From the safety of his asbestos-riddled walkup, Felix Arthur would listen to his police scanner. It was always on during dinner, the way some people tuned into classical music or jazz on the radio, playing familiar tunes to accompany the simmering of a slow cooking sauce. He’d take notes, scribbling shorthand whenever certain words came up over the airwaves. Words like “filth,” “dirt,” and “grime.” He wasn’t listening for new cases or an especially violent madman on the loose. He wanted to know how clean other parts of the city were as compared to his patch of pristine pavement. Cops made lots of judgments while walking the beat and this was no different. They'd walk through some debris and comment on it. Then he'd go there, documenting it, so all could see it without the smell.
Arthur had a sixth sense for filth. He could be in a packed room with drunken partygoers and the memorable odor of soft cheese wafting through the corridors, and still, within a few seconds he'd know exactly who had and hadn’t showered in the last 36 hours. Turning up his nose wasn’t even a part of the process.
He realized early on that to get close to the crummiest spots in the city, it was important not to arouse suspicions with the locals. So, along with his camera, he’d carry a window squeegee, as if he were an itinerant window washer, looking for smudged glass no matter the obstacle.
That’s when he started going by Sqweegee, grime scene photographer par excellence. It was amazing how close he could get to a pile of garbage – or worse.
But Sqweegee’s days are numbered. Now everyone is into hygiene and self-care, suddenly conscious of their bodies, washing their hands every few hours. In the old days, the only thing people washed were their vintage cars, kept under a dusty sheet in the garage.
So go ahead, clean up the city. Just think about what you’re losing.
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