Heating up before cooling down

Louise says fuck maybe 20 times a year. She used 15 of them today. It's what happens when we install an air-conditioner. Today it was the bedroom one.

We moved into our apartment in January 2005 and the bedroom A.C. went in about four months later. It stayed there until this past January, through six summers and just as many winters. We knew we'd have to put the old gal out of her misery after last summer, when it seemed ready to die every time it powered on. It coughed and wheezed, rumbled and sputtered. Occasionally we had to adjust the power cord because if you held it...just...so, it would run.

The A.C. lasted as long as it did simply because we dreaded replacing it. We don't have a good history with air conditioners. More specifically, I don't have a good history with them.

Years ago - I think when they were still dreading their upcoming 50th birthdays instead of lamenting being on the other side of 60 - my parents bought a three-ton apparatus that still survives. It lives in the rear of the garage nine months of the year. Every year my mom fights to get the beast installed the first time the Janesville Bank announces a temperature of 80 degrees, and every year my dad fights it off until temperatures reach triple digits. You'd think the person who's melting would hold the upper-hand in the debate, but it's not always so. When I lived at home I carried it in with my dad, up the flimsy porch steps that verge on collapse even under the best of circumstances, through the sliding door and around the TV.

The curse words fly there too, usually in relation to a bad back, a wayward chair or crushed fingers. It never goes smoothly. Occasionally feelings are hurt, in addition to limbs. Legend has it my brother-in-law, or was it one of his friends, carried the damn thing by themselves one year but that might just be a Janesville myth. The A.C. goes in the living room, an old bucket sits on the porch underneath it collecting water. It's a monumental moment the first time someone flicks it on. A 747 on takeoff makes less sound than my parents' air conditioner but the thing keeps blasting out that cold air in the hot summer months. My nephew has taken over my role in the installation process. It's nearly a hundred in Minnesota now. I'm guessing there's some cursing and aching backs in the near-future for those in the Fury household.

During my time in Fargo, I never paid for utilities. I took this as a reason to abuse the environment. In the summer months my A.C. ran constantly, even if I was at work. When I lived in the infamous Universal Building, I had an A.C. that cost about as much as a supersized value meal at McDonald's. Remarkably it worked, and I got the most out of my purchase. It ran night and day, when I was at home and when I was away. To turn it off meant courting death, as the temperature and humidity in my upper-floor apartment rivaled anything found in the tropics. Eventually ice formed in the window. Big chunks. Large, white chunks. It looked like the inside of an unthawed refrigerator. It was time to turn it off.

In New York, we went without an A.C. in our living room for two years. My two oldest nephews visited in the summer of 2005, right when a suffocating, evil heat wave hit the city. As we relaxed in our cool bedroom, they slept on our living-room futon. I think there's probably still some bitterness there on their part. One morning I walked out and saw Brady sprawled out on the floor, a miniature fan - really miniature, like three inches high - pathetically blowing about three inches from his face. It was a sad sight. He's a teenager, I figured. He's in New York, on a once-in-a-lifetime trip. He shouldn't be complaining. Actually I felt terrible but there was nothing I could do so I retreated back to the safety of the bedroom.

A few years later we put one in the living room. We fought and perspired. We wept and swore - at the machine, and each other. Finally we stuffed it into the window, convinced it'd eventually plummet six floors down to a vacant lot, killing our chances at a cool summer, if not an actual person. Louise plugged it in. She hit power.

Nothing.

If this had been a badly written sitcom, the credits would have rolled down the screen while I held the power cord, baffled. The crowd would cheer while someone said, "SHAWN AND LOUISE IS FILMED IN FRONT OF A LIVE STUDIO AUDIENCE." We tried a different socket and received the same result. Uninstalling it proved as difficult as installing. But soon enough I hailed a cab and hauled it back 40 blocks south to the electronics store that sold it. Ninety minutes later I found Louise in a puddle of a sweat - or were those tears? By that point, with our spirits broken, we had no time for anger or swearing or annoyance. We installed the new machine, hit the power button and relaxed, knowing we wouldn't have to do that for another two, three...four years.

Today was the day. Temperatures will reach into the upper 90s in NYC this week. For a week or so, Louise has left the bedroom in the middle of the night, surrendering to the heat, so she can sleep in the cool living room. So we gave it a go today. I did the heavy lifting, Louise did the heavy work, handling the drill, screws, fans, sides and swearing. I hovered on our fire escape at one point, six floors up, again imagining what would happen if something - an air conditioner or, say, a 35-year-old man who weighs about 215 pounds - fell six stories to the cement below.

