Cleaning Up New York by Bob Rosenthal

$60. I needed $60 in three weeks’ time . I was out of a job so the idea of doing temporary work just popped into my head. I called a friend who had once done cleaning jobs and he told me to call up Everything for Living Space. He said I’d have to lay out $15 in order to register with the agency. Shelley and I have only been eating rice and beans; I felt I held our future in my hands as I grabbed the checkbook and took the subway up to Broadway and 72nd Street. My trepidation doubled as I stepped into the noisy, broad vacuum created by the large gray buildings that outline Needle Park. My mind thumbed back over pages of
Naked Lunch
that settled on this location with a green fog. My ears picked up the soundtrack to the movie
Panic in Needle Park
, which must have been just a microphone hung outside one of these dirty windows. I found the address on 72nd Street and entered the lobby sure that I was about to be jumped as I punched the big, black, knobby button on the elevator. Released into a thin, filthy green, corridor, I pumped my feet up to a frosted-glass door lettered EVERYTHING FOR LIVING SPACE .
    Barbara, a flamboyant redhead with a brassy, theatrical voice, became the focus of my attention as the door shut behind me. Her evocative manner of speaking put me at ease and I began to see cleaning as a possible and perhaps glamorous thing to do. Barbara would get me cleaning jobs at $3.50 an hour with a four-hour minimum, after I provided her with two referencesand the $15 deposit. I gave my former boss and the poet Ron Padgett as references and put down the money. Barbara said she would call me as soon as I was cleared. I walked out, back into the gray fumes of that day. Out of work, nowhere special to go, I shuffled over to Central Park West and started ambling up past noble apartment buildings, awnings, and yawning doormen. I spotted a gold trinket on the sidewalk, picked it up, and held before my eyes a small brass button. I asked a nearby doorman dressed in a green uniform if the button belonged to him. He couldn’t speak English, but he understood the question and answered it with a negative. I told him I must have been promoted and he gave me a congratulatory smile. Walking up Central Park West, my stride gained and I straightened up. Passing soldiers of courtesy, imperious apartments overlooking the green domains of the park, I felt my bootstraps pulling; I knew I was on the road to success. I walked into the Museum of Natural History and proffered a quarter for which I received another button. A dinosaur was drawn on it and the word “contributor” was written below the extinct animal.
    Success came the next day in the form of a command from Barbara via the telephone: Go to Interior Design showroom on Lexington Avenue, 59th Street. The first hours passed easily, working with a cheerful middle-aged Jewish wife. I had to move a few objects around the showroom and rehang pottery and macramé junk wall-hangings. Later in the afternoon, her husband, the boss, came in. He was the kind of guy who talks fast, is pushy, and can’t ever give a direct order. I found myself doing the endless bits and pieces of his undone chores. Each task wasa little more tedious and backbreaking than the last. My coordination lessened as the difficulties mounted. I uncrated furniture, changed light bulbs, and tacked up little metal tiles using thumbtacks that would not stick in the wall; and I cleaned out a closet left over from the
Fibber McGee and Molly
radio show. I consoled myself with the fact that I was getting in plenty of hours. I worked into the evening with no food or rest. I was just about to faint when the miracle occurred. I got paid and set free. I worked and the result was over $20, green and needed, in my pocket. I bought a hamburger and an ale and brought them home. Shelley lifted her tired head off the kitchen table as I came in the door. How bizarre the sizzle of the meat seemed and how delicious