People in North Jersey will throw anything out their car windows. As a teenage garbage man, I’d pick up empty Snapple bottles and their "clicker caps," sandwich wrappers, potato chip bags, and a remarkable number of domestic beer cans. Sober driving was viewed a little like celibacy in our neck of the woods—one way to get you to your destination, but certainly not the only way.
Once a week, I’d don an orange safety vest and start walking. If I didn’t want to wear the vest, I could choose from several clothing options abandoned along the shoulder. Socks and shoes, farm and feed hats, dirty black t-shirts with heavy metal silkscreening–on roadside day, I could usually find enough stray clothing be considered well-dressed at any North Jersey social, as long as I took off the orange vest first. If it wasn’t food, it was clothes, if it wasn’t clothes, it was porn, if it wasn’t porn, it had been used to wipe a body part. Everything got thrown out the window next to Swartswood.
Then there was the day we found the baby.
My second year at Swartswood, my childhood friend Carl and I were assigned to the same crew, which lasted for exactly one week. Compared to me, Carl was an inch shorter, 10 pounds lighter, and five times smarter. He only looked and sounded like an idiot, which always left people surprised after he’d taken advantage of them. I could only look smart, so the two of us made a pretty good team keeping people on their toes.
Our supervisor that year was a domineering first year coed who’d done her part perpetuating the stereotype of the "freshman 15." Carl immediately dubbed her "Fat Jen," and we were officially off on the wrong foot. We mocked her openly, unmindful we were perpetuating stereotypes of our own, until she’d snap, making us laugh even harder.
The morning we found the baby, Fat Jen had already had enough. After being locked inside our truck with one of Carl’s "silent but deadlies," she’d taken the keys and walked north, while we took her dignity and headed south. It was a humid morning, already topping 85 degrees as we approached our 10 o’clock state-sanctioned break. As we walked along, I picked up a dirty diaper, and we threw it back and forth every few steps until bagging it. Carl found a pair of women’s sunglasses and asked if I wanted to give them to my (dead) mother on her next birthday. I found an empty fifth of Wild Turkey, and said his alcoholic and abusive father must be passed out nearby. Life was good, a literal walk in the park.
I’m not sure about a few things in life. I don't know why people willingly smoke, don't know why people can't put down their smartphones in restaurants, and I don’t know why someone would toss a perfectly good Butterball turkey out their car window. Had it been mouthing off, or had it threatened to vote Democratic in the next election? I’m also not sure what made us think that what we did next was a good idea. I am sure of one thing, though—when life gives you a frozen turkey, you take the filthy diaper out of your garbage bag and pretend it’s a baby to make your boss cry.
Tucked down low in the roadside weeds and freed from its plastic wrapping, the little diapered Butterball really did look like a baby. We worked up some fake tears, and the next moments confirmed two of life’s irrevocable truths: if something is said sincerely enough, people will believe anything, and some offenses are really hard to forgive. I also know now what I suspected then–that I should have stopped the joke before the Rangers arrived. Sometimes a joke goes too far and can’t be taken back.
Carl and I weren’t allowed to work together after that, but that didn’t stop us from being a nuisance, or switching crews when the opportunity allowed. The turkey-baby was given a proper burial in the sand of the public beach. Fat Jen even delivered part of the eulogy, displaying a surprising degree of self-depricating humor I hadn’t expected. Soon after, she became "Big Jen," and we traded insults every day. She even set me up with a friend of hers who was way out of my league, then laughed when I tried to get a second date.
By the time "just plain" Jen gave me a mothers day card which said "HA HA HA" inside it at the end of the summer, I knew our friendship had arrived.
Once a week, I’d don an orange safety vest and start walking. If I didn’t want to wear the vest, I could choose from several clothing options abandoned along the shoulder. Socks and shoes, farm and feed hats, dirty black t-shirts with heavy metal silkscreening–on roadside day, I could usually find enough stray clothing be considered well-dressed at any North Jersey social, as long as I took off the orange vest first. If it wasn’t food, it was clothes, if it wasn’t clothes, it was porn, if it wasn’t porn, it had been used to wipe a body part. Everything got thrown out the window next to Swartswood.
Then there was the day we found the baby.
My second year at Swartswood, my childhood friend Carl and I were assigned to the same crew, which lasted for exactly one week. Compared to me, Carl was an inch shorter, 10 pounds lighter, and five times smarter. He only looked and sounded like an idiot, which always left people surprised after he’d taken advantage of them. I could only look smart, so the two of us made a pretty good team keeping people on their toes.
Our supervisor that year was a domineering first year coed who’d done her part perpetuating the stereotype of the "freshman 15." Carl immediately dubbed her "Fat Jen," and we were officially off on the wrong foot. We mocked her openly, unmindful we were perpetuating stereotypes of our own, until she’d snap, making us laugh even harder.
The morning we found the baby, Fat Jen had already had enough. After being locked inside our truck with one of Carl’s "silent but deadlies," she’d taken the keys and walked north, while we took her dignity and headed south. It was a humid morning, already topping 85 degrees as we approached our 10 o’clock state-sanctioned break. As we walked along, I picked up a dirty diaper, and we threw it back and forth every few steps until bagging it. Carl found a pair of women’s sunglasses and asked if I wanted to give them to my (dead) mother on her next birthday. I found an empty fifth of Wild Turkey, and said his alcoholic and abusive father must be passed out nearby. Life was good, a literal walk in the park.
I’m not sure about a few things in life. I don't know why people willingly smoke, don't know why people can't put down their smartphones in restaurants, and I don’t know why someone would toss a perfectly good Butterball turkey out their car window. Had it been mouthing off, or had it threatened to vote Democratic in the next election? I’m also not sure what made us think that what we did next was a good idea. I am sure of one thing, though—when life gives you a frozen turkey, you take the filthy diaper out of your garbage bag and pretend it’s a baby to make your boss cry.
Tucked down low in the roadside weeds and freed from its plastic wrapping, the little diapered Butterball really did look like a baby. We worked up some fake tears, and the next moments confirmed two of life’s irrevocable truths: if something is said sincerely enough, people will believe anything, and some offenses are really hard to forgive. I also know now what I suspected then–that I should have stopped the joke before the Rangers arrived. Sometimes a joke goes too far and can’t be taken back.
Carl and I weren’t allowed to work together after that, but that didn’t stop us from being a nuisance, or switching crews when the opportunity allowed. The turkey-baby was given a proper burial in the sand of the public beach. Fat Jen even delivered part of the eulogy, displaying a surprising degree of self-depricating humor I hadn’t expected. Soon after, she became "Big Jen," and we traded insults every day. She even set me up with a friend of hers who was way out of my league, then laughed when I tried to get a second date.
By the time "just plain" Jen gave me a mothers day card which said "HA HA HA" inside it at the end of the summer, I knew our friendship had arrived.
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