Just a short note before bedtime. I went to do the recycling this evening. We used to have curbside pickup, but we had to pay for it, and they didn’t take paperboard, which was too frustrating for me to pay for when there’s loads of the recycle containers around the city, including a block away behind the firehouse. So I gathered up my blue box filled with “commingled containers” and went on over to the firehouse.
When I got there, in the alley in front of the dumpsters was a homeless, or semi-homeless, man with a shopping cart and a cooler strapped to the top. Huge black bags filled with presumably aluminum cans were on each side of the cart. If you’ve lived anywhere near a city or have seen Time Magazine or a news report in the last 20 years, you know what this looks like. But no guy with the cart. I approach. There’s noise, and I realize that he’s in the dumpster, which is almost empty, and tossing aluminum cans on the alley.
I put my few newspapers in the paper bin and set down my blue box heavily. He looks up and says, “Oh, you got some cans?” I tell him I have a couple, and he jumps out of the dumpster. “I’ll help you do it,” he offers. We sort together, even though everything in my container goes into that dumpster. He pulls out the 3 cream soda cans left over from our Memorial Day trip, and the rest goes into the bin..
“Hey, my name’s Larry,” he says. “I’m sure you’ve seen me around.” He has only one front tooth
“Yeah, I’ve seen you around.” I have.
He jumps back into the bin. I take my blue box and head home, thinking how things have changed. How a homeless guy pushing a shopping cart is no longer a threat. I mean, he could have been dangerous, he could have pulled a knife on me or something, demanded money or worse. I mean, anyone could. But the fire station was right there, the lights were on inside, I know how to run. And maybe I don’t need to be afraid all the time.
“Yeah, you’ve seen me around.” he repeats, throwing cans out into the alley.
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7 comments:
If Missouri had a bottle deposit, you wouldn't see Larry around. You'd be in the can line at the grocery, and he'd be wandering the classrooms at SLU. At $.10 a can, only the college students who have to cart them home (leaking) in backpacks refuse to save them for the return.
"Wandering the classrooms at SLU"--at first I thought you meant that without cans to fall back on, he would enroll. Then I got it.
Be careful out there!
By the way, I also thought the other mary meant he'd be enrolled at SLU:-)
I know what you mean about Larry. He is part of the 'hood, and not even that unsavory a part. Maybe we are becoming almost small town-like with characters we accept like Otis with his drinking or Barnie with his extra bullet in his pocket. I would like to think so.
I've often said that if it weren't for dumpster diving, more people would be educated. :)
At MSU the student paper interviewed the most visible Can Man who estimated that he made $2,000 a month off the can returns. But he was dedicated - it was a 10 hour a day job Monday though Friday.
We have a couple of men who push carts like that. I've seen a few times a month for years now. They resemble each other & I wonder if they are brothers. I wonder where they sleep. I think they spend a lot of time at the library. Once when several of us were standing on a busy street waving signs the night of an election for a school bond, one of them walked by and said, "Good luck, I hope you win." Somehow it changed the way I feel each time I see him or his friend.
Do you know the book "Onion John"?
Jan in Portland
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