-- short story, fiction. First version published in 'Analecta 25: the Art and Literary Journal of the University of Texas at Austin.'
This Place Needs Cleaning
My name is Otis Moperandi. I call myself that a lot because I forget things, things that are unimportant like names, directions, the day my Pop blew his brains out. It’s a fitting name because I’m a grade school janitor, and I do a lot of mopping. But the thing about it is that none of those kids with their plaid skirts, books tucked under their arms, ponytails slicked back, ties hanging from their necks like extra limbs -- none of those kids know my name. And none of them know what I’m really capable of. When I push a mop around, to me it looks like I’m pushing somebody’s head across the floor with a swoosh, swoosh. When the mop’s wet, if I touch her, it feels like what someone’s insides might feel like. I’ve never felt insides, but I’ve felt raw chicken, and that seems close. Smooth. Clean. When I’m done mopping, the floors shine like my Pop’s bald head used to shine.
I work slowly. No sense in rushing. Got to do a job right, plan out which corner of the room to start at so tiny feet won’t make tracks before it’s dry. By the time the bell rings, I stand back, hide in the broom closet, watch the kids rush in. The halls are quiet and smooth. Pretty.
There is this one boy I watch. His name is Freddy Hammock. It’s a fitting name because when he walks down the hall chewing on a Fruit Roll-up, his fat body swings from side to side like a hammock. Today, he does this very thing, holding his books in one hand, the Fruit Roll-up in the other. His skinny best friend, Tyson Mahoney, swaggers behind him, saying, “Gimme a bite of that will you?” Tyson is his only friend, really.
Freddy chews and chews while some girl yells at him, “Freddy, you’re as big as Mt. Rainier. And someday, you’re gonna blow.”
Freddy stares at her and chews.
In the closet, I arrange the cleaners by color. I set up the mops, the brooms, hanging them on the wall like my own little art. That boy Freddy, he should stand up for himself. He just sits there and chews. Bet he couldn’t get this floor shining. And his face, it needs cleaning.
I listen for the sound to die down, for the doors to shut. I always put on my hat before I leave. The hat was my Pop’s, and it’s kind of crushed now, but it’s all I got from him, so I wear it. It reminds me that I’m Otis, and I can go home.
All I have to do is walk across the street, shuffle really. I like to shuffle. I like the sound of my big feet brushing across the cement, kicking at stones. Sometimes, cars honk at me, me and my slow ways. Got to do a job right. That’s what Mom used to say to me. She’s sick now though, sick as a dog. I don’t visit her anymore. I don’t like dogs. They’re messy, messy like kids.
Home. The first thing I do is take off Pop’s hat, feel my own head with my hand, shuffle to the bathtub, strip down, then shave my skin smooth, clean, pretty. All of it -- my arms, my legs, my face, my head, my eyebrows. Then I get dressed again, put on my long underwear, my white overalls. Next, I paint things white. I paint cereal boxes, my toothbrush, the sink, the windows. I buy plants and paint them. Sometimes, they die, but they die white and clean. All is white. The house looks like skin. My name is Otis Moperandi.
I can’t find anything else to paint today, so I put on Pop’s hat and shuffle to the market. You can get there if you walk down First Street, pass the bums that sleep in an abandoned bar, pass a coffee shop where some guy named Fly hangs out and plays his guitar while he sips at Mad Dog, and turn the corner. Queen Anne Street. The market’s there. That’s where I get my pasta. Pretty.
On the way back, I go a different way. I pass by my school and watch the kids at recess. The girls play hopscotch. Sometimes, you can see up their skirts when they throw stones and jump. The boys play football. All except Freddy, who just sits on a log, sweats and chews his Fruit Roll-up. Sometimes, Tyson waves at him, when no one else is looking. Tyson is too skinny for his pants. They look like they might fall down, fall off, leave him naked. Freddy is too fat for his pants and white shirt. Someday, they’ll both split. My head’s splitting. Splitting with a headache. So after Tyson yells, “Touchdown!” and Freddy holds up his Fruit Roll-up at him for support, I shuffle on. When I move away from the fence, it looks like it cuts up their bodies in tiny pieces. But it just looks that way. It’s not real. Funny how that is. Things aren’t always what they seem, like rear-view mirrors. Objects are closer. I know that because Pop used to take me on drives. I don’t like to drive, though. It’s confusing. I forget where I’m going. I like to shuffle. I hold my bag of pasta. I got it at the market. You can get there if you shuffle past Key Arena, pass the fountain where kids play and get all wet, pass some skateboarders in the park. They shuffle too, shuffle and swagger like Otis. I feel my hat on my head. My name is Otis Moperandi. I can go home.
