The Janitor & the Goddess: Love & Legacies Lost, Part II
This story (mostly) takes place in one of America’s ugliest examples of “progress” and design. If this example of progress and design were a kitchen sink, it’d be this kitchen sink. If it were a wine carafe, it’d be this wine carafe. If it were a car, it’d be this car.
You should read Part I first, which is the post right before this one.
Thanks for reading and as always, please subcribe and/or comment!
After a long night of Googling, Marcus rolled his cart underneath Minerva. He gripped the cart handle so hard he feared she heard the cracking of his bleach-stung hands. But he wanted to free the woman he loved from the life she hated so he pulled out the magic wand, clearing his throat.
"Minerva?”
Minerva floated and frowned without moving her eyes or head.
“I’m Marcus T. Varro. I’m one of the janitors here.”
Minerva fumed. Ancient humans never dared speak to her outside of a ritual or prayer, and they only saw her in statue form. She wished modern humans understood their place. And this one dared to claim a famous name while working as a water slosher. Even worse, he dared to speak again.
“I know you’re trapped here. I ordered a magic wand and Googled some rituals for you. Some of them seem kinda dirty, but one of the other janitors said this wand took his girlfriend to another dimension so I think maybe it can get you out of here. I hope this works, because I love you and a man helps the woman he loves. Plus, I really want you to meet my parents.”
Marcus turned on the wand and pointed it at Minerva. He gyrated his hips like he practiced the night before. His back spasmed and his gut threw him off balance, but he kept gyrating.
“Is it working? Do you feel any movement? Last night, Mom said I held it too high, but she doesn’t know your situation.”
A woman heading toward the LIRR stopped to stare at Marcus.
“What the hell…Your mother? What are you doing? Fucking freak, stop!” she said, tugging at Marcus’s arm.
“I’m trying to help Minerva,” Marcus said, pushing the woman away. The woman latched onto his shirt as he struggled to move and held on as they zigzagged across the floor like co-conspirators in a masturbation cult. Finally, the woman wedged one of her hands into the waist band of his pants, jerking it so hard the drawstring on his pants came undone.
“Someone help me take down this pervert,” the woman screamed.
“Pervert? You’re the one ripping his pants off,” another woman said as she rushed to her train.
Embarrassment flushed Marcus’s face. He was wearing underwear that said Thursday when it was Friday and he didn’t want Minerva to think he wore the same pair of underwear two days in a row, even though he did. His stomach gurgled over the top of his pants and beads of sweat rolled down his back.
“Let go,” Marcus said, ashamed he had nothing but hope and guts to offer the woman he loved yet still fighting for her with all of his might. He fought so hard, a stream of vomit filled his mouth and dropped onto the woman’s shoe. She screamed, “This pervert is attacking me,” and landed a kick to Marcus’s knee.
Marcus remembered that his mother said he should never hit a woman unless she owed him money, so he didn’t hit her. He wouldn’t have hit her even if she owed him a million dollars, but he wished he would because she made it impossible to point the magic wand. Tightness clenched his teeth and jaw. The shallow breaths signified he had waited too long to save Minerva.
“I love you,” he gasped at Minerva. The magic wand fell to the floor as he crashed into the cart. It took Marcus a few seconds to realize two important things: one, he’d forgotten to clean his cart, and two, he was dead. Colonel Roosevelt peered into the cart.
“Now you’re one of us,” Colonel Roosevelt said. “I wonder where you’ll go.”
But there wasn’t time to answer. The ghosts watched Marcus float toward the ceiling and the subway. An empty subway train loomed on the tracks. The first car door slid open, and Marcus floated inside.
“Your next stop is the Sagrada Família, a paramount work. The light and angles reflect the glory of what I do,” the conductor said. “You will have lots of people to talk to.”
“Are you God?” Marcus asked.
“I’ve been called worse,” the man said.
The door slid shut, and the train lurched forward, moving at a speed that rivaled light. Marcus beat the door, trying to force it open.
“God, no! I don’t want to leave. I want to stay with Minerva. Please, let me go back. I love her.”
“If you love her, that means you never listened to her. I mean, I have my moments, but she’s unbelievable. Who wants to be a virgin for eternity? She’s right about the design of the station, though. Still, she was right about it for the wrong reasons. It was all about her. For most people, it’s all about them. Not for you, though, Marcus T., not for you.”
The conductor took a swig from a flask and offered it to Marcus, who felt so unprepared and sad he downed it in one swig. The train moved across the track in a blaze of light and glory, making Marcus’s head spin into other considerations which was the right thing to do since Minerva never considered him.
