Transactional by Bill Tope

Transactional by Bill Tope

Aaron Sturgis, just returned from work, sat alone in his efficiency apartment in the dark, crime-ridden heart of the ghetto, contemplating the morning before him. His eyes wandered to the cheap ecru paneling affixed to the short walls. Then to the brick-red linoleum, sans carpet, which was identical to that of the bathroom, the only other chamber, aside from a tiny kitchen, in his apartment hovel. He wondered for a moment if he had locked the door, but then gave it up to the knowledge that, with a half dozen prior burglaries of his abode, surely the thieves knew that nothing of value remained in his home.

He sat on the kitchen floor, before the narrow storage locker which served as a larder, and pulled out cans of this and cans of that. Turning up a brown paper sack, he extracted a bottle of dubious-looking wine. He read the label: Night Train Express, distilled, supposedly, from “plump, ripe pears.” Hmm, Aaron thought, I like pears; they’re sweet and succulent and… He decanted a splash of the amber liquid into a champagne flute he’d purchased at a yard sale and took a sip.

“Ugh!” he said, and cringed. It tasted like kerosene, he thought; not that Aaron had even drunk kerosene. He examined the label again. “It says,” he murmured aloud, “that it it is best when served with fine seafood and meat dishes.” Hmm, he thought again, maybe that was the problem. Looking through the cans of food already stewn over the floor, he seized a tin of generic luncheon meat–faux Spam.

Taking up the attached key, he threaded it through a band girding the can and twisted. It opened with a pop. Rising to his feet, he dumped the glop of pink processed flesh onto a plate. He sliced off a piece and took a bite. If anything, his reaction to the meat was worse than that to the wine. He spat the fake Spam onto the floor. Maybe, he thought, an early morning supper wasn’t such a good idea after all. Crossing the room to the pull-out sofa, he made up his bed and climbed under the covers, bottle of wine still in hand. Bracing for the harsh taste, Aaron took another pull on the bottle. God, that was bad, he thought, though not as bad as the first one. Some time later, Aaron Sturgis lay naked, twisted amidst the threadbare comforter covering his bed. He was drunk. The bottle–his second of the evening–now empty, lay on the floor, where he’d tossed it. Aaron slept.

Many hours later, Aaron stirred, slowly came awake. He was still drunk. He glanced at the clock radio: 4pm. He was late, no time for even a shower. Throwing on the same clothes he’d worn the night before, Aaron did deign to brush his teeth, since he could smell the rankness of his own breath. As he proceeded to brush, a dollop of toothpaste fell onto his sweater. Annoyed, his brushed at it, but succeeded only in spreading the blue stain and making it more conspicuous.

“Shit!” he hissed, then wetted a washcloth and dabbed at it, which served no earthy purpose. Shaking his head, he quitted the tiny bathroom, donned his jacket and hurried out the door. He walked half-way across the lawn of the property owned by Mrs. Kruger, his landlady. She stayed in the other end of the duplex. Mrs. Kruger’s dog barked ferociously and rose on its hind legs and strained against the chain which held him. Aaron started to rush past him, but at the last moment halted to say hello.

“You’re a good dog, Rollo,” he said soothingly, patting the old black lab on its ponderous skull. Rollo calmed down at once, glad to receive attention. “Good boy,” repeated Aaron, thinking, you only wanted some lovin’. “I know how you feel,” he murmured wistfully, and headed down the hill to the highway, where he’d catch a ride.

& & &

Down on the thoroughfare, Aaron stuck his thumb out in anticipation of a ride. It was 1975 and rides were pretty easy to come by, particularly for boys who looked like Aaron: thin, nondescript, long blond hair and not exactly dressed for success. This made it easier because drivers naturally assumed he was a college student or a returned vet and wanted to help him on his way. One time, wearing an Army jacket he’d purchased at an Army Surplus Store, Aaron had been verbally assaulted by several young women who’d denounced him as a “baby killer.”

