ABSTRACT
THE first thing I saw when I drove up to the intersection was a double line of trucks stopped in the middle of the road. The trucks were so huge that I couldn't see how far the two rows went back: at least five blocks. Each uncovered flatbed was heaped high with a mountain of garbage. It was noisy: the idling truck engines rattled and clanged; mothers called to the children playing and watching from the sidewalks; a crowd of people off to my left shouted and chanted; scavenger birds cawed. It was smelly, too, with strong odors of exhaust, rotting garbage, smoke, smells that I couldn't place exactly but which reminded me of factories that I'd visited as a union rep. There was dust everywhere, thick enough for kids to have written their names on the windows of the cars parked in the side street where I looked for a parking space. Bits of trash blew in the wind, down the streets, onto the sidewalks, into the tiny yards of the small but well-kept row houses.
