SHORT STORIES -THE GARBAGE CART
The Garbage Cart – September 26, 1956
Automatic translation from the original story in Spanish. Not checked manually
This afternoon is a magical afternoon. Besides being my birthday, it’s Friday and I won’t go to school until Monday.
My mother has picked me up from school and we are going home. I’ll have a snack and then I’ll go down to the street until eight thirty. Almost in front of the staircase door, my friends tell me to go downstairs as soon as possible to assemble the two teams to play soccer.
Ten minutes later, after eating bread with oil and sugar, I jog up the stairs to get down as soon as I can. I carry old newspapers and pieces of string with me, which will serve to make us the ball to play with. Today it was my turn to lower them and my mother had them ready for me.
She has told me not to come up later than agreed today, because she has prepared a cake to celebrate my birthday. I’m happy, because she makes them very good.
I will know that it is the moment because it is when the garbage dump passes, with his cart pulled by a horse which carries a sack full of carob beans around his neck that he is eating during his tired walk or while standing in each portal.
We prepare the ball that, in the absence of a real one, seems wonderful to us. Pedro and I, today, will be the captains and those who choose who will play in each team. I toss my nickel into the air, which it decides that I choose first.
I choose the one who I think is the better player and then Pedro chooses the next one and so on until we finish dividing them.
We play in the middle of the fairway and put some stones to mark the goals… goals will only be protested if the ball flies too high…
Very from time to time we have to stop the game, to let one of the few vehicles that circulate pass. That afternoon, until now that we are going from 6 to 4, only one has passed.
Who else drips sweat less and exudes joy… we play, whatever it is, but the important thing is that we really play, we hug, we argue and sometimes we even fight, but it is the most anticipated moment of the day…
Just then I hear the sound of the brass trumpet from the garbage dump that, down Calle San Vicente, is approaching the corner of my street… I know it’s almost time to go home, but I’ll hurry until the last minute, I want to win by more difference… let’s see if in a few minutes we do the 7 to 4.
Just when I manage to score the goal I wanted, we have to disarm the goals so that the garbage can reach my goal, then he starts to sparkle.
The car stops in front of my house and the man blows his trumpet. Then the neighbours begin to go downstairs with their rickety rusty tin bins full of garbage.
He approaches them, takes the buckets and is pouring them into his huge esparto basket which, when filled, will empty into one of the six compartments of his greenish sheet metal cart. He will repeat the operation until all the neighbours have emptied them.
Then he will get on the box, sit on his seat, take the whip made with a wooden rod and braided rope, to prod the horse and resume the march to the next stop.
I look at the scene carefully, the horses fascinate me and it bothers me when I see them hit. Then, with effort, the animal tries to move the heavy cart but his hoofs slip on the wet cobblestones of my street… The garbage man insists with his whip, while he says: “Shit, you son of the b…! “
I think that’s what my mother means when she tells me not to talk like a cart driver… The poor animal struggles, finally loses its balance until it falls to the ground…
The garbage man jumps out of the cart, which has almost overturned and approaches the old horse… when he sees that he does not seem injured and that he is moving his legs, he unties the straps that connect him to the cart and, holding him by the reins, he whips him and yells at him to get up…
After several blows and endless swearing, the quadruped manages to stand upright and is again attached to his heavy load… One of his blinders has been crooked and I seem to see a tear in his eye, which leaves my soul broken… The garbage man places it instead.
Then the percheron looks at me and neighs as he begins to walk. It seems to me that he has noticed my discomfort and confirms that he is fine… I rush home, my mother opens me smiling, the cake is already on the table and my father is already sitting on it…
The Garbage Cart – Short Stories Series – Copyright © Montserrat Valls and Juan Genovés