The Garbage King

by Elizabeth Laird

  Feeling triumphant, Dani found a plastic bag for himself and put the notebook into it. Then, copying Mamo, he began to walk slowly forward, scrutinizing the ground systematically.

  Mamo, who had taken to scavenging at once, found the best thing. He turned it over accidentally with his bare foot. It was a hat made of wool, knitted in stripes of red, gold and green, the colours of Ethiopia. He held it up to Million, who took it from him, turned it round in his hands then put it on his head. It gave him a careless, rakish look. He bent down and picked up a shard of broken mirror lying near his feet, then studied himself, arranging the hat at different angles. He smiled at Mamo delightedly.

  ‘This is good,’ he said. ‘A good hat for a joviro. You’re the best at this job, Mamo, a real king. That’s what we’ll call you. The Garbage King.’

  Mamo grinned delightedly. A nickname felt good. It made him special. He turned it over in his mind. The Garbage King. It sounded cheeky and tough.

  ‘Garbage King, find me a hat too,’ Getachew called out. ‘Look at Million, he’s like a black American now too. Hey, rasta man.’

  They began to move back down the hill towards the stream, Mamo coming last, reluctant to stop the search.

  ‘What have you found, Shoes?’ Dani said. He hadn’t dared address any of them by name before, except Mamo and Karate, but he felt more confident now, especially with Buffalo out of the way.

  ‘Bananas,’ said Shoes, looking down into his bag. ‘Very brown and squashy, but still OK.’

  ‘No shoes?’ Dani said teasingly.

  ‘Don’t need shoes any more,’ Shoes said seriously, ‘not now I’ve got these.’

  He stuck his feet out in front one by one and admired them.

  They reached the stream and felt their clothes. They were still damp but Million was putting his on.

  ‘Mine are still wet,’ said Dani.

  ‘They’ll dry on you,’ Million said scornfully. ‘Do you want us to wait here all day?’

  ‘Hey!’ came a voice from above. They looked up. Buffalo was leaping down the slope towards them.

  ‘Where’s Karate?’ Getachew asked.

  ‘They said he’s really sick,’ said Buffalo. ‘They told me to take him to the nuns at Siddist Kilo. The nuns wouldn’t let him go. Karate wanted to come back with me, but they made him stay.’

  The news that Buffalo brought back, that Karate had been kept in hospital by the nuns, sobered the group down. They walked slowly back up to the road, talking about it.

  ‘What did they say, Buffalo?’ Dani asked anxiously, seeming to lose his awe of Buffalo in his eagerness to know.

  ‘I told you. They said he was really sick. Asked me why I’d left it so long to bring him in.’ He turned towards Million. ‘He didn’t seem so bad to you, did he?’

  Million shook his head.

  ‘I don’t know. He was bad before and got over it. The nuns make a fuss of him because he’s so little and cute.’

  ‘He cried when I left him,’ Buffalo said. ‘Didn’t want me to go. Said he didn’t care if he was sick, he just wanted to come back to us.’

  ‘We’ll go and visit him later,’ Million said. ‘We’ll beg some money and take him some sweets.’

  He adjusted the hat, pulling it sideways over one eye.

  ‘Where did you get that thing?’ Buffalo asked.

  ‘Mamo found it,’ said Million, throwing an arm round Mamo’s shoulders, and making Mamo shiver with warmth and pride.

  Buffalo scowled, but said nothing.

  They’d reached their pitch again. Shoes fished into his bag and pulled out the pieces of fruit. He handed them round. The boys ate carefully, relishing the sweetness, throwing the rotten parts away and laughing as Suri scampered after them. Less fussy than them, she wolfed down decayed bananas with every sign of contentment.

  Million had taken up his usual place on his stone, with his back against the wall, while the others squatted round him. His new hat seemed to have put him into an expansive mood. He sat forward and said to Dani, ‘What was that you found? I saw you put something into a bag.’

  Dani fished out the notebook and passed it to Million, who leafed through it.

  ‘Nothing in it,’ he said, handing it back again.

  ‘It’s the paper,’ said Dani. ‘I thought I could use it. Write in it.’ ‘Write? What for?’

  ‘I don’t know yet.’ Dani sounded defensive. ‘Stories.’

