The Garbage Times - White Ibis

by Sam Pink

  Come on, man.

  Get it together.

  Get a fucking job.

  I searched local listings.

  There was an ad for someone to dress up in a bagel suit and walk around outside.

  Holy shit.

  It was a job … I’d … had.

  I’d dressed up in a bagel suit for a place I worked at when I was sixteen.

  I … had experience?

  I turned my head sideways like a dog hearing a familiar but still distant sound.

  I had experience.

  Who else could say that about this job?

  No matter what someone’s qualifications were, mine were better.

  Shit, they could walk into my interview [me not even turning to address them but remaining seated with a smug look on my face, hands clasped over the knee of my folded legs] and be like, ‘Stop, don’t hire him, I’m a fucking triple-quadruple PhD and I’m a cancer survivor and I’m Jesus.’

  And I’d just say, ‘Yeah, well, have you ever actually done this, junior? Have you been deep in the shit like I have, just a slit to look out of, no peripheral vision, you’re sweating, each motherfucking cloth sesame seed weighing what seems like tons … goddamnit, man, have you EVER DONE IT?’

  Still though …

  Fuck that.

  I closed the ad.

  There was no way I’d do that shit in Florida.

  That rig would kill ya in Florida.

  Tell ya.

  Felt like I was going to die just for wearing socks sometimes.

  Shit.

  No way.

  Can’t/won’t die in a bagel suit.

  Simply put: no, I would not die that way.

  You have to make decisions and rules about your life and one of mine was: don’t die in a bagel suit.

  Just … shit.

  Facedown dead in a bagel suit.

  On the pavement of a strip mall, which also included a nail place, a vaporizer place, and a tattoo place.

  A cop lifts the body bag with his loafer. ‘The hell happened here?’

  ‘Sir, it appears he drowned in his own sweat after passing out.’

  ‘Aw Currrrrhrist.’

  Lying on the ground, a dead man in the shell of a bagel.

  The beige stretch pants, the cartoonish shoes, the foam bagel apparatus, the cartoon gloves, my dead eyes looking down at the pavement.

  Goddamn.

  7

  The next morning my girl came home with her brother’s dog.

  Bam.

  Aka the Ham Man.

  Aka the Chocklit Hawg.

  He was her brother’s but the parents claimed him when he moved.

  He was kind of communal.

  But my girl missed him so we were reclaiming him.

  I stood in the kitchen, squinting and touching the areas where my hair was sticking up, boner at three-quarters.

  Right after she removed his leash, he took off full speed, running around the house, leaping onto and between couches, stopping to politely sniff Dotty, then running back around the house, stopping in front of me and doing this pose where he got real low to the ground on his forearms but kept his tiny butt up in the air, tail nub going side to side.

  ‘What the fuck is this?’ I said, laughing.

  He had a freakishly huge chest and very small spindly cricket legs with an even tinier head.

  He looked like a cartoon turkey.

  Like when people are starving in a cartoon and view the other person as a fully cooked turkey.

  But also with the head of a beautiful little deer.

  Or some kind of fuzzy soft cockroach with a beautiful rabbit head.

  Perhaps most like a tiny hog made of chocolate.

  I squatted down and started headbutting him, grabbing his legs and slapping his tiny yet rippling buttocks.

  He ran circles around me, hopping in and out and making this snigging sound, like half snorts/breaths through his nose, ears going up and down.

  ‘What the fuck is this?’ I said.

  Bam stopped and did the ass-up pose again, giving me a suggestive look with his ears straight back.

  I slapped his ass.

  Fwack.

  He stayed in the pose, tail nub thundering.

  I slapped his ass again.

  Fwack.

  He licked his lips, like shlip shlip.

  Then again.

  Fwack.

  Shlip shlip.

  He took off and ran two laps around the house full speed, jumping onto and along the couches and chest-bumping Dotty, who hissed and smacked him on the head hard enough to make a sound like papp.

