Chapter One
First off, my name. It really is DanOmanno Dingo. A moniker that
caused me all sorts of trouble while growing up. However, you dear reader, may call me
DanO. And proudly, I’m now a duly certified and professional Dumpster Diver
thanks to one man who you shall meet shortly! Now, truth be told, I’m not
really sure on the exact date I decided I was cut for this sort of work, but I
can tell you the year. It was early on in 2013 that a particularly nasty and
prolonged sinus condition strangely helped launch a new found career into the
depths of what was otherwise a very odoriferous environment. A world that thanks
to a perpetually stuffed nose, I could not sense very well at the time.
It was my first encounter
with, and subsequent learning experience from, a rather strange man that is the
subject of this story. Like most major changes in life, Dumpster Diving or DD began
by a chance encounter. Thinking back, I remember that it was a very warm early
afternoon in June with the weather just beginning to show signs of the hotness
of the summer that was to come. I had stopped at local eatery to escape the
moist and tepid still air that is so often part of the Ozarks, even in the spring.
Some air conditioning and a cold beer were foremost on my mind as I drove
towards the parking lot. Even at such an early afternoon hour, a thin veneer of
sweat had formed on my upper lip as I urged my poorly maintained, but still running,
Jeep down the main street of town. A popup shower had just gone through and
steam could be seen rising vertically from the pavement. This made my drive
that day, even a bit more surreal than normal. As so often happens in south Central Missouri, you can get brief thunderstorms where
winds blow the rain every which way and then voila, it’s gone and you’re left
with only a slowly rising mist as a reminder. Overhead, the sun was once again making its
presence known as it peeked hotly through thinning clouds and already small
spots of perspiration began to show through my cotton polo shirt. (A shirt I
had bought on sale years ago and which now bore many of the same signs of
age as the rest of my 55 year old body - wrinkled with some brown spots here and there).
“Great”, I thought to myself
as I parked my Jeep, stepped out and headed for the front entry. “Memo to
self”, I muttered. “I gotta get that frigg’in AC fixed.” Jeeps were well known
for two things in my book; great air conditioning - when they worked - and
every penny you had when they didn’t.
As I walked slowly across the
steamy lot, I wondered if there might not be a moral in there somewhere – bad
AC and something about the government - and then the thought left my mind as
quickly as it came. Another sign of encroaching senility? I headed towards the entrance
while punching the lock button on my key. A chirping sound behind my back
insured that my auto was locked. (Not that there was really anything inside it
worth stealing). ‘Cold beer and colder air’, were my only thoughts as I walked
slowly through a curtain of fog…
I’d selected this particular
restaurant, café, food emporium (or what ever you might want to call it),
because it was close to my home. You know, just doing my little part for the
environment by saving on gas. (Actually, that was not true. I stopped there
because of its name – Charlimpea).
Truth be told, from the outside the place appeared a little (maybe a
lot) run down. The marquis indicated it to be a steak and ale joint (there was
even a picture of a big slab of steak). The name was Charlimpea’s Steak House. That
word Charlimpea, if I recalled correctly, was Indonesian slang for ‘smelly
armpit’. I smiled as I wondered who had missed that connection when they named
the joint). Hey everyone! We serve smelly armpit steaks here!
As I sauntered in, I noticed
that the establishment also supported a rather modest bar. I also immediately
discerned that things seemed just a little bit out of kilter. Nothing
looked square or true. It was as though the builder had depended more on wishful
thinking than in any actual skill with a hammer and saw. ‘T-square? He’d
exclaim, what’s that?’
As I opened the door and
crossed the threshold, the atmosphere went from overly bright sunlight to a
subdued but much cooler murkiness. (The kind of bad light you get when looking
for a lost sock under your bed). I stood there a moment as my eyes adjusted and
took in what appeared to be a cheap painted plywood bar top that was only marginally
complimented by a line of squat looking barstools. I thought in passing that the
bar itself was so poorly constructed, that even the stools looked a little out
of place. As though even they didn’t really want to be there, but being as they
were dead objects, they had no choice.
