On the morrow, it came to pass that, after I woke and bathed in the pond and then kissed my wife and kids goodbye and began to walk out to the barn to feed the horses and unearth my patrol cruiser from the secret garage underneath the hay bales, as I was passing by the red wheelbarrow glazed with rainwater beside the white chickens, I received a letter from a carrier pigeon; so I unrolled the scroll, and it said:
Dear Officer Bryan Ray,
Hello and greetings from your partner, Officer Dean. I am writing to inform you that, regrettably, I will not be able to accompany you in our squad car, during our scheduled shift today. Don’t worry: I will return tomorrow, as usual; but I need to take the next 24 hours off. For I encountered an unexpected event. You see, it turns out that today is my firstborn son James’s birthday — I had plum forgotten about it. So, instead of fighting crime with you, I need to go visit some retail shops and buy a gift for the lad; then I’ll shuttle him and his friends to the bowling alley, since that’s where he told me that he would like to have his birthday party. I’ll need to buy some other supplies as well, like soda pop and noisemakers and frosted cake. (Strawberry is his favorite flavor.) Anyway, I’m just blabbing now, so I’ll end this note with my signature accompanied by the design on the monogram from my signet ring stamped in red wax — that way, you can be certain that this communication is legit and was truly written by me — your trustworthy partner, Officer Dean — rather than being a deception sent to you by one of our countless enemies in the criminal underclass. — In closing, I reiterate: the point of this missive is to inform you that I will not be coming to work at the police station today; so, you’ll need to answer all of our distress calls and perform each crime-fighting mission, all by yourself. I hope that you do a good job. My heart is with you.
[signed: “Officer Dean”; followed by a stamped depiction of an eagle returning a garter snake to a pet shop]
I stood frowning at the letter while reading it. Once I finished, I stared at the ground for a very long time. Then I crumpled the paper and tossed it over my shoulder, and one of the barn swallows swooped down and nabbed it with her beak, then flapped back up to the rafters and used the letter to line her nest.
Cut to a medium shot of me driving my patrol cruiser down the street, all alone. I then slow to a halt because the traffic light before me had turned red. Now an enormous garbage truck pulls up and comes to a full stop beside me, in the next lane over, at the same intersection; thus we’re both at rest and waiting for the light to change. I look over and happen to meet eyes with the vehicle’s driver. He salutes and addresses me:
“Why so woebegone?”
I lift my eyebrows and lean towards the garbage truck and shout back: “I beg your pardon?” (It’s hard to hear over the surrounding traffic’s engines, which keep revving impatiently.)
“I said,” the driver of the enormous garbage truck shouts, “what’s the matter? You look so sad! And why are you flying solo? Don’t you cops work in teams? We in the trash-collecting industry always travel two-by-two; like the early Christians did, or the animals on Noah’s ark. But today the guy who normally serves as my partner called in sick. For his son is an astronaut who just got back from the first mission to Jupiter; so all of his colleagues at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration decided to throw a celebration for his accomplishment, and they invited his dad, my longtime trash-collecting partner, to join them. I presume that they all decided to keep the banquet going instead of ending it — so they’re most likely dancing in one of the local ballrooms, at the moment. The only way that my partner can legally get away with skipping work is to use one of his sick days. We get two per year.”
“Oh my gosh,” I cried out the window, in answer to this trashman’s tale, “the exact same situation happened to ME this morning — that’s why I appeared so gloomy when you first set eyes on me, moments ago.”
“Hey,” yelled the garbage-truck driver, “I have an idea. Since we both happen to be partner-less on this day, why don’t we team up? You can come and ride along with me, and we can collect the trash together — it’ll be fun.”
I gazed abstractedly at the stalled traffic around us, while pondering this proposal. Then I replied:
“That’s a great idea! I’ll be right over…” and, after climbing out of the window of my cop car, I hurried around to the passenger side of the garbage truck.
“Have a seat,” said the trash collector with a friendly smile; “make yourself at home!”
“Thanks,” I said. “My name’s Officer Bryan Ray, by the way.” and I held out my hand for him to shake, as the traffic light turned green.
“Pleased to meet you,” said the garbage-truck driver. “I’m Dustman Hinnom.” And he accelerated thru the intersection.
We drove in silence for several city blocks. Then we made a right turn at a stop sign.
“This is nice,” I remarked, nodding. “This is fun.”
