“The Science of Garbage”

by Callie Browning (Barbados)

I does work the stretch from Bridgetown to Brixton, enough of a distance that I get to see some of everything. Not literally see since most of my job does happen in the dead in the night. But even in the dark, dealing with the garbage the world leaves behind, I become a scientist, an analyst of human behaviour. There ain’t much I don’t glean from trash, but I doubt you know how much you say to me with what you throw away.

My day starts when the tele-classifieds begin at two o’clock. My old lady leaves porridge on the table in a Thermos that looks like it make from one of those Scottish men kilts. Mumzy was keeping my drinks in that since I was born and as I get older I realise how special it is to have something so constant in my life.

Yeah, the flask old-fashioned and no amount of baking soda and vinegar my mother rub on the inside can’t get off them yellow stains, but I don’t believe in throwing ‘way things just so. Them stains add character. I feed Dipper, pat he big slobbery head, bathe and dress in the yard and go through the paling just in time to see Cephus coming up the gap in the Datsun 120Y.

All of this does happen before the roosters could even cock open them two eyes. Cephus is my man, even though we differ in a lot of ways. We weren’t business with books when we was at school, but we ain’t block boys rolling blunts under streetlights and calling weselves soldiers for no drug lord neither. That is a bunch of shite. Block boys wages literally go up in smoke ‘cause a white man would tell them to take a little kilo for themselves and hand them a bottle of brandy to drink. But block boys never got money to give them child mothers or help pay a bill in the family house. Jackasses.

Me and Cephus went to the constituency office straight outta school to ask for work. Them send we down to Sanitation and we was there since then. By the time we park in Sanitation’s yard, our driver, Barry, is already there so we move out the same time.

Drivers are the supervisors and from the time we started working at Sanitation, Barry say, “Sooner we leave, the sooner we back home drawing up under we women. Dem fellas picking up garbage in the hot sun gonna be too tired to sex them girls when they get back, but I old so I gotta conserve the little energy I got.”

Me and Cephus looked at one another and laughed, telling weselves that he just saying so to motivate we. Till the day we see this sweet light-skinned girl come to collect Barry and then we understood why we is always the first to leave the yard. Three of we sit up front in the cab when we leave the yard; no need to hang off the back like sloths until we get to the start of our route. Plus, it’s more fun to listen to Barry talk on the way down the road. Barry was collecting garbage for over forty years, so he always got a war story to tell.

Today, he talks about the time an outside man was running from he woman’s husband and escaped on the garbage truck. Barry say the man hop over a paling and grab onto the rails next to Barry in nothing but he bare boxers. Barry is in fits and can barely talk with all the tears running down he rummy cheeks. “If you see all the garbage juice splashing up on the man chest. Thing is… we just collected all the nasty chicken innards and old oil from the fry shop and the man boxers was in a state.”

Man, we laugh until we reach Bridgetown.

At the top of Broad Street, right in front of the old Mutual Building, me and Cephus get out to start collecting. We uncover the fancy bins plastered with big signs telling we to stop littering because garbage does run ‘way the tourists. Irony is that I read once that tourism does contribute some double-digit percentage of pollution to the island. I see them on the beach throwing cigarette butts in the water and leaving bottles on the sand.

All those ads on TV telling Bajans that tourism is our business, let’s play our part, but I never once see one telling tourists to play theirs. Inside those bins is mostly run-of-the-mill garbage: soda bottles, Kiss Cake wrappers and that kind of thing. I does hardly see apple cores or banana peels in there, definitely no leftover celery stalks. Probably why the diabetes rate so high and the island is the amputation capital of the world.

Maybe the government should put posters on the bins with one-foot people looking miserable in wheelchairs instead of smiling Bajans giving directions to tourists. Before long, Barry turns right and drives us out of town. In time, you learn the rhythm of the roads, the coordinates of each pothole and raised sewer grate and your body start to sway even before you get there. Soon, riding the back of the truck is like floating on a cloud.

Soon, another smell start to mix in with the garbage that would make you vomit if you don’t stick a menthol inhaler up your nose. Don’t get me wrong, we carrying rotting food and a cat somebody knocked down earlier, but that stench means we’re about to go through the Barracks.

