The Garbage Can Caper - So this is my life now?
/
On Monday evening I rolled my beautiful green and gold Titletown garbage cart down to my driveway’s apron and lined it up proudly with those of my neighbors. Tomorrow would be garbage pick-up day in my neighborhood, and each household would have its trash out for collection in the rolling cart the city of Green Bay had issued it. No city is prettier on garbage day than Green Bay.
Tuesday morning, after my workout and breakfast at my desk, I opened the living room blinds for my little dog to enjoy the world, and my garbage can was gone! Kathy’s was on the left and Karen’s on the right, Hector’s across the street… everything in place except for my garbage can, which contained my one bag of weekly garbage and about ten little biodegradable doggie poop bags. I walked outside in disbelief, expecting to see it had rolled into the street or someone - perhaps a prankster - had moved it to a silly place. It was nowhere in sight.
Dumbfounded, I called Karen. “What should I do? I have no idea what to do about a stolen garbage can.” (I believe it was the first theft of personal property I’d experienced, and who would want my garbage? Or my garbage container?) At Karen’s suggestion I called Public Works; the young lady said she’d “tell the men to keep an eye out for it.” Let me just pause here to say that, on garbage pickup day in a Green Bay neighborhood, “keeping an eye out” for a Titletown container bearing the city’s logo is rather like looking for a particular blinking light on a fully decorated Christmas tree. I told the gal that, as I go out to do errands today, I’ll sort of look around for an extra bin that might be mine. I figured I’d be more likely to spot it than the collection man, picking up one garbage cart after another with his truck’s big robot arms.
How absolutely right I was - and how quickly and easily I spotted an extra garbage bin! With my doggie Xena in her car seat, I headed north on my street to do some errands, half-heartedly glancing at the still-uncollected garbage on proud display. Just four houses down from mine, at the home of a crotchety old man I’ll call Bob, I found the most surprising sight: two garbage cans on his property, and Bob himself sitting out front in a lawn chair. I slowed my car and pulled over in disbelief and then backed up and rolled down my window to shout a question to Bob.
Now, before I relate my amazing exchange with Bob (who, I assumed, was plenty ticked off that someone had dumped what I supposed to be my garbage cart in his front yard), I should explain the recent and rapid deterioration of my “friendship” with Bob. Said man is, I would guess, pushing 80, a widower who drives a convertible and seems, to my mind, to feel pretty superior and entitled. Because I walk Xena several times a day, I stop for a short visit with him each time I pass, should he be sitting out in a chair. Sometimes he’s sitting out in his jockey shorts; I try to identify his pants status in advance and cross the street if pants are not visible. So you get the picture? Bossy guy who will do what he wants and tell you what he thinks, and he’s your neighbor so you put up with him and offer a modicum of friendliness.
Bob was always friendly to me - although he certainly complained about others and expressed negative opinions - until the day I won the election and became his alder. Then I became fair game: an elected official, and a woman to boot! And a woman without a husband to keep her in line! A woman who owned her own home and had her own life! Not this man’s image of a woman’s place in the world. Bob started needling me about my work as a member of City Council - gently at first, and then with a little more bite. He’d smile and talk about the weather, and then he’d turn on a dime and demand to know what I was doing to earn my city pay. One day his attack was so ferocious I had to blink back tears as I hurried Xena home - and that was the beginning of the bold, brazen meanness Bob offered me from that day on. But I have to take you back even further to help you understand this angry old man.
About fifty years ago, an alder came to Bob’s door and accused him of breaking a city ordinance - and Bob was innocent. He had a family then, and he owned a nice camping trailer. They camped often, and when they weren’t camping, he parked the trailer next to his house, where it bothered no one. Perhaps his children ran in and out from time to time, playing in the camper. Perhaps his wife went in and out, tidying up for the next weekend in the woods. But someone got the idea that Bob had folks living in that trailer in his yard. Now, might that have been someone Bob had infuriated with his big, angry mouth? Could be. Who knows? But the alder was informed and so knocked on Bob’s door and inquired and, I suppose, asked to see the camper. It was, of course, unoccupied.
Bob was furious. And that fury simmered beneath the surface for fifty years or more, probably part of a stew of hatred he kept bubbling away, until the moment came when he tasted his revenge! Just a block away, behind a shabby duplex quite near the very duplex Bob himself once owned (until he “got tired of renting to riff-raff and sold it”), stood a travel trailer. It never went camping or traveling; it just stayed in that backyard. In front of the trailer stood a gas grill, and nearby were, unbelievably, a kitchen table and four chairs. From time to time tents would be pitched in that backyard, and most often there was a trampoline. Next to the two-story duplex was an unpaved driveway on which sat five, six or seven cars on any given day. The place was crawling with people of all ages (people who are, in my experience, friendly and happy). Surely some of them were living in that trailer! And worst of all, they were people of color!
