The Bump

The Bump

Butchery ran in the family.  His grandfather had been a butcher.  His father was also a butcher; his mother, a butcher's wife.  Even two brothers, a sister and several cousins were butchers.  But what had happened to him?  He was a hospital janitor -- an old, wrinkled, wrench-toting loser among generations of successful butchers.  And he did it in a two-bit, hole-in-the-wall, plain-Jane town hospital that only housed thirty-two beds.  What kind of life was that for a butcher's kid!

As he lay in bed that rainy June morning, Bump wondered.  How could a man of such heritage blow things so badly?

He stared silently at the ceiling and listened to the ticking clock on the bed stand...Wonder, wonder, wonder -- this was his routine, and he did it well.  There was a little spot on the ceiling he liked to zone in on, and he had focused on that spot so much over the years it had since turned brown, then black.  Now it was slowly wearing away and little drops of rain often penetrated the roof there.  Drip, drip, drip - dripping through his wonder - another thing to fix...Christ!

Where on earth had he gone wrong?  What evil force had possessed his selfish heart?  How could it have happened?  How could he have let it?  Indeed, it was beyond him, beyond them.  It seemed to be beyond everyone!

As he carried his lean, nameless carcass into the bathroom, Bump’s mind flashed back to the sad day when he had shared plans with his mother.  He remembered how hurt she seemed; how the news struck her with all the charm of a lightning bolt enema.

"You want to be what!" she screamed.  "A janitor?"  Her mouth puckered at the sour taste of the word as her eyes pierced through the boy's soul with laser-sharp incredulity.  Her lips withered into that face like a sphincter on steroids and her nose flared with so much force it sucked the air from the room.

"I want to be in hospital maintenance," Bump calmly announced, which was a mistake because his mother thought he was correcting her.  And though 'maintenance' sounded better than 'janitor,' the butcher's wife quickly blathered his terminology away with a convulsive wave of her hands.  To her, maintenance sounded like 'sewage scooper,' so she scraped the word aside as if it were some hateful swat's fly plunder.

"Maintenance-schmaintenance!" she ranted.  "You're off your cleaver, boy!...You'll be a butcher.  Everyone's a butcher."

"I like fixing things," he persisted, "and I have a way with tools."

"You have a way with lunacy," she translated.  Being a butcher's wife, this woman could cut fat from an argument with editorial efficiency that quickly dismantled discussions into a few patty-smacked sentences.

"I've wanted this ever since we ate Bessie, mom."

"I don't understand," his mother continued, tears in her voice.  And she began to dust their napping dog.  "We fed you.  We clothed you.  We got you better when you had diarrhea.  Now you say you want to be a janitor.  Butchering isn't for me, you say...You think you're too good, is that it?  Mister Fancy Pants wants to be a janitor.  Augh!  Where did we go wrong?"

That's when she threw the table lamp through the front window and blew her nose into the doily it had been sitting on.  This scared the dog, of course, and it quickly took its cue to relocate and lick its crotch elsewhere.  And his mother, being quick in her own right, spotted the vacancy on the sofa and proceeded to faint into the warm indentation the family mutt left behind.

When his father returned from work he was curious.  "Why is your mother acting like this?  Has she no respect for Peanuts?"

The troubled boy shrugged - which was, of course, a lie.

"Speak up!" the meaty, middle-aged butcher shouted, recognizing that his wife had used props in her family-room punctuation.  "Come out with it, boy."

"Dad, will you sit down a minute?  And let go of your cleaver, please."

The plump, sweaty father looked at his wife then back at the boy.  His nostrils flared and twitched and his cleaver hand trembled.  He knew what was coming.

"I knew it," he whispered.  "I told you to quit that girl.  She got you into trouble, didn't she?"  He spat his words out like a mouthful of spoiled salami.  "Well, you'll not shame this butcher's name.  No, sir!  You're getting married, the sooner the better."

"It's not that, dad --"

"No?  Then what is it?"  He looked at his wife then back at the boy.  His nostrils flared and twitched and his cleaver hand trembled.  "Oh, my gawd!" he screamed.  "Not my son!  Not my - my butcher!...You wear nylons and lipstick, right?  Oh gawd - please, no!"

