The Man Who Watched Trash
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Pardon me, but I can only think about the diminishing of the ozone layer and the Greenhousing of America. I know you don’t want to hear about it, but here I am watching the landfill grow some ten feet higher by town ordinance. Trash is my metaphysic. Ray Mitch, Curator, Landfill Hall of Fame, Conway, CT 06525. Town Dump, guys. And here she comes, lips parted, bright with gloss, her green plastic bags glistening, everything bright and vinyl, Mrs. Porsche. Today, the silver Audi, blue and white plates, MD 450 CT, the old man a doctor. I see her even before she passes through my gates, turning with her orange blinker Germanically precise, pulsing its way like a human bionic cell toward my little shed. What will her contribution be today to the greenhouse? What has Mrs. Porsche given to the world today for immortality, driven into the ground eventually by Al’s yellow ‘dozer blade? I’ll try to keep her deposit over there with my burnables, buriables. Unless she’s suddenly gotten into recycling, Mrs. Porsche. Unlikely. You can quickly, size up the environmentalists. A landfill is a quick study in the psychographics of American lifestyle. ******************** So it’s Ray Mitch, a kind of universal wise guy with a short education, but a way with the poetic word. Plastics on the left, metals in the middle, newsprint and paper scrap over here, burnables down at the far end, and a special section groomed by yours truly for human remains. And, believe me, guys, they remain human. Wait ‘til I tell you about the monthly Mafia drop off, usually at night when I’m sacked out in the shed. Cops been out here for a year and can’t put a tail on those creeps. At least they keep the limbs in one bag, heads in another, and everything else trashed or shredded so you’ d never know the victim anyway. Truthfully, I don’t care to talk about it. Part of the turf. ******************** There’s smoke today as Mrs. Porsche brakes her Audi, waits for my signal to her, then proceeds. I’ve burned some clumps of evergreen brought by the Tree Surgeon’s crew. Fragrant, actually, the coniferous sap trickling as it burns, and Mrs. Porsche wearing her tiny doctor’s mask to filter the blowing smoke and ash. Since the smoke is blue-green today, lying low over the dump and out over the Housatonic, Mrs. Porsche, removing the bags and dragging them, walks backwards into the smoke. All she does is nod at me, listens to the Pavarotti aria I’ve got roaring over the dump, positions the bags at "burnables", and retreats into the Audi, adjusting her little white mask aseptically. She hesitates for a moment, waiting for Pavarotti to hit his higher one, then slams the door, fastens her seat belt, affects a shy little wave, and leaves. It’s like I have AIDS.
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About the Book
A young environmentalist and Harvard dropout, Ray Mitch, supervises a Connecticut landfill but schemes to navigate a 1,000,000-ton iceberg into New York harbor to protest the depletion of the earth’s ozone layer. Accompanied by a young married woman and adolescent daughter, the trio defy Atlantic storms, the CIA, the Coast Guard, Russian subs, and Sandy Mendelbaum’s surgeon-husband’s attempts to retrieve his rebellious wife and daughter from the 'berg. Mitch’s promotional triumphs include attracting major news coverage of their odyssey, rallying international environmentalists and film celebrities, and eventually turning on the City of New York to their triumphant arrival, a tour d’force for ecology. However Sandy Mendelbaum becomes seriously ill and eventually undergoes a mastectomy while "IceShip Earth" slowly melts in the Hudson River but supplies fresh drinking water to the City of New York. Mitch and Sandy head to California to take on an Antarctic iceberg.
About the Author
Russ Madison is the author of the critically acclaimed novel, VICTORY AMONG THE INSANE, published by Grove Press. He has been the recipient of a Lannan Literary Fellowship to complete a long fantasy-biography-novel of Norman Mailer, a work still in progress. His poetry has appeared in many prominent literary magazines, and his stage play, THE BOX, was awarded a top prize in the University of Colorado’s annual theatre competition. Madison creates his manuscripts on rolls of paper towels, now housed with his manuscripts and letters in Special Collections, Boston University’s Mugar Memorial Library. At various times he has been a carpenter, factory hand, and an apple picker. He and his wife, Gi, are a creative team in their award-winning advertising agency, Lone Wolf advertising, Inc., located in Woodbridge, Connecticut. They have six children.