Houston, 2030

by Mike McKay

“Positively, Miss Smith, our Billy is a bit unlucky in this respect. Now he will not be the Collector of the Month anymore. Well, to be honest with you, the armless-and-blind vets are not as effective as they used to be. Not any better than those legless dudes. Just think about all this spot-holding going on! But: never mind, never mind. The Salvation Way got forty-four brand-new collectors today! All ‘Quads!’ They will turn an outstanding revenue, what do you reckon?”

  “You are absolutely right, Mister Todd. These forty-four are the perfect addition. Just perfect! They will fit right in. Chunks! Perfectly! Stumped! Boo-ha-ha-ha!”

  The quad amputees in the line suddenly picked up the maniacal laughter. “Boo-ha-ha-ha! Perfectly! Stumped!” Now their mouths were opening and closing as gaping black holes. Pamela, and Patrick, and few others could not sit straight and were rolling on the tarmac choking in convulsions. “Oh, so funny, Miss Smith! So wonderful! Chunks! We are chunks! Perfectly! Stumped! Boo-ha-ha-ha!”

  Mark woke up in the darkness. It took him few minutes to calm down. Mary moaned something in her drunken slumber. Did she too have nightmares, Mark wondered. Good it was just a dream. Nothing was lost. Perhaps, his Mike and Fred's Arne would fail the medical tomorrow. Or if they pass, they would not be deployed. Or deployed, but not to some crappy place, like Venezuela, or Colombia, or Iran, or Norway. Or they just get wounded, not killed. It would be perfectly OK, if Mike comes back on crutches. No big deal. He could get a prosthetic limb. Alex said, his son learned to walk so well, nobody even mentioned the missing leg… Only please, please, please, Mark suddenly started praying: please come back alive…

  Chapter 15

  At about eight thirty, Rodrigo and Mark crossed the Beaumont Highway, made their way through the rows of stinking recycling workshops and ended up at the McCarty Road Landfill proper. If Jasmine was not working at the landfill itself, but in one of these workshops, we would have to go around this place till the dark, Mark thought. Although, her neighbor said, she had seen her with a garbage hook, so she was more likely to be working on the 'Fill itself, rather than in a shop.

  Even being accompanied by the local Sergeant, Mark had to present his FBI badge at the landfill's checkpoint. The site was guarded very closely. Theoretically, no one was allowed to come here without an official permit. If you wanted to start digging here – must buy an official license. Everyone knew much more convenient way to deal with the landfill's guards. A five-dollar bill served as a valid pass for a child, and ten dollars would open the gates for an adult. Although, if you come all by yourself, you would not be digging for too long. The entire landfill territory had been divided between gangs of scavengers, and all non-unionized newcomers were simply beaten and told to get lost.

  The last time Mark was at the 'Fill six years ago. Back then, the FBI was summoned to a crime scene: the scavengers found a fresh male corpse with obvious signs of strangulation and decided they better called the Police. The body belonged to a known organized crime person, so the FBI got the jurisdiction over the case. Mark was sure only one dead body out of each five found at the 'Fill was honored with a report to the authorities. Most of such ‘finds’ the scavengers buried in the garbage without passing a single word. If one called the Police, the investigators would fence the scene for good half a day, then, where to dig? Six years ago, the 'Fill was still a ‘fill’ in the full sense of the word. Before the Meltdown, it was even commonly believed the McCarty Road Landfill was the highest point of totally flat Houston. Now, the dump site was so penetrated with holes and trenches that for most part it resembled Swiss cheese. Some holes went so deep into the garbage, the workers went down there on ropes, like into some underground mine.

  One might call this landfill digging ‘rag-picking,’ ‘recycling,’ ‘salvaging,’ or ‘scavenging,’ but in reality the right word would be exactly this: ‘mining.’ For one hundred years or so, the metropolitan Houston had deposited here layers after layers of garbage. Which fourteen years ago suddenly turned into a mineral resource of sorts. And as every mineral resource, the old garbage was finite. The same as that damn shale gas, Frederick was talking about. Interesting, what would happen to all the neighborhoods after the landfill could not supply any recycled materials anymore, Mark questioned himself. The Year Zero from that book about the Pol Pot's Kampuchea was approaching, beyond any doubt.

