A Trashy Affair Read online

  Week two, Jane called again. Still no container. The woman on the other end of the line solemnly informed her that someone at the parish council had given B.O. Trash Hauling an incorrect figure in the specifications on the number of receptacles needed. What a lie! Jane had provided those figures. More had to be ordered from China, the woman claimed. Obviously, these were coming on a slow boat because Jane still had no trashcan by the end of October. Meanwhile at her office in the parish courthouse, her phone rang incessantly with complaints from others in the same predicament. Final count of the unserved—twelve hundred, the same as the number of those who once recycled. Coincidence, she thought not.

  Jane could only suggest the solution she now relied on. Ask a neighbor with a can if they would share. She buddied with Lloyd Babin, a widowed retiree, her neighbor across the fence who had a light trash load each week. Lloyd kept an immaculately mowed and edged lawn lined with marigolds in the summer. He nurtured a bountiful garden at the rear of his house and brought her autumn tomatoes in a basket as well as sacks of grapefruits and sweet Satsuma oranges. He’d offered her space in his trashcan and only asked one thing in return: would she please trim her bushes and get her yard in shape before the trumpet creeper sprawling all over her ramshackle garage took over the neighborhood? She made her promise and so far had not kept it.

  Jane dashed around her house emptying wastebaskets. With the addition of the tall kitchen bag under the sink, she collected two full, biodegradable plastic bags and sprinted for Lloyd’s receptacle. Too late. The garbage truck chugged away from the Babin home and headed past her house to the main road.

  “Wait! Wait! I have trash!”

  Following the line of ooze from a leak in its bottom, Jane pursued the dark blue vehicle with the peeling orange lettering to the stop sign on the corner. Two plastic grocery bags from its open rear caught the breeze and wafted toward her. One attached itself to her face. The other sailed down the street to the bayou. Quickly, she stuffed the bag threatening to suffocate her into one of her sacks. The garbagemen snickered, but she marched right up to them and held up her burden. A corner of the bag holding decomposing lettuce and a moldy tomato leaked and dribbled on her burgundy-colored blouse.

  “You missed these.”

  “Sorry, ma’am. All trash must be placed in a can, boss says.” A big grin spread across the B.O. employee’s dark brown face.

  “What! Just a few weeks ago I was told to leave bags on the curb.”

  “That Ethel, she don’t know nothing. Only an idjit would put bags on the curb. We gots coyotes round here.”

  “I know. Please take my bags.”

  “Can’t.” Suddenly, his grin vanished along with the early morning light.

  A cloud must have obscured the rising sun. Jane shivered in the long shadow cast from the east.

  “Take the little lady’s garbage.”

  His approach disguised by the noisy heaving of the truck, Jane turned to find Merlin Tauzin, the source of the long shadow, looming behind her. Like the Grim Reaper, he held a long-handled pruning hook with a lethal-looking blade in one hand and a chainsaw worthy of a mass murderer in his other big paw.

  “Here, let me show you how easy it is.” He handed Jane the pruning hook and set down the chainsaw. Divesting her of the garbage sacks, Merlin tossed them over the head of the man giving her a hard time and into the back of the truck. Then, he skirted around the fellow and pulled the lever to rotate the trash. “See, no-brainer. Now, I want a shiny new trashcan delivered to Miss Jane before next week.”

  “No can do, boss. We outta them. She could go by the parish barn and get an old one. Gotta be green, not a black container. That will fix her up right fine.”

  “Good, we’ll do that. Here, I forgot this.” Tauzin dug a round of flat aluminum from the hip pocket of his worn jeans and offered it to the guy like a tip.

  Jane snatched it away. “We recycle these, Merlin.”

  “Right. Drive on. Your truck is leaking into the ditch.”

  For a garbage truck, the vehicle peeled out fairly fast with the garbageman barely hanging on in the back. It pulled into the safety of the Cane View Chateaus parking lot and disappeared around the back of the townhouses.

  “I could have handled that, you know. You did not have to come to my rescue.” Jane returned the pruning hook. “What are you doing here with that so early in the morning anyhow?”

