The garbage was piling up on America in the late 1980s. The capitalist pump had been primed, and it was trickling down all over the hearth of a nation. In the overflow were the creative endeavors of countless production designers, done up in their best styrofoam and plastic, stuff of the ages. Landfills across the land were filling up as if the entire continent was in need of a laxative.

Something had to be done. Recycling was the trick.

Since there were so many liberals screaming for conservation, letting them have the problem sounded like a good idea to the powers that may-be. Unfortunately, in usual fashion, the administrators became bureaucrats, and proceeded to confuse the issue. E.P.A., D.E.P., A.S.H.A., and other acronyms were hard at work protecting the environment within their office walls, which was all they could do with the resources they were given.

So the task of implementing a national recycling policy fell on the shoulders of each individual municipality. Thus paving the way for a whirlpool of legislation in the form of local ordinance. If you’ve ever seen a toxic waste dump, you know what problems a whirlpool can bring.

Local politicians are more often selected for their ability to oversee a campaign than for their ideology.

For one such group of politicians in a New Jersey municipality the rigors of implementing a recycling plan so stressed the occupants of Town Hall that the unreasonable came to be considered an option.

The town of Carteret, New Jersey has a huge deep water port where barges load and launch all day. They carry away petroleum products, transport trailers, and of course, garbage. Now that those production designers’ endeavors in styrofoam and plastic would be requiring a barge of their own, someone would need to make some rules.

Recycling had come to town.

That’s when the Mayor and his council, in their infinite environmental concern, and desperation, opened up to otherwise unreasonable options.

They would collect the glass on the first and third Sunday, newspapers on the second and fourth. Then a separate day for furniture and larger items. Leaf pickup in autumn, Christmas tree pickup through January. The days of these pickups were changed seasonally for one reason or another, and it was important for the good people of Carteret to be aware of the proper trash schedule if the barges were to meet their launch time.

Enter the Garbage Gestapo.

The Garbage Gestapo were tasked with enforcing a well intentioned but poorly executed idea. They went about their work with a zeal that far outpaced the crime. There were accounts of them dumping incorrectly separated garbage on people’s lawns. They would refuse to collect recyclables if you didn’t follow the trash schedule. Trying to be clever and setting out both newspaper and glass didn’t work either — they left them both. Soon the Garbage Gestapo were given the power to write citations, which required, of course, that they investigate the contents of each and every individual’s trash bin. One could only imagine the items of privacy there violated. But these were serious problems. The Garbage Gestapo had a job to do.

The people of Carteret are a fun loving bunch. Maybe a little too fun loving for some folks’ taste, but that doesn’t bother them either. They’re mostly the backbone-of-America type people who helped build this country, and who like to party as hard as they work, maybe a bit harder. The V.F.W. in Carteret was always full. The bar was half price for members.

Not far from the deep water port there is an industrial park. I’d always thought the term industrial park was a contradiction of terms; however on closer observation I’ve noticed a tendency for acres of petroleum storage tanks to sprout up like trees in Carteret. 

Nestled between this scenic portrait and the Garden State Parkway was a small tavern called The Parks Side, named for its proximity to the highway. It was a one story structure with only one window just big enough to hold a neon Budweiser sign. They served the industrial hungers — food and spirits for the weary. Country and western on the jukebox, except when some young punk got hold of it. Pool in back.

Dudeman worked in the industrial park. He didn’t always live in a particular place, but he always worked in the industrial park. He spent his lunch break at the Parks Side.

Grace ran the bar. She also ran a boarding house where Dudeman occasionally rented an attic room — a finished room complete with furniture and heat, luxuries he had learned to live without at his previous address, a duplex in Woodbridge that he and his friend Numbers had christened Disgrace Mansion, a name owing to its disheveled appearance and general air of condemned abandonment. When the landlord renovated the place — new siding, porches, windows, stairs, and a deck out back — Dudeman and Numbers renamed it Refaced Mansion, and Dudeman knew he wasn’t long for the place. He made plans to return to Carteret and the safety of Grace’s boarding house. Grace frequently complained it was not intended to be Parks Side East. Still, she threw a backyard party every summer, complete with quite a feast and a keg or two. The whole Parks Side crew would undoubtedly be there, and the keg or two, inevitably, would not.

