I happened to be out by the curb when the trash truck rolled by on Thursday. I really wasn't sure what to do. There was a big pile of crap outside the church, with bags of trash, carpet remanents that had been pulled up, and other debris. Did I help them toss it all in the back of the truck or would I just be getting in the way? Would they even let me help? There may be insurance or union issues that would get them into trouble if I did anything. (Can you tell I overthink things?). I opted for the "stay out of the way" strategy, but commented to the first guy off the truck that I thought he had the hardest job in New Orleans.

I'm not sure if the guy heard me or not becuase he was wearing headphones. He did give me this look, though, a look that said, well, "fuck you". I can understand that, actually. No one with a job that hard and that crappy needs some punk professor telling him it's hard. He knows. I felt like an idiot for saying anything. Then I saw his shirt.

It was black. On the front was some odd symbol I can't remember and didn't recognize, along with the tag: "Fuck You, I Live Here." When he turned around to toss a bag of trash into the garbage truck, I saw the back of the shirt: "Judge Not, Lest Yea Be Judged" (from Luke 6:37). An interesting juxtaposition, but I got it. If you lived there and dealt with all the crap from day one of the whole Katrina debacle, you were tired of everyone hashing out your behavior, calling you stupid for not leaving, blaming you for looting, and now blaming you for not cleaning up fast enough. I think I "got" the shirt, but I am not sure I wholly agree with the sentiment. There are some moral issues there I really don't want to touch right now.

As I was trying to take Trash Guy #1's shirt in, Trash Guy #2 comes around the corner. He was more talkative than the first, to my consternation. The exchange went something like this:

Trash Guy: This your stuff?
Me: Um, it's the chruch's trash. I'm just here helping out.
Guy: Why you gotta pile all this carpet and shit on top of the bags? I ain't taking those bags.
(apparently the construction material or big waste was taken care of by different people.)
Me: Er, um, well, uh . . .
My dad (to my rescue): Well, we can pull the bags out from under the other stuff.
(we pull the carpet off of the bags of trash. Guy goes to get trash bags. They are heavy because they are full of random debris and stuff).
Guy: Shit, these are heavy. Fuck this.

Bags stay behind as truck moves on down the road. For all I know, they are stil sitting there.

I kept turning over that incident in my head for the rest of the day. I'm still trying to deal with it, really. On one hand, I don't know what it's like to live there, to be the guy that deals with all this crap everyday. I can understand that one would fell abandoned and powerless and the presence of all these people who are trying to help just reinforces that sense of powerlessness. On the other hand, I was kinda angry at this guy. Part of me want to say "Look, dude. I understand you have a crappy job and have been thorough the wringer. I don't know what that feels like. But I am here to help in whatever small way I can. You can be pissed at me all you want. But at least take the five minutes and the little effort to haul away a small part of the piles of trash that are lying here. Do that. 'Cause if you, who live here, don't show an interest in making things better then it's never gonna happen. Or worse, it's gonna happen and you are gonna be further marginalized and forgotten." But I just stammered, because all of this conflict welled up within me in the space of five seconds.

I'll get to the other thing that happened Thursday later.