Alphabet City: Summer Sweat Miasma
“If we move down there we’ll pay the same amount because we’ll save on the monthly subway pass. Plus there’s cheaper food there and we can do whatever we want.”
So we crammed a single air bed into the small space at the foot of a twin bed. It left just enough room at the end of the small bedroom to keep a couple of items of clothing strewn about the floor. The only way to get into bed was to slither in from the foot, or stomp all over my air mattress.
The air conditioner was useless. It had to be running on full gear constantly just to make the room bearable, as soon as it was turned off the heat crept back into the room like a noxious fume.
Sitting on the couch drinking instant iced coffee. Sweating profusely, dripping onto the floor. Climbing out the balcony and staring at the people in the building across the street.
“I can’t leave the house, you think I want to spend money?”
There was nap girl - she never left her bed, she was always either texting or sleeping. Underwear man - sat around all day in nothing but briefs watching tv.
Sex Couple - Always making out and going at it with the curtains wide open.
Dancing toddler - After school some serious booty-shaking was taking place on the fifth floor.
Just sitting out there on the balcony with a hot beer, sweat dripping off of the soles of my shoes down 5 stories to the ground. It dripped along with all of the air conditioning fluids and condensation.
Taking a shower was pointless. You got all of the dirt that had magnetized itself to your flesh, the exhaust from buses, the grease of chinese food, other people’s sweat. Five minutes later it was all back.
It took me almost an hour to bike to work. Having to cross the Williamsburg bridge and then bike uphill all the way to the Grand stop left me looking like a swamp creature by the time I got there. Not to mention that my “studio shoes” (white-turned-beige-black wasted soles strapped together with decaying rags) already smelled like a dead animal from being dragged through dive bars and garbage piles over 3/4 of the world.
Walking around you would feel the occasional drop on your head. One of those drops that condense in the air conditioner. The liquid is a combination of lung moisture from people breathing and their sweat evaporating into the air. And now it’s on my skin.
The urge to eat is squashed by the debilitating heat wave which plasters you to the floor making gravity the master. My diet consisted of iced coffee, nasty tall boy beers, and fruit juices, all I could muster the energy to swish down my throat.
Sleeping inches from another body, you could feel the presence - another radiator.
