What Is All This?

by Stephen Dixon

  “And that you might have learned some tact. Because to call up an old friend and insult her husband as if he were a first-class hypocrite and schemer, well, uh-uh, I’m sorry, that’s not showing much tact. That’s not using much brains, either, if I can say so without you jumping down my throat.”

  “I’m not jumping down anyone’s throat—especially not yours. I happen to like your throat, just as I liked your teeth. Truth is, I once even loved your throat. I’d never try to hurt you—and I didn’t intend to insult your husband. I’m not even sure I did, but let’s drop it.”

  “Why don’t we.”

  There was a long silence before he said “Miriam, Miriam, you still there?”

  “Yes. And I have to go now, Arnie. The baby—”

  “You have a baby. When I spoke to Gladys—”

  “It’s not mine; it’s the child of a friend in the building. I’ll have one, though. We’re working on it.”

  “I’m sure you will. And then it’s been good speaking to you, Miriam.”

  “A little rough at times, but I’m glad we can still say it was nice after all.”

  “Don’t be silly. And also—Well, it might sound asinine to suggest we meet for lunch one time this week, but I will be around for that long. And it’s what I originally called for.”

  “It’s probably not a good idea right now, so maybe another time.”

  “A quick coffee then. Just for a half hour or so, and if not at a shop then perhaps I can even come up to your place. It’d be interesting seeing you again, and then these scenes of ancient college boyfriends popping up after so many years have almost become proverbial in books and movies by now. You know, where the husband just stands aside while these two sort of conspire in their talk about those dreamy goofy college days. And then the husband having a fat laugh about it with his wife when the silly old beau goes.”

  “Not a good idea, really. I’ve never been much for conspiracies. Call up again when I’m less hassled by work and getting a new apartment furnished, and I’m sure we can spend some time together. I love talking over old times with good friends.”

  “So do I.”

  He said goodbye, but she didn’t hear him; her receiver had already been recradled. He bought a newspaper and walked the twenty blocks to Penn Station, since he had more than an hour to kill. About fifteen minutes before the train was scheduled to leave for Trenton and his sister and two nieces waiting on the platform for him, all eager to see him after his two years away and planning a family party tonight to celebrate his return before he went abroad again, he rushed out of the club car and called Miriam.

  “Hello? Hello? Hello?” she said, and after her fifth hello, hung up.

  He called back a minute later and the woman who answered said in a stiff Operator’s voice that the telephone he dialed was no longer a working number. The next time he called it was a thick rolling Bavarian voice that answered, saying “Isolde’s Fine German Pasty Shop, dis is Isolde speaking, vould you like to place an order to go to hell?” He said “No, thanks, I guess not,” and hung up.

  JACKIE.

  The badly decomposed body of an unidentified man was found floating in Billowy Bay off Motorboro Airport at 4:15 p.m., Tuesday, by a Port Authority police officer.”

  So?

  Know who it is?

  How could I?

  Jackie.

  Jackie?

  Jackie Schmidt. Floating in Billowy Bay. What’s that, a little article?

  Under “Area News.”

  And you can tell who it is just by reading this little thing in the paper?

  I’d known he was thrown in there. First shot, then thrown.

  Does it say anything about the guy being shot?

  Doesn’t have to. I know.

  But if he was shot, wouldn’t they also say it?

  They haven’t found out where yet, but they will.

  And there can’t be another unidentified man thrown in the same day? Of course not.

  It doesn’t have to be the same day. It takes time to get decomposed. In fact, it couldn’t’ve been the same day.

  How long you think it takes?

  Days. Maybe two weeks. Badly decomposed, three. That’s when they threw Jackie in. Shot, took his clothes off, boom, in the water. Today’s Wednesday? Then three weeks today. It’s him.

  So what are we going to do about it?

  Nothing. It’s done. Jackie’s dead. I knew about it. Now I read about it, I was only telling you, thinking maybe you knew, and if you did, then who from? And if you didn’t, that you’d probably be interested to hear.

