Full Blue Moon Dementia

Moved

2012-01-22T17:41:00.000-08:00

I have moved this blog to my author website: patrick-oneil.com. Please follow the link and check it out. Thank you to all my readers for your support over the last eight years. Hope to see and hear from you at the new location.

- Patrick

Depressed For The Holidays

2011-12-02T16:06:00.000-08:00

It's a sunny warmish morning with blue skies and puffy cumulous clouds heading inland from the sea. Not exactly typical for Los Angeles in December, but after yesterday's crazy Santa Ana winds the calm weather is a welcomed relief. As I head outside a woman walks by with her dog, pushing their way through piles of leaves covering the sidewalk. The streets, so full of fallen palm fronds, cars have to slow down and maneuver around them. I walk back to the building's parking lot to check my convertible, make sure it wasn't harpooned by some of last night's flying debris. The winds had gotten so bad after midnight it sounded as if someone was pounding on my apartment's walls. The large bushes by the front windows were crashing against the glass with such a fury I was worried they'd break through.

But thankfully everything's all right, there's no damage to my car. So I make my way up the street to walk the three blocks to get coffee. I pass neighbors out front of their houses raking leaves and uprighting overturned trashcans. A city truck is parked with its emergency light blinking, as two men chainsaw a small tree that'd been snapped in half and laying across the sidewalk.

With last night's events playing through my mind and this sunny morning softening the edge off it, I'm so removed from any sense of the impending holidays that I'm momentarily taken back when I notice the Scientologists setting up their yearly Santa's Village on Hollywood Blvd., which when you think about it is wrong on so many levels.

Strange, but they do it every year, and when they're all done families will line up, the kids sitting on Santa's lap for a donation. Do these people ever think where that money is going? How absurd it is that the Scientologists celebrate Christmas – they claim we're infested by the spirits of frozen aliens that were destroyed by hydrogen bombs dropped on them by the evil galactic ruler Xenu 75 million years ago, and then those spirits were taken to…. Ahhh, yeah whatever, at least that's what their deceased leader L. Ron Hubbard said. So maybe Santa's an alien? Maybe he's a Scientologist? Juliette Lewis is. I may never be able to watch Natural Born Killers again.

But really, who cares what the Scientologists do? It maybe another beautiful Southern California morning but the world is falling apart. Literally at the seams, as earthquakes happen in regions that have never had them, drought as well as flooding is rampant, and major corporations are destroying whatever is left, desperately trying to suck the last ounce of profit out of the ground before it all dries up. And as if all that wasn't enough, governments everywhere are imploding from corruption, mismanagement, and incompetence.

Fortunately, it appears that people have had enough. Occupy Wall Street and all the other similar movements are putting a face and voice to the dissatisfaction, standing up to corporate greed and the raping of America's constitution. Some workers are fighting back against arrogant government and private sector attempts to return them all to the non-union oppression of pre-industrial revolution. And all across the globe people are marching in the streets expressing frustration over political mangling of their rights, representation, and economies.

Yet, it isn't all rosy and cheerfully positive, as meanwhile shoppers stand in line all night outside Wal-Mart so that they can attack one another with pepper spray in the hopes of beating back the other desperate hordes and obtaining cheap sale items for Black Friday. Obama's installing a "prolonged detention" law into the "new" Patriot Act and erecting legal shenanigans that supposedly fall under "the rule of law" to justify it. Now anyone deemed a threat can be locked up indefinitely without a trial. And if the Occupy movement has done nothing else, it has at least proved positive evidence that our once courageous news organizations are clearly under government's thumb, and in the pocket of the rich.

Bombarded by all this and the consequent responding thoughts I get a tad depressed, and a bit grumpy. Leaving the apartment to get some fresh air and stop stressing was my intention, as well as to get some caffeine flowing through the system.

Latte in hand, I sit in my local coffee shop, across the street from the Scientologists, and open today's LA Times. There's absolutely nothing about the imminent police assault of Occupy LA, nor is there even mention of Obama's speech of three days ago. It's as if none of that's even happening and instead there's Pamela Anderson interviewed down the street at the Hollywood post office for her commemorative "PETA Vegetarian" stamp. Under a picture of her smiling, holding an enlarged reproduction of the stamp, and conveniently framing her ample breasts, it reads: "She wore a smoky blue-gray sleeveless dress that reached mid-thigh and revealed cleavage and lacy, peach bra." I'm thinking, "This is news?"

Across the store at the counter for the half and half and sugar a homeless woman silently waves her hands over her paper cup and moves in almost a dance, reminding me of some form of Tai Chi. Only she's more spastic and a bit trance like, no doubt the electrodes in her brain burned out from too much meth, or years of alcohol. When she turns I glimpse a pushcart full of her tattered belongings shoved up and hidden in the corner.

"Ma'am?" says the young kid that works behind the counter. "You can't be here all day. Other people need the condiments."

She stops weaving and stares at him. I put down my paper and watch. The kid looks tired, and a slightly angry. The homeless woman hesitates, it appears she's deciding how to react. I feel for her, but I've seen her around. She's crazy as fuck, and usually is screaming incoherently in the street.

"Callin' the police," says the kid.

But he's not reaching for the phone. And she knows it. And then I'm thinking this probably happens everyday between them.

"I need money," says the woman.

"Get a job," snorts the kid, a look of contempt spreading across his face.

"Want a new dress," she says and then starts dancing again, weaving in and out to an unknown beat that's decidedly opposite to the horrid in-store pop music being played. "Like to live in a house, have a cat, eat strawberries."

The kid stops wiping the counter and stares at her, this time without malice. He looks sad, and slightly pained. "How bout a refill before you leave?"

I go back to reading my newspaper. Pamela is still there, and for some reason I start on the article again. "One woman in a ragged black T-shirt and shorts wedged her way into the crowd of cameras, burning cigarette in hand, and asked Anderson if she could possibly spare a dollar or any change. 'You look beautiful,' she said, when Anderson apologized for not having anything on her."

It's pathetic being depressed for the holidays. It's like every cliché that's ever been written. And really what the hell do I have to be depressed about? I'm not homeless, mentally deranged, stuck working a shit job, or brainwashed in a religious cult. I've a chemical imbalance that slips into gear every once in a while, but I know the difference between sadness, stress, and depression.

The world is falling apart. The economy is going to hell. It's all going to get worse, before it gets better – if it ever does.

"Think I've had enough," says the homeless woman.

Real Estate

2011-10-19T21:47:00.000-07:00

In the city of Los Angeles there's an apartment on North Gardner Street, just south of Sunset Blvd. In early 1990 my friend Chris lived there with a computer nerd junkie named Chuckles. Chris and I sold heroin out of the apartment. It was the old days – before cell phones. Everything was done through pagers and pay phones. They'd page, we call back, then deliver. However, selling drugs, being the illegal activity that it is, problems arose and there was tension between us. At some point I said fuck it and we parted ways. A few months later Chris was dead. Murdered at a drug deal and if things hadn't worked out the way they had I would have been with him.

And yeah, that was 20 years ago. Yet, I find myself occasionally still thinking of Chris. He and I were best friends for many years. We worked together, traveled together, and lived together. We chased the same girls. Had the same taste in music, drugs, food, and movies. Lived our lives on the edge, taking all we could, until it ran out, and I miss him.

These days I'm back, living in Hollywood. Less than fifteen blocks from where I lived in 1990. I drive the same streets. Eat at some of the same restaurants. And practically live in the same neighborhood, and the memories and ghosts from the past haunt me.

Although, back then Hollywood was a much different place. During the '80's, the rich and middle class abandoned America's cities, and Hollywood was no different. The once thriving "Entertainment Capital of the World" had turned into a cesspool of depravity. An army of hookers, junkies, speed-freaks, and teenage hustlers occupied the streets. The hotels and apartment buildings, once famous for housing actors and models, had turned to shooting galleries and tweeker pads. The neighborhood I now live in was so fucked up with dope-fiends sleeping in abandoned cars, and transvestite hookers plying the sidewalks, that when I drove through I'd wonder who the hell would actually live here.

All my friends then were speed-freaks and junkies. We lived marginally outside the law. Not crazed career criminals, but petty thieves, and low level drug dealers – anything to pay for our habits – we were all on the road to ruin, although at the time you couldn't tell us that. I remember people saying, "The way you're going, you're bound for prison, or death." And I'd tell them they were crazy. Not me. I had a handle on it. I was going to do it different.

I have no idea what happened to most of the people I hung out with then. I'm only too sure they're either dead or in prison. It took me another ten years, but I finally made it – prison obviously, not death. And yet, every once in a while I recall a certain event, or a person I thought a friend, and wonder whatever happened to them. Then the memory fades, and life goes on.

The other day it was really hot, and that evening, after sunset, I went out for a walk, because the temperature cools a few degrees when the sun isn't beating down. I headed south, past Santa Monica Blvd. into a neighborhood of single-family homes and manicured lawns. And like in most of Los Angeles, there were no other pedestrians out on the sidewalk. Before I knew it I was in my old neighborhood and walking by the bungalow my girlfriend Sara and I shared.

Yet it was decidedly different looking. The building freshly painted, and there was a nice hedge with a gate out front – when before there was a short expanse of dead lawn. The neighbor no longer had a car up on blocks in their driveway, and everything was in nicer shape all up and down the street.

I stood out front on the sidewalk and tried to remember living there. I could see the hardwood floors, and one bedroom layout in my mind. And then the memories flooded in: middle of the night paranoia, tweeked out of my mind on speed because I was trying to get off heroin, peering through the blinds, jumping at any noise outside. Knowing the cops were coming, but they never did. Telling Sara to shut up, turning off the TV. Doing more drugs, going insane.

Obviously, for some things, twenty years changes them. Others stay the same. Most people can't keep doing whatever substance it is they want to abuse their entire lives. The human body can't maintain. The brain fades, the organs give up, and it all comes to a screeching halt. Thankfully I stopped before that became an issue. But back in 1990 that was the life style. It's what we did, and seemed normal. I don't think I really knew anybody that wasn't getting loaded. And if I did, I sure as hell wasn't hanging out with them.

Another close friend at the time was Sheri. She lived over in West Hollywood, across the street from Barney's Beanery, in an apartment with her newborn baby and a husband that would later hang himself.

We'd known each other for years, had a lot of mutual friends, and went out for a minute. Sort of dated, and got high together, but we were on different paths: mine was heroin, hers meth and alcohol. Which didn’t mesh, and I eventually ended up with Sara, who was Sheri's best friend, and we set out to ruin our lives as fast as we could, while Sheri met another guy, got pregnant, and had a kid. But we all hung out together. Down and out in Hollywood.

