Evolution of Trash

The Evolution of Waste
J. Peter Nicholas

“Oh, I love trash
Anything dirty or dingy or dusty
Anything ragged or rotten or rusted
Yes, I love trash.”
-Oscar the Grouch

Allison Crawford-Wills, of the Savanna Crawfords (only attaching his name so the locals would understand who they were dealing with), came back to the land of the living in God-awful pain.
Pain and the smell of something truly retched under her nose.
Raising an arm to push whatever it was under her nose away, she got as far as a bend in the elbow before the change in blood flow spiked the pounding in her skull. Maybe she had been hit by a car?
“You’re awake. Good,’ said a man‘s voice, ‘not that I was running out of things to wave under your nose, but I was beginning to wonder if you were going to wake at all. Then it would have been a matter of waiting and I did have other plans for the day before you were dropped off.”
Besides the feeling like having a cordless drill fighting a sledge hammer in a race to escape her skull and the inability to get her eyes open, there was a sharp pain in the small of her back. Sliding an arm under her and lifting with her legs slightly (her muscles complaining to the action and adding to her already not inconsiderable amount of discomfort) she felt the object currently attempting to burrow its way through to her belly button to be a spring. If the feeling of the thread bare upholstery was an indicator, she was laying on a much abused couch. Her mind then scrambled with the question; If she was hit by a car, what was she doing on a couch and not in an ambulance?
Sifting her butt (a butt sculpted by two hours of palliates every other day and a trip to a very talented surgeon in Sacramento) and moving with slow, painful diligence, her teeth clenched, she got a piece of (stuffing?) between her and the spring end.
Pulling her hand out and then up to her face, she felt what what kept her eyes from opening. Her face was swollen. Her skin was tender to the touch and covered in a crusty layer (blood?), she explored with her finger tips, when she pressed lightly against her right eye lid a wet mass escaped the corner and rested next to her temple briefly before sliding off. The expected resistance of the eyeball to the pressure of her finger tips was absent. She wasn’t seeing from her right eye because her right eye was gone. Panicked she felt for her left eye and found it still under the eye lid, though this one was also crusted over. She wiped at it with frantic unsteady fingers until the lids parted and she could see a mass of white with brown blotches. Raising her head and having intense pain and vertigo rewarding her effort, she lowered her head back down and breathed through the worst of it before lifting it again slowly and looking around the room. There was a blur seated a few feet from her holding what might have been a tea cup and saucer in his hands.
“mha eah,” she pushed through parched lips that had glued themselves together (the thought raced through her mind was that it was dried eye ball goo that was doing the holding). Rolling a thick dry tongue around she found the moisture to wet her lips.
“My eye is gone,” she told the blur.
“No,’ said the man, ’not gone. Not in the literal sense, but it was,’ she saw the now sharper man set his tea cup and saucer on a table beside him and then place a finger into his mouth with the palm out, the finger tip against the inside of his cheek, pulling the finger out it made a sound, which reminded Allison of a cork being pulled from a wine bottle, ‘popped. If I was to make a guess, I would have to say a class ring. There are numerous impressions of it on your person.”
Then she saw it again in her mind's eye. The meaty hand of her husband clenched and cocked behind his ear with his angry class ring and that smile on his face. Rubbing her remaining eye and surrounding area again helped with focus and for the first time clearly saw the cigarette and water stained ceiling that hung above her and the couch she found herself lying on. Could that talented man in Sacramento put an eye back together?
“Let me be the first, and for that matter, the only one, to welcome you to the Fairweather County transfer station. I am your head of Waste Management Needs, Gary, but given the situation it would probably be best if you called me Mr. Carthage. Makes things more professional that way.”
