14 Stories

by Stephen Dixon

  “You did the right thing. Let me speak to him now.”

  Laslo holds the two-way in front of my mouth. “Hello,” I say.

  “The papers to donate your wife’s body to the hospital for research and possible transplants are ready now, sir, so could you return with Officer Laslo?”

  “No.”

  “If you think it’ll be too trying an emotional experience to return here, could we meet someplace else where you could sign?”

  “Do what you want with her body. There’s nothing I ever want to have to do with her again. I’ll never speak her name. Never go back to our apartment. Our car I’m going to let rot in the street till it’s towed away. This wristwatch. She bought it for me and wore it a few times herself.” I throw it out the window.

  “Why didn’t you just pass it on back here?” the man behind me says.

  “These clothes. She bought some of them, mended them all.” I take off my jacket, tie, shirt and pants and toss them out the window.

  “Lookit,” Laslo says, “I’m just a hospital security guard with a pair of handcuffs I’m not going to use on you because we’re in a public bus and all you’ve just gone through, but please calm down.”

  “This underwear I bought myself yesterday,” I say to him. “I needed a new pair. She never touched or saw them, so I don’t mind still wearing them. The shoes go, though. She even put on these heels with a shoe-repair kit she bought at the five-and-dime.” I take off my shoes and drop them out the window.

  The bus has stopped. All the other passengers have left except Laslo. The driver is on the street looking for what I’m sure is a patrolman or police car.

  I look at my socks. “I’m not sure about the socks.”

  “Leave them on,” Laslo says. “They look good, and I like brown.”

  “But did she buy them?” I think they were a gift from her two birthdays ago when she gave me a cane picnic basket with a dozen­and-a-half pairs of different-colored socks inside. Yes, this is one of them,” and I take them off and throw them out the window. “That’s why I tried and still have to get out of this city fast as I can.”

  “You hear that?” Laslo says into the two-way radio, and the man on the other end says “I still don’t understand.”

  “You see,” I say into it, “we spent too many years here together, my beloved and I—all our adult lives. These streets. That bridge. Those buildings.” I spit out the window.” Perhaps even this bus. We took so many rides up and down this line.” I try to uproot the seat in front of me but it won’t budge. Laslo claps the cuffs on my wrists. “This life,” I say and I smash my head through the window.

  An ambulance comes and takes me back to the same hospital. I’m brought to Emergency and put on a cot in the same examining room she was taken to this last time before they moved her to a semiprivate room. A hospital official comes in while the doctors and nurses are tweezing the remaining glass splinters out of my head and stitching me up. “If you’re still interested in donating your wife’s body,” he says, “then we’d like to get the matter out of the way while some of her organs can still be reused by several of the patients upstairs.”

  I say “No, I don’t want anyone walking around with my wife’s parts where I can bump into him and maybe recognize them any day of the year,” but he takes my writing hand and guides it till I’ve signed.

  THE SECURITY GUARD

  I’ve been looking for a job for a long time, can’t find one, when I see a help-wanted ad for a security guard. I apply, the interviewer for the security company says “You’re really too old for the job but look young and limber enough and we need men badly these days, especially of your color and build. It’s a booming service, stores and buildings are getting robbed all over the place, and you can start tomorrow if you want at two hundred a week, but I first have to know if you’re willing to use a club over someone’s head if you have to.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “That’s no answer.”

  “Then I guess so.”

  “That’s not a good enough answer either.”

  “Sure, why not? You mean if I’m working in a store and someone comes in with a gun and wants to rob it?”

  “Someone comes in with a gun, you just stand there, petrified, don’t do anything, you want to get yourself killed? Forget the ‘petrified.’ We don’t want to look that bad, but we also don’t want our insurance rates raised because one of our guards got killed. So just, if anyone comes in with a gun or even a knife or pulls one on you once he’s inside, don’t do anything. Don’t. If someone comes in with a club but one of our sized clubs, then you hit him over the head, or even she. You’re allowed to hit a she if she’s about to hit your head or the owner’s or salesman’s of the store you’re protecting. If it’s a much smaller club than yours, then you try and disarm him, and if you can’t and he’s still coming, use your club over his head. But if someone comes in with nothing like a gun or club but makes trouble like shouting or swearing and the owner or manager want him out, and you can’t get him to leave with just nice words, then this is what you do. You quickly look outside for a cop if you’ve time. If you haven’t time or you already looked and no cop’s there, then you politely escort, or try to, this person out of the store. Sometimes you’ll have the manager’s or salesman’s help, most times you won’t. If the person fights back or won’t go, you grab him and throw him out of the store. If he comes back, you throw him out again. If he keeps coming back, call or have someone call the police, and if there’s no police in time, raise your club to hit him. That usually does it. Now if this guy fights back with his hands and happens to knock you to the ground and is about to kick your face in or the owner or a customer’s head in, then you use your club if you have to, over the hands or arms if you can or in the groin. If you can’t or you have and the guy still keeps coming with his kicks or hands, then over the head. You’ve that right. That’s what you’re being paid for. You won’t get in trouble with the law, believe me, but if you do, the company will back you up all the way and pay you for the time you have to explain it in court. If it’s a woman who’s the aggressor with her hands or a smaller club, don’t use your club on her unless she somehow gets you down and is about to pound the club on your head or stick her shoes in your eyes. Then you’re entitled to hit her anywhere you want with your club, though one good one on the leg or chest should do it for her and it looks better for us in court. Now can you do all that?”

