Stairs

J. Enriquez

Teddy saw her from the step of the U-Haul van, climbing down, choked on nothing as his foot set down. She was looking out the window of a no-elbow-room size window, somewhere dozens of stories up, short red hair flying around. Mom and Dad handed over to him a box full of picture frames and paperweights. Little Brother smiled. Teddy climbed the stairs.

Stairs, stairs, the very tall building, 3 apartments per floor. Day One he took his time carrying boxes up to his room, the narrow staircases, one landing halfway up each floor, hoping they would bump, he and her, bump as people do. By dusk he carried empty boxes, taped up with remainder strips half-stuck to themselves, up and down. Day Two he started knocking.

“I’m Teddy,” he’d say. “I’m new.” Every time the open door, another stranger face behind. Every time he’d listen, because he was polite. Every time his eyes would dart, towards the corner, towards the next door.

On Day Forty-four he saw her on a balcony, smoking a cigarette, looking over the chilling Autumn air, over the moseying walk of the cars on road. Her expression looked like she was waiting for something she used to think would come and then forgot.

Up the stairs went Teddy. He tried to count, tried to remember. He tried to keep track, used his hands, did math, measured with his eyes. Tried to know how far up was the balcony, but the building was so tall.

Stairs and stairs, 3 to a floor, and up a floor. Friendly moms. Deaf old men. Little kids running around, kitchens that smell of meat. Stairs and stairs, knock and knock. Early in the morning, Ted would awake, and shower 1 ½ hours before he had to go, and get all his things ready, so that one hour before he’d need to walk out the door, he could knock. Sleepy businessmen, young couples, families who didn’t speak Teddy’s language. With a smile he’d say hello.

Winter came. Ted’s face grew wider. His muscles needed a little more rest, although not that much yet. He had to sleep a little more. He cut his hair more often. Jackets got pulled close.

At his job all day he’d daydream of the doors, un-knocked, see them in his eyelids, halfway drawn. When he got home, he’d start his work again. Until he thought it would be rude for the late hour, he’d knock and knock. “Hello, I’m Ted.” Up a floor.

In his room, in his desk, in an old green reusable bookstore bag, he keeps a tan notebook, pre-lined with squares. Each four-square grid is outlined in darker marks, up and up, three big squares per row, down the page for columns and columns, into the next page. Over pages and pages, red X’s are crossed. And over pages and pages in between and at the end, black squares remain wide open. Tallest building in the world.

One cold day he saw her, from the yellow rectangle taxi that stopped in front on his way home from a night out with friends. The yellow glow of light from behind gave her square world a whirl of warmth, but she looked cold, everything below her chin wrapped up, triple-swirl in white blanket with black twirls. She was looking out, at the line of lights miles away, like she could pinpoint which lights were for her, somewhere.

He counted and counted and ran and ran, stairs, landing, stairs, landing, a ruckus, so late, part of him embarrassed, but lesser concerns like that would have to wait. Knock, knock, knock, a moment to straighten his coat. Snow fluffed out. No answer, knock and knock. Door swung open, and behind the mother, a baby crying, no one else. “I’m sorry.”

The door next door – he brought his hand up, but no, it wasn’t this one. If it wasn’t that one, it wasn’t this one, this one wasn’t even in the middle. Neither was the one n the other side. He stepped down the stairs, careful, quiet. The stairs creaked more for his care. Snow fluffed out.

Spring came. Ted shaved closer. His car got bigger. His time at work grew longer. His shirts went up a size, he could not get himself up 1 ½ hours earlier very much. He still knocked every day, because he still had energy, and determination. His notebook crossed red X after X, and plenty left to go. Stairs and stairs.

“Good afternoon,” he’d say, just a quick nod. “Sorry to bother you.”

Mail came. A photo of Mom and Dad, stiffer now, some wrinkles, but still with lots of light. Little Brother, tall now, a smaller girl under his arm now, pretty, kissing his cheek. Ted, he smiled. He smiled so much a second tear almost came out. A check came out, from the envelope. He picked it up and carried it to the hall.

The landlord lady was in the hall, curlers in her hair, knocking on doors. Looking for checks. He handed her his, it went in one hand while the other knocked on a door.

He went to work. Knock, knock. No answer. He left the box unmarked. Moved on the next. Knock, knock. No answer. He caught a glimpse of her, running up the side-stairs, a bag slung on her shoulder, a dark coat’s tails swinging at her feet. He ran. Just like that, his feet were Teddy’s again, his knees curled, uncurled, moved with passion. He hit the landing at a jump. Somewhere above, some doors were slammed. Why more than one?

He bounded up the second set of staircase, crashed into a row of shoes in a wooden shelf set out in the hall, tripped, one leg splayed forward like a dancer split, rolled onto his side, and brushed himself off. To the door, knock knock. No answer. He tried the next door, knock knock. No answer. Upstairs, more doors slammed. Behind him, coming up the landing, was the landlord lady, curlers in her hair. With a sinking rush, cables cut, his throat hit his kidney. No one would answer today.

Summer came. The weather brought out people, lines and lines, on the sidewalks and the courtyard, beneath the trees and by the fountain. Ted would walk around it, watching. Matching faces he had seen, for those five-second introductions, with the squares in his notebook, in the grid-ed margins which he wrote, little things like: “make peace with your distress” and “we are the sum of the spaces we displace.”

