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part 2 of the story
The Stiff Smile Of Salvador’s Cat

Antoni “Summer” Klopotowski

    More of the town awakes; lights turn on, a woman jogs, parents and kids in holiday pajamas walk dogs, and there is the smell of breakfast: pancakes, coffee, French toast, eggs and bacon, being served behind windows.
    Matt pants as he struggles with a Christmas tree, his arms stretched to keep the branches from scratching his face. One end of the tree is in the air, the other drags on the street. His steps are heavy plods under the tree’s weight.
    Bryan’s brows furrow.
    “So, which drug was it?” he asks, “Why are you so skinny, man?”
    “Heroin,” Matt pants. “I’m about to reach six months of sobriety.”
    “Well, that’s great.” Bryan smiles a stiff smile. “That’s hard to pull off, man. It takes daily work. It takes focus. Takes perseverance. Trust me, I’ve been there.”
    Matt tries to lift the tree up to the truck. His body shakes as he tries, but it falls to the street, too heavy for him.
    “Here, let me handle it.” Bryan squats, picks up the tree, tosses it away in the rear of the truck, wipes his forehead with a sleeve, and hits the button.
    “It was meth for me.” Bryan’s voice rumbles over the truck’s roar, “I’m from Georgia. I had a good life there, too. We were far from well off, but still, I had a family, I had friends I’d go fishin’ with, I had a girl, I went to prom...,” the edge of his lip curls, then frowns. “But when I was 17 my pops passed away. He meant the world to me. He helped out a lot of folks.”
    Bryan sighs, shrugs.
    “Well, as the creek flows, pain grows into anger...”
    Bryan shakes his head, his eyes down. “I went down the wrong path, man... I was lookin’ for pops in the worst of people...”
    Bryan pulls on the sleeve of his arm and smooths it.
    “Well, ‘bout two years later I came out here to California on the run. My sole possessions were a backpack filled with t-shirts and a Ziplock bag of meth: half for me and half for sellin’ to support my habit. I ended up strollin’ into a bank with a huntin’ rifle, like those old cartoons on Saturday mornin’ TV. In my daze I didn’t even make it to the bank teller either. I went up to the support desk. Reckoned I’d make a fortune, buy a big house and smoke meth forever. Well, the SWAT team came out for me, and they locked me up in San Quentin. Attempted armed robbery, they said. From that day on I began my life as a felon. Had to go through withdrawals and reach sobriety alone in a cell. And it’s true and just, I did it. I committed a serious offense. Well, none of my family, friends or anyone I knew ever spoke to me. Even those new friends of mine. No, all those stupid, sorry bastards were good for was gettin’ me-”
    Bryan looks up, his eyes wide.
    “You ever been locked up, man?”
    These words leave his lips in a rapid, pleading jumble.
    “Thanks for telling me that.” Matt says, “I have. I caught a shoplifting charge and a possession of a controlled substance.”
    “When I first got out on house arrest my mom would nearly force me to pray. I was reluctant, I didn’t believe in the Bible one bit. I did it, though, just to get her off my back. As soon as I got off of house arrest, I left the house, left my mom in tears pleading for me to stay. I took a train back up to the city, bought a dime bag, and shot up. Well, I had an overdose. In that state, half conscious, I came back to prayer. I prayed to God that he take my life. Not to save my life, but to take it. I wanted to die. I felt miserable, felt alone, felt like a burden on my family...” Matt’s eyes are downcast; he smiles. “But I woke up. A miracle happened. A nurse administered Narcan.”
    Matt smiles a stiff smile, shakes his head at the ground.