Suddenly, a long, sleek luxury car, painted a vivid shade of purple, materialized on the horizon. Aaron recognized it as a high-end Mercury, nearly a block long. The car zoomed past him and suddenly the brake lights flashed crimson and the huge vehicle ground to a halt. As Aaron peered after it, the driver’s door cracked open and a skinny brown arm beckoned him to approach. He jogged forward. Once inside, Aaron was startled by the sound of the quiet. The clamorous noise of the factories and the passing vehicles and the other urban sounds was totally absent.

“Where you goin’ ?” inquired a high-pitched male voice.

Aaron looked at the driver, who turned out to be a 40-ish Black man in a seersucker suit, with a shaved head and a pencil mustache.

“Edwardsville,” replied Aaron. “I got a job there,” he volunteered.

“What are you, a male model?” asked the man, staring up and down at the younger man.

“No, I’m a jani…maintenance man,” said Aaron.

“I be Clyde,” said the man.

“Aaron.”

“Hi,” said the other man. “You hitchhike like this alla’ time, Aaron?” asked the driver, who pronunced his name as A-ur-own.

Aaron appeared not to take notice. He nodded. “Yeah,” he said, “It can be a little dangerous, but you do what you gotta’ do, you know?”

“Yeah,” said Clyde, drawing out the word. “I do. So, you’ll do whatever necessary, huh?”

“Whatever,” replied Aaron with a smile, unaware of how that sounded.

“I bet you meet all kinds on de’ road, huh?” Clyde asked, taking his eyes from the road to examine his young rider.

“Yeah,” said Aaron, who chuckled.

“Good lookin’ boy like you,” Clyde went on, “prolly get hit on from time to time?” Aaron looked at Clyde, who effected a reptilian smile.

Aaron shrugged. “It happens.”

Clyde slowed for a red light. He said, “I’ll give you $5 to suck your dick.”

Aaron’s eyes opened wise. “Uh, no thanks,” he said at once.

“Give youse a ride alla’ way to Edwardsville,” Clyde promised, all business now and intent on sweetening the pot.

“Not interested,” said Aaron firmly.

Clyde seemed to turn this over in his mind, pressed the accelerator as the traffic began moving again. “You know anyone who might be interested, then?” he asked.

“Sorry,” murmured the other man.

“Well, listen,” began Clyde in his persuasive used-car salesman voice,” but he was interrupted by a Whump! as the huge car plowed into a tall snowbank and became immobile.

“Uh,” said Aaron, opening the door, “I’ll just get out here.” Clyde began swearing fluently and pounding on the steering wheel. “Thanks for the ride, Clyde,” said Aaron, and he was soon back on the pavement, glad to vacate the vehicle.

Cadging two additional rides to traverse the 25-mile distance to his destination, Aaron finally arrived in the little college community of Edwardsville. He glanced at his watch: he was more than 3 hours late. He pushed through the glass and metal door into the Berkshire Office Complex, part of a strip mall, where he rushed to the janitor’s closet to clock in. It was now 5:30, which meant he’d need to work until 1:30am, an inauspicious time in that his choice of rides would be not with the late-working attorneys and factory workers who quit working at midnight, but rather, with those barflies exiting the taverns at closing time. He shrugged. At least he hadn’t had to canoodle with Clyde. He seized his time card and with a thunk! of the timeclock clocked in.

Seizing a wide, fluffy red dustmop, Aaron padded the length of the corridors of the main office building, stopping at the stairwells to sweep the accumulated debris into a metal dustpan with a small broom. That chore completed for the two floors of the building, he began trash collection through the more than 2 dozen offices. By this time of day, the offices were all empty and he used his passkey to gain access. His boss, the real estate agent Mr. Isom, had hesitated at first to trust Aaron with that responsibility, but Isom eventually came round and gave him ready access to the facilities.

Pushing a large Rubbermaid barrow from room to room, Aaron dumped the wastebaskets, most of which were hardly filled, into the container. He heard a voice and turned around to find Mamie, the window washer, who worked three days per week, speaking to him.

“Can you vacuum the med offices tonight, Aaron?” she asked. Mamie was responsible for cleaning the proprietary offices–a dentist and two doctors–because she was bonded, whereas Aaron was not. But, she regularly left early, asking Aaron to clock her out and fill in for her. He always agreed. After all, Mamie, while she was very old–nearly 40–was really cute and he liked her. “Proletariot like us gotta’ stick together, Babe,” she told him often. Aaron was unfamiliar with the reference, but he agreed in principle.

