Living on the Edge : Trash-Bin Route Is Their Lifeline : Two men spend their days going through Lancaster’s garbage in search of food and items they can turn in for cash.

In the morning’s chill, Jim Baize and Jim Wiles down three mugs of instant coffee before leaving camp to begin their self-styled “jobs.”

For the last year, the two, who make their home next to the railroad tracks north of Lancaster, have collected aluminum cans, bottles and food from the trash cans and dumpsters that line the desert community’s downtown alleys. They eat the food they find, and redeem the recyclables for cash.

“I knew I was going to have to do something like this to live,” said Wiles, 39, pushing a rattling Grocery Warehouse shopping cart loaded with empty beer and pop bottles.

Before the two teamed up, the longest Wiles said he had ever held a regular job was the year after graduating from high school when he drove a forklift. Wiles is originally from Phoenix.

The 52-year-old Baize, on the other hand, said he worked as a machinist’s helper for 18 years and drove a truck for five years before his heart started acting up. He migrated to the Antelope Valley from Burbank.

“It’s a surprise to me I’m doin’ this,” Baize said, pushing a Vons cart loaded with aluminum cans.

They learned their trade from a friend known as “Loud-mouthed Tom.”

“Now he’s in the hospital and can’t move a muscle,” Baize said. “He drank too much and had some kinda seizure.”

Baize and Wiles have scraggly beards and unkempt hair sticking out from under baseball caps. Their clothes are stained from rubbing up against the rims of the trash cans and dumpsters they search. The two have systematically divided the city’s alleys into four routes covering six miles: the Alley Run, the Apartment Run, the Bob’s Too Run and the New Run.

Each day, they walk across the railroad tracks and Sierra Highway, about a quarter-mile from their camp, to begin their routes.

“This is the Apartment Run,” said Baize, pushing his cart from one dumpster to the next behind a row of dilapidated two-story apartments on Beech Avenue.

At 9 a.m., the two Jims pass a man with shoulder-length black hair working under the hood of a Chevy truck. He looks up, smiles and says: “Every day, like clockwork.”

Baize and Wiles take opposite sides of the alley, always keeping an eye out for each other. When one spots an approaching vehicle, he shouts “car” and they move out of the way.

“I’m always looking out,” Baize said. “I think alleys are dangerous.”

Resting the trash lids on their heads, they comb through the rubbish with bare hands. Baize washes his hands every day, he said, but wishes he had a pair of gloves.

When aluminum cans are found, they are tossed to the ground, stomped flat and loaded into Baize’s cart. They call out “gold mine” when there are six or more cans at one location.

Then Wiles spots a gold mine of a different kind at one Beech Avenue bin--a half-full bottle of Thunderbird wine.

“It’s still good,” he said, shaking and holding it up to the sunlight with dirt-encrusted hands.

“Take it,” Baize said. “That much won’t hurt me! I used to be a wino,” Baize explained as Wiles put the bottle in his cart. “I had the shakes so bad I couldn’t get out of bed in the morning without a drink.”

Baize got off wine last October while doing a stint at the county-run High Desert Hospital in Lancaster. He was originally admitted for a broken jaw after a fight with his friend Dale.

During that three-week stay, he said county doctors put a metal plate in his jaw, which still juts to the right, repaired a hernia, treated his pancreatitis and alcoholism.

“As long as we’re together, I’m gonna make sure he doesn’t get back on it,” Wiles said of Blaize and the wine.

The two first met last year at “the shed,” a three-sided tin barn near Avenue I and Sierra Highway where the homeless men used to gather with others such as Rik, Little Tom, Big Tom, Loud-mouthed Tom, Dog and Old Jake. There the gang would share booze and food scrounged from the nearby Vons, McDonald’s and Burger King dumpsters.

“It was a party atmosphere,” Baize said. “There was always wine--we cooked on open fire.”

Until Old Jake died.

“He was drinking” Cisco wine “and did some heroin,” Baize said. “They found him in those trees by the shed. He was the friendliest guy--always had a smile--always had a funny story. Old Jake lived in the shed nine years.”

Shortly afterward, at the request of the city, sheriff’s deputies started rousting the shed’s inhabitants on a regular basis.

“When I seen three” police cars “coming one morning, I said to Jim, ‘I’m leavin’. You comin’ with me?’ ” Baize said.

The two followed the railroad tracks a half-mile out of town to a cluster of trees by an onion-processing plant. They borrowed pallets from their new neighbor, laid foam rubber down for beds and tied blankets to the trees for cover.

Recently, the same Dale who broke Baize’s jaw unloaded a beat-up camper shell by the tracks for the two Jims to take shelter from the cold.

Walking up the footpath to camp, the two Jims are greeted by three husky-Doberman pups--Bear, Goldie and Lady--that hop from side to side with tails wagging.

The sun hovers above the horizon. The men open a couple of beers and prepare for the night. From the trash surrounding their outdoor living room, Baize gathers newspapers to start a fire for dinner. Wiles heads off to the Superstore for two 12-packs of Keystone beer and two packs of Montclair cigarettes.

Later, by the fire, they count their day’s earnings:

* A five-dollar bill, a quarter and a penny found in the gutters of Avenue I on their way to and from Lancaster Recycling.

* Thirteen dollars and 15 cents they got from Lancaster Recycling for redeeming two shopping carts full of aluminum cans, and plastic and glass bottles.

* The half-bottle of Thunderbird wine, two unopened cans of Budweiser beer, a corn dog, two sausages, a half-jar of Cheez Whiz, a bag of shredded cheese, a bag of chocolate candy and thawed-out bags of frozen okra and broccoli.

The sun sets. The evening cools. Wiles settles into an old recliner and draws heavily from a cigarette.

“The Lord was with us today--he told us where to go,” he said.

Halley is a Lancaster writer.