Structural Failure

In this cold, foreign city filled with pain, I know there is one place that will take me in.

Photo credit:

By A. X. Ahmad

I always let Peter go through the door first. You never know who’s on the other side. It could be a man with a gun. Peter bangs on the door and shouts, “Anybody home? We got to inspect your apartment! It’s just me, the janitor, and an architect!” Silence follows.

Peter, a short and wiry man with close-cropped gray hair, unlocks the door and pokes his head into the room. “Nobody home,” he says, with a grin. “All safe. We can go in.”

I start breathing again. It was Peter who told me how he once had entered a dark apartment and found a revolver aimed at his head. He has plenty of stories; he’s been a janitor in these Boston projects for twenty-two years.

The temperature inside the apartment is stifling. Peter turns on the lights and we watch the roaches scuttle for cover. I take out my clipboard and we start the inspection: Sagging floors indicate structural failure; green stains on the walls are mold; buckled tiles hide water leaks.

The worst part of the inspections involves the stained toilet bowls. You sit on them and rock from side to side. In deference to my status as an architect, Peter checks the toilets. “This…