by Brandon Witt
“Oh.” It wasn’t the most intelligent response, but I was baffled.
“Yes. Word has gotten around about his attitude and none of my regulars will have a bar of him anymore. He has gone through dozens of housekeepers, eight this year alone. Mr. Stanford has been a client of Housekeepers Inc. for over ten years. Word gets around, Mr. Manning. No one is game to take him on. So I’m interviewing you. You sound desperate. Are you willing to hear more?”
Gulp. “Ahh…. What’s wrong with the… ahhh… client?”
Mrs. Martha West was straightforward. “He is rude, churlish, ungrateful, ill-tempered, arrogant, fussy, and completely anal about his house. But he pays good money. If you take on this job you will be required for six hours a day, five days a week. Mr. Stanford will have you come into his house and do the required tasks while he is at work, so you don’t need to ever see him, but he is irritable and will be extremely rude in his instructions and requirements. Perfection is demanded and he will not be slow to tell you when you have failed. Are you still interested?”
I smiled slowly at Mrs. Martha West. “Them brass balls you asked about? I have them here. You want me to clean a house and put up with shit flying my way? Hell! Sounds like my childhood all over again. When do you want me to start?”
I WAS given a uniform on the spot and directed to Tammy’s desk to fill out my paperwork. Tammy seemed to be a nice girl—younger than me by several years but with a bright, bubbly smile. She fished some papers from a file, then handed me a pen with a cheery smile and an apology.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize Mrs. West was interviewing this morning so I didn’t have the forms out ready for you. I’m usually better organized than this. Just start filling these papers in and I’ll get you an employee record going.” She flashed her dimples at me again and began to type at the computer on her desk. She was sweet and cute, but as I’ve mentioned before, I’m gay, and therefore her cuteness did nothing for me. She just wasn’t my type.
Some people have a type, some people don’t. My mother, for example, has a type. Old and boozy. I guess that’s being a bit judgmental. I’ve seen her with young and boozy guys too. The common denominator in all her men? Free with their alcohol.
Mum tried hard but she seemed to have given up caring lately, which bothered me some, but not as much as it should bother a completely loving son. I guess I had cleaned up after her so many times that some of the love got bogged down in other smelly stuff.
My type, however, was less clearly defined. I didn’t fall neatly into a gay, stereotypical characterization either. I was too big to be a twink—and at twenty-six I was rapidly becoming too old as well. I was not big and hairy enough to be a bear and I was not a gym-rat either. Poor people can’t afford the gym. And I was not a jock by any stretch of the imagination—I don’t do well at team sports of any kind. I was just Jake – average build, average-colored hair and eyes, average intelligence, average looks.
So my type had really become whoever was interested in me when I was interested in sex. And then there was that added layer of tops and bottoms. My good mate Davo is a top, 100 percent of the time with no exceptions to the rule. Ever. He has a standard pickup line: “Are you a bottom? Yes? Hi, I’m Dave.”
I guess that stops any disappointments later on during the relationship—the whole fifteen minutes of it, anyway. Davo has been topping his way through life since I’ve known him.
Me? I’m a little more flexible. Versatile, some people call it. But I think that’s the most fun about being gay, you can switch it up however you want. I know this guy down at The Tav where I work; he’s about fifty but still pretty attractive. He has this act going—limp wrist, daahling, sweetie-pie-sugar-cakes type thing. He likes wearing business shirts buttoned to the collar with cardigans, and on most Fridays he’s available if you want a quick fuck in the toilets. At the first suggestion of a wink from a prospective hookup, he’s off his stool and bent over the toilet in one of the cubicles, ready for action.
He’d given me the green light since I started working there three months before. But I just hadn’t been interested. I think he accepted it, and we had ourselves a good chat some nights. He confessed to me recently that he’s been in a relationship with a guy for nearly twenty-seven years. I was surprised and asked him if it was an open relationship with multiple partners. Gary smiled and told me no, but he had needs that his partner can’t fulfill. Namely topping. Gary told me that in his relationship he always tops because his lover refuses to. So they have a rule—Gary gets his jollies on a Friday night with whomever he wants, and for the other six nights a week he goes home and fucks the hell out of his man.