  ‘You know stories?’ Getachew said eagerly. ‘What sort? Can you tell us any?’

  Dani nodded.

  ‘Yes, if you like. I’ll have to think a bit first, though, to remember them right.’

  Million stood up, put his hand into his pocket and pulled out a few coins.

  ‘There’s still some left,’ he said. ‘Enough for some injera, anyway.’

  The others all looked up at him. The bread rolls at dawn and the few mouthfuls of fruit hadn’t gone far to satisfy their hunger.

  ‘See you in a minute then,’ Million said, walking off. Getachew started up after him.

  ‘I’ll come with you,’ he said.

  Shoes took out the rag from his pocket and held it to his nose. He began to rock backwards and forwards. Buffalo stared at the ground.

  ‘That school you used to go to, where is it?’ Mamo said to Dani, to pass the time.

  Dani lifted his chin towards the hill above them.

  ‘Up there.’ He spoke shortly, as if he didn’t want to think about it.

  ‘Fancy uniforms, was it?’ Buffalo said suddenly. ‘Little blue sweaters? Bags with zips on them?’

  ‘No,’ began Dani. ‘We . . .’

  ‘What are you doing here, with us?’ Buffalo interrupted savagely. ‘Playing at slumming it? You could go back there tomorrow. What should we bother with you for?’

  Dani seemed to retreat somewhere inside himself. He looked as if he wasn’t listening any more. Mamo felt a spurt of anger.

  ‘Leave him alone,’ he said gruffly. ‘He’s got his reasons. No one lives like this for fun.’

  Buffalo flicked his head round towards Mamo and Mamo realized, with a lurch of his stomach, that he had been Buffalo’s real target all along.

  ‘Too low for you then, are we?’ His voice was tight. ‘What are you trying to get in with us for? You’re as bad as him.’

  He jerked his thumb towards Dani.

  Mamo felt like a gazelle who senses that a leopard is hiding in the long grass ahead. He’d have to be careful, or Buffalo would become his enemy. Buffalo would work on Million and have him and Dani chucked out of the gang.

  ‘It’s not like that,’ he said unhappily. ‘We just want – we just like being with you, that’s all.’

  But Buffalo had worked himself up into a rage. He was standing up now, dancing about on the balls of his feet, making shadow punches into the air. Mamo, his stomach fluttering, stood up too.

  Buffalo’s attack was so sudden that he was taken off guard and almost fell backwards. Then, a steely hand grabbed him above the elbow, while Buffalo’s other arm caught him in a headlock. He struggled, kicking his legs out behind him, half suffocated, his arms flailing as he tried to land punches on Buffalo’s back and sides.

  He was vaguely aware that Dani had stood up too, that he was holding Suri out of harm’s way and circling helplessly round them. He could smell a sharpness on Buffalo now, and felt the rage pouring out of him like heat.

  ‘Let go!’ he kept trying to say. ‘Get off me!’

  He managed at last to land a kick on one of Buffalo’s shins, and followed it up quickly with a crack from his knee on Buffalo’s thigh. Buffalo grunted with pain and his grip loosened slightly. Fury was coursing through Mamo now and he heaved against Buffalo’s violent embrace, trying desperately to free his head.

  Then, suddenly, he felt a sharp blow on his back. At the same time Buffalo let go and Mamo staggered backwards, half stunned. Million was between them now, glaring at Mamo.

  ‘What are you doing? What’s going on? You
fight, you’re out, you hear?’

  Mamo bit his lip and said nothing.

  ‘You hear?’ Million said again.

  To Mamo’s surprise, Buffalo said, ‘It was me, Million. I got him going.’

  Million turned to him and spread out his hands, exasperated.

  ‘What? Why?’

  Buffalo shrugged.

  ‘He got on my nerves, him and that fat parasite there.’

  ‘He’s not a parasite,’ said Mamo hotly, starting forward to attack Buffalo again.

  Million held him off, then turned this head to frown at Buffalo.

  ‘Why do you do it? All the time?’

  Buffalo looked away.

  ‘You know what I’m like.’

  Million seemed to accept this. He made no comment. Mamo could see that he understood. He knew Buffalo had started it. He wouldn’t lay the blame on Mamo. Mamo felt his anger begin to seep away.

