Ted Engstrom
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Of Mice and Maintenance Men
This is the place where I learned to live this life, to curse this life and to claim this life for my very own.
Jodie Foster
Over the past few weeks, I've loaded and unloaded the dishwasher in my house a lot. One day, I filled and emptied the darn thing on four separate occasions. Now, for a mother with young, rambunctious children, so many dishes in so little time probably wouldn't be out of the ordinary. But I live with fifteen other women, all of whom are relatively intelligent and mature Penn students, most of whom are at least twenty years old. So why do the dishesand the removal of the trash and recycling, the sorting of the mail, the ordering of the bottled water, the summoning of the exterminator and the plumber, not to mention the disposal of the occasional mouseall seem to fall to me?
Simple. I'm my sorority's house manager.
Last fall, my house was looking for a sister to manage our property, in conjunction with our chapter accountant,
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an adult who keeps track of rent payments and makes sure the electricity stays on. The chapter wanted someone dependableI wanted a single room. When my predecessor told me all I'd really have to do as house manager was remember to buy the toilet paper, I agreed to run for the job. I ran unopposed and was easily elected. My elation lasted about five seconds.
My problems started on move-in day, when I found the key box a jumble of mislabeled metaland outright missing pieces. From there, we moved on to fortnightly visits from angry Penn police officers, summoned by our alarm company when someone left the house late and neglected to enter the code on the keypad before opening the door.
Shortly after, the pipe that supplies our two front bathrooms cracked in multiple places, spewing brown sludge onto the basement wall and carpet. Contractors then removed portions of the wall running up to the third floor and decided not to replace them until winter break, so as not to disturb our routine during midterms or finals. In retrospect, I wish I hadn't gotten such a close look at our home's infrastructurewhich was more disturbing than any construction could have been.
Granted, these kinds of structural crises are likely to plague all buildings of a certain age at one time or another. Once I determined whom to call when something broke, I was fine.
There's no one to call, however, when two of your housemates are standing in the kitchen, staring at the wailing smoke detector on the ceiling, as if hoping that by sheer force of will they will be able to make it stop! (I suggested turning the stove off, or opening the back door to let air in, but they claimed that wouldn't allow them to cook their pasta.)
Then there was the time I walked in the front door, to be met with a panic-stricken housemate running breathlessly
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up the basement stairs and screaming something about the washing machine flooding the laundry room. Fearlessly plunging my hand into the murky water in the sink where the machine empties, I discovered a sponge suctioned to the drain, stopping the flow of water. (Problem solved, except for the two inches of water on the floor, which I directed my housemate to take care of. Amazingly, she and a few others did.)
The most ridiculous incident occurred when we were temporarily out of powdered automatic-dishwasher detergent. Our supply company delivered powdered laundry soap by mistake. I was out of town, and one of my sisters signed for it, didn't bother reading the label, then ran the dishwasher through one cycle using it.
Another girl realized her mistake and tried to remedy the situation by putting liquid dishwashing soapthe kind you're supposed to use with rubber gloves in a sink full of waterinto the automatic dishwasher. (If the result was a kitchen filled with suds, à la that famous episode of The Brady Bunch where the kids overload the washing machine, no one's yet had gumption enough to tell me.)
Given our gaffes, it's a wonder the house hasn't just collapsed. Seriously, though, as much as I complain about bagging trash, apologizing to and sending away the police and playing psychologist to unhappy roommatesactivities my mom would have enthusiastically characterized as "learning experiences"we haven't had any major catastrophes, and I'm thankful for that.
Still, after graduationI'm renting.
Lisa Levenson
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Knowing Where to Tap
Before setting off to college, my father sat me down and shared this memorable story with me. It is one I shall never forget. My father is not college educated, yet he possesses more wisdom and insight than most college professors I have met. After you read this story, you'll know what I mean.
There is an old story of a boilermaker who was hired to fix a huge steamship boiler system that was not working well. After listening to the engineer's description of the problems and asking a few questions, he went to the boiler room. He looked at the maze of twisting pipes, listened to the thump of the boiler and the hiss of escaping steam for a few minutes, and felt some pipes with his hands. Then he hummed softly to himself, reached into his overalls and took out a small hammer, and tapped a bright red valve one time. Immediately, the entire system began working perfectly, and the boilermaker went home. When the steamship owner received a bill for one thousand dollars, he complained that the boilermaker had only been in the engine room for fifteen minutes and requested an itemized bill. So the boilermaker sent him a bill that reads as follows:
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For tapping the valve: $ .50
For knowing where to tap: $ 999.50
TOTAL: $1,000.00
''Tony,'' he said, "I want you to go to college so that you can get your degree, but more important, I want you to return with an education."
Tony D'Angelo
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Miracle on Times Square
Broadway. The Great White Way. I was thereas an inventory clerk.
I was working my way through college, at Bond's Clothing Store on Times Square.
I had come to the United States from Tel Aviv, six thousand miles away, to study journalism. Walter Winchell was my idol. "Hello, Mr. and Mrs. America, and all the ships at sea!"
I had seen them in the movies, the news guys with "press" signs tucked into their hats. The Front Page. His Girl Friday. Being where exciting things were happening. Rushing into a phone booth, yelling, "Give me the city desk," into the receiver, then shouting, "Stop the presses!"
That was my dream. And here I was in America, twenty years old, living my dream. My parents, whose only child I was, had stayed behind in what was then Palestine, which I had left just months before the state of Israel was created. They had agreed to send me a hundred dollars a month, which back then, in 1948, was perhaps like a thousand today. But with the proclamation of the new nation, all permits for the transfer of money out of the country were canceled.
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In other words, I could no longer count on help from home.
The job at Bond's, where I worked thirty hours a week, paid my bills. Long Island University in Brooklyn, where I was a sophomore, agreed to lower my tuition to a mere hundred dollars a semester. To make extra money, I worked as a doorman and usher at the Criterion Theater, a movie house underneath Bond's, during summer vacations. Dressed in a wine-colored uniform with shiny brass buttons, I stood at the theater entrance proclaiming, "Immediate seating in all parts of the theater! No waiting for seats!" I saw Abbott and Costello in the Foreign Legion forty times.
I did well in school, despite the fact that English was a foreign language to me. I had a steady girlfriend, Dalia, also from Tel Aviv. I lived in a furnished room in the Upper West Side, near her. I was self-supporting. I was living in America. Life was good.
And then, disaster struck.
On a warm summer evening, having collected my pay for the week at Bond's and at the Criterion, I took the subway home. Earlier in the day I had cashed the two paychecks and stuffed the bills into my wallet. After letting myself into my room, on Ninety-First Street near Broadway, I wanted to
put my wallet away for the night. I put my hand in my left rear pocket. Nothing. Frantically I checked my other pockets. Still no wallet.
In the darkness of the theater, or perhaps on the subway, someone had deftly lifted my wallet, with all my money in it. All the money I had in the world. I sat on my bed, my head in my hands. Like most working college students, I lived from paycheck to paycheck. I had no bank account because I had no money to deposit. Damn! How cruel could people be? To steal a wallet from a working kid! Until that evening, I had only known the good
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side of people. My parents were kind and loving. In the ladies' department at Bond's, where I worked, I was "the kid from Israel" among the salespeople, all of them women. They mothered me and looked after me. At Long Island University, the dean of students had arranged my special tuition. And now I had been the victim of a crime.
The following morning I woke up with a headache, a sore throat and a 102-degree fever. My God! If I called in sick and didn't work, I wouldn't get paid! I was a part-time employee, with no benefits. And yet, if I went to work, I could become sicker. What to do?
I telephoned my doctor, who shortly thereafter examined me. "You've got the flu," he said. "Go home." I did. Then I called in sick.
I lay alone in my furnished room. I had no money, nor was I earning any. I was all alone in a foreign land. I was sick. I was twenty years old. I wanted to cry. But I heard my father's voice: "Men don't cry." So I didn't. I was sick for two weeks, during which Dalia's mother came daily with chicken soup. Dalia kept me company.
On a bright Monday morning, I staggered from the subway stop on Times Square to the store. I felt wiped out. Through the revolving door, past the men's accessories department, I nearly fell against Mr. Kissin, the manager. "Good to see you, my boy," he said. Rising slowly up the escalator, I saw my boss, Mrs. Menscher, waving to me, smiling a welcome.
"Sit, sit," she said. "Take a load off your feet. You look terrible."
Suddenly they were all around me: Miss Romano, the assistant manager, Mr. Price, from men's suits. Even Mr. Cooper, the district manager, came over.
"We have something for you," Mrs. Menscher said. She handed me an envelope. "Go on, open it."
I did. It was full of money.
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"We took up a collection," she said. "It's a hundred dollars."
Tears filled my eyes. There was nothing to say but "Thanks, thanks. I'll never forget you."
And I haven't.
Dalia and I have been married more than forty-six years. We have three children and five grandchildren. I did become a reporter on major city newspapers.
The ups and downs of life have left me battered and bruised at times. The twentieth century has been the bloodiest example of man's inhumanity to man. Bond's is long gone, as are the people who worked there some fifty years ago. Dead they are, or ancient. And yet I learned an important lesson from them.
Perhaps Anne Frank said it best: "Despite everything, I still believe in the goodness of man."
Gunter David
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The Dark Gift
The look on her face was one of numb disbelief. "It can't be," she says. "Why me? Why now?"
"It's not as bad as you're making it out to be," I said to my good friend Alex, as she sat there staring vacantly at the heavy cast on her leg. One moment she was running about, preparing for college, worrying about books, her car and which classes to take. Now, she was sitting here with a broken ankle. It all happened so suddenly.
This was the first time Alex had collided with an indifferent world. Everything else had been negotiable, arguable. Everything else up to now could be avoided, escaped, bought off, laughed away.
I tried to comfort her and tell her it would be all right. But this was real; this was hers. No one could change it, make it right, make it fair. It was lifean absolute without explanationthat was indifferent to her plans and dreams.
"My life is ruined," she sighed, feeling utterly depressed.
"No, your life isn't ruined. Just consider this one of those dark gifts. A bad circumstance can teach you something valuable, maybe even change your life."
Suddenly, I remembered the time several years ago when I, too, had broken an ankle. It was March. The
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streets were slushy paths, and corners were precarious hard-packed trails, through mounds of ice and snow. I struggled on crutches, trying to balance on uneven surfaces of ice. People pushed past me, muttering about how they had to get through, about how I was taking so long. I tried gingerly to make my way up over the snowpack without slipping or letting my cast drag in the slush. My arms ached from the tension, my shoulders were rigid and numb from the digging pain of the crutches. I tried to block out the others around me, not to feel them brushing brusquely past me.
Crutch by crutch, I made my way down to the street. Cars flew by, splashing slush on my cast. I hobbled into the street. The approaching cars were not slowing. I tried to hurry, but the icy ground was too precarious. Cars slid to a stop, and drivers leaned on their horns. I was consumed with my own fragile balance, ashamed of my deliberate pace, frustrated at others' lack of concern.
I looked across at the snowbank I would have to negotiate on the opposite side of the street. There, making her way down through the small uneven pathway of ice, was an old woman with a cane. People were standing behind her muttering. She was feeling with her foot, trying to find solid ground. No one could help her; there was not enough room for two abreast. I saw her frantic look, her shaking hands. Then, for an instant, she looked up. Across the distance of that icy, slush-filled street, our eyes met. The fear, the sadness, the frustration, the utter aloneness of our respective plights, were mirrored in our respective gazes.
I wanted to help her, but I could not. I could barely make my way across the street myself. The other pedestrians rushing past us were no help either. To them we were impediments to the necessary pace of daily living. To the drivers in the long line of cars that was backing up in the street, we were insufferable obstructions. We approached each other from opposite directions. As we
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passed, we glanced at each other.
"Hi," I said, not knowing what else to say.
She, who had the added fear of being elderly and alone on a city street, did not know whether to answer. Finally, she said, very softly, "Hello." Cars honked at the further slowing of pace that had been caused by our brief conversation. Other walkers brushed against us in their rush to get to the other side.
We looked again at each other, then went on. The cars revved and drove past in anger as soon as we were out of their path.
When I got to the other side, I turned to see how the woman was doing. She was feeling for the path through the snow with her cane. When she found her footing, she stopped as if she had accomplished a huge feat. She turned to look at me, and she smiled a sweet and tender smile. She knew I understood. For a moment she didn't feel so alone, and neither did I.
I wanted to tell Alex this story. But she was lost in her own world. I watched her as she put her backpack on and moved on unsteady crutches down the hallway. She had an evening class that she had to attend. "I never knew that doorknobs could be so much work," she said as she balanced on one leg and tried to open the door.
"Steps, revolving doors, taking baths, crossing streets. You've got a lot of fun ahead of you," I said. "But make sure to keep your eyes open for those dark gifts. They will be some of the best lessons you will ever be fortunate enough to learn."