Time To Think (On the Bus)

Emery boarded the bus and crawled into a shadow by the window, slunk down in his seat to hopefully be unnoticed by the old perverts and crazies that rode the bus.  Sometimes they would stare at him, leer at him.  Once a man had shown him the erection bulging in his trousers.  Emery was at once amused and disgusted, attracted and repulsed.  Perhaps the old man had a cock like Brandon’s, but that wasn’t the point.  The old man was wrinkled and crude.  Where as it had taken a month of dating before he saw Brandon’s.

The attention and the stares were perhaps because of his look: eighteen, Hispanic, fashionable.  He knew he was exotic on the bus among people who intended to be common by the way they dressed.  Yet at the mall, at his work, he was not so exotic with his pink shirt, or his coat with the fur in the hood, the design cut in the back left of his hair, the homemade tattoo on his right wrist.  Others had gone to more extreme measures with facial piercings and large, colored tattoos and more stylish clothing.

He was headed there for his after school job arranging clothes at the GAP.  Unobtrusively he followed shoppers and cleaned up after them by refolding the clothes with which they had fussed.  Or else he was to arrange a new display, sweep the back room, or any of the other monotonous jobs like swapping security tags in the back room.  But the job was easy, and rewarding by paying more than what other kids his age made and the discount on clothes he wanted.

And the friends, everyone he worked with, was someone he wanted to know even if he didn’t like them.  To him people could either be friends or associates and in response people seemingly felt the same about him.  Very few people in his life ever disliked him, unless of course they were ignorant and hated him for his sexuality but as his ‘outness’ was new in his life this hadn’t given him much time to be disliked for this reason.  At three people he could still count them on one hand, still count on one hand the intolerance and hate he personally experienced.

Luckily his parents were not one of them.  Their reaction seemed to show that they had already known and tried to plan for it like children of elderly parents or a birthday party.  The rationalization that someone is one year older, more experienced, and different than the person they had been.  Since then he had decided to be who he was and everyone else could feel how they wanted.  This was only dangerous among the ‘common’ people like those on the bus, though they usually just treated him with disdain and apathy.

Not like the classmate, Maryanne, who upon learning he was homosexual, had asked the teacher to move to the other side of the room, “Away from the sodomite,” as she had put it.  This earned her a martyr’s trip to the principal.  A straight “A” student, cordial and Christian, he would not have expected this reaction from her.  She only got detention for the remark while he got sneers and laughs.

This had happened because earlier in the day, during sex education class he had asked if there was going to be any information about homosexual sex.  As the class of boys laughed he blushed a little but waited.  And waited as the teacher moved on trying not to notice what had been said.

Maryanne had never spoken to him before and only once since then as she handed out flyers for her After School Christian Group.  To the other people she smiled but to him her face became serious as she said, “repent.”  He had no choice but to take it as he had noticed who was handing them out and his fingers already pinched the paper.  Of course he threw it away immediately in the trash can within her sight.  He looked back to her but she had looked away as if she would only be able to see him again if he would repent and become normal, heterosexual.  But that wasn’t him.

He wouldn’t change who he was for other people because he knew what hell was.  Hell was the years of insecurity, the fear that everything in his world would disintegrate: friends would leave, parents disown him, and he wouldn’t be able to bear it.  He wasn’t about to go back into the closet, at least not intentionally.  There were still some times, particularly with his grandparents and relatives that he acted a little straighter, more butch.  They knew but many of them didn’t want to know.  And he wasn’t supposed to tell his nephews and nieces.

An Uncle commenting during the last family reunion that he shouldn’t be swimming with the other kids was the second moment of intolerance.  More specifically that he wrestled with them as they swam together.  There was no sexual feeling for any of them, they were as they had always been, neutral, familial.  There was only fun.  Until his Uncle’s comment as they all sat eating together and then there was a feeling of guilt that he had done something wrong.

He could distinctly remember looking down at his partially eaten food, a paper plate with samples like he had been to a buffet, and wanting to cry.  The strain in his back, the sudden awareness of his breathing, and the pain behind his eyes, if he felt his throat close then he knew that would be it.  He didn’t want to cry, to storm off and have his family ask questions and circulate rumors.

