“American cities are like badger holes ringed with trash.” ~John Steinbeck
In the early aught years I was renting a room on the third floor of a Victorian home in dodgy part of Philly. There were two of us on the third floor. The woman who owned the house, Lillian, had the second floor to herself.
The guy who lived on my floor was a gay Born Again Christian who liked smoking crack, having sex in the shower, and borrowing my bike. I know! Gay Born Again. I used to try to convince him to give it up. I told him that Born Agains don’t like gays and it was the ultimate in self hate to align himself with these people. But he told me that religion was the only thing that got him off of crack. And then he went to his room and smoked some crack.
One weekend my housemate brought Steve home. I assumed this was a druggie pal of his since he was introduced to me as “straight.” They stayed up all night then Steve slept the majority of the next day. When he woke, he asked Lillian if she’d rent him a room.
Now, Lillian was a unique kind of survivalist. She didn’t work and sometimes went on dates for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. She agreed to rent him the room on the second floor next to her bedroom. She liked to keep this room open for her daughter who never visited, but agreed because she needed the money. I guess it was a slow month for online dating.
I wasn’t around the house much at the time since I was in grad school, had a few jobs, and a boyfriend who didn’t live nearby, so I’m not sure exactly what went down. I assumed it was related to his drug problem. But eventually Steve broke enough house rules, of which there were few, and Lillian kicked him out.
On my one day off out of the whole semester their screaming match woke me. I got up to yell at them for waking me and somehow found myself driving Steve to the ATM because he owed Lillian money, and she wouldn’t stop screaming until she got it. In the car, Steve tried to explain what was happening and, although I’m pretty curious about people, I’m cranky in the morning, and I told him to zip it.
Very sympathetic of me. Also, very annoying since now, all of these years later, I’d like to know why she kicked him out. Turns out she didn’t have a clue her tenants liked smoking the crack rock.
When we got back, Steve paid Lillian, called a cab, and left our crazy boarding house. I was heading back to bed when I heard Lillian open the door to Steve’s room and cry out. I went to investigate, because by this time I was awake enough to care.
Steve had hastily decorated the walls of his room with pentagrams using a light green magic marker. Little known fact: pentagrams sort-of lose their shock value when they’re in lime green. Steve also scrawled something on the wall about a “one-eyed troll” next to a little drawing of a one-eyed troll, which, incidentally, looked pretty good in green.
Lillian has a glass eye, so the one-eyed troll thing was directed at her. She was pretty upset. Not so much about the vandalism or the insult but about trusting someone who turned out to be so horrible.
“Don’t take it personally. He’s a weirdo drug addict,” I told her.
“No.” She disagreed. “I would have known.”
“Maybe I’m wrong.” I didn’t have any evidence besides his general weaselly manner, odd sleeping patterns, and association with the Born Again crack addict, and yet I doubted I was wrong.
I’m not proud of this, but I then dug through his garbage. There wasn’t much litter in the pail, but indeed there were two foil squares with burned residue on them. I didn’t know what he’d been smoking, but I could assume. Nevertheless, I’d satisfied myself that he was some sort of drug user, which was all I was really aiming for.
Lillian was a little shocked, not only by the evidence of drug use in her house, but also that I thought to inspect someone’s garbage. I think it gave her another reason to lock her bedroom door during the day. She thought I had some sort of criminal mind to think of rooting in the trash. But, of course, that’s silly. It’s in just about every mystery novel ever written. But Lillian wasn’t much of a reader. I guess it’s hard to find the time with all the dating.
I’d read about garbology when I was young and always thought the history of waste was interesting. I wouldn’t mind trash picking for a living if it weren’t for the smell. What I like about the study of garbage is that it’s a fairly reliable way to understand people. Our trash reveals us.
So, I’m a little jealous of Chris Martin who is a garbage auditor in Washington state. Seattle Weekly reported on his search of the garbage of environmental groups to see if they’re complying with recycling laws.
“See, this is classic,” says Martin, gleefully peering over the bags through his goggles. (Gardening gloves, shorts, and a neon yellow-green vest complete his uniform.) He retrieves the topmost document on the pile—a report on “sustainable-housing” trends—and is almost giddy at the irony: The greens failed to recycle a report on going green. It’s not just hypocritical, “it’s against the law,” he notes.
Naturally, I know that recycling has its problems. But we’re getting better. In fact, some cities have excellent recycling initiatives. In that crazy boarding house in Philadelphia we recycled almost everything, and we composted our organic waste. Even those burned foil squares were stuffed into an old soda can and put in the bin. So, somewhere someone might have a can in the fridge that came from the aluminum foil of a crack addict. And that someone could be you.
Cheers.
