Silhouettes

WINDOW FELL FOR Catherine his senior year in high school when both were given special education assignments in East High School’s laundry room. The job didn’t pay much but it gave them a little spending money, which Catherine spent buying Marlboro cigarettes, Thunderbird wine, candy bars, blotter acid, and marijuana, and which Window spent on Catherine.

Their boss, Meldrick, immediately saw potential in Window but found Catherine useless and had her transferred to lunch room duty. Meldrick was the custodian in charge of the washer, dryer, and the centrifugal extractor in the laundry room, a comfortable hideaway attached to the boiler room where he could sit and read while his bunch of “special ed” assistants washed and folded the P.E. towels. Meldrick expected little from the students but because there were so many, if they performed even minimally, most of his own work was done. When this was the case he permitted the students to clown around and indulge in a kind of Fagin’s Band brand of tomfoolery. Their antics were a welcome reprieve after a forty-five-minute dose of Spinoza or David Hume. Sometimes Meldrick would join in the fun and perform a rendition of “Hambone” by rhythmically slapping his chest and thighs with his palms and fingertips, and then when he was finished, he would imitate Ricky Ricardo from “I Love Lucy” and say, “Eet’s so ree-diculous!”

A journeyman custodian, Meldrick owned the most advanced college degrees in the school and was working diligently on his doctorate although he was convinced he would never find a better job. This was especially true when he discovered Window, whose capacity for work amazed him. Window was trustworthy and responsible, so much so that Meldrick found that he could hand Window his keys and turn him loose in the shop area where he would do an A-number-one job without screwing up, so that all Meldrick had to do was a casual inspection afterward to make sure the paper towel dispensers were full, the glass was spotless, the floors properly mopped, and that all the lights were out and the doors were locked. On days when Window was focused and his powers of concentration were high, Meldrick didn’t even bother to check.

Meldrick’s penchant for investigating the riddle of existence caused the other janitors to avoid him, and Meldrick found little in common with anyone on the faculty, with their state university degrees, who would get a glazed-over look in their eyes when he wanted to expound on some philosopher who obsessed him. Meldrick sometimes thought he was the only person at the school, perhaps the only regular job-holder in the whole country, with the leisure to read philosophy, and thanks to Window he had an abundance of time. Moreover, it was only with Window that he felt completely at ease, with whom he could talk and simply be himself—Window, who didn’t have a very high-priced vocabulary but who would patiently watch while Meldrick took him into a classroom and illustrated concepts like “nihilism” or “existentialism” on the chalkboard and explained to Window how they were relevant to his own situation, including those times when Window was lovesick over Catherine and would zone out so badly that Meldrick actually had to clean the shops himself or even dump the filthy cloth bag of his “Pig,” a noisy but durable commercial vacuum cleaner. Thus Meldrick attempted to instruct Window on such topics as love between the sexes and other practical matters taking an airy, detached, and theoretical view that made the problems of life seem simple and resolvable. Meldrick could get on a kick and rave for an hour until Window would practically topple over like a chicken that had been hypnotized by having its beak placed on a line scratched in the dirt.

Although Meldrick repeatedly warned Window about Catherine, who was notorious at East High for her temper tantrums and sexual escapades, once she let Window have sex with her, Window was deaf to all advice. Like Odysseus, he had heard the “lovely tones” from the Siren’s isle and had lost all sense of reason.

Meldrick became exasperated. “I talk to you until I am blue in the face. You just won’t listen. What’s the matter with you, huh? Hello dere, is anybody home?”

“I’m home, Meldrick.”

“Why, mercy, Window. I thought you were lost in space.”

“No, Meldrick. Window’s on earth today.”

“Then perhaps we can work the conundrum through. Perhaps we can slash the Gordian knot. Let’s try something new. Listen closely, Window, this is serious. As I count forward from one to seven, you will become more and more relaxed. I want you to picture yourself walking down a set of stairs, and with each step you will find yourself going deeper and deeper into relaxation. One…two…three…(you are becoming more and more relaxed). Please wipe that shit-eating grin off your face, Window—four…five…six…seven. There! You are now in touch with the Higher Power, that part of you which knows all. What does it say?”

