Recycling

Recycling

Prologue

One of my fond childhood memories was going to the dump with my dad.

In those days, "the dump" was a big hole or pit dug in the ground, big as half a football field. Most of the dirt from the hole was trucked out and used as landfill somewhere else. People paid a few bucks at the entrance, drove to the edge of the pit, and threw stuff in.

The "stuff" could be as innocuous as grass clippings and old newspapers, or as toxic as antifreeze, paint, old televisions, refrigerators... The bigger or noisier the stuff was, the more fun it was for me to push off the edge and watch it tumble and crash down below.

When the smell or level of stuff in the pit neared the top, dirt was dumped back over it, packed down, and grass planted. Another pit was dug somewhere else, and so it went.

Admittedly, there were downsides to the old dumps. Years later, the huge subsurface chemical compost piles would endanger ground water, seep methane gas into nearby basements, and create dangerous sinkholes as the ground continued to settle.

But still... it was a lot more fun than recycling.

Nowadays, people in our city have to separate different kinds of stuff into different containers picked up on different days by different trucks for different disposition. It's a big pain in the ass.

And woe to anyone that puts the wrong stuff out on the wrong day! Such gaffes could result in strongly worded letters from the city. In melodramatic prose they explain how nothing less than heroic intervention at the recycling center had saved us all from the apocalyptic mixing of metal soup cans with plastic milk bottles.

My wife has always been happy to let me deal with our household's waste processing responsibilities. I've tried to get her and our boys to help separate stuff during the week, but in the end it's always me sorting it out in the garage.

And with that, the stage is set for our little story...

Chapter 1

The rain had been falling steadily all day, as it's been known to do in Portland, Oregon. The somniferous white noise drumming on the roof had put me to sleep on the couch, well before Letterman came on the air.

I was dreaming of a cabin; a bed and breakfast on the Oregon coast, where my wife Jennifer and I had once vacationed in the long lost time before children.

In my dream, the sound of the rain on the roof had turned into the sounds of the surf on the beach. Jen and I were lying together on a lounge chair, hiding from the morning chill under a thick blanket. I could taste the sweet afterglow of hot chocolate in my mouth; the empty cups were on the deck next to us.

We watched seagulls hanging nearly stationary before us as they faced directly into the steady breeze off the ocean, like airplane models in a wind tunnel, flying but going nowhere. The wind's constant force had made all the trees and bushes near the beach list away from the ocean, conceding to the wind the sculpture of their shape as the price of their survival.

Jen gently shifted her shoulder that was touching mine. It was intimate; it was soothing. I sighed contentedly. We snuggled together without a care in the world.

The lounge chair dipped briefly under me. A second sensation joined the touch on my shoulder, this one a grasping of my hip. I couldn't say if it was a moment or an hour later, when I was gently rolled onto my back.

I kept my eyes closed, stubbornly holding on to the thinning threads of my pleasurable unconsciousness. It was Jen who I felt roll now, coming to a stop lying flush on top of me. I caught the scent of her hair. I could feel her curvy body resting on mine, from her chest on my chest, and on down to where she notched my shin bones into the cleft between her big toes and the accompanying rows of smaller toes.

I resisted as long as I could, but when I could feel her breath rippling the hair of my mustache, I had to give in. I cracked my eyes open, just enough to see my beloved wife's face inches from mine, a mischievous glint in her eye.

"How's my big... strong... man... doing?" she asked, using her best imitation of a breathy Marilyn Monroe wishing JFK a happy birthday.

I looked up at her suspiciously, blinking to bring her into focus.

"Hmgfhumf."

"Really? That good, eh?"

"Hmph."

"I know what you mean, sweetheart. I hadn't realized tomorrow was paper recycling day either."

"Oh, son of a..."

Before I could complete the oath, she plastered her lips to mine, playfully opening her mouth wide to trap the vowels, narrow enough to catch the consonants.

I soon stopped struggling and returned the kiss, wrapping my arms around her to hold her to me. When I tentatively touched her lips with my tongue, she made a surprised little squeak and returned the favor.

But when I began gently rolling her from side to side in my embrace from below, rubbing her body over mine, she pulled back from my lips with a loud smack.

