Waste
She was awake. There was a moment of stifling confusion as she tried to remember. She banged and beat the metal sides of the world with feet and fists. She quieted as she heard a voice beyond the darkness. Something squeaked, metal on metal, and a bar of dazzling light appeared above her.
“Hey Poppy, it’s you! How’re ya doin’?” he asked. He sounded happy to see her.
She sat up quickly and shaded her eyes with a forearm as the lid was lifted to a vertical position and then thrown backwards, hitting something hard with a clang. “What am I doing here? How did I get here? I don’t remember….” Her voice sounded crackly and gruff through chapped lips and a dry throat not used to speech.
“Nah, you never do, girl! This is Kirksville, Kirksville Missouri. Haven’t seen you for a year.” He raised up on the squared tips of his boots, gripping the rim of the medium-sized blue dumpster, and leaned over as far as he could, scanning her space. “Nothing here — you are good at finding the empties to sleep in.”
“Maybe they find me,” she said. She stood with a slight wobble and looked down at her legs. She stretched out her arms. She was covered by smelly, grimy, stained and torn clothing, perhaps more than one layer.
“Nice Nikes, Poppy. Where’d you find ‘em?” He rocked back on his heels and reached out a hand to help her climb out.
“I … I don’t….”
“You don’t remember, I know.” He braced one rubber-sole against the outside of the blue dumpster and pulled rearward as she grasped his hand.
She jumped and propelled herself with one step against the dirty rusty metal, then used his strength to haul herself up and over the edge. She landed flat-footed, in a squat, then sprang to an upright position. “I’ve done that before….”
“Many times, girl. It’s stored in your cerebellum … motor memory encoding. Different from your temporal memory, which you ain’t got.”
She studied him, tilting her head slightly. He was pale and of medium height, with long stingy brown hair and a full beard. He wore pants that were blotched with several shades of green, an olive-drab t-shirt, and laced black boots. “Who are you?” she asked.
“I’m Nat, we hooked up last year. No, not like girlfriend-boyfriend … I don’t take advantage that way. I’m a Freegen by necessity — can’t pay back those student loans, and who gives a fuck anyhow? We went dumpster diving together — moved all around this area. Then you disappeared.”
“My name is Poppy?” she asked in almost a whisper, rotating her head this way and that, staring up and down the alley they stood in, studying the backs of the dingy brick buildings that hemmed them in. She took a deep breath of air; acrid though it was with the smell of refuse and human waste, there was a freshness, a cool and pleasant undercurrent. “When is this?” she asked him.
“This is April-something, the fifteenth I think, and the year is 2007. And that’s the name I gave you. So, that’s your name,” he asserted, nodding, folding his arms across his chest.
“Spring,” she said loudly, sounding like a little girl who had just discovered a beautiful flower.
“Yes, spring. Exactly what you said last year, too.” His smile stretched inside his beard. “You are my Primavera, Poppy, you arise from the garbage dumpster like Aphrodite from her half-shell. Your promise is always new, vacuous, tantalizing us with the hope that this time, this reality, it will be different and our lives won’t lead inevitably to fall decay and winter death.”
“Huh?” she said as she gazed at him, her ginger hair wild and chopped off in sections, her strawberry blonde eyebrows perfect arches, her blue irises obscured now and again by a thick fringe of blinking russet lashes.
“I’ll try and take care of you this time, Poppy, and not let you get lost again,” he said, reaching out his fingers, inviting her to join him.
She knocked and pounded with her bare knuckles on the underside of something scaly and metallic that closed her in. She tried to rise to her feet and straighten but the back of her head thudded against a sharp and hard surface. She couldn’t get any traction — her shoes slipped and slid. She felt like she was suffocating; the space was becoming warmer and warmer by the minute, and the odor was so powerfully foul and pungent it felt like knives were cutting into her nose and lungs. She resisted the urge to start screaming.
There was a clanking sound, then a squealing, then daylight and clean air swooped in as the covering that trapped her was lifted away and propped in a open position like a slack jaw.
“Hey look, it’s Sunny,” a woman’s voice shouted.
Brown hands reached for her, two more people jumped into her box with her. A girl and a man helped hoist her, while the hands gave her the leverage she needed to vault her way out and clear her prison, descending perfectly to the ground.
She came to an upright position, stared down at her baggy pants, stretched out her arms and noted with alarm that her bare skin below her elbows was scratched and bleeding. “Where am I, what was I doing in there?” she asked the stout brown-skinned woman who approached her and gave her a hug.
“You’re Sunny. You get yourself in one of those things and you never remember how to get out again,” she said, laughing loudly. “We were just diving for some breakfast, care to join us, honey?”
The teen girl and older man had clambered out of the green dumpster and they each also gave her a quick embrace. She felt sad and empty at this display of affection — she had no recollection of who these people were, or why they seemed to care about her.
The yellow-haired girl patted her on the back. “Poor Sunny, you never remember anything. But we love ya, anyway! Welcome to South Bend, Indiana … again,” she said, and giggled. “I’m Deedee, and that’s Guy and that’s Wanda.”
The man put a finger to his lips, “Hush, people … the stores are opening up in a few, we need to hurry….”
She noted that they were in a grassy and weed-choked area behind an expansive red-brick wall, and there were several chalky-green garbage containers exactly like the one she’d been inside, all in a row. “When is this,” she asked.