Our security gate complicated the efforts, caging Louse in at one point, pinning her against the window while I went to the bathroom to find a Band-Aid and some NeoSporin for a cut, which came courtesy of some stray metal at the back of the air conditioner. While Louise helpfully told me I would likely die of tetanus, I climbed back onto the fire escape as she put the final screws in. We slammed the window shut and plugged it in. We hit power. And it came on without a problem.

Louise is relaxing in the bedroom now. I'd join her. But first I'm going to let her cool off.

Tales from the Universal Building, Part II

Part I of the award-winning series:

Someone discovered my blog by searching for Universal Building Fargo apartment.

I don't know who searched for this, whether it's a he or a she, a teen or a retiree. I don't know if they're looking for a place to live or a place to drop out of society. Maybe it's for a child, maybe for themselves. The Universal Building doesn't make the news much. I haven't been to Fargo in five years. I don't know if it's even an apartment building anymore, or even any kind of building at all. When it does make the news, it's for stories like "Biggest recent fires in Fargo," which ran in The Forum last month after a massive apartment fire, which recalled the horrific fire and murder in the UB in 1999.

I moved in about a week before Thanksgiving in 2000. It took several months before I moved out of the bedroom and took up permanent night-time residence on the already-furnished couch. The reason? My neighbor, Pappy. That wasn't his real name, I don't think. Probably a nickname from the second World War or something his fellow cell-block mates called him in the winter of '71. One morning someone pounded on my door for five minutes before I finally opened it. The elderly man standing there with his hat in his hands said he was looking for "Pappy." The blank look on my face didn't give him the answer he needed but as he started to ask again, the door to the apartment next to mine flew open and another elderly gentleman stuck his head out.

"Pappy, you son of a bitch!" the knocker yelled, before walking down and hugging his long-lost...brother? Platoon mate? Partner in crime? Pappy. So that was the man who moved in a week earlier.

I returned to bed but not for long. The thin walls refused to mute their conversation, which the men conducted at a decibel level most people use only when yelling at a speeding car that just ran over their left foot. Until that day, Pappy had lived a lonely life for a week, the type of monastic existence I think you were required to live the moment you signed a lease at the Universal Building. Very few couples lived in the building. Mostly single men, many likely hiding out from federal marshals, others plotting crime sprees that would almost certainly violate the conditions of their parole. A couple lived a few doors down for a brief time. Each afternoon when I left for work I heard the woman - a twentysomething gal - screaming at her no-good boyfriend. He was a jerk, a prick, inconsiderate, selfish and thoughtless. At night I'd return and as I exited the elevator it became clear she had forgiven the man's sins as her screams again filled the hall, though the words were - aside from an enthusiastic and possibly faked Yes! - mostly unintelligible.

But for the most part it was middle-aged men with thousand-yard stares and old guys who spent their money on Wonder Bread and lottery tickets. And Pappy. Over the next few months I greeted Pappy in the hall on several occasions and each encounter shortened my life by six months, thanks to the secondhand smoke that wafted from his jacket. At this stage in Pappy's life, his internal organs very likely resembled the inside of a cigarette. If you had cut him, smoke would have billowed out, followed by some leaking tar. It turned out he had a daughter, who visited about once a month and engaged in fights with her father that usually ended with her slamming the door while calling Pappy the same name his friend used the first time I saw him in the hall.

Pappy's domestic problems didn't run me out of my bedroom, though; his snoring and morning bathroom stops did. Remember the scene with Frank Drebin in the bathroom in The Naked Gun, after the press conference? That wasn't over-the-top; it was based on Pappy's morning ritual. That woke me up, after I'd spend each night struggling for sleep as Pappy's snoring threatened to set off car alarms in Grand Forks. It's a sound I'd never heard before, and one I hope to never hear again. If a doctor heard it they would have sent him to an emergency room and notified next of kin, but not before drawing up a three-page outline for an article in a medical journal.

Eventually I surrendered. I started sleeping on the couch, an uncomfortable piece of furniture that didn't contain my 6-3 frame but was at least in the living room, giving me some breathing room away from Pappy's abnormal breathing. The bedroom became a storage space, a cursed place to throw books and basketballs. One night, at the end of a blind date that the referee should have stopped in the first round, I took the couch while the lucky lady - who was stranded by a blizzard - took the bed. I felt bad, knowing she'd be haunted by internal regrets and Pappy's nightmarish sounds.