***
"Everything I’ve ever wondered about came true right before my eyes. I feel like I need to drop to the ground and give thanks. My heart is about to burst.”
“Oh, please.”
"If you would've stopped for just a moment, I could've shown you."
"You could’ve shown me a man floating through air? Look, we're fucking late as it is ---"
"Because of your heels ---"
"And I'm not calling my sister to tell her we missed the second train because you saw a janitor floating in the air with a bunch of other dead people watching him.”
"You really don't believe I saw the ghosts?”
"Before we got serious, I told you I believe in science.”
“Well, I do, too. I just don’t see why that means there’s nothing else. You think I’m crazy seeing or fake seeing?”
“I don’t think you’re seeing at all. God, I don’t know why I thought I could change you. Funny the things you think when you’re young. And don’t give that crazy woman any money.”
“YOung? It was a year ago,” he said, shoving the cash back into his pocket.
“I’ve grown a lot since then. I got promoted. I use this phone, created by science, to make the money needed to live in the greatest city in the world. I plan on moving to Fifth Avenue someday.”
“I have a job, too.”
“You’re a philosophy teacher. Look, you either make money that matters, or you don’t. Money outlasts us all. Nothing lasts forever except money that gets you noticed. Not love. Nothing.”
“What does that mean?”
“Look, just leave. I'll go alone."
“How can you believe in nothing?”
“I believe in progress. We could be together long enough to get married and divorced if you just thought the same way.”
“Didn’t you leave Indiana to meet people who have different ideas?”
“I left Indiana to meet people who have the same ideas as me, but different ideas from the ideas in Indiana. If I’m lucky enough, at least I can do something that makes me worthy of being a history lesson.”
“But you hate history.”
“But I like the idea of it being about me. Fuck, I wish that crazy lady would stop screaming. I’m getting on the train. Just go.”
The man looked at her and then turned and headed back upstairs. He knew what he saw and wondered if any woman would believe him. Obviously, it wasn’t going to be this one. The crazy screaming woman made more sense than his girlfriend. Besides, he’d seen a ghostly-looking woman screaming upstairs louder than the homeless woman on the platform. She looked like an angel, and he wanted to know if he could help her.
***
I scream when I want to scream. No one ever thanks me for letting them catch trains at my house even though they want to evict me, they still want to catch trains where I sleep. And see that trash can? I eat from it and flow my pee under it all the time so don’t say I have no right to live here. Some people try to be nice, though. They ask my name. I say the goddess of love and try to hug them. They always run because no one got time to love too long. That’s fine with me because it’s one less trespasser I got to deal with. And maybe I am a goddess if some janitor is floating around. That's what the man said he saw. All these jibber-jabber jaws keeping me up. When I feel bad, I tell it like it is.
“Ladies and gentlemen, you overbearing fuckers, I’m trying to sleep. This is my house, ugly as it is, and I let you come here. I'm tired of hosting guests who show up with nothing but their trash that they throw in my toilet. I will tell that pigeon over there to shit on your head if you wake me up again.”
The man who was with the woman just threw a dollar at me.
“What are you looking at?” I ask, stuffing the dollar into my pocket.
He disappears into the crowd. I will remember him as the man who can only be kind when his girlfriend gets on the train. He can’t worry about that bitch. She don’t know shit. See, I know more than her and all of them. They don’t know from who they run this way or that when I lean in for some love.
Well, I tell you who they’re all running from though they don’t know it: A woman who moved mountains in her fourth-grade science fair. I moved the towels while explaining the folds and they gave me a ribbon. I loved me some science. But things change so you either gonna change if you need to and if it’s right. I heard I changed for the worse. That’s what my daddy said. I changed when my head started hurting and I made other people mad with my new thoughts. I seem fine to me, though. Now I like farting on the express train, begging for money to buy heroin at the bodega, and talking to chickens.
Man, the chickens know what’s up. I show them the dragon. I help them pray. If you go low enough east on the subway then walk a few blocks to my favorite housing project, you find the chickens. I can always entice a chicken to sit and confer. You don’t believe me but as I explained it is true so listen: I moved a mountain so why wouldn't I be able to entice a chicken to sit with me while I enjoy some heroin?
You know, in the end, fuck you because my head hurts and you don’t like my words, but I make do. I make do just fine.
One day you move a mountain. One day you move masses of people across the platform by pulling down your pants. You do science. You wonder about magic. One day you entice a chicken from the project courtyard to sit with you on the sidewalk while you do heroin. Such is life. It is.
THE END
Wonderfully inventive story, Tara - and I love the voice (or voices, I should say.) Well done!