Window began to guffaw. “I know, I know, Meldrick. Leave the bitch alone!”

“You’ve got it, pal. Keep clear from that woman. Man, she’s bad. She’s gonna drive you crazy.”

“I steer clear.”

“You promise?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, now as I count back from seven to one, you will emerge from the dank basement of your subconscious mind and step into the glorious sunshine of life unbound from the snarls and tangles of that evil black magic web the nasty spider has ensnared you with. Seven…six…five—stop smiling, Window! Four…three…two…one—bingo. How do you feel, Window?”

“I have pain in my head.”

“Ooh, this is so ree-diculous!” Meldrick said. “Take two aspirin and I’ll see you tomorrow. You can go.”

  

Meldrick liked to sit in the laundry room with a cup of coffee and a thick book, listening to the comforting sound of the dryer while Window managed all of his jobs. Window had a bubble butt and short feet, and when he ran back and forth into the laundry room to get supplies with short mincing steps, Meldrick was reminded of Kirby Puckett legging out a triple for the Minnesota Twins and would have to chuckle. He knew Window was hustling so that he would have time to find Catherine and steal a kiss or two from his beloved, the love of his life. Meldrick was aware of these shenanigans but ignored them as long as Window performed.

Catherine did not especially like Window. She was still pining over a guy who knocked her up her junior year and then moved off to Spokane, leaving her and her parents to cope with the abortion. She did not like Window because he was such a square and because he had ambitions of graduating from high school and becoming a full-time custodian. But Catherine’s parents liked Window and encouraged his visits to their trailer home out on the Hoquiam Indian Reservation even if he was a blue-eyed, fair-skinned ultra-white boy. Window was so white he was almost translucent—you could almost see through him, thus the nickname. His real name was Albert Thomas. Albert Thomas or Window—it didn’t matter to Catherine’s parents—he was a “prospect” and they felt he would calm Catherine down. She had a wild streak in her and she needed taming. Maybe, even, Window would be their savior and marry Catherine. For this reason they looked the other way when Catherine took Window into her room, where the two lovers soon had the whole trailer rocking like a small boat on the high seas. It was almost impossible to watch television, especially during the sexual climaxes, but the parents quickly accommodated themselves to these sessions and even laughed about them.

Meldrick and the other custodians at East High continued to dissuade Window from seeing Catherine and told him outright that she was no good. Josie, the matron, who had to break up the cat-fights the female students got into at lunch or attend to Catherine during her pseudo-epileptic fits, did not warn Window so much as she told Meldrick to use his limited powers over Window to destroy the relationship. It was a shame, she said, because Window was such a good kid and Catherine was nothing but trouble, upside and down, but Meldrick would protest weakly, “It’s the metaphysics of the sexes—my hands are tied. Every time the bitch comes around, his eyes turn into two stars.”

Packard, a graveyard-shift custodian, confronted Window one morning when, after he went out to turn off the alarms in the greenhouse, he caught Catherine and the school’s worst troublemaker screwing shamelessly in the bushes. “You want to know who she was fucking, dipstick? She was fucking Centrick Cline; need I say more? That bitch is insane, Window, and she’s taking you for a ride. She’s hustling you, man!”

When Meldrick came in on swing shift and heard of the incident, he became genuinely angry and harangued Window in the laundry room until Window blushed red. Seeing that he was getting through, Meldrick amplified his argument with the exaggerated body posturing of a courtroom lawyer and threatened to fire Window. It was just play-acting, but Meldrick got so carried away that all Window could do was let his head slump forward and say, “I know. I know. She’s no good.” Window worked an extra hour on his own time that night and before he left he came up to Meldrick and apologized for letting him down.

“You dope, you say that shit but you don’t mean it. You’re crazy, man. That bitch is going to bring you down.” Meldrick’s censure caused Window to writhe in agony. “Dammit, Window, you’re breaking my heart with this shit. I go out of my way to help you, I try to be your friend and look what you do to me. Why don’t you just drink a bottle of Drano and get it over with? I can’t stand watching you go through this bullshit.”

