When he finished cleaning the place
up, he lit up a cigarette and decided to take a nice deserved break. He did need
to go and throw all that was still stained with blood, but he knew he had time
to do it in a moment. After all, the crime was already solved and everyone
involved had gotten some kind of closure after such a horrible event. So, he
cleaned the murder scene and allowed the owners of the property to sell the
house or at least attempt a sale. It was always difficult to pass such a
property on to someone else, but it was feasible and people knew they had to try
and do it in order to move on and close their wounds.
Fred was the guy police hired to do
the cleaning up. He was very well known for being the first one to offer a top-notch
service, never denying a service, no matter how horrible the murder scene was. He
was known to have cleaned a whole room splashed with brain and skull fragments
after a bunch of people from a suicidal cult had decided to shoot themselves
before the police could get them for selling child pornography. He did it all
by himself, using many types of liquids and concoctions to properly remove the
traces of blood and other body fluids, as well as the foul stench of death that
could really linger for a long time.
He was also known for working by
himself. Many people always worried about him not been able to do it in the
time they wanted him to do it, but he always did the work in the time they had
agreed on and he even noticed construction or design flaws that other experts
could fix on a house. Fred even saved some precious objects from destruction,
by taking care of them, always thinking that every family would love to keep
something from the person that had left them, if it had happened in their
house. And if it hadn’t, he was always very good at finding evidence that could
have been ignored at first sight.
Besides all of that, the man was
cheaper than the competition and his clients really loved that part of his
business. Of course, his main employer was the police department, but even them
had to use other services sometimes, in order not to look as if they had a
preference for him of any kind. He understood that very well and just kept
working on other crime scenes and also fixing houses that needed his attention,
although he really liked working after something horrible had happened somewhere,
because he felt he could help bringing that place into a better place, he could
even make people feel better and less afraid.
When he finished smoking, he pressed
the cigarette against a plank of wood and then threw it into one of his garbage
bags. He put in the piece of wood to and walked down the stairs to put it all
in his car. The afternoon was almost over and he needed to get to the landfill
before they closed. He could sell some of the things he had found in the room
he had cleaned for good money, things that a family would not like to save but
that he could take advantage of.
He was able to get there just in
time and, after selling some objects to the operator, Fred went back to his
place: it was a tiny apartment above a pizzeria, near downtown. The place was
old and rather unpleasant if one considers the smell of anchovies, but he got
used to it. Besides, he didn’t really need that much room to live, as he lived
by himself. The only other living being in his apartment was a cat called
Pineapple. He was fat, had yellowish fur and the hairs on his head seemed to
always be working independently from the rest of his body. So, the name had
been chosen perfectly, the moment Fred had met him in a crime scene.
He suspected he had been owned by
a girl who had been killed with his parents by a burglar, but he didn’t know
for sure. He asked the police if he could keep the cat and no one seem to mind.
From that moment on, the cat was named Pineapple and it often sat by the
window, looking at the fishery on the other side of the street. The funny thing
was that he could actually go there and eat it if he wanted, but he never left
the apartment. He was just one of those creatures that one never understands,
no matter how long you try to make sense out of its existence. A very human
animal, in that sense.
Fred had never married and had
never felt the urge of having children. He did like women and he did like
children but all of that didn’t really fit with his work and his work was the
one thing that actually made him feel good. He had discovered the job later in
life, after been fired from his workplace and then wondering around for years,
from one menial job to the other, lasting six months at most in each one of
those assignments. His parents never approved of his lifestyle and they
eventually stopped talking to him in a frequent basis, deciding to only contact
him during the holidays or when they felt it was necessary.
The last time he had talked to
them was when his grandmother Libby had died from old age. Libby was one of
those adorable older women, the kind who love to be pampered but also enjoy
saving parts of their old lives all around their house. He was the one in charge
of cleaning up her house, before it was put for sale in order for his parents and
her other children to profit from it. He felt awful helping them doing that to her,
but it wasn’t as if he had a choice. They didn’t listen, they just said things
to him and he was expected to comply. He tried to rebel against that but
decided not to try ever again, as it never led anywhere.
He found Pineapple’s bowl there,
as she had owned several cats herself but they had all died because she overfed
them. He did find a couple of dead cats around the house, but they had died such
a long time ago that the smell was not a problem. He also kept a nice picture
of her and his grandfather and also a beautiful pair of shoes she had kept in a
secret storage section of the house, that no one had ever noticed before he
cleaned up the place. He also found some of her secret savings and a couple of
jewelry items he could sell at any price.
But he never did. He thought it was
all too precious and selling it would devaluate everything. So, he kept the
shoes and the jewelry in his closet and put all the money he found into a bank
account that he promised himself only to use if his financial problems ever got
as the ones in his past. But thanks to his cleaning business, that was almost
impossible. It wasn’t that he was rich or anything of the sort, but he had
always been very careful with money, despite being horribly unlucky when trying
to find employment. He was one of those people that really only need money to
live but they find no actual joy in having any.
His flat was very modest, his cat
was second-hand and clothes had never been a concern of his. His loves were
doing his job and walking around beautiful parts of the country, in those moments
he allowed himself to go on vacation and enjoy himself a little bit. Fred did
feel a bit sad to realize that he didn’t really have anyone to share those
experiences with, but understood that not every single person in the world was
meant to be in a relationship. It was one of many things he had learned in the
cleaning business and working with deceased people.
Everyone makes such a fuss about
life and death and about what you own and who you share it with and so on and
Fred found all of that to be utter stupidity. He just wanted to feel that he
could accomplish something, no matter how small, and that was it. He didn’t
need to fill his life with a bunch of things that he didn’t really need it. He even
tried finding new hobbies and passions and it did work, with some things, but
it he was always back to work on time and he always very attentive of his tiny
apartment and his cat. The top priorities never changed and some people thought
that indicated that he was sad or depressed.
And, although he did feel a bit
lonely sometimes, he enjoyed his life thoroughly. He didn’t care for having
more or changing something from what he knew. He felt great about it and had
realized that he didn’t need any more from life. He didn’t even understand why
some people demanded so much just because. He had his things, his little joys,
and that was enough for a man like Fred.
