A quiet Friday evening was unusual. There were no PTA meetings, or banquets, or dances. The Auxiliary Flotilla didn’t have a boating class that evening, nor were any staff meetings scheduled. The usual kids weren’t hanging around the student parking lot, and most of the teachers were long gone…even the notorious late stayer had vacated. The three custodians and I were spread across the high school, grinding through our assigned areas, and grateful for a little peace.
Personally, I liked our campus, even though it was old. It was built in the 1950s, and like most schools of that era, the site consisted of round and rectangular buildings, connected by a spider-web of sidewalks and breezeways -- a very typical mid-century modern design. But now, after so many decades, I admit it was beginning to look run-down.
I had done my shift and worked alone in the same tired buildings night after night for so many years, I had become prone to a curtain amount of daydreaming. Occasionally my inner dialog would become my outer dialog, and I’d blurt out an inappropriate thought. I’ve since made an effort to curb this strange development, the product of spending too much time alone.
No matter, it was almost the weekend, and I’d get a two-day reprieve from it all.
My janitor cart made a rhythmic clacking, like a train on a track as I moved along the concrete sidewalk between buildings. I was heading to the next task on my schedule, when from behind, a delicate voice called out to me. I thought I imagined it in my mind, but then it happened again.
“Excuse me…sir, excuse me…are you Raymond?”
“Can I help you ma’am?” I turned and said, trying not to appear aggravated. (We always strive to maintain a friendly rapport with the public).
“Yes, I’m Ellen, Stan’s wife…you know Stanley in 205? Have you seen him, by chance? He was supposed to meet me hours ago, and I can’t get ahold of him. Can we check his classroom?”
Ellen was older, but elegant, and well dressed. She was considerably more refined than I pictured Stan with.
“Yeah, I can let you in, but I haven’t seen him around… he’s usually gone by now.”
With my big ring of janitor keys, I opened room 205. Stan taught U.S. history, and world history year after year in this room. The lights were on as was Stan’s computer. His jacket was on his oak teacher’s chair, and his phone was sitting on the desk.
“Huh…that’s weird…he must have gone to the printing room in the office or maybe he went to the track meet…is that his ’99 Daewoo in the parking lot?” I said.
“Yes, I’m parked next to it.”
“Well…you’re welcome to wait around if you like. I gotta get back to my shift.”
Ellen waited in his room, pacing and fiddling with her phone. I went back to work and forgot about the matter.
Hours passed, and the bus transporting students from the track arrived back from the stadium across town. It was late, and I was lying on the sofa in the faculty lounge eating my cheese sandwich. I poked my head out of the building when I heard the bus rumble in. I watched as they dropped off kids and the attending staff, but Stanley was nowhere to be seen.
“I’m calling the District Security Department,” Ellen said, approaching me on the sidewalk just outside of the building. “It’s after ten o clock… Raymond…did you know Stan was threatened by a former student a week ago…did you know that?”
“Hey, take it easy, I’m sure your husband is fine,” I said. “You know what, I really don’t like getting involved with school politics, But I do remember that situation, now that you mention it. Wasn’t the kid kicked out for threatening a few of the staff?”
“Yeah, that’s him, he threatened to beat up Stanley. I know the schools get this sort of thing occasionally, but this young man was different, he tends to follow up on threats, from what we’ve heard.”
I waited around and wrapped up my last-minute odds and ends. Finally, a district security car showed up just before eleven o clock, as the other custodians and I were doing the final lockup of the school before the weekend. The officer interviewed Ellen briefly in the parking lot and turned to approach me.
“Are you the custodian?” the officer said.
“Yes sir,” I said. “I’ve pretty much checked all the buildings and so have the other janitors. Stan just isn’t around anywhere. Officer…I just don’t know where else to look.”
“Did you happen to see this former student or see anything unusual?” The officer said.
“No sir, it’s been really quiet. But I was thinking, maybe his car wouldn’t start, and he got a lift home from another teacher. I’ve seen that happen a couple times.”
