The Cleaner (11 page)

She turns toward me, still scrubbing at my plate, the flesh around her mouth moving aside for her beaming smile. “Really? What brand?”

“The brand you drink.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive.”

“In the half gallon?”

“Yeah.”

“How much?”

I can’t just say three dollars. I have to be accurate. “Two ninety-nine.”

I can see her thinking about it, but I don’t interrupt with the answer. “That’s two forty-four off. Quite a savings. Have you seen my latest jigsaw puzzle?”

It’s actually two forty-six off, but I say nothing. “Not yet.”

“Go and take a look. It’s by the TV.”

I look at the jigsaw puzzle. I mean, really look at it because I know she’ll quiz me on it. A cottage. Trees. Flowers. Sky. Jigsaw puzzles are like sitcoms, I guess—they’re all the fucking same. I head back into the kitchen. She’s drying my plate.

“What did you think?” she asks, using a tone that suggests my answer is important to her, but only as long as it’s the right answer.

“Nice.”

“Did you like the cottage?”

“Yeah.”

“What about the flowers?”

“Colorful.”

“Which ones did you like the best?”

“The red ones. In the corner.”

“The left or right corner?”

“You’ve only done the left corner, Mom.”

Satisfied I’m telling the truth, she puts the dishes away.

Back in the lounge we sit down and continue talking.
About what, I have no idea. All I can think about is what it would be like if she lost her voice.

“I’m just going to get myself a drink, Mom. Are you sure you don’t want one?”

“If it will shut you up, I will. Make it a coffee, and make it strong.”

I head into the kitchen. Put the kettle on. Scoop some coffee into two cups. I grab the bag of rat poison that was also on sale at the supermarket, but not quite as good a savings as the orange juice I didn’t buy, but Mom would still be proud of the savings nonetheless. I scoop a generous amount into her coffee. Mom needs her coffee strong because her taste buds are failing her. When the kettle has boiled, I stir the stuff for two minutes until it dissolves.

Back in the living room she has the TV going again but starts talking to me anyway. I hand over her drink. She adjusts the volume on the TV so she can still hear the voices while talking to me. The white guys are doing something oddly funny. I wonder how funny they would be if they lived in an apartment complex like mine. Mom hunches over and slowly drinks her drink, holding the cup defensively as if she’s expecting somebody to make a grab for it. When she finishes, I offer to wash her cup. She refuses, does it herself, then complains. Since she is complaining anyway, I make a deliberate show of looking at my watch, scrunch my face up in surprise at how late it is, and tell her I really need to be going.

I have to go through the whole scenario of kissing her good-bye on the doorstep. She thanks me for the flowers and makes me promise to stay in touch, as if I’m heading to another country rather than the other side of the city. I promise I will, and she looks at me as though I’m going to ignore her for the rest of her life. It’s her guilt look, and I’m familiar with it. Nonetheless, it makes me feel bad. I was already feeling bad. Bad that she is alone. Bad that I am a bad son. Sad that one day something may happen to her, God forbid.

I wave from the sidewalk but she is already gone. Where would I be without Mom? I don’t know and I never want to find out.

The bus comes along and it’s not the same old guy from last night, and I’m pretty sure I know why that is. This is some young guy in his midtwenties. He calls me
man,
grins at me, and because I’m the only person on the bus, he feels obliged to make conversation. I stare out the window and nod and say
yeah
when he expects it, which is far more often than I’d like. There isn’t much in the way of life beyond the bus windows; the occasional taxi, the occasional person out late walking a dog, those occasions become more regular the closer we get to town, then less regular once we pass through it. I am more than three-quarters of the way home when I see it. It’s just lying there on the side of the road, still moving. Kind of.

“Stop the bus,” I say, standing up.

“You said . . .”

“Just stop it, okay?”

“You’re the boss, buddy.”

He stops the bus, and if I really was his buddy he would give me a quarter of my fare back. The swish of the doors as they close behind me, the purring of the motor, the shuddering of heavy metal, and the bus leaves me behind. We’re about halfway between town and my apartment. It’s a suburb where people who have made poor choices in life live. I rush over the road and crouch next to it. It’s mostly white, with a few streaks of ginger through it. Its mouth is slightly open. It’s not moving: maybe I made a mistake when I first saw it. When I put my hand on its side, it’s still warm. Its eyes open and look at me. It tries to meow but can’t. One of its legs sticks out in that same awkward way as Candy’s arm.

