Headhunter

The Mask

Tuesday, December 28th, 10:15 a.m.

It could have been 1944, deep in the Ardennes.

For it would have looked like this at dawn that bleak December morning, when General Omar Bradley's GIs awoke to face Hitler's Sixth SS Panzer Army. Their first warning would have been the explosion of shells on the woodlands and ridges around them. For at H-hour — 5:30 a.m. precisely — two thousand German guns on one second fuses had opened up on the American positions all along the Bulge. There would have been the roaring noise of V-ls overhead, and the rumble of Panther and Tiger tanks sliding down twisting roads. There would have been also the voice of war in the shouts and the cries of the dying. And then — as now — there would have been the snow and the swirling fog.

Not forty feet away, the tank appeared in the mist and vapor.

He could hear the whir of its motor and the mesh of its turret gears, and from where he stood he could just make out a ghost in the murky gloom.

And then the tank began to move and he knew he couldn't wait. He raised his rifle. He sighted the ghost in the fog down its long, cold, blue-gray barrel. Abruptly, the tank stopped. Now another figure appeared in the mist, stepping down from the driver's door to join the man on the ground. And he was just about to pull the trigger to cut the German down, when through the mist there came a shout that smashed the scene to pieces.

"Hey, kid. You can stop your dreamin'. It's time for a coffee break."

Yes, it could have been 1944 at the Battle of the Bulge.

But it wasn't.

With a sigh, the young man picked up a garbage can in each gloved hand and walked over to the rear of the truck. He dumped the refuse into the collecting trough at the back, then pulled the hydraulic lever. With a whir of meshing gears, the mechanism began to lift, rolling the garbage up and into the dustcart. He put the second can down and took off his gloves, then he walked around to the driver's door to join the other two men.

"First day's a little early, kid, to be gettin' bored with the job."

The man who spoke was a string bean who went by the name of Slim. He was a tall, skinny dude somewhere in his late fifties. Dressed in a floppy farmer's hat and baggy blue coveralls, he had the face of a man who has spent all his life working outdoors. As he spoke, Slim was pouring coffee from a beat-up thermos into a styrofoam cup. When he handed the cup to the young man he flashed him a stained-tooth smile. Slim rolled his own.

The other man was short and squat, with a ruddy drinker's complexion. He too was in his fifties, but a year or two younger than Slim. He was wearing overalls with a seaman's stripes on both arms. This man was called the Perfesser by those in the sanitation department, and if he had another name the young man hadn't heard it. The Perfesser was sitting on the driver's doorstep, spiking his steaming coffee with a shot from a silver flask. As Slim spoke, the Perfesser was watching the young man intently.

"When you bin at this job twenty years," Slim said, "then you can start to git bored."

The young man merely nodded, for to speak would be an impertinence.

"Jest how'd a young fella like you git this job anyway, son? These sure ain't the very best of workin' times."

"Just luck," the youth replied.

"Job as a garbage collector ain't really what I call luck."

The young man sipped his coffee and looked at the Perfesser. The Perfesser had yet to speak.

"I just finished first semester out at UBC. The city's got a program to help us students find jobs. Mine's just over Christmas, so the Union doesn't mind. Besides, I need the money. Every little bit counts."

"Ah," said the Perfesser, finding a point to interrupt. "So we've an academic in our midst. Do tell me, Jeff, just what is your field of expertise?"

"History," the young man said.

"Ah, history," the Perfesser said. "A Sherlock Holmes of the past."

"Well, actually history is just the beginning. I really want to be an archaeologist."

"An archaeologist! My, my!" the Perfesser said slyly as he slipped a look to Slim. "And you thought he was bored with the job. What better job could he have to practice his future craft?"

Slim shook his head sadly, chagrined at his own stupidity, and fished a package of Export rolling papers out of the pocket of his overalls. The Perfesser took a slug straight from the silver flask. "Are you bored, kid?" he asked, looking the youth in the eye. "Do you think this job is beneath you? Is that your attitude?"

Jeff blinked. "No, no, of course not," he said.

"I hope not. 'Cause if you do, son, it's time that you grew up and opened your eyes. I don't like to see anyone look down on another man's job. Most of all I don't like arrogant pricks who think they're better than everyone else. Every job can teach you something about life. And this one more than most."

Slim began tapping some loose tobacco onto the rolling paper. "Perfesser says a man ain't worth shit if he thinks he's above cleanin' up the garbage in the world around him. You should listen to the Perfesser, kid. He's a man who's bin around. World's foremost authority, for my money, on women, liquor and life."

With one hand Slim rolled the paper into a perfect cigarette. He licked the gum, sealed it, and stuck the cigarette in his mouth.

What is this?Jeff thought. The vaudeville of the alley?But he kept the thought to himself.

"An archaeologist, eh?" the Perfesser said, revolving the word on his tongue. "That's one of those fellows who digs in the ground, looking for the garbage left behind by past civilizations to figure out how they lived. To try and figure out who they really were. A bit like an academic garbage collector. Have I got that right, son?"

"Sort of," Jeff said.

Slim lit a match on the zipper of his crptch and blew out a gray cloud of fog. "Perfesser says that garbage is the true reflection of life."

"Ah,garbage!" the Perfesser said wisely, and he took another shot straight from the flask.

