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Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Garbage Day...

Biker Dude strained against the pedals on his way to work. Strapped to the front aero-bars of the bike, and looking like an out of place camel's hump, was a hooded sweatshirt, a windbreaker, two pumps, extra inner tubes, rain pants and rain jacket, and a backpack with a half a dozen books, a lunch consisting of a can of tuna and a half pound of Swiss cheese, and a T-shirt and socks.

The bungee cords holding this mass onto the bike groaned. Stretched so tight they were ready to snap.

When he got to Batavia, he left the trail and rode the remaining 7 miles on the streets. The only traffic he saw was a group of joggers and a couple walking their Irish setter. A commuter bus dropped off passengers at the train station. A bread truck passed him and pulled into the White Hen Pantry alongside a garbage truck; it's engine idling while the driver smoked a cigarette.

The clock tower of the village hall tolled 6:00AM. Plenty of time to get to work by 6:30. He slowed his pace; putting his mind, and legs, on autopilot.

Along the way, navy blue trash bins stood poised at the ends of driveways. Each big enough for two people to fit inside with room to spare. A line of them stretched down the street on either side. Some sat tilted, some turned, like a giant's crooked teeth at curbside. Ready to be yanked up by the garbage truck. Some stood like empire state buildings sprouting up out of cities of trash at their feet.

Biker Dude remembered when he was a kid and how he and his younger brother would scout the neighborhoods looking for radios and bike parts. He still had some of those things back at his parents in the crawlspace. His looking now was half out of curiosity and half out of the possibility of a find.

He passed what looked like a brand new big screen TV sitting by the curb. The black plastic cracked down the side.

The next house had a white microwave oven whose glass front had been shattered. Whether from inside or outside, it was hard to tell.

A few houses later a refrigerator chilled out next to the shattered remains of a Styrofoam cooler and a plastic bag full of crunched up Budweiser cans.

A block later, on the other side of the street, sat a couch the color of burnt hash browns. Yellow clumps of stuffing spilled out of it like scrambled eggs. Its cushions stacked like pancakes to the side.

He saw picture frames and dried up tubes of acrylic paints. Swiffer mops, sponges, and dirt devils, Ripped stuffed animals and a broken pink Barbie car.

One of those singing Bass plaques lie facing the street. next to some fishing poles and a bean bag chair that looked like someone had used it for target practice.

Then, about a hundred feet ahead, on top of a cardboard box surrounded by glossy brown hefty bags and a set of green vinyl kitchen chairs, sat a large red book.
"Hmmmm," Biker Dude said to himself.

He got closer and there was no mistaking it even from fifty feet away. It was a Merriam Webster hardcover dictionary. A big fat one. It looked like it was in brand new condition too. He downshifted and slowed to a stop. He took his fingered gloves off and stuffed them in a jersey pocket. Then reached down and hoisted the book up. He set it down on top of the mass of items strapped to the handlebars and opened it.

"Tenth edition... Cool." he said, "I gotta snag this puppy."

He flipped through the pages, looking up random words.

Approachable.. approbate approbation..

He turned some more pages..

Immunoreactive...

Momentous...

Rest... restoration, restore..

He drank in the words on the pages. He thumbed toward the back of the book.

A screen door creaked and Biker Dude looked up. A man with fuzzy blue slippers and a brown terrycloth bathrobe shuffled out onto the porch of the house across the street. He scratched his head and looked at Biker Dude. Biker Dude gave the guy a thumbs up and smiled. The man squinted at Biker Dude for a second, then bent down and picked up a rolled up newspaper that lie on one of the porch steps. He took one last glance at Biker Dude, turned, and shuffled back into the house. The screen door snapped shut.

Biker Dude looked back down at the page he was on. He saw a new word he'd never seen before:
Valonia. Dried acorn cups from a Eurasian evergreen oak.

He thought Valonia sounded like a country. Like something that would be next to Transylvania. Where Doctor Doom went to school and was a kid.

He heard a train horn in the distance. "Dang.. I gotta get to work."

He closed the book. He slipped his fingers under one of the taut bungee cords and pulled it up, trying to create a space. The book refused to fit. He struggled for a while, muttering curses at the moron who would put so much on the front of his bike. He worked from the hook end to where his fingers were. Creating slack. Finally, there was enough space underneath and he crammed the dictionary under it.

He put his feet on the pedals and began to ride away. He smiled. He'd saved a book from the certain unpleasant company of old banana peels and coffee grounds and broken up furniture and plastic bags filled with unspeakables.

He reached back to his jersey pocket to get his gloves. As he started to pedal away, he recalled a scrabble game he and his girlfriend once played; where she'd obliterated him late in the game with triple points on a word he had never heard before and that wasn't in her dictionary.
He slammed on the brakes again and yanked the book from under the bungee cord and opened it. He flipped through the pages.

Hmmm.. I wonder if this edition has "boxty" in it?

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