Counter Culture: The Trash Still Goes on Tuesday

I took out the trash. It was my thing.

            My in-laws demanded nothing from me, including rent, yet they provided my young and poor family with both food and shelter.

            Everyone had their role to play, each with their attended tasks. My wife cleaned her parents’ house and was, naturally, their daughter. My son was born there and at two-years-old was the most pleasant thing in his grandparents’ lives.

And me...well I had no problems handling all things garbage.

            I changed the three bags in the three bins around the house and once a week walked two large Tupperware cans to the side of the road.

            Up the gravel driveway, dodging dog shit, to the end of the small front yard. Even in snow, I was more than happy to do it. My contribution to the overstuffed household.

            After five years, we moved out. Right across the street, into the old craft shop that had sat abandoned for two years. The space and privacy were great but everything cost money. So when my father-in-law — who felt if his grandson had to move, then directly across the street was the best place for him to be — gave us two garbage cans and even offered to let us put our two cans with his own two cans on the garbage pickup night, exempting us from the borough’s garbage fee. We were grateful.

            So, every Tuesday, instead of walking the gravel and dog-shit strewn driveway, I would take our hand-me-down Tupperware cans through our large, hilly front yard, across our no outlet street, and to the edge of their small front yard.

            I didn’t mind this so much either. We had a dishwasher, my wife and her self-diagnosed OCD cleaned constantly, and I actually found it peaceful to gaze at the sky while hauling all that garbage.

            Some days I would forget to take the cans in the morning, or I would just not feel like it before an early day of work, and make the walk in darkness later at night. Usually around 11 p.m.

            That was fine. It was my decision to pound that snooze button. On my rush to work I’d look at the two cans beside the backdoor full of diapers and wrappers and chicken bones and cat litter.

            Sometimes a walk at night in the fast, cold air was a welcome thing after an eight-hour shift in a busy and bright mall. Sometimes the moon was close and clear and I’d watch it the whole way across the quiet dead-end street.

            The only problem was the lids. We didn’t have any. The cans were free but they were topless. Surprisingly, it’s very difficult to just purchase garbage can lids. You have to buy the whole can, which my wife and I could not afford.

            When it rained the cans would fill with water making them too heavy to carry. I would drag the cans, one at a time, across our large front yard and sometimes maggots would infest the top bag. One time the rain poured into a hole at the top of a bag and filled it like a water balloon. When I grabbed one of the can’s handles and hoisted the other onto my hip the balloon bag fell and exploded with all that murky water, soaked tissues, and drenched fast food cardboard. I was late for work and my fingertips were wet and wrinkled all morning.

            I still work in some retail store in some local mall and the trash still goes out on Tuesday. Just last Tuesday it poured monsoon levels of water all over Western Pennsylvania.

I got home after a double-shift, 13 hours I didn’t even remember. However, when my headlights clicked off in front of the basement door, and I saw the two Tupperware cans through the steady rainfall, I remembered the whole day: angry customers, unwatched children, micro-management, and on my feet the whole time. I didn’t even go inside. I just grabbed the handles on each side of one of the cans and began the slow drag across the swampy yard.

The rain was cold and heavy and the sky was black like a newly polished boot. The stars shone bright against the nondescript clouds. The wind stung my ears and nose as somehow I managed to step in every puddle.

I walked as fast as I could, my quick breath making small smoke signals in front of me. Every time I used my body for leverage the can would drench my stomach and hips with cold water.

The can felt heavier with every complaint I offered the raining, freezing night. My every curse and ache was met with mud and the random raindrops that fell impossibly, perfectly between my neck and coat collar.

There was a man at work that day who grabbed me. He was elderly so it wasn’t threatening. I greeted him cordially. He mentioned something about the adult novelties in the back of the store.

“I see you still sell that stuff,” he said with a sideways glance. I knew what he meant.

“Yeah,” I said with a laugh and smile. “We do.” I’ve seen my share of senior citizens purchase massage oil and love dice. I offered another chuckle; one that meant, “It’s okay, old man. I don’t care if you’re 70 and horny.”

He seized my forearm. His hand was cold and had the texture of a peeled grape. I could have broken free if I wanted to, but I was stuck in place with surprise.

“I assure you, son,” he said, sharpening his stare, “it is not funny.”

Then he let me go. I didn’t say anything else and neither did he. He just strolled out of the store, pausing at a lava lamp display before disappearing.

That whole scene vividly replayed itself in this Tuesday night rain.

The second can was heavier than the first so I tried to dump some of the water. The top two bags, along with loose garbage, spilt onto the back porch. Baby wipes and soggy band-aids and pieces of paper with bleeding ink covered the ground.

After a quick cleanup, I made my way through the front yard once again, leaving my shoes’ sole impressions in the mud. I wished we had rented a house with a smaller front yard.

This time I tried to think of those worse off than me. But my thoughts were cruel and immediate. They were about the rain and the wind and how I hated them both. About all of my garbage and who drinks that many bottles of water in a week anyway. About that pitiful, half-lit moon and the way the sky looks empty when you really look at it.

 I let the can fall onto the muddy banks of the curbside of my in-laws lawn. Their cans were already there, equipped with dry bags and tight lids.

I turned and wiped the sweat from my forehead. The wind burnt my ears and I decided to run home. Across the slick street, through the messy front yard, where my feet kicked up mud splotches the size of peanuts onto my pants, and into my warm house. My wife and son were there, happy to see me. They had no idea where I’d been.