Suzie’s House 439 : Dumpster Diving Daughter

“It’s weird,” Emma said to Tracy and Gene as they left the studio. She was thinking about her father.

“What? The guitar thing?” Tracy arched her eyebrows.

“N- no, no. I think you and Gene switching is a good idea. I, I mean, you and me do more egging each other on anyway, right? So him playing bass and you guitar makes more sense. I… I think.”

“So, you don’t think we’re lame?” Gene actually said something. Usually he just kind of nodded at the right time.

“The… the one whose lame is my dad! No. That’s not…. It’s just weird. He keeps flipping between being like he was before he went away and this… I don’t know. This guy Gabriel keeps butting in and telling him not to do things like yell at me.”

“Isn’t that a good thing?” Tracy bumped Emma’s shoulder as they got to the end of the block so they’d all turn.

Emma was busy thinking about how everything just felt weird at home when she never knew quite what her dad was going to say about things. She didn’t think about where they were going and just went around the corner like she meant to all along.

Right in front of them was a huge pile of belongings piled inside and around an enormous dumpster that took up at least two parking spaces.

“Woah, look at that.” Emma pointed at the pile. “Is any of it even broken?”

“Must be an eviction,” Gene said like that sort of thing happened every day. He stopped right next to the dumpster. “It’s happened to me a time or two. Lost a toy race car I really liked that way.”

“Me, too. Not the race car, but a unicorn. Just a little one made of porcelain.” Tracy bent over to move a blanket so she could see what was under it.

“How awful,” Emma said very quietly. She imagined a harrowing tale of evil landlords ripping the beloved belongings of children out of their hands in revenge for lack of rent. that was how it happened wasn’t it? The parents couldn’t pay their rent so the landlord evicted them. Unless there was some other reason that she didn’t know about.

“Hey! Is that a guitar?” Tracy’s face lit up with eager delight as she pointed to what looked like the tuning peg part of a guitar. She grabbed the side of the dumpster and braced a foot along the bottom, but Gene stopped her.

“Hold this.” He gave her the bass that he was borrowing from her. Quick as a cat he jumped up to the heaping pile of some poor guy’s life. Everything shifted under him. He tried to pull the guitar out, but it was jammed in too good.

“Here, let me…” Tracy tried to give her bass to Emma.

Emma didn’t take it. She wanted to see what it was like in a dumpster. She’d heard Gabriel’s story about finding her dad in a dumpster and her dad talked about her brother was probably dumpster diving. She wanted to see what it was like, too.

She wasn’t anything like quick as a cat, but she got in anyway. It was kind of scary when she heard something deep in the pile break and the tinkle of glass hitting metal.

“Careful.” Gene offered her a hand.

The two of them moved stuff around and dug down until they could finally get the guitar out. So much stuff that said so much about the kind of person. There were college text books, fancy incense burners with a thick coat of ash, a wok, hand thrown mugs that the guy probably made himself, a suitcase with tags from Guatemala, and a lamp that looked just like the one from A Christmas Story.

“One of the strings is broken.” Gene kept tugging at the neck. “But if that’s all then it’s no big deal. It feels kind of loose.”

When it finally came free, there was a loud snapping sound. The body – the hard style like an electric guitar instead of the big acoustic type – hung from the three strings still left.

“I think that might be a little too ingested,” Tracy said.

“You mean imperfect? It’s trash.” Gene threw it down, then climbed out of the dumpster.

“Yeah, but I bet it makes a great song.” Emma started thinking about words and tune. She could already visualize the mask to go with it.

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