Putting Out The Rubbish

Home-grown Umlungu: CXpress 4 May 2006

“Write about your rubbish bags.”

“What?”

“Your rubbish bags.”

“But this is my COLUMN. People read my column because they want to read about ME.”

“Don’t be so conceited. Write about something more interesting. Write about your rubbish bags. You can learn a lot about people from their rubbish bags.”

Why is it that your real friends never say the things you want them to? I mean, here I was looking for brilliance and inspiration from a man who’s made it as a journalist - Big Time, we’re talking a national paper here - so you’d think he could afford to be grownup about this sort of thing, wouldn’t you? That he could stroke the old ego a little?

But no, this so-called friend always has to challenge me, make me face my realities, push me to write better.

“What’s in your rubbish bags?”

“None of your damned business.”

Hah! So he was hiding something. “You’re not prepared to tell me what you throw away?”

“No, it’s not that. I want you to imagine what I throw away... You’re a writer, aren’t you?”

“Well, yes.”

“So imagine.”

There’s rubbish, of course - mouldy left-overs, table scraps, used tissues, disposable nappies and whatever it was that made the cat sick. And in his green bags (green for recyclable), his old newspapers and empty bottles, his plastic bags and tin cans.

But does he also take his rubbish down to the end of the driveway in the early morning quiet before the neighbourhood wakes? And as he drops his bags on the grass of his sidewalk, does he also look across the Lagoon at the Outeniqua Mountains as they catch the first light of the day, the water still as a mirror, the sunrise reflecting sharp and clear?

And does his dog, happy to be going on an adventure (even if it is just a little adventure) bobble along at his side as he makes his weekly pilgrimage?

And as he walks back up to his house, does he look into the trees and see them perfect against the blueing of the sky, and does he find himself slowing to a stop, his hand stroking absently at the dog? And does he think: “amazing! - this is where I live!”?

Because there was this one time when I came to the end of my driveway and there was an old man, deeply dignified but obviously very, very poor and he said: “can I help you with that? It’ll only be a few rand.”

“Sorry, but there’s only the one bag.”

“Maybe you want some work done in the garden? Some painting?”

“I’m sorry, old man. I haven’t got any work.”

He nodded and I went back inside and then a little later I drove to town and the old man was standing there at the circle on Wilson Street.

He stuck out his thumb and hitched a lift. “I can’t find work,” he said. “I used to be a painter, but now...”

And somehow I asked about his family. They were living in Johannesburg, he said.

“Can’t you go and live with them? Maybe stay with them while you look for work?”

But he just shook his head again. “They’re not interested in me.”

And then he stared at the Lagoon for a while as we drove along George Rex before he turned back to me. “And besides,” he said. “It’s so beautiful. I like living here.”