“That’s right,” Josie said. “She’s a whore. Keep away from her. Tell him, Meldrick.”

“I’m telling him, dammit, but it isn’t sinking in. Window, you’re completely out of control. We’re your friends: listen! What’s the matter with you, anyhow? You aren’t dumb. Quit giving me dumb. I’m sick of that fucking act. Use your head.”

  

In the ensuing weeks Meldrick browbeat Window into agreeing to stay away from Catherine, and for a time Window avoided her. This was a source of consternation for Catherine since she thought she had Window in her pocket, and when he stopped calling or avoided her at school, a strange kind of emptiness welled up in her and she began to tell her friends that she was in love with Window and was carrying his baby.

Window then came to Meldrick and reported that he “had” to marry Catherine, and rather than scream a diatribe, Meldrick shook his head in resignation and said, “Well, if you really love her, go ahead and do it. My good thing is over. I knew it was too good to be true. I’m going to have to fucking work for a change.”

Window asked Meldrick to be his best man after Window’s special ed buddy, Paul Palmer, who was slated for this honor, had an epileptic seizure in his bed and suffocated facedown in his pillow. Meldrick refused to be a party to the wedding. In the meantime, Catherine and Window pressed forward and made plans.

In the first part of June, a few weeks before school was out, the librarians went into one of the custodian closets to get a two-wheeled cart and there they found the custodian Mancini, a known alcoholic, passed out on the floor with an alarm clock ticking by his ear and a six-pack of Olympia beer at his side. Mancini, in a full-length beard and filthy flannel shirt, lay on the floor with one shoe missing. He was breathing erratically and the frightened librarians summoned the head custodian, who got the principal. The principal was unable to rouse Mancini, but he had seen enough drunks to know that Mancini would revive and merely wrote a note—“You’re fired!”—dated it, signed it, and taped it to the six-pack. Meldrick waited a few days and then made a pitch to the principal that Window, a product of the school’s special education program, was a good worker—reliable, cheerful, and an excellent candidate for the job. The principal heard him out and then said that Window was too young. Meldrick said, “He’s nineteen. What good is the vocational program if it can’t get its graduates jobs?”

This was a telling point, and the principal told Meldrick to have Window submit an application and said that he would consider it. While Window cleaned Meldrick’s area that night, Meldrick went into the business area and typed out the application forms including a short essay, written in the style of Window’s speech, and after Window read and signed the forms, Meldrick neatly folded them and stuck them in the principal’s box.

Window was interviewed a week later and hired to replace Mancini. Catherine’s parents were ecstatic over the news and threw an impromptu party for Window out on the reservation. The school district paid well and had an excellent health and retirement program. They encouraged Window even when Catherine lost the baby. That summer when all of the custodians reverted to day shift, Meldrick, Packard, and Josie gang-banged Window, launching a new assault against Catherine, and Catherine, relieved over the miscarriage, lost interest in Window, called him boring, and flung his ring in his face.

Catherine refused to see Window and in a matter of ten days, Window, who apart from his fat ass verged on slender, lost twelve pounds and began to look like a concentration camp victim. At work he seemed distracted, and when the custodians took their frequent breaks, Window dozed off at the table.

Ted Frank Page, the gymnasium custodian, would laugh as Window’s mouth fell open. “He’s doing an ‘O,’ ” Page would say, or if Window exposed his tongue, however slightly, Page would slap the table and proclaim that Window was doing a “Q.” The custodians would roar with laughter and Window, who was painfully shy, would jerk awake and blush like a beet. Sometimes he would bolt away from the table and disappear for hours. Although the janitors were familiar with all of the hiding spots, no one could find Window when he was off somewhere nursing his hurt. There was speculation that he went up on the roof to do this and most of them were too lazy and out of shape to climb the iron-rung ladder that led to the roof. Generally Window would later turn up in Meldrick’s area to see if he had been missed, and just as Meldrick could berate Window, at these times he would calm Window by painting pictures of a new and better life—Thunderbirds and motorcycles, a healthier body through a better diet and physical training, sharp clothes, braces to straighten his teeth, Window’s very own apartment, and the ultimate prize—a beautiful wife. Soon Window would forget all about Catherine and spin out his fantasies about Whitney Houston or Paula Abdul, singers that Meldrick was barely familiar with. Meldrick cautioned Window to be realistic but he did not entirely discount the possibility. “You’re a really neat guy, Window. Who knows. Play your cards right and maybe it will happen, dude. You know the universe is filled with abundance. Sometimes all you got to do is ask.”

