since i work in the evenings, i’m at home during the day when the garbage men come.  i’m sitting at my computer by the window when the truck pulls up and two guys in fluorescent-green vests jump out and scamper up to the dumpsters in the alley.

it’s the same two men every time–the man with the sunglasses and the man with the cigar.  the man with the cigar never smokes the cigar, though.  it’s never lit.  instead he holds it clamped between his teeth, his lips curled up around it.  when is a cigar not a cigar?  when it’s a tobacco-leaf chew toy.

when the garbage truck clanks to a stop on the street outside, i always turn and look out the window to check for the garbage men and the cigar.  this time, the man in the sunglasses glances up and sees me.  he grins and nudges the cigar man, and they both look up.

i smile back.  “you always have that cigar!” i say.

“what she say?” cigar man mutters.

“she say you always have that cigar,” sunglasses man says.

i stand up and lean all the way out the window, holding my hand to my chest so they can’t see up my shirt.  “i’m always here at my computer when you show up, and i always look to see if you have the cigar.  and you always do!  i’m like, ‘hey, it’s the guy with the cigar!'”

they both laugh.  i sit back down at the computer.  the garbage men take out the trash, wheeling the dumpsters out to the truck and throwing the bags in.  when cigar man wheels the dumpsters back into the alley, he waves at me and yells “bye!” through clenched teeth.  i wave back.

i wonder what they would have done if i’d fallen out the window.