Garbage (18 page)

“You retract that or I'll institute a libel suit against you and use Mrs. Fortiago as my witness.”

“I would for him too, Mr. Fleet, no matter how many wasted days I'd have to spend in court waiting to appear. Because you can't run around libeling people left and right and think they won't sue you.”

“All right, I apologize to the health inspector through you. I also apologize to you and this officer too. And to the clerk over there. I apologize,” I yell to her, “for whatever I said to you good or bad—no, just bad. Now,” to Mrs. Fortiago, “isn't there something you can do to bring my hearing nearer to today?”

She takes my summons. “I accept your apology by the way,” without looking up at me. “I do too,” the guard says.

Seems to read my summons through. “Believe me. Your hearing, probably because yours is a small operation and so might suffer undue financial distress, was actually scheduled sooner than if it were a bar owned by a large company, so be thankful for that.”

“I am thankful. Thank you.”

“And from what it says, you've had multiple garbage offenses lately, not only with us but the Sanitation Department and Police.”

“Where's it say that?”

“These tiny code marks on the side here. Your inspector must have done a city computer readout on you and after it thought it wiser to use his discretionary emergency powers to close you down now.”

“All right. Honesty's so far gotten me nowhere. But it's true those little marks, but I can explain all of them.”

“Do that at your hearing Friday. If I'm the examiner that day I'll listen to you as I do with every violator: intently and sympathetically. We're hoping for the economic survival of this city as much as any department, so we're not out to vengefully close anyone down for good.”

“No, I want you to listen now or at the very latest tomorrow in that room.”

“If I am selected examiner on Friday, then try as I might to stop this prospect from happening, what you say today can always influence me emotionally and psychologically against you. So I advise you not to burn all—”

“But you get cancellations, don't you? The clerk told me so. Several a day, maybe more on Tuesdays, so slip me in. I'm confident I'll win no matter what you might carry inside against me.”

“King. If Mr. Fleet isn't off this floor in one minute, call another officer and walk him to the street.”

“You can do that with anyone you want to, right?” I say. “Like in some country without our laws against it, right?”

“If I'm badgered in the hallway and where all my hearings are delayed because of it, then that's also considered contempt of court. Believe me, I'm being lenient. I could have the cuffs put on you right now.”

“All right. I'm sorry. I'll wait till Friday like you say and have a very nice day,” and I take back my summons and leave.

I go to the bar and clean it up good. I find paint under the basement stairs and start painting the inside front door and end up doing most of the walls and some ceiling and then have to sand down the messier paint spots on the floor with steel wool and then stain and wax every inch of floor including the kitchen linoleum and washroom. I next clean and paint the washroom. That place wasn't half so bad as the rest but I like to see the walls and toilet and mirror and sink there shine. That's what I want for myself in other restaurants and bars or would if I went to them so that's what I want my customers to have too. Not that one in maybe the last ten thousand ever thanked me for it—paid me a compliment like “I really appreciate a clean seat and washbowl in there,” or even “One thing I can always depend on here aside from your snide remarks and flat beer is a nice-smelling and -looking john.” Maybe they think that'd be stupid to say, but I wouldn't mind hearing it.

All this takes me most of the next two days. I don't do it just to keep busy but to make the best use of my free time. My hopes are way up I'll be reopening right after the hearing, with according to what Mrs. Fortiago and the inspector said, just a moderate fine against me and final inspection set for a few weeks later. So maybe other people who never would come in before will come in now when they see the place looking so great and I can in the time before the final inspection make up for the money I lost. How I'll get rid of my garbage to keep my health permit I haven't figured out yet, but on that score I'm hopeful too. Maybe through something to do with the courts. Or from now on I'll use linen service instead of paper napkins and things and buy no plastic or glass throwaways except the liquor bottles I by law have to and get one of those dicing-up disposal units installed in my sink where I'll reduce my total garbage to just what I can carry out at night in two to three shopping bags and dump in my hotel's trash cans.

I also at the bar watch some late night television by myself and drink my own booze. Not that much drink because I don't like this new feeling of waking up slow and cranky when before it was mostly fast and bright and also with my stomach sour as it's been becoming and head like lead.

Every so often when I'm working or resting someone knocks on the window to be let in. If I don't know him or can't ignore his knocks, I wave him away. If I both know him and he insists with a “What's this, a business or one-man social club?” I open the door and without letting him past me say “Read the sign. They might even be watching me now.” Most ask me to make an exception this once: “The next bar's three blocks away and it's ballbreaking cold out and I'll need a drink just to walk there and who draws a faster draft than you?” but I tell him I have to stay firm and for him not to take my no so personally. If he still urges me to I say “When you buy your bar you break the law the way you want, but I can't afford it anymore,” and nudge him a little ways back onto the sidewalk so I don't catch his toes, and close the door.

During these days I also phone people who might know something about Stovin's illegal activities or were here when some of that business with his two goons went on. All say they can't be a witness for me and most think I'm crazy or wrong to have asked them. Comments like, most times followed by their hanging up: “Leave me out of it.” “My heart couldn't take getting involved.” “Breathe my name in this and you've lost a customer and friend for life.” “I switched over to Stovin because I wanted to, not through force.” “What are you talking about what two thugs? I wasn't there the day you say—you must've been seeing things or drunk.” A few also say they're afraid for their lives and wives, kids, businesses, homes, jobs and cars “and if this phone talk's tapped or being taped,” one of them says, “I deny or will I ever said any of this, though don't ask how I plan to get away with that.”

