Read Online The Cleaner by Paul Cleave - Free Book Online Page A

going to be sun for a couple of more hours. I start to think about what I might want to do tonight. I reach the bus stop. I wait for only a few seconds with a bunch of nondescript people I could kill right now if I wanted to before the bus shows up. As usual, my briefcase is in my right hand, my ticket in my left. I hand it over.
    “Hi there, Joe.” She gives me a big smile.
    “Hi, Miss Selena. How are you?”
    “Very well, Joe,” she answers, punching my ticket. “Missed you yesterday, Joe.”
    I couldn’t exactly catch the bus to Angela’s house. “I was late, Miss Selena.”
    She hands back my ticket. I study how she moves, how she sounds, the way her eyes look me up and down. She smells like soap and perfume and makes me think of other women I’ve been with. Her shoulder-length black hair is slightly damp,and I can only assume she has showered with seeing me in mind, and since I’m in the process of assuming that, I like to assume she was in pretty good spirits as she soaped herself down. All that assuming makes the front of my overalls go a little tight. Her olive skin gives her a slightly exotic look, and she talks with an accent that’s erotic. She has a nice tight body and firm skin. Her dark blue eyes look into mine, and they see me differently from how Mr. Stanley sees me. He sees a defunct personality caught inside a healthy body. Miss Selena sees me as a man who can satisfy her. Her fingers deliberately brush against my hand. She wants me. Unfortunately, I like her too much as a bus driver to indulge her. Perhaps I’ll wait until she changes jobs.
    I walk down the aisle. The bus isn’t packed, but I’m forced to sit next to some young guy dressed as a punk. He looks like he couldn’t make conversation about the weather unless it included beating the shit out of a weatherman. He’s dressed entirely in black, with a black studded collar around his neck. He has red hair, spikes in his nose, and faucet washers stretching his earlobes. Another regular citizen of this fine city. A chain runs from his lower lip to his throat. I consider pulling on it to see if I can flush his mind. His T-shirt says Don’t worry, I know the hymen maneuver.
    It’s five thirty when I get home, by which time the front of my building is in complete shade. Somebody has tipped over some trash bins, so the sidewalk right outside is covered in old food and lawn clippings, and the old food and lawn clippings are themselves covered in flies. I climb the steps to the top floor and the first thing I do when I get into my apartment is open the window, then the second thing I do is close it because something out there smells bad.
    I turn on an electric fan that looks just like the one at work and, I must confess, actually came from work. I open my briefcase on the sofa, take out the microcassette tape, and listen to it while I change out of my overalls. The tape containsnothing interesting. Inside the conference room they admit to themselves they have nothing. Outside to the media, they have several leads.
    I stifle a laugh and toss the tape back into the briefcase. I’ll swap them again tomorrow.
    I sit on the sofa and watch my goldfish. I give them some food and they swim up and start eating. Five-second memories or not, they always recognize food. They also recognize me. When I put my finger on the edge of the bowl, they follow it. I sometimes think that society would be great if we all had five-second memories. I could kill as many people as I wanted. Of course, maybe I wouldn’t remember that I liked killing people, so maybe it wouldn’t be that great after all. I could be right in the middle of tying somebody up when I’d forget why I was there. A five-second-memory society would just be full of awkward moments like that.
    When Pickle and Jehovah have eaten and are back into their happy routine of swimming around and around, I lock up and head downstairs, keeping a tight grip on my briefcase.
    I walk a few blocks, studying