Class was out and Jon’s lunch was over. It
was time for him to clean the hallways using his ride-on floor machine. These new behemoths cut the cleaning time of
buildings by huge percentages. Some
hallways and open areas had the square footage of a football field and Jon was
glad he didn’t have to mop them by hand.
His arms would be like noodles by the time he finished, if in fact, he
could even feel them.
Jon opened the storage room where his equipment was kept and confidently
walked toward the Aggressor 5100 floor cleaning machine. The Aggressor was the
newest model of floor machine that the district had dished out money for to
make Jon’s job easier. They didn’t often unclench their fists to release wads
of cash for machines, but Jon’s persuasiveness and detailed explanation of why
a machine and not manpower would not only save money but also save them costs
for L & I claims had an efficacious effect.
He got his machine.
The Aggressor 5100 was about the same size as a small smart car. It ran on eight 12-volt deep cycle sealed
batteries and had dual 24” scrubbing brushes allowing for a four foot swath of
cleaning to be done at one shot, a state-of-the-art water pickup system, a
water ionization dispensing system that eliminated the need for chemicals and
dual extendable 12” front brushes that could be opened and extended to hug the
walls and edges as you cleaned which would effectively give you a total
cleaning width of six feet. A cup holder
and headlight rounded out the amenities of this beast so that you could drink
and drive responsibly, with non-alcoholic beverages of course, while doing so
in the dark if need be. The light was a 1000-watt
LED fixture that could light up the area ahead of you with luminosity unheard
of a few years ago. Instead of a small cone of light shining ahead of you, the
entire hallway, side rooms, furnishings and even areas outside the windows
could be lit up so that reading was easy on the eyes and the sun wouldn’t need
to rise. Jon used this feature
occasionally, but not often.
Jon opened the lid and made sure
it was full of water. He checked that the brushes were not worn down to pads
the thickness of pancakes and checked that it was fully charged. All was in order. Jon gently dropped his coffee into the cup
holder, donned his headphones, climbed on the gargantuan machine and turned the
key. An almost imperceptible sound occurred as he slowly pulled it out of the
storage room, a sound that was unexpected with a machine of this size. One
would think a large machine created a “big” sound, but being electric, it was
quiet. The only sound one could hear was
the tires humming on the floor or the vacuum running once it was turned
on. Otherwise, this beast was stealthy
and silent.
Jon was scheduled to clean the hallways on the second floor today.
Taking a sip of black energy from his cup, he carefully pulled up to the
freight elevator which would lift him two or three floors, depending on where
he was headed. The song Pour Some Sugar on Me by Def Leppard, drained
into his brain via his headphones as he sipped his coffee and waited for the
elevator to open. The muted ding of the
elevator announced the arrival of the car and Jon carefully backed the
Aggressor inside. The door shut and Jon
and his mechanical floor cleaning bull rose upward.
Arriving at the second floor, Jon exited the car and reconnoitered his
surroundings. A large open area lay
ahead of him as wide as the plains of Nebraska, and hallways paralleled this
open area on both sides disappearing into the distance until the walls appeared
to meet at one point. A teacher leaving
his room at the far end looked like an ant in comparison to his
surroundings. This is when Jon
appreciated his machine that would do the work and not his body. His head
slowly bouncing up and down like a bobble-head toy in sync with his music, Jon quaffed
his coffee, flipped the switches for vacuum, scrubbing and dispensing solution and
headed across the open plains of concrete that lay ahead.
Since school was out and most teachers had gone home, Jon cruised at a
slightly higher speed than he normally would.
Whenever people were around, Jon made sure to drive slower to avoid any
accidents. The Aggressor was big enough that Jon felt he could probably suck up
anything, including a person who might fall in front of him. That he didn’t need. A speedometer built into the console showed
that Jon was cruising at eight miles per hour.
The max was ten, but it was recommended that this speed never be used
unless one were in a large open area where 360 degrees of vision were possible,
and no people were around. Jon flipped the switch for the extendable front
brushes and they slowly emerged from underneath the machine as if they were
animals cautiously exiting a cave. Pads
intact and spinning at full speed, Jon snugged his machine up to the wall. The pads hugged the baseboard as Jon zipped
along. Doorways passed Jon’s peripheral
vision every couple of seconds and classrooms came and went from sight like
movie frames on old 8mm filmstock.
Jon cruised down one hallway, swung the machine around and headed back
down the other side, head bobbing, coffee in hand, eyes on the “road”. Things were going smoothly, and Jon was
feeling good. Jon finished one hallway
in about 20 minutes. His water level was around half, and his wastewater tank
was not quite 40% full. He was
fine. Jon drove around the last corner
and started down the opposite hallway. Accelerating,
Jon decided to max out his machines cruising abilities and he watched as the speedometer
climbed to ten miles per hour. Jon’s hair blew in the breeze as he flew down
the hall. Jon glanced down to set his
coffee back in its holder and in that instant of time failed to see a teacher
at the far end of the hall open his door and go inside. By the time Jon looked up
a second later, the hallway still looked clear and Jon had travelled nearly 15
feet. The average width of a classroom
was 30 feet, so Jon was passing rooms every two seconds. Schools Out by Alice Cooper filled
Jon’s brain as he head-banged his way down the hall. The teacher who had entered his room was
eight rooms away or 16 seconds from where Jon drove. Unbeknownst to Jon, the teacher was only
putting some teaching materials on his desk and then he was leaving to go home. Twelve seconds and counting. Eight seconds. Six seconds. Four. Two.
