The Garbage Times - White Ibis

by Sam Pink

  I was launching them off the deck from farther away with a simple broom.

  Fiff.

  Fiff.

  Fiff.

  ‘Shouldn’t THEY be cleaning, like for a badge or something?’ I said. ‘Living area maintenance.’

  I’d said something similar perhaps fifty times leading up to the day of the sleepover.

  It had become quite the joke.

  I fiffed another turd across the deck.

  You had to try to pin it right before releasing the pressure, like a wrist shot.

  ‘That’s how you get the real buttah,’ I said.

  ‘Look at that idiot,’ my girl said, referring to Bam, who was passing out while hiccuping, eyes almost—but never quite—closed. ‘Here we are cleaning up his shit while he lays there sunbathing like a little chocolate hawg.’

  ‘The chocolate hawg!’ I yelled, and he wagged his tail a little, licking his lips before falling back asleep, his own shit skipping past him at random.

  The whole deck smelled like piss—bugs droning, very humid—having stormed all day.

  Hot piss baked in the sun.

  Here we are, ever-steeped and sifting through the broth of hot piss.

  Yea.

  To be whoever we can be, for however long, before the piss takes us.

  For be not fooled, we will be taken.

  I felt like shit.

  I could’ve been carefree, partying my nuts off that night, but instead … condemned to public humiliation, simply because I drew such a bad-ass gecko one time.

  Once again, sentenced by my own greatness.

  I whipped a dried turd across the deck at my girl’s feet.

  It bounced off her ankle.

  I handled a turd like a hockey puck up towards her, then whipped it against her foot.

  ‘I’m gonna murder you,’ she said.

  And I like to think she meant it.

  But I know she did not.

  ‘They’re Girl Scouts. Shouldn’t THEY be cleaning the house?’ I said.

  ‘We’ll do the garbage, then be done,’ she said, shaking the open mechanical hand to release a turd sticking to one part of the claw.

  We went to take out the garbage.

  The sky was a series of oranges and pinks, cooling off to light blues.

  Dusk in Florida.

  The air smelled like jasmine.

  Everything was darker green.

  ‘Hey, look, it’s your buddy,’ said my girl.

  We rolled plastic dumpsters to the curb where the white ibis was walking hurriedly away, its wings out a little just in case it needed to really peel.

  My dude.

  ‘What’s up, pea-head!’ I said.

  The white ibis stood in place for a second, eyeing me, then flew a little bit away—which is probably a good rule for how to behave around anyone.

  It landed thirty feet away, then walked slowly in the middle of the street.

  I watched it, knowing then that we were never meant to be friends.

  We were too similar.

  And yeah it sucked, but so it was.

  Well, fuck you then, ya loser!

  My girl walked back to the garage.

  I organized the dumpsters, watching the white ibis wander around halfway down the street.

  You’ll be back, loser.

  Benny came out of some bushes and rubbed his leaf-covered head against my leg, meowing his awful meow.

  ‘We can finally get rid of this too,’ said my girl, walking up and setting down the infamous ‘box of glass shards’ we’d had.

  See, we’d had this box of glass shards.

  She’d dropped a huge frame on the driveway a month ago.

  And we’d collected most of the shards and put them in a box, in the garage.

  And the box had been there for a month, and so had the—fairly controversial, at that point—un-boxed shards on the driveway.

  ‘Wait, what are you doing?’ I said as she set the box down.

  ‘What do you mean. It’s time. We gotta get rid of them.’

  ‘Yeah but, I mean,’ I started motioning. ‘It’s not even covered.’

  I went on to explain like, what if it was some new guy’s first day and he’s all ready to go, ready to provide for the sextuplets he has on the way and then oosh, career-ending injury first day out, fingers sliced to useless meat just hanging off the bone.

  The box of glass shards falls in slow motion to the ground as the garbageman holds up his ribboned hands, screaming sunward in agony.

  And all because we didn’t want to prepare the broken glass some other way?

