Read Online Garbage by Stephen Dixon - Free Book Online Page A

will be, he’s like me, he never leaves and he’ll be honest with me or else he knows he won’t get favors back. I’ll try and call you later tonight or the morning and you’ll have put down by then how much you gave Kelly, okay?”
    â€œOkay, but I still don’t like that you don’t trust me or what Boo might do.”
    â€œI do trust you, I do, and when I get back you have a home at the bar for free food and booze for a couple of days, Boo too. Now put him on.”
    â€œYeh,” Boo says.
    â€œBoo, this is Shaney.”
    â€œYeh, I know, Hector said, so?”
    â€œSo Boo, I don’t care, I’m not normally like this as you know and don’t give me that tough ‘so’ stuff too, but big as you are and sober and mean as you might be that day, if you give Hector any flack about the job I just gave him to do I’ll beat your ass black and blue with my billy, I swear, and much worse than that I’ll ban you forever from my bar, you got?”
    â€œYeh. I’ll keep myself straight.”
    â€œGood man and thanks.”
    I give the police my bar keys and two of them leave to lock up. I ask the sergeant if he could put a guard on the bar tonight for I’m almost sure Stovin’s men will try and firebomb the place or smash in all the plate glass. He says “We’re short-handed as it is. And I can’t see why your bar rates a special guard when you’re the person being held and charged for maybe clobbering to death one of the group you accuse of harassing you.”
    â€œYou’ll put that down in writing for my bar’s insurance company?”
    â€œI’ll put your face down in writing if you don’t smarten up.” “And threaten me again and I’ll have whoever it is supposed to know about police threats know about you.”
    â€œQuick, someone—Angelo, get over here,” he yells to a policeman, “and get this asshole out of my sight before I lose my cool altogether and level him and then you guys will lose your protective sergeant for another few weeks.”
    Angelo sits me down, gets me coffee and tells me to lay off the sergeant. “He’s been called down before for busting a suspect’s jaw and we can’t afford to have him kicked off the force.” Later he checks with the sergeant and tells me that the court which will talk about bail and my appointed lawyer for my assault and possible manslaughter case doesn’t open till tomorrow at ten and I’ll have to spend the night in a detaining cell upstairs.
    I’m given a blanket, towel and toothbrush and taken to the cell. Three other men share it. I want to call Hector but the guard tells me “As a first-nighter you already made your limitation of one call.” I eat and while the guards and other prisoners watch TV in the common room shared by an entire floor of cells, I lie on my upper-bunk cot and think and think about my situation and end up thinking there’s nothing to think about how to end the situation and there’s no way I can stop and my only hope’s that Stovin’s will think or say they’ve had enough of me and our situation and let it drop.
    Cells are locked up right after the late evening news, we’re given a doughnut and apple juice snack, our light’s turned off though there’s still the glow from the common room lamps and TV the guards continue to watch, the men in the cell talk in the dark about the movie they’d just seen.
    â€œI liked it because it was real.”
    â€œReal how? When you shoot someone there’s supposed to be holes and blood.”
    â€œMaybe there was but on the small screen compared to a theater’s you couldn’t see them and also the color was bad.”
    â€œWhat makes you say the movie wasn’t especially made for TV?”
    â€œExcuse me, fellas,” I say.
    â€œBecause I saw it in its uncut version a year