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I used to do service and installation for Alarm systems. Mostly residential. The calibur andsanity of the people I met were pretty much what you'd expect in NYC... from nice ladies who fed me coffee and cake, to inbreeds who screamed at me from minute one.
This one CHANGED MY VIEWS ON THE UNIVERSE!
NYC has five borroughs, Long Island and Staten Island are pretty decent and have many affluent neighborhoods. Brooklyn and Queens are a bit Jeckyl/Hyde as far as having apartment buildings and/or crack houses. The Bronx... Has some REALLY nice things in it.. The Zoo.. Music center.. Museum of the arts.. It's also home of the nastiest gangs on the planet! The amount of urban decay that's visible, even from the relative safety of the highway, is STAGGERING! Some of the neighborhoods the POLICE don't enter after dark!
Guess where my happy ass got sent to do an installation???
Spanish Harlem... The Bronx...
Me being a pasty lil Whiteboy was NOT a good thing for the neighborhood. Neither was the fact that I had several thousands of dollars worth of tools in my workvan. My boss told me that I'd have to "tough it out", as we NEEDED the cash from the install. I was about one year out of the Marines, so I figured I could handle any wanna-be's acting tough. Unfortunately my boss had a cop friend who worked the area... He said there were gangs that dashed out and stripped the insides of work vans after pulling out guns. BOY I missed my M-16...
My work van never had any markings from the company. It wasn't registered as a commercial vehicle. (Illegal... but it gave me access to the parkways that commercial vehicles could not use.) So I drove up there, visions of muggings and murder dancing in my head. As I'm pulling up, I see an old Grandmother pulling a load of groceries in a purloined shopping cart (bags said A&P.. Cart said WALGREENS
Go Grandma!!) and I get an idea. One trip to a Bodega (seriously.. EW!! 
Floorstick Floorstick Cockroach shuffle) later, I get four grocery bags and put my tools and supplies in them.
LA LA LAH La LAHH Don't mug me.. It's just crappy groceries... LA LA LAH La LAHH
I FINALLY get to the customer's apartment. No answer. DAMMIT! Walk outside, look for a phone booth (DUH!! IN THIS NEIGHBORHOOD??) go back and knock again.
SC - Jamaican Woman with a HEAVY Rastafarian accent annnd just a biit off
ME - Handsome suave and SCARED OUT OF MY MIND Alarm installer
SC - GOH AWAEH!!
Me - Uh.. Ma' am is this the [Name deleted by INS] residence?
SC - Don yu COME knockin by me DOOH!
Me - (trying to peer inside eyehole in dooh.. uh door)Ma'am??
SC - You GOT de WRONG 'PARTMENT!! GOH AWAEH!!!
Me - (Realizing she's seeing me carry ing shopping bags through the peephole and pulling my drill out of the shopping bag) Ma'am.. Alarm company for Installation? Is this [I no be tellin you my name. YA BLOODCLOT YA] residence?
SC - Why dint ya say so BOYE? Come in come in...
*Sigh*.... Many MANY trip of "Groceries" later, I start the istallation... Well.. TRY to start the installation.
The alarm system I was using was wireless, and was SUPPOSED to be a quick install. It was made by AT&T just before the government broke up the monoply of Ma Bell. Let's just say that the phone company should've kept making phones. One of the biggest problems with the design is that the system used the AC plug as an antenna. You HAD to run it for 7 feet, and it HAD to go up and over the panel for it to be it's most effective. Anyone reading have many outlets INSIDE of a closet?? Didn't think so! I SURE as hell am not gonna find one in a hundred year old converted townhouse!
SC - Whaet ya lookin fo BOYE??
Me - Well Ma'am I need to plug this panel in! I have to.. AHA!! There! (ten feet away and near a $##%ing doorway... but it's POWER!!)
SC - Ohhhh NOOOOOO
Me - (Suddenly thinking a stray bullet must've clipped her for all the wailing) uh Ma'am??? I.. uh.. HAVE to plug it in...
SC - They doon be havin enough outlets in dis! I tell dem EVERY TIME I pay de rent.. I wants to watch me shows... But den I gots to run de iron.. If you take dat 'way WHUTMIGONDO?!?!
Me - (suddenly wishing for astray bullet for ME!!) I.. I UNDERSTAND (sadly, I followed all that) Ma'am.. but I HAVE to plug it in!!
SC - Well jus give me some EXTRA (wink) an I move de ting if I need to...
Ohhhh HELLLLS no! My mind raced to the three am phone calls about "DE TING BEEPIN MON!!!" to find she'd forgetten to plug it in... AGAIN!!! That, and she'd likely trip and sue us if I didn't staple every last inch! Hell.. Usually I just plug the transformer in, THIS ONE'S GONNA GET BOLTED ON!!
