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—Couple that's been together as long as you two, guess you must have to resort to the rough stuff. Me and the missus, we can mostly get by with a little dirty talk and Kama Sutra Oil.

I fell onto the couch, put my feet up on the arm and opened my magazine.

—Yeah, but you guys are pretty much newlyweds compared to us. I mean, me and Chev, we've been together like over twenty years, like since we were five or so. You guys been married how long?

—Hardly thirteen years, man. Like yesterday.

Chev lit a fresh cigarette.

—Don't listen to that fag, Po Sin, he's always creeping in my room at night, but he never gets any.

I turned a page.

—True, he is a bit of a tease.

Po Sin nodded and moved from the door, came to the middle of the shop and occupied it.

—Well, that's enough fagging around for me. You got your canister?

Chev started cleaning up the paper towels and bloody swabs from the nipple piercing, and jerked his head at me.

—Go get the can.

—Fuck you. 'M I your slave?

He stuffed the garbage into a red biohazard bag and pulled the sealed plastic magazine from the sharps disposal on the wall.

—You're my burden. You're my cross. My goddamned albatross and you haven't paid rent in two months and I fed you this morning, again, and you abused another one of my clients today and you can get off your ass and go get the can or get the fuck out and go look for a job.

I threw the magazine on the couch and pushed myself up and made for the back of the store.

—Your wife rag like this, Po Sin?

He shook his head.

—My lady, she beams messages to me through her eyes. She don't got to rag on me.

—Lucky man.

—So says you.

I went in the back of the shop and got the red biowaste canister and brought it out front. Chev handed me the bag he was holding. I went to drop it in the canister and a wad of bloody paper towels fell on the floor. I bent to pick them up.

—Not with your bare hands, not with your bare hands.

I looked at Po Sin.

—It's no big deal, it's just dry blood.

I grabbed the wad and dropped it in the canister with the rest of the waste.

He pulled at the waistband of his navy blue Dickies.

—Could have been a needle in the middle of that.

I slid him the canister.

—There wasn't.

—And you never know what's growing in blood. Living in it.

I showed him my hands.

—Too late now.

He looked at Chev and Chev shrugged. He shook his head and lifted the canister and considered.

—Ten pounds.

Chev shook his head.

—Eight, man, at the most.

Po Sin set the canister down.

—Got a scale handy?

—A scale? It look like I got a scale around here?

—Well, in the absence of a scale, I'm the expert. And the expert says this is ten pounds of biohazardous waste and at two bucks a pound you owe me twenty bucks.

Chev picked up the canister.

—Telling you, this is eight, tops. Sixteen bucks.

Po Sin adjusted his tiny oval wirerims with his thick stubby fingers.

—Chev, do we have a contract?

Chev scratched the stubble on the side of his head.

—No.

—So, I don't charge you a weekly rate, then, for picking this shit up, I don't charge you the same forty-nine fifty a week minimum I charge everyone else on my route. Is that right?

Chev looked at the ceiling.

—Yeah.

—I charge you a pound rate that I usually charge only to people that bring their own shit by and drop it off themselves, right?

Chev reached for the big leather wallet attached to his belt by a dangling steel chain.

—OK, OK.

—I mean, if I'm not doing you a solid here, if you'd rather do business in the manner of most of my clients, we can draw up a contract and I'll be here rain or shine on my appointed rounds every week and you can pay the pickup rate whether you have waste or not.

Chev opened the wallet and started pulling out bills.

—Got it. My bad.

—If you'd prefer that over, say busting my balls for the sake of four bucks, I can go out to the van and get the paperwork right now. That suit you?

Chev held out two tens.

—No, man, no, here, here it is, it's cool, my bad.

Po Sin reached out and pinched the bills between his thumb and forefinger and