![]() In truth, they did not care what Roxanne Blackwell studied, for she was (in essence if not in fact) betrothed to a family friend. Though her family had desired for her to study art, or literature, as her cousins in Virginia and New York had whiled awaytheir college years, she insisted on counseling. Her home, her education, her family, all spoke of elegance and grace. Roxanne lived in a beautiful home, in a suburb of Charlotte. And still he showed up day after day, in his gray/blue work-clothes, his name on the left chest, to help care for the garbage. And Richard, as well as the boy, wondered what he meant. And when he said it, he looked away, as if the object of his quest were an image he could call up, but never reach. 'Son, if you find something you want, you remember to take it, alright?' Delmore, do you know that someone almost threw away an entire collection of Greek plays today? If you don't mind, I'll take them home.' His employer would hand him his check every two weeks and shake his head, wondering how such a young man came to this place. He read books he found being thrown in the trash, and more than once took them home after expressing gratitude to his employer. Caleb read history and physics, he read the Bible and theology. At least, not anything they would read at a land-fill. And always, the office was as neat as a pin, and when the day was over, Richard would find Caleb reading something that he himself would neverimagine human beings read. Five years and amillion tons of garbage that the boy had watched slide by, rain or shine a million tons of smells the boy had endured. ‘It isn’t time’ he told them,’ and that was five years ago. He could have done anything his parents still tormented him because he hadn’t gone to college. He had no criminal record he passed his drug screen. Richard had checked the boy was no simpleton, notreasure hunter. That Caleb stood and watched the garbage fall. ‘Yes sir, 50 private vehicles and 5 trucks from that new construction site on Highway 97. ![]() For his manager, a man who would read was at least better than most, who wanted to have computers and computer games, and who invariably spent their days using the office computer to find questionable websites, where they ignored their work until they had to be fired.Ĭaleb was a find, and Richard Delmore knew it the minute he hired him his suspicions confirmed his judgment every time he visited the tidy office beside the mountains of trash. The few books on the shelves were well aligned, and it had been agreed five years before that when all the work was done, he could read. So, the waste-bucket sat always empty, purged every day. ![]() Pencils and pens were all in the right places, though the office was so small that any extra things, any bits of trash in his own space would soon have overwhelmed him. The desk where he sat was neat, with no hint of disarray, as if in revolt against the chaos outside. When he wasn’t helping someone unload, or directing a truck to the correctpile, he sat in his office, at his desk, watching the mountain of garbage that rose every year, higher and higher. Bed-frames and plastic bags, tires and toy-chests, mirrors and dry-wall and everything small and large. The trash rose all around Caleb, who watched it with constant fascination.
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