HORROR VACUI

a short story

            Mr. Megiddo was a flabby white man with tired eyes and ill-fitting clothes, and something about the line of his mouth said that he lived alone and hated his job. Megiddo sat in his little tobacco-stained office under a faded print of a black lab with a duck in its mouth. He peered down through bifocals pinched to his pock-marked nose as he shuffled paperwork with intent. Megiddo was the district manager of a janitorial service that specialized in corporate maintenance. He oversaw the work of three groups of custodians, each assigned to a separate corporate client. His job wasn’t too taxing; all Megiddo had to do was communicate with clients, schedule shifts for his employees, and make sure everyone was pulling their weight.

 Megiddo had no warm feelings for the custodians in his charge. After years of hiring and overseeing the work of these people, he’d observed that they all seemed to fit into one of three categories: there were the seniors too poor to retire, the young junkies too uneducated to get a better job, and finally, and which was most often the case, there were the ones with weak-minds—the jabbering backward lot who could barely hold a human conversation. Megiddo didn’t care to know them, and he resented them for making his job unpleasant and necessary.

*

Rick Salami was a custodian that Megiddo would have placed in the ‘weak-minded’ category. That Rick was slow was immediately apparent, considering his lumbering, ghoulish walk, his grey unfixed eyes, and the fact that half of his skull seemed to have been removed. Megiddo didn’t know his story or want to hear it—just was long as Rick did his job, and didn’t frighten anybody too badly.  

Today as Megiddo was reviewing invoices he noticed Rick’s hulking mass silhouetted behind the venetian blinds in his office window. Rick was standing out there, gently shifting his weight from one foot to the other. The tendons in Megiddo’s neck grew taut; this was the last thing he needed at 6:30 am. Megiddo remained behind his desk, his eyes flitting from the invoices in his hands to the dark oscillating shape outside his office window, until finally Rick Salami quietly entered the room, mop in hand. He seemed to fill the space, and he cut out light from the fluorescent panels overhead.

“Can I help you?” Megiddo said shortly.

“Glurrr…” Rick said, in a voice that sounded like it came from a small salamander living in his windpipe.

“Sorry Rick, I’m a little busy right now. Aren’t you scheduled to work in the lobby of the Brown and Garden Hotel this morning? Shouldn’t you be loading up your equipment?”

“Glur-don’t like hotel, like offices-rrrr…”

Megiddo pushed the thumb and index finger of his right hand into his eyes. “You can’t have an office building, you’re scheduled for Brown and Garden at 7am!”

“Glur-maybe Greencorp has an opening-rrrr…”

Megiddo filled his cheeks with air and blew it out loudly. “FINE,” he said, “you can take Greencorp for this morning, but after 8:00pm it’s the Brown and Garden Hotel lobby. How does that sound to you?”

“Glurrrrrr…”

“Great,” said Megiddo with no emotion, returning to his invoices, “you be sure and have a good morning, now.” Rick Salami moved out of the office as silently and slowly as a large plant might, and he kept this steady oozing pace as he changed into grey-blue overalls in the locker room, then loaded a Back-vac onto the transport truck, where he hitched a ride to the offices of Greencorp Industries.

Most of the custodians preferred quiet, unpopulated places to do their work, but it made no difference to Rick. He’d learned after many years in this business that custodians operate in a separate dimension from other professionals; no matter how odd looking you are, or what conspicuous equipment you’re pushing around, no one seems to notice you—in fact these things might only serve to announce the presence of a custodian more promptly, and thus help facilitate the shift in dimensions. A custodian is a potted plant, a chair, an elevator, a thing that is seen but not acknowledged, except by someone who makes a point to do so—to show what a rare and fair-minded person they happen to be. Rick knew he was invisible, so working in a crowded space never bothered him. This, however, was not why he liked working at Greencorp.  

*

The transport truck pulled up to the loading dock, and Rick moved his equipment into a grimy back room with orange sticky walls, where he carefully strapped himself into the Bac-vac. The machine consisted of a large yellow battery powered engine and storage compartment attached to nylon straps that went over the shoulders and were secured around chest with a complex metal clasp. The engine was connected to a segmented black rubber tube, which finally led to a rigid stainless steel hose that was held almost like a weapon. Rick was ready for business, and he walked through the dimly lit green stairwell that led to the 5^th floor.

He entered the familiar miniature town of little grey cubicles, each one decorated with unrevealing personal items.  Rick started up the machine. The sound was horrendous, and at first the employees around him registered annoyance, and sent a few unhappy glances in Rick’s direction. But, as Rick had expected, his appearance triggered the instinctive response, and they promptly turned their minds back to their various tasks.

As Rick methodically ran the wide intake nozzle over the grey carpet, he imagined a bar of cleanliness following in its path, and he kept this picture in his mind to be sure of which sections had been vacuumed, and which hadn’t. This was his primary focus until he came to cubicle 47A, an office space that he knew belonged to a woman with dark hair and dark eyes and white teeth. He didn’t know her last name, only that people called her Midge, and that in her eyes he saw a brown quiet landscape, a mountainous region where he wanted to live. When he walked through the barren valley his feet kicked up brown dust, and he could see old broken furniture scattered to the horizon, and when he looked down he saw faded photographs and the bones of birds.