Using Mamie’s key, Aaron pushed through the door and emptied the waste cans into a 30-gallon trash bag. He then plugged in the sweeper and vacuumed the carpets. Satisfied, he turned to leave and paused. A cabinet door in the examination room was ajar. He started to push it shut when suddenly a large, thick, amber-hued glass container plummeted to the carpet, spilling scores of small red capsules.

With a sigh, Aaron knelt and began picking the pellets up and restoring them to the vial. He stared at one of the capsules, read the word “Seconal.” Aaron didn’t use drugs, aside from alcohol, but he knew what a Seconal was–it was a highly sought-after barbiturate known colloquially as a “red.” Thinking over the possibilities, Aaron glanced at the closed door and secreted the vial in his pocket. Then he gathered his equipment and exited the office.

& & &

By 12am, having not had a real meal in 24 hours, Aaron was ravenous. He stared out a second story window at the Jack in the Box restaurant. Opening a window, he inhaled the greasy, wonderful aroma of freshly-made tacos. His stomach rumbled and he licked his lips. Aaron turned out his pockets on a table in the breakroom and counted: 13 cents.

“Shit,” he said aloud. A taco cost 25 cents! He wondered if he could bargain one of the teenaged cashiers to swap him a couple of tacos for a handful of reds.

As Aaron’s shift wound down, he saw two uniformed policemen standing outside the front entrance, beckoning him. He regarded them with a thoughtful frown, then proceeded to unlock the door.

“Hi, Aaron,” said one of the policemen, whose name Aaron remembered was Bob. The other, Mike, was a rather shady looking character whom Aaron had never heard speak. “See anything suspicious tonight?” inquired Bob lightly, peering closely at Aaron.

“Suspicious?” said Aaron. “What do you mean?”

“Got reports of breaking and entering at strip malls in the city tonight,” said Bob mysteriously. “Seen any strangers hanging around Berkshire tonight?”

Aaron shook his head no. The presence of the purloined drugs was weighing on him, so at length, he stuck his hand in his pocket and pulled out the bottle of reds. “I found this outside the back door,” he lied. “I was gonna’ turn it over to Mr. Isom, my boss, but I guess you guys can take care of it.”

“Whatcha’ got there?” asked Bob, squinting down at the capsule-filled bottle.

“Some kinda’ drugs,” ventured Aaron. “Maybe a patient lost ’em or else the delivery guy dropped ’em. Don’t know what they are. Vitamins, maybe?” he asked.

“You’re right,” agreed Bob. “Generic One-A-Day. Here, Mike, give ’em to your kids, they take vitamins, right?”

Mike took possession of the contraband, shoving them into the pocket of his jacket. He smirked.

“Keep an eye out for troublemakers, okay, Aaron?” said Bob, who, in the company of his confederate, vacated the lobby.

& & &

At precisely 1:36, Aaron clocked out. He had remembered to clock Mamie out at 10:30, which was both their regular quitting time. Walking through the corridors, he checked all the doors on the second floor, then repeated the procedure on the first. Finally, he slipped into his threadbare winter jacket, exited the building and locked up. Inasmuch as it was two days before Christmas and one of the shortest days of the year, it was dark and cold. He walked through the town until he came to Rt 3, where he stood under a streetlamp and stuck out his thumb for a ride. His frosty breath rose languorously in the pale light.

& & &

Cars were few and far between, but after 20 minutes, luck shined down on him. A small dark VW Bug paused just down the street. As Aaron jogged that way, the driver unaccountably leaned on the horn. The sound was blaringly loud.

“C’mon, get in,” a young-sounding female voice coaxed. Aaron picked up the pace, grabbed the passenger door and ducked inside. Before he was fully inside the vehicle, it sped rapidly away, throwing him back against the bucket seat.

“Ha-ha!” shrilled the voice, which belonged not to a young girl but to an older, 40-something woman. Aaron peered at her, took in the curly red hair draping her shoulders; the freckled fist which gripped the gear shifter and, most particularly, the bottle of whiskey which sat between her plump knees. “Where you goin’, Honey?” she rasped, taking her eyes off the fast-approaching road and staring at Aaron.

