Authors: David Gilbert
"Dad?"
"Yeah?"
"The mop."
"Oh. Yeah." I'm holding it like some ridiculous musket, the drenched yarn under my armpit, the yellow handle crossing my chest.
"What a space cadet," I say.
"A space cadet?"
"Someone who's out there."
"Out there?"
"Jesus, you're Perry Mason."
"Perry Mason?"
"Oh, never mind." I finish cleaning the floor, wringing out the mop in the bathtub, manipulating the shower to clear away
the grime. Everything is finally spotless. "Now the toilet." I clap my hands and rub them together. I ask Josh, "So what's
in here?"
"Nothing."
"Really?"
"Yes."
"You sure, Sport?"
"Uh-huh."
"You can tell me, we're buddies."
"Nothing," he says, and I let him get away with lying. I guess it doesn't matter. He seems to be calm at this moment and I
don't want to spoil it. I don't want to spoil anything. I pick him up—he splits from the mirror—and tell him to go downstairs
and watch TV. "The afternoon is the good time, Sport," I say, "when all the best shows are on. Cartoons galore." He shuffles
down the hall. I call out to him, "Not the talk shows, Sport, please no talk shows."
I grab the plunger and lift the seat cover, determined to solve this problem for Josh's sake. The toilet looks so ordinary,
so benign, but I know there's something lurking in the pipes, and briefly I feel like a hero, like some brave knight confronting
a dragon in his home. I stab the plunger through the water and begin the fight. Jab jab jab. But I hear that sound again,
the sound of this person running through mud. He's running faster now because something is chasing him, something secret and
awful, and this coward is scared. Just keep moving, he thinks, that's all you need to do. He loses one shoe, then another,
then he trips and falls but quickly gets up. The mud starts to dry and cake on his skin. It's slowing him down. Keep moving.
Please keep moving. Just survive. But his body is starting to give up, convincing his mind to do the same.
I'm sweating all over—I'm in pitiful shape—but my adrenaline has really kicked in. I flush the toilet and plunge through the
rising tide, thinking this might help. Faulty reasoning. So much water everywhere. But I keep on going, and after a while
I kneel. Blisters are ripening. My back is killing me. Joints ache. At one point I glance over at the doorway and see Josh—I
have no idea how long he's been standing there. He watches me, his eyes taking me in as if I'm a picture in his book, some
unfortunate soul cast upon the earth. I smile. I must look crazy, the way I'm trying to churn this water into something, anything,
but I won't stop until an inkling of hope has surfaced.
IT WASN'T A bad job for someone like me, pushing mops and cleaning blackboards. In fact, it was the best job I'd had in a
long time. Sometimes I even enjoyed scrubbing the tiny urinals, the tiny desks. It put me in my own little world.
I was sitting at one of those desks, my legs splayed out like wings, talking to Alister, the other janitor. We were on one
of our many breaks. Being a night janitor took only two hours of real work; the rest of the time was spent smoking or drinking
or shooting hoops at the gym with the security guard.
"I made my bathroom light go off," Alister was telling me. "I was in bed and I didn't want to get up so I just shot my brain
at the switch and it clicked off." He snapped his fingers. "Like that." Alister had been a janitor at St. Vincent's Elementary
for twelve years and was too accustomed to ammonium chloride. His eyes were glass buttons and the corners of his mouth collected
an odd milky substance. He straightened up in his chair and said, "Here, watch," and after a few seconds of flexing his facial
muscles, he stared hard at the discarded bucket and mop in the middle of the classroom. His palms went to his temples, his
eyes strained. This lasted a minute. "There," he said, his face loosening. "Did you see that?"
"What?"
"The handle—it twitched." Alister had fantasies about letting his mind do all the work, like Mickey Mouse in
The Sorcerer's
Apprentice.
"Someday, Dave, it'll happen. This place'll be plugged into my brain."
Once in a while, during the day, I'd pretend that I had left something behind in the custodial closet and I'd come back to
the school and walk the halls of the first and second and third graders. The teachers were mostly women. They were beautiful
and all seemed recently married, a few years away from having kids themselves. The girls and boys must have loved them—the
Mrs. Andrews, the Mrs. Kirklands. I'd eavesdrop on basic math, on beginning English, on weather patterns and why it rains,
and during storytelling I'd bend down and pretend to tie my shoes for a good five minutes. Those soft voices, the gentle pronunciations.
But most of the time I tried to make my visit coincide with recess or lunch. The children would be hopping down the halls
and they would brush against my sides. I'd lift up my arms, carried on a stream of pigtails and bowl cuts.
Vince, the security guard, came around quite often, walking with an apple stuck in his mouth, intrigued by the power of his
own teeth, especially the ability to grip and scar. Vince had visions of State Patrol, of those crisp hats and sleek nine
millimeters. He enjoyed talking to me, because for a short time I had been in prison.
"Now, how did it work?" he asked.
"What?" I was erasing a blackboard with a damp cloth.
"The scam."
"It was no big deal," I told him, making my way along the blackboard, the words disappearing under each sweep of my hand.
