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The Zacharias Decision
by
Harry Buschman
(this is the second draft of “The Tenants”)
There were three five storey tenements that stood alone on an abandoned street
on West 112th in the Bronx. Their addresses were 27-29 and 31 and they were
pronounced unfit for human habitation six years ago.
The buildings were deteriorating fast and in the last stages of decay. They were
owned by a man named Klopotnik who hoped to demolish them and make room for an
upscale housing development. Time had taken its toll on the old tenements, and
what happened to each of them happened to all of them. They were built shortly
after the Civil War in the “Belmont” section of the Bronx, and in the
intervening one hundred and fifty years they were home to more than 300
families, almost all of them Italian.
It was Mr. Klopotnik’s ambition to convert the three abandoned tenements into a
single twenty story up-scale apartment, or ‘town house’ as he preferred to call
it. It was to be known as “Exeter House” and ss he walked by the three deserted
eyesores, he considered how far he’d come and how far he had yet to go.
The architect’s plans were finished but they languished in the building
department downtown in City Hall awaiting approval from the zoning board. He
relished the thought that it could be soon – maybe as soon as a month or two! By
summer perhaps – who knew – the ball might swing and the whole run down rat trap
would collapse in the street.
Except for the windows on the top floor of the center tenement, number 29, the
buildings looked abandoned. All the other windows were sealed and boarded up and
to prevent squatters from getting on the fire escapes, the ladders had been
removed. The front doors were gone and replaced with steel shutters. Mr.
Klopotnik wanted no trouble from the squatters in the neighborhood, he was well
aware that once they took over an abandoned building it would take forever to
get rid of them. To keep squatters out he permitted a Columbia adjunct professor
of obscure philosophical studies to stay there rent free.
On this spring afternoon the windows of the top floor of number 29 were open and
the curtains were blowing out. On the window sills, stood pots of green ivy.
Professor Zacharias came to the window and looked down at Mr. Klopotnik.
“Good morning, Klopotnik. Come to check on your estate?”
Klopotnik wondered if he should go in and have a talk with Zacharias. It wasn’t
easy. He would have to go down the cellar stairs and ring the bell for the fifth
floor – all the other bells to the building had been disconnected. Zacharias
would have to come down six flights of stairs and unlock the cellar door to let
him in. Then what? He had nothing to say to Zacharias, they had nothing in
common. He was just there, living rent free, to keep intruders out of the three
buildings until they were torn down. His was the only apartment with electricity
and water. Well, Klopotnik thought, he was lucky to find someone who would live
in such conditions. He said he wanted to finish his philosophical treatise – he
wanted absolute quiet.
“How are you Zacharias – everything quiet?”
“Just me and the roaches, Klopotnik.” He picked one off the window sill and
tossed it down to him. “So how long I got, Klopotnik?”
Klopotnik watched the roach hit the concrete sidewalk, make a circle or two,
then skitter back into the building. “At least two months, maybe more. Things go
slow downtown.”
“The slower the better – I’m stuck inside Kierkegaard.”
Things are quiet up there, no? Nobody sneaking in?”
Zacharias hesitated a fraction of a second. The hesitation was not lost on Mr.
Klopotnik. “The sounds at night, the voices ... nothing more.”
“Perhaps I shall stop in to see you tomorrow, Zacharias.” Zacharias did not
answer, so Klopotnik shrugged and walked off. Maybe he should have stopped in
today. “Old Zacharias,” he muttered. “What must he do with himself? Yes,
tomorrow I will stop in and see for myself.”
Zacharias watched Klopotnik grow smaller as he walked to the corner. He enjoyed
sitting by the window with his manuscript during the day. The sounds of the
street made him feel as though he were part of the human race. Later, when
darkness closed in, he would reluctantly close the window and draw the shade.
Then the creaks and groans of the tired old tenement would begin; so would the
disembodied voices of the people who lived there years ago. Their joys and
tragedies. It was as though they would rewind the tapes of their lives and play
them back again.
Until then he had work to do. His book! Three years in the writing! Much too
long he thought. He was at a point where he argued with himself every time he
sat down to work. This was wrong – that was wrong. He refuted his own arguments
and doubted his interpretations. Just about every time he drew an inference and
tried to express it, he thought of a counter interpretation that made him sit
back and reconsider.
“It’s harder than I thought it would be,” he said to himself as he sat
surrounded by his notes and papers. “Who the hell do I think I am anyway ...!”
