After we leave the window that displays Justice’s picture, it takes us about half an hour of walking to get down the hill and go to the place where the greens hand out work. The city is busier in the morning, as if the light draws out people who have hidden through the whole dark time.
It’s still cool as we stand around in bunches, warming in the early sun. Greens come by and pick people out.
They call out work and take people with them.
“Gardening.”
“Street cleaning.”
“Sewers.”
“Food line.”
I’m starved. I wonder what happens to people who don’t get picked.
The woman with the sour face who let us in the gate yesterday calls out “Reclamation.” She walks up and down the line signaling for people to follow her. In front of us, she stops and looks thoughtful, and then sends us to a growing knot of about twenty workers. Almost as many greens surround us. All of us—greens and everyone else alike—are strong. Not necessarily young, but no one is old or unable to walk or work. Most are men, but there are four other women; all greens. Two of the women are extra broad and tall twins, maybe five years older than us.
The other two women are older with stringy hair tied back in ponytails and sturdy but stained work clothes and boots. Practical. They walk beside us and ask us questions about where we came from. As soon as we tell them what we told the people at the gate, Monday starts asking them questions. Their names are Cheryl and Lyssa, and they have always lived in Portland. They like Storm and that the city is pretty safe, and they can’t imagine what anyplace else must be like. They tell us the seawall has fallen in Seattle and there’s no running water in southern California at all.
They’re not like the men that stopped us last night. They are nice to us, maybe even friendly.
We stop in the middle of the street when we see where we’re going. A mountain of junk shines in the sun. Truckloads and truckloads of it that have been piled onto a road. Maybe more like a mountain range of junk, complete with peaks and valleys. Some of the trash has fallen into a sinkhole behind the main mound, but most is stacked way taller than we are.
As we get closer, the junk pile resolves into distinct items. Broken picture frames, crushed toasters, chipped drinking glasses and plates. Bicycle wheels bent out of shape and tattered lampshades gone to mush from the weather. Ravens and smaller birds flit from shiny object to shiny object, collecting treasure for nests.
A few more steps and a puff of wind brings a great miasma of mold and bird shit and a faint whiff of dead things that makes us wrinkle our noses. The greens gather us in a circle, handing out scraps of material to tie over our faces and worn gloves for our hands. All of the greens have their own gloves; the ones we get are stiff with other people’s sweat.
One man refuses the scarf and the gloves and turns and walks away.
The greens ignore him, except that one whispers under her breath, “Happy starving.”
The smell has killed my hunger, but the idea of leaving with no way to buy more food keeps me listening as we get instructions which are very detailed but amount to “recycle this mountain of stuff.”
Monday leads us gingerly up the pile, keeping us a little distant from everyone else, just close enough to hear the orders they give us.
We pull whole objects from the pile. We’re looking for anything that might be mended and re-used, like garden rakes with broken handles. Metal is safeguarded and piled by type into big metal bins. Greens are the only ones allowed to sort metal. We put red marks on electronics that are past saving, and they all go into a special bin. Dry paper has a special holder. Just trash—like old, soiled clothing and soaked paper—ends up in a separate container as well. Most of the pile is trash. A truck comes four times and empties this bin, and two of the times the same truck brings new stuff.
Some of the junk brings up images of other lives I’ve made up from movies. Blue ribbons from a dog tournament in 2019 are folded up neatly in a wooden box with the name Charlie in dark letters on the lid. A broken camera lens as big as my hand. Monday has to tell me what it is since at first I think it’s something to look at stars with. A single, tiny tennis shoe lights up when I flex it.
Monday finds a book that makes her smile, and she tucks it into her waistband and pulls her shirt over it.
By lunch, we’ve filled ten bins and started stacking goods beside other bins. Monday has a scratch all along one arm that bleeds intermittently and attracts flies. The smell worsens as the day warms.
My hunger gnaws at my belly in spite of the smell now, demanding my attention even more than the sharp edges and rats and dive-bombing birds. Hunger makes me slow.
I’d like rain. The heat is still and damp. Thick black clouds hover east and south, but above us the sun shines forcefully down on the mountain of shiny and dull things, on the sharp things and the old things and the hot and smelly things.
A line of five green jeeps drives up to the edge of the mountain.
A man hops out of the second one in line and walks toward us. I recognize him from the posters of his face on the bridge as we came in even though he’s shorter than I expected.
Storm.
I stop, mesmerized at this first look at a stranger whose face I’ve seen in a hundred places. He’s the reason I’m picking through junk. It’s a brutal thing that has to be done. I understand that.
His hands are empty, but he’s followed by two men with rifles. He talks to a few of our keepers and although I can’t hear the words, his tone is demanding.
Everyone he’s talking to stands straight, looks serious, and speaks back to him in low tones.
The men with the guns look around all the time. Their eyes never stop, their heads swivel like hawks. Back in the jeeps, I see more guns.
Perched near the top of the junk mountain, I feel like I’m in a weird movie, like none of this is real. But then I’m dizzy with the smell and the chasm in my belly and a thirst that tugs at my throat.
Storm looks up at me, and I think for a minute that he’s going to climb the pile of crap himself, but he turns away and climbs into his jeep. After he leaves, there is a period of silence before we all start talking again.
Even though it smells worse than anything I’ve ever smelled, worse than sickness or rot or sickness and rot together, by the time a truck drives up with lunch I’m starved. We each get a whole plate of mixed-up stuff. Some stale crackers, cookies that taste like cinnamon and have real sugar on top, some tomatoes and bits of chewy meat jerky. I’m hungry enough it all disappears with almost no comment.
That’s all the food we get, and even though our plates were full, I’m starved by the time we’re allowed to knock off work. At the end of the day we trade the rags and gloves for work chits. Before that, one of the green women pats us down, and she takes the book away from Monday and throws it into a trash bin. When she gets near me, her hands are professional and perfunctory, but I still feel violated and a little pissed off. Not that I say anything, but I hate that, too. My silence.
Monday and I get three chits each. If I understand the system, we can’t take a whole day off until we work another whole day. Not and eat.