— Okay for what! The silent defender, made of lightweight aluminum look hey your crap’s even getting mixed up in the stuff in my portforlio here, coitus splint made of finest spring steel will you…
— Give it here then I mean go ahead invent an oyster if you think you’re so, wait hey look you got a package, if it’s this clock I get it this time okay? I mean if it says class six J and all why shouldn’t…
— Okay! How do I know what it is look I’m trying to do something!
— Go ahead and do it, you want me to get the pack…
— Go ahead…! he dug among paper scraps and envelopes for a letter four lines long of skips and smudged erasures, licked the ballpoint to grind in initials, pounded a stamp on US SAVings and loan Ass R eno Nev and came in a turn for the Money Order window digging for the wad of bills with a sudden stoop after a penny rolling toward Parcel Post.
— Look out!
— Holy…
— It’s not my fault look, the box was already bust…
— Okay! just help pick them up…
— Look the whole end’s busted, what’s, what are they sup…
— Nothing! just these here little cards will you help pick them up before somebody…
— No but what do they, wait a second is…
— Look you don’t need to read them! just, just pick them up!
— No but, him…?
— What’s so funny!
— He’s your business representive, Edwerd Bast?
— What’s so funny about that!
— I mean he doesn’t know shit look he can’t even spell his own name Edwerd look, e d…
— I said quit laughing! How do you know so much anyway and I mean he didn’t even spell it, he…
— Because I got this here Uncle Edward that’s why, it’s w a what do you mean he didn’t spell it, I bet he doesn’t even know it…
— So what! boy if you don’t quit laugh…
— Then how do you know he’ll even do it, he doesn’t know…
— Because he will that’s why!
— He doesn’t know shit about business how can…
— So what! I’ll give him these here same little books to read up come on just pick them up…
— Then how come you even put this little telephone number he’s not even around anyplace, he…
— That’s my business look shut up will you, Mister Gibbs just came in you think I want to broadcast the whole…
— Okay but he’s not even around anyplace, my father said…
— That’s how much you know boy he has to come by the school to pick up this here check they owe him doesn’t he?
— Yeah well my father said he said s, h, i t on the tv he better not show his face…
— Yeah well your father he’s full of…
— Yeah well you better watch out boy, if he ever finds who got that whole mountain of dirt out front of our house hauled away you’re going to be in…
— So what you said he’s always yelling he wants to get rid of it practically since you’re born didn’t you? I mean it already had these little trees growing in it look be careful how you’re picking them up will you? I mean you can’t give somebody this dirty business card when you go in some office and…
— So throw away the dirty ones who needs all these, I mean it looks like there’s a thousand…
— So what you had to order a thousand if you want this here free wallet gift so…
— Look there’s a couple over there hey, he’s stepping on…
— Holy… he came on at knee level, — excuse me could you move your foot Mis, oh hi Mister Gibbs…
— What?
— Hi… came from down there, — I just wanted to ask you…
— Wait a minute, what…? he ground a foot turning back to the window, — probation, it’s made out to the Department of Probation p, r, o… well God damn it I didn’t name it, here. Twenty, forty, ninety, one ten, one sixty, one eighty yes I do use an old-fashioned fountain pen is there a regulation against that too? Two thirty, two forty, five, seven, eight wait I’ve still got some change nine, nine fifty, seventy-five, eighty-five Christ wait, ninety-five, six, there…
— Hey Mister Gibbs?
— What is it!
— No I just wondered, did you see Mister Bast around anyplace?
— Bast? he licked the envelope in a turn for the Out of Town slot, — you had him last…
— I, what?
— Thought your gang took him to the money museum, he said in a turn for the door — most popular man in town… and it banged closed behind him where smoke and flame escaping the black spread up Burgoyne Street found purchase on a descending bloat of Chloe as he dodged the car mounting the curb in arrival, digging in pockets at a half trot through the reek of asphalt to come up with a crushed cigarette package, matches with a half fare ticket stuck in the cleft, still digging as the door banged behind him and he reached the grilled window emptying a pocket — just turning in some tickets…
— Wrong window, buddy.
— What do you mean, it’s the only window here.
— Maybe you got the wrong track then… the heap was pushed back under the grill. — Next?
— No wait, sorry… he recovered a torn half of Jack’s Little Green Card, squares bearing Place ten number three sixth race, Win — sorry there, I think I get ten dollars and forty cents back.
— For what.
— The refund for these tickets.
— Fill out this and send them to this address.
— What for, can’t you…
— Look buddy I had enough of you the other time, start getting wise again and…
