A Blink with One Eye Is a Wink

He showed up early for his first overnight shift at the vast parking lot at the edge of town, where land was cheap and miles away from anyone who might reasonably object to the early morning clattering and eyesore of scores of garbage trucks. Empty of trash and imprudently white, each weighed as much as ten tons, an elephant’s graveyard of dormant, trash-gobbling behemoths. It was cold and dark and almost peaceful, except for the turmoil in Noah’s stomach. He’d made a mistake.

It wasn’t like he needed the sweater. It was more than he could afford, more than it should have cost by any reasonable measure. Noah believed he knew about labor and materials when he did not, guessing that “imported” meant a pay scale commensurate with sweatshop conditions and “cashmere” a lie common among sweaters. He wasn’t a shoplifter per se. Gum was the gateway drug, irresistible in its easy-to-palm-and-pocket size. He could count on one hand the number of times in his life that he’d taken things without paying — as if there were some legal exemption for criminal indiscretions under six. But didn’t the corporate ownership of the stores write off those losses? Wasn’t shoplifting factored into the retail price, covered by insurance, just another cost of doing business like rent, utilities, depreciation? None of these were good legal arguments, he knew, so when he appeared before a judge he did as advised on a cheap attorney’s website (“What to Say to a Judge for Shoplifting”): accepted responsibility, showed remorse, requested leniency. He stopped short of offering restitution because if he was going to do that, he’d have just bought the sweater in the first place, and $1,955 was a damn lot of money for a sweater.

Noah wished he’d known that the threshold for grand theft in his state was $950 before attempting to shoplift the sweater priced at more than twice that. It seemed unfair that a sweater costing only a hundred dollars or so would likely not have found him in court at all. It was a profoundly embarrassing charge, Grand Theft Sweater, but the law didn’t care whether Noah had stolen sweater or auto, TV or laptop, jewelry or cash. And neither did the judge. When he offered a sentence of community service, Noah took it rather than the fine he couldn’t afford any more than he could the fancy imported possibly cashmere sweater.

Which is how he found himself here, joined by 11 other offenders — presumably unaccomplished criminals — an even dozen divided into pairs and tasked with washing the grime from the exteriors of all these sleeping trucks. Each team was expected to complete a truck every 15 minutes over three hours, five nights a week. While their sentences varied depending on the severity of their offenses, Noah owed the state 60 hours — four weeks of this.

“Jimbo,” his new outdoor cellmate introduced himself, extending his hand to shake while Noah thought, I’m not calling him that.

Noah considered replying with a fake name of his own but could not think of one quickly. So now Jimbo, the criminal, knew his first name, and Noah feared that might be enough information for such a person to utilize the tools of the internet to learn more about him. There wasn’t much to know: Noah was 29, moved comfortably far from his origins and the family that vexed him, had made few friends. A day laborer good with his hands, with a belief he could fix anything that stopped short of his own dull life. It distressed Noah that this Jimbo might somehow find his address and show up at his door one day. But this was the bed he made when he’d stolen that sweater, attempting to walk out with it under his street clothes, his lumpiness spotted easily by the security guard. Noah remembers thinking about Spider-Man and all the other comic book heroes — the impossibility of wearing those costumes under their everyday clothes. Just another lie he bought into at a young age.

“Let’s blast some trucks!” Jimbo said, fake cocking his pressure washer like a pump action shotgun and mimicking the cha-CHUK sound.

Hot pressure washers were the preferred method to blast away the grime and crust accumulated on the trucks’ surfaces like barnacles on a whale. Brushes would have been inadequate against all the nooks and gaps of all their interlocking external mechanisms. The foreman cautioned them that 1,000 PSI washers can puncture human skin, and these streamed at just over 3,000 PSI, which he noted could put a hole in concrete. It seemed an exceedingly poor idea to provide these to criminals, even those at the low end of the crime spectrum — especially those, considering the poor judgment evident in shoplifting sweaters or driving under the influence. As they slid inside waterproof suits and protective gloves, Noah wondered what Jimbo’s crime was, presuming it was at least as stupid as his. But Jimbo asked first.

“I killed a guy,” Noah replied, pleased to show a little cheekiness to his new criminal companion.

Jimbo stepped into calf-high PVC rubber boots and stomped them into place. “Shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die,” he said, nodding and grinning.

It seemed the proper criminal etiquette to ask back, so Noah did. He was surprised to learn Jimbo had committed a complicated wire-fraud scheme. Not only wasn’t it stupid, as presumed, but it seemed to warrant a stiffer sentence than community service — especially since Jimbo had by his own admission an impressive prior criminal record.

“Oh, I did a little time,” he said, putting on helmet and safety goggles.

