The Cleaning Man

“Stop! Please! Please!” was all Aaron could yell. He struggled in vain with all his might against the grip of the three boys grabbing him by his arms and legs. All he had done was appear at the boy’s bathroom at the same time as them and now, as a punishment, he was being shoved into the large trashcan.

“That’s what you get for being such a loser, you fat pig!” cried out the formidable Vincente as he spit on him. “Yeah, you fat pig!” echoed David and Drago, as they gave him a final shove and closed the cover of the garbage can. “If you weren’t so damn fat, you might’ve been able to get out!” Aaron heard one of them jeer with the accompaniment of the others’ laughter that soon faded with the slamming of the door. After what seemed like an hour (but what really was only two minutes) of screaming and struggling and kicking and banging on the walls of that dark and smelly place, he heard the door opening and he began to make even more noise. He heard the sound of a pair of running feet headed his way and soon, an overwhelming light dazzled his eyes as the lid of the bin was pulled away. The opening now revealed a face dripping with shock and pity. Dazed by what he saw, the stranger tried to fake a cheerful laugh to brighten the awkward situation.

“Hey there, buddy, what’re you lookin’ for in there?” he asked, but noticing that his humor was even more awkward than the situation, he extended his hand and pulled out the poor little boy. As Aaron stood in front of him, wiping the evidence that he had cried, the stranger tried to quickly come up with a way to comfort him but found no words. He tried to pat his shoulder, but the wounded little boy shrieked and moved away.

“Would you like to sit down?” he offered when the intensity of the situation died down a little, to which Aaron replied by shaking his head and murmuring that he had to go to class. Aaron now recognized this man with the mop and the blue jumpsuit as the cleaning man everyone called Jay. As he began heading for the door, Jay called him to wait. “Let’s get you cleaned up first,” he said. Aaron, for the first time looking down at his clothes and noticing the yogurt spilled on his shirt and some kind of black liquid on his jeans, felt humiliated at the state in which he was found. But being much more afraid of his classmates seeing him like that, he slowly and hesitantly allowed that kind man to scrub his clothes with a wet napkin.

“Your name is Aaron, right?” Jay tried to break the awkward silence between them.

“Yes,” Aaron replied, quite surprised, “But how did you know?”

“Well, I’ve been working in this school for over seven years now; I remember the names of people I see all the time, although they don’t see me.” At this Aaron smiled a bit embarrassed. “Also, I have an obsession with names!” Jay admitted after a moment of pondering. “There you are! Good as new!” he exclaimed as he stood up (since he had been kneeling down to scrub his jeans) and stepped back to observe Aaron’s clothes for any dirty areas he might have missed. “Maybe you would like to rest after a…a long day?” he asked empathetically, “I could drive you home if you like.” Aaron really did feel exhausted and sad and the idea of escaping school felt very tempting. But suddenly he felt the urge to create the impression that he was tougher than he felt and refused the offer. “I have to go to class.”

“Okay,” the kind man smiled and sincerely wished him a good day.

Before entering the classroom, Aaron stood in front of the door and, against his will, felt terrified of what he knew awaited him on the other side. Perhaps if he was more honest with himself, he would admit how much he wished he could have gone home, but if he had, all the names that the bullies called him-sissy, scaredy-cat-would all be true. So he took a deep breath, or rather held his breath, and entered. Instantly, the painful words began shooting at him like bullets and all he could do was shoot right back. He used the same words as they did, which are not worth writing down, and when a crumpled piece of paper hit his head, he took it and sent it right back to its source-Vincente, who now looked at him with a sneer while the whole class laughed. Actually, not everyone was laughing, but Aaron was too upset to notice it. He felt that something really must be wrong with him; he really must be ugly, fat, weird, and weak, if everyone else thought so.

“Enough!” the teacher yelled for the hundredth time but no one paid attention.

When he finally got home, his mother embraced him, the way she always did when he stepped down from the school bus, and asked him about his day. “It was fine,” was all Aaron offered. In the morning (just like so many other mornings), he tried to act sick to convince her to let him skip school, but his poor acting skills betrayed him.

“Honey,” his mother sat on his bed and gently patted his head, “I know you don’t like school and you find it boring (who doesn’t?), but you have less than two months left before summer! Then, I promise, you can have all the fun you want, okay?”

So there he was in the school bus, for the hundred and eighty-third time that school year (it was his fourth year, to be exact). When he entered the hallway, he saw Jay mopping the floors. As soon as he saw Aaron, he waved at him with such excitement as if he had seen his favorite person in the world. But Aaron, afraid that people would think he was desperate enough to befriend the cleaning man, walked faster and right past him without acknowledging him. He did not even look back to see his reaction; was he hurt? Sad? Did he even care?