  Buffalo seemed to have forgotten his own rage completely. He looked quite calm again. In fact his face was even softening into a smile.

  ‘It’s my temper,’ he said, as if he was talking about a being removed from himself. ‘It gets me going.’

  Million was standing beside Buffalo now, looking thoughtfully at Mamo and Dani. Mamo could see from the way that he and Buffalo were together that they were brothers, or as good as. If there was any trouble with Buffalo, Million would, in the end, always take his part.

  It’s just as well to know that, Mamo thought. It’s best to know where we stand.

  ‘Did you get any?’ Buffalo said to Million, as if nothing at all had happened.

  ‘Any what?’

  ‘Injera.’

  ‘Yes.’

  They squatted down in a circle. Million took a roll of injera out of the plastic bag he’d been carrying and handed it to Buffalo, who passed it on to Mamo. With an inward sigh of relief, Mamo saw that something had shifted. The fight seemed to have resolved things for Buffalo. He and Dani would be accepted now.

  Gratefully he took the injera, broke off a piece for Suri, and began to eat. He felt good. He might be a godana, a rubbish sifter, a piece of muck sticking to muck, but he was doing all right. He was one of a gang. An insider. The Garbage King had real friends that he could trust and the rest of the world didn’t matter any more.

  He had nearly finished his injera, relishing every crumb, when Getachew came flying down the road.

  ‘Police! Quick! Run!’ he panted. ‘They’re after me!’

  A stitch was jabbing Dani’s side and every breath he took hurt. He’d never run so fast in his life. The others had taken off like a flock of terrified goats at the word ‘police’. They’d dived into a lane and hurtled down the hill, not slowing until they reached a piece of flat open ground a good half mile from their usual pitch.

  They’d outstripped Dani at once and he’d only kept them in sight by making a desperate effort. Once he thought he’d lost them altogether and stopped at a fork in the maze of lanes in an agony of indecision.

  Mamo had run back for him. Dani had seen his slight figure appear at the bend of the left-hand lane. Mamo had beckoned to him urgently and Dani had set off again at once, lumbering along, his whole body working as it never had before.

  The group was standing in a knot behind a tumbledown corrugated-iron fence when Dani reached them at last. He bent over, gasping for breath. The others had recovered theirs. They were watching Million, who was interrogating Getachew. Even Suri seemed aware of the tension in the group. She had wriggled free of Mamo’s arms and was yapping round Getachew’s feet.

  ‘So they just saw you walk out of the shop behind me, and they started to shout and run after you?’ Million was saying suspiciously. ‘Why would they do that?’

  Getachew gave him a wide smile.

  ‘You know the cops, Million. Do they need a reason?’

  ‘No,’ conceded Million, frowning, ‘but we don’t try to give them one.’

  ‘So what are you all looking at me for?’ blustered Getachew, hunching his shoulders and looking round at the others.

  No one said anything.

  ‘What’s that in your pocket?’ Million said suddenly. ‘What’s that bulge?’

  Getachew stared down at his trouser leg as if he’d noticed it for the first time.

  ‘What do you mean? Oh, this.’ He sounded uneasy now. ‘It’s nothing. Just some things I picked up at the dump.’

  ‘Let’s see.’ Million’s voice was hardening.

  ‘What is all this? You don’t believe me?’

  Million said nothing. He held out his hand and waited.

  Defiantly, Getachew pulled a packet of cigarettes and a lighter out of his pocket and dropped them into Million’s hand.

  Million looked up at him.

  ‘You didn’t find these in the dump. I saw them in the shop, on the counter, when I was buying the injera. You stole them.’

  Getachew was looking scared now.

  ‘I didn’t! Honestly, Million . . .’

  ‘You’re a thief.’ Million’s voice was cold. ‘We don’t have thieves in this gang. You’re out, Getachew.’

  Getachew took a step backwards.

  ‘No! Listen, Million. It wasn’t like that. OK, so I didn’t find them at the dump. They were on the counter at the shop, like you said, but I thought the guy in front of us had left them there and forgotten them. I was just – it’s not stealing if someone’s been stupid enough to leave their things lying about. It’s – it’s scavenging. Like at the dump.’

  ‘No one left them behind. They belonged to the shopkeeper,’ Million said, turning his back. ‘Get out of here.’

