She could smell me, couldn't she?

I don’t mean to brag,  but my hometown has what appeared to me, yesterday, to be the cleanest and most organized landfill ever in the entire world.  At least from inside the truck.

I’d taken the day off and driven home because, ironically, I’d not managed to make it there on Sunday for Nana’s cooking. I intended on staying an hour at most, a quick lunch, a few updates, etc. but instead, I found myself at the landfill.

Here’s how it happened. I was making myself a sandwich from porkchop leftovers.  Nana and U.L. were under the carport cleaning.  I have never understood their timelines. They’re brother and sister, next-door neighbors, wonderful and ornery and strict and loving, and dedicated to cleaning. On some calendar, somewhere, yesterday, at exactly the hour I was to come home, was Carport Cleaning Day. (In a side note, I still secretly relish that they continue to refer to garages, etc. as carports – sounds rather space age-y – which they are not).

I’d come in the back door, and made my sandwich, and they were cleaning without issue, until they recognized me. And though not a word was said, heavy sighs were suddenly heard. Yes, all of a sudden, the very idea that “they” had to be the ones cleaning the carport became an absurd idea, one filed under “I” for: The Implication That They Had To Do It Because No One Else Had Offered To Do It Yet.

I finished my sandwich first.

And then went outside to offer assistance…which they would have none of. No, no. I shouldn’t have to get down on my hands and knees and scoop this filth into garbage bags and haul it off to the landfill. They could do it, it was good for the “arthers.”

Fifteen minutes later, I’m heading to the landfill. (I really didn’t mind.  I love being useful, and yes, even my family).

The landfill was quite a learning experience. It was far neater than I’d expected it to be, again from inside the truck, and searching far back into the corners of my memory, though I couldn’t recall ever having visited this mysterious and lethal place (like the metal pile; that was lethal-looking), I did seem to recall two former classmates, one named Brad and another named James who had stolen away in the middle of the night on their four-wheelers to dirt ride at the back of the landfill (we’re a small town, and so there is unused space at the landfill, still, just for your FYI), and I recalled how two things had happened: 1) James threw up immediately, and 2) they both swore they saw devil worshippers with some of Bear’s chickens…who else had chickens except Bear?…making sacrifices of their wrung necks on the back dune.

Now, I have no congress with devil worshippers, (though it excites me to think about having been such a witness), but as for throwing up?  Yes.  Because let me tell you, landfills can look neat when the windows are rolled up, but there is no smell on this green earth that can compare to that of one.

I do not possess a large enough vocabulary to even describe it.  I suppose, to suffice, you should just try to think of all the things you’ve ever smelled, and then pretend they’re wet, and then, every baby diaper you’ve seen in action, plus seeing kids eat their boogers plus watching pets vomit and then trying to eat it, and not succeeding and then having to clean it up and then brussel sprouts. Oh, and sour milk.

And even still, that is not even remotely close to being how bad it really is.

I was astounded that people could even work at this level of putridness. I tried every trick in the book to make it ok that I was, in the middle of my yesterday, standing on top of god knows how much disgusting bleck, dragging more crap out of the back of a pickup truck, and adding to the pile.

However, I have never gotten so much good arm exercise in my life. I bet I set a record for shotput distance, at that landfill. U.L. says he’s never seen a rusted iron headboard or broom fly so far, and those were just two of the items we were disposing.  There were many more things to be thrown some distance away from the truck.

And, your adrenaline isn’t allowed to slow down, one millisecond. There are hidden men on bulldozers, standing at guard, waiting to push your unwanteds deep within the mounds of ick.  Their motors are loud and intimidating, and a couple of times, I swear, one of the men revved his engine to keep me motivated.  And it worked…oh sure, I could outrun the damn thing, but we were in a landfill…who would want to.

Several times I almost had to put my hand to my mouth to hold my sandwich back, but then, I’d stop because it just felt wrong…not to vomit, but to touch myself. I tried to go green, right there and then…I tried to say: Kris, there’s good fertilizer here, there’s good methane gas or nitrogen gas, some gas, surely, being released into the atmosphere, etc. etc. This is what green feels like, Kris, I told myself; this is a good thing you’re doing.

