“All the same? Stars, planes, moon with rings around it when you couldn't see anything but clouds last night?” and I say “All right, tonight's different.”
“How's your head getting?âthat's what I should've asked before, forget the stars and night,” and I say “Better.”
“You're not talkative tonight, I won't,” and I say “No, I like to, takes my mind away, great night, oh yes, great night.”
“You've new troubles?” and I say “Who said I had troubles in the first place?”
“When's the bandage finally coming off?” and I say “Maybe when I see a doctor, which might be never. No coverage, that's why I don't like going to them so much.”
“Want my wife to look at it and patch you up again? She once had some practical nursing training and has done it for me,” and I say “That might be nice.”
“Or a clinic. Maybe you should just go to one,” and I say “They'll hear I own a bar and make me pay them regular overpriced fees till I'm bankrupted.”
“Don't pay them,” and I say “Hospitals it's not in me to welsh on so long as I got.”
“But it could be getting infected from whatever aftereffects and your neglecting it,” and I say “If it was I'd feel it with a fever and more pain than a pounding headache, so if your wife would, I'd like you to ask.”
“First thing when I get home if she's not asleep. But three nights in a row, Shaney. You could almost call mine permanent work for you after what I've had the last few months,” and I say “Actually if it continues working out like this, I probably could put you on evenings seven to twelve starting around Monday so you could really make some dough and I could both open up and go home sooner. For the time being I think I need to.”
“Great,” and I say “Favor for a favorâokay, settled and maybe, if you're as honest as you say, all day Sunday if you can and without my even coming and leaving there,” and we reach the hotel and shake hands and he seems happy and slaps my back and says “Sorry, slapped it too hard it looks like,” and I say “Little, it hurt my head but I'll survive,” and we say goodnight.
“Oh Jesus, the bottles,” to the nightclerk and he says “You know, one more round of your amnesia and I'm going to start letting those early morning calls to you through.”
“I still get them?”
“Occasionally, in various male and female voices, that they just have to absolutely speak to youâit's that important.”
“Tomorrow definitely, the best stuff I haveâeven three.”
“Don't overdo to the degree where you could then think it's worth it to forget again. Two regular-sized rums will suit me fine.”
Next morning on my way to work I make a point of walking past the park to see the snow inside. It's still clean and relatively untrampled in and from the border wall I see a dog leaping in it. I also see a rabbit, second time here in my life, and two boys, probably cutting school, sledding down a hill. When they see me looking at them I wave and yell “Hiya doing, fellas?” and they yell “Hi, come on in, water's fine,” while they wave back.
There's no Sanitation summons waiting for me at the bar so so far so good today. Business is the same as usual, but since the weather's much colder and it's snowed a little more and walking for everyone's slippery going, that could be a positive sign. Al comes at ten with his wife and she looks at my head and from her kit treats and repatches it better than the doctor did, while Al cleans up, restocks the bar, taps a keg and gets rid of the garbage by himself somewhere outside. His wife's funny and sweet, over drinks I provide they tell me about their kids and married life, when they walk me to my hotel I ask Al to come to work as a bartender tomorrow at seven and he shouts “Hurray” and they embrace and Tina hugs me.
I go inside and give the nightclerk a shopping bag. He pulls one of the bottles out, looks at the label and says “This is the best rum there is. You shouldn't have gone this far, even if I'm not saying do it again and I won't be your friend,” and gives me a fresh copy of tomorrow morning's newspaper and for the first time says “Have a pleasant sleep.”
Al comes every day on time, does a good job, makes even more at the bar and with the food than I did in the same period a week ago. All the customers think he's a find and from what I can see he doesn't steal a dime from me nor drink on the job or keep the place anything but clean and he gets rid of all the garbage every night without my getting one summons. With him working the night shift alone and me the days, I not only get to rest my head a lot more but net more in a week than I usually do including his pay. On Friday and Saturday nights and all day Sunday, when I take my first real day-off since I took over the place and just stay in the hotel and read the papers and sleep, Tina works with him, cooking and waiting tables just for the tips in it and for what sandwiches she can bring home to her kids and says she earns enough and in food to make it more than worthwhile for herself. I later tell Al “Next Sunday and any night you and Tina are here, save a little on the babysitter if you want and have your kids come in for supper on me.”