  “I must give you a safety brief, sir,” Rodrigo said. “Do you want a full version, or an unofficial ‘one-sentencer’?”

  “The short version would be fine, Sarge,” Mark replied. The headache drove him mad, even without the safety presentations.

  “All, right, then. The short version: please, kindly look both under your feet and around.”

  “But I am. The thing does look sufficiently scary.”

  “Well, I'm rather scared to walk here myself. Shit happens – every day. Take yesterday, for instance. Sunday is an easy day, the number of scavengers is smaller than during the week. However, two incidents happened. One of the victims, a young man, was dug out alive. A trench collapsed. He ended up with a broken leg, but otherwise – he is bloody lucky. And the one on the north side, – was not good at all. A woman – sucked into a rot-pit. Dead right away, what else to expect? Those rot-pits kill you in seconds.”

  “What is a rot-pit?”

  “Ah, so we call them here. There, on the north side, they used to dump the expired food from supermarkets. Dumpster – fulls. Five thousand pounds, imagine? Who would now throw five thousand pounds of perfectly edible stuff? I tell you, before the Meltdown, the life was too bloody good! To make the story short, over twenty or thirty years, this disposed food formed huge pimples underground. On the top, like, layers of solid waste, and under them – a pocket with the liquid pus. Water does not drain from the rot-pits. This is because all the foods were in plastic back then. If the rot-pit sucks you in, you go down, like in a swamp. Also, it can burp with methane and hydrogen sulfide. The scavengers say: if you can't drag a person out of a rot-pit in less than fifteen seconds, do not bother. They even don't risk pulling the dead body out. Believe it or not, a rot-pit, like, digests people. Three days, maximum one week, – and only the bones left!”

  Mark estimated the landfill area. Probably, no less than a square mile. Taking into the account all these trenches, rot-pits and God knows what else, the search for Jasmine may very well last till the evening, even without visiting the recycling workshops. He was too optimistic, when he told Kim he would find the girl in a couple of hours. Besides the size, the 'Fill impressed with a flurry of activity. Probably from a bird's-eye view it looked like an anthill. Twenty thousand people, Mark recalled a conversation with his son. And this was only at the landfill itself. Another ten thousand or so would make their living in these endless garbage processing workshops. Plus two thousand of wanna-be scavengers were waiting for their turn at the Day-Pay across the highway.

  Mark did not have a photo of Jasmine Hobson. He was not worried about this initially, thinking that the unmistakable traces of her accident three years ago would make the search easy. At first, Mark tried to ask the scavengers if they saw a teenage girl with facial scars and a walleye from a chemical burn, but everybody just shook their heads. Rodrigo explained apologetically that the locals were not inclined to discuss the industrial accidents. You tell the Police once, and no recycling workshop owner would be nice to you any longer. The Sergeant insisted they should not waste their time asking questions, but rather rely on their own legs and their own eyes. Besides, Rodrigo said, he recalled seeing the walleyed girl at the 'Fill. How hard would it be to spot her again?

  By the midday, they managed to survey less than a half of the landfill area. Mark was totally exhausted. On top of the headache from the yesterday drinking, now there was the headache from the terrible landfill aroma. Each component by itself was not too bad: the smoke from the fires, the smell of fallen leaves, the scents of machine oil, rotten wood, and so on. And all together, they formed a disgusting ‘bouquet.’ It felt like a
ll his clothes were impregnated with this odor too. Mark's shirt became damp from all the drizzle and was unpleasantly scratching his skin. His shoes and pants up to the knee level were covered with a thick layer of greasy mud. He regretted that he had dressed this morning as for the office. Now Mary would complain he did not take care of his clothes, and it would be necessary to do an extra wash. Just to add to all the torture, Mark's mouth was dry as a desert, but he could not bring himself to drink. Just take a sip of water in the mouth, and the wretched smell, as well as the very view of the garbage heaps literally turned him inside out.