Not exactly my cup of tea, but it takes all kinds, right? For me, position is more about emotion and taking turns. Some nights I feel angry and just want to top the heck out of a willing man, other nights I like it when he takes care of me.
But whatever my type (or nontype), any person with a vagina and breasts was just not it. So I smiled at Tammy and didn’t try to initiate conversation. Unfortunately, she was a talker.
“Welcome to Housekeepers Inc.!” She flashed her dimples at me again. I sighed internally.
“Thanks.” I didn’t bother to look up from the standard employee information form I was filling out. This didn’t stop her.
“I’m Tammy, by the way.”
Perhaps if I just don’t answer, she will shut up. One… two… three… fff—
“What’s your name?” Oh, jeez. The girl didn’t even make four seconds!
“Jake.”
“Jake or Jacob? I really like Jacob. If I have a son I want to call him Jacob. It’s such a nice name.”
One… two… thr—
“Do you live around here?” Her voice was actually quite annoying, now that I came to think about it.
“No.”
“I live over in Thornlie. Do you live over that way?” Subtle, thy name is Tammy.
I thrust the first piece of paper at her in desperation, the one with my details on it. Perhaps if she were typing she couldn’t talk as well. I began to fill out the taxation forms.
“Cool. Thanks. Oh, I see you live down near Fremantle. That’s nice. I’d love to live in that area. I’m glad you’ve got neat handwriting. You wouldn’t believe some of the forms I have to decipher.” Dang! How do women manage to do two things at once? Talking and typing?
“I’ve worked here for three years now, so I guess you could say I’ve seen a lot of forms filled out. Lots of people come and work for Housekeepers Inc. just for a couple of months until they get another job, but some have been here for ages. The hours are good and Mrs. West pays you decent wages. Lots of non-English speaking people work here. So, does Mrs. West have you on board for the Peterson Tower job?” Holy fuck! She was like one of those yap-yap-yappy dogs.
“No.”
“So what are you going to be doing?” Yap, yap, yap….
“Cleaning.”
“Which contract, do you know?” For God’s sake people! Control your animals!
“Stanford.”
The silence from the other side of the room was deafening. I looked up from putting in my bank account details for their payroll to see Yappy Tammy staring at me in horror. True, bone-deep horror. Picture an unwitting person coming upon a murder scene. Picture walking in on your best friend and lover doing the dirty. Picture Paris Hilton realizing her bag is not real Prada but a Chinese rip-off.
I had managed to silence her completely. Her mouth worked for a moment, as if it were going to form a word or two, but nothing emerged. Obviously Mr. Stanford was as bad as Mrs. West portrayed.
She was frozen for a while before she almost whispered, “Stanford? No way!”
I shrugged and she looked ready to cry. “But… but… you seem like such a nice guy and if you go and do Mr. Stanford’s house you’ll be out of here in three weeks! And I just met you.”
I didn’t know whether to be offended or not. She thought I was nice? Ha! And she thoug
ht I would only be able to hack three weeks of rudeness? Wimp! In the end I decided to address this silly thought she had about me liking her and nip it in the bud. I handed her the last of the papers and leaned over so I was almost touching her ear. “I’m gay. And I’ll bet you the last five dollars I have in my wallet that I’ll last longer than three weeks. See you around, doll.”
I walked out the door of Housekeeping Inc.’s offices clutching my uniform and the address of my client. I shook my head at calling Tammy a doll. The endearment had just slipped out. I called my youngest sister that all the time. I needed to stop that or else my big-bad-and-gay image might hit the dirt.
