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“Do you need help?” Eve asked the restaurant manager, her dark-blue eyes glowing with hope that bordered on desperation.
The Ellis Island refugees and the new millennium off-the-Boeings immigrants had one thing in common. They came looking for work. Exploring the labyrinths of New York streets they knocked on the doors of stores and restaurants asking the same question over and over again, in broken English. “Do you need help?” Half the minimum wage would do.
“No,” the manager answered with the same reply. His eyes traveled up and down Eve’s body. “And we have a sign in the window that says so. If you could read English.”
A small cheap-looking diner was next.
“Do you need help? I can cook, clean and I learn fast.”
“We don’t need anybody right now.”
It was getting late, the stores were closing, the restaurants welcomed customers, but not job-seekers. Another day. Eve left the diner, leaned on the brick wall for a few minutes and decided to head home. Home was a cheap hotel where rooms were rented by the hour. Welcome to New York, Gotham city. Welcome to the United States, the country of immigrants. Legal, illegal, white, black, brown and yellow, but invariably looking for a job.
Dmitry found work relatively easy. “Thirty bucks a day cash and if you don’t get smart with me, you can take the mushy fruit home,” said the Big Apple grocery’s owner and Dmitry joined the company of four Mexicans to carry and unpack boxes of produce. Fourteen hours a day seven days a week. A bag of disintegrating fruit saved them a few dollars on food, but thirty bucks a day didn’t cover the cost of the hotel and the money they brought from Russia was slowly disappearing.
Eve had a much harder time finding a source of income. The baby-sitting jobs wanted references, the cashier positions required experience. Standing in line outside the Employment Office could get her a house cleaning job for a day or a night shift in a restaurant. Then she would spend the rest of the day walking into stores and restaurants, asking the same well-rehearsed question. The apartment search was no piece of cake either. No landlord wanted to rent to an immigrant couple with no credit history, no bank account and no guarantors.
Eve schlepped home, envisioning another rough evening with Dmitry. He just couldn’t understand why she was having so much trouble. She ran into him at the hotel entrance as he carried his daily share of decomposing groceries. Dmitry smelled of sweat, apples and mold.
“How was your day?” she asked even though she knew the answer.
“Fruit-ful!” he snapped, throwing the plastic bag to her. “I am reduced to a produce-sorting robot. What did you do today?”
“I made twenty dollars cleaning a night café in Queens,” she answered as she unlocked the door of their room. “But they don’t need anybody permanently. I asked.”
“Why is it that nobody needs you?” Dmitry muttered with frustration. “Why was I able to get a job and you can’t? We need money to survive and I’m not making enough alone. What did you do all day?”
“I waited at the Employment Office until this job came up. Hey, twenty bucks is better than nothing. It’s almost as much as your pay.”
“Yeah, but it’s not permanent.”
“I’ll get something permanent. I promise. Now, listen. I found a landlord who doesn’t care that we have no credit history as long as we pay two months rent and a security deposit. It’s a basement studio on a hundred and twenty third street. Four hundred a month and we can see it now. Sounds like it’s tiny, but you can’t complain for the price.”
Dmitry sighed, pulled his shirt back on and headed for the door.
The landlord was a huge hairy man with a face of a convict and Eve could see why he didn’t care about their lack of credit history – he looked so scary his delinquent tenants would rather abandon the apartment than face his wrath. The basement studio was a fancy name for a crawl space turned into a livable dwelling with a ceiling so low, Dmitry’s hair brushed against its chipping paint. The air stunk. An old, greasy stove and a leopard-spotted refrigerator leaned against each other by the front door. The tub was chipped, the sink had a crack in it and the floor stuck to their shoes like crazy glue. As a free bonus, Eve and Dmitry inherited a couch and a chair of an undeterminable color and age abandoned by the previous tenants. The couch springs poked through the fabric resembling mounds of dirt on a potato field and the back of the chair was falling off. None of that mattered as they couldn’t afford anything else. After they gave the landlord the money they had twelve dollars left.
“I can’t believe we have to live in this dump!” Dmitry raved all the way home. “I didn’t even know apartments like that existed in America!”
