A few weekends ago, I was sitting in front of my computer on a late Saturday morning surfing the internet when an alarm went off in the building. I paused for a second thinking, what the hell is that? A fire alarm? And then, I realized, yes, it was. I had no pants on, so I quickly put on the pair on the floor from yesterday, grabbed my cell phone, put on sneakers and flipped a baseball cap over my unwashed head o'greasy hair. I even snagged the fire extinguisher from under the cabinet that Dan bought when he first moved out here and has since left with me to now own for just such an occasion. Thanks Dan. I touched the front door to see if it was hot, like they taught us in middle school and luckily haven't had to use until now. It was cool, so I looked through the peephole; coast was clear. I leapt into the hallway to find, no fire or smoke, but the alarm much louder because it was right behind my head in the stairwell. The older woman, Julie from the apartment downstairs below me, was making a slow ascent towards me and the alarm. I won't be able to continuously tell you that the alarm is on, but imagine a loud, really loud metal bell constantly ringing while the story continues. I yell to her, "Is there a fire?" She just creeps toward me with a cane. She says we need to turn that noise off, which I agree, but I'd like to know if we're in danger before we just break the alarm off the wall. I knock on the door of the woman who lives next to me. Nice lady. A few knocks later, she opens the door with her phone cradled on her shoulder. I ask if there's a fire in her place. She nods almost as if I didn't ask her anything at all. Odd. Then she closes the door apparently unconcerned. The other older guy downstairs, let's call him Pete. That's not his name, but I can't think of his name right now. So Pete is sort of like a mouse turning around from one direction to another. And I'm yelling to him, "Call Rich the maintenance guy. Do you have his number?" I had my phone on me, but not his number. He's telling me, "yes, yes, o.k., yes. Come on in." and I step one foot into his apartment downstairs, which weirdly enough is decked out just like a ski lodge, with the wood paneled walls and lots of knick-knacks, and I'm expecting to see an eagle head mounted on the wall. And then I realize that if this building is on fire, I shouldn't be thinking about ski lodges. Pete tells me that the alarm is also ringing in the other building. Other building? Next door. I dash out of his place and knock on the door of the apartment across from him, but no one answers. O.k., so I run outside and follow the noise. I see a girl asking me what's going on, who I just immediately assume lives somewhere in one of the buildings. We walk fast up to the other entrance to the other building for which she has a key. Again the alarm blasts at us. The little sticker next to the alarm says, "Building alarm only - Does not call fire station." So much for saving our lives. I run up the stairs and knock on all of the apartments. I don't smell any smoke, but maybe it's inside someone's place. I'm thinking that a door is going to blast open, flames burst out, and I'll need to dive into an apartment and pull out a family or a cat or some cute chick. No one answers their door on the top floor. No one, maybe they're vacant. Another girl comes out and she doesn't seem to have any fire in her place. She then sits at the top of the stairs near the alarm box. There's a moment of not knowing what to do, and since all of the conversation is pretty much yelling short, "do you smell smoke?" and "do you know your neighbors?" and "how the hell do we turn that noise off?" I just run back up the stairs and knock on more doors. A really old Chinese lady pokes her head around the corner as I'm coming back down the stairs. The girls are looking at her and I think asking her if she's o.k. She doesn't respond or even say anything at all, except just sort of look at us. I yell to the girls, "Hold on, I know a little Cantonese, let me see if I can talk to her!" I pause, thinking back to the Cantonese class that I took at City College, when I learned foods and numbers and simple greetings and how to say I can ride my bike and ride the bus and then I realized, I couldn't ask her a single thing in Cantonese at all. Again I paused, standing there. So I yelled at her in English, "Is there a fire in your apartment!? Are you o.k.?!" She stood there just looking at me with these sad eyes. I felt weird just running into her apartment, so when she opened the door, I popped my head in and didn't see smoke or fire or anything except a sparse apartment with a well worn floor and modest furniture and an old tablelamp and no sign of danger, I motioned for one of the girls to take a quick look at the stove in the kitchen, since maybe the old lady would feel better if a female walked into her apartment and not me, this weird yelling guy. Nothing to report. The three of us continued to nod and shrug and shrug and nod at the old lady. I couldn't think of a way through universal body language to say, "well, I guess the problems not here, I'm real sorry to bother you." At the bottom of the stairs, Pete showed up looking into the alarm box pressing at the buttons. The alarm went off and the sound of silence was comforting. I looked at Pete and said, "man, is that thing reset so it doesn't just go off again in the middle of the night?" He said, "Rich said that it's sensitive and even a bug can set it off." "A bug?" "Yeah, like a bug in the system." I thought to myself, man, a bug didn't set this off, did it? How the hell would that happen? Like an insect? Dude, he's pulling your leg. It probably went off from the dude downstairs from me who's cigarette smoke is always seeping into my place, smelling like old, wet cigarette stank. I was happy that the alarm wasn't a serious one, but also a little annoyed that there wasn't any reason at all for the alarm. I walked around the entire building, through the back courtyard and around the laundry room looking like Columbo, for a reason why. Nothing. And once I entered my apartment again, with everything still in it's place the way I left it, I felt good to know that all was fine. And I thought back less than a half hour before of those initial thoughts of which guitar should I save and how I put on the most comfortable shoes I had, in case I was outside for a long time and that I grabbed the extinguisher ready to find the source. Then I took off the hat and the sneakers and took a shower to actually do something that Saturday now that I couldn't reasonably just go back to bed.
