The Autobiography of Benjamin Abbott - Chapter 11: The Clowns
Part One
After working an hour the next day, Tuesday, Richard pulled me aside. This was it, Humphrey remembered I worked in the mailroom.
“Benjamin, I have some news for you.” Richard’s eyes were kind.
“I’m fired.”
“No. No. You’re not. But your job will be changing.”
“How can I be demoted from the mailroom?”
“You’re not going to be delivering mail anymore.”
“And that’s a bad thing?”
“You’re going to be alphabetizing our files. All of our files.” We both looked at the row of musty, dusty, cobwebbed, antique (if 1970s era can qualify as antique) gray metal filling cabinets along the far wall.
“How old are those files?”
“Old.”
“How old?”
“Older than you.”
I think he was exaggerating.
“They’ve given you two weeks to get through all of that.”
“Two weeks?”
“You get to keep my desk, too.”
“Really?”
“But it’s been moved.” He pointed to my, his, desk which indeed had been moved and was now stationed next to the door of the men’s bathroom.
“Hey, that wasn’t there before.”
“It’s been requested that you sit at that desk and alphabetize all day. And if you don’t finish your assignment by the deadline you will be fired.”
“Why does a mailroom have old files anyway?”
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I got used to the flushing after a while. And the smell kind of reminded of the stairwell in my apartment building (not Barry’s corner but Phil’s corner). And the filing wasn’t bad, it was a random mix of old correspondence, undelivered mail, employee files (which probably shouldn’t have been filed in the mailroom), and various securities filings with the SEC (also probably weren’t supposed to be filed in the mailroom).
The variety made my alphabetizing a little more difficult because it wasn’t always clear what letter files should be filed under, but it also helped as well because it meant I was surprised when I opened the faded and/or stained manila file folders never knowing what exactly I was going to find inside, which brought an extra level of randomness and excitement to my job, kind of like playing a slot machine all day.
And I’m pretty good at spacing out, so every now and then I would get a really good stare going and hold it for 3, 4 minutes. I began to have contests with myself to see how long I could go before my eyes forced me to blink and refocus. I had already made it to 8 minutes by my second day of alphabetizing when Richard came to my desk with more news. I must have looked too happy as Humphrey watched me on one of his cameras, there was a new assignment.
“Benjamin.”
“Yes.” I could see Richard over the stack of files but I don’t think he could see me.
“Benjamin, where are you?”
I stood up, popping up like a gopher from its hole.
“Benjamin, you have a new responsibility.”
“Okay.”
Richard set a green caddy down on the shortest of my stacks of folders. Then he took a piece of paper from his pocket, an interoffice memo, and started reading.
“It is now Benjamin Abbott’s responsibility to make sure the men’s and women’s bathrooms on the second floor meet the hygiene standards set forth by the City and County of Los Angeles. In accordance with these standards, Benjamin Abbott must clean the men’s and women’s bathroom on the second floor at least 5 times a day. If an inspection is conducted and either or both of the bathrooms do not meet the appropriate hygiene levels, there will be repercussions.”
“Repercussions?”
“That’s what it says.”
I swished the word around in my mouth like a good swig of 7 Up.
“Repercussions,” I said out loud a second time.
“Benjamin, why don’t you just quit?”
“Because…” I started a good stare, this one could have lasted longer than 8 minutes if Richard hadn’t been standing in front of me waiting for an answer to his question. I had thought about that question for a long time, for the entire previous night as I laid on my deflating air mattress looking up into my white ceiling. There were the immediate concerns of course; rent, the pain in the ass of looking for a new job, but they weren’t the reasons I was going to stay. My unfocused stare focused on the green caddy.
A large square handle protruded regally from the middle of the caddy like the Arc de Triumphe as various cleaning agents and wipes and other products spilled around the bottom of the handle like the cars that circle in and around the Arc de Triumphe. There were certainly a lot of supplies. This could be considered a bad thing because it implied there would be a lot of cleaning, but I think Richard had gone out and purchased them himself because he felt sorry for me and wanted me to have everything I needed to do the job properly.
There was Clorox toilet bowl cleaner. There was Lysol toilet bowl cleaner. There was Mr. Clean UltraClean Citrus Scent Antibacterial all-purpose cleaner. There were wipes from the aforementioned brands as well as other brands I hadn’t heard of, including environmentally friendly brands. There were scrubbers; long scrubbers, short scrubbers, medium length scrubbers, and Windex glass cleaner for the mirrors in the bathrooms. There were various types of yellow and latex and latex-free gloves. There were five different kinds of air fresheners. And there was Drano, can’t forget the Drano. There was no doubt about it, Richard had gone all out for me. (Although I kind of wished there was a mop and bucket included.) I picked up the Mr. Clean UltraClean All-purpose Cleaner and held it in both hands like it was a trophy. I looked at Richard.
“Because… Because then he wins.”
Richard looked at me with the type of sad look a wizened older person gives to a younger more optimistic and naïve one. Didn’t I know Humphrey was going to win anyway? That of course he was going to win in the end no matter how much I tried to defy him. The powerful always win over the less powerful, that’s why they are the powerful. Richard told me this with his eyes. I didn’t like his answer, so I looked to the only other male authority figure within close proximity. Mr. Clean’s bald head shined back at me from the yellow cylinder in my hands.
“No. No,” Mr. Clean said to me in his deep redwood voice that would frighten little children. “You can’t let that bastard win. It was time he felt what it was like to lose.”
Mr. Clean was right. I couldn’t let Humphrey beat me because then he’d just go on beating another little guy and then another, and then a little woman and then a little dog, he would continue to beat the little people and the little animals of the world until time stopped, until our sun went supernova.
Well, I wasn’t little, I was going to take over the world, he’d met his match with me. It was my time now.