BEg2 ch 25 March’s digs

[Michael Bailey]

Sorry, longish quotes be here -

“March lives between Columbus and Amsterdam a few blocks away, on a cross
street that Maxine can’t remember the last time she’s been on. If ever. A
cleaner’s, an Indian place she never noticed. This old boricua neighborhood
survives, scraped and soiled, driven indoors, done with, its original texts
being relentlessly overwritten—the gangs of the fifties, the drug dealing
twenty years ago, all publicly fading into yup indifference, as high-rise
construction, free of all self-doubt, continues its march northward.
Someday very soon this will all be midtown, as one by one the sorrowful
dark brickwork, the Section 8 housing, the old miniature apartment
buildings with fancy Anglo names and classical columns flanking their
narrow stoops, and arch-shaped window openings and elaborate wrought-iron
fire escapes rapidly going to rust, are demolished and bulldozed into the
landfill of failing memory.”

Columbus and Amsterdam - West of Park, of course. Just a few blocks from
Maxine’s (a-and maybe Pynchon back in that day)

“Someday…this will all be midtown…” - so, south of 59th presumably.

“…bulldozed into the landfill of fading memory.”

Viz. March’s parable of the old woman who insists on remembering.


“ March’s building, known as The St. Arnold, is a medium-size prewar
intrusion on a block of brownstones, with a consciously seedy look Maxine
has learned to associate with frequent changes of ownership. Today there’s
an off-brand moving van outside, painters and plasterers at work in the
lobby, Out of Order sign on one of the elevators. Maxine gets more than the
usual number of suspicious O-Os, before being allowed to go in the elevator
that’s working. Security this tight of course could also result if enough
tenants here were into shady activities and paying off the staff.”


St Arnold -
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnold_of_Soissons
Patron saint of hops-pickers and Belgian brewers.
Often depicted with a bishop’s mitre and a mash rake.
One miracle tale says, at the time of an epidemic, rather than stand by
while the local people fell ill from drinking water, Arnold had them
consume his monastery brews. Because of this, many people in his church
survived the plague. This same story is also told of Arnulf or Arnold of
Metz, another patron of brewers.
There’s a miracle involving a ring:

https://www.saintarnold.com/the-guy/


Arnold was tormented by the violence that surrounded him and feared that he
had played a role in the wars and murders that plagued the ruling families.
Obsessed by these sins, Arnold went to a bridge over the Moselle river.
There he took off his bishop’s ring and threw it into the river, praying to
God to give him a sign of absolution by returning the ring to him.

Many penitent years later, a fisherman brought to the bishop’s kitchen a
fish in the stomach of which was found the bishop’s ring. Arnold repaid the
sign of God by immediately retiring as bishop and becoming a hermit for the
remainder of his life.
(Also a legend of him stopping a raging fire & a miraculous filling of a
beer mug)


Suspicious O-Os - hmmm. There’s only one out of order sign, but probably
the workers are telling her each one that she approaches is out of order,
until she reaches one that they aren’t curating.

Or - overthinking, no doubt - maybe there are only 2 elevators but she has
to run a gauntlet of stares (open eyes signified by O-O) before she can
enter the other.

“Security this tight” - not official security guys with shirts that say
“Security” but a lot of attention & probably phone calls alerting whomever.




“They go into the kitchen, old Provençal tiles on the floor and an
unpainted pine table that the two of them can sit at and still leave room
for March’s computer and a pile of books and a coffeemaker. “My office
here. Whatcha got?”


 Provençal tiles -
https://www.homedepot.com/p/Merola-Tile-Provence-Tradition-Iris-7-3-4-in-x-7-3-4-in-Ceramic-Floor-and-Wall-Tile-11-11-sq-ft-case-FEB8PRT2/206168560
Might be colorful with kicky designs.