“Ahh,” he yelped, pointing out the windshield. Quick as a hare the old babe spun the wheel to the right, narrowly avoiding a head-on collision with a pickup truck. The other driver’s horn blared loud and long.

“Screw you, Mister,” she shouted out the window at the disappearing vehicle. Turning to Aaron, she asked again, “Where you goin’, Hon’?”

“I’m going to Alton,” said Aaron, referencing his point of departure many hours before.

“Okey doke,” said the woman, who introduced herself as Shirley. “But, you can call me Shirl.” She glanced over at him. “Okay?” Aaron nodded, eyes wide as the little car crossed over the yellow line again and again. “We’ll get there or die tryin’,” said Shirl with a girlish giggle. She swung what seemed like a too-big head on tiny neck and shoulders and said, “You wanna hit?” She held out the half-filled bottle of whiskey.

The smell of the libation was medicinal and uninviting, thought Aaron. “No. No thanks,” he said.

Shirl took another big swig, got too big a mouthful and spat half of it back into the bottle. “Tell me if you change you mind, okay, Handsome?” Suddenly, the dome light burst into brilliance and Aaron was staring into a pair of electric green eyes. “I just wanted to check you out proper,” Shirl explained, ogling the young man. “I got a husband, Baby, but occasionally I play around.” She batted her lashes in a garish display. Aaron thought he was going to be sick.

At once, the Bug left the highway and began speeding down the streets of a town halfway to Aaron’s destination. Shirl downshifted, and Aaron thought the engine would throw a rod. Shirl ran the VW up onto a sidewalk and proceeded for a score of feet, then turned violently to the right and they were on a residential property. The sun was just coming up and in the dawn light, Aaron could see a lawn filled with statues and dormant flower beds and trees. The little car narrowly missed a lawn jockey, but did take out a birdbath, frozen over. The bowl of the birdbath struck the windshield, leaving a crack. The Bug plunged through a white picket fence and fell off the curb into the street with a WHUMP, which sheared off the muffler. Aaron stared back over his shoulder at the severed appendage, which disintegrated in an explosion of dust and rust and smoke. He looked at Shirl, but she was composed, tearing through side steets at 50 mph.

“Hey, Aaron,” she shrieked like a magpie, “you wanna get a sam’wich?”

Aaron had long forgotten his once ravenous appetite. He’d left his stomach somewhere in the vicinity of the severed muffler. “No…no thanks,” he said.

“God, I’ve hungry!” declared Shirl. “I’d blow a fry cook for a freakin’ cheeseburger!”

“Go ahead and stop if you want,” invited Aaron, indicating in the distance an all-night Burger Chef. Crossing the yellow line and driving for a distance down the wrong side of the street, Shirl piloted the rollicking VW onto the restaurant parking lot, where she struck and upended a vacant picnic table and then slammed on the brakes, drawing the wild excursion to a sudden halt.

“Be back in a sec, Sugar,” bellowed Shirl, exiting the vehicle and skipping across the lot to the restaurant.

Considering himself more than lucky, Aaron quitted the little car and scampered back to the highway, where he proferred a thumb once more.

& & &

When Aaron arrived back at his hovel, he found the flag down on his mailbox, meaning that his outgoing mail had been picked up and his arriving mail delivered. Opening the loaf-shaped compartment, he extracted several circulars and other advertisements, as well as his weekly paycheck. Goody, he thought. The check had come just in time; he was down to sour milk, a bottle of mayo and numerous cans of fake Spam. Besides which, he was totally out of booze. He’d never get to sleep without getting crocked.

Taking the check in hand, he retraced his steps to the highway and by the time he reached the currency exchange, it was 7am and the facility was open. Aaron was the institution’s first customer that morning. Armed with what remained of his paycheck after depositing the money for the government-controlled rent, he walked the short distance to a strip mall, where stood a small grocery store.

He eschewed fresh meats and vegetables and fruits and grains and dairy products and proceeded directly to the doughnuts and luncheon meats and other prepared foods. Aaron didn’t cook, but kept telling himself he would learn. Pulling out his bedraggled book of Food Stamps, he carefully excised the needed coupons and paid for his grub. The two bottles of cheap wine he purchased with his remaining cash.

