The First Window Cleaners of 2007

On New Year's Day, a man carrying a ladder appeared at our front door asking if we wanted the windows cleaned. At first, since only a third of the building's windows pertain to us, Holly said no, but then asked the man what he would charge. Thirty quid. It would be an improvement to look out of clean windows, and it was something nice to do for our neighbors, so Holly decided to hire him. As it turned out, he worked with a partner who was about about fifteen years his junior, who was the recipient of the older man's continual stream of advice, correction, general complaint...and hearty singing. These guys reminded us of the Knapp Construction team whom we sometimes hired to do small building jobs for us in Eugene. The Knapp Construction motto might have been, We're Cheap, Friendly, and Really Sorry About the Damage Which We Will Fix For Free.

Once Holly had made a verbal contract with the window cleaners, the senior partner asked her if her husband might be able to spare a couple of cigarettes. Holly told him that we didn't smoke. Next he had her fill his pail with warm water. A few minutes later, he knocked and said, “How about a cup of tea, then?”

Holly put the kettle on. Our downstairs neighbor, Mario, noticed strangers cleaning his windows and went out to talk to them. Then he knocked at our back door to verify their story. “I thought it was very strange. What are they up to? No one works on New Year's Day!” And he might have been made suspicious, too, by the older man's song, which went, “We're the cleaners! We're the cleaners, cleaning the windows!” To people like Mario and me, people with active imaginations, such a song suggests a chorus that isn't actually sung: “We're the robbers looking in your windows. But don't even think that! Don't think it for a minute!”

When Holly delivered the tea, she also told the window cleaners that Mario had wondered if they might be casing the joint. That Americanism baffled them. Holly explained that before a burglar breaks into a place, he first examines it for the prospect of valuables and lax security. That's casing. They were amused by this, and also by her question about the elder man’s mostly faded shiner. His what? Holly indicated the bruising around his eye. Ah, that was a work-related injury. So were the dog bites on his hand, sustained when a customer's dog had taken a sudden dislike to him. He showed these off proudly. The result: the dog's owner paid him 500 pounds on the spot in compensation, saying that this was cheaper than a lawsuit. He seemed quite pleased with this turn of events. Holly commented (trying to use the local lingo rather than more mystifying Americanisms) “Sorry mate, we don’t have a dog!”

He and his partner did not like Holly's tea. “You forgot to put the teabag in, Miss!” said the younger one. “Oh well, weak tea’s better than no tea, innit!” remarked the elder and slurped it down.

As we watched them cleaning the top floor windows, which must be 25-30 feet above the ground, we were a bit concerned about both the state of their ancient wooden extension ladder and the possible hangover state of the duo. What if one of them were to fall? We had some suspicion that the window cleaning business was hatched late New Year’s Eve over a pint or ten. But at least we knew that the going rate for settling injury claims was 500 pounds, and that is cheaper than a lawsuit.

Later, we watched the two of them prepare to wash the windows at the place directly across Wrentham Avenue from us. Before they started work, they each had a cup of tea. The older man drank his tea down quickly and then went on a furious verbal tear. We could hear only the outraged tone of voice, none of the particulars, and watch the wild gesticulations. What interested us most was his partner's response. The younger man sipped his tea, listened, and smiled. Indulgently, we thought. Was our neighbor’s tea too weak as well? Had two disappointing cups of tea in a row provoked the tirade?

We wondered if the duo might be related. They both had the same configuration of male-pattern baldness, with the younger man’s thin spots advancing in the same apparent trajectory as the elder’s, but a decade or two behind. The dynamic was wrong for father and son since the younger man seemed not to take the older man's rants at all personally. They might have been eldest and youngest brothers from a big family. But Holly theorized instead that they were uncle and nephew, and this felt like the right sort of kinship, given the impression of long familiarity and the younger one’s apparent tendency to view the elder’s tirades as a form of entertainment. Holly refined the theory: since male-pattern baldness passes through the mother's line via the X chromosome, the younger one’s mum is the older man's sister. This sister, we decided, also finds her brother’s antics amusing, not annoying.

As we left the house for a walk, I crossed the street to ask the cleaners a question. Holly said, “So, are they related?” But that wasn't the question I had asked. Instead I reported the answer to the question I had asked. “Our neighbors *do* know how to make a proper cup of tea.”