The Cleaner

They had promised each other that if anything were to go wrong they would kill each other. A pact they made some while back. They would load the two revolvers with one bullet each, their names inscribed in the shells, scratched in the copper with the tip of a blade. Linden and LJ. They would place the barrels in each other's mouths and close their eyes, count to three like a child swallowing medicine. That would be it, their troubles vanishing in a clouded trail of lead.

The two brothers held themselves up in a side-road motel room. Stolen. Linden put two bullets in the chest of the big woman behind the counter, hopped over and snagged a key. 22-F. He ripped the rest of the keys off the hooks and they lay scattered in the woman's blood. LJ stood idle and could only watch as his brother panicked, digging the hole he put them in much deeper.

A dead man already lay in the trunk of LJ's car, the hole in his skull still dripping wet. His brains still scattered about the trunk, slow-cooking in Texas heat. LJ hated the fact that they had used his car. But what was his was also his older brother's, though held with a tighter grasp.

Sweat darkened the neck and back of Linden's white tank top. A cross hung loosely on his chest. He paced the room. His boots, bloodied and muddied, left tracks on the olive carpet.

"This is it, LJ. This is it," he kept repeating. "We're fucked! It was a set up."

LJ was always the levelheaded one. The one to fix the problems. To make sure everything went smoothly. He was the cleaner. But now, he was stiff as stone—cold and wet with blood on his hands. Blood from a man he did not kill, but his brother, and now more blood, from an innocent woman a few doors over. Another mess to clean, though these stains ran too deep to wash out.

LJ's role as the cleaner followed him his entire life. It started at home as a young boy scrubbing his Pa's vomit from the bathroom floor. Liquor was both his enemy and his friend. Sometimes he would not make it to the toilet in time and would spew his guts in the living room or on the porch. Scrubbing stains from carpet was much harder than tiles.

As he grew older, LJ took jobs working at the local bar, bussing tables at the diner, pumping gas for locals. But those all went to shit because of Linden. He always brought his problems to LJ and people didn't like Linden hanging around too often. He was trouble, and people in town didn't like trouble. So LJ got the boot everywhere he worked. Everywhere but the high school.

He held this janitorial job for some years now. Finally, LJ felt some stability in his life. Every morning he'd go into the school and mop the floors, and every night he'd empty out the garbage cans and wipe away any evidence of life from those classrooms. Every day started fresh for those kids, and it was all thanks to him. No overflowing bins, no food stains on the cafeteria floor, no crumbs or dust bunnies or shit-stained toilet seats. LJ took pride in his job so he didn't mind the messes.

Once in a while on a weekend he would get to polish the floors. This was LJ's favorite job. The machine was heavy and burly but he was strong enough to handle it. It reminded him of wrangling a bull. Without the proper strength and handling the machine could take control, but he would never let that happen. He'd smooth the polish over in circular motions, as if he and the machine were dancing across the hallways. Section by section they'd make their way across the school, the smell of the wax so chemical, and at the end of the day all the floors would be so shiny he could see his reflection and would smile, for he had done a good job.

"We gotta do it, LJ," Linden said. His voice was raspy. The chestnut curls of his beard were speckled with ash. Patches of grey aged him. If each wrinkle in his forehead, in the corners of his eyes and mouth, were to be unraveled, they'd spill secrets too sinful to speak. "We ain't makin' it out of here. This is it."

LJ never thought they'd ever have to follow through with the pact. The two had always gotten into trouble, but never like this. Never this bad. The thought always lingered in his head, itching somewhere, but he pushed it back to try and forget about it. He had convinced himself it would never come to this. There were so many other possibilities. Linden would stay out of trouble. LJ would stop helping him. He'd make his own decisions next time. It was always next time. Until next time became this time, and it was too late to turn back.

"Linden," LJ said, but his brother continued to pace: around the bed, in the bathroom that stunk of shit, back to the window, peering through the sliver of stained curtain. He wanted to calm his brother down, to try and get him to think rationally, but panic caused Linden to act irrationally, which is why two people were dead at his hands. Which is why they wound up dead-ended in a motel room with nothing but a suicide pact. Linden was stiff with rage and adrenaline and there was no bringing him back from that.

"Hey!" LJ said, grabbing his brother's arm slick with sweat. Linden pulled back quick with force, slipping from LJ's grip like an oiled rod.

"Don't touch me, boy!" he spat and turned.

"Boy?" LJ said. Here, Linden reminded him of his Pa, a mean man who worked hard but hit harder. He could still feel the strike of his Pa's knuckles on his skull. A bloodied doorframe remains unwashed in his home, something LJ must have missed. Linden was a head taller than his younger brother and much stronger. Much stronger and much more violent. He reminded him of his Pa, but he'd never say that.

