Garbage

by Stephen Dixon

  “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.”

  “What is it?”

  “Then it is Jennifer?”

  “Was when I arrived here. Who are you and what are these?” pointing to the bags. “Not that I can’t tell by the smell. Phoo. Worked here long enough to know that those two are days old, three at the least, so even if you’re a best friend of my boss and this is a private joke between you, march those things to the street. We’ll get infested here and I’ll get diseased.”

  “I’m Shaney Fleet.”

  “Glad to meet you, sweetie, but what’s your name supposed to mean to me?”

  “You don’t remember our phonecalls a while ago? The great Shaney Fleet, the one who’s all the problems?”

  “Oh you, excuse me,” and lifts the phone receiver, puts it back and says “What if I mentioned for your own benefit to also march right out of here? And you seem like a nice guy, so I’ll take care of your bags, no charge.”

  “Tell Mr. Stovin senior I want to see him about these bags. They’re a present from me.”

  “I know. You’re going to throw them around, smear up the walls, make a big scene. But no matter how much you’re hoping for it, you won’t be beaten up and tossed out for doing what you intend to, just collared by the police. So go, don’t make for yourself more trouble and also frighten my wits. You brought your bags in, I’ll give you a receipt for them if you want, but this is it for the day, okay?”

  About twenty feet to the rear’s a glass-enclosed office with no one inside it before but now a big man walking back and forth, smoking a cigar, in a fancy dark suit, motioning hard to someone or people I can’t see to the right of the glass.

  “That Stovin senior?”

  She turns around, looks at the office, back at me. “Just tell me if you have a bomb or gun. You do, warn me so I can get up if you let me and walk out of here to faint. Because I promised my momma never to hang around when—”

  “I don’t have weapons.”

  “Didn’t think so, you don’t look the type. No, that’s not Stovin—Mr. senior or junior boy. Now scoot on out of here before whoever that is notices you.”

  “Where’s senior then?”

  “Not in today.”

  “Who’s that then? The office door”—I stare at it—“says Mike Stovin senior.”

  “Don’t make me press the buzzer. I have one under my foot. I press it three quick taps and the police will come in a flash. We’ve had trouble with disgruntled customers, which is why we have this summoning device. Hey!—” because I moved her foot.

  “You’ve no buzzer.” Man’s still motioning his hand to someone I can’t see. Maybe there’s a mirror there he’s for some reason practicing in front of. A speech or I don’t know what. He puffs on his cigar, takes it out and looks for a place to drop the ash, facing me for the first time. Looks like Stovin would look. Little bush mustache, big aviator glasses, tall and powerful as if he hauled garbage cans for years before he got smart to start his own firm and doing the things he does to make a mint and along with it, because he wasn’t working so hard anymore, gaining thirty to forty pounds. He sees me, drops the ash in an ashtray, fingers something on his desk and his voice comes over a speaker I can’t see but is somewhere near us.

  “Who’s with you, Jenny?”

  She shoves a pile of papers aside on her desk and says into the speaker that was underneath “He was just leaving, sir. Deliveryman got the wrong address.”

  “Mr. Stovin? “I yell before she takes her hand off the switch.

  He was already bent back up and about to motion to the person or mirror or people I can’t see when he leans over the desk and touches the switch and says “I’m not either of the Stovins, but what is it?”

  “I’m Shaney Fleet, Mr. Stovin.”

  “Who’s Shaney Fleet and stop addressing me as Mr. Stovin. Neither father or son would appreciate it.”

  “You know who I am and who you are too. I brought a present for you. Garbage bags, mine, something you always wanted from me or used to, as I thought you’d like to see what goodies you missed.”

  “We’ve plenty, so don’t need more presents of them, thanks. And whatever your purpose is here, even if I can tell it’s for mischief, would you please leave immediately or must I have Jenny phone the police?”

  I grab a bag and run up to his office. He backs back scared. Two men appear behind the glass and a woman. Woman covers her face as if the garbage is coming through the glass at her. I throw it, bag breaks and garbage spatters over the glass, something hard in the bag cracks it and things run down the glass too. Liquid, ketchup, hamburger someone only half ate, and floor’s a mess.