  “Yeah, I could see how well you were doing.” He eyed the stains on the front of her blouse. Two days growth of very black beard hid a hint of a smile on his face.

  “Another thing. Do not refer to me as little lady. One of the councilmen always uses little lady when referring to me. I dislike it intensely. You hate being called Lin and Merry, and I respect that. It’s Jane, just plain Jane.” She looked straight up at him to make her point.

  “Hardly. You have pretty green eyes, sugarplum.”

  “Aren’t sugarplums made from prunes? So not a great compliment. That term could be considered sexual harassment.”

  The hint of a smile emerged from his dark beard and spread across that big jaw. “I guess it might be if you worked for me or I worked for you, but since I’m here to clear your yard for free, I don’t think so. Still, I won’t use it again. I’ll think of something else, Green Eyes.”

  “Look, I can’t take time off to help you with the yard today. I have to change my blouse and get to work by seven-thirty—Blue Eyes.”

  “I took care of this yard for years and have time to spare, so you just trot along to the courthouse and let me get to it. Blue Eyes, I kinda like that.”

  Jane offered the crushed beer can. “Fine, go crazy with that chainsaw. While you’re at it, put this in the barrel inside my creepy garage.”

  “Sure. My hands are full. Can you just slip it into my back pocket?” Those blue eyes gleamed with wickedness.

  “No. I cannot.” She forced the disk into the front pocket on his already grubby T-shirt.

  “That’s good, too.”

  Frowning, Jane changed the subject. “You have a lot of yard equipment for a man who lives in a townhouse.”

  “I found all this in your ‘creepy garage’ right where I left it when I went into the service. Used to be a cowshed. My grandpa converted it to a garage when he got his first truck. Sorry you don’t like it.”

  “It’s not the building itself. Every time I go in there, I stir up long-legged spiders and step on a few of those crunchy stick insects. You know those creatures can blind you with their spray.”

  “The daddy-long-legs are harmless, and I doubt if the walking sticks will blind the bottom of your sneakers.”

  “Once, I thought I saw a snake.”

  “Possible,” he admitted. “When I’m done with the yard, I’ll clean out the garage.”

  “I need to pay you for all this.”

  “Nope, I’m doing it for my granny. She could have a heart attack if the place gets anymore overgrown.”

  Jane checked her watch. “No time to argue. We’ll settle this at lunchtime, Merlin.”

  “Say, if you bring me a fried shrimp po-boy from Tujacque’s, I’ll consider us even, Jane.”

  Nodding, she ran back to the house to make a quick change and a fast trip to work.

  ****

  With her arms folded across her stocky body, Nadia Nixon stood by the time clock and watched Jane’s frantic approach with an expression like a feral cat about to pounce on a dove pecking at birdseed in the grass. She wore her blonde hair pulled back so tightly into a stubby, under-turned ponytail that her glittering eyes actually slanted. Nadia liked nothing better than catching a person who clocked in late. It highlighted her morning, and she relished such an event like a rich dessert or a fine wine throughout the day.

  “I know I’m late. I got garbage juice on my blouse and had to change,” Jane blurted.

  “Your reason for cheating the parish of fifteen minutes of work time does not matter. I will expect you to clock out at four-forty-five rath
er than your usual four-thirty,” the Chief Administrative Officer for the parish said.

  There went her peaceful half hour of sunset watching and wine drinking before dinner, but she would never give more pleasure to Nadia by saying so. “Of course,” Jane replied.

  She could have said, “What about all those unpaid hours I spend at council meetings or speaking to civic groups in the evening?” but Nadia would simply sneer and tell her she was a salaried worker and that was her job.

  When Ste. Jeanne d’Arc Parish decided to convert from the old police jury system of government to a parish council with an elected president, the vote for a new leader swept Wofford “Woof” Langlois into office. He’d been sitting in the president’s chair for forty years because the new constitution had no term limits, a fine old southern tradition. Woof’s mellow blue eyes grew watery, his bottom spread, and his dark hair grayed and receded until it formed a ring around his bald noggin, but still he served his county in the same capacity year after year.

