Read Online The Man Who Quit Money by Mark Sundeen - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Mark Sundeen
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bins are piled high with black garbage bags that they peel open. Suelo pulls out a flat white paper box and sets it on the lid of the adjacent dumpster. The red-and-white flank of a Coca-Cola truck flickers in the dim light.
“Pizza, anyone?”
He retrieves another cheese pizza. He works efficiently in the darkness. He fishes out tubs of ranch dip and a pair of prepared meals in plastic platters from the deli and squints to read the label. “Some kind of spaghetti,” he says. Then, surveying the growing mountain of food, he says, “Is there some sort of box we could put this stuff in?” A sack of bagels. Eight pieces of fried chicken sealed in a plastic sack.
Within five minutes, the men fill two large cardboard cartons, which they cradle as they depart the premises. Next door is a self-storage complex—often a good source for usable items, but tonight we find only windshields. We continue down a residential street.
“Pete’s house is the kind where you don’t have to knock,” Suelo says. Inside the carport beside the recycling bins rises a mountain of food. A network of dumpster divers leaves their excess booty here, a warehouse for their friends to pick over. “A dump-store,” says Daniel, with pleasure. Suelo is all but blind to the various leafy vegetables, cartons of muffins, and whole angel food cakes. He’s come for the bananas. He peels one and munches, and then reaches for another.
Inside the house, a gray-haired woman washes dishes and a fluffy dog greets us. A food dehydrator whirs on the table and the place reeks of bananas. Moments later, Pete himself arrives,wearing a bike helmet. He has just returned from a ride around the neighborhood on his unicycle. We step back outside and stand around the food. The forecast calls for frost, and we wonder if the bananas will blacken. Daniel stuffs a bunch of bananas and the fried chicken into his backpack. Then he peels one more banana from the box and takes a bite.
“My brother used to call me Bananiel,” he says.
We walk an hour in the dark cold night until we reach the trailhead. From the thicket where Suelo stores his bike, we retrieve three cans of beer. “Somebody—some unknown person—left them in my bike basket,” says Suelo. And from there we pick our way up canyon in the black night.
It is an exaggeration to say that I cannot see my own hand in front of my face. However, I cannot see thorned branches at arm’s length, and after a few whaps in the face, I hold my fist out like a boxer to protect my head. I set down my feet gingerly, not knowing if they will fall on rock, dirt, shrub, or water. Suelo strides quickly over the rugged terrain. We remove our shoes and cross the creek three times.
The next three crossings are narrow. “You can either take off your shoes,” says Suelo, “or do the leap of faith.” With that he carefully inches his way toward the bank, then jumps into the darkness, landing safely on the other side. This method works for me until the final crossing, when I misjudge the terrain and step to my shin in the chilly stream. We put on our shoes and Suelo leads us through a tangle of reeds and brambles in blackness. It occurs to me that over the years he has made this same dark trip hundreds of times.
We arrive at the cave at eleven-thirty, two and a half hours after leaving the banana stash. The temperature has droppedinto the thirties, but I am warm from the walk. We are hungry. Daniel eats a banana, lights the oil lamps, and breaks out the bag of chicken. It’s cold but good, greasy and salty and crunchy like deli fried chicken is. We three sit on the rocks devouring the breasts and thighs. Phil pops open a can of beer.
“I just got a bite that tasted like mold,” Suelo says, holding the bag to the lamp and taking off his glasses to read. “It says it was packaged on the twenty-sixth.”
We consider this revelation. It turns out that learning a chicken’s date of preparation is not useful when nobody knows
“Pizza, anyone?”
He retrieves another cheese pizza. He works efficiently in the darkness. He fishes out tubs of ranch dip and a pair of prepared meals in plastic platters from the deli and squints to read the label. “Some kind of spaghetti,” he says. Then, surveying the growing mountain of food, he says, “Is there some sort of box we could put this stuff in?” A sack of bagels. Eight pieces of fried chicken sealed in a plastic sack.
Within five minutes, the men fill two large cardboard cartons, which they cradle as they depart the premises. Next door is a self-storage complex—often a good source for usable items, but tonight we find only windshields. We continue down a residential street.
“Pete’s house is the kind where you don’t have to knock,” Suelo says. Inside the carport beside the recycling bins rises a mountain of food. A network of dumpster divers leaves their excess booty here, a warehouse for their friends to pick over. “A dump-store,” says Daniel, with pleasure. Suelo is all but blind to the various leafy vegetables, cartons of muffins, and whole angel food cakes. He’s come for the bananas. He peels one and munches, and then reaches for another.
Inside the house, a gray-haired woman washes dishes and a fluffy dog greets us. A food dehydrator whirs on the table and the place reeks of bananas. Moments later, Pete himself arrives,wearing a bike helmet. He has just returned from a ride around the neighborhood on his unicycle. We step back outside and stand around the food. The forecast calls for frost, and we wonder if the bananas will blacken. Daniel stuffs a bunch of bananas and the fried chicken into his backpack. Then he peels one more banana from the box and takes a bite.
“My brother used to call me Bananiel,” he says.
We walk an hour in the dark cold night until we reach the trailhead. From the thicket where Suelo stores his bike, we retrieve three cans of beer. “Somebody—some unknown person—left them in my bike basket,” says Suelo. And from there we pick our way up canyon in the black night.
It is an exaggeration to say that I cannot see my own hand in front of my face. However, I cannot see thorned branches at arm’s length, and after a few whaps in the face, I hold my fist out like a boxer to protect my head. I set down my feet gingerly, not knowing if they will fall on rock, dirt, shrub, or water. Suelo strides quickly over the rugged terrain. We remove our shoes and cross the creek three times.
The next three crossings are narrow. “You can either take off your shoes,” says Suelo, “or do the leap of faith.” With that he carefully inches his way toward the bank, then jumps into the darkness, landing safely on the other side. This method works for me until the final crossing, when I misjudge the terrain and step to my shin in the chilly stream. We put on our shoes and Suelo leads us through a tangle of reeds and brambles in blackness. It occurs to me that over the years he has made this same dark trip hundreds of times.
We arrive at the cave at eleven-thirty, two and a half hours after leaving the banana stash. The temperature has droppedinto the thirties, but I am warm from the walk. We are hungry. Daniel eats a banana, lights the oil lamps, and breaks out the bag of chicken. It’s cold but good, greasy and salty and crunchy like deli fried chicken is. We three sit on the rocks devouring the breasts and thighs. Phil pops open a can of beer.
“I just got a bite that tasted like mold,” Suelo says, holding the bag to the lamp and taking off his glasses to read. “It says it was packaged on the twenty-sixth.”
We consider this revelation. It turns out that learning a chicken’s date of preparation is not useful when nobody knows
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