He grabbed a rolled up newspaper and brought it down as hard as he could on a
roach walking across the table. As usual he missed, but even if he had been
successful the roach would have run for cover behind his old L.C. Smith
typewriter. There it sat and wondered what that clap of thunder was ... it came
from that elderly gentleman in the chair. The roach held no grudge against
Professor Zacharias, thousands of generations had taught the roach that these
warm blooded giants thought they held dominion over their kitchens and bath
rooms, their water pipes and dripping taps. It was the way things were.
The life sciences were never a strong point with Zacharias. His only love in
life was philosophy. He had a brother in Denver and a wife, from whom he was
separated, in New Rochelle. These two people and Mr. Klopotnik were the only
human beings he had spoken to in the last ten years.
But he spoke constantly with Spinoza and Schopenhauer. At the window overlooking
the street in the afternoons he had long discussions with Socrates and Sartre.
The world of today bored him, it consisted of living people – there were too
many of them for one thing, and to be perfectly frank, he couldn’t tell one from
the other. Dead philosophers were the only people he talked to, violently
disagreed with and slavishly respected.
... but when night came, Zacharias would close his books and wander aimlessly
through the empty tenements. He was kept awake by the half heard voices of
families who once lived there. He carried a Coleman lamp with him to light his
way; holding it high, it would reveal ancient scars on wallpaper – ceiling leaks
– patched floors, and the abandoned and broken pieces of furniture left behind.
In broken English and fluid Italian, the voices could be heard every night, and
from the sound of them there was disagreement, argument and tragedy; he often
asked himself, “Had there ever been happiness here?” He never heard an
expression of joy or gladness. “Shouldn’t there be some echo of that joy, some
sign that there was once a moment of contentment in this house?”
There were things left behind. Old newspapers lining closet shelves – stains on
wallpaper where pictures once hung – a sachet bag hanging in one of the
bathrooms – the stub of a ticket to the Eltinge Theater. Zacharias would stare
at these things and wonder what part they played in the life of the families who
once lived here. One of the newspapers, a tabloid, crisp and yellow, still
revealed a photo of Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan with the news of their
disappearance in the Pacific. Zacharias tried to remember when that was – he
couldn’t, but he was sure it was a long time ago – before the war he thought.
The newspaper fell apart as he held it gently in his hands. His nocturnal walks
were like visiting the ruins of an ancient civilization and trying to discover
what life might have been like in a city whose language and customs were unknown
to him. Like Vesuvius or Macchu Picchu. It was as impenetrable as the writings
of his beloved philosophers.
He might have imagined it, but Zacharias thought the voices had grown louder now
that the tenement’s days were numbered. Maybe they were having one last fling
before they were silenced forever. For the past three nights it seemed all 300
families were talking at once; he couldn’t sleep, he was forced to walk the
empty rooms until daylight came. Aside from the rooms he occupied there was very
little difference between night and day in the tenement and the stale air was a
perfect sounding board for the voices of the past.
It was in the third floor kitchen of number 27 that Zacharias found what he
thought was the hot spot. He thought of it as ‘the center’ – the focal point of
the sound and presence of the place. As he stood there holding his lamp high,
the voices could be heard clearly, and the people were vague shadows in the
lantern light.
<><><>
WOMAN: Speak to him. You’re his father, you have to speak to him.
MAN: I drive a cab! Eleven hours a day I drive. He’s never here when I get home.
How can I speak to him?
<><><>
CHILD: When do we go to grandma’s? I like it there.
<><><>
OLD MAN: Twelve years I been here now in this country, and when I dream I still
dream of the old country.
OLD WOMAN: You remember papa ... walking into the wine cellar, the smell of the
sausage, the salamis, the cheeses and the proscuittos hanging from the ceiling?
<><><>
Who were they? He couldn’t see them but their voices were clear and there was
life in them, there was no doubting the fact that these people once lived here.
He looked around the kitchen – it had probably been the kitchen of a dozen
families, and now except for him and the roaches, it was abandoned. He was
filled with sadness when he thought of this old tenement being demolished – what
did Klopotnik say – two months maybe more. Yes maybe less too. Who can say?
What could he do to stop it?
Would Klopotnik do such a thing if he knew about the voices? Maybe not... he was
a good Polish Catholic, he carried rosary beads in his vest pocket and crossed
himself while he stood waiting for the light to change on Amsterdam Avenue.
Maybe there was still a chance to save the old place – maybe it could be
converted into something else without destroying it.
Zacharias didn’t have long to wait. Klopotnik had planned to stop in the next
day, and about four in the afternoon he stood outside and shouted up into the
open fifth floor window.
“You up in there, Zacharias?