With his full-time paychecks Window bought the old Citroën behind the autoshop, and the autoshop teacher, who was teaching a summer school course, got it running for him. The janitors kidded Window about the Citroën, which looked like a flying saucer, and Ted Frank Page said, “Well, how else do you expect him to get back and forth from the Planet Fringus except in some sort of a spacecraft?”

The head custodian laughed and said, “I guess you can’t drive there in a Ford?” He belly-bumped the table with his big stomach and tossed his head back to laugh. “I can’t believe this place.”

  

Late that summer, Window seduced Catherine with presents and protestations of love. Stewing in boredom out on the reservation, Catherine had really begun to hate her parents, especially her father, who drew disability pay because of a bad back and nagged Catherine to wait on him. Catherine often came over to East High with her friend Lutetia, a fat girl who always walked behind her rather than at her side. The janitors were curious about this, but Lutetia was also a product of the special education program and that seemed to explain just about any eccentricity. The purpose of Catherine’s visits to the high school was almost always money, and if Window did not have any, Catherine would clutch her fists at her sides, scrunch down in a rage, and scream at Window through clenched teeth. Window would turn red and hang his head submissively and try to appease her. “Please, Catherine, relax or you’ll have a seizure.”

“If I have a goddamn seizure, it will be your stupid fault, Window. You fucking asshole. You son of a bitch. You motherfucking cocksucker. I hate you!”

These scenes caused Packard and Meldrick to renew their efforts to destroy the relationship, and while Window agreed that Catherine was too wild for him, he also became stubborn. He was stubborn because he had a full-time job and was flush with money (his janitor’s pay was a relative fortune for a nineteen-year-old) and Window didn’t really care at times what Meldrick thought. Meldrick suspected there was more to it than this and one afternoon up in the library he used his guile to extract a confession from Window that Catherine was pregnant again. Window said that he knew for sure that it was his baby. He told Meldrick that he loved her and once they got their own place and she was away from the firecracker tension of her parents’ trailer, where her dad was often drunk, everything would be fine.

In the meantime, the head custodian warned Window that he was sick of Catherine coming over to the school, sick of her rages, and told him to keep his personal life separate from his professional life. After the head man left the custodian’s room, Meldrick gave Window an ironic look and said, “He’s right, Window. This special ed shit has got to stop. You’re a janitor now. Act like a professional.”

  

Shortly after the birth of his son, Joey, Window began to gain weight. Meldrick accused Window of seeking substitute gratification, but Window refused to acknowledge any problems between himself and Catherine. After the swing shift was over, however, rather than rush home to be with his bride, Window liked to play volleyball with the custodians in the gym. Ted Frank Page organized these games and came in early to play before his graveyard shift started. Meldrick and Page hit the weight room after the games and encouraged Window to lift weights and take better care of his body. In the weight room Window finally confessed that Catherine refused absolutely to have sex with him after the birth of their son, that she had run up a shitload of credit-card charges and that he was forced to have his brother, Roy, move into their apartment in order to help pay the bills.

Although Roy was Window’s brother, and also a product of East High’s special education program, he was tall and good looking. He had better teeth than Window. Ted Frank Page teased Window that while Window was busting his ass on the swing shift, Roy was home dicking Catherine. That was the reason she wouldn’t sleep with Window. One night at the dinner break after Meldrick and Window dined on Meldrick’s “macrobiotic special”—a combination of brown rice, black beans, and raisins—Meldrick went into one of his classrooms and found Window watching television as he ate from a half-gallon carton of Neapolitan ice cream into which he had stirred a pound of M&M’s. A six-pack of iced cappuccino was at his side. “Aha, caught you!” Meldrick said as he assumed his district attorney posture. “Have you gone totally insane?”