The man spoke precisely -clipping the end of words around the whitest, straightest teeth she had ever seen. Seeing her apparent rescuer clearly for the first time she watched him reach into a milk crate placed between the wall and chair and remove a dented Coke can from a collection of soda cans. When he popped the top there was no escape of carbonation. At some point the can had become punctured and the carbonation and a good portion of the soda itself had escaped. He poured what was left of the can into a tea cup with an unmatched saucer before turning back to her. He wore a gray jumpsuit, the kind favored by auto-mechanics and underneath a white collared shirt and a very expense tie. She prided herself on knowing expensive when she saw it. The remainder of Gary Carthage, beyond teeth and tie, was tones of gray. Hair, stark salt and pepper and no silver, looked to be groomed with a weed whip, eyes in a very pale shade of blue and skin that had known age but not much sun.
“I need a hos-,’ Allison said while attempting to sit up -then pain and vertigo changed her mind, ‘I need a hospital.”
“I’m afraid we have more pressing matters Mrs. Wills,” he said, then sipped from the tea cup. He swished the flat soda from cheek to cheek and then tilted his head back to swallow.
“My name is Allison Crawford-Wills,” she said -emphasis in the middle.
“I’m aware Mrs. Wills. I read your mail.” Mr. Carthage turned in his chair and placed the tea cup and saucer on a kitchen table of the style made popular by the Cleavers but with one leg replaced by a cut baseball bat and a stack of mason jar lids on the floor to shim it up to height. He picked up a file cabinet folder, the kind with metal tabs out the top sides so it can sit on rails in the file drawer. The folder had a grease stain that had started in one corner and crept across it in the fashion that only grease on paper does, but across the folder, over grease, was the name “Wills” in sharp three inch letters. Beneath and indented in smaller letters were the names Theodore and Allison.
“I can understand the attachment to your name Mrs. Wills. Names are powerful things. Sometimes they seem heavy enough to beat someone with.” Mr. Carthage smiled -waiting to see if his humor was appreciated. It wasn’t. “None the less, I am of an older generation and firmly rooted in the idea that when the bridegroom is given over for the ritualistic staining of the sheets she severs her ties with the past. No longer a solitary leech on her father’s purse strings. She attaches herself to the wallet of a fresh up and comer and the price of this is a name. Her own for his. Then passed on to the rug rats and such.” Mr. Carthage opened the folder. “Except you don’t have children. None that are living anyway.” He pulled a sheet from within the folder, held by the corner between two fingers like it was covered in something he was worried about getting on his overalls. “I’m curious if you told Mr. Wills he was going to be a father -before he wasn’t.”
“I don’t know who you are or what you want but I need to get to a hospital,” Allison said and succeeded in sitting up now that she possessed enough anger to temper her pain.
“You are absolutely correct Mrs. Wills.” he said and left it at that, ‘There are pressing matters at hand.” Allison let out what sounded like a cross between a cat being strangled and a woman in the throes of labor. A sound of primal furry and pain and her sudden over whelming urge to cross to Mr. Gary Carthage, head of the Fair Weather County Transfer Station, and claw his face off. She made, what would have appeared to anyone observing this bizarre scene, a series of movements like a person in an epileptic fit as her damaged body tried responding to the enraged demands of her brain. One arm flailing to push her off the couch as her legs dropped off the edge, flopped around with the end goal being to get under and lift her weight, instead spastically jerking and fouling one another. Her rage only briefly suppressing her body’s reawakened pain and she collapsed back, let out another scream, this one weak and defeated, and then began to sob uncontrollably. Tears streaming from her one good eye.
Mr. Carthage watched and waited with a slight smile to his lips and a tilt to his head. Like a parent showing both love and restraint to a child that was learning to walk.
“You’ll have to forgive me,” Mr. Carthage said, ‘It’s rare that I have guests and rarer still the opportunity to show off what I do here.” Mr. Carthage returned the folder to the table top and then folded his hands in his lap and looked Allison in her remaining eye. “Your husband delivered you this morning in the back of -according to insurance records (he tilted his head rolled his eyes in the fashion that says, ‘I just can’t help myself’) your silver Lexus LX 10. We then struck a deal -one where I agreed to dispose of your body in return for something I desire.”
