The Master
It occurred to me about a week ago…
…while slumped in the leeward side of my alley, that the people in this city--all the ones who manage to maintain a sufficiently wide berth between themselves and haunts as persistently damp and disconsolate as this--they all seem to have something that I don’t have, some kind of ultimate genetic marker or divinely endowed golden ticket or something. Ever since, I’ve been hunkered down in my corpuscular plot of gutter, alternatingly soaked beneath torrents of rain and broiled like a ham beneath the baking sun, wondering just how I managed to miss out on such a crucial acquisition. Or did I lose it?
Did I have it once and then misplace it? Did I leave my “thing” somewhere, like a first-time mother absentmindedly, but innocently, losing her child at Ralph’s or a Pottery Barn, only to discover that now, childless, eviscerated, and hollow, that it’s not just her baby that’s gone, but her soul? Did I leave my “thing” in a truckstop bathroom on my way out of Twin Forks? Or on the booth of a Denny’s, after shoveling down a Grand Slam breakfast, drunk at 3am?
I don’t know what day it is. The so-far buzzardless sky is unanimous in its blueness. A blade of concentrated sunlight slices glacially across the bricks towards my feet. A pair of lidless dumpsters absorb the sunlight and their viscera transmutes from solid waste into a noisome odor that intractably wafts my way. A solitary seagull tries to shit on me, but misses. People pass by the orifice of my alley en masse, uniformly possessed of an enviable, and apparently nirvanic, obliviousness. From my temporally- and somatically-fluid vantage point deep in the bowels of the alley, their paths appear predetermined (ie. there are visible projections extending from their sterna into soon-to-be-traversed space à la Donnie Darko) and recorded, at least in a spatial (as opposed to, or probably in addition to, a closed-circuit or otherwise surveillant) sense, temporarily trailing them as they move, before gradually vanishing like dissolving scars.
These countless trails become enmeshed as the people slip past one another, creating a confounding mess of tangled scars that looks, from here, like a loosely knit scarf made out of plasma yarn. Weird, I know. The freshest scars are the most vivid and also seem to, through their presence, accelerate the dissolution of the older ones, whose translucence, in a manner of several seconds, becomes absolute. The people are entirely unaware of their respective plasma-yarn scars (which they appear skewered upon), not to mention the stifling and claustrophobic tangle they blissfully plunge in and out of. But watching it all from here unfailingly shortens my breath and quickens my pulse to the point where I have to look away.
That writhing snakepit of humanity conjures forcibly repressed memories of my past life among them, subconsciously indentured to the unseen forces of Culture and the ever-lauded, vertiginously pedestalled Modern American Society, the most diabolical despot of all. These memories, mercifully diluted by what I’ve come to accept is a noxious cocktail of comorbid psychoses, don’t stick around long.
There’s a bag of trash perched on top of all the other bags of trash baking in the dumpster across the way. The black and red-drawstring Hefty rustles. It’s being ravenously gnawed at, pierced, and given the once-over by a duo of rats, each of whom are the size of size thirteen boots with sinuous tails long enough and thick enough to strangle a toddler. The owners and employees of the dim sum place that rents the dumpster are exceptionally blasé towards their conditioning of these cunning bastards, who have developed quite a dependable routine that bears a somewhat comical resemblance to the yarn-scar-skewered masses on the sidewalk. The black plastic whitens in the spots where their claws and teeth pull on it and then tears.
I’ve come to recognize and observe this pair, who I’ve privately dubbed Siskel & Ebert for no logical or sensible reason at all. While there’s more than a marginally conceivable cinematic quality to their scavenging, they, being the players, rather than the critical observers (e.g. me), it would make more sense to call them Thelma & Louise or Bonnie & Clyde or maybe even Jack & Diane. But--and I know this is probably just a simple, psychosomatic misinterpretation--every time I make eye contact with the little buggers, however briefly, I get an overwhelming sense that they’re looking down their pointy noses at me with genuine and impassioned disdain, and that, if they were inclined to pass some sort of editorial judgement on me, it would likely be something amounting to “two thumbs down” or “half a star” or some other colloquialism equivalent to “trainwreck”.
