Dating : The Garbageman’s Tale

Jake felt he was smart, but he never had the focus or desire to excel in school, and by the time he realized his mistake his grades weren’t good enough for college, and that was that. While the regret of what might have been nagged at him, he was happy. He married a wonderful woman, and his son was this magical combination of his and wife’s strengths and none of their weaknesses.

It was Jake’s life mission to provide his son, Robert, with all he needed to succeed. Jake was a garbageman and had been for 20 years. His seniority and the stability made it the perfect vehicle for him to deliver his son his dreams, and while robots and artificial intelligence had laid waste to jobs over the past fifty years, people still needed garbagemen because humanity had apparently never learned to place waste in actual waste recepticals. It was dirty work. Shitty work. But it was work with a paycheck. Good work. And, in the end, his dreams were his son’s dreams.

So you can imagine Jake’s shock and disappointment when his 12 year old son told him he wanted to be a garbageman. But Jake was a good guy, and he heard his son out.

“I know you’re proud of me, and I’m touched by that, son, but why would you want to be a garbageman? You can be anything. You can achieve anything. I do what I do so you can achieve whatever you want to be. No one wants to be a garbageman.”

It was night, and the sky glittered as Bobby looked up and answered without glancing at his dad. “I asked in school about the stars in the sky and how I want to visit them, and the teacher laughed and said that they weren’t stars, they were dead satellites and atmospheric garbage reflecting light from the sun. We haven’t been able to see real stars for decades.”

Jake waited for the rest of the story, but Bobby had stopped talking and was just staring at the countless pinpricks of light in the sky. “So you want to be an astronaut?”

“No!” Bobby lowered his head and looked at his dad. “I want to be a garbageman. I want to see the stars and the teacher said that the only one who could possibly do that would be the person who would eventually clean up the garbage in the sky.” He smiled with a pride that broke Jake’s heart. “So I want to be that person. I’ll live in the lights in the sky and clean up the garbage.” With an assured clarity that Jake didn’t have until he was in his twenties, Bobby added, “I want to be a garbageman.”

Jake knew that there are dreams and there are dreams. Being in space is a dream. Being an astronaut is a dream. Seeing the stars is a dream. Being the garbageman in space is, well, just a dream. You don’t aspire to that. You settle for that. So Jake spent the next decade guiding Bobby to a dream.

He celebrated each step with an enthusiasm that was part living vicariously the life he never had and a larger part of pure paternal pride. Bobby graduated summa cum laude from high school, and Jake knew he was making a difference when Bobby told him he wanted to go to the Air Force Academy. “I’m going to be a pilot dad, and then I’ll be an astronaut.”

An astronaut? Now that’s a dream. Jake smiled. His son hadn’t mentioned being a garbageman in years.

And when his son graduated from the Academy with high honors, Jake was even more proud when weeks later Bobby was accepted into the astronaut program. The only trouble was that there hadn’t been manned space travel in decades. The pandemic and then wars and the intervening launch of satellite after satellite made manned space travel not only not a priority but increasingly dangerous. As a result, Jake’s pride and support of Bobby’s dream was moving to the practical part of wondering if his son had reached too high.

Bobby again excelled in his training, and when he was ready to fly into space… there were no spacecraft to fly. Still, Bobby was nothing but smiles after a few years of working as a domestic pilot.

At Thanksgiving years later, Jake sat at the head of the table thinking that maybe he did a good job after all. His son was flying. He seemed happy. And, most importantly, he wasn’t cleaning up other people’s slop.

“How’s flying, son?” Jake asked. Bobby loved talking about flying, and his enthusiasm for his life and the joy of being in the air with nothing but clouds and wind around him made every conversation a joy.

“I actually pulled back on my routes.” Bobby didn’t elaborate, which was odd, so Jake pushed a bit.

“Finally found a girl?” Jake smiled.

“I’m 37, dad. I sure hope I don’t find a girl.”

