The Garbage Times - White Ibis Read online

  The Garbage Times

  ALSO BY SAM PINK

  The Self-Esteem Holocaust Comes Home

  Person

  The No Hellos Diet

  Hurt Others

  Frowns Need Friends Too

  Rontel

  Witch Piss

  The Garbage Times

  A Novella

  SAM PINK

  Soft Skull New York

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, companies, organizations, and events portrayed are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Copyright © 2018 by Sam Pink

  All rights reserved

  First Soft Skull edition: May 2018

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Pink, Sam, author. | Pink, Sam. White ibis.

  Title: The garbage times ; White ibis : two novellas / Sam Pink.

  Description: First Soft Skull edition. | New York : Soft Skull Press : Distributed by Publishers Group West, 2018.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2017046521| ISBN 9781593766818 (pbk. : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781593766863 (ebook)

  Subjects: LCSH: Surrealism (Literature) | Experimental fiction, American.

  Classification: LCC PS3616.I5687 A6 2018 | DDC 813/.6—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017046521

  Published by Soft Skull Press

  1140 Broadway, Suite 704

  New York, NY 10001

  www.softskull.com

  Soft Skull titles are distributed to the trade by

  Publishers Group West

  Phone: 866-400-5351

  Printed in the United States of America

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  For the rats

  Contents

  The Garbage Times: A Novella

  January

  March

  June

  September

  White Ibis: A Novella

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  Acknowledgments

  January

  It was a shitty winter.

  Seventeen people had died from the cold in Chicago.

  Temperatures well below zero or lots of snow.

  One person died when a six-foot icicle broke off a building.

  Haha.

  Shit.

  I was freezing, on my way to work at a bar just west of downtown.

  I’d been hatefully addressing my coat the whole walk to the train.

  Like, ‘Fuck you, coat. You are not good. I just … ah fuck, I just hate you …’

  The coat was ridiculous.

  I got it at the secondhand store.

  Think it was a hunting coat.

  Had duck pictures on the inside.

  It was the color of drug shit and half the buttons barely held.

  Useless.

  Useless!

  First time I wore it I put my hands in the pockets and felt something and took out two handfuls of leaf dust.

  And yes, I wanted to drop to my knees and hold the handfuls up and let them blow away as I screamed upward, ‘Fuck you, coat, I hate you!’

  Then scream, ‘Just kidding/we’re all trying!’

  The wind burned my face.

  My eyes teared.

  I scraped ice off my mustache with my lower teeth, then scraped ice off the hair below my lip with my front teeth.

  Goodbye, tiny icicles.

  Goodbye and that’s all.

  No more.

  No more!

  There were only two ways to keep warm.

  One was to give in and die, to sit your dumb ass down and let it happen.

  The other was to drum with your teeth while making fists in your pockets and repeatedly yelling ‘fuck you’ in your head.

  That helped.

  That definitely helped.

  It was renewing in some way, which of course immediately passed.

  I saw two construction workers on the sidewalk.

  They huddled over a blue tarp with the head of a dog coming out the front.

  The dog shivered, wheezing and honking, like ung ung ung.

  One construction worker hugged the dog, rubbing up and down on its chest.

  ‘Yeah when he saw me, he got scared and slipped and fell into this ditch and the ice broke and he went into the water. I figured I can rub him and maybe he’ll warm up faster.’

  ‘Oh fuck, he went in the water?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Fuck, what should we do, he’s gonna die.’

  ‘I don’t know, guy.’

  The dog stared at me as I passed.

  I wanted to teach him to drum with his teeth while screaming ‘fuck you’ in his head.

  Because that was all he needed.

  But somehow it just didn’t matter.

  No.

  I scraped new icicles off my mustache with my bottom teeth.

  My eyes stuck shut for a few seconds.

  I made fists in my pockets and moaned.

  Took my hands out of my pockets and held my nose.

  One last gust of wind hit my face as I went down the stairs for the train.

  Haha, yeah, you win.

  But fuck you too.

  The train was already there, doors about to close.

  I ran and jumped in the closest car and went to the back and leaned against the door to the next car so I could be furthest away from/see everyone.

  There was puke on one of the seats and the window behind it—like someone not only puked, but his/her head filled with puke, then exploded.

  Fuck yeah, that’s how you do it.

  It was the garbage times.

  When I got to the bar, the sun had set.

  Fuck you, bar.

  I went down the alley and entered through the basement.

  I kicked an empty case of rum across the room and ducked under a garbage bag stapled to the ceiling to collect drips.

  The basement was filthy.

  There was garbage all over.

  Any job I’d ever had involved garbage.

  I had been, and always would be, a garbageman.

  And yes, I took great pride in my garbage pedigree.

  It was my calling.

  My very meaning.