I have no idea if any of that is correct, but it helped until I started thinking of rainy days; where does the runoff from this mecca of milked mediocrity go?  U.L. wanted to rake the truck bed out when we’d unloaded it, but I couldn’t take anymore. Just the idea of tainted water was enough…ooh, taint, even…it was too much.  No, for me the trip was done, over.

Thank god, I’d left the air on in the truck.

Also, the entire trip cost us $2.  That’s another thing I learned. You have to pay to visit the landfill. Just because it’s crap you’re trying to get rid of doesn’t mean it can’t still turn a profit for someone.  We had a tenth of a ton of trash, according to the weigh-in, to unload.  They weigh you on a large scale before you can even enter the landfill.  True enough, I was amazed that we’d somehow collected a tenth of a ton of garbage, and just under the carport…how much more was crowding our lives in the actual house…

But, really, after that one thought, which I’m sure any one of us would have on our way to a landfill, it all goes downhill…and literally.

And even though I enjoy new experiences (fresh wasn’t a term I could apply to this one), I was still eager, as I ever am, to get home and take a shower.

Then, I remembered I had an overdue library book (which is something of a detriment to encouraging people to read) and a check to deposit…it was a little before 2:00 PM when I got back to town, the bewitching hour for banking, so I bravely chose to go to the bank first, stink and all.

I drove up to the window, rolled mine down, and taped to theirs was a sign that said: Speakers don’t work. Sorry.

Somehow, I was grateful for this reprieve until the white woman behind the window displayed a tic in the upper edge of her lip. It was slight, it was quick, but it was noticed. I cringed. She could smell me, couldn’t she? I’d have to detox the entire car. A shower wasn’t going to be enough. I turned back to stare at the steering wheel, but a small movement caught my eye. I turned back and now there were two women, chatting.

She was telling her bouffant of a friend, I just knew it.

This must be what homeless people feel like: assumed and misunderstood. I naturally started to panic about the most ridiculous thing – what if she were having a stroke?  How could I tell her the S-T-R steps? I could hardly get her to Say her name and give her address if the speakers were broken. I just wanted to go home. 

The other woman left, my teller pulled out a piece of Trident gum and without touching it, dropped it into her mouth, laid the wrapper on the desk in front of her; this was her routine and I’d long ago supposed she did that because her fingers touch money all day.  The deposit was made; bizarre sign language was exchanged (I knew how to say “thank you” in ASL but was afraid she’d think I was blowing her a kiss), and I started to drive around the corner when Old Asian Man, who is forever crossing streets when you least expect him to with his Diet Dr. Peppers, stepped out from behind a shrub and crossed the street in front of me. I nearly ran him over.

I finally made it to the stop light and thought, I’d seen her chew that gum world without end each time I came to make a deposit, and I’d seen his Diet Dr. Peppers on more than one jaywalking occasion, but I’d never given them any particular notice before. Of course, I’d never been knee-deep in a landfill before either forced to notice so much…given my earlier circumstances, I felt I had a new take on life: They were those things, weren’t they? Aren’t they? Our “things” are just as much extensions of us as our arms are. The catch is these “things” are removable, and disposable.

…so, maybe, in the end, it’s not about being male or female, or white or Asian, or anything…no, when it’s all said and done, we are what we leave behind. And if I were to sneak into white bank teller’s house or Old Asian Man’s (which I’m not going to), I wonder what their trash would tell me. Trident and Diet Dr. Pepper imply good teeth and health consciousness, but would the rest of their lives? 

Would mine?

Or am I destined to be an unwanted collection of “things”: food products, gum wrappers, aspirin bottles, impulsive things that only served a single purpose, or stagnant things, like paintings, that must be hanged to live, so to speak?

Such death in the everyday, every thing we touch, it seems. 

Or am I just waiting to be underfoot of some other young man, who, one afternoon, is “sighed” into helping his family clean out a carport?  I hope I’ll be worth more than gum and soft drinks and an old rusted, iron headboard, if that’s the case. 

But if not, I just hope whatever I leave behind will have a good story to tell.

Because good stories aren’t trash. Good stories aren’t ever really thrown away.

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