"Hold it right there, buster," she said sternly. "You get paid after you do the recycling, not before."

"But I'm not awake yet. I shouldn't use power tools when I'm sleepy."

"We've already discussed that. If you become disabled, I'm supposed to turn off the machines."

"That's only if I'm brain dead in a coma; not euthanized for stitches in my hand!"

"Oh. Well, six of one and half a dozen of the other."

"What?"

"You say potato, and I say patahtoe."

"I do have this stuff in my will, you know."

"Are you sure? Your filing system is so bad I'll probably never find it."

I sighed in resignation. "I guess I'll just have to take my chances."

She slid sensuously off me, stood and held out her hand to help me up.

My lady sure seemed to be... lascivious, the last few days. Who was I to complain? I kept the image of her sultry expression firmly in mind as I busily collected the waste cans from around the house, taking them out to my sorting area in the garage.

My sorting duties are considerably smaller now that my sons are away at college. You could never tell what you'd find in the cans from their rooms. In one respect it's too bad — emptying their garbage cans was one way to see what they were up to. It was the way we found out when they became sexually active, and... oh, sorry... too much information.

The recycling containers are large plastic cans on wheels that get rolled to the curb on each can's designated day of the week. The cans have a bar in front that the collecting trucks hook with a hydraulic arm. The arm plucks the can off the curb, sweeps it up to dump it in the back of the truck, and then returns the can to earth with a loud empty sounding thump. (Garbage people have never had it so easy.)

Bending over to sort stuff isn't great for my back, so I've built a waist high workbench among the cans in the garage. I can easily sort stuff on top of the workbench and just push it off the edges into the different cans; no post-sorting stoop labor involved.

After the bathroom, kitchen, and rec room cans come the cans from our office areas. Both Jen and I have nooks in the house with phones and internet connections, where we work from home occasionally. Mostly they're hideaways for bill paying, letter writing, and story writing.

Despite the many times I've gotten after her about it, Jen still doesn't take protecting us from identity theft seriously. I bought a shredder for her office, and parked it right at her feet. But she still occasionally tosses bank statements or credit card applications into her wastebasket un-shredded.

Rather than keep nagging her about it, I eventually resigned myself to pawing through the paper from her office before pushing it into the blue can. I didn't really mind. It was just one of the little accommodations that husbands and wives make for each other.

I imagine that since I'd stopped mentioning it to her, she didn't realize I was still sifting through the paper from her office.

Jen's office waste can was unusually full this week; it looked like she'd done some sort of filing cabinet purge. It was so full that I almost compromised my household data security responsibilities.

But I realized that if she'd done some kind of office housecleaning, there could be a lot of the wrong kind of stuff in there. So I buckled down and started in, pushing items that passed inspection into the blue can, nearly page by page.

That's how I found the letter.

It was sandwiched between two of the seemingly millions of clothing catalogs she gets in the mail; I normally would have missed it. It was hand written, tri-folded as if it had once fit into a mailing envelope. It was in a handwriting I didn't recognize... at first.

My Dearest Jenny,

Please forgive me for writing... but I'm already missing you. I'm still coming down from the emotions of last week.

My heart breaks a little more, every time I remember our wonderful night together... when you held my eyes with yours as you lay beneath me, the tears rolling down your cheeks.

I know you meant it when you said that it would have to be our last time together. I believed you when you said you were committed to Gerry.

But I can't help myself. I have to tell you what I'm feeling.

If you could see yourself the way I see you, you'd understand. You light up like the sun when we're together. I can't help but believe you have feelings as I do — that we haven't written the last chapter of our lives together.

When we made love, it was as if we'd never been apart. Yet only days later, the emptiness I feel now... It's as if we've been apart forever.

Please know that I love you still. I love you enough to take whatever part of you that you can offer.

The pain of separation I've felt after our bittersweet night together has been beyond belief. Yet I would gladly feel that pain again, if in exchange I can be with you, and hold you, and love you, as much as you will allow.

I am forever yours,

LB

I stood frozen in place reading and re-reading the letter, blinking rapidly, struggling to keep the words in focus. The sense of unreality was overwhelming.