“I need to get to a hospital,’ she stated. Her rage replaced with an edge of pleading that she hated to hear in her voice.
“All things in time Mrs. Wills. All things in time,’ he replied, ‘He was under the assumption that you had died from your injuries and was in such a state of panic -your husband is a sweater Mrs. Wills, when he arrived here he had sweated through and through his pin striped oxford shirt, but I’m guessing you were already aware of his body’s leakage problems.”
“Hospital. I need a hospital you fuck.”
“If you going to be hostile I have better things to do with my time Mrs. Wills,’ Mr. Carthage responded and stood, crossed the two steps to the door and had placed his hand on the handle.
“Where?’ Allison asked.
“Somewhere else. Until you’ve finished dying and then I can dispose of you according to the deal I made with your soon to be widowed husband.”
“You can’t.”
“I can’t? Shall we test that?” Mr. Carthage turned the handle and then kicked hard at the base of the door, apparently having a sticking problem, then stepped out, turned around and kicked the door shut.
Allison looked around the room, panning her head, looking for a phone or one of those radio things that truck drivers use. In her mind she could see Mr. Carthage walking away from the trailer. How long would it be before he was too far away to hear her? How much time before that option was closed to her?
Allison took in the new information and overlaid it with what her brain had begun piecing together herself. She had returned home last night to find Teddy standing in the entry way with an eight by ten glossy of her and her personal trainer in a set of squat-thrusts on their sixteenth century canopy bed. Her first thought upon seeing the picture was that it did nothing to flatter her stomach. Then she had laughed at him. She had laughed that she had been worried he would find out. She has been worried it would be a scandal. Then seeing him there, his face bright red with sweat beads breaking across it, his body vibrating like a tea kettle that had cooked off its contents and the intense heat of a bright red coil causing it to dance on the stove top. She laughed because all her worries were gone. Teddy didn't matter. She was a Crawford and seeing him there in his impotent rage made her realize that she was done with Theodore Wills and done with the cold, septic stink of northern Minnesota. She was free and the relief of it made her giddy. And mean.
“What's the matter Teddy? Suddenly not interested in looking at your dirty little picture collection?” she had said. She hadn't thought it was possible but Teddy had grown redder and sweatier, “You didn't think I was spending all that time working out did you? Of course you have always been rather oblivious. And did you think I spent all that time swimming and playing tennis?” She had slept with her tennis coach but not the pool boy, who was in fact old and bald and round, she couldn't help but throw it out there in all its clichéd vindictiveness. She laughed hard and watched Teddy walk towards her across the Italian marble, wearing his Italian leather shoes, the picture crushed in one hand. He looked down at his curled empty hand, back to her, back to the fist and then awkwardly swung it in a wide arc and hit her on the side of the head, right over her ear, which crushed her pearl earring against her, the back of it punching into her skin.
“WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?!” she screamed at him. Her laughter gone and her voice flooded with shock and contempt. She looked at Teddy who had stopped shaking. His skin had become pale and the rictus on his face was now smooth, his eyebrows arched and his mouth agape as he stared at his fist. Like a boy's first discovery of his ability to ejaculate while working himself furiously over a Victoria's Secret catalog, Teddy had shocked himself into stillness.
Then the corners of his mouth rose and his eyes narrowed and Allison saw that her pathetic little Teddy had discovered he could hit. If the smile that lit up his face was any indicator, Teddy had discovered he liked to hit. Maybe even more than pulling his crank.
She had suddenly realized that further discussion of the photo at this time maybe be against her best interest and had tried to regain control by pointing her manicured nail at him and saying, “You'll be hearing from my father (who was also her lawyer),” but before she had gotten past 'be', Teddy had cocked back his arm, with his fist coming to a stop next to his ear and his college ring, wrapped around his middle finger, its large ruby suddenly looking like a single angry eye and then let fly with a great, “UUUGGHHHH!” exploding from his mouth. After that she could remember being on the floor and his screaming, not in anger, but unbridled boyish joy while he had wrapped his left hand in her hair (the picture now dropped and forgotten) and cocked back his right. She wasn't positive but that might have been the shot that blew out her eyeball like a carnival balloon. Then, nothing.
