[ToC]

 

WHITE FROSTING ON TOP

Jon Cotner and Andy Fitch

We recorded forty-five-minute conversations on thirty days around New York City. Half the talks took place at a Union Square health-food store which, for legal reasons, we call "W.F." Other locations included MoMA, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Metropolitan Opera House, Central Park, Prospect Park, and a Tribeca parking garage. This piece comes from the eighteenth conversation.

 

3:44 p.m. Tuesday, January 17
CUNY Graduate Center Stairwell—9th Floor

A: You asked if we call this a stairway or stairwell. Any criss-cross apparatus I’d consider a stairwell—a more cohesive um um...

J: So a stairwell consists of many stairways? We sit, for instance, on a stairway amid a stairwell.

A: We’re sitting on a staircase.

J: Oh.

A: Stairways provide a slender arrangement. This seems quite grand. Steps run on a slant in two directions. They form an X at the midpoint of...long diagonal...

J: You can just say the vertical and horizontal axes.

A: [Door slams] skylights.

J: Modernist skylights? Ok. I couldn’t take the space in. I’d spent the morning tossing and turning in thought, assessing the apartment I saw last night.

A: It sounds like a deal, so what are limiting factors?

J: It is a good deal: 625 a month (utilities included) on 5th Street between First and Second, with an older man who drives limos five days...

A: Yet parks his limo outside the building?

J: No my...

A: He picks it up? Or you don’t...

J: Um I’ll guess he commutes. So he’s gone more...

A: Hmm.

J: than sixty hours, which would allow for freedom and privacy.

A: Does does limo-driving get done at night? Do people ride around more in limos at night?

J: He sleeps late. I’d cook breakfast without seeing him. But he does seem a decent man. He’s had crummy roommates in the the past, and recently suffered financial losses so he’s not in top condition. Still I think this could be a fine situation. I do worry, however, about one thing he said. Guests can stay four nights a month.

A: I like the...

J: To spend...

A: Oh sorry; I like his presenting a specific number—as if it’s rude to reveal the figures in your head.

J: Right, not that I’d bring girls home randomly, but it does unnerve me to have precise limits imposed. Yet he appears open to negotiation, and once he sees how conscientious...he kept saying I’m overly polite and...

A: My roommate says it about me as well...

J: Yeah.

A: misunderstanding my desire for efficient social exchange.

J: With a...

A: [Footsteps] grease as much as possible.

J: Once I’ve settled he’ll lift this law from, he’ll lift the rule and accept my freedom. I did have to tell one lie. I’d promised to stay at least a year.

A: Sure.

J: I claimed to miss spending summers in New York. Though I’m all but certain I’ll spend summer away. I can’t handle the two-month delirium.

A: Well summers don’t really exist in New York. Spring and fall exist to some extent, winter once did, but but the routinization of life—even if you don’t work or...

J: [Muffled] raise your voice...

A: I think we’re fine. I think you cut me off: something about how hourly existence means no summer, since summer involves forgetting the time of day. Maybe that’s too strong. Um with this sublet did you run through Stephen’s 7 Basic Questions? For instance does televi...

J: He watches TV in his room. However he’s sawed a corner off off his door so two cats can come and go freely, and I worry television noise might emanate through the gap.

A: The bedrooms...

J: Stand on opposite sides of the apartment.

A: Between a living room?

J: There’s no living room, so no social space. But my room seems large enough to talk with friends. It provides substantial...

A: There is a kitchen?

J: Sure.

A: You sound set.

J: My relationship to Manhattan’s changed. Imagine morning walks through Chinatown or afternoons drifting through the Chelsea galleries.

A: I remember, for one year, crossing between my and Kristin’s—walking at least one [Door slams] every night and loving the Chinatown stretch.

J: Where did you...

A: Williamsburg to Tribeca, past long bulk-bins of dried mushrooms. Beneath the dried fish hanging in geometric shapes...

J: Have you ever stood too close to dried fish?

A: I don’t think one can. And fishmongers with rubbery boots always looked cold no matter the season. I’ll bet I’ve moved also by the end of May...

J: You should...

A: back to the city—if I switch jobs to another school.

J: Well if I leave this place you could slide in and take it.

A: I doubt I’d want it; though that’s a guess, since...

J: Ok.

A: I can afford a, you know slightly saner place or...

J: Yeah I can’t...

A: more private place.

J: pay more than 600 a month, and everybody recognizes the huge huge difference between rooms that cost 600 and...

A: A tremen...

J: a place that costs 850.

A: tremendous difference.

J: Yes and it’s funny: the whole thing comes down to $3000 a year. [Pause] I see a full blue backpack sit sitting on the landing...

A: Right, now we could...

J: over there.