Then it all fell apart, I moved away, and Sara went to jail. The months turned into years, and then decades. And Sheri? Well, our paths crossed many times over the years, different cities, different variations on our relationship: adversaries, conspirators, accomplices. Yet, with the passing of time we went our separate ways, and finally lost touch, and it's been longer than I care to admit since I thought of Sheri.

It's night and the courtyard of my building is barely lit. I'm juggling my bag and some Chinese food take-out as I fumble in my pocket for the keys to my apartment. Just as I open the door there's a chime from my phone telling me I have a text: "Hi Patrick Was at the hospital with Sheri shes pretty bad off and it does not look good?? She's in a coma! Will keep you posted… Very sad."

Then I'm standing in the living room. It's hot, the windows having been closed all day, the apartment claustrophobic. A small fan on my desk that I forgot and left on is set to high, straining to blow the stale air around. I stare at my phone for a few minutes. When it automatically turns off, I revive it and punch in: "Man, sorry to hear the news. Very sad. Good that you're there. Yes, please keep me posted."

My apartment is silent. Oddly, even my noisy neighbors aren't making their usual racket. The whir of the fan, a background hum, the only audible noise, until my phone chimes again.

"Just got home, was not much we could do for her there…might drive back Friday to check in but it's not looking promising she stopped breathing and her heart stopped and it took 45 minutes to revive her! She was without oxygen for 45 minutes…Was so sad to see her in that condition so lifeless!"

I'm still staring at my phone, when it shuts off, and the room goes dark.

Time, consequences, and circumstance change everything. I no longer live outside the law. I no longer do drugs and hang out in shooting galleries. I got busted, did my time, hit rehab, got off parole and I haven't looked back. Yet, periodically memories return, and when I think of all the shit I've done, I wonder who that person was. Because it isn't who I am now, and when I look in the mirror, I can't fathom being that person who did all that insanity. I don't know who he was, like it's weird I have tracks on my arms, and rap sheet that keeps me filling out the "have you ever been arrested" section on job applications with yes – and never getting hired. But hey, I've forgotten, can't you?

Last time I saw Sheri was fourteen years ago. She'd come by my place in San Francisco with a friend and I'd scored them some drugs. I was heavily strung out. They'd wanted speed. I had a connection. They gave me the money. I returned with a quarter ounce. But I'd pinched a gram of it so that I could sell it for heroin. This was not what friends do to one another. But this is what strung-out addicts do to anyone they come in contact with, if they'll let them. Sheri called me on the phone the next day to yell at me, but I knew her heart wasn't in it – stealing drugs wasn't something new to Sheri. She was always lying, manipulating, and conniving when it came to getting high. Sheri was crazy like that, and the years of Meth and alcohol hadn't helped.

The last time I talked with Sheri I'd just gotten out of rehab and I was a nervous wreck being on my own and afraid of possibly relapsing. I was scared to hang out with anyone I'd used with. Like their addiction would somehow grab me, forcing a needle in my arm, and I'd be strung out again. Sheri had gotten my number from my mother, and called me. Hearing her voice was strange, and I was hesitant to talk with her.

"Don't worry, I'm clean," She said. "I haven't had a drink in ages and I'm not using speed."

We made plans to meet when she came to the city.

Two nights later she called, drunk as hell, screaming, "You don't love me."

I hung up on her.

It's taken me many years to be comfortable as me, who I am now. I was nervous around old friends. I was unnerved in sketchy places and situations. I avoided everything, and then one day realized how stupid all that was and started living my life again. But by then I'd lost touch with a lot of people. Regrettably some I'd never see again.

Friday evening, coming out of a meeting, standing outside in the parking lot, talking shit with a couple of ex-dope fiends. Absentmindedly I turn my phone back on and the text alert chimes.

"Results of the brain scan came in…..She's gone forever Patrick…."

Reading for Fourteen Hills

2011-05-28T22:34:00.000-07:00

Fourteen Hills 17.2 2011

Release Party and Reading Review: SF Weekly 5/23/11 - reprinted without permission.

Loud Bikers Can't Stop Release of Fourteen Hills Literary Journal
By Evan Karp

College and motorcycles. They go together. College and literary journals. Yep, those too. College literary journals and motorcycles? Not usually, although they did Friday night as SF State's Fourteen Hills said hello to its latest issue and goodbye to its old staff at the San Francisco Motorcycle Club.

At one point the two cultures nearly clashed. Natasha Moni, who is from Virginia, read: "It wasn't like we were eating the squirrels we accidentally ran over." Just then, the loud din of motorcycles revving up just outside began to threaten the mood. Moni, however, saved herself (and maybe the rest of the set) by altering her poem:

We were raised acorn below bicycle, balloon between spokes
The thrill of mimicry
The sound of what sounded like motorcycle
- here there was major laughter, hoots, shrill screaming, and claps -
buzzing like bee
like danger.

Fourteen Hills, consisting of all graduate students in SF State's creative writing MFA program, faces daunting odds: constant turnover, lack of funds, and changes in administration, to name a few. Yet the people involved still put out a quality publication twice a year. Friday night the review celebrated the release of issue 17.2, welcomed a new staff and said goodbye to the old staff, announced the winner of its annual Michael Rubin Award, held a raffle, featured about half a dozen readings, and still managed to be consistently engaging.

The motorcycles, at first a potential hindrance, may have helped. Creative writing professor Toni Mirosevich addressed the subject: "I had a Kawasaki 90 once. Do you think that would get me in here?" To whistles and laughter she read excerpts from her most recent book The Takeaway Bin, even getting the audience to sing the chorus from the Babes in Toyland song "More, More, More" ("How do you like it? How do you like your looove?") She raised her hand to prompt the whole room into harmony.

Patrick O'Neil read an excerpt from a book about his time as road manager for a lot of punk bands in the late 1970s and early '80s. Waking up naked in a young woman's room in the middle of nowhere, his first thoughts:

My head is splitting.
I need drugs.
I need a cigarette.
I gotta take a piss
... are replaced by fear when the woman tells him her mother is cooking breakfast in the kitchen.

The staff gathered to read a collection of stanzas they wrote together in honor of departing editor-in-chief Hollie Hardy, who has served for three years -- six semesters straight.

Daniel Larson took the crowd out to the ballgame -- at AT&T Park -- only to see "a vendor climbing the aisle empty-handed with his big price button on. 'Look, Tim: they're selling Mexicans for $3.75 in San Francisco.' ... And then Juanito said, 'That's nothing. For five bucks, I'll get you a truckload at Home Depot.'" After a few titters from the crowd, Larson reassured everyone: "It's okay to laugh -- we're just talking shit amongst friends." Everyone laughed.

There were serious moments, however. Fourteen Hills is not just a journal, but also a press. Each year it bestows the Michael Rubin Award to one first-time author whose book it publishes. This year's recipient was announced as Keely Hyslop, whose book, Things I Say to Pirates on Nights That I Miss You, is expected to be in print by the fall.

Josh Bettinger read the last poem in issue 17.2, which turned out to be a fitting way to end the evening:

One that
without costly moves into the future, can portray an honest man folding his underwear
beneath a stupid moon.
That is a proper exit.
What I've built I'll name for you.

The YAA Girlz and the Deadly Sparks

2011-04-29T03:18:00.000-07:00

In case you've never seen this, here is my film: The YAA Girlz and the Deadly Sparks.

The YAA Girlz and the Deadly Sparks - A Patrick O'Neil Film © 2009
Running time: 12.5 minutes

Directed, Filmed. Edited, Scored, and Interviews Conducted by Patrick O'Neil.

The YAA Girlz and the Deadly Sparks: were two all female skateboard "crews" from the punk rock days of the early 1980's, formed in reaction to the all male skate "crews" like the Jaks, and then the Jerks, who didn't allow women as members.

The documentary consists of interviews with a few of these pioneering women skaters today as they talk about what it was like then, combined with a montage of photos taken during their heyday, skating and hanging out. The accompanying soundtrack consists of music from local SF punk bands of the era: Bad Posture, Fang, Afflicted, and Speed Racer.

Published in The Coachella Review, Spring Issue (2010)

IMDb Profile/Film

Hail Mary

2011-02-27T12:07:00.000-08:00

The Korean missionaries storm the Hollywood Blvd. sidewalk, parting the tourists and street urchins like the Red Sea. Their leader, a short slender woman dressed in black, screams into a megaphone. "Jesus is coming. Jesus is coming. Jesus is coming today!" While the rest of them wave placards stating "Jesus is thy Lord." A gutter-punk, curled up around his forty-ounce in a closed storefront's doorway, waves his hand in a heavy metal/Ronnie James Dio two fingered devil horn salute. With an obscene leer he sticks out his tongue and yells, "Fuck off!"

The year was 1978. Mrs. Mario Rubio is making burritos for her husband Eduardo. While heating the flour tortillas she notices a small burn on one of the tortillas that in her mind resembles the face of Jesus Christ. The Rubios, thinking it a sign from heaven, save the tortilla and then tell family and friends of their "miracle." Word quickly spreads and 8,000 pilgrims descend upon the Rubios' tiny stucco house in rural Lake Arthur, New Mexico, to view the sacred icon that is later named: "Shrine of the Holy Tortilla."

It's twelve noon, the sidewalks are full. There's the usual riff raff: students from the Musician's Institute, kids from Hollywood high, out-a-town gawkers, weasels hustling sightseeing tour tickets, and a lunchtime crowd of locals looking for something to eat. A couple of women in torn blue jean shorts and Ugg boots ask me to take their picture in front of Sylvester Stallone's star. They're Italian, they gesture with their hands, a lot, and I almost laugh at how stereotypical they are. Framing them in the viewfinder I take their picture and return the camera. One of the women tries to give me a dollar and I tell her that's okay. She pulls out another and stuffs both in the top pocket of my shirt. Who am I to argue?

The lady who runs the rock and roll clothing store is out front standing by a parking meter smoking a cigarette. I've walked by her every day for the last year and a half. She dresses in the clothes she sells. Death metal t-shirts, spiked bracelets, leopard creepers, dark sunglasses, and peg legged jeans. She's skinny with a long face, a la Patti Smith, and her hair is cut in a Betty Page. Upside down crucifixes hang from her ears. But for some reason she still seems out of place. Like she's dressing the part and then goes home to flowered Mumu's and fluffy slippers. I've always wondered about her. Usually I say good morning. Mostly she ignores me, and today is no exception.

1986, Jesus' image appears again, this time in Fostoria, Ohio, on the side of a soybean oil storage tank. Hundreds of people park along rural Route 12, by the Hi-Lo gas station to view the image. Reuters and Time magazine send reporters to interview the locals. Rita Ratchen, a self-employed drapery installer, claims to have sighted Jesus first, but kept quiet, as she didn't want to be thought insane. A month later vandals attack the storage tank with paint balloons and Jesus disappears.