Now suddenly unsure of myself,
my eyes quickly swept the rest of the establishment. While the eating section
off to my left appeared brightly lit and modern, the bar area itself reminded
me more of that dark hold in movie called ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’.
A rather sinister place with wet and oily walls. A place where old Bootstrap Bill had grown into and become part of the ship. After a moment’s hesitation, I
thought what the hell. Charlimpea’s was, after all, still a watering hole. A
man’s oasis where one could grab a cold one and enjoy some time out of the
heat.
Searching for an unoccupied
stool, I took note that in spite of the early hour, the venue was occupied by three
rather seedy looking men. Two of them sat close together, fingers clinging
furtively to their beer steins. (A mannerism that somehow reminded me of condemned
prisoners who are waiting for a last minute reprieve). The other man sat by himself off to the left. One of the two turned
toward me as I entered. I noticed that he had a rather bad tic that
involved his left eyelid causing it to appear he was winking at me like mad. By the glint of
it, I realized in all probability that eye was also made of glass. As he continued to star at me, winking at a really good clip,
I was unsure as how to react. Was there some form of Morse code going on here?
One winky-dinky if by land, two if by sea, three you get screwed by Blinky and Lee?
The man next to him (Lee perhaps?) was just visible over Blinky’s shoulder. From
the way his eyes were skewed at various angles, I was pretty sure his elevator
was also stuck somewhere between floors. I quickly dismissed the idea of
sitting by either one.
A bit closer to where I was
standing, the third man sat with his back to me, head slowly bobbing up and
down like one of those drinking toy birds. “What kind of place have I wandered
into?” I thought candidly. I stood there for a moment, now unsure which end of
the bar to move to. Life can be so perplexing at times.
Picking what I felt was the
lesser of two evils; I elected to choose a stool next to the solitary man on
 |
| A poor sketch I made of Mr. B |
the left. Being careful to keep both eyes wide open as I didn’t want a careless
blink to go noticed by Blinky, I sat down next to the person I now thought of
as Mr. Bobblehead. On closer inspection, I was able to tell that he too was a little
misshapen by the fact that one shoulder was seemed about an inch or so higher than the
other. As a result, Mr. Bobblehead had a bit of a natural lean to him that
brought him even closer than I would have liked. I squirmed around in my seat and
tried to compose myself. It was at that point that I also discovered a rather
annoying sound coming from his vicinity. Faintly at first, then not so faintly,
I could hear him as he nursed his beer. Every time he took a long slurp, his
head would bob up a bit and then go back down for another go. I stood there for
a moment just watching. His head would go down, then up, then back down again.
Each cycle punctuated by a loud sluuurp! I quickly found this to be very
annoying…
As I tried to settle into my
bar stool, a very slight breeze coming from his direction gave me my first
whiff of what could best be described as ‘eu-de-dumpster’. A sickeningly sweet
smell that was a serious miasmal onslaught to even my impacted nasal cavity. Even
with an allergy, the smell that got through was akin to sticking ones nose into
a diaper gone really bad. I’ll admit right now, I did not find that first encounter
with this strange man very pleasant and made a mental note, then and there, to move
a few more stools down when the first opportunity presented itself.
Still, trying my best to be
sociable (this due to my stellar upbringing), I turned and tried to exchange
pleasantries with a man I had begun to think of as Mr. Diaper DooDoo Bobblehead.
In actually, I learned his real name was Denny. (I made a mental note, though
to hold the other name in reserve, just in case].
Denny, it seemed, was a
regular ‘barfly’ at Charlimpea’s. (A fact that was also visually confirmed after
I observed six or seven real flies buzzing around his head). He was also
definitely the source of the diaper gone overboard smell. I surmised that the
poor man must be down on his luck and was intrigued in spite of myself. “Howdy there partner”, I
threw out in a lackluster attempt at cordiality. As I was talking, I slowly edged
as far to the right of my stool as I could.
