Trapped with a Way Out

by Jeffery Martinez

  Rodriguez grinned and ate another bite while William growled at her plate, frowning at the smiley faces.

  "You guys are horrible. Ruining my pancakes with your…twisted little minds. And shut up, Andy-Alex. Next time I'm not making either of you pancakes."

  Next time? That stuck in Vincent's mind, blocking out the siblings' voices as they commenced their familiar banter. The teen's eyes were picking out the details in his syrup coated pancakes while the sweet taste was remembered by his tongue, as well as the fluffy texture… "They're good pancakes."

  The sudden statement broke through the others' argument, quieting the table as footsteps drew nearer. Vincent was eating his food with Rodriguez and William watching, when Richard claimed her place at the table. Her eyes shifted among her blonde headed children and then the black sheep Vincent stood out as, when put in the company of the blondes. They began eating, naturally, never noticing her attention. The woman began to eat as well.

  She did not look at anyone except her faceless pancakes as she carved into their flat features and readied to take a bite. "I expect you both to clean the house today…" There were groans and grumbles that rained down on the ruined happy faces, but the sullen children continued to eat and did not put their complaints into words. Richard received some sadistic pleasure from their misery, and it showed itself as a small smile on her lips. As she chewed, blue drifted towards Vincent who was concentrating on his pancakes. She returned her eyes to her food. "It would be helpful if you'd clean as well, Vincentimir. And since Leroy and William are each paid for their 'labor', you would also receive an…allowance that would make all of your trouble worthwhile."

  The clinking of active knives and forks ended as all eyes were focused on the woman that steadily returned Vincent's stare. Rodriguez might not have put his glasses on this morning, but, still, his mother's intentions were as clear as day to him. Vincent had pride. Pride that forced him to feel indebted to their family, owing them for the food and for letting him sleep in their home, and it was a pride that prevented Vincent from accepting donations. If he worked and was paid for his 'labor', while the Rodriguez children were also getting paid to work as well…then the money was not a donation. It was not pity…on the surface. The proposition could be interpreted three different ways: a) Richard was being entirely serious in her suggestion, and she was doing this because she needed another hand to get the job done b) It was an extension of familiarity, of welcome or acceptance into their family c) It was a poorly concealed attempt at helping Vincent make some money. Rodriguez knew that they didn't need help, though he wouldn't mind having Vincent contribute since it would allow them to finish faster and Rodriguez had better things to do with his vacation time. The teen wasn't convinced, after last night, that his mother was ready to take Vincent under her wing…completely. Vincent was a dangerous component that she was not entirely willing to add to her family quite yet.

  In Rodriguez's mind, as well as in William', two people who knew this woman better than most, believed this request was based off of pity, more than anything else.

  Vincent considered the woman's words as his eyes slowly descended to his plate. He would help out. He had no problem with that, but should he accept this 'allowance' Richard wanted to give him? As long as it was the same as what the other two got, he saw no problem in taking the money. But… "I'll help out if you want me too." Richard smiled and ate her breakfast quietly as she explained to her children that she would be going into work for most of the day, and then began to list off what needed to be cleaned, vacuumed, and dusted before she came home.

  "Especially you, Leroy, if you don't finish you aren't going anywhere today, no matter what plans you have with so-and-so. And, this goes for both of you, cell phones must be turned off and put in the kitchen cupboard until the house is clean. If you need to call me, make sure you use the house phone. I will be checking your phones just to make sure."

  Vincent was the only one who didn't have a problem with any of this. He didn't have a cell phone to miss anyway. So while the pancakes and syrup dulled in the mouths of the other teens, Vincent was able to thoroughly enjoy his pancakes.

