Trashland a Go-Go (3 page)

Victor finished his drink and reached for his wallet.

Arnie cocked an eyebrow at him and took a long slow swallow from his glass. He set it down on the battered bar and the ice clinked inside the empty tumbler. “You want another?” he asked Victor.

“No, thanks. I think I’ll go home. Get some rest.” Victor really wanted another drink. He wanted ten. But he couldn’t stand to look at Arnie’s pock-marked sleazy face any longer.

They were a few blocks from Snatch Hausen, at another bar—a dank sort of hole-in-the-wall, with a jukebox that still played the same records it had for the last thirty years. The records were warped and scratched. The music came out warbly and skipped often. None of the bar’s few patrons seemed to mind, or even seemed to be listening. It served as more of a melodic white noise. Something to keep the quiet out while they sat at the bar on cracked leather barstools, patched with duct and electrical tape, drowning their troubles.

Victor took some cash from his wallet and Arnie shook his head. “Naw man, I got this one. I’ll see you tomorrow at six, yeah?” Arnie slapped Victor’s back for the millionth time that night.

It was Arnie’s own brand of comradery that Victor was growing to hate. Almost as much as he had grown to hate Arnie himself in the few hours they sat drinking together.

Victor put the money back in his wallet. He couldn’t turn down a free drink. “Yeah, Arnie. Six o’clock.”

Arnie stood up, leaning heavily onto the bar to steady himself. He was drunk and looked at Victor through one squinted eye. “See ya’ then. I’m going to hit the head.” He hiccupped and pounded his fist on the bar before walking away.

Arnie staggered to the back of the bar. He weaved between the tables and chairs with swaying steps as though caught in a howling wind. Victor sighed and rose from his stool. He eyed the off-sale liquor for only a split second before deciding to get a bottle of whiskey for the road.

Victor walked back toward Snatch Hausen with heavy, sluggish feet. He was far too drunk to drive home and he lived too far away to walk. He didn’t feel much like wasting money on cab fare, so he opted to sleep in his car in the parking lot of the club and drive home in the morning.

He chugged from the bottle as he walked down the street. He didn’t care if the police stopped him. He almost hoped they would. He felt guilty about Coco. Throwing her in the garbage was obviously not the right thing to do. Anyone with a general sense of right and wrong knew that. But panic had taken over, guided by intimidation. He had seen what happened to people who crossed Arnie. He wasn’t someone you wanted to fuck with.

Victor’s thought process was impeded by the now half-empty bottle of cheap whiskey. He took his usual shortcut down the alley that spilled out into the deserted parking lot of Snatch Hausen. It wasn’t until the dumpster was only a few feet from him that he realized what a terrible idea the shortcut had been. Victor stared at the dumpster and his eyes welled with hot, salty tears. He never got to tell her how he felt about her.

He was disgusted with his own cowardice. He worked with Coco for three months and somehow had never found the courage to ask her out, or even hold any kind of conversation with her. He leaned against the side of the dumpster. The metal was cold against his back as he gradually slid down onto the asphalt and began to weep.

Victor sat there for some time with the open bottle of whiskey in his lap, sobbing in front of the dumpster where he and Arnie had disposed of the late great Coco Darling. His darling Coco. If only he could tell her how he felt. If only he could have stood up to Arnie. Oh, if only.

Victor stood up, stumbling over his feet and wiped his eyes with the sleeve of his shirt before wiping his nose with the other—leaving two moist streaks behind each nostril. He sniffed and stared at the dumpster.

The squashed cardboard boxes were still as Arnie had left them. Somewhere in there was Coco, as lovely as ever. Only in need of a sponge bath. At the very least, he thought he could tell her how he felt.

