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Found at the Dump By David Holub ____________________
Arising from my bed and still in a pre-dawn
daze, I hurried into the kitchen expecting flames or at least sparks but
discovered nothing but darkness. Detecting the faint scent of smoke, I flipped
on the light only to find the air clear. With my nose still searching, I traced
the smell to one of the cabinets, which contained an overturned jar of liquid With four hours to burn before I began my route
and a hankering for some solace, I headed down to the place I knew I would find
it: The dump.
The dump was a place I could get away from
pesky mailmen, honking horns, stray dogs and those annoying beeping crosswalks
for the blind. There I liked solving math problems or working on my Pig Latin
thesaurus or reading the print on the trash surrounding my car. My favorite was finding discarded items that
had ludicrous lawsuit-induced warnings printed on them. Hall of fame
acquisitions were the Kleenex box that said, “Do not flush down toilet” or
the instant mashed potato box warning, “Do not sniff potato flakes.” But reading trash, the thesaurus and the
tranquility were merely rationalizations to get me to the dump. I enjoyed those
activities but when I was honest with myself, I knew what really brought me to
the dump so often. *** Four years and seven weeks ago, I returned to
my apartment after an afternoon of intimidating people with my trombone at the
park. After dismounting from my bike, I set my trombone down and fished in my
left sock for my keys. My thought process was jolted when a man
wearing a pair of undies, a cape and boots descended from the top of the
building on a crudely hung zip line. I don’t know if he was attempting to
elude someone or if he was just a giant jackass, but he didn’t exactly land
smooth. Rather, he lost his balance and slammed into one of the mopeds
innocently parked on the street. I immediately ran to him to check his health.
Caught in the After men claiming to be paramedics arrived,
the whereabouts of my trombone hit me over the dome like a well-planted cheap
shot. I craned my head to see if the brass instrument was still there. It
wasn’t. I ran to the spot where I had laid it and turned in circles, scanning
the area. Nothing. Hearing the sound of a bulky engine, I twisted
to see a garbage truck driving away in the distance, likely heading to the dump.
It was then that I realized I was standing not five feet from an empty dumpster.
With my trombone gone, I wasn’t only left without an instrument; I was left
without a way to express myself, to communicate with others. My theories on
mammals, education reform and molecular science were presented in their purest,
most concise forms through my trombone. Gone were my street performances of
trombone comedy, my famed trombone debates and highly-publicized trombone
protests, where me and my trombone successfully lobbied the end of inflated
transportation budgets and several open public record violations. I was left without a voice. *** As I perused the dump grounds surrounding my
car, my attention was taken by two scavengers arguing loudly in what I
recognized as broken Portuguese. As I watched them fight over a weathered stick
pony, I noticed a garbage truck in the distance dumping trash. As I continued to
look on I let out a horrific shriek, seeing what appeared to be a human body
fall from the back of the truck. Unsure whether my shriek had been heard I
rushed to my car and laid on the horn. Immediately after pressing the horn I was
reminded that I had replaced the wimpy, factory-installed “beep beep” with a
horn that played a selection from Bartok’s Sonata for Two Pianos and
Percussion. I had wanted something to use in tense traffic situations that
conveyed true anger and vivacity. I got that with Bartok. The horn immediately
got the attention of the truck driver but he must have been Hungarian because
instead of alarm, he seemed to appreciate the music of what I presumed to be his
homeland. Abandoning the horn, I sprinted to the truck
and began inspecting the area for the body I’d seen fall. I trusted that my
eyes had not lied. The driver quickly ejected from the truck’s cab and began
toward me, barking in a strange Eastern European tongue. The scavengers
gravitated toward us, one walking briskly and the other dogging behind, riding a
stick pony. As embarrassing and humiliated as the scavenger looked on the stick
pony, I wasn’t sure if he’d won or lost the argument. Soon I had the trash man shouting and pointing
in all directions and the two scavengers aggressively requesting information in
Portuguese. I regurgitated the only Portuguese I knew, which consisted mainly of
croquet terms. They both looked at me blankly as I shouted the Portuguese words
for “wicket,” “pegger,” “treble,” and “rover.” When the situation had calmed, I made my way
down a steep incline to where the trash had dumped. My orbs of sight gently
scanned the area and centered on two legs jutting from the heap. But the legs
were not that of a human or even that of a once-living creature. Rather, they
were the color of brass, molded in what appeared to be hard plastic or rubber. I
stepped forward and grabbed the two ankles, reviving a chorus of coarse babble
from the Hungarian and the scavengers. Nonetheless, I continued to yank, pulling
from the pile a fully dressed mannequin. I looked him in the eye and appreciated
his nondescript facial features. When the trio saw the revealed dummy, the
multilingual raucous fell silent. They stared at the plastic man then back at
me, then at the plastic man, then at me. In a deep murmur, the Hungarian mumbled
something in Hungarian. As I stared back at them, the mannequin caught my
attention. Rather, its clothes. He and I were dressed exactly the same. I
quickly tried to calculate the odds of this happening but stopped when I
second-guessed my estimation of the city’s mannequin population. Regardless of how the mannequin got there and
whatever the circumstances for his wardrobe, I was not going to let him stay in
the pile of trash. The difficulty would be to evade the Hungarian and the
scavengers, who might claim first rights. But their actions left me dumbstruck.
Instead of opposition, I was oddly met with honor and praise. For some reason
– foreign customs I’m sure – the three greeted me with adoration and
gratitude. The scavengers grinned while making quick bowing motions like
thankful Japanese. The Hungarian ran to the cab of his truck and returned with
an ice-cold beer and a high-end street map. In his native tongue he insisted I
take the items then dropped to the ground and hugged my lower left leg. I suddenly felt like an international superstar
with a pack of adoring fans. As odd as the situation was, I took a moment to
bask in the attention, then patted them all on the shoulder, thanking them in
what I figured was an internationally-accepted form of gratitude. I carried the
mannequin with both arms back to the car where I set him in the front passenger
seat and fastened the seatbelt. As I mentally began clearing a space for the
mannequin in the kitchen, I turned around and waived to the Hungarian and the
scavengers. They looked in my eyes and knew what I’d found at the dump. ____________________ David Holub is made of plastic and is
fascinated by false teeth, fool’s gold and shoe horns. If there is anything
you were wondering about him, the answer is ‘yes.’ His writing has appeared
at Cafe Irreal, The Dream People, Bewildering
Stories, Locust Magazine and Juked. |
(c) Defenestration Magazine, 2004