So okay. I don't want to try and force them through the court to talk and because of me have someone's arm broken or lose them their livelihood. Besides, I've a strong feeling it'll all work out with no help from any of them through the ways I said: returnables, linen service, maybe a washer-dryer I can buy on time, and by hand getting rid of what garbage is left at night. There might even be, through a newspaper ad I can place but not one which Stovin's could know was put in by me, a builder or landfiller or even a sculptor or two who can use my broken-up liquor bottle chips and other trash for some industrial or artistic purpose or like that if let's say I brought it to them free once a week or where I might even get paid for it. Then maybe in a few months or year Stovin's will realize I'm not leaving and let me alone forever and I can get a regular carter to pick my garbage up. Ideas like these don't seem too farfetched and anyway they're just quick thoughts for now, not full. That'll all come after the hearing.

Day of the hearing I show up with my best clothes on and shaved twice and hair slicked down and parted to make me look presentable and clean-cut. And my mouth mouthwashed bright and nothing harsh eaten anytime after so I don't stink from food or last night's booze and give any hints I'm the lush or slob I'm not. When I get off at the tribunal floor I show that same hearing clerk my summons. She looks at it and me and says “Yes, I remember the name. None of my business, but I hope you're a lot calmer for today's proceedings.”

“Absolutely. I was just in a rotten mood then.”

“Rotten mood you call it?”

“That's all. Series of things going bing bang bing really bad for me, but not my usual manner. How are you today?”

“Me? Same as usual.”

“I guess that's good then.”

“That's the same as the ‘same as usual' is the same as usual then. I come in, sit, take the tirades as I did yours that day, have lunch breaks and clear my desk and leave and fight the subways home same as I do getting here. Take a seat and you'll be called when your turn comes.”

“Thanks.”

“Don't thank me. Think I'd be here if I had the choice not to?”

“Then tell you what. You take over my job and I'll take over yours.”

“You'd have to study for and pass a rigorous civil service test that's even more rigorous today and then if you don't know anybody as I didn't, wait for an appointment for years. But I've work to do.”

“I was only kidding anyway,” and sit on a bench. Other restaurant and food store people wait around with me, some talking with lawyers. “I don't care what you swear happened,” one lawyer says. “You'll tell them this, not that, but this, or I'm off your case, understand?” Several people are called one after the other once ten comes and an hour later the clerk calls my name and points to the hearing room and I say “Thank you,” and smile at her and go in.

All that's in there with me is a court stenographer, different guard than from the other day and the same hearing examiner. I would've thought, once she saw my name, that she would've been fair and disqualified herself for another examiner. I say “How do you do, Mrs. Fortiago…sirs,” to the stenographer and guard and she says “Hello, Mr. Fleet. Please be seated. This won't take long.”

“That sounds like what my dentist always says.”

“How's that?”

“That it won't take long. Then, two hours later…but I'm wasting your time.”

“We can probably survive a little levity in here. What happens two hours later?”

“Well not ‘always,' but he's still drilling and my mouth hurts like hell—excuse me—and I find I've lost a couple of teeth when he didn't tell me he'd yank them, few have been filled which is okay and I owe him four hundred dollars more than I can afford to—something like that.”

“I hope that doesn't happen here. Incidentally, Mr. Fleet—”

“And not the whole teeth I didn't want to mean but the nerves. Root canal. That actually happened last year.”

“Did you sue?” the guard says.

“I didn't want to get him in trouble.”

“Oh, he can do you but you not him? I would have. They're supposed to let you know beforehand what they're taking out or minor surgery, not the reverse. It's in the medical ethics code, so probably dental as well.”

“I also couldn't afford the time in court.”

“For four hundred dollars plus damages you couldn't afford one day? Then you're making way more than me, brother.”

“I guess I should've. I'm really not doing well at my bar.”

“Incidentally,” Mrs. Fortiago says, “if you prefer, because of what I said Tuesday about my emotions occasionally motivating my mind after I've been verbally assaulted, we can postpone this hearing till next week when there'll be a different examiner.”

“If we postpone can I get my place opened till then?”

“Not till you've had your hearing.”

“Just being here, showing I came when called and right on time, that doesn't count in my favor?”

“Perhaps with my decision later, but you still have to be heard first.”

“Then it'd just be one more no-money week if I waited and I've no feelings you won't be anything but fair. But you know, I saw all those lawyers in the hall, so you think my chances here would be better with one?”

“Since your business isn't incorporated, no lawyer's required unless you wish to be represented.”

“Then I'd have to postpone this for a few more days and pay through the nose for one. No, let's get it over with. Whatever wrong my summons says I did I'll go along with, because all I want to do's reopen.”

I'm sworn in and she reads my Health Code violations. Refuse and rubbish stored in cellar…. No physical separation of food storage and cellar waste area in question…. Claiming to health inspector that previous day's garbage had been disposed of and then withdrawing that claim when offered contradictory evidence by inspector. “You've any defense against these violations?”

“Could you read them again?” Stenographer starts to. “No, forget it, because I'm only wasting all of your times now by saying I don't understand them when I do but am just trying to come up with much better reasons to defend myself. Because how far am I going to get by saying I've no proof and nobody to vouch for me here that this same gangster company I told you about Tuesday who wanted me to have my garbage picked up by them, then stopped me from having my garbage picked up by anybody when I refused them?”

“There were other ways to have your garbage removed.”

“I know, and I knew that's what you'd say and I'm not denying these violations that I didn't do them. But I tried all those other ways to the point of getting my head bashed, apartment torched, arrested by the police, hundreds of bar dollars stolen and probably my business ruined and a huge fine heaped on me now by your department for these violations I can't defend and for lying to your inspector. And what did it all get me except your probably saying now that this denial of my rights to get my garbage removed and run a legitimate business isn't this tribunal's jurisdiction but one for the civil or criminal or whatever courts we have for this, all of who it'll also be of no use to go to, and that I'm still in violation of your Health Code, now isn't that so?”