ELIJAH
August, 2018
The sun was just peeking over the horizon, sending bright rays of light straight into Elijah’s eyeballs. He blinked and then scrubbed at his eyes with the heels of his hands, trying to push the burning pain away.
So. Damn. Exhausted. He was gonna go home and sleep for a week. Maybe two.
Ah hell, who was he kidding. He was gonna go home to try to sleep during the day – which never worked, not real well, anyway – and then he was gonna go on back to Mr. Petrol’s that night and start this hellish nightmare called his job all over again.
He yawned so hard his jaw cracked, and he rubbed at his eyes again, then began slapping his cheeks lightly. He just had to stay awake for a few more minutes. He didn’t live real far away from Mr. Petrol’s, thank God. He could…
What the hell?
He pulled off into the Cleveland Elementary School parking lot and stared up at their reader board.
OPEN - FT JANITOR POSITION W/ BENN. APPLY INSIDE.
Suddenly, he felt a lot more awake.
Like, a whole lot more awake.
“A position at the elementary school,” he said softly to himself, and then began to laugh a little. “A position at the elementary school. Oh, what would Sarah have to say about that!”
He jumped out of his older-than-dirt truck, slamming the driver’s side door closed as he gleefully hurried up the sidewalk towards the admin office. He’d dropped Brooksy off enough at school that he knew just where to go.
Hot damn! A full-time job with benefits, during the day, right here in Sawyer, Idaho. I don’t give a rat’s ass if I have to scrub toilets with a toothbrush – I’ll do it!
This – this was what he’d been looking for, for months now. But with his smarts and skills…no one had wanted him.
He shoved that thought away. He didn’t need to be a college graduate or even a smart guy to push a broom around. Which was damn good, since he wasn’t either.
“Can I help you?” Mrs. Worsop asked over her half-moon glasses, looking up at him from behind her giant wooden desk. She’d been the secretary for the school since he was a kid, and from what he could remember, she’d been old back then. Did she have some sort of secret stash of the Fountain of Life hidden away in that desk of hers? Nothing else explained how she could stay ancient – but not die – for decades at a time. “Are you here to register Brooklyn for school?”
The elderly woman was craning her wrinkled neck, trying to peer around him as if he was suddenly gonna pull his ten-year-old daughter out of his back pocket like some sort of elaborate magic trick.
“No, I’m not here for that. I’m here about the janitor job. Has it been filled yet?”
Honest to God, just asking the question terrified him a little. It’d be just his luck to find out about the position right after they’d gone and hired somebody else. He hadn’t seen anything on the board out front about it before today, but then again, he couldn’t rightly say that he paid much attention to the shit they put up.
“The…the janitor job?” the secretary echoed faintly, staring at him in disbelief. “And just how long have you been harboring a deep-seated desire to clean toilets, Mr. Morland?”
“It’s always been something I’ve wanted to do, actually,” he said with a straight face. “Forever,” he added.
Please, please, please.
He’d get down on one knee and beg if that’s what they were wanting. He wouldn’t like it, but he’d do it.
Mrs. Worsop just stared at him, one eyebrow arched, waiting for him to crack and tell her the truth.
He just stared back, not blinking.
Anything for Brooksy. Anything at all.
“Well,” the older lady finally sniffed when the silence became so awkward, people a block away were probably feeling antsy and didn’t even know why, “the interviews are tomorrow morning. Here’s the application.” She pulled a double-sided piece of paper out of a cabinet drawer and handed it over to him. “You just fill that out and come on back. Eight in the morning is when they start.”
He took the paper and thanked her properly, scanning it as he headed back towards his truck. Now all he had to do was figure out how to sell the principal on the idea that he’d never wanted anything as much as he wanted to mop and wax floors.
If I’m there in the classroom with Brooksy, cleaning it…well, there’s not a damn thing Sarah can say about it. It’s not like she can demand I quit my job that’s paying for the child support, right?
Elated, he did a fist pump in the air. Hells to the yes. He didn’t consider himself to be a real smart man, but at that moment, he was king of the world.
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