In My Opinion: The last straw or how a filthy laneway might become a force for good

By JILL LOUISE LEGER

The alley had finally broken me.

A 30-second walk from our home near the Gerrard India Bazaar, the alley stretched along the back of a small and crumbling parking lot that served a halal butcher, a run-down laundromat and an upscale ice-cream shop. As a community might adopt a highway, I’d adopted this stretch of alley, determined to keep its perpetually, prodigiously trash-strewn edges cleared of crap. But after a month and a half of almost daily effort, I’d abruptly reached rope’s end.

My breaking point came the afternoon I arrived at the alley with my litter-grabber and Hefty trash-bag, only to discover the strip looking as if I hadn’t been there in weeks. I grumbled as I dispensed with half-full Coke cans, capsized to-go containers and greasy napkins. Then, lodged in the lower brambles of a hulking weed bush, I came upon a distressingly familiar sight: a dozen gloppy paper towels, an empty plastic ice cream tub and a few wadded-up BB-brand cigarette packets.

Disgusted and angry, I fished it all out and stuffed it in my Hefty, which I hauled to the giant dumpster by the butcher shop. But as I heaved it over the edge, a dog-poop bag fell out, exploding extravagantly onto the cracked asphalt. I stared at it, chest heaving. Then I took my spindly litter-grabber and whacked it against the side of the dumpster, seething with fury at all the slobs who didn’t care about keeping things nice. Soon, I’d smashed the cheap plastic tool to smithereens.

And then something amazing happened. A new neighbour suggested we organize a neighbourhood cleanup.

On the designated Saturday morning, seven of us turned out. It wasn’t pretty. We filled at least 10 Hefty bags and dredged up rolls of carpet, car parts, buckets and three tires. The City of Toronto picked up all of it.

Almost immediately, things began to backslide, but I was all-in, resoundingly invested in the alley’s maintenance. My husband, Rob, sometimes joined me, using a tiny saw to thin the masses of weedy foliage.

Though most people who saw us didn’t say anything, some were supportive. A man named Jim (not his real name), who lived in a nearby basement unit under a shop, said he was glad to see the alley spruced up because it was like his front yard.

I soon discovered that tending to the alley meant regularly dealing with a gross collection of trash under the weed bush—always a bunch of gloppy paper towels, an empty ice cream tub, wadded up BB-brand cigarette packages and innumerable butts.

Who was this “BB” smoker, I wondered? I asked the butcher, Debbie across the street, Jim. No one knew.

“I don’t smoke BBs!” Jim said cheerfully, flashing both palms as if to exonerate himself.

Then came the day the alley broke me, when the yucky combination under the weed bush and the splatter of the dropped dog-poop bag, sent me over the edge, and I demolished my litter-grabber.

But only days later, I arrived home from work, and Rob bounded up the stairs from his office in the basement.

“Guess what?” he said. “I know who smokes BBs!”

“What!?”

That afternoon Rob had taken some damp clothes to the laundromat down by the laneway, where a man was rinsing his face at the sink near the bank of dryers. Rob recognized Jim, who explained he was freshening up after having worked on two construction jobs. He said he often had to shave at the laundromat because his neighbors were always using up all the hot water. Jim mentioned his back was stiff — from the construction work and from dozing off in his car the night before. He’d gone out to the parking lot to smoke, because he wasn’t allowed to smoke in his apartment.

Rob’s ears perked up.

“Really? What brand do you smoke?” Rob asked.

“BBs!”

Jim took a pack out of his pocket and enthusiastically explained exactly why BBs were the best.

I was gobsmacked. Jim had explicitly told me he didn’t smoke BBs! Did he forget Rob was married to the annoying trash lady?

I began to feel differently about the alley after that. I could sense my anger and disgust dissipating as I thought about Jim. The trash under the weed bush was actually part of a sad story, one about a man in a crappy apartment with no hot water and a catch-as-catch-can job situation, a man just looking for a peaceful place to smoke.

I began to wonder if maybe all the pieces of trash in the laneway were remnants of sad stories, and if all the alley really needed was a little compassion.

I bought a new grabber and still do my best to keep the alley picked up, but the edge I used to feel is gone.

Perhaps the filthy laneway might just turn out to be a net force for good. After all, thanks to the community clean-up in the spring, I know the names of several neighbours I’d never met before. Including Jim.

Jill Louise Léger is a writer and actress who lives with her husband and dwarf orange tree near Gerrard Street East and Greenwood Avenue.