Paul Cleave - The Cleaner

Gun pointing ahead, I make my way to the stairs and slowly start climbing. I keep my feet near the carpeted edges to minimize any sound and it works well. When I get to the top the grunting I hear means any sound I would have made would have gone unnoticed. I stand still and think of the list. Five names. A simple peek into the bedroom will make it four. The grunting gets louder.

The hallway branches into maybe four rooms up here, but it’s the closest one I’m concerned with. I reach the master bedroom where the sounds are coming from. It sounds like somebody is having a pillow stuffed down their throat. The door is slightly ajar. Doesn’t matter. If it had been closed I could have opened it undetected. If not, I still have my gun. I poke my head forward and try to see through the small gap. All I need to do is take a glimpse, and then I’m out of here. Downstairs and into the night, and my list will be smaller. But I can’t see much. The bed isn’t in sight. I lean further around until things come into view.

Suddenly I feel sick. Nauseous. I pull away, nearly dropping to my knees. I suck in a deep breath and try to control the urge to vomit, but I’m not sure I can. My legs become jelly, and my mind is spinning. I saw what I expected to see, but I didn’t count on feeling this way. My stomach is trying to escape up through my throat. I push a hand against it and lean against the wall. More deep breaths, then I hold it for half a minute. The urge to throw up on the carpet slowly fades.

I’m down to four suspects, but it doesn’t make me feel any better.

I hobble to the stairs and grab hold of the banister to keep myself from tumbling to the ground floor. I pause to think about what I’ve just seen. I think of my mother and how she keeps asking me if I’m gay. Is this why I feel sick? Because she thinks that what I just saw is the sort of thing I do?

Something else is banging around in my thoughts too. Something I can’t quite get a firm grip on. I can see the edges of it floating back there, but when I try to haul the damn thing in, I lose my grip on it and it falls completely away. Will it come back if I take another peek? No way in hell am I going to find out.

I raise my hand to my mouth and bite my knuckle. I can hardly feel a damn thing. My hand tastes of sweat. I wonder if Dad ever thought I was gay.

Should I go back and shoot these two men for making me feel this way? I look up at the ceiling and nearly lose balance. My knuckle is still in my mouth. What would Jesus do? It would be rather Christian of me to go in there and shoot them. Abnormal acts like that only mock Him.

What would Dad want me to do?

I have no idea why I even consider his outlook on this. So now I’m standing here with another dilemma. I’m sure God won’t mind if I shoot them, but Dad will. In fact, God’s probably urging me to. I’ll be doing both Him and humanity a favor. But do I feel like doing God a favor? I try to think of one favor He’s done me, but all He’s ever done is take away my father and give me my mother. No, I owe Him nothing.

I turn back toward the bedroom. I can hear Dad telling me that they’re just people doing what people do, and I should leave them be. People are allowed to be happy. Nobody has the right to judge people who fall in love with the same gender. That’s what he’d say. Only I’m not listening to him, because he’s dead, and dead people’s opinions don’t really account for much, and even so Dad is wrong because this isn’t what people do.

That’s enough for the night. It’s time to focus on the positives. It’s time to be Optimistic Joe. When I call in Candy’s body tomorrow there will only be four people to watch closely. It’s getting late. If I don’t get home soon, I might sleep in again tomorrow. I should have been out the damn door by now.

But this is an opportunity. I’m already inside the house. I already have a gun. And neither of them is aware of my presence. They’re both too wrapped up in each other. Does that mean they deserve to die? The only thing I know for sure is they’ve brought this confusion over me, this nausea, and for that I should get even. Nobody does this to me. Nobody.

Yet is it really their fault?

My God! How can I even question this? What sort of person am I becoming?

I’m Joe. J is for Joe. J is for judge. I’m strong and I’m in control, and what I decide is my decision-not God’s. Not Dad’s. I don’t care what either of them thinks.

I make my way to the bedroom. Stop at the door. Point my gun directly ahead. But I’m not pulling the trigger. Instead I’m thinking about the technical side. The ballistics of the bullets will match against one of the victims I shot. The serial killer strikes again, and this will confuse them. It will blind them to any real motive. Why has the killer targeted a gay policeman? But how ideal is it if the other detectives become conscious that somebody is after them? How easily could I go through their houses if I needed to? Or their motel rooms?

I take a step back just as the grunting from the bedroom gets louder, as if I’ve given the sound waves more room to travel and amplify. The creaking bedsprings sound like they’re screaming in fear. I push my hands against the sides of my head, but it isn’t working. I jam the barrel of my Glock into my right ear, and stuff my middle finger into my left, but it doesn’t help me think. The sound is still there. And the only way to get rid of it is to either shoot myself, or to shoot them. But I don’t have to shoot them. I’m not an animal. I have the ability to think this out. I know right from wrong. I’m not insane. An insane person would jump in there and start firing because they wouldn’t be able to control themselves. The interesting thing about insanity is that Insanity is strictly a legal term, not a medical one. Patients like me are not insane-we just plead it if we’re caught. The reality is if we really were insane, we wouldn’t be trying to evade conviction-we’d be caught at the scene smeared in blood and peanut butter and singing Barry Manilow tunes.

I lower my gun. I could kill them just for the hell of it, just because I’m here. In life you take what comes along in this crazy mixed-up world. Other times you need to let it pass you by in case something better comes your way. Life is like a highway with many dirt roads veering off it.

I’m at a junction right now, standing in the hallway of some guy I have never met. A memory in my mind that I can’t reach. A headache coming on. Pounding. Sweat running down the sides of my body. Trickling. Grunting filling my ears. Pounding. Do I kill them? Throw a few of those red herrings into the investigation? Or does it only make things worse?

I make my way downstairs. The kitchen is full of stainless-steel appliances that cost more than I make in a year. I sit at the breakfast bar on a bar stool and rest the Glock in front of me. Tagging Travers for gay was simple-it was the calendars. Overcompensation was the key word there. Knowing I’ll think better on a stomach that isn’t so empty, I open up the fridge and rummage around inside for some food. I end up making myself a corned beef sandwich-Travers’s boyfriend is an excellent cook. I grab a can of Coke-it’s on special after all-to wash it down. The fizz burns away any fantasy I hold that what I am listening to could be anything other than two men having the time of their lives.

Upstairs, the bed is slamming the bedroom wall, like it too wants to have bolted out the front door half an hour ago. I sit down at the bar and start tracing my finger along the edge of it, flicking some of the crumbs from the sandwich while doing my best to dismiss the thought that because I ate from the same food these people ate from that I’m gay now, but of course that’s silly, it’s silly, but the thought stays with me as I consider what to do next.