—ah c’mon quick just a quick one, I want to see you
He wants to see me.
Rush steps out of the stall, stands in front of the mirror, and his heart sinks.
—I look terrible. so tired
—im sure you look just fine. just take it. I want to see my boo!
Rush straightens up, tries to suck in his gut, ineffectually plays with his hair and beard. Tries to choke back self-doubt. Sighs.
Tries to look just right, not too much smile, not too much pout. Both make him look cheesy. Blinks the selfie icon. The countdown.
3
2
“Jesus Christ CODE RED CODE RED WE’VE GOT A BODY IN THE RESTROOM WITH LIVE SPEX,” the mirror yells at him.
1
The artificial shutter sound, a quick preview flash of his terrified face.
“REQUEST IMMEDIATE BACKUP, REPEAT, IMMEDIATE BACKUP TO THE HOLDING AREA BATHROOM,” bellows the mirror.
Rush thinks he might have shit himself.
The guard comes through the door, all dark blue uniform and Oakley spex and something that Rush can’t decide is a truncheon or a baseball bat.
“TAKE THE FUCKING SPEX OFF AND DROP THEM TO THE FLOOR DROP THEM NOW.”
The spex clatter on the floor as they hit.
“HANDS ON YOUR HEAD HANDS ON YOUR HEAD MOTHERFUCKER.”
Rush’s head feels clammy to his touch, his hair greasy. He can feel himself shaking.
Two more guards enter, then more, navy and Oakleys and truncheons all pushing past one another. He sees a gun.
“Where did you get those spex from? You know their use is prohibited in here. Where did you get them?”
Rush gibbers something.
“You’d better tell me quick, son.” More guns appear.
“THE DESK! The des—the lady on the desk! She said I can use them! They’re mine, but she said I could message my friend quick!” Despite the circumstances, he’s suddenly horrified at how pathetic he sounds.
“Sandra? This true?” Voices shouting back into the beige.
“Huh?”
“You say this body could use his spex?”
“The English guy? Yeah, sure. He’s fine.”
A look of what Rush can only read as disappointment falls across the faces of everyone in the bathroom apart from him. Truncheons and guns go limp, shoulders relax. Muttering. Uniforms start to shuffle out the door.
“Sorry, man,” says the guard. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”
Rush feels like he’s going to pass out. Hands still on his head, he nods toward the spex on the floor.
“Oh yeah, sure. Just give ’em back to Sandra when you’re done.” He turns to leave. “Next time, do us all a favor? Go in the stall.”
Frank’s cart is perfectly organized, and fuck you if you say otherwise.
He knows what’s in every bag, and how many. One hundred cans in each. Got his Cokes separated out from his Pepsis, too, the beer bottles and the plastic bottles all separate, sorted by distributor. Used to be you could just bring them down here to Thrifty Redemption on McDonald and they’d sort them for you—they’d weigh them and then give you a price, and you’d just take that and go and that was it. Now it’s all machines, and if you put the wrong can or bottle in the wrong machine then you don’t get squat. The machines know, see. They can tell which distributor the can is from as soon as you drop it in that hole right there at the front. Put the wrong can in the wrong hole and you get nothing but that buzzing sound, and no way of getting your can back.
Which is why Frank likes to have his cart perfectly organized. All sorted before he turns up here. Too many canners don’t know shit these days and just turn up with everything random, and that’s why there’s long-ass lines at Thrifty like there is today.
Frank’s cart is big, too, one of those green Whole Foods ones, but with the electronics and the screens and all that shit ripped out. Got it fixed up so it don’t know where it is anymore, so it can’t whine to the cops about not being at Whole Foods. It’s a good cart and he likes it, nice and big and the wheels ain’t too lousy, tend to go where they’re meant to be going, and the brake works still. He’s got it piled up today, eight bags. Five stacked so high in the cart that he’s gotta lean around to see where he’s going, another three tied on to the sides. Eight bags with a hundred cans or bottles in each. Six cents per unit. Six bucks per bag. Forty-eight bucks in total. Not bad for a Tuesday.
He should be happy but now he’s pissed because the line for the machines is too long, and it ain’t moving. And it’s hot. He’s tried shouting up to the front of the line but it didn’t achieve anything. Some sort of commotion up there. He’s just going to have to go up there himself and sort it out.
So he pulls his cart out of the line and heaves it up there—no way he’s leaving it behind so these cocksuckers can start going through his bags. He catches some shit as he pushes it up there for cutting the line, but he gives back as good as he gets, telling them to chill the fuck out. He’ll get back to the end of the line, just as soon as he’s figured out what’s wrong. Chill the fuck out.
There’s some kind of clusterfuck going down at the machines, though, when he gets there. Like four canners all shouting at one another. Couple of old Chinese broads, this black dude, and this other Mexican cat he knows called Max.
“What the fuck’s the holdup?” he asks him.
“Machines are fucked, man,” says Max.
“What you mean? Fucked how?”
“Fucked. Every can I put in, just get the buzzing.” Max turns around and tries to calm down one of the Chinese ladies, who is losing her shit at him for holding everything up. Frank knows how she feels.
“Then you’re putting them in the wrong machine.”
“No, I’m fucking not, man,” Max says. “Seriously. The machines are all fucked. You don’t believe me, you try it, man.”
So Frank pulls a Coke can out of the top bag on his cart, and heads over to the big gray plastic monolith of the Coke recycling machine. He’s about to drop it in the hole on the front when the other Chinese woman starts shouting at him about cutting in, but he tells her to shut the fuck up and drops it in anyway.
The machine buzzes angrily. Text flashes across its front.
Can has already been deposited. No redemption.
Which doesn’t make any sense.
“This don’t make any sense,” he says. He turns to Max. “It says the can was already deposited?”
“Yeah, that’s what it said about all mine.”
“Where they from?”
“Usual places. Prospect Park, Flatbush Ave.”
“Street trash or residential?”
“Both.”
“You talk to Al?” He nods over to the entrance of Thrifty.
“Al’s not here. Talked to that kid of his. Says he don’t know anything about the machines. Says the machines manage themselves, or something.”
Frank stands there for maybe half a minute, thinking, while the others continue to squabble.
“You know what I think, Max?” he says, eventually.
“What?”
“I think these machines are fucked.”
Scott’s mouth tastes of stale coffee and mouthwash.
Rush doesn’t want to imagine what his tastes like. It wasn’t meant to be like this. After seven and a half hours on the plane he was meant to go into the bathroom to freshen up, brush his teeth, change his shirt. Get those nice Samsung spex out of his luggage. Instead he got thrown in a beige holding room for six hours. Now he looks and smells and feels like shit and just wants to go home.
But he’s here. And he’s real. And he’s kissing him again.
They stop, pull apart, and nervously smile at each other.