  You mind my making an anonymous call to this paper so his wife could know?

  Jackie not coming home for three weeks, she knows. So will everyone in time.

  How? He’s unidentified and decomposed. And no clothes you say? Nothing at all?

  Stripped clean. Wristwatch. Socks. Even his gold star.

  I don’t know why they didn’t say “naked” or “nude” in the newspaper, but all right. Did he also have no fingerprints on when you people threw him in?

  I didn’t throw anybody in. Neither do I know who did. I just know some people who know who did and why and how. Gambling debts. But in bad, and loans. Worse. Taking on more big debts with another group and not paying off the first one a dime before he went in deeper, and then telling both groups to go eat it. Now if he’d just been in deep with the first group and told them to eat it, they would’ve only broken his arm. But taking on two big debts way over his head and telling them both to eat it and then going to another city to take on a third, well, that got to be too much. The first two met, and with the third’s approval, elected to dump him. As for his fingerprints, I guess not. Why bother, for they’d also have to kick out all his teeth and fill in his chin cleft and scars. Besides, they didn’t want to make it impossible to identify him.

  Then you’ll have to explain to me, because I’m still fairly new at this. Why only take off his clothes and go part way with the unidentification, when they know Jackie has a record and will eventually be indentified? Time to give them a cover or get the people who did it away?

  No. They thought it’d be a good lesson to whoever might think he can beat out on two big debts to two vaguely related groups and to tell them both to eat it besides.

  But how are these people who are supposed to get the lesson supposed to find out it’s a lesson and also one meant for them? By reading of an unidentified decomposed man found floating in the bay who could’ve got there through a long sleepwalk? How did the groups even know it was going to make the paper, nothing as that article was? And if it did, that it’d even be read?

  Whisper and word started getting around a month ago. “Jackie’s betting heavy. Jackie’s welshing. Jackie’s in very steep. Jackie won’t cough up a note for them and told them both to eat it raw. Jackie could get a jaw broken, talking and acting that way. If anyone’s a pal of Jackie’s, give him the word? Jackie’s missing. Hey, anybody seen Jackie or heard from him the last few days?” Then, body found. “Hmm, bay you say? Isn’t that where they usually drop guys that welsh big-time?” Tomorrow or the next day we’ll read he’d been shot with a small caliber bullet so close and clean that it almost got lost behind the back hairs of his head. Everybody will know by now who it is and what for. As for the newspaper—if it hadn’t gotten in, somebody would’ve informed them. What’s really important, though, is that the people this lesson’s directed to get to know it slowly till it sinks in.

  These groups never seemed that clever to me to plan it so smooth.

  Listen, we’re not psychologists and know beans about the subject, but in what these groups do and their customers, they are. They haven’t studied it but just know.

  So I forget my call and even thinking about it?

  You’ll see for yourself. Jackie’s wife will claim the body in a few days and there’ll be a funeral and we’ll attend.

  We were his such good friends and nobody will mind we’re there?
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br />   No one. Neither his wife, who’ll be compensated for the lesson. And the people who did him in will even expect it of us, and some of them will be there too. They play it decent, very orderly and good manners, something Jackie didn’t do or have. That was his problem. Not much brains too. Hand in hand with his gambling, that can kill you. Being a smartass besides, you’re dead.

  I’ll remember that.

  It can save your life.

  Look, a life worth saving might as well be my own. You know, I don’t think I like this business anymore. Money’s good and not too many hours and so far steady, but too much excitement for me and you never know who to trust. Your friend’s your friend one day, and next day you’re fingered by him on maybe even a lie, and there you go with his thumb pressed into your throat goodbye.

  There’s a lot depending on it for everyone, that’s why. You just got to do what’s expected of you till one day you get the right to give orders. That takes time and you got to want it but not ask for it. No matter what, it’s true you should never think you’re absolutely safe. Like with any job, any business. Draw your own parallels.