But he was not really being himself in that moment and he soon began to regret hurting the man who had only shown him kindness. When his classes finally finished, he walked out towards the school bus, but paused when he saw Jay, carrying out the trash in large plastic bags. Instinctively, he looked around to make sure no one was watching and sneaked his way towards him.

“Hi,” his voice swallowed by his nervousness came out so quietly that no one would have heard him. But the kind man did and he turned around and smiled. But it was a small smile that curved his lips only a little; there was a sadness about his smile and Aaron knew why.

"How was your day?” he asked when Aaron did not speak.

“Good,” Aaron quickly answered, “I-I wanted to-to,” but he couldn’t bring himself to express how sorry he felt. The kind man, though wanting to hear what he had to say, didn’t want to see him struggle and offered a different topic. “Are you hungry?” Aaron shrugged his shoulders in agreement.

“Well, I’m technically finished working for today. How about you wait here while I wash up and change my working clothes and we go to the sandwich place nearby? I’m rather hungry myself.”

Aaron, feeling quite usually shy but quite unusually at ease with his newly found friend, nodded and smiled. Jay was gone and back in no time, now dressed in jeans, sneakers, a black T-shirt and a pair of dark shades. “Ready?”

Despite how much he liked this man, Aaron still tried to avoid being seen with him by the other kids filling the school buses. If Jay noticed how he was trying to walk in perfect coherence with him to create the impression that there was only one person, he certainly did not show it.

After standing in line for ten minutes, their turn finally came to face the cashier and order. Aaron’s friend ordered a combo of a chicken sandwich, a Seven Up and French Fries, while the cashier typed into the screen. Then both of them turned to Aaron, whose eyes widened with nervousness.

“You know what you would like, Aaron?”

The nervous little boy shrugged his shoulders; he knew what he wanted, but something about people looking at him made him unable to speak. “I-I don’t know,” he stammered, as he shifted from one leg to the other. His friend seemed to understand him; he turned to the cashier and told her to double his order. After paying, he put his hand around his little friend’s shoulder and led him to the other side of the counter where they would wait for their food.

“Making decisions on the spot can be tough sometimes, can’t it?” he said and went on to tell him a story about how, when he was younger, he once pondered so long about what ice cream flavor to choose that his mother got so frustrated that she didn’t buy any. Aaron laughed not because he found the story to be particularly funny, but because it felt good to be understood and not teased for his weakness.

“Oh! Perfect timing!” he exclaimed as he took the tray from the counter and winked at Aaron. They found a spot near the window overlooking the parking lot and placed themselves on the opposite sides of the table. As they began talking, Aaron discovered that Jay was an artist and loved making portraits, enjoyed horse-back riding, and that his favorite author was Dr. Suess. Jay began asking questions about him, his interests and dreams, and seemed so interested in every detail of what he said, that Aaron began wondering whether his life really was as boring and insignificant as he had thought it to be.

“I’m sorry!” he suddenly blurted out. “I’m sorry I ignored you when you waved at me! I’m sorry that I was embarrassed of the others thinking that I knew you! I’m so sorry!” When Aaron finally looked at the blurry face of Jay through his wet and teary eyes, he saw no judgement, no disappointment; Jay simply looked at him with eyes full of empathy and a mouth empty of words; he understood, he really understood how Aaron felt.

“You know,” he shifted in his chair and leaned in closer to Aaron, “I also sometimes worry about what people will think about me. You see, they don’t always understand me either; they think I’m strange and inferior and they,” and he paused to ponder whether he should go on, “well, they make fun of me.” At this, Aaron looked up into his eyes, not with the fear that he was exposed, but the surprise that he was not alone. “You know how people view my job,” Jay continued as he felt encouraged by the inquisitive countenance of Aaron’s face, “They treat me like I’m lower than they are simply because I clean up after them. It used to hurt me so much (well, actually, it still hurts) that people I knew - relatives, friends, former classmates, even neighbors - would find out about my job and laugh. They would think that the reason I chose this job is because I was a failed artist. But you know, after a while, I decided that if I live my life in fear of what people might think, I will never do the work that I love!”

Now this puzzled Aaron completely. “So you mean to say that you love your job? I mean, you like to scrub floors and clean toilets and all that?” He realized too late that his words might have been offensive, but before he had time to start feeling guilty, Jay answered without a hint of offense.

“I know this might sound strange, but I do. As I said before, I love to paint portraits and my greatest inspiration comes from watching people. When you are the cleaning man, no one pretends to be something they aren't in order to impress you. Therefore, I get the privilege of seeing people without their masks...and that is what I love to paint. I don't paint people the way I see them on the outside, but on the inside. I can show you some of my paintings if you like! Besides, I've always had this desire to freshen up the world a bit, and I found that I can do that even by cleaning windows and scrubbing floors…” his voice blended into the background as Aaron’s thoughts took over, while he analyzed in awe the wonder with which Jay spoke of dusting lockers and cleaning floors. This man really was strange, but he couldn’t help admitting that he really admired his self-secure and free spirit, and maybe even wished he could be like that, too. But no, he’d much rather be normal, like those other boys whom he so hated.

