Next day a few hours earlier than he said he would the health inspector comes in, shakes the sleet off his hat and asks to be taken to the basement. I pick up the bar slats, open the floor hatch and we go downstairs.
“I do have a couple of bags here from today, but all of yesterday’s I got rid of.”
“That’s good. Makes my job easier.” He takes a penlight out of his coat pocket and shines it on the bags. The light’s violet instead of white. He turns each of the bags over with the penlight always on them, though the ceiling bulb seems bright enough to see whatever he’s interested in.
“So. Going to close me for a few recent bags?”
“Hey, let’s cut out all the horseshit before we sink in it. Come here,” and he points to where the beam’s aimed at. There’s a little X on the bag and some scribbling beneath it. “That’s my mark and initials and yesterday’s time and day. I wrote it with an ink you can only read with this light. I didn’t X all your bags, though two of these have it on them.”
“Maybe you marked them just now, because I’m telling you all the bags here come just from today.”
“Did you see me just mark them?”
“If I didn’t see you yesterday, how could I today?”
“Yesterday you left me alone for a few moments. Anyway, the city will know it’s yesterday’s because I’m taking this one with me. You’ll let me, of course.”
“What could I do to stop you?”
“You could not block my way for one thing.”
“Oh, I thought something else.”
“Huh?”
“Nothing. I’m confused and disturbed. Why shouldn’t I be? You think I’ve another living going? A rich father? Sure I do, but what I thought you meant — Not bribery for sure. I hope that’s not what you thought. But you know: a hot coffee or cocoa was what I was offering you because of the cold, that’s all. Look, I apologize, forget everything I said, but you finally want the truth of the matter?”
“You mean what you just said hasn’t been? No no, I’m kidding, go on.”
“The truth is I dumped and this is the honest truth, dumped all of yesterday’s garbage from yesterday’s bags into cardboard boxes and shopping bags and drove them to the Sanitation pier to dump. Call the guard at the gate shack there if the same one’s working late tonight and he’ll tell you he saw me around two: blue van and that he also gave me a ride in his electric cart when I thought I saw a dead human hand that was only a cadaver’s in their barge and so didn’t count. But the plastic bags from yesterday I reused today, because buying them even by the ton runs into more money than my poor business can afford. But I had a feeling before you wouldn’t believe me, so I told you the hoax story of these bags being fresh, which the garbage still is, from today.”
“Then you have yesterday’s bags here, which as far as the Health Department’s concerned is yesterday’s garbage, since the dirty bags should have been dumped too.”
“What I say you wouldn’t believe me.”
“Who doesn’t? And please fight it if you like. That’s what our Administrative Tribunal’s for. Most of us inspectors love it when the less reprehensible stores like yours win, as we don’t see any gain for the city when you go out of business and possibly on welfare. At a hearing this week you can show why you failed to abide by the Health Code. If the tribunal judges against you, you’ll be fined. If it also decides, which is usually the case, that you’re entitled to a third inspection and at that inspection you’ve corrected your violations and can show proof of new arrangements where they won’t be repeated, your health permit will be restored.”
“How can I show the inspector I’ve corrected and won’t repeat my violations if I’m not being allowed to correct and not repeat by this company of hoods?”
“Coercion’s a civil court matter, not Health’s. Ours is simply to see that all the food stores and restaurants meet the Health Code.”
“But I won’t be able to prove anything to any court that I’m being threatened or other people are. I’ve no evidence of it and nobody who knows about it will be brave or dumb enough to testify.”
“All I’m saying is if you can prove to a civil court judge that you have been intimidated, then the court will probably make this company pay your fines, give you loss-of-business restitution and also issue an injunction against them to stop molesting you. Then you’ll be able to hire another carter for your garbage which will mean you’ll have corrected your violations and made arrangements not to repeat them. As of this moment though I have to ask you to tell your customers upstairs to go and for you to lock up and not enter the bar again for customers till we restore your health permit. Do and the tribunal might rule that you lose your health permit for good. If you don’t close voluntarily now I’ll call a cop and city carpenter and have a hasp and padlock put on your door and remove yours. Touch our lock and you’ll be arrested and probably prohibited from handling liquor or food anywhere in the state again in a commercial way.”
“Close me. Don’t know from where but I’ll come up with something to open again.”
“That’s the only way to do it, Mr. Fleet — peacefully and optimistically.”
We go upstairs, he carrying my garbage bag. He’s a weak little guy or looks it and I say “Can I help you with that, no evil influence intended,” and he says no. I tell the one customer to pay up and go. As he’s leaving the bar I say “Wait, Walt — here’s your three bucks back. If you’re going to be my last customer then I want it to be like my father did, which was to buy everybody at the bar a last round before he turned the place over to me with this immediate huge deficit. Of course he had them three deep that night and his leaving was like a going-off-to-war celebration, when I just have you two here. You want one, sir?” I say to the inspector. “Even just that coffee or cocoa?”
“Can’t. I’m not even permitted to purchase a matchbook in any establishment I’m examining.” He takes my health permit off the wall, has me sign a release that he took it and puts the permit and release in his briefcase.
“I’ll be twenty minutes.”
I tear down the bar, wipe it clean, shut the lights, lock up and he asks for and I give him the keys. I sign another release for them and he tapes a sign on the door: “Premises Temporarily Closed by Order of Dept. of Health.”
“Everyone who reads that will think I’ve roaches and rats galore in there and never come back to eat.”
“Have them phone me and I’ll guarantee you’ve one of the cleanest bars in town.”
“Want to know something? Maybe I ‘ m cutting my throat by this but I want to say it anyway as a sign of my sincerity. I’ve seen occasional rats and mice in my cellar and of course roaches and trapped or poisoned them or chased them out and sealed up their escape holes. And a couple of times in recent years here an animal or two I’ve never seen before. I don’t even know where this thing comes from and never saw a picture of it in any encyclopedia or animal book when I went to look or heard or read of it talked about. They’ve long slithering flat tails and big round ears and little kids’ baby teeth and faces like platypuses these nonrats, though they’re no larger than our average-sized mice. Once or twice I swear I saw them and when I did they got scareder than I was and darted into the dark together and disappeared, not to be seen by me for another two years. They must come from the sewers through holes or pipes in my wall from yesteryear that are behind things that I think are for something else or never knew were there.”