Transcript for the Garbage version of Garbage

"My Neighbor's Garbage" by Hans Anderson

For 14 months, starting in Jan of 2002, I went through my neighbors garbage twice a week, each night that the garbage was put out to await the garbage service.

My midnight visits to John's trash cans became interesting for the first time tonight. My prize tonight was a little piece of paper, a scrap, that has a recipe printed on one side and on the other the question someone wrote: "Are there any ugly identical twins?" (laugh) It's like he's trying to remind himself to ask the librarian tomorrow.

While I was rustling through the garbage tonight I heard a sound, so I stopped and crouched behind the old Ford near the corner. I couldn't breath and sat still until I thought it must have been the stray cat or something. My legs were tired from crouching, so I couldn't stand up quickly, which was lucky
because Marianne, second from the corner, came out. Her lights were out and everything. I thought she must have seen me, but she just dropped in a bag, turned on her heal and retreated to her house. She didn't leave anything of interest -- stuff from her bathroom, not even a Playboy or Penthouse.
Her and Scott are probably the most boring people on the block. They shred, though, so who really knows.

Tomorrow is trash day again and I haven't been through the Gomez or Bentler's since last Friday. I'm trying to stay away from Joanne's place, but she's so addicting.

Joanne's diet appears to be off again. I couldn't stay away from her house. It's like gawking at a train wreck. It's impossible to stay away. All of those Weight Watchers TV dinners from two weeks ago have been replaced by Krispy Kreme boxes. There were two big donut boxes tonight, cleaned out perfectly as though maybe she even licked them. A jar of peanut butter, too, which had pieces of duct tape on the lid. No new love notes, though. It's been six weeks since I've found one. I wonder if she's taken to burning them.

I bought a new glove this morning. They are "Ultimate Shield" gloves by Whizard. I bought it at a restaurant supply store. People wear them while cleaning meat slicers so they don't slice up their hands; it looks like they are made from steel wool. I'm worried that sticks and needles can still poke through them, but I won't be sliced by a sharp edge again. I can't afford to take another week off from work for a dodgy, infected hand, especially at Bandy's garbage.

That reminds me, the last time I went over the Bandy's stuff I found two more hypodermic needles. It's killing me. I don't know how the parents can't know. The girl is fifteen, go through her garbage once-in-awhile! It'll probably save her life. Two months ago she was so trashed she threw out seventeen $50 bills; I can only assume how she made that kind of money. Those needles scare me
the most. I get stabbed by one of those, I get stabbed by Heather Bandy's whole past, her whole list of drugged out boyfriends. Who knows where they've been. It's time for another letter to the police about Heather.

I've decided to take my tape recorder with me tomorrow night. I think it would be fun to describe some of the stuff I find on a typical outing. It's like prospecting for gold or discovering a new continent. Tonight I have a date, though. Try to keep up the facade of being normal. (laugh)

"I can't wait for darkness. Summer is the worst because it's light forever, but it's so cold in December that a lot of the messy garbage is frozen together. Fall is the best. Not too cold yet, days getting shorter.

"Alright, it's pretty dark. I've got my suit on. Dark sweats, black dress shoes, black windbreaker, camo face paint I bought at Army-Navy on the face. Tonight I'm going to start at the south end of the alley, away from the old Ford. Someone peed in there I think and it stinks. Since it's the only cover at the north end, that's not good. Down here I've got some cover.

"Alright, Gomez. Gomez. ( rattling of trash can ). I'm going to have to set down the mic for a minute. (scuffle, distant sounds of removing lid). I never really thought of this. I guess my microphone is going to get a little dirty."

I'm back in my house. I hit Gomez, Mr. Terrence, the new folks on the southeast corner. They are still unpacking, so I didn't bother too much. Mostly boxes and packing stuff. They probably got rid of the good stuff on the other end of the move. The microphone thing didn't work out too well. I dropped it in a pool of mud.

There was nothing intersting in Gomez tonight, but I love that guy. His wife writes poetry about furniture:

In the dark I found a spark
I whacked a cupboard with my chin
a dart, a hint of things to come
I then found the sofa with my shin

That's my favorite Sylvianism. I have a notebook of those. Hector Gomez tosses page after page of fantasy football statistics. There's a recipe for marriage, furniture poetry and fantasy football. Tonight there wasn't anything. They've taken to shredding their credit card receipts, so it's hard to tell what they've been up to lately. Probably Sylvia found him using it for internet porn again.
There were some watercolors. I think I saw them on their refridgerator. They told me their son did it in day-care.

They invited me over for dinner again next Friday. They are kind of creepy, but I accepted. I worry about mentioning something I shouldn't know, something I found in their heep. Maybe I'll cancel.

It turns out there was a dead cat in the old Ford on the corner. It was pretty ripe. John said someone probably ran it over and it lived long enough to crawl into the car and die. It was a stray. John said no one had ever seen it before. Before I could stop myself, I told him I'd seen it every night. Man, that was stupid of me. I'm cancelling with the Gomez's tomorrow night for sure. John
didn't bat an eye, though. I'll skip his house tonight. He filled up all three of his cans with leaves he raked this afternoon.

That's been the story all week. Leaves, leaves, leaves. I can't scatter leaves everywhere looking for the good stuff so I have nothing to do. John's cottonwood is nearly leafless, but he still has the oak so it'll be another week before I get anything from him. He has taken to leaving his dog out at night, too. It's impossible to get to his or Mr. Thomas or the Bentler's right now. Motorhead, that's what John named his dog. Motorhead is the only dog that won't shut up when I throw them some trash. Toss Cougar or Belle or Colby an old sandwich or left-over steak and you're friends for life. Buying their silence.

Finally, the first gold I've struck in almost three weeks. It's another of Jerry the Novelist's half-hearted attempt at a "Dial M for Murder" novel. I scored a handwritten outline on yellow legal paper, wadded up into tight little balls. At the top was "Over the Cliff" -- must be the title? The first item, Roman Numeral One, says "scuba gear". Under it is a bulletted list with "hit on back of head with frying pan", then "make sure keep frying pan so there is no evidence" and "maybe gets wetsuit caught and tears it, leaving behind evidence". Next, next to Roman Numeral Two is "hiding in car". Under that is "lay on floor in back seat," then "ex-husband doesn't see her". In the margins he scribbled what looks like "how to get him to drive on the windy dirt road by lake?"

The outline goes on like this for a page. Another sheet looks like the beginning of a chapter, but it is nearly illegible. From the outline's neat handwriting and parts of the dumped chapter I gather he's writing a book about a woman killing her ex-husband. She's going to hide in his car wearing a full SCUBA outfit, complete with tanks. Then the woman is going to wait until her husband is at this certain point in this windy mountain road and whack him on the head with a skillet which will send the car off of a cliff into the lake. Then she'll swim away as the car settles to the bottom, emerge elsewhere in the lake where she hid her car. The perfect murder except she leaves behind a piece of
her wetsuit. It needs some work. You couldn't hide in a limo wearing SCUBA tanks. And the whole bit about getting him to drive on the windy mountain road seems far-fetched, too. Too Simon & Simon or Magnum P.I.

But I love finds like that. That's why this is so addicting. It tells you a lot about a person, his garbage.