Window gave Meldrick a startled look and then looked down at his bowl of ice cream and began to guffaw.

“You’re completely out of control,” Meldrick said, parroting the vice-principal. “Something has got to be done. We’re looking at six thousand calories here.” Meldrick shook his head and told Window he was going to take a nap in the library workroom. “Make sure I’m awake by ten, okay? I need a nappy-poo. My yin-yang is all out of whack.”

“Get your beauty rest, Meldrick, I’ll wake you up at ten.”

“Come in whistling, so I know it’s you. I almost got caught last night. Ray’s been sneaking around. I think he’s keeping a journal. He thinks he’s in the KGB or something.”

  

A few days later, an exotic package arrived from Marseilles, France, addressed to Window. The package aroused the curiosity of the office staff and for a solid day caused much speculation among them. Even the administrators were intrigued by it, until Window showed up at two P.M., opened the mysterious box, and revealed a rebuilt starter for his Citroën, which had sat in the back parking lot with a flat tire all summer. Meldrick and Ted Frank Page installed the starter that evening, but the Citroën was soon abandoned in the back parking lot again when the radiator overheated and blew. Window did not have the money to have it rebuilt.

Meldrick gave Window a lecture about blowing all of his money on junk food, porno flicks, and pornographic magazines. “Are you oversexed or what?” Meldrick said. “I know you’re nineteen but you are really driving this into the ground. The librarians found one of your porno magazines in their workroom and it totally grossed them out. Ray told them a student left it and covered your ass, but use your head, dammit. Think.”

One evening Window sought out Meldrick and, much alarmed, told him that Catherine had paged him at work and said she was going to have another baby in two weeks. Window asked Meldrick how it could be possible since he hadn’t slept with her in over a year. “She says I did once when we got drunk and that I don’t remember, but she lies.”

Meldrick said, “Page is right, Roy is dicking her. Geez! Your own brother! This is ridiculous!”

Meldrick immediately demanded to know how Catherine could be eight and a half months pregnant without Window’s knowing it. Window hung his head down and said, “She’s so fat, I couldn’t tell.”

Later, Window showed Meldrick phone bills to Catherine’s first love, the old boyfriend in Spokane. Meldrick asked Window if he might be the culprit, but Window was sure it was Roy. He remembered a night back in the fall when he was in the next-door apartment mediating a fight between the couple that lived there. “You see, Johnny hit Karen on the back of the head with a frying pan and they were crashing furniture. I told them fighting wasn’t the answer and that they should talk things out. Karen said, ‘What I hear you saying, Johnny, is that Another World is dumb, that Carl Hutchins is a skinny-ass, short crotch with a greasy ponytail and that I’ve got a TV crush on him, but I—’ ”

Meldrick said, “Window, I don’t want to hear a fucking soap opera plot!”

“Okay, okay, but listen to this—when they calmed down I went back home and the shade was down and I saw their shadows. Catherine and Roy were on the couch, kissing. He had her bra off. I could see her big hard tits through the shade.”

“He saw silhouettes,” Meldrick told Ted Frank Page that night at volleyball. “Silhouettes on the shade—” Everyone fell silent at this declaration, and Meldrick’s words continued to resonate through the unusual acoustics of the gym.

Finally Ted Frank Page said, “Window, why didn’t you go in and kick ass?”

Window began to strut around the basketball court with his fists on his hips and his bubble butt high. “There’s this loose rock in the yard. I’m always tripping on it in the night. I’m so mad at Roy and Catherine, I tried to dig up the rock with my fingers until I’m breaking my fingernails and chipped my tooth.”

“He was biting the rock,” Meldrick said. “It’s solid granite. I’ve seen that rock.”

“It kept wobbling in the ground like it would come out easy but I can’t get it out until I get the jack handle out of my trunk and dig it up—”

“How big?” Page said. “What did you do?”

“Plenty big,” Window said. “A bowling ball, only heavier. I ran up to the window and threw the fucker in—Boom!” Window took his janitor keys from his belt and heaved them against the glass blackboard at the far end of the gym. Then he kicked a number of volleyballs so hard they cracked ceiling tiles. The janitors waited for Window to finish with his tantrum.

