I'm ready again to leave

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On garbage night in Albany, always around this time, I hear noises coming from the curb.  Bottles and cans clanking, bags rustling, paper crunching.  I thought it was squirrels or some type of vermin; some rodent with beady eyes they glow when hit with headlights.  Tonight, just now, I heard voices.  I could hear their progression down the street, from one group of bags and cans and loose pizza boxes and thirty racks to the next.  During the trip between garbage piles, the voices were louder. People, collecting the trash, recycling, probably bottles and cans to redeem at the Price Chopper down the street.  Or maybe some food for a midnight meal.

I thought it was rats.