 Rick looked slowly to one side, stealing a gaze into cubicle 47A. He saw her flower in the coffee mug, and her calendar of Monet’s water lilies. She didn’t seem to be there. Was she sick? Did she quit? His heart was beating fast and heat moved to his neck. He stood up straight to scan the area; she would be easy to spot. He had turned about 180 degrees when Midge appeared just a few feet away, walking forward, talking to someone behind her. She collided with Rick, dumping hot coffee on his overalls. He felt the heat on his chest, it soaked through and burned his skin, but he was in shock and his overtaxed brain cut out the pain.

“Oh my god!” Midge cried, “I’m so sorry!” and she began to wipe her hand against his chest. Rick felt electric fingers move up his back, and he thought about moving away so she wouldn’t burn her bare hand—but she didn’t seem to mind, and he couldn’t move.  “Are you okay?” she went on, wiping her hand on her skirt. Rick had never been this close; she smelled like a forest full of mating insects; sweet and rich. He could see the outline of her breasts through her perfectly fitted navy blouse, and he followed her hand down to her skirt, to her smooth stockings.

Then she smiled at him with embarrassment, and, he thought, a hint of recognition. There was no revulsion on her face, and in her big brown eyes he was again in that desolate arid zone, only this time his shoes were slipping on the sand; he had trouble staying connected to the ground. Rick decided that the brown planet had unruly gravity; dust, furniture, and pedestrians might suddenly drift up into the atmosphere, then come crashing down again—which accounted for everything being broken and dusty.

“You sure you’re okay?” the voice came back in, a voice that was all woman and sex. Rick nodded, turned around, switched on the Back-vac, and walked quickly away with his head down. He looked at the grey carpet, but he didn’t memorize the path of his nozzle. It was fourteen minutes before he allowed himself to look up again—he no longer felt invisible, in fact he was sure everyone on the floor had somehow seen the grotesque power of his sexual desire and now they were all watching him, waiting to see what he would do. When Rick finally screwed up his nerve and looked around, the world was unchanged. He permitted himself a glance at cubicle 47A, and saw Midge laughing with coworkers like nothing had happened.

She was clearly as friendly and open-hearted as she was beautiful. She had seen into Rick Salami’s dimension, and she wasn’t horrified. She didn’t even mind staying there long enough to touch him—and she touched him three or four times without hesitation. He had a chance, there was no doubt about it. He could tell her he loved her, and she would listen, she might even consider it. There was no doubt in Rick’s mind that if she could spend a little more time in his dimension, then she might love him back. But at 8pm he would have to leave Greencorp Industries and clean up the lobby in the Brown and Garden Hotel. He didn’t have much time.

*

Rick continued working in an area where he could keep an eye on Midge. He watched her leave for the bathroom, come back, take her lunch break, go to the vending machine, etc. He imagined what it would be like when she loved him, and he drove himself near insanity watching her body move under her clothes, thinking how those things might be his soon. He marveled at his good fortune. Soon it was closing time and the end of his shift. He watched her put on her coat, close out of her computer, and move toward the stairwell. Rick’s heart pounded; this was his moment. He didn’t know which level she was heading to, so he dropped his equipment, took an elevator down, and ran back up the stairwell to meet her. His usual slow plant-like movements quickly shifted into something spasmodic and rigid; he was panicked—if he lost her now she would forget about him, forget that she’d seen into his dimension and that it was okay.

He was running up the stairwell now, a big dark figure with a broken head, running madly up the poorly lit green stairs. He began to sweat and pant loudly, his eyes were unfocused, thinking about the future, glancing at stairs, numbers, doors. For a moment he didn’t notice the slim navy blue figure just above him, as though he’d forgotten what it was he was looking for. Now Midge was standing in front of him, and he looked at her face. She was terrified.

“NO! Get away!” she screamed in the shrill voice of a human high on adrenaline, ready to fly or fight, “GET AWAY!”

“Glurrrr-no--” Rick said.

She held one shaking hand up as if waving, and rifled through her purse with the other, tripping backwards on high heels. Rick lunged forward to catch her, and he felt the burning acid hit his eyes. Confused and in pain he fell to the ground, groping for her, moaning in his little salamander voice. Then he saw movement through red fog, and he heard high heels clicking on stairs above him, getting fainter.  

Rick moaned and choked on the fumes, he felt like a monster now. She had somehow missed it before, but here in the dark stairwell it became clear what he was. He crawled on hands and knees to the corner of the landing, and he made sounds like an animal. He tried to find his way back to the brown world with the broken furniture, but he knew it was miles away by now.

*

Mr. Megiddo got a call at about 8:35pm. It was from the Brown and Garden Hotel, asking if they were mistaken or if one of his custodians was scheduled to come in and clean up the lobby. At first Megiddo thought about firing that twisted wierdo Rick Salami, but then he thought about how most of his work was usually satisfactory, and covering for his indiscretions cost less than it would to pay for his unemployment. Then Megiddo noticed that Rick had never clocked out for dinner, hadn’t returned the Back-vac to the storage room, and that his civilian clothes were still on his hook. As Megiddo looked for clues, colorful scenes stole through his mind: first of Rick hanging by the chord of a hook-light in a basement somewhere, kicking his feet as if swimming. Then he saw Rick wandering aimlessly on the littered shoulder of a freeway. Then Mr. Megiddo saw one final scene that almost made him laugh out loud. He pictured Rick Salami wearing a clean jacket and button down shirt, sitting at a candlelit table in an upscale restaurant across from a beautiful young woman, and he could almost hear the ‘ding’ as they toasted with tall glasses full of white wine.