“Well, what did they do, Window? What did Catherine and Roy do? What the fuck happened?” Page asked.

“He ran and hid in the bushes,” Meldrick said.

“You didn’t go inside and kick ass?” Page asked. “Jesus, Window.”

“I was afraid I would get arrested. Catherine called the cops. I stayed in the bushes until the police officers left. Then I went back to Johnny and Karen’s and had beer—”

“Eventually you went home. What did you say?” Page said.

“I didn’t say anything. Catherine said some crazy person chunked a boulder in the window. A dope fiend or some nut who escaped from Eastern State Hospital.”

“And you didn’t kick ass?” Page asked.

“I puked up the beer in the toilet,” Window said.

“He was upset,” Meldrick said. “And he can’t argue with this manipulative and domineering woman. She’s trying to sell him a story that he knocked her up when he was drunk one night. And half the time she’s going around with Roy’s hickeys on her neck. Mercy me! I fear this is not the idyllic dream of connubial bliss Window had envisioned.”

Ted Frank Page stood in the center of the gym bouncing a volleyball. “Ha, ha, ha, fucking Meldrick! ‘Connubial bliss.’ Where did you come up with that shit? ‘Connubial bliss.’ Ah, ha, ha—fuck!”

Meldrick turned serious. “Think, Window. You know for certain that you did not sleep with your wife for at least nine months?”

Window looked up, his eyes wide. “I don’t think so,” he said. “I’m pretty sure.”

“Then get a blood test when the kid is born. Divorce the bitch—”

  

Window could not sleep or eat and rushed through his area every night so that he could go upstairs and help Meldrick, so that Meldrick, in his gratitude, would offer him psychological consolation. Meldrick was the only custodian who didn’t dismiss him with an “I told you so.”

“I know it’s Roy’s baby, it looks just like him,” Window said. “It’s got his Bugs Bunny nose—”

“Window, think. When was the last time you slept with Catherine? Are you sure there is no possibility?”

“It can’t be mine, Meldrick. I just know it. Can we ask the I Ching?”

Meldrick took Window into the library and got the I Ching from the shelves. The two custodians went into the librarian’s office and while Window tossed the coins, Meldrick wrote down the resulting hexagram—Number 29.

“What does it mean?” Window said.

“Bad. It means bad,” Meldrick said.

“Meldrick,” Window said with some hope, “can you ask it if I’m going to win the lottery?”

“Window. Geez! Are you still pissing your money away on lottery tickets? What’s the fucking use? You won’t listen. This is futile, pure and simple futile.”

  

Catherine initiated divorce proceedings against Window and got everything except for the useless Citroën. The court ordered Window to pay six hundred dollars a month in child support and after his lawyer’s monthly payment, the credit-card charges and room and board at his parents’ home, Window was left with a pathetic seventy dollars for pin money. He walked six miles to work and six miles home again. Ted Frank Page liked to take out a pencil and paper at the janitor’s table and calculate how much Roy’s baby would ultimately cost Window…a figure well over sixty thousand dollars. “You could have gone to that ranch in Las Vegas and got some good pussy for that kind of money, Window.”

Josie sat down with Window one afternoon and tried to calculate a way to pay off his outstanding bills and save enough money to initiate a blood test to determine the father of Catherine’s second baby.

“My dad said the test won’t work on two brothers.”

“They’ve got a new test. It will work, believe me,” Josie said.

Whenever Window mentioned the possibility of going to a lawyer to get a court order for DNA testing, Catherine clenched her fists, scrunched down, and flew into a rage.

“You see,” Meldrick said, “if she wasn’t worried, she’d just laugh in your face and call you a fool. She’s guilty as hell, and she’s scared.”

Yet no matter how Josie figured it, there was no way Window could come up with the two thousand dollars for legal and medical fees necessary for the blood test. “Can’t your parents loan you the money?” Josie asked.

“They said I’m on my own,” Window said. “I think they are—you know—embarrassed—”

“Because of what your brother did. It really is low. They ought to be embarrassed.”

“That’s fucking special ed for you,” Ted Frank Page said.

