by David Cohen
Eric was removing beer cans from my bag, bending down to toss them into the plastic tub. They clinked as they landed on the other containers. ‘
Found anything interesting?’ I said at last.
‘Oh, hello, Keith,’ he replied, not turning around. ‘How are you?’
Eric had this gloomy northern-England accent, and his tone of voice never changed. He could be telling you about a plane crash or the birth of a grandchild, and it would sound equally miserable. I’d sensed of late that he didn’t particularly like me.
‘Fine,’ I said, staring at his pink washing-up gloves.
‘How’s Claire? I haven’t seen her for a while.’
‘Claire? Well, actually, she’s moved out.’
‘Oh?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Sorry to hear that. Liked Claire, I did. Always washed out her empty bottles and cans thoroughly. Sparkling, they were.’
I remembered only too well. I’d never seen anyone go to so much trouble to clean their rubbish before throwing it away.
‘You look like you’re putting in a fair bit of effort yourself, Eric.’
‘Someone has to, don’t they?’
‘Oh?’
He turned to face me while producing from my bag an economy-size bottle of Black & Gold tomato sauce. Red globs still clung to the glass.
‘These can be recycled, you know,’ he said, dangling the bottle between two fingers of his gloved hand before dropping it into the tub, like a surgeon disposing of an extracted appendix. Because Eric’s tone of voice never varied, I couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic, but he obviously knew the bag belonged to me. I wondered how long he’d been monitoring my garbage.
‘Yeah. I’m aware of that, Eric.’
He continued sorting through the bag, producing a variety of recyclable items and holding them in front of my face before consigning them to the tub. ‘I mean, milk cartons and the like – well, I can understand that it’s a bother to rinse and flatten them, but cans and bottles … I think people could make the effort. Even if you don’t wash it, it’s just a matter of keeping it separate and tossing it in the bottle bin.’
Having finished with my bag, he stuffed it in a big green bag with the others and returned it to the bin. Then he picked up a hose and began spraying the contents of the tub. I took several quick steps back to avoid getting wet.
‘Well, no offence, Eric, but who made you the garbage police?’ I had to raise my voice to be heard over the water.
‘I do it voluntarily.’
‘But why?’
‘Why? Because I know nobody else is going to bother.’
‘And you think a bottle here and there’s going to make a difference?’
‘I’m looking at the bigger picture,’ he replied.
*
I watched him from my kitchen the following day, and the day after that. Each morning at eight o’clock it was the same thing. I wondered if he was just using the recycling issue as a pretext for looking through other people’s trash. Eric was a widower, probably approaching seventy. He spent the better part of each day inside his flat, alone, doing God knows what. Maybe he sought entertainment in the refuse of those with more eventful lives: credit card statements, business correspondence, love letters. Maybe he was after confidential information he could use to his advantage. But the more I watched him, the clearer it became: all he cared about was that every bit of rubbish went where it was supposed to go.
One day, after Eric had finished his morning’s work, I went downstairs, lifted the lids of the recycling bins and peered in. Their interiors sparkled with clean bottles and jars, shining cans, neatly flattened and bundled milk cartons. The other bins contained nothing but green plastic bags, securely fastened shut with plastic tape. There was no garbage odour, only the vague smell of plastic warmed by the sun.
I asked Andrew, who lives next door to me, if he’d noticed Eric’s activities. He said yes, he’d seen Eric transferring garbage from one receptacle to another, and that Eric had ‘had a word’ with him about his rubbish disposal practices.
‘Doesn’t that bother you?’ I asked.
‘Nah. Not really.’
‘But it’s private property.’
‘So?’
‘Well, it’s the principle. I mean, are you just going to let him dictate what you do with your trash?’
‘Nah. But if he wants to move it, let him.’
I knew Andrew, though. If Eric nagged him enough, he’d fall into line. Tina, who lives on the other side, actually thought Eric was doing everyone a great service.
‘After all,’ she said, ‘it gets you thinking.’
‘About what?’ I said.