A: [Door slams] didn’t bring a suit. I don’t know what to wear to the funeral. I also forgot dress shoes and will probably wear my father’s (in which my feet slide like clogs).

J: Still at least they’re not too small.

A: Good point.

J: Yet would your brother bring...

A: They are too...those are too small. I’ve planned to borrow somebody’s tie, maybe put a sweater over the tie.

J: I wore that to my sister’s college graduation. Most brothers arrived wearing suits but I only owned sweaters and collared shirts. You could see a a tie’s knot poke through.

A: I’ve always liked that look, one...

J: Right.

A: of my favorites. I do own a suit. However I started wearing the shirt several weeks ago just as a button-down shirt (I got desperate). And I’ll hate the sensation of carrying clothes by hanger, using your—I find this position irritating.

J: The Greeks wouldn’t impair fingers like that.

A: We hope.

J: I doubt hangers existed then.

A: Maybe hooks of fish for example...

J: Hung...

A: [Footsteps] strong echo as faculty jog down stairs.

J: But but for all we know the person descended at a normal pace. Acoustics might exaggerate...

A: Yeah cement starts rocking as someone heads down. The increased bodily disturbance...

J: [Door slams] body’s conversed in this stairwell?

A: Recorded?

J: Or with the...have friends sat on these stairs and talked?

A: My friend Lars and I smoked cigarettes at holiday...

J: You two got tanked?

A: At first I tried to join the the academic community. I’d attend Friday lectures followed by cheese and wine. Though lights in this building drain me. I’ll not only get constipated but...

J: And do...

A: quickly lose self-confidence. I also couldn’t drink free Friday wine I realized—after about one year. Cheap red wine contains too many sulfites.

J: Noth nothing makes me more gloomy than cheap red wine.

A: Molecules diffuse my blood cells or something. I’d feel porous [Footsteps] frightening.

J: The presence of bags and jackets and sweaters on this landing must seem inexplicable.

A: But one could note differences between us through them. You, for example, laid a folded sweater on a leather jacket, whereas my coat lies tangled in backpack straps.

J: Did you remove your coat and "Rak" the backpack all at once?

A: Crumpled New York Times sections dangle from pockets. My computer bag rests almost flat against the wall—subtly sliding towards a sudden crash.

J: Will you use the computer at your parents’ house? That computer...

A: At my mom’s?

J: Kristin gave you?

A: No question. I’ll do what work I can. [Pause] Other differences include tags on my bag from a recent flight. I don’t take time to tear tags off; I’d assume you’re not like that.

J: Well...

A: That you...

J: today I pulled out my backpack and found the airplane tag for a flight from Dallas-Fort Worth to Albuquerque.

A: That you left on?

J: Yes.

A: I mean you continue to leave it on?

J: Yes I’ll like seeing my passage through cities reduced to series of letters: DFW to ABQ.

A: That’s nice.

J: I’m not sure when this tag got placed on the strap, but...

A: Remember...

J: I always have to rip those those tickets (or tags) off when I check in. Airport clerks...

A: your...

J: at the counter...

A: visit...

J: look surprised I’ve let old tags dangle.

A: I remember you flying through Dallas on a visit—late spring about two years ago. When we took a walk, an island-walk...

J: We walked from tip to tip.

A: from 230 in the Bronx, 230th Street or so, down to Battery Park.

J: We stopped and ate Mexican food afterwards.

A: Right I remember Mexican as well. In fact we ate before the walk’s end. Then it got...

J: It turned so cold...

A: As...

J: do you remember? We’d contemplated getting a photograph printed on cotton t-shirts.

A: To have a digitized image printed on white cotton.

J: In the photo we planned to wear bulky jackets, scarves, snow-hats.

A: Composing this scene for a summer afternoon, when we would wear...

J: That’s right.

A: I remember the walk fondly—how wind reddens your face if you walk all day. Mine felt fiery that night.

J: We’d bought lunch at the 125th Street Fairway, then hauled things to Columbia’s Student Union?

A: Yes, I pulled my first swipe: bottled water and a scone. And didn’t we attempt to sit in some psychotic triangle boulevard?

J: But since I had to assemble a smoked-salmon sandwich I wanted to wash my hands first. So we’d continued to the Columbia Union where...where perhaps we could talk one day.

A: We definitely should. I know that place picked up importance for you.

J: We’d felt in such good spirits near the end of our walk we treated ourselves to fruit pie...

A: Though...

J: at the Mexican restaurant.

A: Yeah; I thought we had banana cake?

J: Between our...

A: [Muffled] white frosting on top?

J: Maybe you chose banana cake, yet...

A: When I want to treat myself kindly, I’ll order...

J: Hmm.

A: a slice.

