Chapter 22: Both Doors

We decided the way we decided everything lately, which was by arguing on the stairs.

"My place has a boiler next door," I said.

"Mine has a bathtub with feet."

"Mine has the super's office and the keys."

"Mine has better light."

"Yours has a ceiling that leaks."

"That was one time."

"In October," I said. "I'm still counting it."

We were standing between the first and second floors with a milk crate each, and the whole building was listening through the doors.

I sighed.

"1B is the super's apartment," I said. "It stays mine as long as the building keeps a super. I'd like you down there."

"With you?"

"With me. Unless you'd rather I came up."

He looked at the crate in his arms.

He had lived in 2B for four years, and had woken up in it eleven more times.

"I'd like to go down," Perry said slowly.

"I want to wake up in a place that isn't the one I woke up in every time."

"Then that's the reason."

"It's a good one."

"I know," I said. "I didn't have to defend it."

It took the whole of a Saturday in the third week of March.

The twins ran boxes in the red wagon, and the man in the bathrobe carried the lamp.

Stan sat in the lobby in his folding chair and pointed.

By four o'clock everything Perry owned was in 1B, and the hall smelled of dust and cardboard.

The last thing to go was the kitchen chair.

Perry picked it up, and then he set it back down.

"There's one more thing to carry," he said.

"What?"

"Me, from upstairs. I should walk through once."

"I'll come with you," I said.

2B was empty.

The sunlight lay across the bare floor in long yellow bars, and the rooms looked larger without furniture.

My boots echoed.

On the kitchen wall there was a pale square where the calendar had hung.

Perry walked slowly through the living room and stopped by the window.

"Eleven times I woke up in there," he said, pointing at the bedroom door.

"And every time, the first thing I did was listen for you on the front steps."

"I was always coming."

"You were always coming," he agreed. "You'd have a duffel bag and a toolbox."

He took the key out of his pocket, the old brass one with the green tag, and turned it over.

"I should give this to the super."

"I'm the super."

"I know," he said, and put it in my palm.

I closed my hand on it and felt its warmth.

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