Heaven, INC: Chapter 5: YOU MISSED A SPOT

Money, so they say, is the root of all evil today.
But if you ever ask for a raise
it’s no surprise that they’re giving none away.
—Money,

PINK FLOYD

622 NAUTILUS AVENUE,
LA JOLLA
7:32 AM PDT

FIRST THING the woman with the pearls said?

“You people never cease to amaze me. What’s the problem, you’re afraid to work?”

“Ma’am,” Owen said, “we’re only two minutes late.”

“So we’re in Mexico now and we just show up whenever we please?”

“We had a problem back at the shop,” Jimmy said. He peered over the woman’s shoulder at a broad living room with a wide picture-window that overlooked the bluffs of La Jolla and the Pacific down below. “Beautiful house, ma’am. Really very, very nice.”

The woman raised a hand. “Let’s stop talking and let’s start cleaning, shall we? Now, I want you to move all the furniture: I’m paying for the whole house and I want the whole house cleaned— Oh, no, that simply will not do. Oh, no, no, no, no, no. My god, what is wrong with you people?” She glared at Jimmy’s sneakers. “You cannot enter my house without booties! I specifically told that Richard or Ramsey or whomever that you would wear booties in my house, where are your booties?”

Which is how Jimmy and Owen ended up securing their feet with plastic shopping bags and rubber-bands at the ankles before moving 6,000 square feet of expensive— and hence very heavy furniture— slipping around in the shopping-bag booties while being hectored with constant advice like: “Are you crazy? I told you that fabric is delicate. You nearly brushed the arm and that’s genuine Italian calfskin . . . Oh my god . . . Oh my god, would you watch it! My god, you nearly smashed a genuine Louis the 14th!” Which was pure crap, since the Louie cleared the wall by a good inch due to Owen’s sacrificing himself to a blood-drawing scrape across the back of the hand after which he was told to wear a shopping baggy ‘glove’ so he wouldn’t bleed on the carpet, and informed, when asking for a Band-aid that, “band-aids are for guests. You should have thought ahead, mister, and brought your own.”

During the actual carpet-cleaning portion of the job, the woman— pictures of her with famous people adorned the walls— the woman skipped between riding Jimmy on the upper floor to busting Owen’s balls on the lower.

In addition to telling them how to do their jobs, she made philosophical observations, like,

“Why is it you people refuse to do honest, quality work? Surely it’s because of people like you the Japanese are beating American car companies, because unions protect people like you who have no pride of workmanship . . .”

Seriously. Just a long steady drone.

“ . . . all these people looking for another handout, another giveaway, another government freebie while I work my butt off to make something to make people money and security— No, goddamnit, no, no, no, no, no, you missed a spot . . . Do you see? This is what I am talking about, this, the American workforce, lazy, no-good screw ups . . .”

This diatriby personal stuff you’d never say to any other stranger, but to you a carpet cleaner, everything was fair game. Jimmy being an ex-con on parole, it was just perfect.

“ . . . people like their hair and their tattoos and their insolent attitudes . . .” and for a moment, she got the predatory look of pure cougar “. . . living on government handouts as the state keeps taking more taxes from me— You missed another spot . . . No, right there, don’t argue with me, I know a spot when I see it . . . White, do you hear me, your boss told me it would be as white as the day I got it . . . Rodney or Raymond or . . .”

Roscoe, back at the office, merrily munching away at his Cheetos while playing Magic with Coolidge and a couple of his carpet minions all while no-doubt making promises to customers that guys in the field to no doubt turn water into wine.

“ . . . and you can’t get the job done, then I will hire another company and see that you are fired. Frankly, I’d be doing you a favor since maybe then you’d be forced to re-examine your life and appreciate the chance to earn an honest day’s pay in the greatest country on Earth, I swear, some people have no idea how good they have it— You missed a spot . . .”