Garbageman

Note: another experiment that I am still tinkering with. Thoughts?

*

The summer heat was not a heavy blanket over the town yet when the garbage truck came down the street. In the neighbourhood where Mr. Davis had his home, the truck began its Tuesdays and Thursdays with multiple stops and blasts of an air horn that woke him up long before the vehicle appeared at the front of his driveway with a kid hanging off the back in an orange-yellow day-glow vest. Usually, Davis would begin his working day at seven with a cup of coffee, an open laptop, and all the time in the world (his wife had her own half of the house and the kids knew how to take care of themselves by the time they got to high school). He had a lot of money to move around and did not want to have his head shaken open after his tight eight hours and espresso. But every Tuesday and Thursday, always at six…

“Hey, you!”

The kid barely noticed the man in the silk housecoat stumbling up his own driveway to complain. Davis noted the multiple ear and nose rings and tattoo on the neck (nice dragon, he thought). He was pressing buttons on some sort of attachment, flexing his muscles and balancing on a step near the main compactor.

“What?”

“You! All of you! You guys keep waking me up with that horn and all this other noise. Every morning, it’s the same thing. Why do you have to do this so early?”

The kid, staring at the man who walked up past a new Volvo, thought that his question was very odd.

“Sir, we do this every week because we have to. The horn’s to remind people to bring out their trash if they forget…”

Mr. Davis barely heard a word.

“But there’s so much noise every other day…”

“Tuesdays and Thursdays only, sir.” The kid smiled, and Mr. Davis noted the metal in the top half of his mouth, silver and gold flashing in the sunlight. The truck was now halted and he could see that the kid was almost falling off the vehicle. “Sorry about all this…”

The driver was beginning to honk. They could both see the older man in an old baseball hat looking into one of the large rear-view mirrors on the side gesturing and wondering why his day was going this way.

“Okay, okay… I know that it is only two days in the week, but still…you guys are pretty loud. I have kids here.”

The kid frowned.

“They can sleep through most things and don’t even know when you guys pass by. It’s just really annoying…”

The driver was still staring hard at them.

“All right, we’ll see what we can do. I promise.”

Mr. Davis, a man who worked with money and its management, thought that he had made an interesting deal for his peace of mind.

“Great! I…well, thanks…”

“No problem, sir.” The kid pressed another button on the device and the truck moved ahead to his neighbours (how did they manage to sleep through all of this?) Mr. Davis saw the kid jump down, grab two green Hefty bags and toss them into the compactor in a very smooth ballet-like motion and had to smile at this. At least some people have a talent for something. He walked back down the driveway, ignoring the stench now lingering by his Volvo. Was there any more coffee?

*

At least the Thursday that week was quiet. Apparently, Mr. Davis was successful in his little chat with that sanitation kid. There was no air horn, no loud noises on the street when he woke up at his scheduled hour and began work with his figures. The kids were still asleep and his wife was keeping to herself (a miracle?), so what could go wrong?

He decided to look outside.

It was growing warmer every day that month, so the odor was the first thing that hit him as he opened his window for what he thought would be fresh air. A swarm of flies, touched by his interest, covered the screened window as he stared down the road.

How did so much garbage end up on the street?

From the window, Mr. Davis could see that he was not the only one quite shocked by the scene around him. Endless bags of garbage were strewn on sidewalks; some even ended up on their narrow stretch of road. Seagulls and pigeons were stuffing themselves out of one particularly overstressed bag and…was that a raccoon?

Did he really have to go outside?

He opened the door, noting how the smell grew even worse, and walked up. The garbage he told his kids to put out was still there, undamaged and ready for a pick up. His neighbours? Not so much.

“It’s like Satan’s anus out here!”

It was an interesting image for Ms. Landry to paint. She was their neighbour across the street, retired for a year now after many decades of teaching at Mr. Davis’ old elementary school (he moved here before knowing about her private life). They were friendly with each other, when they had to be, and this was what many might call a bonding moment.

“Morning, Ms. L.”

“Ms. Landry to you, Daniel! Are you seeing all of this?” Her bags seemed to be ripped open right on her pathway. “Not really a good morning at all, is it?”

“I noticed…”

“Yes, well, someone is going to notice this tonight. The whole street looks like hell. Why would anyone do this?”

He had an answer, but kept it to himself.

“Maybe they decided to go on strike?”

Ms. Landry had the same poise and charm that she had from the days when she took Davis to the board and made him write out lines.

“Strike? Try thinking for once. Strikers don’t do this without a team behind them. There aren’t any scabs around. And they needed time for this?”

All that from a pile of garbage… Davis was impressed by her logic.

“Yeah, fair points…”

She tightened her blue terrycloth housecoat and stared at a fight between two seagulls. They had found a French fry they both wanted.

“Tell you this… Whoever’s responsible, their head is going to be on a pike…or spike…by the end of the month. So worthless…”

She walked back into the house. Mr. Davis wanted more coffee.

*

The weekend came and went without making things better. The town council met and decided that they would bring in volunteers to clean up the road. Then, it was discovered that no one wanted to volunteer to pick up garbage both loose and free-flowing up and down their streets. A stipend was offered to anyone above the age of eighteen who took time after work to clean up. A few brave souls did step forward, but soon it was obvious that this was going to be a bigger job than anyone could imagine. For one thing, they did not stop taking trash out of their homes. Many residents also decided that they did not need to make a distinction between their regular garbage and the recycling (the extra trucks were unneeded and unused). And the days grew hotter, smellier, and more rodent and scavenger-friendly.