Funny what fate does to us. Two nights ago it wasn’t my place in this crazy, mixed-up world to question the fact that animals are used as tools. They’re used every single day.
Chemicals are tested on them so we can have higher-quality health care, higher-quality shampoos, matching eyeliners, warmer clothes. Others are killed for food. And here’s my opportunity to balance the scales for what I did to poor Fluffy.

I pick the cat up, careful to keep my hands away from its broken leg. It meows loudly and tries to struggle, but doesn’t have the energy to struggle hard. The long graze down the side of its body looks bloody and raw. Its fur is matted. Strange sounds are coming from it. Rather than holding it against my body, I remove the plastic bag that the groceries came in from my briefcase and rest the cat inside. I begin to walk home.

After less than half a mile I come across a phone booth. I find the number for an all-night vet and tell them I’m on my way. Then I call a taxi. It takes five minutes to arrive. The driver is foreign and speaks the same amount of English as the cat. I’ve torn the page from the phone book and I hand it to him. He reads the address and starts driving. The cat is no longer meowing, but it’s still alive. I let it out of the bag before stepping through the vet doors.

Inside a woman about my age waits behind a counter. She has long red hair tied in a ponytail. She wears little makeup and doesn’t need it—she’s a natural beauty with soft brown eyes and full lips. She’s wearing a white medical jacket unbuttoned halfway down, as if she’s about to step onto the set of a porn movie. Beneath it is a blue T-shirt. A great set of breasts pushes its way forward. She smiles at me for less than a second before her concern turns to the cat.

“You’re the man who just called?”

“Yeah.”

“You ran the cat over?” she asks in a soft voice, without managing to sound accusing.

“I found him,” I say. “I don’t have a car, that’s why I had to catch a taxi here,” I say, and for some reason it’s important to me that she believes that.

She takes the cat from me without comment then disappears.
I’m left standing by myself. I take a quick look around the clinic. Not much to see. Two walls are dedicated to products like leashes, collars, flea powder, bowls, cages, and food. Another wall has a thousand brochures and pamphlets that don’t concern me since none of them is about getting away with murder. I take a seat. I should have been in bed by now. Should have been asleep. I stare at a display of bags of cat litter. I know from experience it’s twice the price here than at the supermarket.

I sit patiently. Five minutes turn into ten, then into twenty. I pick up a pamphlet on flea control. On the cover is an artist’s impression of what a magnified flea would look like if it were wearing sunglasses and a leather jacket and hosting a party in the fur of a cat. On the next page is an actual photograph of a flea, magnified several hundred times. It seems the artist had it completely wrong. I’m halfway through the brochure, thinking about how scary the world would be if fleas were actually several hundred times bigger, when the redhead comes back out. I put the pamphlet down and hold my breath and stand up.

“The cat’s going to be okay,” she says, breaking into a smile.

“What a relief,” I say, almost too tired to mean it.

“Do you know who he belongs to?”

“No.”

“We’re going to need to keep him here for a few days.”

“Sure, sure, that sounds good,” I say, thankful for her help. I realize I’m nodding like an idiot. “Umm, what happens if you can’t find the owner? I mean, it won’t get put down, will it?”

She shrugs, like she doesn’t know, but I think she does. I give her my name and phone number, then pay for the medical attention the cat will need using the money Candy no longer needs. She doesn’t try to stop my generosity, but she does point it out. She says I’m an incredibly nice man. I see no need to argue. She tells me she will call to let me know of the cat’s progress.

I ask her if she can call me a taxi, but she says she’s about to leave, and offers me a lift home.

I glance at my watch. It would be fun to get a ride with her, but where would I dump her body? “I don’t want to put you out. A taxi’s fine.”

