Blessed Be The Arco Garbage God

A dumpsterdiver's hymnal

by James Jarvis

02/13/02
Once again
the Arco garbage god,
a deity well fed
by my gas station employer
(through me, chief trash dumper)

has favored me with a gift.

A few weeks ago
it was the opportunity
to return a trash-hidden purse
to a struggling mother
who had no idea
how the purse

got into a trash can.

Before that
it was a video camera.
Then a nice spice rack.

Today,
the god of garbage
and all things dumpster
gave me
a brand new black solar-powered
water-resistant
chronometer sports watch.
Looks good on me.
Keeps time.
Didn't come with instructions, though.
Maybe I'll find them

in the Arco trash tomorrow.

One of my friends tells me she has noticed
over the years
that I have telekinetic powers,
the power to manifest into reality
the serendipidousest objects
and peoples and events . . .
all manifestations of my whims.

What I have noticed
is that I seem to be a copper magnet.
Pennies follow me wherever I go.
Maybe I should focus
on silver or gold.

Tags: Jolie Blond, prose, poetry, poem, spoken word, hymnal, trashpickers, refuse, trash man, ragpicker, filling station, dumpsterdiving, telekinetic powers, serendipity, dumpster, dumpsterdiver, dumpster gods, dumpster hymnal, praise, Factotum, Arco, gas station, Arcology, Arconia, dumpster gifts

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The Dumpster Gods Must Be Crazy, Finale

(final chapter in story about finding a woman in a Westwood dumpster)

She didn't go in. WE didn't go in. She had latched herself tightly around my head and chest. We almost BOTH went in to the dumpster.

I set her down next to the dumpster. I was huffing and puffing from all the exertion. She was huffing and puffing from all the yelling and flailing. We huffed and puffed together for a few minutes, eyeing each other warily.

"I'm . . . telling . . . Caroline (the Casa De Toro apartment manager)," the panting blond said.

"Tell her," I answered, "Tell HER . . ."

Unspoken, but communicated between us was the way Carolyn is about trouble and troublemakers at the apartment complex. All I had to lose was an $8 an hour job. The blond would be on Carolyn's radar as a disturber of the peace, the peace Carolyn seems to treasure above all else.

"Kerry," she said, holding out her hand in truce, "Kerry Keating." It sounded like a lie.

"Pedro," I answered, "Pedro Montoya."

"Do you . . . have my stuff . . . uh, my purse?"

"Maybe it's . . . in the dumpster . . . where I . . . found you," I said, pointing to the inside of the dumpster. Her eyes widened.

"What do . . . I was IN . . . how did I . . ."

"I pulled you out," I said, with a hint of indignation in my voice.

"I need my keys, Pedro," she said, her voice grown cold.

"Well I'm not going in THERE," I said, pointing to the inside of the dumpster. I turned and walked away, towards the business card I had seen falling out of her butt earlier.

I got to the card and picked it up. "Angel Infante" it read, "consultant". Angel baby? I laughed. Angel Baby came up behind me.

"Do you have a key to open my apartm---" she started to ask.

"No ma'am," I said solicitously, "They don't give us . . ."

"Can you call Carol-- uh, management . . ."

"No ma'am," I said, starting to feel sorry for her again, "I can only page emergencies like fire and . . ."

"What am I going to do? My keys. My cell . . ."

"Don't you have any friends here?" I asked.

She looked at me blankly and said nothing. I waited, but she said nothing. I pulled my cell phone off my utility belt and offered it to her.

"Friends anywhere?" I asked. She looked at me blankly again. It's the old L.A. story: in L.A., you can have lots and lots of acquaintances, lots of people you can go out to dinner with or partying with, but nobody to call at 2 in the morning to put you up on their couch.

"I know somebody," I said, "Wanna try?" Angel Baby followed me over to The Succubus' apartment in building C. Ping, The Succubus, had a strange look on her face when she opened her door, a predatory glance between me and the Angel Baby I had dragged to her door like a pet cat bringing the carcass of a mouse to its master.

When I explained the situation, Ping looked as if Christmas had come early this year. Oh, I hadn't known it was like that with Ping.

I left Angel Baby to her fate and resumed my diligent rounds of the property, making a mental note to myself that there's just some junk you should leave in the dumpsters, no matter how bright and shiny it looks.