“It’s temporary and it’s all we can afford.”
“We could’ve afforded something better if you got a steady job.”
“I’m going to the Employment Office again tomorrow.”
Dmitry quieted in thought. “Don’t go tomorrow,” he finally said. “Move us in and clean up that pit the best you can. I can’t breathe in there.”
The next morning Eve wheeled the suitcases to their new home, bought soap and sponges in a dollar store, and spent the day cleaning, washing and scrubbing. When, exhausted, she plopped onto the protruding springs, she realized that besides the very couch she sat on, they had no place to sleep. The same occurred to Dmitry when he came walked through the door after his fourteen hour day.
“You need a good night rest so can sleep on the couch,” Eve said. “I’ll sleep on the floor.”
Dmitry looked at the couch and then at her as if deliberating whether it was worth being a gentleman.
“The couch is too short,” he finally said. “I won’t fit. I don’t know what I’m gonna do.”
“I’ll make a bed for you on the floor. We have a blanket and a couple of sheets. I’ll double everything and use our jackets for extra padding. It will be soft enough.”
Dmitry watched her crawling on the floor with a skeptical look.
“Try it,” she said as she finished. Dmitry sprawled on the multi-layered bed. “It’s too hard. It’s so uncomfortable!”
“What are you, a prince and the pea?” Eve grunted at him. “The couch isn’t much better. The springs are determined to pierce my ribs.”
“If we had three hundred dollars, we’d buy a mattress. If you had found an apartment ten days earlier, we wouldn’t have spent so much money on the hotel. Or, if you had found a steady job that would help too. Did you look for a job today?”
Eve rolled her eyes. “You told me to clean the apartment.”
Dmitry cursed under his breath. “It took you the whole day?”
“And I barely made a dent in it, too,” Eve snapped. “One can spend a month cleaning this place. I was hoping you’ll feel better about it, but I don’t think you will no matter what I do. Tomorrow I’ll be looking for a job again.”
She turned off the lights and curled up on the couch, trying to fit in between the springs to be comfortable enough to fall asleep.
Dmitry cursed in the darkness.
#
Crossing Lenox Street the next evening, Eve saw a “Help wanted” sign in a window. Above the scratched wooden door was a green plaque “The Corner Pub.” She walked in.
The bartender turned around.
“You need help?” Eve asked in a pre-programmed voice. “I can clean, wash, serve and I learn fast.”
“We could use someone in the kitchen,” he said hesitantly. “Can you cook?”
Eve nodded. “I can make borscht, potatoes and beef-stroganoff.”
“Borscht?” The bartender’s eyebrows rose. “Are you Polish?”
“No.”
“Where are you from?”
“Russia.”
“Oh, that’s why! Do you know how to make stuffed cabbage?”
“Yes.”
The man reached out over the bar. “My name is Adam. I’m Polish. There aren’t many Russians around here. They mostly live around Brighton Beach. What’s your name?”
“Eve.”
“So you’re looking for a job? Well, you have to ask Doug, the owner, he runs things around here. Or Syd. He’s the cook.”
He walked over to the basement staircase and yelled down. “Hey Syd, come up here! Check out the new help.”
A huge chocolate-brown figure emerged from the bottom of the stairs. Syd wore jeans, a bright red A-shirt almost bursting on the mounds of his shoulders and a bright red bandanna. His teeth and eyes were sparkling white. He looked pissed.
“I ain’t taking no mon thot sonofobitch hires to moy kitchen!?” Syd growled at Adam with a heavy Jamaican accent, his bright teeth glowing in the dim pub light. “He fires moy buddy with no pay! I told thot piece of trash I ain’t taking any help in moy kitchen. Let customers wait. Cuz I’m now alone and I can’t make steaks and salads same time!”
He turned to leave.
“Relax, Syd, Doug didn’t hire anyone yet,” Adam said. “See this young woman here? She’s looking for a job. So I’m asking you if you need help in the kitchen?”
“Oh, him the sonofobitch didn’t hire her?” Syd stopped as if this fact made all the difference in the world. He span around looked at Eve. “Is thot right?”