"It's not that, dad.  Nothing like that."

The plump, sweaty butcher sighed.  He swallowed hard with great relief and began to circle his son like a dog inspecting a soft, grassy patch of turf.  A burden had been lifted but he sensed something was lurking just beyond the shadows of speculation.  And it was something big - something HUGE.  He smoothed his hair back and attempted to calm himself.

"I'm going into hospital maintenance," the younger man blurted.

The plump, sweaty butcher fell backward as if he had been sucker punched.  For a moment there was silence, as before a great storm, then BLAMO.  The scene became a cartoon in the old geezer's mind.  Every piece of furniture bounced with each pleading scream of agony.  Wallpaper peeled and pictures shattered.  And somewhere in the midst of it all there was a dull, thuddy thump that echoed mysteriously in the background as the older butcher hacked through some punctuation of his own.

The 'discussion' went like this:

"You're what!"

"I'm going to be a janitor."

"Please," the butcher sobbed.  "Anything but that - tell me you have to get married!  Try some dresses on for crissake!  But - oh gawd!  Oh, gawd-gawd-gawd!  Please say you're going to be a butcher.  Everyone's a butcher for crying out loud."

"I'm going to be a janitor," the boy responded obstinately, "on a hospital maintenance crew."

His father stared blankly at him, totally shocked.  He had been blindsided, never saw it coming.  Couldn't even have imagined it in a nightmare.  A hospital janitor?  What kind of job was that for a butcher's kid?  He wailed as crocodile tears poured from his eyes, and the cleaver swung aimlessly about as if it were attached to the arm of a drunken rodeo roper.  It seemed ludicrous to this prodigious man that his son wanted to be a dud.

"I - I won't have it," he bellowed.  "No wonder your mother's convulsing.  We fed you.  We clothed you.  We got you better when you had diarrhea!  Remember that?  And now you tell us this, that you don't want to be a butcher!  A hospital janitor, he says!  Well, go be one then you mindless, rotten punk!  See if I care!  Do I look like I care?  No!  No way do I care...Go be a jerk, for crissake!  But where's that respect we spanked into you?  Where's that love for family tradition we beat into your noodle, boy?  And - and, oh gawd, where's my hand?  Is that it on the floor?"

The boy looked and, sure enough, his father had no hand.  He had his cleaver hand, of course, and he still had two arms, but that was it.  One of the hands that should have been attached was on the floor.  And the cleaver was red, very red, just like the rest of the room had become as the perspiring butcher expressed bewilderment before a son about to screw up perfection.  But the hand - it was on the floor.

Bump winced as he shoved these memories out of his head, and he discovered he was sitting in the bathroom.  With a shaky hand he flushed the toilet, and with two shaky hands he pulled up his shorts.  Then he inspected the hands carefully.  "I'm glad I've got these hands," he thought gratefully.  "Without them I'd be lost."  It didn't make sense to him why he felt so strongly about it - because nearly all people were glad for hands - but it brought him back to reality, this thought of gratitude, and it managed to reclaim his loosening grasp on the life he'd chosen to mess up.

"Hands are good," Bump concluded.  And he smiled pleasantly as he stumbled to the sink.

Now, this was the best part of his day - shaving!  You see, shaving brought Bump great fellowship.  The mirror reminded him of his wife!  In fact, most mirrors had that effect on him.  And though most mirrors were friendly to Bump, this mirror - so familiar and loved - was different from the rest.  It was his favorite mirror.  It was in the lighting, he felt, and how the shadows fell.  And so he loved this mirror more than all the mirrors he'd ever known, because - well, because it reminded him of his wife.  And she was his lover and friend.

Bump meticulously prepared the razor, then lathered their cheeks.  Everything was carefully orchestrated as he repeated the routine that had given his life so much meaning.  The mirror reminded him of her - of Felecia!  He had her face, her eyes, that nose - even his moustache resembled his wife's soft upper-lip down.  And he spoke softly to the mirror as he cut their whiskers off, as he scraped off the old stubble to smooth things out for a new day.

"Felecia," he whispered, "do you remember that lovely evening not so long ago when I proposed to you in Jefferson City?"

"It was a magical evening," Felecia whispered.