"I ain't your boy and I ain't fixin' no more of your shit. Look what you got us into! How'm I supposed to fix this? You're lucky I don't just walk out the damn door and leave yer ass here."

Linden was fast. He grabbed LJ's shirt with his hairy hand, big like a mitt, pulling some chest hairs with him and slamming him against the door, his head bouncing off the wood, the ringing of a whistle in his ears.

"You gon' leave me, boy? That what you just said?" Linden's breath smelled of rot and his underarms of onions. His eyes were blue and cold as glass, just like their Pa's. The top of his lip was speckled with beads of sweat. His eyebrows, thick and dark like cattails, furled over, meeting in the middle of his brow. A scar bisected the right one.

"My own brother turnin' on me, now? After all we been through I know you ain't talkin' 'bout leavin', 'cause then that'd mean I couldn't trust you. And if I can't trust my own brother then I'd have to kill 'im. And that'd mean I'd break my promise, and I don't break my promises." Linden pushed his knee slowly into LJ's groin and grabbed tighter at his shirt. He had a loose screw somewhere, that brother of his. He was a frightening man, but this was the first time LJ was afraid for himself and not for someone else.

"You ain't breakin' yer promise now, are you?" Linden said in almost a whisper. The rasp of his voice was a lull rather than a scratch.

"No. I don't break my promises."

"Yer right. You don't break promises. 'Specially ones with your brother." It was true. LJ never broke his promises. He sacrificed it all for his brother. Lost jobs because of him, got beat because of him, bore scars because of him. Besides his Ma, Linden was the only person he had. He didn't know any better—never saw anything better for himself. He had his hopes, but no way to reach them.

The room was hot with little air, even with the sun finally beginning to set. Linden loosened his grip and turned back around. He rummaged through side table drawers, sifting through used condoms, lost socks, and fast food burger wrappers stuck with mold.

"The hell're you doin'?" LJ asked. Linden didn't speak. He pulled out a wrapper and a pen, knelt down on the side of the bed as if in prayer, and started scribbling something through the greased paper. LJ couldn't make out any of the words. He had a hard time reading just as much as his brother did writing. He wasn't dumb or nothing, he just read a bit slow. Took him some time to process all the letters.

"It's for Ma," Linden said. "I know them fucking cops are gonna find us dead sooner or later and I ain't want Ma to think they was the ones who did it." The scrawls came out mangled, chewed up and spit back out like chaw.

The brothers took good care of their Ma, but most times the good came from bad. Linden would come late home with bills, hundreds of them, fresh and flat and tucked together nice in paper bands. He'd leave a few smaller bills on the kitchen table and tell their Ma he'd put the rest of the money in a box of cereal in the pantry. Every few days there was a new brand. Lucky Charms, Life, Raisin Bran, Golden Grahams. He'd say: "If anythin're to happen to us, you use that money. It'll take care of you for the rest of yer life." Then he'd kiss her on her cheek while she sat, silent, rocking back and forth in her old chair, then leave the house again. LJ had counted the money once, quickly and just from one box. It was a lot, somewhere in the thousands, but he was never really too good at counting.

LJ knew Linden wasn't doing the right thing. Most times LJ pretended he didn't know the trouble his brother got into. But sometimes, like this time, he had to help him. Pick him up somewhere out in the desert in the middle of the night, his shirt slick with a pool of blood so dark he could see his reflection in it. Linden would count money in the passenger seat, but only after wiping his hands clean, as not to dirty the bills. There was never a body LJ could see, but sometimes on the news he'd hear of the police finding one out near the pickup spot. Only sometimes.

This time was different. It wasn't past midnight and he didn't pick Linden up somewhere discrete. He was at a house. A man's house. A man whom LJ had only seen in passing when Linden needed a ride. He'd always said: "Don't be lookin' at him when you pull up. Park on the side of the road I'll walk the rest. You'll see 'im but don't look at 'im." Sometimes LJ would look, for just a second. Lord forbid anything happened to his brother he would know who to look for.

Now, he got to look at this man for a long while. Carrying his limp body to the back of his trunk. His eyes were very blue. Linden had said, "The cops're gonna be on us quick. Drive until I tell you to stop." LJ knew he was driving somewhere they would never leave.

LJ didn't know what his brother was writing to his Ma, but he sure was taking a long time and that got him worked up. It was hard to swallow, like he was sucking on tar. His toe tapped on the carpet—a muffled thump and patter. He thought he heard sirens somewhere too far to see.

"Hell, let me write! You're taking too damn long." LJ tried to grab the pen from his brother.

