Confessions of a Tax Collector (43 page)

I sat for a moment in the idling car, tapping my index fingers on the wheel, staring at the garbage. Melissa, Culpepper once told me, often dug through people’s trash. At the time, the thought disgusted me. I shifted the car into neutral and set the parking brake. I looked down the street. I looked up the street. Two dogs, no children. The coast was clear. I reached down and pulled the release to open the trunk. I stepped quickly from the car and grabbed two of the bags, walked to the back of my car, and threw them in. I slammed the lid closed. I did not take the third bag; somehow, it felt not quite so bad, leaving one. As I came around the car, I almost ran into a boy, about seven, standing by the left front bumper, wearing a pair of ragged cutoff blue jeans and nothing else, skin a glistening ochre, hair shaved to his scalp, scowling in that self-righteous way of children who believe they have caught an adult up to no good. A long scar ran from his hairline, down his nose, terminating at his chin. It looked as if someone had cut his face in half and sewn it back together. His arms were folded over his chest and his stomach hung over his waistline. As far as belly button types go, he was an outi.

“Whatcha doin‘ here?” he demanded.

“I was looking for—,” I said. “Does he live here?”

“Why’d ja take the garbage?”

“I’m the new garbageman.”

“You don’t look like a garbageman. You don’t drive a garbage truck.”

“We got unionized,” I said. It felt as if we were playing a scene from a perverse version of
The Grinch Who Stole Christmas.
“I gotta go.” I slid into the driver’s seat and he came around the open door. He wasn’t done with me yet.

“I’m tellin‘ you stole the garbage.”

“I’ll give you a quarter if you don’t.”

“A dollar.”

“You gotta be kidding.”

“You’re rich,” the kid said. “You got a tie on and it ain’t even Sunday.”

“I don’t have a dollar. How about fifty cents?”

“I like your pen.”

I pulled the ballpoint from my pocket and handed it to him. Too late, I realized it was a government pen, with the words
U.S. Treasury
etched upon its sleek black surface.

“Okay,” I said. “It’s a deal, right? Mum’s the word.” A shrill voice in my head hissed that now he would use the pen to write down my tag number, but that seemed an incredibly savvy move for a seven-year-old. I pulled a U-turn in the middle of the street and gave him a little wave as I drove away. He didn’t see me. He was staring at the pen.

I drove to a gas station, parked by the Dumpster behind the building, rolled up my sleeves, and tore open the first bag. In the blistering heat, the stench of rotting food almost overwhelmed me. Old lettuce, apple cores, a half-eaten piece of chicken breast, eggshell, a mysterious white substance that had the consistency of curdled milk, several banana peels, coffee grounds, used feminine napkins, wadded tissues, empty Bayer aspirin containers, two issues
of Field & Stream
from three years ago, corn husks, the remnants of spare ribs, the grease congealed along the ragged pink edges of the meat, a broken pencil, four days’ worth of newspapers. Useless. I heaved the bag out of my trunk and hurled it into the Dumpster, my gut contracting in an effort to control my nausea. I stared at the remaining bag for some time, my hands slick with grime and probably crawling with a billion pathogens. Fuck it. I tore open this bag and three quarters of the way to the bottom found the statements. Pay dirt. I tossed the second bag into the Dumpster without finishing the search. I’d had enough.

I ducked into the station bathroom to wash up. The tiny room stank of urine and the mirror over the sink was cracked, from top left-hand corner to bottom right, and I thought of the tanned urchin’s face, the boy who had taken my pen in exchange for his silence. Undoubtedly, he would betray me. First he’d tell one of the dogs, then a friend playing hopscotch in the road, then his mamma or daddy, proudly showing his Treasury pen to all. Scrawled on the walls were the banal obscenities found in rest rooms all over the world, some racist, most sexual, with a few graphics thrown in to aid the literarily impaired. I scrubbed up to my elbows, like a doctor preparing for surgery, while I read these missives, struck by how unutterably lonely or bored their writers must have been. It is this desperation for the human touch that shapes our destiny, I thought. It saves or damns us, there’s no in-between. The paper towel dispenser was empty; I had no way to dry my hands. I returned to the car, shaking the water from my hands; it dripped from my fingertips and spotted the hot pavement, evaporating before I closed the car door. I rolled down the windows and jacked the air to high, but could still detect a hint of garbage rising from my skin, as if the stench had been absorbed and was now leaking from my pores.

