Work Text:
Robby started watching them during his sabbatical, first in sketchy roadside motels and then once he was back in Pittsburgh from the comfort of his own bed: video after video on YouTube of people wearing N95 masks or even full-face respirators, cleaning hoarded houses at fast-forwarded speed.
Sometimes there were soothing voiceovers; sometimes the footage would slow down enough to give a better view of a newly-cleared space, or of the cleaner holding up a battered box of crackers to the camera so that you could read Best by: AUG 03 on the base. Sometimes it was a job for one person, sometimes for a small group. Sometimes the place could be salvaged for the owner; sometimes there was too much mould, or rot, and all the cleaners were doing was making it easier for the building to be condemned and demolished. Regardless, Robby found them satisfying, and worked his way through whole playlists of them.
"Why would you think I'd be concerned about you watching these videos, Michael?" his therapist asked midway through one of their sessions.
"Well, you know," Robby said, keeping his gaze fixed on the fern that sat, safely unthreatening, on the coffee table between them. "Because of the symbolism, or whatever."
Esther turned to a new page in her notebook. "And do you think you could tell me what that symbolism is?"
Sometimes, Robby was capable of walking into very obvious traps.
He left that day's session having talked a bit about why the inside of his head sometimes felt cluttered, over full; having edged closer to considering that maybe, just maybe, his mother had had an issue with hoarding; and having been set the task of finding a way to achieve the same itch-scratching feeling the videos gave him, but in a less passive way.
"I'm not saying don't watch the videos," Esther said. "But consider that being out in the world more and doing things might be good for you."
Robby's condo was already pretty neat; he didn't think that the alphabetised rows of books on the shelves in his living room really counted as clutter. So casting about for something he could think of doing, the next morning on impulse he went to Ace Hardware and bought a power washer. The videos where layers of grime were blasted off a wall, or scum stripped from a disused swimming pool, were always fun to watch. But when he brought the machine home he realised, well, he lived in a condo building where the super was pretty on top of things and he didn't actually have anything to power wash. He could go outside and start power washing the public sidewalk, but he felt like that was something that would have people calling in wellness checks on you pretty quickly.
He pulled out his phone and messaged Jack. Breakfast burritos?
It didn't take long for Jack to respond. When it comes to breakfast burritos, the answer is always yes.
Robby pulled into Jack's driveway just after nine thirty, and when Jack came to the front door, Robby handed over the takeout bag and said, "Do you have a garden hose?"
Jack levelled a look of utmost suspicion at him, then down at the bag of food, then back at Robby. "Yeah, around back. Why?"
Robby jerked a thumb in the direction of his car, where the machine took up most of his trunk. "Gonna power wash your deck and your drive."
"Don't take this the wrong way," Jack said, "but what the merry fuck?"
"Therapy," Robby said.
Jack sighed and said, "Jesus. What the hell. Okay, sure. Go for it. I'll make us some coffee."
They ate their food and drank a mug each of Jack's furiously strong coffee before heading out back. Jack futzed around in his vegetable patch while Robby got the power washer set up and its reservoir filled with detergent, and then went to town on first the deck and then the driveway. It was deeply satisfying, seeing dirt and moss and algae get blasted away.
"You good?" Jack called across his carrot patch when Robby paused to survey his progress.
Robby nodded, hands on his hips. "Serotonin."
"More power to your elbow," Jack said, and when they were both done for the day, he used carrots and zucchini and tomatoes picked fresh from his garden to make them a late lunch.
It was good. Robby liked getting his appetite back, a sense of taste. He'd measured his life out in too many granola bars over the last few years.
"You know I've only got so much driveway to power wash," Jack said, scratching at the stubble that silvered his jawline. "Mi casa es su casa and whatever, but I'm not sure if this can be a regular thing."
"No, I know," Robby said, trying to figure out how to put it into words. "But it's... it's nice to do."
"Yeah, and you did a good job, brother," Jack said, nodding out through the kitchen window. "That decking looks as good as new."
"It's nice to..." Robby fiddled with the handle of his fork. "It's nice to be able to do something and see it all the way through to the end, I think." So much of his work in the Pitt involved patching someone up and giving them a referral to follow up with their PCP, or getting them stable enough to head upstairs to the ICU or for surgery. Good work, necessary work, but only ever a part of the whole. Unless the patient was one of their frequent flyers, he generally never found out whether they lived or died or ended up with a funny story about the scar on their little finger to tell at dinner parties.
"I get it," Jack said, and apparently he did, because a couple of weeks later, he slid a flyer over to Robby across the break room table. "Hey, Lena passed this on to me, thought it might be up your alley."
Robby read it over: a community aid programme, organised through the shul, that connected volunteers to the elderly or people with disabilities who needed help with things like home maintenance or gardening. Tasks that Robby would be able to see through to the end; things to do that would be satisfying and useful and out from beneath the fluorescent lights of the Pitt.
"I figured you could do your power washing thing or whatever," Jack said. "But I get dibs on any ride-on mower action."
Robby looked over at him. "You'd want to do this with me?"
Under the table, Jack pressed his foot up against Robby's. "Always," he said, and Robby felt a flush of heat in his cheeks and he thought that sometimes, two people working together could salvage something that others would turn away from: could clear away the old to make room for the new.