A dirty garbage pan stood nearby, its rancid contents overflowing onto the sidewalk, a fish head still stuck to its skeleton, the fleshy part long gone; used baby diapers; thoroughly chewed chicken bones sticking out from a poor man’s lunch box; age-old pumpkin rice seasoned with chicken bits that someone had forgotten about in their icebox until it was rancid, beyond recovery; crumpled test papers saturated by red ink; tuna grease slowly trickling in the hot midday sun; an old tire struck out like a sore thumb; a used condom; other knick-knacks, buzzing flies ... the rust on the garbage pan completing the authentic picture of pure poverty, of hopelessness. Who knows what treasure lay at the bottom of the drum and worse how long it has been there?
The garbage collectors no longer came on schedule. They came, if and when they so desired. Once in a blue moon, as some would say. Lord helped us when it rained for days on end and then the sun shone. The stench was unbearable. Don’t even think about calling them. Someone always promised a pick-up if and when you could get someone to answer the phone, but you only believed if you were silly enough. And don’t even bother cussing the person at the other end of the line. For all you know, no one was listening – the receiver already placed flat on some surface while some sour faced person chewed gum noisily, rolling the eyes upward as if to say, ‘What are you expecting, a miracle? You will have to join the very long line of pick-ups waiting on the one blasted garbage truck that we have!’
The most you could do was sit and twiddle your thumbs, breathing in the stench and waiting in vain for them to come. Or take matters into your own hand and turn that garbage drum into a ball of flames. But who would want to be handling another person’s garbage? Only gawd he knows what and what they brought out in those black plastic bags, lada bags to most; afterall ‘aafta mi a no nobadi dyam gyaabij kalekta!’ The years had taken its toll on the garbage drum too. The lid long gone, probably propping up someone’s cold stove to catch the ash as the flames smouldered and flickered out. It should have been replaced long ago, but obviously someone had completely forgotten, more pressing things were higher on the list of TO DO's...or was it done conveniently, by someone who just couldn’t bother with the everyday nitty gritty or yet another government-built housing scheme in Pleasant Valley? Even the people in the neighbourhood no longer cared. It was a sad thing when people no longer cared.
Across the street was Sonny’s Pizza Haven. It was a small cook shop, sheltered by a sprawling breadfruit tree that was always laden with breadfruit – year in, year out. Its broad branches spanned the breadth of the cook shop, stretching for miles it seemed with shade. Despite the name, everything else but pizza was sold there. Sonny had thought that with a fancy name he could generate business. It had worked. It wasn’t as if anyone really minded. Who would have wanted pizza anyway? Like any classy uptown person was going to walk off the street and demand pizza a la Italian. This was a workman’s joint. They flocked there before the noon gong finished its twelfth peal; their bodies already musty with sweat, rum, swearing, jokes and sawdust. The air was lively as Sonny sought to meet everyone’s brawling request.
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A voice cut through the noise, “‘Put mi lonch pahn mi tab Sonny!”
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“Tab? Eh he!” Sonny cackled.
“A huu dat? A we kain a taab yu a chat bou iihn?
A waapn tu dehn uptong gwain laka piipl ya iihn laad?
Yu eva si mi dayin chrayal kroud a piipl?”
Hands flung out, Sonny tried to place to voice in the ruckus of the jam-packed cook shop while dramatically gesturing to his ever-present audience, who never failed to respond with loud cackles in reply to his over-dramatisation.
“Wiet, Mike a yuu dat?
We yu a du dong ya lonch taim?
Yu tab dong gaan chruu di giet!”