It was the mention of LB seeing Jen last week that made my chest go painfully tight.

She had gone to a reunion of her college sorority in Seattle last week. She'd offered to take me along, but it was obviously a girl's thing, and I'd encouraged her to go without me.

I recognized the letter's handwriting now; I knew who LB was. It took me back to my college years...

Chapter 2

Jen and I met during our junior year at the University of Washington, where we were both making our way through the business school. To this day I can still remember when she came into that classroom.

I was sitting with my head bent over my notes from my earlier economics class. People were filing in and finding places to sit when the five-minute warning bell rang. I sensed someone standing next to me, and looked up into the most beautiful blue eyes I'd ever seen.

I was mesmerized for a moment, but eventually noticed that an elegant eyebrow was raised in question, as a wide mouth with brilliant white teeth smiled somewhat teasingly at me.

"What?" I said cleverly.

I'm sure she was used to having this affect on males. To her credit she was kind enough to repeat herself without implying I was a moron.

"Are you saving these seats for anyone?" she asked, gesturing at three empty chairs around me.

"Uh, no, no, I'm not."

"Great! Then if you don't mind I'll save a couple for some friends of mine. Their class before this one is half way across campus, so they'll be coming in at the last minute. My name's Jennifer by the way," she said, extending her hand after she'd sat in the chair next to me.

I'm sure I grinned like a lunatic as I took her hand. I began to release her, but she held on, and with that same smile asked, "And you are?"

"Oh! I'm sorry! I'm Gerry. Gerry Higgins. That's Gerry with a G." I realized I was babbling and clamped my mouth shut.

"It's nice to meet you, Gerry. We're in the same econ class too," she said, gesturing with a nod of her head at my econ lecture notes. I was surprised, since the lecture hall for that class held over two hundred people. She saw my puzzlement.

"You were the smart guy up front asking all the questions, right?"

My God, was this girl ever going to let me regain my balance?

"I don't know how smart my questions were, but yeah, I did ask a few."

"I'm glad you did. I couldn't believe he was going to dismiss us early without saying anything about how his grading system worked."

I nodded. "I was just happy his English was so good. I'd heard the econ department is full of Indian geniuses that no one can understand."

She chuckled, and then stood up to wave at a couple that had just come though the door.

I was able to regroup a bit as I looked up at her. She was a curvy girl, not overly slim; a classic and lush hour glass shape. She had broad hips, a narrow but not starvation diet waist, and a sizable but proportional chest.

Her broad mouth and large oval eyes gave her the look of a dark blonde Sophia Loren. I sensed that the subtle changes of expression I'd seen so far were only the surface of a very deep pool.

I didn't want to take my eyes away, but I managed it as Jennifer introduced her late arriving friends.

"Gerry, this is my boyfriend Larry, and my sorority sister, Debbie."

Larry had the look of a handsome 'big man on campus, ' tall and blond, dressed like an Abercrombie and Fitch clothing model, a huge Kirk Douglas sized crater of a dimple in his chin. He even had real pennies in his penny loafers.

He defused my immediate snob assessment, giving me a friendly nod and handshake before sitting in the seat in front of me. It came as no surprise that Jen had a boyfriend. We'd only just met, but I couldn't help but think Larry was a lucky guy.

Debbie sat next to Larry, slinging her backpack onto the desk with a loud thump. Then she bounced up and extended her hand to me with an open and friendly smile.

She was a pretty and athletically shaped brown eyed brunette, about five foot four, and quickly proved to have a very high energy motor. With her natural perkiness and somewhat small size, I quickly concluded she must have been the cheerleader that was thrown high in the air back in high school.

Debbie was alluringly feminine, but when she moved... it's hard to describe. It was as if her body was so taut and toned that it was nearly bursting through her skin. When she moved, no body parts wiggled or bounced. The overriding impression was of... agility and power. Her body looked so firm and strong while still feminine, it was unavoidably captivating.

She returned to her seat after introducing herself to me, but hopped up several more times to jump and wave at other people she knew. No one could resist smiling at her, and I was no exception. I noticed Jen looking at me as I watched her, laughter in her eyes.

