When Raymond arrived at the high school on Friday afternoon, most of the teachers were recovering from the tribulations of their day. The vast majority headed out for a well-earned weekend. Sure, the over-worked or a lonely soul occasionally hang around until Ray and the other night janitor leave at eleven P.M. But this is the exception.
Raymond moved along past office doors, numerous restrooms and watched his reflection in the conference room windows. The usually bustling main office was empty at six P.M. Another peaceful shift, pushing his janitor cart through the hallway as is done every evening at precisely the same time. The never-ending cleaning of victimized restrooms and classrooms is conducted by Raymond nightly, and he was seldom ever a minute late.
After decades of repetitive motions, Raymond could spot anything slightly out of place. He looked down the hall, through the outside door windows and spotted Bill, one of the vice principals and Beverly the office manager sharing an umbrella. Laughing and cheerful, they made their way through the dim, rainy December afternoon to her car in the faculty parking lot.
“They’re made for each other,” Raymond mumbled.
About halfway through the night, a deplorable old sedan pulled into the parking lot, circled around and parked next to Raymond’s pickup truck. Ray always parked next to the boiler room door behind the school. He could see his truck from almost any building he was working in, therefore reducing the risk of having it vandalized by the ever-present neighborhood hooligans. It was always a problem. Raymond’s pickup was worn, but it wasn’t a regrettable shit-heap like the car pulling in.
Ray looked outside the main office window and could see three heads moving around in the sedan. The front passenger window was opened several inches, and puffs of smoke wafted from it. Just then, the rear passenger window rolled down all the way and fast-food wrappers and soda containers were ejected, landing on the ground between the car and Ray’s truck.
“Goddamnit… now I gotta pick that up.”
He headed for the door and in their direction. Wearing his ever-present grey polyester work pants and matching shirt, Raymond marched towards them, while mumbling. The car started suddenly and immediately began to leave the school.
“Hey, pick that up!” Raymond said pointing at the trash.
“Fuck off Gomer – stupid janitor. Ha, ha, ha,” came from the passenger window with a middle finger attached.
The car roared out of the parking lot, tires screeching as it rounded the corner by the wood shop heading for the highway. Raymond stood catatonic in disbelief of what had just transpired.
At the end of the shift at eleven P.M, Ray along with Richard, the other janitor, checked the doors and set the burglar alarm. They locked the main gate and drove their separate ways into the night. Being the end of the week, Raymond stopped at the convenience store down the road to buy his usual two cans of beer. He does the routine every week and knows Tang, the owner of the corner grocery on a first name basis.
“I can set my clock by you!” Tang said as Raymond walked in and retrieved his beer from the cooler. “You should just buy a whole case, I have them sitting right there for cheap.”
“If I buy a whole case, I’ll drink most of it tonight, and I’ll feel like hell in the morning,” Raymond replied.
Tang laughed and handed Raymond his change. “See you next week!”
Raymond climbed into his truck. It was warm and dry, and he could hear the heavy rain hitting the roof of the cab. Ray backed out of the parking spot and the haggard white sedan from the school pulled in and parked a few parking spots away. He recognized the car immediately by its condition and the way the driver darted into the single handicapped parking spot. Raymond held off from driving away just to see who was in it.
Three young men jumped out and entered the store. After a second or two, he pulled out onto the highway and headed into the gloom towards his small single wide trailer a few more miles to the south. Once there, Raymond spent the next two days in solitude, dismissing the week’s routines until his return to the school at the beginning of the week.
* * *
Monday arrived and with it came afternoon rain and the usual motions and mindless tasks until Ray’s lunch at six thirty P.M. He walked out to his truck from the main office to retrieve his lunch. Approaching the truck, on the ground were more of the same fast-food bags, soda containers and a pile of cigarette butts and ashes, as if someone had cleaned out their car.
He gritted his teeth. Years of anger and mental anguish surfaced like a volcano. With clenched fists he thrashed about in his mind, giving the reprobate a good solid talking to he wouldn’t soon forget.