Of import to Dudeman were the following: beer, football, friends, parties, and work. In that order. There is one point in the year when all of those things most dear to him converge on a single day — Super Bowl Sunday. This was Dudeman’s High Holiday. The whole crew at the Parks Side, yelling for one team or another, food and shelter and unlimited beer. The sweet nectar of life. Dudeman’s utopia. And everyone knew he was out to have big fun on that celebrated day.

He had no idea the Garbage Gestapo were planning to deal him a sorrowful hand.

It had started some months earlier, at the tail end of summer. Dudeman had left the party planning for his final Refaced Mansion blowout to his good friend Bouge, a natural born salesman who would attempt to sell everything. Once, while Dudeman was away for the night, Bouge had tried to sell the Disgrace Mansion itself. He almost had a down payment in hand when Numbers came home and spoiled the deal. For the party, Bouge had arranged the food, the friends, and the music. The only last minute task was the acquisition of the beer — Dudeman was not permitted inside the liquor store after some previously undisclosed incident.

But when Bouge arrived at the store the last keg had been sold. He called the mansion in a panic. The occupants gasped in horror. Then Dudeman took control. He got on the phone and said stop frightening the simple minded and buy cans of beer. It wasn’t in line with the true nature of the party, but cans would have to do.

Little did they know what problems several dozen cases of cans could cause.

The people who drink beverages from recyclable cans never asked that they come packaged that way. Yet it is the responsibility of those unsuspecting consumers to properly dispose of that packaging.

Needless to say, Dudeman and his friends did not take that responsibility very seriously. They threw the dozens of cases of empty cans in the trash with the rest of the refuse.

The next day, Dudeman was laid out on the landlord’s lounge chair getting some sun. The dozens of cases of empty cans along with various other refuse were out front of the Refaced Mansion ready for pickup. The sun was warm, he was on vacation, and Dudeman’s world was temporarily content.

Then came the trash inspectors — the forerunners of the Garbage Gestapo, and it was the failure of the trash inspectors that led to the advent of the Garbage Gestapo. The inspectors informed Dudeman that his garbage had not been properly separated. This seemed silly to him, as he obviously knew that. The inspectors insisted he remove the dozens of cases of empty cans from the trash and dump them on the yard in front of the Refaced Mansion.

This enraged Dudeman beyond his normal capacities. When nursing a hangover, Dudeman could become uncharacteristically unpleasant. The trash inspectors were small people by nature, nowhere near the stature of someone like Dudeman, and if he had to disturb himself from the landlord’s lounge chair someone would have to pay. So Dudeman threw the trash inspectors into the back of their garbage truck and sent them on their way.

It was clearly time to return to Carteret.

Upon return, Dudeman moved promptly into the attic of Grace’s boarding house. Every Friday, the good tenants put out their trash, and every Saturday the Garbage Gestapo had a complaint. Bottles in with cans, plastic in unseparated garbage, paper in the aluminum container. There was always something. Eventually the boarding house began to get letters — advisory in nature at first, later threatening a summons and a fine. The possibility of going to court to answer questions about the contents of his trash was, to say the least, comical to Dudeman.

As he later recalled, there was a party to celebrate the third and final notice.

Even so, when Super Bowl Sunday arrived, Dudeman was ready. The new big screen television was warmed up at the Parks Side. The beer was chilled, the food was on order. He had even placed a small wager on the game, on a tip from Numbers, who was occasionally privy to information unavailable to the common man.

Dudeman arose through a maze of blankets and dressed for the day ahead.

That’s when he heard them. The Garbage Gestapo, going through the trash out front.

He just couldn’t understand it. Why has the job of separating the trash become the forced labor of the people, without their consent?

He had heard some guy on the news talk about the hands off approach the government was taking with businesses, but he didn’t pay much attention. All he knew was it seemed like it was unacceptable to interfere with the daily habits of businesses, but the daily habits of the general population were fair game.

Dudeman was about to find out just how fair that game was.

He pulled on his coat and untied work boots and headed for the first floor. Upon reaching the front door he was confronted by a pile of trash scattered across the lawn. They had actually dumped out the trash cans. His mind raced. If this wasn’t taking a well intentioned program to an offensive extreme, then what was?

