“Twenty-five dressed or undressed for forty minutes maximum and that has to be my lowest low.”
“I’m sorry, I’m really short. I’ve bills up to here to pay beginning tomorrow which is just one of the things I wanted to talk about, so excuse me for bringing you here for nothing.”
“That’s all right, I don’t mind having my time wasted by a bullshit artist,” and she leaves and slams the door. I throw my glass of scotch after her. Minute later when I’m picking up the pieces the nightclerk calls saying “What are you doing to those gorgeous girls beside breaking down the hotel? I know you have problems but don’t make me toss you out of here.”
“If you want, give her a five for her trouble and add it to my bill.”
“You come down here and give me that five plus two bucks for my efforts and keeping my mouth shut.”
I go downstairs and give him a ten. “You know, my instincts were right the first night when I told myself I could never talk to you about anything half-deep inside,” and walk away without waiting for my change.
“Because you gave me three dollars more than I asked for I won’t say anything back.”
Next morning there’s a pile of garbage bags in front of my bar and Sanitation violation under the door. I call Sanitation and say “Those bags you ticketed me for aren’t mine. Mine are in my basement — illegally — but that’s Health’s business, not yours.”
“As I once said, anything on your sidewalk — gum wrapper, cigarette butt — is yours if we find you haven’t swept it up.” “Where do you live?”
“What’s that to you?”
“Because if I leave them in front of your house they’re yours according to your laws, correct?”
“I live in a huge complex so I don’t care where you leave them in front.”
“Even if they piled right up to your fourteenth floor and stunk up your kid’s bedroom?”
“That’s just dumb.”
“Anyway, you can’t close me down. Only Health can do that, so I don’t care how many tickets from you I get.”
“You’ll still have to pay them.”
I put the bags between two parked cars across the street and go in my bar. An hour later one of the cars can’t get out because of the bags and the driver sticks a few of them in front of the antique store where the car’s stuck. The antique man runs out and argues with the driver, throws one of the bags at the car and it breaks and goes over and on the car and into the street. The driver jumps at him. There’s no physical fight but almost one and a crowd forms and I can’t see anything but hear screaming and when I open the door some people saying “Let him have it, Tim, give it to him.” I’m watching this while serving drinks and making someone eggs and feeling bad I started the brawl. A police car comes, policeman gets out and stops the argument or fight and antique man goes in his store, bags stay outside and driver and police car drive away and crowd breaks up. Two other bags are still in the street by the curb where I put them and a minute later another car backs into the spot, runs over the bags and smashes them and parks with the broken bags and scattered garbage underneath. A little of it rolls and blows across the street to in front of my bar.
Few minutes later the phone rings and man says “Mr. Fleet? I’m Phil Veritianien from Bee’s Antiquery across the street. I’m new in the area, probably paying four times your rent per-square-foot space, but want to keep the best relations with my fellow storeowners because we need each other for protection and eyes. But I never had a store in even the most wretched neighborhood where I got my lip slit and shirt ripped off my back and myself almost arrested for not telling the police where certain trash bags originally came from because I wanted to protect one of my fellow storeowners on the street. That the way you always dispose of your shit?”
“No and I’m sorry. I’ll pay for the shirt and it won’t happen again.”
“I’ll buy that offer. Thirty dollars. Since you’re so tied up and my shop’s always locked except for customers I sense I can trust, just slip it through the slot in my door.”
I stick the money through his slot, then phone him a minute later and say “Don’t know why I didn’t think of this before, Mr. V. You couldn’t take a few of those bags off my hands for a while every night if I stacked them nice and neat on your sidewalk at the right pickup time?”
“My carter only permits so many bags per day for what I pay, so afraid I can’t, nor do I appreciate your asking.”
I phone the soda distributor and he says “Take it easy. My cousin’s out of town and should be back early next week.”
“You wouldn’t know anyone else who sells and installs them cheap?”
“Sure I know but if Vince heard I did he’d ask what kind of relatives are we for me not to give him first shot.”
I call the linen service and tell the man who answers who I am and he says “Tough luck, Fleet, but the boss’s wife says we can’t take any new orders on for a long time if ever. Owner went to the hospital with a heart pain this morning and looks to be in bad shape.”
“You know that’s just crap. Who’d he speak to — Stovin’s and they told him not to service me?”
“What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean. I mean your outfit for all your boss’s big talk about his business is his and mine’s mine and so forth was just a cover for — well is just like all the other businesses yours is in doing business with me and that’s that Stovin’s tells you who and not to sell to and you go along. I didn’t explain myself well but you still have to know what I mean. Stovin’s, that’s who.”
“Listen here, you fucker. Ned Rater is my boss and also my buddy for fifteen years and he’s the best sonofabitch that ever lived and fairest boss anyone’s ever worked for, so don’t go slurring him again or I’ll drive my truck straight through your store.”
“Good, drive it. With bar linens, right into my place. Because that’s what your boss promised for today: enough to last me a week, and then drive right in again to pick them up and deliver more.”
“He’s sick, can’t you get that in your head? He had a heart condition working long and hard hours all his life for ingrates like you. He might probably die from it tonight because he was too damn good to be true, so lay off.”
“What hospital?”
“Think I’d tell you?”
“Yes, tell me, I want to show the Attorney’s office how Stovin’s gets everyone in on it to dump me.”
“A hospital, stupid, that’s all. But if I see you anywhere near it and you tell me who you are, I’ll break your face in with a pick.”
I phone several hospitals and one says a Ned Rater was admitted today and is in intensive care. I chase my two customers out, lock up and cab to the hospital, get a pass downstairs by saying I’m his brother and get off at his floor. But I jump back in the elevator just before the door closes and ride down thinking what the hell am I doing here, where have my senses gone: have I so totally come apart where I think I’m the only one who can have miseries? The poor guy’s sick. Get your head screwed back on. You don’t want to see another man with a mask over his nose and piss in his bag and maybe his bawling wife asking who you are and I leave the hospital, get a double scotch at a bar on the block, say to the bartender “Have one on me or the price of a drink if you don’t touch the stuff or aren’t allowed, because I want to toast to Ned Rater — Ned Rater, everybody,” I say holding my glass up to the other customers at the bar. “A heck of a guy, a great boss, a brave wonderful buddy, may he live in peace or just die peacefully, whichever thereof,” and they drink with me, bartender sets down his water glass and takes the price of two drinks out of my money on the bar and drops half in his tip tray and other in the register, customers go back to their talking and I wipe my tears away, not knowing who I’m crying for or maybe both, him and me, and say to the bartender “He’s in the hospital there, really a fantastic guy, kind of like my brother,” and he says “Lost one myself this year plus a baby sister the last one, so I know how you feel,” and we shake hands and I tell him I’m sorry for his own recent misfortunes and drink up and go to my bar.