  They were splitting up the work, gathered in the kitchen and debating the serious matters of fairness, sexism, and issues of morality. It seemed morally wrong to make Vincent clean any of the bathrooms, as he would then be assigned to clean something that he would probably not want to clean in his own home. Rodriguez and William would clean their own rooms, so it was fitting that Vincent would clean the upstairs guest room. William would clean the office while Rodriguez cleaned their parents' bedroom and the larger bathroom the siblings often shared. Vincent would be in charge of the downstairs guest room and dining room, as well as the sitting room where the piano was. Now the two blondes were fighting over who would clean the small upstairs bathroom next to 'Vincent's' guest room, who would clean the Master bedroom's bathroom, and who would clean the kitchen and the living room. Rodriguez wanted William to clean the bigger bathroom and the kitchen. William claimed that he was being sexist, and that having to clean the kitchen and the largest bathroom in the house was unfair. Rodriguez was convinced that it wasn't since he had often been traumatized during the holiday 'cleaning day' (day before Christmas Eve) when he had been forced to take out the trash in the siblings' shared bathroom and had come across feminine products he would rather not have seen. William called him a baby while Vincent tried to close his eyes and will away the horrible mental images of what Rodriguez had gone through. As he had his eyes closed he remembered the pool and asked who was going to clean that. Rodriguez muttered darkly. "I always do that. Now that's being sexist, but am I complaining? I clean the pool. You clean the kitchen."

  "Why do I have to clean the kitchen? You do it!" William snapped, slamming her palm on the counter. The two glared at each other, sparks cracking through the air.

  "No. It's your job. It's not like I'm telling you to make me a sandwich." Rodriguez scowled at the girl and she scowled back at him.

  "I'll clean the kitchen." Since I obviously don't have any problems with my masculinity, while the lady-bug fag over there does… Vincent was becoming impatient with the drawn out squabble as he leaned dully against the granite countertop, watching the two.

  The storm dissipated and an awkward calm settled over the kitchen as the siblings looked away from one another, glancing at Vincent and mumbling, 'That's not fair for you'. But the case was closed. The rooms were, for the most part, split between the three, and William went to a cabinet and pulled out some old rags while Rodriguez went to the doors beneath the sink and took out the Windex and other cleaning chemicals that they would be using. The last thing to be done in each room, Vincent was informed, was the vacuuming, since the dusting and everything else would make the floor dirty. William had departed to start on the Master bathroom, leaving Rodriguez and Vincent behind. The two were ascending the stairs as Rodriguez attempted to explain how Vincent was supposed to clean, what he was supposed to clean, and in what order.

  "I know how to clean, Rodriguez. My uncle's a clean-freak, so I was put to work cleaning the house when I was younger, too." The teen smirked, lifting up a bottle of Windex, handling it like a gun. "I know how to switch it from 'OFF' to 'SPRAY'."

  "Oh…yeah." Rodriguez stopped before the door to the bathroom, watching as Vincent walked towards the room he had slept in. Through the door, Rodriguez could see the blinds lift and he heard the Windex bottle spray its bluish contents onto the window that was skillfully cleaned away by a ratty cloth and a pale hand. When he thought about it, it made sense that Vincent would be good at cleaning, in an unpleasant kind of way. The boy had probably cleaned countless windows to earn a bit of money… Rodriguez watched as an arm came into view, observing the practiced motion. No. Rodriguez shook his head and turned to open the door to the bathroom, setting down everything he had carried upstairs, as a frowning face was reflected in the mirror that stretched across the wall. Vincent wouldn't be a janitor or some
thing like that when he grew up…even if he didn't go to college. Rodriguez could only see Vincent as either being the student he currently was, or as a pianist playing on a stage with an orchestra… As seconds of this 'movie' carried on, the scene degraded to a classy restaurant with Vincent wearing a suite and sitting at a piano, and then Vincent was not wearing a suite and he was playing for a less expensive looking-restaurant...and then Vincent was playing the piano, tutoring a kid…and then Vincent was playing an old looking piano by himself, and then Vincent wasn't doing playing…and there was no piano. He saw Vincent standing before a window, wiping up the Windex he had just sprayed on the glass. Rodriguez chose to ignore this picture as he dumped powder into the sink and left it there to sit and do its job while he went to the bathtub with a bottle and a sponge.

