Pop Bottles

Rod DiGruttolo

Stan’s mouth was agape and his eyes were wide as he listened. I knew as soon as I saw them—Jimmy had another scheme up his sleeve.

        “Pop bottles. That’s the secret, you see. All we gotta do is collect pop bottles. Along Fruitville Road alone, I’ll bet there are at least a hundred bottles tween Tuttle and Beneva. A hundred! That’s two bucks. Two bucks for just riding along and pickin’ them up.” Jimmy was wound up and when he got rolling, he could sell ice cubes to Eskimos. Stan never stood a chance.

I shook my head. I knew Stan was already on board with Jimmy’s plan, no matter what it was. There was no saving the boy; the only thing I could do was try to make sure Jimmy didn’t get Stan in trouble.

        “What’s up?” I asked.

        Jimmy and Stan looked up. Jimmy grinned and Stan began to babble. “We gonna make a lot of money. Jimmy’s come up with a sure-fire plan to make money without working too hard.”

        “Oh, make money without working,” I said, “Oh, brother.”

        Stan was hyped. “Yeah, really, it’s so easy you’d of thought somebody would’ve done it before.”

        A half dozen pop bottles sat on an old table. They wobbled as I walked across the sagging floor. “Let me hear this, Jimmy. I wanna hear about making money without workin’.”

        “Rod, it’s real easy. I got the idea when I was up to Mama C’s store. Buster’s mom came in. She had a case of pop bottles. Mama C gave her two cents for each bottle and another nickel for the wooden case.”

        “Okay, they charge two cents if you take the bottle with you. When you take it back, they give you the two cents. It’s a deposit. So what?”

        “Don’t you see? There are a bunch of people who don’t care about the two cents. They toss the bottle when they finish. Heck, I’ve seen hundreds of them tossed out of car windows, bunches more dropped into trash cans. Ain’t you?”

        “Yeah, some people do that.”

        “Exactly! All we gotta do is go along the ditches and pick up the old bottles. The stores don’t care if they’re dirty or not. They’ll give us two cents each.” Jimmy pointed to the table. “I picked those up on one construction site on my way over here. There’s twelve cents sittin’ there and there’s ten houses goin’ up on our street alone.”

        I glanced out of the window and across the pasture. There were six houses under construction that I could see from the clubhouse.

        Jimmy was wound up and eager to sell his idea. “Even if there are only two bottles at each site, each day, and I think those guys drink a lot more pop than that every day, we could knock down twenty, maybe even thirty cents a day.”

Jimmy paused to let the thought sink in. “And that don’t even count what’s layin’ around in the ditches along Tuttle and Fruitville. Why I know there’s at least a hundred bottles in them ditches—maybe even a thousand. All we gotta do is pick ‘em up.”

Stan was nearly hopping up and down by this time. This was the second time he had been exposed to Jimmy’s fantastic plan and sales pitch. It was almost more than he could stand. He edged toward the door, eager to begin collecting bottles.

“You don’t call picking up bottles, loading them into boxes, and lugging them to a store, hard work?” I asked. I picked one of the particularly sturdy samples from the table. I hefted it in my hand. “These things are heavy.”

“They ain’t that heavy, lessen they’re full.” Jimmy grinned.

Stan chimed in, “they ain’t heavy. I kin tote a whole case in one hand.”

“Okay, okay, all’s I’m sayin’ is, luggin’ bottles ‘round can get to be hard work. You may be able to make some money, but it ain’t gonna be easy,” I argued.

“Shucks, Rod. Ain’t all of us lucky enough to have a paper route, like you do. We ain’t got no way of makin’ money. What with the Fair comin’ in two weeks, we need us some cash.”

Stan piped up. “I’m gonna get started right now.”

With that, Stan strode out the door and leaped onto his bike. He was halfway across the pasture before Jimmy caught up with him. I stood in the doorway and watched them leave. All I could do was grin.