        His legs moved slower now, pushed by him, pushed, rather than pulling him. His face was rougher, weathered by the sun. He wore suits and ties, and sometimes grew a beard. His own apartment was full of work. Beneath the stacks, sticking out always by at least one corner, the tan notebook was frayed, brown rings from cups across its cover, a few pages crackling, inflamed from water damage. It was almost illegible in reds and blacks.

        Three to a floor. Knock knock knock. “Evening.” Up a floor.

        He set aside 1-2 hours, between dinner and work, to say hello, three times. Up a floor.

        In the courtyard he would lie on his back on stone benches with his tan notebook on his stomach and read, newspapers, books, magazines. One time out of the corner of his paper, telling Little Brother he was loved, fireflies pinging green softly here and about in clouds of tiny neon darts, he saw her. She looked different to herself, the same to him. He dared not move, lying out on that stone bench in his full suit and shoes, pointing towards the sky. She wore a dress, a simple one. She looked out like this moment was permanence, and she was satisfied, in so affirming her eyes betraying that in other moments she was not, like a man who says “I am not hungry now, I shall never have to eat.”

        From the glow behind, a man appeared, dark black hair and beard, and put both hands around her shoulders and joined them to each other in between at her front and held her as she looked out. Ted did not get up.

        He did not run. He would keep knocking tomorrow. And tomorrow after that. And tomorrow after that. But he did not run.

Winter came again, and he stood outside to watch the lights, and listen to his earphones. He stood by the laundry room dryer vent to catch some heat and his earphones went silent, so he heard the music. With tired joints, aching eyes, he heard her voice, and knew without ever hearing it before that it was hers. From the vent it came, from above, above, somewhere very high. No one else was in the courtyard and he lied down in the snow, underneath the vent, his head painful on a rock, his neck stiff, his slacks soaking with the snow, heavy winter coat staining underneath him.

She sang all more beautifully, to him, in that the vents robbed the words and left only her tones, her highs and lows, her oxygen, her air. He closed his eyes in the lethal cold. She sang to him of not being young, of chances taken in not exactly the right numbers and opportunities missed in not exactly the right amounts, of all the places that didn’t seem real while they had made her who she was in so real a way. Broken moments in between the course that set directions coursing around, lines that lead to places never materialized, and ones that built up so strong, like hard rock harbors even years of river can’t erode away.

He woke up in the middle of the night, not having realized when he fell asleep. It took him hours to feel his arms and legs again.

Mail came. A big huge red heart on paper, from Mom and Dad. It was the last thing they told him, but all they wanted to say. Little brother came next week, to pick him up, pretty girl under his arm, them in matching rings. Ted wore black over their boxes, Mom and Dad all wrinkles but he saw  just light, and said “Big red heart” back. He went back home alone.

Spring came. Little Brother came, with Little-Sister-now who was big, little nephews running underneath waiting for their own sister. They all waked arm in arm, in the courtyard. He loved having them nearby. He hid the notebook from them. They waved goodbye, and the minute that they did he pulled it out. It could not be read. His thick glasses grew thicker still but he could never tell if it was him or the book, packed so tight with squares and crosses, so close together they could not be told apart, words along the sides in the writing of a different man. He used it anyway.

In Summer, the courtyard filled. He had trouble walking all alone, but had no one close to help. He used his cane. Everybody liked him, everybody smiled. They could hear him coming up the stairs, for half an hour every night right before bed. He visited a new floor every day. It would take him almost the entire time just to get there. When he did, he would knock all three doors and say hello. He was always kind. It was only sometimes someone would stay and watch – usually a child – his way away, would care enough to watch him work back down the stairs. To watch his face watch the stairs. Like, some girls said, the saddest man in the world.

In the heat, people moved in and moved out, trucks and boxes. He watched them, the faces he could see, always looked. One time, long ago, one person had been leaving, and he couldn’t see who it was. He had run to climb a ladder, to see, so he could be sure, it wasn’t. Before he’d always made it in time. He remembered that one time, the first time he didn’t see. He thought, at the time, it threw all his calculations off. His work, the boxes, the X’s, couldn’t be sure, could be entirely worthless, because he had not seen that one person, who it was. He would never know for sure.

He had gone on, because there was nothing else to do. Since then, there had been many, missed, unseen. The notebook, as he thumbed through it now, fell apart. He held it together. He put a rubber band around it. He kept it next to his pillow, just in case. He could not tell what it said. He hadn’t been able to for years.

Autumn came. His hair lost all color, like the leaves. His wrists and ankles snapped, like the leaves crunched underneath his cane.  At morning, there were two nice women there, much younger than him, though by no means young. They explained to him why the cranes were there, the construction crews, young men, drinking coffee, making loud and raunchy jokes, the wrecking balls.

The bus was waiting on the curb.

“There’s a place for you,” they said, “They will feed you and give you a warm bed. They will make sure you’re not alone.”

They thought he didn’t answer because he could not understand. His eyes had grown beyond resentment, beyond anger or frustration. Beyond explaining what could not be explained. His eyes were dark, but never clouded. He climbed on board, he took his seat. He looked out the window.

---