“I just want to make clear,” the Janitor says after seeing his own way into the Principal’s office, “that I don’t believe in hauntings.”
“You’re entitled to that belief,” the Principal, struggling to keep his attention on his plants, drones.
“I feel responsible to uphold that belief. Otherwise I don’t think I would be a very effective maintenance specialist. I can’t accept that any being, living or dead, could claim to know a building better than me.”
“I don’t know, maybe a ghost could have been helpful in finding that entire ham someone stuffed in the AC duct.”
“That situation was not ideal but I believe I helped bring it to the best possible outcome.”
“People can differ.”
“The point is, I think it’s better to say that a building can be wounded. Even diseased. It can respond badly to outside stimuli.”
“Is this important?”
“I’m maintenance. Everything is important.”
“Well can we skip to the important part?”
The Janitor huffs, putting his hand into his breast pocket and taking out, from the Principal’s standpoint, a set of white squares. “Look at these pictures.”
“Polaroids?”
“They’re much easier to handle for my purposes,” he insists as he lays each one carefully onto the desk. “These are in chronological order. This is a picture of graffiti I found in a hallway on the second floor, not in a bathroom or locker room, last Tuesday morning. I’d washed it off by Tuesday afternoon.”
Leaning over the desk in his chair, the Principal puts on his reading glasses, yet still squints when he holds the first picture up to his face. “‘Patty’s venom has brand new cherry flavor.’ And?”
“Two days later, same area.”
“‘Patty: Nagasaki in the streets, Hiroshima in the streets.’ Is the repetition intentional?”
The Janitor shrugs. “Fuck if I know.”
“And you washed this too, I take it?”
“Of course. But then, two days later, and a little further down the hall.”
“‘Have you seen her? She sees you.’’”
“And finally, over the weekend …”
“‘A kiss from Miss Abyss.’” The Principal arches his back stiffly, wheeling away from the desk. “Okay, this one is a little off-putting.”
“Notice anything about them?”
“Well, they’re all in the same handwriting. Kind of girly from the looks of it.”
“But notice the shift in tone. These first two are observational, about someone who definitely exists. Another student, most likely.”
“Something new and different,” the Principal mutters with a humming seethe.
“But these two more recent ones are more like premonitions. Telling us that someone is coming.”
“Well have you seen who’s writing them?”
“I haven’t, and I don’t get it. Every time I think I’ve got a handle on it, I lose it. I’ll wipe down one and then in no time I’ll find two more somewhere else. It’s like an infestation. Like lesions.”
“Or, if I can bring you back down to earth for a second, it’s like one of those idiot social media ‘challenges.’ Or it’s a promotional stunt of some kind. These three could be song lyrics and this last one could be the band name. Now granted, it’s not appropriate use of taxpayer-funded property but, I guess, clever in its way.”
“I think we have asbestos, sir.”
“Pardon me?”
“Psychic asbestos,” the Janitor pauses in thought. “Actually … I guess psychic mold would be the more adequate analogy. But perhaps less impactful.”
“Goddammit,” the Principal exclaims as he rises and looks out his window, addressing a parking lot. “I hate it when we have these meetings. To you, a backed up toilet is a harbinger of impending social collapse. And you know what? More and more I’m inclined to believe you.”
The Janitor sits back in the sofa along the back wall of the office. A motivational poster with an image of orca whales leaping out of the water above text espousing the importance of teamwork casts a condemnatory shadow over him. His anxiety arches one of his eyebrows. Potential thoughts swell up and burst into vapor. “Okay.”
“When I moved up from middle school admin to high school, I thought things would be better. High school kids are no less depraved than middle school kids but I thought maturity would actually kick in and moderate their worst instincts with self-consciousness. In actual fact they are just more entitled to behave as if society doesn’t matter. Teenagers are basically rhesus monkeys with graphic t-shirts. You can, morally speaking, torture them all you want; put them in situations where a crushed skull is all but likely. They’ll serve a purpose in one piece or in a few. But no. Someone’s always around to hold you to account for harming a hair on their precious angels who shit everywhere and respect nothing.”
“Those wire mothers are prickly.”
The Principal faces the Janitor, leaning up against the window with a heave of exhaustion. “Naïveté is unbecoming for a man of my age and experience.”
“Naivety is unfairly maligned these days,” the Janitor assures with smooth, therapeutic sympathy. “It knows its limitations, unlike cynicism. But it takes practice.”
“I can sit here all day and be as naive as I wish to my plants,” the Principal says petting his fern like cat. “Flora is responsive to self-delusion. Or at least it doesn’t seem to mind it.”
The Principal’s attention appears to drift. The Janitor regards him in stiff silence for a few seconds and rises.
“Well, I wanted to inform you of the situation.”
“And you’ve informed me. Even an educator’s education never stops.”
“Any special instructions?”
“I am going to tell my ferns that everything is fine and you do whatever you think needs doing.”
“That’s a disappointing answer.”
“In my experience it’s better to apologize for saving society than to ask permission to save it.”
Without further word, the Janitor takes the photos back and excuses himself. He scans the hallways on his walk back to the boiler room. On a bulletin board, in between flyers announcing fall drama auditions and a teen sobriety wilderness retreat is that familiar “girly” penmanship. “MISS ABYSS IS YOUR SECRET BEST FRIEND.” The janitor tears the paper, leaving a hole of exposed cork.
“If left to one man’s ‘experience,’” he grumbles to himself, “we might as well burn it all down while we’re behind.”