“Isn’t it!?” said Hinnom the garbage man. “I mean, we get to drive around on the roads, thinking privately to ourselves while observing the scenery as it passes, and, all the while, we know that we’re serving a crucial purpose within society.”
I concurred: “Not many people can say that about their professions.”
Then we stopped at our first job — it was a single-family house that had a trash bin at the curbside of its driveway. My new friend Hinnom positioned his truck so that its mechanical arm was aligned with the bin. Then he pressed a button on the dashboard’s control panel which caused the mechanical arm at the side of the vehicle to grab the bin, lift it up, and dump it into the body of the truck. Then he pressed another button on the control panel that made a very disturbing noise.
“What was that that you just did?” I asked.
“That was the trash-flattening mechanism,” answered Hinnom. “It’s a hydraulic system of mashers that squash the trash after every bin gets emptied. The purpose is to make sure that the trash is compacted: we need it absolutely compressed. That way, we can fit more garbage in the chamber.”
“Ah, I see,” I said, while nodding and tapping my chin.
Then we drove for another twelve to fifteen miles, thru many city blocks and intersections, in peaceful silence, just watching the landscape change, lost in our own daydreams.
Finally I thought of a question to ask: “Tell me, Hinnom,” I said, “what happens to all this trash after we collect it? Do we just dump it in a landfill and allow it to rest in peace? Or do we sift thru it and sort out the valuables and sell them?”
“Everything gets recycled back into the ecosystem,” explained Dustman Hinnom. “You see, all this stuff that we call garbage is actually very useful to Mother Nature. Have you ever heard that maxim ‘One man’s trash is another man’s treasure?’ Well every discarded bit of melted radioactive plastic (to use the harshest example I can imagine) gets transformed into living, healthy cells of future creatures; including nonbiodegradables. Even oil spills eventually become fresh, drinkable water.”
“Hmm,” I said. “That’s really interesting.”
“It’s the cycle of life,” said Dustman Hinnom. “Fire is a purifying element. Only worms never die.”
I looked at Hinnom as he maneuvered the steering wheel to the next pickup spot. He eventually looked over at me, after I replied: “Worms? Are you talking about the soul?”
Hinnom smiled. “Sure, something like that”; then he motioned toward the bin on the driveway which we had pulled up alongside and said: “OK, second job of the day. You wanna try this one?”
I gazed out the window at the bin, which was aligned with the truck’s huge mechanical arm; and I said: “What do I do, just press the ‘DROP CLAW’ button?”
Dustman Hinnom laughed and said: “You’re a natural.”
So I pressed the button, and the arm dumped the trash bin into our truck. Then I pressed the “PULVERIZE” button, and I heard the awful noise of detritus getting annihilated.
“You’re better than my regular partner,” said Hinnom the garbage man. “Good job. Now there’s only one stop left.”
So we went to the last pickup site of the day and emptied the bin. Then Dustman Hinnom said:
“Well, we’re done with our hard day’s work; now it’s your choice what to do — I can either drop you off at your patrol cruiser and you can drive home, OR you can join me and my wife and kids for dinner: Tonight, we’re having pierogi filled with potatoes and cheese.”
“Are you serious?” I said. “I would LOVE to dine with you and your family. — However, would you mind if I brought my own wife and children along, too, so that we could all become friends?”
“I insist that they join us,” said Dustman Hinnom. Then he drove our enormous trash truck straight to my barn, honked the foghorn twice, and my wife and kids came running out of the house and stood before the vast mechanical arm of the vehicle.
I looked at Hinnom and he met my gaze and said: “You do the honors.”
So I pressed the “DROP CLAW” button, and the giant arm lifted them up gently. It did not smash them; it only carried them along, as we all drove to a small restaurant located around Eastern Europe and Eurasia:
This place where we dined was strategically positioned so that one third of its building rested in Poland, one third was located in Ukraine, and the final third was in Russia. (If you look at a map, you’ll be unable to discern how this positioning is even possible, but, trust me, the place existed — I dined there; so I know.) Also, another third of this tiny but excellent restaurant was located in China.
So, as Dustman Hinnom promised, our families feasted together… We were all very hungry, so we would have been happy no matter what quality of cuisine was served — but these pierogi turned out to be deluxe: They were filled not only with potatoes and sheep milk cheese, but also cabbage, sauerkraut, mushrooms, spinach, and meat. Moreover, they were topped with fried onions and sour cream.
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