Bookaneer Review: Trash (JoeyTrash2013)

The Bookaneer Review: Trash

by Andy Mulligan

Front Cover

 One of Andy Mulligan’s hit stories and books is called Trash. The story mainly centres around three boys, Raphael (the protagonist of the three), Gardo (the dim-witted character) and Rat (the filthiest waste collector of them all). Set in Behala, the boys work all day and all night, trying to sort out the pileup of garbage and landfill. During their times at the garbage dump, they usually find uncommon and/or rare items and objects that the townsfolk throw away and sort them into a separate pile of waste. These three boys were very unwealthy, poor and hard-working, until one day, they found something very rare and invaluable among the hideous piles of trash…  

 It was a bag. A black bag. Raphael was flabbergasted when he and his fellow friends looked at it. But, inside the bag, there were few items of interest; a wallet, a map of the town, a key (inside the map) and, wait for it… 11,000 pesos worth of money! What took Raphael’s attention was an ID card of a 33-year old man by the name of Jose Angelico. Apparently, this man was unmarried and lived in Green Hills. No. 101…what could that be? Things just got better for these three boys, until the next night…

 The local police recently had a fellow friend lose an object and they offered a large wager reward for anyone who finds the missing object. The police told Thomas, a fellow member of Behala, that the missing object was a bag. Raphael and Gardo were taken by surprise with the policemen’s’ request, since they knew very well that the bag was in their possession and were fearful of disclosing this fact. They have heard of distressing stories about police treatment of those they caught and were therefore frightened. Furthermore, they were not certain that the policemen’s offer was a genuine one.

  

 To their misfortune, this was where Raphael’s aunt stated to the head policeman that her nephew found something. This was enough to make Raphael the centre of attention in this matter. Now the police have been given information that they could use on their investigation of Raphael and Gardo. The boys came to the realization that the police were not going to let go of this and will certainly further investigate the matter and search Raphael’s house. The only problem with his house was that it was not safe for hiding priceless belongings! Something had to be done urgently to move the bag to a safer place. The safest hiding they could think of was Rat’s house (in a large pile of garbage), since it had no invaluable or prized possession.

 In Chapter 6, the three boys were fearful of taking their chance and going to the train station. They decided to take the risk. Upon their arrival, what was noticeable to them was that they needed to keep the station boys off their backs. The only way to do that was to hand them some money buying their silence. The boys had few minutes to act. Rat swiftly acted opening locker No. 101. Raphael and Gardo tried to play cool throughout the whole mission. A sigh of relief, came upon the boys at the realization that Rat successfully opened the locker and took its belongings. After reaching a safe place, they went onto checking out what Rat was holding. This was a brown envelope and inside of it, a letter. The boys could see that there was an address and the details of a prisoner by the No. 746229 and his cell block 34K.

Gabriel Olondriz

Prisoner No. 746229, Cell Block 34K, South Wing, Colva Prison 

This led to the fact that the suspect was locked inside a prison. The letter also had a series of numbers that made no sense. The boys knew, at that moment, that this was the beginning of a great mystery about to unravel. We all know that with great mysteries come grave risks and maybe, some dangerous encounters…

 In Part One of the story, many themes were apparent. One of the themes noticed in the book is the dangers of poverty.

An example of this is when Raphael said “But if you want to be first in line – if you can’t get right inside the truck, and that is very dangerous: I knew a boy lost an arm that way – then it’s worth going up by the belt”(Page 7). This means that the dump-site is definitely not a safe place to work, especially with those gigantic, yet supportive machines (i.e. trucks).

Another theme that was noticeable in this part of the story is the corruption and dishonesty of the police. One example to support this theme is when Raphael recalled “We’ve got prisons in this city, and the prisons take kids quicker than they take men. You also hear stories of boys not even making it to prison, but I don’t know how much truth there is in any of it – everyone’s out to scare you with a story” (Page 41). By this example, he means that some policemen are dishonest and corrupt. They are not to be trusted and their actions are questionable.