  That seem like a really noble thing to do when we’re about to host a noble and esteemed troop of Girl Scouts?

  At the same time—I was quick to address—why should I subject myself to that same potential fate merely to correct her mistake?

  Why should I sacrifice my fingers to becoming useless meat just hanging off the bone?

  It really was a fiasco.

  In the end, obviously, we left the box of broken glass on the street.

  Which, I explained on the walk back down the driveway, was a lot like leaving a note that says, ‘Hey, fuck you.’

  ‘I mean, what’s the garbageman supposed to think once he sees that? What conclusion could you possibly draw from someone leaving a box full of broken glass for you to deal with, other than “fuck you”?’

  I picked up a palm branch, tossed a pinecone into the air, and bashed it for Benny to chase.

  He chased the pinecone, pounced on it, then lay there, looking side to side suspiciously.

  ‘Why, if I were him,’ I said, ‘I’d knock on your door and when you opened it I’d cut your face with a piece of the glass. Just to be like, “This, is this what you wanted?”’

  ‘They wear gloves,’ she said.

  ‘How about we just leave broken glass every garbage day?’ I said. ‘Or maybe a bomb. Should we just leave them a bomb? Yeah, let’s go to the hardware store and make a bomb. That way they’ll learn. Wait, how about a bomb filled with glass? Yeah, and razors too, why not, you know? Maybe then after that, yeah maybe after that we can light their dead bodies on fire. How about that too, huh? Yeah, maybe hang their dead fucking body on a fucking tree, then light it on fire, yeah that’ll be great! Wow, great idea. Maybe then send the ashes to their loved ones with a note that

  says, “Daddy’s never coming home …” huh? Yeah, hmm yeah, that sounds great.’

  My girl went inside, saying, ‘Get rid of the crab shell too, ya pea-head.’

  This dead crab had been in the garage for like two months.

  A full-sized dead crab shell.

  Sometimes I felt so sad imagining how it got there.

  The water wasn’t that far away but it wasn’t close either, especially when you primarily crawl sideways.

  So who knows how it got out here, probably in a storm or something.

  Riding out a flood like whoooaaaa, then landing in someone’s driveway.

  Waddling into the garage like fuck, maybe this is it, I don’t know and then just like hiding behind the workbench until death.

  Jesus.

  I grabbed a hockey stick off the wall.

  It had ‘street smartz’ written on the stick part and a neon blue plastic blade.

  It was my preferred tool for lobbing pinecones for Benny to chase.

  I started to stick handle the crab shell.

  Side to side, shuck shuck.

  Back and forth, shuck shuck.

  Then I wristed it against the garage wall, where it shattered totally, scattering along the garage floor in the last incoming bits of sunlight.

  Totally fucking perfect.

  A wonder to behold.

  You said you wouldn’t be caught dead in that dress.

  Well, now it’s too late.

  I went inside with Benny.

  And then they arrived.

  The Girl Scouts.

  They all entered the house at nearly the same time, scream
ing.

  Dotty immediately got real low to the ground, looked at all of them, then ran away.

  Benny and Bam were captured and lifted off the floor—whereupon Bam was pronounced cute and kissed multiple times, his cricket legs roaming, looking for purchase, and Benny bit the girl who picked him up, then ran away.

  Another girl promptly slipped and fell hard on some water that’d spilled out of Bam’s dish.

  She started crying.

  My girl’s cousin helped her up. ‘C’mon, girl, hold it together. We just got here.’

  And it became clear to me just how hard I was about to party …

  I went outside to help unload stuff from the other troop mom’s car.

  ‘Heyyyy, nice to see you again,’ she said.

  ‘Load me up,’ I said, holding out my arms.

  She handed me a case of water bottles.

  My girl’s cousin opened the front door and said something about glass shards.

  I ignored it.

  ‘Oh lord,’ said the other troop mom, handing me multiple bulk packages of chips, drinks, red Styrofoam plates. ‘Are you ready for this?’