“Yes,” Eve answered. She had no clue what was going on, but she guessed the cook and owner were in a state of opposition.
“Have yo worked in a restaurant, lady?” Syd asked. Eve named a couple of places where she had temporary jobs.
“Can yo chop salads, mince garlic n’ stuff?”
Eve didn’t know what the word “mince” meant, but she was sure she could do anything applicable to garlic, so she answered positively.
“She’s oll right,” the cook declared, receding back into the kitchen. “Tell the sonofobitch I need’er.”
Adam went to the basement and brought back an old man with a permanent hostile expression on his face. The man sized Eve up and yelled.
“Syd! Com’ere.”
“I can’t com.” Syd replied from underground. “I’m busy here. I’m on moy own now, ‘cuz moy help been fired. I ain’t gotten time to com out no more.”
Doug cursed Syd out and spoke to Eve.
“You start right now so that Jamaican bastard doesn’t sabotage the evening. We work ten to twelve on weekdays, except Monday, midday break four to six, Friday and Saturday nights till two a.m. I pay five dollars an hour and I don’t pay for the break. If you don’t show up in the morning you’re fired. The kitchen’s downstairs. What are you waiting for?” He jerked his head toward the staircase indicating that it was where Eve was supposed to be by now and she rushed down the stairs.
“Com over here,” Syd greeted her, dancing and snapping his fingers, “I’m gonna give yo som kitchen lesson here.”
Eve strained her ears. Syd’s accent was hard to understand.
“First yo mince the garlic till yo fill up this boowl. Then yo mince onions till yo fill up thot boowl. Then yo chop the salad. I’m gonna show yo how to make the hose salad. Yo take the romaine lettuce an’ the red-leaf lettuce an’ corrots too, an’ cut it until it’s oll cut.”
Syd’s body moved smoothly and rhythmically while he was demonstrating what and how Eve needed to cut. He snatched a huge aluminum basin from the shelf, tossing it in the air like a basketball. He caught it, held it as if he were going to shoot it across the kitchen into a basket, and finished his training.
“Yo toss it oll in this big bowl and keep it full all the time so when a waiter tells yo him need a hose salad, yo toss som on the plate an’ put som dressing on. Here, we have Bleu Cheese, French an’ Russian.”
Eve watched the show with wide-open eyes, lost in the strange kitchen terms. Did mince mean cut? The meaning of the word dress she knew, did not make sense when applied to salad. Luckily Syd shoved the bottles under her nose and she understood.
“But it’s not cheese,” she said as she read the label. “And it’s not blue?”
Syd cracked up. “Yo babe, yo got a sense of humor!”
#
"So you work twelve hours and make sixty bucks?” Dmitry was stunned. “I work fourteen and get thirty! It’s not fair.”
“What difference does it make?” Eve questioned. She was tired and nauseated from the smell of sizzling meat and brining oil, and had no patience for ridiculous complains. “First, you were angry I couldn’t get a job, now you’re angry I did. Now we’ll save a few bucks and buy a bed in a week.”
“But you’re making more money than me,” Dmitry yelled at her. “Twice as much as me! How am I supposed to put up with that?”
“I’m not asking you to put up with it,” Eve snapped back. “Curb your ego and don’t be ridiculous. We can’t afford it at the moment.”
She went into the shower where the feeble stream dribbled down into the chipped tub so lazily she could still hear Dmitry talking to himself in the living room. “Incredible. Sixty bucks a day to a woman and thirty to a man! Incredible, absolutely incredible.”
#
When Eve came home the next day, Dmitry looked like a dog after a beating.
“I lost my job,” he informed her grimly.
“What happened?”
“I told him I wanted more money.”
Eve slumped down into the legacy chair and buried her face in her hands. Sizzling steaks scorched on a hot metal plate before her eyes. Fat round burgers hissed and quivered, oozing out tangy juices. Her hair smelled of smoke, and her clothes were soaked with sweat. The only two things she could think of were a shower and a bed. But there was no bed.
“That was a smart thing to do,” she glowered at her husband. “Don’t blame me we don’t have a bed.”