Noah did the same as Jimbo ticked off a series of phrases Noah didn’t completely understand — check kiting, identity theft, phishing. He reeled them off like a list of accomplishments, and in a way they were for someone who, like Noah, hadn’t yet turned 30. Noah had questions — he might finally understand how the Nigerian prince scam was supposed to work — but they had a job to do.

Noah thought they would each take a different side of the truck, but Jimbo followed him and they started blasting away, working away from the middle. Jimbo made his way to the cab in front, leaving the more difficult rear loader to Noah. While this slowed Noah down, he expected Jimbo to continue across the other side, but when he came around the end, he saw Jimbo had stopped in the middle to light a cigarette. It seemed clear that Jimbo wasn’t going to do more than his half of a truck. Noah finished up, met in the middle, and they headed to their second truck. Noah positioned himself this time to head for the front, but Jimbo crossed in front of him and blasted his way to the cab again. Noah avoided conflict the way others shunned leprosy, and Jimbo didn’t seem like a man worth challenging. By the third truck, Noah resolved himself to the established routine, but Jimbo broke the pattern when he opened the driver’s side door and clambered inside.

“It’s cold, man,” Jimbo explained. “Hop in!”

It was. While Noah regretted the sweater that had landed him here, he also wished he still had it as a hedge against the chill. Jimbo turned the key dangling in the ignition. Of course they left the keys inside, Noah realized. It would be chaos trying to locate and match keys to vehicles every morning when the trucks and drivers began their routes.

“The foreman will hear us,” Noah said.

“Relax. Runs on natural gas. Quiet as mice. He’s inside anyway and probably has his earbuds in. He couldn’t hear us if we turned on the compactor.”

“Please don’t turn on the compactor,” Noah begged.

“Just the heat,” he said.

Jimbo turned it on and sighed a soft moan, closing his eyes as if in some tropical paradise.

“I don’t want to get in trouble,” Noah said. “I just want to do my sentence and go home.”

“Easy does it, Shawshank.”

“We have to do four trucks an hour,” Noah reminded him.

“We’re expected to do four trucks an hour. It’s an unrealistic expectation. And there’s no way our foreman waddles the lot at the end of the night to check all our work.”

When Jimbo took out a vape pen, Noah immediately knew it was weed.

“I know it’s legal,” Noah sighed, “but so is alcohol, and you can’t drink at work.”

“You getting paid for this? No. Then it isn’t work. It’s indentured labor,” Jimbo argued. “That should be illegal. These aren’t even municipal trucks! Private contractor. I’m not gonna feel one bit of bad for failing to comply with this scammy detail.”

Noah was certain this argument would do little to prevent a judge from doubling his current sentence.

“Just close the door,” he asked.

Jimbo shrugged and closed it, and Noah blasted away at the cab. He moved down the truck and around to the other side to see the windows fog until Jimbo disappeared. Noah moved onto the next truck and the next, growing angrier the farther he made his way down the row. But the person he was mad at was himself — a familiar feeling — for not being someone else.

He finished as many trucks as he could before the end of their shift, well short of the 12 expected of them. Cold and weary, he walked back to that third truck to rouse Jimbo in case he’d fallen asleep, and was mad at himself for that too. No matter. On his approach, the engine stopped and Jimbo opened the door and hopped down, stretching theatrically.

“Quittin’ time!” he said, and they headed back to the office to check out.

They stripped off their protective gear with the others and left it in a pile. Noah fished for his car keys and slid into his Hyundai, but before he could pull away, Jimbo pulled alongside, looking down from a shiny black late-model Silverado.

“Grab a beer?”

“Rain check,” Noah replied.

“Gimme your phone,” he said, and when Noah was slow in responding, Jimbo wiggled his fingers, all it took to successfully coax Noah into compliance.

Jimbo poked his cell number into place and returned it. He gave a big thumbs-up and drove off, a pig in sunglasses dangling from his rearview mirror, and Noah sat a moment and wondered if it might have been fun to drink with Jimbo in some pirate’s tavern on the wrong side of town.

The next night Noah arrived early. If he was going to get chewed out by the foreman for their lack of production the night before, he preferred it happen before the others arrived. He was still taken by the magnitude of the place, the massive white trucks standing, silent and unmoving, in every direction and receding in the darkness. When the others arrived, they paired off just as they had the night before. There was no mention of any shortfall in last night’s expected work output. As everyone pulled on their protective gear, Noah was forced to acknowledge that Jimbo was right. He was, after all, an experienced criminal — Did a little time, knew how things worked. Did anyone in the prison laundry count how many bundles of penitentiary-gray underwear the men completed, or pots scrubbed in the kitchen? This was less than that, as pots and underwear were necessities and the cleanliness of garbage trucks a dubious virtue. This was just another work detail no one really cared much about.

