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Ben’s Life of Quiet Desperation
Monday, December 11
A cold and leaky garden apartment
Chinatown
Ben woke before his alarm to cold drops of water falling onto his head. With a sigh he got up, moved his bed out of the way of the leak in the ceiling, and put a bucket down to catch the drips. Kyle’s dishwasher was leaking. Again.
He tried to go back to sleep, but theplink plink plinkof water droplets kept him awake. Giving up and knowing he’d have to overcompensate with caffeine to get through his morning shift, Ben turned on his light and got ready to start the day.
The basement bathroom was basic and cramped, but nobody else ever used it, so Ben counted that as a positive. It wasn’t his bathroom exclusively—anyone doing laundry could use it—but no one in the building seemed to use it much, if ever. The shower had terrible pressure due to mineral deposits from the Lake Michigan water but at least it was generally hot, as he was close to the water heater. He was disappointed, however, that there seemed to be no hot water at all. Maybe the water heater was on the fritz again. He’d have to tell Kyle about it. That and the leak coming through from the kitchen.
He cleaned himself quickly with cold water and shaved, then dried himself off and dressed in layers. First long underwear, then his work pants and shirt, then over that a hoodie and sweatpants. He put on two pairs of socks and headed upstairs to the kitchen.
Kyle, his landlord, was awake in the living room playing some video game. Ben suspected he wasn’t up early. Rather, he’d never gone to bed.
“Morning,” Ben said.
Kyle grunted.
“Um. There’s no hot water.”
“Yeah, I know,” Kyle said. “I’ll take a look at the water heater later. Pilot light might be out. I dunno.”
“And I’m sorry but the dishwasher is leaking again and coming through the ceiling downstairs.”
“I said I’d take a look at it!” Kyle snapped.
“Um… thanks?” Ben backed out of the living room and into the kitchen.
He went to his shelf in the fridge and saw his milk was gone. So much for having cereal. With a sigh he took one of the granola bars he stored in his kitchen cabinet. He thought there were fewer in there than there should’ve been but that, like the milk, was a battle he wasn’t up to waging that morning. He’d have to go back to hiding food in his room. Maybe he could find a metal box so mice wouldn’t chew through the cardboard containers.
He put on a hat, his parka, gloves, and boots then stepped into what the weathermen were calling the snowiest December on record for Chicago.
He walked five blocks to the Red Line station. That he took to work, spending just enough time on the train to partially thaw before getting off at his stop and trudging four more blocks to the building where he worked.
It wasn’t the tallest or prettiest building in the Loop, but the Prince building was fairly impressive just the same. Ben used his work badge to get past security then headed for the elevators, only instead of going up dizzying heights into the clouds, Ben chose basement level two. He went down into the bowels of the building to work, hidden from view like most unpleasant things are. Shedding his outer layers, he stowed his things in his locker then clocked in.
His supervisor, Candida, pursed her lips. “You’re on mop duty today, Miller.”
Ben nodded, not wasting his breath on protests that wouldn’t get him anywhere. Candida gave her favorites the cushy jobs. Ben was not one of her favorites, although he didn’t know why. The more he tried to please his supervisor, the more she seemed to despise him. He’d had a teacher like that in elementary school, and he’d never won her over, either. Some people, Ben supposed, you just couldn’t please no matter what you did. Mop duty was the thankless task of constantly mopping up the dirty, slushy footprints left on the building’s marble lobby floor. You’d get a small break in foot traffic, mop it all up nice and pretty, then two minutes later someone would come in through one of the revolving doors and mark it all up again. He had approximately six hours of mopping the same floor over and over to look forward to that day. However, the floor, as Candida loved to say, wouldn’t mop itself, so he ate his granola bar, drank a cup of terrible coffee, and took up his position in the lobby.
The one perk of mop duty was being able to rest during the heavy traffic times of the morning. After an initial swab down at sevenish, after the crazy die-hards came quietly into work, he had approximately forty-five minutes to himself while the lobby was too full of people to even think of mopping around them. It was a good time to go to the bathroom, or take a sort of standing catnap, but Ben watched people instead and imagined how he’d draw them, if he had a chance.
He had his favorites, of course, that he kept an eye out for. There was Auburn Ponytail, who wore a blue cloche hat and had lovely skin dappled with freckles. Frizzy Bun looked perpetually harried and very much like a fussy hen in her white puffy jacket. Old Businessman had a camel-colored coat from Burberry and glasses that he wiped clear of condensation every day on his plaid scarf. Brad’s favorite, however, was Silver Fox. He didn’t look particularly old but his hair was nearly all white. It was cut very well, as were his clothes. Unlike most people, he didn’t wear the same coat every day. He seemed to own several, and they all looked expensive. But best of all was his face. It was stern and serious, but not at all cruel, and above all it was beautiful. The man’s face was a work of art Ben knew he’d never be able to recreate adequately. Some beauty was impossible to capture accurately. A work of art in and of itself. Ben would never be able to do his face justice.
After the crowd thinned down to a few late arrivals, Ben started to mop the floor. In less than an hour it had gone from pristinely clean to utterly filthy. It was what you inevitably got with snowy weather, and spring never, ever came soon enough.
At noon Ben clocked out and went back to his rented garden apartment. It was a misnomer, however, as it wasn’t a true apartment, in that it didn’t have a private bathroom or kitchen, and when he looked out through the barred windows there was no garden at all to be seen. Not even in summer. He was saving up for the first and last rent on a real apartment of his own but it seemed like every time he came close to having enough money there’d be an emergency and his nest egg would trickle away. It was a never-ending cycle he couldn’t seem to break. Ben felt like he was never truly full, well, safe, and especially not financially secure. He had panic attacks sometimes, but he didn’t have the money to go see a doctor or therapist for something not life-threatening. He did what he always did, which was cope as best as possible and keep moving with his head down. It was the only way he knew how to survive.
He had dreams, of course. Foolish, impossible dreams in which he had a home and books he could keep dry and all the art supplies money could buy. He tried not to dream of more, because Momma would’ve told him it was a carnal sin, but sometimes Ben also dreamed of a beautiful man who would touch him just so, and love him just so, and keep him safe forever. Those dreams were usually saved for the darkest part of night when everything felt impossible and possible all at the same time.
Ben couldn’t afford to buy canvases and paint, but he did allow himself the luxury of drawing paper and charcoals. He had to let the art out one way or another. It would burn within him if he didn’t and he wouldn’t be able to concentrate at work for shit. That was a problem when it was your turn to mix the cleaning chemicals.
After getting off the L and slogging back to his building, Ben holed up in his room. The leaking had ceased, at least for now, so that was good. He dumped out the bucket of dirty water into the bathtub then took a—thankfully hot—shower, cleaning the tub at the same time to save water. Here in Chicago there was so much water it seemed like it could never run out, but back home they’d had a well and a septic tank, and you had to be careful to not waste water. Momma had been very particular about that. Momma had been very particular about a lot of things.
