O.C. Writers

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Kelly shrieked when she saw her trash can.

She’d just run outside for one second, because the strawberries had gone bad, all squishy and covered with white fungus, and she didn’t want to keep them in the kitchen, drawing ants and liquefying onto the countertop. Better to dump them in the can at the curb, this being trash day, and let them decay in a landfill somewhere.

But when she scraped them into a plastic bag and went outside to toss them, she saw something chilling:The trash can was moving.

All by itself, as if propelled by an invisible, demonic force. She wondered (in that way you do, before rational sense takes over) if her trash was haunted somehow, by a malevolent but thrown-out spirit, now possessing her garbage. Or if someone had been mini-dumpster-diving and accidentally fell in. Whoops, help, get me out of here.

Choice Two–someone had.

Kelly braced herself and grasped the green plastic lid with both hands. She flipped it open, peered inside, and saw a tiny white face with lampblack eyes looking back at her.

“Well, hello there,” she told the raccoon.

The raccoon wasn’t happy to see her, twitching its whiskers, sidling anxiously back and forth in the small, contained space. Kelly saw a torn-open plastic bag with strips of steak and gristle protruding, and knew what had happened. Raccoons were smart and resourceful, and had opposable thumbs like people. The animal must have smelled the meat and managed to climb in, looking for a snack.

Unfortunately, climbing back out wasn’t so easy.

“Poor guy,” she muttered, wondering what to do. She wanted to help him escape, maybe pull him out of there, but she didn’t want to be scratched or bitten, and she really didn’t want to go a doctor–maybe her concert-loving boyfriend–for rabies shots. She was wondering whether to tip the can when she was startled by the blast of an airhorn.

She looked up to find the garbage truck, pulling up to the curb. The passenger’s side door flew open and Marty hopped down, the man she’d met last week, with hazel eyes and an instantly likeable smile. He’s really quite handsome, she decided, for a garbageman.

“Looks like you’ve got a stowaway,” he said.

“Anything for a snack,” she agreed.

Marty looked inside, appraising the raccoon, who boldly met his eyes. “Can’t say I blame him. I was on a diet once where I was so hungry, I was ready to raid the trash.”

She laughed. “Should we tip the can, and set him free?”

“Not yet.” Marty ducked into the truck cab, and emerged with a boxy brown lunchbox. He cracked it open and pulled out a Ziploc bag, full of salami slices. “First let’s give him a reward, for being stuck here all night.”

He dropped the slices, one by one, into the trash can. Kelly watched with amazement as the nimble creature caught them like an outfielder, jamming them into his little mouth, as if he and Marty had rehearsed this beforehand. When the salami was all gone, hastily chewed and swallowed by the masked scavenger, Marty said, “Out you go,” and gently upended the can.

The raccoon scrambled for its freedom, scurrying across Kelly’s front lawn, and disappeared into a copse of trees at the edge of the property. But the little animal hesitated, casting a quizzical look backwards, sharing a moment (Kelly could swear) with the garbageman who’d freed him.

Gotta go, he seemed to be saying, but thanks for the lunchmeat.

Then he vanished into the foliage.

“Crisis averted,” Marty assured her. “All part of the service, Ma’am. Let me know if little Brace shows up again.”

“Little who?”

“Brace–after Brace Beamer, the radio voice of the original Lone Ranger. Because of the raccoon’s mask,” he explained, holding thumb-and-finger circles over his own eyes. “Every time I see a raccoon, I expect him to be out west chasing outlaws.”

Kelly nodded, impressed. “I love those old radio shows,” she said, warming to this oddly eloquent trash man. “I spend hours playing them back with the lights out, picturing the adventure in vivid detail, in a way that mere television could never capture.”

“Letting your imagination fill in the details,” Marty agreed. “I mean, TV’s great, and I love a good movie, but we pay a price for having it all played out in front of us. There’s something compelling about hearing it on radio, or a book on tape, or even reading it in a hardbound volume that you can revisit again and again.”

Kelly clapped her hands. “I feel exactly the same way! In fact, I’m a librarian. I spend all day trying to get people to rediscover books.”

“No kidding,” Marty said.

She nodded. “We have more in common than you’d expect. Not that that’s surprising,” she said, a bit awkwardly. “I mean, just because you’re a trash collector, that doesn’t mean you can’t still be, uh…”

“Compliment accepted,” said Marty, taking no offense. “I’m proud of what I do. But I admit your job is way cooler than mine. I mean, libraries are where our culture resides. You’re the gatekeeper for centuries of shared experience, preserved on the printed page. Plus, you have some really cool murder mysteries,” he added, drawing a finger across his throat, pantomiming being dead, then investigating his own murder with an imaginary magnifying glass. “If that’s not too lowbrow.”

“No, I love mysteries,” Kelly said, marveling at the commonalities she had with this once-anonymous figure, someone she’d glimpsed for months but never really had a chance to talk to. “Miss Marple. Hercule Poirot. Lord Peter Wimsey. And of course, Sherlock Holmes.”

“All ingenious,” said Marty. “Talk about books you could lose yourself in, show me a prime-time crime series with half the depth of Agatha Christie or Dorothy Sayers or Arthur Conan Doyle.”

He and Kelly flinched as the trash truck’s airhorn went off again, behind him. She looked up to see a portly man behind the wheel, wearing a stretched-tight workshirt, looking pointedly at his watch.

“Whoops, gotta go,” he said, acknowledging his partner. “We’re on a pretty tight schedule. But I’d love to talk with you further, in a less pedestrian setting, and with no raccoons involved. We could get coffee sometime. Or I could stop by the library, I think I’ve got a book that’s overdue–like, since 1987. I could bring it by sometime,” he said reasonably.

“I’ve got a boyfriend,” Kelly blurted, because it was wrong not to say that, though she regretted the words as soon as she said them. James wasn’t a permanent boyfriend, just a recent acquisition, one she might reconsider if the ear-bleed concert went badly, in light of the fact that he didn’t read and disliked birds and had, perhaps, other drawbacks yet unrevealed. She was tempted to take the words back, or at least soften them by adding Coffee wouldn’t hurt or some other equivocation, leaving the door open in case her current relationship hit the skids.

My God, this is what guys do, she thought, with a shock of recognition. It was called ‘wing-walking,’ not fully committing to a flight in progress, or a relationship–something she detested in men but now found herself considering. She was opening her mouth to say No when Marty smoothly intercepted her.

“You misunderstand,” he insisted. “It wouldn’t be a date, not a date date, just a chance to share the company of someone I’m impressed with, while I’m fueling myself with caffeine. But if it makes you uncomfortable,” he said, whipping out an embossed card, “then don’t give me your number, just take mine. You can call or not call, at your discretion. No hard feelings either way.” He bowed theatrically. “And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some garbage to load.”

He hoisted her trash into the truck’s rear loader, replaced the can, and climbed up into the cab again. With a final wave, he was driven off to the next house, where their morning routine would continue.

She glanced at his card. It read MARTIN BROWER / Sanitary Maintenance Engineer Par Excellence. She giggled at the French descriptor, only one of the things that made him a very atypical trash collector. She was left marveling at their remarkably close connection, how much they had in common.

Almost as if he could read my mind…