Garbage

by Stephen Dixon

  “But you never heard of them or the two men, Turner or Pete? Just by your voice you sounded like you might. And it’s all right if you did, as I won’t mention where I met you or your name. I just want to know what they think they have to do to me before they stop.”

  “I said no, go to sleep.”

  “Goodnight,” the other two say.

  “Night, fellas.” I fall asleep and am dreaming of getting into our old car in the neighborhood I lived in with my folks years ago. They’re what they look like and in the same clothes as in my photos I lost of them in the fire and I’m the same size, age and face I’m now but act much younger, so I guess I’m supposed to be in this dream about eleven or twelve which is when we had that car, when all four doors slam closed and my head flashes white, car my father puts the ignition key in explodes, dream suddenly ends and I feel tremendous pain in my brains and hands and legs, white breaks apart into stars and dashes and dots like a universe starting up and then I have to puke, I’m screaming and awake and want to bawl like a kid the pain in my head’s so great, but I just go out and next when I’m awake the cell’s lit and someone’s sticking needles in my arm and another’s sucking out something from my mouth and nose with a hose and next when I’m awake I’m on a stretcher zipping through an empty hall except for some police and a couple of rough-looking men in cuffs and I first think it’s another dream because my head and sight’s so indistinct and then I see and think it clear. I’m wet with sweat all over it feels, pissed or shit in my pants because something like that stinks and seems to be me and my lips are sticky and I got blood on my stretcher and chest.

  “No problem, you’ll be okay,” someone says, man walking next to me it is with his clipboard clapping the wall and I say yes.

  “You can hear?”

  “Hear, yes.”

  “Guy’s got great recovery,” the bearer in front of us says and I say yes. “Good pair of ears too.”

  I reach up to feel where it is that still hurts so much in the head but the man next to me says “Put it down, don’t touch, I’m warning you, Fleet. That’s a clean dressing the doc put on and I’m responsible, so I’ll slap your hand right off your wrist.”

  I drop my hand if I ever got it up and again go out.

  “You can’t have me anymore, Mr. Fleet,” a woman says.

  “Wha?”

  “I said I’m afraid you can’t have me anymore. Want me to speak louder? You see, to put it in plain layman’s language, the criminal court, in the person of the judge of such, appointed me as your lawyer because of your own inexplicit and, to me personally, rather witless self-destructive reasons why you didn’t need one, but now I have to unappoint myself because there’s no longer a criminal case. We just received corroboration from the D.A. that the man you beat up dropped charges against you—Forgive me, but we were talking about this before, don’t you remember?”

  “Huh?”

  “You certain you’re even conscious now?”

  “Let me see.”

  Eyes open all the way. Light from the outside’s in the room. Cages on the windows padlocked. Smell of public school cafeteria food. I’m asleep under white sheets in a men’s ward or was. Now I’m up. My mind sort of, not my neck or back. And it’s snowing again or never stopped. And birds, I hear birds, but it’s this whistler in the next bed like a whole flock of them and most of the pain’s gone in my head.

  “I don’t want to disturb you if you still want to doze.”

  “No, I want to stay up. Why my here?”

  “I already told you.”

  “Why my here?”

  “Well, your face is more alert. Has to be a good sign, particularly with all the painkiller they put in. You’re healthy and perky again or thereabouts—congrats. I’m Janie Pershcolt, remember? We just had a long involved conversation about your life and bad breaks of late, but all the time you weren’t even awake? How can that be? Anyway, I’m your court-appointed etcetera, not that I’m available to you now, etcetera—and you won’t flake out on me again?”

  “Try not to.”

  “Hungry? Want food, Mr. Fleet? Mr. Fleet, are you there? Food. Pudding. Potatoes, munch munch, and buttered bread. You should be starved after two days of just tubes. They’re giving out the trays now and before you said you didn’t.”

  “Still don’t. Stomach.”

