Read Online The Dead Janitors Club by Jeff Klima - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Jeff Klima
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later."
Between us, we lifted the recliner awkwardly and then moved slowly, the weight of it more than we had anticipated. We heaved it out at last, though, through the French-door entrance and into the yard, where it sat in the dead of night for the neighbors to gawk at, and the coyotes to gnaw at, while we dealt with the rest.
With permission, we bagged up the pills, TV Guide , and eyeglasses for disposal, along with a trash can filled with wadded tissues that had caught some heavy hunks of grandma. We were going to toss the painting as well, but Martin begged us to clean it. "It was her favorite," he said, dazed.
I had just started on the walls, scrubbing at the crimson-splattered drywall with a furniture-stripping brush when I heard the sound of dialing from the dining room, followed by an echoed ring, eerily loud, and then another one.
"Hello?" The unassuming female voice came out of the ethers.
"Hi, sweetheart," Martin said slowly, loudly, unaware. "It's your dad."
"Hi, Dad, what's up?"
She didn't know.
There was a pause, and then Martin said, "Oh, your mom…she… accidentally killed herself with a shotgun today."
He was telling his kids via speakerphone while I was in the next room, scrubbing up mom's "accidental shotgun mistake." Worse than any part of the recliner and its gloppy, undermixed-paint look, worse than the thought of leaving the carpet, had to be overhearing that phone call.
"Oh, my God, what?" An instant release of tears mixed in, so that the words sounded fuzzy, but they were unmistakable and painfully horrible. I scrubbed harder, the coarse bristles doing their damnedest to drown out the rest of the phone call, but it came through crystal clear all the same.
"She loved you guys…you know that," Martin said gravely, and the shrill, unrelated cry of an ignorant and wanting child reverberated through the phone's receiver. "She was just so sick, and so tired, and she hurt, and it was just her time," Martin continued, his voice gravelly but unwavering.
I imagined I was listening to an iPod, the volume notched up, blaring out some rock song with thumping drums, but the only song my imagination could effectively conjure up was "The Star-Spangled Banner." It did the trick. I even hummed along aloud, wiping away the red blood from the white walls and feeling blue the entire time.
We had finished the wall and hit the spots on the couch that we decidedly weren't going to take, mostly because there wasn't enough room in the truck for it, and were starting to feel pretty damn done about things, when I noticed a wall in the hallway that somehow, some way had caught a good amount of the spray. The guts looked like caterpillars trying to inch into the darkness of the next room, but we used our flashlights and got them, too.
My suit was shredded at the knees from inching along the carpet to access the length of wall up to the brick fireplace. Blood had seeped into the fabric, and I prayed it had not breached the plastic lining separating it from my pants. But I still felt fairly good about the job we had done, despite the fact that the carpet still looked horribly streaked and bloody.
Regardless of it not being implicit in the contract we had drawn up, we removed any and all chunky spots from the carpet, leaving only bony branch lengths of blood soaked in. I stood, ready to carry out my crate, strip off my bunny suit, and find an all-night convenience store with a cooler full of Dr Pepper. Dirk had even managed to save the painting by decontaminating it with the enzyme and then scrubbing lightly at it with a brush so that only some of the oil paint smeared. I was proud of us.
Then I heard it. "We missed some."
I followed Dirk's finger, pointing at the ceiling, where, mixed in with the dust and stucco, there were some unmistakable chunks of that melon-looking brain
Between us, we lifted the recliner awkwardly and then moved slowly, the weight of it more than we had anticipated. We heaved it out at last, though, through the French-door entrance and into the yard, where it sat in the dead of night for the neighbors to gawk at, and the coyotes to gnaw at, while we dealt with the rest.
With permission, we bagged up the pills, TV Guide , and eyeglasses for disposal, along with a trash can filled with wadded tissues that had caught some heavy hunks of grandma. We were going to toss the painting as well, but Martin begged us to clean it. "It was her favorite," he said, dazed.
I had just started on the walls, scrubbing at the crimson-splattered drywall with a furniture-stripping brush when I heard the sound of dialing from the dining room, followed by an echoed ring, eerily loud, and then another one.
"Hello?" The unassuming female voice came out of the ethers.
"Hi, sweetheart," Martin said slowly, loudly, unaware. "It's your dad."
"Hi, Dad, what's up?"
She didn't know.
There was a pause, and then Martin said, "Oh, your mom…she… accidentally killed herself with a shotgun today."
He was telling his kids via speakerphone while I was in the next room, scrubbing up mom's "accidental shotgun mistake." Worse than any part of the recliner and its gloppy, undermixed-paint look, worse than the thought of leaving the carpet, had to be overhearing that phone call.
"Oh, my God, what?" An instant release of tears mixed in, so that the words sounded fuzzy, but they were unmistakable and painfully horrible. I scrubbed harder, the coarse bristles doing their damnedest to drown out the rest of the phone call, but it came through crystal clear all the same.
"She loved you guys…you know that," Martin said gravely, and the shrill, unrelated cry of an ignorant and wanting child reverberated through the phone's receiver. "She was just so sick, and so tired, and she hurt, and it was just her time," Martin continued, his voice gravelly but unwavering.
I imagined I was listening to an iPod, the volume notched up, blaring out some rock song with thumping drums, but the only song my imagination could effectively conjure up was "The Star-Spangled Banner." It did the trick. I even hummed along aloud, wiping away the red blood from the white walls and feeling blue the entire time.
We had finished the wall and hit the spots on the couch that we decidedly weren't going to take, mostly because there wasn't enough room in the truck for it, and were starting to feel pretty damn done about things, when I noticed a wall in the hallway that somehow, some way had caught a good amount of the spray. The guts looked like caterpillars trying to inch into the darkness of the next room, but we used our flashlights and got them, too.
My suit was shredded at the knees from inching along the carpet to access the length of wall up to the brick fireplace. Blood had seeped into the fabric, and I prayed it had not breached the plastic lining separating it from my pants. But I still felt fairly good about the job we had done, despite the fact that the carpet still looked horribly streaked and bloody.
Regardless of it not being implicit in the contract we had drawn up, we removed any and all chunky spots from the carpet, leaving only bony branch lengths of blood soaked in. I stood, ready to carry out my crate, strip off my bunny suit, and find an all-night convenience store with a cooler full of Dr Pepper. Dirk had even managed to save the painting by decontaminating it with the enzyme and then scrubbing lightly at it with a brush so that only some of the oil paint smeared. I was proud of us.
Then I heard it. "We missed some."
I followed Dirk's finger, pointing at the ceiling, where, mixed in with the dust and stucco, there were some unmistakable chunks of that melon-looking brain
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