  Vincent was going to do something significant with his life, Rodriguez convinced himself. He was going to do something great. There was nothing stopping him.

  Vincent was berating himself for being distracted as he cleaned the window for a second time, having had to do so after remembering to dust the blinds. Now he was done and was moving on to swipe away the grey dust that was collected in the corners of the windowsill. This was fine. This was easy work that allowed one to choose to either focus their thoughts on their hands or on something else. It didn't require much concentration, but it was just enough movement and attention to detail that it was possible to whiten the mind and think of nothing while one worked. Vincent covered a bedpost in Pledge mist, enjoying the citrus scent as his rag gave the wood a pleasant sheen.

  This wasn't a strange custom, cleaning for the Christmas holidays. His uncle had showed him how to carefully empty the shelves and then dust off the grime that had gathered during three weeks of relative neglect. The only difference about holiday cleaning, were the standards that had to be met in order for something to be deemed acceptable by the man's sharp blue eyes.

  A bare finger was purposefully dragged across the back of a shelf, skimming the wall as it journeyed over the wood. Anticipating red eyes gazed at the gloved hand as the young Vincent held his breath and stopped his heart by pressing the cloth he had used for dusting, to his chest. The finger broke away from the shelf and was turned over for inspection. A streak of grey marked the side of the man's finger tip, pulling Walter's lips into a hard scowl that, when it was thrown to the boy, forced a hurried apology from the child.

  "I'm so sorry Uncle! I'll do it again! Please let me do it again! I'll do all of them again, just to make sure!"

  "Hmph." Walter's fingers snapped faintly as they dusted off the dirt. He said nothing as he left the shelves, moving towards the front door while Vincent dashed forward to find any other spots he had missed. "Don't be so lazy and careless, next time, boy." The voice from the door froze Vincent's joints, leaving him paralyzed with his arm stretched out over his head, reaching for a corner of a higher shelf. Walter had the door open and the crisp winter air drifted towards the boy, and then passed him by as it saw that it could do nothing more to chill the child. The blue eyes were colder than this seasonal breeze, and their absence left a thawing Spring in their wake, melting Vincent's joints so that he could command them once more.

  Those were nice memories, Vincent smiled as he worked on the headboard. It had always made him happy when his uncle said he did something well, or just nodded, acknowledging his satisfactory results. Vincent hadn't needed an 'allowance' or any form of reward. His uncle's word was law, and positive recognition from him was worth more than the Buddha's weight in gold. Warm memories brightened the black haired teen's face as he finished cleaning the guest room, aside from vacuuming which he planned to do later, and kept the corner's of his mouth tilted upwards as he walked down the stairs, noticing that Rodriguez was still hard at work in the bathroom while he was in the hall. His next destination was the dining room, since it was relatively simple to clean, and he knew where it was. The teen was stacking up the placemats as he moved about, clearing the table.

  Finished with the shelves, little Vincent positioned all of the trinkets back into their normal arrangement after dusting each one of them off. He turned around with a sigh and began the task of removing the placemats and anything else that was on his uncle's table. Vincent had never seen his uncle use the table to eat anything, but he had found his uncle reading a book under the lights that hung over the table, sitting in one of his many mismatched chairs.

  The chairs around the Rodriguezs' table, Vincent noticed as his hand polished the wood with the rag William had given him, were all uniform in design and color.

  Vincent had been in the middle of dusting the mismatched chairs that belonged to his uncle when the man came home. The man's eyes searched for the child, and found it kneeling beside a chair, watching him anxiously. Walter's finger tested each of the shelves while the red eyes followed him. No dust was discovered. Once this was done, Walter gave a nod to the boy and moved to enter the kitchen, but was sidetracked when he glimpsed the boy's thrilled response. Vincent gave a weak gasp and beamed at the man, before quickly hiding the smile in the gloom hanging over his work space, within the shadow of the table. The boy was ignorant of the prolonged presence of the man as Walter watched the white hands enthusiastically perform their cleaning duties. The man went to his kitchen and pondered, for a fleeting moment, whether or not he should give the boy a frozen strawberry for his efforts. But he decided against doing so. If he gave the boy a strawberry once, the child would demand, or at least expect, to get one every time he did his chores. So, Walter never did give Vincent a strawberry, through the years, but he gifted him with many a satisfied nod.

