The gutter pipe ran down the side of the building from the roof to the street. Tin or copper or galvanized steel bolted to the brick with iron straps. The gutter pipe carried the rain from the roof to the gutter and the gutter carried the rain to the sewer and the sewer carried the rain to the river. The gutter pipe was the building's plumbing for the sky. The sky sent water and the building sent it back.

The gutter pipe made music. Rain in a gutter pipe was the building's instrument. A hollow tube amplifying every drop. Light rain was a whisper. Heavy rain was a drum solo. The gutter pipe on the building next to my window on East Fifth Street played the weather report every night. You did not need the radio. You had the pipe.

The gutter pipe came loose. The straps rusted and the pipe pulled away from the brick and the water that used to go down the pipe now ran down the wall. A waterfall on the side of the building every time it rained. The stain on the brick was the pipe's resignation letter. The super reattached it with new straps and the new straps held for a year and then the pipe came loose again. The gutter pipe and the building were having the same argument since 1897.

Kids climbed the gutter pipe. You grabbed it and put your feet on the straps and you went up the side of the building like a ladder. Three stories on a gutter pipe and you were on the fire escape. The gutter pipe was not designed for climbing but neither was the kid. The pipe held or it did not and you learned the difference between holding on and holding tight. The gutter pipe taught you physics before you knew the word.

They replaced the gutter pipe with PVC. White plastic tube. It does not rust. It does not come loose. It does not make music in the rain. The water goes down the pipe and you do not hear it and you do not see it and you do not know it is raining until you look out the window. The gutter pipe used to tell you about the weather. The PVC pipe tells you nothing. Silence is not an upgrade.

See also: Drain Pipe, Rain Gutter