HOW TO END A CAREER AS A JW JANITOR
(A brief memoir)
There were ten of us on that crew. Janitor duties.
Nine black men and yours truly
(six feet four inches and weighing one hundred sixty pounds).
The Crew Chief was not black. He was sleepy and named Ed.
Ed never took part in the cleaning.
His was a supervisory function.
He would spot-check and make sure we didn't steal anything expensive. Ed was not very competent in that capacity.
Ed mostly slept.
The building we cleaned was the local hometown newspaper,
THE STAR TELEGRAM.
(Remember newspapers? No, of course not - you are too young.)
_____
What now follows are three incidents leading to my "career change."
But first - a clarification.
1. I was an ex-convict fresh out of Federal Prison
(Jehovah's Witness conscientious objector).
2. I was a full-time Pioneer minister working part-time at a buck sixty an hour. I worked Midnight to eight a.m. shift.
3. Intelligence and artistic talent were not fungible in Fort Worth Texas for people like me.
Now - back to my story and the three incidents...
___________
Incident #1
____________
The first incident I'm pretty sure I've written about before.
There was a huge Wells Fargo safe in the Editor's office in a walk-in closet behind the desk. The door to that closet was kept locked except for this one occasion. It stood ajar revealing the magnificent locked safe.
It may have been locked - but - it wasn't safe!
Remember this story?
If not - you really missed out!
Briefly, here are the highlights ...
When I was in grade school all students had a locker and a combination lock. The unbreakable rule was this: ALL lockers must be kept locked! Always. Break the rule and they break your ass!
Well, okay.
However...the distance between my last two classes was three flights of stairs!
I had very little time to open the locker, switch out the textbook, lock up, and (don't) RUN up the crowded stairs to the last class.
So what?
So I - and most other students - worked the combination right up to a half-turn toward the last digit.
In the frantic mad dash process, we could run over to the lock and give a tiny twist and CLICK! Open! A sweet shortcut, eh?
Now - back to my Star-Telegram janitor sees Wells Fargo's safe story... (I know you're ahead me on this.)
As I was sweeping, dumping ashtrays, emptying trash cans - what did I SPY WITH MY LITTLE EYE - but - a combination lock and the instantaneous memory of my high school locker!
Yes. I simply hypothesized that ...maybe...the editor of the newspaper was once a lazy schoolboy using the same shortcut. Possibly?
You know how it is when you've been around convicted criminals a couple of years? Yeah - your mindset becomes polluted.
Cut to the chase...
I tried it. I HAD TO.
It would annoy and nag me forever had I not tried.
I had a 50/50 chance IF the shortcut was to work.
I tugged at the lock with gently pressure while s-l-o-w-ly turning the combination dial to the Right.
YIPES!
The impregnable Wells Fargo solid steel, six-inch thick safe door swung open. WOW!
Back in the 1960s employees preferred being paid in cash and the Star Telegram did indeed abide by this policy.
And yes - there were stacks of cash just like it is in the movies!
Payroll cash.
No checks - just cash.
Oh - and there was a bottle of Vodka too.
How did I feel? How would you feel if you were painfully honest??
It scared the crap out of me for about a dozen reasons.
I didn't wish to go back to prison. No no no.
I also didn't want to stand there eyeballing stacks of $$$$$$.
The gulf between honest and not honest is not as wide as you might imagine.
I quickly shut the door and spun the tumbler and rubbed my cleaning rag all over the door.
My heart was pounding like crazy.
My sense of outrageous guilt was overwhelming - and I hadn't even stolen more than that tempting glance!
That was incident number #1.
___________
Incident #2
__________
One night my boss Ed , the sleepy supervisor who often spent his shift snoring in a dark office, pulled me aside and spoke in a whisper.
"I work another job during the day and I'm so tired - I just need to get some rest or I'll fall down. I need you to keep an eye on Tyrone while I catch my Z's. I don't trust him. Okay - go to it and don't wake me up for ANY reason."
OH GREAT. Who needs that?
There was no way I was going to do that. I ignored his admonition.
Fast-forward a couple of hours and Tyrone had stabbed one of the other crew members. You know, as one does when bored.
It was nothing malicious. Just guys with knives messing about.
Should I wake ED and inform him or not?
What would you have done?
Personally, I have a hard and fast rule I absorbed from my prison experience. DO NOT SNITCH!
Consequently ...
Ed slept through the blood, the ambulance, the police part of the evening.
The next night, Ed pulled me aside with a peculiar look on his face.
What would you guess Ed was going to say to me?
Go on ...make your guess.
Okay. Time's up. You're wrong - whatever you guessed.
Ed said this to me:
"Thanks for not waking me up. I'm glad I missed all that shit."
Yeah. Amazing.
____
Incident #3
____
On my last night of work at the Star-Telegram building as a janitor
I found the Entertainment Writer, Elston Brooks, dead drunk at his desk.
At first, I thought he was just dead.
But as I got closer I could smell the "drunk" part of it.
Elston Brooks was a larger-than-life personality figure who wrote columns in a witty, off-hand manner and he hob-nobbed with all sorts of celebrities in his capacity as interviewer covering movies, actors, actresses, directors, etc.
Every city has a local celebrity like Elston Brooks, right?
I know I should NOT have spoken to him - but - I wasn't absolutely convinced he wasn't dead.
I followed my natural impulse.
I jostled his arm and spoke aloud:
"ARE YOU OKAY?"
Instantly, Elston sat bolt upright like a Army Private snapping to "Attention!" when a Sgt. walks into the barracks.
I won't ask you to guess what he said to me.
Nobody could guess in a million years.
Not even a million monkeys typing on typewriters random sentences could produce the words that came out of his mouth.
Here for the very first time, I will reveal it.
He spoke these words to my wondering ears:
"Steve McQueen and I -- in London -- watched a naked woman wrestle a panther in Raymond’s Revue Bar."
He then leaned to the side and hurled chunks onto the floor.
Noticing the mop and bucket beside me he squeaked,
"Clean that up."
Then he passed out face first on the desk.
Well - I did not "Clean that up."
I had had enough. My black mood about where my life had ended up had suddenly turned darker than midnight.
This was what my life had come to.
Mopping vomit.
I straightaway marched into the dark office where ED was snoring and shook him awake.
"ED, can you hear me? I quit."
He sat there blinking and not at all surprised.
He just sniffed and rubbed his eyes and told me:
"I could never figure out why a guy like you would do a job like this until I read your application. Go on. Get out. You gotta step down to step up."
And those words rang true.
Shortly afterward, I packed my wife and three very small kids into our car and headed to California to get a job as an artist instead of a vomit mopper.
"You sometimes gotta step down to step up."
Thanks, Ed.
