Yesterday I was walking past a building where a delivery was being made. I couldn’t see the company logo, just the shirt backs of the two delivery men.
One said, “The First Guy,”
and the other said, “The Other Guy“.
Funny and true and sad. We readily let two guys into our apartment and we have no idea their names. If we had to talk about the delivery, we would say, “the First Guy asked where we wanted the sofa and the Other Guy brought it in on the wheely-thing and then the First Guy asked me to sign the receipt.”
Reminds me of my housekeeper years ago when I was a bachelorette. I left a relationship (and moved out) and took over the lease of my friend’s apartment together with all of the contents that she wasn’t taking to her new apartment with her girlfriend. I even got the housekeeper, Olga. Except Olga didn’t do the work. She had her “cousin”, Marta, do the work. I saw Marta once (Russian, bad blonde dye job) and wouldn’t recognize her if I fell over her. I was embarrassed not to be able to recognize her, so, on Fridays, I would get up early and walk down the stairs so I wouldn’t run into her. (Of course, she wouldn’t know me either.) If I saw anyone of her vague description within a block of my apartment, I would smile and nod just in case.
I imagined how I would answer a detective’s incredulous questions on Law and Order. “How could you not know Marta’s last name?” “You have no address for the woman who has a key to your home, and access to your jewelry?” ‘Tell me again how you could not possibly know the full name of the woman who cleans your underwear?” “How did you know it was Marta every week?” “Based only on the fact that she ruined your whites with the same hue of blue, you are telling me that it was always the same woman?” Unfortunately, the answers are yes, “I could” and “I did”.
I did have Olga’s outer-borough phone number. I used it to say that I was moving and I wouldn’t be needing Marta’s services. I left two weeks’ pay and Marta left a thank-you note written in a scrawl that suggested that she didn’t know so much English and was just as happy that she didn’t bump into me (even if she recognized me).
At least I know her first name. That is something. But not really a lot. A nameless immigrant in the sea of New York, doing work that most people won’t do. If you want to see strivers and the role that nameless immigrants — legal or not — play in our society, come to New York City.
