ABOUT

CONTENTS

EDITORIAL

ARCHIVE

LAGNIAPPE

MAST

SUBMISSIONS

The School
by Kristen Iskandrian

JANITOR CLOSET

“A wringer consisting of two wooden or rubber rollers. On one side of the pail to which the wringer is attached is one iron step, bolted, not screwed, to the bottom of the pail, on which the janitor places one foot to hold the pail steady. On the other side of the pail is a step on which the janitor places his other foot to press the rollers together in wringing. The mop is pulled through the rollers after they are pressed together.” Charles Everand Reeves & Harry Stanley Ganders, School Building Management: The Operation and Care of School Plants (New York, 1928), p. 134.


It was both whispered and yelled that feces and a thousand spiders lived in the janitor closet, either at the bottom of the deep paint-splattered sink or in the buckets beside it. Or both. The one who had the same slicker as I—reversible, yellow on one side and navy blue with small, smiling, spurting whales on the other—got pushed inside one afternoon when Mr. Buddy left the door ajar. The door clicked, locked shut. We were both wearing our slickers that day, both on the whale side—the implications of this skittered beneath my skin like insects, like spiders. I wanted to help but did not know how, and my panic made me hot and, I felt certain, very conspicuous. I ducked into the bathroom and turned my raincoat inside-out. The outside, now the inside, had been slightly damp, and now I was cocooned in a terrible humidity. Even with my hood over my ears and the faucet running, I heard the banging, the cry to be let out. The laughter was beginning to stall. I urged myself to find Mr. Buddy and his thick keys that could release my doppelganger. I saw myself as hero.

SCIENCE (click for next section)