The missionaries are back. I hear the leader's amplified shouts before I see them stomping by in a long line. Their chanting sounds like the disjointed rumblings of advancing impending doom. Although I'd say they're confused, I'm impressed by their conviction. How do they know Jesus is coming? And how can they be so sure it's today? Weren't they just here last week proclaiming the very same event? What happens when he doesn't appear?

The old crone with the two shopping carts filled with filthy rags and torn trash-bags cowers as if afraid of the missionaries. Crouched behind her carts she makes the sign of the cross. Her lips move as if she is reciting prayers. A skinny kid decked out in a sagging blue velour tracksuit with blonde cornrows walks by in the other direction. He's got large headphones over his ears and he bops his head up and down. His body language and hand gestures mimic the standard rapper's repertoire of movements as he savagely mouths lyrics to whatever beat only he can hear.

1991, Jesus makes national news again appearing on a Pizza Hut billboard in Atlanta, Georgia. Joyce Simpson, an aspiring gospel singer, sees Jesus' face in the advertisement after praying for a sign from god. Unable to decide whether to stay in the church choir or sing professionally Simpson turns to divine help. Seeing Jesus' face in the spaghetti hanging from a fork convinces her to stay with the choir.

Last night was a full moon, and even though it rained, today the streets still smell like piss. Yet, as far as I know no one has seen Jesus' face in the urine stained sidewalks. Two blocks up, by the Kodak Center, out of work actors and assorted weirdos dress as super heroes and movie stars and pose for the tourists for a few bucks a shot. There's Michael Jackson, Spiderman, Bart Simpson, and Marilyn Monroe. And yes, mixed in with all the fantasy is who else, but Jesus – the pre-crucifixion Jesus. Which basically means a longhaired hippie looking white guy in a coarse burlap robe, sandals, and a beard. Every once in a while I see him getting on the bus to go home after a hard day of having his picture taken by tourists. He looks tired, and a bit malnourished.

Armat runs the local newsstand around the corner off of Hollywood on Las Palmas. I buy my paper from him every day. He tells me the news is never good, and asks why I care. "Nobody wants to know the bad," he says. "They'd rather know about stupid things like Lady Gaga naked snorting cocaine." Armat's business has picked up considerably now that he's included an X rated porn section to his stand. "Ya gotta give the people what they want," he says as he gives me my change.

2005, the Lee family of Toledo, Ohio, is preparing for Easter dinner. Donna Lee is frying premade pierogies she bought from a store. She flips one over and sees Jesus' face is the scorch marks. "Oh my God!" yells Donna. Her husband Tommy agrees, "there's a face on the pierogi, except it ain't god, it's Jesus." Both Donna and her husband were born and raised Catholic. They pray daily and know the value of a holy icon. "We put it on eBay," says Tommy. The minimum bid was $500. "Everything happens for a reason, and I think this one did. I truly do," says Donna. The Lee's sell the Jesus pierogi for $1775.

I've got my newspaper and coffee and I'm less than a block from home. Once you get off the Boulevards the traffic is light, and there's no pedestrians. With the crazy weather lately all the trees are in bloom as if it were Spring. The bushes in front of the houses are overgrown and blocking the sidewalk. I turn the corner and almost collide with the Russian hooker in a wheelchair. I've seen her around, but I've never spoken to her. She cruises the back alleys and plies her trade in the shadows, driveways, or behind my building's dumpster. She's dressed in a mini skirt, fishnets, a see-through blouse, and high heels. There's a messy blonde wig on her head, and her make-up is dense and crusty. Even though she's in a wheelchair she doesn't use her hands to move the wheels – instead she pushes herself backwards with her feet.

"Hey," she says. Her accent thick, made more difficult to decipher with the slur of alcohol, drugs, or maybe both. "I'm Mary. You vanta have a go?" Hanging around her neck is a silver medal of Jesus' head with the crown of thorns.

I am momentarily speechless. I stand there with my coffee and newspaper in each hand and fumble for words. When none come I simply say no.

Reading at Vermin on the Mountain

2011-01-17T17:10:00.000-08:00

Vermin on the Mountain Reading Series
January 9th 2011
Host: Jim Ruland
Writers: Anotina Crane, Chiwan Choi, Jeanne Darst, Danielle Dutton, Patrick O'Neil

Camera: Stephan Salit

VOTM: What's the most unusual experience you've ever had at a reading?

Patrick O'Neil: "At my earlier readings I was nervous about being in front of people and reading my work. So far my technique had been to sort of rapid fire spit out sentences, not always following punctuation, at speeds that defied enunciation, and basically getting it over with as quickly as possible. Then, after this really bad event where I mumbled and slurred my way through ten pages in three minutes without taking one breath, these people I didn't know cornered me backstage and told me they couldn't understand a word I had said. But they liked the way I paced the stage. "You look like a caged animal," they said, and stared at me with expressions that resembled a cross between concern and fear. Then they explained they were outreach workers from a local mental health clinic and asked what my thoughts were concerning psychotropic drugs and residential assisted living. I politely demurred and pried their hands off my body. Although I'm not one to readily refuse an opportunity for potentially free medication, I thought it prudent instead to reevaluate my stage presence. So in preparation for my next reading I decided I was going to be calm. For a whole week I practiced at home and concentrated on slowing my breathing and thoughts. I tried speaking at an even pace, pronouncing the words whole instead of partially, and pausing at things like commas and periods. I even stood in one place, and kept the twitching to a minimum. Taking the podium I felt a serenity I had never before experienced. Effortlessly I read a short love story about seeing my ex-girl friend who'd lost her mind to crack and was homeless living under the freeway. When I was done I looked at the audience and it wasn't the usual open mouths and stares of bewilderment. People smiled. An elderly woman came up and said, "You have the most beautiful Texas accent I've ever heard." For once I had no snappy retort. I thanked her and quietly left the reading. I'm a Nordic vagrant of no real origin with an accent somewhere between New York, Belfast, San Francisco, and San Quentin. I have driven though Texas on many occasion, usually as fast as possible and during the night. I've never really thought about living there, and I sure as hell haven't practiced talking like no damn cowboy. Perhaps I shouldn't snort the Prozac."

Waiting at the Gilbert

2010-10-04T12:32:00.000-07:00

The old man is six feet away, but I can still smell him. It's a permeating stench. A mixture of piss, dirty socks, unwashed body, and a bunch of other rancid smells I don't want to indentify let alone drift up my nostrils. He's digging in a trashcan with a folded coat hanger. Snagging aluminum cans and plastic bottles with a cool dexterity, like a short order cook flipping burgers on a grill. When he hooks one, he pulls it out and holds it upside down draining whatever liquid is inside. Then he tosses it on the sidewalk and crushes it with his foot. He's making a lot of noise for 2AM. But hell, it's a Saturday night in Hollywood, who the fuck cares?

We're at the corner of Wilcox and Selma getting bathed in an eerie green light from the Gilbert Hotel's neon sign. I was thirsty and stopped walking to drink from a bottle of water I had in my bag and the old man asked if he could have it when I was done. Now I'm standing here drinking what's left and sweating in the heat while he finds another can and smashes it.

A black and white pulls up and the young looking cop inside gives me the once over. I stop drinking, lower the bottle, and stare back. So does the old man. The cop that's driving leans down so he too can see us. We all stare at each other for a few seconds, then the car's lights and siren come on and it pulls away from the curb, the tires screeching as it tears up the street.

"Fuckin cops," says the old man.

The cop car swerves around the corner, the siren fades, and a metallic rumbling takes over, echoing off the surrounding buildings getting louder. I turn and see Iggy Pop, or maybe he looks more like Steve Buscemi, rolling up pushing a shopping cart. He's short, dressed in black, and skinny as hell. His mop of dirty blond hair looks like a rug that needs cleaning. He shoves his cart against a signpost so it won't roll away, and then sits on the curb, his feet in the street. I stare at him wondering what kind of life this guy has. Then I take another drink and come to the conclusion I don't care.

"Hey, ya gotta quarter?" he asks.

"Dude," I say, "it's 2010. Nobody asks for quarters any more."

The old man nods in agreement, then smashes another can.

"Ok, ya gotta dollar?" says Iggy.

"Fuck, I ain't got no money. Get the fuck outta here."

Iggy just sits there and stares and I go back to finishing my water. Although why I'm drinking just so the old man can have my bottle when he's got a bag full doesn't seem that urgent a problem. Then I notice the old man is talking, sort of under his breath, but it's still audible.

"What he say?" says Iggy.

"I don't think he's talking to you."

"What, he's only talking to you or something?"

"No, that's not what I meant," I say.

Iggy looks confused. He thinks I'm fucking with him. Like it's some kind of joke about him. Which is probably what happens to Iggy all day long. Or at least in his mind it does.

"You done?" the old man asks.

When I realize he means me I tell him no I'm still drinking and he says to take my time, there's no hurry. Which is nice and I wish it were true, but I'm always in a fucking hurry. I hate waiting. I want everything now, and when it doesn't come I have to get my mind off thinking about it. Which makes me do shit like walk around all night because I can't sleep and I'll lie in bed staring at the ceiling worrying about all this shit I can't do a goddamn thing about.

"What are you doing here?" says the old man.

"You asking me?" I say.

"Sure as hell ain't asking that guy," he says and points his coat hanger in the general direction of Iggy.

"I guess I'm waiting," I say.

The old man rubs his chin with a filthy hand and nods his head. Then he slips his fingers into his shirt pocket and pulls out half a cigarette. Lighting it, he sucks in smoke and stares up at the sky. "I'm waiting too, " he says. "Waiting to die."

"My waiting is a little more ambitious," I say. Only I wonder if that's true. I mean what's more ambitious that wanting to die? My waiting is also a little less final. I'm waiting for word from this press saying they're either going to publish my book, or they're not. This has been going on for the last five months. I'd sent them a cold query and the book's first thirty pages. Then they'd gotten back to me, said they liked it, and could I send the whole book. Now I'm supposedly in the final running and they're making their decision, and tomorrow's the day I find out. Which is why I'm out wandering the streets at 2AM.

A fat guy with a mass of curly hair wearing a huge oversized Slayer t-shirt suddenly appears. He's talking really fast, apparently to himself, but I still check to make sure he's not wearing a Bluetooth headset, and of course he's not. The front of his shirt is covered in weird white stains. His shorts hang off his ass from a studded belt and sag down to his knees and I wonder how the hell he can walk like that? He stops next to the old man and looks around, then asks where he is. He says he thinks he's at the wrong bus stop. Only there's no bus stop because buses don't run on this street. I peg him for a drug casualty and turn away.

"You're in Hollywood," the old man says.