I was two miles from the office when I came upon what I had been waiting for, the answer to the Culpepperean riddle that had been vexing me for weeks.

It began when the car directly in front of me slammed on its brakes. I reacted at the last second, jerking to a stop only inches from the bumper in front of me. My windows were still down, so I heard the inhuman shriek, the high-pitched wail of an animal in pain. Out of the corner of my right eye I saw a large black shape lurch to the shoulder of the road, still yowling in pain. The traffic began to inch forward. It took me a moment to realize that whoever had hit the dog had no intention of stopping. The animal had collapsed on the side of the road; through my rearview mirror, I could see its ribcage heaving as it lay on its side, head flat on the ground.

“Maddie! Oh my God! Maddie! Maddie!”

I continued to edge forward, watching the scene through my rearview mirror. A woman raced across the street to the dog’s side. A young child, a girl, or it might have been a boy with long hair, hung on to the woman’s shorts as she dashed across the street.

“Oh my God! Somebody! Somebody help us!”

I whipped the wheel hard to the right. The car behind me lay on its horn. I parked on the shoulder and ran fifty yards to where the dog lay dying. I had hesitated; it was my intention to continue on to the office— the levy sources I had would not be good for long. That little miscreant would rat on me and the taxpayer would figure out my intentions with his garbage. The woman lifted her head at my approach. I was surprised by her appearance. She was much younger than I had thought when I first saw her run across the street. She could not have been older than twenty. The child—a girl—was hiding behind her.

“You killed my dog, you son of a bitch!” the young woman screamed at me.

I knelt beside the dog and placed my hand on its rib cage.

“Your dog isn’t dead. And I wasn’t the one who hit it.”

It was a large animal, a mutt. Black Lab, German shepherd. Maybe some collie. It had a Lab’s face, but tall, pointy ears, like a shepherd.

“I was doin‘ my laundry,” the woman said, and pointed to the Laundromat across the street. “Cassie was supposed to be watching her.”

“I was watchin‘ her, Mamma!” the little girl cried.

“What kind of person would just hit a dog and keep on going?” the young woman demanded. I had no answer for her, so she repeated the question. “What kind of person would just hit a dog and keep on goin‘?”

“You’ve got to get this animal to a vet,” I said. “I’ll carry it to your car.”

“We don’t got a car,” the woman said. “My boyfriend’s got the car. Oh, my God, she’s gonna die, ain’t she?” And her daughter—I assumed it was her daughter—burst into tears.

“That’s okay,” I said. “I’ll take her. You go back to your clothes.”

She looked at me without comprehending. I said, “Call your boyfriend and have him come pick you up—you can meet me at the vet’s.”

“What vet?”

I gave her directions. It was less than a mile from where we stood. I slid my arms beneath Maddie’s body. Her large brown eyes rolled in her head and she growled deep in her throat.

“You can’t take her to the vet,” the woman said. Panic was giving way to harsh practicality. “He’ll kill me if you do. He didn’t want the dog in the first place. We can’t afford the bill.”

“Don’t worry about that now. I’ll wait for you at the vet’s.”

I carried the dog back to my car, stumbling a bit on the uneven ground. I looked down and saw its blood on my white Oxford shirt. I was forced to lay the dog on the ground to open the passenger door. She whined in protest or from pain. I flipped the passenger seat forward. The car was spotless and I had nothing to cover the rear seat. It didn’t matter. I had no responsibility toward this dog and yet had every responsibility toward its life.

I turned and picked it up. Again the eyes rolled and the tongue lolled from the mouth.

“I order you not to bleed all over my new seat,” I told her. I gently laid the dog across the seat. Its breathing was shallow, but even. I placed my hand on its head. The eyes were losing focus, and it seemed a terrible injustice somehow, that its last sight might be of a stranger, the entire front of his dress shirt stained crimson, her hairs sticking to his hands, tacky with her blood. In a benevolent universe, the last thing Maddie saw would be the face of Cassie, the little girl who adored her.

I drove to the vet’s.

I knew of this veterinarian because this veterinarian had been a “client” in my training year. The receptionist recognized me as I came through the door. I never learned if her sharp intake of breath owed to recognizing me or to the blood covering me from neck to groin.