They started their first truck and headed for the second, Noah feeling daunted about the remaining hours and weeks ahead. He stamped his feet for warmth, and Jimbo looked at him with all the wisdom of the universe. This is how things work, the look said. Stop fighting me. And Noah once again wished he were someone else. This time, he decided to be. He mounted the step and pulled open the driver’s side door.

“Hop in,” he told Jimbo.

Jimbo grinned and headed to the other side, climbing in as Noah turned the key. A gentle hum shook the truck, and then Noah reached to turn on the heat. The cab warmed up quickly, and both felt the chill begin to leave their bodies. Jimbo pulled out his vape pen, puffed on it twice and handed it to Noah. It hung in the air only a moment before Noah took it.

“And good call on the liquor last night,” Jimbo said, producing a half-pint bottle of Jack Daniels. “This will keep us warmer than that.”

“I guess this beats prison by a mile,” Noah inhaled and choked a little.

“Prison,” he snorted. “I’ve been to jail. Minimum security, dormitory style. Big, open barracks of bunk beds and guys who could use a shower.”

“Like Cool Hand Luke.”

“Weren’t no chain gang. But yeah. Especially how the guys looked after each other. Out here, we’re all bad guys, hustling for a quick buck. And we’ll cross each other and never look back, except to make sure no one’s coming for you. But inside, we’re all the same. There’s nothing you can take from me, nothing I can hustle from you. So we’re buds. I never had friends on the outside as tight as inside.”

Noah tried to think of three tight friends he’d had since he was 12, and couldn’t think of any.

“How many times were you — ?”

“Just the three,” Jumbo said, as if counting beers.

“No offense, but how did a guy with your record only get community service?”

“I was as surprised as you are. My C.A. noticed the judge handing it out like lollipops that day in court, and figured she’d try.”

“C.A.?” Noah asked, exhaling.

“Court-appointed. Young and eager and thinking she can do some good — all stuff the system will crush out of her. It didn’t hurt that I spun a good yarn: broken home, desperate times, impaired judgment. Showed remorse, cried a little. Boo hoo hoo,” he cried, farcically, and Noah snorted a laugh. “Even the C.A. bought it.”

“Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to represent myself,” Noah said, dreamily. “But I didn’t trust a court-appointed lawyer.”

“They do have a well-deserved reputation for being crummy. But you stole a sweater to keep warm. That’s some Jean Valjean stuff right there.”

Noah was certain Jimbo hadn’t read Les Miserables or even seen the Broadway musical, but likely watched the movie, skipping the singing parts.

“But that’s not what happened at all,” Noah said.

“What happened is whatever you say it is. Oath? Hand on the Bible? Meaningless, as long as they can’t disprove it. Who’s to say you weren’t cold, down on your luck, struggling paycheck to paycheck? How you’d seen people as a boy, homeless, pull newspapers from the trash and stuff them inside their clothes for warmth. Except people don’t read newspapers anymore. They get it on their phones, or don’t get it at all because the world has gone crazy and it will only depress them. So newspapers went out of business and reporters got screwed… and so did anyone who was cold on the streets, looking for a little extra insulation to stuff inside the two sweaters they already had on. And you were forced to turn to shoplifting.”

It was a good yarn, well told.

“That is some impressive rationalizing to come up with on the spot,” Noah said, handing back the vape pen.

“I couldn’t read for nothing in school,” he explained, exchanging liquor for vape. “Took a long time for someone to figure out, dyslexic, and longer still for anyone to do anything about it. So I learned to talk a good game.”

“I see how you got C.S.,” Noah said, understanding now that using initials for criminal jargon was cool.

“Just glad I didn’t have to find someone to take care of my cat again,” Jimbo grinned. “Hey, you know what this truck is worth on the street? Around 200K.”

“I didn’t know there was a market for hot garbage trucks.”

“The waste removal business isn’t known for being squeaky-legal-clean,” he said. “Paint it over or sell it for parts. I know a guy. Southside. Name’s Madnick, as in Crazy Nick.”

“Did you just tell me the name of your fence?”

“We could drive two of these right out of here, never look back.”

“What about your cat?” Noah said, pretending Jimbo was joking when he knew he wasn’t.

“We’d have time to pack things up and still make a clean getaway.”

“I’m getting high inside a truck I’m supposed to be washing as a condition of my sentence for shoplifting. That’s the full extent of my criminal behavior.”

“But we’re warm, right?” Jimbo argued. “Happy and warm. Where’s the crime in that?”

Again, Noah found it hard to argue. Maybe he should have, instead of falling asleep.