Government calls out here “low income” to make it seem like these people make just a little less, but these people are straight-up poor. They hoarded shopping bags right before the plastic ban because them can’t afford to buy no black trash bags. So collections out here take longer since you got a thousand little small bags to pick up. Rats running like ants all over garbage piled as high as my head. Me and Cephus kick them away and grab bags by the twos and threes so we could finish fast. Every bag rings with a metallic clink: empty cans from tuna, corned beef and sardines banging together like church cymbals at Harvest. Drink crystal packets slip through the knots and fall into the road, the insides of the foil pack stained bright red or purple.

At year-end, this same corner going to be full all kinda things: ripped mattresses, big screen TV boxes, old fridges. Stuff they’ll want us to take away in one day otherwise they start cussing on the call-in programs about how the government doesn’t care about poor people. “Cephus, how you, sweetie?”

That is Darlene, a girl with the hots for Cephus since school. Every Tuesday, she sashays through the alley in a flimsy nightgown, nipples printing out and staring at we like two arrows. I suspect she squeezes them right before she walks through the door, same way she does take off the panty so we could see she ass cheeks clapping underneath.

“I good, Darlene. You going to the reunion next week?” She arch she back a little bit just-in-case Cephus can’t see her headlights on high-beam and coos, “You carrying me?” Cephus chuckles like a fool, he eyes glue on to Darlene chest and say, “Man, I going see what happen.” Darlene steupses.

“You always saying so. Guh long with you buck teeth woman. I ain’t got time for you.”

I hear Barry laughing as the compactor crushes everything we tossed in, pressing gallons of smelly garbage water onto the road, adding another coat to the old stains nobody seems to wash down after we leave.

Cephus ain’t respond, but I know him long enough to know that Darlene’s words bother him.

A little further up the gap, we stop by a small rum shop and we just about to roll the heavy metal cans toward the truck when two men step out of the shadows and put guns to our heads. Out of the corners of my eyes, I see more men lurking, their hands clutching machetes that look lethal even from that distance because of how the early morning light glints on the sharpened blades.

Now you might think this frightens me and Cephus, but the time for frighten long gone. We say “Morning”, unpack some of the garbage on top and leave enough to cover the tightly wrapped black bundles that sit on the bottom of each can. We put them back in place, big round spots of flattened mud surrounded by a whole bunch of overgrown grass. The first time these men jump we, I almost pissed myself. But these men ain’t interested in robbing we. Them just safeguarding them stash in case we get greedy.

Garbage is as good a place as any to hide drugs in case police raid the neighbourhood. Once the cans back in place, the guns are lowered and the men sit back down on overturned milk crates, nod and say “Yeah, brudda” as though putting nozzles to we head is the same as a handshake.

We hop on the truck and roll out. In a sick way, feeling that little buzz on mornings does make me feel like my job exciting, but ain’t no way I could ever tell my old lady about this. Mumzy cool and all, but she would come down here and slice up these men fine, fine, fine for doing this shite. For my one part, I say a little drama does keep a man on he toes and help he stay calm under pressure. But I still ain’t telling my mother; that is a little too much pressure.

We turn onto the highway, one of the best roads on the island. It’s so smooth that even when Barry changes the gears, the ride is slicker than okras and cornmeal cou cou ‘cause the truck don’t rattle the way it does on bumpy roads. We pass the big open stretch of beach where early sea bathers taking them time to warm up to that cold ass water. I watch them cup their hands together and splash salt water on their skin, trying to trick their bodies and lessen the icy shock of an ocean bathed in moonlight overnight. Salt air blows across the sand and right past us, carrying away the decaying reek of unwanted and expired things that follow us for most of our day.

Driving up the highway is the part I love best. That sweet sea breeze does make me feel like I is a man hanging onto the mizzen mast of my own yacht as I cruise up the Riviera with my wife and children, instead of gripping garbage-stained handrails next to Cephus. My imaginary family laughs as the wind whips our hair while we plan our next vacation as though the money and time for these things will always be there. The gears crunch and the truck slows down.

Brixton is a whole different vibe and we know it. To show you what I mean: one time, a black trash bag opened up and the land tax bill fell out. Cephus’ mouth hang open like a trap door when he come and show me this thing. My eyes get wide and I say, “Cephus, that can’t be right. This body paying more land tax than we does make in a whole year.”

