I go with my coffee to the end of the counter near the door and say into the phone “Don’t tell me, let me guess.”
“You didn’t have to go as far as you did.”
“Doesn’t sound like my old pals Turner or Pete, so who is it? Stovin the man himself? The rolypoly ball of smelly cheese?”
“He’d never have anything to do with calling you directly and certainly not till daybreak if you were someone big. But he was very mad about yesterday. Not only was that a brand new suit never once cleaned, but I shouldn’t be saying this to you—”
“Sure you should. He knows your every word.”
“He knows I’m calling, but not to reveal all the little facts. You humiliated him something terrible in front of his men and those women and that’s what really made him so mad.”
“You one of those two dressier men?”
“That’s not neither here nor there but I’m not.”
“It’s not and you can tell him I’m truly sorry, but is this why you called? To tell me he’s mad? That’s nothing news. He’s also crazy and a big stiff and sonofabitch too.”
“You know, I’m very close to him and you’re angry, so I’ll forget what you said and just say—”
“You his son then?”
“No, Junior’s not around. Has his own personal problems. But I’ll just say that if I could hear it in your voice that you are truly sorry, that’d be good for you for me to report back. But you’re not. Because you have no sympathy for anyone, that’s why.”
“Oh please.”
“It’s true. No sympathy for Mr. Stovin and what the poor guy has to go through. You don’t know how hard he works and his health because of it and what kind of hours and seven days a week and upkeep and payroll to meet. He hasn’t time for fools coming in ruining his clothes and garbaging his place. If you did know all that and what worries he has — work and Junior on down to his two youngest kids’ top college allowances and his mother-in-law’s terminal illness right now and his wife’s depression over it and because of hers, his, you wouldn’t have been so sloppy and rebellious to him, isn’t that true?”
“I would’ve taken it into consideration as they say if he’d’ve taken my situation the same way.”
“What did you lose? Nothing. Lousy apartment? You’re better off. A parrot? Quack quack. So you got your head cracked. So you deserved it chasing and busting the bestfriend’s head of your fellow inmate. And what expenses you have? You’re a single man, always been, with no gambling derangement or women and only an occasional cheap whore. If you developed a drinking problem lately, what better business to be in for it? That bar, even with the extra garbage expenses, would have been way more than you needed for life.”
“Hey, will you?” the counterman says setting down my hot cereal where I sat. “Hang up and eat. You’re tying up the only phone and when another customer comes in, your stool’s taking his place.”
“Give me a little longer — And phoneman, I’m sure you have no name but how’d you know I was here? I’m taking it so casually that you did, but I’m in a diner where nobody should be knowing me and you got me tagged minute after I walk in, just time enough to dial me. Wait, don’t go away — Keep my cereal warm,” to the counterman. “This call’s important, so whatever you do don’t hang up. I’ll pay for the wait and seat space and whatever else you think you deserve,” and run outside. Just as I get there I see fifty feet away a man running toward the corner. “Don’t worry,” I yell, “I’m not going to run and jump you. Couldn’t anyway. Even with your coat on and I’m coatless you’re much too fast, so come on back and let’s shake.” He runs around the corner. I go back in, say to the counterman “Thanks a lot,” and into the receiver “Still there?”
“Thanks for nothing,” the counterman says when the man on the phone says “Here.” “I was nice to hold it but say goodbye now.” I give him two dollars from my shirt pocket and he says “That gives you just five minutes more.”
“Just saw your spotter, “I say on the phone.” That how you always did it? Quick little guy through my bar window or wherever I went to or you also used cars or from apartments across my street or spotters inside? Just curious and only wanted him to come in for coffee, no more cracked heads. Anyway, take him off. I’m through.”
“We have no spotters. And about your being through, you could have hung in some more. You were getting to be fun. Not to be mean about it, we were all enjoying what you were putting up with so well and your spunk against us. Though we had a whole bag of tricks for you in the future, so you weren’t by a long shot done yet.”
“I can picture your last trick. Me cemented to the bottom of a cesspool.”
“Don’t be silly. But what I also have to find out and this is the most important of the call is what your plans are starting today?”
“None of your damn business.”
“Okay, get all the curse words out of your system. Damn, piss, shit, fuck too. But what’s it going to be? I hope not the old mistakes. Staying in the city?”
“Might.”
“Want advice? Don’t. Want even better advice? Don’t. We absolutely don’t want you around, period period period. Not for two years at least. We, so the truth goes, want to make a complete show to that little private garbage collection world that you knew what was best for you after all and so cut out for good. Then after two years, come home. We won’t complain. And you’ve worked hard all your life and when you were a kid for your father when you went to school both, so take a long vacation. Make believe you’re also taking it for your dad and his old man too, who I bet between them never took a vacation once.”
“They didn’t. And I have no money for vacations.”
“That’s what I also meant about your going too far and didn’t have to. Busting up your place, what did it get? Stupid. Should have sold what you could first. Then if you wanted to have fun, break what you couldn’t give away for nothing and if that didn’t do it, then also your landlord’s bar window glass.”
“I wouldn’t’ve made much if I did sell.”
“Would have been plenty enough to keep you going for a few months. By that time you would have thought of something, like an out-of-town job. But now you’re broke, aren’t you, or close, and you’re not going to do anything but go to pot worrying about it.”
“I’ll stay afloat and keep alive.”
“Oh listen to you, such big brave-boy talk. No, you’ll drink a lot and then too much all day and night because you have no other interests and then shoot off your mouth endlessly about how you outdid us somehow instead of just quit your bar and left town. Not that we couldn’t handle your boozed-up bragging. But more you make a fool of yourself shooting off, madder we can become if what you say or at least your attitude gets around. No, we want the whole show. Get out of town. Those two years. Leave tomorrow and if you have to say anything to anyone about why you left, say it was because we were too much for you after a while but that’s all.”
“I have no money to go anywhere.”
“You’ve a little, so that’s enough. As for your hotel, run out on it.”
“I don’t want to run out. I want to pay for it and all my other debts.”
“You need a loan?”
“Think I’d take it?”
“Think we’d give it?”
“Sure you would, at interest rates I couldn’t in a lifetime repay. That way you’d get me out of town and make a pile off me besides and maybe even have better reason to dump me if I didn’t come up with the interest and balance in a few months.”
“We’d make nothing from you and do nothing too because we don’t do those things to people and second of all because there’d never be a loan. You’re one guy we don’t trust. But what are you going to do starting today? I’m here to know.”