“But you do all this with so much love, even when people don’t appreciate you and, even worse, look down on you?” Aaron brought up as the image of Vincente, Daniel, and Drago passed before his eyes.

“Yes!” Jay exclaimed as if he had been looking forward to that question, “But like I said, if I allowed their opinions to influence me, I wouldn’t be doing the job that I love. And - ,” he said as he took a big bite of his sandwich, “I wouldn’t be enjoying this wonderful meal with you!”

Though Aaron smiled at how smoothly he made a transition between the topics, he was not quite ready to close the previous one. “But why do they do that?” he asked, unable to hide the pain from his voice. “Why do they make fun of others and cause pain? Even if what they are saying about someone is true, how can it give them pleasure to tease him for it?”

Jay thought about it for a moment. “Do you remember, on the day we met, I told you that I have an obsession with names?” Aaron turned red from the embarrassment that he, in fact, could not recall him saying that, or worse, had probably not heard it in the first place.

“No worries!” Jay reassured him, since he had not intended to make Aaron feel bad at all. “Well, the thing is, I love to discover the meaning behind names. They’re very important, you see; they say a lot about a person and who he really is.” As he spoke, Aaron suddenly noticed a shadow of sadness drooping over his face as he continued. “Well, the problem is, many people don’t know the meaning of their own names. They live their whole lives not knowing who they really are and what they’re really worth.”

A moment of silence followed as they both let the words sink into their minds, until Aaron decided to voice his own thoughts. “So is that why Vincente, David, and Drago make fun of me - I mean, other people?”

“Most certainly,” replied Jay, “I’ve watched them since they first came to this school. They most certainly don’t know the meaning of their names. Mostly because their parents never told them -perhaps, they don’t know it themselves. Drago, for instance, means precious, but in the four years that he has been in this school, not once did I see his parents pick him up from school or come to parent-teacher meetings. They’re too busy, I suppose,” he continued now looking at the table, his voice sad and quiet, almost like a whisper, “too busy to show their son the meaning of his own name.”

Aaron felt like his heart was squeezing inside his chest. He felt pity and strangely even felt guilty for hating Drago, the boy who already was so deprived of love. Almost as if Jay read Aaron’s mind, he replied to his thoughts, “Understanding his reasons does not justify him hurting you. I just want you to understand that it’s not you he doesn’t like - it’s himself.”

As much as Aaron had tried to hide the fact that he was being bullied and ridiculed, he now realized that Jay knew and, perhaps, had known all along. But somehow, he no longer minded feeling transparent and exposed, because this kind man could see him for who he was and didn’t seem to mind.

“What about Vincente and David?” Aaron asked.

“Ah, David,” Jay tried to remember as he leaned back in his seat. “He was such an innocent and kind boy when he first came to this school in the second grade, I remember; perhaps too innocent for his peers. I remember how I would find him crying in a corner because his classmates, mainly following Vincente’s lead, had teased him. He cried for his mother, and they…well, they teased him for that, too.”

This discovery shocked Aaron to the core, and had he not been careful, his mouth would have dropped open. Had David really once been a victim to Vincente…like himself? He didn’t need to hear the rest about how he went from being an Aaron to a Vincente, but he listened anyways as Jay explained. “In time, he stopped crying altogether and began imitating Vincente to be accepted by him. His parents love him dearly, but he rejects their love because it’s not “cool,” and I wonder if the real reason is that he feels unworthy of it. That is why he doesn’t really know the meaning of his own name; he doesn’t know how well-beloved and dear he really is!”

“And Vincente?” Aaron asked with a slight shiver in his tone. Vincente had always been the leader, the main bully, the one he hated the most. But now he found himself faced with the possibility of discovering yet another broken heart and not being able to hate him anymore. It scared him.

“Perhaps you can do your own research on that one,” Jay suggested with a smile, “And discover for yourself who he really is.”

Aaron was thoughtful when he came home (Jay dropped him off) and did not rush to the computer, as he would have if he hadn't been so nervous. When he finally mustered up his courage and googled the name Vincente, this is what he read about its meaning - the one who has conquered. Then, of course, he googled the word conquer, because he was too young to know its definition (in case you are also too young to know, conquer means to overcome and take control of by force). But Aaron didn’t understand why Jay would think that he had not lived up to the true meaning of his name. Surely, he had conquered the whole school; everyone followed him and did whatever he said, whether out of fear or the desire to be like him.

“Jay?” Aaron approached him the next day as he was refilling the soap near the sink. Jay, though recognizing his voice, turned around to see him before greeting him.