  Something dripped on my head.

  I touched my head.

  Thick, dark-green gel on my hand—like pureed spinach.

  Oh hello!

  I was just talking about you to someone!

  And how are you?!

  Nice.

  I wiped my hand on my pants.

  Garbage garbage, all my beautiful friends.

  First I did dumpsters.

  The dumpsters were full of broken glass and liquid collected from chutes coming from upstairs.

  With that classic vinegar smell that cleared my face.

  Hoooo.

  Yeah.

  Some good shit.

  When I grabbed the handles on a dumpster I cut my hands on broken glass.

  I held up my hands to check on them.

  They were the smallest pieces of broken glass I’d ever seen.

  So small they could only be seen at certain angles.

  They were beautiful and I loved them and I smiled.

  I wheeled the dumpster to the back stairwell, up to the narrow concrete staircase.

  The staircase was covered in broken glass, with exposed nails along the handrails.

  I had to wheel the dumpster up a rickety ramp on either side of the stairs.

/>   It was supposed to be something two people did but no one else did it so I just did it myself.

  Because it was the garbage times.

  Where best to just shut the fuck up and do what you had to do.

  Where best never to complain.

  And always be ready.

  I lined up the dumpster wheels with each side of the ramp.

  I turned around and faced the stairs, grabbing the dumpster handles with each arm behind me.

  I took a careful step up the stair, locking my foot sideways under the wooden ramp.

  My left boot coming off the sole because of it.

  Garbage water soaking my feet every day.

  Heels calloused hard enough to chop wood, maybe.

  I strained, leaning my face as close to the stairs as I could, lifting the dumpster up onto the ramp.

  First step the hardest because I had to both lift and balance the dumpster on the ramp and not slip backwards.

  Not even a little.

  Had to stay leaned forward or otherwise I’d fall backwards.

  Farther and farther with each step.

  And the worst part of that would be cleaning it up if I didn’t die.

  To stand up and dust myself off and pick out the broken glass and sweep all the garbage back into the dumpster and try again.

  The worst part, being stupid enough to try again.

  I took another step, straining to stay forward.

  Had my face close to the stairs, biting down til my neck hurt.

  If I could get high enough I could grab onto the chain-link fence in the alley and turn around and pull the dumpster up.

  But until then I had to stay balanced.

  Wedging my foot under the ramp and pulling.

  Step after step up the narrow stairs.

  Over the broken glass.

  Pulling the weight upward.

  To the top with the weight!

  In the garbage times.

  Yes.

  Step after step.

  If one step, then one thousand.

  If one thousand, then one thousand more.

  Why not.

  I got to the top and grabbed the chain-link fence, lifting the entire dumpster over an abnormally large last step with one hand.

  Done.

  Haha.

  Fuck you.

  I stood up and rested with my hands on my hips, heart beating hard.

  I pushed the dumpster into other dumpsters.

  Watching it hit the others made me feel better.

  A rat ran down the alley.

  Goodbye, little guy.

  May we meet again in a more advanced hell where we take each other’s place.

  The night before, I’d opened an empty dumpster and a tiny rat was at the bottom, jumping up and down, trapped.

  So I tipped the dumpster and let him go.

  Which, for whatever reason, hurt.

  Like hurt bad.

  Fuck, it was all so complicated.

  I pissed on a snowbank, staring at the abandoned building next door.

  All its windows and doors boarded up, broken toilet just outside.

  I zipped up, stretched a little, and threw a few bottles against the building.

  Went back downstairs and pulled up three more dumpsters.

  They got easier and easier.

  After that I had to empty out smaller garbage cans left by the back door.

  I carried them up the back staircase, dripping all over.

  To the top with the weight!

  Yes, for he is mighty.

  Watch him carry the can up, then lift out the bag in one motion.

  Holding it up high like the torn-out heart of the worst and largest and most intimidating enemy before the people he once terrified.

  Held up once for general approval, then tossed into a dumpster.

  Yes!

  Loop high that bag, young man.

  And be proud.

  Comforted that at least you’re still needed and able.

  Comforted that garbage always smells the same.

  Like a promise.

  Like an only friend.

  I grabbed a bottle off the ground and threw it at the toilet outside the abandoned building.

  The bottle smashed against the toilet and I smiled.

  Haha, fuck you too.

  I went back downstairs and boarded up the back door.

  I checked on the keg cooler.

  Nobody had organized the kegs.

  There were forty of them.

  Each weighed 160 pounds.

  I had to stack them in order in a room barely tall enough to stand in, two high along the moldy wall.

  Fuck you, mold.

  Fuck you.

  Haha, nah I get it.

  I do.

  I went to the back of the keg room to begin moving them.

  Looked down at a filthy puddle and saw my reflection featureless and far away.

