The Bins
Autofiction
My chest is heavy with the winds of America, the America, not the place, the mythology. The favorable aroma lingers knowing well there is no nutrition there. Los Angeles was a lollipop, a saccharine distraction that shaped my late youth and early adulthood. It was gum stuck under my Goodwill bin flats. A stickered toolbox designed to sever instinctual productivity with its goo-glamour. Who the hell cares, a deep echo clings as the cry of a mosquito finding his light knowing damn well. Anyone who hit the pavement had to either kiss the blistering asphalt or do three push ups depending on their physique and the mercy of the circumstances. The sun’s suspension is only delicately framed there; elsewhere, it is not as opaque as I swore to be many times.
The look of his eyes, locking his car he knew how to compliment a woman. I come here a lot and spend whole days here. You are the most beautiful I have ever seen, meaning I can be dethroned any day a higher-ranking woman strolls in and catches his eye. Also, which women come to the bins on North San Fernando Road?
That hot day I wore a backless, dark grey cotton dress, ropes to tie in the back, hem above the knees, knowing well why I chose that neoliberal grey: so I can be a walking liminal space, eventless architecture; sad, safe and deeply political. You find a 00s department store cotton dress; all stretch, all give; and think you can finally rest your heavy head on the softest pillow for a thousand years.
Every bin was the beginning of a worldview. It turned out to be one of the joys of moving to Echo Park, approaching a twisted dependence, as objects became permissions and digging felt like I had claws. To act like I was surviving; its loyalty became a home. The imagined strength in the gesture told me that if I found the right hidden gem, the right organic blend, I might reach so deep I’d retrieve my unevolved tailbone and howl like my ancestors, victoriously. No, not really. What is closer to reality is that you are a developing country’s stray dog whose tail would be cut off in three months, right ear pierced and marked with an orange tag 124543. You will glimpse the dream from afar, sweating in a podunk room, as debt collectors call about a Victoria’s Secret charge you never made, and a parking ticket you definitely did.
Around that time, everybody was slipping out of LA just as I was ready to go. They said it was written astrologically, that the city would stay darkly vacant for the upcoming years and since my leave, I barely heard anything remarkable from there, partly because I have not asked for it. The places I knew easily became silhouettes of their symbols, as if suddenly there was a wave of abandonment.
The bins were a case analysis spot for all participants unless you were metaphysically transformed by the hunt that even a tap on the shoulder made you jump. People from different countries announced their thick accents with jackpot excitement. Resellers and upcyclers clustered like birds of prey, forming an invasive circle around the new bin introduced.
We bought a faux fur tiger pillow with crooked whiskers, it once lived on the twin bed of a 12-year-old redhead in Carson City who slept beside motocross posters and had dreams too detailed for his age. A red Intimissimi thong slithered out from under a tangle of scarves. Triple-strap, hip-snaking, it came with the phantom of a masseuse turned yacht chef, who now marinated fish with citrus oil and told the same three jokes to rich men named Kyle. The Wolford bodysuit felt like a portal. Pop-futurist zigzag, cashmere blend, discreet buckle that slided my but cheeks a little too deep to my liking. A blonde freestyle skier wore it once, she had a lazy eye and a perfect voice for commercials about hydration. The boxing gloves were heavy and cracked, velcro frayed like an old sentence. They didn’t scream rage, they whispered resignation. Zadie in her thirties punched like she was praying.
How am I supposed to know all of this, I don’t. Somewhere between the cracked gloves and the triple-strap underwear, I forgot what I came here to forget. I just press the washing machine button and get rid of all that dirt while it bangs against the walls.