  “You’re not nauseous. If you are, be a friend as I’ve been to you and forewarn so I can step aside? Anyway, as I told you previously, the reason you’re here is you were hit on the head with a pipe two nights ago or with some comparably solid instrument and possibly thrown off your bed, remember that?”

  “Not talking about or happening it.”

  “Why would, assuming he did, and looks like to me, one of your fellow cellmates do that or any combination of the three? In your sleep conversation you said you only dreamed getting bonked.”

  “Looks like to me? Combination three?”

  “Forgive me, but are you accusing all three prisoners of participating in the attack?”

  “The guard?”

  “The guard too or alone? Which, if either, and what’s your basis for stating that?” “Let me think.”

  “That’s a pretty wild charge, Mr. Fleet. Earthshaking anytime the lawbreaker’s the law. I’m not a prosecuting attorney or your lawyer anymore, but because my field is criminal jurisprudence and the penal system and so forth, I would like to know.”

  “Let me think.”

  “I hope there’s no permanent brain damage. I mean I know there’s none permanent or otherwise because the doctor told me there’s not, so don’t let me worry you, but I hope there isn’t.”

  “I don’t feel it. Please, Ginny, let me think.”

  “Janie, Janie—So how are you today?” she says to the next bed.

  “Fine and dandy, ma’am, and you?”

  “I’m hardly the one in the hospital plus incarcerated, but I feel terrific today. I adore snow.” And suddenly to me “Quick, Shaney, what’s your name?”

  “My what?”

  “Name, quick, your name.”

  “Shaney Elborn Fleet.”

  “Quick, what do you do and where and all that?”

  “Own a bar. Barowner. Ten to one. Tend one too. I do. One twenty-three East 5th Street, postal code forgot. Mitchell’s Bar and G. B and Grill. Bar and Grest, Rest, please—these questions hurt my head. And will you please stop whistling?” I say to the next bed. “It’s a nice tune and you whistle well but it’s killing me.”

  “Ever you say, pal.”

  “No, you’re all right,” she says. “Quick response, natural verbal confusion, though what you said made sense. But your three ex-cellmates say they didn’t touch you. That while they slept you must have rolled off your bunk to the floor because you weren’t familiar with upstairs sleeping, and no one could find the pipe or comparable solid instrument.”

  “Forget what I said of the guard. I just wanted to know if he knew anything. But the police won’t prosecute?”

  “You have some proof?”

  “My head. What the doctors said. For why they think a pipe?”

  “Type of skull gash. No fist did it. Broke the skin and a bit of bone and was caused not by your head hitting something but something hitting it. Sixteen stitches. That’s what your turban’s all about. Concussion they’ll only know when—”

  “Because they’re after me those bastards and word in, they did, got the, to the jail to nail me, get me, that’s it, has to be, that sonofabitch whoever did it, so what the hell else is new? Don’t you see, and excuse me for my cursing and muddledness, but they’re all from the same group.”

  “Who? You claiming the pipe, apartment fire and reason for your delivering that street beating are all related to the garbage can company you complained about in the police report I read?

  You have to have something backing you better than wild charges or that company will nail you for defamation of everything and then you’ll really go to jail and pa
y. Because as I said before. Well, I don’t know if I said it but I’ll say it now. I’m not saying you’re a fabricator, Mr. Fleet. Or that anything you said happened to you couldn’t have in this city individually or even as you stated be intertwined. But so far you’ve no case. One, there’s no bludgeoning weapon, so maybe the forensic medic was mistaken and your head did roll off your bed and hit a shoe we’ll say or your own elbow on the floor and made that gash like a pipe might make. Two, three men in your cell are prepared to swear that none of them brained you or at least neither of them witnessed it. And three, it’s not as if you’re a prison guard who got piped, so who’s really that concerned? Be realistic. To most people, judges or otherwise, what occurs in a prison cell is your own fault for getting in there, even if how you got in turns out to be an error of the police or court. And four, that man on the street you beat up says he won’t reveal his name and address for fear his wife will find out he was in town with his mistress that day when he told her he was to be a hundred miles from here on business. That’s why he won’t press charges against you, which when you think of it could make sense. And five, if that fire was deliberately started, then it was an arsonist’s dream job. Forgive me for butting in more than I was appointed to. But if you—pipe story aside, which might have been a personal affair between you and one or all of your ex-cellmates and so not something they want to disclose—have any doubt you’re telling the truth about this Stovin’s group or anyone you’ve accused so far, then for your own sake, and I say this with all my professional expertise and individual sincerity, don’t you think it’d be wise to maybe see a psychiatrist?”