"Hollywood?" says the fat guy.

"Yeah. Movie stars and shit," says Iggy.

"Know where a post office is?" asks the fat guy.

I want to tell him it's late and the post office is closed. But the fact is there's a post office right across the street. So instead I say yeah and point, hoping he'll go away.

"I gotta cash my check," says the fat guy.

The old man looks at the fat guy and then glances at me and shakes his head. Suddenly Iggy is on his feet. Like a predator surveying prey he circles the fat guy. There's a weird look on his face as he fidgets and his arm muscles tense.

"What check?" he says.

I don't really want to watch this. Although I'm not really sure Iggy can take the fat guy's check. And, I'm not really sure the fat guy even has a check, or anything else worth taking. I mean who the hell cashes checks at a post office? He's fucking crazy. But so's Iggy, and this has the potential to get ugly.

"Ow!" screams Iggy as the old man smacks him in the face with the coat hanger.

"Get outta here boy," says the old man. The fat guy grabs his belt and waddles down the street disappearing into the darkness. Iggy rubs the side of his face, his expression like a hurt kid.

I wasn't gonna do nothing," he says.

"Why you waiting at the Gilbert?" says the old man, ignoring Iggy. Then I notice his hand stretched out toward the empty bottle I'm holding.

"I'm not at the Gilbert," I say and give him the bottle.

"Yes you are," he says and then drops it on the ground and crushes it under his foot.

Iggy shoves his cart around and starts pushing it back the way he came. "Fuck you man," he says, then he stops and I think I hear him crying.

The old man lifts his garbage bag full of crushed recyclables. There's holes in the bottom and liquid drips on the sidewalk. When he moves I can smell his stench again. I begin to leave, but he starts talking.

"You know, it's not waiting when it's something you have no control over," he says and shifts the bag on his shoulder. "Life's gonna play itself out. You're just along for the ride."

I watch the old man as he heads towards Sunset Boulevard. Behind me I hear Iggy sniffle, then he starts pushing his cart in the general direction of where the fat guy went. I hold my hand up to my face, the skin looks dead under the green glow of the hotel sign. I know the publishers aren't going to call tomorrow. They're a business, they have a lot of books and authors to deal with, and I'm taking it personally. I just don't like waiting.

The door to the Gilbert Hotel opens and a woman walks out. She smiles at me, holds a cigarette, and asks if I have a light. I tell her I don't and we stand there looking at each other.

"You staying here?" she asks.

"I don't think so."

A revised version of this essay was published at The Whistling Fire on 1/11/11.

The Right To Remain Silent

2010-08-25T11:42:00.000-07:00

The street kid on a BMX bicycle nearly runs me down. His face contorted with what looks like either anger or fear. He's hauling ass away from the Egyptian Theater's backdoor. Two cops stand there staring after him. A trail of unwashed stench hangs in the air as he passes.

I step over the slimy patch of sidewalk behind the souvenir shop off Hollywood Boulevard. The first time I walked this route I'd thought someone had pissed on the wall. But came to realize it's something much deeper in the building leaking out through a crack in its foundation. There's a dark green fungus quality to it – like a million microbes are alive and I'm stepping over some ancient mildewed civilization.

The taller cop gestures towards me as I approach and I stop, shifting the bag of groceries from one hand to the other.

"You live round here?" he asks.

"Live?" I say and stare at his badge: a gold crest with an image of City Hall and underneath it, "Founded in 1781." I'm trying to remember what year California became a state when the other cop taps my elbow.

"Hey, he's talkin to you," he says.

"And I fuckin answered," I respond.

"I.D." says the taller one, pulling out a black leather notebook from his back pocket.

"You guys bored?" I ask and dig in my bag for my wallet.

"Man was shot here last night," says the other cop.

"Dude, it's three in the afternoon, that was last night. What the hell you bugging me for?" I shift the groceries back to the other hand and step into a small strip of shade a palm tree is affording across the sidewalk.

"We're canvassing the neighborhood for witnesses," the taller cop says. He's got my driver’s license in his hand, and he's writing in his notebook with a pen. I look at the other cop, whose wearing mirror shades like he's a southern sheriff in a movie.

"Where were you last night?" he says and removes the shades revealing a hard expression of hatred.

"I wasn't standing here," I say.

"See or hear anything?"

"Define anything," I respond.

"Anything unusual," says the other cop.

"Let's me see, my neighbors were fucking real loud. But that's not unusual. They do it all the time and she's a screamer. The homeboys across the street had a party and their music was really loud, but you guys came by at least three times and told them to turn it down. There's a crackhead living behind my building's dumpster. He's got a mattress and a beat up TV spliced into the streetlight's power lines. I could hear the news, something about stem cell research being halted, and then David Letterman…"

"Shut the fuck up!" yells the other cop, his hands clenched into fists.

The taller cop hands me my license and closes his notebook. Two kids walk by and the other cop glares at them. They stop talking and cross the street. I stare at the taller cop until he nods his head, which I take to mean I can leave.

I heard the gunshots last night. I heard the squealing of tires, people shouting and a woman scream. But what the fuck, I'm no suspect and resent the hell out of being treated like one. Besides, I heard, I didn't see shit. We're standing more than a block away from my apartment. If the cop had actually looked at my address he'd a known. So what kind of witness would I make? Fucking cops.

"Hey!" yells the other cop. I turn around and he does that weird thing - pointing two fingers at his eyes and then one at me – which might look cool in the movies, but causes me to laugh.

"Whatever man," I say and walk into the bright sunshine towards home.

Wandering American Culture

2010-07-20T16:18:00.000-07:00

There was a phantom on the highway. Just east of San Bernardino, a ghost shadow strolling across four lanes of I-10 at two in the morning. I saw his brief outline in my headlights. He wore a tattered blanket over his head like a shawl. He looked dirty, and was dragging a trash bag. The 18 wheeler on my right blew its air horn and flashed its lights. At 90 mph he was there for a brief second and then gone. I wondered if I hadn't seen him and changed lanes would I have accidently run him down? And just where the hell was he going at two am in this deserted part of the world?

I've been staying out in the desert east of Los Angeles in the small town of Desert Hot Springs. For the last two weeks I've been house sitting for friends while they're back East visiting relatives. It's a somewhat large house with a backyard and a pool. I'm in the downstairs guestroom. With its own hallway and bathroom it's about the size of my apartment. I'm not used to lording around all this space. I'm not used to not hearing my neighbors scream. At home I wake up to the roar of passing Harleys, dogs barking and loud obnoxious music. Out here the wind blows, and there's silence.

This time in the desert has given me the opportunity to start writing the new book. It’s a book I'd thought I wouldn't write, or to be more honest, a book that at first I wasn't that interested in writing. I had other plans for the next book. Plans that I may still get back to. But the idea for this book came when I was writing a chapter for my memoir. There was a time in my life when I worked for punk bands, as a roadie, and then a road manager. The chapter dealt with a small portion of that time, the very end, and it wasn't a very good time. But that's not why I'm hesitant to write about it. Unfortunately it's more a case of not being able to remember everything. And if I'm going to write a book about touring I prefer to work from complete memories. I like to have the whole story in mind before I start to write. Usually I knock out the gist and flesh in the details. I know where it begins and where it's going to end. With nonfiction this usually isn't a problem. But writing about this part of my life I hit areas where I just don't remember. There's huge blank spots where I'm stopped dead in my tracks. I was pretty damn loaded about 90% of the time. The other 10% I was asleep – maybe. In a room full of fucked up people I was probably the most fucked up one there.

So you can see my dilemma. Right now I've got the beginnings of four chapters – tales from tours I've told a million times. Yet they're only each about 2000 words and then I'm stuck in the murky parts where who knows what the fuck happened – obviously not me. I've outlined a dozen other chapters and like a lot of my writing once I start to dig in the memories flow. But it's becoming clear I need to interview some of the other people who were there. I'm hoping their memories will help jolt mine. Although I was talking with Anna Lisa, my ex, and she was going on and on about a time I sort of remember, a time I should remember, and it was a complete blank.

I was thinking maybe I could write it as snippets of memory, or like flash cards of the past. But unless you have ADD or the attention span of a goat wouldn't it be too vague and unsatisfactory to read such small amounts tacked onto each other?

Trying to piece it all together, I sit on a lounge chair in the backyard with a notebook and collect my thoughts. During the day it's hot as hell. Some days it's been 110 degrees or more. When my brain is fried or I just can't think, I take a dip in the pool and sit in the shade drying off. It helps with the memories. It helps me think.

Besides that I've been doing a lot of reading, and worse, watching TV. Which is something I don't do a lot of. I have a TV at my apartment, but it isn't hooked up to cable. I only use it to watch DVD's. I'd rather read or watch a movie than television. Although everyone I know says cable shows are better than movies. I've seen The Sopranos, Breaking Bad and The Wire. But I'm not sure I would say they're better than movies. I still like to go to the theater. I love the big screen, the surround-a-sound, even the idiot behind me yammering on his cell phone. I like to munch bad popcorn, breathe in the stench of hot dogs, and hold my piss until my back teeth are floating. That's the way to see movies. That's having some fun.

But this house has a huge TV sitting in the middle of the living room hooked up to cable – minus the premium channels like HBO. A huge TV that mocks me, like it’s saying, "Oh, so you don’t watch TV?" And then I grab the remote and flip through 70 channels of the strangest shit I've ever seen. A pudgy spike-haired hipster cooks über scary mega-calorie food. A game show hosted by a cab driver as he quizzes his passengers in his New York City cab. A grotesque steroid infused mullet-wearing bounty hunter and his equally over-enhanced wife chase "criminals" on the lam from the bail bondsman. A family of dark-haired voluptuous women bicker with one another in Los Angeles. A bunch of supposed social rejects feign interest in driving trucks up and down a shitty frozen road through the tundra of Alaska.

Noticing that I was wasting time, a lot of time, I made a rule. I wasn't going to watch TV during the day, only at night, and only after I'd completed a fair amount of writing. But then the weather turned. It got hotter. It was 116 in the shade and there was no breeze. Hiding inside with the AC on, I opened my MacBook Pro and stared at the screen. It stared back at me. I made a face. It remained nonplussed. Nothing. I drew a blank. I sat there on the couch sweating, and thinking, and sweating. And then I turned on the TV. MSNBC was having a weekend marathon showing back-to-back hour-long episodes of Locked Up: a series filmed inside various prisons where they interview inmates and guards and document all the drama and insanity. It’s a weird sick voyeuristic extravaganza. A celebration of everything that's wrong and right about modern television interspersed with ads for every stupid product imaginable. I sat mesmerized all day as the sun moved across the sky, the temperature lowered and my eyes began to ache.

