Chapter 15
Around eight-thirty, Rodrigo and Mark crossed Beaumont Highway, made their way through the maze of stinky recycling workshops and ended up at McCarty Road Landfill. If Jasmine works in one of these endless workshops, we have to go around till the evening. But, her neighbor said, she had seen her with a garbage hook, so to try the 'Fill first was rather logical.
Even being accompanied by the local Sergeant, Mark had to produce his FBI badge at the landfill's checkpoint. Theoretically, no one was allowed to come here without an official permit. If you wanted to start a scav business – must buy a license. Despite the strict regulations, everyone knew much more convenient way to deal with the guards. A five-dollar bill served as a valid pass for a child, and ten dollars would open the gates for an adult. Still, if you come all by yourself, you would not be digging for long. The entire landfill territory had been divided between gangs of scavengers, and all non-unionized newcomers were beaten half-dead and told to get lost.
The last time Mark visited the 'Fill six years ago. Back then, the FBI was summoned to a crime scene: the scavs found a fresh male corpse with obvious signs of strangulation and decided they better called the Police. The body belonged to a known gang member, so the FBI got jurisdiction over the case. Mark was sure only one dead body out of each five found at the 'Fill was honored with a report to authorities. Most of such finds scavengers buried in the garbage without passing a single word. If one called the Police, the investigators would fence the scene for good half a day, then, where to dig? Six years ago, the 'Fill was a mountain. Before the Meltdown, few even believed the McCarty Road Landfill was the highest point of totally flat Houston. Now, the dump site, penetrated with holes and trenches, for most part resembled Swiss cheese.
For one hundred years, Houston had deposited here layers after layers of garbage. Which fourteen years ago became a mineral resource of sorts! And as every mineral, the old garbage was finite. The same as that damn shale gas, Frederick kept talking about. What would happen to all our neighborhoods after the landfill can't supply the recycled stuff anymore? The Year Zero from that book of Pol Pot's Kampuchea was fast approaching.
“I must give you a safety brief, sir,” Rodrigo said. “Do you want a full version, or an unofficial ‘one-sentencer’?”
“The short version is fine, Sarge.” The headache drove Mark nuts, even without safety presentations.
“All-right, then. The short version: please, kindly look both under your feet and around.”
“But I am. The 'Fill looks sufficiently scary.”
“People get complacent, and shit happens. Yesterday, we had one fatality. A girl got sucked into a rot-pit. Her own fault, really. Those rot-pits kill you in seconds.”
“What's a rot-pit?”
“So we call them here. There, on the north side, they used to dump the expired food from supermarkets. Dumpster – fulls, five thousand pounds, imagine? Who would throw five thousand pounds of perfectly edible stuff? The disposed food formed huge pimples underground. On top, layers of solid waste, below – a pocket with liquid pus. Water doesn't drain from rot-pits, because all the foods were in plastic back then. If a rot-pit sucks you in, you go down, like in a swamp. Then, it burps with methane and hydrogen sulfide. Scavs say: if you can't drag a person out in less than fifteen seconds, don't bother. They even don't risk pulling the dead body out. Believe it or not, rot-pits digest people. Three days, maximum one week, – and only bones left!”
Mark reckoned the landfill area. Probably, no less than a square mile. With all these trenches, rot-pits and God knows what else, the search for Jasmine may very well last till the evening, even without visiting the recycling workshops.
Mark did not have a photo of Jasmine Hobson. He was not worried about this initially, thinking the unmistakable traces of her accident three years ago would make the search easy. Mark tried to ask scavengers if they saw a teenage girl with scars from a chemical burn, but everybody just shook their heads. The 'Fill rules were no different from the Day-Pay: scavs were not inclined to discuss their ‘little mishaps’. Rodrigo proposed to skip the questions, and rather rely on their own legs and eyes. He recalled seeing a wall-eyed girl at the 'Fill. How hard would it be to spot her again?
By midday, they surveyed half of the landfill, and Mark was already exhausted. On top of the headache from yesterday drinking, now there was a terrible headache from the landfill aroma. Each component by itself was not too bad: a smoke from fires, a smell of fallen leaves, scents of machine oil, rotten wood, and so on. But all together, they formed a disgusting ‘bouquet.’ It felt like all his clothes were impregnated with this odor too. Mark's shirt became damp from the drizzle and was unpleasantly scratching his skin. His shoes and pants up to the knees were covered with greasy mud. He regretted that he had dressed this morning as for the office. Now Mary would complain he did not take care of his clothes, and it would be necessary to do an extra wash. To add to all the torture, Mark's mouth was dryer than the Wasted Patch of Iowa, but he could not bring himself to drink. One sip, and the wretched smell, as well as the very view of the garbage heaps turned him inside out.