by Kev Mayersky (c)2003
park, books and bird by Kev Mayersky I slept in that morning. It was Sunday and around 10:45 am. I peeled myself from out of the puff of cotton and down that Mimi called a 'duvay'. I just call it sleeping on a cloud. I wander around the apartment in my boxers for a few hours. Reheating a leftover or two together in the same pan to make a whole new taste variety. Today it was half of a leftover chicken burrito and two slices of once-baked frozen pizza that I didn't cover in the fridge and was starting to dry out a little too much. But that's what the little cup of salsa leftover is for. Moisture and flavor. Tomatillo salsa on anything makes for a new taste treat. So, I stir these together in a pan with some water and cover it over medium flame. My stove always sends a puff of natural gas right up my nose when I light that thing. Same thing when you turn it off. I hate that. I think my heater in the hallway has a bit of a gas leak too. When I walk past it, it has that faint smell of gas, but I just keep telling myself, it's the pilot flame. I sip a little carrot juice out of the bottle while looking into the fridge. Really not thinking about much except letting my mind store a picture of what's in the fridge so I can think about it while sitting on the couch thinking about what's in the fridge. I finish watching 'Amelie' after not being able to last night. Mimi was over making cookies and asking me to setup her laptop to my scanner then to the printer and then taking pictures of these little black and white pictures of one of her friends who are getting married soon. I felt like I was at work. Anyway, I finally showered and wondered if I was going to drive to the Fillmore box office to buy concert tickets or just walk up to Washington Square Park to sit and read a book. I decided on the sit and read choice. I walked through the park on my way to City Lights Books to see what was going on. The scene appeared normal. The homeless and the tourists sat at the benches surrounding the park. The single locals sat on the grass reading or just getting some sun. The only problem with Washington Square Park is the amount of dog crap in that park. Even though people are supposed to pick it up, pretty much anywhere I'd sit, I'd get a whiff of a fresh pile that I just hoped wasn't close enough for me to touch. So far, I've been lucky. As I strolled through, this Brazilian-looking woman was checking me out, sitting at one of the benches with these tough looking dudes that could pass for Brazilian or Mexican or Latino who I'd thought were relatives or at least significant others to her. I smiled at her and thought that was odd. Not that she'd checked me out, but that even acknowledging her would have caused a swift loss of my front teeth by the ruffians she sat with. In the bookstore, I perused a few books before settling on one novel of short stories and one about the history of San Francisco in the 1850's. Appropriately titled, "The Barbary Coast". It was warm, but a good warm, like a new day with sunshine and freedom and hours of time for me to waste however I wanted. I thought I'd stroll up Grant Avenue and wander through the little streets on my way back to the park to read these wonderful new editions to my literature collection in my mind. And then I felt this tap on the top of my head, like a nut falling out of a tree, right on the top of my head. I looked up to see a pigeon perched on the edge of the bay window above. No, I thought. I touched my hair feeling wetness. That bird just crapped on my head. How do you like that? Man, everything's going along just great and then just like that, your hair's full of crap. I stopped touching my hair, since I had enough on my hands to be grossed out enough. Made it back to my apartment, washed my hair again. Second time today. And stood looking into the mirror with dripping hair. "I'm still going back out, man." I dried my hair and grabbed the two books and headed back to the park, walking closer to the street away from the bay window that birds perch from. For the next few hours, I read and then walked to Mario's for an eggplant on foccacia sandwich with a glass of Montepulciano or two. Wonderful. The sun crept down, slowly. Mimi was still MIA at her friend's bridal shower. I got back to the apt and opened all of the windows and shades to let in the fresh air and sunshine and to cool the place off. What a beautiful evening. Too bad I'll have to work tomorrow and miss this.
(c)2003 Kev Mayersky
Below are a series of short stories that I'm compiling for the book as well.
Stake. In the dusty town square stood a man with orange and white paint on his face. A bushy patch of red hair tilted awkwardly to the left, matted with dirt and tree branches. His eyes red and puffy and looking as if he'd been punched. With his arms tied behind his back, another man pulled at the ropes and shoved him to the ground. Some of the people watching threw stones and yelled for the man to be burned at the stake. A man in a cape rose from his chair and looked out at the crowd and down at the red haired man. "So... Ronald of McDonald, what do you have to say for yourself?" "I'm sorry", he meekly replied.
(c)2003 Kev Mayersky
drastic
Kyle sat and scratched his head in wonder. It seemed that heading either forward or background amounted to basically the same thing. All his previous decisions in his life had ended up not really mattering very much; why would this one be any different? He didn't want to be paralyzed with fear, he just wanted his choice to be an intelligent one. He wanted to know that something he thought or said would actually matter, would make a difference. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and decided to think about it a little while longer.