Whistling a merry tune, Aaron traipsed through his little yard, paused to give Rollo a good rub and proceeded into his hovel. He deposited the comestibes in the produce compartment of the half-fridge and set the two bottles of Annie Green Springs Apple Wine on the shelf. He glanced at the clock radio: a quarter of nine. Splitting open a plastic package of bologna, he folded four slices in half and stuck one end of the bolus in his mouth and chewed. Suddenly he coughed, then gasped frenziedly. He was choking!

Practicing what he’d learned from his sister, a nurse, he bent over at the waist and struck his solar plexus on the back of a kitchen chair. Gagging, he did it a second time and then a third. He vomited up the residual bologna and then collapsed dizzily to the kitchen floor. He leaned back against a cabinet and was soon asleep.

When he awoke, Aaron took up the disgorged chunk of flesh and went outside and gave it to an appreciative Rollo. When the dog had finished the bologna, he continued to lick Aaron, who fell back in the snow, laughing and patting the beast. “That’s a good dog,” he whispered softly.

Back inside, Aaron opened up one of the bottles of wine and took a slug, but then resealed it. He had forgotten: today was Friday and he had the remainder of weekend off; plus, he had a date tonight. Replacing the bottle in the fridge, he began cleaning his lodgings. Syl had a car, and she would be bringing dinner for the two of them. He wondered what she would prepare this time. She was hands-down the worst cook he’d ever known, with the possible exception of himself. Still, she tried, and he had to give her credit for that.

Their previous dinner, the weekend before, had consisted of a block of some kind of meat. Beef? Pork? He hadn’t a clue. He didn’t know how she had prepared it. Frankly, he wasn’t certain it was even digestible. It had the texture of a football and the taste of…well, a football. But, he hadn’t complained, as Syl was the only chick who would pay any attention to him. She, like Aaron’s sister, was a registered nurse, and older than him by some 9 years. Still, that put her at only 30. She wasn’t too shabby, he thought, calling to mind the new Springsteen song; the line that went: You’re no beauty, but hey, you’re alright. Aaron smiled to himself.

& & &

At dinner that night–a huge (baked?) fowl of some type–Syl was especially jubilant and positive. “Oh, I missed you, Aaron,” she said.

“Right back at you, Syl,” he replied. She always made him feel important–special–the way no one else did. Other people, when they saw the couple out, glanced admiringly at the handsome Aaron, yet looked at Syl as if she were something on a microscope slide. He didn’t appreciate that.

One time, a boy had looked at Syl and then remarked hurtfully, “She must give really good head!” and laughed raucously. Aaron had punched him in the face, right there in the I-Hop restaurant. He was asked to leave. Syl was upset, but not for the reason he suspected. Far from being hurt that she had been rudely insulted, she was put out that Aaron had become violent defending her honor. They had discussed it that evening.

“It makes no sense to fight over something so unimportant, Aaron,” she’d said.

“But what he said…” he began.

“Is not debatable.”

“Huh?”

“Look, Aaron, I’m ugly.”

“No,” he said, “you’re not…”

“Thank you, Baby, perhaps I’m not to you, but to most people, I am butt-ugly.” He opened his mouth to speak, but she stopped him. “We need to settle this, Aaron. Most people who see me don’t know me; they know nothing about me. But,”–she sighed–“in the grand scheme of things, I am not a physically attractive woman. I’m become resigned to this. I’ve had a lifetime to get used to the idea. I was first attracted to you because you saw through the bullshit and the nonsense and saw the real me.”

Aaron nodded. “But there’s more to it,” he said.

She turned her head. “What?” Syl asked.

“It’s your culinary expertise, Syl,” he said with a straight face. They stared at one another for a long moment, before they both burst out laughing, winding up eventually in bed, where they knew they’d be.

& & &

“We’ve been seeing one another for nearly a year,” began Syl one night, sitting nude on Aaron’s bed. They had just made love after consuming a nearly indigestible casserole that Syl had concocted.

Aaron looked at her. “You are mathematically correct,” he announced.

“I think we should make some changes,” she suggested.

“Like what?”