She seems disappointed, but doesn’t strengthen her offer. The taxi driver is a large man whose stomach rests on the steering wheel and toots the horn every time we go over a bump. He drops me off outside my apartment, the potholes in my street making him wake up the neighbors in the process. The trash outside my apartment has been added to by more trash, and I have to bat away a few flies as I make my way inside. I’m struggling to stay awake as I climb my way up to my door. Inside I ignore my fish, making me not quite the nice guy the vet receptionist thought I was, opting to spend some quality time with my bed instead. I lie down and close my eyes and pretty much fall right asleep.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Seven thirty my eyes open. Right on time. I don’t have to worry about shaking away any dregs of a dream, because I never dream. I guess I don’t because half the shit people dream about I actually do. If I did, I suppose it would be of being married to some plumpish woman with poor taste in everything from fashion to sexual positions. I’d be living inside a house with a mortgage that would take a lifetime to pay off, getting nagged by two unfit kids every single day. I’d be taking out trash and mowing lawns. Each Sunday morning as I pulled out of the driveway in my station wagon on my way to church, I’d have to avoid running over the dog. A Goddamn nightmare.

I share my morning routing with a feeling I can’t quite shake, like there’s bad news I haven’t been given yet. It becomes so strong that I have to take a few minutes to sit down on the sofa and take some deep breaths. My eyes blur with tears, and even playing with Pickle and Jehovah can’t cheer me up. I think of the cat I saved last night. That can’t cheer
me up either. Something bad has happened. I think of Mom and hope she’s okay.

I make myself a quick breakfast before going to work. No need to walk around hungry just because of bad premonitions. I’m running late so have to run for the bus. Mr. Stanley sees me coming and waits. “Almost missed you this morning, Joe,” he says, and this time he punches my ticket—perhaps as punishment for putting him thirty seconds off schedule. Despite that, I still like him. He’s an okay guy.

Now, Mr. Stanley lives my nightmare. He’s married with two kids, one of them in a wheelchair. I know all this because I followed him home one day. Not as a potential victim (though everybody has potential, so I learned in school), but just out of curiosity. It’s amazing that a guy with a useless kid and an ugly wife and a crappy job can be so friendly every day. Perhaps more suspicious than amazing. I want to ask him what his secret is.

I walk down the aisle. Find a seat behind a couple of businessmen. The two of them are talking loudly about money, mergers, and acquisitions. I wonder who they are trying to impress on this bus. Maybe each other.

Mr. Stanley stops the bus directly outside work for me. The doors open. I climb out. It’s another hot summer day. It will get somewhere around eighty-five or ninety degrees, I’m guessing. I lower the zip on my overalls from my neck down to my waist, revealing my white T-shirt, and I roll up my sleeves. There haven’t been any scratches on my arms for nearly two months.

The air shimmers. The day is still. It’s classic global warming weather. I wait for two cars to run the red light before I cross the road. Outside the police station the drunks from the night’s holding tanks are being let out, their faces scrunched up in the bright autumn sun.

The air in the police station is cool. Sally is waiting outside the elevator. She spots me before I can make a dash for the
stairs, so I have to head over. I push the button, then keep pushing it because it’s what’s expected of somebody with no clue how things in this world work.

“Morning, Joe,” she says in the carefully structured, drawn-out way of a woman struggling with the concept of speech. I have to offer my own version of it, because retarded or not, everybody around here expects me to talk like an imbecile.

“Hi morning, Sally,” I say, and then I smile the big-kid smile with all the teeth, the one that suggests I’m proud to have strung three words together to make a sentence, even if I did fuck it up.

“What a beautiful day. Do you like this weather, Joe?”

Actually it’s a bit hot for my taste.
“I like the warm sun. I like summer.” I’m talking like an idiot so Slow Sally can understand me. “I like Christmas even more.”

“You should join me for lunch by the river,” she says, hitting on me and almost making me gag. I can just imagine how much fun that’d be. How much fun I’d have as the other people walk by looking at one person pretending to be retarded while the other pretends to be normal. We could throw bread at the ducks and tell each other which clouds look like pirate ships and which look like the bloated corpses of drowning victims. Damn, does Sally even know she isn’t normal? Do their kind know that about themselves?

The elevator arrives. I’m confused as to whether I should do the gentlemanly thing and let her step in first, or do the retarded thing and push ahead of her? I do the gentlemanly thing, because the retarded thing means I’d have to scream as the elevator goes up a few stories and then pretend to be in awe at how the scenery has changed when the doors open.