Commencement

by Lawrence Cherry

  As Allen looked at himself in the locker room mirror, all he could feel was shame and humiliation. How could he feel otherwise? He had spent a good portion of his life working hard to avoid the situation he was in now. The bluish-gray pants felt and looked too big. The light blue shirt felt too tight. Allen unbuttoned the collar and rolled up the sleeves to make the outfit look a little less menial, but to no avail. As he turned away and sat on the long bench in front of the lockers, he kept trying to figure out what kind of plan God had in store for him. “What could God want me to do here?” he thought.

  Before Allen could get lost in thought, Mr. Hardy, the facilities manager appeared with one of the other workers to get him acquainted with the responsibilities of his job.

  “Don’t you look sharp. No pun intended there” beamed Mr. Hardy. Mr. Hardy was a man just like Allen’s dad, and he even looked like him, too, but was shorter and rounder. He had worked at the Sheraton for over 30 years. He had started out scrubbing and buffing and had worked his way up to his present position. The same kind of position Allen had been offered months ago. Mr. Hardy was proud of himself and his work, and was yet humble and self-effacing. Many men in Mr. Hardy’s position would have loved having someone like Allen working under them. A meaner man would have savored the opportunity to put a young Harvard hot shot down on his luck in his place. Mr. Hardy, however, was friendly and kind and was genuinely interested in showing Allen how the operation worked.

  Allen managed a weak smile.

  “Thanks”, said Allen rising from his seat.

  “Allen, this is Davis. He’s the repairman that you are going to be working with.”

  “Nice to meet you” said Allen extending his hand for a shake.

  “S’all good” Davis replied curtly, his manner a little distant.

  Davis appeared to be a fair skinned Puerto Rican guy with long dark hair plaited in cornrows that extended past his shoulders. He was as tall as Allen, but with a more chiseled physique that was adorned with a number of tattoos. He was probably no older than Tim or Jim, but his worn and hardened expression made him seem a little older. He was what Allen would have called a “ghetto type”, and he seemed to be as suspicious toward Allen as Allen was toward him. Allen had had his fair share of bad experiences with “ghetto types” in high school. They were the guys who sold on the corner, had rap sheets that were longer than a Dickens novel, carried firearms like health freaks carried water, and never lived past 25. If they did, it was most likely because they had spent a number of years incarcerated. To Allen, these were the guys who often stole his sneakers, his jewelry, and other things he had worked hard for. They were the guys who always wanted to fight him, who taunted him with names like ‘white boy’ because he did well in school, and plagued him with all sorts of indignities. Allen was not looking forward to working with or for this Davis.

  “You are going to work with Davis on floors 5 through 10 in the south wing of the building. Davis will do most of the repairs and he’s going to train you on how to fix small problems, but the bulk of the work you will be doing is maintenance of the floor. You know, mopping, buffing, upkeep of the hallways, small scale paint jobs, changing the lightbulbs, maintaining the fixtures, emptying the trash bins and compactors, stuff like that.”

  “Okay” said Allen, however he was not okay with a lot of those things he mentioned. Allen barely did any of these things in his own home, except when his mother or father had threatened him. He wanted to go home.

  “Now there are things that are going to be in your routine everyday, like the floors and maintenance of the hallways, but then you are going to have other things that come up. You’ll have a radio and you’ll be paged if there’s anything else that needs to be done. Davis will take you to the equipment area and get you one. Then he’ll give you a tour through the floors and show you around. I have a meeting I have to go to in a few minutes. Do you have any questions or anything before you and Davis set off?”

  “No, not really.”

  “Alright then. Davis, he’s all yours.”

  Allen did not like the sound of that.

  “Aiight, I’ma take you to the equipment room first and show you how to sign out the radios.”

  Davis led Allen out of the locker room and down through a dark and narrow winding corridor. Davis remained silent during their trek. He didn’t even bother to look back once to see if Allen was even following him. Then finally, they reached the brightly lit office in the far recesses of the basement. There was an open space and plexi-glass counter, and a little gray door that was over off to the side of the counter. Sitting behind the plexi-glass counter was a young copper skinned Mexican woman.

  “Yo, Yelitza. Let me get a radio, babe.”

  The young woman simply lighted off the low backed stool and went to the back of the room, and within minutes came back with a radio that looked like a cell-phone and a clipboard. Davis took the radio and the clipboard from her and handed it to Allen.

  “So you just put your name, your I.D. number, and the code number of the radio, but leave the last part blank. You sign that part when you bring it back.”

  It all seemed self-evident to Allen, but he didn’t mention that to Davis. He didn’t want to come off as a “know it all.”

  “How does it work?” Allen asked. He had never seen a radio like this one, and a lot of people he knew used the Motorola ones that have cell phones in them. Allen asked the question as a way to break the ice with Davis, to get him into conversation and feel out just what type of character he was dealing with.

  “If you wanna talk to somebody, you just turn to their frequency and then push the button. Like if you wanna talk to me, you just put in 316 and then push the talk button. When you wanna listen, you just let it go.”

  Allen tried it out, just to get a feel for it.