How could all these workers stand it? Got used to? Must be a ‘generation gap,’ Mark decided. The older scavengers were all dressed in long pants, long-sleeved jackets, and many had rubber boots. Almost all had gloves on their hands; few were even wearing face masks. Presumably, before the Meltdown the older workers had very different jobs. Lawyers, financial advisers, managers… Like Deputy Kim's mother, a financial auditor who became a rag-picker. If some of them were not the white-collar types, filling supermarket shelves or tightening nuts in a car repair shop was much cleaner and more rewarding occupation.
But the younger scavs, in the under-twenty age bracket, had no aversion to the 'Fill. In front of him, a girl cracked a rude joke about the young man who was sorting garbage next to her. She giggled and ran to escape, splashing dirty puddles with her bare feet. The young man chased her, but tripped over his flip-flop and almost fell, causing another burst of laughter among the scavengers. Comically, he hopped on one leg, trying to get rid of the second flip-flop, but finally abandoned the chase. The girl stopped too and descended from a garbage pile to resume her work.
Despite miserable weather, the majority of younger scavs, including the girls, worked half-naked. A combination of heavy work pants with a bikini top was not uncommon! No work boots in sight either; their standard footwear was a pair of tire 'flops, and many worked barefoot. All dag through garbage with bare hands. Every third scav did have rubber gloves, but wore them at the belts. The youngsters only put gloves on if the landfill revealed something really dangerous – a car battery or a bundle of metal shavings. This generation was born after or just few years before the Meltdown. They saw nothing better, and for them – digging at the 'Fill was a norm. Not a dream job, but quite all-right.
And the third generation was present too! On a pile of construction debris, Mark spotted two women breastfeeding their babies. One was about sixteen. The other looked a bit older, and at her feet, a toddler, completely naked, sat in a puddle, making mud pies. The little boy dug a squashed aluminum can and solemnly handed it over to his mommy. She smiled and sent the treasure into her basket. No wonder they called these landfill kids – maggots! Yes, for these toddlers, this landfill was a home-sweet-home. Where else can you play with mud and make your mommy happy with a wonderful Coca-Cola find?
“How do they stand walking over all this crap with no boots? Gross, isn't it?” Mark told Rodrigo, not so asking a question but rather stating a fact. The fat Sergeant belonged to the generation in-between the former white-collars and the under-twenties. He dressed quite comfortably: industrial rubber boots on his feet, and a plastic poncho on his shoulders. The landfill aromas did not bother him at all. The lunch time approached, so from a food vendor he bought two burritos and began to tuck them on the go.
“With no boots? Why gross?” he raised his eyebrows, holding the half-consumed burrito in front of his mouth. The issue, seemingly, had never occurred to him.
“OK, ‘gross,’ probably, is a wrong word. I mean, it must be dangerous. What about all sorts of infections? In the garbage, there are old syringes, medical waste, and other such shit.” Mark had somehow accepted his children went barefoot in the city, but surely not at the garbage dump?
“The opposite. Some scavs claim going barefoot on the 'Fill is marginally safer. Apparently, without shoes their feet can feel springy ground, so to detect rot-pits and other holes. I believe it's a fishing tale. All the same, walking barefoot here is hardly more dangerous than in any other place in Houston. Once in a while, I have no choice. Imagine, in the morning you come in sandals, and by lunch time, there is a thunderstorm. Boom, and mud is knee-deep! What do you do? Even so, I try not appear at my Beat with no shoes. Maintaining the Police image.”
This very morning, Mark had almost identical conversation with Samantha. After the mandatory water run to the Reservoir (this activity all the neighborhood kids traditionally performed unshod, and Mark did not mind – at least, not anymore), Samantha jumped on the trike to go to the 'Fill.
“And where are you going like this?” Mary yelled.
“Like what, Mom?” Samantha asked, checking her jeans and T-shirt. She even tried to look behind her back.
“Like: without your rubber boots!”
Samantha smiled: nothing serious! Not as bad as the humiliating ‘Caution: Inexperienced Trike Driver’ sign pinned on her back by mischievous Pamela and Patrick the other day. A matter of no concern: going to a landfill in bare feet!
