Typical Day
Garry—known affectionately amongst his work buddies by the abbreviation “Gar”—Bidge reports to his designated garbage truck by 6:30 a.m. He pulls on the orange reflector vest and work boots, tucking his protective glasses into his pocket if he wants them for later.
The sun’s already peeking out, which Garry knows means it will be one of those airless, sticky-hot days. Literally sticky, as Garry reflect on the ten whole minutes (which felt like an eternity) that he spent yesterday scraping some sort of sticky goop off the edge of his truck, where it had melted.
“’Sup, Tre? How’s it goin’?” Garry says to his fellow garbage man, Tre Ash, who’ll be driving the truck. Garry drove yesterday.
“Oh, you know. Looks like it’s going to be a hot one,” Tre says, squinting directly into the sun.
“Yup.”
Garry and the other sanitation workers don’t talk much. It’s impossible to talk when they’re out in the streets, scrambling to cover as many houses as possible. So there doesn’t seem to be much point in talking before they head out, either.
Garry swings himself into the passenger seat, and Tre clambers to the driver’s seat. They don’t bother with the radio. If there’s not much point in talking, there’s not much point in music either.
They get through the first couple houses with relative ease. All the garbage bags are neatly tied up and an appropriate weight for lifting. One house has thrown out a baby rocker, but much to Garry’s shock, they took the time to dissemble it properly. He doesn’t even need to break up any pieces.
They turn off Spotless Street, thankful to all its considerate residents who made their job so easy. But as they turn onto Bilious Boulevard, Garry and Tre survey the situation with grim, taut faces. It doesn’t look good. Trash is spilling out of the bags, at one house exploding packing peanuts and at another seeping some pink liquid. (What makes liquid pink? Garry doesn’t want to know.)
“What is that?”
The normally stolid Tre is inching away from something on the ground. Garry dumps the bag he’s holding into the back of the truck, and joins Tre at his side.
“Ew, what is that?” Garry echoes to no one in particular.
Using one of the limbs he’d been cutting up, he prods the specimen. It’s black, possibly furry or just furry with mold, and a shape that Garry’s never really seen before in, well, in anything.
“Well,” Garry says, kneeling on the ground, “it’s dead.”
“If it was ever alive to begin with, you mean,” says Tre.
They look at each other. Whatever it is, it has to get in the truck. Somehow. Tre and Garry’s eyes have a conversation, no words needed, which goes something like this:
“You?”
“Me?”
“Yeah, you.”
“Hell no.”
“Well…who?”
“You.”
“Hell no.”
A car horn blasts. Someone waiting for the truck to move. The stalemate ends, with characteristically few words. Garry sighs, pulls his gloves a little tighter for reassurance, and reaches for the thing. Holding it as far from his face (nose, really), Garry silently prays that whatever it is isn’t diseased.
Tre gives Garry a reassuring, bro-y slap to the shoulder. “Come on, bud, let’s go.” Tre and Garry climb back into the truck, and Tre presses the button to start the automated compactor in the back. Things were getting full already, and they still had all the post-lunch houses to get through.
Lunch, of course, meant five minutes for each trash collector. Garry tackled 178 Bilious alone, while Tre ate. And then Tre took care of 182 Bilious while Garry wolfed his sandwich down.
The garbage truck winds its way through the streets. As the truck approaches 1033 Average Avenue, Garry and Tre get visibly excited. “
Do you think—,“ Tre begins.
“No—,” Garry interjects.
“You sure? Let’s make a bet.”
“There’s no way. No way.”
“Dude, it’s happened for the past six weeks.”
“Yeah, but like—after a while…”
Tre hops out of the truck, shouting over his shoulder: “You owe me a Snickers, if it’s there!”
Garry sighs and climbs out after him. As soon as his feet hit the pavement, Garry heard Tre say, “It’s here! Ha! You owe me a Snickers!”
Garry crowds around the trash can that Tre is rifling through.
“Where? I don’t see—"
“Here.”
Tre hands Garry the magazines. At first, Garry and Tre thought nothing of the provocative magazines that turned up in the trash. Until they saw the resident of the house one day: an older woman in her early eighties maybe, with a cane, a DIY arts and crafts sweater, and no husband or younger son in sight. Tre and Garry were gobsmacked.
Since then, it became a bit of a game for them. It was one of the few perks to the job. Another hour passes, and Tre and Garry head towards the refuse collection center, where all the trash they accumulated will get compacted, burned, buried, and otherwise “dealt with.”
“Hey, Tre.”
Tre looked up from inspecting the truck.
“Think fast!”
A Snickers went flying towards Tre’s head. He caught it, easy, and grinned.
“Thanks, man.”
“Hey, fair and square. Next week, though, next week I’ll even the score.”
“Yeah, sure you will. Bet you a Butterfingers?”
“Ha, we’ll see. See you tomorrow, Tre.”