<\/p>\n
At around 4 or 4:30 you\u2019ve got to do the bathrooms, take up all the rugs and shake them out in the lot before you sweep up all the aisles. Then you have to change the day shift\u2019s mop water in the slop sink, sterilize the new water with bleach and rinse out the old mop head so you can get the floor all squeaky clean for the morning rush. This is the only real work you have to do on third shift, unless you consider making coffee or ringing up packs of cigarettes and coffee and fountain sodas work, which I don\u2019t really. You can\u2019t do this kind of thing too early in the shift because foot traffic is high until about an hour and a half after the bars close and if you wait too long, you\u2019ll get behind because you\u2019ll be dashing back and forth from the mop and the register so you can ring up the early morning guys.<\/p>\n
One of the morning guys, Tom, has about the hardest hands I\u2019ve ever touched. His change (36 cents out of a five after a pack of Malrboro Ultra Lights and a coffee refill) makes a dull pop when it hits his hand, like when you drop a quarter on vinyl flooring. Some mornings I bring my hand closer to his than I need to so my finger tips rub, for only a second, across the row of pads just below his fingers. I\u2019m convinced that there\u2019s no way for him to know if someone\u2019s touching his hand unless he sees it, but Tom never sees it. He always looks me full on in my eyes and smiles before putting his change in his jeans, tipping his hat, and walking out into the near dawn ready to go to work. Tom is an ideal customer at 4 or 5 a.m. Quick, polite, quiet. No bullshit.<\/p>\n
Noel is different.<\/p>\n
When Noel comes in, I get caught up listening to him and then I have to bust my ass so the place looks somewhat clean before Jim comes in. Some days, I have to skip sweeping, or I\u2019ll have to mop with old water, which Jim doesn\u2019t like, but will usually tolerate. I don\u2019t know what he thinks I do instead of working on those days. I don\u2019t think he suspects I\u2019m talking to Noel.<\/p>\n
Noel buys a soda refill everyday. Sometimes he buys a scratch off lottery ticket, but not usually. The first time I met Noel, he told me that he\u2019s had multiple sex change operations. \u201cStarted as a boy but I wanted to get pregnant,\u201d Noel tells me before sucking in a mouthful of Dr. Pepper. \u201cSo I did.\u201d The soda that\u2019s left in the straw when he\u2019s done sucking makes a phlegmey coughing sound as it falls back into his mug.<\/p>\n
\u201cDid what?\u201d I ask.<\/p>\n
\u201cHad some babies,\u201d Noel says. \u201cTriplets the first time, but two of \u2018em died and I had to hide \u2018em from my daddy,\u201d Noel smiles at the end of his lips when he says this. I don\u2019t say anything, but I don\u2019t wince, just stand there, looking at him, waiting.<\/p>\n
Noel thinks for a minute, rubs his nose and then looks at me, and when I don\u2019t say anything, he tells me that his father is still alive. So is his son, he says. \u201cTo this day my daddy just thought I had one baby, but it was triplets,\u201d Noel says.<\/p>\n
I ask him what he did with the other two and he thinks about it for a minute before telling me that he buried them in a cornfield. He tears up when he says this. Then he tells me about how he had another sex change, got married, and had children with his wife.<\/p>\n
\u201cTriplets?\u201d I ask.<\/p>\n
Noel says no. He looks at his watch. He\u2019s bald, in his sixties, short torsoed, but fat with little toothpick legs that are full of dry little scabs and liver spots. He wears shorts even though it\u2019s cold out.<\/p>\n
Sometimes Noel comes in early, refills his soda mug three or four times and just talks. I listen.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s nothing else I can do when he does this. I can\u2019t work. I won\u2019t ask him to stop. Customers come in and out. Whenever the door rings, Noel stops and looks at me, his eyes small and deep. Trusting, almost.<\/p>\n
Sometimes Noel changes his sex four or five times, has four or five sets of triplets. Sometimes his dad is their father, other times one from a set of previous triplets grows up and impregnates him with more triplets. Other times, he get\u2019s stuck on twins, but he always comes back to triplets. Once I asked him if his wife knows about this. He had to look away for a minute, his bald head looking dull, like a scrubbed potato.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe found a body once,\u201d he tells me. \u201cA miscarriage,\u201d he says. He looks at me with a half-smile, his little eyes as wide as they could get. I wait, let it come to him.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe got a pool once. Big pool. The kind that sits above the ground, you know? Got it for Christmas from my son \u2018cause he knows how much his mama likes to swim and so I got it all set up on a nice warm day. First warm day of the year, but I was afraid to get in, seeing as I was pregnant.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTriplets?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTriplets,\u201d Noel says. \u201cThey was kicking something fierce and I had already done the work of putting up the pool and I needed a rest. I also knew not to get into the water when I\u2019m in a family way cause it\u2019ll make me have my babies. Wife kept telling me to get in though. She\u2019s all splashing around and having her a grand old time.\u201d Noel put his hands out in front of him and splashed at the air, smiling his wife\u2019s slack jawed smile.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo I could only hold out so long and so I put on my shorts and I hopped in with her. Then after a few minutes I felt \u2018em kicking in there again and I could tell that I was having a miscarriage. Didn\u2019t want to get bleeding in the pool and so I got out.\u201d Noel\u2019s face made a disappointed look.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe was disappointed about that?\u201d I asked him. \u201cYour wife wanted you to stay in the pool?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe was having a fun time,\u201d Noel said, \u201cbut I was having baby problems so I told her I had to go.<\/p>\n
She was closest to the ladder and so she went first and I followed right up behind her. I thought I could get out into the bathroom in time so I could rinse them down into the tub. I was sure about it, but then when I was getting out of the pool they just slipped out of me.\u201d Noel bit down on his lower lip and blew out a little air, which made a whistling sound. \u201cMy shorts held two of them, and I thought I was safe, but one of them fell into the pool and she saw it.\u201d Noel looked down and swallowed some saliva. Then he looked back up at me, hard this time. \u201cShe just jumped back on in and tried to save it. Nothing I could do.\u201d<\/p>\n
Noel stopped talking.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat happened then?\u201d I asked. \u201cWas she okay?\u201d I asked. Did she hurt herself when she jumped back into the pool?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n
The sun had come up. The floors were unswept, unmopped and the pumps were beeping at me, waiting for me to hit the approve button so the morning commuters could fill up their tanks and go in to work. Noel did not answer me. I stepped over to press the green approve button. Noel excused himself to use the bathroom. Jim came in and started staring at me and then at the floor, and since Jim is a quiet person, he didn\u2019t say anything to me, just pulled up the carpets and grabbed the broom, and then after that, the mop.<\/p>\n
When I was about to leave for my walk home, Jim was knocking loudly on the bathroom door. Noel hadn\u2019t left. I wondered what he was doing in there. I imagined he needed help, that he was having some problems with his pregnancy and it was hard to imagine that Jim was capable of helping him. How could you ask him to understand? After all, Jim was busy. He had other work to do. All the way home, I felt uniquely qualified to intervene, make something bad into something good, but I didn\u2019t go back.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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