The Garbage Man

The Garbage Man  was written by Sharon Curtin. This short story is about the author’s experience with an old man in his neighborhood. The Garbage Man goes around the neighborhood digging for scraps of food in garbage cans. He uses these scraps to feed his chickens. In turn for using people’s garbage cans, he pays the recipient in eggs.

            The main character wastes his time trying to find something that isn’t there. He learned from his father that the old man had been here since World War One. The main character spends his time trying to find out if the man is rich and if he is just trying not to look like it or if he has some other secret that will be revealed once he gains the trust of looking at the man and keeping his look to himself. He devises a plan along with his sister and some friends to hide in a trash can to get a glimpse of the man when he looks in. This plan leads him to scaring the man and in turn scaring himself into running to his tree house. He claims that the man had a regularly old face and that nothing was unusual.

            The Garbage Man explores the concept of looking for something that isn’t there. I personally think the author should have minded his own business and should have just left the situation alone. The man had nothing to hide and there was nothing to find.

            Sharon Curtin wants the reader to refrain from judging people or from looking into something that has no mystery. The kids in this book were always harassing and bothering the old man and that is something that is wrong to do. This is why the main character cries in the end. He cries partly because of what he did and because the man was so weathered and beaten.