“We told you not to marry the bitch,” Meldrick said, puffing on a cigarillo in the janitor’s room.

“Think,” Page said, “of all the high-class pussy you could have had for all that bread you’re laying out. What an idiot!”

“Window,” Josie said, “the next time you want a date, go to church and meet a girl there. A girl with virtue.”

Window took to blowing his seventy dollars cash the first day he got it each month. Invariably he spent the money on pornography and junk food. While his mother provided Window with board, she did not supply junk food, so Window used his key to the student store and began to raid the candy supplies until the diversified occupations teacher had the lock changed. Then Window began taking the cook’s key to the freezer and started stealing student pizzas. One day, when he went for the key in the top drawer of the cook’s desk, he found that it was gone. “They’re on to you,” Packard said. “Don’t admit anything. If you get called in, deny it.”

“If I get called in?” Window said with real fear in his voice.

“Yeah, if you get called in and they grill you—lie, motherfucker.”

“Called in?” Window said. “Into the office?”

“I don’t know why in the fuck you are worried,” Ted Frank Page said. “You are the motherfucker who’s busting ass and—hey! who is collecting? I’ll tell you, it’s that fat-ass ex-wife and your brother, taking your money, welfare, and all the rest of it. If I was you, I’d hop in that Citroën and fly off to Fringus, go back among your own kind. If they fired you they would be doing you a favor.”

“He’s right, Window,” Meldrick said. “You are a noble spirit, an innocent—a pure soul and much too good for this pitiless brutal planet. You deserve a better fate than this.”

  

The vice-principal began to write Window up for tiny infractions. Once Window left his vacuum cleaner in the band room and the band instructor complained to the office. “The next time it happens,” the vice-principal said jauntily, displaying his palm with a flourish, “probation.”

On another occasion Window forgot there was a senior parents’ meeting and took a shortcut to the Coke machine, bursting into the conference room in a T-shirt with his Walkman blasting Fine Young Cannibals. The vice-principal wrote him up for not wearing his custodian’s shirt and for listening to a headset, a safety hazard. Window finally made probation when another custodian claimed Window used his mop and bucket and left it dirty in the janitor’s closet. It was not a major crime, but there had been an accumulation of misdemeanors.

Window put his nose to the grindstone for six months, but two weeks after the probation was officially lifted, he left the vacuum cleaner in the band room again. “If you do this once more,” the vice-principal said, “you will be fired.”

Window received an unexpected windfall on his income tax return—eleven hundred dollars. Josie immediately made an appointment with Window’s attorney only to learn that the cost of the blood test had gone up substantially. Window was so upset he frittered away the money and then he left his vacuum cleaner in the band room for the third time. When the vice-principal read the union contract and learned that he could not fire Window for this offense, he instructed the head custodian to give Window more area to clean and to ride him, but the head custodian only paid lip service to the order. For one thing, Window never gave him any guff and for another, Ted Frank Page, who was bench-pressing over three hundred and fifty pounds, physically threatened the head custodian. It was not entirely for Window’s sake. Ted Frank Page learned that the head custodian had been bad-mouthing Page for laziness and like everything that was said at the janitors’ table, it worked its way around the grapevine in less than a day.

When a clutch cable for Window’s Citroën arrived from the auto supply house in Marseilles, a note went up on the custodians’ bulletin board stating that no custodian was to receive personal mail at the school.

Meldrick and Ted Frank Page installed the clutch cable and the auto instructor boiled out the radiator on the Citroën, but scarcely two weeks after it was running, the clutch cable snapped. It had been installed backwards and the Citroën sat in its accustomed home in the back parking lot for three more months until another cable was dispatched from Marseilles, France.

Window learned to consult the I Ching on his own and spent hours in the library asking it questions. Ray, the custodian who worked the special education area, asked Meldrick what Window was doing. Mystified, Ray hid by the library door and watched. “He shakes pennies in his hand and then tosses them down on the desk and writes something down and then he looks something up in a book. What is he doing?”

“It’s beyond comprehension,” Meldrick said. “Don’t even attempt an understanding.”

