Sliding Home

Charlie O’Brien thought he heard the bell. He wasn’t sure; his hearing wasn’t very good anymore. A bell would mean it was 3:00 p.m. Not that it mattered. His internal clock was accurate. That clock told him school was out.

At the janitor’s closet, his inner sanctum, he extracted the waxing machine. It had been there almost since he’d started working and worked like a charm, that heavy aluminum buffer. The old gal could still polish up a mirror finish. He’d replaced the pads more times than he could remember. Wool they were, originally, lasting longer and buffing better than new ones made from some hifalutin stuff in colors that made his eyes water. Those turned to a shiny grey once the wax went on and buffing got started; it showed they were doing their job.  

He loved that machine, he way it would slide across the linoleum floors bringing a glow to the dull finish left after kids scrambled over it. The routine was buff the halls weekly. He liked routines. But one hallway got it every day. 

Over the years, people from various school committees had passed through the halls of his school. If someone saw him tinkering with the buffer, they’d ask if he needed a new one. Charlie would look up from his reflection on the floor. No, he’d say, this old one worked fine; always had, always would. 

He loved its grips. When the machine hummed those grips vibrated giving his hands a massage and, he was sure, tingle away the pain of his arthritis. He’d had his hands massaged that winter in Belgium. It was in some basement that passed for a hospital from an angel who passed for an army nurse. She didn’t speak much English. C=Charlie didn’t speak any French. He never did get her name. But he’d fallen in love with her smile. 

He was reminded of that smile every morning. In his wallet was a crinkled photo of her, in her nurse’s outfit, probably when she got out of school she was so young. There were some French words on the back Charlie never did understand and didn’t dare to. He wanted to think she’d given it to him because she liked him, that the words said something like “my love.” He did recognize ‘mon chéri’ and a smudge what he hoped was his name. She’d gotten two packs of cigarettes from him the day she gave him that photo. He thought maybe it was nothing more than a trade. If it was, he thought, he’d got the better deal; a lifetime of ‘maybe.’

Charlie kept all that a secret. Anyway, who would he tell?   

A few kids always stayed late because their parents weren’t home. Some only had the one parent. A teacher would get paid a bit to watch over them in a classroom. It was usually the same group. They got along, behaved nicely, and got a jump on their homework. These were young kids, elementary school, meaning lots of energy. It bothered Charlie that they were cooped up when they should’ve been out playing. Heck, thought Charlie, they could see kids playing kickball just outside. He felt bad for those kids left behind.

Which was why, every day, he waxed the floor outside that classroom. His kids would stand inside the doorway, watching as he talked to himself and moved the humming machine down the hall. Right as he turned at the end, he’d signal the a thumbs-up. They’d already have their shoes off, boys and girls both. They’d run halfway down the hall to locker number 122 before sliding as far as they could. The furthest anyone ever slid was locker 156, a record set in 1958. Every summer, Charlie would paint those lockers a dull institutional green, everyone except for 122. That he painted orange as the starting line. He painted a star on 156 to mark the record held by Ross “Gasser” Gassior. Hundreds of kids over the years had tried to beat Gassior’s achievement. None made it past 148. 

Charlie played the official for this after-school challenge. He’d make sure kids started at locker 122 and determined where they stopped; someone always tried for a few more inches. That was, at least, what the kids thought. In reality Charlie was there to make sure no one got hurt. The teacher, overseeing the after-school program, might get in trouble for letting them out of her sight.  

He remembered when it started. A Miss Faucett was the teacher. A first-year teacher of the third grade. She was nice to him, not condescending, always asking about his day. She called him Mister, formal, but respectful. She reminded him of that Belgian nurse. Charlie would brush snow off her car when the weather demanded. Later, he did that for all the teachers, but it started with Miss Faucett.

His smiles stayed even after that afternoon when a man, younger than him and without a limp, picked her up in a green sports car, a Triumph TR2. The man had a grey tweed jacket, an Ivy League crew cut, and pearly white teeth behind an assessing smile, which he somehow managed while biting on an unlit briar pipe. Charlie’s eyes fixed on the thick silver ring on the pipe’s stem. The man jumped out of the car to give her a big hug and kiss—inappropriate around the school, Charlie thought. 

She wouldn’t be interested in a guy like Charlie, who walked funny, didn’t have much of a job, rarely had much to say anyway. Also, he had that hearing issue from the explosion that hit his leg. Earned him a Purple Heart and got him on a ship back home. This was the sob story Charlie told himself whenever he took a fancy to a new teacher or most other women he rarely had a chance to meet. He was just Charlie, the school janitor.

“Charlie, do you have a moment?”

It was the principal, Mister Barrone, the new guy, who’d only been at it a few months. He took the helm from Waldo Weatherbee, the man who’d hired Charlie way back when. Charlie liked Weatherbee. He got as much of a kick out of his name, a name he shared with the Principal in the Archie comics, as the kids did.