  ‘I can’t wait,’ I said, feeling my insides drop as my time drew near.

  The drawing time.

  My moment of truth.

  My exposure.

  The unraveling.

  ‘You carry that?’ said the troop mom.

  We went inside.

  Inside, the Girl Scouts ran around screaming.

  Once everything was all set up, we did the Girl Scout Promise.

  ‘On my honor, I will try: to serve God and my country, to help people at all times, and to live by the Girl Scout Law.’

  One of the girls said, ‘The Girl Scout Law … I will do my best to be: honest and fair, friendly and helpful, considerate and caring, courageous and strong, and responsible for what I say and do, and to: respect myself and others, respect authority, use resources wisely, make the world a better place and be a sister to every Girl Scout.’

  ‘And’—I thought—‘globally, to crush, control, and defeat our enemies into complete enslavement/extinction, to exploit them short term for economic independence and long term for the advancement of our kind.’

  The doorbell rang.

  Bam started barking.

  A couple of the kids yelled, ‘Pizza!’

  I sat at the table, surrounded by Girl Scouts, enjoying juice boxes and pizza with them.

  It was awesome.

  We were partying pretty fucking hard and I never wanted it to end.

  A couple of them told me about their badges.

  One girl showed me her sash.

  It was well decorated.

  ‘Staying fit,’ ‘Digital photographer,’ ‘Detective,’ ‘Gardener,’ ‘Independence,’ ‘Social butterfly,’ ‘Cookie CEO,’ ‘First aid,’ ‘Inside government,’ and one that I had to check twice: ‘Customer insights.’

  Those were all her badges.

  Not bad.

  I wondered what my badges would be.

  Social disappearer

  Not carer

  Cool muscle dude

  Living off 6k a year-er

  Conversation stifler

  Resolver of inner disputes

  Piece of shit resembler

  Outside avoider

  Overbaked joke doer

  One little girl sitting by me asked when I’d be drawing them.

  Then she asked if she could be done last.

  When I asked why, she said, looking down, ‘I don’t like to um, have my picture taken or be in pictures because I’m ugly.’

  I tried to think of something to say but it was something she was sure of.

  The troop mom overheard her and tried to talk her out of it.

  But the girl smiled and said, ‘I know you’re just saying that to try and get me to believe. I know I’m ugly. I don’t like how I look.’

  The mom tried some more and I did too but it was useless.

  The little girl held on to a forced smile, kicking her feet back and forth beneath the table.

  She kicked my leg.

  ‘Oh, sorry, heh,’ she said.

  The other girls were talking about a small plastic toy they all enjoyed collecting.

  There was, overall, a lot of indication through hand-raising.

  The girl who thought she was ugly asked me how many pieces of pizza I’d had.

  I said, ‘Two, and I’m going for two more, I think.’

  She said she’d had one but was done.

  ‘I eat fast, heh,’ she said.

  ‘Me too,’ I said.

  Then she grabbed her friend’s wrist, while the latter had both hands on a slice, and said, ‘Hey, tonight when everyone’s asleep, we should come down and eat all the pizza haha.’

  ‘You want some more pizza?’ I said. ‘I’m getting some.’

  She looked down and quietly said no thanks.

  Then she reached into her mouth and wiggled a loose tooth.

  ‘Is your tooth loose?’ her friend said.

  ‘Ah,’ she said, hand in mouth.

  Doing some work.

  Eventually she winced and then her hand emerged with tooth, a little blood on her fingers.

  ‘Got it,’ she said, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.

  My girl’s cousin took it, pizza in other hand, and said, ‘Uh-oh, Cassie, hopefully the tooth fairy knows you’re here.’

  The little girl motioned for me to lower my head.

  Then she whispered into my ear that she knew the tooth fairy wasn’t real.

  I gave her a look like ‘seriously?’

  One of her troop-mates stood up on her chair and said, ‘Ladies, raise your hands if you love shopping,’ as she raised her hand.

  All the other girls raised their hands.

