Spitting off tall buildings - By Dan Fante Page 0,25

the floor, looking from me to the line of streaked panes then back to me ‘…what happened is you forgot to wipe your squeegee…After you swiped you have to wipe. Wipe the squeegee with your rag. The rubber. If you don’t wipe the rubber you get streaks. Ya know?’

I didn’t care. ‘Yeah, well, they’re fucked! All of ‘em. You can see they’re fucked!’

‘Okay…Well, so what?’

‘What do you mean, so what?’

He thought again. ‘I mean so what?’

‘It doesn’t matter? You’re saying that me not cleaning those windows correctly doesn’t matter. Is that what you’re saying?’

Another interval for word assembly. More silence. Then, ‘Look Dante…like I told you…remember? This is a state contract job. Ya know…it’s what I said before…we get paid by the building…’

‘I don’t care.’

‘Okay listen…What I mean is you could piss on all the glass on this floor and on the floor above and then take the elevator down two floors and piss on those too, ya know, and it wouldn’t make any difference. Ya know? Understand? What matters is that we finish all the floors and get the Building Maintenance Supervisor to sign off. Understand? He don’t check windows…he signs forms. Period.’

‘It doesn’t matter. I don’t care. I hate this fucking job. Understand?’ I held up my raw hands. ‘Look,’ I said. ‘They’re just now thawing out. It’s fifteen fucking degrees outside on that ledge.’

Ben Flash stayed calm. He stared down at his shoes, then at the elevator doors, then back down at his shoes.

Finally, he got up. I watched as he walked to the other end of the hall to the emergency exit door. He pressed the bar and opened the heavy plated entrance to the stairwell. Then he looked back toward me, motioning me to follow. ‘Over here, Dante,’ he called, half-whispering. ‘I want to show you something.’

I’d had enough. Whatever it was, I didn’t want to see it. ‘Look Flash,’ I called back, ‘let’s forget it, okay? I’m going home.’

‘Hey,’ he said, ‘I’m still the boss on the job, right? I’m your supervisor, right?’

‘Right.’

‘Okay, ya know…I said come here. Okay?’

I got up and paced my way down the hall to him.

Once we were both inside the stairwell, Flash let the heaviness of the door hiss it shut.

‘What?’ I said.

From the interior pocket of his coat he pulled a long, brown paper bag. He folded the lip of the bag back to expose the neck of a bottle, then he unscrewed the cap and took a long slam. When he was finished he pushed the bag against my chest. ‘Hit this,’ he said.

‘What is it?’

‘It ain’t Windex. Take a hit.’

I grasped the bag, tipped it back and took a deep gulp. It was sweet and good. I knew right away; it was Mogen David Wine. Mad Dog 20-20. I took another long hit.

When I returned the jug Flash sucked back a deep draw. ‘Ya know,’ he said, then stared at the floor, getting ready, acquiring syllables; ‘Ya know…I know it gets cold up here. I know that, ya know…Some days up here I hate the fucking cold…Some days I hate fucking God, ya know?…Some days I hate the fucking President of the United-fucking-States. Some days I wish I could park a fuckin’ U-Haul truck loaded with a fucking fertilizer bomb and a fuse in front of the embassy of every dark-skinned minority turban-headed sandnigger Middle Eastern cocksucker that ever mooched a fucking welfare check in this town, ya know…And some days, most days, I hate that fat fuckin’ cocksucker Johnny Murphy. Most days. I could easily kill that cocksucker; squash his ass like a fucking bug for the nasty shit that comes out of his arrogant, mean-ass mouth! Ya know? I can hate that cocksucker real bad! Ya know!…But, ya know, like I said, some days are worse then others…’

He reflected, took another long pull at the Mad Dog bottle, then decided to go on. ‘See Dante,’ he said, ‘here I am, ya know, I’m up here slammin’ my dick against the frozen glass day after fuckin’ day and one fuckin’ Friday a couple a month ago I stop by the fuckin’ office to pick up my fuckin’ paycheck and guess what I find out? Guess? I’ll tell you. I find out that that Murphy cocksucker and the other guy, his boss, I refer to that cocksucker as cocksucker number two; well, these two cocksuckers have conspired together to shave my fuckin’ hours because of some fuckin’ chickenshit clever new loophole they have found out that