Zacharias, sleepy eyed, came to the window and looked down. “Klopotnik! Good to
see you. We should talk.”
“Come down and open the cellar door my friend. I would like a word with you,
too.”
“Tell you what, Klopotnik. Go up to the deli on the corner and get me a sandwich
and a beer. I have yet to eat today. I’ll be waiting at the cellar door.”
“You have a preference, Zacharias?”
“For what?”
“What kind of sandwich? What kind of beer?”
Zacharias waved his hand. “Anything will do. When you’re hungry anything will
do.” Klopotnik turned and walked quickly to the Belmont Deli. Zacharias lighted
his lantern and started on the slow descent to the basement of 29 West 112th
Street.
He stood there, shifting his weight from foot to foot, wondering how to tell Mr.
Klopotnik about the voices and how to convince him to abandon the idea of the
Exeter town house. Then there was a knock on the door. “Klopotnik out here. Are
you in there Zacharias?”
Zacharias opened the door and Klopotnik handed him his bag of lunch as he
stepped inside. If Zacharias stood erect he would have been a head taller than
Klopotnik, but from years of writing and the study of philosophy, his posture
had deteriorated and the two men were almost identical in height.
“This is your lunch, Zacharias. My treat. Enjoy.” The two men slowly climbed the
stairs to Zacharias’ room Klopotnik a step or two behind. “I promised to see you
today, Zacharias. I worry about you sometimes. Your book is going well, no?”
“It’s like pulling teeth, Klopotnik. I doubt if I will ever finish.” He
hesitated a moment to catch his breath and turned to look at Klopotnik. “Do you
know Kierkegaard, Klopotnik?”
“Never heard of him.”
“He said, ‘If we choose faith we must suspend our reason in order to believe in
something higher than reason.’ I used to think that was bullshit. But now I’m
not so sure.”
“It is bullshit. I am the most reasonable man in the world ... and yet I would
not give up the church. The church and The Exeter House. Those are the two
important things in my life.”
“There is your family, no?”
“That’s different.”
Zacharias sat on the top step of the fifth floor landing and opened the paper
bag. “I have much to tell you, Klopotnik ... is this corned beef? I haven’t had
corned beef in years.”
“You mentioned voices yesterday,” Klopotnik said. “I want to ask you man to man;
you are not harboring squatters in here are you? We agreed man to man,
remember?”
“Even squatters would not live here, Klopotnik.”
“They stick like glue once they’re inside, Zacharias. The police will do nothing
to evict them, they would rather have them in here than out on the street. You
understand, don’t you, that when the plans are approved I want to tear this
place down – one swing of the ball – ba-da-bing as they used to say up here in
the Bronx.”
“There is something else.”
“Like what else, Zacharias ... don’t scare me?”
“There are people here ... “
“Ha! I thought so! You’re trying to pull something, Zacharias.”
Zacharias took the last bite of his sandwich and the finished off the beer. He
put the empty can and the sandwich wrapper back in the bag and threw it over the
banister. A second later they heard it hit the first floor landing. Then he
stood up. “Come,” he said “There are more things, Horatio, than are dreamed of
in your philosophy.’ Hamlet said that, Klopotnik. He had a head on him, that
one.”
Zacharias picked up his lantern and started down the stairs again.
“Where are we going?” Klopotnik asked.
“To number twenty seven next door. The third floor, that’s where they are.”
“Who’s there?” Klopotnik asked nervously. “I thought you said no one is here.”
“The voices are there. You will hear them for yourself . You might even
recognize some of them.”
They could hear the voices as they passed through the basement door to number
27. “I hear someone,” Klopotnik said worriedly. “Come clean, Zacharias. Are you
hiding squatters in here?”
“You’re obsessed, Klopotnik. The past is in here – nothing more.” They reached
the stairwell of number 27 and Zacharias paused. “The third floor, especially in
the kitchen, Klopotnik; that’s where the big decisions were made, that’s where
the families sat around the table to argue and collect money to pay the landlord
... is that where they paid you, Klopotnik?”
The voices grew louder as the two men climbed to the third floor. They were
clearly understandable now as they stood at the door. “There are people in
there, Zacharias. What are you trying to pull?”
“They’re in there all right,” Zacharias said. He opened the door to the
apartment on the third floor and the voices tumbled over each other. In English
and Italian, frightened and angry, young and old, all fighting to be heard. The
figures were vague – they appeared and faded again passing through each other
like puffs of smoke or fog, each of them for a moment assuming prominence and
then disappearing.
“I know these people, Zacharias, they used to live here! They’ve all moved away!
