Bronx accents of people cursing break the early morning silence. They are wading in garbage half way up their knees. Kicking it into the air and cursing it.
They can't open their car doors, let alone drive. The garbage covers the streets and sidewalks as far as the eye can see.
The phones in the mayor's office are all ringing at once. Aides are answering two at a time.
"What's going on?" cries the Mayor.
"The streets are full of garbage," shouts an aide over the ringing of the phones.
"Garbage? They're always full of garbage."
"Well... it's not the usual garbage on the sidewalks. This garbage is strewn out all over the city about a foot high," the aide replies.
"Well get some trucks out there and scoop that crap up! And get that imbecile of a garbage union president up here... right now!" the Mayor threatens.
"Okay Vickery, what are you trying to pull here?" the Mayor's face turns red as he speaks to the union president.
"Yer honor, we ain't pullin' anything here. We didn't have a thing to do with this."
"You what?" bursted the Mayor.
Vickery counters: "That's the God's honest truth. We don't know who's dumping this crap."
At the same time similar episodes are taking place around the U.S. In other cities, suburbs, small towns, schools yards, shopping centers, even country clubs. Traffic jamming. People shouting. Trucks and tractors scooping. Officials haranguing. Reporters reporting.
After reporting on several dumpings in detail, Harry Green, the WFCF TV news anchor, gets a hot item off the wire. "Here's an odd twist on this dumping business, folks. They're not only finding garbage in the streets... they're finding it on the roofs, too!"
"Hey, Harry," his associate breaks in, "one of the guys in the field just sent up some of the garbage."
"Why...?" Harry puzzles, still on the air.
"I don't know. He wants us to take a look at it."
Harry opens the plastic bag and gingerly picks out some cans and milk cartons and places them on the desk. "Joe, can you make this out? I don't understand what this means. Oh no." Now he is frantically pulling items out of the bag and looking at them. "No...oh God...oh God, no."
Somewhere on the plains of Texas, an old cowhand sits atop his horse. His horse chewing grass at his feet.
A noise off in the distance catches the veteran outdoorsman's ear. The eyes on his weather-cracked face close to narrow slits. His head turns now like a radar searching for the direction in which the sound is coming.
Then he sees it! An enormous object that almost fills the sky looms up behind him. Then a deafening, grinding roar shatters the atmosphere. In the next instant the cowboy and his horse are buried neck-high in garbage. Only the horse's head and the cowboy's head and hat protrude from the debris.
He can see garbage trailing off out of the enormous, rusted, space-garbage scows flying off toward the horizon. There are four or five of them all dumping garbage at the same time in voluminous quantities. In minutes the vast prairie before him is filled with garbage.
The President of the U.S. and entire cabinet huddles around the conference table. The Commanding General of the Strategic Air Command is advising the President. "It'll take atomic warheads to take those flying garbage ships down, but we can do it. Just give me the word."
"Wait a minute! Wait a minute!" the Secretary of Defense breaks in. "If they've got garbage fleets like that, what kind of war power do you suppose they have? We're going to have to try to negotiate this one."
"You're right," agrees the President. "How???"
A lone, high speed jet carrying a white flag and a powerful transmitter flies up to meet the next reported sighting. "Can we talk? Can we talk?" the jet pilot transmits over and over and over, flying alongside the head scow.
Shortly, messages start coming back — in various languages. Finally, in English, a broken message comes through: "Waddya want?"
The pilot expresses the problem, but they don't seem to understand. They speak in a crude manner and seem to think he is with a competitive garbage company, and agree to talk only to the head garbage scow driver. The pilot conveys this strange circumstance back to the White House. And he is instructed to set up a meet. Which he does.
Back at the White House, the pilot describes the crudeness of manner of the people flying the rusting hulks of garbage scows. After playing a recording of his conversation with them, he says: "I don't know who could communicate with these aliens."
The head of the Department of Streets and Sanitation bursts in: "Y'know they sound just like one of our garbage truck drivers."
"Who?" snaps the President before the other cabinet members can get a word of ridicule in.
"Jake Manko."
U. S. Air Force Helicopter 1 lands in Jake Manko's front yard. It is 3 A.M. Dreary-eyed, disbelieving Jake staggers off to the helicopter between two Air M.P.s. His wife and kids in shock on the porch. The whole neighborhood on the street watching.
Jake was honored, and in his crude but patriotic manner, agrees willingly to serve his President's call to duty.
The aliens come for Jake in a space-module that resembles a garbage truck. Jake climbs in the back and it swallows him up. The craft flies to the mother ship. Jake, who hasn't seen anyone yet, now finds himself facing the space garbage crew. To him they look like the three stooges, only they all have three beady eyes and are very small and fat.
They start talking into a box in front of them, but Jake can't understand a word that comes out of it. He shakes his head, no. They keep talking into the box, kicking and hitting it. Finally the words come out in English. And amazingly, it sounds just like Jake talks.
Jake negotiates long and hard with the space garbage men. They offer him food and space-beer. He asks them if it was new or... They assure him it was not from the garbage. They also have woman companions with them because of their long journeys, and want to know if Jake would like to make love to them. Jake politely declines. Not only do the women have three eyes, they have three breasts.
The White House and all America sits on pins and needles for three days until Jake reappears on earth in the space-module. He is swooped off to the White House.
"What happened?" the cabinet members all clamor at once.
Jake is impressed with his new-found importance. He is holding a wrinkled, rolled-up piece of paper. "Dey're just space garbage men," Jake utters.
"Why are they dumping their garbage on earth? On America?" the President pleads.
"Dey tol' me dat when dey first saw our planet, it looked like a dump. Dere was junk all over jus' like somebody made quite a few drops already. Dey said dey've been dumpin' garbage fer over l00 years and dey know a dump when dey see one."
Jake describes the planet the space garbage men were contracted to dump for. About all the clean, green cities with giant space ships for both gathering resources from other planets and dumping wastes. The cabinet is aghast at this.
"But don't you worry. I got it all worked out," Jake smiles.
"You do?" the Secretary of State gulps.
"Yeah. After I convinced dem we weren't really a dump-site, but lived here, dey said dey'd stop dumpin' if dey got da contract to haul all our garbage. I signed it, see?" he unrolls the wrinkled document he is holding. "But dere's one udder ting dey demanded..."
A large entourage of news reporters, TV camera crews and crowds are gathered around Jake, the President and members of the Cabinet.
"Are you sure this is absolutely necessary, Jake?" the President asks, his eyes panning up a huge cylindrical structure next to them. The cylindrical structure reaches all the way to the clouds. And beyond. On top, protruding through the clouds, a huge oval sign blinks on and off: "NO DUMPING! NO DUMPING!"
"Mister President," Jake finally answers, "it was da only way dey could assure me none of dere guys would dump here again."
