Cleaning Up New York Read Free Page B

large dog. She walks up to Cherry’s door and we recognize each other. Cherry leads me into the hallway of her first-floor apartment. It is a tall, cramped space with white hexagonal floor tiles as often found in washrooms. I follow Cherry down the hall and glance into the bathroom before we empty into the kitchen. Cherry shows me the work and the equipment and I tackle the cleanup. The bathtub is covered with plaster chunks and plaster-dust thickly lies over everything. I put the place completely right and it shines a dull, worn shine. The kitchen floor is hard work because there is so much stuff piled along the walls. One corner holds a couple sets of skis and ski boots. Another corner has a drafting table turned horizontal with kitchen items on it. It rocks back and forth when I shift the weight on the table by moving a few of the items around. It never fails to startle me and I reach out to steady it as if it were about to topple. Everywhere there are things to move and piles of dog hair. The green linoleum floor is black. I must pick up and move everything in order to sweep up the dog hair and loose dirt. Then I have to moveeverything again to mop. Woe, that wobbly table. While I am working, Cherry is in the bedroom continually talking on two phones; she talks about the other party’s astrology and romance problems. It takes me three hours to finish and I expect another hour of work because of the agency’s four-hour minimum but instead Cherry starts to pay me off. After she tells me how really clean everything looks, I ask with some hesitation if she knows about the four-hour minimum. Cherry informs me that the agency quoted a three-hour minimum. “And so the recession has finally hit the cleaning market!” I think to myself. There must be more people cleaning now so the agency must reduce the minimum in order to attract more jobs. Cherry takes my phone number and I leave feeling somewhat flat.
    Cherry calls me up soon and this time I clean the entire apartment. There are four rooms counting the hallway and the bathroom as one. The front room has tall windows that open onto the street, a fireplace, and wood parquet floors that run back into the bedroom. The windows are landscaped with plants that hang down or sit on trunks before each windowsill. There are two bright blue movie-theater seats tottering, detached from the sturdy look of rows. The bedroom can be shut off from the front room by sliding wooden doors; a large bed, a small easy chair, and a lamp with a framed Roman engraving hanging above it on the wall, and various suitcases fill the dark room. I work hard for five hours and the place never really gets clean, but my impact alone makes a world of difference. Cherry goes out and asks me to answer the phone. When the phone rings, I need a pen to write down the message. I open a drawer and find a pen and next tothe pen is some grass. I pocket a little for myself. From the variety of clothes and underwear lying about I begin to gather that a man seems to be living here besides Cherry and her dog and cat, Orchards and Turtles, respectively. Cherry sometimes mentions a Jack. I feel exhausted down to my cells and Cherry gives me a generous tip. The grass turns out to be excellent.
    Cherry says, “It is hard to get someone who really cleans.” I am asked to become a regular on Thursdays. I meet Jack Gleason who lives with Cherry, and I become an official member of the household. I have a question like, “Any bags for garbage?” and I walk up the hallway to the front room to find Cherry. The door is open and Cherry is doing a yoga exercise on a mat in the middle of the floor. She is wearing blue trunks and is holding a position in which she rests on her shoulder blades with one foot down in back of her head and the other sticking straight up in the air. I’m looking straight under her trunks at her black full crotch. Surprised out of my question, I turn quickly and resolve to ask