Anyways, Siskel & Ebert are thick as thieves. They’re never present at their basura bodega without each other for support. Of the two of them, Ebert has a smaller body and a more svelte, toned physique, with a long and calligraphically elegant tail. He tends to call the shots and take the lead on most of the operations. Siskel, though certainly more well-fed and less physically attractive than Ebert, is also a real workhorse, and more than earns his keep. Their scavenges invariably follow this general outline:
There’s a grate in the gutter opposite me, about five feet to the left of Siskel and Ebert’s go-to dumpster (which, again, is leased by a dim sum joint, which fact speaks volumes about the pair’s discerning rodential palates). The grate is retro. It looks like a mini jail cell door laid flat, with thin cylindrical bars spaced about two inches apart. The first indication that a mission is afoot is a nearly imperceptible aromatic scouting job performed by Ebert. His nose breaches the plane of the grate like a periscope and sniffs out the lay of the land, always twitching fiendishly, which is either a sign of wariness or salivatory anticipation, possibly both, I can’t tell. Either way, Ebert’s olfactory acumen is second-to-none. It seems to play the critical role in deciding when’s the best time to proceed with the mission. He seems to be able to smell whenever a drop has been made, presumably from somewhere far off in the subterranean maze beneath the city, wherever he and Siskel shack up.
After Ebert’s initial scope job, assuming the coast has been deemed clear, he’s the first one out of the grate (a real lead-by-example type). His route of choice is well-worn for its efficiency. He darts up through the grate-opening nearest me and then pivots, making a beeline toward the wall to gain optimum cover. He now faces the rear of the dumpster and is abutted by the wall to his left and the typically muck-laced asphalt beneath his feet. Using a codesqueak, he then signals to Siskel to join him. Siskel obediently shoots out of the grate, mimicking Ebert’s path to the step.
The pair, reunited against the rear wall, regroup for a tick before the most demanding phase of the operation. The wheeled leg of the dumpster nearest them is always in the same general spot, with any slight variation the result of how carelessly the trash collectors repositioned it after the last pick-up. The wheel is usually around three feet from Siskel and Ebert’s checkpoint. Ebert again leads the way, traversing the ground between with the lightness of a dancer. Siskel follows, sticking to Ebert’s six like white on the rice they’re fiending for. Ebert shows no sign of hesitation at the wheel, a lockable hard rubber job about four inches in diameter. He stands and extends in a single motion, grabbing the vertical edge of the dumpster above the wheel and deftly pulling his rear end up. This moment is always my favorite. Because of his extended posture, Ebert’s musculature and sinewy anatomy are fully displayed. His impressive true size and length are revealed, for a fleeting moment, before his hind legs shimmy up and over the wheel. It’s truly remarkable. Once Ebert has begun his ascent, Siskel follows, again emulating Ebert’s tried-and-true technique with metrological precision.
Now it’s the home stretch. The five-foot climb is child’s play for these guys. Even in slick conditions, they dependably reach the summit in ten seconds or less. And just like that, they’re in.
I don’t know if you’ve ever felt judged by a rat before, but it’s not exactly a shot in the arm for the old self-esteem. It’s a losing battle, trying to concentrate in this place, with the ever-shifting elements and the chaotic sounds of the city constantly crashing and reverberating all over the place. Even at night, there’s little respite from the noise that’s insidiously amplified as it reverberates spastically through the urban canyons. Over time it all sort of flattens into a non-distinct buzz, but the effect never really seems to lessen. Sleep becomes less a choice and more a fleeting, though still desperately welcomed, consequence of serious energy loss. It often comes now with little warning and never lasts more than an hour or two. There’s always something to invade the peace. Often, all it takes is a subconscious flaring of the choking vulnerability that permeates this fundamentally unstable and taxing existence. The result is a complete browning of perception, where the sharpness and contrast between stimuli is muddled into a soupy hum that subsumes all the previously autonomous senses.
There are varying levels of unpleasantness that are part and parcel of vagrancy. Depending on the person, some are more tolerable than others. For me, the most challenging, and the one that lies at the root of 90% of my Episodes, is the constant, emotionally debilitating strangulation of filth. Cleanliness, as the old saying goes, is next to Godliness, a notion which, by contrast, relegates me to forever wallow in a hellish sty, occluded from the heavens.
