The Christmas Sweater

The Overeducated Janitor runs his fingers through his hair, what’s left of it.

It’s been a long time since he has done something like this, something so drastic, so desperate, like standing in front of the mirror in an ill-fitting Christmas sweater, holding up the line to the bathroom at The Halfway House.

Anything other than cargo pants, anything other than his beige coveralls, his chain wallet, his oversized keyring, his steel-toed waterproof slip-on Sketcher’s work shoe, anything else, at this point, feels like a disguise, a fake moustache.

The Overeducated Janitor hears a muffled voice from the other side of the door. He can’t make out the words, but he knows what they mean.

“There’s no turning back now,” he says to himself, to the mirror, to his pale and panic-stricken doppelganger, a thin and diminished version of his former self. He leaves the words, hanging in the air behind him, lingering like a bad odor, as he ducks out the bathroom door, head lowered, past the line of fellow halfway housers that had formed in the hallway. He feels their gazes, their disapproval, as he shuffles towards his room, the last door before the emergency exit and its red neon.

The Overeducated Janitor closes the door to his room behind him. It is the sound of the day ending. His books are calling him. The snow is falling on the other side of the small window. He has no desire to leave the tiny room again.

Despite himself, he checks the time before grabbing his chain wallet and keys from atop the dresser. He is running late to The Dinner Party.

It has been a year since he last saw his ex-colleagues, except for Jean-Christophe of course, his Ally on the Inside and co-conspirator, his last contact with that world, his lifeline. A lot has changed since then, changes that he is not interested in discussing.

Jean-Christophe had offered to pick him up, but The Overeducated Janitor refused to even entertain the possibility. Jean-Christophe knew about the third shift, about The Community Center, about the beige coveralls and oversized keyring, about the yellow-and-black Rubbermaid janitorial supply pushcart. He did not know, however, any of the other dirty details of The Downfall. The Halfway House, for example. As far as Jean-Christophe was concerned, The Overeducated Janitor still lived in his flat in the Hipster District.

The snow is really coming down hard on the short walk from The Halfway House to the subway station. The Overeducated Janitor feels the snowflakes congregating on his eyebrows and eyelashes, forming associations, secret societies, secret snow societies, whispering among themselves.

He is lucky enough to get a window seat on the train, the same train that he usually takes to his job at The Community Center, where, at this very moment, Chip is covering his shift, so that he could go on this secret mission to get, perhaps, his old job back, to take up his rightful place once again at the front of the classroom.

The train jerks as it goes through a tunnel, and the city disappears from the window, the pane going black. There, in the pane, he catches an unwelcomed glimpse of himself. The look on his face is unmistakable. His winter coat, unzipped, reveals the Christmas sweater, so conspicuous, so unconvincing. Ill at ease, he turns away.

His stop is coming up next. With bean dip and Jello molds, his ex-colleagues, Jean-Christophe, and the chair of the department are waiting for him. Wine flowing from their cups, they will catch up, they will patch things over. Lips stained burgundy, they will throw their heads back and laugh at their past mistakes.

The brakes hiss as the train pulls to a halt. A three-note melody announces that the doors are opening. But The Overeducated Janitor can’t get out of the seat. Something, some weight, is holding him down, pinning him to the seat, preventing him from rising. The doors close. The train speeds off.

There are still another seven stops to the end of the line, where The Overeducated Janitor will take the red bus, the two sixty-three, to The Community Center, where, after a stroll through the snow, in the presence of the giant trees, he will give Chip a hand with the cleaning. With a little luck, they will finish early. Chip, no doubt, has holiday parties of her own to attend.

Once alone in The Center, he will retire to his study, to the Room of One’s Own, in the entrance to the truncated tunnel, with its books and papers, all that he has built over the past year. He can think of no better way to spend the holiday.

A Day of Winter (1961), written by Betty Miles and illustrated by Remy Charlip