Free Spitting Off Tall Buildings by Dan Fante Page B

saw me and walked over, saw my equipment and harness in a heap on the floor. I could tell that he wanted to say something but it took several seconds for him to assemble the words. ‘So, what’s up?’ he asked finally. ‘On a break?’
    ‘Yeah.’
    Flash lit his own cigarette and sat down on the sill a few feet from me, then worked himself into another question. ‘So…how many’d ya do?’
    ‘Those,’ I said, pointing to the bank of windows along the wall.
    He considered the information. ‘Insides too?’
    ‘No. Only the outsides.’
    Another pause. He flicked the ash from his cigarette onto the floor, stepped on it with one work boot, then the other, then searched his shirt pocket for something that wasn’t there, then checked his watch. ‘I’m done downstairs,’ he announced finally.
    Not knowing what else to say, I said, ‘Oh.’
    What he had been looking for in his right shirt pocket turned out to be in the left pocket; a used toothpick.
    He probed a gap in his bottom front teeth until he was ready to talk again. ‘We’re okay,’ he said. ‘We’re still on schedule.’
    I looked at him, watched him suck at the stupid sliver of wood. ‘Hey look, man,’ I said, ‘I quit! I’m done. I’m no good at this deal.’
    He considered my declaration for several seconds. ‘Huh?’ he said.
    ‘This.’
    ‘What? Glass?’
    ‘Yeah.’ I pointed at the line of windows. ‘Look…look at the goddamn streaks.’
    Flash looked. He even stood up and walked over to the windows. After checking a few he returned to the sill and sat down. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Okay. So what?’
    ‘So what? So what is those windows! They’re still dirty!’
    ‘Ya know…’ he said, then stopped, spitting his toothpick at the floor, looking from me to the line of streaked panes then back to me ‘…what happened is you forgot to wipe your squeegee…After you swiped you have to wipe. Wipe the squeegee with your rag. The rubber. If you don’t wipe the rubber you get streaks. Ya know?’
    I didn’t care. ‘Yeah, well, they’re fucked! All of ‘em. You can see they’re fucked!’
    ‘Okay…Well, so what?’
    ‘What do you mean, so what?’
    He thought again. ‘I mean so what?’
    ‘It doesn’t matter? You’re saying that me not cleaning those windows correctly doesn’t matter. Is that what you’re saying?’
    Another interval for word assembly. More silence. Then, ‘Look Dante…like I told you…remember? This is a state contract job. Ya know…it’s what I said before…we get paid by the building…’
    ‘I don’t care.’
    ‘Okay listen…What I mean is you could piss on all the glass on this floor and on the floor above and then take the elevator down two floors and piss on those too, ya know, and it wouldn’t make any difference. Ya know? Understand? What matters is that we finish all the floors and get the Building Maintenance Supervisor to sign off. Understand? He don’t check windows…he signs forms. Period.’
    ‘It doesn’t matter. I don’t care. I hate this fucking job. Understand?’ I held up my raw hands. ‘Look,’ I said. ‘They’re just now thawing out. It’s fifteen fucking degrees outside on that ledge.’
    Ben Flash stayed calm. He stared down at his shoes, then at the elevator doors, then back down at his shoes.
    Finally, he got up. I watched as he walked to the other end of the hall to the emergency exit door. He pressed the bar and opened the heavy plated entrance to the stairwell. Then he looked back toward me, motioning me to follow. ‘Over here, Dante,’ he called, half-whispering. ‘I want to show you something.’
    I’d had enough. Whatever it was, I didn’t want to seeit. ‘Look Flash,’ I called back, ‘let’s forget it, okay? I’m going home.’
    ‘Hey,’ he said, ‘I’m still the boss on the job, right? I’m your supervisor, right?’
    ‘Right.’
    ‘Okay, ya know…I said come here. Okay?’
    I got up and paced my way down the hall to him.
    Once we