‘Well, you know … about rubbish. How we should all be a bit more environmentally aware.’
I didn’t really know anyone else in the block well enough to question them, but I could see from the ever-decreasing amount of recyclable matter in Eric’s tub each day that they either already did the right thing or had been trained by Eric to start doing so. But I wanted my garbage left alone. I planned to tell him that straight out, but then I thought, No, actions speak louder. So, whereas before I had haphazardly and unthinkingly tossed bottles and cans in with my other rubbish, I now made a conscious effort to stuff in as many as I could. I’d wear him down.
I started buying the same extra-wide Multix garbage bags that Eric himself used, so I could fit in all my normal garbage plus loads of forbidden material. Before putting it in an outside bin, I gave each bag a good shake so the heavy items sank to the bottom.
I followed this procedure for a few weeks, always taking care to save all my empty containers to throw in the bag. Sometimes, when I didn’t have enough to make a good pile, I raided the recycling bin itself. I watched Eric in the mornings to see if he’d continue removing all the cans and bottles from my bags. He did, but I was sure he’d give up eventually.
Early one morning a few weeks later, I decided it was time to see how things were going. Eric called out to me as I made my way down the stairs.
‘Eh, Keith?’
I stopped. It was the first time Eric had ever initiated a conversation. He motioned me over and then pointed towards his plastic tub on the ground. It contained an assortment of beer and soft drink bottles, condiment jars, baked bean tins. Most of them I recognised as mine. The rest probably belonged to Andrew.
‘What do you think of that?’ Eric asked.
‘Not much,’ I said.
‘Nearly all that lot came out of your bag,’ he said, nodding towards me gloomily.
‘What are you getting at, Eric?’
‘Well, Keith, it’s just that you’re letting the side down.’
‘The side, eh?’
‘Everyone’s doing their best to put all the right things in the right bins. Even young Andrew’s started to lift his game. But, well, I’m afraid you’re the only consistent fly in the ointment.’
I was speechless for a moment.
‘That right, is it, Eric?’ I said at last. ‘I’m the only consistent fly in the ointment, am I? Well, you know what I say? I say fuck the ointment!’
I stormed off. Behind me I could hear Eric begin hosing. He could even make that sound depressing.
I should have known he wouldn’t be so easily discouraged. If I continued throwing piles of cans and bottles in with my non-recyclable matter, he’d patiently pick them out, day after day, week after week. So what I did was this: I continued using the large bags, but now I put just one recyclable item in with all the acceptable rubbish. It might be a mustard jar or an empty tuna can or a vinegar bottle. I kept Eric guessing. I even washed each offending container until it was spotless. If he’s the self-appointed garbage monitor, I thought, let him earn his title.
All of my other cans and bottles, I threw in the recycling bin. Ironic, really: I was going to more trouble to not recycle than to recycle. But there was a principle at stake. My wife, before she finally left, always used to go on about how she t
ook great care to separate the garbage, and why couldn’t I make more effort, and how could I be so untidy and lazy? I was better off without her.
Now I could let the rubbish pile up for weeks if I felt like it. Were it not for Eric, I probably would.
I watched through my binoculars as he checked the bags. They only required a shake or a cursory glance inside these days – except mine, of course. I kept my eyes fixed on him while he patiently fished around in there, located the recyclable item, a bit soiled by this point, and tossed it into the tub. Nine times out of ten the tub was empty but for my container. This went on for some weeks, but I had a feeling he was getting a bit fed up. I approached him one morning to try and determine the state of play.
‘Eh, Keith,’ he said, looking at me. ‘A word with you, if I may.’ Not only did the tone, pitch and volume of Eric’s voice remain irritatingly constant, but he only had one facial expression: a kind of permanent mask of gloom, as if he carried all the world’s garbage problems on his shoulders.
‘Yep?’ I said.
‘Well, I just wanted to say well done,’ he went on, lugubriously. ‘You’ve improved loads in the last month or so. The overall success rate for the block is almost a hundred per cent every week with the bins. Just a little bit of extra effort on your part and we’ll have it sorted.’
We stood there regarding the solitary spaghetti sauce jar in the tub, while I tried to figure out what was going on. Was he serious? Or was he just winding me up? No, Eric didn’t have enough imagination to play games. He really thought I’d climbed aboard the recycling train.
Very well, then.
‘That’s right, Eric. I’m doing my best. I’ll get there, don’t you worry.’
‘That’s the spirit, Keith.’
Now the rules had changed. Eric obviously wasn’t going to let my one recyclable item stop him. If anything, he was more fired up than ever, in so far as Eric could be ‘fired up’. What I had to do now was discourage him from even opening my bags.
That evening I took a jar of Nescafé, emptied it, washed it, wrapped it in a Liquorland bag, filled a green Multix garbage bag with freshly laid manure from the garden, and shoved the bag down into the centre. Then I placed that bag inside a second bag, just to seal in the stink. I went out to the Sulo bins, removed the bags that were in there, stuffed mine at the bottom, then replaced the other bags. The recent run of hot weather would help things along nicely.
The next morning, having overslept, I leapt out of bed, grabbed my binoculars and ran to the kitchen window. Eric was just finishing up, but the tub was still sitting on the ground. For a minute I thought it was empty, but no: there at the bottom I could see my coffee jar.
I sat and thought.
In the depths of my pantry I found a bottle of Worcestershire sauce, which, for the sake of form, I emptied and rinsed. Then I opened my refrigerator, these days not so much a food storage receptacle as a Pandora’s box of odours waiting to be released. I smeared the bottle liberally with sour cream and some KanTong Thai green curry paste that had been in the fridge for so long I had no recollection of buying it. I half-filled a green garbage bag with manure, stuck the reeking bottle in there, then filled the bag to the top with rotten fruit and vegetables, parmesan cheese, the expiry date of which had long since come and gone, rotten eggs, raw minced meat, and the practically fossilised remains of a takeaway prawn dish. In a last-minute flash of inspiration, I smeared half a jar of seafood cocktail sauce over the outside of the garbage bag, thinking to myself that, were I as neat and tidy as my wife had always nagged me to be, I wouldn’t have this armoury of stenches right now.
I looked out my window in the morning just in time to see Eric, handkerchief tied around his nose and mouth, extract the bottle from my bag. He calmly placed the bottle in his tub, straightened up and removed the handkerchief. His facial features had momentarily altered, forming an expression I could only describe as gloom brightened ever so slightly with a dash of triumph.
Eric obviously had no aversion to filth. But how could I have thought otherwise about a man who voluntarily handled garbage every day? What else might stop him? I wondered. Quicklime? Rat poison? Pesticide? No. I wanted to defeat the man, not kill him.
I descended the stairs. Eric, who was preparing the hose – rather ostentatiously, I thought – glanced up.
‘Eh, Keith. This your bottle?’
‘You know it’s mine.’
‘I use this brand too. It’s quite good, isn’t it?’ he said despondently.
‘Look, Eric. I’m not going to waste my time with this anymore. I’ve had enough.’
‘Oh, aye? Seen sense at last, eh?’
‘Guess so.’
‘Good for you.’ He let the hose fall and turned so that he looked me square in the eye. ‘Because you can’t beat me, Keith. I could have told you that at the beginning.’ Eric then produced a rare smile. Rare! It was the first time I’d seen his teeth; he had precisely seven.
I went back to my flat.
If nothing could prevent Eric from searching my rubbish bags, the only option left was to conceal the recyclable item so well that it would escape his eyes and hands. If that actually happened, he’d probably think that I was telling the truth about giving in, in which case he’d think he’d won. Let him think that. The point was, my bag would be emptied into the back of the garbage truck and conveyed to the rubbish dump, wherever that may be, with the recyclable item still tucked away safe and sound inside, and there would be nothing Eric could do. And I’d know it.
