Where's Levi?

“Raymond, we finally have a new employee for the vacancy. This is his first night, and we need to show him the ropes. This is Levi, our new custodian. Levi…meet Raymond, your night custodial lead,” Big Tom, the day supervisor said. “Levi’s brand new, so show him everything he needs to know.”

There he stood in front of me, sort of a forlorn-looking guy, with short, ginger hair and a hard drinker’s face. He looked older than he was.

It was 2:30 in the afternoon, and I had arrived at the high school for my shift. Big Tom was off work and left for the evening, so I took over.

Levi had been a substitute janitor for a while and came with decent reviews. After months, we’d finally have the vacancy filled. School had just let out for the day, and I took him to the area he’d be cleaning every night.

“Yes sir, this is great…we’re glad to have you here. We’ve been struggling to get everything done the last few months, with this job opening,” I said.

“Well Raymond, worry no more, I’ll give ya a hundred and twenty percent every day.”

I showed him his buildings, which were no small thing, with two dozen classrooms to clean, restrooms around every corner, some heavily vandalized, some not, halls with kids and teachers all over the place, hundreds of garbage cans and shit everywhere. It all needs to be spotless and locked up by the end of the night. That’s the job.

Levi took to it like he knew what he was doing. We finally have a regular guy on the night crew. The other two janitors, Richard and Cliff were already in their buildings suffering through their nightly assignments. Levi settled in and was able to complete tasks in a timely fashion. After the first few days, it was like he had always been there. In the coming weeks, Levi’s performance was normal, but somewhat slow. He smoked cigarettes, which was technically not allowed on school district property, but he wasn’t causing me any trouble, so I never said anything and looked the other way whenever he lit up. I smoked a long time ago when I was young but finally quit. As a former smoker, I knew Levi’s sneaking around for a cigarette routine intimately.

Levi was the sort of man who didn’t say too much. However, he sometimes had friends meet him in the parking lot at night during his lunch. They’d sit and talk in the car or sometimes leave to get food. I didn’t think this was odd in any way, and totally normal for night workers. His lunchtime was his, and he was adequate as a janitor. He finished on time and his boy’s restrooms didn’t perpetually stink of urine as they did with the last guy we had. Another positive was I no longer received complaints from the one staff member who invariably gave me heartburn.

***

The school year continued, and Levi did okay, but like every janitor I’ve ever known, his work began to drop off. It happens every time. He was no longer the ideal version of himself he projected in the beginning. Slowly as the honeymoon ended, his true self began to emerge, and disappointment set in. A few teachers brought complaints, but only after egregious neglect of their rooms by Levi. When I presented this to him, he became short and curt with me.

“It’s too much work, I can’t finish it all!” he’d say and storm off in a huff. I didn’t want to ride him, but he left me with no choice.

He also began spending more time smoking out in the parking lot. His friends would show up, and they’d take off in a car for lunch, only to return an hour later high as balls, and trying to remember where he left his janitor cart. This was a new development, and it grated on me. I was gonna turn his ass in, but then I would end up having to do his shift…in addition to mine. So, I just sort of forgot about it and went along with my business.

***

Late fall brought rockin’ basketball games to our facility on Friday nights. Every week, Hundreds and hundreds of spectators and parents packed our gym, eating fast-food, spilling drinks, fighting, spitting and throwing garbage everywhere. After every game, the bleachers looked exactly like a tornado had ripped through a trailer park. By ten p.m., the game was usually over, and the night crew and I had to deal with this clean-up catastrophe. I asked Levi to meet Richard, Cliff and me in the gym after the game for this job.

“We need everybody we can get for this,” I said.

“I’m not doing that…that’s not my area,” he calmly stated.

“I beg your pardon, but yes, it is.”

“Well too bad, I’m not doing that…I don’t have time.” Levi walked outside, had a smoke, and fiddled with his phone. Afterwards, he wouldn’t talk to me anymore. From that moment on, it was strictly business between Levi and me. What fresh development is this, I thought, this new kind of mindfuck.

I stewed about Levi all weekend, and I wondered where a guy like that lives. Did he have a place, or an apartment? I imagined him in a crappy little room with grey walls, in the low rent part of town. Or maybe in his hoarder mother’s basement, living in squalor, the air heavy with stench…Levi’s stench.