She could hear a steady mechanical sound from outside, like the over lapping of machines starting and stopping, whose vast number created a constant drum of moving steel. She thought about what she knew of garbage places. Things she had seen on television. The saw the machines outside as being lifting things and pushing things and crushing things and she saw Mr. Carthage walking out into vast fields of heaped trash piles well away from where he would be able to hear her. She looked around herself again. Anything to reach the real world, the world where things were brought to her when she wanted them and more often than not she would sent them back to be done over because it was her place to do so. Then she tried to move again and succeeded in rolling herself off of the couch. She landed and her body lit up like a Christmas tree of pain before the circuit blew. She came to with her entire being screaming at her in raw, ragged signals of agony. How long had she been out? Seconds? Minutes? Was Mr. Carthage gone? Had he walked beyond a pile of garbage and out of ear shot while she was unconscious? She saw herself lying on the floor of that trailer. Hurting. Fading in and out. Crying then screaming and crying again. Fouling herself like a baby. Then, as whatever damage her angry little Teddy had done took its toll, she would fade out and not come back. Her body would gasp its last breaths with what was left of her eye draining out on to the dirty, stinking shag carpet of the trailer and the Mr. Cartage would return when it was dark and take her body out to where the pushing or lifting machines would put her into one of the crushing machines and the person that had been Allison Crawford would end up a pile of garbage. Later that piece of shit, that maggot of society, that dredge Mr. Carthage would walk around it without even taking notice of its particular composition or odor. She wouldn't let that happen. She was a Crawford.
“I'm sorry,' she said, the effort putting black stars in her remaining eye, 'I'm sorry Mr. Carthage,' she repeated louder, 'It was poor manners on my part <sucking breath and wheeze> and I wish to <sucking breath> discuss my current situation.” Any worries she had of Mr. Carthage not hearing were removed when the door opened immediately and he stepped back in.
“Excellent. I was hoping you would come to that decision. Oh look, you've fallen from the couch.” He scooped her gently, lifted her and placed her back on the couch with the spring jabbing her in the back again.
“Thank you,' she said, 'That is very kind of you.”
“I am pleased to see your condition has not robbed you of your manners,' he said and took his chair next to the repaired table and his milk crate of second hand sodas.
“If we don't have proper etiquette <wheeze and bubbly cough> what do we have?”
“Excellent. Excellent! I was so hoping we would see eye- to- eye,' suddenly realizing what he said, he covered his mouth with the fingers of his hand, like a certain girl with a puppy pulling the back of her swim trucks down that graced the cover of sun-screen bottles. 'Forgive me. That was terribly rude.”
If Mr. Carthage thought she was stupid enough to believe his slip of the tongue was unintentional, he was grossly under estimating her and that was good and well. She would play his game and when she was safely in her hospital room with that handsome doctor from Sacramento telling her that her new eye would be better than the original, she would call her father. Then a pair of men would get on a plane and when that plane arrived in the dirty, shit-hole town she had found herself anchored to, the two men would collect her vengeful little Teddy and Mr. Carthage and then we would see who liked smiling like an idiot or playing games at her expense. Two men would pay them a visit. Two men that liked playing with sharp tools and the kind of chemicals you need a special license to buy.
“Think nothing of it Mr. Carthage,' she said and attempted a smile, though the swelling made it feel like just her cheeks twitching for a moment.
“Wonderful. In light of our new understanding, I wish to share some things with you.”
She bit the inside of her cheek to keep from screaming. In her mind she raged at him. Cursing him and threatening him.
“That would be wonderful.” A fresh trickle of blood from her cheek ran from the corner of her mouth.