“For one, we could start meeting outside your apartment more,” replied Syl.

“I thought you didn’t want to go out in public, after that guy insulted you,” said Aaron.

“That was not pleasant,” she admitted, “but it’s not the only reason I don’t want to go out in public with you.”

“What other reason could there have been?” asked Aaron. He didn’t know where this was going.

“It’s…the way you look.” At his curious stare, she continued, “the way you dress.” He stared critically down at himself. “You look like a poster for the Salvation Army,” she said.

Aaron blinked. Syl had never insulted him before, so maybe she was really onto something. He trusted her. “What do you think I should do, Syl?” he asked.

Turning to her bulky tote bag, Syl pulled out numerous pages taken from magazines and mail order catalogs and displayed them before her lover. Aaron was receptive enough, but he said, with a frown, “I could never afford stuff like that. $20 for a pair of jeans? That’s crazy, Syl.”

“Which brings me to my next point,” she went on. “How much do you earn at Berkshire?”

Aaron blushed. “$3 an hour; you know that. It’s nearly 50% above the prevailing wage,” he pointed out.

“It still puts you in the bottom 40% of wage earners, Aaron. Babe,” she said, “you’re worth more than that.”

“Jobs are hard to come by, Syl,” he said. “I’m lucky too have this position.”

“It’s not a position,” she disagreed. “It’s a do-nothing, go-nowhere, dead-end job.”

Aaron frowned, hurt at Syl’s tone. She had always been the agreeable one, the compassionate one. What had gotten into her? He put the question to her. She readily supplied an answer.

“You need new clothes. You need a new job. You need a new you.”

I’ve only got a high school education,”Aaron pointed out.

“You should go back to school,” urged Syl. “Major in something marketable,” she said.

Aaron lifted his hands and let them fall. “Like what?” he asked.

“Computers are the new big thing, all the magazines say so. Get a degree in math and the world is your oyster.”

“I don’t know anything about math,” lamented Aaron unhappily.

“You have to go to school to learn, to master new skills and to better yourself.”

“Where is this coming from?” asked Aaron. “Why are you suddenly so wrapped up in my future, Syl?”

“I want us to be together–permanently,” she said.

The idea of marriage instantly appealed to Aaron, but he shook his head. “I don’t know how I’d afford school.”

“There are scholorships and grants everywhere, Aaron,” Syl assured him.

Aaron hesitated. “I never did good in school, Syl,” he confided.

Syl stared at him. She knew he was smart. “Just check out the college, Aaron,” she said.

& & &

“Would you care to explain this, Aaron?” asked Mr. Isom several weeks later. He had emerged from the janitor’s closet, where he had seized the weeks’ time cards and where he had taken in hand the college catalog that Aaron had left.

“Oh, that,” said Aaron, disengaging a red, fluffy dustmop from its handle. “That’s where I’m gonna’ start school in a coupla’ weeks.”

“Why?” asked Isom bluntly.

Aaron blinked at the question.

“Aren’t you happy with your job?” asked his boss accusingly.

“Well, sure,” said Aaron. “I like my job. But, I don’t want to spend theh rest of my life at it, you know?”

Isom got his back up, but said no more.

The next evening, Isom returned, this time with a tall, skinny young fellow in tow. “Aaron,” said Isom, “this is Mickey. “I’ve hired him for one of my properties and I’d like for you to train him tonight. Okay?”

The men shook hands. Aaron wrinkled up his nose. Mickey smelled like pot.

“Sure, Mr. Isom,” agreed Aaron. “Where do you want me start?’

“I want him to be able to do everything that you do,” summarized the boss.

“Will do,” said Aaron, and taking Mickey in hand, they began emptying the trash. Unseen by the others, Isom smirked.

As they proceeded down the corridors of the office complex, Aaron tried to chat up his student. “Ever done any janitor work before?” he asked him.

“Nun uh,” replied Mickey, upending another wastebasket over the barrow. “Before this, I made Big Macs.”

“Don’t worry, I can teach you ever’thing in a coupla’ nights,” said Aaron.

“Mr. Isom said I gotta’ learn everything tonight,” said Mickey.

Aaron frowned. “That’s cutting it a little fine,” he said. “Where will you be working?” he asked.