The hum of the Aggressor’s tires on concrete, the cacophony of the
vacuum motor and the rock-and-roll music thrumming through Jon’s brain drowned
out any sounds of the door to room 222 opening.
As Horace Hamilton stepped out of his room, Jon was upon him like a cat
on a mouse. In a split second, Jon
realized there was a person stepping out of the classroom door and his brain
sent signals at the speed of lightning to his arms and hands to turn the wheel
in the opposite direction. Jon did so and avoided hitting Hamilton head on, but
not before the extendable brush sailed over the top of Hamilton’s new tennis
shoes leaving black, wet marks on the surface and creating a look of shock on
his face. The extended brush slammed into the door frame and the force of the
impact ripped the entire brush mechanism from the machine. Pieces of metal, screws, springs and other
mechanical paraphernalia flew out from underneath the Aggressor. The machine bounced over the top of several
pieces and the brush which was torn loose flew and slammed into the wall where it
left a deep indentation in the sheetrock. Jon’s first thought was “oh no. Another hole to fix.”
Traumatized by such a close call, and with his feet throbbing from the
weight of the brushes that had just mowed over his feet, Hamilton stumbled
backwards into his room as he watched the back of Jon’s head and the Aggressor
go by and turn wildly to the right headed straight for the stairwell.
Jon, reeling from the close call and his heart pounding in his chest
like a bass drum, struggled to get control of the machine. With all sense of direction shattered and his
thoughts tangled like a poorly wrapped skein of yarn, Jon forgot where the brake
was or the emergency button to shut down the machine. Still moving at 10 mph, Jon saw the stairwell
looming larger and larger as he raced full-tilt toward them. His feet pushing hard into the floor of the
Aggressor trying to stop the machine with imaginary brakes and his eyes bulging
from their sockets, Jon’s mind finally coalesced into some semblance of
normalcy and sent signals to his fingertips directing him to push the huge red emergency
button, NOW! Jon scrambled to obey the
nerve impulses directing him to do so and he finally slammed his fist down on
top of the button. It clicked and the
machine shut down, but the momentum and weight of the Aggressor continued to carry
him forward toward the top tread of the stairs.
Sweat instantly popped from Jon’s forehead and slithered down his face
in large drops creating rivulets of dark lines where sweat traversed through
dirt on Jon’s face. Jon cranked the
wheel of the Aggressor to avoid going over the edge but not before he hit the
edge of the handrail next to the stairs that created a protective overlook above
the second floor. Jon breathed a small
sigh of relief in hopes that the ricochet of the hit would send him sliding
parallel to the stairs and not perpendicular to them. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen. Although the single, front wheel of the
Aggressor slid parallel to the top step, the back-right wheel dropped off the
edge and continued to slide as the huge machine twisted sideways. The back wheel kept the machine from
continuing forward and moving away from the stairs, but instead held it in
place the way a railroad car wheel flange or projecting edge on the
circumference of the wheel keeps it on the rail. As the back end of the
Aggressor slid to a stop against the stairwell wall, the machine began to slide
backwards. Jon leaned forward trying to
act as a counterbalance to the machine so that the $18,000 monster would not
bounce down the stairs. It didn’t
work. The machine started sliding faster
and within seconds Jon’s head again looked like a bobblehead, but not due to
music this time. Instead, each bounce
over each stair shook Jon to the core.
Holding on for dear life, Jon rode the Aggressor like a bucking bronco
at the rodeo. Jon’s cup of steaming
coffee bounced out of the holder and landed in his lap. Now, not only was Jon bouncing up and down
because of the stairs, he was also trying to cool his smoking manhood and
blistering legs.
Jon’s view up the steps was horrifying since he had no control over his
machine. All he could do was hold on for dear life and hope the Aggressor
didn’t flip over on top of him. With a
death-grip on the steering wheel, Jon continually whipped it back and forth trying
to compensate for the backward momentum of the machine while he desperately
tried to keep it upright. Unfortunately,
Jon felt the machine accelerating faster as it raced toward the lower landing,
each bump adding a little more energy to his descent toward potential death.
As Jon’s momentum increased, his anxiety level and grip on the steering
wheel increased exponentially. Since Jon couldn’t see behind him, he didn’t know
if anyone was standing at the bottom of the steps. Although the noise he was creating as the
Aggressor banged, thumped, squealed, screamed and filled the air with myriad sounds
of horror, he knew that only a handful of staff were likely to hear since it
was in the evening and most of them had gone home. His mind reeling, the neurons
firing faster than lightspeed as his thoughts tried to coalesce into some
logical way out of this predicament and his body’s tension strung so taut that
a single prick of his physical “string” would snap it in two, Jon was on the razors
edge of exploding.