Now, Bob had noticed this situation for months. In fact, many neighbors had noticed the oddity of a sort of “campground” in the backyard, and they’d whispered among themselves. Many suspected an illegal living situation was underway, but nobody much cared. Except Bob, who now saw his chance to stick a knife in someone else. And now he had his alder living right down the street. And she was a woman, rather small and old, brand new to the job, uppity enough to live on her own without a husband and think she could be an alder. Well, he’d teach her what it means to be an alder!
And so, during one of my usual brief stops to visit in Bob’s front yard, he escalated the vitriol that usually erupted about three minutes into the visit. This time we moved from the weather to a screaming demand that I do something about “those Blacks living in that trailer. It’s plugged in. You can see it’s plugged in.” No, I said, I could not see that. “Well, you just don’t want to see it. You get down there and check it out. You call the authorities and do your job!” With that, Xena and I set out right then and there to walk past that house and see what we could see. Bob hurled at my back, “Earn your pay! Do your job!” Then he hobbled to his convertible and came screaming around the corner as I approached the offensive duplex. He was driving so fast and furiously that he temporarily jumped the curb. He screamed at me as I made my way home with my little puppy, our heads down.
I hurried home and emailed a responsible woman in a leadership position at City Hall to seek her advice. I laid out the situation in an email and asked her whom this man should call. (I am confident Bob has never touched a computer and so could certainly not report a concern through the city website.) She gave me the name and phone number of a housing inspector that she indicated handled “sensitive situations.”
I knew Bob expected me to do his bidding, lodge his complaint for him, make his problem my problem, and so “earn my pay.” But my mentor had told me to “teach a man to fish,” and I had already made it my practice to inform and instruct constituents and make them independent. I had been told very clearly that alders were not to interfere in the work of city inspectors. So I wrote the inspector’s name and phone number on a slip of paper and, the next time Xena and I headed out for a walk, I took it along. Bob was home. I was quite sure he’d take the slip of paper, tear it up in my face, and shout that I was expecting him to do my work. He didn’t. He took the paper and muttered only a few crabby utterances as Xena and I headed for the open road.
Bob did indeed call the inspector to tattle on the neighbors who might actually be guilty of the very thing he’d been wrongfully accused of. The inspector didn’t answer, and Bob proudly told me of the snotty message he left. “And don’t call me back. You call Lynn Gerlach, my alder. This is her problem, not mine.” I never heard from the inspector. Neither did Bob. But he harangued me regularly as we passed by. Xena and I began simply to use the other side of the street. Finally I placed my own request for service through the website, eager to get this situation inspected so I could tell Bob the result. I still heard nothing, and Bob never let me forget the disappointing nature of my performance as his alder.
And then my garbage can disappeared on Tuesday morning, and Bob, miraculously, had two receptacles out instead of one! What was I to think as I backed up my car and rolled down my window? Did I think Bob had stolen my garbage can? Of course not. He’s an old man who has a very hard time walking without a walker. As mean as he is, it never occurred to me that he’d steal my garbage can… or perhaps even pay someone else to do so. I called to him, “Hey, do you have an extra garbage can?” I fully expected a retort like, “Naw. Some jackass parked that damned thing in my yard. You’re the alder. Get rid of it.” But, no, Bob’s response surprised me: “That’s my can for my vacant lot next door.” Well, it was parked over near the lot line instead of on his driveway, but would the city issue a garbage cart for an empty lot? To throw away what?
“Oh, well, mine was stolen,” I explained. His response was like a hardball thrown through my open window: “Well, maybe that’s because you have such a bad name,” he screamed. “This used to be a good neighborhood.” I raised the window, turned my eyes to the road and took off. So that was my garbage can. He had stolen it because I’m a lousy alder. Or he’d paid someone else to steal it.
Shortly after I’d completed my errands and returned home, the garbage collection truck arrived, and I watched all the lovely Titletown receptacles lifted with those robot arms and emptied into the truck so perfectly. I’d scanned those green bins more carefully on my drive back and noticed that each had a long number on the front.
The truck just bypassed my empty driveway. I imagined it picking up an extra bin a few doors down. Was that actually his second bin, or was it mine?