  ‘I won’t! You can’t make me. Please, Million, where will I go? It was just a mistake, that’s all. Give me another chance.’

  Buffalo had followed Million. He was talking quietly to him. Million turned round again.

  ‘You want to stay with us?’

  ‘You know I do.’ Getachew’s fists were tight balls of anxiety.

  ‘What if you steal again? We’ll all be picked up. We’ll end up at the police station. They’ll beat the hell out of us. They’ve done it before for less.’

  ‘I won’t. Honestly. I swear to God.’

  Million stood with his legs apart and his arms crossed, staring at him.

  ‘Strip him down, Buffalo,’ he said at last.

  Buffalo went to Getachew and pushed him down to his knees. Then he pulled his shirt off over his head and tossed it to Shoes.

  Getachew seemed to know what was coming. He bent forward and Dani, watching with fascinated horror, could see that his clasped hands were shaking.

  Million was walking along the broken fence. He bent down and pulled out from behind it a long thin eucalyptus shoot. He twisted and tugged at it until it broke in half, then he stripped off its leaves and handed it silently to Buffalo.

  The beating was hard. The stick brought welts up on Getachew’s bare back. Mamo and Shoes turned tactfully away but Dani couldn’t take his eyes off Getachew. Whenever his father had beaten him, Dani had cringed and cried, pleaded for mercy, then run to his mother in a storm of tears for petting and sympathy. But Getachew didn’t even whimper. He knelt, back arched, accepting the blows as they fell.

  ‘That’s enough. Stop,’ Million said at last.

  Buffalo threw the stick away. Shoes handed back Getachew’s shirt to him, and Getachew put in on, wincing in spite of himself as he moved his shoulders. He staggered as he stood up and righted himself with an effort.

  ‘Last chance,’ Million said curtly. ‘Once more and you’re out for good. You can go down to Mercato and thieve with the rest of them down there.’

  ‘I won’t do it again, Million, I promise,’ Getachew said, his bravado gone.

  Dani shivered. If ever he got punished like that he wouldn’t be able to bear it so calmly. He hadn’t realized that godana could be so strict about stealing. His father had always said that street people were thieves and con artists, that some of them were
really rich and they just put on rags and went out to beg because it was easier than looking for work.

  What other things do you get punished for in this gang? Dani thought. I’ll have to watch it.

  Million was looking round at the open ground. ‘We’ll have to sleep down here for a night or two,’ he said. ‘No point going back up to our pitch till things have calmed down. The ground’ll be damp here, but that can’t be helped. Dani and Garbage King, go back up there and fetch our blankets.’

  ‘Please, Million,’ Dani said, licking his lips nervously. ‘I can’t. The police will be on the lookout for me.’

  Million nodded.

  ‘OK. Mamo and Shoes, you go. Take your time. Watch out. We’ll wait for you here.’

  It was a long time before Mamo and Shoes came back. They’d approached the pitch cautiously, afraid that the police would be lying in wait for them. Two policemen were in fact standing nearby on the street corner, talking casually to each other, not seeming to be particularly interested in anyone, but a baleful presence all the same.

  Mamo and Shoes moved away and sat on a wall at a distance, watching them out of the corner of their eyes.

  It was the first time Mamo had been alone with Shoes and he didn’t know how to talk to him.

  ‘I don’t think Getachew’s really a thief, do you?’ he said at last, breaking a long silence. ‘I mean, not a proper one.’

  Shoes was kicking his leg against the wall.

  ‘I’ve seen him nick stuff before. Million doesn’t know. Getachew had it coming.’

  Mamo felt he had to stick up for Getachew. He’d known him for years, after all.

  ‘He won’t do it again. Not now.’

  Shoes seemed to lose interest in the subject.

  ‘He’d better not,’ he said.

  There was another pause.

  ‘Have you been with Million and Buffalo long?’ Mamo asked at last.

  ‘Two years, I suppose. Since my stepmother threw me out.’

  ‘Million’s good, isn’t he? A good joviro, I mean.’ ‘He’s OK. There was another guy before. Isayas.

  We chose Million when Isayas went.’

  ‘What happened to him? To Isayas?’

  ‘He’s still around. He does stuff down by the stadium. He stopped bothering about us when he started drinking all the time.’