You’re it.”
Bernard turned and walked away. He had
a small limp in his gait, so, to compensate, he used his arms for
balance. The motion set his keys to jangling, in a musical sort of
way.
“What do you want me to
do?”
“Follow me,” he said, waving a
hand.
We walked down the main hall and
entered the north wing where, on both side walls, banks of lockers
stood. Nothing strange about lockers in a high school, except all
the doors on these lockers stood wide open. Can’t say as I’ve ever
seen that before.
Bernard handed me a putty knife. “What
I need you to do,” he said, “is scrape the gum and anything else
that doesn’t look like it belongs, off the lockers. Then wipe them
down with this,” he said, handing me a spray bottle and
rag.
I looked
down the endless row of lockers. In my mind, I said, you got to be kidding me! As the nice girl from the heart of Minnesota, I verbalized a,
“Yes, sir. Will do.”
I watched Bernard stroll away. For
some reason he looked familiar, but I was certain I hadn’t met him.
Maybe I had seen him in the halls while going from class to
class.
In my
limited experience, janitors often become part of the furniture in
a school. Most students, I imagined, do not have any interaction
with them and therefore do not even realize they exist. If they did
and knew the impact their sloppy, trashy habits had on the
custodial staff maybe they’d be more courteous. Maybe I’d be more courteous.
Given the task at hand, I felt empathy for Bernard and the work he
did. I assumed from here on out, Bernard and I would be saying
hello.
As Bernard walked away, a smell stung
my nose. I lifted the bottle he had given me to my face and
sniffed. Whatever the contents, it didn’t give off an odor. Then it
dawned on me. The smell was the same one I had sensed up on the
Crags when the Delmon party passed by; the scent of scorched air
mixed with something sweet.
Naturally, the smell brought Aaron
Delmon front and center in my mind. Geez, I begin to think, was
there no getting away from this guy? I laughed and spoke out
loud.
“Why would you want to?”
Let me tell you, there are very few
things more disgusting than cleaning lockers. Course I have never
cleaned toilets, at least public toilets. As I worked my way down
the locker row, removing gum, food, spittle, and what appeared to
be tobacco chew, I made a point of promising myself I would not do
anything to receive detention, whereby I would have to clean
toilets.
Thirteen or so into the locker row, I
sensed the scorch air smell again, only stronger with a mixture of
new smelling sweat only a male could have produced. I jumped ahead
two lockers and found the source.
Locker
813 , I read.
Most of the lockers were
either empty or contained a few books and loose papers. Nothing of
value I could see, hence, I figured, Bernard’s ease with leaving me
alone in the hall with all the goodies. Besides, where would I
run?
This particular locker’s décor
appeared unusual, not only because it contained the source of the
smell, but it remained free of graffiti, gum, or anything of
offensive substance. I wondered if the derelicts of the school were
afraid of the boy who used this locker and, if so, why?
There wasn’t a need for me to clean
locker 813 at all, but I hovered, pretending to spray and wipe down
the door should Mr. Bernard appear. At the same time I poked around
at the contents of the locker, which contained a sweatshirt (where
the smell originated) and, like many of the other lockers, books
associated with our classes. The loose-leaf notebook somehow made
it into my hands. I looked up and down the hall with the full
expectation of being caught in the act of espionage. I imagined
toilet cleaning would be one of the punishments, but I inhaled a
breath and chanced it anyway.
I opened the binder and, written in
block letters, I saw the name AARON DELMON. The lettering could
have been stamped, it was scribed so perfect. Yet I could see