Janitorial Work

Where there was usually $100 for cleaning, hours, and supplies, today Jimminy found $12,000.  It wasn't a completely uncommon occurrence, but he wished it was.  He sighed and dropped the mop back in its bucket.  The dirty water sloshed up over the edge back onto the floor.  It was a marked improvement on the situation.

He used the mop as a steering and or pushing device for the bucket.

"Goddamn it" he cursed as the mop bucket, fell over sideways and gushed grimy water back onto Jimminy's work boots.  You wouldn't think someone his size could look so dainty as he tiptoed over the mucky water towards the bathroom.

There were three urinals.  The ones that sink all the way down onto the ground.  Clearly designed by someone who felt men were peeing on the floor too little.  The urinal cakes were a little over used, but somehow he doubted that was the reason for his tip.  His bonus.

To the right of the urinal was a handicapped stall.  Not that it could fit a person with crutches, or a wheel chair, but the stall itself had been in a serious accident.  The door had to be held closed by hand the entire time someone was using it.  Or they had to fix their face with the meanest look they could muster.  One that implied pushing into this stall at this time, while not the gravest of errors, would be regrettable indeed..

The stall next to it wasn't so blessed with gifts, such as a door, or an actual toilet.  There was a hole in the ground and exposed piping.  It wasn't a great place, or a subtle place, or even an acceptable, "Oh no what on earth have I done, I should get out of here quick" backup place to hide a dead body, but apparently that didn't stop someone from trying.

It was this scene that Jimminy walked in on.  Two bullets in the wall, with blood splattered around them, and then a racing stripe of blood painted from a spot two feet from the wall, to where the body was dragged and rolled into the center stall.

There was also blood on the sink faucet, which someone had struck repeatedly.  But no blood clogged the drain.  These motion sensor contraptions did everything in their power to turn on only when someone had left the bathroom, having given up in frustration.

Jimminy, with large blue rubber gloves, began to tidy up the situation.  Removing bloodstains from the wall, the floor, and anywhere else they managed to get.

Into a large black trash bag, bits and pieces of clothing, bullets, or flesh were tossed. When the bag was full it was tied up and put in a pile to be removed later.

The tricky part wasn't cleaning up the body, or the gore.  The tricky part was walking out of a bathroom with a lumpy odoriferous trash bag, but Jimminy, ever clever, always had an answer ready, that would amuse, horrify, and deflect any would be inquirer.

"Shit happens" he would grimly state, shake his head, and sadly saunter off towards the dumpster around back.

A Paragraph

If there was a plan, if there was a reason for this happening, it must be because someone somewhere out there, really and deeply hated Gunther.  Because, today when Gunther woke up, the only clean socks he had were: a neon green toe job, and one dark purple ankle sock.  And that was what he had to use for underwear.

...

Nope, this post is really a paragraph.  Plus a two sentence description.

Shapely

"But I know someone who might." She took another drag on her cigarette.  "She'll be round here at 10:30 if'n you wanna wait."  With that she flicked her cigarette across the alley, it made a small *plink* noise, its fire replaced with a soggy, short lived, steam.  She disappeared into the kitchen this alley was attached to.

Jackson looked around for a place to sit.  There was an empty milk crate giving an abandoned look to an otherwise frequented location.

At some point he found himself sipping a beer.  He didn't remember where it came from, but that didn't bother him much.  Time ticked by.  Funny he thought, how if time was slow it was a tick, if it was fast it was a fly, but a tick could happen in a jiff.  He really hoped something happened soon.  There was only so much staring at walls and thinking he could take, and he had long since passed that point.  He passed that point about an hour earlier after making up elaborate stories about why there was a small syringe spray painted on the wall in front of him.  He imagined it was to signify this cozy alcove is where the cure to the zombie apocalypse would be invented.  He kept looking around.  Time continued, in its own time, to pass.

"You the girl?" a gruff voice closer than expected blurted out.

