And so those days of subtle genius gone
Days spent fishing for leaves in the back yard
Full of hammocks and skinned knees, dew at dawn
And the dog has been missing since the sun went down

He bounds into view with the sun at noon
A strange creature with five legs instead of four
One dangles from his mouth, clearly not his own
And it will be used for walking no more

As blood stains the deck and drips from his mouth
It is a strangely beautiful nightmare
One that leaves a wanting for the waking
A curiosity for the mortal

Bent and broken at all the wrong angles
Flesh stripped away in no certain pattern
And no one will touch it save the dog and
Flies begin to materialize and feast

We three sit with our faces against glass
Groaning complaints of the sight and smell
And turning away is not an option

It stays for two days and quickly becomes
An average, common place sight
Like some everyday monstrosity

And when it leaves under cover of night
Reclaimed by some wandering creature
And no longer some scavenger’s bounty
We are forlorn and must look elsewhere for decay

And we are not disappointed, to say the least.

When people ask me about driving a garbage truck, I usually tell them it’s as bad as it sounds, only worse, and then I pause for a minute as if to think reflectively and tell them “well, once you got used to it, it wasn’t so bad.” Maybe I’m just a fake motherfucker, but I get sick of answering the same questions all the time, so I at least have fun trying to perfect the same responses, or make up ridiculous answers (“No man, I loved that job! I found so many cool things in the trash, and I never had to bring my own lunch, if you know what I mean!”). For the first week, I was miserable and convinced I would quit. During training I was riding around in a residential truck with a Brazilian kid named Ramon who drove like a psychopath and would pretend to be a stupid, uneducated foreigner when dealing with some of the customers (“Yes boss! Sorry boss! Next time better boss!”) while I tried to hold back laughter (he and I had actually gone to high school together and his English was pretty good).

Anyway, between the smell and mess that came with the job, I was sure I wasn’t going to last, but I managed to deal with it. When people say “Oh, man, that must have been terrible,” I often just shrug and say “Yeah, but it was great writing material,” which is largely true, but I never really did anything with it. I do have some notes and images I jotted down while I worked there that I’m particularly fond of that I’ve always wanted to turn into something worthwhile, so in the next few days or weeks I’ll turn those into little vignettes to be posted here, so at least I have them in one place. Some of the characters I worked with there are too good and three-dimensional not to write about, and I had some pretty scary and life-changing experiences as well that warrant attention.

The most prominent image I have of that time and the one I tell most people about is picking up the dumpster of the local Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. It was one of the most depressing experiences of my life, repeated every other week.

The first week, I didn’t realize what the ashes were. The next, the cremator came out with his big gloves and tongs carrying a plastic bag. He had a look about him as of pure misery that made me not feel so bad about my limited contact with the co-mingled remains of Spike and Mittens.

On a rainy day, the ashes became wet and sludgy, like a kitty-ash Slushy. It would slide down the metal sides of the dumpster and slop into the soup that had been building up in the hopper.

On windy days, it was like that scene in The Big Lebowski, when they’re spreading the ashes on the cliff and they all blow into his face. After blowing my nose into the shop towels in the truck, I wondered if I could figure out what part of Fluffy I had just gotten a little more intimate than I ever would have liked to with.

As bad as those were, probably the worst was when a corner of the dumpster, which was a small little two-yarder (it was right next to a veterinary clinic I also picked up on alternate weeks – one week was cat and dog shit from the vet clinic, the other the ashes from the MSPCA) got caught on a tree branch when I wasn’t paying attention and dumped ashes all over the ground. The shovel that was pinned to the side of the truck had been broken for a long time, since a dumpster had been knocked out of the truck and almost killed me when it hit the side and shattered it, so I had to scoop up the ashes by hand and put them into the truck.

And that’s when I decided to go back to college!

Stay in school, kids.

(Oh, I remembered just now in my last post I promised kittens and rainbows. Well, I got the kittens, but I owe you some rainbows. My bad.)

One of the things that has sort of bothered me lately, and especially since I got married, is the notion of my own mortality. Personally, I believe when I die, that’s it, nothing left. And yeah, that’s depressing as shit, but it’s what I believe. This never really bothered me so much until I realized I had someone to spend the rest of my life with. The last few days I’ve been thinking about it more than usual; we’ve been able to spend some really good times together lately that have led me to be pretty freaked out about what would happen if I die, or if she died, and which would be worse. On the one hand, if I died, I’d never see or touch or hear her again. But I’d be dead, so I wouldn’t know the difference. On the other, if she died, I’d have to live without her, which is pretty unimagineable right now. If I had to choose which of us would live, it would be a tough choice. I wouldn’t want her to die, obviously, but I know how messed up I’d feel if she died and wouldn’t want to put her in that situation. I guess I can take solace in the fact that I’ll probably never be in that position.

A few years ago, I didn’t even think I was capable of feeling certain emotions, let alone some as strongly as I do with Ivona. I feel now that no matter what happens in life, I have a partner to face everything with. I guess these fears of death or worrying about things is my way of being cautious. Life seems so great and perfect around her that I’m almost psyching myself up for the impending fall. Who knows, we may end up living to 90 and having successful, happy lives, but one of us is going to die first. Maybe Alzheimer’s isn’t such a tragic disease at all… Sure, it’s tragic for those around you, but it probably makes dying a hell of a lot easier if you can’t remember their names or anything about them.

I had a dream the other night, that I was in another country and was kidnapped and tortured. It became clear that I was going to die, and worse than the pain or that knowledge was the feeling that I wouldn’t see Ivona again. Stuff like that freaks me out more than anything I’ve ever thought about or worried about before. I used to have those thoughts about my twin brother, Alex, and still do from time to time, but I’ll admit marriage changes your focus a little bit. (Sorry Alex, you have to share the number one spot for favorite person in my book these days.)

I’m sure it’s just a temporary thing and I’ll stop thinking about it so much soon. Maybe writing about it will help put my mind at ease. I think I just need to tell myself that thinking about it now isn’t going to do any good. I don’t think that thinking about death at 24 is going to do much in the way of preparing me for when the time comes.

Anyway, sorry to be so morbid. Next post will have kittens and rainbows, I promise.