Unconventional Read online

  All that aside, I’m financially handcuffed. At this time, I can’t make more money anywhere else than I accrue at this job: eight dollars per hour. That’s fact, not illusionary, because I’ve tried to get a new job before, but to no avail. I went through the tedious process—wrote cover letters, constructed résumés, sent them out, but no businesses offering more than eight bucks would hire me. Minimal skills, no ornate piece of paper indicating a college degree.

  A diminutive voice in the back of my mind speaks as I return to the wastebasket. My only chance to get out of this situation, my only ticket, is not to find another menial job, but to get my book published. No, I’m not demon-possessed. The voice spoke of inspiration, not harm, and it was my voice inside my head, not a gruff hi-I’m-the-devil-with-a-spinning-head-about-to-vomit voice. I drop the small, rank bag into the oversized one, tie a knot in the large bag, then hoist it over my shoulder. The voice was correct. Becoming published remains my only hope, which is why I worked so diligently on my novel, sacrificing much, at many junctures. Sorry, Sam, I can’t go to the movies tonight because I have to work on my novel. Sorry, Donovan, I can’t watch the game with you today because I need to write.

  Apology. Excuse. Sacrifice. Time and again.

  As I start toward the door, balancing the bag, I begin to muse. Old, unwise choices placed me here. Theoretically, recent, improved choices—to write nightly and send my manuscript to the publishers and literary agencies—ought to plunk me in an enhanced setting, an environment that doesn’t include performing mindless tasks like collecting fetid waste, washing soiled toilets and gunk-filled sinks, mopping grimy floors, and vacuuming trashed carpets.

  I’m about to step into the hallway when I hear Mrs. Fredricks conversing with someone from her room. The word “college” piques my interest. I stop in the doorway and listen attentively to the conversation echoing across the corridor. Another teacher joined Mrs. Fredricks while I contemplated the poster. Fredricks talks about her two sons, Will and Steve. I didn’t know she had any kids but, according to what I hear, they’re twins. Will attends college, has a bit of a drinking problem, she says, and Steve, a married man, works full-time. The two teachers joke about their own college years, how they partook in the occasional alcoholic beverage. They have no knowledge of my nearby presence. Laughing, they say that many of their peers drank more than they studied but that there is no B.A. in Alcohol Consumption, the last time they checked. When the hilarity wears out for them, Fredricks expresses her pride in Will—she sees herself in him, and is pleased with his college selection. She claims his drinking isn’t detrimental, providing he continues to thrive in college. Her voice, while she discusses Steve’s mediocre life, as she calls it, implies her disrespect for his choices. “I wish he could be more like Will,” she says.

  I shake my head, repulsed. What is Fredricks thinking? From what I’ve gathered, Will is the one with the drinking problem. He’s probably an alcoholic, for all she knows. But he’s in college, so that somehow cancels out the alcoholism? Steve, he works full-time, supports his wife, doesn’t, according to her, have a drinking problem, and nothing about him makes her proud? Why? Because he doesn’t participate in college to cover up his troubles, whatever they may be? Enraged, I drop the garbage bag and walk away, up the hallway and into a bathroom.

  I lean in over the sink, palms flat on the white porcelain on either side of the faucet. I shut my eyes and imagine myself standing next to Will, the collegian alcoholic, Fredricks’s pride and joy, whatever he looks like. I picture Fred (Fred—Fredricks? Maybe a connection here?), Sam’s new college friend, the uppity Gucci man. Mrs. Fredricks has Fred and me in front of her, while she sits in her high-backed chair, examining us. She looks at him, smiles, glances at me and shoots her trademarked scowl. The other teacher, a nondescript individual, asks, “Which one is going to be successful, Mrs. Fredricks?”

  Fredricks looks at Fred. Like a queen from her throne, she points a bony finger his way. “This one—he’ll be successful,” she announces.

  Mrs. Nondescript asks, “Why not the other?”

  Fredricks smiles, lowers her forefinger. She shifts her royal gaze to me. “This boy is uneducated. He’s nothing more than a servant.”

