Allen was asleep at the desk in the tiny break room across from the water closet. He had stayed up until the wee hours of the morning, first, listening to the New President’s acceptance speech and then serving as a livery driver for Tim and Jim who were wasted. To make matters worse, one of his friends relieved himself in his mom’s car and he had to explain to her why it smelled like urine. He didn’t get home until almost 3:30 in the morning and he had to get up at 5:30 in order to make it to his new job on time. Then, when he came in he had to get right to work. There were railings that needed to be polished, light bulbs that needed to be changed, carpets that needed to be vacuumed, and floors that needed to be buffed. It was raining outside, so the heavy black rubber mats needed to be put down in the common areas to keep guests from slipping on, or ruining the newly buffed surfaces in the high traffic areas. There was a spill and a flood that had to be cleaned up. By lunchtime Allen was totally exhausted, and as unprofessional as he knew it was, he felt he had no choice but to use his lunch break to take a nap.
As he lay slumped over on his desk, a loud beep came from the radio he had laid next to him on the table.
“Yo, Allen! You there?!”
The beep and the voice that followed had startled Allen a bit, and woke him from his sleep, but he was still a little groggy so it took some time for him to realize where he was. The voice from the radio called several times, as Allen shook off his sleep, and sounded more agitated with each call.
“Yo, Allen! What’s the deal man? Where you at?” Davis’ voice blared from the radio.
Allen suddenly realizing that he was at work grabbed the radio to respond.
“Copy”, Allen mumbled, still a little groggy.
“I need you up in room 811 stat.”
“I’m on my way.”
Allen slowly stood up from his desk, stretched and let out a loud yawn. He wanted to stop by the bathroom and throw some cold water on his face, but he knew Davis expected him to be there yesterday, so he took the service elevator to the 8th floor and walked down to room 811. The door was open, so Allen just walked in. When he saw the state of the room, his jaw dropped in bewilderment.
The tables and furniture in the front room of the suite had been broken to pieces. Stuffing was protruding from deep gashes in the chairs. There was broken glass all over the floor and red wine stains in the carpet and on the couch. The curtains had been torn down from the windows, and some of the windows themselves had been shattered. The room had the makings of a crime scene all over it. Not long after he had arrived, Davis appeared from the bedroom of the suite. He had a clipboard in his hand and a pen behind his ear.
“What in the world happened in here?!” asked Allen.
“Some lady came up in here and found her man with another chick and went berserk. Only took ‘er 10 minutes to do all this. Mr. Hardy had to call the cops. Then we had to take pictures of everythin’ for when they go to court.”
“So this happened today?!”
“Yeah, man, like half an hour ago.”
Allen recalled that he had been sound asleep half an hour ago. Even though it was his lunch break, he still felt guilty.
“Wish I knew who she was. I wouldn’t want to mess with her.”
“I feel that. But now we got to clean up everythin’ and get all the broken furniture outta here, youknowwhatimean. We gonna have to redo the whole place. Right now, I’m just checking out what’s broken.”
“I guess I’ll start with getting up the broken glass.”
Allen went back and got his large dustpan and broom and brought them to the room. Then he started to remove the remaining glass shards from the couch and other surfaces before he began to take care of the floor.
“Be careful with that glass, yo. You don’t wanna get cut or nothin’.”
“Don’t worry. I got it.”
Allen continued to clean while Davis continued to survey the suite for damages. Allen would have liked to lighten the mood with a little small talk, but given Davis’ very business like manner, he didn’t know if it would be welcomed. And he didn’t really know if he even wanted to get to know Davis better. He was wary of guys like him. And then he thought about the thought that he had just had. What was a “guy like him” anyway? Wasn’t that similar to the phrase Mrs. Aldridge used when she spoke about Allen. She didn’t try to get to know Allen for who he was. She immediately put him in a box based on some stereotype. Then Allen thought about his conversation with Jim just two days ago. Maybe he was unfairly judging Davis. Sure, he had all of the accoutrements of a “thug” with the tatoos and the cornrows and all, but that was just the outer man. But then Allen thought, that whatever is on the inside of a man often manifests itself on the outside, and this idea made him wary again. But then, after struggling with himself for a bit, Allen decided to put away his misgiving and give Davis a chance.
“That lady must have really loved that guy, if he led her to do all this”, remarked Allen.
“Or maybe she’s just crazy, period. Some of these chicks ain’t wrapped too tight.”
“True that. At least for the paranoid, possessive kind.”
Davis made no response after this last comment and was continuing to survey the apartment and record the damages on his chart. Allen decided to try to connect with him again on a more personal level.
