What Colors the Steel Sky Blue

After another calm day spent in my East Village, I walked home calmly. Summer was slowly fading away, the air was changing, I would have to soon dig out the thick comforter from my closet. Fall was on the way, and I was still unemployed and still undecided about what next step to take.

My head was a mess. I was two cappuccino's away from starting to talk to myself. Despite my mental state, I walked calmly, with trees and the noisy street to my right. Just to make my life a little more interesting, I decided to enter my building from the rear entrance on Avenue C. I usually used the entrance on the inner courtyard side off of Avenue B.

I entered the lobby, checked mail; a few advertisements, bills, more bills, and a postcard. I walked to the elevator calmly. There was an middle-aged man wearing sweatpants and a white t shirt waiting for the elevator. Pretty ordinary scene except for the fact that this man had this strange protrusion on his belly that stretched the t-shirt to the limit. He was overweight yes, but beyond the typical outline of a pot-belly, he had a further second teer of protrusion. It was bothersome. I did not want to even look at it --so I did what any other person would do --look down. Well on the way down to the floor, my eyes unfortunately caught yet another protrusion in the man's figure. I think he was not wearing any underwear or perhaps wearing boxers underneath his sweatpants. Anyhow, I could see his euphamism hanging down his leg like some alien creature was just in the process of exiting his body and running down his legs to its freedom in this brave new world.

Being a New Yorker in training, I assumed the best thing to do would be to just keep my eyes on the ground and pretend that I did not see anything. I had to remain calm. I did not want to offend him, and I did not want to have to talk to him because that would require me to look up which would make my pupils revisit the previously noted abnormalities.

The elevator, as usual, was taking forever to come down to the lobby. The minutes seemed like hours. In the meantime, the man was looking at me and breathing very heavily like he just came back from running five miles. I could not see how he could even run to the end of our block. By this time I was starting to figure out that he probably had a health condition of some sort. Something I just did not need to know about.

Then suddenly the double doors of the lobby flew open and a lady with her three year old in a stroller pulled in. They promptly checked their mail and then assumed their impatiently waiting for the elevator stance by the rest of us at the elevator door.

The silence was heavy, the silence was contagious, the silence at that moment was breathing down my neck and making all the hairs on my forearm stand up.

Then the silence was broken by the three year old: "Mom, I can see his cock." The mother bent down, saying "I can not hear you sweetie; what did you say??"

I could not accept the fact that a three year old would observe this and then report to his mother using the C word. Just when I was halfway in the process of persuading myself that I was utterly deaf and insane, the boy repeated the very same sentence one more time.

"I told you mom, I can see his cock."

This time the man started giggling to himself. The mother immediately turned the stroller around and went to the other end of the lobby and started whispering something to the boy. I figured they had much negotiating to do which meant I was going to be left alone with the man in the elevator. The elevator of course promptly arrived, the blue enamel door scrolled open and soon I was engulfed in the stale air of the elevator cabin filling up quickly with his stale breath as he continued on taking breaths like these next ten or twenty were his last.

Fourth floor, finally, I jumped out, literally. I no longer worried about offending anyone. I had to run. Silent hallway, with black linoleum tiles, walls painted green blue, my green door, apartment 4F. Unlocking the door, the door slams behind me and I am home. It is over.