How I Spent Juneteenth in Trump’s America
There was another plumbing apocalypse in my apartment. Wednesday night, after I’d gone to bed, I started hearing loud gurgling noises out of both of my toilets. Getting up, I saw occasional bubbles surfacing in one of the bowls, but it didn’t seem like a very serious problem. The following morning, not only were both toilets backed up, but a splatter of black goop had spewed up into my bathtub from the drain. I reported it to the management and went to work. When I got home, a harried plumber was at work on what turned out to be a hard-to-get blockage under my building. In the meantime, a large quantity of standing black water had collected in my shower and both toilets were caked with thick sludge from the depths. The plumber gave up for the time being and said he’d come back the following day. I decided to get a motel room for the night so I would at least have access to a working toilet without having to drive to a gas station every hour to take a piss. Dotted along one of the mai...