Breath & Shadow

FICTION

Garbage Thoughts

By DENISE NOE

I want to die. I want to kill those selfish, dirty kids. No, Lenore thought, as she clocked in to work. She did not feel that way; she did not hate anybody. She certainly did not want to die and be nothing forever, no thing.

Lenore kept her tools in a dark green basket; she had drawn a happy face and a flower on the sides of it. Today was the day to scrub down the shower stalls. She powdered the grayish–white floor of the shower lumpy white with cleanser, and wet the sponge. Her shoulder ached, but she ignored it, forcing herself to push the wet sponge on the tub. I hate this life. I am dirty, I do dirty work so I am dirty. I do the lowest kind of work of all.

She would never get the stains out, of course, they were ancient, but she got the new dirt out and she turned on the spigot and water ran down the drain and I wish I could wash some of these spoiled bitches down the drain like this. Watch their blood disappear down the goddamn drain. Wouldn't that be fun? These are bad thoughts, she thought. Garbage thoughts. A Christian would pray to God and ask Him to forgive her for having these kinds of thoughts. But, I can't pray to be forgiven, Lenore thought, because even if I sometimes go to Mass and am a Catholic if someone asks — I don't believe there really is a God, and if He doesn't exist He can't forgive anything.

The sides of the stall weren't all that dirty (at least the kids didn't write their cusswords in here). She sprayed 409 and paper–toweled it off, rubbing in circles, then up and down and then back in circles to get rid of the swipe marks. Then she repeated the job on the glazed glass of the door. There is no disgrace in being a maid. There is no disgrace in any kind of work as long as it's honest. That was sane thinking.

But, still, other children made fun of Glenda when they found out what Lenore did for a living. They made fun of her so much, Glenda was still in tears when Lenore got home. Glenda sobbed in Lenore's arms, splotchy–faced and choking on her tears, then whined, "It's your fault they make fun of me. It's your fault 'cause what you do is dirty!"

Before she could stop herself, Lenore had slapped Glenda across the face.

Almost out of Comet, Lenore scrubbed the other shower stall extra hard, using a lot of water. This one had deep etchings on the wall, not pen marks, but actual cuts into the wall, so it wasn't Lenore's responsibility to do anything about it. It said: Juan G sucks Sue Ps twat good. Lenore was responsible for getting pen and pencil stuff off, although she was supposed to report it and did report it (those kids should know better, they're college age, not real teenagers).

What a crummy thing, slapping Glenda.

Her shoulder was really acting up, but she forced herself to scrub extra hard like she had to when there wasn't much Comet left. She scrubbed hard with one hand and rubbed her hurting shoulder with the other. When she saw that the shower was about as clean as it was going to get, she put her stuff back in the green basket and went to the maintenance closet two floors down, in the hall just off the lobby, to fetch another box of Comet so she could start on the toilets. I wish I wasn't in this uniform. I hate this uniform, white from head to toe, or from neck to toe, and looks like it could be a nurse's uniform, but all these rotten, stinking kids know it's a maid's uniform. Everyone who looks at me knows it's a maid's uniform. They see me and think she's a maid; she does the dirty work for us; she's just a maid. Plain, dumb, poor, stupid maid. Their eyes hit me when I wear this uniform. Their eyes make me ashamed even if they don't say anything; even if they say Hi; even if they smile they're looking at me in this uniform. They're seeing me in this uniform.

They're seeing me the maid.

Lenore got a new package of Handiwipes because you use a lot of Handiwipes when you clean five toilets. You sure do, if you do a job of it. She scrubbed the toilets vigorously, standing a little ways away so the water wouldn't splash on her. Not that it was that big a deal if it did, because she could always rinse it off with the sink water. She rubbed lid and seat, front and back. Then she cleaned the sides of the toilet and finally the inside of the bowl, then under the rim of the bowl above the water line. It was her job and she did it quickly and briskly. She was getting paid for it, and it had to be done. Her shoulder ached again, like it had since last week. She rubbed it, but of course, that wasn't much help. She didn't know what was wrong and didn’t want to spend money on a doctor. Heck, the doc would probably just say it came from using her arm too much and tell her to watch it.