But then his mother spoke up and said to him in a low threatening voice, “Aw stuff it.”  His Uncle’s lips quickly puckered together.  And for a slow moment he thought he would still cry as the tension released from his body but then he smiled and the moment passed.

He had cried the third time but he wasn’t so ashamed because he had been beaten with real fists and kicked with real sneakers.  That was a man’s pain and he only cried at first.  They had attacked him long enough that he could compose himself amongst their force.

The violence had started in the locker room because the question during Sex Education Class had turned into repetitive mocking and name calling until he couldn’t take it anymore.

Jorge stood mooning him, teasing him.  The other boys, nameless boys, taunted him to fuck right there.  Then the teasing changed as they began to suggest that he was the one who liked to get fucked.

“I bet you’re a catcher,” a boy said with a fist to his shoulder.

Angry, he tried to keep his focus, to stay in control.  He wouldn’t look at Jorge’s ass though he could barely see the round, muscular cheeks shaking loose.

“I bet all the old men love you,” Jorge said before pulling up his pants.

That’s when he said, “You should know Jorge.  I’m meticulous about who I fuck but I’ve seen you give your ass up to any old coot who wants it.”

Then there was a silence and he realized life didn’t come with a soundtrack.  There was only the slow laughter of the other boys.

Jorge turned on him.  He knew what Jorge was going to do that there would be no stopping him.  Jorge was strong and fast, a top baseball player.  He tried to step away, to put up his hand to protect himself.  He didn’t have the mind for fighting.  Whatever aggression he had had was used in that one reactive phrase.

Knocked to the floor he pulled into a ball instinctively to protect his face.  The punches began to feel dull on his back and he knew he would survive this.  He was most surprised by was when he fell and the others joined in hitting him.  That’s when he felt them pulling at his shirt and pants, the seams of his shirt burst and began to part and he began to cry.  Then when he thought he was numb to the pain he felt it in a new way as his muscles shifted throughout his body.

Finally they stopped and feeling returned to his body and that’s when he felt the pain where they had hit him, muscle spasms and bruised tissue.  His head tilted down to the concrete floor, his skin barely touched the cold surface.  Everyone was leaving and he knew he had to get up, to escape before the gym teacher found him.  In some collapse of thought he collected his things, happy that he had dressed before the fight started, and made his way to the hallway.

He shuffled to the boy’s restroom.  At first he thought it was empty but then he saw the closed stall door, the feet and the trousers around a stranger’s ankles.  He had to see the damage so he looked in the mirror and his life was surreal.  He lifted up his shirt, the skin had already begun to turn.  He could estimate where the bruises would be.  There was shifting behind him.  He winced as he touched his skin.  He wanted to report what had happened but didn’t want to tell anyone.  Bruises would heal, there was no long-term damage but the shirt had cost him thirty dollars.  He was mad about the shirt.

The stall door opened behind him, an unfamiliar face looked back at him from the mirror.  The face was young, probably a freshman, it was a face not unlike his own.

“What happened to you?”

“A fight,” Emery answered.

He watched as the freshman washed his hands and dried them with the air drier.  Then the freshman hiked up his pants before exiting and looking back said, “Sorry man.”

That was it, “sorry man.”  Emery looked in the mirror at his reflection and decided he would go to the nurse and ask to go home.  He would plead with her not to tell the principal.  This little incident of ‘gay bashing’ could be erased from history, from his life and he would not care.

All of that was in the past, Emery thought.  The bus doors hissed open and several people boarded.  Emery had barely kept track of where he was.  The buildings, the signs, and the motions of the bus had become so familiar that he didn’t need to pay attention.  His exit was soon.

Emily's Books (A Mother's Boredom)

Emily looked at the furniture in her living room, one arm crossed over her chest the other held a flute glass half full with orange juice and champagne.  She didn't like the look of the room, and the feel had become too familiar.  She needed to change something.  Too many days had been spent looking at the same colors, the same contents.  This was especially true of the book shelf.  The spines of the books were all where they had been placed nearly two years ago.

She had dusted around them, kept the edge clean.  The only change was where her husband and son now had a full shelf devoted to DVD's.  They had collected them over the last year and now they had begun to stack them.  Her husband argued reasonably that he didn't see the need to rent them when he could buy them just as cheap.