I called Public Service again and got no answer. Too impatient to leave a message and wonder whether I’d get a call back that day, I had a brainstorm: One of the first people an alder gets to know is the Director of Public Works, and he’s responsive and helpful and writes articulate emails. So I emailed the garbage man’s head boss. I briefly outlined the situation and asked whether the city might have any way of connecting a specific garbage bin with an address.
The answer came back in minutes: The number on the front of the bin corresponds with the address to which it was assigned. I pushed just a little further: If I give you an address, can you tell me the bin number? I gave him my address and Bob’s, and I asked whether Bob had been issued a second bin. Within minutes I had my data: Bob had never been issued a second bin, but this is his number, and this is your number. They were ten-digit numbers, identical except for the last two digits. Bob got #66 and I got #70. Now all I had to do was see my garbage bin in Bob’s garage and just walk in and brazenly haul the damned thing home.
For four days I walked Xena past Bob’s house, hoping to find his garage door open. I’d made up my mind that I wouldn’t say a word. I’d just enter his garage, determine that the numbers were identical until the two final digits, leave #66 behind and take #70. I had no doubt Bob was secreting my garbage can out of pure meanness. I must have passed that house twelve times, but the garage door was never open, and I saw neither hide nor hair of the man.
On Friday, walking home with Xena and calculating what I’d do with my one bag of garbage and mounting pile of dog poopy bags come next Monday, a new thought occurred to me: Our backyards, like those of most in the neighborhood, are open and contiguous, free of fences and encumbrances. Why, I could walk from my back yard through Karen’s and Carla’s and that man I don’t know and be in Bob’s backyard! Perhaps he was storing the filched receptacle behind his house!
And so that’s exactly what Xena and I did. Within twenty seconds I was standing in Bob’s back yard, terrified I might find him on his patio. All was quiet, though, and there I saw the unmistakable green and gold of a Packer fan garbage cart! Was it mine or his? I took a breath and led Xena to the awful man’s breezeway (which I’d never known existed). There were a recycling bin and TWO Titletown garbage cans! I quickly saw the “66” on the bin in front; the other one was hidden behind. I jerked that #66 aside, without a care about how much noise I might be making. I imagined crabby Bob watching me through the window, perhaps moving toward the door to accost me. Or would he cower in shame, discovered and caught?
The bin in the back was #70. I yanked it forward and quickly determined the first eight digits of the two numbers were identical. I had my garbage can! By now my hands were shaking. I steered little Xena out of the way and tipped that garbage cart behind us and made my way to Bob’s front yard. I noisily dragged it down the public sidewalk, my entire body trembling with fear. Silence. Not a word. We arrived home and I opened the garage door and brought my baby home! I dropped in the five bags of dog poopies I’d collected and went right in to gather materials for the final stage of my rescue effort.
Armed with soap and water and paper towels, a small can of purple paint and a brush, I returned to the garage to make that garbage cart my own forever. It was then I saw he had hastily written his last name with a green marker on top of my bin; it washed off handily. Within a few minutes I had proudly and permanently reclaimed my property in bright purple: “Registered to 483 St. Bernard.”
I went inside to take a few deep breaths and steady myself. The fear of further retaliation was real. As the day wore on, though, my contemplations returned to a topic that first rose to the forefront of my consciousness during my campaign for alder: the angry old white man. For Bob was not the first AOWM who’d recently come into my life. There was Stan, who began his harassing phone calls two days after I was sworn in and has called me to make demands at least eight times in four months. And then, right on cue, Stan phoned me just an hour after I’d brought my garbage can home. “There’s another gravel driveway in our neighborhood. Do your job,” he demanded. An hour later, as I walked Xena, trying to calm down, Bruce called: “I know you’re new, so I wanted to make sure you knew about the speeding on my street.”
“Oh,” I asked, “Is this something new?” No, he told me, he’s been enduring it for thirty years.
The jury is still out on Bruce. Will he turn out to be an AOWM or simply a resident who’s had speeding on his street up to here? For Stan and Bob, though, there’s no question. They’re angry old white men who live to complain and gripe and find fault - but it goes deeper than that, I think. They live to find opportunities to stick the knife in someone else. They’re fueled by anger and frustration, but the end they seek is revenge. For what, I don’t know. And that’s not the subject of this mystery story, so I’ll let it go for today. However, that festering anger and sense of disrespect or disenfranchisement surely was at the root of my garbage can caper. I do not look forward to its next manifestation.