Landfill
By Nicholas Becher
I first met Devil Dan at an AA meeting back in ’97. I wasn't an alcoholic. I was just a writer with no fucking clue how to come up with interesting characters and it seemed like a good place to start. And that was that.
“Used to work at this landfill, see,” Devil Dan told me. “And one night… this is a few miles east of St. Louis, see. And one night I’m out there cleaning the shitters in the staff bathroom… this was back in ’78, see, I was a janitor. Worked overnights. And I hear this yelling and screaming and it sounded like someone or something was getting the soul sucked out of them, see.”
He was a jittery guy. He had this twitch in his right shoulder like he was always dancing to an upbeat jazz ensemble. He had the palest skin I’d ever seen on a man. And his eyes were different colors. One black and one crystal blue. I remember that crystal blue like it was my own goddamn reflection in a placid lake.
Devil Dan and I were sitting on this grey stone bench during our one-on-one at AA and he just starts unloading his story on me while I’m drinking cold coffee and chain smoking cigarettes. Dan asked me for a square and it broke in his hand while he was trying to light it, like he had Parkinson’s or something.
“Go on,” I said, “Take another.”
“Sorry. Thanks. Sorry,” he said, collapsing in on himself with remorse about the cigarette.
“Well, you heard the yelling and then what?” I asked him.
“Oh yes, sorry. I started making my way up this ridge, see. This was when I had a gimp leg from falling off a ladder around Christmas. And I made my way to the top of this ridge all limping and such and I see these two trucks backing down a gigantic dirt ramp into a hole. I mean this hole, this ramp, must’ve been sixty, seventy foot down, see. They were probably digging it all day. And the ramp was just massive, man. I mean massive.”
He hadn't taken a single puff on his cigarette, so when he said this he moved his hands up and down and the giant ash at the end broke free from the cherry and fell onto his pants without him realizing it. I really wanted to wipe it away for him. It was bothering the piss out of me. But I didn't. I just let him go on.
“So these two trucks… I mean these were tractor trailers, eighteen wheelers, semis. They start backing down into this hole, see. And me, well I’m up on the ledge on the other side of this landfill just looking down squinting real hard at all these guys bustling around and yelling at each other. And I’m squinting and squinting until my eyebrows are sore. Then I hear that screaming again, see man, it was… and this isn't a joke man, this is what I really heard. It was coming from inside those trucks. It wasn't anything I’d ever heard before though, see. I was only twenty-six I guess. And this screaming wasn't from anything human I’d ever heard in my life. It was like a hundred cats being burned alive or something. I don’t know man, something I can’t explain to you right here right now.”
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