The Janitor

by Carla Damrom

I couldn’t help but want to see what was inside the guy’s head. I mean, I knew what was in there, his brain and all, but that was the first time I actually saw it. And it looked like a big, gray cauliflower.

I’ve seen a lot of ugly–well, gruesome stuff–in my work. I don’t do anything fancy, mind you. I’m not a doctor. I’m not one of them cheeky lab people who always leave pizza boxes and Dorito bags in the trash, but still, I’ve seen my share of stuff.

 Today the medical examiner must have run off for lunch without locking up the slab room. I had already mopped the hall, Ajaxed the toilets, and dusted the tiny waiting area, so I went in to get the trash and maybe check the hazardous materials container to see if we needed an early pick-up. And there he was on the table.  A sheet covered half of him. His bloated flesh had red stitches up the chest like a ladder. The top of his skull had been taken off so they could check his brain, I guess.

That odd cauliflower thing.

 I thought, wow, this was the thing that gave the man ideas. That told him what to wear or eat. That reminded him how to get home and helped him choose his favorite song. All of that went on in something barely bigger than my fist. Pretty damned amazing, when you think about it.

I don’t get to use my brain much in this job. I did before—back when I was a nursing tech—but all that changed three years and a hundred bottles of booze ago. Needed the booze to forget, but it never worked. Some pain can’t be danced around.

I’m sober now, but not before the damage was done. Lost my job. Lost my home. Live in a scuzzy apartment on a scuzzier street. Guess I was lucky to get this cleaning gig, such as it was. Being a janitor ain’t for everyone, especially when you’re cleaning a medical examiner’s lab. You see some things nobody wants to see.

I mopped around the body, thinking how it was a shame, a man dying so young. But that’s how the world worked. You’re alive one day with a promise of a future and the next you’re on this slab, the ME looking for answers.

One of the ME assistants came hurrying in, holding a manilla folder. “She’s not here?” he asked.

“Nope. Lunch.”

“I’ll just leave this for her.” He placed the file on a table and disappeared.

I looked back at the body. His hand hung out of the sheet. Olive skinned like me. Neatly trimmed fingernails. And a tattoo across his knuckles: LR.

“Jesus,” I whispered, and peered closer at his face.

I recognized the caterpillar-bushy brows, the narrow nose. The quarter-moon scar on his chin. They called him Chill.

My boy Calvin used to talk about him all the time. Chill was the big dog. The king of Las Razas. How my boy worshipped him.

I closed my eyes and let the memories come. Calvin at my bosom, nursing with the vigor of hungry bear. Calvin toddling beside me when I shopped and sneaking a candy bar into the cart. Calvin hitting a bullet out the baseball park and grinning at me from the podium during a spelling bee.

Calvin lying in the street, holes all in him. Shot up by the Cobras, just for being near Las Razas. He wasn’t even a member—not yet. He was just a boy. But that was the path he was on, thanks to Chill and his posse.

A hole in me opened up. Oh my boy. It had been there for three years and six months. Calvin died for nothing. And this body on the gurney—this Chill—was just another fallen chess piece in this endless game between the gangs.

Las Razas had a tight hold on my town. Everybody was terrified of Chill. They said ice ran in his veins.

He didn’t look so powerful lying dead on this slab.

I picked up the folder the assistant had left. A report from the lab on Chill. I shook my head at the cause of death.

I was sick of the gangs destroying everything around me.  Of being extra vigilant when I had to run to the store after dark. Of the gunshots punctuating the night. Of the fear. The loss.

They’d taken my boy. I had nothing left.

I pulled my cell phone out and punched in a familiar number. My cousin, Diego. “Chill’s dead.”

“You’re sure?” Diego’s voice had an edge that always scared me.  

“I’m looking at his body.”

A pause, then, “Gotta be the Cobras. They’ve been moving in. Take a picture,” Diego said. “There’s fifty in it for you.”

I snapped the photo and sent it to Diego. That picture would start a gang war.

And I didn’t care. Not a lick. Let them butcher each other. Let them destroy themselves.

I’d have to be careful over the next few weeks. Las Razas would seek revenge for Chill. Cobras would have their own retribution. There’d be more bodies piling up in this room.

And nobody needed to know the truth: that Chill died choking on a piece of fried chicken.

When I finished, I closed the door and moved on.  I had three other offices to do, and pizza boxes waiting for me in the lab. 

The job ain’t glamorous, but it has its perks.

~

Carla Damron is a social worker, advocate, and author of women’s fiction, mysteries, and suspense. She loves to use fiction to explore social issues like homelessness, drug abuse, mental illness, and human trafficking, but entertaining the reader is Priority One. She’s the author of six books and the winner of multiple literary awards, including the WFWA Star Award for Best Novel (The Stone Necklace) and the NIEA award for best suspense (The Orchid Tattoo). Damron, who holds an MSW and an MFA in Creative Writing, recently joined the faculty of Writers.com. You can read more about her at https://carladamron.com/