Providence
David was not the type to take the reins. He was always more comfortable sitting back and letting someone else take the wheel. It was easy, and simple, and he found that he learned much through someone else’s guidance, rather than trying things out for himself. He had learned not to play with fire when his sister burnt her fingers while lighting a match, not to play ball in the house when his brother fell and hit his head on a step trying out a new trick, and not to run with scissors when his kindergarten classmate was taken to the emergency room for stitches.
David learned through others; he sat, observed, listened and let his life flow by, led by an invisible, tender hand. Talent came to him naturally and he was blissfully unaware of hardship. Never in his life had he needed to strive for anything, food was never wanting, nor dress, and education and learning was always easy. That’s not to say he took things for granted, he did not. In fact, he was very conscious of the struggles of others, but could not always understand the time and effort people took to overcome them. He always figured everything would turn out fine. He always believed that everything was for the best.
Raymond believed the opposite. Raymond had grown up poor, in a house dry of books and learning, its inhabitants working themselves to the bone. Raymond knew sunless days and freezing nights. He knew poverty and hunger and hard work. Raymond knew David, and hated him. He would watch David cross the quad, always smiling, the sun shining above. Raymond would look up at the same sky and see only dark clouds. He would then spit on the ground and curse his lot.
Raymond was the janitor at David’s college, he had never wanted a higher education for himself, but was always quick to blame the kids who did. Those snotty, little good-for-nothings that befouled his halls, smeared his windows and dirtied everything he cleaned. It did not occur to him that those kids and their tuitions paid his wages, that it was his job to clean the school, to maintain it. Raymond only saw in others the opportunities he never had; opportunities, which, truth be told, he’d never wanted.
One day, Raymond saw David and decided to teach him a lesson. The pea-brained little shit had come out of the bathroom Raymond had finished cleaning not five minutes before. David and those like him could never wait for at least ten minutes before soiling his pristine and sparkling lavatory. That day, his foul mood compounded his negative outlook on life, Raymond decided enough was enough. David would have to pay.
Raymond watched David as he walked happily down the hall. He put his foot on the mopping bucket and waited for the right moment. In one swift movement Raymond pushed the bucket with a mumbled warning, and watched as David, unable to get out of the way, slipped and fell over the bucket. He fell on his arm with a crack and a painful cry. Raymond smirked while David tried to stand, his nose bleeding and cradling his arm.
People dashed to David’s aid, they helped him up and took him to the infirmary. He was later rushed to the hospital with a broken arm.
Raymond was content, the little shit would be more careful next time, the little jerk would have to watch where he was going.
Raymond’s shift ended while David listened to the doctor explain that his fractured arm would be in a cast for at least six weeks. He would be unable to play sports, and would have to rest. He would have to learn to use his free hand for all tasks that required his dominant, yet broken arm.
David smiled and shrugged; cool, he said, he would be ambidextrous now.
Raymond was on the bus ride home as David walked out of the hospital, arm in a sling, his coat draped over it. The flurries that had begun to fall while David was taken to the school’s infirmary, had now become a full, steady, blizzard. The visibility was near zero, and the bus trudged slowly through the untreated streets. The wind had picked up and Raymond thought what a helluva whiteout, as he looked out the window.
Suddenly, an empty trash can tumbled across the street and into the bus’s path. The driver slammed on the brakes and the bus skidded on black ice. The driver tried his best to control it, but the bus overturned.
It was in all the newspapers the next morning: “Local school janitor only fatality in bus accident.”
