Dumpster Dive

by Jeff Baker

(A Bryce Going Story)

I was hungry. I was tired. I was cold. It was right around Thanksgiving, my first one out on the streets since my Mom had bailed on me and I’d hit the road.

I’d been very lucky. I looked like I was about twenty and I’d managed to find a few jobs where I was paid under the table and nobody questioned that my name was Bryce Going or suspected that I was really a Gay teenager on the run. But none of that stopped the awful feeling in my gut. I hadn’t eaten anything other than a candy bar in two days. This little town didn’t have a shelter or anything. And it was Thanksgiving, 1975. At least tomorrow was. The cute decorations of turkeys in the window seemed to be mocking me.

I pulled my jacket tight around me as I walked down the small main street. There was a trash barrel right there. Sign on it telling people not to litter. I hated what I was thinking.

I glanced around. Nobody there, most of the little shops had closed early.

I glanced in the barrel and reached in, felt around through the newspaper, the empty pop and beer cans and felt a lump. I pulled out a wrapped-up half-eaten something with the logo of a burger place on the wrapper. I glanced around again. I was the only person on the street.

I unwrapped it. Yeah, a burger. Someone had taken a bite out of it then discarded it but it was still a burger.

The idea almost made me sick but I didn’t care. I bit into it. It was cold but it tasted like the best thing ever.

I’d intended to eat around the part with the bite in it, I didn’t want to catch any diseases.

I didn’t care. I ate every inch of it. Savored every bite. Licked my lips, pulled a piece of cheese off the wrapper and gobbled it too.

It felt like the best meal I’d had in days.

I rummaged through the trash can. No more burgers. I looked around and kept walking.

I kept remembering an older guy I’d been in a shelter with a few months ago. He told me that I should check out restaurant dumpsters “They have the best food.” The idea almost made me sick then. Not now.

I walked to the edge of town. There was a Russian restaurant. Made sense. Little town probably had a bunch of immigrants. It was dark, their lights were off. No cars parked anywhere near. I walked over. The back parking lot was a combination of gravel, sand, dirt and potholes. I about tripped on one. The dumpster was at the far corner of the lot, by some bushes, partly in the shadow of the decorative spire of the building. The only light was from a streetlamp in front.

I looked around, double-checking. Nobody. The dumpster was about chest high. I could see a hole in the side at the bottom where part of it had rusted away. I leaned on it and it wobbled a little. Probably set on a big pothole. I pushed the lid open. It smelled. Like trash and food. It was about a third full of garbage and leavings from other people’s meals, people who hadn’t had to worry about where their next meals were coming from. That was all to one side of the dumpster and it wasn’t really much. I felt around and grabbed what felt like a chunk of ham or turkey.

Something grabbed my wrist.

I jerked back, or tried to. The dumpster wobbled. Something rose out of the trash, partly covered in food. It had muscular arms and a face and it grabbed my other wrist. It almost looked like an old man but its beard was long and green like seaweed. Its skin was covered with scales like a dirty green fish. I pulled and struggled. It grinned showing sharp green teeth. I was going nowhere.

“You are mine now, boy!” it said in a gurgling voice.

“Who the hell are you? Let me go!” I managed to say.

“I am Vodyanoy! I traveled here when they came from the Old Country. I dwell in the waters. You will make fine company!”

It began to pull me into the dumpster. I stared down. In the dim light I could make out that the Vodyanoy’s legs trailed off and became water, blending with the murky liquid at the bottom of the dumpster. And that the dumpster was tilted slightly.

I had one shot.

I threw my weight towards the side of the dumpster with the rusty hole. It managed to rock back and forth and the water sloshed around, some of it flowing out of the dumpster onto the ground. As it did, the Vodyanoy’s grip tightened and he began chanting in what I guessed was Russian. But his weight wasn’t helping him. I kept rocking the dumpster and the water kept flowing out and the demon-thing opened his mouth for a gurgling yell and fell apart, becoming dirty green water which flowed out onto the ground.

No longer being held, I fell to the ground. Glad the dumpster hadn’t rocked on my foot. I rolled away from it, sprang to my feet and ran, not looking back.

It would be a cold, lonely Thanksgiving but I was just glad to be alive. I checked a few more trash cans and found a few scraps of food and amazingly, an unopened bottle of water somebody tossed. I would make my way to the next town and get another job and if they paid me in food I don’t remember. And it wouldn’t be my last encounter with some kind of water spirit. If I had any sense I would have steered clear of water except the kind you find in bottles.

—end—

Wishing all my readers a wonderful Thanksgiving with a prayer for those who have no place to go. I’m posting a prompt pic but it’s for December 1st as we’ll be taking a Thanksgiving break! —–jeff