“How was I supposed to deal with the fact that you make more money than I do?”
“Not like a two-year old child,” Eve yelled. “Now you’re not making any.”
“I’ll get a job, don’t you worry,” Dmitry growled at her. “Try to keep your own. I doubt you’ll be able to hold on to it.”
Eve wanted to scream, yell and curse, but had no energy to open her mouth. She got up, stumbled to the leopard refrigerator and peered inside. Except for the vegetables Dmitry brought home yesterday, the fridge was empty.
“We have to get food,” she said wearily. “If you lost your job and spent a day at home, you could’ve at least done some shopping. Put your shirt on, we’re going to the supermarket.”
“Supermarket? It’s half past midnight.”
“So? The C-town is open twenty four by seven. And since I now work all day I no longer have time to do the shopping.”
“The C-town in twenty blocks away!”
Eve shot him a dirty look. “That is the least of our problems right now.”
It was almost two in morning, when, loaded with plastic bags, they walked out of the C-town. Twilight was the best time of the day in New York City. The blackened roads were lit by the street lamps and shimmering windows. The darkness concealed the dirt, the garbage and other unappealing, but inseparable attributes of the Big Apple. In the dim lights of the night, buildings and trees cast irregular shadows, giving the city both, a mysterious and romantic feel.
“I have to get up at seven tomorrow to go to the Employment Office by eight,” Dmitry muttered, kicking at an empty cigarette box. “I’ve got less than five hours of sleep left and even those hours I can’t spend in comfort.”
“Well, that’s your own fault,” Eve snapped. Her whole body hurt from the twelve-hour day in the kitchen, and the thought of the piercing strings in her couch made her ache even more. “Get another job and don’t lose it – and maybe we can have a bed in a week.”
Dmitry cursed.
“You think if you’ve got a job, you can tell me what to do?” he burst out. “If it wasn’t for me, you …”
“Shut up and look!” Eve whispered as she suddenly stopped and pointed across the street. “Look at THAT.”
Dmitry looked. There, leaning against a street post, big, blue and beautiful, stood a mattress glistening in the dim light.
"Holy shit,” Dmitry breathed out and run across the street. Eve followed and they walked around the mattress like little kids walk around a Christmas tree. It was old, worn-out and stained, with fuzzy padding bursting out of the seams. The box spring was nowhere in site, but it didn’t matter. It was a mattress, something both of them could fit on, stretch out, roll over and around, and sleep like human beings. God bless New Yorkers and their habit of dumping their garbage onto the streets for the poorer New Yorkers to recycle what the richer ones discarded.
“It’s huge,” Dmitry uttered. “It must be king-size. It looks so comfortable! Ultimately comfortable, you know? I could crash on it right here and sleep till noon.”
Dmitry grabbed the mattress by the edge it stood on and pulled it slowly. The upper edge slid down the light pole like a cart on a rail, and hit the ground.
“It's not gonna be an easy son of a bitch to carry,” Dmitry muttered as he threw the plastic bags with food onto the mattress to free his hands, and examined the tattered remains of what had been handles long ago. “All right, I'll walk in the front and you in the back.”
Eve was ready to carry their newfound treasure to the other end of the city
Dmitry squatted as he stretched both his arms behind himself, grasped the old fabric and picked the mattress up. Eve lifted her end, and they started walking slowly. They covered a block. A second one and even half of a third. Bearable at first, the mattress seemed to grow heavier with every step. Eve’s already tired arms started to hurt. Her fingers went numb. Dmitry was stronger and his palms were bigger, but walking with his arms behind his back was awkward and tiresome. They made it to the end of the third block and had to rest for a few minutes. Dmitry stretched, rubbed his arms and turned around.
"Ready?"
Eve nodded and bravely lifted her side again. This time Dmitry faced the mattress and walked backwards. They made it through one more block and almost another when Eve cried out frantically, "I need a break!"
"What is it?" Dmitry growled.
"I just need some rest!” she dropped the mattress on the ground and vigorously shook her hands. Her arms hurt so bad one would think they were falling off.
"You’re not gonna spend the night here? Dmitry mocked her. “Come on, pick it up and let's go.”