  “The police, Jenny,” he says into the speaker. I turn to her but she’s gone. “The police, Beth,” and the other woman goes for the phone on his desk. I run back and grab the other bag and run to his office with it. He tries locking the door but I get it open before he can lock it and push my way into the room when he tries pushing the door closed. The two men jump me from the side once I’m in. All three are now grappling with me, trying to force me down, woman’s on the phone, while I’m holding the garbage bag, trying to break free and throw it at Stovin and ruin his suit and fill his face with trash and knock off his glasses and step on them. But they got my arms tight and I’m going down so before they get me to the ground I rip open the bag from below and it spills out over our pants and shoes and bottom
s of their jackets.

  “You moron,” Stovin shouts jumping away and slapping at the garbage on his clothes, while the men still hold me and Beth’s on the phone.

  “I got the police,” she says. “What should I tell them?”

  “No, let the bum go if he wants. Tell them it was a mistake but that you might call right back. And you,” to me, “you leaving or do we really have to get them here and charge you with entering, battery, vandalism and the rest of those and sue you for my new suit and theirs and her dress?”

  “I didn’t get anything on me,” she says.

  “You were assaulted or almost. We too and that’s enough for a lawsuit.”

  I’m being held down, one man pinning my arms, other sitting on my knees and holding down my feet. Around us is my garbage.

  “Phone,” I say. “I want them here so I can make a fuss and tell them you’re a goddamn cheat and fraud.”

  “Police around here are my friends and know I’m none of those things. But I don’t want to talk to you. I want to get rid of you and clean up this place. Sit on him till the police come. Beth, get them right over. I’ll get a couple of the boys to make sure he stays down.”

  He leaves the room. The two men I saw sudsing the truck before come in and take the place of the two on top of me who get up and brush off their suits and shake their feet in the air. Flecks of whatever was on their shoes fly around. “I’ve got to change,” one of them says.

  “I didn’t get it bad as you,” the other says. “Mustard. I bet it stains. And what the hell’s this red?—What is that,” he asks me, “wine?”

  I shake my head. The one who wanted to change, leaves. Police come. I’m allowed up. Policeman says “No charges are being made against you so just go. Come here again uninvited and no matter what charges aren’t pressed, we’ll take you in.”

  I brush myself off.

  “Do that outside,” one with the mustard says.

  I start for the door, policemen right behind me walking me out. I want to grab a lamp and throw it somewhere but don’t want to get clubbed.

  “Will you thank Jennifer for me for being so nice?” I yell back.

  “I’ll thank your mother,” one of the truckers says.

  I leave, pass the cleaned garbage truck, start walking to my bar though it’s a long way and it’s cold and looks like snow. The police in their car follow me for a block and drive past and one waves and they make a right and when I get to the corner thinking I’ll wave back, they’re not there.

  I tape a sign on my bar window saying “Tomorrow, big party, going away wake sort of, all day, blizzard or shine, so come one and all if you’ve been customers of mine anytime over the years or my father’s or grandpa’s and if you like bring your family and friends, good people welcome,” and go to the hotel and get drunk in my room and sing songs I knew as a boy and haven’t sung since when about young love and war and fall asleep and in my dream I’m in a room big as a mansion’s biggest room, a baron’s hall or whatever it’s called, not where the people eat but meet after dinner and maybe have brandy and dance, hundred-fifty feet long, forty feet wide, and it’s a bar with stools for a hundred drinkers and round oak tables in back for two hundred diners and great paintings and grand chandeliers all lit instead of my prints and fluorescent tubes and all my customers well dressed almost in tuxedo and evening gown clothes and the wood floors shiny like I could never get mine and wood walls as if just moistened with oil and no television set or butts and cocktail napkins on the floor or cough-making cigarette smoke and spit and everyone enjoying themselves and talkative though not raucous and throwing down dollars after dollars for their drinks and I’m behind the bar not so much pouring anymore as supervising a dozen bartenders to and I’m in a suit with a shirt and tie like Stovin’s and also a vest and my hands in my pants pocket and watch fob chain across my chest.

  Next day I sleep late and get to the bar around noon. There’s about ten people waiting in front and one says “We thought you were joking about the party and would never show up. What do you mean by it, they tripled your rent so you’re through?”