An authority struggle followed. Mark was on Mary's side, repeating the same arguments he just posed in front of Rodrigo. Frederick's plant was half-a-mile from the 'Fill, but all kinds of gross and dangerous stuff could be anywhere. After all, it was a chemical plant! Didn't they have safety rules at the chemical plants? Finally, a compromise was made. Yes, Samantha would do the same as Mike had done before her: hang the boots under the trike's seat to put them on upon arrival.
Mark pointed that besides the boots under the seat, Mike always had his flip-flops. At this, Samantha dismissively waved her hand. Mike is such a sissy, she said, only sissies need 'flops for riding a bike. Finally, the rubber boots had relocated from the garage corner to the hook under the seat, and Samantha departed, pushing trike pedals with her bare, tough, wholly anti-sissy toes.
“Have you ever cut your foot here?” Mark asked Rodrigo.
“Me? Never. If you get used to with no shoes, your feet react automatically. No probs. The real danger is the one you can't see.”
“Like a bio-hazard waste?”
“Not really. The bio-hazards are only in fresh garbage, and we had no new dumps for years. Medical sharps get rusted and can't puncture skin anymore. I meant: the chemicals. They're not biodegradable.”
“Like battery acid?”
“That's too. But the worst is dioxin. It used to be a lot of chlorine around, in the household chemicals, and such. When everything rots, the chlorine reacts with organic matter. For men, it's dangerous, but not too bad, but for women – oh shit! Especially for pregnant! Miscarriages are common. And sometimes: a live baby, but an idiot, or with flippers instead of arms or legs. I told my wife: before you give birth to as many as you want, don't even think working here!”
“And how many does your wife want, if I may ask?”
“No idea. By now, we have six, and the seventh is due in October…”
“The seventh! Does she want more?”
“She will tell me in January. Children – our best investment!”
Whilst Rodrigo was consuming his burritos, Mark observed the work of Steam Scav, the latest 'Fill invention. A locomobile engine turned a huge flywheel. Scavengers put a steel anchor to the top of a garbage heap, the rope was wrapped around a pulley. The operator shouted ‘Stand back!’ – and applied tension. The steam engine did the rest, ripping a shallow trench in the garbage. The rag-pickers immediately crowded the trench, while the anchor went to the next heap. Three stoker boys, dressed in nothing but shorts, and with their backs shiny from the rain, sweat, and black soot, fed the furnace with chunks of rotten wood. The locomobile stack emitted clouds of heavy black smoke. Twenty years ago, Mark saw something similar in a sci-fi movie. Back then, who could tell that a steam monster and her teenage stokers might jump from the silver screen and become an everyday routine?
The officers moved on, overtaking several middle-aged women who brought lunch to the scavengers. Confidently stomping garbage with their bare feet, the women engaged with their favorite: sharing local gossips. “Is it so, Rosalind? Unbelievable!” Mark overheard, “And they did it right under your window? Here are the youngsters for you, darling. How uncivilized…” It sounded like if they were walking through a fancy shopping mall instead of a garbage heap.
My hypothesis of a generation gap did not hold, Mark said to himself. Everybody could adjust, only the youngsters, on average, – adjusted quicker than the middle-aged.
Adjust!
If somebody told me back in 2008 that by 2020 I ride a push-bike to work, I would have laughed! Back then, a bicycle in Houston was just a ‘sport.’ Exactly in the sense, in which this word was used in Victorian England. ‘Sport’ meant ‘having fun.’ With nothing else to do, overfed ladies and gentlemen engaged in fresh air exercises.
In 2008, Mark and Mary had two high-tech, expensive, mountain bikes, on which they rode twice a month. Mark put the bicycles on a special rack at the back of his Ford Territory, and drove twenty miles to a public park. For an hour or two, Mark and Mary cheerfully pedaled around. Then, a little tired, they sat in a picturesque picnic shed and ate sandwiches. The bikes returned to the rack, and the proud bicyclists went home, speeding at sixty miles per hour, fifteen miles per gallon, along a six-line freeway.
For sure, back in 2008, enthusiasts rode bikes to work every day, and in any weather. But they were few, causing only smiles and mild jokes from their automotive co-workers. And now? Military charters became expensive, motor-buses – unreliable. Omnibuses, which more and more replaced motorized transportation – notoriously slow. Bicycles became the only practical way of getting from point A to point B in reasonable time and on your own schedule.
