Century's Son

1 Strengths and weaknesses are the same thing, the valuable and the invaluable.Peter Ivanovich Kamenev It is amazing the things people throw away. The doors leaned against a high plank fence in the narrow alley, old doors with arched windows, brass plates, and faceted glass knobs. A patina of frost made them glitter in the truck's headlights. Morgan drank the last sip of coffee from the lid of his thermos and climbed from the cab of the garbage truck. The doors had heft. Oak, he guessed, solid boards joined by a craftsman long dead. The windows showed runnels from the settling of the glass. In the predawn light, Morgan's breath eddied about the wrinkled glass, spreading over his distorted reflection like an erasure. Morgan's partner rounded the truck to join him. "These are their front doors," Morgan said. "Why would people toss their front doors?" Danny Ford didn't answer but began climbing the metal ladder to the roof of the garbage truck. Danny was a huge man, and the truck rocked as he climbed, creaking as if it might tumble over. Morgan was broad-shouldered himself, and tall. As he approached fifty, his body had become more dense and a fleshiness had entered his face, but he was still in good shape, and he had always been strong. Danny Ford, however, was in a different category. Just a kid, but built like a mountain. Morgan gingerly lifted one of the doors and passed it up. Danny took it from him with one hand, raising it easily, holding it as one might hold a notebook, then turned and laid it gently on the roof of the truck. He wore the hard hat the city provided, and as he bent to take the second door, the hat fell off. Morgan snatched it out of the air just as Danny lifted the door from Morgan's hands. Like a circus act, Morgan thought. "Hat," Danny called, holding the door at his side. Morgan tossed it up to him. Danny caught it with one hand, slipped it on, then placed the second door on top of the first and strapped them down with bungee cords. Despite his size and the fact that he was stoned, he maneuvered nimbly around the roof in the semidark. Morgan's first name, weakened from disuse, had long ago fallen off, and he had never bothered to retrieve it. He was simply Morgan. Except for two semesters at a state university, he had lived all his life in Hayden, Illinois. The year was 1999, and Morgan had worked as a garbageman for almost a quarter of a century. It was not how he had planned to spend his life. Originally he had thought of the job as something to tide him over until the real terms of his future revealed themselves. Still, despite his lengthy tenure in garbage, the things people threw away surprised him. He had hauled off refrigerators that merely needed cleaning, gas stoves cast off by people who decided to go electric, and electric stoves abandoned by those wanting gas. Appliances often bore signs that read fully operable or simply works. Boxes of toys appeared during spring cleaning, couches bearing a single stain, lamps requiring only a new cord. He had even come across laundryclothes that needed nothing but a wash. He marveled at the array of trash, the mass of it, the variety, the value, the bulk. He and Danny worked the remainder of the alley. There had once been a third member to the crew, but the city had cut back in anticipation of the new trucks they had ordered. One day Morgan would work alone in an air-conditioned cab, operating a mechanical arm that would raise and empty canisters made of recycled plastic. Danny Ford would be offered something in Parks and Recreation, Morgan guessed, or a janitorial position. Danny had made it through his probationary period. His job was secure. Morgan pulled the truck into the street instead of the next alley. "The glass in those doors will crack if we don't drop them off directly," he saiBoswell, Robert is the author of 'Century's Son' with ISBN 9780375412370 and ISBN 0375412379.