hey guys,
first of all, it probably goes without saying, but i’m a new contributer to this blog. it seems like a pretty cool thing you’ve all got going, so i’ll contribute to it as much as i can.
here’s a silly little story i threw together as a way of introduction…
The Bloody Tile
By Joel Hattis
I hope I’m not a cliché.
In fact, since you brought it up, I think that’s what I want on my tombstone—just so there’s no confusion.
Wallard Hardy Ronders
1987 — Whatever-Year-I-Die
“I Hope I Wasn’t A Cliché”
There’s nothing worse than that, right? To be something that everyone has already seen, to be nothing that no one’s never met. To be a story that’s already been told. A life already lived. Something that anyone can imagine, that any fool can conjure and paint or tell or speak or write.
I think that’s why all this bothers me as much as it does. It was so obvious, such an easy solution, such a simple, tidy, uncomplicated, happy resolution. It had to be cliché. It was something of dime-store novellas.
No.
It was something of Hollywood cookie-cutters.
No, not that either.
What it was, was something of stories written in crayon, taped the fridges of mothers of eight-year-old boys, boys who are just discovering the subtle art of creating something to an end but unable to cope with an end that isn’t resolute, that isn’t safe, that isn’t happy.
But the way things unfold—you can’t change that. Even if they unfold in ways that make you wonder whether your life is something you hope it’s not.
How something happens is how something happened. That’s how things are.
How this thing was: It all began with a dropped spoon.
* * * *
I was sitting in the cafeteria, just finishing up my sandwich.
Most people like to eat their soup and then their sandwich. But not me. I eat my sandwich first.
The sandwich was—I don’t remember, I’m not good with details—but I remember that the soup was tomato, which isn’t significant, other than the fact that it’s a detail I remember. I went for my spoon, which I had on my side, and I accidentally knocked it onto the ground.
You should know that my hands shake. It’s something they’ve always done. It’s not being nervous or being sick or being tired or being hungover. All those things make it worse, but even when I’m perfectly tip-top, my hands shake. My mother thinks it’s early signs of Parkinson’s.
Usually it doesn’t affect me and I only ever notice it when I’m reading a book or when other people point it out to me, but on this one single significant time, it did.
So my spoon’s on the ground. I had no intention of using it—it was plastic and there was plenty of other ones back by the register—but I’m a good enough human being to pick up after myself.
So I did.
And when I bent my head down and reached under the table, I saw something out of the corner of my eye.
It was a faint streak of red.
Now, this was a cafeteria, serving the typical fare college cafeterias serve, so there were plenty of red colored foods that might fall off someone’s plate, land on the ground, get smeared, get cleaned up, a missed smudge, a stained tile.
But I know what a smudged strawberry or stained ketchup looks like, and there was something different about this red. It was darker. Like a beet, but less purple and more black. It was dark-black red.
“Wally.”
I looked up. Of course it was Maddy.
“Maddy.”
“Wally. What the hell are you doing.” It wasn’t a question.
“How are you, Maddy?”
“Class sucks.”
“I know.” I shifted up from under the table, stumbled as I stood, and found myself uncomfortably close to Maddy.
Which is to say, I was quite happy to be near her, but—socially—it just wasn’t proper. So I shifted back, leaning awkwardly on the table.
* * * *
See.
Here’s something that makes everything even more cliché than everything already was. I just introduced a girl, implied that I find her physically attractive, and insinuated that I’m self-conscious around her. Clearly I’m not with her, but clearly I’d like to be with her.
So, do you think I’m going to end up with her?
Here’s a hint:
* * * *
“What were you doing down there?”
“I thought I saw something.”
“What did you see?”
“I’m not sure.”
“You’re not sure?”
“Blood.”
“Blood?”
“Yeah.”
“Are you sure?”
“I think so,” I said. “Yeah.” I looked at the floor, down behind her feet, and there was another smudge of faded red smear.
She saw me focus on it and turned. “Some more,” she said indifferently.
I nodded. “Look,” I said, pointing further down the floor to another spot.
“Weird,” she said indifferently.
* * * *
As we left the cafeteria I felt a pair of eyes on my back. I turned and, out of the corner of my eye, saw one of the dishwashers—a short man with bad posture, a sharp, crooked nose, whose face rested in a snarl—glaring at me. When I turned, he turned, but for a split-second we shared a look. A knowing look. A look that knew that he knew that I knew. That we both knew something, but that something could have been anything. But it wasn’t nothing. We both knew that the other knew something.
* * * *
Me and Maddy walked outside.