All of the titles, all of their content, was for them, distasteful little things, action sagas where a man overcame all odds to get revenge, movies full of gore and crass jokes.  There were few romantic comedies because she preferred books.

A housewife, a good housewife, needed a long distraction to take her mind off the persistent day.  She could have hours, pockets of time really, when there was nothing for her to do.

The first was after the kids had gone to school.  At first she sat in front of the television like she had known others to do but this was too boring, so she tried exercise.  She ran for an hour, her body became thinner, her husband took notice but she couldn't keep it up every day so it became a once every three days thing.

The second was after lunch which was usually short.  Much of her time went into preparing the salad or whatever she would eat.  Never very fond of comfort food she preferred light lunches like tuna with no mayonnaise, fruits and vegetables in the Spring and the Summer.  It was easy enough to prepare a lunch and eat it when she was alone.

Then there was the time between lunch and when the kids returned from school.  She used to believe that mother's spent this time cooking.  Many do.  But she found an easy method by making dishes that could be thrown together in minutes then baked or set to simmer.  Same thing with the laundry, though when she had to iron it did add time.  She could set the machines, come back and swap loads, everything at her convenience.

The third was after dinner when the kids were doing their homework and hubby was in his office.  She loaded the dishes in the washer, turned on the machine.  Sometimes she didn't unload the machine and the next day she would set the table with everything from the machine.

It was all too easy.  So she read.  Her favorite escape was romance but she took pride in her eclectic purchases and she didn’t keep the romance on the living room shelf.  Those had their own shrine in the bedroom.  No out here she kept her intellectual books, her coffee table books.  Though no one ever asked if they were hers.  Once when hubby's coworkers were over one mentioned to him the variety of books he had read.  He just nodded, never correcting that the books were his wife's.

Admittedly at first she bought the books the store was trying to sell her.  That is until she bought too many books about the Civil War as told by white men.  After that she sought out titles and authors on her own.  She could be inspired by an event in her life or something she read in the newspaper.

One of the last on her block to still get the newspaper, reading it took almost a half hour.  She skipped many parts though, especially about the war.  It's not that she didn't care.  She wanted desperately to care but what had been simple became complex, depressing.  When she saw all the yellow ribbons in her neighborhood, on the backs of cars, she knew it affected her every day.  So she said a prayer for the soldiers, a short prayer.

This usually made her wonder if she should spend more time at the church.  If she could help out in her community.  Then she would stand at her window and look out at the quiet street, during the school year rarely did a occur drive by, and if it was then it would be a housewife off to go shopping.  Sometimes she would be one of them fleeing her home.  She wondered if others saw her pass by and thought the same things.  She didn't care if they did.

But if they did then she might have something in common with someone.  They could have something to discuss.  She had read all the books to discuss issues of race, religion, politics, even sexuality.  When she tried to talk to hubby he would avoid the discussion saying he had gotten all of that out of him in college.  Now he just wanted to work, return home, eat and then sleep.  When he told her this she thought about going back to school, part-time classes at the local community college, but that would really take away time from her family, unlike reading where she could stop when needed.

No, she had her books, forever the same and enduring.  They could fill all of her hours.

She sometimes wondered if she should try to share her books, maybe join a club.  This was the most appealing idea of all.  But then she could see it interfering with her kids or hubby.  For instance she had to attend Justin's swim-meets occasionally.  Though not so much anymore, not after he got over swimming around in a Speedo in front of kids his own age.  In fact she guessed it could be embarrassing these days.  Bad enough that his sister was a Freshman.

And Anne, just entering high school, she was changing.  She didn't like the things she used to, didn't have the same friends, and she started wearing black.  Goth, she had read about this, both sides.  But the strangest thing about her daughter was that she was still a part of the church youth group.  Two boys she palled around with dressed like her.  One boy even wore black lip stick.

She thought about her son again, poor Justin.  She had suspected all his life that he was gay but never wanted to say anything about it.  She didn't know if she could see him wearing lip stick but there was always a connection to him in her thoughts when something like that came up.  She thought back to when he used to skip around the playground.  His first-grade teacher called and told her.  She responded that she was happy he wasn't fighting.