"I took you to the best Burger King in town, didn't I?"

"The best that janitorial money could buy," Felecia agreed.

"And I got down on one knee - remember?"

"Actually, I think you dropped my cigar band ring," Felecia  joked.  "You had to stoop to find it."  And they both laughed because - well, Feliecia's humor really cracked Bump up.  It was one of those soul mate things.

Anyway, between you and me - which, of course, means between the two of us - the reader and writer - the marriage didn't last.  For one thing, the old guy didn't have a name to give his bride, so he had to make one up, which she suspected from the very beginning because he coughed his way through their vows.  And, for another, Bump had mistakenly told Felecia he was a doctor when, in fact, he was just a janitor - and not even a butcher.  In short, the whole courtship thing was strewn with a string of lies, which caused a strain on their relationship after the beautiful bride discovered her man's god-awful truths.  What happened then was unfortunate but to be expected from a newlywed who had just found out her doctor mopped floors for a living – Felecia became despondent and accidently walked into a tornado...Very sad.

Bump sighed and rinsed their faces off.  He was sorry about the lies.  They had just slipped off his tongue, like honest mistakes.  And a wave of unspoken anguish throbbed through his temples as he dried off their cheeks.

"So long, Felecia," the old guy muttered quietly.  "See ya tomorrow."

Felecia waved a reluctant farewell and blew him a kiss.  Tears welled in her eyes as Bump hobbled away, and there was a streak or two on the janitor's cheeks as well.  Truly, theirs was a heartfelt bond.

Bump walked into the kitchen to get some Post Toasties.  Post Toasties on a rainy June morning sounded like just the thing.  And though he ate them every day, for it was his routine, he felt that they would taste especially good today because he was hungry and they were just the thing he wanted, (though he ate them every day, rain or shine, and there was no real difference between today and any other day)...And, as fate would have it, about halfway between his fridge and the pantry, an old memory crept up and nabbed the old man's bony butt.

Suddenly Bump's mind was flooded with visions of grandpa on that fateful day his father passed away.  And he remembered with great clarity - too damn much of it - breaking his news to the great butcher patriarch.

"What a death," his grandfather said with a certain degree of pride as he squished across the blood-soaked carpet.  "I can't think of a better way for a butcher to go.  He couldn't have done it with a nicer cleaver."

And the boy, filled with a myriad of untouchable emotions, decided to lay things out plain.  "Grandpa," he said, "I want to tell you something --"

"Just look at how sharp she is," the ancient butcher beamed, picking his son's cleaver off of the massive paunch it rested on.  "Here," he said, handing it to his grandson.  "I want you to have it, boy.  I used it in my day.  Your father used it.  And now it's your turn...Be proud, grandson."

The nameless kid carefully took the meat-hacking tool and placed it out of his grandfather's reach.  "Sir," he said, "I'm going into hospital maintenance.  I want to be a janitor.  I do not want to be a butcher."

"You're going to what!?" the old meat-man protested.  There was no doubt the young janitor-to-be's meaning had registered.  "Are you in there, boy?  What is this nonsense?  Your parents fed you.  They clothed you.  They got you better when you had diarrhea.  And you thank them with hospital maintenance!?...What kind of baloney is that?  Where's that good butcher sense your father taught you.  And wh - where -- where's everything going?  Land's sakes alive, boy, you're blacking out.  You're fading - get back here!...Are you out there, boy?"

And that's when the patriarch died.  His heart burst.

Once again the old hospital janitor winced.  "Too much clarity!" he cried.  "Too much @!&%ing clarity!"  Man, he hated those memories and all the red visions they brought.  And he took it out on whatever he was around when they tortured him.

"Where did I put those Post Toasties?" he screamed into the refrigerator.  "Where did you hide my cereal?" he yelled at the toaster, and he grabbed it by the cord.  "Give them to me!"...And then the pantry door yawned and old Bump knew -- his Post Toasties were in the pantry...
Post Toasties smiled at the old man from shelf number two.

"Aha!" he chortled.  "Gotcha."  He grabbed the box before it could pull anything sneaky, then looted a bowl and spoon from the cupboard...But just as he was about to sit down there was a knock at the door and the old hospital janitor groaned as he made his way through the living room.  "Who could be knocking at this time of life?" he complained.

