0835 hrs
Six people on bikes wait at the corner, seven, eight, nine. Traffic moves.
A man standing near the garbage can hails a taxi and gets inside. People are lined up on the concrete island in the middle of College Street, waiting for a streetcar.
A woman with a coffee cup passes the can but does not throw her coffee away. Her scarf is bright orange because it is October.
Three people walk past the can.
When the light turns green, the traffic moves. A man throws something into the can. The can is as wide as three people standing shoulder to shoulder. It is as tall as a man and a half. It is as fat as the man who threw something in, swerving toward the can, glancing, tossing in his trash. It looked less disgusting than with the older cans, where you have to touch the flaps.
A group of teenagers moves north across the street. A man in a motorized wheelchair drives along the bike lane. A man in a yellow sweater veers toward the can but does not throw anything in.
Is that Matthias?
A man wearing an orange jacket sweeps the street. He sweeps around the people waiting at the corner to cross. A man checking his change crosses ahead of the light and enters the diner. “How are you?” he says to the woman behind the counter. “Good,” she says, and pours him a coffee to go.
A woman with a stroller passes by the can. A girl in a green coat passes by the can. Three people wait on their bikes to cross. A girl crosses ahead of the light.
If I am here, and across the street is there, then across that street is the can.
A man gets off his bike as it glides along the sidewalk. A boy wears a hoodie that reads “Yankee 9.” The garbage can reads “New.” There are four Beck cabs in my view. A big woman dressed in white doesn’t throw anything into the can.
A man in a black coat throws nothing into the can. A man with a red bag passes by the can and glances at the can. No one else looks at the can.
There is a place for cigarette butts in the garbage can, but this woman smoking probably won’t cross the street to put her cigarette in the can.
Where are all the clients of the garbage can? It is less a can than two upright billboards sandwiched against a can.
It is easier to watch a can all day than to watch tv. Only now do I notice that the tv is on. It makes me feel less alone. People always interpret this as a good thing, but it’s not.
Where are all the patrons of the can?
A small Contracted Vehicle operated for the City of Toronto blows by on the sidewalk, sucking up a few leaves in its hose, like an elephant’s trunk or a nozzle.
The motorized vehicle is now on the other side of the street. It doesn’t appear to have picked up any trash. On the perimeter of the empty patio, outside the window of the diner, lie a plastic wrapper, a party flyer and a flattened pack of cigarettes, right where the motorized vehicle drove by. Perhaps the vehicle was depositing trash.
In the first busy hour of a Monday morning, one person has used the can. The hot-dog man opens up his black-and-yellow tent on the southwest corner of College and Bathurst, three metres from the can. He unfolds a folding table and pulls a bungee cord down.
No one approaches the can.
0930 hrs
A police car waits in the middle of the intersection. The hot-dog man is sweeping out his tent. No one touches the can.
A man throws something into the can! Now he is standing on the corner, looking into his hands. Like the first man who threw something into the can, this man carries a white plastic bag. It was easy for him to use the can.
A bird eats crumbs off the green picnic table outside the window. Its feet slide on the wood. It has a hair caught in its mouth. It shakes its head violently, like any of us would.
The contracted vehicle moves by here again. I think it must be blowing leaves; it has nothing to do with the trash. On the other side of the street, people swerve slightly to avoid the massive can, which juts out onto the sidewalk.
A woman in a yellow jacket throws nothing into the can. Another woman with hair from a hair commercial, all auburn and bouncing down her back, is on the wrong side of the street to throw anything into the can.
A woman with something in her hand walks past the can. A man strides confidently past the can.
A man with a dog move slowly past the can. He has a guitar on his back and his sunglasses are red.
An old woman walks past the can, like a penguin in a penguin movie. A girl cycles past the can. A streetcar turns east onto Bathurst.
I sit on the north side of the street, in the window of a diner. My teapot has been refilled with hot water. A tiny girl with a doughnut hops by on the end of her mother’s hand. She is nowhere near the can.
The diner is empty except for me, the woman at the counter and the people on the tv. The woman looks into the mirror behind the counter, undoes her hair, shakes it out and clips it back up again.
This man smoking a cigarette in front of the window probably won’t cross both streets to deposit his butt in the can.
The sky is clearing.
A man in a blue sweater picks up newspapers lying in the gutter. He holds a cigarette in his hand. Perhaps he is the operator of the now stationary, city-contracted vehicle. No, the operator is the man in the yellow vest with an X across the back. He climbs into the machine, a Madvac.
The bird has returned. It’s on the ground with a french fry. Now it’s on the table, now it’s on the bench seat, now it’s on the next table. It hops onto the bar separating the patio from the street and then hops off. It eats a leaf.
Of three people who pass the can, not one throws anything in.
The sky is mostly clear. Now there are shadows where there weren’t before. A bum appears, holding two shoes in one hand and a pair of bananas in the other.
A new street sweeper walks past the window. The people in the street have sunlight on their faces. The street sweeper sweeps up the leaves. His collection bag is very full. He does not avoid the garbage around the patio or inside the patio.
Now he drops his broom and sack, shakes open a billowy, transparent blue garbage bag, transfers the waste, ties the bag and throws it in front of a tree. He continues sweeping up.
A man I hoped would throw something into the can does not. The man with bananas picks up a butt. Lucky for him it wasn’t in the can.
A homeless man bends over and looks into the can, then moves around to the other side. I stand up, but a black minivan blocks him from sight, then I see him walk away. The most attention the can has received all morning, and I missed it.
1030 hrs
An old lady walks past the can. It is less a can than a billboard, bigger than a man, with receptacles for trash on either end. I hear a homeless man shout.
The 506 High Park car stops and people get on. People get on the second 506, which has just rolled up behind it, and the 511 Exhibition, which pulls up behind the first two. “Detour on Route” reads a black-and-yellow sign in its front window. The first car bears an ad for Spongebob Squarepants, which was the favourite show of the boy at the wedding last night.
A sign on the side of the garbage can explains how it works. Recyclables on top, cigarettes beneath that, waste beneath that. Twin girls in matching green outfits pass the window on the ends of their father’s arms.
A tall man walks past the can.
Garbage collects in the street. There’s more yelling from the homeless man, who sits outside the diner. The tv and the radio, on at the same time, are causing something beautiful to happen. The clouds move steadily across the sky.
Five cabs move through the intersection, six. A man strides by the can. A woman waits by the garbage can. Because of the subtlety of her gestures, I can’t tell whether she’s throwing something into the can.
The garbage on the patio includes a plastic cup, four wads of paper, the foil from a cigarette case, cigarette butts and a banana peel. I can count eight cigarettes from where I sit. If I lean my head into the window, I can see a styrofoam cup and one cigarette butt more. The city workers lean out of the way and let the streetcar pass. They are brushing leaves from the streetcar tracks. Dust billows brown in the road.
The leaves are being dug from the tracks like dirt from under a fingernail. The city workers get in their trucks and drive away.
I feel like I was a little irritating last night.
No one throws anything into the can.