"Just one minute."
Dmitry’s gray eyes narrowed in anger. Eve mentally kicked herself for being a wimp and furiously grasped the mattress, her nails leaving furrows in the old fabric. “All right, go!"
They started moving again, hurting, sweating and groaning. They covered three more blocks and the mattress literally doubled its weight. Dmitry's face turned crimson, the veins in his neck swelled. They couldn’t finish the block. They had to stop and rest again.
"Maybe we should drag it,” Eve suggested.
"Maybe."
They stood in front of the mattress like horses before a carriage and pulled it along like two beasts of burden dragging a wagon. That hurt less, but their progress was very slow. In ten minutes they barely reached the end of the third block and had to lower their load again.
"You frigging old bag!” Dmitry kicked at the bulging padding, furious and dripping with sweat. “You stuffed piece of shit! Why did you have to be so heavy?”
Eve examined the edge that had been rubbing against the pavement. The old fabric was starting to rip.
“We can’t drag anymore,” she said with a sigh. “But I don’t know how we’re going to carry it. We still have twelve more blocks to cover.”
“I get paid thirty bucks for a fourteen-hour day, get fired for asking for a raise, can’t get a decent night sleep – and as if this wasn’t enough I have to carry around this old sack,” Dmitry went on. “I’m going home! I’m not touching this piece of shit any more! It’s too fucking heavy! It must be stuffed with bricks!”
“You are not going home!” Eve yelled at him. “We’re not giving up. I'd rather sleep on it right here than walk away from it. We'll just go slow, that's all.”
"Go ahead,” Dmitry sneered. "Sleep on it in the street! Make it your night job. People may spare you some change!"
Eve went ballistic.
“Pick it up,” she roared, feeling a sudden burst of furious energy. “I'll go in front!”
She grasped the old mattress with a vengeance. She carried it, insensitive to pain and weariness, carried it through a block and another one, until, her the strength suddenly yielded to absolute exhaustion, and she collapsed onto her own burden. Dmitry crashed next to her and they both stared into the dark sky, which, unlike the sky over their own country had so few and so lusterless stars.
"If one of us gets hurt from this, we'll have to go to a hospital,” Dmitry uttered, resting his head on the plastic C-town bag. “We don’t have money for medical bills.”
Eve didn’t reply. It was clear they had to abandon their treasure. If only they had some ropes, a shopping cart – anything! But they were too new, they hadn’t acquired any possessions yet and even if they had a few bucks to spend on a pair of wheels they couldn’t buy any in the middle of the night. They lay on the mattress, unable to accept the idea of giving up such a huge piece of comfort to the New York Sanitation Department. A car passed by. Dmitry stared after it.
"Let's go,” he said flatly. “We’ll try again tomorrow evening. Maybe the Sanitation won’t pick it up tomorrow. Maybe they won’t notice it.”
The car that just had gone by pulled up at the end of the block. The driver stepped out and walked toward them slightly limping on one leg. Still amateur New Yorkers, Eve and Dmitry watched him with curiosity rather than suspicion, with which a seasoned Big Apple citizen would greet a midnight passer-by.
"You look like you really need help,” the man stated in accented English. His "l"s were too soft and his “r” were too heavy and not throaty enough so it sounded more like “You luke l’ike you do need hel’p, rrreally.”
Even and Dmitry stared at the man in silence. He was thin, had big dazzling eyes and dark-brown skin.
"I know how it's l’ike,” he continued. “I was doing the same thing forr yearrs ago mysel’f, when I just came frrrom India. Luking out forrr garrrbage. How farrr you hev to kerrry it?"
“Broadway and a hundred and twenty third,” answered Eve.
"This is farr! You do need hel’p!”
"It's very awkward to carry even for three people,” said Dmitry grimly. “It’s just too big.”
"Who sez kerrry?” their new friend exclaimed, roaring his “r”s with even greater excitement. "Who sez kerrry! Get this thing on the rroof of my carr and I drrive!"
"It's not gonna stay up on your roof,” said Dmitry pessimistically. "It's gonna slide off and fall."