The newly wet slate resembled a windshield at night with a long expanse of empty road stretching out in front of it. Then
it fogged dry.
"C'mon, just tell me again." Vince sat down at the teacher's desk.
"It was called 'End Hunger Now.'"
"They were going to save Cambodia," Alister said, moving his mop in a lazy arc.
"No, Ethiopia."
"Right, Africa." Alister bent down to the lip of the yellow bucket and listened as if it were the opening of a mysterious
shell.
He said a hollow "Charity."
Vince had a smile on his face. "And it was all phony."
I nodded.
"How much did you take in before Johnny Fuzz?"
"About fifty thousand. But I was just the footman. I answered phones, took credit-card numbers. That's it. For a while I even
thought I was doing some good, that there were actually victims out there."
"Shit," Vince said. "And they sent you to the pen for that?"
"I also had a couple of bad checks floating around."
"Hello," Alister said into the bucket.
"But the Big House?" asked Vince.
Books and TV, I thought, that's what prison is, with incredible flashes of violence thrown in between. I made my way to the
erasers.
Alister grabbed the mop and dumped its gray yarn into the bucket as if he were drowning a dog.
***
The next afternoon I walked by the community center three or four times before I went in. The building was an old bomb shelter,
the outside walls two feet thick and windowless and painted pink in absurd hope of making it appear dainty, like a giant box
of Kleenex. I had always pictured the inside to be a place where children cut out construction-paper flowers and stuck them
to the walls; where old people talked of the old days and collected raffle tickets for some upcoming dance. But instead it
was all white light and metal furniture and a curtain, a ratty red velvet, which hid something away—rations of canned food?
gas masks? Of the three desks, only one was occupied, and the occupant seemed as if she had been trapped inside this bunker
since a war known only to herself. I asked her about the possibilities of volunteering, of helping others in need, and she
pointed toward the corner and said, "Try the Good Samaritan Board."
I glanced in the direction of her finger. "Okay, thanks."
The Good Samaritan Board was covered with tacked-up yellow, blue, and white note cards. It was a mosaic of pain. A paraplegic
needs someone to rub his useless legs. A stroke victim needs someone to give her twice-weekly drives to the physical therapist.
A terminal-cancer case needs someone to adopt her dog. I stood there, hands in pockets, reading up and down, taking in every
word underlined and punched with exclamation.
Please! Thank
You!
All these wrecked bodies waiting at home for a savior, and all I had to do was reach out and pick one. But there were too
many choices. It was like being at a video store with all those movies and trying to find the perfect one that would salvage
your Saturday night.
I closed my eyes and grabbed a card at random and carried it outside with me, like a ticket of admission. Written in a textbook
cursive, the letters were round and well connected: A blind woman needs someone to read to her. By the time I was halfway
down Main Street, and standing in front of Red's Saloon, draft beers for a buck, I had the phone number memorized. The digits
added up to forty-one, which has nothing to do with anything but is something I always do with phone numbers.
The patrons of Red's were hunched over the bar as if stationed on an assembly line picking out the bad peanuts from the good.
On the raised TV a nature program played. A tortoise, long past struggling, was dying on its back. An English voice narrated
and made things sound beautiful.
I went over to the phone. On the third ring, someone answered.
"Hello?"
"Yes, hi, is this Mrs. Freninger?"
"Did I win a prize or something?"
"Well, no."
"Didn't think so. So what do you want?"
"Well, Mrs. Freninger, I'm calling about your—"
"Car? I sold it. The kid screwed me, too."
"No, no, I'm calling about your notice for someone to read to you."
"Jesus, I put that up ages ago."
"Well, I'm looking to do some volunteer work."
"Are you a misdemeanor or a student?"
"Neither, really. I just want to do something decent."
"Ha. Help the little old blind lady, huh?"
"Well—"
"What movie star do you look like?"
"What?"
"C'mon, I'm not going to touch your face, I find that whole concept disgusting and uninformative."
"I guess a skinny, shorter, non-ethnic Victor Mature."
The Robe
was my favorite movie as a kid. But I probably look more like Joey Bishop.
"He was an awful actor. Well, Victor, can you read clearly?"
"Sure."
"Did you go to college?"
"Yeah." I spent a year at the community college.
"What do you do for a living?"
"I'm a carpenter." My mind was still on
The Robe,
and I figured everyone trusts a carpenter. No one trusts a night janitor. Or Joey Bishop.
"Well, Victor—"
"It's Dave."
"I don't know Dave, I know Victor Mature. Why don't you come over at six o'clock on Thursday. We'll have a trial read." Then
she gave me her address. She didn't live too far away. Before hanging up she told me she had a dog. "A German shepherd," she
said with an edge of threat.
At work, Alister sat at a third-grader's desk. In his hand he held a Mr. Clean—soaked rag, which he occasionally brought to
his nose. "Yesterday," he said, "I changed the channels with my head. Flick,
Oprah.
Flick, QVC. Flick, CNN. Flick, Stovetop Stuffing. My mind on remote control."
I was wiping down the blackboard's last lesson.
The boy was sad. The
boy is now happy. The boy will be sad again.