I pondered my options, and I knew he was gonna force my hand. I just knew it. I cooled off for a while and decided to give him a second chance. Maybe he’d see the light and come to his senses.

During the following week’s night activities, Levi did it again, openly refusing to show up. This was direct, in your face insubordination, and the little dirtbag was doin’ it to me…taunting me and daring me do something about it.

“You don’t scare me…write me up if ya want, I don’t care about this job,” was all he said, and he walked away. My scalp was on fire with rage.

That was the moment he made me turn his ass in…I hated to go through all the bureaucratic red tape dealing with a shitty janitor, but he made me.

I didn’t have the supervisory pull to deal with this. I was really a low-level custodian too, so I sent it up the chain of command to the day sadist, Big Tom.

Big Tom was an ‘In charge’ kind of fella, and I knew he took great personal pleasure in exacting pain on subordinates. He usually had a bounce in his step after inflicting a solid reprimand. He especially enjoyed administering this cruelty in front of other staff members. This was right up his alley, and I couldn’t wait to see it unfold.

The following Monday morning I immediately made the call and told Big Tom everything. He wrote-up Levi hard for the episode and handed him an official district letter in an envelope at 2:30 p.m., when we came in for our shifts. I was surprised Big Tom wrote the letter and didn’t just chew Levi’s ass in front of us like normal.

Later that evening, I was having my lunch in the janitor’s office, and I could see the crumpled-up letter to Levi in the office garbage can. I was alone, so naturally I pulled it out of the garbage and looked at it. It read as follows:

“Dear Levi Hubbs,

I hope this day finds you well. It has come to my attention you have been unwilling to assist the night crew in their weekly cleaning tasks during after-school events in the gym. This is unacceptable behavior and will not be tolerated. It is essential that all custodial employees pitch in to help during these school activities. This letter serves as notice to correct these behaviors or follow-up notifications may become necessary. Three of these letters may lead to an administrative referral and write-up. Three administrative referrals may then result in a possible six-week suspension. This is not something we wish to do, Mr. Hubbs. Therefore, please consider this notification carefully. Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Sincerely, Tom McPhail, Day Lead Custodian.”

Well…that should do it. Maybe he’ll straighten up and get with the program. I crumpled the letter up and put it in the garbage where I found it.

The days passed and all was quiet for a while. But Levi was mad, and his newly acquired bad attitude began to intensify. He wouldn’t even look at me and was always on his phone. His cleaning area slacked off even more, with countless complaints, and his boy’s restrooms smelled like a herd of goats had shacked-up in there. If the wind was right, a person could almost get a whiff from across campus.

One day I needed supplies, and I pushed my janitor cart up to Levi’s 300 building, where the main supply room was located. Entering the building, I noticed the supply room door had been propped open, halfway down the hall. This was something we NEVER allowed, as the kids or others would be in there in a second. But it was late at night, and someone, maybe Richard or Cliff, most likely forgot to close it after getting supplies.

Upon entering, Levi’s jacket was lying on a stack of cardboard boxes. I went to move it to the wall hook where he normally hangs it, and it felt unusually heavy. Out of curiosity, and pure disdain for him, I looked in the pockets. In the right-side pocket was a bag of pills the size and shape of grandma’s holiday cheese log, containing a thousand or more tablets. Then it occurred to me why all the slippery characters were showing up at the school at night.

A fuse blew inside me, deep in my psyche. I began rehearsing a verbal and even a physical confrontation with Levi in my mind, attacking him head-on. I could feel my fist sink into his face, pushing his nose flat, and hammering him over and over. But then no, no Ray, just be cool. There’s a better way.

I didn’t know what the hell those pills were, maybe fentanyl, so I gloved up. I threw the bag in my garbage barrel on the janitor cart, letting it settle in amongst the trash. I re-checked the hall to be sure nobody was coming. With the coast clear, I checked his lunchbox too. It was set on a supply shelf, next to rolls of paper towels. Inside were more pills, and dozens of smaller bags containing white powder divided up for distribution. All this went into my garbage barrel with the rest. I then hauled my scared ass outta his 300 building and made a beeline for the boiler room. Luckily, Levi didn’t see me, while he was exiting another building, as I fast walked my cart with the drugs across campus.