The short day brought a cold night. My breath billowed in the soft breeze. She was bundled in a sweater, her arms held tightly against her chest.
“It’s cold out.”
“Yeah.”
“Why are we out here again?”
“That had to be blood.”
“I guess.”
I leaned against the wall and reached into my pocket, pulling out a small brown pipe and a bag of tobacco. You should know that I don’t smoke cigarettes. Other people smoke cigarettes. I smoke a pipe. Pipes are smooth. Pipes taste better. Pipes smell better—they’re more mature.
They’re something most people don’t smoke.
“That guy, he looked at me funny,” I said, taking a lump of tobacco and shaking it into the pipe.
“Who?”
“The dishwasher.”
“What about him?”
“He looked at me funny.”
“So?”
“So. I think he saw me looking at the blood.”
“Are we still talking about that?”
Maddy had a way of making me do things I didn’t want to. Like giving up the conversation, even when I knew something wasn’t kosher. “No,” I said.
“Good. Then can we please go inside?”
I hadn’t even lit my pipe yet. “Sure.”
“Why did we even come out here?”
A couple of guys I knew from the dorm walked past us, chatting excitedly.
“I know, man,” one of them said. “This isn’t the first time.”
“Whatever, he’ll turn up.”
“Yeah, probably.”
“Who will turn up?” I said to them.
They turned, startled that I was standing there, as if I had been a brick in the wall.
“Mark Effing,” the first one said, almost as if embarrassed.
“What about him?” I said back.
“No one knows where he is.”
“What do you mean?”
“What do you think I mean? No one can find him, and his cell won’t pick up.”
I glanced at Maddy. It was meant to be significant, but she just looked bored.
“He does this sometimes,” said the other. “Just goes on a binge by himself. He’ll show up.”
“Yeah, probably,” said the first one.
“When was the last time you saw him,” I said.
“I had lunch with him yesterday,” said the other. “Had to get to class though, so I left him there.”
“In the cafeteria?”
“Yeah,” he said. “So what?”
“Just curious,” I said, putting my hands up. “Just curious.”
One of them shook his head, the other shrugged. They kept on walking.
“See,” I said to Maddy.
“See what?”
“You see what I mean?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said. “It’s cold out here. I’m going inside.”
Normally I would have followed her, but something was different about that day. I could feel it in my fingers, underneath the numbness. A pulsing of fire, a prick of anxiety. I stood out there with my thoughts, my packed pipe in hand, unlit. I started to walk aimlessly, a stroll, to consider what it was I was trying to consider. I walked and thought and then thought for a while, while I walked. What was going on here? Was it really this simple? Mark was missing. Was he dead? The cafeteria was splattered with blood. Was that where he was killed? The dishwasher glared at me. Was he the culprit?
I needed more evidence.
And just as I thought this, I stumbled upon some.
* * * *
And that’s another thing. In stories like this, everything is always so timely. When something needs to happen, it usually does.
* * * *
It was the dumpster. I had been walking past it when I looked up and saw that hanging over the side of it was a rag, stained the same bloody color as the cafeteria tile.
I walked over to it and grabbed the rag, eyeing it carefully. It couldn’t be anything else. And I knew exactly who the rag belonged to.
I pocketed the rag, ran back inside the dorm, and went to Maddy’s room.
* * * *
“It’s a white rag.”
“Stained with blood!”
“Everyone uses rags.”
“No, not like this. This is a rag to dry dishes.”
“A rag to dry dishes?”
“They have a ton of them in the dishwashing room.”
“They probably have a ton of them in the janitor’s closet, too.”
Maddy’s roommate, Ali, took off her headphones and turned away from her computer. “What are you guys talking about?”
“Wally thinks he’s a superhero.”
“You know Mark Effing?” I said to Ali.
“No.”
“I think he was killed by one of the dishwashers downstairs.”
“How can a dishwasher kill you?”
“What?”
“I mean, it doesn’t have any arms. It’s not like it can stab you or anything,” she said. “It would have to be your fault.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You said a dishwasher killed that kid. If he was killed by a dishwasher, it would have to be his own fault. Like if he got himself caught on one of the parts, or if he stuck his head somewhere he shouldn’t be.”
I slapped my head. “No, I mean he was killed by one of the people who wash dishes.”
“Oh.”
Maddy spoke up. “Wally thinks he’s a superhero.”
“Why do you think he was killed by one of the guys who wash dishes?”
“He found a bloody rag.”
“So?” Ali said. “Everyone uses rags.”
“Exactly.”