In junior high some boys had beat him up in the locker room.  Her world became exciting then, she had something to do.  Kept him home for two days while his face healed.  They didn't talk much but she did sit with him while he watched movies.

Those movies, the ones that slowly were taking over her book shelf.  Well it was a family book shelf but still.  It had started with just a few.  Then she removed some books, then a few more, and the last time hubby pulled the last books out, stacked them on the dining table.  She could have yelled at them for doing that.  Instead she put the books in the bedroom.

She eyed the shelf.  Movies were fine, a good drama could make you cry and a good romantic comedy could make you laugh and feel optimistic.  None of the movies on the shelf were like that.  She would have to go out and buy her own movies.  Though they could fill her day they didn't have the presence of a book, the weight or engagement.

And it occurred to her what she could do.  She could buy them their own book shelf, a smaller one where they could keep all their DVDs.  She removed the DVDs, stacked them on a nearby chair.  This was her second window of time, before the kids got home.  If she acted quickly she could come back with a nice unit, place all of the DVDs in it and replace her books to their rightful place.  Her hands moved more quickly.

When she was done she made sure the windows and back door were locked, collected her purse and keys, locked the front door and went to her car.  She knew she had to be fast.  But she had to be safe.  Driving and shopping were her favorite parts of her day and not for the reasons some may expect.  Not because driving got her to the store and she could spend hubby's money at the store.  She liked to drive because she could forget about everything else.  She liked to shop because when she held the cash or credit card in her hand she had a sense of entitlement.  Just by her dress, when she walked into a store the employees took notice.

Picking out a bookshelf was not as easy as she thought it would be.  She wanted to match the color then the design.  This took enough time that she decided to order dinner instead of worrying about making anything.  As she stood paying she ordered the food, two large pizzas.

She arrived home before the delivery man.  Justin stood in the kitchen, shirtless.  Another boy sat looking through the DVDs.

"Hey mom," Justin said.  "How come all the DVDs are stacked like that?"

She looked to the boy who didn't look up.

"Who's your friend?"

"Oh this is Mark.  He's on the team with me.  We were going to go out tonight.  He has his parent's car."

She smiled politely.

"Well maybe Mark can help you unload the car."

"Did you get groceries?" he asked.

"No, but I got a bookshelf for those DVDs.  When you bring it in put them on it.  And put it over there by the television."

Justin signaled to Mark who followed him out to the car.

"And I ordered pizza," she said.  But he was outside and she didn't know if he had heard.

Moments later Justin and Mark returned, though it was light they both carried the bookshelf.  They placed it beside the television like she had asked.  A pizza deliver man stood in the doorway a few moments later.  She took money from her purse and paid the man.

"I suppose it would be okay if your friend had a few slices," she said.

"Oh, no thanks.  We were going to get dinner," Mark said.

"Yeah mom, thanks but we have to go," Justin added before he retrieved his shirt from the back of a chair.

They were gone, a gust of wind barely able to fit through the closing of the door.

"Huh," she said to herself.

She eyed the DVDs.

The phone rang and she noticed there was a message on the answering machine. She picked up the phone.

"Hello, Beck residence," she said.

"Hey mom, I'm over Tyler's place.  Don't worry his parents are home.  Anyway they want me to have dinner here.  Is it okay?" Anne asked.

Emily eyed the pizza.

"It's fine honey," she answered.

"Thanks mom,"

Emily hung up the phone, pressed the playback on the answering machine.

"Hey honey, it's me, I got stuck working late tonight.  Hope you didn't go to too much length cooking.  Anyway I will be home before ten.  Love ya," hubby said.

The message ended.  Emily eyed the book shelf.  Then with a sigh of resignation she picked up the pizzas, slid the chair to the shelf, sat on the floor, opened the top box and began to place DVDs.  She thought of her day, her family.  Gone now, but there would come a time when they would need her she just had to wait.

Ordinary Life (Vignette)

For once the store was quiet.  He sat behind the cash register, turned to look out over the store, a closed book before him.  It was eight o'clock on a Tuesday night in small town Pennsylvania and summer.  He had to be there for one more hour then he could lock the door and go to the back room where he had to count his till.  So really it was more like an hour and a half.  He picked up the book but set it down immediately.  He was too tired to think.

