Trash by Sylvia Aguilar Zéleny

Author:Sylvia Aguilar Zéleny
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Deep Vellum

19

Leave here? I’ve thought about it more than once.

Look for my family? I don’t have family.

Go back to school? What for.

Your questions are honestly pretty stupid today. I can tell you didn’t sleep well, or you skipped breakfast or something. I like it better when you ask me questions about my life here, about what we do to survive. I think a book could even be written about it. That’s why you’re taking pictures of us and interviewing us, right? For a book? I’m asking if that’s why you come here once a week, to make a book with the material. Listen, lady, you’re all over the place today and you’re wasting my time. Let’s just stop here.

A bad day? Well, damn, aren’t you lucky. Around here, nobody has just one bad day. Every day is crappy. But there’s no use complaining. I get what I need from here to live, sometimes even more than the bare minimum. The things here take a beating and keep on ticking, and if they don’t, there’s always more stuff on the way. I find things I didn’t even know I needed, but then later they become just the thing I actually do need. I think the same thing happens to rich people. They buy things they don’t need, things they don’t use. Then when they need them, they’re so dusty and ancient it’s better just to buy them new. That’s the way it is with everything. Am I wrong?

One of the first things I scavenged when I moved here was a bat, a baseball bat. I remember I said to myself, you don’t need it, but then I thought, well, what happens if I do? It was all smooth, beat up and old and sad. A bat some rich kid played with so much, he got bored. For sure, that bat saw a lot of balls whizz by and got in some good hits. For that kid, that bat was a toy, but for me it’s much more. It saved my life more than once. It must still be somewhere. I don’t use it anymore. I use this knife, which is more effective for when someone tries to intimidate me. Isn’t it pretty?

What do you mean what for? To protect myself. There’s always someone around trying to intimidate you, because you beat them to something they wanted or just because they can. Maybe he gets a kick out of fucking with you. This knife has also saved my life more than once. She’s by my side day and night. Yeah, because at night, I slip her under my pillow, because nobody’s going to catch me off guard, not anymore.

And I’m not saying people here can be dangerous. Actually, it’s people from outside, the ones from outside or people who just moved here. People who don’t know their place. People who don’t know who’s who. People who don’t know who I am. Messing with me can get you into a lot of shit, Don Chepe says.

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