"I can do it!"

"You barely got three words out. Hurry it up, now!"

"I can't concentrate with you breathin' down my neck!" Linden shoved LJ away, but he reached for the pen and wrapper again. "I said I got it!"

"You always say that and look where it's got us. I'm the one who keeps cleanin' up after your shit. Well, I ain't doin' it anymore and you ain't good at writin', so let me write the damn note to Ma."

Linden stared then stood from the bed, throwing the pen down. LJ opened up the side table drawer and grabbed the tiny bible and ripped out a blank page from the back. Linden shot him a disapproving look. He leaned on the table and wrote. He wrote quick and neat. A final goodbye note to his Ma explaining what had happened. The two brothers had gone in a hole too deep and could not get out. They'd be gone soon, but they would not be scared and they would not be hurting. They loved her so very much and did not want her to weep. God would take care of her now. They tried their best and wished they could have done better. She would not have to worry any longer. Don't forget to eat your cereal.

This is what LJ wrote.

He folded the holy paper and handed it to Linden.

"Naw," he said. "You keep it. Ma wouldn't believe I wrote it anyways." LJ slipped the note into the back pocket of his jeans and Linden pulled out his switchblade. "Gimme yer hand," he said.

LJ stuck out his sweaty hand and Linden grabbed it fast and flipped it palm up. With one quick swipe a strip of crimson appeared and dribbled down his wrist. The blade stung as it hit flesh. Linden turned the knife on his own hand, slowly as he dug.

Linden took out his revolver and LJ followed. In his back pocket LJ kept the carved bullet with his name on it, as did his brother with his own. They each coated the casing in their blood and swapped bullets, loading their guns. LJ couldn't help but tremble, though he tried to hide it from his older brother.

Sirens were blaring closer.

"Don't be scared," Linden said.

"I ain't," LJ lied. It was tough not to be scared even a little. Death is scary when you come face to face with him.

"C'mon now. Don't let yer last words be lyin' ones."

LJ had convinced himself he wasn't scared of dying many times before. When his brother drove too fast on the freeway, when his brother got too loud at a bar and reached for his gun, when his brother shot and killed a man who was now gathering flies in the back of his trunk. LJ wasn't allowed to be afraid of death. Not when his brother was going to be the one to bring it to him, and he back unto him.

No. He was not afraid. In fact, he felt good. Good that he had done all he could to keep he and Linden safe. Good that his Ma wouldn't have to worry about them anymore. Good that he wouldn't have to clean up any more messes. This was good, this pact.

LJ focused on his bleeding hand. It stung to grab the gun. What were his last words going to be? A prayer? A message to God? An apology? He felt the letter in his pocket grow heavy like lead. He was a bit woozy. "I love you, baby brother." Linden pulled the gun on his brother and, for a fraction of a second, LJ thought he was going to shoot. His last moments he believed his own brother was going to shoot him dead. What a wicked thought.

Linden waited for LJ to return the words.

"I love you, too." Linden put his sweaty forehead against his brother's and held it there for just a moment. LJ closed his eyes and reveled in it. A tightness in his chest curled up like rot.

"On three," Linden said, grabbing the cross chain with his fist. They both wrapped their mouths around the barrels. It tasted of metal and sin. Something burnt. Bitter.

"One," Linden said, muffled. It sounded more like Un. LJ tried to be still. He caught himself sticking his tongue in the barrel. He could taste his own blood.

"Two," he said, which was unintelligible. LJ's heartbeat spiked, rumbling too fast for his chest to handle. His heart wanted to jump out. He stopped his toe from tapping. He tried to control his breathing. He thought hard about his last thoughts. He only had a second left, maybe even half a second. He thought of the Lord and His touch. Then:

"Thr—"

A bang too loud. Hollow, the crack, like a whip in a vacuum—the sound barrier shattering or just his eardrums. A tinny ring then the bark of a dog somewhere. The sound came and went and Linden dropped to the floor. LJ stood above him, trembling. Smoke still fresh, leaving the gun like dragon's breath.

What happened? Did he pull the trigger too soon? Was he supposed to wait 'til three was finished? Did Linden never shoot? What went wrong?

These were his thoughts. It smelled of fire and iron. The setting sun washed the room in amber. Linden's body lay like a fish washed ashore in its own blood, pooling faster and darker underneath him. His brother's brain matter clogged LJ's nostrils, his blood dripped from his hair. The rest of it painted the beige walls behind him.

He stood still. Still as stone. The sirens drew closer. Dirt blew in from under the door, sticking to Linden's blood like gold dust, and LJ wondered who was going to clean all this up.