  My hands ball into fists. I open my eyes, wanting to punch at the sink, knock it off the wall. Fredricks doesn’t know me. This culture doesn’t know me. I do janitorial work, but I’m living a secret life. I don’t show the real James Frost. They wouldn’t understand my writing life, so why should I tell them about it? I’d rather they not know; I can do without long stares, squinting, disbelieving eyes, whispers, and gossip that tends to generate when one dares to be different. I can live without derisive comments from those bent on smothering my go-getting fire and from those who don’t believe in dreams or in magic. I wouldn’t want them as friends, these people who mask everyone around them with stereotypes.

  I step away from the sink, shaking my head. Wow. I’m such a hypocrite. I’ve probably judged a few people in my lifetime, too.

  * * *

  The only people who remain in the school are Dad, Randy—a coworker who has worked here three years longer than I—and me. It is 8:30 pm and I just completed my designated cleaning area. I stand at Mrs. Fredricks’s end of the hallway, hands in the front pockets of my jeans. I look down at either side of the hallway, double-checking the doors (are they shut? Yes), then I take a step backward through a set of open doors to Randy’s elected cleaning area. I can hear the distant roar of his vacuum.

  Feet planted on a gray carpet runner in Randy Land, my back to his province, I observe my hallway. The ceiling lights glint on the waxy tiles, creating an illusion of ice. I nod at the hall, think job well done, and shrug my shoulders. Another day. Another dollar. I turn and begin to walk down Randy’s hall, thinking of Sam. What’s he up to these days? Whatever he’s doing, I’m sure it’s more glamorous than the work I’ve just completed and the work I’m about to do. I should call him. In his position, plenty can happen in a few days. He could have met his future wife by now. For me, a few days doesn’t amount to much. This colorless world in which I dwell doesn’t often change or offer stimulation. I’m jealous of Sam at the moment. The longing to hear his voice, the familiarity of the tone, is nothing compared to the envy I feel. I conclude, out of spite, perhaps, that if he wants to talk, he can phone me.

  I reach the final classroom in Randy Land and hear his vacuum come to a stop. The silence breaks abruptly owing to his heated voice: “College-educated idiot.”

  I attempt to sneak past the room without his noticing, but he spots me. He steps out of the classroom, vacuum in hand. I stop so as not to come across as rude or arrogant.

  “Ooops.” He laughs like a hyena. “Did I say that out loud?”

  I face him, the man of sixty who never grew up. His eyes are bloodshot, his peppered-gray hair slovenly and greasy. I make solid eye contact, despite my desire to turn away from his leathery face. As long as I’ve known Randy, he’s never—and this may or may not be an exaggeration—had anything genuinely nice to say about anyone. Frankly, he gets tiring.

  “How are you?” I ask him.

  “Been better.” He puts the vacuum down on the carpet behind him, leans against the doorframe. “First it was you-know-what smeared over the walls in the boy’s bathroom, and then it was this dumb teacher,” he says, pointing over his left shoulder. “Come here. Take a look at this.” He waves me into the room. “Where’d the idiot get her degree? A Cracker Jack box?” He chortles.

  I inspect the carpet, speckled with numerous colors of glitter, from the doorway. “Another party, huh?” I say. This sight doesn’t surprise me.

  His nostrils puff out. “I vacuumed this rug twice. I ain’t doin’ it again. Forget that. They wanna throw crap all over the floor, then that’s their problem!” His tone brims with fury. “It won’t all come up.” The veins in his neck are about to pop.

  I defuse his anger by a change of subject. “The weekend isn’t f
ar. Thank goodness. Got any plans?”

  He morphs from Hulk to normal, non-green, alcohol-lusting Randy. “Gonna have some friends over and get hammered.” He smiles. “My type of weekend. Should be great.”

  No, Randy, not great. Awful. I work not to roll my eyes.

  Randy nods at me. “What about you? Any big plans?”

  I know what he wants to hear: Oh, yeah, Randy, I’m gonna get sloshed, man. My type of weekend. Should be great . . . but that isn’t me, so I say, “I’m gonna do some writing.”

  He squints. “Still working on that book, huh?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Who do you think you are—Hemingway?” He laughs derisively.

