Everything you wanted
to learn at university
but didn't.

4. I rode down to the tracks Thinking they might sing to me But they just stared back Broken, trainless and black as night Climbed out onto my roof So I'd be a poet in the night Beat the walls off my room I saw the big room that is this life Put my ear to the door I just heard hot rods and gunshots and sirens People kill me these days There's keys in their eyes but they lock from the inside. -       Blake Schwarzenbach, “Condition Oakland,” 24 Hour Revenge Therapy , Jawbreake

1. Carrie, Fred, and I arrive early, before the other punks. There is a lot of work to do. The bowling alley clearly doesn’t have a janitor. The place is a mess. The floor is peppered with ash, crumpled cigarettes, bend butts, smeared here and there with traces of lip gloss. The white plastic tables are covered in flyers, folded, crumpled, or uncreased, hot off the press, straight of the oven, which is to say the photocopier. They announce assemblies, protests, community acti

It’s the next big thing. Any day now. Just around the next corner. Brace yourself for celebrity janitors. Like celebrity chefs, but cleaning instead of cooking. An Anthony Bourdain of the beige coveralls and belt-hoop keyring, hitherto undiscovered, will write an exposé. It will have to be in the off hours, on the thin margins of the quotidian exigencies of life behind the broom, the long hours, the dirty fingernails, the elbow grease, the body weariness of it all. It won’t t

I take the photograph off the wall and put it face down on the dresser. There is a white rectangle on the wall where the photo had just been. It is lighter than the rest of the wall, which I now realize is gray, not white, discolored and covered with smudges, streaks, stains, soot, handprints, shoulderprints, bodyprints, all the usual evidence of hard living. I take a step back and squint my eyes. The lines that compose the rectangle become bolder. Ever so slightly, they quiv

“You look better than I expected,” Alex said upon seeing me again. We were meeting for coffee downtown to discuss his project. It was the first time that I had been downtown in over a year. Nothing had changed. Except for me, of course. I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the glass when I opened the door to the coffeehouse. That person looks vaguely familiar , I thought with a tinge of panic and resolved to keep my distance, until I realized my mistake. Alex was vibrant an

1. It was bound to happen sooner or later. When it did, I’m just glad it was Jean Christophe and not someone else. In the first months on the job, a newly initiated member of the brotherhood of the broom, beige coveralls still starchy and stiff, I was vigilant, jumpy, convinced that the dreaded encounter, the supremely awkward moment, was just around the next corner. Making the rounds, I gripped the broom handle extra tight and kept one eye on the door as I mopped the floors.

You can’t be what you were, so you better start being just what you are. -       Ian MacKaye, Fugazi   1. “Wow! This is some really nice work!” My response was pre-reflexive, visceral, as automatic as it was heartfelt. Upon opening the door to the bathroom at the library, I just blurted out the words, sent them out into the world, to do as they may, without giving it a thought.   2. At what point do you stop being what you were, at some time in the past, near at hand or disap

The Big Boss wanted me for a special mission. Top secret. Real hush-hush. It involved falsified documents. “Close the door behind you,”...

Lowell hit all the notes. This doesn’t mean that he knew all the words. He usually didn’t. A few la-la-las and na-na-nas were enough,...

Why don’t you go see a show? Pretend the drumbeat is your heart. -Simon Joyner   1. There is a sound. There at the bottom. Beneath...

On the morning of your first day back at work, after your days off, the ones that correspond to your other self and your other life, you...

I was surprised to see Arturo smoking. The employees of The Community Center take their smoke breaks outside the side entrance, the...

Tonight, after my shift, I dyed my hair in the basement of The Community Center. I did it for old times’ sake. Sometimes there are zones...

During the day the humans seem to have the advantage, but at night the tables turn to favor the raccoons. From deep within the crevices...

A lot of famous people show up for my shift. Juan Pablo Villalobos takes his tea in the upper mezzanine on Sunday afternoons. He sits at...

1. The good thing about cleaning, about all the tiny repetitive movements, one after another, then another and another, unhurriedly or...

Today, halfway through your shift, your first shift alone, without Arturo, it stopped. It all just came to an end, expired, gave up the...

It was the second time in one week. Berenice, my co-worker from the front desk, had me locked in her sights, her stare so penetrating...

Here and there, throughout my shift, in moments of distraction, or intense concentration, in the drafty staircase, at the foot of the...

Arturo is from The Old Country. He is also the one who will be training me this week, the one who will show me the ropes, the ins and...