“You know what I mean. You settling down? Don’t tell me you’re looking to start a family. Your mother may have a heart attack right here and now.” Jake’s wife just shook her head. She was the quiet one in the family, but she was also the one the practical one, who kept everything together through thick and thin. One way she did that was to just let the boys have their fun while she pretended to ignore them.

“Actually, there’s a new technical program. I’ll be looking at re-entry points, mechanics, and deconstructing things so it can be done safely. It’s mostly ground work while we work out the details.” Bobby looked up and gave his dad a grin. “I’ll be getting my hands dirty. You’ll like that.”

“Well, nothing wrong with good old-fashioned work, that’s for sure. So let me see if I got this right.” Jake was smart, but he wasn’t educated. Still, he liked to make his son feel comfortable at being smart and educated, so Jake would often seed conversations that let his son know that, although Jake didn’t know what the hell he was talking about, he was still interested. It was a game they had honed over the years. “You’re going to be helping with building a better airplane?”

“Something like that,” Bobby replied, and then he changed the subject.

A year later, Jake was diagnosed with liver cancer about the same time Bobby was transferred to a new operating unit in his company. Apparently, the job was incredibly competitive, and the likelihood of Bobby getting ahead were very slim.

Bobby would visit his dad, and in those moments Jake made the conversation positive and uplifting for his son. After all, his life was never about him. “Look, son. We’re fighting the same battle.”

“C’mon, Dad. It’s not the same battle. You’re fighting cancer. I’m applying for a job. Let me be here for you.”

“Nonsense. We’ll be there for each other. Now tell me about this ‘zero gravity decommisioning test.’”

And that was that.

Two weeks later, Jake was surprised by a mid-week visit from Bobby. Jake had declined quickly, and was in a hospice, but, as always, his worries didn’t define his life. Bobby’s happiness did. So when his son came in looking sad, Jake sat up, ignored the pain, and patted his bed.

“Sit down, son. What’s wrong?”

“You okay, Dad? You look like you’re in pain. Should I call a nurse?”

“You be quiet. I’m fine. You tell me what’s wrong.”

Bobby stared at his dad, but Jake was happy to see his son knew better than to fight back. Jake never did let it become about him.

Finally, Bobby spoke up. “So, I got the job, Dad.”

“No way!” Jake sat up higher and lifted his hand. “High five for my boy!” Bobby smiled and gave his dad a gentle high five. “So I’m not saying I’m just a dumb garbageman, but maybe you can explain what the heck it is that you’ll be doing. It’s possible that I didn’t quite grasp everything with all that talk of sub-orbital deceleration.”

Bobby shook his head at his dad’s light-hearted modesty. “What can I say, Dad. My dream came true. I’m going to be a garbageman.”

Jake had the smallest hint of a frown form on his face, but he recovered quickly. “What do you mean?”

Jake knew Bobby couldn’t possibly mean garbageman but he said the word and something from long long ago tickled his memory but it was confusing and Jake had to admit that the cancer medicine did make things a bit muddled and all he really wanted was for Bobby to be happy and if that meant he was a garbageman then that was okay and by the way Jake was a damn good garbageman so Bobby would be that much better and work is work and dammit he just wanted Bobby to be as happy as he was and nothing made him happier than Bobby being happy so maybe that’s all he needed to know —

“Dad?”

“Yes, son. I’m just surprised. What will you be doing again?”

That irrepressible smile emerged from sadness. “I’ll be flying into space and working to remove dead satellites dad. There are thousands of them, and cleaning them up is a world-wide initiative. I’m leading a team that will be clearing the skies. We’ll be able to fly into space again. Imagine that, we’ll be able to see the stars again. Real stars. Not just satellites.”

“That’s amazing, Son.” And it was.

Bobby’s tone changed. “But I’ll have to be away for months, Dad. I’m leaving next week.”

“Well, then. I’ll just have to make sure I’m around when you get back.”