slipped on my flip-flops. Fuck-fuck-fuck-fuck-fuck I gotta hur-rrrrrrrry. I opened my door and took a step into the hallway and saw the worst sight I could imagine—a closed door. FUCK. SOMEONE IS IN THERE. Mr. Chocolatay, probably. Jesus, Jesus Christ. What was I going to do? I popped back into my room and paced around nervously, trying to gauge how much time I had. Okay, be at the door, stay by the door so you can get in there right when the person comes out. Fuck! Fuck, I am not going to make it. My time is more limited than I thought. Fuck. After some advanced bum clenching there was officially no more time. An executive decision had to be made. I shut my door and darted over to the kitchen area where I looked for something to poop into. The garbage? Yuck. I’m not putting my butt on that gross container. What else? What else? The salad bowl? I like that salad bowl. I need that salad bowl. That’s the only bowl I have, actually. There’s gotta be something—what else can I—oh, Jesus—bags! Do it in a bag! I grabbed a plastic shopping bag, then realized I’d better double-bag this one, and so I quickly rustled them together, pulled down my sweatpants, hopped over to the stereo and turned NPR up loud for some white-people white noise, and then squatted with the bags pressed up to my ass and put the previous evening behind me. Pulling the bags away from my butt, I thought that, all things considered, Linda Wertheimer, it worked very well. I didn’t want to ever have to do that again but the overall result was pretty successful. I felt almost . . . proud, if one can say that about pooping into plastic bags in your living room. Let’s not get carried away, that was ridiculously close. I tied the bags together and then tied them together a second time. I didn’t want to put them in my garbage. I felt this incident must be disposed of immediately and properly, so I put the bag on the floor and went to get dressed to go out. It was time for a little coffee anyway and I was out of milk. I was sure I could get this day back on track, damn it. I heard whoever was in the bathroom come out. I took off my sweats and threw them atop the shelf sculpture. I put on some white corduroys and slipped back into my black flip-flops. I walked over to the mirror in the closet to check out my tits in the ratty old running T-shirt. Was it still cute to walk around with no bra? Or was I supposed to have some respect for bra rules by this age. Fuck it. Maybe I still got it. Maybe I don’t. Today might not be the best day to judge this.
I headed out my door, past the first old Puerto Rican woman’s room, where she seemed to be sitting and staring at her refrigerator, then past the pothead’s room where a waft of pot came out his half-open door, seeming automated, like a haunted house exhibit. Always in this house doors are open. It’s one of the most bewildering traits of the Hispanic people. They could learn a thing or two from white people about the long-standing tradition of closed doors. Why the resistance to hiding things: drugs, drug problems, feelings, accidents? You don’t see me pooping into plastic bags with my door half-open, do you? I kept going down the stairs to the second floor where I passed the room of the son, Nacho, seated on a folding chair, drinking a beer, watching a small television, which was sitting on another folding chair. I tried to scurry by unnoticed.
“Hello, Jeanne.”
I never got by Nacho unnoticed.
“Hey, Nacho,” I said, and quickly kept going with my bag of poop.
One more doorway to get by, the second old Puerto Rican woman. My head was down, but I couldn’t help peeking up at the last second to catch sight of her lying on her big double bed. I ambled by with my poop, down the last set of stairs, past Mike and Nicola’s apartment.
Out on Dean Street, it was a sunny morning or afternoon. I looked at my watch. Two twenty-five. I didn’t want to leave my poop in my own building’s garbage so I made a left and headed up Dean toward Smith Street. I was desperate for a coffee. And water. And an everything bagel with cream cheese. Turned