have to be very careful about your pronunciation, because I didn’t ask for a twelve-inch pianist.
The moon was fading. The sun was starting to rise. It showed the top of its fierce face. It rose resolutely. Daily Elizabeth negotiated with nature. Anything natural was a problem.
Elizabeth did contact other tenants, she did what Ernest asked her to do. One of the tenants was hard of hearing. Before she knew he was deaf, she tried phoning him. She raised her voice higher and higher and then she shouted into the phone and then hung up. She met him briefly on the street. She realized he couldn’t hear a word she was saying unless she stood in front of him so he could see her mouth move, and in addition she shouted. He was stone deaf. She didn’t know why he had a phone. Then she sent him a letter.
Dear Herbert,
I would like to talk to you about our protest against the rent hike the landlord is proposing.
We are filing our objections to the Major Capital Improvements and would like to know your objections. We know that a former tenant in your apartment
did
file a PAR, Petition for Administrative Review, a while ago, but we do not know what the specific protest was—windows? a hallway problem? Do you know? Did you file anything? Do you have any evidence or documents about the building’s condition?
Others in your building have also filed. If you could be of any help contacting them and finding out their objections, please let us know as soon as you can.
You and I say hello on the street. Because you are hard of hearing, the phone is not the best way to communicate. Let’s meet in front of the building when it’s convenient. Please contact me or Ernest—he’s in in the mornings. We both have answering machines or actually you could drop a line, just send me a letter. Please contact us any way you wish. If you can’t reach people in your building, Ernest and I will write letters. But are the people who filed still living there? I couldn’t find any of them listed in the phone book.
Many thanks.
Sincerely,
Elizabeth Hall
Elizabeth worried that mentioning his deafness would offend him. She wasn’t going to pretend that screaming into the phone was easy or adequate. They had to communicate. Herbert responded. Maybe he wasn’t sensitive or maybe she hadn’t offended him. He was accustomed to being deaf. He was used to the stupidities of the nondeaf. He was happy to help, he said, when they met, face to face, in front of the building. She thought he said that, or that’s what she heard, because he didn’t pronounce words clearly. She had to interpret. She may have confused his complaints for others he didn’t have. She shouted her thanks, and they shook hands. He helped Ernest and her contact some other tenants in his building.
Ernest and Elizabeth went to see one of them. He lived in the alleged same building as theirs. Architecturally it had been the same—Roy said she was going to see how the other half lived. The other half had been a mirror image, but the landlord recently halved all the apartments. Then reconditioned them. The ceilings were lower and made of a porous material. The apartments smelled bad. They lacked proportion. They were hopeless, shapeless.
His apartment had no outside or available light. It was probably illegal to have just one window looking out on a wall. Elizabeth could hardly breathe. The place was a hole, in a desperate condition. The guy was cute, even handsome. Elizabeth knew that no one would expect the condition he lived in from the way he looked. It was like the super Hector’s apartment, though she’d never had the chance to enter Hector’s. It was smaller than Hector’s and the cute guy was the only person in it. All the shit was his.
To him, it meant nothing. She could see that. His surroundings meant nothing to him. There could have been decades of vomit caked on the walls and floors, he wouldn’t have noticed. He didn’t see it or smell it. He must have also
The moon was fading. The sun was starting to rise. It showed the top of its fierce face. It rose resolutely. Daily Elizabeth negotiated with nature. Anything natural was a problem.
Elizabeth did contact other tenants, she did what Ernest asked her to do. One of the tenants was hard of hearing. Before she knew he was deaf, she tried phoning him. She raised her voice higher and higher and then she shouted into the phone and then hung up. She met him briefly on the street. She realized he couldn’t hear a word she was saying unless she stood in front of him so he could see her mouth move, and in addition she shouted. He was stone deaf. She didn’t know why he had a phone. Then she sent him a letter.
Dear Herbert,
I would like to talk to you about our protest against the rent hike the landlord is proposing.
We are filing our objections to the Major Capital Improvements and would like to know your objections. We know that a former tenant in your apartment
did
file a PAR, Petition for Administrative Review, a while ago, but we do not know what the specific protest was—windows? a hallway problem? Do you know? Did you file anything? Do you have any evidence or documents about the building’s condition?
Others in your building have also filed. If you could be of any help contacting them and finding out their objections, please let us know as soon as you can.
You and I say hello on the street. Because you are hard of hearing, the phone is not the best way to communicate. Let’s meet in front of the building when it’s convenient. Please contact me or Ernest—he’s in in the mornings. We both have answering machines or actually you could drop a line, just send me a letter. Please contact us any way you wish. If you can’t reach people in your building, Ernest and I will write letters. But are the people who filed still living there? I couldn’t find any of them listed in the phone book.
Many thanks.
Sincerely,
Elizabeth Hall
Elizabeth worried that mentioning his deafness would offend him. She wasn’t going to pretend that screaming into the phone was easy or adequate. They had to communicate. Herbert responded. Maybe he wasn’t sensitive or maybe she hadn’t offended him. He was accustomed to being deaf. He was used to the stupidities of the nondeaf. He was happy to help, he said, when they met, face to face, in front of the building. She thought he said that, or that’s what she heard, because he didn’t pronounce words clearly. She had to interpret. She may have confused his complaints for others he didn’t have. She shouted her thanks, and they shook hands. He helped Ernest and her contact some other tenants in his building.
Ernest and Elizabeth went to see one of them. He lived in the alleged same building as theirs. Architecturally it had been the same—Roy said she was going to see how the other half lived. The other half had been a mirror image, but the landlord recently halved all the apartments. Then reconditioned them. The ceilings were lower and made of a porous material. The apartments smelled bad. They lacked proportion. They were hopeless, shapeless.
His apartment had no outside or available light. It was probably illegal to have just one window looking out on a wall. Elizabeth could hardly breathe. The place was a hole, in a desperate condition. The guy was cute, even handsome. Elizabeth knew that no one would expect the condition he lived in from the way he looked. It was like the super Hector’s apartment, though she’d never had the chance to enter Hector’s. It was smaller than Hector’s and the cute guy was the only person in it. All the shit was his.
To him, it meant nothing. She could see that. His surroundings meant nothing to him. There could have been decades of vomit caked on the walls and floors, he wouldn’t have noticed. He didn’t see it or smell it. He must have also
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