Content Warning: drug use, smoking, drinking
We’ve probably never met before, I don’t really talk to people if I can avoid it. I don’t feel much older than 17 but my ID says I was born in 2000 and that should make me 24. My name is Jake but I don’t hear it much anymore, again because I don’t really talk to people. A weird thing happens when you don’t hear your name for a bit, you start to kind of forget it’s yours. Last year I didn’t hear my name for two months from January to March. My partner at work was on vacation so I did the trash runs alone for a couple months and didn’t have an interaction with someone other than a cashier or a waiter for 8 weeks straight. I started to forget what my name was, when I thought of myself I no longer thought of Jake in my mind, I was now just me. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, just strange, I don’t feel worse about myself now that I’ve lost my name, but it makes it strange to think about it when I introduce myself.
It’s weird, when things that ought to be so normal to you feel different all of a sudden. When the city bus goes from feeling like your car to the back of a cop’s cruiser. What makes it weirder is when you know the things causing the change, and you like it. It was weird when I stopped relating to my name, but I liked being alone and I liked that there was no longer a word people could use to talk to me. Plenty of things have made me feel weird like this, made me feel like I’m something other than human, like I don’t belong around the rest of society.
Is it weird that I don’t hate feeling inhuman like this? I shouldn’t be okay with not feeling like the being that I very much am. I shouldn’t be okay with the feeling I get when I look at old pictures of me. I should recognize who that blonde haired baby is, I should remember the things I did on the day that that picture was taken, I should remember where I got the beanie I’m wearing in that picture, I should remember the salon that butchered my long blonde locks so bad that I felt forced to hide them under that hat.
It isn’t just the drugs that’s making me forget, but they certainly don’t help. I’ve made sure to stay away from anything too serious. When I turned 15 I made a deal with myself that I’d never get addicted to anything that would kill me before 50. That’s ruled out a lot of substances. These days I mainly just smoke and drink. I try to limit the cigarettes as much as possible, they killed my grandma and I don’t think I can forgive them for that, the joints are free reign though. I’ve tried slowing down, but I can’t eat without weed, can’t sleep without a drink, and can’t sit still without half a pack a day.
I’ve picked my substances carefully too, work as a garbageman doesn’t allow for cocaine bathroom breaks like work in an office might. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned that yet, that I work as a garbageman, but that’s not too relevant. I have a little silver flask I got at a thrift store in D.C. on an 8th grade field trip that I fill up with watered down vodka that sits in my left breast pocket. In my right breast pocket is a pack of Marb reds that’s half full of cigarettes and half full of joints I rolled this morning. With my two friends in either pocket, I can turn a 15 minute break into the second half of my shift spent absolutely plastered.
A garbage man isn’t important, I mean it is, I know I’m important to the city, but no one else does, and if they do they don’t treat me like it. It’s hard to feel like you’re the same species as everyone around you when they throw trash at you like you’re a rodent that ought to be chased out of the restaurant that is New York. It’s hard to feel human when everyone around you just wants you to leave. My entire day is spent taking care of what the rest of humanity has deemed not worth their time, by comparison I feel the same way about myself.
Just like the drugs though, there’s things I love about being a garbage man. No one talks to me, no one cares what I do. I haven’t been sober for a single minute of my employment with the New York sanitary department but they don’t give a shit. Sometimes someone will throw out something that I wouldn’t have, and when they do I get to take it. It’s kinda gross but it’s one of those things that you sort of move past in this line of work. Everything is basically brand new after you wash it with soap and a little bleach. I rarely take something but every now and then we’ll be taking out Target’s trash or something and they’ll be a whole lamp that someone tossed out.
People throw out all sorts of things, you’d be surprised how much you can learn about someone by throwing out their trash. There’s this one person, to be fair I don’t actually know their gender, nor their name, nor their face, but I know they eat all of my favorite foods and clearly they care a fair bit about the environment. They use those shitty green compostable trash bags, the kind that I’d use if I made a bit more money and when I get their recycling on Wednesdays I always find more of it than I do trash on Fridays.
It’s interesting how you build these images of people in your mind, with the little details you may have. I’ve constructed this individual in my mind, I imagine they’re a medium height woman, women tend to care more about the environment than men I think. They haven’t thrown any clothes out so either they’re passionate about up-cycling, or they just don’t really buy new clothes often, either way is good by me. I don’t know their name, when I think of them in my head I think of them as their address. There’s also chicken guy, he’s the only one who gets a nickname. Chicken guy lives on his own in a little 2 bedroom home in the suburbs. Chicken guy eats an absurd amount of rotisserie chicken. It feels like our dirty little secret. Chicken guy is a health nut, not the type of person you’d think would have 14 rotisserie chicken boxes in their trash every time I come to pick it up. It’s probably a weird crossfit protein-centric diet or something, but I can’t imagine it’s actually healthy.
I enjoy the little moments interacting with these people through their trash more than I’d enjoy any conversation with them if I’d knock on their door or something. It’s a little silly to think that my worst nightmare at work is that I run into someone as they’re leaving and I’m taking out their trash. Chicken Guy might be the only exception to this, just because I think we’d both kind of have dirt on the other. Sure I’m a trashman but at least I don’t eat 14 chickens in as many days you know what I mean?
Anyways, I’m in a weird transitional spot right now. I’m making enough money, I’m making enough to pay for my rent and all my bills, but I’m not the person I wanted to be I don’t think. I feel like everything has just stopped me from getting to where I wanted to be when I was younger. I miss the way I thought the world was, but it’s all coming to an end anyways. I guess it’s a bit ironic too, to vent to you like this about not wanting to talk to people. Sometimes, you just have to let it out though, even if it’s just throwing it out into the void. Sorry, I need to get back to work now, I didn’t catch your name. What was it?