Trash by Andy Mulligan Page A

though? Maybe we should visit.’
    ‘Green Hills,’ I said. ‘Everyone knows that. Same place as José Angelico.’
    The senator was a famous man, and everyone knew he had a place out there, just beyond the city, big as a town. Everyone knew he was rich and old, and I’d seen his fat face in the papers I hooked up, oh, so often – papers that more often than not wrapped up the stupp. Everyone knew he owned big pieces of the city – there are only five or six families who do out here, and his name was on streets, on a shopping mall in the fancy part of town, and in rising skyscrapers … He was a big man in every way. Vice-president for two years and his smiling face everywhere.
    It was Rat’s idea to pay him a visit, and I liked the idea, if only to get me out of Behala.
    ‘Why would seeing the place make your soul sing?’ said Rat. We wondered and wondered, and agreed that taking a trip might tell us.
    It seemed to me the problem would be the usual one. Money – for the bus. I’d given everything to my auntie, so I was broke again.
    Rat said to me, ‘It’s OK. I got enough.’
    I have to say I didn’t believe him. I said, ‘How have you got anything?’ I didn’t say it to be mean – it’s just that he’s about the poorest-looking boy on the dumpsite, so the idea he had more than a peso made me smile.
    He smiled right back at me and shook his head. ‘I’ve got more than you think,’ he said slowly. ‘Come with me, and let’s see who’s poor.’
    And that was when I came to learn a few things about Rat that I had never known and never asked about.
    We cut back to the trail that takes you to the disused belt – belt number fourteen – checking the whole way that nobody was watching. I was still feeling scared whatever I did now – I could not shake it off, and I was always watching behind me, so when we went down the steps, and the rats flew up, I cried out and he had to hold me like a little kid.
    ‘How do you live down here?’ I said. It was the most disgusting place on the whole dumpsite.
    He just laughed. ‘It’s the best house I ever had,’ he said.‘You don’t like it because you’re lucky. You always had a house.’
    ‘I don’t know how you stand it, boy.’
    ‘They don’t bother me, I’m telling you. You get some that are friendly.’
    ‘And what about at night?’ I said. ‘They never take a bite out of you?’
    Rat laughed at me. ‘They have a sniff, OK – maybe, when I’m sleeping. But what they gonna bite? There’s no meat on me.’
    He lit a couple of candles. I could hear scufflings in the wall, and mewling yelps.
    ‘There’s a nest somewhere,’ I said. ‘I wouldn’t sleep down here if you paid me.’
    ‘There’s always nests everywhere. That’s a big one, though, OK? They kept me awake last night – must be hundreds of them. Oh, and by the way – that bag …’
    ‘What about it?’
    Just the thought of the bag and I froze up.
    ‘You can tell the police to come down here and look, because that bag’s gone, Raphael. Two nights, and they’d eaten it. The wallet too: chewed up and disappeared.’
    He was rocking a brick backwards and forwards gently. Then he turned and looked at me, suddenly serious.
    ‘By the way,’ he said, ‘I better trust you. I just better trust you, and you better be good to trust. I know you’re going to tell Gardo, but you tell nobody else!’
    ‘Tell what?’ I said. I had no idea what he was saying.
    ‘I’m just thinking, here you are – here’s me, showing you all my secrets. You could rob me blind now, you and Gardo – what would I do then?’
    He was fierce, but all I could do was laugh at him. Not to be mean – but the idea of robbing Rat was crazy.
    ‘What is there to rob?’ I said. ‘A little pair of shorts, and you’re wearing them.’
    Rat started to laugh right back at me. It was a high-pitched squeak of a laugh. The brick was on the floor now, and he was reaching into the space behind. Carefully, with