At least that's what he said to himself.  But he was.  It was that clouded mind tired where he could only do the simplest things like run the cash register and only one thing at a time.  He was happy that school had ended some time ago, nearly two months.  He had graduated.  And in another month he would be off to college.

He stared at nothing in particular.  The shelves, the floor, the displays were all constant in his vision.  Years from now when he closed his eyes he could imagine this place again.  The sound of the leak barely perceptible, the sound of the refrigerator unit running, and the dirty linoleum floor with octagonal patterns.  He had cleaned those floors several times.  It was the favorite thing the owner made newbies do and it was what you did if you got in trouble.

There wasn't much to get in trouble for.  At least he couldn't imagine there being because his job was too easy.  Well, except the time when a customer, a grandma with sensitive ears, reported him for cursing.  And it was lame too because it wasn't even very vulgar.  Though he had to stop himself from laughing as she told her story for the owner because she couldn't even say the words.

Twice the owner asked if she could be more specific while hiding a smile because he was trying to get her to curse.  Finally she pulled him to her lips and whispered the words.  He became very serious and demanded to be seen in the back office.

"Paul,"  He said as he closed the door.  "Paul," he said again as he circled to his desk, "I don't think what you said was very bad.  And your one of my best employees.  But you can't just swear like that.  I mean I wouldn't want my kids hearing what you said.  And what with these old people around they are offended by the use of such words."  He was a big man, six foot two with a short buzz haircut and visibly balding in the front.  He was sweating as he talked.  Big was the best word to describe him.  But he wasn't fat just kind of round.

"As an example, as I do with any of the employees I want you to sweep the floors for the next week.  I can have Linda come in and work some extra hours or else me or my wife can do it.  This is just so you know that there are consequences," and at that moment Paul was afraid he would go into a whole speech about right and wrong but he didn't.  Instead he said, "and you are also on probation so I don’t want anymore complaints."

The old lady could have died and been gone because she never saw the ramifications of her act.  Instead he had to explain to his coworkers and his friends who saw him sweeping the floor.  This made him twice as angry.  If he could he would have run the old lady off the road or else egged her house or something because reporting him was just stupid.  He still cursed under his breath and he hadn't been caught or reported since.

The sound of the front door opening alerted him that there was a patron or someone entering the store.  From where he sat he could see the doorway.  And he saw the silhouette paused in the glass as it talked over something with someone he couldn't see.  Just from the shadow he could tell it was a young man, probably a teenager, that he was thin and wore shorts and a t-shirt.  Finally the door opened.

There was a gust of cool summer night air cut off by the closing of the door.  A bell clacked against the glass.  He briefly looked over the patron, a teenage male as he had guessed who disappeared into the aisles.  Then he looked up to the mirrors.  The patron moved through the aisles collecting things in his hands.  Back at the refrigerators he pulled two drinks out and began to had to the counter.  Once there he placed his items on the motorized belt.

The patron was maybe sixteen, young and skinny with blonde hair cut short around his head the top of which was a little longer and and had begun to curl in its natural way.  Paul guessed this is why his hair was short.  Eight items in all it came to less than seven dollars.  Paul was ready to finalize the sale when he asked if that would be all.  He could see that the kid was nervous about something as he scratched at his chest.

Finally he spoke up saying, "A pack of cigarettes."

Paul had sold to underage people before.  At least when no one was looking.

"What kind."  He was disappointed when the kid asked for Menthols because they always seemed to taste funny.  And he had tried nearly all of them.  But many kids, even boys, smoked Menthols because they were the cigarettes they could steal from their mothers, usually divorced mothers.  At least that was the case for him and his friends.

Paul rang up the cigarettes, completed the transaction and watched as the kid left the store.

Forty-five minutes later he had locked the door and sat alone in the back room counting his till.  He had been working there for so long that the owner trusted him to lock up and not steal anything.  The lights were already off to the store.  The room was illuminated by a lamp on the desk with an orange shade.  A chorus of a song repeated in his thoughts as he went through the transactions and counted the money.