  “Hit with a club you mean?”

  “Stop stalling, because you know what I’ve been talking about. Hit with a club a woman or man or even a child if it’s a killer child on the hand or leg or if you have to, on the head. Can you?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re not just saying so to get the job?”

  “No, I’m positive I can.”

  “Then if your references are okay, you’re hired. I think we have your size in a uniform, though it may be a little big or small. Come in tomorrow morning at eight and if everything checks out, I’ll give you your first assignment and uniform and club.”

  I start to leave his office.

  “By the way, Tom. You haven’t an arrest record or anything like that? You’re not a thief, for instance, in this city or any other?”

  “Nothing. Not even a car violation in ten years.”

  “Any kind of violation before those ten years?”

  “Nothing. Never. Not even as a kid.”

  “And it’s not just because you never drove a car or were ever caught?”

  “No. I never tried. I’m a very honest guy, my references will tell you that, and always have been, simple as that must sound.”

  “All my guards are honest and all their references backed them on that. Maybe the references were scared or too palsy or wanted them out of their hair, but a few of the guards turned out to be not so honest after the first few days and one a sexual maniac. But I need you bad and it’ll take a couple of weeks to check with the police about you and your
fingerprints, and my instincts and snap judgment are usually perfect and tell me you’re okay. Don’t screw me up. That’s not just a warning but an incentive. I have my own job to protect and boss to cope with, and if you are really honest and stay that way, you get better and easier positions the longer you work for us and also more pay.”

  “I swear.”

  “And look good as you look to me today with your nice clean face and shined shoes and we’ll just get along great.”

  About my honesty I wasn’t lying, though I don’t know for sure whether I can club someone’s head. I’m not an especially violent guy, though I do have a temper sometimes and when it came down to it at a bar when I was being threatened, or recently because someone was beating up a shopkeeper I know on the street, I was able to use my fists and strength and protect myself and him. And from what I heard, most policemen never have to get off a shot in their entire career, so I don’t see why I, if I control my temper and say the right calming words with enough authority, will ever have to break anyone’s skull with a club.

  Next day the interviewer says my references all checked out, takes my fingerprints and assigns me a men’s clothing store on Madison Avenue. I take my uniform and club with me, change in one of the store’s dressing booths, and the owner tells me what my duties are. “You’re to stay by the door. People who come in with large unwrapped packages or shopping bags of any kind are to check them with you and you give them a number tag. If you see anybody who looks suspicious, which usually means darting his eyes back and forth on you, keep a watch on him or her but not in a way where he thinks you’re spying on him and where the store, if your perception’s all wrong, loses a sale and maybe a lifelong customer. If I or any employee shouts your name, it means trouble and you come. If any of us yell ‘The door!’ that’s all, just ‘The door!’ it means someone’s going through it with merchandise he didn’t pay for and you chase and grab him and if you can’t get it back from him peacefully or any other way on the street, you hold him for the police.”

  So I stand by the door two hours at a time with ten-minute breaks in between and a half-hour for lunch. I never had a job where my feet hurt so much or it was so boring. But I tell myself I’ll get used to it in a week or two, and maybe if I get a more comfortable pair of mailman’s shoes, I won’t mind at all.

  Everything’s okay that day and the next, no complaints, nobody stealing anything, but the third day a saleslady comes over to me and says “Don’t look right away but I’ve my eye on a young man to your immediate left who stuck a tux shirt under his jacket. He’s well-dressed, wearing a navy-bluejacket and gray slacks and yellow turtleneck jersey. It’s okay, you can start turning around now, but slowly. See him? I’m going back to pretend to wait on another customer. If I see him put back the shirt, I’ll tell you and save you the trouble of stopping him. If you don’t hear from me, you’ll know he still has it.”

  “What do I say to him if I don’t hear from you?”

  “You don’t know?”

  “The owner told me not to offend any of your customers.”

  “He’s not our customer. He’s a shoplifter. Look, what did they hire you for?”

  “Don’t worry, I know what to do.”

  “That’s what I thought. What are you giving me such a hard time for?”

  I don’t know what to do or say, but I’ll think of something. I watch the man every now and then. He seems all right. Going from counter to counter as if he’s just browsing, holding a tie up to his shirt as if he could tell what it looks like against that turtleneck. Then ten minutes after the saleslady spoke to me, he starts for the door. I stand in his way. “Excuse me, sir,” I say.

  “Yes?”

  “Isn’t there something you forgot to leave behind?”

  “Leave behind where? My cigarette butts, in your ashtrays, that’s what I left behind.”

  “Do I have to repeat it?”