THE FOLLOWING morning, I rode my bike to Mr. Stanford’s house with my uniform tucked neatly in my backpack so that I could change into it once I arrived. His house wasn’t too far from mine, but miles apart in terms of grandeur. Whereas my humble abode, which I shared with three other people, was a three-bedroom flat on the third floor with a view of nothing, and was located on a very busy highway, his home was a sprawling heritage house on a huge block only a couple of streets from the river. The house was one of those old 1930s houses with a veranda wrapped around the entire house so that in winter you could pull your rocking chair into the warming sun, but in summer you could find the ocean breeze.
The properties on either side of the house had been bulldozed and rebuilt into stylish and expensive two-story monstrosities, but Mr. Stanford’s house sat regally between them, keeping true and simple.
A small white picket fence enclosed the front yard, which was full of flowers in neat borders and a freshly trimmed lawn of bright green. A large jacaranda tree was perched between the footpath and the road, and another leafy green tree I couldn’t identify was planted in the center of the front yard, providing ample shade to the surroundings, which made the place feel cool and welcoming.
To one side of the house there was a cream cemented driveway, leading to a new, fully enclosed garage, so I leaned my bike against the fence and sat on the driveway in the shade to wait for the current-but-departing housekeeper to arrive and show me around. Mrs. West had advised me that a Mrs. Lena Lee would be showing me the ropes for the next two days, and then I was on my own.
Mrs. Lee turned out to be an older Chinese lady who spoke in broken English and had a perpetual frown. I wondered if the frown was permanent or a result of Mr. Stanford. She drove a beat-up old Camry, which she parked in the driveway and exited before giving me a glare that was worthy of a gold medal at the Frowning Olympics.
“Mista S’anford no like oil on hees driveway, so make sure you have car that no leak.” Well, hello and good morning to you too, Mrs. Lena Lee.
“Good thing I ride a bike then,” I replied as I gestured to my transportation.
“Hmph.”
I scrambled to my feet and followed the woman up the front path to the door. She produced a set of keys and unlocked the deadbolt before entering and disarming the alarm system. I looked around the entry hall and realized that Mrs. Lee was looking me up and down—and finding me wanting from the looks of it.
“How long you tink you goin’ to last in diss job, huh?”
“Uhh….”
“The last housekeeper? She last ten days. You goin’ to last longer dann dhat, you tink?”
I glared back at the woman who barely reached my breastbone. She wanted a glaring competition, did she? We stared at each other without blinking for a very long minute before she broke first.
“Hmph. Maybe you last longer, after all. You’d better. Miz Wes’ make me clean diss stupid house when the others quit. I no like diss client.” She spun on her padded soles and marched on, throwing back over her shoulder, “How much does Miz Wes’ tell you ’bout Mista S’anford?”
I followed her, swiveling my head from side to side to see everything. There wasn’t much to see, to my great disappointment. The house was relatively empty with no pictures on the walls and plain beige-and-white furniture. It felt like a rather sad house. “Uhh…. Nothing apart from he’s a rude son of a bitch.”
“Hmph. So she di’n’t tell you hees blind?”
Blind? “Blind?”
“Hmph. You a baby on diss job. You last two days, tops!”
I gave Mrs. Lee’s back an evil smile. “I betcha I last longer than you did. How long did you last?” She dumped her bag on the table in the kitchen, so I placed my backpack next to hers and pulled out my uniform.
“I last seven weeks.”
I nodded. “Okay, then. So in seven weeks and one day you can come and apologize to me for calling me a baby, right?”
A wry smile came over her face. “Hmph. Maybe you last longer, after all. What you called?”
“Jake.”
“You can call me Miz Lee.” She grinned widely at me, showing a row of uneven but white teeth, as if she’d made a funny joke. Hmph.
IT TURNED out that Rule Number One in a blind man’s house is that everything has a place and it must be kept there. I supposed that it made sense. If you moved the furniture around, then he’d be running into it all the time.
The floor of every room had discreet strips of masking tape to indicate where the legs of the furniture had to line up. Mrs. Lee told me she tested the man one day by moving the couch an inch to the right and he complained to the company that night. I knew right away that this man would be a barrel of fun to work for.