  "Uncle?"

  Walter looked at the doorway that presented him with a view of the front door and the divider that separated it from the space that contained the table with his many mismatched chairs. He would not answer unless the boy came to him to speak while looking him in the eye. It was a matter of respect and disciplined action that would keep the boy submissive to the man as Walter grew older and was obviously not as strong as a younger man in his prime. Walter C. Dornez planned to never allow Vincent to look down on him, even if the child outgrew his six-foot one stature. That was the case for everyone else, as well. No one, including Jake and his father, ever noticed that Walter was not an exceptionally tall man, or that they had to look down in order to speak to him. They were always looking up.

  Vincent scrambled out from behind the divider and went to the kitchen to speak to his uncle properly. Excited curiosity had forced him to speak before he had intended to, so he spoke again, peering up at the blue eyes. "Uncle?" The gaze told him to continue. "Why are all of your chairs so different? I like them all, but why aren't any of them the same?"

  The man blinked, laying his hand on the counter as he considered the boy and his question. Confessing that the furniture had been jacked from several different houses might not be appropriate, because of the child's age. But then again, Vincentimir was eleven, already enrolled in sixth grade. He was old enough to know how to keep his mouth shut. And if he wasn't, Walter would have to train the boy eventually, anyway. "They come from different places."

  Vincent was wearing an 'Oh' expression as he looked up at the man, taking a breath while his little mind digested the explanation. It made sense. The child smiled. "Which one is your favorite, Uncle? I like the black one with the little trees and leaves carved on the back part."

  No thoughts were wasted on the man's answer as he frowned at Vincent and returned his hand to his side. "I don't have favorites, Vincentimir. I like them all the same. Now finish your chores so you can eat something tonight."

  Vincent ran back to the table and disappeared behind the divider while the frown followed him and lingered in his direction.

  The teen now knew that the chairs had been illegally acquired by his uncle, but the knowledge didn't bother him while he worked on a tall cabinet with prettily decorated glass, detailed with a large white flower with a vine-like stem and wide leaves. He realized
that his rag was damp, through and through, and that it wasn't cleaning as well as it should because of the amount of Windex and dirt it had collected. When Vincent examined his dusting rag, it was also caked with dirt. As were William' instructions, Vincent returned to the kitchen to place his damp rag on the counter, starting the 'dirty pile', and he stuffed a clean rag into his pocket. His dusting rag was beaten clean over the sink, to limit the number of rags that would have to be loaded into the washing machine later, and then the teen returned to the glass doors of the cabinet. Painted dishes and figurines, similar to the glass one his uncle owned, were on display on the shelves. Vincent cleaned them off before setting them on the table so he could dust the individual shelves. A few Christmas decorations amongst the figurines called forth the spirit of the holiday and it played with the boy's mind as he worked.

  It was cold and the breath trailing from the people walking on the sidewalk, condensed into a misty steam as it left their lips. Vincent was warming his hands in his pockets as his eyes wandered over the various display windows they were passing. Some contained trees surrounded by wrapped boxes, decorated with magnificent bows. Others showed off seasonal merchandise, arranged in a blanket of snow. Vincent knew that the snow was fake, that the trees were plastic, and that the presents were empty, but the Christmas music that pervaded every child's mind as it poured from the open doors, made the displays seem like they were real, for a heart-throbbing moment. Christmas was full of magic.

  Little Vincent blew out a cloud of steam as his face directed his gaze to his uncle who was walking before the boy, alongside Jake's father. Jake was busy, so he wasn't present at the moment and Vincent was just a tad bit lonely as he trailed the two conversing men. His black sneakers hurried the child up to his uncle's side, breaking off their concentration as the red eyes watched them patiently. Walter easily let his expression form a scowl, and his face demanded a quick explanation.