The Man Upstairs
The man living upstairs from me has been renovating his apartment for
nine years, maybe longer, they tell me. No one knows for sure. The
previous occupant of my apartment died (old age, they say). I have been
living here for the past two years and can personally vouch for
renovation activity during that period of time.
Every so often, Pan Dupek, as I have christened him, gives in to a
perverse craving for loud banging noises. This can happen at any time
of the day or night.
One nail at a time, by god.
Home was not rebuilt in a day!
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Then his dementia goes into remission, and it stops. His wife
slipper-shuffles for a while and the dog goes tippitty-tappitty for a
couple of laps around Chez Dupek, then it is quiet again.
This is the normal routine, but from time to time he tries for a new
personal best.
On the most spectacular such occasion he spent two days trying to pound
a hole through his kitchen floor using a sledgehammer. At least that's
what it sounded and felt like. The whole building shook. "New Zealand
here we come!" I thought.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
His kitchen is directly over mine, so it was only a matter of time. No
point in warning the guy. His kind always know better.
I arrived home from work to find a trail of plaster chunks and dust in
the hall leading to a much larger accumulation of the same on my
kitchen floor.
Dust to dust, eh? Someone is either coming or going around here, and it
ain't me, I thought.
In fact, nearly half of my thick heavy plaster kitchen ceiling was in
capitulatory repose on my kitchen floor, having surrendered in the
struggle to find peace on this earth.
I stomped up the stairs to beard the dupek in his den.
Well, you finally succeeded. My ceiling is now on the floor, I told
him. Yeah, yeah, right, he said. OK, come and look, I said.
He swaggered down the stairs sporting one of those omniscient commie
smirks you see chiseled into every cement-head in Central Europe.
He saw the mess, grabbed his head with both hands, grimaced wildly,
reeled backward on his heels like some cartoon character, and cried
out: KURCZ&;#280;!
Truer words are rarely spoken, I thought.
Now do you believe me? I asked. And while you're at it, who is going to
clean up this mess?
KURCZ&;#280;! he cried out again. I'll fix the ceiling, don't worry,
I'll fix the ceiling.
Forget the ceiling! Who is going to clean up this mess? I asked.
He wobbled back upstairs like a chimpanzee with diarrhea, still holding
his head with both hands, muttering "kurcz&;#281; kurcz&;#281;."
Shortly thereafter, his wife plodded down the stairs, shaking and
sweating, and made a half-hearted attempt to sweep up. Forget it before
you have a heart attack, I told her. Well, she is rather old, though
not exactly frail. Pani Krowa, if you know what I mean.
It was now about 7PM. I called the landlady's sister (the landlady does
not live nearby). Half the kitchen ceiling fell on the floor and it's a
big mess, I told her. Well, can it wait until tomorrow? she asked.
Yeah, but it really is a very big mess, I said.
A couple of minutes later she called back: My husband and I are coming
over to look at it, she said. OK, I said, but looking at it won't clean
it up, and it is a very big mess. We want to see just how big of a mess
it is, she said. OK, I said. I'll be here.
They arrived. The husband looked, reeled back on his heals and cried
out KURCZ&;#280;! Then the wife peaked around the corner into the
kitchen, reeled back on her heals and cried out KURCZ&;#280;!
Now do you believe me? I asked. I told you nearly half of the ceiling
was on the floor and there it is, right? Yeah, they agreed
despondently. They seemed genuinely disappointed about missing an
opportunity to make fun of "a typical exaggerating American."
Well, what now? I asked. OK, we'll clean it up, they said. So we all
pitched in and pitched out the debris, more or less. The next day the
local pani cleaningowa finished the job.
The ceiling still needed to be repaired, but of course, first and
foremost, the cooperative association had to determine blame. Blame is
always more important than action. As it happens, the man upstairs is
Prezes of the cooperative. You can probably see where this is
leading.
So Pan Prezes assembled a delegation of the usual mouth-breathing
sycophants to inspect the premises and render a fair and impartial
opinion. They arrived along with the landlady's sister.
The delegation consisted of one old lady who works for Pan Prezes in
the office and some old guy who carried a yard stick and spent most of
his time staring open-mouthed at the ceiling mumbling incomprehensibly.
Pan Prezes was in his full glory, hands in pockets, rocking fore and
aft heel-to-toe-to-heel, grinning the biggest shit-eating grin I have
ever seen on what is purported to be a human being. After 25 minutes of
wandering about aimlessly, staring skyward, and babbling back and
forth, Pan Prezes declared the inspection complete and stated that the
delegation would render a final opinion in writing in one week.
Gee, I thought, this is going to be a real cliffhanger. I can hardly
wait to find out what they decide.
The fateful day arrived, and as I suspected, the jury returned a
verdict of not guilty regarding Pan Prezes and stated that in fact "the
building is guilty." The written statement actually said that.
Consequently, my landlady had to pay for the repairs. Not Pan Prezes,
not the cooperative, and not even the building. Fortunately, not me
either. I had been waiting to see if they could think of a way to pin
it on me. Perhaps something like: "excessive localized gravity due to
the presence of an overly serious alien force."
Understandably, the building itself was unavailable for further
comment, having already expressed its opinion of Pan Prezes by dropping
its load on my kitchen floor in the first place.
Incredibly, the landlady's sister actually thought there had been a
chance that the delegation would declare Pan Prezes guilty. I had no
idea anyone in Poland over the age of six months was that na?ve, and
she is WELL over the age of six months, believe me.
OK, so I went away over Christmas and when I came back it was all
fixed. All things considered, it was a relatively painless resolution
to an idiotic situation, except that some of the people in my office
agreed that the building was guilty! They said it was old (not that
old: 1959), probably not very well constructed in the first place (like
so many other things, including their stupid argument), and no repairs
had been done in a long time by my landlady (not true at all).
I told them that if they had been there and felt the building shaking
on its foundation while Pan Prezes sledgehammered his way to infamy,
they would probably think differently.
They just shook their heads and went back to work.
I'm sure they were thinking: "just another typical exaggerating
American."
KURCZ&;#280;!