In the coming days the garbage dumping routine occurred with an insidious regularity while Raymond worked his busy shift. Every night, he came out to retrieve his lunch at six thirty and the garbage was already there on the ground. Johnny Rotten and his pals taunted Raymond daily, daring him in a way. Raymond couldn’t seem to catch the slippery buggers in the act. He marched back into the building with his lunch sack in hand. He sat alone in the faculty room eating his cheese sandwich thinking, planning and plotting his next move.
* * *
The following Friday evening was the big basketball game in the gym. Two rival teams would be slugging it out for a coveted spot in the playoffs. Everyone was there and by the start of the game at seven p.m, all the parking lots were full.
Ray’s heart almost stopped when he saw the old white sedan parked by the dumpster located near the boiler room. There it sat, finally and not another soul around outside. Ray could hear huge amounts of cheering and screaming coming from the gym. He checked the car and to his delight, the passenger door was unlocked.
Then there was an idea. An act so reprehensible, no one could ever believe a school employee capable of such things. Raymond still needed to dump the over-filled garbage cans from the afternoon’s feeding frenzy in the cafeteria. On the menu today was tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches. The children usually eat about half, a substantial amount goes on the floor and the rest is dumped in the thirty-two-gallon garbage cans set out near the dishwasher lady’s station. The cans have black plastic bags in them to simplify cleaning.
Raymond took the fullest garbage sack and set it outside near the car. He looked around, opened the passenger door and proceeded to pour the entire bag into the front seats and floor area. Milk cartons, half eaten sandwiches, banana peels, apple cores and lastly two gallons or more of the tomato soup at the bottom of the bag were deposited.
Raymond quietly closed the door and threw the empty sack into the dumpster. He slipped back into the office building and continued his nightly cleaning. The deed was done.
An hour passed and Raymond was nervous. He began to have misgivings about the crime. Just then, he could hear keys jingling outside the building. Someone began pulling on the locked double doors at the end of the hall trying to come in. Unable to enter, they began knocking almost frantically. Ray figured it was the insolent boys from the old car. He walked down the hall and saw it was in fact Bill, one of the vice principals, trying to get in.
“What’s goin’ on Bill, your key doesn’t work?”
“Raymond, I need your help … can you help me for a few minutes?” Bill’s face was bright red and his usual pleasant demeanor was gone. “I need you to come to the parking lot with me.”
Both men walked over to the old vehicle and Raymond began to hold his breath. Bill whipped open the passenger door and a small amount of garbage fell out onto the ground.
“Look at this … look at it! My regular car has been in the shop for a week, I’m driving my son’s car today. I think I must have left the door unlocked … I was in a hurry … goddamn it!” The vein in Bill’s forehead was evident and he stomped around to the driver’s side and unlocked it. On the driver’s side floor was a small pond of today’s bright orange tomato and basil bisque. A half-eaten bread crust and bits of food floated on top. There was a note on the steering wheel, and in bold, black lettering read: “A gift for you – fuckface!”
Earlier in the day, Bill was happy to no longer need a ride home from Beverly, the office manager. Now he was raising his voice and flinging his arms in anger. In all the years, Ray had never seen Bill lose his temper, not once. He even saw Bill keep calm with an irate parent who eventually needed to be subdued and arrested by the school resource officer. Bill was the epitome of cool and collected. Today however, Raymond was taken aback by this side of his generally friendly boss.
“Raymond, get a garbage can for me, would you please?”
“Sure Bill, I’ll help you clean it up.” Raymond went to the boiler room to collect some supplies. His heart was thumping, and he couldn’t think straight.
“Let’s see, let’ s see, garbage can … What else, what else …” Raymond rounded up a garbage can, some gloves, black plastic bags and a vacuum on wheels that picks up water to deal with the soup. He came back outside to help his boss.
“Do you want me to call the district security department?” Ray inquired.
“No,” Bill replied. “What the hell are they gonna do about it?”
Raymond was relieved to hear this. Why get the law involved?
Raymond and Bill, both wearing gloves began filling their bags with the debris from the car. Raymond worked from the passenger side, while Bill worked the driver’s side with all the doors open.