"Ever found yourself with a day off, Jeff, and nothing to do? I have. Lots of days since my wife up and left. At first I didn't know what to do with myself — then I struck on this idea. An experiment, so to speak. I got dressed up in a shirt and tie, and walked my garbage route. Only this time, kid, I walked down the front of the street. And I've been doing that once a month ever since, just slowly walking by and taking in the front that people put out, the masks they wear, if you get my drift. 'Cause sometimes their masks get so solid, they think that's who they really are. I go looking in people's windows. Listening to them chat with their neighbors. And then I started keeping track of the garbage that came out the back."

"We slit two or three bags open every trip," Slim said. "Perfesser says a man's trash is the true reflection of his life." He blew out another billowing cloud of gray smoke.

"So you see, Jeff," the Perfesser said, standing up and stretching, "why not use this job to learn a little bit about life? Come on. I'll show you what I mean."

The Perfesser walked down the alley, and stopped in front of a wooden pen containing two metal garbage cans. Reaching into the pocket of his overalls, he brought out a Swiss Army knife and fingered open one of the blades. As Slim and Jeff joined him he removed the lid from one of the cans and slit open the uppermost black plastic bag inside. With both his hands he ripped the slit wide open.

"Well, kid," the Perfesser asked. "What do you see?"

Jeff peered into the rent in the bag and began to list the contents, starting from the top: "One box of Sheiks, empty. One box of Ramses, lubricated and also empty. Two Swanson TV dinners, eaten. Two Chun King frozen chow mein dinners, also eaten. One copy of Hustler. One copy of Gent. One copy of the Hite Report on Female Sexuality. Several dozen Kleenex, most of them smeared with lipstick and makeup. Two Canadian Pacific Airlines travel folders for tickets. Several pamphlets on Hawaii. Several mimeographed sheets of paper. And I can't see what's below that."

"Okay," said the Perfesser. "Now add this. Those mimeographed sheets are Sunday school papers. These garbage cans belong to the manse of the Baptist Church down the street. In the manse live the minister, his wife — who wears no makeup — and their pious fifteen-year-old son. Put it all together and what have you got…"

"Why that horny little bastard!" Jeff said, and the three of them laughed. Slim flicked the butt of his cigarette into the snow in the alley.

"Okay, you try, Mr. Holmes. Pick any can."

Jeff looked around pensively. Twenty feet up the lane he saw a burning tin across from the underground parking lot of a West End apartment building. Behind the tin were two garbage cans.

"That one," Jeff said as he left the two older men. He walked over to it, removed the lid and looked inside. As they both watched him with smiles on their faces Slim and the Perfesser saw the young man lift an Adidas athletic bag out of the can. They saw him look inside the main pouch of the gym case, close it and then unzip the side pocket. After several seconds they saw Jeff shrug and heard him say: "Beats me, Perfesser. What do you make of this?"

The two older men sauntered over to join him. Together all three examined the object that the youth held in his hand.

The object was made of ebony and it shone dull black in the diffused light that struggled to seep through the fog. It consisted of two small faces, back to back, each one about two inches high, each with a large rounded nose. One of the noses was smooth, but the other was jagged at the end where it had cracked and several small splinters had chipped off. Each miniature face had an open mouth and from each mouth protruded an eight-inch rounded tongue. These tongues curved in a slightly upward arc in opposite directions.

"Well?" Jeff asked, bewildered. "What do you make of this?"

Slim looked to the Perfesser, a smile upon his lips.

"That, son," the Perfesser said, "is what we call a Dyke's Prong. You want another name, call it the Horns of Venus. Call it a Devil's Tongue. That's a pretty fancy one but you can buy a simplified plastic version in any sex shop in this city."

Jeff stared at the double dildo for several long seconds.

"Down in the Caribbean there's this place called Nick's Nitery. When I was in the merchant marine we shipped into that island port one day and the whole crew went to Nick's. If you got enough of the green stuff that man really puts on a show; in season tourists flock there by the thousands. In one of the shows, two women make the two-back-beast using one of those, matching each other thrust for thrust. The night we were there at least one-third of the audience was female. In the second act, Nick had two men get it on."

Jeff looked up at the other two and a wordless communication passed among the three of them.

Finally Jeff said: "Hidden lives, huh? I'm just trying to imagine a woman using one of those things."

Slim grinned and said, "Frankenstein's monster was made up from parts of several different human.beings."

The three of them turned from the garbage cans and walked back to the truck. As they passed the burning tin Jeff glanced inside and saw nothing but yesterday's ashes. The Perfesser climbed in behind the wheel and once more the team was moving. The ebony object went into the collecting trough at the back along with the Adidas bag. Then Jeff pulled on the hydraulic lever and the trough took the refuse away.

It was as Jeff was turning from the rear of the truck that Slim stopped him with a wink of his eye.

"Didn't I tell ya?" Slim said. "World's foremost authority, for my money, on women, liquor and life."

"You told me." Jeff said.

"But what I didn't tell ya — an' ya should know — is the garbageman's lesson of life."

"And what's that?" Jeff asked, grinning from ear to ear.

"Perfesser says that in this city — in any city — the real garbage ain't what we take outa the cans. It's some of the people that fill 'em."