  “Thanks very much, but didn’t the police look in the man’s wallet for my note?”

  “Note? Hold it. Maybe I’m the one losing my memory now.”

  “The note, my note. Under the phone shelf. I told the police he—”

  “Oh yeah. Now how could they? He wasn’t the one brought in and arraigned.”

  “But they looked for his name and address, didn’t they? Since my note was the only thing in his wallet besides money, because I looked in it myself, they had to have seen it.”

  “Even if you didn’t put the note in and they did find it, which I’m only being hypothetical for argument’s sake about, it would most likely be classified as illegal evidence because the note wasn’t what they would have been legally searching for.”

  “If they found a loaded gun in his wallet while they were only searching for his address, would that be illegal evidence too?”

  “Then they might have questioned him, though maybe only to find out how he was able to fit a gun in his wallet—do you get what I mean?”

  “Excuse me, but can I check out of here when I want?”

  “According to the call before, they’re not holding you for anything anymore and you don’t seem to have a serious concussion the way you’re now making noise, so I think so—of course. But why leave when you can stay a few more days courtesy of the city before they transfer you to a paying hospital, especially with the state of your head. I didn’t mention that they said you’ll have a permanent deep dent there around the metal plate, which is just how bad the blow was.”

  “Because I won’t feel safe anyplace but in my bar or hotel room. There I got my own locks and regular grounds and my own form of weapons if I want. Here, who knows what can happen. Another pipe at night. Dent in a dent perhaps where I’ll end up with a tin helmet for a head, or maybe something in my food. Sure, by your look I can tell I must sound to you like I feel way overpersecuted. And whatever I say after it to explain why I’ve these fears will make me sound even more so till they think I’m too crazy to go home, so why even stay here and risk being tossed in a mental ward?”

  “If you insist, nobody can stop you, not that I like you roaming around outside with your head in such physical shape. Though if you do leave and need a lawyer for future advice on these matters I’m not saying you don’t legitimately fear, I do have a private practice too. This should be confidential between us if you don’t mind. I’m not by city law allowed to take for money one of the defendants I was initially appointed by the court to defend for free, even after the charges against him are dropped, and my fees compared to lawyers of much less caliber and human sympathy are relatively cheap. Here’s my card.” She takes one from her briefcase and puts it in my hand. “Maybe you’ll forget it’s there, though your attention span seems to be progressing by the second,” and she opens a sidetable drawer. The whistler says “Hey, lady, what are you doing in my things?” and she says “Sorry,” goes around my bed and opens what I suppose is my drawer, takes out my wallet, says “Mind?” and sticks the card in. “One positive thing I can probably do for you now is get your nurse,” and she touches my finger and goes.

  “Wait!”

  “What?”

  “Advice. What do I legally do if Stovin’s group comes at me again?”

  “Why should they? If what you say is true, then they gave you your lumps. If what you say isn’t, then what’s to worry about?” and she goes.

  Nurse comes in with two policemen and says “Actually our policy is if you can stand by yourself once we get you out of bed, you can walk out of here if you have your court release, so let’s first see if we can make you stand.”

  They help me out of bed. She says “Ready?” and I nod and they let go of me and I keep standing though sag at the knees somewhat and really have to fall.

  “Good boy. They’ll get you dressed. Truth is it’s only because there was a big knifefight in your jail last night that I’m kind of hurrying you, Mr. Fleet, as they’re now recovering in the halls. Besides of course we always no matter how many fights and suicides a night in there need all the beds we can get for the injured prisoners coming from the outside. Stay out of trouble and best of luck.”

