A TV is on though, and the smell of Chinese food is strong. He's in there watching TV, eating Chinese food, and deliberately ignoring me.
“Bill, I need some help,” I call out.
Silence.
I knock again.
“You’re wasting your time, hon!” a familiar voice calls out.
I turn to smile at the woman stepping out of her apartment a few doors away. “Hi, Gia.”
Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve slowly been getting to know the other people in this apartment. Almost everyone works low-paid jobs with long hours, and they have no choice but to put up with things breaking down because there are no cheaper apartments in the city.
Gia is a 41-year-old beta and a single mom of three, often working more hours than I thought there were in a day. Somehow, she manages to do it with more energy than I will ever possess. Some people are strong physically. She’s tough mentally.
“I have no water in my shower. The pipes just rattle.”
“Ah.”
“It happened to you too?” I perk up.
“You've gotta hit the pipe with a wrench.”
I stare at her. “Hit it? But isn’t the super supposed to…”
She barks out a laugh. “Hon, it might say Super on his door, but that man is as useful as a steel box in the middle of a pitch-black room.”
She doesn’t even try to keep her voice down, and I edge away from his door in case he takes out his anger on the first person he sees should he fling it open:me.
“But what do you do if something breaks that you can’t fix yourself?” I ask, moving toward her. Try as I might, I can’t imagine hitting pipes will get me hot water for a shower I desperately need after cleaning hotel rooms for the last eight hours.
“We’d ask Hugh at the hardware store down the road. He’s helped us out a bunch over the years. I'd better go; I’m running late.” She locks up her apartment and tucks her key in her purse. At five, she’s probably on her way to start her shift at Bar Louis’,a cocktail bar on the other side of town. In the morning and early afternoon, she works at a customer service call center.
“See you, Gia. Hope you have a good shift.”
She snorts. “There are no good shifts. Only nights with good tips or shit ones. I’m back at four. If you’re still struggling, come knock on my door.”
I smile at her, but I won’t do that, even if I can’t get the hot water working. She doesn’t need to come home from work and help me with my broken pipe. She needs to rest for the three hours she has before she needs to get her kids up for school.
I watch her go and then turn back to the super’s door, wanting to kick it.
The owner of this building must pay him to fix things that break, but it seems like all he does is sit around eating Chinese food, stealing packages, and ignoring people knocking on his door.
Lucia, my neighbor who got me the job at the hotel, is visiting family, or I’d have asked if she had a better solution than to whack my pipes with a wrench.
“Looks like this is my problem to deal with,” I mutter.
Chapter 20
June
The bell over the hardware store door rings loudly as I push it open.
It’s late afternoon, but the store is quiet. No people are walking around, and there’s no music playing from the speakers above the counter. Just a dark-haired man bent over a stack of papers, and a store jampacked with so many parts I wouldn’t know where to start looking for anything I need.
I head for the counter, hoping the man can help me.
“Hugh?” I call out, remembering Gia’s words back at the apartment as I let the door close behind me
