Stephen Dixon - Garbage

“One. Long ago. Maybe nobody does. We were very close. She died when I was a kid, but I remember her.”

“Then come visit them once a year to pay your respects and lay flowers. With a jet and cab you can probably be at the gravesite in three hours.”

“Who’ll take care of my southern or foreign bar?”

“An assistant. Someone you know who can make drinks and sandwiches and trust.”

“You must be the only regular left I didn’t tell this yet. I never had an assistant who didn’t steal me blue in the face and blind. They’ve always been one step ahead of me and I also want everything to be run exactly my way, so I’m a lousy boss.”

“So I’ll come down and work for you and won’t steal and I know the business and got nothing to gain standing here and my wife can wait your tables.”

“I told you about Stovin’s?”

“All I need to know I suppose or so you thought.”

“What I say? I forget — my head.”

“All that you didn’t want to do what they wanted you to and for it you got brained.”

“Then you can see why should I be so sure you’re not working for them too? Trying to get me to sell out cheap and save them the inconvenience of beating my butt in again and maybe this time one of them getting caught with no excuse.”

“Hey. You know me how long before you ever heard their name, so I can almost take what you say as an insult.”

“I’ve got to be extra careful.”

“It could still be one.”

“I’m sorry but so far it’s not in me to rely on any one person I know.”

“I’m what I say I am, honestly. Total your register, work out whatever shadowing system you have, then put me behind the bar for as long as you like and you’ll see. Not a penny will slip into my pocket that’s not a tip for me and even that if you don’t want it to and my wife is even worse.”

“Anyway, nobody will buy my bar except for the oldtime fixtures and liquor stock, so how can I invest in any place new? I just have to stick at what I still got.”

“Here’s your hotel. You were going to walk past. Hey, these talks have been swell,” and we shake hands.

“Al, I’m kind of sorry I never spoke to you as much before. But maybe, as you know, if you did work behind a bar—”

“I did, what are you going on for?”

“Then you know that after a while almost everyone on the other side of the bar gets to look and act alike to you, but you’re all right.”

“I don’t know. Working the bar even twelve hours straight never turned me off to people or them to me.”

“You’re lucky. Goodnight,” and I go inside. “How you doing?” I say to the nightclerk and he says “What’s this? You haven’t my bottles? That a way to treat your helpmate?”

“Damn it, I forgot,” and give him five dollars.

“What’s this? Bribery now?” Puts it back in my hand. “Bottles, not money. Two quarts like you promised and it’ll be worth twice as much to me as that five.”

“Tomorrow.”

Next day under my bar’s front door is a summons from the Sanitation Department for leaving trash on the street. I phone the Department’s summons section and say “What trash where did I leave? My sidewalk was clean when I left it last night and clean today.”

“Inspector’s report says you left it in front of private dwellings and storefronts not your own.”

“What? Streets as dirty as they are and sidewalks with ice and still unshoveled snow on them for people to fall and this inspector has the time to untie every trash bag in town to see what’s inside really belongs to the people in the building it’s in front of?”

“Our office got a phonecall.”

“Who from?”

“Someone. Maybe a landlord or storeowner, maybe a passing citizen. In such complaints when you’re so completely infringing on the law, the courts say you don’t have to know who are your accusers. Want a hearing, I’ll put you down for one. You’ll have to pay your fine first, which you’ll get back with interest if you win, though next June do you? For that’s how far we’re backed up. But from now on if you can’t afford private carters, don’t go leaving envelopes and things with your name and address on them in the bags you leave at places where you shouldn’t.”

“Many thanks.”

“For what?” and hangs up.

That night Al and I rip up all the address labels and bill envelopes and stuff before sticking them in with the rest of the garbage and distribute the trash bags and garbage cartons in front of buildings and stores three and four blocks from the bar. When we get back I give him a few bucks, tell him to help himself behind the bar and pour me a tall scotch with rocks, lock up and he walks me to the hotel and says looking at the sky “Nicer night tonight isn’t it?” and I say “They’re all the same.”

“All the same? Stars, planes, moon with rings around it when you couldn’t see anything but clouds last night?” and I say “All right, tonight’s different.”

“How’s your head getting? — that’s what I should’ve asked before, forget the stars and night,” and I say “Better.”

“You’re not talkative tonight, I won’t,” and I say “No, I like to, takes my mind away, great night, oh yes, great night.”

“You’ve new troubles?” and I say “Who said I had troubles in the first place?”

“When’s the bandage finally coming off?” and I say “Maybe when I see a doctor, which might be never. No coverage, that’s why I don’t like going to them so much.”

“Want my wife to look at it and patch you up again? She once had some practical nursing training and has done it for me,” and I say “That might be nice.”

“Or a clinic. Maybe you should just go to one,” and I say “They’ll hear I own a bar and make me pay them regular overpriced fees till I’m bankrupted.”

“Don’t pay them,” and I say “Hospitals it’s not in me to welsh on so long as I got.”

“But it could be getting infected from whatever aftereffects and your neglecting it,” and I say “If it was I’d feel it with a fever and more pain than a pounding headache, so if your wife would, I’d like you to ask.”

“First thing when I get home if she’s not asleep. But three nights in a row, Shaney. You could almost call mine permanent work for you after what I’ve had the last few months,” and I say “Actually if it continues working out like this, I probably could put you on evenings seven to twelve starting around Monday so you could really make some dough and I could both open up and go home sooner. For the time being I think I need to.”

“Great,” and I say “Favor for a favor — okay, settled and maybe, if you’re as honest as you say, all day Sunday if you can and without my even coming and leaving there,” and we reach the hotel and shake hands and he seems happy and slaps my back and says “Sorry, slapped it too hard it looks like,” and I say “Little, it hurt my head but I’ll survive,” and we say goodnight.

“Oh Jesus, the bottles,” to the nightclerk and he says “You know, one more round of your amnesia and I’m going to start letting those early morning calls to you through.”

“I still get them?”

“Occasionally, in various male and female voices, that they just have to absolutely speak to you — it’s that important.”

“Tomorrow definitely, the best stuff I have — even three.”

“Don’t overdo to the degree where you could then think it’s worth it to forget again. Two regular-sized rums will suit me fine.”

Next morning on my way to work I make a point of walking past the park to see the snow inside. It’s still clean and relatively untrampled in and from the border wall I see a dog leaping in it. I also see a rabbit, second time here in my life, and two boys, probably cutting school, sledding down a hill. When they see me looking at them I wave and yell “Hiya doing, fellas?” and they yell “Hi, come on in, water’s fine,” while they wave back.