The Heavenly Table(76)
“And when was that?” Rawlings said.
“Almost three hours ago,” Mrs. Trego said woefully, as if it might as well have been a lifetime.
Showing her to the door a few minutes later, he casually asked, “Do you happen to know Sandy Saunders?”
“Who?”
“Never mind,” Rawlings said. “I’ll see what I can do.” It was apparent from the puzzled expression on her face that she’d never heard of the bastard. So maybe it was true after all, maybe Jasper was stepping over the line. He sent out a message for him to report to the office as soon as possible. Something had to be done before his underling seriously f*cked up and they both lost their jobs.
It was nearly quitting time when Jasper finally showed up. As usual, the day had been one shitty mess after another, and the stench coming off his clothes and rubber boots in the close confines of the office overwhelmed Rawlings to the extent that he nearly forgot why he had summoned him in the first place. It was only after he jerked a window open and sucked down several drafts of fresh air that he regained his bearings. He sheepishly thought of the mustard gas being used on men in Europe. Perhaps his ex-wife had been right after all, maybe he really was a candy-ass. With his head still hanging out over the sill, he told Jasper, “From now on, you only inspect an outhouse if my office gets a complaint, understand?”
“But you told me to crack down on—”
“Yeah, but hell, boy, you’re going overboard,” Rawlings said. He took one more deep breath of outside air, then cautiously left the window and moved over to his desk. Personally, as far as the engineer was concerned, the push for indoor plumbing in Meade was worth any number of old ladies, but he was beginning to sense that maybe he had picked the wrong man for the job. He fiddled with a pencil for a moment, then asked, “Do you know a Mrs. Trego over on Church Street?”
“Not really,” Jasper said a bit hesitantly. “More like I know of her. Why?”
“I think you know what I’m talkin’ about,” Rawlings said angrily, snapping the pencil in two and throwing it across the room. “My God, Cone, they put people in prison for less than that. It’s no more than a step or two away from rape. I’m warning you, if you can’t abide by the rules, I’ll have to let you go.”
“What do ye mean?”
“Just what I said.”
“Ye’d actually fire me?”
“I won’t have any choice if you don’t straighten up.”
“Did Sandy Saunders put you up to this?” Jasper said.
“What? Of course not. You think I’d take orders from someone that sells goddamn insurance?”
“So cleanin’ up the town was just talk.”
“No, of course not, but we’ve got to use common sense.”
“Why? Nobody else does.”
“I don’t give a damn what anybody else does,” Rawlings said. “From now on out, you don’t look in anybody’s shithouse unless there’s a legitimate complaint. And you make sure it’s not in use before you even think of opening the door. I was the one that pushed for you to get this job, but if you embarrass me one more time, I’ll hang your ass out to dry.”
—
DISAPPOINTED AND SADDENED that his boss would bend so easily in the face of a little opposition, Jasper went out to the city landfill that evening with his buffalo gun, intending to blow off some steam. However, when he arrived, he saw the dump keeper’s shanty door open and decided to pay him a visit before he went hunting for any rats. Back when he was working as a scavenger, Jasper had talked to Bagshaw nearly every day, but since taking on the inspection job, he’d barely seen him at all. He set his rifle down outside the door and entered. Bagshaw, a squat, ruddy-faced man with a pitted lump of a nose, was relaxing on a settee that had the horsehair stuffing coming out of it, his feet propped up on a wooden crate. He was eating a black, mushy banana. A barrel stove sat against the back wall, a dented tin chimney running out the roof. A hodgepodge of women’s shoes, collected over the course of the last decade, were piled up in one corner, a towering stack of old newspapers and catalogs in another. Children’s toys, in various states of decrepitude, hung from the rafters on rusty wires. “Wanta ’nanner?” Bagshaw asked.
“No, thank ye,” Jasper said. “I ain’t hungry.”
“Found a whole sack of ’em a couple days ago. All the years I been doin’ this, and I still can’t get over the things people throw away. Ye’d think the whole town was made up of millionaires.”
“I wish I was one of ’em,” Jasper said.
“Why?” Bagshaw said. “What would you do different?”
“I’d quit my job and build the biggest bathroom this country’s ever seen.”
“What? I thought you loved that job,” the dump keeper said, pitching the banana peel out the door.
“Not anymore. Every time I turn around, somebody’s complaining.”
“I know what that’s like,” Bagshaw said. “Agnes is always on my ass about something.”
“Agnes?” Jasper said. “Who’s that?” All the time he’d been coming out here, he’d never heard the dump keeper mention anything about having a woman, but maybe he’d just met her.