“Can I ask you a question Bill, how come you always drive such cheap and awful cars? I’ve never seen you with anything decent.”
“Let me let you in on a secret Raymond. Never drive a nice car to work, especially if you work at a high school. Ya don’t want others knowing what kind of money you might have. Let ‘em think you’re broke. Besides, fancy cars are pretentious, and look what happened today.”
Raymond pursed his lips and worked faster, filling his bag with potato chip wrappers, milk cartons and brown muck.
On the drive home that night, a sudden, sinking feeling came over him. It just occurred to him about the other night janitor Richard, whose skulking around and knowing everything about everyone was well known.
“Damn, I forgot about Richard. He has his lunch in his crummy old Datsun and listens to the radio ‘till seven.”
Ray made his way home, pondering the odds and he passed The Corner Grocery without stopping.
“Just stay calm, let it ride, he probably didn’t see. It’ll blow over and everything will go back to normal,” Ray mumbled.
When he arrived home and settled in, he couldn’t sleep. Bedtime only brought sweaty torments, as Ray tossed and turned. The events replayed in his mind over and over like a recording. Raymond recalled his terrible act and imagined an interrogation by security men with fedora hats and fancy suits. They’d be talking fast, putting on the pressure and forcing an admission of guilt like in an old movie. Raymond hoped a giant asteroid would hit the earth before Monday.
Ray got up at three a.m. and tried to eat, but nothing sounded good. He made some hot tea instead and sat at the table in his tiny kitchenette thinking until four a.m. Ray spent most of the weekend this way, unable to relax.
By Monday afternoon, Raymond had calmed down enough to drive to work and act as if nothing unusual happened. If questioned by district security, Ray resolved himself to reply, “I don’t know how that garbage got there, I don’t know nothin’ ‘bout no garbage.” And he would stick to it. He wouldn’t waver under any circumstances.
Upon arrival, he checked in with the day-time janitor Big Tom. Big Tom, an ill-tempered overall wearin’ tobacco chewer was wrapping up his cleaning area in the cafeteria. Ray’s conversations with him were usually one-sided, uncomplicated terror rides. This was punctuated with tobacco fluids shot into whatever receptacle happened to be closest. Drinking fountains, garbage cans, flower beds, the potted plants in the office when nobody was looking, all were fair game.
“Raymond!” Big Tom shouted. “Bill wants to see you in his office immediately, that means get up there right now!”
Raymond’s bowels began to move, and he clenched up. On the long walk to the office building, Ray thought about where else he could possibly work.
“Who would have me now, after this mess? I’m all washed up.”
Entering the main office, Bill met him in the lobby. The office was active like normal, with numerous other administrators and support staff milling around conducting the day’s business.
“Raymond! I’m very disappointed in you, very, very disappointed,” Bill said.
Ray hung his head. “How did you find out?” he replied.
“We found it outside of the office this morning when we came in.”
“What, you found what?” Ray said.
“Your janitor cart, we found it outside, you must have forgot to put it away on Friday night.”
“Oh, jeez, sorry about that.” Raymond replied. “I’ll try to be more careful.” Ray’s myopic, nervous eyes scanned Bill and the other office staff through his coke bottle prescriptions before slowly turning to leave.
Beverly the office manager, sporting a well-practiced pleasant smile, shook her head ever so slightly with disapproval in Raymond’s performance. As if he were some sort of perpetual slacker.
“Oh, and Raymond … just so you know,” Bill said. “Big Tom and Richard are trying to catch whoever threw the garbage in my car. They’re gonna be replacing a few of the surveillance cameras around campus this week. None of the cameras have been recording at night for some reason. And wouldn’t you know it, right about the time when my car was vandalized.”
“Yeah, that taaa… that was a mess. I’m sorry that happened to you Bill.”
With this, Raymond left the office. He retrieved his janitor cart with his head down and a smile on his face. Raymond moved along pushing his burden slowly down the breezeway, the glops of afternoon rain clattering on the corrugated roof.
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