Dirty Little Secrets - C. J. Omololu [36]
Just then the phone rang, and he ran to get it. I could tell it was a girl by the way his voice got softer and he stretched the cord as far into the dining room as it would go.
I picked the last dish up out of the sink. It was the pink “World’s Greatest Mom” mug that she always used for her morning coffee. I stabbed at it with the sponge and tossed it into the drainer without even rinsing it. Maybe I’d get lucky and she’d be right about the germs.
Now, so many years later, I stared at the pink mug in my hand like it was an artifact from a previous civilization. As I threw the mug into the garbage bag with as much force as I could, it was satisfying to hear it break into little pieces.
chapter 9
4:00 p.m.
The smell in the kitchen was giving me a headache, so I decided to take a break from the worst of the mess and go back to the living room. I’d been digging for a while when the shovel hit something at the bottom of one pile that felt solid, not like the papers and clothes that were everywhere else. I leaned against the handle of the shovel and tried to figure out why I couldn’t pick up whatever was on the bottom of this pile. It just looked like newspapers and maybe a couple of bags of something else. A McDonald’s bag was lying near it, and when I picked it up, the top half tore off of the soggy bottom. The bag must have had food in it when it was set down here however long ago, because whatever it was had liquefied and seeped into the layers of newspaper down below, providing a home and nourishment to a colony of rice-sized maggots. I scrunched up my nose and tossed the remains of the bag into the big green can.
With the shovel, I felt around the edges of the soggy, maggot-infested papers. I put the blade on the very bottom of the pile and tried to lift it, but the pile had been in this spot for so long that the papers were stuck to the carpet. I tried again about halfway up the pile and, with a ripping sound, managed to separate part of it off from the bottom. As it ripped away from the base, the pile of papers flipped into the air, and several of the maggots were flung off the papers and into my face like a larval rain shower.
Raking my fingers through my hair to make sure none landed on me, I felt something cold and wet inside my shirt. I quickly shook it out and watched as one lone maggot landed on the ground, still moving. I ground the disgusting thing into the remains of the carpet with my shoe until it was just a pasty, wet smear.
Spitting and gagging, I ran into my bathroom and went straight to the sink. After splashing cold water over my face and peering intently into the mirror, I was sure with the reasonable part of my brain that there weren’t any more maggots on me, but the unreasonable part felt like they were crawling through my scalp and down my neck.
I had come into this part of the job completely unprepared. Tearing off my shirt, I dug around in my drawer for an old turtleneck. There was a bandanna in my sock drawer from when we had Wild West Days at school, so I took it out and tied it around my head to protect my hair from whatever else I was going to find as I cleaned.
Armed with the neck of the shirt pulled up over my mouth, I walked back to the living room. Taking a deep breath, I grabbed the shovel again and tried to pry the stack of newspapers off the carpet. The tip of the shovel dug into the brown fibers as I jammed my foot on the blade to try and work the papers free. Finally, with a wet tearing sound, the small stack broke free of the floor, and I was able to heave it into the trash can. A big patch of the carpet had come up with the papers, and I could see the hardwood floors underneath. I poked at the floor with the metal shovel. Instead of being solid, the wood felt spongy and soft. We definitely couldn’t keep the carpet the way it was once the place was cleaned. I wondered how much it would cost to replace an entire floor.
Dark clouds were rolling in as I dragged the bag toward the window, making it seem like dusk even though it was only four o’clock.