“This isn’t good, Ethan. I don’t like it. Come on, get out of there. Will skip this row and go to the next alley over.”
Ethan didn’t find anything and scratched at his chin, disappointed. “They picked him clean, whoever did this. There isn’t even lint in his pockets.” He spotted the man’s shoes. “Oh, hey! Check these kicks out!”
Wyatt looked on in horror as his friend wrestled a pair of faded runners of the dead man’s feet. Not a sight he expected to see when he woke up in his tent this morning to start his rounds. He expected more of the same. Cans, bottles, and the reek of garbage filled dumpsters.
It had been his routine for the last eight years. Day in and day out. Not once did he encounter a dead body. Dead animals, sure. Rats, and cats, and even a dog or two. But not a person. Feral Kid or not, this guy had been a human being. Watching Ethan casually manhandle the body suddenly made him queasy.
Somewhere from down deep, a memory fought to surface. “Oh, I think I’m gonna be sick,” Wyatt said and stumbled over to throw up behind the dumpster. Cold coffee and stale bagels.
Ethan dropped to the ground, the dead man’s runners on his feet. “Now your DNA is everywhere. We’re both going to hang.”
Wyatt wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve and glared at his friend. “Satisfied?”
“With the runners? Damn right. They fit perfectly!”
Wyatt opened his mouth to berate Ethan when the sound of a distant car crash tore his attention away.
They both turned in the direction of the noise. It was immediately followed by another crash, metal smashing against metal.
“Damn,” Ethan said pacing around in his runners, trying to break them in. “Someone was in too much of a hurry to get somewhere.”
Another crash, this time from the other end of the alley. From that direction a woman screamed.
“We’re at the epicenter!” Ethan said.
“What? This isn’t an earthquake, just shitty drivers hopped up on caffeine.” Wyatt scoffed and grabbed the dumpster’s heavy lid.
“What are you doing now?”
“Laying him to rest,” Wyatt said and eased the lid closed. “Have any last words?”
“Yeah, I’d like to thank the guy for wearing size twelves.”
“Let’s get out of here,” Wyatt said grabbing the cart full of cans. “The less time here the better.”
Ethan grabbed the other cart which they used to carry glass items. Only a half dozen beer bottles rattled at its bottom.
They pushed their carts down the middle of the alley trying to not look suspicious.
“Why’d they kill him?” Ethan asked. He kept grinning down at his new shoes having tossed his old pair in the cart.
“I haven’t the foggiest,” Wyatt said. He kept glancing at each of the dumpsters they passed. All probably filled with cans and bottles. The truck would be by soon and would haul them off to the dump. What a waste of money.
Ethan didn’t appear to mind all the missed out treasure they were passing. At least he got something out of this run. “Bet you it was over drugs. Drugs and guns. It’s always over drugs and guns.”
They walked on for several minutes, cans and bottles rattling.
“Money,” Wyatt finally said. “Probably money.”
“Yeah, but drugs and guns get you the money.”
“Or money gets you the drugs and guns.”
They chuckled.
Wyatt felt strange laughing. They’d found a dead body, robbed it, and left it to cook in a dumpster under the morning sun. He shouldn’t be laughing.
As they came to the end of the alley, they both stopped. The cross street in front of them was littered with cars.
Vehicles were parked everywhere in the middle of the street and down its sides. Some were even on the sidewalks.
A slick looking car had jumped the meridian and crashed into a concrete divider. A Chinese man stood next to its open driver-side door helping a woman inside who was wedged behind an air bag. She looked dazed.
“Well, fuck a duck,” Wyatt said, agog.
Ethan made a tsk-tsk sound. “Everybody in too big of a damn hurry.” He turned his cart onto the sidewalk and pushed on. Wyatt followed still a little stunned at the odd carnage around him.
“What do you think happened?” Wyatt said.
“Don’t know, don’t care,” Ethan said as he steered around a sedan which had driven over the sidewalk and buried itself in a line of thick hedges. “If it becomes our concern, I’ll let you know.”
Ethan didn’t like people and did his utmost to avoid them. And by people that meant those with more money than him.
Which meant everybody.
Wyatt couldn’t blame him. The crap they both had to put up with as dumpster divers could make you crazy. It continually disappointed him how folks sometimes treated those in need. To most, the homeless were less than the dog shit they scraped off the bottom of their shoe.
Still, Wyatt felt a little bad for that woman in the car. He even felt bad for the dead Feral Kid they’d left in the dumpster. Somewhere, his parents were wondering where he was. Perhaps it was best they didn’t know.
“Oh, crap,” Ethan said, and stopped.
“What? What is it?”
“Frikken Baldy,” Ethan said and nodded further ahead.
Approaching them down the sidewalk, pushing a cart full of cans, was another homeless man. Unlike Wyatt and Ethan, he didn’t have a beard or any hair for that matter as he was completely bald. Other than being known for his naked scalp he was also infamous for being completely insane.
Baldy spotted them and waved, a wide grin on his dirty face.
“Crap, here he comes,” Ethan said.
“He’s not all bad,” Wyatt said. He didn’t mind Baldy as long as he kept his crazy talk down to a low simmer.
“Bad enough,” Ethan whispered as Baldy rattled up to them. “He Baldy! Top of the morning to you!”
“T-top of the m-morning to you t-too!” Baldy said. His grin had grown so comically wide it stretched from ear to ear.
“Morning, Baldy,” Wyatt said with a nod. He gave Baldy’s cart a once over. It was jammed full of cans, even more than what Ethan and he had dredged up that morning. Crazy or not, Baldy always knew where the fattest dumpsters could be found.
“D-did you see the p-plane?” Baldy exclaimed, excited. He blinked frantically as if he couldn’t believe the words he was saying.
“Huh?” said Ethan.
“Th-the p-plane that crashed!” Baldy said and pointed to the southeast.
All of them looked in that direction. High buildings and tall trees blocked their view of any crash.
“I don’t see nuthin,” Ethan drawled. He didn’t bother hiding his impatience.
Wyatt shrugged. “How do you know a plane crashed?”
“S-saw it coming d-down,” Baldy said. “Into the d-downtown area.”
“Uh-huh,” Ethan said and turned to Wyatt. “Let’s get going. We still need to cash these in and go eat.”
Baldy looked confused but didn’t protest as both men steered their carts past him. “M-maybe we should h-help,” he called after them.
“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” Ethan said.
Wyatt said, “Cops will take care of it Baldy, don’t you worry. Oh and don’t bother fishing the next alley up. We already cleaned it out.”
Baldy nodded enthusiastically, but didn’t move. He watched them as they walked on.
“Why did you say that to him?” Ethan asked, scowling.
“I don’t want him finding that body. Who knows how he’d react.”
Ethan scoffed. “Hell. How do we know he wasn’t the one who put him there?”
“Baldy? He wouldn’t hurt a fly.” Mentally, Baldy was like a little kid and Wyatt did his best to look out for him. He just couldn’t be around him for too long. That stutter drove him up the wall.