"You do this all day long?" I said after the cat was safely stowed in the bowels of the truck.
He wiped the shovel on some dead grass while he considered the question. "This ain't doodlysquat," he said at last. "Later, right before dinner, I got to unload the truck."
I looked for a tree to sag against. "No," I said. "Say it isn't so."
"Four dollar thirty-fi' an hour," he said, grinning. "And unloading them ain't the half of it."
"What in the world," I said, against my better judgment, "could you mean?"
"Well, they's a problem. See, sometime they get mixed up. Out come ol' Fluffy there and she got Fido's head. Then I got to sort them out. Like a jigsaw puzzle, you know? 'Cept in 3-D and Smellovision."
My pulse pounded forcefully in my ears a couple of times before sanity prevailed. "Wait a minute," I said. "Why do you have to sort them out?"
His smile widened. "For burial. We take 'em over to the Permanent Pet Playground, Inc., y' know? Fussy outfit. These fuzzy babies going to be frisking around for eternity, they got to have the right heads and tails. Otherwise they going to be fightin' with theyself. I mean, wo. What gone happen when that big bugle blow in the sky, huh? How all these good folk seized up by the Rapture gone recognize they pets when they pets look like they been put together by a committee?"
I looked at him for a long moment. His face was as innocent as a Girl Scout cookie. "I'm not sure," I said, "but I think you're full of shit." He gazed at me genially. "You want a cup of coffee?"
"Is the pope a polack?" He stashed the shovel carefully in the truck and followed me up the driveway.
I closed the door behind him and poured out the last of Roxanne's hour-old brew. He'd taken the slicker off to reveal an immaculate white uniform with the name dexter stitched into the pocket. It was hand-stitched, individual stitches leapfrogging each other over the pocket's surface. It looked like he'd stitched the pocket closed. He sat at what passed for a breakfast counter, sipped the coffee, and made a face.
"Wo, hot. But it taste good. Center slice from the loaf of life, y' know?" He blew on the chipped mug and surveyed the living room. "I know every man's home supposed to be his castle," he said, "but you pushing it, don't you think?"
"You don't like it?"
"Sure," he said, "it's real sweet. I was just trying to figure if I'd rather live in it or under it."
"That's because you haven't been under it."
"Ain't nothin' there I haven't picked up."
"How do you do it?" I drained the dregs in my cup. "And, while we're on it, why?"
He had a knack of making his eyes glimmer, and he glimmered them at me then. "You got a live boss?" he asked.
I thought. "Not at the moment."
"That's what I like," he said, "man who don't pick his words."
"Okay, sorry. I usually do."
"Me, I'll take a dead client anytime, huh? 'Stead of a live boss, I mean. Ol' Fluffy, y' know, she smell terrible, she done kiss the odor of sanctity good-bye for keeps, and she ain't no thicker'n a milkshake. But she ain't gone tell me what to do."
"You mean you do this of your own free will?" I asked disbelievingly.
"Free will?" he said. "That's quaint, y' know? I ain't heard no one say that since college."
"College," I said.
"Yeah. This philosophy professor. Must have weighed three hundred pounds on a good day, when he been skippin' potatoes, y' know? Man was fat. Always talkin' about determinism. Everything come from somethin' else, right? So if this clown know that, how come he's so fat? And, wo, could he smoke. If he know everything come from somethin' else, how come he don't know cancer comes from smokin' cigarettes? Enough to put you off education."
"Jerry Ryskind," I said.
"Wo," he said, sitting bolt upright. "Hey, the Bruins, huh? Fuck USC"
"In spades," I said, regretting the expression instantly. He saw my expression and laughed.
"Skip it," he said. "Fuck 'em in spades and hearts and diamonds too. So you a Bruin too. You know ol' Jerry."
"Philosophy 101," I said. "Many unfiltered cigarettes. Double-breasted suits."
"Triple-breasted. On the way to quadruple-breasted, last time I seen him. He gain five more pounds, they gone have to put a pleat in the room."
"I'm Simeon. Simeon Grist."
"Dexter," he said, pointing to the pocket. "Dexter Smif. S-m-i-f. This be a terrible house," he elaborated. "Shame you don't got none of the advantages."
"With your college education, how many negatives can you get into a sentence?"
"Five. Six, if I workin' at it. Hard thing is to stick with the odd numbers. If two negatives is a positive, then four is a double positive. Got to get past the last even number. 'I ain't got no idea,' well, you know and I know that that means I know something. 'I don't know nothing nohow,' right? That leaves some doubt in the mind, don't it?"
"It don't," I said. "Anybody can count to three."
He slurped at his coffee. "You wrong there. Somebody like you, got all the advantages despite this shit house, you can hit three without standing on tiptoe."
"So you took philosophy."
"Minor. It's a dead man's game. De hearse before Descartes."
"What was your major, urban English?"
"The degree's in poli sci." He gave me a slow grin. "You want me to talk different?"
"Well," I said, "if you'll forgive my saying so, it doesn't exactly add up. A political-science degree, and you spend your days scraping up dead mammals."
" 'Phibians too," he said. "Don't forget the 'phibians."
"You have a lot of invigorating political discussions with the dead 'phibians?"
"You forget the philosphy. This is a good job for a guy with philosphy flowin' through his veins."
"Thought you didn't like snakes."
"Don't be gettin' tricky, now. Any fool that can tell poop from pizza knows snakes ain't 'phibians. They riptahls."
"I'd love to hear you spell that."
"R-i-p-t-a-h-l-s." He smiled. "Easy." he said. "Almost as easy as 'Smif.' "
"No bosses," I said. "Lots of time to speculate on the implications of mortality."
"They only one implication I can think of. We all gone to end up in somebody's truck."
"The Chariot of the Gods."
He fished out a pack of cigarettes and lit one, crossed impossibly long legs, and leaned back. "So," he said, "we talkin' about my job. What career path brought you to this mansion on the hill?"
"I'm an investigator," I said. The word "detective" always made me uncomfortable.
"Can't be insurance. You don't look like you could get it, much less give it. Can't be a cop. Cops got to be macho, you know? Your average cop would have picked up ol' Fluffy out there with his teeth and then flossed with the tendons. You certainly ain't IRS. Got any more coffee?"
"I'll make some. It'll take a while. You don't have to go anywhere?"
"No bosses, remember? And Fluffy, she ain't no jug of perfume but she real patient. So I guess that means you in business for yourself."
I poured water into the top of the coffeemaker and put some beans in the grinder. "I guess it does."
"Wo, real gourmet. Beans and all. You got a ashtray?"
"Use the floor. The cleaning crew comes in today."
"They gone bring a wrecking ball?"
"A fire hose. You want it strong?"
"You like the job?"
I thought about it. "Some days."
"Explain the appeal." He stubbed out his cigarette in the saucer.
The coffeemaker gurgled three or four times as the water heated. "This is its idea of foreplay," I said. "In about an hour we'll have some coffee."
"Like I said, explain the appeal."
"Well, once in a while you get a chance to reduce the number of assholes in the world."
"That's a losin' battle. Ain't never gone to be no asshole shortage. We got oil shortages, grain shortages, coal shortages, every kind of fuckin' shortage you can think of, but there ain't no asshole shortage. Assholism is a dominant trait."