There was only one time that he came up short.  It was his third time being a cashier.  The only thing he could figure was that he had given someone back too much money and they hadn't said anything about it.  He didn't fault them as he knew he would not have said anything either.  When you make a dollar and a half more than minimum wage in a state where the wages suck then there really isn't anything wrong with keeping a couple of bucks.  The best jobs were under the table ones because then you could make a straight buck without paying out to the government.

He looked to the clock.  It read ten minutes after nine though he knew it was slow.  No clock was correct in the whole damn place, even the ones at home.  He couldn't think of a clock that probably told the correct time.

Then there was a strange sound.  It sounded as if the front door was being pulled on.  They had had two break-ins as far as he knew and one of them was a former employee who wanted to get even so she trashed the place with her drunk boyfriend.  Both of them were found six miles away in their car passed out, bottles, bats, and a crowbar resting with them.

The sound continued raising the hairs on the back of Paul's neck.  He looked out as best he could but couldn't see the door.  He could see the light of the setting sun in the window.  People were always mistaking times of the day during the summer.  Hell he was even surprised the store closed so early.  He thought to reach for the axe handle leaning against the wall but thought better of it as he stood and walked through the doorway.

It was still light and he crossed the store easily and went to the door.  He was surprised but amused to find an SUV, luxury class, parked in front of the store.  He could see three heads inside, a woman and kids.  Then he saw the driver appear from beside the store, a cell phone pressed against her ear.

"They’re closed.  Wait hold on, I see someone maybe they can, yeah hold on."  She closed the cell phone and walked to the door.

When he had her full attention he pointed to the "Closed" sign.  She looked at her watch then at him.  He pointed to the sign again.  Then she threw up her arms in disgust.  He thought to say something, especially "have a nice day" but didn't.  Instead he turned on them and went back to the office.

Twenty minutes later he was finished with the till and had locked everything away in the safe.  He had become such a trusted employee that he was given the safe number.  There wasn't much in it except the till.  Another safe, he didn't know the code to was for the owner only.  He didn't understand the system but he didn't care.  He turned off the light, back pack tugging on his shoulders and jacket over his arm with a cigarette hanging limp in his lips he went out the back door.

He only ever smoked after work and it was about a pack a month.  He didn't like the idea of spending more than that on something he could only get so much enjoyment from.  And the best was after work.  He didn't know why.  He couldn't imagine it was the tobacco, the nicotine, or the increased risk of cancer yet it was.  Making sure to keep the filter dry he began his walk home.

Home was a converted attic.  His mother had gotten the house in the divorce but he moved to the attic only a few years ago, once he started working regularly.  He could get to it using the backdoor of the house without waking his mother and she said it was best for her that he did as she worked nights and slept during the day.  He had only seen her room a few times since the divorce and she started working at the hospital.

She hung up black curtains over all the windows blocking out any light from the sun.  And she could sleep through most things except things, she said, that happened in the house.  There was something about the sounds and knowing they were that close.  That's why when they were both home he was very quiet.  He didn't mind that much except sometimes he couldn't listen to loud music or have the television too loud.  But she otherwise stayed out of his life.  She didn't ask too many questions and there was never any talk about a curfew.  He was one of the few who didn't have one.  It had never come up.

The walk was about twenty minutes, in the winter it had been a hell of a walk dredging through the snow and walking on the roads when possible.  His eyes focused on the passing ground five feet in front of him unless there was a noise like a car or someone coming close then he would look up.  On the sides of the street were litter, flattened drink cups and empty beer cans.  And cigarette butts.  Paul flicked his ahead of himself and stepped it as he passed.

His house always seemed to stand out from the others of his neighborhood.  It looked a little older, a little more worn, discolored and shaded like the wrinkled face of an old man.  He entered through the back door.  Set his bag down and went to the refrigerator where he retrieved a cola and one of the chilled hamburgers he had made yesterday.  He put the meat in a bun with ketchup and mustard.

Everything back in the refrigerator he retrieved his bag before going up the stairs.  He passed his mother's room and went up the stairs to the attic.  He pulled the string for the light.  The dying light of the sun could be seen in the corners of the window just behind the rows of empty soda cans he stacked on consecutive days.  It was two and a half rows high and nearly three feet long.  It was the only window in the room.