  But even when you’re right up there, company president and the rest of it, you can be giving all the orders and still get it in the head.

  Not if you do nothing wrong. Everything’s protected. Or let’s say, all your moves are almost already made. Sure, accidents happen, flukes out of nowhere. New people move in, alliances fall apart and develop, but then you got to know who to be for. All in all, though, you got to stay in line.

  But what you’re saying makes it seem even more impossible. This one, that one, time comes along, how do I know I won’t be dumb enough to pick the wrong one? You saw with that phone call. Suppose I’d made it and some power person found out and thought it a very bad move. And for all I know it could’ve been my third to fourth very bad move in a short time and they might decide that’s the max so now I also definitely belong away. You could’ve told them of all the moves I made that I didn’t know were so bad, and this last one, coming from someone else, could’ve been the clincher.

  Me? Your best friend? Tell on you?

  They can give you reasons. I’ve heard that it can happen. You know it yourself. No, I really want out, but total.

  Too early. You got too much put in—and they with you the same—for you to go so immediately. You have to step back very slowly till everything you do’s being done by someone else or among a crew and you’re so unnoticed, you’re out. Something like that. But takes time. Anything else is suspicious.

  Then I’m leaving the area.

  Forget it. They see a small hole, means someone’s missing. You’re not around, means it’s you. They find you, you’ll have to explain. Most times, to be extra protective of themselves, they won’t believe you whatever way you say it. You should’ve thought of all this before you came in.

  How could I have known?

  Come on. You heard of it, read about it, grown up with it, seen it in the movies and still do. Well, it’s not so far from all those combined where you should’ve known what it was like beforehand.

  Poor Jackie.

  Stupid Jackie, you mean.

  Poor. Because he’s dead. Little I knew, I liked him. Oh, let’s shut the light.

  I want to read some more.

  The newspaper ink will make your fingers dirty.

  I can live with it.

  You feeling like a little physical activity before I turn over?

  Not tonight, love, not tonight.

  The article about Jackie?

  It’s not that.

  Then good reading.

  And you, sweet dreams.

  THE CLEANUP MAN.

  “That’s it, I quit, I can’t stand it anymore,” and I put the broom into the closet and go downstairs to the locker room. The boss comes.

  “What’s this? What happened? If it’s Pete again, I’ll sack him.”

  “No, it’s not Pete, though he gives me a hard time all right. But it’s not him. I’m tired of this job. I’ve been at it too long. Tired of all this kind of work. I get no satisfaction from it and I don’t think I ever did, not just here but in every place. I don’t know, but I’ve got to get out of it for good.”

  “What satisfaction you want? You sweep the floor, you clean the dishes and occasionally bus some tables. What possible satisfaction can you get in that, except in doing a good job? And you do a good job with your sweeping and cleaning and when I ask you to bus, not to say the way you take care of the windows. Those windows shine. And when they shine, people see them and know it’s a clean place I got and they come in and sit down and want to be served and eat and drink and spend money. Customers compliment me on those windows. So I compliment you and on everything you do besides. So why do you want to quit? Satisfaction, that satisfaction that artists and scientists and great teachers get from their work, will never come to me or you. But just small satisfaction, like those people complimenting me on my windows and food, and a compliment or two from me to you and just in your own self about the good job you do, that you’ll get. And that you deserve, so stay. I’ll raise your salary if you want—ten cents an hour starting when you came in today.”

  “It’s not the money,” I say.

  “Don’t be a fool. It is so the money, or has to be in some big way. Because what else you live on: the garbage you wipe off the plates or sweep up in the corners of the dining room? Maybe you do find something every now and then on the floor you don’t tell me about, like a diamond earring or dollar bill or a customer’s bracelet. That you deserve too if the person who loses the earring or bracelet doesn’t come in to say she lost it, though whatever loose money you find is yours no matter who comes in to claim. But money you earn is what you live on. And ten cents more an hour, though not a lot to most people, to you comes up to almost five dollars a week, which you can certainly use. So ten cents an hour raise you’ll get, and starting first of this week, not today.”