“Here,” said the other man. “Oops,” he said, “I think I was supposed to keep that under my hat.”

Aaron hadn’t even started college yet, but he didn’t need a degree to see the writing on the wall. Mickey had been hired as his replacement because Isom feared his janitor was being too uppity by aspiring to an education. Moreover, Aaron had been tasked with the chore of training his own replacement. He fumed.

A half hour before quitting time, Aaron and Mickey stood in the main corridor on the second storey, a water hose in Mickey’s hands.

“What’d you say we was doin’?” asked Mickey.

“Laying down an aqueous layer,” replied Aaron. Next he had Mickey spread copious detergent on the floor, atop the water. The mixture frothed and bubbled. “Overnight,” Aaron went on, the water will evaporate and the soap will be left as a residual layer, which the day janitor can sweep up, along with the dirt. That way,” said Aaron, who was making this up as he went along, “we don’t have to wetmop the floors. That’s backbreaking work,” he confided.

Mickey grinned vacuously. “Yeah, cool,” he said.

While Mickey was winding up the hose, Aaron went to the janitor closet, where he dumped a quart of wax stripper into the 55-gallon drum of floor wax. Thinking he’d done enough mischief, he clocked out, leaving his passkeys on the shelf in the closet. Mr. Isom never called him again.

& & &

Armed with a student loan, a tuition deferment and other niceties, Aaron enrolled in college. But, he didn’t do well. The school, which operated on an 11-week quarter system, Aaron found to be foreign and forbidding. All his struggles with high school came back to him. With his casual attire, however, he fit right in.

“Hey, Bro’,” said another young man, taking a seat next to Aaron in the crowded classroom on the first day of classes. “What grade you get in Calculus II?”

Aaron did a double-take. “Calculus?” he said, “I haven’t had it yet.”

“It’s a prerequisite for Differential Equations,” explained the other man.

“Is that what this is?” asked Aaron, waving at the classroom.

The man nodded.

“Shit,” said Aaron, coming rapidly to his feet. How did that happen? he wondered.

“Where did you think you were at?” asked the other man.

“Remedial Math 301,” said Aaron, vacating the room.

And so it went. Having registered for classes in a huge ballroom with screens appended to the walls, showing the class offerings, he had apparently erred in making his selections. In the end, he got classes he was qualified to take, but the result was much the same.

His teachers seemed quite indifferent to Aaron’s dismal performance in class, and flunked him right along. Just one teacher, a Ms. Smiley, who also served as his faculty advisor, was different. She taught Logic 301 and asked Aaron to say after class one afternoon.

She got right to the point. “Aaron,” she said, “have you ever been tested for a learning disability?”

Aaron’s face turned red. “No,” he said, “but I’ve always been pretty stupid.”

Ms. Smiley disagreed with his assessment and on her own time, reserved space for Aaron in the testing cubicles, undergoing tests conducted by a psychologist. The results Aaron found surprising and a little dismaying. It turns out that Aaron suffered from dyslexia and had difficulty with the written word. This, he was told, accounted for his lack of success with written problems in his math course and with reading assignments.

Ms. Smiley and the counselors at the college discussed with Aaron strategies for coping with his disability. It was decided that he would withdraw from school for the remainder of the quarter, in time to receive a refund, and then reenroll for classes the next quarter, with special accomodations in place for his learning challenges. One result of his eye-opening experience was that Aaron crushed hard on Ms. Smiley. And while she remained friendly and accomodating, she kept the young man mostly at arm’s length. Once he asked her to grab a cup of coffee.

“I appreciate your interest, Aaron,” she said one time, “but I’m almost 40 years old, old enough to be your…older sister,” and they both laughed. They did have the coffee, however, the first of many. Unlike everyone else that Aaron met, Ms. Smiley–Barbara–didn’t seem to want anything from him.

But, when Aaron told Syl that he had withdrawn from his classes at the junior college, she was beyond angry; she was disgusted with him. When he tried to explain his reasoning behind the withdrawal, she was unsympathetic. “So now you’re blaming it on being a freakin’ Mongoloid?” she demanded. “I have not been sleeping with a spaz,” she railed, upending her latest culinary delight, a pot of something brown and viscous, on the kitchen table in Aaron’s apartment.