And there was no door.  But his mother had not come up the stairs in years.  It had actually been years.  Strange how you can not go somewhere, not see some corner or wall in a house you have lived in for years.  Just knowing that it continued to exist somewhere.  He set the burger and drink down on his desk next to the mouse for his computer.  Then he dropped his bag.

His shirt came next then his pants as he kicked off his shoes.  By his bedside was his pajama bottoms which he pulled on.  He would only have a few more hours before he would be asleep.  And tomorrow he would awaken as he always did to the same room, the same body and he would go back to work only tomorrow he worked till five.

It wasn't so bad he told himself as he sat in his desk chair.  Lots of people had it worse off than he did.

Remnants

Barry awoke to the persistent headache from a hangover.  He moved away from Sandy as she lay motionless in the bed.  Five-thirty in the morning and the beginning of a new week.  He had to be there before the students arrived, clean up so the little assholes could ruin the place again.  If he was lucky no one would vomit today, and he wouldn't have to deal with the wood chips or the special bucket.

He washed his hands, under his arm pits, and his face.  With a groan he pulled on his clothes and made his way to the coat rack.  A quick reach inside of his pocket and he retrieved his flask to refuel it.  Topped off, he downed a shot then gathered his things and left.  Sandy still snored.

Of all things he hated cleaning near the swimming pool the most.  It was the overwhelming smell of chlorine.  He worked with cleaning products regularly but the pool was the worst.  The chore he despised the most was cleaning the damn thing, skimming across the top to retrieve little things left by students or absent minded coaches.  Usually it was a wrapper, occasionally a speedo or a pair of underwear.

It was odd to find the pool doors unlocked but he didn't think much of it.  Though if he didn't lock them back up and some dumb kid drowned then it would be his fault.  He made his usual sweeps in the locker rooms, around the bleachers, collected the garbage, and made sure to leave everything slick with the mop.  Then he took the skimmer from against the wall.

He looked down into the water.  He could see something floating there.  It was unusual, like clear plastic but of a shape and size he couldn't recognize.  He reached for it once, twice, created a motion in the water to catch it with the third scoop.  Normally it would go directly into the trash but he was curious.

Cautiously he reached into the net, gripped the discernible ring of the item and lifted it.  The shape unraveled, a long empty sausage casing.  The tip was enlarged and oddly nipple shaped.  And he realized what it was.  Disgusted, he let it fall from his fingers and back into the net.  He had just touched, he had just held up something that had been on someone else's dick.

Revulsion, he turned away from the pool and began coughing.  He fought the urge to vomit.  Sickened, he made his way to the bench and sat.  Was it from a student or a teacher?  And how could he explain this?  He didn't want to deal with it.  And he remembered the unlocked doors, someone had used a key and forgot to lock up.  That's not all they forgot, he joked to himself.  But he had to think of something to do with it.

Why of all days did this have to happen when he was cleaning the pool?  It could have just as easily been one of the other janitors who found it.  Had there been others and would he be the first one to admit what he found?  Not likely, let them rot.
So he did what he had done other times when he didn't want to clean something up right away, he decided to leave it.  He stepped to the trash can, held out the skimmer and turned it over.  A shake dislodged the latex from the net and it fell into can.

He heard the doors bang, probably the coach or another janitor.  He turned away and fell into cleaning, certain that his red face would betray him.  But whoever had entered didn't come in any further.

Acting quickly he gathered his things and made for the exit.  Down the dim lit hallway, to the double doors, he could see someone standing at the doors as if to exit quietly.  He quickened his pace, passed them, and stepped into the hallway.  The person followed behind, and with a quick look he saw who it was.  Mrs. Durst, the school librarian, she looked at him and he could tell she was scared.

"You cleaned up in there?"

"Yeah," he said.

"And you," she paused.  "You found everything?"

"Was there something I was supposed to find?"

"Oh no, just," she scratched her forehead.  "Just a student said they left a book in there is all."

Barry smiled and stood erect, scratched his belly through his gray t-shirt.

"A book?  I don't remember seeing a book.  But there was a big ol’ condom floating in the water.  Damn thing looked like a jelly fish."

She let out a gasp and he was certain tears were in her eyes.  Then she folded her arms against her chest and ran away.