The Wrath of a Son-in-Law: Stand Up, Fool!

Harvey Clarke

The shuffling of the plastic bag was the only thing that could be heard all over the silent, clean-looking, and outside of the gated, obviously expensive neighborhood. A young man was literally out of place, he was burying his face deep in the trash dumpster, grunting as he searched all the trash there to see if there would be anything that could be of use in his daily life. He had to find anything that he could sell, or else he would not be able to eat anything that evening.

Normally, in huge dumpsters, he wouldn’t find anything that could be consumed, there was no way he would eat spoiled food with a spit of other people. He still had dignity in himself not to do that. Mainly, he was getting a bunch of clothes and accessories that could still be fixed and modified so he could sell. It would be enough for him to buy food and refrain from becoming a complete beggar and desperately eating leftover food from fast-food chains. He was twenty-four, and he had the built to work only when people actually hired uneducated people like him.

He took a whole bag from the dumpster and threw it on the ground. He looked left and right, checking if there would be other beggars who were just waiting for him to retrieve something before they came to him and stole everything. They were making him do all the work and they would steal everything right after. He was utterly perplexed upon discovering that there were beggars who were picky and disgusted by diving into dumpsters.

“Oh, aren’t these brand new clothes?” he murmured to himself as he checked the things inside the plastic bags in which he found out that they were brand new clothes with still tags and almost unused. They were also mostly women's clothes, dresses, and blouses, and they were all expensive. “Two hundred dollars for a dress!?”

Jackpot, Harvey! This is worth two months of just staying home. He grinned to himself, his face reflecting how lucky he was that he had found those clothes. He guessed this came from the subdivision nearby where, as far as he knew, elite people were living. He just didn’t know exactly how elite and how rich they were.

This was his first time coming there, tipped by Kleo, a veteran when it came to spotting expensive things in the dumpster, that to find something expensive, he should look in the garbage bags of luxurious people, and he was indeed right upon seeing the things that were being thrown by these kinds of people. He hated how people could rather easily throw money away than give it to needy people like him and would even go to the extent of telling them how lazy they were for not working harder. Really, what do privileged people know about looking for work without money?

“I could sell these for their original prices and donate some to the orphanage,” he muttered to himself again. “I’m sure they would be happy.”

Aside from being a garbage man with no other choice, Harvey Clarke was once an orphan, to which he also had no other choice again, since he was already given out when he was a baby. There were a lot of things to be told about how his life had been while he was young, mostly awful happenings and the happy moments were just rare and could be counted on his fingers. He resented his unidentified parents for all the things that had happened in his life until now.

He grew up with a lot of noisy children playing all around him, a lot of mother-figure nuns reprimanding them to do household chores unless they would not be able to play. As far as he knew from the other nuns about his history of how he got there, he was just left outside the orphanage wrapped with only the baby sling and a letter ‘H’ embroidered there, so they just named him Harvey Clarke.

He appreciated the orphanage. If they were just not doing those things that he hated, he would love the place more. They were also treating them like giveaway gifts, giving them away like a free toy with a contract and free trial. If one decided that they could not take care of a dysfunctional child, they would bring them back or break them further before letting them go and stray by themselves.

At first, he thought it was just normal. He could see his other friends being taken away from the orphanage with two adults, screaming and crying out, and then they would come back after a month or so still crying with bruises on their bodies hidden from the nuns and making them believe that everything was fine. It was just a very normal occurrence to feel unloved and unwanted.

He thought he would never experience something like that. Until he was thirteen, and it had been the turning point in his life when he was taken by a family, a couple who appeared very kind and always smiling. But behind the mask, they were hiding evil souls and he experienced what the beginning of hell felt like. They were abusive, and they only took him to do their household chores while they did coke and smoke. He was known for being the most industrious in the orphanage, which may be the reason why he was taken.

He opened his mind by being passed from one parent to another and migrating from one place to the other. But there was no experience of him being treated like this. They were the worst of all parents who had taken him, and he wished he wouldn’t experience something like that again, ever.