Home. I paint the pasta box white. Better. I boil water and feel it. Ouch. Seems like I’ve done that before. My finger remembers the feel of a burn. I pour the pasta in -- Mostaccioli, because that kind of pasta cooks slowly. No sense in hurrying. I grab a big spoon, stir, and watch it. Sometimes, if you watch things, they cook slower. It grows softer in the pan. I paint the spoon white, wait for it to dry, and stir on.
I set the table. Fork on the left. Knife and spoon on the right. Just like Mom told me. Plate is in the middle or to the side of all of it. I can never quite remember that part, so I just eat out of the pan. Less to clean later. But I eat slow, slow and smooth. If you don’t, your stomach might flip out, flip over. You might puke or something, like my Mom always does. One pasta tube at a time, I eat. I tilt my head back and drop a piece down my throat, swallow it like a pill, like Mom swallows pills. No need to chew. Freddy does enough of that for both of us. And I always stop eating before I’m full. It’s always good to be just a little bit hungry. My body’s so thin, sometimes I think I could float. Sometimes I think Tyson could float too. But he never does. Freddy holds him down, holds him down like a weight, lead, like you’re stomach feels if you eat too much. Disgusting. Fat. Fat as my Pop was.
I curl up on a white, vinyl couch, wrap my cold body in a white blanket, a soft, white blanket. It’s time for Otis to sleep. When I sleep, I have a dream about me and my mop, wiping the whole world with her, wiping off trees, houses, faces, erasing them. In the dream, I have my hat on. The hat is kind of crushed, but I wear it. When I wake, I paint Pop’s hat white, and make sure no hair has grown back on my skin. Mom’s hair is long and white. She’s got enough for both of us. I put on my hat and shuffle.
I have all the keys to the school. Janitors are important. I open the front door, walk straight, then left, past the little boys’ room, then left again. It’s good to be at my broom closet. Feels like home. Feels like when Pop and I would play hide-and-go-seek, and I would hide in a closet. Pops are scary when you’re little. Especially when they’re big and fat. Sometimes, when you’re away from home, you tug on a leg of pants, look up, and it’s not your Pop’s face. It’s someone else's face, and you know you’re lost. You gotta find out where they are. And sometimes you cry. And there’s no one to help you, so you just sit and wait and look for some familiar face. You forget your name, where you live. You forget the exact time when you let go of your Mom’s hand. Then you shuffle and search, search for her. She’s probably in the bathroom again. Her stomach is probably funny again.
So I look in my closet and everything is arranged, arranged the same way that it was the day before. Perfect. Perfect as a Mom’ s bedtime story. Perfect as pasta that you get from the market. You can get there if you shuffle past kids who are zipping up their flies outside the Key Arena, turn the corner, pass skateboarders who bum smokes and sleep in the park, pass a hippie who hangs outside of an abandoned bar, playing his guitar, pass cars honking, cars honking at a mad, wet dog named Queen Anne. First Street. That’s where the market is. That’s where I get my pasta. Pretty.
First, I pull the gum off the underside of desks. Those little, dirty kids stuck them there and didn’t even think of Otis. Then I sweep, sweep up the mess like cracker wrappers, Fruit Roll-up wrappers, papers, pens, erasers, chalk, barrettes, a note from Christine to Jess that says, “Do you like me? Check one” and there are three boxes for Jess to check -- “Yes, No, or Maybe.” Jess checked "Maybe." And there’s a note from Cary to Lisa that says, “Freddy is a fat pig.” Cary’s the one that said he looked like Mt. Rainier. Cary likes to eat pickles. That’s all she eats. I don’t like pickles. They smell. They’re green as a sick face.
Next, I clean the blackboards, make sure all the writing is gone. Make sure to knock all the chalk out of the erasers. Makes a nice, white cloud when I knock them outside. White cloud against black sky. Like smoke. Like steam. Like steam when cold rain hits the warm streets. Like steam from hot water in a white bucket. Like white paint splashing against night. Like I’m fighting the night. Like a steam fight. Like a smoky bucket. Like a knocked-up cloud.