My clothes are unspeakably gross. My pants are more or less torn from crotch to calf and the fabric formerly known as denim hangs limp like semen shot into a spiderweb on my legs. When they’re readily available (most of the time), plastic shopping bags can be repurposed as makeshift waterproofing, though the effect is, in actuality, much closer to waterdelaying or waterfunnelling, depending on a number of meteorological and quality-of-material factors. The less-soiled bags that I come by can either be wrapped around the outside or stuffed beneath my decimated pantlegs, which now lay bare about as much leg as they cover. Visually, the result is unquestionably pathetic, but it edges out the body-and-soul-drenching sensation of weathering the elements defenselessly.
Above the waist, the situation is comparably woeful. My SPU hoodie has accumulated such a skin-crawling level of grime and muck that the mere act of having it on, even when sitting still, is about as cozy as being enveloped in wet seaweed or dunked in a vat of egg whites. Once a regal maroon, with the logo in crisp white block-lettering across the chest, it now resembles an upper-body-wide battlefield wound. A quick glance down the alley at me from the street could result in yours truly being mistaken for a burn victim or a half-naked, half-flayed corpse or something equally nightmarish. Not exactly the look I was going for when I picked it out.
When sleep does come, my dreams, if they manage to manifest at all, invariably derive their content from my human need to be cleaned. I dream of spearmint toothpaste and lavender scented hand lotion. I dream of warm cotton towels and the smell of dryer sheets. I dream of exfoliating facial scrub with coarse grains that scratch you just hard enough to know that they’re working. I dream of the first plump dollop from a fresh can of Barbasol. I dream of the white-sand purity of the caulk between fastidiously polished ceramic tiles. I dream of toilet paper. I dream of combs and q-tips and nail clippers. I dream of sitting in the womb of a steam shower, weeping imperceptible tears of joy as the water washes this stifling and shameful film from my skin and from my hair and seeing it defile the floor of the tub as it’s washed down away forever. I dream of rebirth.
Siskel and Ebert’s trash bag is lurching this way and that atop the pile in the dumpster. It’s unadulterated ecstasy inside as they engorge themselves with an apocalyptic hedonism. In a flurry of plastic, loose bones, chicken and duck innards, and mylar, the bag careens off the side and falls splattingly on the asphalt. It continues to shudder, an unwilling host to the toothy parasites. Siskel stumbles out first, fat, dumb and happy. He bolts clumsily for the grate with no regard for his partner in crime. At the threshold, he more or less tumbles lethargically through the opening and out of sight.
The bag emits a series of death rattles as Ebert finishes up. Suddenly, a hunger pang stabs from my stomach into my spleen. My mouth moistens as I watch. My hands tremble and I feel myself readying to pounce. The bag twitches. Ebert’s being greedy. My eyes widen as my pupils dilate. A fattened rat is slow and cocky. Easy pickings.
My stiff frame buckles as I coil, and then leap, lashing out at the bag like an arthritic and hospice-bound cobra. As I shoot towards the bag, Ebert’s head emerges from the ravaged plastic, the detritus of his gluttony hanging between centimetric jaws. For a moment, his eyes and mine meet, and there’s a visible hint of regret as he rethinks the previous condescension he’s levied at me. Then (and you can almost see his little wheels turning) his focus shifts to the incipient, albeit laughable and awkward, threat I pose, flying through the air at him, hands and arms outstretched. In a flash, he dashes away in the direction of the grate. I crumple down on the bag, face buried in day-old szechuan sauce and rotting leeks that the rats knew enough to avoid. Ebert’s engorged ass wiggles away from me and disappears down the grate, requiring a bit of finagling to squeeze through the bars. My left hand is knuckle-deep in a pile of dried up pork dumplings. I contemplate a bite, but honestly, I’m sick of dim sum.
I wrote my Master’s Thesis on the Adaptation of Scavenging Behaviors in Marine Invertebrates in the Age of Plastic Waste. They could learn a thing or two from Siskel and Ebert.
