Mark and I were never really friends. We were neighbors and in a way co-workers as we helped maintain the building. I saw him on a daily basis, though we were never quite friends. But everyday after I had gotten ready, I’d step out of my room, close the door behind me and lock it. And Mark would be standing in the hallway holding two matching plastic buckets.
He’d hand me one of them and the two of us without a word would walk towards the elevator, buckets swinging, and then make an immediate right to take the stairs. The elevator has never worked. Not since I’ve lived here.
Together we’d walk down the narrow cigarette shoot of steps, the walls were a hard yellow, stained from years of runoff from the roof when the rains poured into this old building. Some people might ask why we lived here, and the answer was simple, rent was free as long as we completed a single task for the building daily.
When we finally got to the first floor, the two of us would look at each other. And every day we would have the same argument. It wasn’t loud by any means. Or loose tongued. Mark would say, “It’s your turn today.” And I’d shake my head, “No I did it yesterday. Today’s your day.”
The two of us would stand there until one of us decided there was no point in lying. And open the door to the basement floors.
If the rest of the building was derelict and old with age, then the guts of this thing was the exact opposite. The walls were spotless, so clean in fact that they almost shined. The light down here glowed differently too. I don’t know how to explain it. But I could see all the weathered old lines on Mark’s face, every single pore and deep pocket, even the way the fluid under the dark bags lining his eyes moved as he walked - swishing back and forth as our empty buckets swung.
If the first basement was beautiful, the second one was absolutely luxurious. Tiles crept the floor and the lights were even more vibrant. It didn’t matter how many times I scrubbed myself, I’d still look like a dirty rat in floor 2. Mark even worse. But it’s not like either of us showered beforehand as we always needed one after we paid our rent. It’s the smell mostly, completely beautiful, but the stench that permeated through the walls fused with my hair, skin, and nails. Even after I used the steel wool I kept near the bath, I could still smell it. It’s one that I’ll never forget. The smell of home.
The third floor was the deepest we needed to go, but a quick look down the stairs revealed many, many more floors below. I had never gone past the 3rd floor, but Mark has. He said it used to be necessary but not anymore.
On the third floor, we might as well have been in the Sistine chapel. Everything was tall and grand, the ceiling had these small encrusted rocks that formed on the underbelly of the building. But I felt as if they weren’t so sparkly and shiny, it would look like cists lining the back of a diseased throat.
There were long hallways and rooms here, but we never went into any of them. Instead we would keep walking, our feet knowing where to go even if they weren’t willing. The smell down here was even worse. It ate at me. I know it. The little time we spent down here already made my skin rough to the touch as if I had been sleeping in a bed of sandpaper. I could feel it even when I blinked, the holes it created in my corneas, the feeling in the folds of my eyelids as they slid over my irises, rippling each time they went over the parts that had been eaten away. Each blink no more subtle than running my fingers over ripped panty hose.
Air didn’t travel freely down here. I could feel the C02 throbbing in my chest even as I took in lungfuls of death’s putrid stench. We always hurried as we drew closer. Our pace quickening as the lack of oxygen began to affect our brains. But move too fast and there was a chance of blacking out.
“You’re running,” Mark would breathe out. Struggling with each word.
“I’m not,” I would tell him. Equally stressed as I slowed down.
It was often all we could spare as we neared the pool.
No one else would call it that. But I had no other name for it. Mark didn’t like to talk about it. So I simply referred to this sludge of grey liquid that swam at the bottom, neither wet nor dry, as the pool.
It was shallow at first, but looked deeper as it reached the middle. Perhaps calling it a pond would be more accurate. It was about the same size. But the word pool came first so it stuck.
Once at the edge of the pool, Mark and I would take turns filling our buckets. Holding onto each other’s hand as one of us spread out over the water.
This time Mark went first. I acted as his anchor as he stretched himself out. He had to get in there deep enough, or else would chance not being able to fill the bucket. And neither of us ever wanted to hang over that sludge for longer than necessary as the smell started to burn as we hovered directly over it.
So I braced myself, clenching my teeth as Mark was heavier than I was, to make sure that he didn’t fall in as he reached over the grey sludge. His bucket dangling over the pool before it disappeared beneath the surface up to the handle. Mark pulled it up slowly even though the angle and added weight was a strain on my body. I could feel my hands getting wet and slippery each time. But it was imperative that neither one of us got a drop of the stuff on our skin. So he would pull it back up slowly and I wouldn’t beg for him to hurry.
After he was done, the two of us would take a quick break. Trying to draw what little oxygen we could in from this dead air. I would still be seeing stars popping in my vision when Mark would motion for me to go next.
I was lighter than he was, smaller of frame. It was a good thing he had long arms, as he practically needed to dangle me for my bucket to be completely submerged.
When we were done, with two full buckets of this thick heavy wash. We would quickly, but carefully, make our way towards the stairs. Climbing the steps, afraid to spill a drop before we were outside on the city streets.
