The Window Washer and the Girl

Melissa Wong

The train rocked and cradled its passengers, jostled and hiccupped down the end of the Bay Area peninsula, away from the rolling hills of San Francisco. The click of the wheels against the rails made a hypnotic rhythm for them and only a select few had not given in. The others were leaning up against the partially fogged windows. It was rush hour for San Francisco Transit, which meant most passengers would be demoted to the floor of the bicycle car. Pacey sat and leaned against her bike, while she cradled her belongings. She put on her headphones, ready to melt into a book to the sounds of white noise, only to find that the batteries of her CD player had died. She took off her headphones and tossed them in her work bag. She fixed her gaze on the page in her book. She kept reading the same line over and over, “He was a tall but stoutish young man. He was a tall but stoutish young man. He was a tall but stoutish young man. He was a tall but stoutish…” Giving up hope of ever finding any other characteristic about this young man, she decided to check her cell phone, in hopes of finding a comforting message from one of the three friends she regularly hangs out with. Her inbox had no new messages and the last one seemed to be from the morning, and it was from her mother. She refused to keep looking at the moving cell phone screen. Pacey threw her eyes up to regain steadiness of her surroundings. The mesmerizing hum of the bike car and stale air made her feel nauseous. She then resorted to simply cradling her head hoping to ease the migraine which had manifested after pouring over pages and pages of research on the internet.

“Why so sad?” asked an elderly gentleman across the aisle in the same cross-legged position as her.

She made a quick glance to make sure it was that very elderly gentleman talking even though the bike train was slowly starting to filter its passengers after each stop. She blushed, “Sorry, I didn’t realize I looked so…I was just staring.” He made an attempt to get up but was slightly rocked when the train slowed, creating an inertia which pulled him forward. He stumbled forward and landed on the part of her bike that was sticking out of the aisle. Once he regained his balance he looked down at his pants to find a grease stain from her bike, making its claim. He feigned a smile at the bike chain. “I’m sorry,” Pacey said remorsefully. She then looked down at her cell phone to avoid any further confrontation with the elder man.

“It’s quite alright, my dear.” He gave her a sweet smile, “There are more pants where these come from.” He lowered himself down next to her. “I work as a window washer for one of those high-rises in the Financial District, so I’m used to the muck.”

She looked up out of politeness but genuinely wanted to know if it was her building. “Oh? Where at?”

“On 3rd, right off of Mission Street.” Pacey had only seen those men outside her office window but had never met any of them. She always wondered about their lives since they came so sporadically and abruptly in and out of hers. Pacey felt sorry for the man. He was older, and his job didn’t seem like it could very well provide a decent retirement plan.

“That sounds exciting,” she said, not meaning to sound sarcastic. She quickly tried to recover. “I mean, it sounds kind of dangerous hanging so high up on those lifts. Does it ever feel strange to be looking into someone’s office?”

“It does,” he hesitated, “and the funny thing is I feel sorry for them sometimes.” He paused, “I’m sorry. You don’t work in one of those buildings do you?” Pacey gave a small laugh.

“Well, I do but its nothing I take offense to.” Pacey let a few seconds roll by. “Why do you feel sorry for us?”

“It’s not that I’m pitying them, but sometimes you can just tell on their faces.”

“I still don’t follow.”

“I know they’re pretending not to see me. Sometimes I do the same. But once in a while I can’t help but notice how horribly miserable they look.” The window washer ran his fingers through his thin graying hair. “I wish they would look out at me or simply look out the window.” He paused to find exactly what he was thinking. He summed it up by saying, “Humans just…they aren’t meant to be trapped inside a building sometimes, you know?”

“Better trapped inside during the day then stuck outside at night,” she said cynically.
The elderly man gave a slow and skeptical nod, “True…but there are other ways around that. Take me for example.” He smiled.

Pacey laughed, “Well, regardless, I feel safer inside on the twenty-fifth floor than outside of the twenty-fifth floor window.”