Still, she got a free dinner out of the deal and she got to flee the next morning. The next night, I'd still be in the Universal Building. And so would Pappy.

Tales from the Universal Building, Part 1

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This is the Universal Building in Fargo. At least that was its name when I moved in there in November of 2000, though I eventually just started calling it the UB. I found a one-bedroom apartment after an embarrassingly brief housing hunt. Basically, I looked at this building first and signed a lease immediately, a practice housing experts likely frown upon. The ridiculously low price - $275 a month and that included the utilities - seduced me. As did the location: downtown, it was about a five-minute walk to the newspaper's offices.

On the first floor, through those main doors, a tanning salon catered to attractive women who always had an apprehensive look when they stepped inside, owing to the shady residents loitering in the lobby area. The tanning salon must have offered a superior brand of fake sun, because if you went there for a tan, you really wanted a tan.

I lived on the fourth floor, in the apartment that's third from the right. Looking at this picture, I'm reminded of the Texas School Book Depository. One of the occupants helps with the comparison by having a random open window. You can almost see Oswald peering down.

On that first trip, if I had to characterize my future home in two words, they'd probably be "trash-strewn." Also, it reeked of cigarettes. Even the walls gave off secondhand smoke. And cigarette burns populated the carpet. The couch and bed - fully furnished! - hosted stains that I prayed came from food, but might have been bodily. The living room and bedroom looked like leftover set pieces for a Saw movie. But the bathroom, improbably, was fairly clean. And it had a cool view. And did I mention it was less than $300 a month?

A twentysomething woman showed me the apartment. Blond, bored, borderline-hostile, listless, unhelpful on even the most basic of questions, her only response to the unoccupied disaster was, "We'll clean it up before you move in."

Her words were even cheaper than the apartment, as the lack of action taken by moving-in day laid bare her falsehoods. My parents drove to Fargo to help with the move. The same trash greeted us - no one had much interest in reading the People magazine from 1999 that still sat on a coffee table. The same cigarette burns. The same...stains. They were too busy scrubbing to question my judgment out loud. The lady was gone, the manager's office locked.

I called the number for the maintenance man, which the pseudo manager had provided when I first looked at the apartment. He lived on the fifth floor, directly above my apartment. The guy expressed shock that a new tenant had arrived. No one had told him, meaning no one told him to clean the place.

He promised to return later that night to clean. He never came back. I like to think he forgot, though it remains possible he simply lied. My parents scrubbed some more.

I had to work that afternoon and didn't get done until 1 a.m. It was my first night at the paper.

A few hours after being introduced and once things had settled down in the hectic newsroom, I chatted with one of my new co-workers, Dan. I told him where I was living, "The Universal Building, just down the street."

Dan didn't respond immediately. His brow furrowed. He seemed to be reaching for a forgotten fact or anecdote. "The Universal Building," he repeated. "I think there was a big murder and fire there last year."

A quick search of the paper's archives confirmed it. The year before, in March 1999, there had been a horrific murder in the building. The victim, a lawyer and former judge, owned the building. A former client, who was also the handyman, bludgeoned the man in the owner's apartment, then set the entire building on fire. He was eventually arrested and convicted.

The victim's widow still owned the building, even if it appeared she was no longer actually in control of it.

I never again saw the lady who showed me the apartment. Not just on moving day, but for the 10 months I lived there. Part of me wonders if she really did work there, or was she part of the riffraff that gathered in the lobby every day. Perhaps she pretended to be the building's manager for a day on a dare from a drinking buddy. Security was nonexistent, even to the manager's office. She certainly seemed like the type of gal who knew how to pick a lock. And why did she struggle so much to find the proper paperwork that first day?

Here's a view of a different side of the building from another street. Amazing how a little sunlight helps with the appearance. The UB looks 60 percent less depressing from this angle.

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Over the next 10 months I met the whole cast that starred in the UB Show, from that maintenance man who didn't maintain much of anything, to my next-door neighbor, an older man named Pappy. Thin walls revealed everything. They allowed me the chance to listen to Pappy's ups and downs, at all hours, every day and every night. I hosted late nights with my co-workers - where we dissected the night at the paper over beer and Cinemax. I called 911 twice. I should have run the first time I saw the place. And if not then, I should have fled the second time I saw it and all the filth remained from the initial trip. But I stayed for nearly a year.

Another fire, this one in 2004, again devastated the building. But the UB survived. The place had...character. Character. That's the all-encompassing, sort-of-vague word that, in this case, means the place had miscreants, drunks, survivors, and a substandard and dangerous elevator. But it was also home.