(Read Luke 17:7-10)
Jimmy
Boyden studied the Board carefully. He
had to be certain everything was covered.
The chalk board was propped up against the wall behind his desk. Down the left-hand side were a series of
cryptic abbreviations in ALL CAPS. Opposite
each abbreviation was a name, sometimes the same name appeared several
times. Jimmy considered each name. Was he or she going to be there tonight? No problems could be seen.
Each of the
abbreviations was for one of his janitorial accounts. He used the abbreviations as a matter of
privacy. He did not want, for example,
some one to figure out what key on his giant ring went to what account. There were other reasons for his sense of
protectiveness about his accounts. He
had been burned before. Some one works
for him for six months, then goes to the account and offers to work a
deal. So, he didn’t want his accounts
generally known.
He wanted
to believe that everyone would show up tonight and do a good job. He had been up forty-eight hours. Struggling with a small business is sometimes
a nightmare. He rolled wearily out of
his chair, shut off the lights and locked the office door. He thought he heard the phone ringing, but
tried to ignore it. He opened the car
door. A vacuum cleaner handle was
jutting into his front bucket seat from the back seat of his little
compact. He was trying to push stuff
aside—a stripper mop, a feather duster, a trim vac—when he knew he could not
deny the sound of some one leaving a message on the answering machine. “Surely, it’s something that can wait ‘til
tomorrow,” he muttered. He had managed
to clear himself a place to sit in his own car.
His bottom seemed to be plastered to the seat. Then, the thought hit him: “What if it’s one of the workers and they can’t
show up?”
He was
angry, and the weariness in his body was like a disease as he fumbled for his
office key and slouched over to his desk.
He dare not sit down, or he would never get up. He punched the message button on his
machine. “Beep. Jimmy!
This is Ted. Look, I have been
tied up all day and couldn’t call you.
You have got to do something with this floor! it needs buffing or something. I have people coming tomorrow, and I’ll be if I’m going to have them look at
this floor like it is. Beep.”
Something
clicked inside of Jimmy. He picked up
the phone. “Hi, honey. What ya’ doing?”
“Hi,
Jimmy. We’re just waiting for you. I thought you’d be here by now.”
“Well, I
had to finish that house for the realtor.
They are so picky.”
“Did they like
it this time?”
“I
guess. I haven’t heard back. But guess who just called?”
“I don’t
even want to guess.” Jerreen knew it
could just about be anyone. Anything
from sewage needing to be wet-vacced up to some lady’s complaining about her
furniture not being put back right after a carpet job.
“Ted
Ratliff at the dealership.”
“Oh
no!” The Ford dealership was one of
their biggest accounts. Had to keep them
happy.
“Now, there
wasn’t any complaint. Well, not a
wastebasket forgotten or something like that.
But, he wants that rec room floor cleaned. I guess it’s the rec room floor.”
“Why,
what’d he say?”
“Well, he
just said I had to do something about this floor.”
“I guess
you could go and talk to him tomorrow.”
“I wish.”
“Now what
does that mean?” Jerreen’s voice was
getting sharp. She knew all too well
that Jimmy was working up to telling her something.
“Well,”
Jimmy paused, trying to let her have time to figure out that this was not
something he had control over. “It’s
just that he said he has ‘people coming tomorrow.’” Jimmy mocked Ted’s voice.
There was a
long pause. “So what are you
saying? Are you coming home for
supper?” Then, she managed to
reconstruct Jimmy’s last few days. “Are
you going to get any sleep, Jimmy?”
“I’ll get
some sleep,” he said crossly. “Look,
what if I come home and get a bite and then…No, let me go look at that floor
and get an idea of what is needed.”
“Maybe you
better make sure you know which floor he’s talking about.”
“Yeah, I
guess you’re right.’ Jimmy was not sure he
liked the idea of calling Ted. But he
had to be sure.
“Ted? This is Jimmy at BoyCo Janitorial.”
“Jimmy! You got the message about the floor?” Ted seemed to be chewing on something. Maybe a steak.
“Oh,
yeah. I, uh, wanted to make sure. You were talking about the rec room, weren’t
you?”
Ted’s voice
went down several notches from relaxed joviality to crushing
perfectionism. “I believe that’s the
floor we’ve been talking about, isn’t it.?”
“Right. Well, I just wanted to make sure.” Jimmy was talking fast, trying to regain some
control. “You know, I thought, well,
maybe he wants the show room floor…”
“Oh, it
looks great. I’ve never had a problem
with the parquet floor. You know that.”
“Sure. Well, we’ll take care of it. We’ll have her looking good.”
“I’m
counting on you. Because you know it
looks like right now,
Jim.”
“Oh, I
know. But, I believe a strip and wax job
will take care of it.”
“You’re
going to have to strip it? Do you have
time?”
“Well,
yeah. I’ll make it just fine. No problem.”
“OK. Whatever it needs, I want it looking
good. I’ve got people coming in here
tomorrow.”
“Yes. I understand that.”
“OK. Good night, Jim. You’re doing a good job.”
“Thank
you. And good night.”
An hour and
a half later, Jerreen was tapping on the dealership front door glass. Freddy, the college student who did the
regular janitorial recognized her and grinned as he opened the door. Jerreen had Isaac, their two-year old by one
hand and some sandwiches, iced tea, and cake in a bag in the other hand.
“Is Jimmy
here?” Jerreen asked.
“Yeah, he’s
in the rec room,” said Freddy.
Jerreen and
Isaac made their way past the Parts Department to the rec room. Jimmy had just laid down some stripper and
was ready to work the wax loose with the stripping pad on the floor
machine. The stripper could sit a while
and work its magic, so he joined his family at the opposite end of the rec
room. He was about to bite into his
sandwich when a booming voice jerked his head around toward the door.
“Getting
started, I see!” It was Ted Ratliff.
“Oh, hi,
Ted. Jerreen, you know Mr. Ratliff.”
“Hi!”
Jerreen smiled at Ted.
“Hello! And who is your big helper?”
Jimmy was
embarrassed that Ted had caught him with his family at the dealership. He decided to make the best of it. “This is Isaac.” Isaac was deeply involved in a piece of cake
and ignored these adult involvements.
“Well,
Jimmy, I know this is short notice,” Ted began, “But, we have talked about this
floor before. And I have people from
Detroit coming tomorrow.”
“We’ll have
it looking great for you tomorrow, Ted.”
“That’s all
I ask. Well, I’ll let you finish your
supper. Good night, Jerreen.”
“Good
night!” they both said it together. They were relieved that there had been no
major blowup.
Later,
Jimmy talked Freddy into helping him for a while on the stripping job. Freddy used the wet vac to pick up the
stripper and loosened wax while Jimmy ran the floor machine. By eleven-thirty, he began mopping the floor
for the second time. Then, the far end
was dry, and he could begin laying the first coat of wax. By three o’clock he had laid the last
coat. He dozed for a while and then used
a 2000 RPM buffer on the wax. Then, he
dust mopped, because of the dust created by the buffer. He checked the ledges for dust, and then
began loading his equipment into his van.
It was five o’clock.
He had sat
down in the van and started it up. Once
again, vacuum seemed to suck his skin into the captain’s chair of the van. He looked at the front door of the
dealership, trying to see if the dead bolt was in place. He muttered to himself about why he could
never remember if he had locked a door as he rolled out of the van and checked
the door and crawled back into the van and checked where the line of brand new
Town Cars were and cut the van to avoid them.
He pushed the lever into Drive and headed for home.
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