  I don’t find hilarity in his wisecrack. He’s like Carrot Top, props absent—not the least bit humorous. That Hemingway reference is a great example of why I don’t mention my writing as often as I’d like. I’ve told him about my desire to be published, to get away from the cleaning scene, but no matter what I say, he never takes it seriously.

  Randy quickly puts on the I’m-just-playing-with-you/I’m-a-jerk look. “I better be nice to you,” he says, “because you’ll be signing my checks one day.” He winks.

  I want to shove my thumb in his eye. He knows that I don’t want to take over Dad’s business, but he offers me that line all the time—more proof that he doesn’t think I have potential as a writer. I try not to take it personal, considering the source—a child in an alcoholic man’s body. I glance down at my wristwatch. “Oh, man,” sounding surprised, “I gotta go sweep the gym.”

  “Aight, bro,” he says, then turns back toward the room, that glittery carpet, and mutters something.

  “Catch you later,” I say, but I’m thinking I’m not your bro. I walk away, turn a corner and sigh, continuing into the gym, where I grab the dust mop and begin to sweep the filthy floor.

  Walking the dust mop up and down the court, I flash on my grandfather, the geezer who never had anything to do with me. Stan was his name, Dad told me, and he drank religiously. For the longest time, Dad used Gramps as an example.

  “You don’t wanna become like Gramps, do you?” Dad would say. “Alcoholism’s in our blood. Stay away from the booze, James.”

  I never formally met my grandfather. According to Dad, I was a toddler when we saw him at his trailer. Dad told me about the deal he had made with Gramps. Dad and Mom would bring my sister and me to the trailer only if Gramps swore to stay sober for the visit. Gramps agreed. When we arrived, though, that one time, Gramps opened the front door drunk out of his mind, slurring his words. Dad was heartbroken. We didn’t step foot in the trailer that day or any other. Dad continued to give Gramps ultimatums from time to time, but Gramps never admitted to a drinking problem and, thus, never stopped. He died six years ago, alone. A neighbor found his lifeless body sprawled across the couch, reeking of alcohol, with dozens of empty beer bottles on the rancid floor.

  That was also about the time Dad turned into a hypocrite and took up drinking. As with any addiction, it started off slowly, virtually unnoticeable. One beer turned into two, which turned into three, which turned into four and five and six . . . I remember witnessing this downward spiral, watching Dad drain the cans on the sofa, at the kitchen table, on the recliner. I thought: Alcholism’s in our blood. Stay away from the booze, Dad. He was what some would call a “quiet drunk”—vacant stares and pure silence. It’s no great wonder that his relationship with my mother fell apart and she left him. If he hadn’t been so sly, and if the judge could have determined that my father was a drunk, I would have had no choice but to leave him, too.

  Dad showed up at court in a neat suit, sober for once. He smiled a lot, spoke smoothly throughout the case. When asked about his drinking, he told the judge, “I have a drink here and there. Nothing overboard.” In the end, the judge had no proof of substance abuse (even with my mother’s testimony) or abuse on his family—Dad had maintained a solid work history and neither my sister nor I could recall our father hurting us—and so the judge gave us kids an option. When the judge asked me who I wanted to live with, the answer was simple: “Dad.” When the judge asked my sister, she said, “Mom.” The judge granted the divorce on grounds of irreconcilable differences, I’ve come to learn.

  And so I understand why Randy bothers me. When I look and listen to him, I’m looking and listening to Gramps and to a younger, drunk and un-rehabilitated version of Dad. Randy’s presence, although negative at times, is primarily a gift to remind me of what I don’t want to become.

  What I never want to become.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  It’s midnight, the long work night behind us, and I sit at the kitchen table eating dinner—lasagna, garlic bread, corn—with Dad. Our house is small, a one-story modular home, two bedrooms, with a one-car garage. Basically a trailer on a cement foundation. This kitchen table doesn’t actually reside in the kitchen. It sits on russet-colored carpeting next to the sliding door, underneath an unimposing chandelier, a few feet behind the couch. The couch acts as a barrier between the living room and the dining room. Open concept is the term, I believe.

  I take a bite of lasagna, savoring the flavor, and look up at Dad, the maker of this meal. He raises a glass of soda toward me and says nonchalantly, “To sobriety.”