Meldrick and Packard installed the second clutch cable on the Citroën in the correct fashion and a week after it was running, Window came into the school clutching a check for five thousand dollars. A car collector spotted the Citroën and had given Window a check on the spot. The head custodian called the buyer a fool while Ted Frank Page insisted that Window could have gotten three times that amount. Before Window could cash the check, Josie called his lawyer and then personally drove him to the bank and then to the law office where the blood test was paid for—in full, in advance.

Catherine came by the school and had a tantrum. She had court papers in her hand directing her to submit to blood tests. She screamed at Window and told him that the welfare lawyer told her Window wasn’t going to get to first base since the blood tests were a “cruel invasion” and that she had recently become a Jehovah’s Witness and would not, under any circumstances, spill a drop of her own blood.

“Is that how you act,” Ted Frank Page said, “when you get religion, cursing and having tantrums?” Catherine stalked out of the building with her friend Lutetia trailing after her.

“Yeah,” Window said, puffing up, “you should wash your mouth out with soap.”

The blood tests proved conclusively that Window’s brother, Roy, was the father of Catherine’s second child and Window’s lawyer got the double child-support payment lifted from Window’s check. Because of the rise in income, welfare immediately seized a larger payment for Window’s uncontested son.

The custodian who had Window written up for using his mop bucket sneered, “All that fucking rigmarole to save a hundred bucks a month. That’s what you get for listening to that asshole, Meldrick,” he said.

For his part, Meldrick consoled Window by telling him that life wasn’t fair.

Josie placed a call to Window’s attorney and asked if the brother would have to pay the child support retroactively. The attorney said Roy would have to make the retroactive payments but that Window would not receive any of the money. “So you mean welfare is collecting twice?”

“Yes, we could appeal, but I would advise against it. It’s going to cost a lot of dough.”

Window used the balance of his Citroën money to pay off his debts and buy new clothes. Ted Frank Page, always appalled by Window’s taste, found the new clothes especially bad. “Fucking special ed. Don’t fucking buy clothes, Window, unless you take me along. Where did you get that shit?”

“At D&R’s. What’s the matter with these clothes? My ma says they look snazzy.”

“Your mother came from the old country, Window. You look like you just hopped off the boat yourself. The Neon Boat.”

“Don’t talk to me like that,” Window said sharply.

“Well, fuck you,” Ted Frank Page said.

“Hey,” Meldrick said, “it’s his money, his clothes.”

“So how much did you save after all of this shit? Anything?” Page asked.

“In the long run, he saves fourteen thousand,” Josie said. “Next time you want a date, Window, go to church. Meet a nice girl. A girl with virtues.”

“I can’t go to the damn church without falling asleep,” Window said, “and all the church girls are ugly. Plus, Ted Frank Page, I didn’t do it for the money! I just wanted to know if the baby was mine. If it was mine, I pay gladly. Now in my heart I’m satisfied.” Window looked at Page squarely and Ted Frank Page returned the look.

“Well good for you, Window. I am sorry I said that. Please accept my humble apology.”

“And no more special ed jokes!” Window said.

“I’m going to shut my mouth,” Page said.

The head custodian said, “Window has become a man. He’s making inroads. Now let’s go scrub that lower hall.” It was Christmas break and the custodians were all working the day shift. The school was quiet and they had taken an hour-long break, which was now becoming oppressively long.

Window said, “I’m tired of being the mop jockey.”

“Window runs the scrubber,” Page said. “I’ll sling the mops.”

The custodial crew set out the yellow caution signs in the lower hallway and without a word, each picked out a task. One laid down the stripper solution. Another took the doodlebug and began edging the sides of the hall. Yet another set up the wet vac while Window plugged in the scrubber, looked to his left and right to see that everyone was in position and then squeezed the power trigger. The black stripping pad was dry, causing the scrubber to lurch violently for a few seconds. Window had to muscle the big machine until it picked up enough water and then began to sing as it glided effortlessly over the scuffed tile. When Ray turned on a country/western station on the radio, Window said, “Turn off that hillbilly shit and play some rock and roll.” As the designated operator of the scrubber, Window had that right since at East High, the designated operator of the scrubber was janitor king of the day.