It was nearly five days before I saw either of the boys again. I had finished delivering my papers on Friday afternoon when I spied Jimmy beside Tuttle Avenue. He was in the ditch and black mud oozed around his ankles as he fished a bottle from the goo. His bicycle leaned against a telephone pole a few yards away and the basket was half-full of grimy bottles. I rode by Stan’s house; he was in the back yard cleaning grimy bottles with the water hose. He was nearly as muddy as Jimmy.

        Sunday morning, Jimmy and Stan were both in church; though they both nodded off a couple of times despite the hard, uncomfortable pews. Our parents visited outside after the services and I overheard Jimmy’s dad say, “I never thought I’d see that boy work so hard.”

        All I could do was grin.

        After Sunday dinner, I went to the clubhouse. Bob, Phil, and Steve wandered in a few minutes later. They lounged on the sofa sipping on sodas they brought from home.

        It was nearly a half-hour before Stan arrived. He came in and dropped onto a stack of old feed sacks piled by the back wall.

        It took only a few seconds before Phil winked and said, “Hey, Stan. I got a bottle here.” He brandished the half-full bottle of orange soda and wiggled it gently. “Want it when I’m done?”

        “I’m outta the bottle business.” Stan grumbled.

        I asked, “Watcha mean?”

        “I mean, I quit.” Stan growled. “I toted all those bottles over to the supermarket yesterday. It took me eight trips back and forth. Then, I still had to take five more trips to little stores to get rid of brands the big store don’t sell and some extras that wouldn’t fill up a flat. I didn’t get finished till near ‘bout dark last night.”

        “Made good money, I’ll bet.” Bob grinned.

        “Sure, I got thirteen dollars and twelve cents. But Dad says I owe him a dollar for all the water I used, and I still gotta get rid of about twenty bottles there ain’t no deposit on.”

        The rattle of a bike coming to a stop outside announced Jimmy’s arrival. He came in and sat down on the first available chair. He grinned toward Stan with a sheepish air. “Sorry ol’ buddy, didn’t know this project would be so much work.”

        “How’d you do?” Stan mumbled.

        “Twelve-eighty two.”

        I jotted down the numbers on a small note pad and asked, “How long did it take you to collect those bottles, guys?”

        Stan frowned. “I worked about four hours a day for six days, collecting them. I guess it took another hour to clean ‘em up each day.”

        “Me too,” Jimmy said.

        “Uh-huh, how long to carry them to the stores for cash-in?” I asked.

        “Dunno, maybe six hours, all told.” Stan winced.

        Jimmy nodded agreement.

        I multiplied and divided for a few minutes as the boys talked. When I finished I waited for a lull in the conversation. “Jimmy, your daddy charging you for the water to clean the bottles?”

        “Huh?”

        “My dad’s charging me a buck.” Stan complained.

        “I-I-I don’t think he is.” Jimmy stammered.

        “I’ll deduct it, just in case.” I calculated some more. “Okay guys, here is the bottom line. Your easy job, free money just lyin’ ‘round for the pickin’, comes out this way. Stan, you earned, after expenses, thirty-four cents an hour. Jimmy, your take came to about thirty-three cents, but if your dad don’t charge for the water it’ll jump clean up to thirty-six cents an hour.”

        Stan’s mouth dropped open. “That ain’t even the fifty cents an hour old Mama C. offers to carry groceries.”

        I grinned, “No, it ain’t, but it is honest work and that ain’t bad. Besides, you guys got nearly six-hundred and fifty bottles apiece out of the ditches.”

        “But Jimmy said it would be eas . . . .” Stan stopped when he saw the expressions on his friends’ faces. He grinned, and we all laughed.

Rod says: I was raised in Sarasota and enjoyed the life reminiscent of TV shows in the early fifties. It was Sawyeresque in that we enjoyed the freedom of the outdoors and the adventure of living adjacent to the bay waters. Semi-rural in its makeup, Sarasota afforded all the advantages of a small town, the conveniences of a city, and the freedom of country living. I was truly fortunate to have lived here and never want to leave.