Weatherbee was also fond of Charlie. He’d taken off a couple of years to serve, like Charlie, and also got hurt in his leg. “Well, Mister Charlie, I’ll hire you and you know why?” That’s what he asked when Charlie applied for the job. “I’ll tell you why, young man. Because if I have to chase you down you won’t outrun me!” Weatherbee’s belly, which had already started to expand, jiggled with his deep laugh. 

His esteem for Weatherbee surged one day when an old prune of a teacher, Florence Bragdon, sent an eight-year-old boy crying to the principal’s office with a rolled-up copy of an Archie she had whacked across his face when the little one starting giggling over the name Waldo Weatherbee.

Weatherbee was walking down the hall just as the boy was walking to him. “Now, son,” said Weatherbee. “What can all these tears be about? What can possibly be so bad? I can’t imagine.”

The boy stammered how he’d laughed over the name Waldo Weatherbee. “Hmm,” said Weatherbee. “That doesn’t seem like a federal crime. Did you read the comic?”

The boy nodded his teary face in a guilty yes.

“Well, that’s good. It’s good you’re reading. Between us, I think they stole that name from me. I probably get them to pay for using it. What do you think?”

The little boy smiled and said that seemed about fair.

Weatherbee walked the boy back into the classroom and dragged Bragdon out. “Flo, honestly, it’s just a comic and an amazing coincidence to boot. Let it be. In fact, I’ll just go and tell the kids I’m not THAT Waldo Weatherbee even if we do look somewhat alike.”

Bragdon’s lips stiffened as Weatherbee entered the classroom; you could almost hear her jaw cracking from the way she gritted her teeth when the laughing started. Bragdon feigned a smile laugh when she went back in.

Charlie watched the whole episode. Bragdon retired after that year.

The new principal, Barrone, smiled a lot. He would walk around the school, smiling at the kids, saying, “hi kiddo!” or some variation. He said it to the teachers, too. “Hi, Miss,” or “Hi, buddy,” or “Hi, pal.” If a member of the school board came around, Barrone knew their names readily enough. He’d take their hand in both of his and shake as if he was trying to take their arm off. Then he’d whisper, the smile replaced by an intense look of interest, and walk them to whatever destination he had in mind. If Charlie ever heard him call a student by their name, he didn’t know about it but then Charlie’s hearing wasn’t so very good.

“How’s it going, Charlie?” That was the first time Barrone had addressed him by any name. It was usually “Hey buddy, do this” or “Pal, there’s a leak in the girl’s bathroom Did you see it?” Charlie was pretty sure Barrone didn’t know his name. He certainly didn’t know Charlie. If he had, he wouldn’t have asked if Charlie knew about a leak in any bathroom.

“No complaints. Everything’s working, you know.”

“Ah, that’s a good thing at your age, I bet!”

“I mean the school. Equipment and such. Everything’s good. I might have to change some of the tiles in 132. The art room. But I got those. This weekend I’ll get to it.”

“That’s what I want to talk to you about.”

Barrone leaned back in his chair, a new one he’d ordered that Charlie put together. It was what they called Danish Modern, chrome and black leather and able to adjust so you could do what Barrone was doing just then, leaning way back. The old chair that Weatherbee had used for years worked just fine, thought Charlie. He didn’t like the way Barrone could lean all that way, nearly touching the radiator under the window, and looking down his long Roman nose, foot tapping the edge of the desk. The desk, a birch-colored wooden thing that felt flimsy when Charlie helped carry it in, was also new. It only had a couple of drawers. Weatherbee’s old one had plenty of drawers. A principal needed that space. Charlie wondered where Barrone his work.

“Charlie, you’ve been here…what…30 years if it’s been a day. I got a note saying you’re past retirement age. Way past. Shit, Charlie, you could have retired years ago!”

“I like what I do.”

“Yes, you do,” said Barrone. “And damned good at it.” Charlie didn’t like Barrone swearing—twice so far. A principal shouldn’t speak that way, even if it was a compliment. If that’s what it was.

“It’s time. You’ve got a nice pension coming. Very nice. And I gather there’s the disability from your time in the service?”

“Yeah, the war.”

“Yes, the war. Why, between the two, you’ll almost make more than me, and I’ve got a Ph.D.!” Barron’s mouth opened with another smile, and he tapped a finger to the side of his nose. Charlie didn’t think it was any of his business.

Charlie wasn’t listening very much after that. He was looking out the window at the kids on the playground, thinking he saw the slide shimmying as they went down. He’d have to cement it in, maybe Friday, so it would set over the weekend. Barrone was ruffling at some papers on his desk, that unchanging smile sticking to his face. He’s got good teeth, Charlie thought, I’ll give him that.

“So we’re all set?”

