There was only one person on the campus of Holland Patent High School who might have been more depressed than Mildred Fuller, the long divorced 55 year old woman whose job was to clean up the building after the students did their best to trash it every school day, and as the janitor pushed the broom down the hall after classes were over for the day - and for the school year - Mildred saw that very person.
Mildred empathized with the kid since he seemed to be the whipping boy for the entire student body, and the kid had just gotten done picking up all the papers and various things that had accumulated in his locker over the year.
Those belongings had gotten on the floor courtesy of one of the school bullies most likely, Mildred assumed, making sure that the skinny little guy with the acne scars that wouldn't go away had one last memory of the place.
Dick Little was the kid's name, and Mildred had heard that name bellowed countless times over the last few months. Why someone would name their child Richard when their last name was Little, she wondered? It was like asking for abuse, and for a kid who seemed to take everything to heart it only made it worse.
As Mildred approached, she tried to think whether she had ever seen the boy smile, because his frown seemed to be a part of his makeup. That was something she could appreciate since she rarely smiled herself, but she gave the lad one as she approached.
"Sorry. I'll be out of your way in a second," Dick Little said apologetically.
"No rush honey. Here, let me help you," Mildred replied, and she set her broom against the wall of lockers to grab the last couple of things. "Here you are."
"Thanks," the lad said as he straightened up and pushed his glasses back up his nose.
"You might be the only one happier that school is over than I am," Mildred suggested and he nodded in response.
"I hate this place," Dick Little said without anger, the redness around his eyes saying more than words.
"I know the feeling," Mildred opined. "At least you have the graduation ceremony tonight to look forward too."
"Not going," Dick Little informed her, and when she asked him why he waved his arm around the empty hall as if it were still full of sadistic classmates and added glumly, "Just for more of this?"
"Boy, you need a drink more than I do," Mildred suggested. "Too bad you aren't old enough."
"I'm 18."
"Oh," Mildred countered. "Well, I get out in an hour so if you want to join me at Benny's for a beer, I'll buy."
"Better not, but thank you."
"I understand honey. Nobody wants to be seen in a bar with an old lady, especially the school janitor," Mildred answered.
"No, it's not that at all," Dick quickly replied. "It's just that..."
"If you want you could come over to my house and we could have a drink on my porch, sort of a celebration," the middle-aged woman suggested, and that got the kid to smile a bit and accept that offer.
"I could help you finish work if you want," the boy offered, and the janitor thanked him but declined.
"You can keep me company though if you wish. I could drive you to my place and then take you home afterwards," Mildred said.
"Thank you Mrs. Fuller."
"If we're going to have a drink together you can called me Mildred," she suggested and then added, "I know your name because I hear it yelled at all the time, not to mention seeing it on the bathroom walls. I suspect you would prefer being called Richard rather than Dick though?"
"Roger," was Dick Little's response, and when the janitor gave him a quizzical look he simply said, "It's a long dumb story but Roger is my first name."
"I've got plenty of those long dumb stories myself," Mildred answered. "Roger it is then."
****
The sun was setting as the two lonely people sat on the janitor's porch, and to Mildred's surprise the shy and reticent lad she knew from school really loosened up. Perhaps it was the couple of beers Roger had consumed, or maybe like Mildred he had a lot of stuff built up inside of him and no one to share it with.
"I bet you can hear that song they play at graduations from here," Roger wondered aloud as he pointed towards the lights on the athletic field visible over the trees.
"Yeah, and when there's football games when our school scores you can hear the cheers," Mildred explained. "Of course our team is usually so bad they rarely score."
"I know. Our school," Roger said with a shake of his head.
"Force of habit. I'm not in love with the school either, but I have spent years there."
"I know. Besides, it's not the school that I loathe, it's the kids in it, or at least most of them," Roger explained.
"They can be cruel," Mildred agreed. "They like to pick on people they think are weak, or will let the abuse hurt them."
"Like me."
"I suppose, but you have your diploma, or will have it when they mail it to you," Mildred reminded the boy. "You stuck it out and now you will go on to bigger and better things."
"Hope so," Roger replied and then said, "You know, they talk about you too Mrs. Fuller - I mean Mildred."
"I know. I've cleaned my name off of toilet stalls almost as often as yours. It's been going on for years and I suspect it always will. If I could find a job that pays half as well I would leave this town just like you are going to."
"Is it true Mildred?" Roger asked tentatively. "I mean, I don't care at all. I swear."
"About me being a two-bagger?" Mildred asked. "I didn't even know what that meant at first until I asked somebody down at Benny's and they explained."
"No, not that."
"About me being a lesbian?" the janitor asked, and after Roger nodded she continued. "No, but there were times back when I was married when I - do you really want to hear this?"
"Yes, if you want to tell me. I won't tell anybody."
"Okay. Back when I was married I thought I was going to have a nice life here. I thought my husband loved me, but after a few years things changed. He started to hit me and would berate me for not being able to get pregnant," Mildred explained. "Then he started screwing around on me because he said I wasn't pretty enough for him."
"You're plenty cute," Roger offered.
"Time to cut off your beer honey. Anyway, I begged him to stop and he said the only way he would stick around was if I got - what did he call it? More open minded."