Jackson's bleary eyes bounded open.  When did he nod off?  Was he wearing a dress again?  Why did this always happen to him?  He looked down.  Jeans and a t-shirt.  He was wearing jeans and a t-shirt.  Not a dress.  Okay.  Did he need a haircut?  Why did someone want to know if he was the girl?  He looked up at the voice.

"Is this a... proposition then?" Jackson asked.  The voice, surrounded by an oily beard, did not laugh.  Did not respond.  "Because.  I'm not like 'a night girl'. Or anything."

A few other voices came out of the darkness.

"That's the girl alright.  It's 10:30 isn't it?"
"10:28."
"Same thing.  You're too anal."
"When has the girl ever admitted it?  She's always a flake."
"She looks different."

"I'm not.  I'm not a girl?"  Jackson stated?

"Just give it to her then."
"We've got two more drops tonight."
"Who planned this?"
"You did."
"So don't you think I know we have two more drops tonight?"
"Well, then what are we waiting for."

"Alright girl.  We're gunna remember you this time though.  The sound of a thumb wheel scratching across a small piece of flint.  Again.  Again.

"Ahhhhh!" Jackson screamed in pain.  "What the ...!?  Is that any way to treat a lady?" he wasn't sure what sort of people would ask about a girl, then burn her on the palm, especially when she obviously, obviously right?, obviously wasn't really a girl, but he was very confident it was not the sort of people he wanted to associate with.

Before he could stop cradling his open palm and looking like a wounded animal, which he did really very well, something slipped into his pocket and then it was quiet.

"Yeah, well I'm leaving too."  Jackson said to the darkness.  "Fry cook tells me to wait in the cold, so I could get burned and bored.  See if I put up with it."  He stormed off until the corner of the alley way.  Then he very cautiously peered around the corner into the street.  When he was sure the coast was clear he resumed storming down the street, towards his home.

Minutes later a brunette haired girl walked into the alley.  Heels clicking and seeming out of place.  She pulled out a phone from her bra, displeased that even at this forward thinking time black dresses were made without pockets, holding the small dark screen in her hand she pressed the little button on top.

10:30pm glowed too brightly in the dark night.  It wasn't like them to be late.  She wondered if she heard voices off in the distance?  No one approached.  Without the delivery she wasn't going to make it very far.

She began to vomit and shake.  Her hair shrunk to about shoulder length into her head.  What was once a fitted black dress that accentuated curves became like an oversized hoody, obscuring the smaller frame and the different skin color that had taken hold.  Now a black haired girl crossed her arms and hugged herself, stepped out of shoes that no longer fit, and walked into the restaurant kitchen as it was closing.

Ew-motions

For the third time he reached over to touch her shoulder.  His other two attempts were great failures, but he was determined.  Just then, she turned towards him a little bit.  She began to say, "Steven, I really li..."  But at that point it was too late for Steven to alter his approach, he had committed to the action.  He ended up sort of open handed poking the top of her boob.

Immediately she jerked back.  Tilted her head to the left about 30 degrees, and arched her left eyebrow.

"Hey.  Uh."  Steven says.  "I uh like your sweater..."  It wasn't like everything he did was fraught with awkwardness, but it was definitely embroidered with it.

"Yeah, it's nice." Sandra looked down, rolling her fists into her sweater and began to pull it in the opposite direction of Steven.  She was focusing on the small holes that appear when she stretched the wool of her sweater.  She wondered what caused the small strands to mutiny from the main body of the sweater, and go off in their own direction.  Surely they all started with the same mission?  But at this point they had all forgotten their original lofty dreams of being together and providing warmth.  Now they were old bickering couples scratching and and fighting, hiding small poking thorns never to be found, always to be felt.

"Hey don't pull your sweater like that."  Steven said.  Hoping some god would grant him more panache than he ever had, went in to attempt a move way outside of his ability.  He grabbed her hand through her sweater, looked her right in the eyes and said, "I love you."

Except.  He didn't exactly look her in the eyes.  Like.  If she hadn't turned her head away just then, by some complete coincidence, he would have seen her eyes.  But her ear was still lovely and it didn't detract at all from his feelings, or the sentiment.  And he said, "I love you."

