The People in/at the Dump

Jane:

Yesterday I found one of my best friends in the dump. I was going through the free store and I came across a copy of 7 Mondays, a surprising find in and of itself since 7 Mondays is/was the literary 'zine from my undergraduate days in Sackville, New Brunswick years ago. I flipped it open and there, on the front cover, was a list of the editors, including Jane Henderson, one of my favorite people in the world (the list also included her roommate, Emily, whose hand-me-down shirt I still have). What a small world! It just goes to show that people will pop up and give you some virtual lovin' whenever you are in need, even if it's at the Arctic Circle at the dump.

Our neighbours and David's boss:

To get to the dump yesterday, we hitch hiked. I don't love hitchhiking, and some American paranoia has been transplanted in me in the last few years. I went with David (KIAC administrative assistant with yellow/red/green hair and a flair for women's clothing) and Joan (other artist-in-residence). We weren't even on the main road yet when Joan stuck out her thumb and our cardboard "dump" sign when a car pulled over. It was a man looking for his dog. Joan did it again for the next truck, and lo and behold, our neighbours were in it and let Joan ride up front while David and I took the back. I'm not sure, but I think they gave Joan a tour of the Callison gravel piles. We couldn't hear a thing in the back, but we stopped for long intervals in front of gravel.

Leaving the dump, I stuck out my thumb and the first truck pulled over. It was David's boss from the casino. We got a ride all the way to Princess Street.

Francis:

There are three workers and one and a half administrators at the recycling center here in town. At the dump, there's Francis. He does all the sorting that the recycling center does, plus RUNS out of the sorting shed whenever a truck pulls in to dump something (every minute or so), plus keeps the piles clean, plus looks after capping, bears, and other dump-related activities. He says his main job is to be a diplomat, since three years ago before Francis got there, people dumped more or less where they wanted and many are rather attached to that idea.

The thing about Francis is that he is very proud of the work he does, and he does it all with an excellent attitude, underfunded, without help, and with one arm.

One day early in my career as a scavenger at Quigley, Jacob had taken me in the truck to show me something. Suddenly, Francis came running out of nowhere, jumped in the truck, gunned its engine, and began pursuing a rouge dumper who wanted to dump her brush right into the burn pit. Dump chase scenes are exciting, but they are more exciting when the chaser has to bend over to start the engine and shift with his left hand, meaning that for moments at a time, he ducks over and it looks like no one is in the truck. Like there's a phantom dump-truck chasing errant dumpers for their sins.