I put my phone down when the rummaging sound climbs over the porch railing. I skirt to the window and deliver a heavy shove to old wood. My head goes out first, then I commit to the sternum. 

Nothing. The kind that comes at you when you don’t know what you’re looking for. Grays and reds of dusk playing with asphalt shadows.

Then it hits me. I haven’t been outside once today. Isn’t that the real cost of twenty-first century living?

Maybe it’s my vitamin D deficiency – which is chronic by the way – but I take a good long look before retreating from the window, hearing a sharp noise and reversing course. The apathetic clang of a full dumpster reminds me trash day is one of my key milestones of the week.

I know the green metal box where the noise originated. There’s a single dumpster for our alley’s entire collection of unfinished ramen bowls, empty bottles of nail polish and the unblendable privates of fruit. Over the last three years, I alone am 16 for 72 at throwing avocado pits from our window. 

What I don’t know is why someone is currently waist deep in said receptacle. A long shadow extends over the side of the dumpster, spilling into our decrepit alleyway.

I catch movement and sure enough, it’s a torso bobbing up and down. There are spurts of motion and then the silhouette – like anything that’s stared at too long — gets fainter. Though as someone who’s spent more of today watching a dumpster than imbibing non-apartmental air, I could be mistaken. 

The shifting and bouncing aren’t as dramatic as the sounds that follow them. Namely, the crumpling. Other people’s used goods and not-so-goods. Just today I threw out a pair of single-budded headphones that outlived the mp3 player I got them for.

If I had it in me to engage with a dumpster diver – or anyone – right now, it feels like there’d be redemption in it for all of us. Me and the headphones. I can’t confidently say the bum needs redeeming. 

Living in the Big Apple really reinforces a well-cultivated sense of guilt.

A figure hops from the dumpster. He’s quick and hits the ground silently, at least relative to previous noises. The merciless reverb of the long alley still draws it out some, but he deserves credit. This is the first place I’ve ever lived where I formed an opinion on the makings of an effective bum. What does that say about my day job?

A few steps, then the specter turns back to the dumpster. He reaches back in. Or lunges maybe? Whatever it is, it goes one after the other. Again and again until he’s balanced and horizontal, a fork on the end of your finger. Powerful is the allure of Chashu pork and soft boiled eggs.

The movement stops. I squint. The seconds drag while I try to isolate anything coming in or out. 

Then the brisk scraping. Sound wafts through the darkness. Even a now-purple horizon can’t distract me.

“Wow,” is the phrase I can’t contain. 

“What’s that?”

Is the noise that comes back to me. A sunburnt voice box on some dead air.

“Wow,” I mouth to myself. I’m completely invisible from below. Just ask any number of pot smokers and delivery men I’ve tried to flag down. And making our exact window? Forget it. Up here on floor eight, we try not to have more than one 40-watt bulb on at a time. These east coast energy prices will kneecap you. 

I’m almost certain I’m completely invisible.

The steps are moving towards me, or maybe away. My curiosity piques. Then it recedes. Panicked and unsure of the time, I start my retreat once more. Even if it leads to a new head bonk on the window pane.

“This mother f…”

Amid a stubborn pain, I check my smart watch. Like my wrist and face, it had been hanging out the window the whole time. I don’t actually see the watch until my vision returns. Though I don’t actually read the watch because a rhythmic scraping breaks out below. It’s all pointless. 

Smooth pulsing turns to gravelly crunching. Lone footsteps are now accompanied. Two pairs? Three pairs? I can’t tell. It’s a pretty typical work day in that way.

The sun’s retreated further and my eyes can no longer track what happens below. But the soundtrack continues. The scraping. The grunting. More scraping and heavier grunting. A groaning echoes off storm drains and trash bags.

Indiscernible yells break in between. A threatening call and response goes back and forth and when it stops, chromatic collisions begin. Slaps of rumbling metal. Body weight being thrown to and fro with ruthless equality. Then the booming. It’s tension epitomized. Its low rumble like gunfire in a far-off battle. A plane propeller choking down from max speed. A loose bolt on a jackhammer.

Then comes the silence. 

Moment after moment. 

How many, I don’t count.

My stomach is pruny and airless, everything in me is bent by this invading dark. 

Helplessness takes round one. And however many other rounds there’ve been.

The penetrating scraping is resurrected. Before the last light of day goes out. Before my hearing wins at the expense of my sight.

And when I give up trusting sight and let my breath be, it’s a pair of feet. One person leaving and — from the rhythm of it — one person not. The footsteps pick up. Their pace doubles. In seconds they’re around some corner and no more a burden to our alley. 

Not unlike the rest of life, the question of what’s left behind is the obsession now.

In shock, my iron grip keeps on the window sill. I lean further and further out, hoping to see. Because I know what I’ve heard. Can I stay this way for the next minute, ten minutes, an hour to prove it to myself?

The fight, it can only be a fight, begs unknowable question after unknowable question. What could have been worth the trouble? How prized can food waste be? Would I be a feet-in kind of dumpster diver?

What if that theoretical thing of dubious value was ours to begin with? 

I grab a pen and paper to reconstruct the last 48 hours of our trash. The list is utterly hygienic until you get to coffee grinds and yogurt cups. Which day was the day I threw out those batteries? I can never remember last night’s dinner. Someone really should call 9-1-1. 

Should I call 9-1-1?

Someone’s done a real disservice to that cadaver, and I am just down wind. 

In silence, I grab for my phone. It’s nowhere. I pull back from the window and take another sharp bang to the head. But I zip in spite of it. from the office to the bathroom to the extra bedroom. Nothing. As happens fairly often during a crisis, I’m less helpful than a water gun on a snowman. 

A sheer miracle, the faint glare catches my eye. Naturally, my phone’s on the stove top.

I open it up, scrolling quickly through my last few notifications. Only the same things as always. Once I get to the phone on my phone, I dial the nine. 

Just think about the merits of it all. The optics even. 

I’m ready to save a life. Maybe even be a model citizen. One. 

Does a dead body actually constitute an emergency? Time of death feels like a solid line of demarcation there. You wouldn’t put used gas back in your car. And here I am without my copy of the unwritten rules.

One. Time, you pissy accomplice. You’re basking in this. We’re all well aware of the odds. Win or lose. I’ll stake a claim, stand up against you–

One.

“Neal?”

In the moment of no return, my name floats through the sharp speakers of my 13-inch laptop.“Can you repeat your theory on why Black Widow so vastly over-performed our projections for the female 65 and over demographic?”