He thought he could stand in the alleyway and spill his guts about the hours he spent admiring her. How lovely he thought she was. How badly he needed to be near her, and feel her supple skin pressed against his tense body. The idea of saying these things to a mound of trash did not appeal to him. Nor did the possibility of someone wandering by and listening to him wail his professions of love into the night. But he couldn’t shake his yearning—the all-consuming need to be near her. So he did the most reasonable thing he could think to do.

Victor pulled himself up the side of the dumpster and swung his leg over the ledge. He sat straddling the dumpster’s edge and looked around to make sure there was no one else to witness him diving into the trash receptacle. Once he saw that the coast was clear, Victor swung his other leg over and fell haplessly into the dumpster. He lay there for a moment in the trash heap.

“Ssshhtupid fuckin’ whissshkey,” he slurred.

The dumpster began to spin around him. He groaned and rolled onto his belly. He lay atop a piece of cardboard, reached below it with one hand and dug around in the garbage for something that resembled Coco.

He felt the smooth surface of many plastic bags as he groped blindly for the one unyielding bag that contained his departed love. His hand wrapped around something more solid. Something long and slender that did not give way to his firm grip. Victor’s breath quickened as he poked holes through the plastic with clumsy, drunken fingers, to tear open the plastic casing and caress his beloved Coco. He told himself it wasn’t sick. That he wasn’t doing anything wrong, no matter how aroused he was getting at the thought of her waiting beneath that plastic for his touch. Just for him.

Something smelled awful. This did not come as a complete surprise to Victor as he was well aware that he was inside a dumpster, but he refused to let the slightly woozy feeling creeping into his stomach diminish the gratification he knew he would surely feel. He told himself it was closure. That he was just saying goodbye the best way he knew how.

The layers of plastic were slick with fluids from the dumpster and his hands slipped as he tore through the bag. The anticipation was killing him. He let his hand drift up the length of the bag, feeling what seemed to be her thigh. He pictured her legs as they had been on stage—taunting him under red lights, wrapped around the chrome pole, grinding on the stage. He slipped a finger into the bag and felt the sponginess of flesh.

Victor was so overcome that he began to pant like a dog as he tore through the remaining plastic separating him from his love. When the contents were finally free, underneath the dim orange glow of the street light, Victor found much to his dismay that Coco was not inside. Instead what he found was the partially butchered hind-quarters of a cow. A rotting sack of beef. He stopped digging and mashed the flattened cardboard boxes back on top of the pile. He lay down defeated, curled his arm up under his head like a pillow and closed his eyes. This only made the spinning worse. Victor retched all over his arm and spun into unconsciousness.

When Victor opened his eyes again, he was blinded by the sun. His ferocious hangover stabbed at the back of his eyes with disdain; pure hatred for every single ray of sunshine assaulting them. He threw his arm across his face. He heard the crunching of plastic bottles and the crinkling of papers beneath him. He lifted his arm an inch, and opened one eye.
Garbage.
Great,
he thought,
I fell asleep in the dumpster
. He grumbled and rolled onto his back with his eyes still shut tight against the sun. It smelled worse than he remembered from the night before.

Victor braced himself for the brilliance of the sun and opened his eyes to see a perfect blue sky. He sat up on one arm. He looked around completely stunned. As far as he could see there was garbage. It stretched for miles in every direction. He was not in the dumpster anymore. He was at the dump.
I must have been out COLD when the garbage truck came
. He counted his blessings for having not been crushed en-route to the dump, and set off to find the entrance.

“Looks like I’ll be spending money on cab fare after all,” he muttered. Victor brushed some wilted lettuce from his hair and started walking.

The fly stopped crying.

Coco leaned as close to the orange as she could stomach. “I’m sorry I wrecked your house,” she said. She meant it. At least she
thought
she meant it.

Coco was not the type of girl to go around destroying other people’s things. She did once pour maple syrup into the air intake of an ex-boyfriend’s truck, but she was nineteen and vindictive then, so it didn’t really count. The fact that this was a fly’s house, in some strange unconscious hallucination, didn’t really make her feel any better.