About two weeks after Al starts bartending for me, he doesn't show up. I call him at home but nobody answers. I wait till ten o'clock and then a little unused to working so many hours in one day I say “Last call, everyone,” and stick the garbage in trash bags and bring them to the basement. A lot of customers are disappointed Al didn't show, but I tell them he's probably sick or maybe had to suddenly fly to a sick parent or his wife's someplace and he'll be in tomorrow or the next day. I lock up and take a cab to my hotel, as this time so late at night I'm still too scared with my head still in bad shape to walk home alone.
I call Al next morning and say “Where were you?” and he says “I'm really sorry, Shaney, but can't say.”
“Why, you were sick or something bad with your wife and kids?”
“I won't say, I should've put it like that. That way I didn't say anything, neither no or yes, so it's silly of you to guess.”
“It's Stovin's.”
“Did I say?”
“Just by your voice I know they got to you.”
“I'm afraid what you know is nothing, not that I mean to be mean to you over the phone. You've been good to us and I appreciate it.”
“Then continue coming in.”
“I can't.”
“I've really gotten used to you. You even have the job after I get well.”
“I can't.”
“Even Tina, who on weekend nights and Sunday I'll pay.”
“We'd like to but can't.”
“Why?”
“You know I won't say.”
“Then give me a hint. Blink once for yes if it's Stovin's who's stopping you and twice for it isn't.”
“How will that help you?”
“You mean if I knew?”
“I mean in my blinking over a telephone, but that too: if you knew.”
“Oh, I got one of those old videophones installed last night, didn't you know? I can see everything to everyone I dial to but they can't see me back.”
“Sure you do. Me too. I can see you right now lying and crying your ass off. But again, how would it help you if you knew?”
“Knew what?”
“You joking me?”
“No, I'll be honest, I forgot.”
“Your head's really in first-rate remembering powers today. If I was you I'd see a doctor fast. Knew who it was I was sayingânot that it was anybody or anything except my not wanting to continue working for you because you're a little tightfisted. You also drive me too hard and I don't like the way you treat my wife and also that I got a much better job.”
“All that's bull and you know it. And who'd hire you except someone desperate as me?”
“A bar. Nicer and cleaner place and which pays better and longer hours. I'm not saying where so you can call up and say lying things to fire me. But how would it help you if you knew?”
“Knew it was Stovin's who got you to quit? Why you so interested in knowing? They also ask you to find out my next moves?”
“I'm not interested, see ya.”
“Hold it. It would first of all prove my first impressions of you when you were just a customer and make me think I'm thinking right and true again and that's that you're a fucking scumbag and rat who'd screw anyone in the back for a few bucks and drinks the first time someone asked.”
“Sure I am. That's what I did. Boy, you know me better than my wife. I only wish she had a second chance to take care of your head. This time I'd show her how.”
“Don't come in my bar anymore, weakling.”
“Why should I? You're crazy and a liar. Besides, I got my own now,” and hangs up.
I slam the receiver down. “You bastard,” I shout.
Customer looks up at me. “What's wrong? One of the guys you give credit here gave you a check and his bank won't honor it?”
“You have a job?”
“Yeah I have a job. What's it to you the personal questions? I pay, don't I?”
“I thought you might like to help me out with my garbage tonight if you didn't.”
“Garbage? Me? In these clothes?”
“For after.”
“For after I put on even better clothes.”
“Know anyone who'd like that kind of work? Just for an hour or two six nights a week and good for a couple of bills and free drinks and eats.”
“If I hear of anyone I'll let him know.”
