Drain 140

       Sweeping storm debris off the fire lane, I heard my name called out. I looked up. Bob and his girlfriend, Joni, were approaching.
       "Joni," Bob said, pulling up, "you remember Anton."
       Joni shrugged her shoulders.
       "Sure you do," Bob said. "Anton's the elfin groundskeeper you've heard tell about."
       After giving laughing Bob the stern I'd lifted from Trent, I looked to his girl for civility. "Nithe to thee you, again," Joni said, then curtsied by pulling on the seams of her jeans.
       I nodded. Poor thing; couldn't even speak proper for the hardware she had bolted to her tongue.
       Bob explained how he and Joni were in the neighborhood, thought they'd drop by, brighten the groundskeeper's dull day. "Go ahead, Joni, brighten the groundskeeper's dull day."
       But Joni hadn't heard Bob; she was too busy inspecting my head. "Bob tells me your brains are all thtopped up cause you can't get laid. Is that true?"
       I looked at Bob, laughing so hard he was stumbling around like a drunk. I looked at Joni, struggling to play it straight. 
       "Hardly," I said, forcing a yawn. "Then again, I'm not as lucky as Bob here; landing a great catch like yourself."
       With Joni over-acted her hurt, I upped the tension by running my critical eye up and down the upstart. Though her body language was as weedy as the day Bob picked her up in the grocery store, her face had changed. I was about to make a snide remark to that effect, when Bob stepped in, relieving the tension with some adult talk. "Got some wind up here, looks like."
       "Damned storm," I said, waving my broom, "destroyed my entire campus."
       "Idiot," Bob said, eyeing my broom. "You'll be at this forever with that toy."
       "Ya, well, destroyed Rome wasn't cleaned up in a day."
       "Ya, well, if you'd get yourself a man's tool--a power blower, you might make some headway."
       "I know you need it at your estate, Bob, but no need for male enhancement in this neck of Eden."
       While Bob and I cocked it up, I kept eyeing Joni. I couldn't believe she wasn't wearing makeup. She'd worn tons that day Bob picked her up at the grocery store.
       I went on questioning Bob's manhood, so he'd go on questioning mine, so I could go on ogling his girl. The transformation was profound. Without makeup Joni was downright beautiful.
       This morphing into 'my type' inspired me to steal a read on Joni's eyes. In the grocery store that day, I hadn't bothered reading her eyes. Hadn't bothered because, in my book, any soul who needed to wear a mask in public was living a lie. That was reading enough.
       My eye-read didn't detect excessive brains, nor lack thereof. She wasn't a new soul like Bob, nor was she old like me. Certainly no saint, but I couldn't pin 'witch' on the girl either. 'Bad' was the word that kept popping up. Not bad like criminal, but bad like naughty. The question was, was the girl naughty by choice, naughty by birth, or spanked naughty by some sick father figure down by the train tracks?
       Maybe I'd breached boundaries probing Joni's eyes, for the upstart started sticking out her tongue. I couldn't believe it; every time I glanced her way, she'd stick her tongue out at me. Oh, well, such crude behavior was expected of a weed spanked naughty down by the train tracks.
       But wait. Joni wasn't merely sticking her tongue out at me; she was trying to show me something--show me the new hardware she had bolted to her tongue. So shocked by what I thought I saw, I slammed on my reading glasses, stuck my face in her face.
       Cry me a Creed! Instead of a stud, the girl had a little spoon nestled in the swale of her tongue. The silver spoon Bob, no doubt, had commissioned Alicia to make.
       Snatching the glasses off my nose, I made as if I'd seen nothing. Of course, that only got Bob stumbling around like a drunk again.
       Stepping back, pocketing my glasses, I put two and two together: Joni coming on campus with no makeup to catch my eye. Bob, commissioning my fantasy spoon so his girl could stick it in my face. No, my two and two added up to a conspiracy, all right. Which was all right by me; I could handle a conspiracy. What I couldn't handle was this; good boy Anton getting a thing for bad girl Joni. 

       Then again, taking a turn towards the bad might be good for my writing. And I stood there for a time, eyeing the grate to the storm sewer. No, you want to wrest the nether earth plane of its literature, just take a dive into the nearest storm sewer.

 

       

       No more had I taken that virtual dive, when I had to give my literary eye a breather--come up to see what that bad girl Joni was going on about now. She was saying, "Bob, Bob, that man with the cane. He wanth to bang me. He wanth to bang me blind!"
       I looked across the way. Blind Melvin was caning his way across the football-sized parking lot.

       This, of course, put Bob out of sorts. "C'mon, Joni, we've bugged Anton enough."
       Joni held her ground, hit me in the arm. "Do you know him? His he a thtudent here? His he truly totally blind?"
       "Yes," I said, "his name is Blind Melvin. Rides the bus up here all by himself, canes his way to the Wood building better than any man with eyes."
       "Wood building?" Joni said. "You mean he's a wood thtudent?"
       "Hell, ya. And you should see him; gets around that wood shop, works those power tools better than any man with twenty-twenty."
       I threw Bob the eye. No, old seeing-eyed Bob wasn't stumbling around like a drunk now.
       Joni pulled on my arm. "You got to introduthe me. Introduthe me right now."   
       "Enough," Bob said, pulling on Joni's arm. "Anton's got Rome to clean up."
       But Joni held fast to my arm. Oh, sure, I could have held my ground, but for kicks, I went along with the theatrics. And, oh, what a scene it was; seeing-eyed Bob pulling Joni and me all the way to her car.
       
       I got back to my mindless work, sweeping the fire lane, when I heard my name called out again. I looked to the north. Coral was coming down the Fire Lane. Quite miraculously the low October sun came out, lighting up her face. Cry me a creed! The girl brings light to darkness. She is an angel, isn't she?
       "Hey, Coral," I said as she pulled up, "I walked by the Drawing window this morning, saw you inside modeling."
       "Yes," she said, rolling her head, rubbing her neck, "remind me never to do that again."
       No, she wasn't nude, but she did get paid.
       Coral pointed to the debris line my sweeping had created in the fire lane.

       

       Coral liked the saw-tooth pattern resulting from my rhythmic broom strokes. Said it reminded her of Japanese Gardens. "You know, the raked sand."

       "You know, Coral, there's the Japanese Garden in Truman Park."
       "Where's Truman Park?"
       I pointed my broom towards the east. "Over the pass, through the tunnel, just off Silo Road to the south. You should go."

       "I'd like to, but it's probably too expensive."

       I saw the window then; the open window through which the Elder throws seeds to the Younger. "Ya, well, Coral, maybe you should use some of that money you made modeling in Drawing today. Use it to get in the garden gate where you might sit a spell--sit and get back some of the soul those siphoning eyes stole from you in Drawing today."

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