The Simpleton
By: Garland Grey
The old man stood in front of the convenience store in the glow of the neon sign. He was waiting for the bus. He had a dollar in his shirt pocket and every few minutes he would check to make certain it was still there. He had anxieties that it might blow away and he would have to walk to work. All around him the twilight was receding, and there was a light breeze. The old man stood at the edge of the busy road, watching. Once he spotted the green stripe along the side of the municipal bus he took his dollar out, and waved it above his head.
The bus came to a stop and the door opened, hissing pneumatic in the dusk. In the winter his joints would sometimes turn to cement and they would have to wait for him to regain movement. But it was summer, and he was feeling abnormally sprightly.
"Hello Shirley." The old man said, climbing into the bus.
"Hey, Theo." The bus driver gave him a smile.
The old man sat in his regular seat. As the bus traveled toward the Mill the buildings became further and further apart. Houses became factories, plants, and paper mills. Through the dirty window he spied shift change over at Scatelli's Vegetable Co.; men in soiled shirts were streaming out, carrying heavy coats and talking. The landscape was not new; in a decade it had change very little. But the way it fit together was fresh each time. If he thought about an individual landmark, a factory or plastics plant, say, he could conjure up a rudimentary mental image. But try as he might, he could never understand how they fit together. It was puzzling.
He glanced around the bus. It was small; only seating twelve people. The rest of the passengers were women, black women, that worked in textiles. He smiled at them if they looked over, and a few smiled back. His was the last stop.
"Now, Miss Shirley, you have a good night." He said, standing at the door.
"You too, Theo. Don't work too hard." She said, closing the door.
The old man would arrive each night before the shift change. While the rest of the men worked at loud, repetitious machines, the old man was in charge of maintenance.
The first person to arrive was Bradley, who was young, and eager to please. He had apprenticed with the old man for two weeks, before being moved to the floor. The old man needed an assistant. He would be retiring soon.
He walked to the back, and put his things in his locker. His lunch pack, his key ring with three keys, an old leather wallet his nephew had given him, and his coat. He opened up the janitor's closet, pulled out a dust broom, and began to sweep. His thoughts strayed to the recent past, and the immediate future, but seldom further than that. He had been born in North Carolina, and had been fortunate not to have been put in a home.
"At least you aren't like that Thompson boy, Ezekiel. They took one look at him and shipped him off to the state hospital." His grandmother would say. This struck him as unfair, because Ezekiel Thompson had been had been a mongoloid, and couldn't even dress himself. The old man could dress himself, fix his own meals and buy his own food. He could do everything that they asked him to at the Mill.
When he finished sweeping he made his way across the machine floor. When he had first started working at the Mill the floor had scared him. The machines were like large metal insects; pumping, unfolding, rattling, and steaming. He had been warned repeatedly that there wasn't a single one that couldn't kill or maim him.
"Hey retard, you want to take over for me?" Phil, one of the guys on the line had yelled his first day. He tried to ignore him.
"Come on, retard, just stand here and push the button." Phil gestured at a large button on the console. "I gotta take a leak."
Some of the men stopped what they were doing to see what was going on. They were nudging the others, inviting them to watch the show.
"I'm not supposed to touch any-"
"Bullshit. I'm just asking you to take over for me for five minute while I go see a man about a horse-"
"More like a Chihuahua!" One of the mill workers shouted. The men laughed.
"Shut up, Barney." He cupped his hands around his mouth. "Your old lady likes the horse." The man vaguely understood what they were getting at with their bragging. After more cajoling, the man was persuaded to push the button.
The contraption roared to life and a high, screeching sound emitted from its gears. He had done something wrong.
"Oh my god, retard, what did you do?" His tormentor said, hitting the shutoff button. The man stood there, petrified. He was going to lose this job, and have to work at goodwill with the other idiots, sorting clothes for the rest of his life.
The men saw the look of horror on his face, and started laughing. It had been a joke, one of many that first month. But after nearly a decade of working at the Mill the men had become used to him. They still made jokes that he didn't understand, and had once put a dead rat in his mop bucket, but they also deferred to him on certain things. They came to him when they need a baseball statistic or to settle an argument on the game. Baseball was the only reason he watched television.
These days, the line held no more nightmares for him. The men greeted him, and moved out of his way when necessary. If they got a little out of hand Buzz would send the old man back to the equipment room to reorganize it, and the men would have to clean up after themselves. Buzz was the foreman of the night crew, a tall, stocky man who had everyone's loyalty. He made it his business to nip these things in the bud before they escalated into a fist fight or an accident.
That night, the old man was cleaning the break room when Buzz walked in with a stranger. The old man was scraping dried cheese from inside of the microwave, and didn't see them come in.
"Theo, I want you to meet Danny." The old man turned from his work and put down his rag.
"Nice to meet you." The old man said, wiping his hand on his pants and pushing it out for the young man to take. He was in his late twenties, dressed in jeans, a white t-shirt, and sneakers. He looked slightly afraid.
