trashboy
I know you’ll despise me when you hear my story, you’ll judge my morals. Maybe you’re right; you don’t understand loneliness, what it feels like when your body aches at night like a crying infant and your breast is dry, devoid of milk. I’m not justifying myself, though I might hold you accountable for part of what happened. Still, I’d like to reassure you that I awoke at the last moment—not out of fear of you, but because I don’t want to be like the others who exploited him.
I won’t submit to your threats every time, and if you’re going to scrutinize my writings through your moral microscope, I refuse. Even if my writing appears nonsensical, reflecting my deviance, I’m not angry with you. Quite the opposite, I’d like your help in finding him. You’ll see him everywhere, encountering him daily without noticing, like a bug or a cigarette butt crushed underfoot. Just as I bumped into him every day on my way to work.
You know I was never enthusiastic about my job. I hated my boss, my colleagues, my rickety desk—everything there resembled the burnt tea cup that old Ahmad carried on his rusty, grimy tray.
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Everyone was puzzled by my habit of arriving early every day, an hour before work began, at exactly 7:15. “What’s the secret?” I heard their silent questions, but I’m wicked, unwilling to provide answers. Frankly, I enjoyed the tension I stirred at the office, fully aware it wouldn’t be long before they sent someone to monitor me. I had to act fast; I needed to speak to him.
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Today, I decided to stop and examine him up close. He was like a new, intriguing book that had fallen into my lap by chance, or maybe my persistence was just a way to break the monotony. All I saw were his large, dark eyes, deep as ceramic bowls. The rest lay in shadow—sweaty, rusty hands like a monkey’s paws, a short, slender body resembling an eggplant, and cracked feet like parched earth abandoned by its owners. His clothes were indistinguishable, a mass of grime, grease, and patches. Sitting down, he blended seamlessly with the ground; together, they became a single entity.
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He jumped into the trash bin like a rat, burying himself inside, making only a faint rustling sound. Then he leaped out, a cigarette butt in his mouth, lifting three bags with his rusty hands raised like iron rods. He sorted the waste with incredible precision: one bag for paper trash—cartons, paper, candy wrappers, and biscuit boxes; another for soft waste—leftover food; and a third for metals, broken plastic and aluminum dishes. He danced rhythmically for a minute like a pendulum to avoid suspicion if he found a piece of iron or copper. Then he dragged his bags behind him, smoking his cigarette butt, a mangy dog dragging its tail.
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I saw anger in his eyes, as if I’d encroached on a forbidden territory. He began to growl, trying to scare me off. I was frightened each time and stepped back, but today, I resolved to follow him. I knew there was a man who took care of them, bought their goods for a pittance, and recycled them. I won’t delve into those illegal factories or pig farms; you know more about them than I do. What piqued my curiosity was how he carried out his daily routine, the people he spent his days with.
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I remembered him as I prepared lunch in the kitchen, smiling at his childlike defiance when he refused to move, staring back at me in challenge, as if to say, “I won’t budge.” He sat on the sidewalk, rummaging through his bag of food until he found a bundle of sandwiches that were still somewhat edible. He sniffed them, reassured, then began to eat slowly, offering them to me defiantly. I walked away from him, and as I remembered him, time passed quickly. I finished cooking, looked at the plates, the utensils, the trays, the faucet—examining each in its resigned state, surrendered for years to my hands, to whatever was ladled into it, to wherever it was placed. I wondered if they loved me, enjoyed the taste of my food, felt pain when the stove’s flames licked them, or if they ever wished to rebel.
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Perhaps you’d be surprised to learn I kept every broken dish, burnt-out bulb, leaky faucet—what you might call junk—in a large wooden crate in the storeroom. I won’t treat you like my colleagues; I’ll spare you the question “Why?” But that doesn’t mean I like you; I merely consider you my partners.
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I opened the crate, admiring them as rare treasures, my hidden fortune. I hear your laughter, but I ignore it. They defied scientists’ classifications of inanimate, unmoving objects. The moment I left the kitchen, I’d hear something fall and rush back to find a plate, cup, or spoon shattered on the floor, though I’d placed it where I’d always placed it, some of them years ago, some only months. Why did they fall today? You’d probably blame it on imbalance or, as scientists say, gravity or potential energy, with other explanations meant to appease the mind. Perhaps. But I saw it as rebellion. I heard the crash of a plate saying, “I’m tired of your cooking, I don’t like its taste, I feel lonely when I’m on your table, sick of the silence and the lingering scraps that turn me into a playground for insects.” When I poured tea into a cup, I could hear it exclaim, “You don’t think about the pain you cause when you pour me scalding, funeral tea, always alone, no joy, without even a piece of sugar or mint leaf.”
I gathered them tenderly and placed them with their friends inside the crate. “You’re right; it’s not fair for you to endure my loneliness, to bear my unskilled, careless hands.”
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Maybe I’d reached the edge of delirium, as suddenly I decided to part with them after seeing him. “I have valuable things for you,” I told him, giving him the address. Don’t blame me; I doubted he’d accept, doubted he’d even read the address correctly. He stared at me suspiciously. Forgive me; I must stop. I hear the doorbell ringing. You don’t understand what it means to hear the doorbell; I can’t remember the last time it rang. Don’t wait for me. I promise I’ll finish the story for you.
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“You—you?” I waited for you for days, like parched earth awaiting a fleeting summer cloud to soothe its thirst. “I want to see what you have.” I took his hand, which he pulled away quickly, wiping it on his worn garment. When he saw the large crate full of metal—aluminum, glass, iron, copper—his eyes widened as if capturing a family portrait. When he snapped out of his awe, he looked at me with a blend of gratitude, affection, anxiety, and manipulation. “I’m ready.” He examined the place, finding it clean, orderly, silent. “I see you’re alone. Perhaps you have a husband abroad, or maybe he abandoned you, as I don’t sense his presence. Or perhaps you divorced him, as only a lone woman’s body shows such wrinkles across a still-young face, and white hair that seems untouched by use—hair grieves when it’s not used to allure a man. Don’t be surprised; I’m not ignorant. I read everything I find in the trash, I have a computer, if you can believe it, and I have friends. But I have no family. I decided not to have family.”
I let him talk; that was the price I had in mind, while the price he had in mind was different. “I’m not a child; I’m almost twenty. This isn’t my first time; many have tried me, some twice your age and wealthier. A few even offered to take me in, but I refused. I left my mother’s house for freedom.”
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Before I could translate my reaction, stunned in my mind or perhaps restrained by instinct, he pressed me roughly onto the couch, freeing my hair, which indeed I hadn’t used to lure any man. I was drowning in a wild, sticky heat, pinned in place. “You remind me of my mother before she married that vile man. She would sit me in her lap and tell me tales of handsome heroes and beauties, but she forgot to warn me about her husband. Why did you remain alone? Did you never have a child to protect from a stepfather or fear he’d escape in the night, preferring the street dogs to witnessing his mother in the arms of a man who destroyed his innocence?”
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Why had I stayed alone? Why did I bear my body’s nightly aches? Why did I despise my colleagues when they spoke of their husbands and their intimate nights? Why did jealousy consume me as I saw their wet hair or their full breasts in their children’s mouths? I took in his raw masculinity, his snake-like hands slipping into the cells of my aching body. The sweat poured like a waterfall that had just broken a dam. “Once, just once, I moisten my lips, just once to quell my body’s screams, once, just once in thirty-five years, ignoring its cries, fearing the intentions of those around me.” What do I fear? Not a colleague exposing me at work, not a neighbor crossing a line, nor the husband of a friend I’d hate to betray. He’s just a trash boy, one who’ll disappear as soon
