Filth Is My Politics

Who knows how long that dumpster had been there. Dumpsters have a way of either sitting in places for very long or very short; the one thing I know for sure is that a place rarely, if ever, outlives a dumpster. They’re wrought with iron that makes shields whimper, covered in paint that make the sun scorches on a Camaro blush, and somehow they seem to lose what little rust they ever get. I don’t know what keeps dumpsters in such good health. Maybe it’s the smell.

So I saw this dumpster sitting alone, framed just so. It looked like Chandler’s man peering out onto the mean streets, doing a job that no one wants because that’s its job, and to hell with common sense. Its joints are welded tighter than Marlowe’s sense of right and wrong, and it stands twice as resolute. When a tornado sweeps through you won’t find buildings, but you will find a suite of dumpsters gaggled together, maybe a mile away, silent but resolute, and it’ll look like they’re stronger for the company. They’re solid to the core; they might even have some trash left inside. They’re resolute, indefatigable; you could pick them up, put them behind a fast food joint or in front of an apartment building, and they’ll act like nothing happened, nothing was wrong.

When the apocalypse comes, the cockroaches will be cribbing notes off the dumpsters, or at least they’ll be trying. They won’t succeed because dumpsters are solid and silent; they’re resolute; if they’d say anything, their only contribution would be a complaint. You’ll never catch a dumpster complaining.