2.56 Bronx Apartment in 1939 - Midst of Life

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56. The Apartment

“Hey Babe!” Alfonze shouts standing behind counter in his store, preparing five-cent Bronx egg cream chocolate sodas for 2 guys and a gal. He goes up to Ali so he can speak low. “You and your pal can stay upstairs, ‘S all fixed; I cooked somepin special for ya, an’ da icebox is full a good stuff.” He slips a key to her, Ali says thanks and signals Kimura, who hands Alfonze a 10-dollar bill.

The apartment is in the building of Alfonze’s store. They walk around the corner up West 209th Street and after a minute come, on their right, to the building's entrance, and walk into an inner open-air circular courtyard with  walkway around a grove of bushes that show the fat greening buds of early spring.
   They enter a lobby on the walkway's east side on their right. It is walk-up on first floor, top of stairs, apartment 1A.

   Ali fumbles with the key in door while Kimura stands beside her thinking: What smells of cooking! Never smelt anything like it!  He guesses it is meat because nothing else could smell so.      
   What an appearance of un-scrubbed lived-in-ness! The off-white marble stairwell steps and the black & white tile stone inlays of the outside hall floor. Not dirty as garbage left unswept would be; rather they darkened by the grime of years of daily living!
   And the sounds! Radio playing Glenn Miller’s "In the Mood", the tinkle of piano lessons from apartment 1B, the shriek of women’s voices in some foreign language from floor above! Tenement Symphony! he muses making note to do a Sunday newspaper piece on Bronx apartment life. His readers in Japan will like an article about quaint foreigners because it gives them a feeling of superiority over the foreigner and contentment with their own lives.

Ali succeeds with key, the door opens inward, and they enter a short hall, noting a kitchen on the right, and go into the living room with Persian rug on a wood floor. At far end, facing them, two yellow lace curtained windows overlook the Mosholu Parkway.
   An old red sofa is set against the wall where the lace-curtained windows face the Parkway, and one window looks out on a fire escape that runs down the side of the building.

   Along the wall to their left, two faded green couches flank an old radio/phonograph console. Immediately Ali thinks of Sundays playing her Enrico Caruso records there. In mid room is an oval dining table with colorful fringed table cover. Walls are faded pink and have electric candle lamps at corners and  midpoints.

   Ali sniffs close up at herself and Kimura. “Hon, we stink.” She throws the bag with their stuff into a corner, hurries out of her sweater and jeans, pulls off her flannel undershirt revealing bare chest and light-blue lace panties that she wears only because it fuels Kimura's lust.

   “Last one in shower’s a stinky pinky!” she shouts and runs naked into the WC. Kimura himself stands on his dignity preferring not to shower with her.

   Walking over to a front window he looks out: it is a difference from the white snow cover of 6 AM. Now the snow has melted and the Parkway on its north side shows a wide grassy slope with path down from the corner at Jerome Ave and East 209th Street. And the benches along the street and path are filled on this Saturday near noon with moms and baby carriages, old people sunning selves, and kids playing.
   Nothing like this have I seen, he muses. But then every place has its uniqueness. One thing he likes much is the sense of pulsing life with tremendous potential. It is hard to be depressed in its midst – “Midst of life!” he exclaims under his breath. Exactly the feeling of the place! Good title for a painting of this site, of its vital impression.
To read next, click 2.(57-58) A Bronx Movie to Bronx Egg Creams