“It’s okay,” I said, in case it was due to the former. “I’m off duty. I’ve got a badly injured dog in my backseat. I’m afraid to move it again because I’m not a professional.”

She disappeared into the back room. After a moment, she reemerged, followed by the doctor.

“Mr. Yancey, Angie here tells me you killed a dog.”

“No,” I said. “Somebody hit a dog and I’m trying to save it. It’s in my backseat.”

They hustled the dog inside. I sat in the waiting room, and realized I never got the owner’s name. All I had was the dog’s name. Maddie. The receptionist came into the room. The dog was getting X-rayed. There was a form she wanted me to fill out. Breed. Age. Shot record. I told her I didn’t know any of these things. The only thing I knew was the dog’s name. Maddie. She asked how it was spelled. I asked her what possible difference could

the spelling of the dog’s name make? Would it live? She didn’t know. Who were the owners? I didn’t know. I told her what had happened. She didn’t understand why I had brought the dog in. I told her I didn’t understand either. It was easier to lie at that point. The vet came into the room, still wearing the rubber gloves, fingertips glistening with Maddie’s blood. I stood up.

“Is she going to live?”

“It’s got a broken leg. Contusions, lacerations, can’t detect any internal bleeding, but the next twenty-four hours will tell us a lot. I’m really glad you brought her in, Mr. Yancey. Many people who hit dogs just keep going.”

“I didn’t hit the dog.”

“No, of course you didn’t.”

“I’m serious. I did not hit that dog.”

“Well, in any case, you should seriously consider putting it down.”

“Putting it down?”

“Particularly since it’s not your dog. Best thing to do in the case of a stray.”

I explained Maddie was not a stray. I told the story again. The vet seemed dubious.

“I want you to save this dog.”

“That’s up to the owner.”

“Believe me, she wants you to.”

“Why didn’t she drive it here herself?”

“She doesn’t have a car.”

The vet and Angie exchanged a look.

“Don’t worry about the bill. I’ll cover it.”

“We’re talking six to seven hundred dollars, minimum,” the vet said. “And even then there’s no guarantees.”

“I don’t care. I’ll pay it. I’ll give you my credit card number right now.” I was shoving my card toward him. He laughed.

“Oh, no. Angie takes care of that.”

“Good, and you take care of that damn dog. I am not authorizing you to put it to sleep. This dog is going to live. If this dog doesn’t live, I will personally bring a malpractice suit against you. I brought her to you alive and now it’s your responsibility to make sure she stays that way.”

He studied me for a moment. “You know, maybe we’ve got you IRS types all wrong.” He disappeared into the back.

“You want to go back and see her?” Angie asked.

“Who?”

“The dog.”

“No.”

“Sometimes people do. You know, in case…”

“That dog is not going to die,” I said.

I turned to a little display of dog accessories hanging by the front door. I selected a long red leash and a pink collar. Angie gave her opinion that the red and pink clashed, so I switched the pink collar for a blue one. She informed me Maddie was a girl dog, and probably would prefer a matching collar; blue was a boy color. I paid for the items and told Angie to make sure the owners got them when they came to pick up the dog.

“What happens if the owners don’t show for her?”

“Well, assuming she lives, we’ll put her up for adoption, then it’s to the Humane Society if we can’t place her.”

“And if no one adopts her there? What happens there?”

She shrugged. “What always happens there, Mr. Yancey.”

I handed her my business card. “If they don’t show up, call me. I’ll adopt her.”

“Oh, that’s so sweet.”

“No, it’s karmic.”

I drove to the office. Bonny rose from her desk.

“My God, what happened?” she asked, staring at my blood-soaked clothing.

“Where’s Annie?”

“In her office, I think.”

I strode into her office without knocking. She was standing at the filing cabinet behind her desk, the late afternoon sun streaming through the window glistening on her dark hair. Boxes were scattered over the room and the walls were blank, the pictures of her children packed away. Annie was leaving.

“‘Would you like to make more money?’” I blurted. I paced as I talked, never looking in her direction. “‘Sure, we all would!’ You ever see that commercial with Sally Struthers? You know, Gloria from
All in the Family?
Well, she’s going to be in Orlando next Tuesday; she’s in a touring show of
Grease
and I have to review it and I have an extra ticket and I was wondering if you wanted to go with me. I know it’s short notice, but—”