“We are from different breeding stock you and I,' he said and then held out hand as if waving off an imaginary argument from her, as if she would have ever offered one, false politeness or not, 'No, no, it is true. You and I are of different blood lines and nothing is going to change that. It is the nature of things. But what I wanted to share was that my kind has always had a purpose. We of the waste field. We have always been here,' He looked to her and she nodded her head, politely, in understanding, 'We weren't always the Fairweather County Transfer Station. Not so long ago we were the Fairweather County Waste and Recycling Center. Before that we were the county landfill. Before that, just the dump and back and back to where I like to imagine, my predecessors were collecting the bones cast out of cave openings as man began his first steps in waste creation and I like to think that my forefathers collected those bones and looked at them the way we do now. As discarded information. Why look at this mammoth bone one would say, looks like someone is missing quite a few teeth he would say. Do you understand what I'm saying?”
“That you like looking through people's trash?” Her pain and impatience was making it difficult for her to keep up the pretense of civility, but Mr. Carthage only threw back his head and laughed and she again saw how straight and white his teeth were.
“Right to the point. Delightful. We do. It's kind of a necessity you see. When in the waste business, you need to know what it is your getting rid of, so that it stays disposed of, you see. Thus I have a file on you and your husband and everyone else that uses our services, not that I thought one day I would have need to dispose of you per say,' he paused and smiled, took a sip from his tea cup and returned it to the saucer, 'That's not true. We depose of many more things that one would imagine and I would be lying if I didn't say that I, no…we are prepared to dispose of everyone in town, in the event of something horrible happening to each and everyone one of you. But, I'm afraid I'm getting off the subject at hand. Yes, we collect things. All kinds of things and as humans have moved into the age of computers and floppy disks and CD roms, we have moved with them. We also collect people’s digital garbage. Not here, but we have places where much more talented ones than I put together all the little bits of “1's” and “0's” that are discarded and then send it out to be added to peoples files. Yes, we collect all kinds of things and that is kind of my secret. The secret that I want to share with you.”
“Ple- please,' while he was speaking, Allison realized it was becoming increasing harder to breath and she thought of an episode of her favorite soap where Johnny Spears had been in a motorcycle accident and a broken rib had pierced one of his lungs and it had filled with blood and Veronica (who she had always seen herself as) had used a letter opener to stab his side and drain it out. In it, Johnny had found it harder and harder to breath until he couldn't anymore. The thought of drowning in her own blood while that shit-bag Mr. Carthage kept droning on, broke her resolve to bid her time and she was willing to beg herself out if need be.
“I know it is uncomfortable Mrs. Wills and the whole ordeal will be over soon, but I am so enjoying our time together and the more I get to know you the more I feel we are kindred souls. Look here,' he pulled a pair of photos from the file with her and Teddy's name on it and she saw immediately that they were the photos taken were she had gotten her tits done. One was from the initial consultation, with black marks on her skin showing where he would cut and she could expect small scars (though she hadn't scared which she attributed to good Crawford skin) and the other was from a post consultation were a picture was taken to compare the two.
“How?' she asked.
“One of my kind deals in the disposal of liquid human fat. All that liposuctioned ass has to go somewhere. Your doctor gave his photo collection in a deal to have the body of his receptionist disposed of after a rather serious evening of Scotch and heroin went awry, but that is neither here nor there. Like you, I have attempted to improve upon my original equipment.” He gave an exaggerated smile, leaning in towards her with his jaw thrust out and Allison could see now that Mr. Carthage's straight, white teeth were dentures.
“I see,' was all she was able to say and even that was thin and wispy.