  How could all these workers stand this? Got used to? It was not likely somebody of Mark's age could get used to it – in a lifetime. It might be a ‘generation gap,’ Mark concluded. The scavengers who were older, about the same age as Mark, were all dressed in long pants, long-sleeved jackets, and many had high rubber boots or heavy work boots. And all had gloves on their hands; few were even wearing face masks. Mark could see that the faces of the older workers expressed their dislike of the 'Fill environment and the work in general. Presumably, before the Meltdown they all had very different jobs. Lawyers, financial advisers, managers… Like Deputy Kim's mother, who was a financial auditor and became a rag-picker. Even if someone of them was not a ‘white collar,’ filling supermarket shelves or tightening nuts in a car repair shop was much cleaner and much more rewarding job than in here.

  But the younger scavengers, in the under-twenty age bracket, they have no aversion to the 'Fill, as far as Mark could observe. In front of him, a girl cracked some rude joke about the young man who was sorting garbage next to her. She giggled loudly and ran to escape, splashing dirty puddles with her bare feet. The young man sat chasing after her, but tripped over his flip-flop and almost fell, causing another burst of laughter among the scavengers. Comically, he hopped on one leg, trying to get rid of the second flip-flop, but finally decided to abandon the chase. The girl also stopped the horse-play and was descending from a garbage pile to resume her work.

  Despite the miserable weather, many younger scavengers worked half-naked, even the girls. A combination of heavy work pants with a bikini top was not uncommon! No work boots in sight either; the standard footwear was a pair of the local old-tire 'flops or sandals, while quite a few worked barefoot. The majority were digging through the garbage with their bare hands. About every third did have rubber gloves, but those were usually worn at their belts, instead of their hands. They would put these rubber gloves on only if the garbage piles revealed something really dangerous – a car battery or a bundle of metal shavings. Of course, this was the generation born after or few years before the Meltdown. They did not see anything else in their lives. For them, working at the garbage heap was the norm. Not the most pleasant work, perhaps, but quite all-right.

  And the third generation was already growing up in here. Mark spotted two women, who were sitting on some construction debris and breastfeeding their babies. One of the women was very young, probably sixteen. The second was a bit older, and at her feet, there was a two-year old toddler. Completely naked, the little boy was sitting in a dirt puddle and making mud pies. He just dug a rusty ‘Coca-Cola’ bottle cap from the mud and solemnly handed it over to his mommy. She smiled to her son and sent the find into her basket. Yes, for these toddlers, the landfill was a home-sweet-home. Where else can you sit so comfy in a dirt puddle and dig out such a wonderful ‘Coca-Cola’ cap? Mark heard that some pregnant women worked at the landfill till the very last moment and give births there, right on the heaps of garbage.

  “How do they stand walking over all this crap without boots? Gross, isn't it?” Mark told Rodrigo, not so asking a question but rather stating the fact. The fat Sergeant was from the generation in-between the ‘former white-collars’ and the ‘under-twenties.’ He was dressed quite comfortably: rubber boots on his feet, and a plastic poncho on his shoulders. The landfill aromas did not affect him at all. As the lunch time approached, he bought a couple of burritos from a small food vendor and began to tuck them on the go.

  “Without boots? Why this should be ‘gross’?” he raised his eyebrows, holding the half-consumed burrito in front of his lips. The issue, seemingly, had never occurred to him.

  “Well, ‘gross,’ probably, is a wrong word. I mean, it must be dangerous. What about all sorts of infections? In the garbage, there are old syringes, medical waste, and other such shit.” Mark had somehow accepted that his children were running barefoot everywhere in the city, but surely not at the garbage dump?