“But I also found blood on the cafeteria floor.”
“How do you know it wasn’t tomato sauce?”
“And then when I was walking out one of the dishwashers glared at me.”
Ali yawned. “You make a convincing argument.” She put her headphones on and turned back to her computer.
“Whatever,” I said. “I know what I know.”
“You don’t know anything.”
“I know what I know.”
I guess I had a suspicious look on my face, because then Maddy said, “Don’t do what I think you’re gonna to do.”
“What am I gonna do?”
“Just don’t do it.”
“Don’t do what?”
“Something stupid.”
* * * *
And another thing:
In these kinds of stories there’s always that one scene where everything comes together in a neat little package, where every lose end is tied, where you come away feeling content. The good guys go home. The bad guys incur the pitiless wrath of justice.
I hate that scene. Life isn’t like that. The only time ends are ever tied is when you have to cut two others for string.
* * * *
What Maddy doesn’t understand is that I don’t do stupid things. She might say that the things I do are stupid. I might even do something that in hindsight seemed like a stupid idea.
But something that is stupid is something that is done to no end. While you might do something and that something might, in fact, yield no end, that you did it to an end—for a purpose, for some sensible reason, even if it was only sensible at the time—means that you are acting with will, and will is never stupid. It might be foolish or myopic or dastardly, but will is never stupid.
So, while she told me not to do something stupid and I’ll generally do anything she wants me to, I didn’t think that sneaking into the dish room in the early hours of the morning was stupid—and I still say it’s not. After all, I had a good reason to do it.
So I went and did it.
* * * *
The cafeteria was located in a well-lit part of the building, on the first floor, just down from the main entrance. There were security cameras everywhere, but I didn’t care if they saw me—my end would justify my action, it would need no explanation.
I had discovered one drunken night a while ago that the lock to the cafeteria was easily picked—all it took was a credit card.
The thing was, the door to the cafeteria creaks when it’s opened, so I had to open it slowly and only slightly. I snaked in and in the moonlit darkness, I went over to the dish room, where I flipped on the switch and the florescent lights blinked the flickering darkness into light, scattering a number of roaches that had gathered by a drain in the orange-tiled floor. I began searching—for anything. For a bucket of bloody water, for a knife or a broom or a glass with any remnants of trauma, for a shoe, for a print, for a mark of anything that wasn’t what it ought to be. I shuffled through the racks of dishes, lifted the rubber flaps of the machine, went through piles and piles and piles of empty containers and cleaning agents and trays and garbage bags.
I looked.
I looked.
I looked some more.
And then I looked even more.
And when I was thinking about possibly giving up and considering not looking anymore…
…there was the faint sound of the cafeteria door creaking. I wasn’t alone. My instinct was to go to the switch, to flip the lights off, to conceal myself with the darkness of the night, but I realized that would only make things worse. It would admit I was there. As it was, it could be a mistake, someone who was the last one out, who was supposed to be the one to flip the switch, it could be their fault, they were supposed to turn the lights off. Me? I wasn’t there. I had nothing to do with it. I was asleep in my bed.
I slipped under a sink and shifted a pile of empty glass racks in front of me, to make myself as invisible as I only hoped to be. I tried to keep my breath measured, ignore the ache of my awkwardly positioned legs, to keep my hands still. I had a view of the door to the dish room, but it was only from the legs down and it was partially obscured.
It was only a moment, but my heart raced.
And then I saw the slender, sweat-panted leg of who-could-only-be Maddy. I sighed, and shifted out from under the sink.
She jumped. “Jesus holy fuck,” she said holding her chest. “I thought you were a roach.”
“What are you doing here?”
“I told you not to do this.”
“You tell me lots of things.”
“We need to get out of here now.”
“Why are you here?”
“Because I couldn’t stand outside the cafeteria and wait for you any longer. You need to get out of here.”
“How did you know I was in here?”
“I followed you down. I knew you were gonna do something stupid,” she said. “Even though I told you not to.”
“I can’t leave yet,” I said, as I began moving things around. “I haven’t found anything.”
“Wally, you’re an idiot. Someone’s gonna come.”
And as I was about to tell her that she should leave if she was so worried about getting caught, I tripped over a pile of dirty rags, at the bottom of which was a green colored shirt, worn from ware.
It was stained a dark purplish red.
Both of us saw it at the same time. I reached down, picked the shirt up and unrolled it. Unmistakably, it was a shirt we had both seen Mark often wear.
After a moment of stark, shocked silence, I said, “See?”
