Commencement
Page 39
Allen headed up to the 7th floor to suite 709 with the cumbersome wet vac. There had been a leak that turned into a mini-flood and Davis paged him to come up and clean up the water in the living room. So once again, Allen gathered the necessary tools and headed up to do his job. Allen was quickly getting used to the demands of the job and the routines of the hotel. He was even beginning to see a bright side to everything he was going through. One positive thing about this job was that it would help to keep him fit and lean, since he was constantly moving around. The other great part about it was that he got three breaks in the day: a 10 minute break in the morning, a hour break near noon and another 10 minute break near the end of the day. Allen had used his first 10 minute break to read his Bible. He had remembered the promise he had made to his mother to read the Bible for a week. So far it had been about 5 days, and Allen had hoped that something very powerful would jump out at him that would shed light on how he could get out of his current situation. Since he was working on developing a relationship with God, he thought he’d turn to Exodus and read about Moses who had a really good relationship with God. In fact, Moses was the friend of God. He read a couple of chapters about how Moses spoke to God for the people, and helped bring the children of Israel out of Egypt, but he didn’t get anything about what made Moses so special that he was God’s friend.1 What did Moses do that was so special that God chose him to be his friend? This was what Allen was pondering as he rode in the service elevator to the 7th floor. This was another good thing about this job. The work wasn’t so intense, and he often found moments in the day when he could just think about things, and meditate.
When Allen got off the elevator his mind quickly returned to the work in front of him. He would have to continue to meditate on Moses later. He walked down to the suite where the door was already open and came in. There was water leading from the heating unit in front of the window and coalescing into a little lake on the front area rug. Davis had the cover off of the unit and had a section of pipe taken out of it, and was getting ready to install a new section. Allen quickly got to work getting up the water in the living room with the wet vac, and followed behind this with the mop on the hard surfaces. Then he began to move the furniture around, so he could roll the rug up and take it downstairs to be dried. Once he had the rug all rolled up, he took it and placed it outside in the hall. Finally, he decided to stop and ask Davis if there was anything else he needed before he left.
Allen took a moment to study what Davis was doing. Davis deftly replaced the pipe and turned valves, and was beginning to do some sort of check on it. The whole thing looked so complex to Allen. “I could barely put together the bookcase my mom got from IKEA”, mused Allen. As Allen watched, he was amazed at how adroitly Davis executed his job. It was funny to Allen. Here he was the Harvard graduate and he didn’t have half the skills of the man working before him. Davis was the true professional.
“I got up all the water and I’m getting ready to take the rug down. Is there anything else that needs to be done here?” asked Allen. It seemed like a rhetorical question, given his lack of skills at fixing things.
“Not really, I’m just about finished wit’ this”, answered Davis as he hefted the large metal cover and put it back on the heating unit. Allen headed to the hall where he had left the rug, when he heard Davis call after him.
“I’ll help you wit’ that. You don’t wanna drag it cause it’ll mess up the carpet in the hall.”
“Sure, thanks.”
Allen took one end and Davis took the other and they took the rug down the hall towards the service elevator and loaded it in the car. Then they took it to the basement through the winding maze of doors and into
the service area Davis showed Allen on his first day on the job. Kizzy was sitting behind the glass looking at a magazine when they entered. “Yo Kizz, tag this for 709. It’s gotta be cleaned.” “Sure, Dave, no problem. Just leave it. I’ll have Ahmed come and get it”, she smiled. “Hey, Allen, how you doin’?” she said winking at him. Allen tried to keep it brief. He didn’t want Davis to think he was trying to flirt with his girl (if this was even his girl). “I’m good”, he said trying to sound friendly but not too friendly. Then he turned to Davis. “If this is it, I’ll just get back to the rounds.” “Chill, man. It’s almost lunchtime anyway.” “Really?!” Allen was always surprised at how fast time went on this job. “Word. No need to be beastin’ over the work. It’s gonna be here. You goin’ out to eat?” “Yeah, I guess.” “You wanna to roll wit’ me an’ Kizzy. We goin’ to that Chinese store over on 5th.” For the first time, Davis was actually making an overture of friendship to Allen. He was definitely not going to turn it away. “Sounds good.” “I’ll finish up down here. You go up and lock up 709 and put yo’ stuff back in the janitor closit. Kizzy and I‘ll meet you there.