When I finally turned off the TV I couldn't move. The only sound was the whir of the air conditioning. For some reason I was starving. I thought about food, the kind I would never eat. Like Burger King, diet Dr. Pepper, Reese's peanut butter cereal, frozen yogurt bars, and Olive Garden's all you can eat pasta.

I grabbed the car keys and headed out to the grocery store.

Indian Canyon Drive. A due south straight line of cracked two-lane blacktop, leaning telephone poles, turbine windmills, and nothing else. The road cuts through the desert from Route 62 out of 29 Palms into Palm Springs. The view slightly distorted by the shimmering heat. Just shy of civilization it all looks like the backside of the moon, or at least a Nevada landscape. In the 110 degree afternoon sun a man covered in dust with a large backpack walks along on his way to nowhere. There is nothing for miles on either side of him. Why is he here? What's his story? And where the fuck is he going?

Desert Hot Springs isn't Palm Springs. There's no big money. No Hollywood stars, or Vegas Rat Packers, or Sonny Bono look-a-likes. Once a tourist destination for its odd collection of hot spring health spas the surrounding community has been hit hard by the financial crisis. In the flatlands around the downtown area there are blocks where every other house is vacant and boarded up. "The Corners" is a neighborhood where drugs are openly sold. Known as "Parole Central," the city is used as a dumping ground for the state of California's unwanted parolees, the community being too poor to complain.

I stand in line a Von's supermarket and watch local meth-head drama unfold. A toothless leather skinned mom in a wife beater and shorts with three screaming kids dressed in dirty t-shirts buys ice cream bars, corn chips, soda, white bread and bologna with food stamps. When the cashier tells her she doesn't have enough to pay for it all, she omits the bologna. The oldest girl yells and gets smacked. A man walks in. I'm guessing he's dad, or at least a facsimile, because he yells at the girl to stop crying. Covered in tats and wearing baggy clothes he looks like Eminem, with a bleached blonde buzz cut, sporting gold chains and a cell phone clipped to his belt.

"No Colt 45?" the man says.

The woman shrugs. The kids are silent. The man yells, "fuck!" and storms off. I watch them leave the store. The cashier says something about that being a shame. I'm not listening but I'm looking at the cashier. She has to be at least 70 and color coordinated with a white pompadour and white polished fingernails. She's constantly talking. It’s like some monologue that has nothing to do with me or the other customers.

The older couple in front of me unloads their shopping cart. It's full of lite frozen dinners, vitamin enriched sugarless fruit juices, calcium fortified low fat milk, a loaf of low carb bread, diet Pepsi, and breakfast cereals sporting "whole grain" labels. The woman smiles at me. The old man watches the cashier and holds his credit card aloft waiting to run it through the machine.

I put my vegetables and fruits on the conveyor belt. When it's my turn the cashier looks at my items and strangely doesn't say anything. I pay and walk outside into the setting sun. After the heavily air-conditioned grocery store, the heat feels oppressive.

Exiting the parking lot, I pass the toothless leather skinned mom holding up a cardboard sign that reads, "Anything helps. God Bless you." Her three kids are huddled on the sidewalk eating ice cream bars. Behind them the man sits in a battered pickup truck talking on his cell phone.

At the main intersection I take a left instead of a right, intending on driving around before going back to the house. A small Mexican boy stands at the curb and spins a large sign for a pizza place. A fat bearded guy in a motorized wheelchair whizzes by in a hurry. Two girls with babies on their hips wait for the light. An El Camino on 22" rims rolls past honking his horn.

Five minutes of driving and the town gives way in a hurry. The desert stretches out across the valley to the Santa Rosa Mountains. In the distance I can see the traffic on I-10, and then farther away is Palm Springs. At an intersection with a gas station and a half empty used car lot I decide not to go any further and turn west into the sunset to head back.

A dusty road, sparsely populated, the nearest house a quarter mile away. A young black girl with braids, maybe nine or ten years old, walks along the dirt shoulder with a backpack on and a lunchbox in her hand. The sun has almost gone down behind the mountain range and it will be dark soon. What is she doing out here by herself? Don't her parents care? I want to pull over and ask her if she's okay, does she need a ride. It feels wrong to just do nothing. But I'm an ex-felon. I don't live here. I'm afraid of how this would look to anyone in authority and instead of taking a chance of my actions being misinterpreted I keep driving.

My friends who own the house feed the local birds and animals. Part of my job is tossing seeds to the ever-hungry horde. I throw a large scoop full out the backdoor. The yard becomes alive with activity as quails and bunnies scamper towards the food. Fat pigeons and mourning doves stop their weird mating dances and peck the ground. A chipmunk pops it head up out of its hole and charges into the feeding frenzy.

People talk of nature as if it is some beautiful nurturing thing. Yet if you watch animals feed they have no problem pecking out the eyes of the weakest to get them out of the way. I once watched a documentary on the birthing of seal pups and their first push of life into the ocean. Only to be devoured by killer whales who tossed their limp bodies around like they were playing with toys, before chomping them down whole.

We're all somewhere in the food chain. Some of us lower, some higher. But really it depends on the food chain you're a part of. There are people stuck in whatever it is they're doing. Others willingly participate with no choice but what they have. And still there are those that have checked out completely – so far left field they're barely a blip on the radar.

Tomorrow my friends come home and I drive back to Los Angeles. The newspaper says there's a heat wave. Which in LA means 95 to 100 degrees. After being in the desert this will be nothing. I'm grateful for this time I've had to write and the generosity of my friends for letting me stay here. But I need to get back to a city that has health food stores and real restaurants. I feel more comfortable with city noise and irritating neighbors. I miss walking to get coffee and the morning paper. I like to see street people, the local thugs, and tired hookers coming home from a hard night.

It's dark outside, the sun has gone down, there's a gentle breeze and the North Star is bright in the sky. A bunny hops around and I watch it for a second, then stare at my computer and begin to write.

In the Temple of Discontent

2010-06-28T15:03:00.000-07:00

The convertible top is down, and it's still hot as hell. There's no wind and the sun is whacking me like a sledgehammer. When I press the pedal to floor there's a flow of air as the car picks up speed. It’s still hot air, but at least it's moving. I pass a Hassidic Jew on a moped, his tallit flapping. His black hat and full-length overcoat seem like overkill in the afternoon sun. I signal and go around, slightly cutting him off. He honks his horn and flips me the finger. When I stop for a red light I see two Mormon missionaries trudging down the sidewalk in the blazing sun as half naked joggers run by in agony. Dressed in dark slacks, white shirts, black ties, with backpacks and little official nametags, the Mormons look miserable and as uncomfortable as the grumpy Hassidic on the moped.

It seems to be in the air. Everyone is miserable. Perhaps it's in the stars. The planets are aligned with miserable. I know I'm miserable. I'm on my way to the doctor. My body is revolting. And no, not revolting as in being ugly enough to scare small children and beautiful women. No, it's coming apart at the seams and I'm getting pretty damn tired of it.

Four months ago I was at the gym working out and felt an intense pain in my lower abdomen. I figured I'd pulled a muscle even though I hadn't done anything different than usual. I limped around for a few days hoping it'd get better, but all I felt was worse. Finally I dragged myself to the urgent care clinic and stood in line with the other fifty or so people in need of urgent care. When I got to the intake window the triage nurse asked what ailed me. "I got a pain right here," I said pointed northwest of my groin.

"From?" he enquired as he furiously punch the keys on his computer.

"I was working out, now I'm in pain," I told him.

Two hours later I was in a small cubicle examination room and a doctor was poking me asking if it hurt and where.

"Dude, poke me again and I'll show you pain," I said.

"You got tendonitis," he said and took his purple latex gloves off. "It hurts. It's going to hurt for a while. You can't work out. You have to take it easy."

"It's not only just there," I said. "I've been aching all over. I don't feel well. I haven't felt good for a long time."

The doctor looked over his glasses and said, "You're getting old. That's what happens."

I said, "When did this happen? All of a sudden I'm old and everything hurts?"

He just shrugged and said the nurse would finish my paperwork and then left the room. I put my t-shirt back on and wondered why all the doctors looked like fucking kids. I'm not that old. I shouldn't be thinking like this. I want a second opinion. I want to stop hurting. The fucker didn't even offer me pain meds.

I brake for another red light, and stop halfway in the crosswalk. There's a group of high school kids hanging out by the liquor store. The girls look like models, the boys look like track stars. I remember high school – we all looked like stoners. I had long hair and three chin hairs. All I wanted to do was smoke pot and drop acid. I don't remember the girls looking like this. I don't think anyone at my school ever ran, except maybe from the police.

Are these thoughts like old people have? Was that fucking doctor right?

My "tendonitis" never healed. But the pain lessened. After two months I thought it was okay to go back to the gym. My first sit-up said no, it wasn't okay. I left the gym feeling dejected. Exercise is part of my routine, a routine that keeps me somewhat sane.

Nine and a half years ago I quit using drugs. And my depression, anxiety, anorexia, low self-esteem, and all around fucking insanity took hold of me with a vengeance. I couldn't take it. I saw a doctor. I got on meds. I took the Prozac express. I got all happy. Shit just didn't matter any more. And it helped me stay off heroin. I came to realize there was a difference between sadness and depression. I recognized the two, and didn't dwell in the later. Everything was going all right. And then one day in downtown San Francisco I walked by a dead guy in a pool of blood that the cops had just shot and I didn't feel anything. I was more concerned with what I was going to eat for dinner – take out, or stop by the grocery store – I got home and realized I should a felt something.

So I took inventory of myself. I had a few years clean. I wasn't that fragile. I was okay with being alone. I didn't need anybody. I didn't feel anything. I couldn't sympathize. I couldn't empathize. The Prozac was numbing me like a motherfucker. I started thinking that maybe that wasn't cool. It was good I wasn't depressed or strung-out on drugs, but I didn't want to be a sociopath.

I decided I should try living without anti-depressants. But I knew without them I would have to be extra vigilant in how I took care of myself. Because if I didn't I'd be right back where I'd been and that wasn't a fun place to be.

I changed my diet. I went all the way vegetarian. I stopped eating tons of sugar. I quit smoking. I started exercising. I hit more meetings. I started meditating with a bunch of crazy wannabe Buddhists. This allowed me to get off the Zac. I tapered off and then went cold turkey. I got a little weird. I got a little introverted. I joined a gym. I exercised with angry Asian lesbians and buff gay guys. I looked none of them in the eye and kept lifting weights. At night I jogged through my shit-hole South of Market neighborhood. Crackheads and winos stared out from behind dumpsters as I ran through dark alleys in a black Adidas running suit. I hit the organic food store. I ate healthier. I stopped eating wheat. I cut gluten from my diet. I gulped down vitamins supplements with filtered water.

