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F ares gritted his teeth and put the last nut in his pocket. He lifted the toilet and put it to one side. When he opened his eyes this morning, he knew it was going to be a black day.

"Is it done yet, Mr. Khalil?” pleaded Mrs. Juliet Fabbrini from the other side of the bathroom door.

He heard her shuffle back and forth. She dropped her cane.

“Mr. Konstas—ask him,” Fares said. “He won’t mind.”

“I don’t know him.”

“He’s in 312; just three doors down.”

“He’s got that godawful dog.”

“Missus Taylor, try her. She’s in 316. I’m sure you will get along. Mrs. Fabbrini, you asked me to fix the toilet, and it’s in parts. You’ve got to go see Missus Taylor.”

He heard her feet scurry out of the apartment. A pipe burst. Caught by surprise, he bumped the disconnected porcelain toilet, and the back lid smashed the floor and broke in half

“Ya Allah! Fuck, fuck. Fuck! He screamed. He got up and yelled, “What useless shit!”

“Fuck it,” he moaned and patted his pockets for smokes. “Shit,” he groaned. He realized that he was out and that he wasn’t going to get any more because he couldn’t afford it. He peeked into Mrs. Fabbrini’s living room to confirm that she had gone.

With the toilet broken, he was half expecting to find evidence of rats. That’s all I’d need. I hate rats, he thought.

After walking into her living room, he looked towards the ceiling, waved, and muttered, “Alhamdulilah”

“Still, she’s going to hate me more than Mr. Konstas, isn’t she? And I don’t even own a dog.”

The mid-morning customer lineup stretched to the front door of Monica’s Bakery. Monica Gioli was getting old. Although the shop was always busy and understaffed, she couldn’t convince her employees to stay around for what she was willing to pay.
Monica looked for Ionna. “Where is she?” she muttered.
“Are the blueberry muffins ready?” Ossie yelled.
“You just asked sixty seconds ago,” Ionna Sari replied.
“But—”
“The taste is worth waiting for. And there’s Cherry,” Ossie told a customer.
Monica left the front counter and went to the kitchen at the back. She noticed that there was a plunger in the sink. “The sink is plugged again,” she groaned.
“Yeah, sure,” Ionna said as she hustled a tray of muffins to the front.
“Where’s my toasted tomato?” a man in a plaid shirt hollered.
“Hey. And my egg sandwich. It was two orders ahead of his.”
“Egg sandwich and toasted tomato,” yelled Ionna, and she dropped a tray of muffins on the counter behind the new young Black hire.
“What am I supposed to do with that?” Ossie asked.
“You could have offered cherry,” she said.
“Ionna,” moaned Monica.
“Got it,” she replied as she rushed back to the kitchen and pushed on the plunger.
“Damn it,” she yelled when she got a splinter from the decrepit handle.
She set it over the drain. Six pumps were what it took, but she managed to clear it.
“Ionna,” groaned Monica.
“The cookies, I know. There’s an alarm.”
“They’re burnt,” Monica said. “You didn’t set the alarm.”
“Holy Mary…” muttered Ionna. “I’ll be right there.” And to herself, she muttered, “Lord Almighty, I really need a smoke.”
Monica, out of reflex, touched a pack of smokes in her apron. She watched Ionna quickly hang up her apron on a coat hook, next to the picture of her recently departed children, as she desperately moved to make her escape.
Monica reached the back of her neck and twisted her head to get the crick out. As Ionna tried to open the front door, an old woman with substantial girth smashed the door into her.
“Sorry,” the woman said, but before she pointed to the other door, a child used it to go outside.
Ionna slipped out and muttered, “Where’s my smokes?”
Monica rushed to serve her client’s orders, but she kept a watch on Ionna. She didn’t hear what she was saying, but she knew her tone. ‘Jesus, my purse,’ was what she was saying.
Again, Monica smiled as she bagged a loaf of raisin bread. She’s just realized that she forgot it at home and that her lunch is in it and rotting.
She’s not long for this place, she thought. To the irate man in a light brown suit, she said, “The taste is worth waiting for. And there’s Cherry.”

Fares Khalil took an apple and a sandwich from his fridge and stuffed them in his pockets. He blessed his brother’s family picture and rushed down two flights before bumping into Charlie O’Keefe. The man was a big fella, and Fares spun back and hit the railing.
Charlie grabbed him.
“Fares, where’s your head? I can see you are in a hurry, but flipping out is not going to help, is it?”
“Sorry, Charlie, I was just somewhere else. That’s all.”
“Time to get another baseball cap, don’t you think? Yellow, pink, and orange. That’s no hat for a Yankee fan. I know it was blue once upon a time. Maybe a Japanese team—is that it?”
Fares tried to scrape off a small bit of hardened paint from his finger on his hat. “Of course, Charlie,” he replied. “Sorry. And I’ll get to the drywall. I promise.”
“Of course, you will.”
Fares adjusted his hat. “Tomorrow, I promise,” he said and kept rushing downstairs. When it came to opening the door, he noticed that a little bit of green paint had come off on his fingers.
Outside, he took a breath of the summer’s hot, muggy air. It was Brooklyn’s usual—thick, hazy, and smoggy. He sensed that to-day something was off.
He took another whiff. The air had a sulphurous smell to it. Looking at the street, he hesitated and decided that was not it.
Fucking dead cat in the dumpster. That is what it is, he thought. Who in their right mind? It’s someone else. Not someone from here. I’ve got a sense for it. He put his hands on his hips and looked around.
There are four more days until garbage day. Well, damned, I’m not going in there, he thought. Is someone trying to get me to leave? Well, fuck ‘em.
Something startled him from behind. He looked but didn’t see anything. Stumbling sounds coming from the inside stairwell persuaded him to quickly move on.
Fares lived in the Windsor Terrace part of Brooklyn. The thin parcel of about a dozen blocks was squeezed between a cemetery and a park. After getting a coffee from Monica’s Bakery, he came to an intersection. He looked left, which would have taken him to the cemetery. A large crowd of people approached from that direction.
Nope, he thought and raised his cup of coffee. Prospect Park, for to-day, definitely. He quickly stepped out of the way of a falling bit of bird shit. Looking at the avian bomber make its escape, Fares thought, Maybe it’s not such a black day after all. He raised his coffee cup again.
To-day’s petty delays weren’t giving him much time to get to the park. He had a long list of repairs and not much time for a break. Eating something while watching squirrels, birds, and trees was the only thing in his day that offered a sense of freedom. Wildlife—as in the living kind—distracted him from a dismal, ever-repeating existence that felt like a broken toilet.
Javex, he thought as he tromped into a new day. I’ll bury it in Javex and cardboard.