“July twenty-second, 2005,” the large woman answered. She was wearing sweat pants and a long-sleeved top and carried a cloth grocery sack. “You’re always welcome to join us, sweetie,” she said, “but we have to get a move on. The gang-bangers and trash-pickers and junkie scroungers are only in it to find stuff they can sell, not like us, because they need to eat. They don’t like the competition.”
“But we know what we’re doing, don’t worry,” the man said as he gave her his paper bag with the string handles. “Here, you can use mine.”
She stared at them all, her eyes wide, her mouth partly open. “I wish I could remember you….” she started to say, but they all laughed and slapped her shoulders and said, “oh phew,” and, “don’t worry about that,” and, “we’re just glad you’re okay.”
“It’s not summer unless Sunny’s back,” the woman said with a warm smile. “I’ll try to look out for you this time, honey. You can stay with me — got a good place this time — more abandoned and foreclosed buildings than ever around here.”
She heaved with all her strength, and the top of the universe flew up and swung with a loud scraping and ringing sound behind her. She stood in place and took little steps, with her left then right leg, sinking into something oozing and squishy. A squall of cutting rain carried on a cold wind blasted her face. There was a dull glow coming from above that illuminated the place around her, casting a jumble of shadows. In the dark distance she could make out yellow globes of light guarding what appeared to be doorways. Was this a street? She wrapped her arms around herself as tightly as she could, her threadbare and damp jacket not protection enough from the swirling storm.
Out of the corners of her eyes, she thought she saw two figures materialize from her right. They drew closer and closer; two young men with their heads hooded and their bodies swathed in parkas. A round flash popped on in front of one of them, and a beam of brightness blinded her as it targeted her face. She winced, turned away, still hugging herself for warmth.
“Hey look, it’s Rusty,” a male voice shouted. “Rusty, don’t be afraid, it’s us, Pete and Kareem. We’re coming, lady, we’ll get you out of there.”
They seemed very excited and pleased to see her. They had some trouble getting a hold of her, between the rain and the sliminess that coated her clothing, but within minutes had aided her in hopping onto the lip of the front side of the dumpster. Then with each supporting her under a shoulder, they steadied her as she floated down to the gravel like a ballerina between two partners.
They continued to hold her as each spoke rapidly in turn, “We were wondering what happened to you,” and, “we’re glad you’re okay,” and, “Kingston wasn’t the same without you.”
She didn’t feel threatened by them, and didn’t try and stop them from holding each of her arms. “Kingston? Where is that?” she asked.
The one in the red parka laughed, throwing back his face for a moment so the rain hit his glasses, “Kingston, Tennessee, on the Clinch River. We’re a revolutionary bunch here, in God’s own America.”
The other, in blue, said excitedly, “The group loves you, Rusty. You’re one of us. The post-consumer urban-harvesters. We reject all the constraints of modern life. No money, no taxes, no rules except those of the humane and Christian in spirit. We live by kindness of heart off the fat of the bloated American landscape.”
“What day is this,” she asked, her words slurred from shivering. She didn’t really understand anything Pete or Kareem had said, but felt comforted to know there were people who wanted her.
“It’s November fourteenth, 2008. Come on, we’ll get you somewhere warm and dry and you can wash off and get some new clothes — we found some great stuff outside of a Wal-Mart in Knoxville last week.”
Blackness, freezing and soundless — her body ached and she could barely make her limbs move. Panic overtook her thoughts as she tried to push and shove against the slab that shrouded her overhead. She lashed out and thrashed with all her strength at everything around her, thudding against steel walls with her mittened hands, throwing unseen objects that came within her reach, kicking with the pointed toes or stacked heels of her boots. “Help me, help, help me,” she screamed. Her pleas echoed, bouncing back at her harshly. After a time — she didn’t know how long — she sank into a tight fetal position, grasping her bent legs and burying her forehead on the torn and dirty fabric covering her knees. The terror of emptiness, of helplessness, engulfed her.
Something was striking the walls that trapped her. She could definitely hear yelling. The sounds of a hard object rhythmically beating on the blankness over her head became more distinct. She rose to her knees, “Help me, I’m in here, I don’t know where I am,” she shouted as forcefully as she could.
In a short time, the void gave way to a glowing glare of snowy whiteness. Four faces peered over the edge of the container, looking down at her. They were swathed in brightly colored hats, and scarves that covered their chins. “Oh fucking shit,” one of them said, his breath steaming. “It’s Angel. We found Angel.”
In moments, two tall and lithe young men had jumped inside the dumpster with her, skidding a little on the frozen contents beneath their feet. “Angel it’s us, Fish and Steven. Don’t be afraid,” the darker of the two said.
The other took her shoulders and guided her upright. “She don’t remember anything, remember?” he said. “Angel, it’s me, Steven. Welcome back to Detroit! The old gang has missed you, baby. You’re our angel, our lucky Christmas angel.”
Still peering over the top, two young women — their gloves clutching the brightly painted dumpster’s narrow front ledge — bounced up and down with joy. “It’s Angel, she’s back,” and, “our lucky star is here,” and, “we were so worried about you,” they said.
“2010 is going to be a good year,” the one called Fish pronounced, his words turning into mist in front of her eyes. “Let’s get you out of here, baby. Don’t worry, we’ll take care of you. You don’t have to turn tricks, or steal, or do nothin’ bad. We look after each other because nobody wants us, nobody cares about us. You’re special, like a gift from God. We’ll take care of you, Angel, you’ll be okay.”