We go back and forth for about a half hour... Finally she pipes in with..
SC - Why don you just drill down and hook it down dere? We gots lotsa outlets in dah basement!!
Now.. Most apartments don't have more than one floor, but this is the Bronx! It USED to be a townhouse.. a hundred years ago... Now it's a three story nightmare with about 9 apartments and QUITE a bit of traffic (especially if you count the roaches!!!) Going into a BASEMENT... HERE... Not high on my list of hobbies...
Of course... After a pledge of "We don it befoh..Down deah is RIGHT INNA hallway!!" I walk down the rickety wood stairs annnnnd
No drill bit...
Now the basement is a bit of a surprise. It's actually finished. Ceilings and painted cement floors. There's the usual (for NYC) iron slab door in the concrete up front, but there's a bay window, light switches etc etc I was expecting bare beams and cobwebs.
Of course the place is a FILTHY MESS.. *skitter* *skitter* But I bravely start looking for signs of the drill bit. I run back upstairs (and realize that runnig on THAT staircase.. BAD #$#$ing IDEA!!) and count my steps off from the front wall. With retrofit construction, you can have walls pop up ANYWHERE and when drilling down you can easily wind up inside a column or wall.
I start looking around for signs of a punch-through, plaster or wood.. nothing yet.. As I move further back through the basement, I see that what I thought were dust bunnies were.. feathers?? in mild states of decomposition.. and the floor.. was still dirty.. but the farther back I got.. the more it looked like.. chalk lines??
I count my steps.. and I'm well beyond where I'm supposed to be.. damn.. Now I'm back in the boiler room.. hmm there's the far wall.. quick math... hmm that's twelve steps from the back wall... hmm.. I look around, trying to figure out where I could be in relation to upstairs.. and all I see is more distinct chalk writing, and LOTS more feathers.. chicken feathers! OH! There's a .. *gulp* chicken CAGE.. just DRAPED in Chicken .. stuff.. and hmm red... Well.. that might explain the fact that there's NOOOOOO Chicken in the Chicken cage...
Right NEXT to the chicken cage is a closed door.
Ever get a feeling you just DON'T want to do something??
I did NOT want to open that door.
I did it anyway...
There are things that happen to you that.. leave marks. Despite you fervantly wanting NOT to remember.. you see them clear as day.. for years.. sometimes DECADES. The last look on a departed friend's face.. How the trees looked just before the car flips over. The smell of illness and bleach from Grandma's hospital room... Those tiny TINY details that never seem to go away.
With me it was the door handle. It was cold.. cold on a hot day. The round handle felt rough, tarnished and worn. The brass had started to tarnish, but the covering had not given up yet. It felt like it was covered in sand, fine green grey sand.
And then I opened the door.
I was met by light.
Candle light.
There HAD to be a hundred LIT candles in there. On the table, on the floor, on cobbled together shelves, and on stacked shoe boxes. I felt the door push aside several of them as I walked in, wide eyed and stunned. Amidst the candles were religous icons from Crucifixes to pictures of Christ's heart wrapped in barbed wire, crosses big/small/HUGE..
No chicken...
He left something behind though...
There was a sort of.. offering plate? of chicken blood, a bottle of Rum (half drunk) and a man's picture. With the big red X covering the picture... I don't think it was a well wishing situation. And.. no.. that WASN'T INK covering the picture...
At this moment.. Heart pounding.. a bit fascinated.. a bit scared.. I did the inevitable. As I did it, a little voiceinside said "don't"... "Don't look up.. just leave"
I looked up anyway..
There.. in the middle of the ceiling.. lay the drill bit.
In the BIGGEST concentration of candles and pictures? The outlet! So... Not only do I have to go get a ladder (aint a shopping bag made gonna cover THAT!) I have to run the wire STRAIGHT DOWN THE MIDDLE OF THE WALL. This is old German construction, lattice board and plaster... I could barely drill into it, fishing wires out?? NO WAY!!
So there I am, trying to disturb as little as possible, hanging on one leg off of a ill-set up ladder (no room) trying to staple a wire into soft plaster... Worried that I might get CURSED or something if I disturb the wrong thing.. Worried that I'll offend the customer if they see me in there... Worried that I'll somehow get the "chicken treatment"...
I abandoned my covert operations and pulled all my tools into the apartment after plugging the power in. I ran from front door to back, drilling, mounting, testing, retesting. Broke all KINDS of rules and gave her extra this and extra that. Used screws on the contacts that normally needed tape. That HAD to be the BEST installation of my career.