The fly sat up, blew its nose into a section of orange peel and sniffled. “It isn’t the house so much. I mean, sure, it’s terrible to lose everything you own in one fell swoop.” He briefly shot her a dirty look before sighing and continuing on. “It’s just stuff. But I only have one week to live? I had a lot of things I wanted to do. Plans. Now what?” He slumped on his back four legs and let out a deep, exasperated sigh.

“I really am sorry.” Coco extended her pinky finger to pat the fly on the head in an attempt to comfort the insect. “I’ve had quite the day myself.”

The fly ducked under her finger. “Yeah, how’s that?” he asked, straightening up.

“Well, I’m here,” she said, indicating the dump.

“Big deal. Some people have real problems,” the fly said, dismissing her. He buzzed over to the pile of his demolished personal effects next to his crushed aluminum home. He landed and surveyed the wreckage.

“No, really.” Coco commiserated with the fly. She caught herself trying to converse and empathize with an insect, and she realized how desperate she’d become for companionship. She had been roaming the landfill for most of the day talking to herself. It was nice to have another voice respond. Even if it was a fly’s. “I was at work and something happened. I had an accident and I was electrocuted.” She gestured to her matted fried hair. “When I woke up I was here. They just threw me away.”

The fly nodded toward the silver high heels dangling from her hand. “Work, huh?” he scoffed.

Coco sat up straight and glared at the insect. “You know, it was an accident. I didn’t know you lived in that can. And in fact you probably don’t. You aren’t even real. You are part of this dream I am having. And I don’t
care
if you are mad at me. You’re in my head.”

The fly laughed and buzzed around her. “Did you hit your head, too? Lady, I’m just as real as you. As this dump.” he shouted over his shoulder as he flew in a small circle a few feet away.

“Whatever. I just want to go home.” she sighed.

The fly picked up a broken piece of furniture and examined it briefly. He turned it over before letting it fall back to the ground.

“At least you have a home,” he said, defeated.

“But I don’t know where it is. I don’t know where I am, or how to get from here to there. Or what is wrong with me. Why am I talking to a fly?” Coco said standing up and shaking her head.

“Pity?” the fly said snidely.

Coco sighed. Whatever was going on didn’t appear to be changing anytime soon.

“I really am sorry…fly.”

“My name is Rudy.”

“You have a
name
?”

“Of course I do. Don’t you? Let me guess.” Rudy buzzed around Coco’s stilettos. “Crystal? Roxy? Candy?” Coco shook her head “no” with each name.

“You seem to have a problem with dancers, Rudy. I don’t appreciate the attitude,” she said when he had finished.

“I had an ex. She was a stripper. You hear me? STRIP-ER. None of this
dancer
shit. You didn’t go to Juilliard. You’re changing the subject. Whaddya call yourself?”

Coco was suddenly embarrassed. She stared at the shoes in her hand. “Coco. Coco Darling,” she said.

Rudy snickered. “It could be worse. I once met a beastly woman who called herself
Niqueollette
,” he said. He spelled the name. “What a train wreck that broad was.”

“There’s a strip club around here?” Coco asked brightly. If there was a strip club nearby there was sure to be someone who could drive her home. Or at least point her in the right direction.

“There used to be one in town, but the Queen had it condemned. I moved out here when the Queen banished all flies. I moved farther away than the others so I could live in peace for my final days.” He cocked a fuzzy eyebrow at Coco. “But now I guess I have to head back. I can’t just sleep in the wild.”

“You can’t?”

“No! Would you? Would you just go sleep in a prairie? Doubt it.” Rudy started to buzz away.

“Wait! If you’re heading to town…” Coco paused. “Are there only flies in this town?” For all she knew “town” was an empty six-pack a few yards from where she stood.

“It takes all kinds around here,” Rudy said, looping through the air.

That was good enough for Coco. She followed him into the distant trashscape and hoped she would eventually find a way home.