Rent Unstabilized
And really I was ready to get beaten up as I opened the door…But nothing. Nobody was there! I was very relieved. But still I had to check the front door, the building door, you know, the one downstairs. So I propped my apartment door closed and walked slowly, slowly down the stairs. By about the sixth one, I could bend down a little bit to see through the window of the front door. And just like that. It was empty. Completely empty. Nobody was there. Nobody was ringing my doorbell. And as I stood there, the doorbell rang again! Nobody at either bell but the bell kept on. It had a mind of its own! It was broken. That was it. It was broken. It was another goddamn thing my landlord wouldn’t fix. And I couldn’t live like that, sleep with that thing beeping and beeping and beeping. I have enough trouble sleeping with my damn stiff shoulder and the crick in my neck. So now I was in fix-it mode, you know? I just needed to figure out what’s going on with the wires. I’m not an electrician, but after living alone with a deadbeat landlord, you get used to taking care of things yourself. I am fine living on my own. I can take care of myself. So I took out my tool box and my stool. The bell is about 10 feet above the ground. And it kept ringing this whole time! The sonofabitch didn’t stop ringing. So I stepped up on to the stool, and with a few good knocks, the plastic cover fell straight to the floor. Inside the bell, there were four wires tightened around four screws. There was a lot of dust too. I think this thing’s been here since I moved in. Piece of crap. The thing was still ringing in my face. The whole thing was vibrating like it was alive. And it was ringing like it was yelling at me. I had to shut that thing off. I’d go crazy. They’d have to send me to the loony bin or an old folk’s home. So I went and got my reading glasses. Without them I can’t see a Phillip’s head from an I-don’t-know-what. And you know that’s normal for a man my age. I know my weaknesses, so I go grab my reading glasses. It’s no big deal. So with the glasses on I went back up there. Then I saw it was a flat head screw. And so I went back down and grabbed my flat head screwdriver. Yes, this was a long process. But what would you rather I did? Call you? Call the fire department? I can just imagine, “Hello, fire department? I’m an old man and my doorbell won’t stop ringing. Please help.” This is New York for Christ’s sake! The fire department should be out fighting fires not being handymen. So I climbed back up. I tapped the metal end of the screwdriver on the metal head of the screw to see if there’d be a spark or if I’d get shocked. But no. It was ok. So I unscrewed it and the wire popped out at me like a crooked old finger. I tried to gently to bend it to the side, but the stubborn, stiff thing wouldn’t go. So I worked around it. Had to shimmy the stool to the side to get a good angle on the second screw. And then same thing. No spark. No shock. Just a wire popping out at me like it was sticking its middle finger at my nose. But then, see, the two wires rubbed against each other. Not like a match striking or anything. There was no force. The two just kissed each other. And that was it. A spark flew onto my head. I fell off the stool trying to tamp it out, flinching, naturally flinching. I know that sonofabitch landlord of mine will tell you I’ve got some sort of disease, Parkinson’s or something. He’ll tell you I fell over and started the fire because I’m an old man who can’t live on his own. But this could have happened to anyone. Anyone. Anyone could lose consciousness falling off a stool, head on fire. I got knocked out. I didn’t even hear the fire alarm go off.