Why??
I'M NOT %#$iNG GOING BACK!!!
shh..
Was that.. a chicken??
This one CHANGED MY VIEWS ON THE UNIVERSE!
NYC has five borroughs, Long Island and Staten Island are pretty decent and have many affluent neighborhoods. Brooklyn and Queens are a bit Jeckyl/Hyde as far as having apartment buildings and/or crack houses. The Bronx... Has some REALLY nice things in it.. The Zoo.. Music center.. Museum of the arts.. It's also home of the nastiest gangs on the planet! The amount of urban decay that's visible, even from the relative safety of the highway, is STAGGERING! Some of the neighborhoods the POLICE don't enter after dark!
Guess where my happy ass got sent to do an installation???
Spanish Harlem... The Bronx...
Me being a pasty lil Whiteboy was NOT a good thing for the neighborhood. Neither was the fact that I had several thousands of dollars worth of tools in my workvan. My boss told me that I'd have to "tough it out", as we NEEDED the cash from the install. I was about one year out of the Marines, so I figured I could handle any wanna-be's acting tough. Unfortunately my boss had a cop friend who worked the area... He said there were gangs that dashed out and stripped the insides of work vans after pulling out guns. BOY I missed my M-16...
My work van never had any markings from the company. It wasn't registered as a commercial vehicle. (Illegal... but it gave me access to the parkways that commercial vehicles could not use.) So I drove up there, visions of muggings and murder dancing in my head. As I'm pulling up, I see an old Grandmother pulling a load of groceries in a purloined shopping cart (bags said A&P.. Cart said WALGREENS
Go Grandma!!) and I get an idea. One trip to a Bodega (seriously.. EW!! Floorstick Floorstick Cockroach shuffle) later, I get four grocery bags and put my tools and supplies in them.LA LA LAH La LAHH Don't mug me.. It's just crappy groceries... LA LA LAH La LAHH
I FINALLY get to the customer's apartment. No answer. DAMMIT! Walk outside, look for a phone booth (DUH!! IN THIS NEIGHBORHOOD??) go back and knock again.
SC - Jamaican Woman with a HEAVY Rastafarian accent annnd just a biit off
ME - Handsome suave and SCARED OUT OF MY MIND Alarm installer
SC - GOH AWAEH!!
Me - Uh.. Ma' am is this the [Name deleted by INS] residence?
SC - Don yu COME knockin by me DOOH!
Me - (trying to peer inside eyehole in dooh.. uh door)Ma'am??
SC - You GOT de WRONG 'PARTMENT!! GOH AWAEH!!!
Me - (Realizing she's seeing me carry ing shopping bags through the peephole and pulling my drill out of the shopping bag) Ma'am.. Alarm company for Installation? Is this [I no be tellin you my name. YA BLOODCLOT YA] residence?
SC - Why dint ya say so BOYE? Come in come in...
*Sigh*.... Many MANY trip of "Groceries" later, I start the istallation... Well.. TRY to start the installation.
The alarm system I was using was wireless, and was SUPPOSED to be a quick install. It was made by AT&T just before the government broke up the monoply of Ma Bell. Let's just say that the phone company should've kept making phones. One of the biggest problems with the design is that the system used the AC plug as an antenna. You HAD to run it for 7 feet, and it HAD to go up and over the panel for it to be it's most effective. Anyone reading have many outlets INSIDE of a closet?? Didn't think so! I SURE as hell am not gonna find one in a hundred year old converted townhouse!SC - Whaet ya lookin fo BOYE??
Me - Well Ma'am I need to plug this panel in! I have to.. AHA!! There! (ten feet away and near a $##%ing doorway... but it's POWER!!)
SC - Ohhhh NOOOOOO
Me - (Suddenly thinking a stray bullet must've clipped her for all the wailing) uh Ma'am??? I.. uh.. HAVE to plug it in...
SC - They doon be havin enough outlets in dis! I tell dem EVERY TIME I pay de rent.. I wants to watch me shows... But den I gots to run de iron.. If you take dat 'way WHUTMIGONDO?!?!
Me - (suddenly wishing for astray bullet for ME!!) I.. I UNDERSTAND (sadly, I followed all that) Ma'am.. but I HAVE to plug it in!!
SC - Well jus give me some EXTRA (wink) an I move de ting if I need to...
Ohhhh HELLLLS no! My mind raced to the three am phone calls about "DE TING BEEPIN MON!!!" to find she'd forgetten to plug it in... AGAIN!!! That, and she'd likely trip and sue us if I didn't staple every last inch! Hell.. Usually I just plug the transformer in, THIS ONE'S GONNA GET BOLTED ON!!
