Stephen Dixon - Garbage

Few minutes later the phone rings and man says “Mr. Fleet? I’m Phil Veritianien from Bee’s Antiquery across the street. I’m new in the area, probably paying four times your rent per-square-foot space, but want to keep the best relations with my fellow storeowners because we need each other for protection and eyes. But I never had a store in even the most wretched neighborhood where I got my lip slit and shirt ripped off my back and myself almost arrested for not telling the police where certain trash bags originally came from because I wanted to protect one of my fellow storeowners on the street. That the way you always dispose of your shit?”

“No and I’m sorry. I’ll pay for the shirt and it won’t happen again.”

“I’ll buy that offer. Thirty dollars. Since you’re so tied up and my shop’s always locked except for customers I sense I can trust, just slip it through the slot in my door.”

I stick the money through his slot, then phone him a minute later and say “Don’t know why I didn’t think of this before, Mr. V. You couldn’t take a few of those bags off my hands for a while every night if I stacked them nice and neat on your sidewalk at the right pickup time?”

“My carter only permits so many bags per day for what I pay, so afraid I can’t, nor do I appreciate your asking.”

I phone the soda distributor and he says “Take it easy. My cousin’s out of town and should be back early next week.”

“You wouldn’t know anyone else who sells and installs them cheap?”

“Sure I know but if Vince heard I did he’d ask what kind of relatives are we for me not to give him first shot.”

I call the linen service and tell the man who answers who I am and he says “Tough luck, Fleet, but the boss’s wife says we can’t take any new orders on for a long time if ever. Owner went to the hospital with a heart pain this morning and looks to be in bad shape.”

“You know that’s just crap. Who’d he speak to — Stovin’s and they told him not to service me?”

“What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean. I mean your outfit for all your boss’s big talk about his business is his and mine’s mine and so forth was just a cover for — well is just like all the other businesses yours is in doing business with me and that’s that Stovin’s tells you who and not to sell to and you go along. I didn’t explain myself well but you still have to know what I mean. Stovin’s, that’s who.”

“Listen here, you fucker. Ned Rater is my boss and also my buddy for fifteen years and he’s the best sonofabitch that ever lived and fairest boss anyone’s ever worked for, so don’t go slurring him again or I’ll drive my truck straight through your store.”

“Good, drive it. With bar linens, right into my place. Because that’s what your boss promised for today: enough to last me a week, and then drive right in again to pick them up and deliver more.”

“He’s sick, can’t you get that in your head? He had a heart condition working long and hard hours all his life for ingrates like you. He might probably die from it tonight because he was too damn good to be true, so lay off.”

“What hospital?”

“Think I’d tell you?”

“Yes, tell me, I want to show the Attorney’s office how Stovin’s gets everyone in on it to dump me.”

“A hospital, stupid, that’s all. But if I see you anywhere near it and you tell me who you are, I’ll break your face in with a pick.”

I phone several hospitals and one says a Ned Rater was admitted today and is in intensive care. I chase my two customers out, lock up and cab to the hospital, get a pass downstairs by saying I’m his brother and get off at his floor. But I jump back in the elevator just before the door closes and ride down thinking what the hell am I doing here, where have my senses gone: have I so totally come apart where I think I’m the only one who can have miseries? The poor guy’s sick. Get your head screwed back on. You don’t want to see another man with a mask over his nose and piss in his bag and maybe his bawling wife asking who you are and I leave the hospital, get a double scotch at a bar on the block, say to the bartender “Have one on me or the price of a drink if you don’t touch the stuff or aren’t allowed, because I want to toast to Ned Rater — Ned Rater, everybody,” I say holding my glass up to the other customers at the bar. “A heck of a guy, a great boss, a brave wonderful buddy, may he live in peace or just die peacefully, whichever thereof,” and they drink with me, bartender sets down his water glass and takes the price of two drinks out of my money on the bar and drops half in his tip tray and other in the register, customers go back to their talking and I wipe my tears away, not knowing who I’m crying for or maybe both, him and me, and say to the bartender “He’s in the hospital there, really a fantastic guy, kind of like my brother,” and he says “Lost one myself this year plus a baby sister the last one, so I know how you feel,” and we shake hands and I tell him I’m sorry for his own recent misfortunes and drink up and go to my bar.

“You’ll drive people away with your new hours,” a regular says waiting at the door for me and I say “Nothing I could do. When a friend’s sick you got to see him,” and give him a free beer for his wait, for a few minutes think about what I think I’m about to do, call the soda distributor and say “Okay, no more lies. Tell me straight off whether you were told by Stovin’s not to help me in any way,” and he says “Where’d you get that? No.” And I say “Come on, George, straight off, no lying, yes or no?” and he says “Didn’t I just say it? No.” And I say “George, goddammit, straight off, no more lies, don’t be afraid I’ll tell anyone for I won’t, so yes or no, yes or no?” and he says “Okay. Yes, yes you’re not going to get a soda gun from my cousin or anyone in town, new or used, or anything to help you from anyone in the state from now on from what I can tell. So you better just give up on your place, sell the bar if you’re smart while you can still sell it, because you should’ve listened when you should’ve listened to them months ago. But no, you had to go make a perfect fool of yourself and risk the businesses of everyone who dealt with you and maybe your life, so goodbye already, will you? Goodbye and goodbye,” and hangs up.

I call a couple of bar supply places and give my name and the bar’s and say I want to order two soda guns. Both men I speak to say something like “We’re out of stock. It might take a week, might take a month, but when we get them in I’ll phone you.”

I ask the regular at the bar to call “for an unopened bottle of vodka or your choice, this bar supply place and say you’re Carl Frost of the Morning Dawn Pub — no, he’ll look it up and see there’s no bar name like that and know it’s a phony call.”

“I don’t want to make any phony call. I only want to drink and avoid walking down sewer holes.”

“For two bottles then. Here’s the number and this time say you’re Ivan Satty of the Hospital Balloon — that’s a real place and I know has no soda guns because I was just there today — and that you want two soda guns installed and all the service that goes with it.”

He calls and the man he speaks to takes down the Balloon’s address and says a salesman will be over by the end of the day to show him the different types of guns he can buy.

I get two bags of garbage from the basement, give the regular his two bottles and tell him to leave, lock up, cab to Stovin’s with the bags and walk past two men scrubbing and hosing down a Stovin’s garbage truck in the street and go in the building’s front door and put the bags on the floor next to the receptionist at the desk who’s the only person here and say “Jennifer if I can remember, yes? Or maybe she’s at lunch or quit.”