Community Service

[Martin Hash]

My son, Haven, doesn’t do real well with authoritarian bureaucracies: any little violation tends to snowball into…

I guess some ID-sophisticated bouncer at a local college hangout caught Haven’s phony Driver’s license, and confiscated it. “That cost me 80 bucks,” Haven complained to the bouncer. “At least the website I bought it at guarantees it, and will give me my money back. Could you write me a note that you took it?”

“I’ll do better than that,” the bouncer replied.

Haven was able to escape the police cruiser they sent for him, but I got a call at 5:30am from Officer Richardson wanting to speak to Haven. I told him I didn’t know where he lived, or his telephone number, and that, anyway, “I don’t have a son named Haven WHO WOULD PUT HIS REAL NAME ON A PHONY ID.” The officer told me he could find Haven on his own.

Apparently, the school, Washington State University in Pullman, shares its student’s personal information with the police department, and visa versa, because we then got a letter from WSU Admissions stating that Haven MUST attend a Censor Hearing on the Monday after school started or he would be expelled from school.

Haven’s caseworker wanted Haven to admit to using a phony ID, but I did not raise an idiot for a son: he confessed to stealing a candy bar in the Fifth grade but “What phony ID?” Apparently, stealing candy bars has a penance of 10 community service hours and an essay on “What I Learned from this Experience,” that were due to be completed three months hence. The paper Haven did at 2:00am the day it was due but he still needed another hour of picking up trash on the roadside, and those Censor people were serious about expulsion, so Haven cajoled a cute gal at Campus Maintenance to please give him an hour. They didn’t have an hour for him but she told Haven the guy who ran the on-campus recycling station would give him a day’s work.

The size of the WSU Recycle Yard would be surprising to most people who usually don’t even know it exists. It’s a multi-acre chain-length fenced enclosure filled will refuse and garbage. The old guy running the place gave Haven a 40-count box of 50-gallon Toughman trash bags and told him to get started. Haven didn’t need to ask any questions because it was a windy day and loose debris was flying everywhere. Three hours later Haven had his own mountain of filled black trash bags.

The old man looked at the 8 foot stack of bags, then told Haven to “Ride with Jimmy in the loader,” and pointed to a garbage truck that was currently dumping its load, a pile of stinking garbage, which a Caterpillar bulldozer pushed into a giant mound. Haven got into the passenger seat of the garbage truck: Jimmy nodded. Haven nodded back, then the truck lurched forward and they began pick-ups. It’s amazing how much garbage accumulates on a university campus in one day: They threw desks and chairs, as well as foodstuffs into the truck’s hopper and crushed everything together. When full, they’d drive back and unload. After a few trips, the old man told Haven, “Jimmy has to go early. You go pick up the last three stops.” Haven had never driven a garbage truck. In fact, he hadn’t driven at all in four months, and he didn’t know exactly where these three stops were, but he lurched and grinded the truck around campus, asking directions, loading, and finally returned back to the yard. It took him a few minutes to figure out how to get the dump bed to lift, but eventually the garbage truck was empty. Since Haven didn’t know what else to do, he went back to filling 50-gallon Toughman trash bags with loose paper.

Later, the old guy showed up again. He watched Haven for a while then said, “Use that Cat there to push those bags into the main mound.” The old man pointed at the bulldozer. Hardly surprised anymore, Haven got on the bulldozer, and after some experimenting with the levers, and a couple false starts, he got the job done.

By this time it was time to go. Haven waited for the old man to sign his “Community Hours” card. As Haven was leaving, the old man said after him, “You get tired of your studies boy, you come back here – I’ll give you a job.”