“I don’t think so,” the officer said. “Why would he leave his jacket and phone in his classroom?”
Security interviewed the other three janitors, before we finished for the night. I began my drive home a short while later feeling uneasy about the situation. I stopped at The Corner Grocery for my normal Friday beer and headed to my trailer a few more miles down the road. I tried to think where Stan could possibly be the whole trip. Maybe he suddenly shacked-up with another woman, but then who’d have him? Why would the tired and pear-shaped Stanley want to leave? He was lucky to be married to a beautiful and kind person like Ellen in the first place. Stan’s disappearance was puzzling.
Saturday afternoon, I was sitting in my trailer looking at the walls, when I received a call from Jim, the Principal.
“Hey Raymond, sorry to bother you on the weekend…I’ve been briefed on what happened. First off, Stanley is still missing. Second, the police and security have checked the cameras at the front of the school and in other areas but came up with nothing. Just a few grainy pictures, but none that appear to be him. You know the school better than anyone, Raymond, where the heck could he have gone?”
“I really don’t know. This might sound outrageous, but Stan’s been looking kind-of edgy lately, like he hasn’t had much sleep. Maybe he had a mental breakdown and just walked away. Did he owe lots of money, or go off the rails with alcohol?” I said half joking.
“Oh, I doubt any of that,” Jim said. “People do pull those kinds of stunts, I mean it’s not unheard of…but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”
“Ya know, Jim, his wife Ellen thinks the kid who was expelled last week may have acted out on an earlier threat,” I said. “Do ya think something like that is possible?”
“Well, I’m sure the police will look into all those things if he doesn’t turn up soon,” Jim said. “But nobody has been arrested, and no crime to anyone’s knowledge has been committed. Right now, it’s just a missing person’s case.”
I hung up the phone with a pit in my stomach. But there wasn’t much I could do about it, so I tried to enjoy my weekend. However, I couldn’t get the incident out of my mind, and how scared Ellen looked. I could see fear in her eyes and could tell she was truly terrified about losing the love of her life.
That weekend, I tried to think of every possibility. Working at a high school year in and year out is a pressure cooker. One issue about Stan the janitors were never, ever supposed to know, kept creeping through my mind. It was rumored he was having trouble controlling his drinking, and he may have gone off the deep end with booze. Perhaps he went on another bender, I thought to myself. It sounds horrible, but he did it before. This was a top-secret rumor, so naturally, the janitors were the first to be informed. Big Tom, our ne’er-do-well day custodian collected this ripe little tidbit through his connection and immediately told us all.
Sunday morning came, and Stanley’s disappearance haunted me. The trailer felt stuffy and claustrophobic, and I needed to get out for a while. I hopped into my old truck, bought a coffee at the local drive-through, and decided to take a ride by the high school. As I drove by, there was Stan’s 1999 Daewoo in the staff parking lot, sitting there like a ghost. I got a chill looking at it and thinking about whatever nefarious events happened to its owner. That Sunday evening, it was clear to everyone - something bad went down.
Monday morning around six a.m., I was still in bed when I received the call.
“Hey Raymond, it’s Jim. Listen…let me get right to it, we got a problem here and we need you to come in. I can’t discuss it over the phone.”
“Right now?”
“Right now, Raymond.”
I got dressed and climbed into my truck. I usually take the surface streets to and from work because it’s more relaxing. But I knew this was bad and had something to do with Stan’s disappearance, so I hopped onto the freeway.
Arriving at the school, a couple of unmarked police cars were sitting out front. I drove around to the back and parked in my normal spot next to the boiler room door. I walked across campus to the main office building and entered. Beverly, the office manager was on the phone and pointed me to Jim’s office. Two plain-clothes police detectives were standing by the principal’s office door, and Jim came out into the lobby.
“Sorry to drag you in, Raymond, but these officers have a few questions they wanna ask you, really quick.”
