Day 135 - Garbage Story

Garbage Story

Matthew Ryan Fischer

Ronnie was terrible at cards and had almost no luck to speak of, but during most nights there were very few entertainment options available. Ronnie didn’t understand percentages or probability and was a rotten bluffer. Most of the other guys told him he had plenty of ‘tells’ and should just save him money and not play. Most nights he agreed. But every so often he needed the interaction. A couple of books and some old movies were hardly enough entertainment. He had been told that life on the platform would be monotonous and that some people couldn’t handle it. Ronnie wasn’t a lonely sort, often welcoming time alone when he was mainland. The confined spaces weren’t as bad as he had been told, and he didn’t mind the smells that came with them, either. But he did have to admit, now that he was nearing the end of his six month contract, he was starting to go a little stir crazy. Playing late night poker wasn’t a bad way to pass the time, but the whiskey sure helped.

Ronnie worked security, which meant he wasn’t considered “essential personnel.” Most of the other guys didn’t hold that against him. He was a fun guy and knew enough dirty jokes, and clearly didn’t mind giving away a fair share of his paycheck. Nobody asked where he had come from or why he had signed on for the type of work that he had. Most of the guys on the platform had something mainland they wanted to get away from. A lot of times they had no place else to go and no one to make them miss home. Operations and management just assumed Ronnie was the same. The only real question was, why choose security? Six months at a time in the middle of the ocean could be bad, and the work came with a fair share of dangers, but the pay would more that make up for it – especially if there was an unexpected discovery where every “essential” would share in the windfall and take home a percentage bonus check. But security carried no such perks. The work was easier and often times safer, but there were no bonuses and just as many lifestyle hardships.

Nobody asked Ronnie though; they all assumed he had a reason not to want to be currently continental.

Most of Ronnie’s days were spent on the platform, touring the facilities, taking inventory, things like that. The rig was designed to be mostly self-sufficient. There were the electrical generators and water desalinators, and all the equipment necessary to process whatever the scavengers turned up. There wasn’t a lot to really keep an eye on, but the corporation thought it was necessary. At peak performance there could be close to 150 employees at work. There was nothing to really steal from the corporation and nowhere to go except miles of ocean, but fights did break out the further into the season it got. Ronnie’s main function was to act like a bouncer at a bar, but without any authority or way to enforce anything. He didn’t even get a gun. There was a back room that could double as a holding cell, but nobody ever got locked away. No security was every going to lock a guy up that had a hundred other friends waiting to step up and watch his back. All he could do was write a report. And all that would happen with that would be a piece of paper in a personnel file somewhere. The platform workers didn’t care about that. Management didn’t care about that. A worker willing to spend the time on the rig was a worker worth having. Unless he killed another man, no barroom brawl was going to keep him from working the next day. Of course the “essentials” didn’t remind Ronnie of this lack of power too much, but everybody knew it.

There was another guy who shared in the duties and they took turns taking the patrol boat out for an afternoon at sea. Ronnie didn’t get along with Dax at all. He was a lazy worker who talked too much without having anything to say. He was bad at his job and was clearly doing this because he would have been incompetent at any other job on the rig. Ronnie preferred the drillers and scavengers, even if they did take too much of his money at cards. He had nothing but respect for men that did their job, did it well, and knew how to keep quiet about it.

The offshore platform was owned and operated by the North Pacific Gyre Reclamation Company. The ocean currents had been bringing together tons and tons of trash for decades upon decades. It could be argued that this was an ecological nightmare. It could be argued that the NoPaG was an ecological savior. Or at least that’s what some of the TV commercials said. The ads never said who awarded them the contracts or what they were really doing with all the material they collected. Nobody cared that much about trash islands in the middle of the oceans.

One afternoon a perimeter sensor was tripped five miles south east of the platform. Dax was already out, haven taken the northern patrol. Ronnie could have waited for Dax to return or he could have called it in to platform 37 and had someone there go out and take a look. It was probably nothing. Usually the sensors got tripped from a bird landing on the patch or possibly a larger sea creature had run into it. It was usually nothing. Cameras didn’t show anything, but that wasn’t always reliable. NoPaG was notoriously cheap and didn’t have nearly enough cameras or sensors to watch the entire gyre. Whatever it was, Ronnie felt like he needed some open space. He took the platform’s AHTS and went to investigate. It would probably be a waste of fuel, but the corporation wouldn’t be forgiving if there really was a reason for the alarm and Ronnie didn’t investigate. Worst case, they might dock his pay a little, but that didn’t usually happen.

The cool ocean breeze felt good on Ronnie’s face. The AHTS was slow, but Ronnie didn’t mind. He was in no rush to make his rounds and end up back on the platform. He welcomed this trip and the moment of freedom.

Ronnie always marveled at the sight of the trash island. It stretched far and away and got lost in the distance. Most of it was worthless debris – any bit of junk that could float. There was always a lot of plastic. Cans, ropes, tires, broken up chunks of former appliances and tools and furniture. And lots and lots of plastics. Ronnie didn’t know what NoPaG was hoped to find out here, but there sure was enough to sift through.

He saw the other boat before he got within range of the sensor perimeter. Rummagers. They were probably rummagers there to thrift and recycle. Or at least that’s what he hoped, anyway. They sure didn’t look like looters or pirates. Maybe he’d be lucky and they’d just be some college idealists, there to make a protest or take a stand for the environment. There wasn’t much too really do out here anyway and no one to see them do it. Idealists usually got bored and left before anything could really happen. Worst case he might be called names or filmed or have something thrown at him. That would be easy.

They made no effort to escape as he pulled up next to their boat. He was hoping that would have been enough. Nobody mainland knew that security was so underequipped and usually just being spotted would scare the less daring away. Ronnie didn’t know what he could use as leverage if they really pushed him.

A man was on board the other ship and Ronnie called out to him.

“You know I could have you arrested, right?”

“For what?” he called back.

“This is private property.”

“Oh.”

It was a dull ignorant grunt of a response. The man clearly had no idea this garbage patch was private property. For a minute they just stared at each other. Ronnie noticed how gaunt and withered the man was – he was clearly underfed and sickly.

“So are you going to move along? Or—?” Ronnie let his sentence trail off and just hang there, as if a real threat had been made. The man seemed to vaguely understand the implication.

“Clarissa! We gotta go, honey!”

Then they appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, obviously from the trash. They were young and small and old and many. Clarissa must have been the man’s wife, but there were so many men and women Ronnie lost track and couldn’t tell who was who. And they were all so thin. Their bones stuck out and they looked like death. It made Ronnie a little queasy if he looked them in the eyes. He had no idea what they had hoped to find or how they could all possibly fit on a boat so small.

“We don’t want trouble, mister. Please. We’re just trying to get by.”

Ronnie nodded. He understood all too well. He had never been a beggar or an outcast, but he had been close, too close. There was something wrong back on the mainland and there were too many people that looked like these people looked. He didn’t miss that at all. He would gladly work another six months straight with no break if he didn’t have to look at these people again.

“You don’t have to report us, do you? We won’t take anything. We just want to go. Okay mister?”

Ronnie was silent, not really looking at the man anymore, lost somewhere in his own failed past.

“Okay mister?” the man repeated.

When Ronnie got back Dax was in the break room, having returned from his patrol.

“I heard a sensor got tripped. Anything?”

Ronnie had never had much of a poker face. He didn’t need much of a poker face to handle a situation like this.

“Nothing. It was nothing at all.”