“Do you have any idea how many pairs of dentures are thrown out? It really is remarkable. Save for the ones that are buried with their owners, the rest come here. They are my little secret. This pair isn't even my favorite. They belonged to Jeffery Scott. Did you know him? I imagine not. A little before your time. Mr. Scott liked to dress in woman's control top nylons. He would wear them constantly. By our calculations, Mr. Scott bought over two thousand pairs from mail order. Fascinating! I guess we all have or little things don't we? Let me show you what I have collected.' Mr. Carthage stepped through the confined space of the trailer's front room to a dark splattered cupboard that sat above a kitchen counter past the table. Opening the cupboard he revealed a large collection of Mason jars of different sizes; turned upside down, and sitting on the bottoms, now the flat tops, of each Mason jar were a pair of dentures. He pointed to heavily yellowed pair, 'Pedophile,' he said smiling at her, then another which was only a partial set, with metal jumps that would fit around the persons remaining teeth, 'Alcoholic,' another, 'Thief,' another, 'Politician,' down the line, 'Prostitute, Drug Addict, Adulterer, Cattle Rustler, Gangster, Hustler, False Prophet,' he stood back so she could look upon all of them, his arms thrown out to his sides like a carnival barker showing the geek, having bit the head from the chicken, 'Wonderful aren't they?”
She looked from the cupboard to him. He watched her and she saw him waiting for her approval. He could fuck himself if he thought she would applaud his little side show attraction. Getting no response, he moved forward, a sales man pushing his pitch after the first 'no'.
“And that's where our business comes in. You see, I happen to know that Mr. Wills suffered from a cleft pallet at birth and after corrective surgery now wears a full upper plate that I couldn't help but admire when he was dropping your off. Normally, I would wait and hope for them to make their way here on their own volition, but after seeing them, I can't imagine them not being in my collection. I've been thinking I really do need a wife-beater to round it out and they would go so well with a lower plate I have that belonged to school teacher that had been shot in the face by a jealous lover and after wards spent her days cutting the ears off of stray dogs while reciting Robert Frost.
“What do you want?' Allison whispered.
“In light of the arrangement your husband wished to make, I wish to make a deal with you to dispose of him and collect his teeth.”
She laughed. At least what would have been a laugh had she still been capable. Instead it was a cough and spasm of her body.
“I'm not sure I understand why that is so funny Mrs. Wills.”
She spit a wad of something that had come up in her cough, 'I would pay you to do that.”
“Really? I don't normally deal with cash. Almost everything I need comes through here anyway.” He paused with one hand resting on his chin, the index finger extended and touching his pursed lips. He tapped his finger slowly, as if each rap was an argument for what she purposed and every pregnant pause between a counter offer. “What if I offered to do it for free?” he asked.
She smiled as well as she could and her lone eye sparkled fiercely, 'Deal.”
“Excellent. You drive a hard bargain Mrs. Wills. Now, as we conclude our business let me show you my favorite pair.” Mr. Carthage opened a third cupboard door, past the two he had opened and next to the trailer's wall. Inside was threadbare pillow that had once been purple with yellow piping and now the two colors were faded and dirty enough to be close in shade. Above the pillow was a beaten flash light, duck taped to the shelf above the one with the pillow and after opening the door, Mr. Carthage reached in and pushed the cracked rubber button to turn it on. On the pillow and under the beam of the flashlight was a set of metal teeth. Not metal dentures, because dentures are modeled after human teeth. These were animal teeth; sharp, pointed teeth across the front and jagged molars running back along the sides. She thought of dog's teeth. She was familiar enough with them from having judged dog shows when she was still just Ms. Crawford, but where a dog's teeth were long and narrow to fit the shape of its snout, these were of the same general shape and size if the dentures in the adjoining cupboard.
