Alan Gutierrez

Alan Gutierrez blogs on software, social networks, and himself.

Subscrive Via RSS Feed
« Burn Your Feed Reader: How to Make Sure Your Feed Reader Is Always At Reader Zero Fuck »

St. Philip at Claiborne

A sanitation worker on St. Philip. He sweeps a Coke can into a dustpan at the end of long vacuum cleaner like handle. He drops the Coke can in to a rolling fifty gallon trash can. He rolls toward Derbingy St, back the way I came. I’m wondering if the rest of my walk to the French Quarter will be Coke can free.

More than half the structures on this block are abandoned, there are vacant lots on either side, the upriver sidewalk is overgrown and crumbling, tires are basking in the sun in puddles of mud, while the worker rolls onward in search of a particular type of refuse. Packaging, I assume.

The sidewalks reconstitute themselves as I approach Claiborne. They are solid. I imagine them to have just been throughly swept, although there are tell tale scraps of wrappers. At Claiborne I see a troop of men with brooms, bins and pans rolling along underneath I-10. I wonder why one man decided to make a detour down St. Philip.

(3) Comments

comments feed

  1. Comment by Jenny J on August 1st, 2008 at 6:38 am #
  2. susanh says:

    i enjoy this first person present narration. it’s such a good vehicle for immediacy. it’s as if you’re telling us a recent dream. not a very good one, but beautiful.

    Comment by susanh on August 14th, 2008 at 6:35 pm #
  3. Alan Gutierrez says:

    It’s a nice enough dream, really. St. Philip is for the most part present.

    I thought that encountering the man with the bin was happenstance, but I see them regularly now. I catch them at St. Philip and Claiborne. There is a corner store that serves plates. They must be good.

    Comment by Alan Gutierrez on August 20th, 2008 at 6:35 pm #

Leave a Reply