Maddy said nothing. She only stared at the shirt I held in my hands, at the patch of red, trickling from the shoulder down the side.
“See?” I said again. “I’m not crazy.”
She shook her head. “Ok, we need to go,” she said. “We need to go now and show this to someone. Right now.”
I nodded. And just as we were about to leave the room, a low growling voice grunted.
Both of us turned, startled as a roach by a light. Standing before us was the gnarled-faced dishwasher.
“I think you better drop that,” he said to me, pointing to the shirt.
I was too scared at this point to do much of anything.
“I said,” he said, his voice louder, “I think you better drop that shirt you’re holding.”
Maddy let out a yelp.
The dishwasher eyed her crossly, “No reason to be making sounds like that, sweetheart.”
He took a couple of steps towards me. “Drop that shirt, boy. It’s not yours. You can’t have it.”
I backed and backed and kept backing up until my waist bumped into metal.
“Drop it,” he said to me, louder. “It’s not yours.”
The lights to the cafeteria flickered on. We all jumped. An RA who I’d never talked to but from talking to others knew as Rick came running. “What’s going on here?” he yelled as he approached.
Before the dishwasher had a chance to say anything, I spoke up, “He’s a murderer! He’s killed a student!”
The dishwasher looked horrorstricken, his eyes flared and his mouth winced.
Rick stopped in his tracks. “What?”
“This dishwasher,” I said with a confidence in my voice I had never felt. “He’s killed a boy named Mark Effing.”
Now it was the RA’s turn to look horrorstricken. He turned to the dishwasher. “Frank, what’s he talking about?”
“I haven’t the slightest clue,” he said suspiciously.
“He killed him in the cafeteria, covered it up, and I can prove it. I found blood on the floor, I found a bloody rag in the dumpster, and now I’ve found this shirt. It’s Mark’s and look at it.” I held it up so Rick could see it.
“Liar!” the dishwasher said. “All lies!”
“Mark Effing?” Rick said. “He’s from my floor.”
“He’s dead,” I said. And then pointing to the dishwasher, “And he killed him.”
“What are you talking about,” Rick said.
I spoke clearly, slowly, and triumphantly. “This man killed Mark Effing.”
“No he didn’t,” Rick said. “Mark’s not dead.”
I shook my head, “What?”
“Mark Effing,” Rick said. “He’s not dead. I just saw him a minute ago.” He shook his head and shrugged. “What I know is that Frank here called me in because he saw that someone had broken into the cafeteria, and then you two are rummaging through the dish room, and now you say someone who isn’t dead is.” He paused for a second. “What is this, a game?”
I shook my head. I didn’t understand. Mark was alive? How was that possible? Was he really? Or maybe Rick was behind it all, doing his best now to play the blind man, to set us all up. Or maybe he had already set us all up and we had already fallen in.
“Mark is alive?” I said softly.
Rick nodded. “What’s going on here?”
“Prove it,” I said.
Which, naturally, he did.
* * * *
And that’s what happened. Mark was alive, no one was dead, the dishwasher was innocent, and everything made sense.
Here’s how:
When Mark was missing, it was because he had gotten drunk and ended up passing out in a barn a few miles out of town. How he got there, not even he knew. What he knew is that he went to a bar, had a bit too much to drink, and he woke up to the hoarse neighing of a horse.
Oh and his cell ran out of battery.
The dishwasher confessed to the bloody rags, saying that he saw a kid crack his head on the table, and he helped the kid by getting him bandaged up and mopping up the mess. I was still doubtful, at least until this fact was confirmed first by the videotape from a security camera and then by the kid himself, a mousy little boy named Meng, who said he had dropped a spoon under the table and then stood up too quickly, banging his head on the table and that the dishwasher had been nice enough to come to his aid.
He even had the gash to prove it.
Rick the RA scolded me, saying that it was pretty stupid to think someone could be killed the cafeteria without anyone knowing about it, what with the walls being so thin and, after all, it was under constant surveillance.
While I was being chastised, Maddy grabbed my hand and held onto it. When it was over, she looked me in the eyes and said that, for a second, she had believed everything. As far as I’m concerned, that was good enough in to make it all worth it, but she kissed me anyways.
What I still didn’t understand though was how Mark’s shirt ended up all bloodied in the dish room. At least, I didn’t understand it until I asked Mark, who said that, in fact, it wasn’t blood, it was beet juice, and the reason it was in the dish room was because he had hooked up in there with a girl from the third floor named Laura a couple days ago.
Though this was confirmed by the security camera, Laura was adamant in her denial.
No charges were pressed.