THE END

Tags: Dumpster Gods, dumpsterdiving, dumpsterware, dumpsters, dumpster treasure, Angel Infante, security guard, Sucko Security, Casa De Toro, alley cat, crazy, factotum, viral video, revver, jarvis, marquisdejolie, Los Angels, Westwood, Culver City, UCLA, counterintuitive, party girl, college drunk, Pedro Montoya, Kerry Keating, Ping, Angel Baby, The Succubus

The Dumpster Gods Must Be Crazy, Part 7 of 8

I caught up to the blond at the locked footpath gate. She yanked and yanked at the lock gate, kicked it. She turned and started flailing her arms again, yelling "Whu? What? What? What are..?"

I pushed her flailing arms out of my way, bent into her and lifted her up onto my shoulder, tossing her up in the air a few inches over my shoulder like a hundred pound bag of dog food to get a good balance. I spun around and walked back towards the dumpster.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING!" she screamed as she kicked her legs and flailed her fists against my lower back.

I didn't answer because I didn't know what I was doing. All I knew was that I was angry. I was mad. I could hear Credence Clearwater Revival's "Bad Moon Rising" in my mind's ear. I could hear it clearly.

I vaguely had a picture in my mind of her flying back into the dumpster, ass in first this time. I pumped my legs to the beat of "Bad Moon Rising." The music helped lighten my load.

As I got to the dumpster and started shifting the load to throw her in, I was definately going to throw her back in, somewhere in the back of my mind I had made that decision, somewhere in the back of my mind, where the music was loud and fast, I had decided that this was one L.A. bitch who wasn't going to step all over me and berate me at the same time.

If this mean, drunk, pukey bitch thought she was the first mean, drunk, pukey bitch that I had ever run across in this town, she was dead wrong. I drove L.A. call girls for five years. I've met every kind of mean, self-centered, conniving, cruel, lying, manipulating, thieving, lowlife cunt there is and I . . .

She said, "No. Wait."

I shifted the load again, stepping one leg back for support and bending slightly to get a good toss . . .

"No, wait. WAIT! WAIT A MINUTE! Wait. Wait wait wait."

I started rocking back and forth with my load, mentally counting.

One . . . two . . .

"WAIT JUST ONE GODDAMNED MINUTE, FUCK! WAIT SHIT!"

Three.

END PART 7
Tags: Dumpster Gods, dumpsterdiving, dumpsterware, dumpsters, dumpster treasure, Angel Infante, security guard, Sucko Security, Casa De Toro, alley cat, crazy, factotum, viral video, revver, jarvis, marquisdejolie, Los Angels, Westwood, Culver City, UCLA, counterintuitive, party girl, college drunk, Pedro Montoya, Kerry Keating, Ping, Angel Baby, The Succubus

The Dumpster Gods Must Be Crazy, Part 6 of 8

My glasses must've flown 15 feet from the blond's punch. Well, it wasn't a punch so much as it was a flail. Her arms were flailing in a sudden flurry that I wouldn't have believed possible a few moments earlier.

A few moments earlier, she was like a puppet with its strings cut. Now she was spinning like the Tasmanian Devil.

When she stopped screaming and flailing, she blinked once at me as if clearing her eyesight of something ridiculously unbelievable and horrific and lurched off towards the footpath leading to the apartment complex fitness room area, spitting vile epithets back at me like hateful incantations to make me disappear.

"Fugging fraggot," she cursed.

"SHIT!" she exclaimed.

"Perv!" she accused.

"LOSER!" she canted.

She hadn't quite gotten her 'sea legs' under her yet, so her hurky jerky stiltwalking sort of resembled the way Frankenstein walked in those old movies. As she was lurching towards the footpath, a business card seemingly fell out of her ass.

Her gray miniskirt was still hiked up halfway up her butt, displaying glimpses of her red thong panties, her hair was still skewed to one side as if she'd stood sideways in a wind tunnel. She was quite a sight, even with my glasses off.

I picked up my glasses and put them back on, redfaced. Very redfaced. I could feel the heat in my face. It was getting hotter. I was . . . angry. I started striding towards her. Without looking back, she sensed my approach and sped up her stiltwalking. I walked faster. She lurched faster. I started pumping my steps. She started pistoning her lurches.