  “If somebody calls you, they frequency gonna come up, so then you don’t have to type it, you just push the talk button. See?” said Davis as he demonstrated to Allen. “Now, I’ma show you where to pick up your cart and supplies, then we gonna get started.”

  Davis quickly turned on his heel and strode back down the narrow corridor to an elevator in the lobby with Allen following behind him. As they waited for it, Allen tried to fill the dead space with small talk.

  “There’s so many long hallways, and tunnels, a guy could get lost down here.”

  “You’ll learn” was Davis’s terse reply. Davis didn’t even bother turning to face Allen.

  “I guess, after a while you get used to it. How long have you been here?”

  “Four years. Give or take.”

  “How is it?”

  “It’s work, man. Keeps them bills paid. And as long as the check clear, I’m not complainin.’” Davis replied rather lethargically.

  “I feel you”, mumbled Allen, even though he really didn’t. If Davis were darker, he would have thought he was Vernon’s long lost son.

  Suddenly, the elevator chimed and the doors opened. They’d gone up from the basement to the lower mezzanine level. This was where the guests’ luggage was gathered from the parking lot and taken to their respective rooms. The area was a hive of activity. There were uniformed security officers scanning luggage, and handing it over to bellhops who were loading the luggage onto huge trolleys so it could be delivered to various rooms. There were also managers and other members of staff hurrying to and fro in the administration of their duties. Davis led Allen to a secluded corner past the security station, through a huge metal door, and then two swinging doors into some kind of equipment room. There were rows of receptacles for the maintenance carts. Some of the rows were empty from which Allen surmised that some other maintenance workers had taken them for use. There were other types of equipment as well, such as buffers, vacuums, leaf blowers and other grounds keeping equipment. In addition to the carts and equipment, there was another plexiglass counter at the far end of the room, this time with an African-American woman manning the station. Through the glass
, Allen could see that she kept the cleaning supplies, like the huge bottles of all-purpose cleaners, paint, light bulbs, and other things that the workers used in the daily administration of their jobs. As they moved closer toward the counter, Davis spoke without looking at Allen.

  “Usually you not s’posed to come down here for a cart. You s’posed to keep it in one of the closets on the floor you workin’ on. You only s’posed to bring it down here if it’s broke or somethin’ like that. But I know for a fact the last dude that was using it, he brung it down here. So we gotta get it and bring it upstairs” he said before he addressed the young woman at the counter.

  “Hey, Kizzy, What’s up love?” smiled Davis. It was the first time Allen had seen any trace of friendliness in Davis. It made him a little more human to Allen.

  “I’m good. Who’s your new friend?”

  “This is Allen. He’s new.”

  “Hello, Allen. Nice to meet you”, sang Kizzy as she gave Allen a sly smile.

  “Same here” Allen blushed, although he should have been used to the way women acted around him by now.

  “When you done flirting, could you tell me where Tyron put the cart for the 5th floor?” Davis asked playfully.

  “Oh, stop! I’m just being civilized” Kizzy joked.

  “Yeah, whatever”, teased Davis.

  “Ya cart is in station 9, jealous”, she teased back.

  “That was your goal, right?”

  “Please.”

  “Girl, stop frontin’. You know you want this.”

  “Take care, loser.”

  “Aiight. Thanks, babe. I’ll see you around.”

  The smile remained playing about his lips for a few moments after the exchange before the young man’s visage hardened into its former glowering mask. “He obviously has some kind of connection to the young woman.” Allen thought to himself. Or maybe he was just putting up a front to try to “get the draws” as Richard would put it. Either way, Allen was going to make sure to steer clear of Kizzy. Allen thought about remarking about how nice she seemed, however, he didn’t want this guy to think he was trying to take his girl. Especially if he was the type of guy he thought he was.

  Davis quickly grabbed the cart and gave it a cursory inspection before taking it and Allen back through the swinging doors, the large metal door and all the way to the other side of the Mezzanine to another elevator marked ‘Personnel Only’. It looked like one of those old fashioned elevators. It didn’t have numbers that lit up, but a dial hand that moved back and forth as the elevator moved up and down.

  “This is the service elevator. That’s another thing. Maintenance always use the service elevator. The guests is not s’posed to see you doin’ work. That’s the rule of the hotel. You gotta be incon…inconsp…” said Davis struggling to pronounce the word he was thinking of.

  “Inconspicuous?” suggested Allen.

  “Right…right.”

  They stood in silence until the elevator doors opened. Then they went in and rode the elevator to the 5th floor. When the doors opened again all Allen could see was a dimly lit corridor with two doors almost opposite each other. One was a large metal door.

  “This right here is the water closet”, said Davis opening the door with a key on one of the largest key rings Allen had ever seen. The heavy door opened to reveal a long white porcelain sink, which spread across the whole room. The sink had three faucets, and attached to one of the faucets was a rubber hose. Also in the room were two mops, a bucket, and a wet vac. On one side above the sink was a large cabinet full of cleaning supplies and tools.

