Stephen Dixon - Garbage

“Mind holding there a second?” the driver says when I open the van door.

“Oh sure, anything, what else could be new?” and I stick a few mints in my mouth.

“You know what you’ve done is against the law,” other officer says, both getting out of the car.

“Wait a second, what is, what’ve I done? — crying? trying?” and think stop, shut up, you’re high, wise up, that’s what your mints were for.

“Why you acting stupid? Leaving your garbage around here like you’ve been doing.”

“Was not. I was collecting it. Only opening these bags and cans to see if anything of value’s inside. This is a fancy area. People around here got money up their ass to throw out fantastic trash that I sell as junk and antiques to antique and junkstores, whichever which.”

“We’ve been following you. And you smell from alcohol. Turn around. Put your hands on the van and spead your legs wide.”

I do. “All right,” when I’m being patted up and down. “I had some. I won’t lie. But I’m not drunk. You want to frisk my trash bags also, go ahead. Black one’s mine. Also the one on the extreme left, so be my guests. But none of the others. Never dropped off more than two to each stop and usually one.” They’re through. I turn around. “Because I’m not greedy. Not a collector too. Name’s Shaney Fleet. I’m a barowner, cheap joint. Here’s my address and name,” and show them my driver’s license and election registration card, only two identifications. “So it’s all just bar and grill trash I was dumping because I can’t get rid of it any other way. If you knew how far I’ve come to dump it, you’d laugh.”

“Let’s see this ‘just bar trash,’ “and he opens a pocketknife.

“Don’t. I’ll only have to carry it back slashed and spilling to the van, which I rented and have to keep clean. I’ll do it.” I unknot the two bags I left out here and three in the van and they look inside all of them.

“What’s wrong?” the driver says. “Business so bad you can’t afford a regular pickup?”

“No company will take mine. It’s a long story.”

“By law one of them has to. You’re either not asking the right firm in the right way or they’re in their rights to refuse you because you don’t want to pay today’s inflated prices.”

“See this head?” I take off my cap. “That’s further on. Listen from the beginning and maybe you can advise me. Two men came in my bar a long time ago. Month? Could it be three? I forget. But Turner and Pete. Oh, very sweet guys these two, your mothers would’ve loved them and I bet in several names they have records a leg long, and they said they represented—” but he cuts me off and says “We’d be interested if it was in our precinct. Tell whoever the cops are in yours.”

“Everytime I yell for the police these days they won’t believe me.”

“Cry fire, not police. That’s what I tell my wife. Okay, different situation, but maybe there’s something you can learn from it, because she’s in alone, couple punks raping her God forbid, neighbors will stay behind their doors if she shouts ‘Someone get the police.’ So cry fire I tell her and they’ll all run out and bat down her door with their heads if they have to to stop the fire from spreading to theirs.” He writes up a ticket for illegally dumping refuse on the street while the other calls in the van’s license number and description and my name and bar address in case I’m tagged around here again.

“Now get your garbage and drop it in some other precinct, not ours.”

I tie up the bags and carry them to the van. I could probably get rid of them in another borough or by the river but I don’t want to chance getting caught by the police who might call in and link me with the last ticket and pull me and the van in, making the van owner angry and maybe my staying overnight in jail again and whatever that might bring on. I drive back to the bar, think what would be worse: bags downstairs or on the street? and I carry them downstairs. Only five of them and if the health inspector asks why they weren’t dumped with the rest I’ll say “Those are today’s.”

I drive to the motel parking space I’m supposed to leave the van at, honk two dots and a dash to signal the loaner his car’s back and cab to my hotel.

“You worked much later than usual,” the nightclerk says. “All recovered?”

“Almost. Goodnight.”

“You have messages. Not that I’m a snoop, but I don’t understand them. Gruff but educated man phoned them in practically an hour apart to the second you’ll see dutifully marked on the time slot.”

I read them. “Boiling hot out today isn’t it?” the first says. “Boiling hot out tonight isn’t it?” the second says.

“Firstly,” he says, “they were phoned in at nine and ten at night so what’s with the ‘today’ and ‘tonight’ distinction? Okay. Your privilege not to answer and minor point. Secondly, your caller can’t be talking about the weather of course, because I froze my rear off getting here.”

“It is cold. When I was outside I wasn’t even thinking of it but it must be near zero.”

“Three above? Your room will be freezing now and by five there’ll be icicles inside. Want to borrow an electric blanket? Small charge.”

“I’m afraid of fires in those things. I’ll cover the covers with my coat.”

“Then if you weren’t a barowner I’d say ‘Like a bottle sent up?’”

“I would. Forgot mine and I’ve run out. Scotch, oldest and best you got. I feel I deserve it.”

“Like a little lady also? She lives here but doesn’t work out of the hotel and told me for my special friends she’s on call anytime.”

“No. It’s been so long I forgot.”

“Don’t worry what she thinks. And baby-cute, dancer’s boobs, and to even men who are eighty and have no chance in the world of reaching it she never makes them feel like fools.”

“Just the scotch.”

“Give me ten minutes to age it.”

Knocks on my door while I’m under a cold shower because there’s no hot and I’m pig-filthy and reek. I yell “Hold it,” get in a bathrobe and then a coat and go to the door, pay him and give a tip. “Who minds the store while you’re delivering?”

“That mean you want to chat and offering me a drink?”

“Sure.”

“I bolt the lobby door — Pour just a trickle more. Switchboard rings or guests want to come in and their frozen fingers are falling off, let them — I have to turn an extra bill over my salary or my family and I can’t survive. When people complain I say ‘Diseased bladder.’”

“So you’re married.”

“Oh yes, it’s the best thing. Cheers,” and we click glasses and drink.

“When do you see your wife, and children?”

“Children sure. Why do without? Wife when I come home and snuggle into her an hour before she has to roust the house and kids and on my one night off. That’s time enough.”

“I ought to get married. Never bothered me till now and I haven’t spoken of it much before, but I’m damn lonely and for some probably logical reason getting lonelier every day.”

“Marriage covers lots of rough spots. Not that I want to force you into it, Mr. Fleet — Shaney may I call you now? And facetiously force you into it of course. Anyway, my petty enterprising is piss poor in this dive, since how many fine scotch tipplers and horny guys you think I’ve got? I only stay here because this hotel is still keeping barely alive, and locatable nightclerk jobs in safe neighborhoods are short. But if you’re seriously interested in getting connected, then once you give up your bandage and blackeye disguise and grow in the shaven scalp hair, there’s another little lady here, this one maybe big once but now stooped through age and not so shapely or cute, who’s quite rich and only tolerating substandard housing because she abhors hostel snobbery as she says. She lives on the sixth and is looking for a much younger man than she for companionship and to run errands and eventually keep and every so often if the desire moves her, a little physical diddling, and if it works out for both of them, inheritance and wedlock. We could pretend you’re ten years younger than you are. For a small part of whatever she contributes to you, I could smooth through the introductions and claim you’re Casanova come back.”