“Let me guess. You’re in
what? Waste management?” As I asked this, I could not resist sporting a
lope-sided grin while holding my nose between the tips of two fingers..
After no answer was
immediately forthcoming, I shrugged and turned to order a top of the shelf beer.
The bartender, who had been standing patiently
across from me, immediately brought me the selected libation. Her name, I
learned, was Brandi. (As Brandi timidly presented my cold brew, I surmised her
to be something of a local strumpet. I also surmised she was not used to a high
roller like me). Beer now firmly in hand, I gave her a quick, (yet disinterested)
smile without trying to appear rude.
“My name is DanO, but you can
call me Dan Oh-Oh-Oh”, I said as I stuck my finely toned right arm her way and
visually contorted my face. (This subtle play on words and the cute way I
visually faked an orgasm was usually a sure ice-breaker). Not so much this
time, though…
Brandi took my hand in hers
and shook it up and down. (Actually, I felt her handshake was a little too
mechanical and was strangely reminded of a robot with a short circuit somewhere
deep in its cold metallic innards).
“Up and down, up and down.
I’m sure hoping this lady runs down”, I thought laconically as she continued to
vigorously pump my arm for all she was worth. I also noticed her eyes hungrily taking
in the expanse of my rock hard and tautly-tanned biceps. Inwardly, I smiled as
I was used to this kind of response from girls like her. I then disengaged my
hand as quickly as I could. (As a practicing Adonis, I do take good care of the
finely tuned corvette that is my body. Most women, poor creatures that they
are, were always eager to consume my precious fluids. Something I had to be
constantly on the alert for.)
“Thanks for the Samuel Adams”,
I offered and then turned my eyes downward while waving one hand in casual
dismissal. Brandi, now no longer needed, walked down the length of the bar to
do whatever it is that people like her do when they can no longer converse with
people like me. I took a sip of beer and then looked over to my new found, if
somewhat septic, bar companion.
I’ll admit, much later, that
my interest was peaked by a number of this man’s unusual attributes. There were
those flies for one thing, and that all pervasive smell. Finally, one had to
consider the unique way in which he consumed his beverage. It was a moist
sucking sound. A sound like nothing I’d ever heard before. A sound I could
imagine a mosquito would make if you could somehow amplify it as it went about its
business of sucking a person’s blood. A slow, wet hungry sound like a straw
makes as it probes, in vain, the bottom of an empty glass. It was a sound that
could easily drive you nuts.
In an effort to make him stop
for a moment, I asked Denny what he did for a living. He raised
his hand an angled it towards me in a wave off motion. The slurping noise
stopped and as his head turned towards mine, he belched loudly. A new odor
wafted my way causing my eyes to water briefly. I turned in his direction.
“I like diving into dumpsters
and the one out back is a real favorite!” He made that statement as though I
would instantly understand and agree. Then, he eyed his now empty glass of
beer. “Hey bud, you want a buy me a beer?” A bushy eyebrow went up with the
inquiry. He was now turned fully towards me with an empty glass held out in
front of my face as though challenging me to fill it. All the while, flies made
slow orbits around his head.
“Like yeah, that’s just not
going to happen”, I thought as I mentally considered my options. I knew that if
I bought him another drink, that horrible slurping noise would resume! Did I
want to even endure that? I wasn’t sure. I also wasn’t sure if I wanted him to
be anything other than a stranger. As the silence stretched on, a couple of his
flies must have decided that I too looked pretty good and headed my way.
“I got a better idea” I said,
avoiding the issue altogether. “How’s about we check out that dumpster? You
said there’s a good one here?” I asked somewhat flippantly.
“I’ve never seen anyone go
through garbage before.” A grin spread across my face as I was sure the odd
fellow would decline the invite. To my surprise, he got off his stool and
headed for the door. “Sure – follow me, bud” he said over his shoulder. I
shrugged, finished the last of my beer and ambled to the door.
[End Chapter One]
Authors note: Will there be a Chapter Two? I dunno as I'm a very slow writer. Check back with me in another three years...
