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It was something the team still tasked me with. At least Jordin helped. She was an Arabic woman with luscious wavy hair. She always had a flower in it. It was her way of customizing since our uniforms were drab outfits. Mine was just jeans and a grey shirt or a grey fleece, weather permitting.  

“So, Jordin,” I said, leaning on my broom. It had been making my forearms ache with all the sweeping so I figured it should give me the relief of support too. “They named the country Jordan because the Jordan River splits it, yeah? Do you know the capital?”

She grew up in Tanzania but didn’t care for geography beyond the cities she wanted to scamper to like New York, Rio, Tokyo. “No,” she admitted, still sweeping, the bristles catching the hairs and discarded receipts I had missed on my quick push through.

“I was hoping it’d be Jordan. Jordan, Jordan.” We were sweeping the hallway between the secretarial office and the pantry, which had a hornet’s nest and stale potato chips because we had abandoned the place when the hornets moved in.

“I’m certain it’s not.” She had a posh accent that probably qualified her to be queen. Though she insisted she was not British and sounded nothing like a Brit.

“It should be.” The hallway was wide enough for two people, but not a dust mop. A dust mop would polish the floorboards on both side and catch on the doorstops. Our hard-bristled brooms were thinner. It took two passes to clear the whole hall. If Jordin hadn’t been there, I would’ve said one pass would suffice. The bristles were riddled with the stems of leaves that had been preserved by ice and then thawed and blown in through the cargo doors which were only opened to cool the building while the county cut public utility costs. “Is there a Jordan, Jordan at all?”  

“Not likely. The Middle-East is not much for your humor.” She had a cloud of bad fortune hanging over her. Her arranged marriage was to her first cousin who had grown up in her house. It was a political ploy as no Arab in the community wanted such a Western, iron-willed wife and her family wanted to clutch its gold a bit longer. She was three days from the ceremony; in other words, she was two days from her permanent escape when the US recruited her. Her luck all turned about when she got placed in my department. And though she maintained it was not the blessing I said it was, she still helped me with my janitorial punishments.

“You should settle one. Right on the River Jordan. It should straddle it and the streets running parallel to the river should be Jordin and Jordan.”

“Wouldn’t that get a bit confusing?”

“They’re spelled differently.”

The wood-paneled walls, added during the 70s when that was the fashion and when this department had money, were decorated by plaques of achievements and commendations. Some were softball tournaments won against Sangamon County or Mason or the local school district, but others were legitimate awards: service above and beyond the call of duty, a thanks from the citizens of Ottawa or Peru for saving them from local fires during droughts. But considering the 40-odd years of history, the poor fashion of wood-panels should be hidden by plaques. Instead we just had a row of them on each wall, spaced about a foot from each other and door frames. We were not the highest performing department.

“Wouldn’t North Jordan and South Jordan be clearer?”

“That’d confuse everyone! You can’t have North and South when they’d be on the East and West of the river. But you could populate the city with people named Jordan of all spellings. Don’t discriminate.” A pitter-patter sounded on the roof—our sprinkler, but I often made the joke that it was an army of squirrels ready to invade the lands. Everyone was tired of it, but by beating its corpse, it got funnier for me. “Sadly I could never visit your apartment at 37 Jordin Street, Jordan—the city—, Jordan—the country— on the River Jordan.”

“And why’s that?” she asked.

“All the Jordans I know are kind of annoying.”

She shuffled her dust into a pile by my shoes and smacked the tile so a cloud wafted through my lungs. It stuck me in a spell of coughing. “You put too much thought into your stupidity.”

Then the loud speaker came on over my fit. The speaker was calm, possibly a recording as I had never met guard who worked here with a soulless but polite voice. “Would an available employee join us at the front? Again, would an available employee please make their way to the front?”

“I suppose I ought to go there,” Jordin said. Her main duties were medical as she had been a doctor in Tanzania; however, while she didn’t have to patrol the county like the rest of us, she did investigate incidences. She always dreaded them.

“Stay and clean. I’ll go die in your place,” I said and filed my broom in the closet. Then I announced, “I’m off to save the world!”

“You know Pin will be going, don’t you?” Jordin reminded me.

Pin was a recently demoted (though officially she was promoted) guard from the State Guardian Department, the big leagues who took care of cities. And after a scandalous incident (rumors ranged from sinking Chicago to sleeping with the commander’s wife), she was promoted to lead our team as we spread ourselves among LaSalle County. Her barking authority was not conducive to our usual antics.

Pin was very hands-on, brooding when we tried to help with a problem she had under control. She growled quite a bit at me. “I’ll go sightseeing while she works,” I said.

“Surely Heath or Gene can take the call.”

“Do you want me to stay? I can stay. I can. We’re not done sweeping yet anyway.”

“You’ve not got even a pile yet.”

There were two piles: the one she was pushing and the one she was pushing towards. I really hated sweeping. “Did you steal my pile?” I accused. “When I get back, I’m launching an investigation and if I find even a speck of dust with my name on it in your pile—I’ll do something! I don’t know what though.”

“Just go so I can get your work done,” Jordin said. “The things I do for you.”