curbside 007, hanoi style

so we live in the kind of place where trash night is sort of an unspoken event of rare neighborhood togetherness. everyone hauls all of their garbage, recycling, dead shrubs and mattresses to the curb and instead of immediately retreating indoors for pulse-or-no-pulse TV or dinner microwaving… or drug dealing if you happen to live one house down from us- people just sort of linger. most of the lingerers are mere onlookers, enjoying the fetid ambiance wafting up from the haphazard mounds of summertimerefuse. but many of the neighborhood’s cast and crew busily get to work:

the perpetually drunk woman from the end of street is the first to start making the rounds, although she doesn’t really do anything- just walks up and down the street. and up and down the street. the crazy irish family across the street all come out on the porch, the mother yells at the 11 year old daughter who’s pushing the 8 year old daughter around (they all look creepily alike) on a way too small baby stroller that lives in the bushes in front of their house when not in use. (everyone should keep a tattered and moldy baby stroller in their bushes, gives the place that nice 'a molester lived here' feel) the irish grandpa is only out in public at this late hour because he’s terrified at the thought of the radio controlled mini-hummer piloted by a couple of the neighborhood kids accidentally bumping into his olde-rose-of-dublin-hyundai-wagon. the rest of the kids are busy playing in a home depot shopping cart. there are at least 5 kids sitting inside of it and two little asian guys pushing it around, everyone screaming as they have a brush with the ER when it careens toward the curb.

the vietnamese guy across from us comes out with rubber gloves on (he’s all business) and makes his way from house to house as he fishes around for urbantreasure. and then there are the battalions of can&bottle collectors. usually the first ones out are an older vietnamese couple- i haven’t figured out where they live yet, but they’re definitely on the earlybirdsenior schedule (with free coffee refills). but last night there was a new crew-two women (maybe sisters) and their kids. when they got to our place there was quite the commotion. last night was my first chance to haul all of the empties off the back deck from sunday’s secretgayweddinghoedown- and let me tell you, there were a ton of empty bottles. so when they arrived and started to fill their plastic bags they quickly realized they had stumbled upon the 5-cent deposit motherload and this was no time for shopping bags. Plan B- it was all very james bond- one quick unzip of the faux gucci handbag and out came the cell phone. within 2 mins a gold camry pulled up and the reinforcements had arrived. while everyone within earshot leaned over their porches and watched, the trunk was filled to overflowing. then the backseat- and off they went.

for next thursday night’s trashfestblockparty i’m thinking we should have some people over and make a true night of it.

i-heart-dorchester :)(: