As I was cleaning out the attic this weekend, I found all sorts of old junk that I had forgotten was even there. Of course, when I first stumbled upon my “treasures,” I wanted to keep everything I saw. Why would I have kept them in the first place? But, after pouring through box after box of broken toys and ripped parchment, I convinced myself that my “treasures” were ready for their final resting place. Being as this was Saturday and that trash pick-up day wasn’t until Wednesday, it required a trip to… the dump. Even now, I wince at the thought of having to brave the ever-present gloom that reigns there. The dump is a strange yet repulsive place… a place where people tend to bury the human spirit along with their trash.
From the main road, entering the dump looked like you were entering the grounds of a federal prison – and we’re not talking “Club Fed”. The perimeter was surrounded by an eight-foot high chain link fence with barbed wire invitingly curled around the top of each section. Following the slow procession of vehicles to the front gate, I noticed a man peeking through the blinds of a dirty office building. The building’s grey exterior was peeling away, the result of prolonged exposure to the toxic environment of hair spray cans, dirty baby diapers, and rotten banana peels. As soon as the man noticed me looking back, he hurriedly closed the blinds.
A man in filthy grey coveralls was standing out front to interrogate each passerby about their garbage. “Do you have any used batteries?” “Are you disposing of hazardous materials?” “Are you dumping used oil?” The list of questions went on and on for what felt like forever – until you were ready to surrender and admit to smuggling in a bag full of non-biodegradable Styrofoam containers just to make the man leave you alone. You’d even be willing to sign a confession in blood just to make this guy quit asking the never-ending parade of questions.
As I drove on into the interior sanctum of the dump, I noticed another unsightly building high upon a hill, overshadowing the recycling bins. This one had to be twenty-five feet tall and draped with rusted old sheet metal. The building looked like it had been rammed into by a wrecking ball at least a million times, and that it would collapse upon that million and first time, taking everything in it straight to hell. Trucks full of furniture, brush, and tree limbs were unloaded inside of the building – the dump’s own execution chamber. Within the walls of this building contained the largest crushing machine on the premises. When it activated, it made torturous scraping noised accompanied by splintering crackles. You could almost hear the death screams of each abandoned couch or chair as it was tossed into the machine like yesterday’s newspaper.
The stench was overpowering, unbearable – an odor of death mixed with the acrid aroma of despair. The wind stirred and brought along with it the stench of long-forgotten, abandoned, used baby diapers. I pulled my shirt up over my nose, trying to filter the bitterness through the lingering scent of fabric softener and my body spray, but it was too much for my crude attempt to hands.
I choked back a gag as I saw a fat rat fumbling with a half-rotted McDonald’s bag, oozing slimy aged lettuce and ketchup as it did. Weeds bordering the fence were littered with plastic wrappers, Styrofoam cups, and other non-biodegradable materials. Polluted water was seeping out of the dumpsters and had formed stagnate puddles infested with thousands of tiny, spasmodic worms.
I wondered how anyone could work in this foul environment and remain healthy, either physically or mentally. I also wondered how the county could afford to pay anyone enough to work in this harsh, alien terrain.
Most of the people at the dump all had the same blank expression on their faces, void of any emotion except perhaps disgust. They came in like robots, emptied their trash, and sped away as fast as possible without running someone else over.
There was, however, a sub-culture at the dump – those people disdainfully referred to as “Dumpster Divers” by most of the public. One of these dumpster divers, a man whose pants would not stay up and had dipped low enough to reveal a full inch and a half of his butt crack, was crawling through a dumpster full of old washers and dryers. At one point he surfaced, wiping his sweating face with one grimy hand, and paced back and forth furiously like he was contemplating the meaning of life… the world… and everything. Suddenly, he dove back in like he’d discovered the world’s greatest treasure at the bottom of this metallic coffin. No one paid attention to him… they all pretended his existence was nothing more than a mere shadow or trick of light.
At the next dumpster over, a young man was throwing away heavy, black plastic trash bags full of roofing shingles. The reason I know this? One of the bags caught the corner of the dumpster and ripped open while the young man was hurling it into the dumpster, causing shingles to rain down on the ground like torn piece of black hail. This caught my attention because he was standing almost directly under a sign that read, “ABSOLUTELY NO CONTRACTOR OR CONSTRUCTION DEBRIS.”
Within minutes, a man wearing a coffee-stained T-shirt and hat bearing the county’s logo approached the young offender. He asked, “Hey, sonny, whatcha got in them bags?”
The young man shrugged his shoulders and replied, “Just some old garbage.”
Knowing that the young man was lying, but not really caring enough to call him on it, the old man sneered a sinister yellow grin and said, “Them bags look awfully heavy, son. Are you sure you don’t have any body parts in there?”
They both laughed, and I decided to leave them alone. After all, my task was now finished.
So I left that eerie, malodorous place. I drove away from the dump as quickly as I could before I could bury my spirit – my very humanity – along with the trash I had dumped. The dump is death personified – a graveyard laden with the excesses of society. I ran away – far, far away – from the dump before it could sink its claws into me, infecting me with its decomposition and melancholy.