"Danny is going to be your new assistant." Buzz said. "Now Danny, learn everything you can from this man. He knows the whole Mill inside and out, and he can show you the ropes."
"Show me the ropes?" Danny looked perplexed.
"Teach you, Danny, he can teach you."
Buzz sent the young man out into the hall on some pretext, and then took the old man aside.
"Theo, this kid is a little... slow. I want you to make sure the other guys don't mess with him too much, sorta protect him."
"I can do that, yeah." The old man said. He took pleasure in being given this responsibility.
"I knew you could. Just teach him everything you do, and he should be fine."
When he left the break room, Buzz sent the young man back in.
"What do I do?" Danny said, slowly, as if he was confused by his own question.
"Washrags are under the sink, wipe down the table, and I'll get the broom."
The young man stood there for a second, while the old man picked at a petrified jalapeņo slice stuck in the back of the microwave. Danny looked at his hands, at his feet, then at the clock. Then he began to work.
Two weeks in, Danny had an episode. The old man had been teaching him what to do, but it had been slow going. Danny frequently became confused by the work, needed things explained to him several times, and would sometimes wander off in the middle of a task. That night, the cooling system needed to be worked on.
Danny couldn't handle heights, so his job was to hold the ladder steady while the old man climbed up to change the air filters. Two of the five filters had been replaced when the old man heard Danny began making grunting sounds on the ground below. Danny was becoming uncomfortable.
The grill on each duct had to be unscrewed with a screwdriver and wedged in between the wall and the ladder. The old man would pull the old filter out, and let it sail to the floor. The new filter would slide into place and the grill was reattached. The third duct's grill had been screwed in too tight and the old man had to shake it to loosen the screws. He did this with one hand, cupping the other under the screw, lest it fall to the floor. As he shook the grill, Danny became upset, thinking the old man was going to fall. When the old man he was putting the grill against the wall, it almost slipped, and he leaned over quickly to catch it. He wasn't in any real danger; he knew how to keep his balance on the ladder. But Danny couldn't take it anymore. He started grunting loudly and hitting the side of his head.
"Uhhhh uhhh uhhh." Danny shouted. The old man put the screwdriver aside, and climbed down the ladder.
"Danny. Danny. Danny! It's okay, I'm not going to fall." The rest of the men were watching, some of them sniggering. The old man shot them a look.
The old man decided to finish the job without him. As he and Danny were crossing the floor to the back room Jerry leaned over to comment.
"Having trouble with the retard, Theo?" Jerry asked. The old man looked at Danny, who was staring at the floor. The old man flashed.
"You just shut up, you jerk!" He shouted. He wasn't the type of man to curse.
The rest of the men were taken aback. The old man rarely got angry, and never shouted.
"Might want to muzzle him if he goes crazy again." Bill said. The old man ignored him, and pushed on. After lunch, Buzz called him into his office.
"Heard your boy had a bit of a problem today." He said, leaning back in his chair. He didn't like having these conversations, but they were necessary.
"No, no, nothing like that. He just got a little frazzled."
"The guys say he started a fight with Jerry." Buzz said.
"No, Jerry was teasing him, and I told Jerry to... to shove it!" He said with conviction.
Buzz look across at the old man with interest. "Look, Theo, if we need to let the boy go, tell me now. We need someone to do your job when you retire, and if he isn't going to be ready to go it alone, we gotta find someone else."
The old man thought about this. He didn't know either way. But he had to say something.
"He'll be ready. He'll be ready as pie."
Buzz smiled at the old man's odd expression. "Ok, that's all I needed to know."
Later, when they were preparing to leave for the evening, the old man and the young man stood out front. The young man got picked up by the same blue sedan every morning; the man waited for the bus.
The old man looked out at the light of dawn, at the field surrounding the plant, and sky behind. He was trying to work up the nerve to open his mouth. He wanted to protect the young man, because he knew what it was like to have everyone talking about you like you weren't even there.
"Danny..." He said. Danny turned to him, but looked at the ground.
"You have to be better." He said, almost in a whisper.
"Better?" He said, like a child.
"Better, faster, brighter. Or they won't let you stay." The old man handed him a miniature steno pad, one that would fit in his pocket. Danny took it, and looked the old man in the eyes. For an instant, the old man saw a flash of recognition, of connection. Then the young man's eyes dimmed, and he looked simple again.
"You write down the things I say to you on this. I know you can read, and I know you can write. This thing will be your remember." He had recalled that term, remember, from his grandmother. She trained him to leave clues for himself all over, and each clue was called a remember.
In his apartment, there were tabs on all the cabinets, labels on all the drawers. It was full of remembers.
Danny furrowed his brow, and nodded. He looked scared.
"I'll be better."
Danny began to improve steadily, and became accustomed to his routine. The men stayed away from him, because they respected the old man, but they still laughed when he made mistakes.
