‘Are you talking to me?’ I turn around and look at the custodian wiping down our door handles for the hundredth time. I had just said, ‘Hi, how are you?’ when he entered to clean. ‘Yes…how are you?’ He took a swipe at the door…’I’m very tired’. ‘Well’ I respond…’you have every right to be. It’s been a long year’.
This man wipes down our door handles, both sides four or five times a day…times scores and scores of other doors in this three story building. Classrooms. Bathrooms. Hall entries. Exit doors. Library doors. Computer lab doors. On and on it goes.
He’s wearing sunglasses today. He glances at me. ‘These glasses are not for fashion’ he says quietly. ‘I’m hiding my face. I work two jobs’.
I think about this. I can only hope the other job isn’t wiping handles in another building. ‘Oh…I’m sorry’ I respond. That doesn’t seem adequate somehow. Anyone can say that.
I turn around as he starts to leave the room. ‘You have a good day now…’ he says and the heavy door clicks shut. We’ve been partially back in the building since the first week in February and these are the first words he has ever said to me.
I believe we could eat off those handles.
690 Saint Paul 