Stephen Dixon - Garbage

Couple of seconds later a man goes into the booth, seems to jiggle the coin return button same time he sticks a finger in the return slot and pockets what he gets and moves on.

“Cabs don’t make money standing,” the driver says.

“Don’t worry, I’ll make it pay.”

“How?”

“A good tip.”

“How much?”

“Listen, standing is also part of the cab-driving job and I said I’ll make it pay.”

“But how much?”

“Five bucks. Nothing happens a few minutes more, I’ll walk.”

Three minutes later, meter still running, cabby never stopping his grumbling, my stomach nervous from the excitement of what I’ve done with that envelope on the tape and this wait and what I might find and head clotted not with the idea of stomping the guy or guys but to grab whoever they are just to see who so I know them if I already don’t and maybe to ask lots of whys, a man goes into the booth, gets the envelope, opens it and looks inside, drops it to the floor and leaves. Few feet away he snaps his fingers, goes back, picks up the envelope, opens it almost prissily this time, takes out a withdrawal slip by one of its corner tips, rubs it on the sidewalk back and forth and puts it in his wallet and throws the envelope into a trash can near the booth but misses and it lands on the street and the slips fall out and are picked up by the wind and sail in circles around the can and a couple up in the air and away.

“He’s who you’re waiting for?” the cabby says.

“Yes.”

“There’s to be trouble between you of any kind, pay up and get out now. I don’t want to spend the rest of my day filling out police forms on what might turn out to be a lucrative snowstorm for my cab.”

I give him fifteen dollars and tell him to keep it all if he just drops me a little ways behind the man on the man’s side of the street and that there’ll even be more if the man jumps in a car and we have to follow him by cab. Meter reads $2.85 and he puts the flag up and says “Cop comes, tell him you were just stepping out and then leave.” We cross the avenue and follow the man for a minute. He walks fast, wiping his hands with a handkerchief, and when I decide no one’s with him and he’s not going to a car I say “Now,” and the cabby says “Now what?” and I say “Where’d you go to school? Stop right here!” and he does and I get out and walk after the man. The man hears the cab accelerate and stares after it as it passes and twists around and sees me and walks faster. I recognize him I think but don’t know for sure. I walk faster after him thinking where have I seen him if I have? In the bar? Somewhere on the street near it or maybe in my hotel or my old neighborhood or the diner I go to every morning now for muffins and coffee? He starts running and I run after him. Zigzags between some cars when the redlight’s against him and I have to do that too, and it’s snowing harder and I could easily lose him in the falling snow. I’m lean and he’s pretty heavy though we’re both about the same age it seems but his coat’s long and bulky while mine’s short and light. He also has tall heels on his boots and I have my special bartender shoes with the rubber ripple soles that almost throw me forward. He runs into a lady when I’ve just about caught up with him and her umbrella flies, paper bag she was carrying goes elsewhere and a few rolls roll out, woman landing in two men’s arms just before she would have hit the ground faceways. The man spins around from the crash, arms wind-milling to stop him from slipping, sees me right next to him and throws his hands up in front of his face, but I’m so mad at who I see he is that I come down on his head with my fist and then the other fist to his ear while he can’t keep his feet from sliding from under him and he falls down and when he’s on his back on the ground but his head rising I get my knee on him and slap him twice in the cheeks and then take him by his coat shoulders and slam his head on the pavement a couple of times though I only meant to shake him in the air.

His lids close, body goes limp. I say “Get up, you mother,” but he doesn’t move. “Come on, don’t bluff me, I’m not going to hit you anymore, so get up.”

An old man’s screaming, back and hands pressed against a building wall, then walks off. Woman’s cursing while she picks up her rolls, blows the snow off them and puts them in her pocketbook. I raise one of the man’s lids and only see what looks like a dead eyeball. I put my hand under his coat; he’s beating. The two men who caught the woman stand over me and look like they want to grab and throw me to the ground but by their weak faces I know won’t and I say “Don’t, listen, this man, he set fire to my apartment three weeks ago or else helped because he left a note saying something of mine was going up, and it was for nothing I did. Nothing. I own a bar. Mitchell’s Grill four blocks back. They’re hoods he belongs to and trying to ruin me.”

“We don’t know about hitting a man like that though,” one of the two men says.

“But I lost everything in that fire. You name it. My parrot who I loved and lost her with all my personal belongings too. Someone call the police while I keep guard over this guy.”

“All right,” the man says. “Someone should probably phone them.”

“You do it. From that booth over there.”

“I’m not getting in like that, since how do I know you’re the truth?”

“It’s the truth, the truth.”

“That’s what you say, though the man you dumped might be in the right.”

“Would I ask you to get the police for me if he was?”

“You might be just saying that to later get up and run away once one of us goes to call. At least with two of us here you might not try.”

“You,” I say to the other man. “Don’t listen to him. Please call.”

“What this gentleman says about your maybe being wrong could be right. I’m staying. Send someone else.”

“Someone, please, call the police,” I say to the small crowd, snow falling on us, starting to stick. “This man’s a crook, was trying to extort money from me or was definitely in on it some way. I’m the owner of Mitchell’s Bar and Grill — Shaney Fleet, the police in this precinct know me — the Fifteenth. Ask them, phone them now.”

The woman the man crashed into is gone. Her umbrella flew into the street and a bus smashed into it and now cars are running over it. Other people left the crowd when I spoke and a few new ones joined, asking everyone else but me what I was speaking about and why’s the man on the ground and was that screaming before coming from here, though no one offers to call the police nor gives any sign he’s going to.

“Then let’s carry him to the phonebooth so I can call the police,’’ I say to the two men. “That way you can stay with us and he’s getting pneumonia down there.”

“And if his skull or arm’s broken or spine and he gets five times worse because we carried him and maybe dies, he’ll sue for hospital bills and damages or his survivors will and who’ll lose? You and we will if you have anything to, I know I do, so let’s leave him here.”

I lift the man off the ground.

“I said to leave him!”

“And I say to get the hell out of my way if you’re not going to help,” and get the man in a fireman’s carry and carry him to the booth a half-block away. The two men walk alongside and several other people follow us. The man’s still unconscious it seems. His arms hang. He’s breathing. Blood’s running out of his head down my front. I kick away some snow, set him down, sit him up, pull him inside the booth till his back’s braced against a wall, button him up to his neck, lay my coat over his legs and boots, with my handkerchief dab the gash in his head and wipe the snow off his nose and hair, as his hat seems to have gotten lost somewhere from the time I first saw and then caught him. I pat his pockets and thighs and chest thinking maybe he has a gun. There is none but is a folded-up switchblade. I put it in my pocket.