Free Spitting Off Tall Buildings by Dan Fante

like the sax player in the old Johnny Otis Blues Band, washing two sets of theup-and-down panes at a time. For the top sections he used a six-foot wooden extension.
    He’d squeegee the glass on the left, then unhook and flip himself to the next frame while the panes were still wet, bouncing out and clamping on in one fluid motion. Window ballet.
    He did the next two panes and the next two after that until he had to hop back around the building because the cleaning solution in his pail was dirty.
    Arriving back at the access window he motioned and I handed him out the second bucket, my bucket, and watched him bound his way back and start cleaning again. In less than an hour all the exterior panes on the twelfth floor were clean.
    By six o’clock I was on my own.
    Watching Flash do so many sets of glass had taken away my nervousness about falling. He’d told me the secret. It was simple: never look down and keep at least one strap hooked on at all times.
    I filled my bucket and started on the eleventh floor. Flash filled his and went down to ten.
    Right away I realized that window washing was a tall man’s deal. I was inept by any comparison. Bumbling.
    I knew that I would never be able to match my partner’s level of competence but, until I was outside on the sheer, frozen concrete landscape by myself, I hadn’t fully grasped what I’d be up against.
    Flash was an aerialist, he’d bounded along easily on the ledge. Not me. My runty, short legs would scarcely stretch the distance between window frames. To compensate, instead of swinging out I had to push off the ledge I was on, grope and grab for the top of the next window with my fingers, danglemomentarily by one strap, then flip myself and the bucket on my arm to the next sill in one lunge.
    For a while in the beginning I told myself that I was doing okay because what was motivating me was tallying up another three bucks in my mind after completing the outside of each set of the up-and-down panes.
    But there was another awareness. Fat Johnny Murphy had warned me; the real problem was the cold. My right hand was constantly numb. As I’d be swabbing a pane with my sponge extension, the cleaning solution would flow down along my pole and soak the sleeve of my jacket. I was wearing heavy rubber gloves but the liquid ran past them. As a consequence, when I’d put the hand down the other way to re-dip the sponge into the bucket, the freezing chemical goop would drip inside my glove and numb my fingers. I tried switching hands but the problem just duplicated itself.
    The result was that it took me three or four times as long as Flash to do a set of panes. And moving from window frame to window frame became even slower going too because of having to contend with the unsureness of my numb fingers. An hour into my first assignment I was frozen stiff and exhausted. I was unsuitable for the occupation. I hated the deal.
    Each time I made my way back inside from the ledge to change my cleaning solution in the maintenance closet sink, I’d have to thaw my hands under the tap, gradually increasing the water temperature until the sensation in my fingers returned.
    It was just after eight o’clock. I’d completed about half the outside windows when I decided it was time for a break - an interlude to settle whether I should go on working or walk off and leave the fucking job.
    After I thawed out at the sink, I walked the inside perimeter of the floor, examining my glass. It seemed to me that the windows I’d done were no improvement over the unwashedpanes. Murky serpentine vertical squiggle blotches divided the clean sections on each of my panes. I felt disgusted. Beaten. A complete, dickless, abysmal failure.
    I couldn’t make up my mind what to do so I decided to walk around. I made my way down the hall until I came to a door labeled ‘Employee Room.’ Inside, I found a table and sat down after helping myself to a cup of coffee and a free donut. The donut was the last one in