FICTION
The Cleanup by Zan Bockes
The Boss said it was an accidental overdose. At least that’s what he heard from the woman’s case manager at the mental health place, who hired Happy Home Cleaning Service and let us into the apartment. The case manager had found her the day after her death, lying on top of the bed, surrounded by empty pill bottles. That didn’t sound too accidental to us, but what difference did it make? This was a big job and we’d get lots of hours in. Maybe the Boss would buy us lunch. When we arrived the moving team of three burly, grunting men were already carrying a tattered recliner out to a pile by the dumpster. At the door to the woman’s studio apartment we were assaulted by strong odors of cigarette smoke, cat urine and a half-eaten bowl of potato salad that sat next to the kitchen sink gathering mold. We didn’t know her name, but we heard the case manager tell the Boss she had no relatives or friends to contact. We wondered, what do you do in a situation like that? The three of us on the cleaning team couldn’t imagine being so disconnected and alone, no one else to take over and deal with what was left behind. To have people like us barge in and make all the decisions about what was valuable and what wasn’t. 14
MOUNT HOPE • ISSUE 12