  “Through as I’ll ever be in this bar and probably also the business,” and I open up and say “Help me bring the cases of beer and soda up from downstairs and put them in the icebox and refrigerator. I’ll look after the liquor and try and make sandwiches, for as I forgot to say in my sign, you can have all you want of that too.”

  So my party begins. Weather cooperates by being milder. Some women help me out bagging the garbage and making sandwiches and boiling eggs. In an hour the bar’s jammed. In two almost no more people can fit in and an hour later a policeman squeezes himself through to the bar I’m behind and says “This place is a firetrap if you let any more in. You’ll have to admit them one at a time when someone leaves.”

  A man I never saw before but who says he used to come and pick his dad off the floor of my grandfather’s bar years ago volunteers to be the doorman so long as he’s constantly supplied with bitters and gin. I give him the bitters bottle and tumbler of ice with my best gin and promise he’ll get more whenever he calls for it and he sits on a stool by the door and starts letting people out and in.

  I don’t hold back on the drinks but can’t do as most people want me to and that’s leave the bottles on the bar, as it’s against the city’s tavern law and I want the party to last till its natural end. When someone gets drunk or sick I tell a couple of men to put him in the back to rest or in a cab if he wants to go home or back to work and if he wants to tell his family he’s on his way or to pick him up here, to use my phone.

  Another policeman comes in and says “You know you’re not permitted to serve alcohol to anyone intoxicated,” and I say “Have I ever broken the law to you before? So give me a break on my last day and forget it this once. Have a drink yourself and sandwich or whatever you like on the house—scrambled eggs,” and everybody around us joins in with me and says “Forget it, Nick,” or “Officer, this is a once-in-a-lifetime bar party so have some fun and don’t spoil it for everyone.” He says “I guess once in my life I can try it if no one calls the precinct to confess my sins,” and accepts a drink in a coffee mug and drinks it and another and two more policemen come in and one says “So this is where you are, Nick, we thought you were mugged,” and they take off their hats and coats till only their regular flannel shirts show and drink from coffee mugs and eat too.

  Someone has a radio and plays loud music and I dance though I can’t dance with a young woman I never met and then with her little girl and next with the girl’s rag doll and a couple of couples dance on the tables and a large group dances on the sidewalk. One man dances on the bar till I ask him off and then say to him “What the hell, dance all you want on it, step on hands, kick the beer mugs off. This is the end of the place anyway and we’re all good sports here, so do what you want as long as your aim’s true so no one gets hurt and it’s in clean fun.”

  Three people fall to the floor drunk almost at once and are carried to the back and some men and a woman sleeping it off in back get awake and start drinking and singing up front again. By ten o’clock I run out of food to make sandwiches with and next run out of ice and eggs and keg beer and later out of liquor and ale and lots of people thank me and leave because there’s almost no wine or bottled or canned beer left. Then there’s nothing left and people pool their money and go out and bring back a case of liquor and ice and later someone borrows another drinker’s car and drives back with cases of beer and ale. Then it’s nearly three and getting close to closing time and I’m tired though for the last few hours haven’t made anyone drinks but just walked around joking and reminiscing and I say “Goodnight everybody, it’s been great. Best night of my life or almost and I love you one and all but you have to go.” I get slapped on the back a lot and hugged and kissed which never happened here before and my hands shook till they hurt and cheeks pinched and several people push ones and fives and a ten in my shirts and pants pockets and say someth
ing like “I don’t care if all this was supposed to be free, go take a holiday or get laid someplace or give it to charity on me.”

  One of the last ones leaving says “Why not make it an after-hours club for one night?” and I say “What’s to lose and I’m getting back my third wind.” I lock the door and pull down the shades and party goes on with what drinks we’ve left and old customers I haven’t seen for weeks and were probably at other bars and maybe till now told by Stovin’s or someone to stay away knock on my window and door and are let in. Other bartenders and owners also come by after their places close with more liquor and mixers and beer, even the ones who wouldn’t help me against Stovin or said they’d never see or speak to me again till my trouble was over with him. I don’t say anything to them about it. Past’s past, I might need one of them for a job in the future if I stick in the same trade or later return to it, and they’re really nice people with their own I suppose reasonable self-interests and almost none with my kind of bar background and fatherly business and why spoil the night with harsh words, so I just continue to gab, drink, laugh and dance.