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who was focused rather too intently on putting sugar in his coffee. Carlos suddenly had the feeling that Enrique was just as out of the loop as they were, that he didn’t know anything more about what was going to happen than the rest of them did.
     
     
    “I have no idea,” Enrique told them.
     
     
    At least he admitted it.
     
     
    “Just do your damn work the way you always did.”
     
     
    “But I need to know how this is going to affect us, ” Mike pressed. “Right now, I can transfer to another school. Until this thing’s official, we’re still with the district. And if things look like they’re going south, I can bail. But once we switch over, that’s it. I’m stuck. We’re all stuck. And maybe we’re screwed. I just want to know where we stand.”
     
     
    “I don’t know,” Enrique said. He glanced around at the gathered custodians. “Any other complaints?”
     
     
    Carlos and Rakeem looked at each other. “We don’t like working here at night,” Carlos said.
     
     
    “Get another job,” Enrique told them. “Anything else?”
     
     
    “It’s not that we don’t like to work,” Carlos explained. “We just don’t like to work here. At night. ”
     
     
    “ Maricón, ” Enrique said dismissively.
     
     
    Carlos tried to describe the situation in more detail, but the head custodian was having none of it. He ignored Carlos and began going over the items he’d written down on his clipboard. “Just sit there and be quiet,” he ordered. “I have a lot to go over today.”
     
     
    The meeting ended early, before the day shift even ended, and since he wasn’t scheduled to start work for another two hours, Carlos drove back home, called Maria to make a date for Friday, boiled some hot dogs for his dinner and watched the last half of Escape from New York before heading back to the school.
     
     
    The sun was setting as he pulled into the staff parking lot, and the quad was dark with long shadows by the time he reached the janitorial-supply shed. Rakeem was waiting for him next to the cleaning carts. Carlos could tell from the expression on his face that he was unhappy, and he knew why before the other man even spoke.
     
     
    “Shit. Why’d you have to say anything?” Rakeem asked.
     
     
    “Come on, man. We talked about it.”
     
     
    “That doesn’t mean you had to tell Enrique. Now we’re on night shift till the day we fuckin’ die.”
     
     
    “You knew I was gonna tell him. You wanted me to tell him.”
     
     
    “Yeah, well . . .”
     
     
    “ ’Sides, you didn’t say nothing. Anyone’s stuck on night shift, it’s me. You’re free and clear.”
     
     
    “Nah, bro. Wherever you go, I go. We’re partners.”
     
     
    “Partners?”
     
     
    “Yeah.”
     
     
    “You just don’t wanna work with Mike.”
     
     
    Rakeem grinned. “This is true.”
     
     
    They flipped a coin for jobs, the way they always did, and Carlos lost. That meant Rakeem got to clean the office, the library and the downstairs classrooms, while Carlos had to take care of PE, art, band and the upstairs classrooms. “Great,” Carlos mumbled.
     
     
    Rakeem laughed loudly. “Have fun!”
     
     
    Carlos pushed his cart across the quad, acutely aware of the silent, empty rooms in the minimally lit buildings around him. The clacking of the wheels and the rattling of the tools and cleaning supplies in the cart sounded loud, too loud, and he found himself hunching down a little, as though trying to minimize his presence and not draw attention to himself. Something had happened to the school over the summer. He’d worked here for eight years, the past three on night shift, and he had never had any qualms about being alone on the campus after dark. He wasn’t a little kid, after all. But suddenly it started seeming to him that there was something odd and unnerving about this place, a creepiness he couldn’t quite pinpoint but that made him feel very uncomfortable. Rakeem had noticed it, too. They’d even talked about it, although not directly at first. Carlos had