  And then the air-conditioning guy walked through the still-open front door.

  ‘Hi, hello?’ he said.

  He was an older very short man with white hair and a neat mustache and glasses like an eighteenth-century German inventor.

  ‘Oh hi!’ said my girl. ‘My brother called you, right?’

  Bam went at the AC guy hot, sliding across the floor to a stop in front of him and barking viciously.

  We all stood there for a second, watching as he barked.

  He bounced in place, his asshole pumping with each bark like a bass-heavy speaker.

  The AC guy took a step back and held out a hand and said, ‘He’s gonna need to be secured. He just lunged at me.’

  ‘Oh, we can secure him,’ I said, making a fist.

  My girl grabbed Bam off the ground.

  He oinked sniggingly.

  ‘Come here, you,’ she said, and carried him to his cage by his enormous chest, cricket legs splayed out and roaming.

  The AC guy had to check the new unit they’d installed last month.

  Also—he ‘believed’—his apprentice had left a tape measure here.

  And he was very concerned about getting it back.

  He’d checked everywhere.

  Told me this, standing at attention in the kitchen.

  ‘You want some water, man?’ I said.

  For a second, he said nothing.

  It looked like a very hard and involved decision for him.

  Like it stirred up past trauma.

  ‘No … thank you,’ he said quietly. ‘I’d better just review the unit.’

  Having been lunged at, he thought it best to just review the unit.

  Ok.

  I led him to the unit and provided a ladder.

  Then I hurried off, back through the kitchen and upstairs.

  I knew exactly where it was.

  The tape measure.

  I’d seen it.

  In the guest room.

  There’d been something about it.

  I’d laid eyes upon it and felt something … knowingly …

  So I ran upstairs and down the hall and into the closet in the room at the end of the hall, passing my girl on the way back downstairs.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she said.

  I spun the tape measure in my hand.

  ‘I want to be the one who gives it to him,’ I said.

  ‘I want to.’

  ‘Fuck that. I got it first. Scram.’

  ‘Come on, why won’t you let me do it?’ she said.

  ‘Because.’

  Because I wanted to see that look of assurance on his face as I approached with it.

  Yeah, of course we have your tape measure, maaaaaan.

  You really think we’d steal your tape measure, maaaaaan?

  Ha.

  What is it, some kind of extra-awesome tape measure?

  What, does it measure better?

  Come on.

  When I got back to the closet, the AC guy was on the ladder, waist-up inside the attic/crawlspace.

  ‘Here you go, man,’ I said, holding it out.

  He crouched down, emerging from the crawlspace covered in sweat from the waist up.

  I gave him the tape measure.

  ‘Oh, thanks a lot,’ he said, hooking it to his belt, then wiping off his German inventor glasses on his shirt.

&
nbsp; A beautiful reunion.

  I smiled and winked.

  Of course.

  Of course, friend.

  There it is.

  You didn’t think we’d have it?

  Come now.

  He finished with the unit and packed up and went to leave but stopped in the kitchen and said, ‘I … I think I’ll take that glass of water now.’

  I laughed but he just kept looking at me, covered in sweat.

  ‘Ok,’ I said.

  I fixed him up a glass.

  Good one too.

  Perfect amount of ice. Manageably filled. Everything nice.

  So good.

  A small, meaningless victory.

  8

  We went to my girl’s parents’ house at the country club for a party her mom was hosting, loosely related to a card game I was supposed to learn on the ride over.

  ‘What are they going to expect me to care about?’ I said, getting into the car, already sweating.

  I saw the white ibis, in my rearview, at the end of the driveway, tiptoeing around like a dumb-ass.

  When the car started, the white ibis quickly walked away, wings out a little in what appeared to be a skedaddle.

  I watched, appreciating that there was basically no way you could get the white ibis to go to this party.

  No, fucking, way.

  ‘That seems reasonable, right,’ I said, coming out of the stare. ‘As a preliminary question for any gathering it seems like a very reasonable thing to want to know. Not who is going to be there but what are they going to expect me to care about. Right?’

  My girl turned up a song on the radio.

  ‘Stopppppp,’ she said. ‘Have a few drinks, play some cards, then we can come home and make it.’

  She started to explain how to play the card game but I wasn’t listening, suddenly experiencing a good ol-fashioned panic attack.

  I liked her parents, but a party?

  I’d taken to living in seclusion so fast that company was stressful.

  I was toast.

  I choked down the acid of a panic attack, suddenly aware of what I was getting myself into.

  I only enjoyed getting out of, not into, things.

  I just wanted to be walking around at the end of someone’s driveway.

  My girl almost killed us, merging onto a bigger road while explaining how one rule she just said could be overturned by some other rule, I don’t know.

  I’m fucked, I thought.

  It’s over.

  I’d forgotten my own ‘Once you’re in the car it’s too late’ rule.

  Idiot.

  Fucking idiot.

  I mean I could still just refuse to leave the car when we get there, but then you KNOW my girl was going to tell people I’m in the car, and someone would look outside and we’ll see each other and I’ll have to get out and be like, ‘Ohp, just coming in,’ even if it was an hour later.

  Fuck.

  Fucking shit.

  Toast.

  I’m toast.

  ‘What kind of sick fucking people go to a party though?’ I said, stopped at a red light. ‘I’ve spent my life flaking on, leaving, avoiding, or otherwise ignoring parties.’

  ‘Uh-huh,’ she said.

  ‘In fact, when parties are mentioned, I often thank the person who mentioned it, for helping me know where to avoid.’

  She said, ‘Shh,’ as she turned down the radio and pulled up to a gate.

  It was guarded by a uniformed security guard.

  ‘Hiiii, I’m [x],’ said my girl. ‘I’m here to see my parents in Aberdeen.’

  The security guard repeated her name and nodded with approval like her name was the code, made some mark on his clipboard, then opened the gate for us.

  ‘There’s nothing on that clipboard,’ I said, as we drove in. ‘Not a thing.’

  My girl—in a generic low-tone meant to mock me—said, ‘Hi, I’m Satan, and I’m here to torture and kill everyone.’

  It was a thing I always did when we went to her parents’.

  Right after we’d get past the gate I’d say, ‘Hi, I’m Satan/the Devil, and I’m here to eat all of you,’ etc.

  ‘It always hits,’ I said, smiling.

  We drove into the country club, past a golf course and a couple other subdivision entrances.

  There were eight or so deer along the road in the grass in front of her parents’ subdivision.

  They looked misplaced and alien, running away together.

  ‘Have fun at the party, fool,’ they whispered, fleeing.

  We pulled up to her childhood home.

  ‘You ready to fucking party?’ she said as we exited the car.

  ‘Party my fucking nuts off,’ I said.

  We went inside and said a general hi.

  There were a few people I kind of knew, but most I did not.

  The scene looked hot though …

  Poppin.

  People standing around, some on the couches, mostly drinking, contemporary pop music playing under desirable lighting.

  And right away, as though any other way were possible, I spotted Donna Leighy.

  Donna Leighy was a longtime friend of the family’s, whom I’d met before for ten minutes, and—as I’d repeatedly insisted to my girl and her mom and as they’d repeatedly disputed—was the real boss of Aberdeen.

  It was something I did to mess with them, claim that Donna Leighy ran that fucking country club.

  That she was the boss.

  The real player.

  The queen bitch.

  Top dog.

  Ding ding, everyone, it’s fight night, but you’ve already lost, because Donna Leighy is here.

  Donna Leighy.

  The head honcho.

  The big stuff.

  The real somebody.

  If there was a club, she ran it.

  School functions back in the day?

  Covered.

  Seasonal parties, you bet.

  In fact, you didn’t celebrate holidays with parties, your parties were to celebrate that Donna Leighy was having one.

