Tony sits on the edge of his bed and lights a cigarette. Maybe he is waiting for a spontaneous offer from my side to invest money in his T-shirt business. To get me in a good mood, he offers to lend me a pile of porn magazines that are strewn on the floor.
Like most people in the tunnel, Tony looks a lot healthier than he did last autumn. He wears shorts that are held up by big red suspenders stretched over his muscular and very hairy chest. His hair is short and he has a gray stubbly beard. Tony seems very pleased with his new look: with more fashionable shorts, he could actually join the delegation of middle-aged leather boys in the gay pride parade that is happening one of these days in Manhattan. Tony goes there every year to collect cans and sell his junk to bystanders.
Tony feels, and correctly so, that I don’t want to discuss his T-shirt business proposals and starts to talk about the situation at his sister’s on the Lower East Side. The breasts of his niece are slowly budding, and suddenly all the boys in the neighborhood are after her.
She loves the attention, and has already been through a dozen boyfriends in a couple of months. But for Uncle Tony, she has less attention now. Even worse, she brings her new boyfriends home and they take Tony’s lazy chair. The days of watching TV in peace are over. Tony got mad at his sister. “Do you know what your daughter is?” he had screamed at her last spring. “The same as our mother. She died from TB. And you know what kind of disease that is. It is a disease for prostitutes.”
Infuriated, Tony’s sister had kicked him out of her home. Tony was offended and stayed completely out of touch for months until she became concerned. “She had called all the morgues in the city to see if they had found me,” Tony laughs. “She thought I was already buried at Potter’s Field.” In Potter’s Field, prisoners from Riker’s Island bury unclaimed and unidentified bodies in graves marked only by a number.
When Tony had decided that his sister had learnt her lesson, he showed up at her door. She burst into tears at seeing her missing brother again. Since then, Tony is treated with respect again and he’s got his spot back in front of the TV. “Nobody fools around with me,” he says confidently. It sounds like a warning.
Tony pours milk in a bowl for his cats. Proudly he shows me his new litter of kittens in a box in the corner. The milk bowl is too high for the cats, so he uses a sugar pot that they can step up onto. Sometimes a kitten slips and falls head-first into the milk. Tony then carefully pulls it out by its tail, and strokes its head tenderly. The mewing attracts more cats, and soon his space is so crowded with cats you can’t walk without stepping on an animal. Even Linda and Batman, Bernard’s newest cat, stick their heads around the corner. Tony gets a packet of drumsticks out of a plastic bag and feeds the hungry newcomers. Then he put his own groceries, half a loaf of bread and cheese, next to the milk bowl in between the cats.
“All right,” he says with satisfaction. “No rat dares to touch that.”
At the moment a very fat rat is living under his bed, Tony says, but the rat hasn’t shown up for a few days. “The mouses, they don’t have no mercy on nothing. Newspapers, books, clothes, yes, even steel and concrete.”
With their bellies now full, the well-fed cats start to purr contentedly on Tony’s feet. He pats them encouragingly on their backs. “Come on, cats. Go get some mouses.”
“That idiot Tony,” Bernard raves next morning while we sort out the bags at Pedro and Harvey’s. Tony had complained that the cheese and bread disappeared. “How long he has been living now in the tunnel?” Bernard is in a foul mood and goes on about other annoying stuff. Angel, another super across the street, had been on holiday. His replacement had no experience. He left the piles of old newspapers on the sidewalk while putting the garbage cans in the street. The exact reverse of the official Sanitation regulations. Bernard had offered his help, explaining that he had worked the block for over five years. The new super looked at him suspiciously and had accepted Bernard’s help only with the greatest reluctance. It was only later, when he saw Bernard chatting at ease with Harvey and Pedro, that he realized that Bernard was a reliable and respected worker. Ashamed of his prejudices, the new super had offered Bernard a few bucks for his help.
“Just leave it,” Bernard had told him, deeply offended. “That one was on me.”
Angrily, Bernard straightens out a crushed cola can. “I don’t understand why these assholes are bothering us,” he says indignantly. “Same thing last time at the supermarket. I wanted to put my cans in the machine but the manager said it was broken. I said: ‘Cut the crap, just plug it in and turn on the switch.’ Another time I am sorting out bags, some bitch in a pantsuit walks up, and tells me I am stealing city property. I didn’t say a word, I just looked at her. The people don’t understand. They should be happy we do this work. Since can recycling started, petty crime decreased by half and the streets look a lot cleaner.”
Maybe the lady in the pantsuit was confused with the old paper recycling. Since the prices of old paper tripled in early 1995, up to eighty dollars for a metric ton, a new type of scavenger popped up. They drive their vans around in the early morning to take the old paper and cardboard before it can be picked up by the cleaning crews. The sanitation department also sells the old paper, and in this way loses millions of dollars a year. In the summer of 1995, the city started to take measures against these entrepreneurs. “It’s three o’clock in the morning. Do you know where your garbage hangs out?” was the headline of a Times article about the crew of paper thieves who had been arrested.
While we are working the garbage, Bernard’s name is called. Behind us is a sloppy man with greasy, curly hair that sticks out at all sides. Around his neck hangs a big video camera. He is wearing a gray jogging suit with oily stains and annoyingly flashy cowboy boots over his pants. Pieces of egg yolk are sticking in his mustache. “Jesus, there is that idiot again,” Bernard says with irritation. The man introduces himself as a moviemaker from the neighborhood. When he saw homeless people rummaging through the garbage, he got the idea of making a documentary about the “street-combers of Manhattan.”
“I thought you would be here last week,” Bernard says sternly.
“I am sorry, I overslept,” the greasy moviemaker says. “Do you mind if I start now?” Bernard looks annoyed.
“Do what you gotta do,” he says brusquely. This is the first time I’ve seen Bernard irritated when someone with a camera is around. Usually, the vain Bernard loves to cooperate with any and all media. But this man manages to drive everybody crazy. While talking to us, he doesn’t even remove his Walkman’s headphones from his ears. He shows off his fancy camera, plays with all its gadgets and brags about how expensive it was. Bernard also has a problem with the fact that it is not clear for whom he’s actually working. Bernard prefers to work with European networks with exotic names. They pay better and show more respect than their American counterparts.
“So, what do you like about canning?” the man asks, and nearly pushes his camera into Bernard’s face. Bernard has to step backwards, and nearly trips over the garbage bags he is standing next to. The guy has told me to stop working, so Pedro, Harvey, and I watch the whole scene from the side.
“Canning teaches me about people,” Bernard replies routinely, clearly bored.
“How do you mean?” the moviemaker asks, and proceeds to order Harvey and Pedro to shut up.
“Canning is my independence. You see, at this level, complacency is the greatest danger.” Bernard has his script ready. I have heard it before and go to get coffee.