In every urban environment, trash collects. Rubbish and refuse, objects discarded carelessly and deliberately, flotsam and jetsam cast high and dry by heavy rains, flooding, or else blown by wind - urban environments seemed to attract the stuff like iron filings drawn to a magnet.
Now this mess has collected under the towering freeway bridges that cut through the heart of the city and mark the boundary of Clarion Call's territory. The space is all dirt and explosive stands of grass with scrawny wild bushes for support. Concrete struts rise like the huge pines for which North California is famed amid the neglect; the freeway above forms an artificial canopy that collects colonies of nesting pigeons who warble happily in the crevices and shit with fecund glee over the tired, painted, concrete and stained metalwork.
A great pile of refuse has gathered here: a work of neglect and the hands of the homeless who time and again make a home here. For a time Hector claimed the space as his personal domain (many years ago) and now he is back.
The Alpha stalks through the great pile, dragging a mattress behind him as he seeks a good spot. He is heedless of the noise he makes, barging through cardboard piles, knocking over cracked garden furniture, and at one point bodily hauling his bulky prize over a very large and remarkably well preserved television (a chunky thing from before the devices flattened out into wall hangings).
Shocked by the racket, a flock of pigeons explode into the sky.
Hector pauses as well - he's find some bags filled with clothes and is taking a peek. You never know what you might find and he really does need a new shirt. Currently he is bare chested and his shorts are way too big (held up by a rope). Bare footed, too. He looks like the lowest of the low - or perhaps a wolf who has forgotten to Dedicate his clothing one too many times...
Endymion Bird