Paul Cleave - The Cleaner

“The supermarket has Coke on special.”

“I’m fine.”

“Three dollars for a six pack,” she says. “Here, I’ll find you the receipt.”

“Don’t worry, Mom. I said I’m fine.”

“It’s no hassle.”

She wanders off, leaving me alone. There’s no way to say it nicely, but my mother is getting crazier by the day. I believe her that Coke is on special, yet she still feels the need to show me the receipt. A few minutes go by where all I can do is look at the oven and microwave, so I spend the time figuring just how awkward it would be to fit an entire person into either one of them. When she comes back, she has also found the supermarket flyer advertising the Coke.

I nod. “Three dollars, huh? Amazing.”

“So you’ll have one then?”

“Sure.” It’s the easiest option.

She serves dinner. We sit down and begin eating. The dining room connects to the kitchen, and the only view I have is either of my mother or the wall behind her, so I watch the wall. Some of these appliances here went out of date when electricity was invented, and the rest not long after. The linoleum floor looks like it was made from Kermit the Frog after he was hunted down and skinned. The dining table is the color of bananas. The legs are cold metal. The chairs are padded and wobble slightly when I move. Mom’s has been reinforced.

“How was your day?” she asks. A tiny piece of carrot is stuck on her chin. One of the moles there looks as though it’s trying to skewer it.

“Good.”

“I haven’t heard from you all week.”

The meatloaf is a little dry, but I don’t dare add any more gravy to it in case my mother thinks I’m unhappy with it. “I’ve been busy with homework.”

“The job?”

“The job.”

“Your cousin Gregory is getting married. Did you know?”

I do now. “Really?”

“When are you going to find yourself a wife, Joe?”

I’ve noticed that old people always chew with their mouths open, so you get to hear the food slopping against the roof of their mouth. It’s because they’re always about to say something.

“I don’t know, Mom.”

“You’re not gay, are you, son?”

She says this while still chewing. Like it’s no big deal. Like she just said, “That shirt looks good on you,” or “Nice weather we’re having.”

“I’m not gay, Mom.”

In fact, it isn’t that big a deal. I have nothing against gay people. Nothing at all. They are, after all, just people. Like anybody else. Now it’s people I have something against.

“Huh,” she huffs.

I pause with a forkful of meatloaf inches from my mouth. “What?”

“Nothing.”

The meatloaf goes back onto the plate. “What, Mom?”

“I’m just wondering why you don’t ever bring a girl around.”

I shrug.

“Men shouldn’t be gay, Joe. It’s not. .” she searches for the word, “fair.”

“I don’t follow.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

She seems happy to let the subject go, and I’m happy to let her. We eat in silence for a minute, which is all my mother can handle before talking again. “I started a jigsaw puzzle today.”

I’m not brave enough to tell her I’ll alert the media. Instead I go with, “Uh huh.”

“It was on special. Down from thirty dollars to twelve.”

“Bargain.”

“Here, I’ll find you the receipt.”

I add more gravy to my dinner and try to eat quicker while she’s gone, knowing that eating quickly doesn’t necessarily mean a quick escape, but also knowing it’s worth a shot. I watch the clocks on the microwave and the oven, and I race them against the clock hanging on the wall, but they all drag along at the same pace. It doesn’t take Mom long to find the receipt so I figure she must have kept it aside to show me. She waddles over with the advertising flyer as well. I do my best to calm my excitement.

“See? Twelve dollars.”

“Yeah, I see.” The flyer has Chockablock with Entertainment written across it. I wonder what the person was thinking when they wrote that. Or what they were on.

“That’s eighteen dollars. Well, actually it was twenty-nine ninety-five down to twelve dollars, so that’s eighteen dollars and ninety-five cents.”

I do the arithmetic as she talks to me, and quickly see she’s off by a dollar. Best not to say anything. I’m figuring if she realizes she saved eighteen dollars and not nineteen, she’s going to take it back. Even after she’s done the puzzle.

“It’s of the Titanic, Joe,” she says, even though the picture in the flyer is of a large boat with the word Titanic stenciled across its helm. “You know, the boat?”

“Oh, that Titanic. ”

“A real tragedy.”

“The movie?”

“The boat.”

“I hear it sank.”

“Are you sure you’re not gay, Joe?”

“I’d know, wouldn’t I?”

After dinner, I offer to clean up, even though I know what she’s going to say.

“You think I want you around here to be my maid? Sit down, Joe. I’ll clean up. What sort of mother won’t take care of her son? I’ll tell you what sort-a bad mother, that’s who.”

“I’ll do it.”

“I don’t want you to do it. Now go and wait in the living room.”

I sit down in the living room and stare at the TV. There’s a news bulletin on. Something about a dead body. Home invasion. I change channels. Finally Mom comes through to the living room carrying a cup of tea for herself and nothing for me.

“It seems my whole life was spent cleaning up after your father, and now I’m spending the rest of it cleaning up after you.”

“I offered to help, Mom,” I say, standing up.

“Well, it’s too late now. It’s done,” she snaps. “You should learn to appreciate your mother, Joe. I’m all you have.”

I know this speech, and have apologized as many times as I’ve heard it. I say I’m sorry once again, and it seems offering apologies to my mother makes up fifty percent of my conversations with her. She sits down and we watch some TV-some English drama about people who say nuffink instead of nothing, and I don’t even know what in the hell bollocks really means.

Mom watches it as if she can’t already predict that Fay is sleeping with Edgar for his inheritance, and Karen is pregnant from Stewart-the town drunk and her long-lost brother. When the commercials come on, she fills me in on what the characters have been up to, as if they’re part of the family. At least she isn’t offering to cook them meatloaf. I listen and nod and forget what she says within seconds. Like a goldfish. When it comes back on, I end up watching the carpet, finding more entertainment in the brown, symmetrical patterns that were all the rage back in the fifties-proving that everybody was completely mad back then.

The drama ends and the highly depressing theme music starts to play. As sad as the tune is, I’m feeling in high spirits because that music means it’s time for me to go. Before I leave, Mom tells me more about my cousin Gregory. He has a car. A BMW.

“Why don’t you have a BMW, Joe?”

I’ve never stolen a BMW. “Because I’m not gay.”

I’m the only person on the bus. The driver is old, and his hands shake as I give him the exact change. As we drive along, I start to wonder what would happen if he sneezed. Would his heart explode? Would we career into other traffic? I feel like giving him a dollar tip when he gets me safely to my stop, but I figure the excitement will finish off what the Grim Reaper started years ago. He wishes me a good night as I leave the bus, but I don’t know if he really means it. I don’t wish him anything back. I’m not looking to make any friends. Especially old ones.