Truth and Method
Fortunato Salazar

Truth: Arabic prayer.

Method: What could please you more than the sight of your pal Chaz returning to the land of the living? Only the sight of your pal Chaz returning to the land of the living with a vintage 1960s vinyl suitcase the color of Crayola Shamrock. Exactly the piece of luggage to set the tone for a weekend of catching up while your girlfriend jets off to her annual reunion of high-school state distance-running champions. Admittedly, you should be disconcerted at the contents of the suitcase, given the brief interval your pal Chaz has been out of rehab, but who are you to chide Chaz? And before long you and Chaz are deep into a freewheeling game of La Conquête du Monde, and he is greedily eyeing Kamchatka, but then you both spend a creepy half hour distracted by the sound of the radiator gurgling, trying to decide whether it is the sound of the radiator gurgling or the sound of Arabic prayer transmitted from an apartment upstairs. Eerily, there is then a knock on the door, and who is it but your neighbor from upstairs, wearing nothing but a terry hoodie robe. You always thought of her as a soft-spoken equestrienne from Connecticut, but it turns out she’s up for anything. After “anything,” the three of you ascend to the third floor and knock on the door of the apartment directly above yours and hers, and discover that a Syrian family has recently moved in. A week later your girlfriend is opening your mail and out spills a handful of glitter, a few dozen multicolored stars, and a note: “Thanks for the special time.”

* * *

Truth: Radiator gurgling.

Method: Throwing caution to the wind, you indulge in the brown bag of mushrooms that the transient outside the Dairy Mart claimed to have found along the bike path. The mushrooms propel you into a zone of unprecedented comprehension of the first act of Othello that is marred only by the Perry Mason rerun playing upstairs at a volume so loud you can hear Della Street’s knees creak. You make an unholy and utterly facetious wish. Eerily, an hour later it is followed by a thud. The television upstairs remains silent for the next 72 hours. When you and the super let yourselves in, you find the body just where the elderly most commonly fall. You take the opportunity to discuss with the super the building’s antiquated heating system. You have discovered that the heating system does not operate when the temperature drops below 15 degrees Fahrenheit. This is a problem because sleeping in your Thinsulate parka for the last two nights has given you a strong aversion to the scent of Thinsulate, which now interferes with your ability to brave the cold and make the rounds of the usual suspects who stock mind-altering substances. But the long and technical conversation with the super while you wait for the police to arrive resolves to almost absolute certainty the question that became salient in the 72 hours of upstairs silence following the thud. You also learn that although the super goes by the name of Jim, his real name is Seamus.

* * *

Truth: Arabic prayer.

Method: You don’t answer the phone, you don’t answer the phone, you don’t answer. Tommy John came down with the flu and you’ve taken the two sugar cubes reserved for him along with your own two. You answer the phone. You aren’t answering the phone because you’ve been fixated on the radiator and planning your next move: is the radiator telling you that it is time for a visit to the drainpipe in the alley that belches stormwater in a manner so amusing that it can be counted on to have an audience of transported onlookers? You answer the phone and are treated to an interrogation that, without malice, mocks your choice to live like a monk. What was your income last year? Between 25K and 50K? 50 and 75? 75 and 100? Before you can stop yourself, you hear yourself saying, At this rate we’ll be here forever. Eerily, at that moment the first bars of Le Sacre du Printemps are played on your apartment door by that underrated and versatile instrument, the knuckles. It is your new friend Intisar from the apartment upstairs, fleeing evening devotion to challenge you to a Scrabble rematch. Intisar’s arrival bodes no good (your girlfriend is on a high-altitude training retreat for the weekend). Intisar’s boding is irresistible. Intisar’s arrival reminds you that there is a period of evening devotion. That reminder answers the question posed by the radiator. The answer to the question posed by the radiator rearranges the tiles right before your eyes into the word quawwali which cinches the rematch. Two wins in a row! And you’re really on a roll, because the next thing that Intisar will say is: we’ve played the game, now it is time for us to have some fun, monk.


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