Untitled Short Story (Part 2)

      Nigel pushed open the swinging door and entered a dimly lit and poorly ventilated room. He bore a backpack, brown and thread-bare, and with every step the muffled clanking of canisters filled the silence. Head held high, he walked to the back wall, where a dusty red block of four lockers sat. The two on the left were decorated with combination locks; the two on the right were empty. Nigel opened the door of the end locker, slung off his backpack, and placed it inside. He reached into the zippered pouch and grabbed his own lock, closed the door and clicked the shackle shut.

      He turned toward the door and saw someone seated in an antique rocking chair in a particularly dark corner of the room. The man's face was silhouetted and he brought a cigarette to his mouth. A shttt and a flame suddenly breathed to life.

      "You're not allowed to smoke in here."

      "So you're Vowler." The man spoke with the cigarette between his teeth as he worked to light it. His voice was husky with a touch of derision. "The superintendent told me you might be dropping off your shit before the end of the shift."

      "I believe there's a designated smoking area one floor down. There's also the..."

      "I'm Hutchinson," the man interrupted as he finished his first drag. "I'm the head of the windows team." He got up slowly and stepped into the light. He was dressed in jeans and white, short-sleeved shirt loosely tucked in, and his gut tugged at the bottom. "Shut the hell up about the cigarette."

      Chastened and unsure how to proceed, Nigel silently watched the trails of smoke wander upward. He closed his eyes and visualized the sooty ash on the floor, the slight, mucomembranous coating built up on the white paint, the musty after-smell. His lips tightened.

      Hutchinson continued, "Enrique works under me. We do fine. I'm not sure that we need a third man. Where were you set up before?"

      "General indoors custodial."

      "Why'd you get moved?"

      Nigel hesitated to give Hutchinson too much information so quickly. "I... I requested it. I wanted a change of scenery."

      Snort. "You have problems playing with others? That's usually why people move."

      "I work well with my peers."

      "You do what you're told?"

      "When what I'm told is reasonable."

      Smirk. "Who decides what's reasonable? You?"

      Nigel couldn't think of an amicable response and remained silent. Mercifully, Hutchinson was undeterred. His eyes were fixed on Nigel's, as if Nigel were a lock that inexplicably would not open and was enjoying the brute challenge of prying and prodding, searching with worn and dirtied fingers and thumbs for weaknesses.

      Nigel tightened his lips again, a sign of his determination not to speak next, but as a consolation dropped his eyes to Hutchinson's cloying mouth, visibly putrid, unshaven, with coarse, solitary hairs jutting out from charred moles. He sucked again on the cigarette.

      "I don't want to dally. It's almost seven. But this is it. You want to work under me, you do what you're told. No arguing. Unreasonable or not." He paused to let his words sink in. "I know the buildings like the back of my hand and I know my business like that, too. Your business is to be my fucking squeegee, ok? You do that and my department stays in the clear, we're paid well and no one interferes."

      Nigel remained entirely still and expressionless. "I understand."

      "Report here at noon tomorrow and I'll give you the tour. You'll work with me until you've got a handle on things."

      "Good night, sir."

      As if on cue, Hutchinson bristled with pleasure and his eyes softened. "Good night." He flicked his cigarette between thumb and forefinger. Ash plunged down onto the tiled flooring.

      Nigel immediately turned on his heel and walked out the door. He marched down a long corridor toward the pair of elevators, and decided he positively hated Hutchinson, that power-monger, falsely ebullient, sans pedantry, without nuance or delicacy in words – and hence, it was clear, without the philosophical spirit that lent itself to a true, immaculate fastidiousness. How could he possibly be a professional cleaner? And how could he work with such a clumsy goon? No. Hutchinson had to go.

      And this Enrique was the key. Nigel closed his eyes and let his fingers trace the white stucco beside the call button. He would start to work tomorrow at noon.

Untitled Short Story (Part 1)

      Without fully knowing how or why, Nigel had stepped over the Rubicon, as Julius Caesar had two thousand years ago. There was nothing he could do to undo what he had done. As a matter of fact, were Nigel aware of the irreparable and unavoidable consequences of his decision, it is doubtful he would have chosen differently. He was like that.

      His boss, a rather homely woman with a prominent mid-riff, stared into the space directly up and left from his eyes, her mouth slightly agape. Perhaps God would miraculously intervene and puppeteer Ms. Galski into offering Nigel an encomium for the rare honesty she had just witnessed in her carefully manicured, window-less office. Her breath was audible and deep, and the purple buttons on the front of her rose cardigan glimmered rhythmically in the white fluorescent light. He could almost hear the fabric stretching in an obedient effort to contain her girth.

      Absent-mindedly, Nigel glanced over his shoulder to see if Galski was, in fact, looking at something. He saw on the wall by the door a framed photograph. In the center were two elderly women smiling gaily at him. One wore a bright blue sweater with two flamingos in Santa costumes, each holding a colored stocking in its beak. The other wore a white, short-sleeved blouse with green polka-dots. Why is one dressed for winter and the other for summer, he wondered as he turned back toward his superior. Perhaps she was related to them. He considered asking her but could not decide in time.

      "Mr. Vowler." She licked her lower lip in earnest. "It is unfortunate that you feel so antagonistic toward your colleagues." She swallowed and kept her eyes on the flamingos.

      "Yes, I agree." Nigel watched Galski as she scratched the inside of her thumb with her index finger with short, quick flicks.

      "Have you told them what you told me?"

      "No."

      "Are they in any way aware that you hold no respect whatsoever for them?"

      "That's not accurate." Nigel finally gave up waiting for Galski to meet his gaze, and let his eyes wander along the wall behind her. "I respect them as people. I simply don't respect them as professionals."

      "Are they aware that you do not respect them as professionals?"

      "I don't think so."

      Galski creased her brow in consternation, apparently disappointed that Nigel had not yet taken the opportunity of his short shrift. She was finding him less malleable than she had anticipated.

      He felt sorry for her and decided to offer some help. "I didn't tell them precisely because I don't respect them as professionals. They can't change. Their incompetence is..." He paused, trying to think of the appropriate word. "... plenary."

      "Yes, you have already communicated your opinion of their work." She hurried and gave the impression Nigel's opinion made her uncomfortable. She took a deep breath, and her cardigan shuddered visibly. She finally looked directly at him, and with a stentorian delivery made her formal inquiry. "Mr. Vowler, are you able to continue to work alongside your colleagues?"

He allowed himself a small smirk but matched her tone. "I cannot." Does she think I'm mocking her?

      "Do you wish to be transferred to another department?"

      "It depends who I would be working with."

      "Who do you want to work with?"
      "Professionals."

      Galski probably wanted to roll her eyes but instead let out a thick sigh. Her eyes fell to the carpet and she resumed scratching her thumb. "Do you have anything in mind?"

      Finally, he could let his guard down! An unashamed smile formed over his frowsy visage. "As a matter of fact, I do."

     And so, just as the army clamored up the river bank into Gaul to begin a decade-long war, Nigel, too, readied himself to enter a new territory and chapter of his life. The ramifications of his decision would, likewise, be war and death, the transfer of power and the remuneration of old debts - although of these eventualities both Nigel and Ms. Galski were entirely ignorant.