Mark would act as look out, he was better at this, and more experienced. And I would quickly dump the contents of my bucket into a sewer nearby. Where it would go, neither of us would know. But as long as it wasn’t here. Our debt for the day was paid.
After Mark dumped his bucket, we would go back into the building, and we would climb up the stairs until we got to our floor. And without another word go into our separate rooms.
We would do this everyday before resuming our normal lives. And nothing would change, until one day when I suggested to Mark, “Why don’t we use sticks? Or rods? With hooks on them? I saw something that fisherman’s use, that might work.”
But he shook his head, “I said the same thing to the last person that was here. He said it wouldn’t work. That the wood would melt right off and break without warning. Leaving the bucket to sink. He said the hassle of using one bucket twice until a new one was delivered, wasn’t worth it.”
“What if we tried a different material? Or. What if we tried making a rod out of the same thing as the buckets?”
“I said the same thing. We even tried it too. Special ordered it online. Same material and everything. Yeah. It held up pretty good for awhile. But then something from the roof snapped in level 4. It fell down on us. Causing a huge splash. It was more like a tidal wave at the time. Felt like it. Swallowed the old man whole.”
“W-what happened?”
“I couldn’t do anything. Barely made it out of there alive myself. But afterwards. That was when the lights turned on. And the grey water moved up to floor three.”
We never really talked about it after that.
Sometime around November, Mark gave me an early Christmas present. They were diet pills.
“You’re getting fat,” he told me. “It’s harder for me to dangle you out there since you have to reach further than me. You wouldn’t want me to drop you right?”
His words stuck with me through the Holidays. I limited my portion at Thanksgiving. Both at the office party and at home with my family. My mom fussed over my plate, asking me why I wasn’t eating. I kept smiling and telling her that there’s a wedding I want to attend soon. And a dress I wanted to fit in. That excuse worked only until Christmas. By then I had lost 20lbs.
She took one look at me when I showed up at the doorstep on the 25th. And wouldn’t hear it. Instead she dragged me to the kitchen and loaded up my plate. Fried chicken and mashed potatoes. Corn bread. And cheese covering broccoli. I told her to hold the gravy but ate my way through the first plate and the second. Jam and biscuits, milk to wash it down. I had cookies and ice cream. Layers of fudge for my sundae.
But when I got home, I saw Mark in the hallway. He didn’t have to say anything to me. Just stood there. Probably smelling the fried chicken on my breath and saw my stomach protruding from my spandex.
I quickly ran into my room and slammed the door shut.
The New Year came, but nothing changed.
Each day we would go grab our buckets all the same. One of us would lie about who unlocked the door to the basement last, as neither one of us wanted to go down there first. And we would climb down the stairs to floor three to get the bucket of sludge and then dump it out on the street.
I had been saving up my money for nearly a year now. And was a few months away from being able to put a down payment on an apartment in a nicer part of the city. Which might have left Mark dry without a partner. So I thought it would be courteous to tell him about my plans so that he could make other arrangements.
He shrugged, “When the old man died. You showed up the next day.”
“Wait,” I paused. “You didn’t put out an ad?”
He shook his head, “Nope. I thought about it that night. But like I said. You showed up in the morning.”
“And you didn’t think that was questionable? Or at least coincidental?”
“That’s how I got here,” Mark told me. “I saw an ad for a live in maintenance worker, and I had some experience during college as a property manager. So I took it.”
I swallowed, “I used to clean houses for college. My ad said trading free rent for house keeping.”
“I guess someone out there knows us.”
And that was the end of the conversation.
By March, I had lost another 8 pounds. That was a lot for a person of my size. I could feel my bones aching every morning. The cold showers before work didn’t help any, as there was no gas running in the building. But the idea of being dropped into the sludge scared me more than a few missed meals.
And Mark seemed to take notice, “You’re getting too skinny.”
I was already in a foul mood. A stock I had invested heavily in had turned sour. What should have been weeks away from my move, now set me back by a few more months. “Too fat,” I yelled at him. “Too skinny!” I threw my empty bucket to the floor. “What do you want from me?”
Mark picked up my bucket and handed it to me, “I just don’t want to fall in either.”
My stomach grumbled between us as if it were agreeing.
I wrung my hands but knew he was right. I had to start eating. Mark was feeling heavier each day but he hadn’t gained any more weight. He looked exactly the same even under the perfectly lit rooms in the basement.
By June I had lost another 3 pounds. My stock was plummeting along with my appetite. Some of my other investments that looked like sure wins suddenly turned on its head and went south. Even my work was suffering. It was as if something was keeping me from progressing. I blamed it on my health. But a part of me felt like it was the building. It didn’t want me to leave.
I brought this up with Mark one day, to make sure that I wasn’t going crazy. I was honestly hoping he would somehow reassure me, that it was all in my head and that things would turn around. Not that he had ever extended me that type of kindness before. But the last thing I wanted to hear was him validating me.
