The Sunshine Crust Baking Factory. Stacy Wakefield
into a soft ball of fluff. I shoved the whole mess into a garbage bag and wiped my hands on my shorts. I should have been more grossed out, but I was getting used to it down here.
Mitch appeared in the doorway in a Patriots T-shirt, the messenger bag he took to work slung over his shoulder.
I had all the junk sorted enough that you could walk through the space now, and he followed the path I’d made toward the back wall.
“I’m putting in a woodstove upstairs,” he said, “so save me any wood scraps you got.” He navigated through the room to a closet and moved a rotten piece of plywood. “Bingo! I knew there was a toilet down here!”
I’d built a sort of barricade around the old toilet with tall wood and pieces of metal. We didn’t have running water and it was crusty and gross. Mitch put his bag on the floor and started moving everything.
“You can bucket flush,” he said. “Clean it up and find a bucket. I’ll show you how to get water at the hydrant. You’re gonna be in business.”
I stood back, sure I’d get in his way if I tried to help. “Hey, so Skip and I were talking last night. We want to get a house workday going, you know, maybe work on some projects in communal spaces in the building . . .”
Mitch snorted. He lifted a rusty piece of iron, his arms straining. “I live here ’cause I like to be independent, this isn’t some hippie commune.” He wiped his hands on his jeans. “Everybody should know enough to take care of what needs to get done. If they don’t, they don’t belong here.”
“I just thought it’d be, like . . . cool . . . I mean, being new here . . .”
“So we should sit in a circle and hold hands? Tell our life stories?” He strode out the door swinging his bag over his shoulder. It was easy to end up talking to Mitch’s back. Like I even wanted to hear his stupid life story.
* * *
The door to the laundromat opened and Lorenzo ducked in out of the rain. I dropped the tattered People I was flipping through. Even in the fluorescent-lit tan and orange laundromat the guy managed to look cool. He was wearing a filthy Amebix T-shirt and army pants and leather bands on his wrist. If my T-shirt got that dirty the Latino girls on the street scowled and veered their baby carriages away from me, but on him it looked tough.
“Hey, stranger,” I said as nonchalantly as I could. My heart pounded. “Skip tell you I was here?”
“Yeah.” He sat down a few seats away. “Dude’s all agitated.”
“There was a workday yesterday. At the house.”
“Crap,” Lorenzo said. “Everyone was there?”
“No.” The workday thing was my idea so I was duty-bound to be there and to drink with Skip at the end of the day, since he’d gotten beer and ice to make it festive. I was paying for my forced cheerfulness now, hung over and irritable. “I told Skip you had to work.”
Lorenzo smiled. “Where was everyone else?”
“Mitch thinks he’s too good for group projects. So Jimmy didn’t bother showing his face either. He’s never around, I might add. Really, Mitch is kind of a bully. Skip says—”
“Whoa, tranquilo.” Lorenzo put out a hand to slow me down. “You gotta stay out of that shit.”
Right. Mr. Also-Never-Around. “Seriously,” I insisted, “Mitch is so high and mighty, what’s the point of living in a squat and being all superior like that?”
Lorenzo frowned. “I don’t think he’s someone you want to piss off.”
I got up and looked into my dryer where the blankets I’d found on the street rose and fell. Lorenzo was right, though in reality none of this was what was really upsetting me.
“You wanted a house, right?” Lorenzo said. I could see his reflection in the dryer, his arms stretched casually along the plastic seat backs. “Now what you want?”
My dryer stopped and I stared into it feeling close to tears. What I wanted was for him to be here with me, doing this together, but I couldn’t say that. What right did I have? I was scared I’d only push him away.
“Here, give me.” Lorenzo bundled the blankets together and led the way outside. The rain had slowed to a drizzle. We crossed the street dodging puddles.
“I thought I’d hang the blankets in the doorway,” I said. “Keep the chill out when it gets cold?”
“Good idea.” Lorenzo studied the faded letters painted on the brick while I unlocked the bolt. Sunshine Crust Baking Factory est. 1944.
“The Crust Factory,” he said. “Where’s the crust punks at?”
“I guess that’d be us,” I said and sighed.
“Gotta represent.” He gave me that smile that made everything better.
Inside, I saw he had left a new toolbox by the door.
“Will you look at the window? I can’t get it open.” We went through the maze of crap all the way to the back. The window faced a courtyard next door where a retired cop lived. He was cool, Skip said. He’d told Skip and Eddie about when our house used to be a bakery. He said truck drivers would pull off the BQE at dawn for fresh donuts.
“Was just you and Skip at the workday?” Lorenzo asked.
“And Eddie. But he just stood around like he didn’t want to get his pants dirty. He told us stories about this junkie squat he lived at in Harlem.”
“Yeah?” Lorenzo had WD-40 in his toolbox and big pliers.
“They couldn’t afford nails so they built walls by cutting wood too long so it would just hold wedged together with the tension.”
Lorenzo laughed. “Oh man. We live with the Loony Toons, huh? It okay staying upstairs?”
“It’ll be better when we can move down here.”
“Look, I been busy with my band.” Lorenzo glanced over his shoulder at me. “We got a show in a coupla weeks.”
Here it comes, I thought. He’s bailing. I chewed my lip. Why had I said we like that, like I was depending on him? Why was I complaining about the guys here and making it sound bad?
“After that,” he went on, “I be around more. But man, you kickin’ ass down here.”
“Really?” I breathed out.
“You done a lot. It’s cool.”
It was all worth it. We were going to be together here. Lorenzo grunted with effort and the window opened. There was nothing to look at, it faced a brick building, but a gust of air came into the dank room and we leaned into it.
IV
Skip asked if I wanted to go to a poetry slam with him and I dropped the broom I was pushing around and ran to get ready. I had to laugh at myself while I dug in my bag for a clean shirt. I always said poetry was for beatnik throwbacks, but I really needed to get out of the house. Over the last few weeks I’d gotten the first floor livable and moved in, but it wasn’t the fun, friend-filled world I’d dreamed squatting would be. Lorenzo was home one night out of three, Jimmy even less. I avoided Mitch because he was so judgmental and Eddie because he was vacant and weird. I wanted Veronica and Raven to come visit but they both acted like Brooklyn was on the other side of the moon.
On the L train into the city, Skip seemed nervous. He was muttering to himself, distracted. We transferred to the 6 at Union Square and got off in the 30s. I followed Skip up Third Ave. and into some place that looked like an Irish sports bar. It was air-conditioned and full of men with crew cuts. I wondered if we were in the wrong place until a skinny guy with a pencil stuck in his hat came rushing from the back.
“Skip!