We go back and forth for about a half hour... Finally she pipes in with..
SC - Why don you just drill down and hook it down dere? We gots lotsa outlets in dah basement!!
Now.. Most apartments don't have more than one floor, but this is the Bronx! It USED to be a townhouse.. a hundred years ago... Now it's a three story nightmare with about 9 apartments and QUITE a bit of traffic (especially if you count the roaches!!!) Going into a BASEMENT... HERE... Not high on my list of hobbies...
Of course... After a pledge of "We don it befoh..Down deah is RIGHT INNA hallway!!" I walk down the rickety wood stairs annnnnd
No drill bit...
Now the basement is a bit of a surprise. It's actually finished. Ceilings and painted cement floors. There's the usual (for NYC) iron slab door in the concrete up front, but there's a bay window, light switches etc etc I was expecting bare beams and cobwebs.
Of course the place is a FILTHY MESS.. *skitter* *skitter* But I bravely start looking for signs of the drill bit. I run back upstairs (and realize that runnig on THAT staircase.. BAD #$#$ing IDEA!!) and count my steps off from the front wall. With retrofit construction, you can have walls pop up ANYWHERE and when drilling down you can easily wind up inside a column or wall.
I start looking around for signs of a punch-through, plaster or wood.. nothing yet.. As I move further back through the basement, I see that what I thought were dust bunnies were.. feathers?? in mild states of decomposition.. and the floor.. was still dirty.. but the farther back I got.. the more it looked like.. chalk lines??
I count my steps.. and I'm well beyond where I'm supposed to be.. damn.. Now I'm back in the boiler room.. hmm there's the far wall.. quick math... hmm that's twelve steps from the back wall... hmm.. I look around, trying to figure out where I could be in relation to upstairs.. and all I see is more distinct chalk writing, and LOTS more feathers.. chicken feathers! OH! There's a .. *gulp* chicken CAGE.. just DRAPED in Chicken .. stuff.. and hmm red... Well.. that might explain the fact that there's NOOOOOO Chicken in the Chicken cage...
Right NEXT to the chicken cage is a closed door.
Ever get a feeling you just DON'T want to do something??
I did NOT want to open that door.
I did it anyway...
There are things that happen to you that.. leave marks. Despite you fervantly wanting NOT to remember.. you see them clear as day.. for years.. sometimes DECADES. The last look on a departed friend's face.. How the trees looked just before the car flips over. The smell of illness and bleach from Grandma's hospital room... Those tiny TINY details that never seem to go away.
With me it was the door handle. It was cold.. cold on a hot day. The round handle felt rough, tarnished and worn. The brass had started to tarnish, but the covering had not given up yet. It felt like it was covered in sand, fine green grey sand.
And then I opened the door.
I was met by light.
Candle light.
There HAD to be a hundred LIT candles in there. On the table, on the floor, on cobbled together shelves, and on stacked shoe boxes. I felt the door push aside several of them as I walked in, wide eyed and stunned. Amidst the candles were religous icons from Crucifixes to pictures of Christ's heart wrapped in barbed wire, crosses big/small/HUGE..
No chicken...
He left something behind though...
There was a sort of.. offering plate? of chicken blood, a bottle of Rum (half drunk) and a man's picture. With the big red X covering the picture... I don't think it was a well wishing situation. And.. no.. that WASN'T INK covering the picture...
At this moment.. Heart pounding.. a bit fascinated.. a bit scared.. I did the inevitable. As I did it, a little voiceinside said "don't"... "Don't look up.. just leave"
I looked up anyway..
There.. in the middle of the ceiling.. lay the drill bit.
In the BIGGEST concentration of candles and pictures? The outlet! So... Not only do I have to go get a ladder (aint a shopping bag made gonna cover THAT!) I have to run the wire STRAIGHT DOWN THE MIDDLE OF THE WALL. This is old German construction, lattice board and plaster... I could barely drill into it, fishing wires out?? NO WAY!!
So there I am, trying to disturb as little as possible, hanging on one leg off of a ill-set up ladder (no room) trying to staple a wire into soft plaster... Worried that I might get CURSED or something if I disturb the wrong thing.. Worried that I'll offend the customer if they see me in there... Worried that I'll somehow get the "chicken treatment"...
I abandoned my covert operations and pulled all my tools into the apartment after plugging the power in. I ran from front door to back, drilling, mounting, testing, retesting. Broke all KINDS of rules and gave her extra this and extra that. Used screws on the contacts that normally needed tape. That HAD to be the BEST installation of my career.
Why??
I'M NOT %#$iNG GOING BACK!!!
shh..
Was that.. a chicken??
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