jasper | part one (completed)

Chapter Eighteen

The slickness of hot, salty sweat running down my forehead left me uneasy. I pulled at the tight, restricting polo shirt and used the coarse collar to wipe the moisture from my face. Surprisingly enough the smell wasn't too bad, though I guess it was to be expected considering the prestige of the entire place. 

I didn't want to look like a fucking mole rat on the first day on the job but cleaning the bloody toilets was a strenuous job... at least for a puny weakling like me. I didn't expect my job title to be 'resident toilet cleaner' but I wasn't complaining. The money was pretty damn decent and the toilets were already clean as it was. 

As soon as I entered the art gallery I was pushed into the tattooed arms of a friendly man called Burt. His sideburns were slightly greying and he had a small paunch. Burt reminded me of the ridgeback cross bullmastiff my dad had once, intimidating on the outside but full of love and kindness on the inside. He welcomed me with warm open arms, shoved a toilet brush in my face and told me to start cleaning. 

At first, I had stared at him in wonder, surely not right? 

He had chuckled at that then soon ushered me to the male toilets ordering me to spray and scrub each one down until sparkling.

So there I was, spraying and cleaning each bloody toilet, in the males bathroom lets not forget. It was awkward, to say the least when passersby's caught me crouched around the toilet base, bum waggling high in the air. I hadn't been hit on yet, but I wasn't sure if that was a good or bad thing. 

I almost broke out in tears of joy when Burt entered the toilets with a bright smile. 

"So how was it?" He said with a grin as we made our journey from the male bathroom to the staff room for refreshments. I had already had lunch after art school at the local cafe but I was not one to decline free food. 

"Cleaning toilets?" I snorted unattractively, "yeah it was absolutely riveting." 

He chuckled, "It get's better, I promise."

"Really?" I said, my interest sparked. Maybe I wouldn't be crouched around toilet bases for the rest of my sad life. 

"No," he chortled with a hand on his belly. My shoulders fell as all signs of hope left my face. Great, now it was certain I would spend the rest of my life cleaning pubes of toilet seats. There was no way in hell I'd be able to get a job anywhere else, no one else would want to hire a mess like myself. BUT there was a light at the end of the tunnel, money. I had to remind myself of it's beauty each time I reached behind one of the toilets in the mens room.

In the end cleaning a few toilets here and there would probably be worth it, the sooner I moved out of Jaspers place the better. I didn't know how much longer I could stand living with my mother. 

"Geez, you should have seen your face," Burt wiped a stray tear from his eye then ruffled my hair, "take a look at me, three years ago I was living on the street with nothing but the clothes on my back, now I have a loving wife, a kid and I'm the cleaning manager of one of the top art galleries in the state." 

"It gets worse before it gets better," he gave me a toothy grin and I stood in shock. It was as if in that moment the cloth was pulled from my eyes and something clicked inside me. It was overwhelming at first, but then all to suddenly it hit me. I had an urge to hug him, why? Until that moment I had lived my life in a self exsorbed bubble full of self pity. Maybe it was the fact that I was finally realising that everyone had their own problems and I wasn't the only one grieving or in pain.