“I found out the meaning of his name.”

Aaron now had Jay’s full attention. “But he really is one who has conquered,” Aaron explained.

“And what has he really conquered?” he asked in such a way that urged Aaron to wonder whether the explanation he was about to give really was the right answer; he wondered whether being a successful bully really was much of a grand accomplishment. Aaron remained silent.

“What then?” he asked after a while, truthfully wanting to know.

“He has a lot to conquer,” began Jay as he leaned on the bathroom countertop, and Aaron instinctively walked closer to him. “He has a lot of fears, you know.”

“Fears,” Aaron repeated to himself. The idea of the formidable Vincente having fears did not fit into his brain.

“Yes,” Jay confirmed, “His fear of rejection being the greatest of them. I only saw his father once, and, boy, was that enough. Apparently, he had been caught in some mischief - I don’t know exactly what it was - and his parents had been called to the principal’s office. His father had come, and I will never forget what he told him as they stepped out of the meeting. He looked at him with such fierce eyes and his teeth were clenched as if to withhold his anger and contempt. He said to him, “If you dare do downplay my reputation again, I swear to you, I will send you off to a family whose standards you can meet, you worthless idiot.” If you had seen Vincente that day, you would not recognize him as the conqueror we all think him to be.” Again, as he spoke, Aaron noticed the immense pain that every word caused Jay; he spoke as if he had been talking about his own son, or even someone closer than a son. As strange as it may seem to us normal people, he seemed to love each of those boys that way, as if they were his own flesh and blood. But as you may have noticed, Jay was nowhere near being normal, and Aaron was beginning to not mind the fact that he didn’t mind it.

As the following weeks unfolded, Aaron found him in the same situations as before and yet, nothing was the same. Vincente, Daniel, and Drago continued ridiculing him in front of the whole class, constantly bringing up his excess weight, his tendency to get tongue-tied when nervous, even his outfits (no matter what style he tried); but strangely, instead of feeling hurt, he wished the bullies could understand themselves the way he understood them. He understood that the hurtful words were mere attempts from broken people to not feel so broken themselves by breaking others. And though Aaron did not love them (though he probably would one day if they gave him the chance), he began wondering and dreaming and hoping that somehow he could unveil their true identities to them.

“I wish I could tell them,” Aaron once said out of the blue as they were in the biology classroom. He was sitting on a desk while Jay was kneeling on the windowsill and cleaning the windows.

“Tell them what?” Jay asked.

“All that I know about them; you know, about their names and all,” Aaron explained. Jay smiled because of how proud he felt of Aaron, and how much he loved that little boy. “You really do deserve your name, my dear,” he said.

Aaron was stunned by the sudden realization that the thought of his own name having a meaning had not even occurred to him!

“What is it?” he asked excitedly, “What does my name mean?”

“WHAT? You mean to tell me that you have not looked it up yet? Tsk, tsk, tsk.” Jay teased. Aaron chuckled, but the look of impatience and suspense quickly returned to his face.

“Aaron,” Jay spoke as he put aside his work and jumped down from the windowsill to put his hands on Aaron’s shoulders, “You are the Mountain of Strength. And it takes more strength to sincerely want the best for those who hurt you than it takes whole armies to destroy their enemies!”

Aaron could hear the thumping of his heart in every part of his body as all the things he had believed about himself were being transformed. For as long as he could remember, he had been teased for being weak (simply because he had begun to understand the bullies, didn’t mean he had stopped believing them), but now he found out that his very name meant that he was strong!

“Aaron, the Mountain of Strength,” he repeated to himself with a solemn smile. He liked the sound of it.

Jay admired him for a while longer before resuming his work.

“And about what you said about wanting to tell them,” he said while wiping the windowsill, “You will know when it’s the right time. You will feel it in your heart and it will change their hearts. And I will be here to support you while I’m still working in this school; even after that, I will always be there for you!”

Aaron was thoughtful for a while until another discovery stunned him.

“It just occurred to me,” he began, “I never asked you what your name meant. I never even asked you your name; I just assumed it was Jay. Is that even your real name?”

Jay smiled. “No, jay is just the first letter of my name,” he explained with a chuckle. “There was a little girl, (at the time she was in the first grade, now she is in the 7th grade. Her name is Alma, perhaps you know her? Yes, that’s the one, the caring and cheerful girl). Anyways, she once asked me my name and I told her, but she had difficulty pronouncing it so she just settled with calling me by the first letter of my name; and since then, everyone has called me Jay!”

“Well, what is your full name?” Aaron asked anxiously.

Jay knelt down in front of him so that their eyes were on the same level. “Don’t you know yet?” he asked with a deep smile.

Aaron thought about it for a while, at first trying to recall any memory that might hint him of it, but as soon as he stopped trying to remember, he realized he had known all along.