Besides the frequent rain, it drizzled constantly, and the nights were different too. It was light. Maybe because of the moon reflecting off the tinfoil, there were shiny surfaces everywhere, glass, sheet metal … at night you could see. It was bright. Silhouettes of trash heaps undulated through the Dump, so this was the sea I’d finally reached, not much murmuring, no waves crashing, one over the other, going forward, going nowhere … but underneath, the Dump was alive, sometimes it erupted, once I saw a fire break out, breach a trail, but since everything was soggy with moisture from the rain, the fires never spread, they only smoldered out … here and there a cloud of smoke would pass over the Dump, it occurred to me there might be some new creatures being born … out of the chemicals … some new thing … some kina dragon.
I found out what Stick’d been getting at about the Dump changing after a rain … after a real downpour the surface changed, at least where I was … paper mountains flattened under its weight, in other spots the surface swelled … where there used to be pieces of orange stuff now there was slimy muck, even the trails changed, but I didn’t go out much. At least the rain drove off the bugs.
But there tended to be a lotta mud on those trails.
Occasionally I stopped by Vulture’s, sat around the fire. Listened. Same stories here as at the station, even met a guy who’d hung out with Gramps for a time … but these people weren’t as frenzied … there wasn’t so much movement, there were even families here. From what I could get, the mysterious Mr. Jasuda had something like a police force … people with kids weren’t scared anymore … Vulture told me he’d been one of the first to come to the Dump, back when people used to get jumped.
But there were still plenty of wild people here, a guy could never be sure. And I didn’t have anything to take in hand, I’d thrown it away. Lost it. Not anymore, I’d told myself.
Oughta lay down a rope at least … so ya can always find yer spot, Vulture suggested. But I kina hang out all over, I said. Sometimes on my way back from the fire I’d take a detour on purpose, there was no need for anyone to know where I was. If there was a string they could find me. Mr. Jasuda. Or someone. No, thank you very much. Not anymore.
I kept playing around with magazines. Tearing out pictures of stuff and people, along with their names. In the head of lettuce I’d pulled from the pit were slugs, repulsive little things. I wondered if I threw them into one of those gurgling orange pools whether they’d grow into mutants. That’s the kind of crazy stuff I thought about. But I kept quiet.
Food. I hadn’t eaten so much since the days of the Organization. I fed myself even when I didn’t have an appetite. I used to be a dancer, knew how to leap high. But now I dragged. The green of my jacket merged with the colors of the Dump. Here the mountain patrol in all likelihood would’ve been at a total loss. It was a colorful world. In that, it resembled the world in the magazines. I lounged around the barrels stuffing myself. No longer tortured myself with thoughts of Černá. Sometimes I’d see us making love. Sometimes I’d call up the silkiness of her skin. It didn’t matter that two of my toenails had fallen off and the skin on my palms was peeling. I lay there sated, and on those increasingly rare truly warm days I’d strip naked and lie in the sun. It fed me too.