A wave of nausea swept over her and she felt like she might be sick and she thought, oh my God, at least I'm in the right place for it. Tears stung her eyes, blurred her vision and she thought, I hate these girls. I hate them all. I wish them all dead and butchered and left in a field somewhere. They don't deserve to go to college. they don't deserve to have money. They don't deserve to have people clean up after them. They are pigs, nothing but pigs with privileges and they don't deserve to live. I hate them I hate them! Her heart threatened to pound its way right out of her chest and tear through her skin. Somebody had peed and crapped in that toilet and not even bothered to flush it.

"Am I in your way?" a good–looking black guy asked, interrupting her thoughts.

"No, no," she replied, and plugged in the vacuum cleaner. She pushed it around that dark reddish–brown carpet, thinking as she did so that this was a good kind of carpet for a place where a lot of people, especially young kids, would be around. It was dark enough that it didn't show dirt that badly. She pushed the vacuum around the lobby, only moving the easy things out of the way, the trash can and the ashtray, not the chairs or the coffee table. They vacuumed under those things with a special appliance, but they only had to do that once a week, and today was not the day. The guy got up so she could vacuum in the place his legs were, in front of that divan. He was being nice, but he didn't have to do that because she could always go back to it later.

For some reason she thought about the movie she watched last night, a real old movie with Jayne Mansfield. Jayne Mansfield had looked a lot like Marilyn Monroe. Lenore had heard that Jayne tried to look as much like her as she could, and was always jealous because she never was quite as famous. It was understandable that she wasn't as famous, because Marilyn was a lot prettier. Marilyn was about the prettiest actress there ever was. Course, Jayne Mansfield probably wasn't as sad as Marilyn, because she didn't kill herself. And Jayne Mansfield had all those kids, while Marilyn couldn't have any, and Jayne was supposed to be super–smart in real life, but you wonder how anyone could keep a little waist after five kids. But, of course, if you have money plastic surgeons can do a lot to make you look good. Lenore wondered if they had all that plastic surgery back in those days. Even after only one child, Lenore's stomach was a lot flabbier than it had been, although luckily she was still slim. She'd always been slim.

Lenore pulled the cord out of the socket and took the vacuum into the hallway where she plugged it in again. It made a sudden tinny clatter — a metal something, a coin or a paper clip must have gone up it — but it was back to normal so it wasn't broken. Lenore eyed the dark carpet cautiously, because you've got to be careful about things like that, it's not hard to wreck these things. Sweeping down the hallway, the vacuum making its dull roar, she noticed a poster on the outside of one of the dorm doors. It was a photograph of an outdoors scene with sunshine and a meadow. In a curly script, a message across it proclaimed, "In all Creation is Seen the Hand of the Creator." Lenore didn't believe in God, which wasn't fair, because it would be a lot nicer if there was a God and you had a reward to go to. Plus, she'd always heard it was only eggheads like college people who didn't believe in God. People who thought they were extra–smart. So smart they couldn't believe in something greater than them. she wasn’t smart, and had never been on a college track. She had just scraped by high school with C’s and B’s. She always felt unfairly deprived because she wanted to believe but she couldn't no matter how hard she tried. She thought the Bible was just stories to make people act right, and that was another thing about Christians, a good thing, that they had morals, at least most of them, whereas other people didn't even try to do good. But, even though Lenore wasn’t smart, she felt sure that when you were dead that was it; there was nothing else. Sometimes she thought no one really believed, they just wished, otherwise why were people crying and hysterical when someone they loved died? No one treated it like the person had just left for someplace better, the way they said they believed. They acted like the person didn't exist anymore, and why would they act that way unless deep down they knew it was true?

