Prodigal Blues

Arnold turned around, staring.  Christopher looked at me in the rear-view mirror.  Rebecca leaned closer and said, "You know Beowulf?"

I nodded.  "I wrote a paper on it in college."

"You went to college?" asked Arnold.

"Yeah.  I have a Master's degree in English."

"Then why in hell did you tell me you were a janitor?" snapped Christopher.

"Because I am."

He glared at me from the mirror.  "You have a Master's in English and you clean toilets for a living?"

"I also strip and wax floors, empty trash cans, polish desks, dust shelves, vacuum carpets, and do windows.  I'm told me and my crew are pretty good at it."

"Why?  Why would someone with your education choose to do that instead of teaching?"

I shrugged.  "What the hell difference does it make to you?"

"Come on," said Rebecca, softly smacking my arm.  "Don't be that way, please?  Tell us."

"Yeah, man," Arnold said.  "I'd kinda like to know myself."

"All in favor," said Christopher.

Everyone raised their hands.

"Motion carries, Pretty Boy.  Spill."

"You're going to keep calling me that no matter how many times or how nicely I ask you not to, aren't you?"

"Stop trying to change the subject."

I rubbed my eyes and sighed.  "Look, my wife's been asking me that same question off and on for years.  I've never been able to give her a good answer, okay?  And I doubt that any epiphanies are going to occur now,"

"'Epiphanies,'" said Arnold.  "Sounds like a college word to me."

"Very fu

"Then takes a guess," said Rebecca.  "C'mon, Mark.  You have to have some idea."

"Maybe."

"Well, then?"

I looked down at my hands, saw the calluses on the palms, and remembered the way Dad's hands had always felt so rough whenever he hugged me or shook my hand or touched my cheek when I was a boy.  He'd always seemed so embarrassed that his hands weren't softer.

"When I graduated," I said, as much to myself as them, "Mom and Dad were so damned proud of me.  Neither one of them had even finished high school, and here was their son graduating college.  Tanya and I had just gotten engaged, so as far as they were concerned, my future was a lock.  Dad still had about seven or eight years left before retirement, and I think it made him feel good to know that his boy was never going to have to work the line or walk a picket during a labor strike or worry about how much bologna he could afford for lunch because the bills had cleaned out most of last week's paycheck.  Whenever we'd talk about my plans, Dad would get this look on his face about halfway through the conversation like he didn't understand what I was saying—of course by that time I'd get off on some tangent about Carson McCullers or James Agee or some other writer, and I'd be so busy talking about what books I wanted to teach to students that I forgot Dad wasn't much of a reader.  Oh, he read Readers Digest and DAV Magazine, the articles in TV Guide, but novels and short stories, essays, poetry… I was talking way over his head.  I didn't mean to.  He tried to keep up, he asked all kinds of questions that I always had answers for, but the more we talked, the more I could see that he was… he was embarrassed.  His son was smarter than him—I never once believed that, but what I believed wasn't the point; how he felt was.  And my dad was embarrassed because he thought he looked like a dummy.

"One night as I was filling out an application for an adjunct faculty position at OSU, I realized that once I started teaching, my conversations with Dad would become more and more strained, and we'd be reduced to asinine smalltalk—the weather, sports, inflation, politics—and I didn't want that.  I didn't want him to feel like he couldn't talk to me.  So I told my folks that until a permanent position opened up at OSU or Otterbein or Columbus State, I was going to take a temporary maintenance position because it paid well and I needed to get some money in the bank right away because, well, I had these student loans…

"They understood, and weren't disappointed in the least.  Dad even said that it was the sensible thing to do, because the adjunct faculty position didn't pay a whole helluva lot, and with my degree I deserved something more substantial.  Plus, it gave us all sorts of new things to talk about; the job was damned hard work, and Dad understood all about hard work, and respected me for my decision.  Plus, it got so I was able to give Mom countless cleaning tips after a while and, boy, did she love that.  I got really good at the job, was given a raise and put in charge of a small crew, and after a while was offered the supervisor's position at a sizeable pay increase with decent benefits, so I took it.  I told Tanya that it would only be for another year or so, just to help us build up that nest egg before we got married.  Then I told everyone I wanted to stay on until I could train a suitable replacement, but I somehow never got around to looking for one.  Then it was going to be just until after Dad retired.  And somewhere in there I started looking at the students who were coming in to OSU, how arrogant and sycophantic most of them were, walking around with this attitude that said they already knew everything and were just here for the diploma so they could get out in the world and make the big bucks.  For them, college had nothing to do with learning, education didn't mean shit—it was all just a means to a hefty paycheck of one kind or another.  And these were kids who looked at me and laughed because what was I?—just some stupid janitor with a mop in one hand and a bottle of Windex in the other.  And it finally dawned on me that they way they looked at me, the way they treated me, the outright pity or contempt they showed… it was the same way Dad thought I looked at him.

"So I decided, fuck this noise, and to hell with all of them.  I had a good job and money in the bank and a wife who loved me and a dad I could talk to and a mom who needed ongoing household cleaning tips, so why mess with a good thing?  I wasn't going to be a teacher who could inspire the likes of them, so why have an illusion shattered."  I laughed without much humor.  "Of course Mom and Dad are both dead now and our bank account isn't what it used to be.  It probably won't be long before Tanya starts asking again if I've I found a replacement yet.  I don't know how to tell her that I'm no longer that English grad she married.  I'm just a janitor, mop in one hand, bottle of Windex in the other, and I'm actually pretty okay with that."  I sighed once more, stretched my back, and look up at all of them.  "Was that enough of a guess for you? Because I'm fresh out if it wasn't."

"You must be a real blast at parties," said Arnold.

"Give me a lampshade and on my head it goes.  I'll clean it, first, but after that… it's wild-man time."

"So you and your family were real close?" asked Christopher.

"Yeah."

"Then what's the deal with your grandmother's inheritance money?  Why didn't you want any of it?"

"How'd you know about—oh, right, the magic listening dish, I forgot."

"Thing can hear a fly fart in a tornado," said Arnold.  "Well, it maybe ain't that good, but we listened in on you and Cletus in the truck pretty well."

I looked at him.  "When exactly did you guys decide I was your best candidate, anyway?"

"When Rebecca saw your car had Ohio plates," said Christopher.  "A guy from Ohio, traveling alone, not exactly dressed to the nines, and with a broken-down car in the middle of Missouri…?  You might as well have painted a bull's-eye on your back.  It was going to take a while for you to get or from wherever you were going, so if you took a bit longer, who'd worry about it?"