  I’m discharged, go to my hotel, am given a new room, with a view, as they thought I ran out on the bill and wouldn’t be back, rest and that night call Hector at home. His wife, when I tell her my name, says “He out, be back.” She says that every hour for three hours till I call and say in a phony accent and voice with a tissue over the mouthpiece “Hey, dis is Jake,” who’s a drinking pal of his, “de old crow in?” an expression for Hector I’ve heard Jake use.

  Hector gets on and says “Jake, you dumb jerk, how do they say it: so what’s it by you?”

  “Hector, how come you don’t want to speak to me?”

  “Shaney? Not speak to you how? What’s with this Jake? Anything happen to him?”

  “Your wife told me you weren’t in.”

  “I just came through the door while she was talking. How are you? Heard you were really hurt bad.”

  “Heard from who?”

  “Why the exam? I don’t know: cops. One on the street. Not on the street where he told me but one from the street I remembered when I spoke to him by phone at the police station as to if anything happened to you and he said you’d been busted over the head real bad. I’m really sorry for you. How do you feel?”

  “What’s this policeman’s name?”

  “I don’t know his name. His voice, on the phone, and don’t ask what kind of voice. Just a voice, a rough one on and off the phone that I remembered by ear. Maybe I only think it’s him I spoke to.”

  “Hector, how come I’m not believing you? It’s funny but now that both my ears are bandaged over and I’ve got to strain to hear anything, I’m starting to hear better than I ever did before.”

  “I don’t understand. Speak clearer. What’s all that jumble about?”

  “Speak clearer. Jumble. You don’t understand me. Bull. I don’t like this, that’s what I’m saying. That you didn’t want to speak to me. That you just came in the door.”

  “I did. Ask my wife. No, leave her out of it. I just came through and that’s what I did.”

  “Forget it. How much you give Kelly so I know when I ask him for it?”

  “You know, you really came out sooner than anybody and that cop exp
ected you to. I’m not kidding when I said I spoke to him. Maybe you weren’t hurt that bad after all.”

  “I came out because I was afraid to stay in. My head still kills me. Now how much?”

  “One twenty-one and change. Fifty cents to be exact if I remember. Yeah.”

  “What? I had two hundred minimum between the register, tip glass and spillover box. What’re you pulling on me?”

  “That’s all there was. I knew I shouldn’t have taken the job. People always accuse you.”

  “Damn right. Where’s the rest, Hector?”

  “Where’s what? I did you a favor, now you’re insulting me for the lousy fifteen you gave me and all your stinking free drinks and crummy food for two days? Screw off, I’m never coming around your place,” and hangs up.

  I call back. “Hector please.”

  “Out for good, fuck you, take a walk, who you think you are?” his wife says and hangs up.

  I go to bed. Trying to find a place to rest my head keeps me up half the night. Next day I go to Kelly’s and he slaps his cheek when I walk in and says “God in heaven, what happened to you?”

  “Looks good, huh? You didn’t hear?”

  “Hear? I knew something had to be wrong when I called your bar over and over again.”

  “It’s been closed, you didn’t know?”

  “Nobody told. And I never leave here except back and forth home to the subways and your place isn’t on my way. I thought you were sick, your heart, the insides, something that knocked you out for the first time in your life—the flu—but nothing so bad as this. What, you got hit by a truck?”

  “Pipe truck. In the night, no headlights. Actually headlights—mine, but forget it, I’m still a little screwy up there. Though I’m sure it was one of Stovin’s who did it, a fellow cellmate, forget the details for now, I’m tired of telling them, but just came in for my money or what Hector left of it.”

  “First a drink. Rye, right?”

  “Can’t. I’m on medication, and it’s scotch.”

  “Medication nonsense. Have a drink. I’ll go one with you.” He pours us both a shot and soda backup, fills a bowl with salted peanuts and puts it between us.