    “Well, I kept praying. While I was at a Christian rehab center, they had us pray every morning, every night, and over every meal. Over time I realized how much joy prayer gave me. I devoted myself. I never missed a call to prayer. When my grandpa and my mom and my family visited, they said they could see a change in me. They said I smiled more, that I was more calm, that I even had more color to me.” Matt smiles the same stiff smile, “God does miracles and I’m sure it was he who did one on me. I’m sure of it. Well, I decided to change in earnest. That was an entire 6 months ago, man. Half a year! Now I’m clean, I go to Church every Sunday, I pray every day, and I have a good job! I changed my life, and it’s all thanks to Jesus Christ!”
    Bryan attaches a trash can and hits the button. He crosses his arms, his eyes hard, searching.
    “Yeah, that’s good for you,” Bryan says. “Jesus has never spoken to me. There ain’t no heaven I ever seen beyond those clouds. I tend to think people who believe in religion don’t see life for what it is. I feel the same pain as if I spent the whole day prayin’...”
    “Well, God is always there, man.” Matt smiles a stiff smile, “You can always reach out to him. Always believe a miracle is coming. Those are words I live by.”
    “Yeah, sure. I won’t deny your beliefs. Good people still die young, though.” Bryan says, “There are more sufferin’ people than happy people. As I said this mornin’, it’s a cold world. You know, I’d moreso believe in a Satan then I would in...”

    “HI!” a little voice shouts. Bryan and Matt look around: a smiling little boy walks with his mother. He wears a blue sweatshirt with Yellow Oaks Elementary School, San Carlos written on it. He waves the paw of a gray stuffed rabbit.
    Bryan straightens himself up, breaks into a wide smile, and raises a hand to wave.
    “Hey! How’s it goin’?” he says in a soft voice, more calmly. “Do you want to help us toss trash? We’ve got one here ready for ya’.”
    “Sorry,” The boy’s mother says. The woman’s tone is nice, but her eyes betray meanness. She looks down at the boy, smiles a stiff smile, and pulls on his hand. “Come on, honey, these garbage men are hard at work.”
    “Okay, bye!” the boy smiles. “See you next week! Thank you!”
    Bryan raises a hand and waves with his face in a stiff smile.
    The boy digresses on another subject as he and his mother walk away down the sidewalk.
    Bryan watches them go.
    “Infectin’ their minds,” he says after a moment.
    “What do you mean?” Matt asks.
    “Look around: this is a good, honest, family town. It’s the American Dream. The kind of town to raise kids in. The folk here are good folk. They’re rich, happy, successful, all of it...” Bryan sighs, “We take out their waste. We’re the ones that they pray their kids to never grow up to be. We’re the caution, we’re the threat, we’re the warnin’: “if you don’t scrub the dishes, if you don’t do your homework, if you don’t be nice to your brother, you’ll be just like them... I don’t blame ‘em. If I had a kid I’d want them to do somethin’ else too.”’
    “Well, I did the dishes every night,” Matt says. “I’m from San Carlos. Am I one of those people?”
    Bryan straightens up, his eyes search. His lips turn to the same stiff smile as he looks fondly at Matt. “Yeah, you know, you’ve got a point.” Bryan says, “You’re a good guy, Matt. You know that? You’re well off for your age, much more than I was...”
    “Thank you. That means a lot. Jesus gave me all I have.”
    “Whatever it is, it’s good.” Bryan says with more power now. “Keep it going, man.”
    Matt smiles a stiff smile, looks down, wipes his forehead with a sleeve. He treads up to another driveway.

    The sky lightens from ash to white as the sun shines on the clouds. The sanitation workers are done collecting waste for the area. Now it’s time to drive to their next service zone. A gloved hand on the rail, Bryan trudges slowly up each step of the truck. He pants, his shoulders slump, and sweat drips down his forehead. As he reaches the cabin, he discovers Eli in the driver’s seat: his legs spread, arms crossed, eyes shut, and mouth apape.
    Bryan’s face flushes red.
    “HEY! ELI! WAKE UP!”
    Eli opens his eyes and looks around with a start. He sees where he is, exhales, and leans back.
    “Don’t you smell good.” he says, rubbing an eye. “You done?”
