs! Dirt is puffing between floorboards and under walls and down from ceiling cracks. Corrosive chemicals in the air eat away the faces of statues and crumble the bricks about us. The subway blasts subterranean filth up through air grates. People throw their dirt everywhere. There is garbage and cigarette and cigar ash in the streets; rooftops are often junk heaps. Now back into our wormhole: the apartment. We tread dirt inside on the soles of our shoes. Our clothes literally shake with dust. Our hair is a broom that sweeps in the city atmosphere. We come in like bombshells.
    Dirt distributes itself by the motion of rise and fall. Dirt enters an area with some impetus. Air coming under windows sends dust floating around the ceiling, which slowly sifts its way to the floor. This dust will settle on any crevice no matter the size. This means bumps in the paint on your walls have tiny motes of dust just hanging around. (Let me toss an aside into the dust storm. This all sounds neurotic but it isn’t. It is just theheightened perception created by the direct contact of my labors. I don’t dislike dirt. Far from it, I feel very comfortable working with dirt.) Dirt is heavier than air so it settles down on every surface from the ceiling to the floor. The rim of your lampshade is doing a good business right now. As you shuffle across the floor, you are kicking up particles that jump up and fall down a few feet away. Cooking often sends a film of grease through the air that sticks to anything it can touch. As you soak in the bathtub, dirt floats along the surface of the water and spreads over the walls of the tub as it is drained. The toilet bowl is the scene of miscalculations that send dirt down the wrong side of the bowl! Your ablutions spatter the walls and get the tiles dirty. Water is one of nature’s best solvents; if you splash the floor while doing the dishes, then the water will strip the dirt off the bottoms of your feet.
    Pets are as bad as city environment or people when it comes to getting things dirty. Dogs and cats shed their coats everywhere they go. They shred up pieces of paper, knock over flowerpots. Cats kick and scratch at their cat litter until it is littered all over the floor. No dog is above having accidents. Dogs run along the walls blackening them and furiously beat dust up into the air current with their tails. Birds throw shelled birdseed out of their cages and if you let them fly free—well! All pets use their unnaturally confining space to its utmost.
    Getting dirty is a process of natural inertia. Dirt moves by force and then rests. Cleaning has no natural inertia unless you telescope your thinking into geologic time and everything gets washed into the sea. The washing we do is toward a more limited end. Dirt will always win in the end.

    Shelley and I come home to New York City, and the recurring need to make money prompts me to send Barbara $15. Within seventy-two hours, Barbara thanks me with Cherry Malard. Cherry sounds sweet as she tells me that repairs have been made in the washroom and the kitchen needs to be mopped. The building stands nicely in the sun in the East Eighties, only a door and a half off First Avenue. The apartment doesn’t answer the bell, so I sit on a red bench in front of the building. Brightly around the corner comes a pretty black-haired girl walking a