But, Lenore took Glenda to church because she wanted her to be a good girl, to believe in God and Jesus, because it made people happier to believe. And of course, believe in Mary, now that Lenore was a Catholic.

Was Lenore really a Catholic? She guessed she was, because she did go to Mass and she'd gone through the Catholic baptism, even though she'd been baptized four years earlier in the Baptist church. She hadn't believed in God then either, but all the other kids at church were getting baptized, and it couldn't hurt. After Glenda was born, she had her baptized Catholic. The reason she still went to church was not because Mike would have wanted it, since Mike didn't want anything anymore, since he was dead. It wasn't until after Glenda was born that she told him — secretly, in their bedroom with the door closed — that she'd never believed in God. He hadn't seemed too upset. But, later when he was drunk, he'd say that might be the reason they were having such shitty luck, first the plant closing and then the store burning down. Glenda's ear infections and all, maybe they were God's way of punishing them for Lenore's not believing in Him.

Mike wasn't that bad, as men go, because he'd never hit her, not even once, no matter how drunk he was. He just said stuff, and of course she said stuff back. Stuff she wished she hadn't said and couldn't remember saying. But, she had told him he wasn't a good breadwinner, and wasn't a good father, and didn't deserve to be Glenda's Dad. To make him happy, she ended up telling him that she did believe in God, took back what she said and told him she was really a Catholic now and even prayed to Mary. At the end of the hallway, Lenore shut off the vacuum, then wrapped the cord up. She dragged it back to the closet where the housecleaning staff kept vacuums and brooms and buckets.

It was weird, but this was the highest–paying job she'd ever had. As a kid she'd worked in fast food places, then she'd waitressed at a fish food restaurant, and later she'd been a receptionist at an insurance agency and two doctor's offices. She liked the tips from waiting tables, but not the work because her feet were so often sore. Receptionist was what she had liked the best because it was mostly just being a friendly face and taking down appointments, and she could do that just fine. But after Mike got killed she'd lost her phone and couldn't meet the rent on their apartment on a receptionist's pay. She and Glenda had gone without electricity, then the landlord kicked them out and they spent some hellish months in one of those shelters. So, she got this job, which didn't pay well, but good enough so she could rent a tiny place and have a phone and buy Glenda some new clothes when she needed them. It even picked up part of a doctor's bill as a benefit. She had never had a job which did that. Still, she hadn’t been to the doctor in a long time and sure hoped her shoulder didn’t get so bad it would cost her. It was funny, lots of things are funny. You can't figure them out, but you feel like you have to try––they stick on your mind and won't let go. But you can't, you just can't.

For instance, she and Mike both strongly believed that a mother should stay home with her children. Mike's mom was always saying this generation would have terrible problems because of all the working mothers. But, after Lenore got pregnant, they never even talked about her staying home. Mike got a moonlighting job to help with the bills, but even with that, they never mentioned her staying home all day with the new baby.

Another thing, Mike had turned over all the money in the cash register. Without a fight. It wasn't his money, so naturally he turned it over when the man held a gun on him. And the man had put a ski mask on before he came into the Seven–Eleven. Mike couldn't identify him. Maybe there were people who'd seen him before he came into the store and they could tell what he looked like, but Mike couldn't. Why do you put on a disguise so the person can't see you, then shoot him anyway? Why? There was no reason. He shot Mike even though Mike had handed over all the money. Even though Mike didn't know what he looked like. There was no reason, but he shot him.

Crouching, she swept the linoleum floor of the empty dorm room with a short broom. The trash can was beside her and she emptied the dust and bits of hairs and paper into it. There was no reason to shoot him. No reason. There was no reason for her to be a maid, no reason for her to be a widow at the age of twenty–five. Bits of crumbs. There's really no such thing as God so nothing is God's will. Lenore swept crumbs and dust into the dustpan. She brushed it into the trash can. "Ow!" she jumped at the sudden jab inside her shoulder. She swept hairs and crumbs and dust into the dustpan and brushed them into the trash can. If there wasn't any God's will, then it wasn't God's will that these girls live in a college dormitory and have her clean up after them. It wasn't God's will that her shoulder hurt, and it wasn't God's will that she not have a husband who was alive and able to help with money and play with Glenda and fool with Lenore's hair, wrapping it around his finger and kissing her on the shoulder with show–offish loud smacks. Nothing could be God's will because there isn't any such thing as God.