Dudeman stepped out to do battle with the Garbage Gestapo.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he bellowed. The surprised faces of the enlisted men showed very little aggression. All except one — apparently the squad leader. He was the largest of the Garbage Gestapo, and Dudeman was wondering how he’d fit this one in the back of the truck.

“What are all these beer cans doing in your trash?” the squad leader barked. They had given him more than enough warning. This time, he was going to have to come downtown to answer some questions. “Garbage questions?” Dudeman asked. “That’s right mister,” the squad leader yelled. “I don’t think you realize how serious this is.”

Looking at this bitter, overweight public employee, standing knee deep in trash on Super Bowl Sunday, spouting off about serious garbage questions, was all too much for Dudeman. He laughed in the squad leader’s face.

The next thing he knew, the Garbage Gestapo were trying to throw him in the truck. With no small effort they managed to get him in the cab — he wasn’t going in with the trash. From there it was a short ride downtown, where he was held to speak to a higher authority.

Maybe the garbage SS – or municipal judge who could not be bothered on Super Bowl Sunday. Whatever the case, Dudeman was to be held until Monday morning. He would not be at the Parks Side for his biggest celebration of the year.

He had landed in the Garbage Gulag.

After screaming obscenities at everyone within earshot, Dudeman came to accept the situation and proceeded to attempt to make the best of it. He thought, if I can’t be with my friends at the Parks Side, at least they could let me watch the game. Ever the optimist, he counted here on the milk of human kindness.

Unfortunately, that well had long run dry. The guard assigned to watch the prisoner turned his portable television away from Dudeman so he couldn’t see it. But at least he could hear the play by play. The outcome was of particular import, as the money Dudeman had wagered was not entirely in his possession at the time. Numbers’ tip was not going his way.

You can’t always trust Numbers.

He may give you good advice, or he may just smoke something up and write it down.

The guard was having a Coke and some chips. Dudeman looked on, licking his lips, thinking of all that ice cold beer at the Parks Side and how much fun his friends must be having.

By halftime, the guard had built a small pyramid of Coke cans on his desk. Then he got up and threw them in the trash.

It didn’t seem like much at first — just a guy throwing away some cans as anyone would. But then it occurred to Dudeman. 

That’s not a recyclable trash bin. 

Who was going to take those cans out? That trash bin would be emptied into a larger trash bin, dumped in the dumpster, and sent off as non-recyclable.

That guard was breaking the law.

Seems not everyone else was recycling. If even the Garbage Gestapo cheat, then who could be beyond suspicion? And is one offender any worse than the next? Dudeman came to the sudden realization that life couldn’t be all that serious — there were too many jokers like this guy to laugh at. There he was, a trash offender, under the watchful eye of another trash offender.

Even Dudeman could see the irony in that, and the obvious truth that the corporations responsible for all those creative endeavors in styrofoam and plastic should be paying for the disposal, but they answered to no one. The agencies meant to protect the environment protected mostly their office walls. And here in the Garbage Gulag, the law itself couldn’t be bothered to follow the law.

The whole thing was a joke. Dudeman knew how to play along with a joke. This time, the joke was on him — but he felt vindicated. These Garbage Gestapo were no better than he was. He figured he was just having a better time than they were, and that was all the excuse he needed.

For Dudeman, life was hanging out with some friends, having a few beers, partying a little, laughing a lot, and just having fun. It was the only life he’d ever known and he was determined to hang on to it, no matter what it cost. No matter how many Super Bowls he missed, no matter how many nights in a cell. Dudeman was living on the edge of the American Roadway — sometimes in the fast lane, and often in the gutter. There is a certain defiant bravado to facing self destruction with a smile, though I imagine it’s considerably more entertaining to the spectator than the participant.

Dudeman wasn’t much for that kind of introspective stuff.

I’ve seen many people in just such a predicament, caught between lanes on that American Roadway. Some keep so busy they haven’t time to reflect on it. Some just get by, day to day. But Dudeman just keeps on peddling, from one town to the next, chasing that next beer and that next great day that will make everything alright. He didn’t ask much of life, and that’s what he was getting. 

But no matter how desperate his situation might become, he always had a few friends to party with and the ability to laugh at hard times.

That was enough to survive on. Those were the things of import to Dudeman.