Or well, he would have said I love you.  If his throat didn't swell up and he didn't cough a little.  In his mind all that was playing were the words, "I love you."

So what, "I *ahe* loke your sweater.." is what came out.  He still held her hand while he said it, and surely she understood his feelings, they were clear, no matter what he actually said.  Body language accounts for 86% of non-verbal communication after all.

Well.  If he was being entirely honest with his assessment of the situation, he didn't grab her hands, he grabbed her crotch.

"Wow, first and second base.  If you like my sweater so much you can take it."  Except, Sandra realized the image she must have created for Steven seconds too late.  She jumped up out of the chair and tripped over herself heading towards the door.  Looking back, she saw the confused look on Steven's face.  Though she felt bad, she couldn't say as much.  "Am I a fucking awkward magnet?" she grumbled as she left.

Looking at the ground towards the door Steven asked, "Do you want to go home?"  The floor, not realizing it wasn't at home fell into deep duress.  His question received no response.

Though, as Sandra was walking out the door Steven found his grace.  In one swift motion he stood up from his seat, slid his black leather jacket on and cooly strutted towards the door.  He glanced back over his shoulder with a look that would have melted the strongest willed of hearts.  The blend of a certain contentedness, or understanding that not all awkwardness can be forgiven, human as it is, and a new found knowledge that he'd never get to love the girl he loved the way he dreamed balanced together and for just a moment, he seemed entirely lovely.

Genie

"Don't give a f... care.  I don't care if you think it's not worth it. Those are my rates."  Peter hung up the phone.  Well, neither "hung" nor "up" really accurately describes the action he took slamming the phone down repeatedly after the conclusion of the conversation.  Though, the idea that the phone call in question had ended was, at least, the right one.  Some people just didn't understand how Peter could charge so much to do his job, but those people, Peter consoled himself, also didn't know what it was like to see their dreams come true.  To see what just a little bit of dedication and skill over a period of time could accomplish.

Peter stood up, grabbed his coat and walked out of his inner office into the outer office.

"You've got to dredge through a piano lesson in an hour at the conservatory downtown." his secretary Bill Melange told him.

"You uh.  Look good today Bill."  Peter nodded and continued towards the door.

"Do you really think that, or is that for Jeremiah?  I told him he should seek counseling, I really think that's the sort of thing people should do for themse..."

"And then where would we be Bill?  Remember, this is a business and we provide a useful service."  Peter continued out of the office and headed to the bus stop.

On the bus ride to the piano lesson Peter was scribbling nearly unintelligibly in a composition notebook.  Just about his life, day-to-day, and a sort of stream of consciousness.

this morning i woke up and then had a really great latte.  It was a hazlenut latte and I ground the beans myself.  Then I steamed the milk, hearing that deep gutteral roar of the white liquid bubbling up.  The roar that means this is *just* the right temperature, and it's not scalding.  Perfect.  The shot of espresso began to pour, and I just sort of watched it, slid it into a coffee cup, and before bitterness could overtake it added the creamy milk, first liquid, then foam rushing out of one container, saving the espresso from a certain lonelyness and desolation it would have faced without the milk added to it.  I then sipped tentatively.  It was really incredibly hot.  I burned my tongue on the tip, but there was still a fine nutty scent wafting up, and collecting in my senses.  A burnt caramel hazelnut taste lingered on my tongue for the rest of the morning...

Peter pulled out his phone.  Dialed another of his clients, "Hi Susan? I wanted to let you know I got in about forty five minutes of writing just now, and I did thirty minutes this morning.  That brings your weekly bill to $731.25.  Bill will fax you over a copy."

It took a moment for Susan's mind to differentiate the various verbs and nouns of Peter's last sentence.  For a moment she was about to ask why Fax shouldn't just bill her over a copy.  

