Immigrant Song

I knock on the door. The sound of footsteps as someone approaches, then silence.

Right now, whoever it is is probably staring at me through the peephole and thinking, “What the fuck??!”

Then I hear whispers that sound like hushed argument. Probably along the lines of, “Are you gonna answer it?” “No, YOU answer it!” “Why should I answer it? The woman’s obviously crazy. I can see her out there right now and she’s not wearing any pants!”

An eternity passes, during which out of pure nervousness I pop another cherry in my mouth. Then the door opens.

It’s the wife. She’s wearing reading glasses and her eyebrows are raised way above the rims as she gives me a look that says, “Well. I can’t wait to hear this.”

I explain how I was locked out of my office and ask if I can use their phone to call my husband. Her face softens. “Of course,” she says and leads me inside.

The apartment is sweltering. The sun hits them directly, too, and they have no air conditioning. They’ve opened the windows and the curtains move slightly in the weak breeze.

Just then I see her husband through the open door of another room. He’s sitting on the bed, and — I can’t believe it! –

He’s also wearing no pants.

He’s just sitting there in a pair of tight white bikini briefs. As soon as he sees me, though, he springs into action to put some pants on. I quickly look away. I want to die of embarrassment. Life is so unfair. How come he can cover up in this moment and I can’t? It’s like one of those bad dreams where you show up for work naked and there’s nothing you can do about it.

The wife shows me to the phone and I lower my head as if I’m having trouble dialing the numbers. I want to get that husband out of my peripheral vision, ASAP. But then he walks into the kitchen.

“Hi!” he says, enthusiastically. I sneak a glance at the wife, whose face is a very practiced blank. “So,” he says, “you were locked out of your office?”

“Yeah, how stupid was that?” I laugh weakly. “It was just so hot in there that I had to get comfortable, you know what I mean? And then I opened the balcony door and left. I’m so dumb. I’m really sorry to bother you all,” looking directly and earnestly as possible into THE WIFE’S eyes.

“Oh, it’s no bother at all!” the husband says and smiles hugely. The wife starts looking around the apartment. I dip my head down again and stare at absolutely nothing on the table while waiting for Cesar to answer the phone.

He doesn’t. The phone rings and rings. And rings. And rings.

Heaven help me. I am SO uncomfortable right now.

The wife disappears for a moment and comes back with the baby. The baby has just learned to stand on her own, and she’s completely naked. Her face is smeared with food. She stares at me without making a sound. At least someone else in this house is naked. It makes me feel a little less alone.

“Hi there, cutie,” I say with a big smile, while silently damning Cesar to hell for being half deaf and unable to hear his fucking phone when I’m desperately trying to reach him while strangers are staring at my cellulite.

“No answer?” says the wife.

“Uh, I’m afraid not,” I say. “I’ll just try for another minute, if that’s okay with you.”

“Sure, no problem!” the husband practically shouts. The wife nods her head. She’s being awfully nice about the whole thing. I make a mental note to bring her a little gift next time I see her.

A few minutes later, Cesar finally answers the goddamn phone. I decide to be funny about it, to break the tension. “Come get me, now. I’m at the neighbors’ house with no pants on. I’ll explain later.”

Cesar says, “What??” The neighbors laugh. Cesar says, “Only you could do something like this.”

“That’s right, baby, and that’s why you married me!” I say, and hang up. Mission accomplished.

“Gosh, thanks so much. You people saved my life!”

“No problem,” says the wife, smiling. She really is nice today.

“Hey, let me get you a chair while you wait for him,” says the husband.

The idea of me sitting on the neighbor’s kitchen chairs for close to a half hour with no pants on, my sweaty, exposed buns sticking to the surface, while we try to make small talk — “SO… what’s your NAME?” — makes the blood drain from my face.

“Oh no, that’s okay. I’ll just wait downstairs. I don’t want to inconvenience you any more than I already have.”

“It’s no inconvenience at all!” he says.

“No, really, thanks so much for the help. I really appreciate it. I’d better wait for him downstairs, so I can let him in when he gets here.”

I walk down five flights of stairs and wait on the landing, eating cherries while sweat drips down my legs. During the wait, a few neighbors enter the building, giving me strange looks .

“Where are your pants?” says one forty-something man, holding his five-year-old son’s hand.

“I forgot them upstairs,” I say, and eat another cherry.

“Sometimes I forget my pants,” says the little boy.

“Want a cherry?” I say to the little boy. His father edges him away from me and takes him upstairs.

When Cesar finally shows up, he looks strangely over-dressed.

Too bad it’s a Sunday. I’d like to take him shopping for underwear. Tight, white underwear.

Rachel in the plaza of the World Trade Center wearing no pants, New York City, 1997.

Last weekend I was working in my office, which I rent for cheap in a slightly crappy, mixed residential-commercial building.

It was the afternoon, when the sun beats down on my office and turns it into an oven. So I did what I always do: I took off my shoes and pants, and continued working that way. With the doors to the balcony wide open, at least a current of fresh air could enter the room. I almost felt like I was outdoors. It was fun.

Then came time for a snack break. I grabbed a bag of cherries I had in the fridge and headed towards the bathroom to wash them in the sink. Since the bathroom is right next to my office, I never have to worry about embarrassing encounters with the neighbors who live on the same floor, right across the hall.

I exited my office, being careful to keep the door wide open since it locks automatically when closed.

As I approached the bathroom door, I caught an unexpected movement in my peripheral vision: it was the sunlight disappearing. I felt a strong current of air. Whirling around in panic, I cried, “Oh nooooooo!”

It was too late: pushed by an air current coming from the open balcony door, the door slammed shut behind me with a loud WHOMP!

That’s door-speak for “Fuck YOU! HA-HA!”

There I stood in the hallway: in socks, a t-shirt, and underpants, holding a bag of cherries.

My goddamn keys were inside the office.

It was a Sunday, so I couldn’t ask the people who work in the office next door, who happen to share the balcony, to let me into my office that way.

Even worse: my cell phone was in the office. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Cesar has a set of keys to my office, but he is across the city from where I work. The thought of walking that distance in socks and with no pants was not inviting. Besides, I had no cell phone to call ahead, to make sure he’d be there to receive me.

I also had no money on me. All I had was a bag of cherries, and the last shreds of my dignity. The idea entered my mind of panhandling, pants-less, on the street for change to make the call at a pay phone, and I nearly wept.

The best option I could think of filled me with dread, but I had no other choice: I had to knock on the neighbors’ door.

The neighbors are a young, attractive couple with a year-old baby who’s always screaming. The woman is often frazzled, understandably, because she’s got a screaming baby to take care of 24 hours a day. Still, whenever I’ve encountered her, I’ve gotten the feeling that she dislikes me. No reason; there’s just an unpleasant vibe.

It doesn’t help that her husband is friendly to me. Overly friendly, if you know what I mean. He is one of those men who, besides being unusually handsome, can’t help but flirt with every woman he sees. A real charmer. So I’ve been figuring that, besides being exhausted and irritated with a new baby, his wife is probably a little insecure and jealous.

And here I am, about to knock on their door, wearing no pants. And holding my cherries.

TO BE CONTINUED!