Mr. B.

Mr. B. was our janitor at the elementary school I taught at for seven years. He was an old skinny black man with a soft, almost whispering voice, that had been at my school for over 30 years. He was most often seen scuffling along the hallways in his slow trot, barely lifting his feet off the ground, hurrying in his own way to go save someone's emergency, whether it be vomit on the floor or pee in the pants or an entire class locked in their room.

He saved my class once, though I wasn't the only one that it's happened to. It was time for gym and when I went to open the door, it wouldn't budge. It was locked and wouldn't unlock, no matter how hard I or any of my little second graders tried. We banged and banged for someone to hear us and Mr. Buard inched his way down the hall to our room with a jimmy, the kind of jimmy you break into cars with. That didn't work, so he tried something else.

At the bottom of the door was a grill, about two feet long and 18 inches high, screwed into the door. He undid the grill and each of us escaped, the little ones much easier than myself, but we got free thanks to Mr. B.

Two things I will always remember. Each year on Mr. B.'s birthday, he would put a sign on his office door. An 8x10 piece of white paper with one piece of scotch tape holding it to the door, all corners eventually curling out, that read: Today is Mr. B's birthday. He left another note in the teacher's lounge, every year the same, next to two dozen glazed donuts. The note read, "Donuts for Mr. B's birthday.

The other thing I will always remember is the day that I walked outside to go hide behind the principal's SUV like I normally did, to smoke a cigarette during my break. I walked outside and heard the bang bang of the flags on the flagpole. I looked up and saw Mr. B.'s best.