The professor called the room to order. In his introductory remarks, he said group assignments were part of the class, and that we were to form groups of four to work together.

Jennifer immediately reached out and put a gentle hand on my arm.

"You'll join us, won't you, Gerry?"

How could I refuse?

During that quarter I got to know my study group threesome. In fact we worked so well together that the girls insisted we keep it going, which we did into our senior year.

Larry was... a good guy. Everyone said so. "Larry? He's a good guy." He exuded genial confidence and unshakable good humor. He rarely offended anyone and effortlessly enchanted many.

If Larry had been born a girl, he might have uncharitably been called 'a pretty face;' as in... form over substance. Larry wasn't stupid. But consciously or not, his good looks and likeability projected more depth than was actually there.

I came to think of Larry as the character Chance the Gardner in Jerzy Kosinski's novel "Being There." Through appearance and favorable circumstance, people willingly took on a deferential attitude towards him.

Which was fine... but unlike the fictional Chance, Larry came to expect others to defer to his ideas and opinions. The longer you knew Larry, the more visible his vanity became.

My awareness grew not only from observing Larry, but from watching Jennifer as well.

When Larry said something that was just too pompous to be overlooked, Jen would act puzzled and re-state the point he'd made — only much more tactfully.

Under the guise of asking for help to understand the point, she gently nudged Larry towards better presentation of his ideas. I admired Jennifer's kindness, helping her boyfriend while protecting his ego.

I could tell she knew I'd caught on to what she was doing. She would even wink at me conspiratorially after her interventions.

Jen and I had a lot of common interests, from books to movies to music. After I got over being tongue-tied by her beauty, Larry and Debbie had many opportunities to roll their eyes while we blabbed away about some weird tangent to whatever the assignment was.

I admired her positive attitude - about everything in life. She drew people to her like a magnet, and I was no exception. Everywhere she went, people would smile and wave at her as if they were bosom buddies, and she responded in kind.

Smart, kind, friendly, beautiful; other than that... I wasn't impressed.

Debbie organized many of the social events of her and Jennifer's sorority, notwithstanding her being a serious student. The combination made her a whirling dervish of activity.

At that point in my life I wasn't looking for a serious relationship. I'd had a long term sweetheart in high school, and we'd parted painfully when we went to different universities; I didn't want to do that again.

By spending study time together, Debbie and I became close enough that I knew she wasn't looking for a serious relationship either; she didn't have time! Knowing that about each other might have been why Debbie let her guard down around me.

One day Larry and Jennifer were late for our study group, so Debbie and I were chatting as we waited on the steps of Larry's fraternity. After watching several couples come and go from the house, we found ourselves repeating a conversation we'd had a few times before: commiserating about our love lives.

"It pisses me off when guys assume I'm an air head, just because I'm in a sorority and like to have a good time."

I smiled in sympathy. In fact she was one smart cookie.

"Yeah. I seem to get it the other way. People think because I study hard and get good grades that I don't know how to have fun. I seem to attract girls that are working on their 'Mrs.' degree."

Debbie laughed. "Well, that wouldn't be me. Don't get me wrong, I like guys and I like to date. I just can't line up my crazy schedule with anybody for more than a couple days at a time."

The conversation was following our usual script to that point. Until...

"Although," Debbie said teasingly, "if a guy as smart as you asked me out..."

My eyes momentarily widened. Debbie blinked a couple times herself, surprised at what she'd said.

"Oh, hey, I didn't mean, you know, I wasn't suggesting..."

Attempting to rescue her from embarrassment, I turned my nose up in the air and interrupted her, saying archly, "Ridiculous. Why would someone as sexy as I am deign to date... an air head?"

She gasped briefly in surprise before giving me a hefty smack on the shoulder. It was no soft girly smack, either. She had previously corrected my guess that she'd been a cheerleader in high school. Volleyball and soccer were her things, and my shoulder tingled in appreciation.

"I am not an air head! I just don't have the time for a boyfriend. Guys aren't okay with seeing their girlfriends once a week... or not at all. Except... well, except the dumb horny ones."