The first thing I noticed was the sound: a low, persistent growl that seemed to travel through the hills of Echo Park and under the palms of Sunset Boulevard — the arrival of a truck that promised both chaos and a kind of cleansing. It rolled up the block at dawn, diesel breath mixing with the coffee steam from a neighbor’s stoop, and behind it sat a wide, blue mouth of metal: a dumpster. For the next week it would be the center of our little city’s choreography — the place where old kitchens, broken chairs, and decades of accumulated junk would meet their fate.
Hook