Calculating how far he was from the bottom of the stairs based on the
number of steps he had already passed, Jon figured he’d hit bottom in less than
two seconds. Because the human mind
processes thoughts at such a high rate of speed, it was able to scan the steps
he’d already descended and ascertain the damage that the machine had inflicted
on the treads and risers. Chunks of rubber had been torn loose or were missing,
pieces of splintered wood that acted as underlayment were scattered across the
plains of stair tread, trim on the front edge of several stairs hung limp over
the edge of the risers like spaghetti noodles over the edge of a cooking pot
and paint was scratched from the railing in several places. Oddly, he also thought how much work it would
take to fix all of this, what the principal would say, how much it would cost,
what the staff would say, how his supervisor would react to yet another “Jon”
incident, and what might happen to him when he crashed. And all of those thoughts within ½ a second.
Two seconds later Jon crashed backwards onto the first-floor landing.
The front of the machine crashed onto the concrete with a sickening thud. The sound of crunching metal, breaking parts
and splitting plastic echoed through the hallway. The force of the plummet down the stairs and
the sudden jarring of the Aggressor caused the 1000-watt LED light to turn on
with the intensity of a lighthouse beacon.
The brilliant beam illuminated the stairs and surrounding area with
luminosity unlike anything the school lighting could produce. It was as if the
sun had risen inside the building. Jon
winced and shielded his eyes from the blinding photons. A box of crayons had been left on a table
near the stairwell and began to melt into a colorful puddle as the beam of
light pummeled the box and everything around it.
Horace saw and heard the ungodly sound of Jon careening down the staircase
and limped quickly across the floor to check on Jon’s condition. Looking down
the stairs, Horace could not see anything except an effulgent aura of light
filling all the lower landing and surrounding areas. The transition lenses in
his glasses instantly darkened due to the intense light emanating from
below. Squinting, he could barely make
out Jon’s silhouette sitting on the Aggressor.
“Are you okay?” Horace yelled.
A few seconds went by and Jon replied with a weak and defeated voice.
“Yes, I’m fine. Just embarrassed
and mad at myself. I’ll be okay.”
Horace didn’t say anything else knowing there wasn’t much he could do.
He turned and limped away to lock his room and head home.
Jon fumbled with the console trying to find the switch to turn off the
light. Lambently, he ran his fingers over the switches. Finding what he thought was the light switch,
he clicked it. The light did not go off,
but a terrible growl and shriek of metal squealed in his ears. Quickly pushing the switch again, he found it
would not move. Something had shorted
out and the switch was now stuck in the “on” position. The squeal and scream of metal on metal got louder. The Aggressor began to shake violently as if
Jon were on a bucking Bronco. He grabbed
the steering wheel and tried to find the emergency button which somehow had
been released when the machine slammed into the floor so he could shut the
machine off. Locating it, he slammed his fist down onto it again, but the
button flew off and skittered down the hall.
The machine was saltating so badly Jon could hardly hold on. Then, with an ear-piercing scream of metal
ripping loose, Jon felt something underneath break away. As it did so, a whizzing sound as if someone
had spun a digeridoo overhead reached his ears and rapidly decreased in sound as
something flew down the hallway. Suddenly
the light went out and Jon turned his head just in time to see the second pad
holder and pad and part of the undercarriage of the machine flying at high speed
into the distance. He watched in horror
as it smashed into the display case housing the awards and achievements of all
the staff members who had gone to school there and come back as teachers and administrators. The glass shattered, the pad holder embedded
itself in the back of the display case and several of the plaques fell to the
floor and splintered into a million pieces.
Jon felt vanquished as he dropped his head into his hands.
Climbing slowly from the Aggressor, Jon carefully stepped away from the
machine and turned around. He surveyed the damage around him and that on the
stairs. His hear sank in his chest as
yet another misadventure was notched into his belt. Not the kind of recognition
he was desiring. Picking up his phone,
Jon defeatedly dialed the number of the school principal, Vance, to explain to
him what happened. Over the years, Jon
had had his share of accidents and mishaps, but this one was going to be
bad. The cost of the new machine, the
damage to the building and the destruction of the treasured display case were
all going to add up to some very serious discussions behind closed doors. Jon feared he may have drawn his last straw
as a custodian at the school. The phone
rang and Vance picked up on the first ring.
“Jon!”, Vance said in a chipper voice.
“What did you break now?”
Jon was stunned. Was his track
record that bad that Vance knew instantly the phone call was not good but bad?
“I was testing the new cameras and saw you zip by on the new Aggressor”,
Vance explained. “Then you disappeared
out of the cameras range. When I clicked on the next camera in line, I saw some
smoke and dust near the stairwell, but you weren’t around. So, I figured you must have broken
something. Hopefully nothing too
important.”
Jon’s heart felt like lead. Where
should he begin?
“Well, it’s like this.”
The meeting with Jon was set for the next morning at 8 a.m.
No comments:
Post a Comment