  “It’s not the money. I don’t want a raise. I wouldn’t say no to it if I stayed here, but I wouldn’t stay here for a dollar more an hour. Like I said, I’m tired of the job and it’s probably tired of me, whatever that means.”

  “Fifteen cents an hour then, but that’s my limit. At four-eighty an hour with the new raise, you’ll be making more than just about any restaurant cleanup man in the city.”

  “No, please, I told you—”

  “Okay, you got it. Twenty cents an hour raise, but only because you’re so damn dependable, though don’t try to hold me up for more. That’s almost nine dollars more a week you’ll be getting, plus I won’t even tell you how much it costs me in those two big meals a day you eat. Of course, you’ll have to work a little extra harder for it. I don’t give raises away like that just any day of the week.”

  “Really, I’m through with this line of work. I have to try and do something else, but I don’t know what.”

  Then why leave? Leave, and I can’t say you did anything but quit. And if you quit, the state won’t give you unemployment insurance.”

  “I don’t want any.”

  “If you could get it, you’d take it—don’t tell me. It’s probably what you’re planning to do anyway.”

  “No, I wouldn’t. Jesus, over three years I’ve been here, and you don’t know me at all. You see, I’ve cleaned up for you and all those other restaurants for twenty-some years because I never tried to do anything else. But I want to be…Well, I want to do…Ah, the hell with it. Sorry. And I’ve got to go.”

  I put my apron on the bench, change into my street clothes, wipe the kitchen crap off my shoes with a paper napkin, and say “So, I’ll be seeing you, and I hope no hard feelings,” and start upstairs.

  “Go, then,” he says, following me. “But you made a fool of me by not taking my pay raise, which I’ll never forget. Use my name as a work reference to someplace not even close to what you had here, and you’ll see what you’ll get. I’ll go out of my way, even, to make sure you don’t
get hired. And if I hear you’re working in some joint, I’ll call the manager there and tell him what I think of you. I won’t say you stole. That, you never did, which is another reason I prized you. But there are other things I can say that will sound almost as bad, especially that you left me stranded today with five hours to go on your shift. That’s almost as bad as stealing, as far as we’re concerned. And if I can’t get someone in for you in two hours, just as bad and maybe worse.”

  I buy a newspaper outside, go home and search the want ads for possible jobs. Computer programmer, machine operator, bank teller, and so on—nothing I could do, and they all say no on-the-job training. File clerk and messenger I could probably be hired as, but they seem no better and interesting as jobs than what I’ve been doing.

  Next morning I get into my best clothes—my dress clothes, which aren’t much, but something—and go to a dozen or more employment agencies. The interviewers all tell me my experience and education qualify me for nothing much better than what I’ve been doing: cleanup man, dishwasher, busboy. I want to do something more challenging and personally rewarding, I tell them, and I’m too old to be a busboy.

  “Busboys come in all ages,” the last interviewer says. “A man can retire at sixty-five as a busboy and get a reasonably good pension if he belongs to a good union. I’d suggest you find work in an expensive restaurant as one. If you work fulltime as a busboy and your waiters are fair with sharing part of their tips with you, your earnings should add up to more than you’d make as a cleanup man in even the best-paying restaurant. If you’re interested, I have a new listing here for one.”

  “I’m too old to be called a busboy is I guess what I’m saying. I also feel I’m still young and healthy enough to hold down a better kind of job, and also, for a change, one cleaner. Maybe I should go back to school for something.”

  “By your looks, you’re in your forties. You want my opinion? You’re also too old to return to school to study for a new profession. For an education, maybe—just to get one is what I mean. But that’s what you want? Go ahead—everyone can profit from more learning at any age. But I don’t expect you have much in savings? And just going to school without working at the same time, unless you want it to take you a few years, is one luxury I don’t think you can afford.”