“Oh God, did they find Stan, is he okay,” I asked.
“Listen Raymond,” Jim said. “I guess you haven’t heard yet… I’m sorry to tell you, but he died. Julie the cook found him this morning when she came in at four a.m., he was sitting in the kitchen restroom, leaning against the stall wall. He must have passed away sometime on Friday evening.”
“That’s horrible!” I said.
“They think he may have had a brain aneurysm, or a heart attack,” Jim said. “But they won’t know until after the autopsy. Ellen is obviously upset. She said maybe they could have saved his life if only someone had found him sooner. What do you have to say about that?”
“Oh my God,” I said. I started running scenarios through my head -- all the ways this could affect me or possibly get me in trouble with the law. That’s when one of the detectives spoke up.
“What kind of employee are you…don’t you even check all the areas and restrooms before you leave?” the detective said, sharply. Everyone in the office, including Beverly the office manager and Rebeca, the young new clerk turned and glared at me with disgust.
“Well, no…I mean yes…well mostly. After I lock up an area, I generally move on to other buildings. He must have gone in there later in the evening after I’d finished. I meant to check the building again later, but I was busy…you know there’s twenty-eight restrooms here and sixty classrooms.” (I had to do some fast thinkin,’ and my face felt hot as I whipped up my hasty and somewhat pathetic defense).
“Why would he go to the kitchen restroom? It’s quite a walk from his room,” the other detective asked.
“Come to think of it, I’ve seen him use the one in the kitchen before. It’s a lot more private than the faculty room one,” I said.
“Well Raymond, from now on, I want you to check around more thoroughly during your shift. Look what happened,” Jim said firmly. “We could get sued, but luckily for us, Ellen had come to the school on Friday trying to get Stan’s signature on their divorce papers. Now, I guess if he had life insurance, she’ll be collecting that instead.”
The police had my statement and let me go, but I was rattled inside. I was forced to politely take the insinuation I was partly responsible for Stanley’s death. I’ve always tried to mind my own business, and somehow, I got sucked into this vortex of B.S. However deep down inside, I was mad at myself. It grated on me that I didn’t find Stan on Friday. “Why didn’t I check those areas?” This kept running through my mind. I drove home and tried to sleep for a few hours, but this was no good. I didn’t ever want to go back to my job.
But go back I did. At least until I could find another janitor opening, maybe at another high school across town, where I could get a fresh start, with a fresh staff who didn’t know me… and how I screwed this up. I would wait patiently for just the right opening.
***
The months passed and things settled down. A new history teacher was eventually hired for room 205.
Then one day, we received a juicy dispatch from our resident stoolie Big Tom. He told us about Stan’s toxicology, and how the report finally came back from his autopsy. Stanley was poisoned, a little bit every day, slowly until his body finally shut down in the kitchen restroom on that Friday evening. Big Tom had heard how the police interrogated Ellen for hours until she sang, confessing to the deed and implicating her new beau as well. She’d been trying to divorce Stan, but he wouldn’t sign the papers, and she began poisoning him instead. Big Tom said all these revelations poured out of Ellen during a teary-eyed confession in a windowless interrogation room.
The day custodian also explained that after Stan’s death, Ellen had been calling the insurance company every week inquiring about the million-dollar insurance policy, and when they were gonna ‘cut her a check.’ This raised eyebrows, and the insurance company informed the cops of their suspicions. All the pieces fit together and led to her arrest. I’ve since wondered where Big Tom received all these details, because he knew everything, and it spewed out of his face with enthusiasm, and a gleam in his eye. The night crew and I listened in horror, as the particulars emerged.
Things went back to normal for me during this time. I’m now strangely grateful for Big Tom’s gossiping affliction. I don’t know if finding Stan on that Friday would have saved his life or not, but given the circumstances, I eventually forgave myself. I decided to quit looking for another gig, and I’d just stay where I am for now, unless something better comes along…
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