I started seeing my doctor on a regular basis. He dug my routine. He ran hella tests. My numbers were good. I lost some weight. I had muscle tone. The hepatitis C I've had since I'd first stuck a needle in my arm way back in the late 70's was practically undetectable.

My doctor said, "You've done an amazing turn around. I'm proud of you. But there's a problem. You got high cholesterol."

I said, "High cholesterol? Me? I eat twigs. I haven't had a slab of fatty meat in years. I don't eat fried chicken. I don't do fast food. I exercise like mo-fo. What gives doc?"

"It's probably hereditary," he said. "There's only so much diet and exercise can do."

"What's the answer?"

"There's a new medication called Zocor," he said. "It's better than that old stuff."

"Okay doc," I said. "If you think so."

I pull into the medical center's parking lot. Take a ticket from the automated booth and park in the first available slot. I fucking love Los Angeles for its parking. San Francisco was so lacking in space. Crammed onto a peninsula there's no more room and never anywhere to park. Businesses don't have parking garages. Stores rely on street parking. Meters cost twenty-five cents for five minutes. It's a fucking nightmare.

A tall Latina steps out of the car next to me. She's dressed in black peg leg jeans, a black t-shirt, black converses, and carrying a black bag with a white skull on it. Her beautiful face is cadaver pale, black mascara lines frame her eyes, and her lips are a deep magenta. I get out of my car. I'm wearing the usual: black peg leg jeans, black t-shirt, converse all-stars, which are black, and a black bag with a white skull on a red star. My face isn't too pasty white. My lips are whatever color my lips are. She looks at me. I look at her. We both laugh and she throws me a high-five.

"Looking good," I tell her.

She leans into the car's side mirror and checks her makeup. An old lady in a black dress and shawl with gray hair who I'm thinking is her mother comes around the car and grabs her by the arm. She starts talking in Spanish and I don't understand the words, but I get the meaning of her gestures. The goth-girl looks over her shoulder and waves goodbye as her mother pulls her towards the exit never stopping her incessant chatter.

When I couldn't exercise because of my tendonitis I started getting depressed. My routine was interrupted. It's a routine I've kept up for the last six years. It's a routine that works. At the same time there was all this uncertainty in my life. Some of the shit I was dealing with, but most I couldn't do much to change. I had just moved to Los Angeles and really didn't know anybody. My first book was done, and out there looking for a publisher. I was working a new job assistant teaching English Comp at a community college, and I wasn't that sure of myself as a competent teacher. I'd left my NA support group in SF and was slacking getting one here in LA. I no longer had a crazy Buddhist group to meditate with. Members of my family were having health issues. Money was scarce. And ultimately I was alone.

For months I'd been feeling crummy and it was getting worse. My body ached, which I thought was due to not exercising. I had headaches. I couldn't sleep. I was binge eating and freaking out about it. I started to have anxiety attacks. I couldn't catch my breath. Even when I was breathing normally I felt like I wasn't getting enough oxygen. My last vice was coffee. I got a four shot latte jones. I thought, that's okay, I'm not shooting heroin. What's a little coffee? But lately it was setting off the anxiety.

I went to the doctor again. He asked me what was going on in my life. I told him. He said you’re stressed. You have to relax. I said that's easy for you to say. He said here's some pills. They were fucking low level benzos. Like baby Valiums. I freaked out. I got more stressed. I was having an anxiety attack over worrying about the medication the doctor was prescribing for my anxiety attacks. I'm a recovering drug addict. I can't take pills like that. It felt like a relapse.

I called a bunch of people. I explained the situation. I talked about my fears and reservations. The more I talked, the more I understood what I was afraid of. It was old shit. It was the past catching up and sitting on my shoulders like the monkey that used to live there. My friends talked me down. They helped me out. I got a little insight. I worked through it.

One of my best friends said, "Come out to the desert. Hang out, relax by the pool." I split LA. I hit Desert Hot Springs. I chilled with my friends. And for one of the first times in my life I took prescription medication as it was prescribed.

The anxiety slowed down. I caught my breath. The sun rose in the morning, and set at night. The sky was clear. The wind blew across the foothills smelling of sage and rustling the lemon trees. Bunnies and quails with goofy looking headdresses ran around the backyard in a feeding frenzy. The pool was warm, the water embracing. My friends were there for me, supportive and unobtrusive. It was all so damn serene I didn't know what to do with myself. But LA - my life, my writing - was calling. So I hit the I-10 west at a 100 mph heading home feeling almost like a new man.

The doctor's waiting room is crowded and claustrophobic. The nurse looks at me through the glass window and lifts her hand gesturing me to wait. In the corner a mother holds her screaming child and stares up at a soap opera that's playing on the flat screen TV that's attached to the wall. Two ancient looking geezers talk rapidly in a strange language. A Ritalin kid runs in circles. Three large black women laugh and carry on like they're at home in their living room. I take the only vacant seat between a morose family of four, and a dorky looking dude who's reading a IT textbook.

Feeling uncomfortable I take out my phone and check my email. The dork leans over. I look at him. He looks at me.

"3G, or a 3GS?" he asks.

"3G," I answer.

"8 gigs, or 16?"

"What, you taking a fuckin survey?" I say and go back to my email.

"Mr. O'Neil," yells the nurse. She's standing in the doorway beckoning me to into the nurse's station. I get up and follow her. She tells me to put my bag down and stand on the scale. I stare at the digital readout as the numbers flicker and come to a stop. I weigh ten pounds less than I did a month ago. The nurse writes this down on a chart and then sips from a liter of "Code Red" Mountain Dew. She's short and rather rotund. Usually after I get weighed she points to the height/weight ratio chart on the wall and tells me I'm fat. This time she has nothing to say.

"What's the reason for your visit Mr. O'Neil?"

"I'm dying," I say.

Whenever I did anything even remotely physical my body ached. I'd work on my car, replacing the valve cover gasket, or change spark plugs, nothing that strenuous, and I was in pain for two days. Every time I moved I involuntarily groaned. I was developing a smoker's cough, and I don't smoke. My back and neck ached from sitting at my desk writing. My muscles were either tense or fatigued and twitchy. My hands were always stiff like with arthritis.

"Am I getting old?" I asked myself one morning as I sipped my latte and read the newspaper. An offshore oil well in the Gulf of Mexico was leaking. The oil company's response was that it wasn't that bad and they'd have it fixed and cleaned up before it became a problem. Of course, this being the L.A. Times, it was overshadowed by an article on whether indoor tanning was addictive. Crowded into a short half column below the fold in the Health section was a reprint of a Consumer Report article on Simvastatins – a widely prescribed medication for combating high cholesterol. Reports were coming in that the drug was causing major problems in 1 out of 10 people. These problems were anywhere from mild muscle atrophy, to a total breakdown of muscles, including the heart, and kidney failure. The symptoms listed were eerily similar to my own: chronic muscle pain, fatigue, headaches, insomnia.

I got up and checked my medicine cabinet. My medication, Zocor, was a Simvastatin and listed in the article as one of the worst. I'd been taking it for almost two years. I called my doctor. He wasn't in. I emailed him. I mentioned the article, I told him about my symptoms. I asked him if this had anything to do with why my tendonitis hadn't healed. I said I have a suspicion this medication is killing me. I read the article again. I stressed out. My neck hurt. My abdomen ached.

The next day my doctor sent me an emailed. He said, "Stop taking Zocor immediately." I threw the shit in the trash, and then spent the next few days feeling worse than I had in a long time. It felt like withdrawal. I couldn't eat. I couldn't hold down food. I couldn't sleep. I was sweating buckets like I had the flu.

"What do you mean you're dying?" asks the nurse.

"First you guys try to kill with your pills. Now I got pain in my lower abdomen. If I eat it hurts. I haven't taken a shit in days. I'm gonna explode."

"When's the last time you ate?"

"About three days ago," I say and glance at the bag of Flamin' Hot Cheetos on her desk.

The nurse looks horrified. I don't think she's worried about me. It's more the prospect of going without food for three days that scares her. "I'll get you into the doctor right away," she says and pats my shoulder.

After I kicked the Zocor, I started feeling better. Better than I'd felt in a long time. My muscles didn’t hurt and I was sleeping. But I had no appetite. The only thing that was the least bit appealing was white rice and avocado, maybe with a little tamari sauce. I ate a small bowl in the afternoon and drank a lot of water all day long. A week later I felt great. I still wasn't eating but I felt good. I went out to a movie with a friend and then we went to dinner. It was an organic vegan restaurant. I ordered salad and brown rice pasta with a little soy Parmesan. I figured it was simple enough. It tasted good. I felt I was finally going to be okay. That night I woke up in pain. My guts were on fire. The area where my tendonitis was supposed to be was inflamed, tender to the touch, and there was a pain running up and down the back of my leg. I started freaking out. I drank some water and went to back to bed expecting to die.

The next day was Sunday. My doctor's office wasn't open. I moped around through the day and the next morning I called and made an appointment.

The examination room is small, bland, and noncommittal in its efficiency. There's notices taped to the walls about flu shots and frequent check-ups for diabetes and breast cancer. On a shelf are those old-fashioned glass jars with chrome lids, filled with wooden tongue depressors and cotton balls. Does anybody even use those any more? I'm sitting on the examination table. My legs don't touch the floor. I swing my feet like a kid and wait for the doctor. It's not going to be my primary care doctor because he's not available. It's going to be yet another doctor I've never seen.

I used to love being left alone in examination rooms. I'd riffle the cabinets and steal handfuls of syringes and those little packets of alcohol wipes. I once took a vaginal speculum. I didn't know what it was. I just thought it looked fearsome and cool. But these days there's nothing here for me. I just wait for it to be over so that I can leave. Hospitals and medical buildings seem so rampant with disease. Everyone is dying, or sick. There's hand sanitizers everywhere you look. An older man in the waiting room had a surgical mask over his nose and mouth. I don't want to touch anything. I just want to go home.

The doctor comes in. We look to be about the same age. I tell him my tale of woe. He nods in all the appropriate places. I take my shirt off and lay back on the examination table. He presses down on my abdomen and asks if it hurts. I tell him it does. He says he'll be right back. He's got to consult my charts and check a few things. I say okay and lay there looking up at the florescent light on the ceiling. I'm thinking I have a hernia. I'm thinking I have cancer. Or maybe appendicitis, ulcers, kidney failure, pancreatitis, or a gastrointestinal carcinoid tumors. They're going to put me in the hospital. I'm gonna fucking die a slow painful death. Who's gonna water my goddamn plants?

The doctor comes back and sits in a chair by the door. He looks overworked. He looks tired. "You didn't tell me you had Hep C," he says.

"Old news," I say.

