by Thom Jones
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 di
atribe, 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 th
e 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.