"You know, I just had the funniest thought."  Susan said.  "When I was younger, I was always having those funny thoughts.  Words jumble and bounce around in my head.  My teachers always said I'd be a great author.  Anyways, how'd today go?  Do you think?"  Excitement creeping into her voice.  As she was talking Peter heard what sounded like Law and Order playing in the background abruptly muted.  Sensing she was still a little distracted it must still be playing in the background.

"It was really an inspiring session this morning.  I'm convinced people are going to start seeing my writing in a new light.  If I keep up with this dedication and my blog gets a little more circulation, it, it could be big." Peter said.

After a little too long of a pause Susan responded, "Oh that's good to hear.  After all my time at the office, I just want to relax, you know?  But I do so love writing.  Ah, it's so good to hear that it's going well. I mean my dream, it's finally coming true!" Susan sighed in relief and excitement.

"I think by the end of this month I'll have something to show an agent, and I'll keep you posted.  Oh and Susan?  Next month I'm going to start charging another $5 an hour for positive thinking, is that something you still want?"

"Uhm.  Well, Yes, I think it is.  Um.  Yeah, no I really want to feel good about this project, so that's fine.  Talk to you soon."  Susan said.

Peter clicked off. He stepped off the bus and began to whistle a little diddy he wrote earlier in the week.  Nothing spectacular, but he wrote the song himself.  He was set to perform it at an open mic this Thursday.  Anyone who showed up to the Splendid Cafe could get five minutes, and that was more than enough for a budding performer.

Still having a little time before his piano lesson, he stopped into a hole-in-the-wall coffee shop.  "I'll have a giant cafe mocha please." he ordered.  "Actually, that's too much caffeine, it'll excite me.  Can I have a Black Oil Stout instead?"

"Will that be all?" Missy the barista asked.  "We both know you hate stouts though."

"That will be all, thanks Missy.  You know work.  It's just, I did always want to learn to play the piano.  I've got to remember -- I only want the end result: playing Beethoven's Fifth by Christmas to impress my family."

"Well, that sounds like a tight timeline, do you have any experience?" Missy wondered as she popped off the bottle cap, and with a pint glass flat on the bar began to pour the beer.  "Dammit there's always too much head.  Sorry, I really ought to learn to how to pour better."

"That's a standard package, $20 flat.  Want me to find out?" Peter asked as he paid for the beer and began to drink.  His mood began to match the color of the liquid he poured into his mouth.

"Oh, no thanks.  I bought a book, oh let me sho..." Missy said.  The phone at the bar started ringing and she answered, called away by duty.

Peter arrived at the piano lesson already annoyed at his state, and thankfully, it wasn't going to get any better.

My Apartment

So you've still got your mission, right?  My mission, well did you know Mickey Mouse tried to commit suicide?  Multiple times?  First he tried a shotgun, then jumping off a bridge, filling his bedroom with gas, throwing an anvil tied to his foot into a river, and finally he tried to hang himself from a tree.  Even Mickey Mouse at one point didn't want to -- couldn't go on.

After the bar, the next place I found myself was my own apartment.

Here's a common scene:

One of us is home in our average sized two bedroom apartment, another walks in through the doorway.  If the one of us who was home is feeling particularly cruel, we may ask, "How was your day?" As if we couldn't tell.  We feign stupidity and lack of observance.  Perhaps, it is felt, their only utterance was an "Ugh" of contentedness.  Their bedroom door was slammed simply out of excess exuberance.

See, we are all employed at not-our-dream-jobs, and a have sneaking suspicion that life is often full of working that 9-5 grind without quite enough coffee to get us through.  This fills us with a righteous and deep unhappiness. The only way to really express our feelings is to dirty some dishes and leave them on the counter.  We'd do the dishes, but we can't quite divine why the sink doesn't drain, so much as act like a derelict pool for rubber duckies who couldn't afford the bathroom real estate costs.

"You really can't put anything down the garbage disposal.  If it gets clogged you'll have to pay for it." our landlord told us when we moved in.  To be fair, we had completely forgotten, since we moved in something like two and a half hours earlier.