    “Come on, man. You can’t be sleepin’ on the job. Especially on a day like this.” Bryan’s voice rumbles. He takes off each of his gloves and brushes a hand over his face. “You’ll smell the same soon enough, because you and me gon’ switch this next service area.”
    “Why switch, man?” Eli says. “Why can’t we stay how we are?”
    “Well,” Bryan’s eyes flash, “the main reason is we’ve been draggin’ trash all mornin’ and we have to rest. It takes effort to handle so much trash. There’s double the load this mornin’, too. We’ve got Christmas trees now.”
    Eli sighs and rubs a hand over his forehead.
    “It takes work to drive the truck, too.” Eli says. “I’ve got to save energy, man. I’ve got another shift right after this one.”
    Bryan slams a fist on the dashboard. The metal reverberates loudly.
    “Come on! That’s your goddamn problem! You’re too damn lazy, Eli! You always put the hard work onto the other man!” A vein bulges on Bryan’s neck. His voice grows high. “All you do is smoke weed! You don’t care about shit! We’ve been workin’ hard all morning! Look at how hard Matt is working, new and weak and sobriety and all! I should smack you across the fuckin’ face! Stop fuckin’ around and be a man!”
    Eli looks Bryan in the eye with a glare that does not waver.
    “I got a daughter and 3 jobs,” Eli says after a silent moment, “I am a man.”
    “Well, I ain’t doing another house ‘till we switch! I have to rest, and you have to do your damn job!” Bryan glares. “I’ll stand here until sundown and none of us will go home if that’s what it comes to!”
    The men are silent. A car passes. Eli looks into Bryan’s eyes for a moment. Finally, he sighs. “Sure.”
    Eli stands, stretches his arms languidly, and walks down the stairs.
    Bryan sticks his flushed face out the window, “Matt, you want to switch with Salvador while we’re at it?!”
    “I’m good,” Matt says warily. “I can drag some more trash.”
    “Alright.”
    Bryan sinks back in the driver’s seat and sighs. After a moment he hunches over on his elbows and rests his head in his palms. His eyes betray worry. He bangs a fist on the dashboard, itches the back of his neck, then looks up at Salvador.
    “It’s like a fight with your brother at your momma’s house,” he says with a stiff smile, “You gotta love it. You’ve got a big family, right, man?”
    “Yes,” Salvador says as he looks out the window with wide eyes. “I do...”

    The fog is marble with gray contours now. For a moment the clouds break and the sun appears and shines but then it is buried again. The truck rests by an elementary school. An ad for a fundraiser waves in the breeze on a chain-link fence, filled in with 75 percent of its goal for the year. Beyond the fence a man raises his daughter on his shoulders; the daughter throws a basketball, and the ball makes it into a hoop.
    “I made it!” she shouts, smiling. “Nothin’ but net!”
    “You made it!” the father smiles, his hands on her calves. “All on your own! With your basketball that you got from Santa! Good job, baby.”
    “When I play basketball at school, I’m going to beat all the boys there!”
    “I’m sure you will,” the father smiles.
    The man and his daughter turn to see Matt dragging two trash cans. “Hi!” The girl waves at them.
    “Thank you!” the father shouts.
    Matt gives a stiff smile “No problem! Happy to help!”
    Sweat shines on his forehead. He pants. His armpits and back are drenched in sweat.
    “So how’s the mall cop gig?” He asks Eli, smiling. “Been busy over the holidays?”
    Eli gives a shrug as he pulls another trash can. The sun comes out for a moment and shines.
    “It’s another hustle, man,” he shouts over the rumble. “There has to be some way to pay these bills. It’s way too expensive to live out here, even East Oakland. But when a man’s got a daughter, he’s got to do whatever he can to provide for her, you know what I mean?”
    “That’s amazing. Good for you, man.” Matt smiles a stiff smile.