END PART 6
Tags: Dumpster Gods, dumpsterdiving, dumpsterware, dumpsters, dumpster treasure, Angel Infante, security guard, Sucko Security, Casa De Toro, alley cat, crazy, factotum, viral video, revver, jarvis, marquisdejolie, Los Angels, Westwood, Culver City, UCLA, counterintuitive, party girl, college drunk, Pedro Montoya, Kerry Keating, Ping, Angel Baby, The Succubus

The Dumpster Gods Must Be Crazy, Part 5 of 8

I started having My-Big-Fat-Greek-Wedding romantic fantasies about this cute little blond as I was shaking her, getting flashcard pictures of her cooking dinner for me while I typed stories on my laptop, pictures of her and I sitting out on the porch swing on balmy nights looking at the stars and not having to say anything to communicate, pictures of us spooning and unloading groceries out of the back of the pickup truck and . . .

"Ma'am, are you all right?"

I chuckled. This is, sort of, the way I met my second wife, my true wife, roles reversed. My second wife first lay eyes on me when I was recovering, in public, from some all night binge and debauchery. What a coincedence. Was this a sign? Is this the best way to meet a prospective spouse? Tables turned, it had worked for me before.

"Ma'am, are you all right?"

I chuckled, thinking, only a desperately lonely schmuck, only a man, would be having fantasies about a passed out stranger with puke running down her blouse.

"Ma'am, are you all right?"

Suddenly, the woman's eyes popped open and she fell forward. Still in mid chuckle, I reflexively caught the woman's forward movement with my left hand, palm up. Her first impression of her surroundings, and of me, were not so good. I was chuckling, my left palm on her breast.

She screamed and hit me.

END PART 5 OF 8
Tags: Dumpster Gods, dumpsterdiving, dumpsterware, dumpsters, dumpster treasure, Angel Infante, security guard, Sucko Security, Casa De Toro, alley cat, crazy, factotum, viral video, revver, jarvis, marquisdejolie, Los Angels, Westwood, Culver City, UCLA, counterintuitive, party girl, college drunk, Pedro Montoya, Kerry Keating, Ping, Angel Baby, The Succubus

The Dumpster Gods Must Be Crazy, Part 4 of 8

The young lady I was holding up by the back of her blouse collar was a beautiful, 5'2" blond: a heart-shaped face, Janet (not Michael) Jackson nose, tight, youthful skin, eye color to be determined if she ever opened her eyes. And lips. My God, what beautiful, full, pouty, Mediteranean lips. Succulent lips. Lips that should do lipstick commercials.

She had dried puke running from the side of her mouth down the front of her gray/pink blouse. She had that old mayonnaise smell that Ecstasy abusers exude, or maybe it was just the dumpster detritus in her skewed-to-one-side perm. The dumpster had skewed her coiffed blond hair to one side of her head, I reasoned. No one would PAY for a do this hideous.

I was struck by the contrast between her beautiful young face and the trashy condition of her haute couture wardrobe. I pulled back the little collar label on her blouse, holding the mostly motionless little blond up as if she were a shirt I was thinking about purchasing in the men's section of a J.C. Penny's, and sure enough, the label was Christian Dior.

"We certify that this article has been manufactured according to the most rigorous quality standards, and in conformity with the image of our brand name," the label read.

I was feeling much more at ease with the situation now that I had a firm hand on it, now that I could touch it and feel it and see that it was real and tangible instead of ethereal and spooky. Anything I can put my hands on, I can control, one way or another.

I read the label again and thought, "In conformity with the image of our brand name" : wouldn't they be proud to see their product in it's current usage?! I do that sometimes: think in stilted language. It's a defense mechanism, I think.

"Ma'am, are you all right?" I asked as I gently shook the pukey cadaver.

She was way too young for me to be calling her 'ma'am', but when I'm in uniform I call everyone 'sir', 'ma'am' or, if I'm about to thump them, 'thefuck' (as in 'thefuck you want?' or 'thefuck you say' or ' thefuck I will').

Streaked mascara webbed out of this young woman's closed eyes like the black tears of a dead clown. I grabbed her bare shoulders and shook gently.

"Ma'am, are you all right?" She looked angelic, in an evil sort of way. "Ma'am, are you all right?"

END PART 4
Tags: Dumpster Gods, dumpsterdiving, dumpsterware, dumpsters, dumpster treasure, Angel Infante, security guard, Sucko Security, Casa De Toro, alley cat, crazy, factotum, viral video, revver, jarvis, marquisdejolie, Los Angels, Westwood, Culver City, UCLA, counterintuitive, party girl, college drunk, Pedro Montoya, Kerry Keating, Ping, Angel Baby, The Succubus

The Dumpster Gods Must Be Crazy, Part 3 of 8

The big, black, puma-sized cat hacked up a furball, looked at me scornfully and jumped down off its cardboard box watchtower and scurried off into the night. Some part of me said that that's what I ought to do, scurry off into the night, but I still had this . . . body to deal with.