"I'd like to draw some blood and take some x-rays," says the doctor. "But I'm pretty sure you've got diverticulitis."

"Diverta-what?" I say.

"It's a common digestive disease, usually in the large intestine," he says while taking off his glasses and cleaning them on his shirtsleeve. "Small pockets, or pouches form on the colon. They get infected and then inflamed. It hurts a lot."

"What kinda medication do you prescribe for this vertalitus thing?" I say as visions of unlimited scripts of Dilaudids dance through my brain.

"Antibiotics, lots of water, and then a high fiber diet," he says. "But first we need to get you x-rayed and have blood drawn to make sure."

I'm in the basement pharmacy looking at the prescriptions the woman is showing me. "Do you want a pharmacist to go over the instructions with you?" she asks.

"No," I say. "I take the pills, what else is there?"

The pharmacy is crowded. There's no windows, no air, and the overhead lights glows a weird yellow. I grab my pills and head to the elevator. I want out of here. I want to breath air. The elevator is slow. I jostle a little old lady on crutches and step over two kids who won't get out of the way when the door opens.

The x-rays didn't show anything. There's no cancerous tumors, no hernia. The results from the blood tests, whatever they were for, won't be back until later. My "tendonitis" was actually an acute case of diverticulitis. The side effects from the Zocor were adding to the symptoms, making it difficult for the doctor to diagnose. But I can't help thinking it has somehow caused this problem as well. I buy a bottle of water from a vending machine in the lobby and take the antibiotics. There's two different scripts. Both pills are big, white, and chalky. They taste like shit and my stomach immediately turns.

I walk outside into the hot sun. The entrance to the parking garage is in the shade and there's a cool damp cement smell when I enter. I walk across the ground floor, then get in my car and pull out of the parking space. At the booth I pay the attendant and then the gate rises and I slip into the afternoon traffic on Sunset Boulevard. The 99¢ store, 7-11, a dozen gas stations, a million liquors stores, Home Depot, sixteen and a half Thai restaurants, one Arby's Roast Beef, The Palladium, The Arclight, Amoeba Records – I pass through Hollywood heading towards home. At Cahuenga I stop for a red light and watch a woman in a short halter-top dress and high heels flounce across the street. The dress is so tiny it looks like she's naked and I catch myself staring. Studies have suggested that most addicts stop maturing when they start using drugs, and that when they quit their maturing process begins again. I feel like I'm twenty-one going on a hundred. I have never considered myself old until a doctor said I was. I have never tried to kill myself with a medication that didn’t at least get me high. But a doctor prescribed me a medication that was tearing me apart. What the fuck do doctors know?

The body is supposed to be the temple of my soul. I'm not talking religious shit here. I'm just saying that since I got clean off drugs I have tried to treat myself, and my body, with care and respect. Which is a total new concept for me. But somewhere along the way I lost sight. I bought into the ideals of Western medicine. Take a pill. Treat the symptoms. Don't look at the cause. Ignore the root of the problem. I had begun to reverse this process when I stopped the antidepressants. Yet, when faced with more ills the concept once again seemed so inviting. In reality it is such a dope fiend maneuver. What do I need to do to fix it? Nothing, just take some pills. Ooooh that's so easy, gimme.

I park the car behind my building, get out and lock it. I got a pain in my abdomen, a pocket full of antibiotics. I may go for a run. I may just go inside and lie down. I got the rest of my life to live, and I have a pretty good idea how I'm going to start doing it.

Dead Birds and Other Omens

2010-06-01T11:09:00.000-07:00

There's a bird in the bush outside my apartment chirping his fucking ass off. As soon as the sun pops up he does his little bird thing, all cheerful and happy sounding. Tweet, tweet, tweet, and I want to kill him. He's been doing this for the last few weeks. Every morning I wake up to his song. Every morning I imagine him flat on the pavement like roadkill. Although I'm not actually sure it's a he. But for some reason "he" sounds better than saying I want to kill "her," or endless rambling on about "it."

I walk outside, and the bird shuts up. I lock my door as the apartment manager's cats converge around the bush staring up licking their chops. I see them clenching their little kitty jaws like they're already chewing on the dead carcass. Looking down I notice my laces are undone and sit on my front step and tie my shoe. The gray cat comes over, sits by me and purrs.

"You're pathetic, you're a disgrace to cats," I tell him. "It's one little bird and you can't get him?"

The cat licks its lips and turns away.

"Don't you turn your back on me," I say.

The droning vocals of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah drift out the window of an apartment across the courtyard. Someone's been playing it repeatedly for the last two days. Like it's on permanent replay and the rest of us just have to accept it and suffer. They could be dead in there and unable to turn it off, but I really don't care enough to go find out. A helicopter passes overhead, its rotor blades ripping the air and then it's gone. The cat looks toward the receding noise, the bird resumes chirping. I get up and walk to the courtyard gate. My hand on the handle, I stop and look back.

"Four cans of cat food, you bring me its beak," I say and walk out.

My neighbor, the rumpled Armenian thug, stands in the parking lot staring at a brand new black Mercedes that's missing its bumper, grill, fenders and headlights. He looks at me as I walk past. I nod hello. His expression doesn't change. I know he sees me. Our eyes meet. But it's like I'm not here and he doesn't acknowledge me. He never has. For the last ten months this has been our routine. I say hello. He ignores me.

Since I've lived here he's had at least nine different luxury cars. All of them suffering some form of destruction – missing doors, smashed front ends, crumpled trunks, or the whole side crushed in. It has to be some sort of scam. Although I never really see him do anything with them. They're in the parking lot for a month; then they're gone. During the weeks before the Christmas holidays there were always people hanging around the courtyard gate. Then the Armenian thug would appear loaded with packages of brand new expensive games and toys. Money would change hands. I'd walk by. He'd look at me, not say a word. He didn't have to. I got the message from his expression.

A bird screeches and I look up to see a crow sitting in a purple flowering Jacaranda tree. Its voice is deep, the call resounds across the parking lot. I've heard it said when you hear a crow it means something significant is happening, or about to happen. I've also heard it means death or something bad is on the air. I'm hoping it means my Armenian thug neighbor is going to get run over by a truck full of stolen video games. He and that little bird could be flat effigies in the alley behind my apartment building.

Across the street the gangbangers are busy removing the tires from a white van that's jacked up in their driveway. A narcocorrido blasts out of speakers that sound as if they're blown. A few girls in skintight jeans and t-shirts flutter around four dudes standing by the gate dressed in pressed chino shorts and wife beaters. The short one named Sleepy, who’s covered in tats and wears a bandana over most of his forehead, lifts his chin at me and then goes back to standing with his homies looking tough. I don't really know these guys. But they've always been cool to me. A week after I moved in they made the effort to introduce themselves and we nod whenever we meet on the street. I'm thinking my Armenian thug neighbor could take a few lessons in cordial relations from these guys. Then I'm thinking what does it matter? There's probably not a whole lot my neighbor and I have to talk about anyway.

A dented gold Ford Taurus roughly idles at the curb. One of its tires is almost flat and there's liquid dripping out of the tailpipe. The old guy who owns the car is sitting in the driver's seat reading the morning paper. He's got a disabled parking placard hanging from his rearview mirror, the only reason the city hasn't towed his car. I didn’t even know it ran. I see the old guy glance my way and I say, "hey." He pulls out a half pint, takes a slug, then leans out the window. "Wanna snort?" he says and waves it in my direction.

"I'm good," I tell him and keep walking. A sudden tug on my foot and I look down to see I've stepped on a huge piece of pink gum. Half of it's attached to the sidewalk, the rest is stretched to the bottom of my shoe. I try to scrape it off on the curb and get stuck. I turn to walk and my foot feels glued to the pavement. I rub the bottom of my shoe back and forth until most of it comes off. This is almost worse than stepping in dog shit.

The dreadlocked junkie who lives in the motel on the corner spots me coming down the street. He pushes his cap onto the back of his head and stands there waiting. I can see he's smiling. He's must be doing all right today – feeling no pain.

"You're a man that walks with purpose," he says and then falls in step with me.

"I got places to go," I tell him.

"People to see?" he asks.

"Be lyin’ if I said I didn't," I say.

"You wouldn't happen to have a spare cigarette?"

"Don't smoke," I tell him and he abruptly stops walking.

"I ever tell you I sang in a rock and roll band?" he asks as I keep moving.

"Yeah, you told me you sang with Slash," I say barely turning around to look at him.

"Oh, you know, huh?"

"To hear you tell it I do."

"I wasn't always out here hustling cigarettes ya know."

I stop and turn around. He stands there looking at the ground. "I used to smoke," I tell him. "Shit just changes. That's just the way it is."

"You better git where you goin’," he says. "I ain't trying to hold up a man with purpose."

A bus careens down Sunset and I hit the crosswalk daring the cars to run me over. But all of them screech to a halt and I walk across like royalty. LA is strange like that. The law says cars are supposed to stop for pedestrians. Most cities I've been you just cross the street, taking chances, slipping in between the oncoming traffic. In LA you can get a ticket for jaywalking. It seems all too civilized down here in the sun.

There's choir music coming out of the Korean Baptist church on Selma Ave. A woman's voice solos above all the rest. I half expect her to break into Hallelujah. But she's singing something else about her lost soul, and secretly I'm relieved.

A muttering bag lady sits on the church's front steps. She's dressed in a parka and a wool cap. It's 85 degrees in the shade and she's rummaging around in her suitcase. An overly dressed usher leans over and asks if she'd like to come inside for the service. She looks at him like he just suggested she commit suicide. I smile at her and she spits on the sidewalk. I cross the street as a lowered Impala drives by, its stereo so loud it drowns everything in its wake.

Three tall girls in short tight skirts, high heels, bleached blonde hair, and tiny tank tops are standing at the corner looking confused. They're dressed like hookers, or maybe it's Paris Hilton, or a combo of both. They're not exactly svelte, and their bodies strain the confines of their clothing. One of them takes off her gold Gucci sunglasses and tries to smile as I approach. "Grauman. Chinese." she says. It's not a question. It's a statement.

"Yes?" I say.

"We want," she says. Her accent is Russian, or some other Slavic country. The other two stare at me and surrounded by that much exposed flesh I'm momentarily lost for words. A taxicab slows down and stops. One of the girls walks over and leans in to talk with the driver. A bird chirps in the tree above us and I think of the fucking bird in front of my apartment that woke me up.

"Three blocks, to your left on Hollywood," I tell her.

She says, "thank you," and puts her sunglasses back on. They all teeter over to the cab and fold themselves inside. I watch their blonde heads bobbing in the rear window as they drive off in the other direction. On the ground is a crisp twenty-dollar bill. I pick it up and turn towards the cab waving it in the air, but they're already two blocks away. Shoving it in my pocket I walk towards Hollywood Blvd. I need coffee. I need to start my day.