"Knock!  Knock!  Knock!" the door replied.

"I'm coming already," the old man yelled.  "Hold your cotton-picking horses."  And as he opened the door he thought that that would be quite a sight, to see horses picking cotton.  Then he remembered that he was still in his boxers, and blushed.

A young uniformed postal worker smiled pleasantly on Bump's front step.  "Harmon Cutlet?" he asked.  He carefully tried to avoid eye contact with the boxers.

Wrinkles on the janitor's face shifted into question marks, then he retreated a step as if he'd been struck.  Cutlet, where had he heard that name before?  A vision of the cemetery came to mind, and Bump remembered - Cutlet had been the name on his father's tombstone!

"Cutlet...Yes, okay," he said.

"This is for you," the thirty-something uniform stated, and he held out a package with a pen cleverly propped across its face.  "I just need a signature."

The old hospital janitor took the pen and scribbled "Harmon Cutlet" at the bottom of a green slip of paper.  He stared at the signature for a moment, then smiled.  It seemed foreign but oddly familiar.  "That's me!" he said.  "I'm Harmon Cutlet."

"That's all I need," the postal worker replied, and he took the pen and offered a good-natured "Thank you."  He stumbled quickly down to sidewalk.

Newborn Harmon Cutlet, hospital janitor, said, "Have a good day," as he shut the door.  He took the package directly to his Post Toasties altar.  What could this be about?  And since he didn't know what it was about, he examined the envelope.  The package was from Janitor's World, a very informative maintenance magazine he subscribed to.

"What could Janitor's World be sending?" he whispered...The room remained silent.  Nobody knew.  So Harmon Cutlet opened the package.  He sliced its seam with the handle of his spoon and inspected for treasures within.  Inside were three brand-spanking new state-of-the-art mop heads, a couple of bus tickets for a November trip to Boise, Idaho, and a short note.

Here is what the note said:

Dear Mr. CUTLET:

Congratulations, HARMON CUTLET!  You have been selected from several dozen of our subscribers to represent the All-American Janitor in our exciting July issue of Janitor's World.  As July's All-American Janitor you will have an opportunity to pose with many of our products, including the revolutionary ElectroShine 5000 floor buffer!

As you know, this is quite an honor, HARMON CUTLET, so we hope you will be able to join us here in beautiful Boise, Idaho, for two fun-jammed November days of janitorial modeling.

Enclosed is a prospectus outlining details of this exciting opportunity.

Sincerely,

Lester Loopy, Marketing Director
JANITOR'S WORLD

Newborn Harmon Cutlet, the old hospital janitor (and once upon a time butcher-hopeful), sat there, stunned.  He read through the letter again, then stared down into his bowl of Post Toasties.  His mouth, gaping with shock, drizzled a sugary, cream-colored stream of milky flakes out of each of its corners, and flimsy, half-chewed Post Toasties lopped gleefully down to newfound freedom on Harmon Cutlet's jowls.

"I'm going to be a centerfold," he whispered.  And elation began to flow through all those hardened arteries that used to be so nameless.  "There's going to be bubble gum cards, and television interviews - the whole nine yards!"

The old hospital janitor screamed joyfully as he rose from the table and floated through his home.  He was ecstatic!  He kissed the walls and rubbed them down.  He shook hands with a nearby cactus plant!  Man, he could hardly wait to die and laugh in his relatives' faces.  Fifty-two years had NOT been for naught - no way!  And imagine, he would be a celebrity.  A cen-ter-fold!  A "chosen" man - Mr. Harmon Cutlet - the All-American Janitor!  Man, O man!

The old weasel leaped joyfully into the air.  Gravity could not hold him down.  He tripped over things repeatedly, then climbed to his feet.  He smashed a porcelain weeping willow vase against the side of his skull in strange janitorial celebration, and all of the household furniture was pardoned from every Post Toasties sin.  And then, suddenly, Harmon Cutlet dashed into the bathroom and hugged his cabinet mirror.  He couldn't forget the one who had inspired him through all those lonely years.

"Felecia," he squealed with tears in his eyes, "we're going to Boise!  Dear God, I love you so!"