“No, forget it. Next person I get to help me will screw me even worse.”
“Uh, no offense, but that's your attitude not to trust anyone, who'd be dumb enough to come here to work?”
“Shut up. Have another on me.”
“Eat shit, Fleet. I need your lip too?” and slaps a bill down and starts out.
“I didn't mean to âshut up' like I meant it. I meant it to meanâ” Hell, he's gone. It's partly my head. Has to be. It's all excitable. Maybe something festering in there. I've had headaches all week. I don't take care of myself well. I don't want to be in more pain and die. When my time comes, okay, but not from my stupidity in not doing anything about it when I could. Maybe Tina did something to it she knew would slowly make it worse. No, that's not nice, she was all right. What should I do? I pour a drink. No, that's not it, and I put it down without a sip. Do something sensible, that's what. Customer comes in. I say “Closed.”
“Closed when the door's open and place is freezing inside? Now it's closed,” and he shuts the door.
“Last customer left it like that when he left. But closed. I got to get to the hospital. What are you, you look like one, a cabby?”
“I'm off duty now. All I came in for was a burger and beer.”
“But my head. I'll get my coat on and give you a good tip. Hospital's not that far.”
“Really, it's not the money. I'm bushed, six hours straight on the streets, I have to sit and be quiet and eat.”
“But you can see what kind of shape. I got hit. Long ago but haven't paid much attention to it. I think I could be dying with a brain clot for all I know.”
“You're not dying, it's just all of a sudden you're scared you are. You'll be fine. There are plenty of available cabs. I'll go some other place for my break and see you another day. Lots of luck to you, friend.”
He leaves and I lock up and call a cab and go to the emergency section of the hospital. I see a doctor and after some neurological nose-touching and barefoot walking she says I have the headachy remains of a concussion and a slight infection and gives me a prescription for it, repatches me with a small bandage and that's that. “Stay off your feet for a week and don't take any alcohol with your pills and you'll live.”
“I have to work.”
“Then work less, nothing fatiguing, but you're in no danger and practically healed.”
I get the prescription filled, take a couple of pills, have a soup at a shop and go back to the bar. I feel relieved and even stronger now and my headache's almost gone. I even look better, looking in the bar mirror: at least the hat when I wear it outside covers all the bandages now and doesn't make me look so dumb anymore. And without the hat my whole forehead and top of my hairline now shows and I can comb some of the hair over the patch, though being thin and wavy it never stays and I was warned not to wet my hair and slick it back as the patch and tape have to stay dry.
That night I unidentify all my garbage, stick it in several trash bags and tell my customers before I close that the next drink or a grilled cheese sandwich is free if they take a bag each with them when they leave and drop it only where there are other trash bags and cans legally placed. A few customers take me up on it and I put the rest of the bags and cartons of garbage in the basement where I already have a stack of them.
Morning following the third night I do this and when I'm just about getting rid of all my garbage this way, I find five big trash bags in front of my bar and under my door a summons for leaving these bags on the street overnight. I didn't think I could get away with getting rid of my garbage forever like this but I hoped I could till I thought of a longer-lasting plan. I look in the bags and see none of them are mine. The name of the inspector I know is on the summons, as it wasn't on the last one I got, and I phone him, he's not in and much later in the day he calls me back.
“Mr. Fleet?”
“Mr. Fleet? Shaney. That garbage you gave me a summons for, Dolph, isn't mine. Some group, and I know whose, put the bags there just to intimidate me more than they've done for the last couple of months.”
“You read the papers?”
“When I've time.”
“If you read it every day you'd know my reason for not skipping you over this morning, or at least before I spoke to you about it, and also why I have to get tough with your sidewalk snow. There's been charges, maybe some that are founded also, besides hidden-camera photos showing corruption going right to the top of our department. That's why everybody has to do his extra effort to prove it's not true and even no small spotlight falls on him or his brass, understand?”