The plaster wall was built in layers. The lath went up first. Thin strips of wood nailed to the studs with gaps between them. Then the plaster. Three coats. Scratch coat. Brown coat. Finish coat. Each coat dried before the next coat went on. The plaster wall took three days to build. The drywall takes three hours. The plaster wall was a conversation. The drywall is a text message.

The plaster got into the lath. Squeezed through the gaps and curled behind the wood and the curls were called keys and the keys held the plaster to the wall. The wall held itself together by reaching through itself. That is not engineering. That is trust.

You could hear your neighbor through a plaster wall but you could not hear them clearly. The plaster blurred the sound. The argument next door became a murmur. The television became a hum. The plaster wall gave you privacy by making the world slightly out of focus. The drywall is thinner. The neighbor is louder. The wall got cheaper and the privacy went with it.

The plaster cracked. That is what plaster does. A crack in the plaster was not a failure. A crack in the plaster was the building settling. The building moving. The building breathing. My mother patched the cracks with spackle and the patches were whiter than the wall and the wall looked like a map of places that had been fixed. The crack was the story. The patch was the response.

Nobody plasters anymore. Drywall. Sheetrock. Two sheets of paper with gypsum between them. You can punch through drywall with your fist. You cannot punch through plaster. The plaster wall hit back. The drywall surrenders. I do not trust a wall I can break with my hand.

See also: Tin Ceiling, Transom