The Maintenance Man

Fat, bald, and wheezing. That’s how she imagined him to be. She lived on the third floor of her apartment building, and the man was going to have to walk up the stairs to get there. There was no elevator; this wasn’t a high-rise. Nonetheless, three flights is a lot of climbing for an overweight, middle-aged smoker. It’s especially taxing if he’s carrying tools.

He’ll knock on the door, but not until he leans on his knees in an attempt to catch his breath. She will have heard him coming, and she’ll look through the peep hole to see the reflection of the door in his shiny dome. She’ll think that’s a funny occurrence, to look through the glass only to see the other side from the other direction. He’ll lean up to reveal big, rounded glasses with a metal rim, the kind no one has purchased in fifteen years.

His round face will be flushed still when he finally knocks. She’ll wait a few seconds to make it seem as though she wasn’t standing there watching. Smiling, she’ll open the door and greet him, remembering suddenly that it smells bad in there from when the toilet overflowed. His face will scrunch up suddenly, and his wheezing will get worse. “I have allergies,” he’ll say. “I bet smoking doesn’t help,” she’ll say tasting the cigarettes almost as he coughs up the remnants of his last. His blue shirt will say Hal on the white oval stitched to the chest.

She’ll introduce herself and ask if she can get him anything to eat or drink. He’ll decline, and she’ll think about how no maintenance people ever accept the offer. The bathroom will be open, and he’ll walk up to it, stopping when he squishes brown water from the carpet in front of the door.

She jumped when she heard him banging on the door. She peered through the hole, but she couldn’t see anything. She opened the door to reveal the man was putting out his cigarette beside the stairwell. He was young, late-twenties probably, but he had hard creases in the skin around his eyes, which she noticed as he brushed his hair to the side.

“Whew! I can smell what happened in here.” She reddened a little; no man had ever smelled the remnants of her trip to the toilet. To deflect the topic, she offered him something to eat. He looked at her in near disbelief with his hand to his nose. “Uh, no thanks, I just had a couple twinkies.” She looked down at the floor. Slowly a smile crept its way across her face. She looked up to see his shirt, which made her laugh. “What?” he asked. “Oh, it’s nothing. Sometimes, Hal, I just think I can see the future.”