Free Panorama City by Antoine Wilson Page B

should just let people throw their trash in there if that was where it was going to end up anyway. But Roger said it was a matter of principle, that this was a private dumpster, it was not a place for public people to throw their public trash, we couldn’t just leave it open, because then everyone would throw their trash into our private dumpster. I suggested that everyone was already throwing their trash into our private dumpster, the trash was just making a rest stop on top of the dumpster corral, it was just waiting there until I moved itinto the dumpster proper, which was a dirty job, which was a disgusting job considering the pieces of public trash that ended up on the chain link, the dirty diapers and plastic bags of dog business and Pepsi Gold, Melissa’s words for soda bottles full of pee. We were having this discussion with Melissa present, she was standing just outside Roger’s office, we couldn’t all three of us fit comfortably inside, and she suggested that if there was no roof on the dumpster corral, even more people might throw their trash in our dumpster, causing it to overflow, which I thought was an excellent point, which I thought Roger should use for his side of the argument, but Roger dismissed it as a mere practical concern, not germane to our discussion, which was about the principle of the thing, his words. I tell you this because I want you to understand what people mean, Juan-George, when they say they’re doing things on principle, or according to principle. Whether the dumpster was full or empty did not matter to Roger, trash sitting on top of the dumpster corral that had to be cleaned up did not matter to him either, because in all of the time I worked at the fast-food place trash was a job I kept the whole time, even after I was later promoted to french fry cook, because Harold the new floater was too short to reach the top of the dumpster corral and when we tried to get him to use a ladder he couldn’t let go of the chain link itself long enough to retrieve the trash, he was scared of heights, even low ones. In all the time I worked there, I never saw Roger anywhere near the dumpsters or the trash, he did not have to physically handle any of the stinking garbage, public, private, or otherwise, he didn’t ever have to get his hands dirty, as they say, and as such he had principles about the dumpster, which is the main thing you need to know about principles, they come from the heads of people very far away from what they apply to.
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    I received my first paycheck, I received my first official monies from my so-called respectable job. I wasn’t quite sure what to do with the check, I had never received a paycheck before, I was just staring at it at the end of my shift, when Francis asked me if I wanted to head over and cash it with him. We went to a storefront a block down from the fast-food place, I had seen it before, but I hadn’t been sure what kind of store it was, they didn’t seem to be selling anything, and there were pictures of happy families all over it, along with cars and an airplane in the sky, I’d thought maybe it was a travel agency. It turned out to be more like a bank than anything, except that there were no desks in the main part of the room, all of the desks were behind the tellers, and all of the tellers were behind very thick windows. Francis went first, he showed me how, he cashed his check and took the cash and put it in his wallet, he said he was that much closer to getting his hands on a decent camera, he said that would be his salvation, he said once people could see what he could do with a camera he wouldn’t be a wage slave any more. I cashed my check, too, then, and since it was for only one week, instead of two, and since money had been taken out for my uniform, and sincethere were taxes and fees involved, the number was very low, I didn’t receive much cash. Francis noticed this, he noticed the disappointment on