It had been his turning point, he had to serve them for five years since they were feeding him and providing all his needs, but he had had enough when one time his head bled because of the vase that was thrown at his head when he failed to clean the dishes. He was already eighteen at that time, a moody teenager, and his emotions were filling him and so he fought back, bursting out everything, and then left the house, leaving them alone but also telling the police about their activities. He had his patience, it was long, but when he reached his limit, it would be the end.

He lived his life on the streets, thriving living even with spoiled food before, but it had put an end to it when he was hospitalized because of eating too much spoiled food. No one loved him, and he knew he would die there, but the nuns from the orphanage came back to him and helped him again. He owed a lot to them, and since he couldn’t come back anymore because of his age, he just worked as a garbage man and donated a portion of his small money. He was now standing on his own, still living in the street for about six years.

“...another hundred dollars, a total of almost six hundred dollars. What in the world are these people thinking? They are throwing money,” he remarked, baffled. There were a total of ten brand new clothes in the trash, and they were mostly women's clothes that were either barely worn or not worn at all. They didn’t smell since they were in the garbage, but with only a little washing magic, he could sell them at the same amount.

He looked up at the sky, it was a good day, and he knew something good would happen to him as soon as he woke up early. It was already around one-thirty in the afternoon, and his stomach was already grumbling. He took the things that he gathered from the dumpster. He really hoped he would not come across the other beggars and steal his things. It cost a fortune! It’s a jackpot.

He was living with the squatters, their area was a little too far from where he was now and he was only traveling by foot, but he could say that it was still worth it. He had built his small home using leftover materials. He felt like his life had been filled with leftovers. Probably he was also a leftover himself. He had been given away by his parents just like that. He was thrown away because he was of no use from the very start. He wondered where he would be right now if his parents did not give him away. Would he be in a better place? Or worse than, if there would be any worse than what he was experiencing now, right now?

He guessed he wouldn’t know. Maybe his parents were already dead. He didn’t have time to think of them, he had a lot of things on his plate since he was a child. He could only think of them when he was having a hard time with his life, which was most of the time, he was blaming them for bringing him into the world when they could not even make him live happily. The last time that he had been happy was when he was a kid, when he was given a spider-man figurine with one broken arm, and a spider-man costume with a hole at the armpit part, but he was already beyond happy. After that? The nightmare arrived.

He shook his head, he already had enough train of thoughts about his past these days, and he didn’t want to cave in to those thoughts until his will to live was gone. He was living day by day, working all day searching for garbage and selling the modified things so he could have something to eat. He was living from hand to mouth. He couldn’t get lost in his thoughts because he knew there would be other beggars who would just grab it from his hands and he would sacrifice a whole week not eating because of that.

However, while he was dragging the black garbage bag and dusting off his worn-out brown shirt and peeled and holed pants that could barely shield him from the cold, he heard the continuous sound of an engine from afar. He looked up with confusion, he stopped walking and swung his garbage bag on his shoulder with a soft thunk on his back.

There were about two black vans not too far away from him. They were parked a little too inaccurately from the way at the side of the road. From how Harvey viewed it, they seemed to be hiding, and they were certainly awful at the job. Then a few men came out, they were all wearing black shirts, and they obviously had guns on the side of their hips. Harvey immediately hid behind the thick utility post and just hoped it was doing a good job of hiding him. These men seemed to be up to no good, he could already feel it just by looking at them.

He needed to walk in front of them if he wanted to get out of the place, but he knew there would be multiple holes in his body first before he could even completely get out. They were not huge men, but they had weapons and there were almost ten of them, so he didn’t know if he could take them down using the techniques and self-defense that he learned from the gangster groups that he joined when he was still in his teenagers.

He peeked again slowly as he wondered what they were doing there. He saw them looking at the gate of the elite subdivision where elite and rich people who owned the garbage dumpster at the back where he came from were living. Were they guards or something?

His gaze switched from them to the gate of the subdivision when it opened, shocking and alarming the men as they started taking out their guns. A red, posh-looking, and obviously expensive Porsche came out with heavily tinted windows so he couldn’t see who the driver was. But he unknowingly gulped when the car slowly approached the men, and he knew by then that he was not going to go home without a hole in his body either way.