WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.392 align:middle line:90% 00:00:00.392 --> 00:00:02.850 align:middle line:84% You'll notice there's a mention in that poem, "The Stairs," 00:00:02.850 --> 00:00:04.860 align:middle line:84% and although this is not planned, 00:00:04.860 --> 00:00:06.540 align:middle line:84% the stairs in this apartment building 00:00:06.540 --> 00:00:09.165 align:middle line:84% seem to show up in every single one of these poems in some way, 00:00:09.165 --> 00:00:12.120 align:middle line:84% so you might enjoy tracking that. 00:00:12.120 --> 00:00:15.570 align:middle line:84% My building is a co-op, a peculiar form 00:00:15.570 --> 00:00:19.560 align:middle line:84% of urban real estate, in which people at some point 00:00:19.560 --> 00:00:21.730 align:middle line:84% band together and buy an apartment building, 00:00:21.730 --> 00:00:24.240 align:middle line:84% and then sell shares in it, rather than the real estate 00:00:24.240 --> 00:00:24.930 align:middle line:90% itself. 00:00:24.930 --> 00:00:28.680 align:middle line:84% And co-ops are notorious for co-op boards and co-op 00:00:28.680 --> 00:00:31.860 align:middle line:90% presidents, which can be testy. 00:00:31.860 --> 00:00:36.350 align:middle line:84% This is called, "Ghost Story, West 16th." 00:00:36.350 --> 00:00:38.690 align:middle line:84% Pam lived 40 years in apartment one 00:00:38.690 --> 00:00:41.510 align:middle line:84% and ran our co-op with an iron hand. 00:00:41.510 --> 00:00:46.100 align:middle line:84% She rules by simply keeping needed information to herself. 00:00:46.100 --> 00:00:48.590 align:middle line:84% Two doors open from her place into the hall, 00:00:48.590 --> 00:00:51.890 align:middle line:84% if I came down late the year the buzzer didn't work to greet 00:00:51.890 --> 00:00:55.100 align:middle line:84% some man I'd soon come to know, or fumbled hopeless with 00:00:55.100 --> 00:00:59.450 align:middle line:84% my keys at 4 AM, I felt her eye fixed behind a peephole that 00:00:59.450 --> 00:01:02.930 align:middle line:84% bent the hallway light around me to a ring of-- not shame 00:01:02.930 --> 00:01:03.830 align:middle line:90% exactly-- 00:01:03.830 --> 00:01:07.100 align:middle line:84% but a stubborn, residual embarrassment. 00:01:07.100 --> 00:01:10.700 align:middle line:84% Two months dead, she seems to hover at that door still. 00:01:10.700 --> 00:01:13.160 align:middle line:84% Vigilant, disapproving, not on moral grounds, 00:01:13.160 --> 00:01:16.070 align:middle line:90% but because, you never know. 00:01:16.070 --> 00:01:18.380 align:middle line:84% Secretary for our meetings, I duly 00:01:18.380 --> 00:01:20.690 align:middle line:84% noted when she announced, if you're 00:01:20.690 --> 00:01:22.790 align:middle line:84% having a visitor at night, well, lucky for you, 00:01:22.790 --> 00:01:25.670 align:middle line:84% but be sure to escort him to the door. 00:01:25.670 --> 00:01:27.860 align:middle line:90% Abrasive, she hated conflict. 00:01:27.860 --> 00:01:30.200 align:middle line:84% If anyone stood up to her, she'd cry. 00:01:30.200 --> 00:01:32.690 align:middle line:84% She earned her MSW at Hunter years before, 00:01:32.690 --> 00:01:37.250 align:middle line:84% and afternoons saw clients in her dim, cat-shadowed parlor, 00:01:37.250 --> 00:01:40.220 align:middle line:84% beside an untouched upright so heavy, the floor beneath it 00:01:40.220 --> 00:01:41.150 align:middle line:90% sank. 00:01:41.150 --> 00:01:45.770 align:middle line:84% Sometimes I'd see her ushering patients out, beaming at each, 00:01:45.770 --> 00:01:48.290 align:middle line:84% a benevolence so at odds with how I knew her, 00:01:48.290 --> 00:01:50.030 align:middle line:90% it made me dizzy. 00:01:50.030 --> 00:01:52.730 align:middle line:84% After surgery, leaning one light-- leaning 00:01:52.730 --> 00:01:55.520 align:middle line:84% one night against the stairs she hadn't climbed in years, 00:01:55.520 --> 00:01:57.920 align:middle line:84% she reached to touch me through the balustrade and said, 00:01:57.920 --> 00:02:00.890 align:middle line:90% I am utterly tired of life. 00:02:00.890 --> 00:02:03.170 align:middle line:84% Her daughter, a professor in a distant state, 00:02:03.170 --> 00:02:05.060 align:middle line:84% had four decades of her mother's things 00:02:05.060 --> 00:02:07.820 align:middle line:84% hauled away, feckless piano among them, 00:02:07.820 --> 00:02:09.410 align:middle line:90% and accepted an offer-- 00:02:09.410 --> 00:02:12.290 align:middle line:90% a million and a half in cash. 00:02:12.290 --> 00:02:15.380 align:middle line:84% A floor-through, after all, with an airless, private garden 00:02:15.380 --> 00:02:17.030 align:middle line:90% in the back. 00:02:17.030 --> 00:02:19.970 align:middle line:84% The renovations nearly done, I took a tour, 00:02:19.970 --> 00:02:23.630 align:middle line:84% and here's what startled me-- that rueful, hectoring, 00:02:23.630 --> 00:02:26.510 align:middle line:90% sarcastic spirit presided still. 00:02:26.510 --> 00:02:30.050 align:middle line:84% For this money, she thought, it ought to be beautiful, modern, 00:02:30.050 --> 00:02:31.880 align:middle line:90% nothing for ghosts to catch on. 00:02:31.880 --> 00:02:33.440 align:middle line:90% It's hard enough to leave. 00:02:33.440 --> 00:02:35.150 align:middle line:84% Don't you know by now I loved you all? 00:02:35.150 --> 00:02:38.740 align:middle line:90% 00:02:38.740 --> 00:02:40.920 align:middle line:84% I am now going to admit an embarrassing thing, which 00:02:40.920 --> 00:02:42.712 align:middle line:84% is that I left my glasses in the apartment, 00:02:42.712 --> 00:02:44.580 align:middle line:84% and I will be a much more comfortable reader 00:02:44.580 --> 00:02:45.760 align:middle line:90% if I have my glasses. 00:02:45.760 --> 00:02:48.150 align:middle line:84% So if you will just take a breath, talk 00:02:48.150 --> 00:02:51.350 align:middle line:84% among yourselves for a moment, I will be right back. 00:02:51.350 --> 00:02:55.000 align:middle line:90%