The Janitor

By Samuel Hernandez

He mops and sweeps the floor and the time passes. His thoughts are initially for getting through the morning.

Classroom 1A is empty so he goes in there and starts stacking chairs on top of the tables. They tell the students to do this job. After class, the teachers stand up front and tell the students to put their chairs on top of their tables. Depending on the grade, these children lug heavy chairs above their heads, always in danger of concussion and heavy fracture, and they slide them on top of the chairs.

Mr. Martinez slips his head in while he cracks his neck and wipes his head from the accumulating sweat. It’s a year where spring lasts three days and then moves on, overcrowded by zealous winter and threatening summer. There is heat from the laughing sun, and from the tiny bodies of so many children packed into a school. “Do your fucking job,” Martinez says.