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Sterile. Thats how I liked bathrooms. Clean and no trace of dirt. And maybe thats why my job was perfect for me. I was meant to sprout into something more soon, and so a custodian at the local pub was perfect for me. Drunks stumbling into the bathroom, not sober enough to consent entrance but boozed enough to want it. Liquor alive on their tastebuds, they swapped saliva in the stall besides mine as I scrubbed the toilet from sexually transmitted diseases like chlamydia and gonorrhea. Their moans were spinechilling to me and I'd tell Gregory--my boss--that I'd be taking a break until they're done. I grabbed a bottled water and sat in the break room, the bar's annoying country music twang interrupting the almost complete silence. One of the employees walked in, smiling at me politely as she made her way over to the mini refrigerator and pulled out a small tub of icecream before sitting in front of me.
"Tyler, right?"
I nod, because I saw her at orientation and I was waiting for her to announce her name. She didn't. She went onto explaining why she was eating her icecream and why she hated this job but loved it at the same time. I tried to leave but she just jumped into an entirely new topic each time until the door was opened and Gregory popped his head in.
"Tyler, the lavatory is empty now."
I silently thanked him as I stood, nodding my head at the female. As I re-entered the bathroom, I tried not to inhale too much because as it so seems, someone just have used one of the stalls for more than intercourse. I hold in a gag, grabbing the odor-removal from the cart and spraying, making sure to open a window or five. The air comes in like a dance, flowing through my hair majestically to caress each bone in my body thoroughly and cleanse my soul. I exhale, nose cold, and turn to the bathroom, thinking over the work I have ahead of me. As I scrub the mirror with the Windex, my thoughts begin to shout. Accustomed to this was I, for growing up to overreact was something I was certified in. I was an overthinker. Did Vincent really like me? Did my parents secretly hate me? Were my siblings okay, or did they experience these thoughts as well? Was I imagining this entire thing? The mind controlled the body, yet here I was, glaring into a scratched up mirror trying to tell the voices to shut the hell up. Louder they became, nails digging into my scalp, shutting my eyes and opening them, I groan.
"Shut the fuck up!"
A middle aged man stands at the doorway when I open my eyes, face surprised, and jaw slightly slack. He could be McSteamy if he brushed his teeth sometime. That reminded me: I needed to catch up on Grey's Anatomy.
I stutter, and a cottonball is in my throat, soaking up all words of an apology I wish to say. I try to smile but it ends up in a wince and I lick my dry lips. He walks out of the bathroom and doesn't come back in. I finish cleaning the bathroom and clock out, walking down the damaged sidewalk to the apartment building. The cold nips at my throat and swallows me whole, just as I attempt to do to myself at times. Vincent leans over from the balcony on our floor, holding up a glass of wine.
"I've got good news, Ty!" His voice is loud and echoes down the street as I grin up at him, skipping up the steps two at a time. I reach the third floor in no time, reaching for the knob before it swings open.
"That was fast." Vincent says, giddily smiling and pulling me inside. I unzip my coat, a glass of V8 being pushed into my hands. I take a sip and throw my jacket onto a chair. I faintly recall my mother getting annoyed with my habit to dress the chairs.
They aren't cold, Tyler.
What did she know? She wasn't a chair. Chairs had feelings, too.
"Isn't that exciting?!" Vincent beams. I blink because one; I wasn't paying attention, and two; he's wearing my shirt. My clueless expression causes him to sigh in annoyance, chugging the rest of the wine in his glass and slam it onto the kitchen table. I jump at the sound.
"Tyler, listen to me, bud."
I stare.
"My father promised the two of us jobs at his company if you solemnly swear to be a heterosexual."
I almost laugh in his face. Me? A heterosexual? To please a main of high standard in the church. Vincent continues to ramble as he pours himself more wine from his glass of Moscato.
"Hear me out, Ty, my father loves you. He went to every single one of your games in high school and praised you in the church services. The thing is, I'm not cut out for this. The Real World." He says it like a dramatic teenager in some HallMark movie angst film. "Maybe he'll talk to me and see I'm not so bad, you know?"
I show my teeth like a good friend, because when someone is desperate for the affection of a parent, you stay out of it. He wanders into the livingroom and so I make my way to my humble abode, deciding to take a quick shower opposed to crawling right into bed. The beads of water fall onto my skin and my sins of the night prior wash away, taking with it the desire of Death. I let my head hang, taking in the droplets of achromatic liquid. I rub my eyes under the stream of water and get out, wrapping a towel around my waist and going back to my room. The dawns light spills into the flat, and as I dress myself with the curtains open, the people peeking in let their eyes wander my most private of parts. I allow them, yet when it comes time to rest, I shut the curtains, and darkness covers the room. I rest my head against the pillow and breathe in. My eyes water. I blink them away. I needed to get my act together. I had to go to the college tomorrow and prove to the coach further that I was capable of doing it for a living. The stress of that mounted my shoulders and I laughed to myself upon thinking of Vincent's father. He could always be my back-up plan. I shake my head at my humor and reach over to my stereo. I press play and the tape enters my ears. Robert Thomas sings about equality and I scream into the fabric of my pillow. And finally, with my intoxicated best friend in the next room, and the veins on my wrist begging to be kissed with a blade, I cry. Shoulders shaking and eyebrows creased, trembling bottom lip and no thoughts of survival. Too much darkness yet the perfect amount. My fingernails dig into my wrist. The clock ticks 5pm and the sun is still allowing its rays into my room. I sob, begging the God in the bible to grant me sobriety. But even the man spoken about in such ways of the chosen knew that booze was not my problem, but the loud, piercing voice in my head that said that this, here, in my empty bedroom, was the end of me.