I fill up the bucket with soap and hot water. I feel the water. Ouch. My finger remembers the feel of a burn. Something like a dream. Burns erase skin. I erase faces. My finger is skinny, skinny as a chicken bone.
I pull the mop from its hook that’s labeled, “She goes here,” and stick her in the bucket. Don’t forget to put up the “Caution: Wet Floor” sign. It’s not like anyone’s around, because it’s the middle of the night, but I always put the sign up, just in case. Got to do a job right. I begin mopping. Swoosh. Swoosh.
When I’m done, the floors shine as white as Pop’s old, white Chevy used to shine when he was done cleaning it, and I handed him my report card. He said, “You never do anything right, boy.” He wasn’t a bad Pop, just big, bald and fat. Pops are scary sometimes when they’re big and fat. When they get mad, their faces turn all red like a cherry Fruit Roll-up. He’d be proud of me now, though. My name is Otis Moperandi.
The kids are coming in and I’m ready for them. The bell rings, the doors open. Out of the doors pours a mess of hands on books, books on backs, lockers slamming open, slamming shut, feet tap, tapping on my clean floor.
Freddy Hammock walks in last. His Fruit Roll-up is cherry, red as a cherry. Tyson Mahoney trails behind him. They live near each other and ride the same bus, so that gives Tyson a reason to be near him. So the other kids don’t know. So he doesn’t look like he’s actually Freddy’s friend. I know this because I watch them. I listen. I listen and watch like a good boy, like Mom watches out her window in the doghouse hospital. She’s in the doghouse.
Freddy reaches in his pocket for a candy bar. “Here,” he says to Tyson.
“Thanks, Fred.” Tyson rips it open. He’s poor. You can tell by the way his clothes hang on him. The only reason he’s here is because he’s got some big brain. Freddy feeds him.
“Tyson Mahoney, sounds like baloney!” Cary yells at him, tugs on his tie, and runs. She might be able to float too, she’s so skinny. Wonder if her stomach is funny like Mom’s. Her hair is short and brown. Without braces, she’d even be pretty.
“We better hurry,” says Freddy. Back and forth, his body swings.
They pass right in front of me. They don’t even notice because I hide in the back of the closet and the lights are off. Otis is good at hiding. They don’t even wave. That Freddy, his face needs cleaning.
Silence, except for the sound of the Science teacher, who patrols the hall. I know because I can hear the faint sound of his footsteps. He doesn’t shuffle. Sounds more like a tiptoe. Sounds like the way Mom walks, quiet, soft, careful. Wouldn’t want to mess her stomach up. So I wait in the closet until they’re gone. The footsteps, that is.
Shuffle to the market to get my pasta. You can get to the market if you shuffle past an Arena on First Street where a hippie honks his car that’s been keyed, pass an abandoned coffee shop near the park, pass some smoking bum who yells, “I can fly!”, pass some wet kids who skateboard in the fountain, pass a fat, white woman named Queen Anne who hangs out of her shirt, plays her guitar next to a mad dog that sleeps, then sips at a puddle, then swaggers, then zips around the corner. That’s where the market is. That’s where I get my pasta. Pretty.
So on the way back, I stop at my school, and watch Freddy as he sits on a log and chews, his fat rear end hanging over the log he sits on. Tyson plays tag with Cary, Cary who only eats pickles. If they held hands, I wonder if I could blow them away with a cloud of chalk that comes out of erasers when you knock them together. I hold my pasta and stare. And Freddy stares back. He stares at me and chews. Kids look scary sometimes when they’re big and fat, scary as Pops. When Freddy stares, he stares hard. He doesn’t blink. His cheeks move around, like they’re stuffed with pickles, like he’s storing something in there for later. For Tyson, maybe. Maybe he’ll throw it all back up and feed it to his skinny friend.
That Freddy keeps staring, like he wants to talk to me. And he gets up, walks straight through the middle of the football game. Jess misses a pass because of it. Christine sees it happen and giggles at him. Cary punches Tyson in the arm. “Freddy’s moving,” she says. “He looks like a whale.” Tyson nods.
Freddy’s fat body moves back and forth and he keeps walking right up to me. And he keeps chewing. Then Freddy swallows, puts his hands on the fence, hooks them there, and says, “Mister, you want a cracker or something?”
