Sunday, 29 December 2002 | Super

I used to think he was cute. He's in his 70s, has a thick Polish accent, and he sloppily threads his belt loops, missing one here and there. It's his job to take out the trash that's piled up by the side door, to light pilot lights, to make sure various keys and outlets in the building are functioning properly. He goes by Super, and Steve. Sometimes I see him walking out of the liquor store, and we always say hello. Usually it stops there, though, as his English is almost as bad as my Polish. I never seem to see him when I need him.

My mail comes to a narrow silver compartment at the front of my building, just past the main door. For weeks now, the lock on my mailbox has been completely broken, as if someone has gone to the trouble of taking off the arm that holds the door closed, the arm that moves 90 degrees to the left when I turn my key. It's been easy for me to get my mail, to swing the door to the box open without having to take out my keys, but of course it's been easy for everyone in my building to do the same.

I asked Super Steve again last Saturday if he would repair the lock, since I was going out of town a few days later. In addition to leaving a carefully worded message on his machine, I wrote him a note and drew pictures: a row of mailboxes, a key, and a letter; a refrigerator and an outlet (for the blown fuse in my apartment); some arrows and circles with slashes.

The note brought him to my door. I let him in, and with my note in hand, he pointed to the kitchen sink, and asked, "Is this the problem?" Ten minutes go by; after listening to me explain and reword and repeat, he left, leaving me fairly sure we'd reached an agreement.

Tuesday. My mailbox was locked and closed, but my keys no longer worked. He answered the phone slurring and giggling. He stated, seriously, "I close your mailbox. Now what you want? Why you want it open now? You say 'close it,' I close it." When I'd try to explain the concept of locks, he'd start giggling again. Back and forth, laughing uncontrollably, then sounding annoyed. Finally, he snapped, "I come down in a moment."

An hour later I was sitting in his apartment, waiting, as he clutched a giant Budweiser in one hand and spoke his native language fluidly into a cordless phone he held in the other. He moved slowly around the house and pointed at things in his apartment for me to use as a key, including a horseshoe and a coat hanger, making the point that he didn't have a key either, and that one object was as good as another, since none of them would work anyway. His solution, he implied, was to do nothing, for my mailbox to ingest letters until it exploded.

I argued with him, eventually giving up and walking out the door. He followed close behind, carrying a screwdriver and yelling, "Okay, I do it now, I do it now!" I watched him wrench open the door to my mailbox and remove the lock completely, returning me to my original predicament, and making me feel that post-argument brand of exhausted and ridiculous.

I was surprised when I returned home today to a new lock and a new set of keys.