    Eli stands by the truck, wipes sweat from his forehead, and his lips curl as if to laugh. But then he looks Matt over. His eyes take in his pale skin, his cheekbones, his shirt and jeans that hang heavy on him, and his smile softens.
    “You know you’re a good dude, right?” Eli says, “Always smilin’, helpin’ people, workin’ hard. I wasn’t like that at all when I first started workin’ here. But, you gotta do what you gotta do when you have a child.”
    “Thanks, man. Some days it’s easier and other days it’s harder,” Matt says. His eyes search, he looks up and smiles, “Is there a story behind that?”
    “There is, man.” Eli says, “There’s a story I’ll be tellin’ till my dyin’ day.”
    “Tell me it, man.” Matt says. “You sound inspired.”
    “Sure.” Eli smiles a stiff smile, “I think it’ll inspire you too, man. Well, I’ll start out by sayin’ my life was different before I was ridin’ in a waste truck. I had less responsibility; I smoked more weed, drank more, laughed more, slept in ‘till whenever I wanted... I was a skateboarder, man. A good one, too. I was one of the best in San Francisco, if not the Bay Area.” He looks down, his lip curls, “I was on the path to goin’ pro, man. I was on flow, which means a skateboarding company is interested in you, for Grizzly Dog Skateboards. It was way better than this job. I was livin’ for the moment, carefree, and all I knew was that I’d skate with friends every day. But then I got a call from my baby momma; she told me she was pregnant...”
    Eli frowns, shakes his head at the ground.
    “At first I got angry. I argued that it was someone else’s child, that she wanted me for my money, that she was screwin’ me over, all the good stuff. Those were dark times, man. You could even call me abusive. My pops was never in my life, his pops wasn’t either, and I was set to repeat that pattern. But the day my daughter was born my life was flipped right upside down. Aaliyah cried and cried, but when I picked her up and held her for the first time, she just looked at me with her little eyes with her long little lashes, and smiled. From that smile on, I knew I had to be in her life. But, you know, havin’ a child takes responsibility, takes commitment, it takes time, energy, and money. I tried to balance skating and being a father at first, but I soon found out that I had too little time and energy to skate anymore. I had to get a job and provide for my child. So, I went out and did that. I got the job I told you ‘bout at the skate shop. But, come to find out, there ain’t no way to live in the Bay workin’ one job without a high school degree, so I had to get two more. It’s a struggle, man. I’m tired even after I sleep, my legs ache from standin’, people don’t get what I go through every day... There are times where I miss the days I could sleep in ‘till 3 pm and skate all day. But I’m telling you, man: the smile on my daughter’s face when I’m tuckin’ her in at night makes me forget all that bullshit. Despite the negative sides, I’d rather have this. To know I give my daughter a good life, to know I’m makin’ her safe, and that I’m tryin’ to teach her to be better than I was, to have a day like last Christmas...” Eli smiles a stiff smile at the ground. “It’s the reason I do it, man.”
    “That’s a big sacrifice, man,” Matt says, “I don’t know if I could do that if it was up to me. I thank Christ for such decisions.”
    He goes to the next driveway, his shoulders slumped, eyes downcast, panting. He wipes his forehead with a sleeve.
    Eli’s downcast eyes search.
    “You know, you might be right, man. If after all I’ve seen, after all I’ve done...” he shakes his head at the ground and smiles. “If an angel like my daughter was born to be mine, there has to be somethin’ out there...”
    He gazes up at the clouds.
    The fog is gray.

    Behind a freshly painted white fence, a yard of clean-cut grass and bright flowers of all colors stand in the gray light of the morning. An advertisement for professional landscaping stands in the grass. A saw roars, a hammer thunders, Mexican music plays resonant over the construction. Tan wooden decking boards stand to build the foundation of a three-story house. A man in a blue suit and a pregnant woman in a yellow sundress stand in the front yard, smile and speak in eager voices.
    “So, why’re you so quiet, man?” Bryan asks Salvador with a stiff smile, as they sit in the truck’s cabin.