“You kids today, I swear.” He gestured to her cell phone that was lying on her lap, “It’s like technology has taken all the imagination out of you.” She looked down at her cell phone. Seeing as Pacey worked for an internet advertising agency, she could hardly argue with that. In fact, that was half of her job—scanning the internet for websites that had potential advertising space. After running across her thirtieth internet journal about “hipsters” or “hipster paraphernalia,” all of which fed off each other’s content and search engines, she was beginning to really doubt the next revolution of creativity of her generation. He went on, “I clean windows with my hands. I know how to clean it. A machine doesn’t do it, let alone know how to, I do.”

“But it’s the machine that lowers you to that window,” she retaliated, feeling as though she had to defend her generation a little.

“Ah yes, but anyone can replace a machine if it isn’t performing up to task.”

“But anyone can ride that machine.” He raised his eyebrows at Pacey. She imagined them as window wipers in reverse.

“Are you so sure about that?” She awkwardly lowered her gaze from his. She realized that in her attempt to parley with the gentleman, she had not only proven her generation’s tendency to be hasty, but also just insulted his profession. Understanding the unintentional backhanded comment he went on. “I have been in my profession for over thirty years. I have washed over eighty-six thousand windows and have done it all with expediency and special technique that only mastery and experience could produce. Unfortunately, it’s hard for people to understand because it requires more concentration than most would give it credit for. The only people who seem to notice my job are the Building Maintenance managers. Everyone else refuses to even look out the window.”
Pacey nodded but wanted to at least try and compensate for her oversight, “What I mean is that technique is required of those who work in that building also. We’re trained for a job too, you know.”

“Well, that may be true. But how many people in your building were meant for that job? Better yet, how many people do you think desire that job? Window washing is a pretty thankless job and yet you need hours of dedication before you can call yourself a professional. Would you say that many of the workers in your building were professionals at their job?” She thought of everyone who surrounded her cubicle. She could only imagine the top of their worn and tired face. That or the top of their heads. They worked in an internet marketing and advertising agency, which wasn’t something innovative and exciting to anyone anymore. Even she was an English major and Music minor. She found her job through a friend of a friend and only took it because it involved a paycheck.

“I know what you’re thinking.” Pacey looked up. The man was offering a sincere pitying smile. She blushed. “I used to be a lot like you.” He shifted his weight in the bike car. The floor began to feel as though it were digging in to the bones of their butts. She looked at him in agreement. “I’d go to work in the morning, eat lunch at the same diner, and come home at night, wondering what I did that day. I never felt like I was working or not working. It started to feel like I was walking in the shadows of things but I was too afraid and too tired to try and do anything else.” He frowned a bit, “Life never seemed to be anything but complacency.” Pacey was ruminating over the word. Complacency. That was the exact word she felt. Complacent with her friends, with her career; she hadn’t even had a date since she graduated from college, but even that was completely dissatisfying. “I realized that staring at a computer in my office was never going to make me happy, no matter how well I did or how much of a salary I could make, it will never get any better than this.” Pacey stared at the man, but was looking past him. “So I left.” The train was stopping, which jostled Pacey making her cell phone slide out from under her. She scrambled to retrieve it for fear it would escape her life-pending attachment to the thing.

The bike car seemed to have emptied out except for Pacey and the window washer. The window washer looked up and out the window. He smiled at her. “I guess this is my stop.”

Pacey tried to mask her disappointment, “Oh, I didn’t realize. I…” She took a minute to think then looked up and smiled. “Thank you.”

He returned a sweet smile and a small salute. “Don’t forget to look out the window from time to time.” He quickly unhooked his bike, put on his helmet and jumped off the train. She waited for the doors to close and then scrambled toward the window for a final glance at the window washer before he left. He had a smile on him as he rode away. She wondered about how he had come to find his window washing position, how he had managed to make the decision to leave his job, if he had a family that supported him or did they just leave.

Pacey had four more stops before she had to get off the train at Palo Alto. She decided to get off at the next stop and ride her bike the rest of the way.