We looked up at the house then, a pale yellow mansion with a three-car garage and a massive balcony just steps away from the white sand beach. Cephus was quiet for the rest of that day, mostly because I think he couldn’t wrap he mind around a man paying so much for the privilege to live in a place. Because that’s all land tax is; the cost of privilege. Land tax don’t put food in the fridge nor medicine in the cupboard.

Cephus struggles with these things more than me. He can’t understand a world where he wants a Benz but can’t afford it or that we does get good pay and the whole day to weselves. We ain’t got bosses shouting at we to meet quotas and deadlines. We set we own hours and live freer than most. We don’t spend half our pay at the gym because lifting those heavy cans does got our arms and back on fleek. Still, none of this stops Cephus from griping and living above his means. He never got money because that 120Y does drink gas and always breaking down.

In places like Brixton, he gets bitter, sifting through the people garbage and complaining.

“Not one plastic bottle…you imagine people so rich they got time to sort garbage?” he steupses as he throws in a single small bag. The homeowners in this area eat organic food and recycle and compost. Well…maybe not they themselves. Them got staff to do these things and the only time we see the homeowners is when they wave at we before they check them smart-watches and go jogging on the beach. It is people who look like we who bring outside small bags with barely any garbage that never seems to smell. To be honest, it is collecting these people rubbish that make me switch up how me and Mumzy does eat.

These people always look fresh like dew daisies unlike the people out by the sewage plant who skin always look dusty and dull. Outside of the obvious differences in air quality that come from living next to a sewage plant versus living next to the sea, I tell myself it had something to do with food. So my mother stop buying all of that canned stuff and we does eat more veggies, oats and sago. You know…old time thing. Since then, Mumzy arthritis improve and I sleeping better at night.

At the end of the road, I spot a little bicycle with streamers that flutter in the wind on top of a metal garbage bin. Barry and Cephus laugh because I collect these things, but I don’t care. I put it up front and go back to hauling the trash. By the time we finish Brixton, it ain’t even eight o’clock. We climb back in the cab and Barry says, “Perfect timing today. We going get to the dump before everybody and be home before office workers drink them first cup of coffee.”

As predicted, on the way home, Cephus leans back in the driver seat drinking a beer and wonders aloud how to get ‘way from he woman to carry Darlene to the reunion. All I could do is shake my head. When we get to my house, I say I’ll see him in the morning and to have a good night.

Knowing Cephus, he gonna sleep all day, party until it’s time for work, rinse and repeat that pattern every day for the rest of his life. The house is empty when I step inside. I bathe again, tidy up the kitchen and pack my cart to go to the corner. Barry and Cephus think I is some crazy garbage hoarder like Sanford, but I got my good sense. If I don’t find something good on the route, I wait until we off-load and peep around for treasures at the dump that I sell from a shed on a street corner that I don’t pay rent for.

The little pink bicycle from Brixton has purple streamers and a white basket. The chain is off, and one of the fenders is dented but those are easy fixes. That’s what I do. I repair fans, umbrellas, and all kinda things that people think are no good. Most months I make twice my Sanitation wages selling these things back to the same kind of people who threw them out in the first place. I watch them marvel at the great deals they get, half of what they’d pay at the big stores in town. Since last year I had enough money to open a shop, but Mumzy say not to waste that money. We decide to get a little house in the country instead so we could plant some kitchen garden and that kinda thing. We moving next month.

I ain’t on the corner long before a woman pulls up in a fancy Mercedes to look at the same bicycle I just finished fixing. She is walking perfection: nice complexion, tailored outfit, painted nails, not a hair out of place. I watch her touching the bicycle I pulled from the garbage, knowing full well that she would never stop on the side of the road and pick it up herself, even though she wants to keep as much money as possible in her pocket to maintain her image. Trust me: rich people like to save money more than anybody else. Which makes sense; they can’t brag about it if they spend all. She will go away feeling like she has empowered a young man who’s down on his luck with her one-off sale. I like that kinda thinking because it benefits me more than it benefits her. She plays with the streamers and rings the little bell before she smiles and asks how much. “$250,” I tell she. She smiles, pulls out three bills and hands me right there and then. I pocket the money, knowing that not many people make that much in sixty minutes. I put the bicycle in the car trunk and off she goes.

As I push my cart home, I chuckle at the irony of life. People quick to throw out things and say them broken, but only men like me who look past the garbage can see the glory.