Globe Valve, by Caleb J. Ross
Where Have Your Hands Been? by Ajay Vishwanathan
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Globe Valve
Caleb J. Ross
These downtown lofts hijacked my young horizons. Two renegade weeds from an otherwise clean, though admittedly barren, lawn split the Earth years ago to strangle the clouds and claim our family photograph backgrounds; pictures rendered good enough for mom’s wall, but always heavy with commentary.
“I’d love to have raised you downtown, Eric,” she said too often.
“We’re not even cultured enough for the suburbs to claim us.” Seeing the towers reminded us that we didn’t live in them.
From Tom’s loft balcony, my mother’s home doesn’t exist. The tree canopy and church steeple distractions erase that life, leaving a view washed of all but green and stone. Tom uses words like quaint and dismal when measuring to my mother’s distant horizon.
“I don’t know,” I tell Tom. “Distant maybe. But I wouldn’t say quaint.” I inhale from my converted globe valve pipe, let the smoke waft beyond the railing. A breeze tangles my blond cancer wig, my mother’s. Tom inhales, denies the smoke from escaping our contrived conversation. I’m not gay, neither am I a habitual cross-dresser, but for a chance to walk these lofts I can pretend. Mom always wanted to know how these people lived. So far, mom, I’d use words like aromatic and chic.
“That’s a nice pipe you have there,” Tom says.
“I stole it from a friend.”
Tom lifts a highball from a table at his knee. “Must have been a good friend.” He drinks.
“I stole it.”
Silence from each neighboring wall saves the moment. The only sound to fight against our discomfort and the steady winter air is Tom’s own stereo, spewing ambient jazz he calls “superb.”
“I don’t know,” I tell him. “Annoying maybe. But I wouldn’t call it superb.”
He touches the highball to his lips, considers it but returns the glass to the table. “Why even agree to come up here?”
“Honestly? My mother and I have a bet. She says people who live in lofts are artistic types with good taste.”
“And…”
“So far, I’m winning.”
He plants into one of the two metal-worked chairs behind us and reaches back to power on a dim overhanging bulb. The light reflects against the textured metal, camouflaging his balcony nook with the same stars haunting over us. We are floating, defying gravity and ascension alike.
“Owning a loft is in good taste, wouldn’t you say?”
I can feel his eyes against my back. Another inhale, exhale leaves acrid smoke hovering thick in front of us, a limbo between the asphalt below and the spotted night above. “Owning a loft
for the right reasons is in good taste, yes. Owning a loft to fuck rookie trannies is not.”
Tom swats a mosquito at his neck. “Since when is fucking a wrong reason?”
“This,” I gesture with my chin toward his living room, a sweeping motion to describe the aging bachelor’s entire life, “should be a perfect existence. You’ve got a couch upholstered in rabbit fur, walls filled with artists only other perfect people know, and a view that could kill lesser men. Why can’t you see this?”
“Are you saying I’m one of those lesser men?”
“Do you call this perfect?”
“I’ve lived with better views,” he says. “And I don’t have a pipe that nice.”
“There are no better views. Have you ever truly looked out there?” I extend my arm over the railing, the pipe at its clenched fist, and sweep the black skyline. “Have you ever envied—” but
I’m stripped of the pipe by a falling body, a blur of skin and fabric piercing the blanketed smoke. Within a single heartbeat, a body goes from one of the Earth’s residents to just one of its craggy
imperfections.
Tom knocks his drink to the ground as he rushes to the railing. “Shit,” he says, no taste, no art to his reaction. “Did he jump?”
I swear I met the body’s eyes, received a wink and a confident smile. I still feel his cotton collar, his belt buckle, his laces against my fingertips.
“Who the fuck was that?” Tom says pacing the balcony, his neck still craned over the edge.
“You live here,” I say. Fresh light from the first floor neighbor’s deck illuminates Tom’s face. He’s sneaking a grin amid his concern.
“I don’t know everybody,” he says. “Should I call an ambulance?”
I keep my seat to maintain poise. “Do you know anybody?”
The first floor light flicks off. No observance beyond that simple dismissal. The darkness releases Tom back from the edge. He claims the opportunity for a lesson: “See, this lifestyle isn’t perfect. It drives some people mad.”
I pull away. “Yes it is. Those people just don’t live it right.”
“I’m calling an ambulance,” he says and kicks aside his fallen highball as he enters the loft.
Should I look? I have never seen a dead human, not outside my head, and morbid curiosity can be a persuasive demon. After all, I’m enduring this loft, aren’t I? The smoke has dissipated entirely, leaving not even a fog to mask the stars. Even that man’s final destructive wake has died. I wonder how long he spent aiming for these lofts only to one day aim for its ground.
Tom pokes his head outside. “Ambulance is on its way.” He pulls back in but stops. “I’m going down there. If your pipe survived, can I have it?”
I shrug, nod, and watch him leave, still smuggling his tiny grin. On the way out, I steal a painting from his wall—Mother’s Day approaches—and head to the stairwell for a rear exit.
Where Have Your Hands Been?
Ajay Vishwanathan
When you are risk-taking, in search of something unique, and broke, it is amazing how many jobs you can find. Yes, even in this gutter economy.
There was this researcher who wanted me to sit in one unobtrusive corner of a huge airport restroom and just observe. His point of interest (apologies - pun unintentional, and disgustingly accidental) was the frequency at which people fail to wash their hands after wrapping up their task. I was given a little broom that would be listed against the wall beside me, and a rusted bucket that was supposed to give an impression of years of unquestioned labor. This guy had taken care of everything - covered all angles (more apologies) - to make sure my task was carried out without any hitches. In fact, it seemed so well planned that I wondered if I was the sixteenth person who was doing this, after maybe a few dislocated jaws from unsanitary fists or incidence of strange new syndromes acquired from sitting amidst a constant insalubrious bustle of liberation and consequence. Also suspicious was the way the professor reacted to my yes: he gave me a month's supply of free toilet bowl cleaner and hand soap refills. I didn't mind the goodies but hated the smell of citrus after that.
My job started on the Saturday of a long weekend, on a day teeming with subjects who cared little about an erudite-looking teenager who didn't half-look like a custodian. What amazed me more was the number of violators: some were in too much of a hurry to even zip up properly; some went straight for the mirror and then, their comb; some decided they didn't need a comb [I pitied the ladies who liked to play with their spouse's curls!]; one guy, ironically, pulled out his toothbrush from his bag and started religiously brushing his teeth.
I wondered why my presence didn't bother them or force them to follow the basic rules. It was perhaps my well-combed hair and thick glasses - they thought I was just a bored boy waiting for his dad to finish up. The observations were interesting. Unexpected, I have to admit, but after a couple of weeks I started feeling like those folks who work in chocolate factories - who start detesting the look of anything brown, wrapped, and meant to dissolve around a rolling tongue. I started hating the smell of restrooms and grew wary of anything that people touched.
When my girlfriend dumped me for refusing to shake hands with her father, I knew it was time to quit. It has been a month since I walked out; I feel more normal now and less guarded. And have started enjoying my oranges.
