The building, with its faded brown and red bricks, was squeezed between a new condominium and a large house with an even larger front yard. Scraps of crumbled paper, plastic bags, and anything else unnecessary and unwanted found their way to the yard, blown over the decrepit white gates and orange brick wall by the wind. The aging owners clung to their littered field when they could no longer cling to the memory of their lost son, and they let it drift into decay. Cherry trees were scattered here and there, and in the spring, pale-pink flowers emerged, outshining the surrounding collection of garbage with their simple elegance and beauty. But by wintertime, bare branches were once again decorated with floating plastic bags.
The building, with the dark Harry Potter-like cupboard under the first flight of stairs designated for recycled newspapers, had a basement that was guarded by five sets of locks. My super owned five sets of keys, which he once entrusted me with. Aside from the spiders, the underground room was the home to little plastic cities complete with railroads, churches, farms, schools, and parks that my super would work on during the year in order to display his life’s creations in the main hallway for one special day in December.
The building, with its four floors, each with five sets of creaking doors, was transformed into a snowglobe on Christmas day by my super, who would tell stories of the disappointing snowless Italian winters in his memories. On the morning of the twenty-fifth, I would fly down the steps in my yellow pajamas, feet tripping over the cracks in the marble, and enter a garland-filled world of red and green and mistletoe. In the center stood a medium-sized tree covered in sparkling balls and angels and singing lamps that flashed colors on the brown walls of the hallway. And below rested the fabricated plastic city.
The building had a super named Fred, a sixty-something year-old man and my third-floor neighbor for ten years. He stood in front of apartment 3C, beaming and waving and slowly shouting words in English, emphasizing every syllable, as I stepped into my first home in the U.S. He was the first American I had a conversation with, the first to teach me the alphabet and “Mary Had a Little Lamb” and hopscotch, and we would sit outside playing cards as he talked about his Sicilian background. He was the first to teach me how to gamble and how to ride a bike and how to jump-rope, although he was quite terrible at it. He had a son and three grandchildren who lived on the West Coast and rarely visited. He claimed I had a striking resemble to his Jenna, who was a year older, much taller, and looked nothing like me. He showed me stacks of albums of his family, and invited me over for breakfast. . . and lunch and dinner and snacks in between. He absentmindedly called me “Jenna” and I didn’t bother to point out that I was me and not his granddaughter or anyone else for that matter.
The building aged with time; paint chipped off, doors squeaked, tiles cracked, bricks faded, locks broke, mailboxes refused to open, doorbells refused to ring, people moved in and out. And Fred ran around fixing it all while I skipped to school; we barely saw each other and said simple “Hellos” and “Goodbyes” or just nodded in acknowledgment.
When I moved out from the apartment, walls were being repainted and new locks were being installed. The green bench was removed, the dull lamps in the hallways that cast mysterious shadows at night were replaced, and the flowers of the sandbox withered from neglect, just like the neighboring junk-filled yard with the lonely cherry trees.
I stare at the Hallmark card I bought for Fred, puzzling over what to write. There seem to be hundreds of memories that race through my mind. I write, “Thank you for everything you’ve done. Have a great Christmas.”
I even manage to misspell his last name.
bouncy