  “Maybe if you had more sense from the beginning you wouldn’t have to repeat anything.”

  “The tux shirt. Does that make more sense to you?”

  “Tux shirt? For what, the evening clothes I got on? Listen, I’m late. I shop here a lot, didn’t see anything I want today, so get out of my way before I call over your manager.”

  “Please, this is my job. And I’m letting you off light by just asking for the shirt back, so don’t make more trouble for yourself.” I hold out my hand. He looks at it. “The shirt, the shirt.” The saleslady is behind him nodding her head at me.

  “Forget the manager. You want me to get the police against you and this store for harassing me? I will. What’s your name?”

  “I’m sorry, but I’ll just have to stand here and you there till we do get a policeman. Just a second.” I wave for the saleslady to go outside. “A policeman, ma’am, if you can.”

  “Oh, I can,” she says. She goes out the door. The man bolts for it while it’s closing. I push him back. He swings at me with the stiffened side of his hand and clips me in the cheek good. I go down. He starts to run past me. I grab him by the ankle and hold on while my head’s spinning, and he drags me a couple of feet toward the door before he stops and tries to shake his ankle free of my hand. The shirt drops out from under his jacket to the floor. “Okay, that should be enough. Get out of here,” and I let go of his ankle. He raises his foot to bring down on my face. I roll over. His foot hits the floor. He runs out of the store and across the street. My other hand is still holding the club.

  The saleslady comes back with a policeman while I’m brushing myself off and a salesman’s trying to dab my cheek with a wet rag.

  “Where is he?” the policeman says.

  “He got out,” I say, taking the rag and touching my cheek, because the way he was pressing with it hurt.

  “Why didn’t you hold him for me?”

  “Once he dropped the shirt he was stealing, I thought that was enough.”

  “He might have had more under his clothes.”

  “He did,” the saleslady says. “I saw him. A thirty dollar belt with a big bull’s face buckle and a bandanna.”

  The owner of the store comes back from lunch. “What’s this, another robbery?”

  “We almost had him this time,” the saleslady says, “but the guard let him go.”

  “I thought he only took one shirt. And when I got it back, well, I felt I’d have to spend the entire day at the police station with the man and you’d have to pay for me plus another guard for here.”

  “That’s my prerogative. I’ve been robbed so much I just want the satisfaction of one thief caught and locked up. Did you at least get him with your club?”

  “He didn’t even raise it,” the saleslady says.

  “I didn’t think to,” I say.

  “If a guy’s holding me up,” the owner says, “and he doesn’t see you right behind him, would you think to?”

  “That’s a different story. Sure.”

  “Nah, you wouldn’t, and I’d be robbed and besides that word will get around I’ve a pushover here and then they’ll be no end to thieves. No offense, but I’m phoning your boss. This might be a nice avenue, but I need a real tough son of a gun as a guard.” He makes a call, speaks for a while on the phone, then puts me on. “Tom, what’s with you?” Mr. Gibner, the man who hired me, says. “I know it’s not easy using a club, but that was a situation where he clearly deserved it. You’re supposed to make us look good, not bad, though I do give you credit for at least standing up to the punk and trying. How’s your face? Think you can last out the day with that welt or do I have to hassle myself finding a replacement?”

  “It’s going down already.”

  “That a boy. He never would have hit you if you had raised the club over his skull or gotten him first. Anyway, the owner wants you taken off and a new guard put on. I’ll have you switch places with the guard who’s in a shoestore two blocks north of you, number 575. I’ll call him. He’ll know when you get there to come straight to your store, as the owner the
re always wants a guard on at all times.”

  I go to the shoestore. As the guard’s about to leave I ask him “Much trouble here?”

  “Nothing big. But one guy today, bam, I really slammed it into him when he wouldn’t put down the shoetrees he wasn’t going to pay for and then pulled on me a knife, though it turned out to be keys. Bam, bam, I did. He crawled out in all the confusion here, but will have as a reminder those two dents in his head the rest of his life. When they pull anything on you, like keys—you know, between their fingers into your face—swing now, talk later, when you get them back awake. That’s what they can expect from me, and Gibner tells me to impress on you the same. You don’t, all us guards will look to them like potatoes, which’ll make our jobs even harder. Half of what we got working for us is their fear of our clubs, you hear?”

  “Got you.”

  I work the rest of the day. For my breaks, because they always want a guard here, someone brings me coffee and cake for free, and I have to sit in the back watching the front of the store through a big peephole. During my lunch, one of the salesmen puts on my jacket and cap, though doesn’t want the club because he says he doesn’t want to risk getting killed using it, while I go outside for my half hour.

  Nothing worse happens the next two days but a man screaming at the cashier all sorts of curse words. I walk over to him and say, with my club at my side, “Anything wrong, sir?” He looks at me, then at my club, says “Don’t bother yourself,” and leaves. The cashier says “He came in just to use the bathroom and when I told him it was for employees only, he laid into me that I was a whore and liar. Thanks, Tom, because I think he could have become much crazier.”