  Some of the parish councilmen, restless to take over that office, finally decided that Langlois gave away parish services too freely and hired far too many friends and relatives who felt obligated to vote for him. They demanded he take on an administrative officer to cull the flock of his devotees in the name of efficiency and better government, to make certain parish resources were not squandered on people who felt grateful after having their shell road graded or riprap dumped on the eroding edge of their coulee for free. In other words, they wanted a hatchet man and found that person in Nadia Nixon. She might have been called a hatchet woman, but her sexuality was often questioned. The councilmen said she had a big pair of balls or sometimes flip-flopped and referred to her as a ball-buster. Whatever, she did love her job.

  “Nice blouse, Marshall,” Nadia sneered in her deep voice. “You get it at the thrift shop?”

  “Thank you, a gift from my grandmother.” Because I have a grandmother, you spawn of Satan. But, Jane smiled sweetly. She hated the white nylon blouse with the ruffle down the front, and probably her grandmother had gotten it at a church sale to benefit the missionary fund. Gran did love ruffles and could never understand they were out of style along with nylon. The frill made her chest look huge, and being semi-transparent, the blouse showed her bra straps. At least, her jacket covered most of it, and if she spilled on herself at lunch, it repelled every substance known to man.

  “I’ll be here waiting when you clock out, Marshall. Oh, pathetic performance in that 10K race the other week. You know I can run a half-marathon without breaking a sweat.”

  “Impressive, Nadia. I did the best I could for charity. All my sponsors had to pay up because I finished the course. Now, I’d better get to my desk.”

  “Yeah, complaints about the new trash haulers are piling up like—garbage.”

  “Witty, very witty.” Jane strode away. Ever since that race, the henchwoman had been particularly vile to her. While Nadia finished first, boasting about shaving seconds off her personal best, she’d had only six sponsors, poor old Woof and a few councilmen. Jane, much more popular with the employees, had dozens sign her sheet and raised far more funds simply for finishing. “So there,” Jane mumbled under her breath. She must be careful.

  Nadia had no friends, but she did have toadies who tattled to her on a regular basis. Mostly young women with limited skills and experience, they waited for Fridays when the axe woman would fire someone late in the day for a minor infraction and possibly open up a better position for them. While some were rewarded for turning in a co-worker over checking their personal e-mail or doing online shopping, most only got their workload doubled with no increase in pay. Cutting the payroll by attrition, Nadia called it.

  Much as she wanted to, Jane could not afford to cross Ms. Nixon. She had a house note, renovation and car loans to repay. Employment opportunities for environmental project managers did not abound. The tighter the economy got, the less the public seemed to care about protecting the land and waterways. At her desk, Jane set to work trying to obtain a federal Super Fund grant to clean up an abandoned oil well site with a wastewater pond leaking into the bayou and fending off complaints about B.O. Waste Hauling. The morning slipped by as rapidly as spilled petroleum spread across the Gulf of Mexico.

  On the stroke of twelve, Jane sprinted to the time clock. May Robin, the office receptionist and unofficial MawMaw of everyone, asked, “Not eating with us today?” The woman, a fixture since Langlois first took office, removed her own adorable insulated and reusable patchwork sack from a desk drawer. Jane encouraged everyone to use similar lunch bags rather than paper or plastic, and May had converted. The receptionist also sold the bags made by her sister-in-law to the other workers. Naturally, Jane bought one, but had left it at home this morning.

  “No, I need to feed the guy who volunteered to do my yard work and then run out to the parish barn to see if I can get one of the old trashcans.”

  “You still don’t have a trashcan? When I didn’t get mine I asked Bernard Freeman for help, and they delivered one right away.” May patted her bright red hair to make sure every strand remained lacquered into place. Believing no one knew her age to be seventy-three, she took personal leave time every two weeks to have her now white roots retouched.

  “Evidently, B.O. is out of cans.” And she would not ask Bernard Freeman for a favor if he were the last political striver on earth. For sure, he wanted Langlois’ job.

  “A guy is doing your lawn for free,” May continued, oblivious to Jane’s need to hurry. “A man in your life at last, cher heart.”

  “No, only a friendly neighbor. I really have to leave.” She crossed the small lobby and pushed the elevator button. On most days, she would take the stairs from the fourth floor, but not now.