Mr. Davis did not attend the town councils. He would watch the proceedings online and look for the face of the kid who picked up the garbage and operated the compactor. Not a sign of him there or the driver - maybe they were private contractors? He could keep his windows closed and use his AC to keep the place cool, but the rest of the family was not so resourceful. The kids, like most of their friends, drove to school and work or got rides, but they hated having to clean up the guano on their vehicles every morning. His wife, usually a quiet disturbance, now made vocal her thought that he should be actively involved in fixing this.

“Me… You want me to go out there and start gathering trash?”

“That isn’t what I said. I mean, you have some influence in this dump and can get someone to help out. You know people, right?”

“I know people in finance, Clare. That’s it. Not many sanitation workers or experts on hunting raccoons.”

They would have both laughed at that, except the raccoons had now taken over their front yard and were threatening the backyard as well. Davis now parked his car inside and put out their trash when the coast was clear (another difficulty; he never knew when those things slept).

“There has to be something with municipal government…”

“Right, municipal. The other governments aren’t going touch this. No one wants to send in the army to clean up garbage, and we have a budget that needs to be followed.” Daniel handled some of the budgetary work for the city and knew this to be true.

Clare, a woman who ran her own business from her side of the house, sat down in the kitchen like a deflated balloon.

“This is going to go on all summer.”

Daniel knew this truth, but he still wanted to ignore it.

“All summer…”

A plan was beginning to form.

*

They had the money, so why not? Mr. Davis had not taken his family on a vacation for many years, so a trip out of town was a surprise, and a gift. His son, back from his sixth year at college, wanted to head out to a very quiet beach. His daughter, taking time off from being an influencer and background model, demanded Europe, preferably somewhere south and expensive. His wife, after retching too many times over the maggot problem in the front yard, just wanted fresh air. So, as Daniel understood it, they all wanted to get away.

Yes, we are all going to get away. We are getting away for a very long time. What he did not tell the family was that he had planned to do a little house hunting while on this trip. The beach won out, but that was for the family. His would be a working vacation. There was a beautiful strip of property facing a lake that he knew would be available all summer. Lilac Cove. He had read several papers and statements on how the previous owners just wanted to unload it and not have to bother with the upkeep. Yes, it was a cottage, but with a little work it could be more; it could be so much for so little…

It was going to be an interesting vacation.

*

His daughter was the first to notice it. The drive in the woods had been quite peaceful. In the SUV, Daniel could play the radio while all the others were listening to music on their cell phones (thank goodness for big tech), and his wife nodded off and rested on his shoulder during the two-hour drive. And it was a beautiful trip. It really seemed as if the road was all set for them. As Daniel pulled into a small gas station, he wondered why this was so. The clerk smiled as he stepped inside.

“Good afternoon…”

“Afternoon.” Mr. Davis put some food on the counter and passed some twenties to the woman at the cash. “This is a very quiet place.”

“Oh, yes.” The woman, at least in her forties, was smiling at something private, Daniel thought. “This is not the most popular place for vacations.”

“Oh, I’m surprised by that. It seems like this place would be ideal for it.”

She kept smiling. He finally noticed the nametag – a lanyard dangling noticeably on her heavy cleavage – and wondered why Margaret was so happy.

“You don’t know about it, do you, sir?”

“Excuse me?”

“That cabin. Up by the water.”

Davis wondered if someone very powerful and cruel was laughing at him.

“Lilac Cove?”

“Oh, I have not heard that name in such a while. But yeah, that is it. Not a very pleasant place now.”

He was glad the others were waiting in the car.

“Well, thank you. Please, keep the change.”

“Oh! Well, thank you very much. Please take care of yourself.”

“Right, right…”

And he drove off down the rising and falling highway into a nightmare.

His daughter noticed it first.

She almost fell out of the car when Davis turned off the automatic locking system and said they were here. The door opened and, while staring at her phone the whole time, she flipped right over a garbage bag. Daniel heard the scream and ran with his wife to the other side of the car to see his daughter struggling to pull herself up from several over-stressed black bags. Someone had decided to pile them up behind the already-full cans and set them up as a small pyramid hidden behind some bushes (another reason he did not see it, Daniel thought). The odor only hit them after they realized what they were facing.

“Oh, my god.”

“Daddy…”

“Have a nice trip?”

His wife enjoyed that slap - his son deserved it - and he helped his daughter up with a quick pull and hop backwards.

“Where’s my phone?”

He found it, right on top of a garbage can lid that mercifully stayed undisturbed.

“Here, honey.”

She was still wiping down tears as they began to look through the car for their first-aid kit for their daughter (it was just a slight scratch, but…). And they had a look around.

It was when they stepped past the wall of garbage leading to house that Mr. Davis noticed the note sticky-tacked to the front door. No one wanted to go up past the shifting black bags and possibly face another rat or raccoon. He saw that it had been written very quickly by someone with a lot of anger in mind:

Thanks a lot, DD. We know why this whole thing started and you are not going to get away from this by hiding out in the country. We have proof that you are the one who let all this garbage ruin our town.

OUR TOWN!

All you did was take something beautiful and wreck it because you did not like the noise of honest work and honest people doing something that did involve playing with money.

DON’T COME BACK! WE KNOW WHERE YOU LIVE!

It took him a moment to decide what to do next. His son stared at him. His wife put down her bags. His daughter took a photo of the house.

And he knew what he had to do.

Mr. Daniel Davis, talented money manager and successful businessman, leapt into a heap of garbage bags and just rested there as his family screamed and begged him to get up. But he could not hear them as he sank into the filth. He was much more concerned about where he could get a nose piercing and tattoos (maybe a nice dragon).

*

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