  I set my fork on the plate, lift my glass to his, say, “Cheers to that,” and we clink our glasses of Coke together. I drink. He says, “Thanks to AA,” and winks. He smiles, then drinks and puts his glass back on the table.

  I have never attended an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, but I feel like an expert on the matter. The Twelve Steps and the Twelve Traditions—I’ve heard about it all from Dad. He went to his first meeting a little over a year after the divorce, after he woke up one morning and realized that he had turned into his father. For several months, I knew nothing of his meetings. He would disappear every now and again and I would ask him where he went, but he wouldn’t tell me. One evening, I came across some AA literature in the house. I confronted my father about it, and he broke down and wept. The big, buff man actually cried. Then he told me where he had been. “Alcoholism’s in our blood. Stay away from the booze, James,” he said. As of now, I am the only family member he has told about AA.

  “Anything new with you?” In between bites, Dad initiates conversation.

  I sit my fork on the plate. “Not really. Sam’s gone, but you already know that.”

  Dad glances up at the clock on the wall over my head. “I gotta call Christy in ten minutes.”

  Christy is his new woman, his latest addiction. He has a fresh woman every time I turn around. He’s gone from alcoholic to woman-holic. Last month, he dated Amanda. The month before, he dated Cindy. Ever since his divorce from Mom, he’s been searching for the perfect woman . . . or for the perfect something to, once and for all, replace his nagging desire to drink. I’ve been told that most recovering alcoholics deal with the urge on a daily basis, regardless of how many years it’s been since their last drink.

  “She’s really great.” Dad brushes dark, graying hair away from his face. “We’re hitting it off big time. It’ll be interesting to see what happens.”

  I smile. This is how it always begins. She’s great initially, then he gets to know her and realizes she’s imperfect. Wow, what a shocker.

  Dad pulls the fork from his mouth. “She works out four days a week,” he says, chewing. “You should see her. She’s hot.” He smiles at his emphasis of the last word.

  “Four days a week? That’s good,” I say, sounding impressed. I take a swig of soda, speak again. “Blonde or brunette?”

  Dad leans back in his chair. “Wanna see a picture?” He pats his stomach once, an I’m-so-full pat, then folds behemoth arms over his chest.

  I don’t respond to his question right off. I feel like I have loads to tell him, but nothing I have to say ought to be discussed in a matter of a couple of minutes.

  Dad notices my hesitation. “I can show it to you some other time.” He glances
at the clock again. A couple minutes remain in the Countdown to Call Christy. “Are you all right?” he asks.

  I shrug. The tick of the clock emerges, reminding me of the passing of time. Thirty, twenty-nine, twenty-eight, twenty-seven, twenty-six . . .

  I love my father. Always have. Always will. Unconditionally. Beneath his brutish exterior lies a tender heart. I know this because of the love he displays. For instance, this nice meal he prepared. I presume that when he said, “There’s too much lasagna here for just me, so you can have some if you want,” he was actually trying to say that he made the meal for the both of us, out of the kindness of his heart, out of the love he has for his son. I would like to believe that.

  Twelve, eleven, ten, nine . . .

  “I’d be lying if I said I’m not nervous,” I finally say.

  Six, five, four, three, two, one.

  Dad’s eyes gravitate toward the clock yet again. He fidgets in his seat.

  Zero.

  I continue to talk despite the time constraint. “The publishers and the agencies I sent my stuff to, I don’t know what’s gonna happen with them. The anxiety’s killing me.”

  He dismisses my concern: “Ahhh, don’t worry about it.” He grins, reaching for his plate. Stands, plate in hand, and starts toward the kitchen.

  I stand, my plate in hand also. I join him at the sink. “I can’t not worry about it,” I say.

  Dad sets his plate in the sink. “I’m sure it’ll be fine,” he says.

  I follow suit. “Hopefully.” Gee, Dad, thanks for the encouragement.

  “I need to go make my phone call, okay? Don’t wanna keep her waiting.”

  “Okay. That’s fine.” Not really, but I say so anyways. “I need to go write some more.”

  “Why? Your book’s done. Your baby’s out in the world.” He gradually backpedals out of the kitchen.