Vic Socotra

22 July 2008

Big Crumbling Things

I did not get to the pool until late.

The Czech lifeguard was asleep in his chair by the gate, and I was all alone to do my exercise. I was not late because of sloth, mind you, though not because I worked late. I had a chance to cook for my older boy, since his girlfriend had an aerobics class, and would not be joining him for dinner.

I did up some broiled chicken with a zesty hot sauce, wild rice, biscuits and a vegetable medley with light cheese sauce after the salad. I had a decent organic tomato to slice up, and some hard-cooked eggs that I put in the egg-guillotine that came out in roundels with the yellow yolk all cheery and neat and efficient.

That was about the span of=2 0everything I could directly control that resulted in a pleasant appearance.

The concrete had shimmered in heat all day, and there was a surprise trip to Manassas, the suburb that had once been a two day ride from the nation’s capital, or a one day run, coming the other way, if the Confederates had just kicked your butt.

The heat was oven-like. South of the old battlefield, the smell of hot oil and fast-fried food had hung over the sprawl of industrial parks as though the molecules of hamburgers were annealed to the cheap brick facades.

The contrast between self-contained little Arlington and the wild-west of the western suburbs could not have been more stark or sobering. Here in America’s smallest self-governing County, we have either brand new-and-soaring buildings or old and crumbing ones at the ends of the spectrum. Neat well-maintained homes are in the middle, though there are portions that are sullen-looking and boarded up, about to be bulldozed like parts of the Buckingham neighborhood around Big Pink.

I sighed when we got back from the suburbs on the crumbling interstate and pulled into the deep garage under the new building where we work.

It is shaping up to be a challenging week. There is a social on20Tuesday at Willow that I don’t want to miss, and a massive proposal on a government contract that has somehow become affixed to my shoe like chewing gum and I cannot get it off.

That does not even include the Big Meeting at the fellowship hall of the Unitarian-Universalist Church across Route 50 tomorrow night. It is the only venue big enough to handle the throng that is likely to show up. People have been talking about it for weeks. It is when the other shoe is supposed to fall.

At the last annual meeting of the Big Pink Condo Owner’s Association, the star of the meeting was the woman from the fifth floor. When the floor was opened for comment by the President, she broke into tears, explaining that she was so afraid of the imminent flood from the disintegrating ve rtical pipes that she had placed all her furniture in the middle of the living room, propped stop old telephone directories to protect them from the rising water.

It was a compelling image that she painted. Getting up out of daybed in the morning to scale the mountain of her personal goods, and apprehensively spending the rest of the day daubing at her eyes with a Kleenex, waiting for the waters to come and rise below her.

No one wanted that. Even if she was crazy as waltzing mice, we all had a certain sympathy, since everyone had seen what had happened when the riser failed over the formal lobby and the water ran an inch deep across the marble floors and trickled into the basement.

The result was a stampede to accelerate the replacement program, which had the same effect of massive government reactions to things like the Oil Crisis or the Housing Meltdown, except that being private citizens, we have to actually pay for it ourselves.

Apparently it cost over a million bucks, and came out of the financial reserve account. Word has been going around that a Special Assessment was going to be necessary. We were safe from the flood, but not safe from the accountants.

Big Pink is built as stout as a brick outhouse.20The concrete is thicker by inches than what is commonly used these days, and you can see the difference in quality as the workers throw up the sprawling new subsidized apartment complex across the parking lot. The units in Big Pink are silent, except for the whisper of the fans in the convectors, and the building will stand until someone has a reason to get enough explosives to bring it down.

That is not to say that the arteries do not become sclerotic, and bypass surgery is required. The last big deal with entropy and time was The Great Roof Crisis. The sealant was discovered to have changed state over the decades in the blazing sun and cracked, allowing rainwater to enter the eighth floor, and trickle down to the seventh, discoloring walls and encouraging the mold.

That overwhelmed the reserve account, and a flat fee had to be assessed to all the owners. It is still talked about in hushed tones in the places where the residents gather to discuss the matters of our community.

The water was much cooler than the air, and I paddled with determination as the light failed and the Czech snored. I did slow rotations in the deep end to vary the view, looking at the people on their balconies and the comings-and-goings in the parking lot. The blue water was suddenly illuminated as the lights came on below the surface, the pool becoming an illuminated turquoise island in the dusk.

I saw the Treasurer of the Association coming up the walk by the unit where the Empress of All Dogs lived.

“Hey,” I said. “How are we doing? Will you tell us tomorrow?”

He looked up, briefly disconcerted by the sight of my disembodied head protruding from the water.

“Yes,” he said, not pausing. “It is on the agenda for the meeting.”

“How much is it going to cost?” I asked, seeking an order of magnitude to the coming misery.

“Five thousand for a three bedroom,” he said. I counted my bedrooms, and although it was not a large number, it obviously was going to leave me poorer than when I arose that morning.

“It doesn’t include the windows or the pavement, does it?” I asked. Both projects need to be done, since the originals are crumbling, and the winds of autumn must be kept out, and the cars have to have a surface on which to drive. That is going to mean a continuing crisis, and with the market the way it is, no one is going to be able to get20out from under it. We are all stuck where we are.

The Treasurer paused in the darkness long enough to say: “Nope.” Then he vanished around the corner.

The exchange awoke the lifeguard, and as I finished my workout he came to the side of the pool and asked me where the cheapest gas in the country might be. He apparently will complete his time in the States with a road trip.

“Wyoming,” I said. “I t is the only self-sufficient state for energy because no one lives there. I highly recommend it.”

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