Paul Cleave - The Cleaner

I climb off the bus a couple of blocks before her house, go into a twenty-four-hour supermarket, and do some quick shopping. The guy behind the counter is so tired he shortchanges me, but I’m having such a good day I don’t point it out. Heart racing, I walk to Mom’s house. Standing on the sidewalk I suck in a deep breath. The air tastes like salt. I look up at the dark sky. Is there any way of avoiding this? Short of hospitalization, the answer is no. I knock on the front door. Two minutes go by, but I know she’s not in bed because the lights are on. I don’t knock again. She’ll open it when she’s ready.

After a few minutes I hear footsteps approaching. I straighten up, not wanting her to correct my slouch, and start smiling. The door shudders, the hinges squeak, and a small gap appears.

“Do you know what time it is, Joe? I got worried. I nearly called the police. Nearly called the hospital. Do you not care about my broken heart?”

“I’m sorry, Mom.”

The safety chain stops the door from opening any further. My mom, God bless her, put the safety chain on her door four years ago when the “neighborhood kids” stole her money. But she put the chain going up and down, not side to side, so all any intruder needs to do to unhook it is put his finger inside and lift. She closes the door, removes the chain, and opens it back up. I take a step inside, bracing myself, because I know it’s coming.

She clips me around the ear. “Let that be a lesson to you, Joe.”

“I’m sorry, Mom.”

“You never come and see me anymore. It’s been a week since you were last here.”

“I was here last night, Mom,” I say, and I’ve had conversations like this with her before, and will have more of them until the day she dies.

“You were here last Monday.”

“And it’s Tuesday now.”

“No, it’s Monday. You were here last Monday.”

I know better than to argue, but I do point out once more that today is Tuesday.

She clips me around the ear. “Don’t talk back to your mother.”

“I’m not talking back, Mom, I’m just telling you what day it is.”

She raises her hand and I quickly apologize, and she finally seems appeased by the gesture. “I cooked meatloaf, Joe,” she tells me, lowering her hand. “Meatloaf. That’s your favorite.”

“You don’t need to remind me.”

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing.” I open up the supplies I brought with me, and pull out a bunch of flowers. I hand them to her. No thorns this time.

“They’re beautiful, Joe,” she says, her face beaming with excitement.

She leads me through to the kitchen. I set my briefcase down on the table, open it up, and look at the knives inside. Look at the gun too. My hand rests on the handle of the Glock, and I try to take some strength from it. Mom puts the flowers into a vase, but doesn’t put in any water. The rose from yesterday is gone. Perhaps she thought it was a week old. She reaches up into a cupboard and grabs hold of a packet of aspirin, and drops one into the vase.

“It keeps them alive longer,” she says, turning and winking at me, as if she’s letting me in on a family secret. “I saw it today on a TV show.”

“You still have to add water,” I point out.

“I don’t think so,” she says, frowning.

“I’m sure of it,” I tell her.

She looks uncertain. “I’ll try it my way this time,” she says, “and your way next time if it doesn’t work. How does that sound?”

I tell her it sounds fine. I don’t tell her that adding aspirin to flowers in water doesn’t make a lick of difference anyway.

“I brought something else for you, Mom.”

She looks over at me. “Oh?”

I pull out a box of chocolates and hand it to her.

“You trying to poison me, Joe? Are you trying to put sugar into my cholesterol?”

Oh, Christ. “I’m just trying to be nice, Mom.”

“Well, be nice by not buying me chocolates,” she says, looking really annoyed at me.

“But Coke has sugar in it, Mom.”

“Are you being smart?”

“Of course not.”

She throws the box at me and the corner bounces off my forehead. I see stars for a few seconds. I rub my head where it hit. The box has left a small impression, but no blood.

“Your dinner’s cold, Joe. I’ve had mine.”

I put the chocolates back into my briefcase as she dishes my dinner. She doesn’t offer to heat it for me, and I’m too frightened to ask. I head over to the microwave to do it myself.

“Your dinner’s cold, Joe, because you let it get cold. Don’t think you’re going to use my electricity to warm it up.”

We walk into the living room and we use her electricity to get the TV working and we sit in front of it. There’s some show on-I’ve seen it before, but don’t know what it’s called. They’re all the same. Bunch of white guys and girls living in an inner-city complex, laughing at everything that goes wrong for them, and there’s a lot that goes wrong. I wouldn’t be laughing if those things happened to me. I wonder if there’s a complex like that in this city, or even in real life. If so, I wouldn’t mind finding it. According to the TV the women in those complexes are damn sexy. I seem to recognize this episode but can’t be sure it’s a repeat since they do the same thing every week.

Mom doesn’t talk to me while I eat. This is a surprise, because I generally can’t shut her up. She always has something to complain about. Normally it’s the price of something. I’m grateful for the silence, so much so that I consider maybe I should be late more often. The downside is her disappointment hangs over the room. I’m so used to it it’s almost part of the furniture. As soon as I throw the last cold scoop of meatloaf into my mouth she uses the remote to kill the TV, then turns toward me. Her mouth sags open, she bares her teeth, and I can see the start of a sentence forming.

“If your father knew you treated me like this, Joe, he’d be rolling in his grave.”

“He was cremated, Mom.”

She stands up and I shrink back, expecting her to tell me off, but instead she puts her hand out for my plate. “I may as well clean up for you.”

“I’ll do it.”

“Don’t bother.” She grabs my plate and I follow her into the kitchen.

“Do you want me to make you a drink, Mom?”

“What, so I’ll be up all night running back and forth to the toilet?”

I open up the fridge. “Anything in here you want?”

“I’ve had dinner, Joe.”

I need to cheer her up, so I turn the subject toward something in her element. “I was at the supermarket, Mom, and I saw they have orange juice on sale.”

She turns toward me, still scrubbing at my plate, the flesh around her mouth moving aside for her beaming smile. “Really? What brand?”

“The brand you drink.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive.”

“In the half gallon?”

“Yeah.”

“How much?”

I can’t just say three dollars. I have to be accurate. “Two ninety-nine.”

I can see her thinking about it, but I don’t interrupt with the answer. “That’s two forty-four off. Quite a savings. Have you seen my latest jigsaw puzzle?”

It’s actually two forty-six off, but I say nothing. “Not yet.”

“Go and take a look. It’s by the TV.”

I look at the jigsaw puzzle. I mean, really look at it because I know she’ll quiz me on it. A cottage. Trees. Flowers. Sky. Jigsaw puzzles are like sitcoms, I guess-they’re all the fucking same. I head back into the kitchen. She’s drying my plate.

“What did you think?” she asks, using a tone that suggests my answer is important to her, but only as long as it’s the right answer.

“Nice.”