“Good idea. My head hasn’t been thinking the same since it got hit,” and we leave the bags in front of some buildings.
Back at the bar I give him a couple of bucks and drinks and have one with him with more aspirins and while he walks me to my hotel he says “Ever think of selling the bar, with all the problems you got with it?” and I say “What would I do if I did?”
“Bake in the sun down south someplace or on one of those tropical foreign isles or keys.”
“And after the first day with a burnt-up back, to do what?”
“Apply lotion to it, rest off the burn and get a new one a week later.”
“And after that and after that? That’s what I’m saying.”
“Golf, fish, swim, sail, tennis or learn any or all of them. Or meet a young lady or one closer your own age, but get laid, gamble, play the ponies, eat well and drink.”
“Oh fun fun fun and after the first month of dying of boredom or liver disease, what?”
“Open a bar down there and call it Shaney’s.”
“I don’t know anyone there at any of those places. All my customers and what you might call friends are here. I’m a city boy, born, raised and worked here almost all my life, even if that is a city under the southern sun you’re talking of where you want me to be. Worse, I don’t like that much sand, sun and palm trees or really any trees. I like them in the park, even if I only get to see them if I go out of my way when I walk to work. Also pavement, sidewalk, whatever the hell materials the streets are made of I mean. But real life, seasons, snow and getting snowed on and trudging through drifts and shoveling it if I’m not sick like this. And biting rains, freezing colds, noise, lots of noise, a madhouse, old and new tall buildings going up and torn down, car and people congestions and rushes — even grimy streets in a way if they don’t get too unclean. Besides, my memories are all here — my parents’ and sister’s graves.” “I didn’t know you had sisters.”
“One. Long ago. Maybe nobody does. We were very close. She died when I was a kid, but I remember her.”
“Then come visit them once a year to pay your respects and lay flowers. With a jet and cab you can probably be at the gravesite in three hours.”
“Who’ll take care of my southern or foreign bar?”
“An assistant. Someone you know who can make drinks and sandwiches and trust.”
“You must be the only regular left I didn’t tell this yet. I never had an assistant who didn’t steal me blue in the face and blind. They’ve always been one step ahead of me and I also want everything to be run exactly my way, so I’m a lousy boss.”
“So I’ll come down and work for you and won’t steal and I know the business and got nothing to gain standing here and my wife can wait your tables.”
“I told you about Stovin’s?”
“All I need to know I suppose or so you thought.”
“What I say? I forget — my head.”
“All that you didn’t want to do what they wanted you to and for it you got brained.”
“Then you can see why should I be so sure you’re not working for them too? Trying to get me to sell out cheap and save them the inconvenience of beating my butt in again and maybe this time one of them getting caught with no excuse.”
“Hey. You know me how long before you ever heard their name, so I can almost take what you say as an insult.”
“I’ve got to be extra careful.”
“It could still be one.”
“I’m sorry but so far it’s not in me to rely on any one person I know.”
“I’m what I say I am, honestly. Total your register, work out whatever shadowing system you have, then put me behind the bar for as long as you like and you’ll see. Not a penny will slip into my pocket that’s not a tip for me and even that if you don’t want it to and my wife is even worse.”
“Anyway, nobody will buy my bar except for the oldtime fixtures and liquor stock, so how can I invest in any place new? I just have to stick at what I still got.”
“Here’s your hotel. You were going to walk past. Hey, these talks have been swell,” and we shake hands.
“Al, I’m kind of sorry I never spoke to you as much before. But maybe, as you know, if you did work behind a bar—”
“I did, what are you going on for?”
“Then you know that after a while almost everyone on the other side of the bar gets to look and act alike to you, but you’re all right.”
“I don’t know. Working the bar even twelve hours straight never turned me off to people or them to me.”
“You’re lucky. Goodnight,” and I go inside. “How you doing?” I say to the nightclerk and he says “What’s this? You haven’t my bottles? That a way to treat your helpmate?”
“Damn it, I forgot,” and give him five dollars.
“What’s this? Bribery now?” Puts it back in my hand. “Bottles, not money. Two quarts like you promised and it’ll be worth twice as much to me as that five.”
“Tomorrow.”
Next day under my bar’s front door is a summons from the Sanitation Department for leaving trash on the street. I phone the Department’s summons section and say “What trash where did I leave? My sidewalk was clean when I left it last night and clean today.”
“Inspector’s report says you left it in front of private dwellings and storefronts not your own.”
“What? Streets as dirty as they are and sidewalks with ice and still unshoveled snow on them for people to fall and this inspector has the time to untie every trash bag in town to see what’s inside really belongs to the people in the building it’s in front of?”
“Our office got a phonecall.”
“Who from?”
“Someone. Maybe a landlord or storeowner, maybe a passing citizen. In such complaints when you’re so completely infringing on the law, the courts say you don’t have to know who are your accusers. Want a hearing, I’ll put you down for one. You’ll have to pay your fine first, which you’ll get back with interest if you win, though next June do you? For that’s how far we’re backed up. But from now on if you can’t afford private carters, don’t go leaving envelopes and things with your name and address on them in the bags you leave at places where you shouldn’t.”
“Many thanks.”
“For what?” and hangs up.
That night Al and I rip up all the address labels and bill envelopes and stuff before sticking them in with the rest of the garbage and distribute the trash bags and garbage cartons in front of buildings and stores three and four blocks from the bar. When we get back I give him a few bucks, tell him to help himself behind the bar and pour me a tall scotch with rocks, lock up and he walks me to the hotel and says looking at the sky “Nicer night tonight isn’t it?” and I say “They’re all the same.”
“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? — that’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.”