Another Instance Where The Law Is An Ass

Fiorito: We're far too quick to dismiss treasures as trash

November 06, 2009

Joe Fiorito

Lilly has a curfew. She has to be in by 10 p.m. We met one night when she had a few minutes to spare before going up to her apartment. We sat on a chilly bench in St. James Town. We'll get to the curfew in a minute.

Everyone knows Lilly in the neighbourhood. She has a small business, a makeshift table in the makeshift market. "We call it The Boardwalk. People are selling there, lots of people." The stock in Lilly's trade are the things she finds in dumpsters, of which there is a sufficiency in St. James Town.

Your dumpster is her cornucopia.

She has found pots and pans and toasters, sets of dishes, articles of clothing, furniture and musical instruments.

"I have found old books. I have found playbills from the '30s. I have even found gold," she said in her deep, rich voice.

Gold?

"Bracelets, earrings."

She calls her dumpster work "boutique-ing." She knows that some of her neighbours don't have a lot of money for the nicer things, or even for the necessities. "I don't make a lot, but I give good prices."

If her prices are low and her profits are minimal, at least her

self-respect is right up there where it should be: "I don't ask the government to buy my cigarettes, to buy my cat food." She has two cats, Blackie and Pinkie.

She lit a smoke and waved it around and said, "People think the people who live here are garbage. We're not garbage, even though people have thrown us away."

There is a parallel, of course, with her work – the things she finds in dumpsters have also been thrown away, but they have value if you care to look.

The security guards in the neighbourhood are familiar with Lilly. She has been boutique-ing for 20 years. Mostly, they let her be.

But sometimes the security guards, especially the newer ones, have a little sport with her. "They hide in the darkness by the dumpsters. They jump out at me and go, `Ha!' They don't scare me."

Lilly is not afraid of the dark, nor does she fear little sadists in uniform. "They give me tickets not to come there. They look like parking tickets."

But Lilly was arrested twice recently, and that's the reason for her curfew.

The first arrest was for trespassing, and the second was for the same thing, but this time when they looked in her purse they found pills – prescription drugs, not in her name.

Lilly said, "Yes, prescription medicine; somebody died, they threw her things out."

But Lilly, drugs? "When I go picking, I'm in my own world. I see things and I pick them up. Lots of things I end up throwing out."

She ended up in the slammer.

"It was the worst night of my life. The bed, a slab of cement. The floor, cement. The toilet, stainless. They took my shoes and socks. I was so cold, I was begging for heat, doing exercises to keep warm."

She got bail the next day; until she goes to court she has to report to Scarborough once a week, a condition of her bail. Scarborough is a long way away on public transit.

"I have to be in by 10 p.m. and I have to stay in my apartment until 6 a.m. If the police come to my door and I don't answer right away ... My life is going out at night to the garbage. I don't have activity now."

Her business in the interim?

Also in the dumpster.

Joe Fiorito usually appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday.