Work hard and you’ll get ahead in life. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Nothing is impossible if you put your mind to it. Believe in yourself and you can achieve anything… Blah-blah-blah, yadda-yadda-bullshit.
I had heard those and a hundred other sugary inspirational proverbs growing up. Feel-good platitudes they shovel down the throats of poor kids like me so that we think we actually stand a chance of getting somewhere better later in life.
I never bought into that crap, though. I wasn’t stupid like the other kids in the slum I grew up in. Hard work doesn’t get you anywhere in life. If you ain’t born rich, you ain’t never gonna be rich, that’s just how the world works. Upward mobility is just a pipedream the big boys at the top push on those of us at the bottom to keep us docile and under control. That and religion. A camel through the eye of the needle and so on and so forth…
Take my old man, for instance. Poor bastard busted his ass as a New York cabbie for thirty goddamn years, until some junkie blew his head off for the fare box he kept under his seat. Where did he ever get ‘cept for a six-by-three-by-six plot in St. John’s?
After he was planted, Mom made me quit high school and take a job at the corner grocery to support her and Angie. I wasn’t happy about that. I was only two months from graduation, and actually had a scholarship lined up for a college upstate, but she didn’t really give me much of a choice. You didn’t argue with my mom, not if you wanted to keep the teeth in your head.
Sal’s Groceries was owned by an old Italian guy named Sal Breeni. He prided himself on having a strong work ethic – ha. The old bastard didn’t know the first thing about ethics. He’d change the expiration dates on spoiled milk and sell rotten produce at a 40-percent markup. He’d also give credit to old ladies on their weekly groceries with a 25-percent interest…compounded daily.
He was a cheap old crook, too. I ran my ass ragged for him for eight years, stocking shelves and sweeping the floor and washing his windows and bagging groceries for the princely sum of 75 cents an hour, and this was back in the early Seventies when the minimum wage was $1.45. I was loyal to the old man, never ripped him off, never missed a single shift, and what thanks did I get? Zilch. I approached him for a raise one time and he laughed in my face for a good two minutes then told me to get the fuck back to work. I was the best goddamn employee Sal ever had, but when he finally retired back in ‘80, who did he hire as the new store manager? His pissant son, Sal Jr. Little shithead didn’t know the first thing about running a grocery store. He had never worked an honest day in his life and had a reputation around the neighborhood for being a pretty shady character. He was rumored to sell dope to school kids and had actually done some time at Rikers as a teen for theft. Yeah, he was crook, just like Daddy.
I wasn’t happy about that, either. I had been waiting for a promotion for eight fucking years. I confronted the old man but he just shook his head and said: “Tony, you’re a good worker, but this is a family business, and you ain’t family.”
I quit right then and there. No way was I working for a little punk like Sal Jr. By then my mom was dead and Angie had finished high school and gone on to college herself. She later married some hotshot lawyer and moved to a nice neighborhood in Todt Hill on Staten Island.
Angie. That ungrateful little cunt. Her older brother throws away his shot at a better life and breaks his back to put her through school, and how does she show her gratitude? I called her once when I was having a pretty rough time and needed some help covering my rent for the month. Her maid – her fucking maid -- answered the phone. I told her who I was and she gave the phone to Angie. Before I could get a single word out, she hissed at me: “Don’t ever call me again. I don’t want to even know you exist” and hung up. She treated me like something stuck to the bottom of her shoe. I was a reminder of a different life and time she wanted to put as far behind her as possible , a time when she hadn’t been some rich lawyer’s wife with a Mercedes and an inground swimming pool and servants. A time when she had been a poor little Irish girl from the Bronx who had to go to school in worn-out shoes and skirts with frayed hems. An old life she wanted to forget. I never spoke to her again.
Old Sal Breeni died thirty years ago. Colorectal cancer. A pretty bad way to go, I guess. To show there were no hard feelings, I sent a colonoscopy bag along with some dead flowers to the hospital. After he was buried, I visited his grave and drank a six-pack to celebrate, then pissed on his headstone.
I got another job working at Stone and Newman, one of the biggest financial firms in Manhattan. I was a custodian. A janitor. Sweeping floors and taking out the trash for those little Ivy League cocksuckers in their Neiman Marcus business suits and Patek Philippe watches and Christian Louboutin shoes who looked down their noses at me with undisguised disgust – when they weren’t ignoring me altogether. Rich kids who only got where they were because of Daddy and his connections.
I’ve worked here for forty years. It pays better than Sal’s ever did, but it still ain’t much to brag about. I’ve climbed up over the years to the position of Head Custodian – as high as I can get in this line of work – with four other custodians under me, but I handle the twenty-seventh, twenty-eighth, twenty-ninth and thirtieth floors exclusively . But not for much longer. I’m about to retire, you see. In fact, this is my last day here.
No, they’re not doing anything special for me. No party or plaque or gold watch or any of that crap. I’m invisible to them, I always have been. Unless they need someone to vent their frustration on, someone they can feel superior to.
It’s eight A.M. I’ve just clocked in. I change into my gray coverall in my small locker room, then take the service elevator up to the Thirtieth Floor – the Executive Floor – and wheel my cleaning cart into the hallway, limping slightly (the result of a car accident I was in ten years before). The receptionist, Sarah, barely bothers to throw me a glance. I smile at her as I always do and give her a routine “Good morning,” which she ignores. She always does.
I always start at the top floor and work my way down. I begin my day by emptying out the trash in the Executive Director’s office. He’s at his desk, on his phone. He eyes me briefly, an eyerolling glance of contempt at this proletarian (yeah, I know big fancy words too) intruder in his private realm of high-class luxury and corporate domination, then goes back to his phone. I eavesdrop on his conversation as I dump out his waste basket. He’s arranging a date tonight with his side-piece. Later he’ll call his wife and tell her he’s working late. He’s a fat fuck in his fifties with a full head of iron gray hair that’s probably the result of very expensive transplants.
I finish and go to the door, turn back to smile at him politely and say: “It was nice working for you, Mr. Locke.”
He doesn’t look up, just waves me away like a fucking dog that won’t stop jumping on your leg.
I remove the trash from the other Thirtieth Floor offices and then polish the long table in the Executive Conference Room and clean the windows. I don’t do any vacuuming; that’s the job of the night cleaning crew after the building closes for the day. It is now ten A.M.
I wheel my cart back into the service elevator and go down to the Twenty-ninth Floor – the Legal Department. Corporate lawyers and investigators and secretaries. I do my tasks, unnoticed, saying Good-bye to everyone I encounter, alternately ignored and insulted in response. The receptionist here doesn’t even glance at me. When I finish, two hours have passed and it’s nearly noon.
I take my cart down to the Twenty-Eighth Floor, the Accounting Department. It’s mostly deserted at this time of the day, lunchtime.
I enter the Chief Accountant’s Office and do my routine. The Chief Accountant, this smarmy little Princeton dipshit is also on his phone, but talking very discreetly in a low voice not quite a whisper. It’s hard to make out what he’s saying but I have some idea. I’ve worked for these people for years and you pick up things. The Chief Accountant has a pretty expensive coke habit. I think I can actually see a little white residue around his nostrils. He’s probably talking to his dealer trying to score.
I finish and smile at him. “So long, Mr. Preston. It’s my last day.”
He breaks away from his phone for a moment and shoots me a look of irritation at the interruption. “Get the fuck out of here, old man, can’t you see I’m on the phone?”
“Sorry, sir,” I say with trained subservience.
“Fuck off.”
I leave and do my job on the rest of the floor, then I go down my final floor. Twenty-seven. It’s your typical office cubical farm. Lower-echelon brokers and analysts. Young kids fresh out of business school with their huge student debts riding their backs and their dreams of rising up in the financial hierarchy. It’s two o’clock.
I go into the Office Manager’s office. Some stuck-up little Vassar bitch in a designer pant suit from Versace. She’s at her desk on her phone, alternately sipping a Starbucks Caffe Mocha and yapping to some airhead girlfriend of hers. They’re discussing the latest trendy Ketogenic diet and the hippest restaurants in Soho.
I do my business while they’re babbling away mindlessly on the phone. I flash her a smile.
“I guess this is goodbye, Rochelle. It’s my last day.”
“Did I say you could talk to me?” she snaps at me without missing a beat.
“I’m sorry.”
“Just do your fucking job and go away.”
I exit her office with a submissive nod. As I close the door I hear her mutter under her breath: “Fucking loser.”
I collect the trash from the rest of the Twenty-seventh Floor. Then I clean the windows, mop the restrooms, and scrub the toilets. It’s almost 4 P.M., the end of the workday and the end of my final shift.
I emerge from the men’s room and glance both ways down the hallway. No one is in sight. I push my cart into the employee lunch room across the hall.
Empty. Good. I go to the refrigerator and open it. A large cake is sitting on the top shelf, one of those big sheet jobs that can probably feed about fifty people.