Mark told me that he was once an up-and-coming lawyer straight out of law school. His family wasn’t rich so he had to take out a massive amount of loans to get through school, and thought he would live here for awhile in order to pay off his student loans with the rent money he’d save. Things went well for him for awhile, really good in fact. His job was great and he was indeed saving money, enough to pay off his loans ahead of schedule and even move out. But then things turned for the worst right as it got better. He lost a decisive case for his career and never recovered. Now he was lucky if a client would let him take their case.
“It’s almost as if this place does something to you. Or I don’t know. Maybe it’s the surroundings that affects your work. Kind of a, you are what you eat, sort of way. The subpar conditions tear away mentally at the edge you have sharpened. The one that keeps you competitive. Dulling it. And next thing you know, you’re slipping,” he said. “And once that happens. There’s no coming back.”
By the 4th of July I had lost all of my savings.
It became difficult to drag myself out of bed. Mark often had to come knock on my door in the morning to wake me up so that the two of us could make the trek down to the third floor basement. I was stretched thin at this point, we had even stopped talking before unlocking the door downstairs. Even the smell almost stopped bothering me. Instead I spent my days trying to figure out what I did wrong. Where I could improve. Thinking that if I had done this or that, ate here or there, bought or sold, things would be different. But it was after a particularly cold shower when I pulled out a clump of my hair that I finally had enough.
This place was driving me insane and I had to leave. It didn’t matter if the rent was mostly free. The cost of work was killing me.
I had all but made up my mind by the next day, that when we were in the third floor basement, I thought to myself, “Thank god. This is going to be the last time I come down to this forsaken abscess,” as I struggled to breathe.
I went first this time. Mark dangling my disheveled frame easily as I managed to grab my full bucket. I looked into the tub of grey. Its stench warm on my face before I set it down on the floor next to me.
“Come on,” Mark told me. “My turn.” He reached out his broad hand and grasped my tiny wrist. I pulled back with all my might. Straining my pelvis to the sky as I threw all my weight backwards as he leaned over the pool.
“Mark,” I gasped. “You’re slipping.” I could feel my palms start getting sweaty. The beads lubricating between our skin. My tiny fingers trying to grip his hairy forearms as I looked up for a split second and saw the horror etched onto Mark’s face before he fell into the grey sludge.
I screamed as the liquid seeped into his mouth.
In less than a second, Mark had completely disappeared. If it weren’t for his bucket still slowly sinking on top of the surface nearby. It’s as if Mark was never here to begin with.
Terrified I grabbed my bucket of sludge, nearly sloshing it all over myself as I ran back up the stairs. When I got out on the street I heaved the bucket into the sewer and then I vomited nothing but acid and saliva onto the sidewalk. Several times I thought about calling the police. But eventually I realized that I didn’t know what I would say? Or how I would explain anything. In fact, I didn’t even know Mark’s last name. Or if he had a family. I practically didn’t know a damn thing about him.
But when I got to his room. There was nothing in there, except an old dirty mattress and some law books stacked up in the corner. There weren’t even any meal cans in his pantry.
I didn’t know what to do so I went back to my room. I stripped naked and threw all of my clothes into the trash can and went to go take a shower. The cold water stung my skin but I didn’t care. I was racked with guilt and could hardly console myself, but then somewhere between the crying and self-loathing. The water began to turn warm, and it got warmer until it was piping hot.
The tears of guilt slowly turned into ones of relief.
I took 3 showers that day. One before work. One after. And another before bed. It really changed my mindset and helped with my mood. A lot of my previous problems suddenly became smaller and more manageable. In some cases, negligible even. There was something about having a hot shower that reminded me of what it meant to be…alive. And almost like a light switch, the building didn’t seem so bad anymore.
I could stay here I rationalized in bed that night. Just for awhile longer. Just until I get back on my feet.
And sure, I was a bit worried about my duties the next day. But I had just taken a hot shower, and figured I’d come across that bridge when I crossed it tomorrow. Falling to the best sleep that I ever had since I stepped foot in this building.
When I woke up, I halfheartedly expected a knock at my door. Though that only reminded me of what happened to Mark. My thoughts turned bitter as I prepared to go into the basement, but as I was washing my face and brushing my teeth, the hot water still coming out of the faucet made me smile.
I was practically whistling by the time I got to the first floor. And my smile grew even wider when I saw a young man, he looked straight out of college, standing in the lobby. Waiting for me.
“I heard there was a vacancy,” he told me. Rather Cheerfully.
“Yeah, we just had an opening.”
He clicked his tongue, “The ad said something about plumbing for free rent?”
I nodded, “Yup. Just a bit of maintenance for this old building.”
“And it’s really free? Except for the work,” he added.
I nodded, “Been here for close to 2 years.”
“Really?” His eyes lit up. “That’s great! You know. Rent’s so high nowadays.”
“It’s absolutely ridiculous,” I agreed.
“You’re telling me.” He dropped his bags, “So does this place have Wi-Fi?”
I smiled at him, “No. But it could.”