Valerief made a good point--it might ultimately be helpful to see more so that we can get a better sense of what's going on here. At present, we have two characters: a scuzzy loudmouth and a quiet janitor who tolerates him. Lacking other context, these two don't exactly draw the reader in or propel the story forward.
Here are a few more specific comments:
John didn't say a word.
He just stood there in the endless gray hallway, watching Andy's slicked-back black hair hang on for dear life as his tanned face stretched wide enough to fit his spray-on personality. Andy was the gorilla again, each wild swing of his arms punctuating exclamations of cheap pride and easy success.
You diminish the power of this intro by burying the strongest image beneath a handful of bland non-actions. Open with "Andy was the gorilla again" and eliminate everything that preceded it, and you'll have a
much stronger opening.
Andy eyed him suspiciously. "John, can you hear me?" He accepted John's nod and jumped back in. John hoped his tree-trunk arms wouldn't knock his secondhand glasses off of his face. They were a gift.
I gather from this that Andy frequently uses John as a sounding board without actually caring what John thinks. That's okay, but I'm not sure that it's conveyed here as effectively as it might be. In part, that's because it's unclear; at first I thought that John feared that
his own "tree-trunk arms" would knock the glasses from
Andy's face. Next I thought that John was worried that Andy's arms would knock the glasses from Andy's face. Then I realized that John feared that Andy's arms might knock the glasses from John's face.
But then I realized that it didn't quite matter--it's a digression that does little to advance either character or the plot.
I think that you'd be better off by having Andy ramble on barely conscious of John's reactions, and keep John's internal ruminations to a minimum. Also, we gain little from a description of Andy's physique; instead, establish his character rather than his appearance, and one way to do that is to focus on Andy's speech here.
"So anyway," Andy said, "I saw that corn futures were in a slump, right?" John knew the routine. Nod smile, laugh, mix it up to keep it fresh. It's what kept him from puking blood from his brain and onto Andy's freshly pressed Armani shirt.
By this point,
we've figured out the routine, too, so there's no need to rehash it. Also, the way you do it here makes John seem acutely hostile toward Andy, which clangs against John's stated admiration and also against the mere fact of standing there listening to Andy in the first place. I suggest that you skip John's reflections altogether and sharpen the dialogue. It's more likely that the reader will, by default, sympathize with John, so let us see more of Andy as an annoying ass.
"But who's on the case?" Andy asked. "Andy fucking McMahon, that's who." He cleared his throat, ready for the homestretch. "So I said no. No way the price of corn is gonna fall. My grandpa farmed corn right here in Ohio his whole life, and every season, you know what?"
His speech here seems false and forced to me, and a bit too wordy besides. FWIW, I
truly believe that Andy would indeed tout himself as
Andy fucking McMahon, but
every loudmouthed asshole does that. It's
much more interesting and unusual to focus on "He cleared his throat, ready for the home stretch," which is very effective and allows a better glimpse at his personality.
Additionally, "right here in Ohio" is unnecessary. I don't care if his grandpa grew corn in Ohio or Iowa or Indiana; the point is that he sold it at a profit. Stick to that, because the rest just slows you down.
He waited for John's nod. Bingo. "Every damn season, he'd sell that corn at a profit. Those corn futures will go down when I tell them to, and I told 'em to keep climbing, 'cause Papa's got a brand new bag of green."
If John nods as often as you indicate, then he must come across as a bobblehead. Since we know that John is only half-listening, you can eliminate his reactions unless they're really unusual.
Also, "Papa's got a brand new bag of green" sounds so totally contrived and false that I can't really believe that anyone would say it, not even Andy fucking McMahon.
John's eyes followed the beads of sweat snowball across Andy's forehead. He waited for Andy to wipe it off before giving him the nod.
Again we see the bobble. You can get rid of this bit entirely.
Andy snapped his fingers to the beat in his own head. "Five grand in five minutes, baby." He did a goofy white-guy dance while John wondered when Andy would leave him and his floor buffer alone. John's oversized headphones weighed down his neck so much that Andy's immaculate tie knot mocked him at eye level. Still, he admired Andy's skill.
Is John black? It's relevant because if an African American character uses the phrases "goofy white-guy," you risk injecting a whole lot of baggage into your story, even if John means it innocuously. From your later description I infer that John is white, but until that description occurs, you've created a very curious tension that I don't think is helpful to the story.
Realistically, no set of headphones since the invention of the transistor would be heavy enough to weigh someone down as you've described.
"See you tomorrow," Andy said, halfway out the door.
This dismissive goodbye, coupled with John bowing to Andy (who mocks him) speaks of Andy's cynical disregard for John, so we wonder why the hell John bothers to put up with it. We're left thinking that Andy's a jerk and that John is unsympathetically wishy-washy. Is that your goal?