"You wal’k on the sides and guarrd it so it don’t fall’!” the stranger objected happily. "Trrrust me, I am an experrrt in this. All my brrotherrs came herre frrom India in l’ast forr yearrs and I hel’ped everybody. I can open business to hel’p emigrrants! Come on, don’t sit on yourr bum. Get up and worrk!"
Eve jumped up and Dmitry followed her reluctantly. The guy took charge.
“Hol’d it l’ike this,” he was ordering them around. “No, no l’ady, you stay out of it, it’s a man’s job. Hey, man, l’ift it up… l’ift up yourrr end… and pusch it on the rroof... Push it up on the rroof… One, two, pusch it! One morre pusch! One, two, pusch it! Terrrific!"
The mattress lay on top of the car with its sides hanging down over the roof like two wings of a tamed dragon. The merry Indian rubbed his hands in satisfaction.
"Beautiful mattress,” he said oblivious to the stains, worn fabric and bulging padding. “Luks l’ike new! Youl’ hev something to sleep on. Rrul’ numberr one in this countrry – neverr give up!"
Eve smiled. She liked the guy. He was a born fighter. She always liked born fighters. She had thought she married one, but lately she wasn’t so sure.
The Indian started the engine and drove slowly. Eve and Dmitry walked alongside the car, holding the mattress. The Indian fellow kept talking about the art of building a new life in a new country. He was doing really well now. He saved enough money to buy a used Lincoln Continental and was working for a Limo Company. They paid better than his old car-service boss and the tips were great.
The strange procession reached the building Eve and Dmitry lived in. The Indian helped them carry the mattress down the stairs, his optimism never skipping a beat. With a final effort the men pushed the mattress through the door and it fell onto the floor with a dull thud, spitting a cloud of dust into the air.
"Basement is good,” the Indian said cheerefelly. “We livved in the attic when we came. Verry bed. In winterr verry cold. Now now rrent a two bedroom. Expensive, but we hev faive kids. Wel’, enjoy your beautiful’ bed. Hev a good night.”
He turned and walked out. Eve watched him leave, thinking of a way to thank him. She grabbed a C-town bag full of fruit and ran after him.
“Here! Take this."
The stranger waved the bag away. "Oh, no, thanks, no!"
“Take it,” Eve insisted. “These are great oranges. Your kids will love them."
The statement seemed to settle the matter. The man took the present, wished them good luck and dissolved into the night as suddenly as he had emerged from it. Eve realized they hadn’t even asked his name.
“Why did you give that guy my breakfast?” Dmitry growled at as he pushed the mattress away from the door. “That was not too smart.”
"Dmitry, he helped us so much! We would’ve never made it ourselves. Don't you think we had to give him something?"
“What am I gonna eat for breakfast?”
“How about bread and milk?” Eve lifted remaining plastic bags. “Plus bananas and American cheese? You won’t starve, that’s for sure. And stop with the whining, would you?”
Dmitry sighed.
"All right, get sheets or something to cover this old sack. It’s dirty."
Eve threw the blanket on top of their new bed.
“This will do it for tonight!” she declared. She took off her jeans, rolled them into a pillow and fell on the mattress facedown. “Christ, it’s so comfortable!”
Dmitry plopped next to her. “By god, it is!”
“I love it,” she muttered sleepily. “It’s the best thing I ever found on the street.”
“Tell me about it!” Dmitry rolled over and pulled her close. “Listen… I’m sorry, but… have I been acting like an asshole lately?”
Eve woke up. “Like? What do you mean, like?” She sighed and added. “Do I sound like a shrew?”
Dmitry shrugged. “Sometimes, but not too bad. I mean, it’s been a hard month. The hardest it’s ever been.”
“It should only get better from here,” Eve replied, sleepily. “Just don’t act like an asshole anymore.”
“Sorry,” Dmitry muttered, stretching. “God, this is so comfortable. The old, stinking, ripping sack with stuffing sticking out of the seams! Who would’ve thought of it as the ultimate comfort on earth!”
“Uh-huh…” she said.
A snore was the only answer. She drifted off a few minutes later.