I was gonna throw it all into one of the two boiler fire boxes. It was a cold day, and those suckers were thundering along like freight trains, the brick fire boxes glowing white hot inside. But then all the gasses from the drugs and pills, up and out the chimney and into the surrounding neighborhood. What could this do, I wondered.

Instead, I tossed it deep down into the abyss of the school’s twenty-yard dumpster, way in the back where the swamp water congregates. I put more garbage on top for good measure.

I went about the rest of my shift nervously but resolved in what I did. When Levi finds it’s all missing, he’s gonna shit himself and want to send whoever did it to hell. But as far as I was concerned, he had it comin.’

I wondered how much money was involved in this. There were a lot of pills, and what are they worth on the street? Tens of thousands? Hundreds of thousands? Who knows?

I had to be cool and nonchalant…like nothing’s bothering me, and I don’t have a care in the world. If anyone finds out I did this, I will most certainly have drug cartel gang members hunting me down.

I worked my way back, pushing the janitor cart across campus towards my buildings, when Levi intercepted me halfway there.

“You seen anybody around here!” Levi blurted out.

“Oh, hey, Levi…what’s going on, my man?”

“Don’t give me that shit…who the hell was in the supply room, asshole?”

“Hey, just take it easy, Dude…what are you talking about? I haven’t seen anybody in the supply.”

“You better not be lying to me…I’ll stab your ass!” he said pointing his finger in my face. I let him rant and pace around for a couple minutes, so he could get it out of his system.

“Someone’s been in the supply room messing with my shit…I’m gonna mess-up whoever did it!”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I said.

Levi’s eyes were on fire, and he was visibly shaking. He threw his arms in the air and mumbled the worst profanities imaginable as he stormed away, pacing around campus, unable to conceal the panic and rage. He retreated to his area, frantic and having the kind of day that’ll give a guy bleeding ulcers.

I think I pulled it off, but I needed to watch my back. Levi was certainly a shifty little bastard, and I learned he’d stab ya given half a chance. I could look at him and see the gears turning in his pea brain…he’s plotting something big, like revenge on the one who screwed him.

***

In the coming days, Levi was inconsolable. He’d try to stare me down, giving me sideways looks, to test if I’d pulled any of the shenanigans. I played it cool. But still, it was as if I was transmitting my guilt to him telepathically. I could feel it deep in my bones, he knew…somehow, he knew it all. I asked Richard and Cliff if Levi was acting weird, and yes, he’d done the same things to them. Of course, I hadn’t told a soul about my stealing and destroying Levi’s drug stash, so all the janitors were befuddled on what was bothering him. Whenever I had to deal with Levi, I just hoped he wasn’t in a stabbing mood.

A week or so after the pill incident, a white van showed up in the faculty parking lot, around nine p.m. It was dark, but I could see Levi pushing his janitor cart as the van pulled up next to him. He had dumped his garbage into the dumpster and was headed back to his area. He began talking to three men in the van, when they got out for a more in-depth conversation.

There wasn’t a struggle, per se, but I could tell Levi really didn’t want to go for a ride. However, with a little persuasion, he got in and they drove away in a big hurry. Levi abandoned his janitor cart right there on the sidewalk, and left his shift incomplete, with lights on and doors open all over the place.

We never saw Levi ever again. I’m pretty sure it had something to do with the pill incident. Maybe he owed lots of money to his supplier and couldn’t pay up. But whatever the reason, he was gone forever.

For days after Levi’s disappearance, creepy people would come cruising through the parking lot, looking for Levi, many of them openly hostile towards me.

“WHERE’S LEVI…HEY YOU…DIPSHIT…WHATTAYA DEAF? WHERE’S LEVI!”

“I’m sorry, sir. Levi doesn’t work here anymore.”

The following summer, I was cruising along 4^th Avenue South in my truck, when I passed a scraggly, forty-year-old man who was riding a child’s BMX bike. He was moving with traffic along the side of the road, peddling like he’s late for the dance. It looked like Levi Hubbs…I really think it may have been Levi. I could see his little reprobate smoker’s face as I went by. I don’t think he saw me, but I’m pretty sure it was him.

So, I guess that’s good his dealer connection didn’t murder him for losing all those drugs. I have mixed feelings regarding Levi, as his actions created significant challenges for our team, and the community.