It certainly is a beautiful day, I think as I gaze out the window onto the Brooklyn street below. Just one of those impossible to believe temperate and clear autumn New York afternoons that somehow seem so incongruous with New York's reputation.
I spy an old pick-up truck parked on the street below. It's a 1979 Ford F-150, rusty and beat up. The same make and model of the first car I ever owned. My dad had given it to me on my sixteenth birthday. Of course it was eleven years old by then and had over two hundred thousand miles, but I was happy as a pig in stink to finally have my own wheels.
I knock off the daydreaming that comes so easily when staring out the window on a beautiful day. I still have a lot of cleaning to do.
I try to open the window to let in some of the cool air and to ease some of the less-than-pleasant odor permeating the room. It sticks. It's one of those old cantilevered jobs that are ubiquitous to the brownstones in these parts. I check and see if there have been nails or screws inserted into the casing to prevent it being opened. Nope. I grab the base and give another pull. Nothing. I press my hands directly on the glass and heave with all my might. The rubber gloves I'm wearing certainly give me a firm traction, but the window remains decidedly shut. I suspect the hundred-some years of repeated paintings might be the culprit and abandon the task.
It strikes me as very odd that someone would have a bathroom window that doesn't open. It's not like anyone could crawl through the little thing. The former owner must have been lazy or just not very handy. Not my problem. I'm not gonna be here very long and I'm sure he no longer cares.
- Honey, I'm home!
The wife. I hadn't expected her home so early and was really hoping to have everything finished up before she got here. Oh well. I guess that I'll just have to have her help me out. The work will go faster with two instead of one. I grunt a response and can hear her climbing the stairs to come up and join me.
I know that in the grand scheme of things she may help me clean this mess a bit, but ultimately she's just gonna end up making a mess of her own. For some reason this doesn't bother me. It's a beautiful day and I really enjoy cleaning. It relaxes me.
I hear her walking down the hall towards the bathroom and take another glance out the window and then down at the pieces of her husband in the tub.