Barrone was now looking at Charlie, his smile replaced with arching eyebrows and lifted cheeks in what could pass for a smile or a look like he had just caught the scent of a dead animal. Charlie smirked at the image. He recalled such a smell years back when a rat had died behind a panel in the school’s library. He once saw a similar look on Mr. Weatherbee’s face.

“Charlie, something smells to high heaven in there,” Weatherbee had said. “Would you mind taking a look? Durned stink of the thing makes the kids want to barf, pardon my French.” After that Charlie put out traps, well out of any child’s reach, and soon the rats were gone. Ike was President then, Charlie remembered.

“Charlie?

“Sorry. My mind was elsewhere.”

“It’s a lot to take in. We’ll throw you a party, of course. Next week, just before break. I’ll have my gal arrange it. There’s a teacher’s day Wednesday. That work?”

“Wait just a second. You want me out next week? What if I want to stay? That would be okay, right?”

“Charlie, Charlie, it’s time. At your age, you’re past the mandatory. The union is, well, we’ve spoken to the union. They won’t fight it. We checked.”

“I haven’t been to a union meeting, ever, I don’t think. What if I want to stay on?”

“Sorry, Charlie. No can do. They, the union, have some guy they want to bring up. Hell, Charlie. Christ, most people would be thrilled to be in your spot.”

“My spot? I’m getting fired for wanting my job.”

“Charlie, you are not getting fired, not in the least. You’re retiring from the rat race. You beat the rats!”

He’d beaten the rats twenty years ago, maybe 30 years. “We got a rat problem ya think?”

“No, Charlie. It’s an expression.”

“I was being funny.”

“Oh,” said Barrone who laughed too loudly. “Very good.” He rose from the chair, leaned on the desk, which Charlie worried might break it, and offered his hand. 

Charlie brushed his hands down his green shirt. “My hands are kind of dirty. Next time maybe.”

“Sure, Charlie. Next time then.”

The word was out about Charlie’s retirement. He got some hugs, a handshake or two, and a theatrical kiss on his lips by the school nurse, a voluptuously late-middle-aged Miss Fuller who squeezed her phone number into his hand. “Stay in touch. Let’s have dinner. At my place. Soon.” He pocketed the note. A few tears were shed and there were a lot of pats on the back. 

“I’m right behind you my man,” said Tom Collins, the gym teacher. “I’ve got a few Carlings on ice. Come by later.” Charlie passed. He didn’t think it was good to drink in school.

It wasn’t much of a party. Barrone came, put his arm around Charlie’s shoulder, thanked him for his 30 years—it was nearly 50—and said he had to meet with the Board of Ed. “We’ll miss you, pal,” he said and left in a rush still grinning.

One by one, the partygoers left, as well, careful to put paper plates in the garbage bin. Some offered to help clean up, but that was Charlie’s job as he made clear. After he shut the lights off, he went to his closet and put wax on the buffer for a final shining. He wished he’d put in for a new one so he could take the old bird home. He went over the floors, proud of this sheen, and then did it again. He was going to write a note telling the new to wax the floors first thing so the kids could skim but figured it wasn’t his place. The union would tell the guy what to do. 

He put the buffer away, wrote out labels for the bundle of keys, and left them on his chair. He wrote down his phone number, too, with a note, “Call me if you have any questions. Charlie.”

Charlie wanted to be sadder than he was. He looked up and down the halls, thinking about kids come and gone, teachers he’d known, not sure what he was feeling but it wasn’t just sadness. It was the hall, the tiles, and the smell of the buffing jobs he’d done and done again. The school would miss him. And he’d miss it, too. He stared down the main hall, admiring the double waxing job that he’d given it for the final time. The new guy wouldn’t do it twice: union rules. He felt bad for the floors: his shiny floors.

A desk stood outside the after-school room with an old chair by it. Maybe it was loose. Some of these old wooden seats could splinter, too. He didn’t want to leave it that way.

He jiggled the chair about. It was solid enough. The seat was worn, but hardly threatening to a teacher’s rear end. He sat down trying to figure out if there was a problem, why no one ever sat there. Then he remembered: the chair was for the after-school crowd. The only ones to use the desk these days were the still sliding down the hall.

He looked at his shiny floor and smiled. With his left toe took the right shoe off and then took the left shoe revealing white socks that were almost blinding against the gleaming brown linoleum floor. He rubbed one foot against a smudge he hadn’t noticed until the spot glowed again. It was a good job and a long day.

Charlie put a hand against one of the lockers and felt his finger on a slightly protruding edge of the metal label. With his fingernail he pushed the edge down; a kid might cut himself. The label read 122. Charlie smiled. Locker 122. Then he did something he’d never done in all his years. He walked to the start of the hall and tore off fast as he could, almost hearing high-pitched squeals behind. When he reached the orange locker, 122, he slid. The momentum carried him to locker 162 for a new school record and a fitting end for Charlie O’Brien.