New York City has one of the worst housing shortages in the known universe.
That’s how New Yorkers describe it: a “housing” shortage. Funny, but I’ve yet to see a “house” anywhere in this city.
The “houses” are apartments. The mayor is the only fellow in town who has a house with a lawn, and they turned his lawn into a park.
When I first moved here from the Great State of Alabama in January it took me three months to find “housing.”
I finally hired a real estate agency called the “Gentle Nest” to find me an apartment.
I figured that with a name like that, they must pretty nice.
Marv, my realtor from the Gentle Nest. wore many gold chains and smelled like some sort of deceased seafood product.
“So. Morgan baby, what’s your price range?”
“Cheap,” I said.
“Oh man, you want to live on da Island for cheap? I got cheap. How ’bout Harlem?” Marv suggested.
“Well, Marv, being that I’m unarmed and came without a police escort, I think I might want to live in a more sedate neighborhood,” I said.
“I got this nice, cheap pad on the West Side for $2,600.00 per month,” he said.
Mary was beaming. His gold tooth glimmered in the afternoon light.
“Does it come with an Oldsmobile?” I asked.
I finally ended up renting a cracker box apartment in a five-story walk-up (that’s New
York lingo for “no elevator, bubba”) in what used to be a tuberculosis hospital.
I live in former ward #5C. There are no nurses, unfortunately. Tragically, it was far from sanitary when I moved in. I nearly passed out from cleaner fumes trying to remove the 75 years of New York City gunk from the tub and sink.
But finally, with my bed, a chair, and a telephone I was all moved in and settled.
There isn’t room for much more. As I type this column I can touch all four walls in my bedroom … another couple of paragraphs and I’ll have to go outside to print this out.
Here at The Andalusia Star-News New York City Bureau, as I fondly refer to my apartment, there are many oddities.
My air-conditioning unit is held five floors above terra firma by two garbage bags and some tacks.
Any day now I expect it to wheeze its last puff of moderately cool air and then fling itself out the window in one last spasmodic gasp.
There are no door knobs on the doors. My bedroom was painted a backyard pool blue. The walls were blue. The doors were blue. Even the floor and ceiling were blue.
When I tried to paint over the blue, I was blue.
Meanwhile, the water can be pink. Sometimes it is magenta. Mostly it’s just pale yellow. It clashes with the rust-colored sink.
I called the repairmen when the refrigerator stopped cooling. They charged me $65 to tell me to turn it off.
Well how was I supposed to know how to defrost a refrigerator? I figured that big block of ice where the freezer used to be would keep the rest of the food cold.
But the worst part of the NYC Star-News Bureau is the stove.
The stove is gas. I light it by hand. It makes a disturbing “vroosh” noise when the gas catches. “Vroosh” is not a comforting noise. I much prefer the “beep” of the microwave or the “ding” that the toaster makes. “Vroosh” is simply unnerving. It makes me fear for my eyebrows.
The first time I used the stove I happened to be cooking dinner for Miss Alabama 1992. Kim Wimmer, who also lives in New York City.
It’s not every day I cook for Miss Alabama. I felt the need to prove I hadn’t forgotten my roots, so I called Mama in a panic to get some recipe ideas.
She suggested cornbread and country-fried steak.
Who can mess up cornbread and country-fried steak? The trick is just to throw about five metric tons of lard into a black skillet and get cookin’.
Following my mama’s instructions, I fried up that cube steak and made enough gravy to sink the boat (in the South, gravy is considered a beverage, no?). Ms. Alabama smiled patiently as she watched my culinary expertise.
“This isn’t so hard,” I thought to myself as the oven came on with a vroosh. I put the country-fried steak in the oven to simmer for 15 minutes. Then Ms. Alabama and I sat back to sip some sweet tea (this might have been OK, say if I happened to own a table and some chairs — but since I only have one chair and a box, the setting was more like supper in Mississippi than dinner in New York).
I should have known to check on that county-fried steak. But who wants to be looking into the oven when Ms. Alabama is around? You tell me.
The men in my family have a tradition of burning things. Last Thanksgiving, Dad was running behind and figured that if Mama told him to bake the turkey at 250 degrees for four hours, he could set the oven to “clean” and get the job done in 30 minutes.
“Morgan, how long did your mama say, you were supposed to cook that? It’s been three hours.” Ms. Alabama intoned ever so politely.
Only a fine Alabamian could remain so calm in spite of the towering inferno coming from the oven.
The country-fried steak was city-burned – we’re talking flames here I was just following in my daddy’s footsteps.
As I took the smoldering cow out of the oven, Kim remained calm while I tried to get out of the apartment.
The absence of door handles made this difficult during this particular emergency. I tried to maintain an air of sophistication as I frantically tossed the sizzling pan from one hand to another.
I decided to douse the sucker with water but all that came out was one pathetic amber drop and a few belches of rust.
Still smiling, I headed for the window. The garbage bags caught fire, the tacks stuck in my hand, the country-fried steak landed on my landlord’s Plymouth, and the air-conditioning dangled fifty feet in the air by its cord. The smoke had forced Ms.
Alabama onto the floor with a wet rag over her head.
All told, the evening was a success compared to some other nights I’ve had here in New York.
Remember Andalusia: When cooking in New York, STOP, DROP, and ROLL.