Unknown Man #89

found, then he wasn’t around anymore, or he was dead. They knew his word was good and that he never signed the affidavit on a service he didn’t complete-like the Belle Isle Bridge servers, guys who were known to drop a summons in the Detroit River (or a trash can) if locating the defendant appeared too difficult, or if it took them into a rough, inner-city neighborhood.

Ryan lived alone. He had a small one-bedroom unit in a fairly new apartment building in Royal Oak. He had been married once. He married a nice quiet girl who came into her own during the five years of their marriage and turned into a tough little hard-headed woman who liked to pick and find fault and was always right. He’d ask her, “What’s it like being always right?” And she’d say, “You should hear yourself. No more Mr. Nice Guy, huh? Boy, have you changed.” And things like that. He hadn’t changed. He had gone by the book and purposely picked a sweet little June Allyson and discovered too late that when you take the girl next door into a different life she isn’t the girl next door anymore. So he said fuck it-going through the motions of playing house, being someone he didn’t want to be- and got a divorce.

His sister and brother-in-law, stuck in their little ranch house with four kids and a lamp in the picture window, told him he’d probably never grow up: he was like a little brat who always wanted his own way. He had dinner there and listened to them about three times a year. Every once in a while he would ask them what was so great about growing up.

Lately, he was seeing a girl by the name of Rita who was a legal secretary. Ryan told her, with her blond hair, she didn’t look like a Rita at all. Rita thought he was nuts. She was a little nuts herself, unpredictable; though Ryan noticed she worked at it. Rita had thought that going out with a process server-actually making calls with him-would be a kicky thing to do. Until she realized Ryan was probably doing the same thing: getting an extra kick out of scoring with a legal secretary, a girl who handed him papers to serve. She wasn’t sure, with his straight face, when he was kidding or being serious. So she’d tell him he was a nut and that would somehow cover it either way.

Sometimes on Saturdays Rita would ride with him, keep him company, and once in a while she’d help him serve a paper. He’d call her and Rita would say, “What have you got, another doctor?” Doctors, scared to death of malpractice suits, were hard to get to. One time Ryan tried to make an appointment with a doctor and found out the guy was a gynecologist. So he went in with Rita for her rabbit test, the concerned hubby. But when he tried to serve the paper, the doctor actually ran. They followed him out of the clinic, saw him get in his Buick Electra and take off. A mile and a half later they finally caught him at a stop light. The doctor was locking his doors, closing the power-operated windows as Ryan got out and walked around to the Buick. The doctor stared straight ahead and wouldn’t look at Ryan when he knocked on the side window. So Ryan lifted the windshield wiper in front of the doctor’s face and let it snap back to hold the court papers against the windshield. He said to the doctor, “This is a domestic litigation. You’re being sued for divorce, not malpractice.” Like turning it around and telling the doctor his tumor was benign. The doctor, behind the windshield, seemed to sag with relief. Ryan heard him say, “Oh, shit, is that all? Thank you.”

Ryan got his picture in the paper when he served a rock group with a summons during their performance at the Masonic Temple Auditorium. He didn’t do it as a stunt. It was the only way he saw to get close to them. The lead-in to the picture caption said “Show Stopper!” Rita had the newspaper photo blown up in a photostat and mounted and hung it in Ryan’s living room. He showed a nice amount of poise there on the stage in front of the rock group, the freaks gaping at him, the paper extended, and the calm, deadpan expression on his face. Ryan liked the blowup. He would never have thought of hanging something like that in his living room.

The only things he didn’t like about the paper-serving business were evictions and repossessions. Kicking people out of their home was awful. Getting ten bucks a room for the job and usually having to bring boxes for all their pitiful junk. Going in and taking a color TV or a chrome and Formica dinette set was bad enough. He couldn’t get used to it, sticking it to some poor cluck who’d been laid off and was behind on his payments.

“He shouldn’t have bought the item in the first place,” Jay Walt said. “Who’s supposed to eat it, the bank? The store? No, they’d be out of business carrying deadbeats. They got no choice in the final analysis but go to court.”

Jay Walt ran a collection agency now with a high turnover of personnel; he still served some paper, but more as a sideline. Ryan had got to know him, picking up some of his paper work for a split of the fee when Jay Walt was overloaded and Ryan didn’t have much to do. In a way, Jay Walt fascinated him; it was like the guy was playing a part, the little hotshot in his tinted glasses and leisure suit. Everything was a big deal, but the guy never paid an invoice sooner than ninety days. Ryan figured he was so tight with a buck he must still have his bar mitzvah money. Ryan didn’t know he was being a smart-ass when he thought this; he believed he was being funny. He didn’t own a leisure suit and hadn’t gotten a dime when he made his first communion.

One time Jay Walt took Ryan along to show him how to handle a repossession. With them were two outside men who waited by the U-haul van and would do the lifting once Jay Walt cleared the way. Unbelievable. He walked right in, brushed past the woman in hair curlers who opened the door, and started looking around, hands on his hips, locating the stereo outfit and the color TV, where the little kid was sitting on the floor with a bowl of Spaghetti-Os watching General Hospital. The woman was asking Jay Walt who he was, what he wanted. Jay Walt said, “Honey, all the times we’ve talked on the phone, we’re old friends. Allied Credit Service, Mr. Walt. Yeah, now you remember.”

The husband came out from the kitchen wiping his hands on his T-shirt. Jay Walt didn’t give him a chance.

“What’s this, you’re on your vacation? Taking a holiday? Your wife said you were working.”

“What? I’m working,” the husband said. “Over at Ranco, second shift.” He was anxious, on the defensive in his own home, not even knowing what was going on.

“So how come you haven’t made any payments?”

“For what?”

“For what? The home entertainment center. Hi-fi, speakers, nineteen-inch color TV. You’re four payments behind. I told your wife, I didn’t get it last week, on my desk, attention Mr. Walt, that’s it, you don’t own it anymore.”

“See, I’ve only been working the past two weeks.”

“You get paid?”

“We had some bills piling up. Specially doctor bills.”

“You got some bills-what am I, at the end of the line? Screw Mr. Walt, huh?”

“We had to pay the doctor. Stevie’s got this allergy they found out about-”

“Hey,” Jay Walt said. “I’m allergic too. I break out when somebody gives me the runaround, when they lie to my face, tell me they refuse to meet a contractual obligation.”

“Nobody lied to you. See, I was laid off, I was out five months, drawing just unemployment. What am I supposed to do?”

“You turn the music off and the TV?” Jay Walt asked. “No, you stop paying, but you keep entertaining yourselves.” He looked over at Ryan by the door. “Tell them okay.”

Ryan didn’t know what he meant at first. The two guys outside. He felt funny motioning to them, like he was part of this.

As they came through the door, Jay Walt said, “The TV, the home entertainment setup, the йtagиre, everything.”

“The what?” one of the outside men said.

“The fake shelves.”

“Now wait a minute,” the husband said, getting a little something into it; but he didn’t move from where he was standing.

“Wait your ass,” Jay Walt said. “Waiting time’s over. Come on, get this crap out of here.”

One of the outside men unplugged the TV. General Hospital disappeared and the little kid on the floor started to whine, making a sound like he was going to cry.

“They drop that TV on the kid, it’s not our fault,” Jay Walt said. “Get him out of the way.” The mother yelled at the little boy, grabbed him, and marched the bewildered kid out of the room. She had to take it out on somebody.

Jay Walt said to the husband, “I was going to give you another month, you know that? But you blew it, give me that shit about the doctor.”