“Aren't they just the cat's meow?' he asked, 'They belonged to Kevin Clark. He was a bit of a hermit that used to live out on the north side of Willow Lake. Up on the hill back in that great stand of jack pine, though I don't imagine you know where I'm speaking of. No exclusive clubs or beaches out there. He lived alone out there until he was shot, accidentally, by a farmer that had complained about wolves getting into his livestock. One night the farmer woke to the bleat of his sheep and went, shotgun in hand, to find something in the field eating through one of his ewes. He shot it dead and when he rolled the beast over he found Mr. Clark; dirty and naked, save for this pair of teeth he had fashioned himself from sand molds and the skull of a wolf that were later found in his cabin. Also in the cabin were books on lycanthropy. You see, Mr. Clark believed himself to be a werewolf. It was decided the whole matter was best forgotten and Mr. Clark's body was brought here and two weeks later a missing person's report was filed and that was the end of that. Interestingly enough, the farmer in question, Pete Thompson, that owns the three hundred acres just west of the fork in Needle Brook river, swears to this day that it was no man he shoot that night. He will tell you with a straight face, I know because I've asked him, that it was a wolf that he shot that night. A wolf standing on two legs with clawed hands and glowing yellow eyes. And metal teeth. The things people see. Anyway, now they belong to me. Let me show you how wonderful they are.”
Mr. Carthage turned to face the cupboard, showing Allison only his back and she saw him reach to his face, open his mouth and place the straight, white set of dentures he had been wearing on the kitchen counter. He reached in with both hands and carefully removed the metal set of molded wolf teeth. Turning them in his hands so they were positioned to be fitted he lifted them and Allison lost sight of them behind Mr. Carthage's head.
She was very aware that things had slipped from whatever control she thought she had gained in striking a bargain with him. She felt a satisfaction in knowing that her doomed little Teddy would get his comeuppance and now she only needed to ride out Mr. Carthage's twisted little hobby and play nice until he took her to the hospital. Where, she would still be making a call to her father and two men would still be getting on a plane. The only change of plans being they may arrive a week later than originally planned and only be dealing with one degenerate shit bag instead of two. It was after all, a dog eat dog world.
There was a wet sound as Mr. Carthage fit the teeth in. She waited for him to jump around with his arms thrown up, teeth flashing and get his twisted boogieman jollies off and be done with it, but instead of that, he let out a “Ugh,” sound and then pulled the metal teeth out and dumped them onto the counter before reaching both hands back into his mouth. Though she couldn't see for certain they were in his mouth, even with his back to her, there was only so much a person could be doing with both wrists appearing to jut out from just below his ears. His arms moved with the jerks of his hands and it seems that Mr. Carthage had found something in his mouth.
“GOD DAMMIT!' Mr. Carthage yelled, slamming his fists down and kicking the counter, cracking wood paneling, then lashing out with a fist and punching a hole in the wall, 'God damn! God damn. Good and God damn.” He was a fury. Then with his rage was spent, he let out great mournful wail. Mr. Carthage buried his face in his hands and began to cry with great racking sobs. The suffering in his cries, raw and hopeless, were enough to even stir a feeling of empathy in Allison and she found herself lifting an arm as if she could reach out and gentle stroke his back. She jerked her arm back as if having touched a hot pan handle. She never felt for others and she suddenly thought of when he had said they were kindred souls.
She looked to the door and wondered if she might drag herself over. The sudden changes in Mr Carthage were more unnerving than anything he had done before, because everything before had an angle to it. The big sell. The approach. The pitch. The haggle. Making the deal. The Whole Big Dance. These things she understood. They were the life blood of a Crawford. Getting what you want for as little as possible. All his actions before she could put to some warped inbreed trash picker's sense of deal making, but this, this was off the farm and besides the great amount of pain she was in, she was now also feeling fear.