J: I selected strawberry-rhubarb pie, which came stuffed with fruit. [Pause] More footsteps on the hallw—stairwell I mean.

A: You can hear harried people crisscross down.

J: My back’s begun to stiffen sitting on these stairs. How how about we stand a few minutes?

A: Sure.

J: Then we could always resume our seat. Wow.

A: An exciting view yeah?

J: Yes, we can peer through a crevice beyond the rail...

A: And see all that sloping elephant-gray.

J: and and look down, I’d guess, five stories.

A: Eight or nine.

J: Because this long drop...

A: [Door slams] green um rhombus as the vanishing point. We’ll let these people pass. [Footsteps] Did you prepare...

J: [Muffled] stairwell’s grown busy.

A: Have you prepared for our interruption?

J: I may buy blank tapes to to record forty-five minutes of thoughts each day. Physiologically now I find it hard to to live without recording conversation.

A: I’ll turn absent of speech the next few...

J: Who knows: we may develop a means to converse while...though you will be missed. Would you climb to the ninth floor to read aloud?

A: On rainy days for exercise I’ll walk stairs—which I learned from my grandpa. He walks the hall in his home, about twenty yards, each cold and rainy afternoon. He’ll walk it fifty times, maybe a hundred. He’s always been resourceful.

J: For how long does his hallway stretch?

A: [Door slams] twenty yards. But he’ll wear a swishy rain-type jacket, which...

J: Right and his fluid...does he cut turns fluidly? Or slow...

A: He moves like an Olympic swimmer in pre...

J: Pushes off the wall.

A: preparing for a turn as he approaches, making use of that change in momentum.

J: Just as one night, in Mrs. Merlin’s building, to invigorate ourselves we sprinted...

A: Hmm.

J: up stairs. She had ten floors—ten flights of stairs in her stairwell.

A: Beside a sketchy elevator. It...

J: Yes which bounced when it stopped.

A: hung on thin threads.

J: You could hear chains rattling...

A: You could.

J: as this this elevator climbed. I thought I was hearing the rattle of death.

A: So my family will speak of death for the first time maybe. Normally we’d talk...

J: Yet can you picture people not wanting to discuss it, but...

A: Sure um...

J: suffer silently?

A: You’ve stepped down to drink water. I’ve felt dehydrated the past few days. I think with a cold front buildings turn drier. [Door slams] established in the city now?

J: Now that I’ll be getting keys to a place; though you did call the the arrangement insane, or hinted it might...

A: I, that was intuition.

J: Well I do have an appointment today, to which I may not go, for a place near Pratt. But my my my understanding of poetry as the undertaking of projects (we’ve discussed this) suggests I could endure this place on East 5th happily, and create a work linked to circumstance, and...

A: Oh it’s 5th Street? Between First and Second Avenue?

J: Yeah.

A: Ok I’d thought...

J: And I’ve lived...I do love living in the center of town.

A: The Indian restaurants start on 5th?

J: No you mean 6th Street thankfully.

A: 6th ok; I wasn’t insinu...

J: I don’t want people ushering me in as I pass: a manager saying...

A: That could...

J: they have the...

A: sometimes get hard.

J: best sauces in New York, the best naan and best prices.

A: I remember also iridescent windows.

J: Yeah, I went to David Yosifon’s last night and had a great time but we—Brian and I both felt sickened by the dead-rat smell in his lobby. David pays 1400 for this one-bedroom. You’d think they’d at least have...

A: Though when you move near restaurants...that’s the negative I meant to imply, the rats.

J: Hmm an exterminator showed up last Monday just as I’d started reading. He looked nineteen with a tank strapped to his back, and pointed a hose and said he’d come to to spray chemicals along...

A: His word?

J: What?

A: Chemicals? He didn’t say juice or something?

J: He said he had to spray his chemicals along the floor, without much enthusiasm. I said Do you know about the cat here? Then he said, sensing a way to skip fumigating, Nobody mentioned any cat. And he passed a piece of paper to sign as proof he’d visited Sharon’s apartment. Since then I’ve seen bugs.

A: So my stomach’s constricted anticipating this trip home. I’ll get thrown from my rhythm (which consists of everything here, even commuting by subway). I’ll feel you know: lack of energy, difficulty concentrating and a, something like sensual indifference...indifference to sensual experience, to to sensory experience, traits I associate with child...

J: [Door slams] distant relatives at the funeral you haven’t seen since childhood?

A: I don’t think—there aren’t any. [Silence] I’ve often headed home via the Graduate Center. Once you board an airport bus you’ll feel far away. Soon it crosses a highway, something you hadn’t seen in so long. But consider this the final...

 

 

 

 

 

__

"White Frosting on Top" already has a brief preface.