The night was still; no sound of car or truck engines roaring across the nearby 405 freeway, no television infomercial noise wafting out of open bedroom windows, not even police sirens. It was strangely quiet for a big city, as if it was holding its breath, waiting for my next move. It was so quiet I thought I could hear the thrump thrump of my heart.

I looked at the woman's ass. Nice ass. A Los Angeles ass. The woman was definately an Angelino. Years of dealing with Los Angeles women has stropped my distrust of them until it is as sharp as a straight razor made from the finest German steel. This was going to be trouble, no matter what I did. There was still the option of shoving the protruding end of her into the dumpster and then, to use a colloquial pun, hightail it out of there.

For some reason I put my arms out, palms up, fingers pointing towards the woman's ass and legs sticking out of the dumpster and I looked around like I was prepared to catch anything that flew out of the woman's ass, or like I was a prophet who had just walked up on the burning bush, asking the great invisible god of the four winds, "Yeah? What do you want me to do with THIS?"

I looked around, my arms still unconsciously out as if to catch something falling out of the sky. I looked around. No one was coming to claim this body. Somehow, I was sure of that. No one was coming.

It was against my better judgment, counterintuitive to my best logic, contrary to my long experience with dealing with strangers in Los Angeles, especially Los Angeles women, and adverse to the storm of emotions screaming at me to get the fuck out of there, but I stepped up, leaned into the dumpster, grabbed the back of her blouse colar and yanked her straight up out of the dumpster until her high heeled feet found purchase on the pavement in front of the dumpster.

END PART 3

Tags: Dumpster Gods, dumpsterdiving, dumpsterware, dumpsters, dumpster treasure, Angel Infante, security guard, Sucko Security, Casa De Toro, alley cat, crazy, factotum, viral video, revver, jarvis, marquisdejolie, Los Angels, Westwood, Culver City, UCLA, counterintuitive, party girl, college drunk, Pedro Montoya, Kerry Keating, Ping, Angel Baby, The Succubus

The Dumpster Gods Must Be Crazy, Part 2 of 8

The legs started jerking spasmodically . . . slightly, and from the movement I could see that this thing, this red-eyed dumpster cyclops, was a blonde, a natural blonde. I was a little un- comfortable, yet mesmerized, by this spasmodically twitching pair of legs with a butt on top of it. It was rude for me to be staring. It was sort of like I had walked into someone's bathroom and accidentally caught them on the john.

Anyone else in Los Angeles would've just kept walking. I've seen it: Angelinos stepping over bodies on the sidewalk. Anyone else here would've minded their own business, but not me. I've got the stupid gene. I've got the Walk Over To A Sweating Stick Of Dynomite And Pick It Up Saying "What's this?" gene.

Suddenly I heard laughter above me. No, it was more like . . . snickering. I jerked my head up and there on top of some stacked cardboard boxes next to the dumpster about three feet above my head, was the biggest, meanest-looking, giant-assed, pitch black black cat you ever saw, his teeth bared, his head jerking up and down, up and down, snickering!

Snickering? Snickering? Oh wait. I'm losing it, I thought. My synapses are misfiring. I've just slipped into some sort of Salvador Dali, surrealistic, Twilight Zone, fucked up, hallucinatory Halloween siezure.

That's what I FELT, not what I thought at the time. I wasn't forming thoughts at the time. I was pure sensory INPUT. I don't think I was thinking a single thought at the time; standing there in the dark, alone, an ass wriggling in the dumpster, a cat the size of a Puma snickering "Cheee hee hee, cheee hee hee."

There were preternatural forces at work here, but even with preternatural forces involved, there was something askew here. Something not quite . . . legal. I've been sensing dark things around me for weeks now: dark things, things that go bump in the night, not wiggle their asses at you and snicker out of cats' teeth. The dumpster gods must be crazy. I DO remember thinking one thing when I looked up and saw the cat snickering at me . . .well, not really

THINKING: remembering. I remembered a scene from an old thirties or forties horror film. The black comic relief character sees a ghost or a monster, I forget which. Pan to a closeup of his face and head. His fro stands straight up on the top of his head like a cat arching its back to do battle and he says: "Feet, don't FAIL me NOW!"

Yeah, that was my primal reaction: FEET, DON'T FAIL ME NOW!