“I was in a relationship with a girl who could get a bit out of hand. Whenever she got mad, she made objects fly. Usually toward my head.”
“Where you come from, I didn’t think chicks acted like that.”
“What do you mean?”
“You know, like those college chicks. Ain’t they suppost to be like high class and all that?”
“Some are and some aren’t. I’d say it’s 50/50.”
“Word? For real?”
“College girls are just like any other girls, man. Women are women.”
“You know, I kinda figured that, but you hear stuff. Ya know?”
“Like what?” asked Allen curiously.
“Like people be trippin’ bout college and what not. Like it’s like Oz or somethin’. You go there and your life will all of a sudden get better than what it is.”
“Well, yeah, a lot of people do make it seem that way. It’s definitely no Oz, but that doesn’t mean that it’s all washed up either.”
“I guess it’s what you make of it, right?”
“I’m not sure if I’m the right person to ask about that.”
“I feel you.”
There was another awkward silence and the conversation stopped as suddenly as it had started. It didn’t seem like Davis was a bad person after all. There were moments when someone like Davis could have just roasted Allen. Davis didn’t even sound bitter when he was talking to him about college life. And he was polite enough to not point out the idiosyncrasy between Allen’s college experience and his present occupation. In fact, he seemed to have dropped the conversation in such a way as to shield Allen’s pride.
Soon Allen became preoccupied with the cleaning of the room. He had gotten up all of the large shards of glass that he could see and put them into the special gray garbage bin that had been brought up to the room earlier. Davis advised him that he didn’t have to do a great job, since the carpet would have to be replaced anyway because all of the glass that had broken on top of it made it a hazard. Then they began the perilous task of removing the damaged furniture from the suite and trying to get it onto the freight elevator in the back without causing too much of a stir amongst the guests. Allen was definitely not up to the physical demands of the task. The furniture he was moving was not just regular apartment furniture, but that which was made for commercial use. Naturally, it was heavier than regular furniture, much heavier. As Allen helped Davis carry the sofa down the hall, he could feel that Davis was doing more of the lifting than he was. The only thing that kept Allen from feeling like a punk was the fact that he could blame his weakness on the fact that he only had about 2 hours sleep
to go on. Maneuvering the sofa onto the elevator was another herculean feat. Allen clumsily attempted to help Davis with it, but in the end, he had to step aside as Davis brought the whole thing onto the elevator himself. Major loss of face.
And it didn’t’ end there. This had to be repeated with several chests of drawers, coffee tables, an oblong chaise, and a futon. And that was just one room of the suite! He and Davis had to keep going until they had carried out three rooms worth of furniture. When everything was all done. Allen felt as if he would need someone to carry him out. Meanwhile Davis didn’t even look like he was breaking a sweat.
“I think that’s it for now. I’ll come back tomorrow and start fixin stuff. There ain’t nothin’ done to the hardware in here so serious that it can’t wait.”
“I guess I’ll go around and pick up the garbage.”
“What you mean man? It’s quittin’ time, yo. We out.”
Allen glanced at his watch. It was actually five past the hour. Allen had spent so much time focusing on the jobs at hand, he didn’t even feel the time going by.
“Whoa, time flies, doesn’t it.”
“When you workin’ hard, chief.”
“Guess I’ll head on out then.”
“Don’t forget to punch out your time card. You lucky I saw it yestidday. I did it for you.”
“Thanks a lot, man. I owe you.”
“No big deal. See ya round, man.”
“See ya.”
It was not lost on Allen that this was the first time that Davis had ever spoken more than one syllable at a time to him. It was still mostly work related, but he seemed to be easing up even if just the slightest bit. It was also not lost on him that so far it seemed that Davis was actually a nice guy. Allen began to feel bad about the way he had originally judged Davis. Yet there was something inside Allen that would still have him wary. After all, why all the tatoos? Had he actually been in jail? Allen had never been friends with anyone even remotely connected to the penitentiary experience despite having lived in the ghetto most of his life. “If Davis had been in jail”, Allen wondered, “what could he have done? Was he in a gang? Could he actually be working with someone who killed someone?” Then Allen gave it all a second thought. All of this speculation and fear was just silly. He had some of the same apprehensions when he met some of his other best friends. He thought Jim would be another bully to take his lunch money. He thought Tamiko was a do-good snob. He thought Callie was some brain dead cheerleader. He thought Tim was just some bougie Uncle Tom snob who was just using him for his econ notes (actually, this was true for a while). He thought Richard was a drug-dealing hustler trying to sell him some pot. In every case he would later find out just how dead wrong he was. Hopefully, his initial judgment of Davis would be wrong, too.
Thirty