I go to my cleaning cart, push aside the bags of trash I’ve collected, and carefully remove the large rectangular cardboard box that’s been hidden in the bottom all day. I set it on one of the Formica tables and open it.
The cake I’ve baked isn’t quite identical to the one in the fridge, but it’s close enough that no one will probably notice at a passing glance. White buttercream frosting with green border. And written in pink icing in cursive lettering: “Happy Birthday, Dan!”
I quickly swap out the cakes and place the normal cake in the bottom of the cleaning cart, hiding it under the trash bags.
I leave the employee lunch room. No one in the hallway. I wheel my cart back to the restrooms and stand halfway in the men’s room doorway as if I’m just finishing up.
I can hear a murmuring. It gets louder. Approaching voices.
I watch as they begin to file down the hallway and enter the lunch room, talking amongst themselves excitedly. None of them spare me a glance.
I faintly hear the ding! of the Executive Elevator as it arrives on the Twenty-seventh Floor. After a moment the Executive Director, Mr. Locke, appears, striding down the hallway towards the lunchroom with an easygoing grin. He enters.
I wait for it.
Voices cry out in unison: “Happy birthday, Dan!” followed by them singing “Happy Birthday to You.”
I go to the lunch room doorway and peer in. They’re crowded around the Executive Director, who stands over his cake, beaming. When they finish singing they break out in applause. It looks like most of the bigwigs from the Accounting and Legal Departments are gathered, along with the Twenty-seventh Floor Office Manager, Rochelle. She begins to cut the cake and serve out slices on paper plates. None of them seem to notice that the center of the cake has a slightly reddish-brown tint. I watch as they begin to eat.
After a moment I leave, unnoticed.
It’s 4 P.M. and my last day has ended. I push my cleaning cart back to the service elevator and take it back down to the First Floor.
Forty years. Forty-fucking-years I spent working in this building. Working for them. Cleaning up their messes and dumping their trash and mopping their floors and scrubbing their toilets. And not a single one of them said farewell or gave me a retirement gift or even a lousy fucking card. Not even a fucking cake. They didn’t even notice me leaving. Hell, they never noticed I was there to begin with. To them I was just one of the nameless, faceless, unwashed, unlettered masses who exist merely to serve.
I dump the trash in the Dumpster out back, then wheel my cleaning cart back to the Custodian’s Room for the last time. Then I limp into my small changing room and remove my gray coveralls for the last time. Before I switch back into my regular clothes, I regard myself for a moment in the mirror. A sixty-seven-year-old man with thinning white hair and a face aged and worn by a lifetime of hard, thankless work. And what did I have to show for it? A tiny pension that would barely cover my electric bill, let alone my rent. Thank God for Social Security.
Of course, none of that matters, anyway. I don’t have that many years left to enjoy my retirement.
I stare at the bruise-like lesions on my scrawny chest and arms. I try to remember what the doctor had called them, the name he had used. Some fancy Latin term…at least, I think it was Latin.
I think back to the accident ten years ago, when I had been crossing the street. The drunk rich kid in his new Porsche Daddy had bought for his seventeenth birthday. The red light he had driven through. The thud I had heard and the sensation of the impact before everything had gone black.
I had woken up in a hospital. They told me I had almost bled to death. I had required a transfusion. They’re supposed to screen that stuff these days, but I guess every once in a while a bad batch still slips through. I guess I won a very unlucky lottery.
It wasn’t until just a couple years ago that I first noticed the bruises that seemed to form out of nowhere. The diarrhea. I had gone to the doctor. I remember the tests they had taken. His somber expression when the results came back.
Tony, I have some bad news for you…
I think about the drunk kid in the Porsche. His Daddy had been some Wall Street bigshot. He pulled some strings and got the charges reduced. Junior got off with a slap on the wrist and a fine.
I think about the cake I baked the other night. The special ingredient I added to the mix. The other special ingredients I added to the frosting.
I stare at myself in the mirror and look at the band-aid on my right arm. The cut still itches a little. I scratch it gently. I smile at myself.
I change into my street clothes and leave. As I cross the Custodian’s Room I glance into the bottom of the cleaning cart and pause.
The cake I removed from the employee lunch room is still sitting at the bottom, in the cardboard box I brought my “special” cake to work in; the one I poured my own blood, sweat and tears into baking…literally. Not to mention my spit and a couple other things. I remove it, smiling, and carry it out with me. Who says they didn’t get me a cake?
I limp down the service corridor, into the lobby, then outside into the late-afternoon sun. I start walking to the station where the subway will take me back to my crappy little apartment.
I hope they enjoyed my cake.