"A bit depressing," I said.
"No, I was doing it. I've got power." He started to scrub the desk. "Air.
Wickers is a fag."
"What?"
He pointed to the desktop. "Says it right here:
Mr. Wickers is a
fag."
Alister laughed.
"Mr. Wickers sucks cock."
I walked over to Alister.
"Mr. Wickers eats kids' crap.
Jesus, these kids are something."
"Nailed the plural possessive," I said.
"Poor Mr. Vickers."
"A good teacher, though."
Alister breathed on the desk and rubbed the writing away. Mr Vickers was easily restored.
Mrs. Freninger's house was a nice house, a house that belonged in a row ofhouses. Alone, it would be ridiculous, but here,
with the other houses on this street, it fulfilled a moving picture of community.
I was smoking, watching the windows, but there wasn't much to see. Gauzy curtains blurred the inside. I had a feeling of stage
fright. Disabilities and deformities make me anxious. I try to act naturally by striking some nonchalant pose between noticing
and not noticing, but in the end I'm not a good enough actor. I finished the cigarette and flicked it on her well-kept lawn,
knowing that litter would be overlooked. After climbing the steps and opening the screen door, I paused before knocking. It
felt like a date, a first date.
Mrs. Freninger was quick to answer. "Yes?"
She was taller than I thought a blind woman should be, and firmer, but I was glad that she wore dark glasses, though the frames
seemed too stylish. I feared dead milky eyes—or worse, empty sockets. The only other thing I gathered, besides her sharp nose,
well-defined chin, and pulled-back blond-gray hair, was that she wore a healthy application of Tulsa-red lipstick.
"Hello, Mrs. Freninger."
"Is this Victor?"
"Yes."
"You smoke, Victor?"
"Yes."
"You drink?"
"Well . . ."
"I hate the smell of smoke and drink. And I hate cologne,
especially Brut and Canoe."
"I don't wear cologne."
"I know."
She angled her head as if hearing my features in the shape of my plain words. "Well, come in and sit down in the far-right
chair, it has the best light." She moved aside so that I could pass, then she went to the couch, maneuvering around a coffee
table and a sleeping dog. Everything in the room was clean and tidy except for dust on the lamp shades. Books were arranged
in three bookshelves.
I squirmed in my chair. "Nice place," I said.
"How old are you?"
"Thirty-one. Nice dog." I clicked my tongue, but the dog didn't move.
"Some society gave him to me. But I'm sorry, I'm not going to let a stupid dog lead me around. Too degrading. And canes are
out of the question. Tap, tap, tap. I don't think so."
My left knee rocked up and down, a nervous habit. "Well . . ."
"A year ago, Victor. Went to get my lashes dyed but the beautician screwed up and sprayed the junk in my eyes. I sued and
lost. My husband's gone and run off to California to pursue some absurd acting career. I don't watch TV because sometimes
his sly voice comes on telling me to buy a Buick or a Friendly's shake. I've lived in this town all my life and no one likes
me much, which is fine. A hired friend comes over three times a week. She's Mexican."
"Well . . ."
"I just wanted to let you know my sad tale, Victor. Now yours."
"What?"
"C'mon, spill it."
I leaned forward and lifted one hand high in the air, then another; I proceeded to wave them wildly as if on a roller-coaster.
"I moved into town recently. I'm a carpenter, a freelance carpenter." Was there such a thing? I had no idea. "I've been to
college," I said, pretending to swim, cupped hand stroking after cupped hand. "I wanted to be a doctor but was no good in
science." I pinched my nose and drowned. "I grew up in Hartford." I've never been to Hartford, but I added, for authenticity,
"I hated that dump." During this whole performance her face remained unchanged.
"Fascinating, Victor." She crossed her long legs. She wore black stockings that tapered into high heels. "On the table by
your left hand is a book. Pick it up."
It was
Adam Bede,
by George Eliot. I knew
Middlemarch
—Dorothea Brooke and Lydgate and all the rest; I had read it in jail, like so many other soft-timers. It helped you get an
early parole. The warden believed that literature could rehabilitate the nonviolent offender, and he especially appreciated
Eliot's sense of justice. But this book I didn't know.
"I love George Eliot," Mrs. Freninger said. "So detailed, everything placed before you. But I haven't read
Adam Bede.
I always hated the title." She sat back, her arms stretching along the slope of the couch. I stuck my tongue out at her. I
picked my nose. I put on a silly face. "Please, read," she said.
The spine of the old book cracked, and the pages left dusty traces on my fingers. I coughed a few times, then swallowed and
rested my feet on the coffee table.
"Book One, Chapter I, The
Workshop."
I paused for effect.
"With a single drop of ink for a
mirror, the Egyptian sorcerer undertakes to reveal to any chance comer far-reaching
visions of the past. This is what I undertake to do for you, reader.
With this drop of ink at the end of my pen, I will show you the roomy
workshop of Mr. Jonathan Burge, carpenter and builder, in the village of
Hay slope, as it appeared on the eighteenth of June, in the year of our Lord
1799"
I stopped and looked to her for approval. I had read flawlessly.