  I got more pizza and leaned on the counter by the other troop mom.

  She laughed and said, ‘Lacy, what did I say about standing on chairs?’

  ‘That we don’t do it because we can fall and hit our heads.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter what you hit,’ said the troop mom. ‘We’re trying to avoid any hitting anything. You already fell.’

  ‘Ok,’ said Lacy.

  ‘So you have to sit down then, Lacy.’

  ‘Ok,’ said Lacy.

  ‘Preferably now.’

  Lacy sat down.

  Other girls got up and threw out their plates, running upstairs to divide rooms, an event my girl later informed me was highly political.

  A few began sledding down the stairs in their sleeping bags.

  I saw Bam stick his head out from down the hallway, looking scared.

  He licked his lips and returned to his cage, like ‘You’re on your own for this one, bro.’

  I continued to sample the dinner and snacks provided, such as chips, mixed nuts, and, when I least expected it, another slice of pizza.

  ‘You guys looking forward to having your own?’ said my girl’s cousin as she threw away some garbage and tied off the bag.

  I asked her if instead of the portrait thing she’d like me to do basic combat training with the girls in the backyard.

  Hand to hand, basic pistol/rifle drills.

  How to break down and clean an AR15.

  Psychic survival in the aftermath of a world war, etc.

  ‘No, ya weirdo,’ she said, handing me a bag of garbage.

  The Girl Scouts all started running around the house, playing.

  I took the garbage out.

  The white ibis was back at the end of the driveway, wandering around.

  What makes you think I’ll just take you back? I thought, smiling.

  Just kidding, I love you!

  Really, I had so much more to learn from it.

  Really.

  The white ibis walked around slowly, eyeing me sideways but also pecking the wet ground.

  I went back inside.

  When it was time to do the portraits, the Girl Scouts had to be collected f
rom having actual fun—riding their sleeping bags down

  the stairs—and funneled into a room where I was sitting at a table with a pencil and pad of paper.

  Like an evil surgeon waiting.

  Hey, come on in and see Dr. Dumb-ass.

  The first girl had been in the troop for like a week, the troop mom told me.

  She sat in timid pain the whole time, frowning, as I made on and off eye contact.

  Such a great idea, I thought, drawing her eyes.

  So glad to be a part of this idea.

  And, man, I tried.

  There was a part of me that thought I could, somehow, instantly understand and execute portraiture.

  Why not.

  The face was right in front of me, and I knew how to draw.

  Fuck, I could do it.

  Yeah, why not.

  Touching the paper with the pencil and moving as if guided.

  A divine scripting of each unique and perfect contour of their young faces.

  The pencil dancing about the paper in a perfect route.

  Capturing not only reality but the something more that makes them beautiful.

  But alas it was not so.

  I drew her as exact as I could and it turned out looking like a very sad old woman with slightly psychedelic features.

  Like an evil demon about to change shape.

  The rest of the troop sat on the floor playing hand-slapping games with my girl and the troop moms.

  My girl was sitting nearby.

  She turned to me and got on her knees, saying, ‘Oh lemme see,’ and looked over my shoulder and almost burst out laughing, covering her mouth. ‘Oh my god, baby,’ she said quietly.

  A couple girls glanced over, and the girl I was drawing just continued looking on in miserable silence, with the smile she’d been attempting now at about 43% and diving.

  My girl’s cousin came over and muttered, ‘Oh Jesus,’ trying not to laugh, then looked at the Girl Scout and smiled and said, ‘Wow, so cool.’

  I finished the shitty portrait and gave it to her, which she received with quiet horror and then had to decorate.

  Brilliant.

  The next one went exactly the same way.

  Totally shittily.

  And so it was.

  Each one humiliating to all involved.

  They all looked roughly 10% like the girl and 90% like my past drug use.

  Fucking terrible.

  Each time I handed one over, I felt immense shame.

  The girl would take the picture and look at it with the remains of the fake smile she’d been holding.