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on a rye, a dill pickle, and a Coke, but no Hershey bar this time
‘cause we’ve been fighting. I jump off at the next pit and grab my
lunchbox from the cabin. I can’t see the Apollo—a city bus is
blocking the view—but I know it’s there. There is a milky smell
of vomit and beer, and I can tell we’re half way through with the
day. I smile and take a bite off my sandwich.
The front of the Apollo, under that famous marquee, is
one of the most well kept sidewalks in Manhattan. The bags are
tied with red and blue rubber-bands and neatly stacked by the
service entrance just off to the side. All the action is across the
street: it sparkles with broken glass, trash bins flipped and tumbled,
the asphalt smudged with blood and splashed with vomit.
The truck hisses to a stop and the Kid and I step off. He
looks over the mess and then at me.
“How can you eat”
I shrug and take another bite.
“I’m hungry.”
“Marone’a mia!” he cups his hand over his mouth and
nose.
I set my sandwich, wrapped in foil, down on the step behind
the compactor and grab two bags. The Kid and I take turns
working the pile, and when it’s done he dashes back to the truck
as fast as he can, and I can hear Skip giggle.
We roll out and when we finally hit Park Avenue the
brakes squeal and the truck shakes and lumbers into a right
turn. This is where the rusty beams whipped in graffiti prop the
Amtrak rail overhead, and half-baked whores, bums, and junkies
seek shade under the steel overpass. Some are unconscious,
some hunched over soupy puddles of vomit, others stumbling
about, scratching and raving, sweaty t-shirts stuck to their chests.
When they see me ride the step sleeveless, my sandy hair wild in
the wind, the whores stop cat-walking and turn. “Hey Buff,” they
call out, ropey legs wobbling in fat platform shoes. “Wanna get
sommah’dis” I smile and we keep riding, past the slow whiff of
urine and sewage water all the way down to 96th Street. The trash
we pick up along the way is bulky, not bagged or boxed, industrial
February 2014 17