And while he sat, he heard a song pop into his head. The song played in a commercial while watching TV the previous night. He was angered by it because the song was so crappy that he was annoyed that he'd actually got it stuck in his head. And then he thought, is that it? That life is really just trying to free your head of outside noise while trying to figure out what life's really all about. The background noise exists everywhere. Even when he covered his head with a pillow at midnight, pulling the covers completely over his head, trying to not see the street light coming through the curtain, trying not to hear the street noise of the buses and loud cars with speakers that shake the building with their bass, trying not to think that the rent is due tomorrow and the office desk is just another chair for another faceless person to sit in, trying not remember that a one time in his short life, he'd laughed and dreamed about being grown up and able to make decisions about life and what to do and where to go and how exciting it would all be. And he thought, under those thick covers about the question that one of his 4 bosses had asked him earlier in the day. "What makes you get up in the morning and come into work?" And he couldn't answer him then and the answer still eludes him. Maybe not having an answer, is the answer itself. And that the feelings of loss and disparity that each decision either forward or backward brings, is really that neither forward or backward are the only choices for decision- making. Going up or sideways seem reasonable, but not in a corporate growth sense. But it's easy to not make the decision, because then everything continues the way it's been, in misery. Kyle thought it would be soon time for something drastic.
(c)2003 Kev Mayersky
head fills
Sometimes after sitting for a while, energetically drinking coffee and making the code work, I'll stand up to go talk with someone about something that feels extra important at that second in time, and then my head feels like it's filling up with pressure and my heart thumps loudly in my chest and I think my face is turning red, but I ignore it because I just started to talk to a co-worker whose looking back at me waiting for me to respond to the question I just asked them and the physical emergency that feels is coming isn't allowed to be important because the code needs to get fixed and the database doesn't have the right metadata and for a few seconds I'm in a little dreamland of pre-heart attack euphoria where the pressure in my head doesn't hurt, but creates a calming, comalike state seconds before I crumple lifelessly to the floor.
(c)2003 Kev Mayersky
A bug with simple yellow feathers and a bleached-blonde heart curled it's little wings around my ears and slept dreamlessly before losing it's spirit and drive for all that is good and wholesome in this small, small wonderful world.
(c)2003 Kev Mayersky
"It's from the meat."
While standing in line at the Safeway, I pushed the basket of groceries closer to the black conveyor belt that spun the stuff from the person in front of me. Cheese, rice, pasta, vegetables... The line moved a little and I shoved my basket of stuff with my foot, which I had placed on the floor. There was an inch or two of space on the conveyor to begin putting my groceries on. I waited until it moved til at least a foot. It moved. I slid my basket with my foot and saw a fairly large, red watery spot on the tile floor where my shopping basket had been. I looked up at the tabloid magazine rack and saw a headline about Christina Applegate stripping at a tittie bar. I picked up the zine and flipped to the pics. No nudity, but she was posed with a group of other girls who could pass as strippers. The lady behind me in line said, "It's from the meat". I put the tabloid back and said, "I'm not buying any meat". I lifted my basket from the floor and put a jar of pasta sauce on the convey belt. Again the lady behind me in line said with a Spanish accent, "It's from the meat". I said again, "I'm not buying any meat". The people in front of me turned and looked at me and then the spot on the floor. I moved up a few feet closer to the cash register. The lady behind me pushed her cart around the reddish watery spot to avoid it as the cash register guy with a clip-on name tag asked me, if I had my Safeway club card.
(c)2003 Kev Mayersky
abandonment
When Tiny was only 8, those supermarket aisles felt like they went on forever. Sitting in the center of aisle 3, after having run away from Mommy to chase the Kool-Aid man cardboard cutout that stood in front of his powdered sugar sweetened cherry flavored mix packets, he pondered for a minute silent. Seconds passed before he released an outrageous wail which summoned no one. An old lady pushing her shopping cart through the aisle breezed right past leaving a scent of Ben Gay and moth balls without even a look down.
(c)2003 Kev Mayersky
Lovely?
Did you ever buy a sandwich for lunch from a place that you're not really sure if they make a good sandwich and when you open it outside at the little park looking out at the water and the bridge, the sandwich turns out to look really good and full and with that mixed green salad instead of iceberg lettuce, and then when you eat one half that could have been enough food to have for lunch, you decide to eat the rest of it, just because it tastes so good and because the tuna has a little parsley in it and a spice or two that makes the quality stand out a little bit more than that little chinese deli on the other corner that puts yellow French's mustard on a tuna sandwich, and after you wipe your mouth after taking that last bite, you're too full and you see a homeless guy who really would have enjoyed that half sandwich, but you just sit there, not really being able to move much because all of that soft, greasy bread is expanding in your belly?
(c)2003 Kev Mayersky
My new year's resolutions are: to spend more time to eat when hungry to sing when the mood strikes to never ever again wander into that dream where I'm sitting in a cubicle behind a desk staring at a computer screen and the hours in the day drag on for hours and hours with very few moments of social interaction or even the slightest feelings of joy.