  Hey, sexy!

  I lifted a keg and stacked it on another so I could move another to move another to move another.

  Lifted, lowered, and pulled.

  Throwing the empty kegs across the room as hard as I could.

  Two rats ran out of a busted area of the wall.

  They ran around a little bit, then found another hole in the wall.

  No, wait, take me with!

  The basement was full of rats.

  Especially in the winter.

  They were big.

  They’d evolved to eat through the steel-wool insulation.

  They were supposed to eat some and die painfully.

  But they didn’t.

  These … they were not normal.

  They were … they were stronger.

  Superior.

  There was even word of one super-commander, standing six feet and weighing two hundred pounds who looked exactly like me and who was actually me.

  But enough of that.

  I went to stock liquor.

  Anything to avoid the rats upstairs a little longer.

  Just something, anything.

  Off the main area of the basement there were two smaller, much darker and more cancer-causing, rooms.

  With green gel coming out of black areas on the ceiling.

  And glassy dust caked on rotting boxes.

  Rusted, eye-level pipes covered in the same dust.

  Mustardy puddles on the ground.

  Backed-up sewage.

  Big-ass rat traps.

  The air smelling like bad salad on a cool day, when it wasn’t cooked to something much worse.

  Dust, slime, filth, scum, drips, mold.

  Different kinds of garbage.

  So many kinds!

  There was, of course, dirt.

  Let me tell you about dirt.

  Dirt said hello.

  It was just there one day, saying hello.

  Hi, I’m dirt!

  Here I am!

  There was always dirt.

  There would always be dirt.

  There was no escape from dirt.

  If you remained in motion your entire life, it still buried you.

  Then there was filth.

  Filth happened when dirt got comfortable.

  When dirt said, ‘No, I really like it here.’

  It evolved and extended.

  Acted deserving.

  Which led to scum.

  Scum formed in the richness of much filth.

  Garbage separating and cleaning itself.

  Flowering.

  It said, ‘No, what are YOU doing here?’

  And then there was black mold.

  Black mold caused cancer and killed you.

  I slipped on something, holding two cases of vodka.

  Sometimes sewage backed up through the cracked floor and formed puddles or little rivers of toilet paper mush mixed with shit and piss-water.

  Oh that dang ol piss-water!

  Oh how I wanted to shrink down and float on my back to its end …

 
To have the courage not to look until the end.

  Or no, maybe swim looking ahead the whole time, eyes wide open and ready.

  A rat came out from behind the ice machine.

  Looked around like, ‘Well, here I am.’

  Coming after me garbage, eh, fatboy?

  I grabbed a bottle of cheap promotional booze to throw at the rat, but the rat ran when my feet made a chik sound.

  And the bottle shattered all over, mixing with the sewage.

  And fuck no I wasn’t going to clean it up.

  Fuck no!

  I’d just piss on it later.

  Of courrrrrrse!

  When I was done stocking I grabbed a rag off a shelf and pulled it through a belt loop on my jeans.

  Looping a rag to my pants meant I was invincible.

  That meant nothing could harm me.

  Anything and everything defeated for even thinking of it.

  Hands turning to ash as they touch me.

  Bottles bursting as glitter against me.

  Knives turning to butterflies before entering me.

  Bullets turned to coins as they hit me.

  Everything and anything already defeated.

  I went upstairs to check on the other rats.

  Right at the top of the stairs, a man knelt on the floor with his head in his hands.

  He kept mumbling, ‘No, noooo.’

  His friend tried to get in my way but I pushed past him.

  ‘Hey, what are you doing?’ I said to the guy on the floor, kneeling down a little with my hands on my knees.

  ‘No, I’m all right,’ he said, holding his hand out. ‘I’m all right. I’m not drunk.’

  ‘Why are you on the floor?’

  He reached out to motion for me to leave and I pushed his hand away.

  ‘No, I’m all right,’ he said, covering his face with his hands.

  I grabbed his arm and picked him up.

  ‘You have to go,’ I said.

  ‘No, I have a seizure disorder haha, I’m fine. I want to talk to your manager.’

  ‘My manager isn’t here. You have to go.’

  ‘Yeah, we wouldn’t want anyone to get hurt,’ he said, smiling.

  I smiled and said, ‘No we wouldn’t.’

  We stared at each other.

  ‘Ok, I’m sorry, I’m very sorry,’ he said.

  I led him and his friend to the door.

  Then they were gone.

  The moment they left they burst into snow outside and blew away anyway.

  I walked up to the bar and showed the bartender my filthy hands.

  ‘I come with treasures from the deep, my love,’ I said.

  She laughed and coughed.

  ‘Stahhp!’ she said, squawking.

  She’d worked at the bar longer than I’d been alive.