  “Oh, the dangers are grossly exaggerated. Some scavengers even claim that going barefoot on the 'Fill is marginally safer. Less chance to fall into some hole. Like, without shoes their feet can feel springy ground. To be frank, I believe this is a fishing tale. However, walking barefoot here is hardly more dangerous than in any other place. I go like this myself once in a while. You see, today, it was easy to guess the weather, – and I tuck my rubber boots. But in the Summer, the morning is dry, you come in sandals, and by the lunch time, there is a thunderstorm. Boom, and the mud is knee-deep! Or the opposite: in the morning it rains, you come in rubber boots, but after lunch, – the sun is out again, and the temperature climbs above ninety. Wear the rubber boots on such a hot day, – you will be without feet by the evening. Both ways, it is better with no shoes. Although, I try not to walk barefoot while on-duty. Maintaining the Police authority, so they say.”

  “I would never believe it's safe to walk here barefoot.”

  This very morning, Mark had almost identical conversation with Samantha. After the mandatory water run to the Reservoir (this activity all the neighborhood kids traditionally performed unshod, and Mark did not mind – at least, not anymore,) Samantha jumped on the trike to go to the 'Fill.

  “And where are you going like this?” Mary yelled.

  “Like what, mom?” Samantha asked. She carefully checked her jeans and T-shirt and even tried to look behind her back.

  “To the 'Fill? Without your rubber boots?” Mary clarified. Samantha smiled. She was afraid it was something serious, like crude ‘Caution: Inexperienced Driver’ sign pinned on her back by mischievous Pamela and Patrick the other day, but in reality it was something of no concern – going to the 'Fill in bare feet.

  A little authority struggle followed. Mark was on Mary's side, repeating the very same arguments, he just posed in front of Rodrigo. Although, Frederick's plant was probably not as bad as the 'Fill itself, all kinds of gross and, more importantly, dangerous stuff could be encountered everywhere. After all, it was a chemical plant! Didn't they have those special safety rules at the chemical plants? Finally, a compromise was made. Yes, Samantha would do it the same way, as Mike had done it before her: attach the rubber boots under the trike's seat to put them on upon the arrival. Mark pointed out that besides the rubber boots under the seat, Mike always had his flip-flops on while riding. At this, Samantha dismissively waved her hand: Mike was such a sissy, she said, only sissies need 'flops for riding a bike. Finally, the rubber boots had relocated from the garage corner to the hook under the seat, and Samantha departed, pushing the trike pedals with her bare, tough, totally anti-sissy toes.

  Rodrigo shook his head: “in terms of the biological hazards, only the fresh waste is really dangerous. The human bacteria and viruses in the garbage don't last too long. There has been no fresh garbage at this landfill for over ten years. The 'Fill works only for export now, so to speak. Over the years, everything rotted quite nicely. Besides, the top layers have been toasted by the sun. The medical sharps? They rust in under half a year and represent no further danger. There are, of course, pieces of broken glass, they don't rot, and if you are new to walking barefoot, you may cut yourself a little. But if you get used to walking without shoes, the foot itself reacts to a sharp object. No problems.”

  “Have you ever cut your foot here?” Mark asked.

  “Me? Never. You know what is really dangerous now? The chemicals! They are not biodegradable. And the ru
bber boots or rubber gloves can't help.”

  “Like a battery acid?”

  “Not only that. The worst thing is the dioxin. It used to be a lot of chlorine around, even in the household chemicals, and such. When everything rots, the chlorine reacts with the organic matter and forms the dioxin. For men, it's dangerous, but not too bad, but for women – oh, shit! Especially for pregnant! Miscarriages are a common thing here. And sometimes: a baby is born alive, but in such shape, better it would be dead. I told my wife: before you give birth to as many as you need, don't even think visiting the 'Fill.”

  “And how many does she need, exactly, if I may ask?”

  “By now, we have seven, and the eighth will be coming out in October. Only, too bad: six girls and only one boy. Will see who the number eight is going to be…”