* * *

Jimbo was right about the foreman’s earbuds — he still had them in, and they might even have been playing something, judging by how loud he shouted at both of them inside the cab that reeked of weed and the rest of the bottle Jimbo had spilled when he too dozed off. When they hadn’t reported in at the end of their shift, the foreman didn’t know exactly what to do. It hadn’t happened before. This wasn’t some chain gang men escaped at the first opportunity, risking quicksand and snakes for a glimpse of freedom. This was a collection of slow thinkers with impulse control issues caught for a single dumb thing just small enough that the criminal justice system had no real interest in them, beyond exploiting their free labor. Except these two, who’d now accomplished their second dumb thing that would renew the interest of the courts.

Jimbo returned to his court-appointed attorney, weeping appropriately until she agreed to take both their cases. But she couldn’t promise a good outcome here. Community service was easily rescinded in cases where the offenders failed to comply with the terms of their sentencing. Not only had these two failed to wash more than a few trucks across two overnight shifts, they’d demonstrated the poor judgment of trespassing inside one of those vehicles and vaping and drinking themselves into unconsciousness. Prevailing on the mercy of the presiding judge would prove difficult.

In fact, James Nathaniel Casey, as Jimbo’s full name was read in court, had his community service revoked in favor of a short jail sentence. Minimum security, dormitory style, bunk beds, Noah guessed. Jimbo would be fine, although Noah worried about his cat. When it was his turn to plead, Noah asked to address the court.

“It was cold,” he said, and shivered at the memory. “Same as that day I took that darn sweater. I know I shouldn’t have. Never in a million years would I think I’d find myself reduced to that. I remember as a boy, seeing men pull newspapers from the trash, to stuff inside their clothes for warmth. Homeless — that’s what we called them then. Now it’s unhoused, as if turning the noun into an adjective makes anyone feel better about it. I thought being arrested was my lowest point … and then, being fingerprinted and held, even for a short time. And then those first two nights of my sentence? In the dark and the cold, cleaning garbage trucks made filthy from their day winding through respectable neighborhoods, houses filled with happy families … that felt like my lowest point. And I just wanted to blot it all out. To drink and forget what was real. And now here I stand,” he said, weeping openly now, careful not to Boo hoo hoo transparently. “At a new low point. Probably on to the even lower point of prison. One mistake, and the bottom seems … so far away, I keep falling.”

The judge, who believed he knew when a defendant standing before him was full of it, could not quite get a handle on Noah. With a bang of his gavel, he suspended his sentence.

* * *

It was just two days later when Noah’s phone rang, and he was surprised to see his caller ID show JIMBO. How? Had he smuggled his cellphone in or broken out? Noah believed him capable of both. He answered and Jimbo told him about his release: the excessive use of community service by the judge who had sentenced them both had attracted the attention of a courtroom reporter, and a little digging turned up an inappropriate financial relationship with the owner of the waste disposal facility. That local businessman got free labor and the judge got paid. As a result, he was removed from the bench and all his community service sentences had been vacated.

“My C.A. told me about your plea,” he continued. “Nice piece of work.”

“I spun a good yarn,” Noah said with a grin he believed Jimbo could hear over the phone.

“If there was any real justice,” Jimbo groused, “both those corrupt bastards would be washing garbage trucks for the next 20 years.”

Jimbo knew, This was how things worked. It was hard to argue. He told Noah he was moving away, heading to meet a friend in Costa Rica. He had a job offer — almost legitimate. Empty lots of real estate at below market rates. They’d just fudge the acreage a little. Who can tell the difference between 20 and 22 acres? He was sticking around only long enough to come up with a stake to put in his share, and then he was gone.

Noah said they should meet for a drink, and Jimbo was glad he’d asked.

* * *

Jimbo picked a bar on the edge of town, not far from the garbage truck lot. Maybe he’d do a little recon after closing time. Not being on the work detail any more was only a minor setback. The keys were in every ignition, after all, and bolt cutters would take care of the fence. A single truck would be ample to send him on his way.

Noah was late but Jimbo didn’t mind. The bartender was flirty, and he liked the jukebox. He thought about his two nights with Noah. Funny little guy, too straight for the world. Couldn’t even imagine him stealing a sweater, not even if he were freezing. Temporary insanity by a guy who was mostly afraid. They might hear us, we could get in trouble, what if we get caught? No backbone, but a good enough guy. The first he’d met on the outside in a long time. Too bad he was taking off. Again.

Jimbo’s phone pinged and he looked down to see I’M HERE, and then he heard two loud toots from outside. He couldn’t have been more surprised to see Noah parked in front, grinning from inside the cab of a very clean garbage truck.