    Arms crossed, eyes down, Salvador says, “It’s nothing,” quietly.
    “Hey man, we’ve all got a nothing that haunts us,” Bryan says, “I’ve got a whole lot of nothing on my mind today...”
    Salvador nods.
    “This would be nice.” Bryan smirks at the house being built. “You live in a house with other guys out here? Or are you on your own?”
    “I’m in an apartment alone.” Salvador sighs.
    “Hey, me too.” Bryan shrugs. “Guess it could be worse.”
    Salvador nods.
    Bryan reaches into his pocket and takes out his cigarettes.
    “Don’t let us pressure you into smokin’, neither,” Bryan says. He lights his cigarette, blows smoke. “It’s a bad habit.”
    Salvador nods again, eyes on his boots.
    “You sure you’re alright, man?” Bryan asks, his brows furrowed. “Something’s troublin’ you.”
    Salvador opens his mouth, gazes up at Bryan, closes his mouth, then looks back down.
    “You runnin’ late on rent?”
    Salvador’s eyes search. He shakes his head.
    “My family, in Mexico...,” he says after a moment, “the rest of my family is there. It’s only me here. I came to the USA to make money to send to them. But it’s not as easy as they say it is in Mexico. I wish I could help them more, but I can almost support myself. But it’s not only the money. It is so much pain to be without them on Christmas. Alone in a new country. My family can’t come here. They would have to be afraid of police and ICE. It’s only me here. I’m here alone.”
    “Hey, we’ve all been alone, man.” Bryan says. “I haven’t talked to any of my family in 15 years. When I was in prison I realized, oddly feelin’ lonely is a feelin’ every human being shares.”
    Salvador sighs.
    “I have nobody here,” he says, “No family, no friends. I left them. I left them to be alone.”
    Bryan’s eyes grow soft. He puts his hand on Salvador’s shoulder.
    “Listen, you didn’t, Salvador. You did a good thing, to come to this country in search of work. You’re a good, honest man. You made a decision only a strong person could make. I bet your folks are proud of you. I bet you’re a real hero to them.”
    “Yes, but how could I know?” Salvador says quietly, “I don’t even have the money to call them. In the USA I work, go to sleep, then I work again. That is every day. Even after all my work, I can barely afford to pay for a small apartment in the Bay Area in the ghetto, where I live on my own.”
    Salvador gazes out the window. Across the street a child throws a ball to a golden labrador retriever in a clean-cut grass yard with a fence. A mother in a robe watches from the porch with a steaming cup of tea in her hands.
    “There are two dogs that always come by my mother’s house in Mexico.” Salvador says, his eyes watery. “Every morning I would play with the dogs, like this boy. I got a branch, and I would throw it and they would run and bark and play. They would lick my face when I brought them leftover food. Here I live in an apartment: no pets.”
    “You could get past that, man,” Bryan says, “Speak to your landlord. I knew a guy who had a pet pigeon in his prison cell. If he could do that you could, too.”
    “But how would I buy one?” Salvador waves his arms. “I’m not even a citizen! It is a cruel system! The whole system!”
    “Yeah, well,” Bryan’s voice rumbles, “I’d tell you to keep your head up, man. But the system ain’t been too kind to me either...”
    He looks down for a moment, his eyes worried, then back up at Salvador.
    “Hey, Salvador, you’ll get through this. You’re a hard worker, you’re an honest man, you think ‘bout others. Even though it’s hard to believe where you’re at right now, your struggle makes you strong. The more you suffer the stronger you become. Trust me, I know the subject well. You’ll make your money and you’ll send it to your family in Mexico. They’ll be grateful. They’ll be proud. Everything will be alright, man.”
    Salvador nods, turns his head, and looks back out the window. Bryan looks ahead and smooths his hair back. Matt pants as he drags two black trash cans, his shoulders slumped over, his steps heavy.

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