Andre opened the glass doors,
I recall it sleeting, dark, and freezing he mumbled to himself.
The place was empty and stale. I shake off the evening chill and know that I’m alone. I see the glare off of a veneered mahogany desk. The stained black, salty floor.
It smell’s like money. I like money, do you like money?
This time I’m making my rounds.
Good, we got something in common.
Lemon sheer, spray sheen, and collecting trash so clean.
See I know their watching. I mean, here I am lone janitor in a bank.
I need this slum 3rd shift job. There are camera’s and money everywhere.
I also got the easiest job in the world, right?
My job is to mop up, scoop up, dump out, & wipe down.
Not a big deal yeah? I mean they’re watching anyway.
Walking into the branch the first time seemed plain, natural. It was manageable, auto and with minimal supervision.
I also needed a job, any job, a simple job. I passed the background check and landed the job that late summer day.
I was “trained“
OLD JANITOR
Here’s the mop bucket and stainless steel polish… keep the vault beaming.
ANDRE JANE
Oh, yea?
OLD JANITOR
Customers like to know their money is safe.
ANDRE JANE
Ha, Get outta here?
OLD JANITOR
I polish my pennies with taco bell hot sauce.
Andre realized the old janitor wasn’t joking. He continued to watch.
The bank branch every night seemed to have a thick layer of dust.
I soon understood it was fiber from the Federal Reserve notes.
All the day’s transactions coated the banks surface with cotton fibers.
Oily fingerprints and ink pen marks. Which seemed to cling on the glass and steel.
Attempting to dual task dust and dump Andre was doing a rush job.
Taking a slower approach there was a window into their lives.
Family photo’s, work photo’s, or potato sack race that the branch manager won.
Then while moving on to mopping I could see the footprints stamped to the tiles.
Doing that after all the dusting I allowed it to dry before leaving it empty.
Plain, clear bags is what it is, collecting all desk dust bins. I scoop and dump into one in one. See I need to collect all the refuse into a large clear 50 gallon bag.
Once I have all the trash bunched in the sack, I leave the bundle at the back door. I gotta wait till it’s time to go.
Now it’s time to run the vacuum. It’s a not a normal sweeper it’s an industrial sweeper.
This thing has dual quad, high vac, & torque. This machine has tri- color red, silver, & black. It’s a speed machine built of RPM’s, draft and drive, suction of precision power.
Except for like most nights, the rubber belt would jump track or the bag would blow a hole due to staples.
Now like most bank branches now there’s a food joint attached to it.
This bank branch was no different. A Biggie D’s is right next door.
It’s a normal evening with a fast food joint across the way.
The lights are on in the bank and I’m on stage.
Looking out on occasion to watch the drive thru meal train.
The sweet sultry smell of grease looms. The scent of bleach & money, funny thing I can hear drive thru ATM transactions.
Customers are cussing their accounts. Poor ATM I think.
Here I am running this juiced up vacuum behind the teller’s desk.
I should have required ear plugs to operate this sucker.
clank… clink
WHIRRRRRRRR CLANK CLINK
This is the worst because if the belt burn’s up it melt’s. It’s like a hour to replace the tuber belt. I don’t get paid for that.
I hear a clank.. clank ping. Something rattles outta brisles.
The scent of burning odor from the rubber vacuum belt part.
I unplug the 20 meter plug. Tripping back & releasing the metal shield I spot a penny.
The Penny is shinny.
I dig it out of the brushes.
This is rare I’d never found any denomination of money in the bank, as is every cent is counted for in the branch.
I dig this copper outta the machine and place it on the Teller counter.
Suddenly, I feel a vacuum of air… As if something wasn’t right. I tug open the teller drawer.
I’m having visions of a tropical isle, pretty girls, & warm beaches.
Looking back into the drawer, it’s stacked.
The cash drawer is overflowing with green backs. Dead Presidents comes to mind. I ponder how soon I could get my passport. The sleet started to drizzle.
Luckily I got my wits about me quick like…
ANDRE JANE
Whoooo, old janitor didn’t say nothing about this.
I picked up the bank line and called security.
I was not to move or do anything else.
Detail man shows up, he closes the drawer and places a teller key into the lock, turns it.
CLUNK
Now it’s locked but since he “didn’t have the manager key”
He couldn’t unlock it. Prolly didn’t want me robbing him!
I was then relieved of my duties that night and wasn’t asked back.
Luckily the penny was heads up.
In the period from 1950 to the mid-1960s, studio musicians and composers were also heavily dependent on magnetic tape to realize their works. The limitations of existing electronic music components meant that in many cases each note or tone had to be recorded separately, with changes in pitch often achieved by speeding up or slowing down the tape, and then splicing or overdubbing the result into the master tape.