John put his headphones back on as Ella Fitzgerald drowned Andy out of his brain. He swayed his rail-thin frame from side to side as Ella sang to an anonymous sweetheart, John almost hoping it was him. The sudden rattling of the radiator made him jump. He didn't want anyone to see him this way. John scanned the wide gray hallway for signs of life. His eyes darted from the funereal, paint-chipped walls to the pint-sized company sign hastily scrawled in red ink on a piece of paper and thumb-tacked to the wall -- SnapTrade, Inc.
It wouldn't hurt to tell us which song he's listening to, because she covered quite a range of moods. Even though you give us a line from it, you'd be better off naming it here, so that the line makes more sense later.
Also, I simply don't believe that a rattling radiator could so startle him over the combined noise of Ella
and the floor buffer.
The images of "funereal, paint-chipped walls" and "pint-sized company sign" are interesting but poorly placed here. Consider using them elsewhere.
His eyes flew back to the newly buffed floor that freeze-framed his face back to him, the image broken up by the dull checkered pattern of the floor. John stared intently at his reflection, letting his long face go slack, more so than usual. He never admired the thing, but examined it constantly through the years, trying to find a clue to his default popularity.
As usual, the narrow brown eyes blended into his shaggy, unkempt brown hair that bookended his skeletal face. It didn't matter which angle he observed from. It all looked the same to him. Maybe the non-threatening blandness of his face did it -- the perfect canvas for everyone else's hopes, thoughts, fears and monologues that painted themselves across it like sheets of sound broken up only by their verbal reloads and John's intermittent nods.
Under no circumstances should a character
ever pause to examine his reflection when the sole purpose is to let the author describe him, unless your character has awakened from a years-long coma or has switched bodies with someone else.
Additionally, as yet we likewise have no clue about his default popularity, except perhaps that he says nothing, and people like that.
The second paragraph here has some interesting bits. I like "sheets of sound," for instance, but for goodness' sake don't underscore his nodding by mentioning it again here!
Andy talked to him frequently, more than anyone else at the company, as if John had won a reverse lottery. If Andy wasn't mentioning his constant financial fortunes, he was talking about his frequent sexual conquests that averaged out to twice a week -- surprising, given Dayton's small size. John thought Andy must be importing women from Columbus -- or he was full of shit. Either way.
"Some sort of reverse lottery" is good. "Constant" and "frequent" resonate in an odd way, especially since "frequent" and "twice a week" are pretty much redundant. Consider reworking the phrasing here.
Also, what does "Either way" mean here? It's a tacked-on phrase that I think you could omit.
The lo-fi vibration of the floor buffer echoed in his headphones, muffling Ella's voice to a coal-mine canary. John turned off the buffer, bowing his head in reverence and amazement as Ella scatted through the song -- de de de dede de -- over and over, climaxing with an abrupt, unaccompanied statement -- "Is that all there is?"
"Coal-mine canary" is a great image, but it implies that John perceives Ella as the early warning system for something--what? "Vibration" is sufficient, so you can get rid of "lo-fi."
It's really hard for me to believe that John would bow in reverent amazement to the song. We've all closed our eyes for a particularly powerful piece of music, but there are clearer ways to describe this. But the act of actually shutting off the buffer to revel in the music seems like an over-the-top affectation, especially since he's probably listening to a recording on his massive headphones. Does he shut down every time the song comes on?
John didn't have an answer.
Nor does anyone expect him to, really. I take it that you're echoing the introductory "John didn't say anything," but since that's a problematic opener, the echo is problematic as well. You could probably elminate this closing, because it comes out of the blue and doesn't clarify anything.
One technical point: If your intent is to portray someone as a savvy investor, then having him score big on corn futures is about as generic as having him proudly declare "I invest in the stock market." It's a broad, bland example that ultimately accomplishes little. Sure, people certainly do invest in corn futures, and in t-bills, or whatever, but here it seems like empty posturing. And if Andy really has enjoyed great success, as John indicates, then perhaps a riskier investment vehicle is in order.
If this is a contemporary piece, then corn futures are also tricky because everyone knows that ethanol will help to spike the price of corn. Maybe he could be investing in subprime mortgage instruments in a story that takes place at the end of 2006?
Beware of the cliche archetype of The Unlikely Mentor. It's been done so many times that the truly unlikely mentor is the one who is in fact the
most likely. Similarly, The Boorish Investor is another stock figure (no pun intended). If you keep these characters as they are, then you'll need to overcome the expectations of their stereotypes.
I think that the most interesting aspect of the story is the possibility that John will be the lens through which we see a range of other characters. To this end, it might be helpful to see further installments of the story, so that we can get this longitudinal sense of him. Otherwise, he needs to be further defined as something more complex than A Janitor Who Listens.
Good luck in revision and in your continued writing!
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