But the key lay not so much in the method of concealment as in the object itself. It had to be tiny, barely noticeable. Nothing I had in the fridge or the kitchen cupboards would do. I rummaged through my desk drawers, sifting through the assortment of junk I’d accumulated over the years. I found an ink bottle, a tin of shoe polish, a shot glass; still too obvious. I found a tobacco tin, one of those minibar-size Jim Beam bottles; not good enough. I opened more drawers, removing them from the desk and shaking them like a prospector panning for gold.
And then I found it: a delicate, square glass container the size of a piece of chocolate. It was one of my mother’s perfume bottles. Its companions, and the velvet case, appeared to have been lost along the way, but this single bottle, minus its lid, had survived. The fact that I still had it after all these years wasn’t overly surprising. I never threw anything away, except garbage.
I placed it in the palm of my hand and held it to my nose. For a moment I was back in my parents’ bedroom, where the fragrance of perfume mingled with the smell of carpet and Old Spice. I’d always thought one of the miniature bottles would come in handy some day. Now, thirty-five years later, its day had arrived.
I coated the bottle with several layers of tissue paper, then with cling wrap. I carefully opened a brand-new packet of flour, stuffed the little package into the centre of the white powder, and carefully resealed the flour packet with glue. I wrapped this in newspaper, then in an old pillowcase. The pillowcase went into a Coles shopping bag, the shopping bag into another shopping bag. I shoved the entire bundle into an empty cereal box, which was placed at the bottom of a green Multix rubbish bag and covered with standard bits of non-recyclable rubbish. I had no rotten fruit and vegetables and so forth left, but Eric wasn’t put off by that kind of thing anyway. For old times’ sake, however, I gave the outside of the bag a liberal coating of seafood cocktail sauce. I almost forgot to mention that before I’d done all this, I wrapped the tiny bottle in a tiny piece of paper on which was written, in the tiniest letters I could manage:
Congratulations
I put that bag in the Sulo bin last night. It’s now nearly 10 a.m. and Eric is still out there, a customs officer of household refuse, ever so carefully picking my garbage apart. He won’t find that bottle. But even if, somehow, he does, I’ll procure another, smaller one, even if I have to have it specially made. And I’ll hide it better.
Still, as I look down on Eric from my balcony, I can’t help
feeling sorry for him. Because I know he’s prepared to spend however long it takes to uncover what I have so carefully hidden. And the reason is, he simply has nothing better to do. His world has shrunk to the point where what I throw away means everything. You have to pity a man like that, don’t you?
THE MAN WHO LOOKED A BIT LIKE GEOR GE HARRISON
I’m listening to music against my will. It’s leaking from the headphones of the girl three seats in front of me on the 77 to Eight Mile Plains. Leaked headphone music is the passive smoke of bus travel, but there’s nothing I can do but sit there inhaling it through my ears.
I turn to the man sitting across the aisle – a thirty-something, job-going kind of guy – and say, ‘It’s bad enough we’re forced to listen to someone else’s music – does it also have to be shit?’
He nods but says nothing more – a fairly noncommittal response. It’s funny how when you strike up a conversation with a complete stranger on a bus, they think you’re mad. In some countries, strangers talk freely to each other on buses without anyone thinking anyone is mad. He’d do well to bear that in mind.
There’s a white plastic badge attached to his shirt; it says DARREN. It’s one of those badges held in place by two magnets, one attached to the underside of the badge, the other on the inside of his polo shirt. I guess he’s heading to work and likes to be prepared.
Despite the cool reception, I can sense that Darren is interested in what I have to say, so I carry on with my lecture about how the music of yesteryear was good, whereas the music of today is shit.
‘You’re probably thinking: what qualifies this guy to judge?’ I say. ‘Well, Darren, I used to be in a band myself.’
He nods again and says, ‘Really?’ and adjusts the badge. It’s rectangular – red, white and black plastic.
‘Have you heard of The Beatles?’ I say.
Now I’ve really got his attention. It’s funny how when you suggest to someone that you were in The Beatles, they think you’re mad – unless you really were in The Beatles, in which case you wouldn’t need to mention it at all.