The laundry room was lined with papers showing schedules for the housekeeper and photographs illustrating every single task. There were pictures of how to fold washing, how to stack the shelves with groceries, where to put his socks, and even how the corners of the bed sheets needed to be tucked in. I mentally rubbed my hands together, thinking of the challenge. How long could I last before I tripped up?
On the laundry bench were two bound instruction manuals. I raised my brow at the sight—several trees had been cut down to make those two thick items. One turned out to be a list of detailed instructions on every possible task that one may undertake in the house, the other was a list of the brands of foods to buy. Mrs. Lee saw my disbelief.
“Mista S’anford is very picky man. They di’n’t have his preferred brand of bleach one day, so I bought another. Uh, uh, uh. He pick it up right away. He tell me off next day.”
Along with the manuals, there was a printed bit of paper left neatly on the bench. Mrs. Lee picked it up and began to read, frowning as she did. “Hmph. Mista S’anford leave orders each day. Hmph. Orders and problems.” She muttered something in another language and threw the paper on the bench. I took a look at it.
Dear Mrs. Huntley….
“Who is Mrs. Huntley?” I asked.
“Hmph. Miz Huntley was three housekeepers ago. We jus’ no tell him dhat ’nother housekeeper quit. We jus’ send in new one. He never see us. He jus’ write hees nasty notes and go on hees merry way.”
I rolled my eyes and continued reading. The letter was in bullet points with nary a please or thank-you to be seen.
Dear Mrs. Huntley,
• The oven needs to be cleaned. Either do it today or tomorrow.
• There are three letters to be posted. I left them on my desk.
• I am not satisfied with the last selection of mince purchased. Either choose a different sort or change butchers.
• The sunroom was not vacuumed yesterday.
• Don’t forget my dry cleaning pickup.
Sincerely,
P. Stanford.
I swallowed and reread the letter, thinking that perhaps he’d put a “please” in there somewhere and I’d missed it. Everybody used the word, didn’t they? But I was unable to find one at all. Mrs. Lee hmph’d again and left the room. I took a minute to chuck on the dark-blue shirt that was my uniform and followed her.
That day had my head spinning. Mrs. Lee showed me everything that needed to be done on the day’s list, and together we washed clothes, vacuumed, dusted, and did dishes. After lunch I crammed myself into her tiny car, and we whizzed to the local sh
ops to do the errands. I picked up the man’s dry cleaning, purchased stamps and posted his letters, and dropped into the butcher to buy meat.
By the time I had finished, Mrs. Lee was halfway through her task of grocery shopping. We had Mr. Stanford’s shopping list and the inch thick instruction manual to tell us what brand to buy. It was a slow process of reading the printed list from Mr. Stanford, finding the correct aisle for the product, looking up the item in the manual, and then finding that particular brand on the shelf. I pushed the trolley while Mrs. Lee read the list.
“Okay. What’s next?”
“Pineapple.”
“Tinned? I think that’s over there. Does he want sliced or pieces?” I turned back to the shelf while Mrs. Lee flipped through the pages to see what sort of pineapple the man ate.
Finally she found it and reported, “Pieces in the Golden Circle brand. Naturally sweetened.”
“What size?”
“His list says a small tin.”
I sighed. This was terrible. “Okay. Small it is. What’s next?”
“Rice.”
“Brown or white? Long grain? Jasmine?”
Flick, flick, flick.
“White. Jasmine. One kilo in the Koala Brand.”
“There’s no one kilo Koala Brand left. The shelf is empty.”
“Hmph. Just buy the two kilos and maybe he won’t notice.”
And on we toddled. When we came to the pet food aisle I stopped. Mrs. Lee had informed me that Mr. Stanford had a guide dog, and I had seen the bowls and bed myself. “Does he have dog food on the list?”
Mrs. Lee shook her head. “No. You have to get special stuff from City Farmers over on South Street. It weigh twenty-five kilo. Plus he will tell you buy worm tablets and biscuits and stuff for that animal.”