Straightening his back, Mr. Carthage inhaled strongly through his nose and reached down to a drawer under the counter top. Pulling it open he removed a pair of hammer shears, the things used for trimming roses. And a pair of pliers, the things Teddy used to pick his nose. He set the two on the counter then unzipped his overalls to his waist and loosened his tie. Picking up the hammer shears, he grasped them in both hands and tilting back his head, pushed the shears into his mouth. He took three quick breathes and then there was cracking sound, causing Allison to flinch, and a spray of blood arched threw the air and splattered across the ceiling and cupboards. There were guttural noises coming from Mr. Carthage and with each one, another smaller spray flew out. Dropping the hammer shears to the carpet he fumbled with the pliers and then reached in with them. This time the noise was like a when Allison had been little and had gotten her galoshes stuck in mud and she had to pull with all her child might to work them free. That same noise came from Mr. Carthage's mouth as he pulled, the handles of the pliers slowly becoming visible to her over the top of his forehead as his leaned his head back and pulled upward. But that wasn't right. He shouldn't still be pulling. A tooth, if that was indeed what he was doing, was no more than an inch, but whatever he had gotten a hold of was at least three times that. At last there was a popping sound, like when he had popped his finger against the side of his mouth (kindred souls) and another thicker splash of blood arched and then fell in front of him onto the counter and carpet. Pliers in one hand, he opened them and the thing that was clutched between its teeth, fell to the floor to lie in carpet piles and blood. Then he went back for the other half of what he had cracked in half.
She stared at the thing on the floor and watched as what might have been the roots of a human tooth, if human tooth roots were black, three inches long and moved, twisted around on themselves. She thought of leeches. They were in all the lakes around here and she had seen kids with them. Playing with them in their hands and they had done the same thing. Twisting their bodies around upon themselves. Allison attempted to scream but only gave a raspy fit that was lost under the sounds Mr. Carthage was making. The head (if that's what it was) was the part that Mr. Carthage had split. It was also black but unlike the flailing of the (roots?), the head was unmoving and seemed to her like a hardened scab on top of its body. Then the second half of it fell, maybe a third the size of the first piece and lay flailing next to its other half. With the two of them, she could see how they had been fitted together, the head together the size of maybe three human molars in length and single in width. The movement of the (roots?) slowed and she knew that it was dying, whatever it was. Then Mr. Carthage placed the pliers back into the drawer and closed it, reached up and tightened his tie and picked up the metal teeth.
“There we are. Right as rain,' he said, he voice chipper as he closed the cupboards.
“What?” she asked, more for the sake of trying to rationalize what she had seen than wanting to really know.
“They don't fit right when my real teeth grow in.”
“That's not right. That's not teeth. That's not-”
“Like I said Mrs. Wills. A breed apart. A whole different blood line,' he said without turning around.
“I want to go to the hospital now,' her body was suddenly working with her. The tightness in breath was still there but pushed back, as if her mind had told her lungs, 'We have more important shit to deal with right now.”
“Hospital? Why would I take you to the hospital?”
“Deal. We had a deal.”
“No. Our deal was that I would dispose of your husband and I would do so for free. That was our deal. I also have a deal with your husband and I am not one for breaking deals Mrs. Wills. A deal in which I dispose of you and in return get to keep your very impressive implants. It's for my wife's collection you see. You could say we share interests. It really is the secret to realtionships. Mutual interests. I don't imagine your husband slept with the personal trainer as well? I think there's a lesson there.”
“No. No. I'm Allison Crawford.”
“Of course you are. And I am Gary Carthage your county Transfer Station Manager. And Kevin Clark not only ate animals, but had consumed at least seven people that I'm aware of.” Then he pushed the metal teeth into his mouth and turned to her. The expensive tie she had first seen was now fully visible with his opened jumpsuit and she could see the lower half was crusted along with most of his shirt. It was someone's trash he was wearing. Trash disguised behind a new covering. New blood covered the front of him and ran from the corners of his mouth and from between his metal teeth.
“Why?' she asked trying to push herself back into the couch.
“How else am I going to get my part of your husband's bargain?' he said with some difficulty.

Outside Tim Wayfield was making his weekly trash run and Todd Carthage, the manager's eldest, who had a weird taste in sunglasses by most of the town reckoned, was helping them unload. There was a screech that caught Tim Wayfield's attention and before hopping back into his truck he looked at Todd and said, 'Best get that Caterpillar greased before she starts giving you and your dad trouble.”
“Will do Mr. Wayfield,' he gave him a friendly wave, 'By the way, I really like your glasses.”