My Apartment in Brooklyn

 I’ve lived in my apartment for thirteen days. I still haven’t mastered the three-knob combination in my bathtub to halt water flow. And I’m still unsure of how to prepare a meal when your only surfaces are the bottom of the sink and the top of the stove. Still, I am now positive of the most important thing to have in an apartment: sanity. What threatens mine? My refrigerator.

Within minutes of plugging it in, I turned to my mom, who was helping me move, and said, “I hope that ringing sound stops. It’s annoying.” She replied, “You’ll get used to it.”

I’m not talking about the rumblings of a working appliance. This frequency is similar to that of an older television, except this ‘TV’ is the size of a refrigerator and can’t be turned off. If only it was annoying. If only I could get used to it.

Instead, this high-pitched reminder that my food is being kept cool while I’m being kept bothered reverberates through my high-ceilinged flat. When I sit in my living room chair, I hear a steady piccolo high F. If I tilt my head to the right, the noise ricochets through a space that sounds too small. Tilting to the left causes vibrato. A lower undulation to the wail. Yes, I am aware of the subtleties. Mine is an enemy with depth, despite its shallow battle cry.

After four days, I proclaimed something must be done. No longer would I close the doors to my bedroom in ninety-five degree weather only to hear a warning slip through the cracks that a five-foot, 2-handled monster stood in the next room. No longer would I sleep with a fan four inches from my head to act as guard dog – waking me with its own repetitive barks. No, I wouldn’t let a certain pitch pitch me into a padded room where the only ringing would be of my thoughts. I would please the monster.

I offered it a blanket. Blue. With fish and fringes. I thought it would dampen the sound. Nope. Perhaps it wanted a change in scenery? I lugged it to new spaces, hoping the acoustics would turn out to be at fault. This didn’t work either. I grew even more compassionate. Maybe the problem was that it worked too hard. So I turned down the cooling knob from five to three and while the frig’s fan didn’t run as frequently, the high frequency did.

On day ten, the landlord came to check it out, along with a stuck window and some loose screws. After reading my email plea, he expected an obtrusive rattling rather than a wheedling whistle, but he did hear it, and my accompanying misery. He didn’t apologize for my daily cringes or the shattered glass that was my peace at home, yet he understood that I was on edge.  

He diligently copied the model information, took measurements of height, width, and depth. He fiddled with the coils in the back and opened and closed the refrigerator door. He told me that they would probably replace it, but would have someone come take a look at it first. Then he spent the next twenty minutes attending to other fixes around the apartment.

During that time, I sat in my living room chair reading and listening to the shrill ringing that would be no more. I had learned that white noise from a white refrigerator could work its way through my inner ear, into my brain, and trigger black moments of anger or hopelessness. I thought about how, around ten o’clock at night, the sound stops for about an hour. I notice the moment it’s gone and subsequently the revs of engines on my street, the clanking of my blinds against the window panes, and the simultaneous basses of rap, jazz, and Jamaican music. I almost buckled due to an object that wouldn’t shut up. However, I beat my refrigerator because I have a voice with several octaves. My frig can only hit one note.

“Well Amber,” my landlord interrupted, “I’m all finished. I have to admit, though, I don’t hear the ringing anymore. I think I’ve gotten used to it.”