It’s an old house, older than both of them, and they are not young. In this old house they’ve raised their family, watched one cat and dog after another grow stiff and die, seen the neighborhood turn from Polish to Puerto Rican to a little bit of everything under the United Nations flag. In warm weather, up and down the block people of all colors and languages are out painting, hammering, mowing, living the American dream.
Just about bedtime the lady of the house begins to complain. “Why is it so cold in here?”
He heads to the basement hoping to figure out this thing for himself. What does he, an ordinary home owner, know about furnaces? It’s just a big box with pipes running in and out and a large yellow flame that keeps puffing on and off and licking out the sides. To tell the truth, he’s a little bit afraid of it. What’s wrong with this thing? Maybe a valve, maybe a wire not touching right, maybe a widget?
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Young Tom Dewey shakes his carefully barbered head. “If that’s what you want. But I’ll have to pull the boiler and take it into the shop.”
“Can’t say. If we can fix it, I say if–we won’t know for sure until we get this rust cleaned off–well, if we can, it will run, oh, 400 dollars.”
“Service charge.”
