clean up

Harry was in the throngs of dying, but he was taking his sweet time doing it. Harry, or Bio Dad as mom called him hadn't played much of any role in my life save a chance encounter a few years ago when he called my business to scrape out the remains of a dead body at his storage company.
some old derelict had taken to living in his storage unit and funny thing, you apparently die when you're a raging alcoholic with untreated diabetes. Harry got fed up with 3 missed payments for the unit and went to bust the lock off when he caught a wall of stink radiating from the inside. did i mention these weren't airconditioned units. fuck.
smart man my old bio dad he was... knew enough to make a hasty retreat and call the cops in. few hours later the cops and medic lackies take off and there's nothing left but the residue mess.
that's just it. no one comes to clean up the gore. no one appears with a mop and some bleach. it's all on you. or it's all paid by you when i come by and take care of it.
so yeah, harry grabbed the yellow pages and luck of the draw picked my business and i came by for the preliminary assessment.
after a couple of minutes eyeball fucking my name on my business card and looking me up and down he shooed me down a row of storage units to check out the damage.
One hobo pot pie plus whatever gangrenous skin was rotting off him already. Place in sealed cube for three summer months. boosh, not good. but it gets much worse than this. this is fucking great compared to what i could be peeling off the walls with a trowel.
he had his worn polo shirt hiked up over his nose and waiving at the air. "well holy fucking jesus christ! what a fucking stink! god damn, i knew something was up. i told that old son of a bitch no living in here. ah, god damn it! stinks like rotten hooker pussy after a sales convention in Vegas."
after that flight of tourettes i should have felt it in my heart that this was indeed my father. but as it was i left it at "batshit crazy client".
"Yep the smell just sticks to everything. I'll need to basically detox this unit and try to get the stink out. oh and i'll have to work on the cement too."
tepidly leaning in as far as he could take the stench he browsed the floor to see the mutated puddle of colours and wheel marks from the meat bag gurney rolling through.
"'Suppose you charge EXTRA for that shit."
"no, it'll all be part of the quote. let me write it up and you can call somene else if you want to compare prices."
"fuck it, fuck it... come back to the office and let's get this sorted out. phraauuugh! stinking old fuck!"
he lit a cigarette en route back to the front and wagged his head back and fourth. "oh jesus. and the fucking cops. oh don't even get me started. I said 'listen i don't have fucking homing collars on all these fuckers, how'm i supposed to know where they are let alone tits up in a garage?!'"
"naw naw, just making sure you didn't murder him."
"fah, they'd have asked less questions if i had killed him. fucking horror show."
still with a smoke lit up in his fingers he walked into the office and attempted to clear a path for me to sit. tallying up some numbers quickly on paper i gave a highball estimate to see if he'd nibble. he looked like some out of luck stock broker from the 80's with the dated jeans and leather loafers but i had clocked the lexus parked outside. that's the type right there, grubby but still packed to the tits with money. might as well toss out a number and see if he'll accept.
taking in a breath to do The Spiel he cut me off and yanked the paper out of my hand.
"muhuh, muhuh... yeah that's fine. you gotta start soon though!"
"Sure! I can start right now. i have the time." sure i did, i was starving between jobs so i'd take a mop job in a jizz factory at this point.
I was a one dyke operation at that time so it's not like i had to reschedule with my secretary. i suited up in my swanky white plastic work overalls and put my respirator on top of my head. Harry came out with a new cigarette burning in his fingers and watched me tape up the wrists around rubber gloves and a quick wrap around my boots. i'm telling you, there's no way you want some biohazzard shit lolling into your shirt sleeves. it's not just for show.
"how come you didn't put this shit on when we were standing over there?!"
"i wasn't up to my tits in it so no need for the rubbers."
he seemed amused at my response and gestured towards the row in question. i don't like an audience so i let him know if he needed anything to come get me otherwise i would come in when i was done.
how does one clean up the residues of death? a healthy knowledge of chemistry and its impact on removing containment and can i be honest here? you have to be a bit of a sociopath. it doesn't bother me in the slightest to mop up after a brain-splattering suicide. virtually untouched by the gore i just start working and get caught up in the actions of what i'm doing, not what's underneath the cleaning equipment. the details of the clean up are rather unimpressive. well, not with a job like this at least. straighforward area wipe down and trying to counteract the rank smell that can only come from someone rotting for months on end and essentially exploding like a contained fleshy volcano. sorry, did that sick you out? it's just work to me. rolls right on by.
i worked hard and tried not to get irritated from the sweat pulsing around my goggles and respirator mask. you really don't want to use your hands to wipe the sweat off you know?
i managed to get the unit looking more usable and less like you know, a dude died in it. i half expected Harry to have left for the day but he was chain smoking outside talking on a cell phone when i started dragging my equipment back.
"What's the news?"
"looking good, but the smell isn't going to go away in a day. i need to come back and do another wash down before i can let you use it again. you just gotta go back and lock it up."
"good! oh shit that's great..."
he silently puffed away while i packed up and kept clearing his throat.
"that's it for me today. i'd shake your hand but, if you don't mind i better get sanitizer on it first."
"no nooo problem. thanks...." he looked worried all of a sudden. dealing with these types of clean ups i'm remarkably sensitive for a sociopath. er, i think it's more because i'm a narcissist and i think that my soothing words can heal the most traumatized of customers.
"are you ok? it's honestly a lot to deal with."
"ahh... well no, but... so your last name is Stuz right?"
oh yeah i get it. i look more Asian than German. and people have such a hard-on to figure out what mutts are made of.
"it's just i knew someone called that. Marta?"
"that's my mother yeah..." sinking in my gut. all my mom would say about my father was he was a dick, she was glad to have gotten me out of the deal and he was Chinese. no, don't be stupid.
"ah. i see."
longer pause this time. fuck. no. no? no!
"don't. don't even... man."
"honest, i didn't call you here just because of that!! luck of the draw on the yellow pages and then i saw your name on the business card. oh, shit."
"okay, well for one, if you happened to have fucked a Marta Stuz 28 years ago then hello father. two, i don't do family rates so you're not getting a discount."
"ha! fuck, you have to be mine!"
it's hard not to feel a little twinge of discomfort when hearing that. i'm not YOURS! i'm Marta's and the byproduct of being a scary loner raised by books and the comic book store.
"no, that's fucking rude. i'm sorry, i don't know how to take this."
"you don't have to take anything. i'm not going to shake you down for money beyond this invoice."
"just, i just thought that i would be a little more, you know, heroic or say something intelligent."
"there's no one line that's going to smooth over 28 years of not knowing me. to be fair mom didn't really want you in her life anyway, so win-win-win."
"can we get a coffee or something?"
"no. no i don't like mixing business with my personal life. you understand, right?"
he looked shot down but nodded in agreement.
"ya hafta come back anyways so pop into my office for a bit will you?"
"deal." i quickly drove off feeling stunned but wanting to get as far away as possible.

/hrm, let's see if i'm motivate to write more later