WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
While most modern day garbage men enjoy the luxury of having machines do all the dirty work of heavy lifting and trash compacting, the waste removal minions of Chinatown don't have it quite so good. In Chinatown, trash is collected by individuals with a five-by-five-foot burlap sack tossed over their shoulders. When filled, the sack contains up to 200-pounds of oozing waste. From rotted melon to fish heads to rainbow-colored condoms, it all goes in the sack.

You see, in Chinatown, conventional garbage trucks can't maneuver through many of the district's narrow alleys. Furthermore, it's impossible for most folks to lug heavy cans of disposal down many flights of steep apartment stairs. Enter Lawrence Jackson III. He's one of the few, proud Chinatown garbage men who doesn't fear the thousands of stairs he must climb each shift while carrying hundreds of pounds of tossed out pork dumpling dim sum.

THE BIONIC TRASH BIN
Friends of Lawrence Jackson the Third refer to this charming, comical laborer as LJ3, a name that sounds like a model number for a futuristic super robot. And that description seems entirely appropriate for the 5' 2' hulking trash man. The LJ3 was designed to withstand the harshest environs. He is capable of fending off giant rats, and maneuvering through slippery, dark underground alleys all in the name of removing up to seven tons of crap each and every night. "I love it. I live for it," yells LJ3 as he hangs off the back of a truck flying down the lamp-lit street. "The atmosphere, being in the night air, there's nothing like it! Whhhhheeeeeeee!"

A TYPICAL CAPTURE
After 16 years on the route, LJ3 and his state-of-the-art hamstring muscles will climb some 1,000 stairs in a single eight-hour shift. A typical floor generates about 40-50 pounds of trash, and then it's on to the next one. Once LJ3 has cleared all the floors of a building, he must next get it off his back and into the back of the truck, where his equally burly partner and driver Joe greets him. "I use one hand and just sling it in there," he boasts as he shows off his superior strength. With one flick of the arm and a lightning fast pull back on the burlap, not so much as a single rat turd hits the ground. "We're going into hundred-year-old buildings, deep under restaurants, down narrow walkways where only rats and I will go," he describes as he makes his way into a sinister looking room, past an underground kitchen. An octogenarian gentleman of smaller proportions greets him. " How you doin' tonight?" utters LJ3. He points out the bed next to the massive brick chimney-like garbage chute for me to notice. Not only does his friend chop veggies in the boiler room dungeon, but he lays his head there too. "You got to be careful, because look at this right here. Piece of glass!" Yes, it's clearly a large chunk of broken windowpane put to rest with the leftover Kung Pao Chicken. "This can easily go through the burlap and into my back." Earlier in the evening, before we set out for the route, we met a coworker who's had more than 300 stitches in his career.

DINNER BREAK
Throughout the evening, he comes across large green bins, as part of the company's food-recycling program. (The food scraps are turned into lush fertilizer...a hot commodity these days by winemakers in Napa Valley who praise the program for giving them top-notch wine!) "Look at this one, nice tossed salad, nice glass of wine at four in the morning, I just might dig in," laughs LJ3. "This one here, crab and duck. Unfortunately, there's no sauce." Not a bad sense of humor for a man who meddles in filth for eight hours a day. Until the sun rises, LJ3 will be climbing and descending, filling the sack and slinging it in the truck. All the while the residents of Chinatown dream sweet dreams. Except those who awaken to those maddening reverse-gear beeps from the truck that's backing up in the alley.