The old man spent his weekdays working with Danny. On weekends, the bus took him to the college campus in town. He would walk around in the late afternoon, enjoying the solitude. Students were beginning to come back; in a week he would have to forego these visits. He didn't like crowds.
Occasionally, he would walk into the student center and insinuate himself into an event. Over the summer, the University would host guest lectures, or movies, or art openings. Shuffling through the crowd, he could be an alumnus, a professor, a friend of the artist. He was careful to avoid conversation, because the people used ludicrous words and acted strangely. But also, he found them very transparent.
He was never able to understand the content of their speech, but the underlying emotion rang out to him, loud and clear. Listening to a very well-spoken man once, he was struck first by his large vocabulary and smooth, even timbre. But underneath all of it, he could hear the ringing of a deep sorrow. It seemed he was only one who could hear it.
So he dawdled along the edges, drinking the punch, and eating hors d'oeuvres. He'd sit in the crowd of a large lecture, and think about how he might look. Not like a fool at all, but like a learned man, someone who knew things. He spent most of the time focused on this, rarely hearing what was being said.
When he arrived on Monday, Buzz led him back to the offices. He closed the door, and the loud roar of the machines was muffled.
"Danny showed up last night, for work. I told him he was off last night, but he couldn't get in touch with his ride, so I let him clock in."
The old man braced himself. This wouldn't be good.
"The guys started razzing him pretty good, since you weren't here, but it wasn't anything major. Then I get back from the can, and Jerry's wanting to wail on him, and the kid's sitting on the floor, and crying."
"What happened?"
"No idea. Danny can't tell me, Jerry won't tell me, and the rest of the guys are playing blind and deaf. Like they miss any goddamn thing that goes down on that floor."
And that was the end of Danny.
"I had to let him go. He wasn't working out. I know, I know, you spent a lot of time with him, but if he's just going to be a walking target for the men... I can't have it."
The old man was angry, and tired. His one friend at the Mill was gone, the one person who came close to understanding him. He spent the rest of the week not talking to anyone, not acknowledging their greetings. He swallowed his hate, and ignored the rest. But curiosity won out and when he found a moment with Bradley, just the two of them, he took the opportunity.
"Bradley. Bradley!" The old man yelled, over the roar of the machines. They were both standing in the hallway; Bradley had just exited the bathroom, drying his hands on his jeans.
"What, Theo?" He said, looking annoyed. But he knew what.
"What happened?" The old man asked.
"I don't know." Bradley said, not looking him in the eyes.
"Everyone knows! Everyone knows but me. The one who should know." The old man dropped his broom in disgust.
"Look, all I saw was Jerry making fun of Danny, calling him a retard and stuff. Then he grabbed that little notebook you gave him, from his back pocket. I stopped watching for a minute, and when I looked, Jerry was about to tear him a new asshole."
"What?"
"It was something he wrote in that pad, but nobody is talking about it." Bradley leaned against the wall for a second, then looked like he had more to say. Instead, he left.
"Gotta get back to work." He said, over his shoulder. The old man didn't hear him.
That is how it was, for most of that season. The men trying to be conciliatory, the old man ignoring them. All he could think about was what they had taken from him.
He spent his weekends at home, until one weekend, when he went back to campus. It was after Halloween, and it was starting to get cold. He wandered around the grounds, looking at the buildings and the few students scattered around in the dusk light. He walked to the Student Center, and made his way into the lecture hall.
On his way in, a young woman handed him a program. The title of the lecture was "The Simpleton and the Fool". He waited in the audience, holding the program, and feeling calm.
After the introduction the old man heard a familiar voice. It was coming from the speaker embedded in the wall by his seat.
On stage, was Danny.
"Hello, ladies and gentleman, I am Daniel Vresny, a graduate student in Sociology here at ----- ----- University. I have come to present my thesis on Industrial Climates for Lower IQ individuals, which I have entitled simply: "The Simpleton and the Fool." The fool refers to myself, during my five weeks working minimum wage as part of the maintenance staff of a local mill. The simpleton refers to-"
Him. He listened in disbelief. Daniel went on to describe the old man in great detail, his foibles and habits. He had been watching the old man intently, making notes, recording his speech patterns. And when the man came to the end of his story, the part about the note pad, it became clear.
They had all known. Everyone. Jerry, Buzz, Bradley, all of them. They knew he had been made a fool of. The old man got out of his seat, and walked out of the auditorium. He felt like he needed to cry. He rode the bus home in silence.
When he got home, he laid down in bed with all of his clothes on, and didn't lock his door. As he tried to sleep, he tried to focus on the whole story, of Danny, and the pad, and the lecture, but he couldn't see how they fit together. Each piece was like the buildings he saw every day, clear but unattached to anything else.
He considered taking something, like his mother had, so he wouldn't wake up. But he rejected the idea. Or rather, it floated away in the current of his mind, receding until he couldn't remember what he had decided to do.
Finally, he fell asleep. He would think about it in the morning.
This short story was completed as a requirement for English 235: Introduction to Creative Writing.