  “The office is on this side”, said Davis pointing to a smaller wooden door opposite the water closet. “It’s not that big, but you can sit down for a minnit when you on break, and you can listen to the radio, stuff like that. I’ma get you a set of keys from Mr. Hardy a little later, and then you could open up everything yourself when you need to.”

  Allen peered in briefly. It was definitely not much. There was only space for a small lunch table and two chairs. And it seemed that Davis had a radio, and a small T.V. set up in the place, taking up much of the space on the table. There was also a radiator against the wall next to the table.

  “Cool”, was all Allen could think of saying at that moment.

  “Okay, now we gotta get down to business, and I’ma tell you how it’s gonna roll from here on out”, said Davis taking as authoritative a tone as he could. Allen’s pride immediately brought up feelings of resentment.

  “Every single day, you gotta vacuum the hallway carpets, buff linoleum on the uncarpeted areas, check the stairwells for garbage, check the lights in the hallways, make sure the heaters in the hallways is workin, empty the garbage bins in the rooms, and help the other maintenance workers get things ready for the garbage collection. If you see that somethin’s not workin’ like the heater, or say like one of the guests see you and they tell you somethin’s not workin’ in they room, then you could hit me on the radio and I’ll come down and fix it as soon as I can. Now usually, if somethin’s broke, they suppost to fill out a work order and give it to Mr. Hardy at the maintenance desk downstairs, but then you get a lot of these people, they think everythin’ is an emergency, youknowwhatimean. I have to do what’s on the official work orders first, then I do the other stuff, unless it’s a real emergency like there’s like a flood or smoke or somethin’ like that. You feel?”

  “Oh, yes. Totally”, answered Allen. He noticed that the longer Davis talked, the more flustered he seemed, despite his attempt at imperiousness. His voice began to quiver a bit, and he never really looked Allen in the eyes, often looking down or around. In addition, he seemed to engage in a lot of nervous gesticulating as he spoke. It seemed so funny to Allen how someone could seem so intimidating one minute, and yet so vulnerable the next. The whole thing made his character very difficult to read and to size up. Only time would tell Allen if this guy would ever be a friend or foe. As for right now, he could settle for a co-worker who just minded his own business and just let him be.

  “Oh, yeah, and don’t never go in the rooms if somebody’s there. If the chambermaid is there, then that’s okay, but if anybody else is there don’t go there. And most generally, don’t go in the rooms unless you really have to ‘cuz the last thing you want is for somebody to start complainin’ or cusin’ you of crazy stuff.”

  “Sounds like good advice to me” Allen replied after taking a deep breath “So, I guess, I better get started shouldn’t I. What’s usually done first?”

  “Since it’s 10:00 already, you could start by pickin’ up the lil’ random trash in the hall and then vacuuming the floors. Mosta’ the guests is up already so the noise won’t bother nobody. You could plug in the vaccum to this outlet over here and use the extension cord so you could get all the way to the end. When you finish that, then you can buff the parts wit’ the tile. I’ll send a guy down from one of the other floors to show you how to use the buffer. That should take you ‘till lunch. Then I’ll come and check on you, see how you doin’.”

  “Thanks. I’ll see you then.”

  “If you need help or you not sure about somethin’, hit me on the radio. ‘kay.”

  “Sounds good.”

  Davis strode over to the service elevator and left Allen to begin his humble position as a hotel porter. Allen grabbed the oversized, clumsy looking industrial vacuum from were it lay in the corner next to the sink and began to unwrap the long cord from its dock. He found the extension cord from the cart and hooked it up to the vacuum’s cord and then plugged the extension cord into the wall. Allen then dragged the big, awkward device into the hallway and turned it on. It let out a cacophony of whirs and other noises as he began to maneuver the long dust dragon up and down the corridor.

  As he vacuumed, Allen tried to buoy himself from despondency by thinking about some of the things he had been reading in his Bible. Last night before he went to sleep, he had been reading about Joseph, and how his brothers sold him into slave
ry and how then he was betrayed by Potiphar’s wife and sent to jail. Joseph had to suffer many indignities before he became the head of Egypt. Maybe he had to suffer the same way. Maybe there was something that God was trying to teach him in all of this. His mother had always said “All thing work together for the good of those that love God.” Whatever it was, Allen was hoping that he would be as quick a learner in life as he was in the classroom so he could get out of this mess as soon as possible.

  So far it didn’t seem so bad. He had to clean, but it seemed to be light cleaning. If he were lucky, he probably wouldn’t have that much to do throughout the day. “The class of people that patronized an establishment like this couldn’t possibly create much dirt” Allen assumed. Through the din of the vacuum cleaner, Allen thought he could hear a faint chiming sound. He looked over at the radio in his waist belt and noticed that it was lit up. He remembered Davis instructions and took it out and squeezed the little button on the top.

  “Yes?” he said, a little self-conscious of how he might sound on the other end.

  “Yo’ Allen, I need you on level 7. Got a code V.”

  “Code V? What’s that?”

  “Some kid lost his breakfast up here in the hall near the front. Bring yo’ gloves, the sweeper, a pan and the sawdust, and make it quick aiight.”

  It seemed like Allen’s first day was already taking a turn for the worst.