Enter the repairman.  A deep sigh escapes his chest. "What did you guys put down the sink?" Down the sink? We're not sure.  Do we even have a sink?  Oh, that contraption that stores all our vegetable husks and potato skins that we like too much to throw away?  "Nothing that we know of."  At this point the repairman fixes us with a look that implies he's astounded with how much stupidity we've been gifted.  Surely our creator saved some for the rest of the population?

"Huh." is what he says.  We all know what he's just found down there.  He asks, "Which one of you put the frilly pink underwear down here?" But we don't break that easily. "Underwear?"  The phrase wafts into our mind's eye.  We try to place it.  Both of us shrug.  "Should you not put panties down the garbage disposal?" we wonder.  The repairman, miraculously, doesn't brain either of us with a pipe full of frilly gunk and pink fibrous mush.

Since clearly we aren't going to, the repairman affects the stance of the bigger man.  "Don't worry, this happens all the time."   As he leaves our apartment we think it's an odd thing that in performance of a job he may not love, where he has to deal with stupid tenants who can't seem to follow simple instructions, he still does it with such good nature.  We wonder if we can't aspire to be a little more like him.  A little more content with our situation.

Our third roommate walks in the door.  "It's your turn to do the dishes."  He must be pleased at the news.  He could have thrown his groceries much more accurately at our heads, on the way by to slamming the door to his room.

"Did you have a good day?"

My Mission in Life

At that point it was my mission in life, well what do you care what my mission is?  Don't you have your own guiding light?  Doesn't something big and grand get you out of bed every day.  Something that you were born knowing you had to do?  That you've always known you had to do? Well I'll tell you my mission.  But later, I'm not ready quite yet.

I will tell you this: I was looking for something.  Okay, so I wasn't really looking at first.  At first, I was at a bar.

It was the then common style of bar.  Full of pretty young people, who order elaborate sounding shots like, "Red Headed Buttery B-52 Gas Chamber Nipple Bombers".  They'd tell the bartender exactly what was in it, and the order to layer in various alcohols and flourishing flavorants, which usually resulted in the bartender very confidently pouring 1.5 ounces of tequila into a shot glass, and sliding it across the bar.  Sometimes the bartender would look, with furrowed brows, at a recipe book.  One may notice an "aha" moment, followed by, with renewed vigor, the bartender filling a shot glass full of tequila and handing it over.

No one really minded.  They didn't come to the bar to impress their friends with an impressively deep knowledge of obscure shots -- that was just a bonus.  People came to the bar to drink.  To enjoy some of the Bud Limelight, or the Pabst Blue Second Prize Ribbon life had bestowed upon them.  While it wasn't exactly something to live for, it was apparently a popular alternative to dying.  So that's where I started.  In a room full of people who didn't want to die, but weren't necessarily above poisoning themselves.

A couple of hot-to-trot little 72 year olds were sitting by the bar.  They'd scoff at anyone who tried to talk to them without buying them a drink.  "As if" they'd say.  They'd shake their head in such a way, that if they had any hair left, it would have flipped over their shoulder, magnificently indicating the end of your exchange.  A group of frat boys in the back were yelling and screaming at the game on television.  "No you imbecile! Knight to A-4."  "Mate that check!"

The night was filled with giggling, yelling, punching, kissing, and fighting.

After a few hours, I drove home.  Not like those irresponsible twits who "drive under the influence" or "drive while intoxicated" or "drive with a seat belt on".  No sir, I knew I had too much to drink to maintain safety on the road, so I was riding shotgun -- with an incredibly wasted designated driver.  My designated putter was too drunk to even get out of the trunk.

A cop pulled up and pulled us over.  He gave us a ticket "that's the ticket" we thought.

Upon arriving home I unlocked the door, took off my shoes, put my keys on the hook, walked upstairs to my bedroom, got undressed, put on my pajamas and promptly fell asleep.  I woke up the next afternoon to a very loud and confused Mexican family who live in the apartment below mine.  None of us were quite sure why I was dressed like a Unicorn in their bathtub below a broken window with bloody feet.  I had bloody feet, not the window.

That's how the first day of following my life's mission went.