Why are they here? Why did they come back!?”
Klopotnik held his rosary beads high and groped in his side pocket for his
crucifix. Zacharias had only his Coleman lamp for protection; his philosopher
heroes were on the fifth floor of number 29 next door. They would not have been
much help in this unusual situation in any case.
The spirits of the tenants had a lot to say. Most of their wrath was directed at
Mr. Klopotnik and the conditions under which he forced them to live, combined
with his indifference to the supply of heat and hot water and his merciless
insistence on being paid in full on the first day of every month.
Zacharias did not escape their anger either. Kierkegaard indeed! What good was
this Kierkegaard? He couldn’t put food on the table! Socrates couldn’t pay the
rent – and Spinoza couldn’t find a wealthy suitor for the oldest daughter
either. They told Zacharias to stop sneaking around at night. “Go back and play
with your philosophers,” they told him.
With great haste, Klopotnik and Zacharias hurried down the three flights of
stairs then crossed into the friendly confines of number 29. Zacharias unlocked
the cellar door and the two men burst through into the street. They stood there
looking up at the seedy edifice of the old tenement in fear and wonder.
“What do you think now, Klopotnik?”
“I think I shall go home and have a sit down with my wife. Perhaps it is time to
re-think. Perhaps, even it’s time to look in other directions.” He turned to
Zacharias. “And you, my friend ... what will you do?”
“They were right about Kierkegaard and the rest of them you know. Life goes on
without philosophy.”
“But it’s all you know how to do, Zacharias. If you are not a philosopher you
are nothing.” He straightened his shoulders a bit, replaced his rosary beads in
his coat pocket and stood as tall as he could. “Are we to fold up like cheap
suitcases? Look at us Zacharias – we are men, are we not? Are we to turn around
our tails and run for shelter when a ghost says ‘boo’ to us?”
“You are brave now, Klopotnik.”
“Yes, I am brave now. I frighten easily, Zacharias, but after the fear I am
brave again.” He threw an arm about Zacharias narrow shoulders. “Let us both be
brave again. Go back in there and talk this over with your philosophers.”
“I thought you were going to talk to your wife about selling the Town House,
Klopotnik.”
“We need the money, Zacharias,” he said defensively. “Two kids in Harvard and
the oldest girl is engaged. It’s not a good time to run from voices.” He
withdrew his arm and sighed deeply. “I am in hock up to my eyeballs, Zacharias.
The architect, the engineer, the bank – you wouldn’t believe.” He stared at
Zacharias with burning eyes. “Put this down in your philosophy book, Zacharias –
nothing stiffens a man’s backbone more than the threat of financial disaster.”
Klopotnik turned and walked away. In the growing twilight, Zacharias considered
the wisdom of what he just heard. It was true – he never read that in Sartre or
Socrates. Why hadn’t they thought of that? It was true! Klopotnik had bigger
balls than any of them.
Zacharias squared his shoulders and walked into the cellar entrance of number
29, held his Coleman lamp high and climbed the stairs. He shouted, “Get ready up
there – I’m coming. We’re going to have it out, you and me – I’m not afraid any
more either!”
It was quiet now. Zacharias had grown used to the whispering undercurrent of
voices and he was shocked at the silence. Other than the muted city noises
outside the parlor window there was no sound in the house. Where did they go?
His bravado was slowly dissipating as he approached the fifth floor and he
wished Klopotnik was with him to give him a little moral support.
The door was slightly ajar, just as he left it. He never bothered to shut his
doors any more, there was no one in the building but him and he grew used to
leaving all his doors open – he considered it the philosophical thing to do. It
creaked as he slowly swung it open, slowly revealing his writing table with his
books piled high on one side and his beloved, but dog-eared manuscript, sitting
beside his old L.C. Smith typewriter. He asked himself again, as he had a
thousand times before. “Who cares? These old tenements, the voices and the tired
words of old dead philosophers – who cares?” The only living things were the
roaches, and they were having a hard time of it.
The tenants had all moved on. More than 300 families had moved on, up, out. or
sideways. The words of Kierkegaard and Schopenhauer were written long before
third world countries blossomed into nuclear power players. A man’s word, a
handshake and the words, ”I love you” are as empty as the farewell salute, “Have
a nice day.”
Zacharias took the fasteners out of his manuscript and scattered the pages on
his bed. He broke the backs of his Schopenhauers, Kierkegaards and Nietzsches
and scattered their pages about the room. Then he walked into the kitchen and
found a box of wooden matches hanging on the wall.
©Harry Buschman 2006
(3640)
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