What's So Funny? Beware the alley folk

Certain alleys just have it. Maybe it’s the lighting. Maybe it has something to do with distance from major thoroughfares. I’m sure the property values of neighboring homes come into play as well, but maybe there’s something even more to it. Maybe there are secret markings like those employed by Great Depression hobos, signals unseen by the common man that say, “Here in this alley, brother, lay a bonanza of booty. Get out your biscuits; mop up this gravy train.”

For hobos always had biscuits.

Whatever it is, certain alleys in this city call out to the backdoor underbelly. Certain alleys summon the alley folk. And, as fate would have it, my alley is one of them.

I’m not saying there aren’t treasures to be found in my alley. I once found an original painting, inexplicably discarded, of two tiny Mexican wrestlers doing battle, one with an upside down cross on his forehead, the other unmistakably a demon chicken, or pollo demonico. I snagged that "Guernica" the second I saw it and it is now the signature piece of my garage’s ever-growing found-art display.

But I consider those prizes the exception to the rule. The bulk of the crap in the alley is just that: crap. And yet the alley folk continue to flock. One time I put out a box of used, broken Christmas ornaments and they were gone in under 20 minutes. I don’t know what the alley folk did with those, as I’m unfamiliar in the ways of meth, but it just affirms that old saying, “One’s man trash is another man going through your purple recycling bin, smiling at you with no teeth as visible trails of hepatitis drip from his lips to the lid.”

It was Confucius who said that.

But what Confucius neglected to point out is that these toothless, urban beachcombers apparently have standards. Standards that exclude the acquisition of soiled mattresses.

For shame, alley folk. Are you so vain?

The other day I opened my garage to find three mattresses blocking my exit. There are three dumpsters nearby and someone had simply set them by (not in) the dumpsters directly in front of my garage. I had to push the mattresses out of the way just to get out. Well, that was gross, I thought to myself, but at least the alley folk will make short work of that. But the next day the mattresses were still there, gathering dirt and leaves and rainwater. I noticed that there were more mattresses in the alley: two by another set of dumpsters and three more by another. It was as if everyone on the block had the same impulse to get a new mattress. That or some back-alley whorehouse got busted up. And yet still no help from the alley folk!

Daily I watched the progress, but there was none. When someone stacked a foam pad on top of the pile of mattress that essentially had become my property, I snapped. I wedged every soggy, sorry mattress into the dumpster next to it, freeing the half of my garage which had sat prisoner, then washed my hands for the better part of an hour, weeping. 

Then, lo, the very next day, every other mattress in the alley was gone. I kid you not. I figured it was the ironic timing of the alley gods, summoning large-item pickup the exact second I surrendered all hope. But when I surveyed the alley, I discovered all the other large items still remained: the piss-stained La-Z-Boy, grown so comfortable in the shade of the overgrown weeds, the huge boards that have been there for six-odd months. Clearly something, someone had taken those mattresses and, for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out whom. Was it the alley folk? If so, why the delay? Could this mean the neighborhood was turning for the better, a Whole Foods and hot yoga studio just around the bend? Then I saw a drunk vomit onto a mannequin. Theory shattered.

Maybe some day I’ll get to the bottom of it, but for now I really don’t know. All I know is that on crisp nights, when I sit on my back patio and listen to the wind, I swear to God I can hear the faint but audible squeaking of bedsprings, the humping of alley folk on soiled mattresses nearby, laughing their sickly, smoker laughs, mocking me.