  “I can still fix you up with my nephew. He’s an undertaker. They make great money.”

  “Thanks, May, but you know I’m a career girl.”

  The offered fix-up, Waldo Robin, age fifty-three, had been divorced recently by his second wife. Wife Number Two gave as her reasons for leaving Waldo that his hands were too cold and living over the mortuary freaked her out. In a town like Chapelle, Louisiana, where most people still married young or at least by the age of twenty-one, pickings remained pretty slim, but Jane had no time to hit the bars and bistros of the nearby city of Lafayette in search of love.

  “Until the right man comes along,” May called after Jane as the elevator doors shut.

  Now, to swing by the drive-up window at Tujacque’s, grab the pre-ordered po-boy, deliver it to Merlin, and then hit the long road to the parish barn to retrieve a trashcan. She left the elevator on the main floor, sprinted across the lofty main lobby, and exited between the huge Ionic columns of the antebellum courthouse. Doing a reverse Rocky move down the long flight of handicapped inaccessible marble steps, Jane dashed past the spot where Jefferson Davis once tried to recruit the French settlers to the Confederate cause, largely failing. She slipped on the bronze plaque inserted in the stone on a landing that noted Huey Long once stood here and won the local vote with great success, but regained her balance in time. Tourists liked to pose there, but not Jane. Finally, she reached the parking lot and raced for Tujacque’s.

  The parking lot of the modest cement block building painted with a figure of a giant crawfish overflowed with trucks and SUVs. She swerved into the long line inching past the drive-up window before she realized she would have been better off going inside. By that time, a tractor pulled in behind her and cut off the possibility.

  “Come on, come on.” Jane drummed her fingers on the steering wheel of her little Honda hybrid. Finally reaching the window where an old woman in a greasy apron sorted through the white paper bags one by one until she came to Jane’s order, Jane thrust a twenty-dollar bill at her.

  “I’ll have to go up front for change, dear.”

  “Keep it!” She peeled out for home only a mile away just across the city line. From the road, her yard looked much better alre
ady. No sign of Merlin, but a huge pile of leafy severed limbs sat on the curb. Jane drove to the back of the house and parked her car by the dilapidated garage still overwhelmed by trumpet creeper. Still no Merlin. Sack and keys clutched in her hands, she mounted the steps to the backdoor.

  “It’s not locked,” a deep voice said from inside the kitchen.

  Holding her keys in the defense position, she bumped the door open with her hip. Hunkered unhappily over a glass of her unsweetened iced tea, Merlin sat at the kitchen table. Sweat plastered his white T-shirt to his body. She could see his black chest hair and relaxed nipples through the fabric. Strangely, he didn’t stink but filled the room with a sort of manly aroma, not unpleasant at all.

  “You got any real sugar for this? All I can find is the artificial stuff that gives you cancer,” he complained.

  “Here…to go with your heart disease.” Jane thrust the grease-spotted bag at him. “How did you get inside?”

  “I could have gotten in here any number of ways, broken a window, knocked down a door, but I used the key Granny always kept in the back of the garage under the old milking pail.” His black-whiskered face lit when he unloaded the sack onto her pretty, lemon-yellow tablecloth. “Their fresh steak-cut fries, too! I do love a woman who anticipates my desires. Wanna share? There’s plenty here for both of us.”

  Merlin unraveled the sandwich from its white paper wrapping. Fried shrimp burst from the overstuffed walls of a small loaf of French bread. Sliced tomato, shredded lettuce, and thin-sliced onions spilled over the sides. Mayonnaise oozed from its bottom. “Fully dressed! Exactly the way I like my po-boys, but not my women.”

  Jane considered lobbing the energy bar she rooted from among the apples in the fruit bowl on the table directly into his face. No time. She took her stainless steel water bottle from the refrigerator. “Enjoy your coronary and remind me to get the locks changed. I need to get to the parish barn to pick up a trashcan.”

  “Hey, I’m harmless to women, children, and small, furry animals. Sugar?”

  “What did you call me?” She turned to glare at him from halfway to the door.