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CHAPTER ONE
JAKE
Steam rises off the damp asphalt of the Clark Township Sanitation Department’s parking lot, and I can’t hold back my groan. It’s only five am and already it’s sweltering. My job ain’t glamorous or exciting. It’s dirty work, and the heat doesn’t do me or my nose any favors. After eight years hauling trash for the town, I’ve gotten mostly used to the stench. That don’t mean I like it.
Checking in, I grunt and raise a hand in greeting to a few of the other guys while pocketing the keys to my truck. My heavy steel toe work boots splash through a few of the remaining puddles in the chain-link enclosed parking lot as I stride to the row of white and tan garbage trucks. There are some gaps in the truck line-up, meaning a few early birds already started their route.
Early to start means earlier to finish- if you don’t have to backtrack due to complaints about missing some cans.
A harsh exhale huffs out of my nose while my lips curve into a smirk.
More like people don’t bother putting the cans out the night before, but they’ll swear up and down you zoomed by and didn’t collect them. That still happens even when you start your route right on the dot. People always trying to pass the blame and us poor trash haulers are left with the shitty end of things.
Sweat collects along my hairline while I unlock my assigned truck and do a systems check. Several droplets merge into a long stream that weaves its way down my forehead, and before I can wipe the hanging moisture from my brow, it plinks into my eye.
“Damn!” I growl, grinding a hand into my stinging eye.
“Day got to you already, Jake? You so sweet you afraid you gonna melt or somethin’?” a rough voice calls out, far too cheerful for this early in the morning.
Three trucks over from mine, a big burly guy in the standard dull blue pants and faded dishwater gray t-shirt that makes up our summer uniform is bent over checking the tire pressure, his red hair almost as bright as his sunburned face.
“Tom, you happy asshole, shut your piehole,” I grouse after making sure the packer blade in the hopper, the huge container that holds the trash, is working correctly.
My best friend gives a wheezing laugh and a one-finger salute before finishing up his truck’s inspection.
A few years ago, we used to do a route together, taking turns driving and riding, but then the town dug deep into their budget, and we got new trucks fitted with hydraulic arms. Which meant a single guy could handle an entire route by himself, so manpower was cut, and layoffs happened. By sheer luck, I kept my job. I don’t love it, but it pays the bills and jobs aren’t easy to come by for guys like me.
People want to smile to your face and slap you on the back, saying they support ex-cons that have done their time and that the slate is wiped clean. But you know you ain’t getting a call back when they give you that fake grin, showing all their expensive dental work, and send you out the door. If you even make it in for an interview in the first place.
Sanitation is one of the few places that let a man’s mettle speak for itself. You pass a piss test and prove you’re physically fit and it gets your foot in the door. A few days of training, riding along with a seasoned guy, and boom, you got yourself a steady career with benefits and a pension. For a guy coming out of a seven-year stint in state prison, it sounded like a dream to me.
Even the first month when I was blowing my breakfast from the hot stench of rotting garbage, I was thankful for the work. The driver Scotty, a guy with thirty years on the job, would laugh and toss me a warm bottle of water to rinse out my mouth. I tried a few times not eating before my shift, but that didn’t work either, and I would be doubled over spitting up bile. Losing my breakfast was somehow less unpleasant.
Like all things, it was something you had to work through. The trash didn’t smell any less, but over time you almost- almost- got used to it and I put back on the ten pounds I’d lost.
But summer was bad. And by the end of a shift while raking out the hopper at the transfer station, the reek was enough to curl your nose hairs even if your breakfast and lunch stayed down.
And today looks to be a rough one. First the unrelenting heat and now the conversation last night with my Ma replays in my mind in an unpleasant loop as I do my route. She wanted to know if I was bringing anyone with me to our monthly Sunday dinner. Like I ever brought anyone. Apparently, my kid sister Amy was dragging her fiancé along and the family was going to be going over wedding plans, which was putting my Ma in the right frame of mind for wanting to pry into my single status.
Oh, and me and Matt, as my sister’s big brothers, were we planning to throw Kent a bachelor party? I barely knew Kent, I argued. Why couldn’t his friends throw him a party?
Kent- a pompous name to go with his stick-up the butt attitude- was some sort of high-powered executive that worked in Atlanta before being transferred to the local branch of the company here. He said it was a promotion, yet I don’t see how being sent away from the city to the middle of nowhere Delaware was some career making move. Sounds more like he fucked up.
Ma’s silent disappointment wasn’t hard to miss, and I grudgingly agreed to throw a party for the tight-lipped, pretty boy that had swept my impressionable sister off her dainty feet.
Smirking while envisioning the horrified look on prissy Kent’s face, if we took him to a strip club, I was on autopilot cruising along my route through one of the swanky developments. If you could even call a handful of houses spread out over acres of painfully manicured glaringly bright green grass a real development. A bit of dazzling pink catches my attention in the truck’s big side mirror and my smirk edges up into a true shit-eating grin.
Well, hello.
A short woman with a huge mass of blonde hair is charging after the truck, waving her hand in the air like she’s flagging down a 757 jet while clutching a small plastic bag in her other hand.
This is the first interesting thing that’s happened today and I’m all for some excitement to shake up the boredom. I ease up on the gas, shift gears, and come to a stop.
Opening the door, I swing down and watch as she skids to a halt in front of me in her fluffy pink slippers. I barely control the chuckle that’s fighting hard to get out while taking the rest of her in.
Besides the unsuitable for a morning jog slippers, she’s in tiny silky shorts and an equally silky looking little top, all in the same loud shade of pink. Her chest heaves, threatening to burst open the three buttons holding her top closed as she braces her hands on her knees and pants for breath.
Being a red-blooded male, I can’t help checking out the deep valley of her glistening cleavage while trying to ignore the way my dick gives a kick of interest in my pants.