  She gave me a hug when I went to shake her hand.

  ‘Nope, sorry, I’m a hugger,’ she said.

  She was drinking an energy drink on ice with a straw from a Styrofoam cup.

  Her jokes received party-wide approval on account of clout, not content, it seemed.

  That fierce, undeniable Donna Leighy clout.

  The kind that keeps you in or out.

  The kind that destroys your Fourth of July cookout with a mere passing remark about seating.

  The head honcho.

  The big boss.

  Bitch was made of Kevlar and scented candle.

  Every move she made, every chip dipped, every miniature sandwich sampled, every small pile of crumbs hand-swept into a napkin: it was all her.

  And she wore it with pride.

  ‘You playin cards with us tonight, big guy,’ she said.

  I said, ‘Heh.’

  She sampled another miniature sandwich and strode off, greeting different people, sipping from her thin straw.

  I watched, also at the miniature-sandwich table with some guy and his wife.

  He’d been pointing at each miniature sandwich and then his wife would tell him the ingredients.

  But then, somehow, he and I were talking.

  I, a frightened mouse in the invisible cage of his own making.

  Swarmed, the easiest of prey.

  Beware the man in boating shorts/shoes, with a deep tan and cologne, for he is the most unstoppable of all social presences.

  His grip infinite.

  Like the mythical giant octopus spoken of by mariners of old.

  He was, more or less, discussing his daughter’s new life in New York and maybe something about how, between that and his wife renting clothes online, he had very little money.

  It was a real situation he had there.

  But ultimately I wasn’t sure it involved me.

  In fa
ct, it didn’t seem to involve me at all, so I really wasn’t saying much.

  ‘So I guess,’ he said, struggling to properly dip his miniature sandwich into something white, ‘eight years.’

  I said, ‘Eight years,’ nodding. ‘Eight years eight years.’

  ‘Anyhow,’ he said, utterly obliterating the miniature sandwich, ‘nice talking to ya.’

  He walked away and immediately shook hands with a man who laughed loudly and said, ‘Hey, Steve, when we gonna crash that boat of yours?’

  I stood there, generally staring.

  I ate, nay, pulverized miniature sandwiches, of which there was seemingly an unending number (due to a mix-up, I later learned, between my girl’s mom and Donna Leighy, the latter having supposedly been told by the former to bring banana pudding, and yet there we were, advantage: Leighy).

  I kept expecting the white ibis to walk out from behind a couch, not visible to anyone but me, and open up the sunlit portal with its wing, saying, ‘You ready for this, bitch?’

  Bitch, I was born ready.

  My girl’s cousin said, ‘Hey, I didn’t even see you,’ and gave me a hug.

  She held out her phone and showed me a series of pictures from after she got bit by a moccasin.

  ‘Couldn’t even open muh fingers straight,’ she said.

  There was a general commotion around where my girl had removed a hot dish from the oven.

  It was the shrimp and grits she’d brought.

  Game time.

  People gathered around and got a red Styrofoam plate.

  Everyone ate, making noises.

  But then—

  Then who else but Donna Leighy said, ‘Wow, delicious! Soooo spicy though. Holy cow.’

  She did a bug-eyed/waving-hand-in-front-of-mouth pose.

  And I could see the look on my girl’s face change a little, as I slinked off to the fringes—like a real slinker—with my red Styrofoam plate of shrimp and grits.

  Donna Leighy had struck again.

  Man.

  So subtle too.

  First, the praise.

  Quite simply, ‘Delicious.’

  Ok, nice.

  Food’s highest honor, to most.

  But then she added the bit about it being so spicy.

  A secretly cruel way to take exception.

  A failure in the process.

  A failure, period.

  Not only too spicy, but in a way that could only be explained through the use of an extremely mild exclamation.

  Holy cow.

  One was not simply displeased with the spice, but so overcome as to need to invoke ancient beasts.