No Lease on Life by Lynne Tillman Read Free Book Online

it.
    —Are they rogue garbage collectors? Elizabeth asked.
    The acerbic super and Elizabeth laughed in the morbid morning air. Morning is for mourning, Elizabeth thought. Another garbage truck rolled along and disgorged the regular guys. They were doing the other side of the street. Elizabeth walked over to the short Italian one.
    —Take a look at our block. It looks worse than it did last night. Look at the garbage everywhere, look at the cans all over the sidewalk. How can they do this and call themselves garbage collectors?
    The regular garbage collector surveyed the sidewalk. He saw the randomness, the mayhem, the sidewalk littered haphazardly with black plastic and aluminum cans. He saw the Chinese food, milk cartons, dog shit, cat food cans, and diapers scattered contemptuously on the ground. The regular guy hurried. He raced to make things right, to turn the cans right side up. He shouted, as he ran, that he’d take care of it. He didn’t want her to report them. He didn’t want trouble. She didn’t report all the wrong things she saw. It was depressing and time-consuming.
    Elizabeth opened the window wide. She didn’t care who saw. The morons were crossing Avenue A. They were dancing. A speeding cop car or an ambulance racing to save someone could hit them. They might be killed or they could all be murdered in the park by a crackhead. Her mother said, Where there’s life, there’s hope. She didn’t want to die, she told Elizabeth, because there’s no future in death.
    The third-floor man was still in his window across the street. Even with his lights off, his dark shape filled the window. Elizabeth saw something. It could’ve been his dog. Roy was still sleeping peacefully, and she hated and loved him for it. He was missing the night’s frantic errors. Strident, bizarre noises didn’t wake him.
    The third-floor man’s lack of acknowledgment creeped her out. But she didn’t want to wave to him. That demanded a leap across a great chasm, her acknowledging his looking at her. She felt little, belittled. She shrank back.
    A series of high-pitched yelps or squeals started. They seemed to come from someplace close. It sounded like someone was being tortured. Roy didn’t move. He was a smooth stone on the bed. He didn’t look alive. Elizabeth couldn’t figure out if the torture noises came from human beings, dogs, or cats. People tortured their animals. They tortured their children. Children tortured animals. Everyone’s a monster, given the opportunity.
    She was sure the man was watching her from his window. It was obvious. He was pretending he wasn’t. She didn’t want to hide. She was covered, decent, whatever. He wasn’t hiding. But she wasn’t watching him. He could think she was. It was a dilemma. She wanted to watch the street, not him, but she couldn’t watch the street without the possibility that he would think she was watching him. Even her freedom or opportunity—her liberty to look out a window—was controlled by others. She didn’t want to give in and leave the window.
    Acknowledgment could disarm the situation, him, but it could also trigger harm, attack.
    He was probably the kind of man who made sucking noises when he ate and slept, when he fucked. He smacked his lips when he chewed and food drool poured from the corners of his thin lips. He opened his mouth wide, and you could see the food inside and the spittle dribbling out of his mouth, and he had a grin on his face like an idiot, but jesus he loved to eat.
    She wouldn’t acknowledge him.
    Maybe he knew he was a creep. Maybe creeps know they’re condemned for life. Maybe he was the kind of man who shaves close, nicks his skin and wears cheap, cloying aftershave lotion, who slaps it on and thinks it covers his sins. Maybe he hated himself.
    Some people who hate themselves wear perfume. Elizabeth liked certain perfumes and others made her sick. She didn’t hate herself all the time. She hated herself less when she liked her own