“Syl,” he said, moving toward her.

“Don’t touch me–ever again!” She ran from the apartment, never tp return.

& & &

Aaron sat alone in the dimly-lighted tavern, nursing a beer. He had just received disbursement of next quarter’s student aid package and had resolved to get drunk. He picked his schooner of beer off the bar and drained in. In a wink, the barkeep was back, refilling his glass. Aaron nodded his acquiesence, and lifted the glass off the bar to take a sip. A youngish woman, cute and with a curvy body, plunked down on the barstool next to him. Aaron scarcely noticed.

“Nice shirt,” she remarked out of nowhere.

Aaron looked blearily at her.

She reached out red-tipped, tapering fingers and rubbed the silken fabric of the Christmas present that Syl had given Aaron over the holidays.

“Very sexy,” she murmured approvingly.

Now Aaron perked up and began to take notice. This was without question the prettist girl that had ever paid him any notice.

“You…like it?” he asked.

She smiled and blushed prettily.

Aaron pushed his hand into his trouser pocket and pulled out some bills. For the rest of the evening, he purchased drinks for himself and his companion. Near the end of the evening, when Tyler–her name, he discovered–continued to show an interest in him, he contemplated his next move. He wondered if, after seeing Aaron in his sexy silk shirt, Tyler would be very disappointed to discover the kind of hovel he called home. He needn’t have worried, for she raised the question of their spending the night together–at her place!

At last call, they scrambled off their barstools and trundled out the door.

“Don’t turn the lights on,” Tyler cautioned, placing warm fingers over his hand on the light switch. She drew him through a door which housed a small bedroom with a big bed. In a matter of seconds, they had drunkenly divested themselves of clothing and fallen together atop the bed. Later, Aaron would have little memory of what transpired. But she was on top of him and he was inside her and they had a kind of hurried, truncated sex. Immediately after he came, she was off him and restoring her clothing. It had been one of the most sterile experiences of Aaron’s life. It was quite unlike the frenzied, heartfelt coupling he’d done with the only other woman with whom he’d had sex–the much drabber but much more fervant Syl.

Aaron looked up at Tyler. She was standing by the bed, a lighted cigarette dangling from pouty lips. What had just happened? he kept wondering. He looked at her critically. Her skin wasn’t as clear as it had seemed under the dim bar lights. She was thin, but almost morbidly so. And her hair; he couldn’t tell what color it was. He sighed.

“That’ll be $40,” she said in a no nonsense voice.

Aaron climbed out of bed, found his jeans and turned up two $20 bills. He handed them to her.

“Thank you,” she said dully.

Aaron could sense the presence of another person in the little apartment. Tyler’s pimp? he wondered bleakly. Aaron got dressed and was soon back out on the street. Only then did he realize he’d left his jacket in the boudoir, but he hadn’t the heart–or the stomach–to go back for it. He walked away, more depressed than he could ever remember.

& & &

Aaron trudged slowly up the hill leading to his abode, as dead tired as he had ever been. He slowly put one foot in front of the other until at length he reached the summit. He regarded the tiny front yard and spied Rollo sitting placidly, waiting for something to bark at. Spotting Aaron, he sat up and huffed, then spoke: “Woof?”

“Hello, old friend,” said Aaron, dropping to his knees and hugging the big dog. Rollo licked Aaron’s ears and then yawned. Aaron patted Rollo’s graying but noble head. “Everyone seems to want to make a deal, you know?” he told the dog. “They all want something; companionship, sex, money, or just attention from somebody.” Ms. Smiley–Barbara–had called that transactional and told Aaron to be cautious in the presence of that sort of behavior. Ms. Smiley wasn’t like that, almost alone among the people he knew. He wondered wistfully if there was a chance for the two of them. He returned to school for the next quarter in a couple of weeks. She was older, but he sensed she was lonely, like him. And he could tell that she liked him. His mind sprang back to the present. “You’ve not like that either, buddy, are you, Rollo? No,” he said, rubbing the dog’s belly, “you are a good dog!”

* * * * THE END  * * * *
Copyright Bill Tope 2025