I point at my bag. “I got pasta,” I say. “It’s white and it’s pretty.”
Freddy nods. He likes food talk. “I know what you mean. Hey, you okay, mister?” A button pops open on his shirt.
“My name is Otis Moperandi,” I say.
“Hey, Otis.” Freddy’s got cracker crumbs on his chin. He pulls out another Fruit Roll-up. The bell rings. He’s gotta go.
Freddy waves goodbye and swings his fat body. I stare at the back of him and follow. That boy should stand up for himself. He just sits there, unable to move anything but his lips without breathing hard, breathing as hard as Pops do when they’re mad, when you’re playing hide-and-seek and they’re mad and they’re chasing you and they find you. And Mom’s puking again. Pop’s cleaning his Chevy, telling you you got bad grades. Mom’s calling you for dinner. It’s pasta she got at the market, which you can get there if you pass a mad, wet dog named Bum who sleeps in front of an abandoned bar with a sign that says, “NO KIDS,” swat a fly, pass a big, fat woman on First Street where the coffee shop is, pass smoking, honking cars that zip, pass hippies that wait outside the Key Arena for a band called, “Queen Anne and the Wet Kids,” pass a coffee shop where artists swagger, sip, and play in puddles. That’s how she got there. That’s where she’d go when Dad was hungry again, big and fat as Mt. Rainier. And someday, he was gonna blow. And he did. Blew his head right off. And Otis had to clean it up.
So, I follow Freddy until he goes to class. Then I go to my broom closet and wait. The dry mop hangs there. Bet she misses my grip. I twist the head off the mop and wait. Got to do a job right. No sense in hurrying. Freddy’s last class is English. I know because I watch, and I listen. I throw my pasta in the garbage. Not hungry anymore. Wouldn’t want to mess my stomach up and get all sick like a dog.
Since Freddy’s the last one out the door, the slowest, since he can’t breathe, it’s easy. Easy and smooth. So, when the other kids are gone, I yell at Freddy, “Come in here, boy. I got pasta.” And so he does. He swings right into the broom closet. He fits in there, just barely. I shut the door. Shut it fast and quiet. His face needs cleaning. I hold my mop up at him. Pops are scary sometimes when they’re big and fat. I could take the mop and hit him with it. I could hit him bunches until he shuts up and stops chewing. No sense in hurrying. Got to do a job right. I could find sharp things, things like a knife, and cut his neck. I could tie his head on the end of the mop and push it around. Swoosh. Swoosh. I could push his face around on the floor all night, rub it there. But everything would get all red, red like a cherry Fruit Roll-up. The floor would get all messy. I wouldn’t like that.
When my arms get tired, I hang the mop back up. Looks like an upside-down head is stuck on the end of the mop. Eyes are stuck open, staring at me. Mouth’s open too. When I move away from it, it looks like that face is chewing. But it just looks that way. It’s not real. Funny how that is. Things aren’t always what they seem, like rear-view mirrors. Objects are closer. I know that because Pop used to take me on drives.
“Mister? You okay?” Freddy asks me. “My mom’s gonna get mad.”
“Name’s Otis,” I say.
“I know, Otis Moperandi,” he says, pulling crackers from his pocket. “You want some? I got to get home or my mom will be mad.”
“It’s always good to be a little hungry. You could float, like Otis. Yeah, you better get home. When moms get mad, their stomachs get funny.”
Freddy nods and swings his fat body out the door. “See ya, Otis.” He waves his fat hand, then drops his crackers on the floor, not even thinking of Otis, who’ll have to clean up those crackers. He may be in trouble tomorrow. It’s okay, though. That’s my job. This place needs cleaning.
I get out my paints, paint my face all white, paint over my eyes, my mouth until it all disappears into white, white as chalk dust, white as chicken fat, white as shaved skin, white as a Pop’s bald head, white as a Mom’s face when she gets knocked up with disease, white as steam, white as smoke, white as a burned finger. This little pig can stay home. This little pig won’t have to go to the market anymore. You can get there if your skin is smooth. Bare even. You can get there if you know what insides feel like, if you always stay a little bit hungry, if you shuffle, shuffle and swagger like Otis. Smooth. Clean. Pretty. I put on my hat. It tells me I’m Otis and I can go home.
-- C.A. MacConnell