For a while, their two mountain bikes and William's small BMX, all scratched, repainted, and scratched again, with patched tires and permanently locked gears, provided all the family needs. In 2024, the Sheriff's Office issued their poor FBI relatives real police bikes: with heavy-duty frames and simple but reliable three-gear shifters. When Mark arrived home on his new police bike, he felt better than in his brand-new Territory seventeen years earlier. Finally, in 2027 Mike ‘borrowed’ two wheels from their hybrid Toyota and built himself a cargo trike. Mary made a scene, but the three-wheeler proved itself handy for their daily water runs. They had adjusted to live without cars. No probs.
Or take school buses. Back in 2020, it was said without buses Houston schools could not function! The city authorities discussed how to convert the vehicles to natural gas, still available, despite the crisis. The buses eventually stopped, but the schools kept teaching. Students had adapted: went on-foot or rode bicycles to school. When ten-year-old Mike made a face and declared he was not going two miles to school without a bus, Mark just said, “Two miles? So what? Wake up one hour earlier, lazybutt!” And the problem had been solved. Well, for those few who lived too far from any school, the solution came in form of home schooling, or no schooling at all. As William said the other day: ‘the value of high school is grossly exaggerated.’ For digging landfills or tending veggies, even primary education was not too necessary.
Or synthetic drugs! Before the Meltdown, the Police chased underground ‘chemists,’ makers of synthetic narcotics and recreational pills. B
ut by now, the underground became completely legal and ran reputable businesses, producing substitute medicines. All those remedies, now impossible to obtain due to mass bankruptcy of pharmaceutical companies! Mark recalled his conversation with Alex a year ago.
“I met this guy when I was a trainee,” Alex said back then. “Four years later, I personally sent him behind bars, for making Ice. And look at him now! He rents half-a-house on our street. A chemist shoppe! Want to know how he called it? Red Pill – Blue Pill! I kid you not! Like in the old movie, The Matrix. So I asked him: before the Meltdown, we were told to put gas masks on before breaking into your bloody labs. Whatever you're making now – is it the same crap, or less dangerous? And he smiled: those gas masks covered not so your ugly faces, but your Sheriff's ass! If something went wrong, or you did something stupid, he could always say: but I gave my officers personal protective equipment, didn't I? Apparently, if the chemist understands his business, there is no danger. And his air pollution, he says, is no more than from any blacksmith or a soap maker… Our chemist is not an unreasonable guy. He told me: no bad feelings. Before the Meltdown, you, Sarge, did your job, and I – did mine. Even offered me a discount on analgesics or sedatives!”
“Watch out!” Rodrigo shouted.
Preoccupied with his thoughts and distracted by his headache, Mark made the biggest mistake at the 'Fill. He did not pay full, one hundred percent, attention to the stuff under his feet and around! The 'Fill made her swift revenge, but not deadly this time: Mark suddenly tripped on unstable garbage, crashed on his stomach, and slid down into a deep trench.
“Shit! What a bad luck!” Rodrigo lamented, rushing after the fallen FBI agent. Perhaps, the Sergeant cursed himself that he delivered a ‘one-sentencer’ instead of the mandatory safety brief.
It turned out exactly the opposite, – they had a very good luck after all. In front of Mark's face, a pair of skinny and tanned bare feet had popped up, and a girlish voice asked from above: “Did you hurt yourself?”
Slipping in the mud, Mark struggled to his feet. “I am OK,” he told the girl and looked up.
If he had not fallen into this trench, he would simply have gone further and missed her. She worked down below, with her face and most of her body shielded from above under a huge straw hat. The girl's face was covered with the familiar constellation of little scars, and her right eye was all white from the chemical burn. Over the past three years, Jasmine Hobson grew up and from an awkward pre-teen turned into slender and very pretty teenage girl.
She was dressed like a typical scav, and not without a hint of following the latest fashion: a bit short and tight jeans, a camo T-shirt, and over it – a Denim shirt with cut-off sleeves. Both the shirt and the jeans boasted strategically placed holes. The girl's scars and wall-eye did not spoil the looks, even a little. Three biggest scars at her cheek had been converted into a delicate starfish tattoo.
“Jasmine Hobson, if I am not mistaken?”
“How do you know me?”
Only then, Mark realized it was impossible for Jasmine to recognize him. Now his office clothes were ruined completely. All his front side, from head to toes, his face, and his hands – were smeared with mud. “Where can I wash, please?” he asked, trying to wipe his face with his shoulder. It proved fruitless, as Mark's shirt was equally dirty.
“Wait a sec,” Jasmine replied and ran down the trench.
What a damn fool I am, Mark said to himself. Located the girl – and immediately let her go! Now we may need to chase her around the landfill. I hope Rodrigo is good at running. As for me, running in all this slippery mud is out of my league!