But I was frozen in place.

END PART 2

Tags: Dumpster Gods, dumpsterdiving, dumpsterware, dumpsters, dumpster treasure, Angel Infante, security guard, Sucko Security, Casa De Toro, alley cat, crazy, factotum, viral video, revver, jarvis, marquisdejolie, Los Angels, Westwood, Culver City, UCLA, counterintuitive, party girl, college drunk, Pedro Montoya, Kerry Keating, Ping, Angel Baby, The Succubus

The Dumpster Gods Must Be Crazy, Part 1 of 8

(click thumbnail)

Mix a little foolishness with your serious plans: it's lovely to be silly at the right moment.---Horace

The following story is purely nonfictional and any resemblance to persons living or dead is their problem, not mine.

One a.m. I'm walking my foot patrol from Parking Lot B to Parking Lot C. I see legs sticking out of the towaway zone dumpster. It's a woman, draped over the front lip of the dumpster like a rag hanging on a towel rack.

The woman wasn't moving. She was bent at the waist, head first in the dumpster. All I could see of her was her gray miniskirt hiked above her mid-buttocks, her buttocks and her red thong panties peeking between her butt cheeks like a big red unblinking eye. Yep, she looked like a cyclops from that angle.

I'd like to tell you that my first reaction was something droll, like "Man, these people throw EVERYTHING away!" but it wasn't. My first reaction was fear, fear that whatever bugaboo monster or dumpster dumping serial killer that got HER was still lurking around close enough to get ME.

A scene from one of Alfred Hitchcock's horror movies flashed in my mind's eye: the one where the serial killer killed nude woman's body falls out of the moving potato truck.

My second reaction was fear, fear that somehow-- through some illogical chain of irrational circumstances--I'd get in trouble for this.

I stood frozen in my tracks for a couple of minutes. It may have been as long as five minutes. I just stood there, staring at the big red thong eye, it staring at me. There was no movement. I stepped closer and poked the left butt cheek with my index finger to see if . . . if the body moved. I've seen dead bodies up close before, but I've never poked one, so it was a quick poke accompanied by a quick step backward.

It didn't move.

I stood there a while longer, looking at the big red thong eye, and decided not to accept this dubious gift from the dumpster genie. What I would do, I decided, would be to finish the job, to complete the disposal. She was half way in anyway, the top half. I would just grab the ankles and through leverage, toss the rest of her in. Wipe hands. Finish patrolling.

I reached down to grab the ankles when a chilling thought bolted up my spine: what if someone saw me do this? What if someone just driving by on the street behind me looked over and saw the security guard dumping a woman's body in the dumpster?

That wouldn't be good. I guess I'd be pretty much done in by THAT eyewitness account. No amount of explaining would undo THAT. Nope.

"That's the man, your honor," says the eyewitness, pointing to me, "Him, the defendant. He pushed the body into the dumpster. I SAW him!"

No, no, no, no, no. That won't do at all. I'll have to come up with something else, I thought, c'mon, kiddo, be bold. Be decisive.

So I grabbed a handful of ass and shook it 'til she twitched. I jumped back. A leg twitched again. It's alive! It's alive!

END PART ONE


Tags: Dumpster Gods, dumpsterdiving, dumpsterware, dumpsters, dumpster treasure, Angel Infante, security guard, Sucko Security, Casa De Toro, alley cat, crazy, factotum, viral video, revver, jarvis, marquisdejolie, Los Angels, Westwood, Culver City, UCLA, counterintuitive, party girl, college drunk, Pedro Montoya, Kerry Keating, Ping, Angel Baby, The Succubus

Silent Night

(click for Revver video)

Singing "Silent Night" in Culver City. I used to be homeless there. Great dumpsterdiving in that city! Good freeway bridges to sleep under.

Tags: Revver, silent night, christmas, christmas song, caroling, lawalker, james jarvis, marquisdejolie, holiday singing, holiday song, christmas spirit

The Golden Chalice

The dumpster: the golden chalice, the sacred vessel, of homelessness. From it, the supplicant receives all manner of manna from the horn of plenty of capitalism and conspicuous consumption. If you want to help the homeless, build more dumpsters. Dumpsters provide food, income, entertainment, clothing and shelter. Fill a dumpster today for a better tomorrow.

Tags: Golden Chalice, dumpster, dumpsterdiving, sacred vessel, manna, homeless, homelessness, horn of plenty, food, income, entertainment, clothing, shelter