Lenore took the white bag out of the trash can and wrapped a little thing around it, closing it up to take it down the hall to the trash chute. On her way she passed a group of girls who were giggling and one of them was poking another playfully in the neck with a pencil. One of the girls was wearing a two–piece outfit with her navel exposed and Lenore thought about Madonna, who a lot of Catholics thought was terrible because she wore the cross around her navel. Also, Madonna made a video about herself having sex with a saint. Lenore hadn't seen that because she didn't have cable, but she would have watched it if she did, because she thought Madonna was just as pretty as Marilyn Monroe. Every era has its own sex goddess and Madonna was hers. "Ow, ow, you're hurting me!" a girl said. But, you could tell by the way she said it that she didn't mean it, she was only playing.

Lenore thought it would be easy, easy, you wouldn't have to push too hard because skin is so soft, it would be easy to shove that pencil right through the soft underside of that girl's throat. Easy to make the sharp and dirty lead point of it come out inside her mouth, stick it in so deep it comes out the gums and spears through the tongue. But those were not Lenore's thoughts, not her real thoughts. After all, she knew how horrible murder was; she wouldn't wish what had happened to Mike on anyone else. Those were garbage thoughts. They just elbowed their way into her brain against her will and certainly without her help. But, Lenore did not believe in the Devil, so who was putting them there? Just garbage thoughts.

A student had vacated Room 313 and another would come in to fill it in about a week, so Lenore was supposed to get it scrubbed out and straightened up for the new person. She took her green basket up the elevator — thank God this dorm had an elevator, that was something at least — after she got the key from the desk girl. The room didn't look particularly bad. Just a room. Usual holes all over the bare walls where posters had been pinned up. Two bare mattresses. She glanced under the mattresses. The usual—dust and stray bits of paper. She opened the closet and scanned its emptiness. Her eye caught something in the bottom corner. She squatted down and peered. It was— it was— she blinked and fell backwards on her haunches as the stucco of the ceiling and the wood of the closet door and the speckled linoleum veered away, then lurched toward her, threatening to crash down on her face.

A syringe.

Dirty, dirty, your Mom is dirty. Dirty, dirty, you do dirty work. Mike, I wish I believed, I try to but I can't no matter how hard, I just can't. That doesn't mean I'm a bad person, because I'm raising your daughter good, or as good as I can. As good as I can.

What if the girl who had used that thing had AIDS? Lenore could get it too. She remembered thinking, I want to die. But she didn't. She wanted to live. Mike was dead, but if she died too, she wouldn't join him, like people said. She would just be dead and she did not want that.

If she left that thing there, the next girl who came into this room might pick it up. Or, maybe step on it, trip against it, cut herself against it, bleeding, bleeding just a little. Just enough. She had thought, I want to kill those selfish, dirty kids. But, she did not. Those were not her thoughts. They were garbage thoughts.

Lenore knew not to pick that thing up and try to dispose of it. She went to the front lobby of the dorm where the desk was located. There she phoned security. "I found a syringe in one of the rooms," she said. "Don't touch it," the guard on the other line said.

"I won't," Lenore assured her. She gave the room number and put the phone back in its cradle. She briefly massaged her shoulder. Then she shivered slightly at the thought of that syringe, but decided there was at least no harm done. She had seen to that.

Denise Noe lives in Atlanta, Georgia and writes regularly for The Caribbean Star, where she is Community Editor. She has many articles online at Crimelibrary.com and at Crimemagazine.com. Her psychiatric disorder has been diagnosed as schizotypal personality disorder with obsessive and compulsive features.