Reading at the Hotel Café

2010-03-07T23:37:00.000-08:00

Possibly the third worst reading I've ever done. I just couldn't catch my breath. I couldn't see because of the stage lighting. The promoter had some issue with me. Two days before the reading he emailed me saying: "a lot of your writing has to do with shooting up, could you read something about bank robbery instead?" Which kind of threw me. Well, actually it pissed me off. Like as if I hadn't already decided on what I was going to read. Like I was so unprofessional that two days before a reading I wasn't prepared. And I don't even want to begin discussing why a promoter thinks he has the right to tell a writer what to read. So I didn't respond to his email, and at the reading the promoter flubbed my intro and just said, "Patrick, come up here and read." Oddly he didn't have this problem with the other readers. It was stupid, childish, and passive aggressive. But I let it get to me. I wasn't feeling that well to begin with. My nerves were shot, I was outta my mind. It wasn't pretty – and it shows.

Yet it was a great evening. I got to read with my friends and favorite writers:
Rob Roberge
Antonia Crane
Brendan Constantine
And the musical guests: Speedbuggy, with Billy Pitman, rocked the house.

Thanks to everyone that showed up - you know who you are.

Valentine's Day

2010-02-16T17:17:00.000-08:00

- to Pam who said, "write this."

I wake up to the sounds of my neighbors fucking. They're a young couple, they just moved in. The building's walls are thin. She's a screamer. I saw them in the courtyard yesterday. I said hi. They ignored me and scurried into their apartment.

Their bed is banging the wall that separates us. It's the same wall my bed is against. The same wall I prop my pillows and rest my head on. We're probably less then a foot away from each other. They look like hippies, or Deadheads, or maybe just grungy hipsters.

She screams, "Oh god, yes!" The bed bumps the wall.

I don't want to imagine them having sex. But it's hard not to with all this audio aid to help the visuals.

I'm half-asleep. I got crusty eyes. My mouth is dry. It's 8:47am on a Sunday morning. Can't they wait until a decent hour to fuck?

I need coffee. I need more sleep. I need to buy earplugs.

They've only been here a week and I think they've had sex the entire time.

The sun is creeping in around the blinds. LA's back to being warm now that the rain has finally left.

I get out of bed, grab my pants and put them on.

The bathroom tile is cool under my bare feet. I take a piss, brush my teeth, look in the mirror, and un-bed head my hair with my hand. Somewhere next door Madonna is singing about being like a virgin. Somehow that just doesn't seem right.

"Oh, oh, oh," screams my neighbor. Thump goes their bed against the wall.

I walk back into my room and search for a t-shirt. Picking one off the floor, I pull it over my head. As I slip my arms inside I look over and see the massive fishtail palm that takes up half the apartment. Yesterday I replanted it to a bigger pot. It looks so happy. I want to hug it.

The building manager is outside in the courtyard talking on his cell phone. He's speaking Russian. His voice is deep. The smell of his cigarette floats in the open window. I imagine he is calling family back in the Ukraine, but he could just as easily be talking to someone a block away.

"Они имеют секс весь день. Он шальн," he says and stamps out his cigarette on the concrete.

"Yes. Yes. Yes!" screams my neighbor.

When I turn towards the kitchen I can hear my other neighbor's music – bad disco and monotonous house music he plays non-stop. The thud of the bass vibrates the wall. If I stand exactly in the middle of the room I hear thump, thump, bad music on one side. And, bang, bang, screaming sex on the other. It's like some demented stereo torture.

I'm going insane.

Slipping on my Chucks and sunglasses, I grab some cash off my desk and open the door. Outside the sun is bright, the air warm, the courtyard is deserted.

I walk out the back gate and through the parking lot. A bag lady looks up from rummaging in the dumpster. I smile at her. She blows me a kiss. I look closer. She's a man.

As I wait for the traffic light on Sunset I stare off along the tops of palm trees and rows of seedy apartment buildings and notice someone has covered the Hollywood sign with giant red letters that say "Save the Peak." I not sure what the hell that means, and I don't really care.

At Hollywood Blvd. a scruffy midget carrying an umbrella tries to hand me a brochure for a guided tour offering a drive through Beverly Hills to look at the houses of movie stars. He must be new. All the other guys hawking tours have given up on me a long time ago. I ignore him and wait for the light as two girls dressed exactly the same in pink mini skirts and orange tube tops giggle and poke each other. The midget smiles as he waves a brochure in their direction. They turn away laughing.

At Starbucks the barista leans over the counter and hugs me. She's really cute and for some reason has taken to me. I come in every morning and we chitchat about shit all nothing. She seems to think my life is glamorous. I tell her it's pretty tame. She says yeah, but you get up at eleven. You don't go to a boring job. You're always happy. You're the coolest person that comes into the store.

I smile at her and wonder who the hell she's talking about.

"It's nine fifteen," she says, looking at her watch as she hands me my latte. "What're you doing here so early?"

"My new neighbors fuck like bunnies and they're really loud," I tell her. "They woke me up, now I'm here."

"Wow. You should record them and sell it on the Internet."

"I hadn't thought of that," I say and wave goodbye as I walk outside.

It maybe early for me but for Hollywood Blvd. it's just another business day as the usual mix of locals and tourists collide. A gutter punk wearing a leather jacket covered in spikes and grimy band logos points at her sick looking dog and asks for spare change. A large guy dressed in baggy checkered shorts and huge t-shirt with Michael Jackson's face on the front takes a picture of his equally large girlfriend as she squats on the sidewalk next to Walt Disney's star. A group of kids all in black with peg legged jeans and big hair stand around like they're posing for a CD cover.

I take a sip of coffee and watch a cop car slowly cruise the scene. Three chords off a twangy guitar and I turn around and see Elvis standing in a doorway playing a beat-up white acoustic. He curls his lip in a sneer as he sings. "Blue, blue, blue suede shoes." Just in case you don't know it's him, he's written Elvis Presley in flowing script across the face of his guitar. This piece of authenticity is not lost on me. But it's way too early for Elvis. He looks really tattered and out of place in the bright morning sun. His skin's kinda gray. His dyed black hair a tad too greasy and showing blonde roots. His hand shakes as he strums. Looks like Elvis could use a fix.

I buy a newspaper at the corner store and step around the midget as he tries again to interest me in a tour. Why the hell anybody would want to drive around in a topless van just to see the homes of movie stars is beyond me? Sun burnt, breathing exhaust fumes, and surrounded by Japanese tourists taking pictures is not my idea of a good time.

When I get back to my apartment there's a lemon sitting on the stair outside my front door. Usually they just fall off the tree that's in the courtyard and then lie around and rot, until someone picks them up and throws them away. But the lemon tree isn't right next to my apartment, so it had to be put there – like a gift. With the edge of my foot I kick it into the jumble of spinney succulents that are taking over the patch of dirt the dead roses used to rule. I don't trust my neighbors. I don't want their offerings. Who knows where that lemon's been?

Leaving the door open to let the warm air in, I sit at my desk and look at the computer. Popping the lid off my coffee, I take a sip, and then scan my emails and see nothing but ads for offshore pharmacies selling Viagra and offers to enlarge my penis.

I wonder if movies stars in their fancy houses get emails for penis enlargement? Or are they too busy avoiding vanloads of tourist parked in their driveways?

Reluctantly I open an email from a literary magazine, and like I figured they've rejected one of my essays. "Whatever," I mumble and contemplate checking Facebook, but realize I don't have the energy. Finishing my coffee I lean back in my chair. I'd really just like to go back to bed. Go to sleep. Then wake up and start this day again.

"Fuck me, fuck me harder," screams my neighbor.

A revised version of this essay was published in Diverse Voices Quarterly Issue 9/10 - July 2011.

Sunset and Highland

2010-01-12T10:49:00.000-08:00

Cop car, siren on, lights flashing, speeds through the intersection. Twilight sky, quarter moon, palm trees, and a warm breeze. A cliché – but still it's what's happening. Man walks out of drugstore carrying a twelve pack. Pan right. Wino lies on sidewalk laughing. Children run through parking lot.

Background: traffic noise. Time: 9:47 pm. Date: Sunday, January 10, 2010.

Everyone smokes weed: bud, ganja, kush, mari-fuckin-wanna. At least all my neighbors do. As I walk home I pass through its pungent haze billowing out of dim lit apartment buildings. The kids in the alley constantly puff. Beanies pulled low over their eyes, sitting on the curb, talking shit.

Carl's Jr. on the corner, ravenous pothead surveys the menu, counts change, places order.

Street person digs in trashcan, pulls out crumpled wad of paper, inside a half-eaten burger. She looks around before stuffing it whole into her mouth.

My neighbor wakes me every morning with loud house music. The bass thumps the wall while a repetitious melody drones. Pillows wrapped around my head won't cut the noise. Reminiscing his glory days DJ'ing on the dusty Burning Man playas, my neighbor dances around his apartment and I contemplate homicide. When his dealer drops off more meth, the music gets louder. Some days it's constant. Others, the apartment is dark and silent.

Tonight we run into each other at the security gate to our building.

"Hey," I say and open it with my key.

Twitching, spastic, my neighbor slips by, eyes cast downward.

"Hello," he whispers and runs into the alley.

This is the second time we've met, and the most we've ever talked. I tried to say something to him about the music once before as we passed in the courtyard, but he wouldn't stop. When the music is playing, it's useless to attempt communication. I've witnessed my other neighbors try. The crazy guy from upstairs pounded on dude's door so hard it shook the building. But he never answered. Muscle bound kid, covered in tats, from apartment 12, stood outside and screamed his ass off, then kicked a hole in the screen door. The music continued, the walls vibrated, no response.

Apartment manager's cat slinks off as I approach. Courtyard lights illuminate the trees and throw shadows across the walkway. Prefab televised laugh track leaks from an upstairs apartment. Out front, on the street, someone yells, "Cada uno lleva su cruz."

Tina is sitting on the front step of my apartment. Next to her, underneath the air conditioning unit, there's a bare patch of earth. Nothing grows there. I've thought about planting a small bush to fill the space.

"Where you been?" she asks.

"Walking," I say as I open the door and turn on the light. The apartment is warm. I close the blinds. We sit on the bed and I take off my sneakers.

"Finished your book," she says. Then runs her hand up my back. Stopping at my neck.

"And?"

She leans her head on my shoulder and tells me everything that's wrong with it. She caresses me as she speaks. There are parts that confuse her. Things she doesn't like. So much she doesn't understand. I listen. I feel her touch. She could just as easily be talking about us.

I hear the TV from upstairs. The faint laughter becomes the soundtrack for my life.

Yesterday I was looking for a number in my phone and realized there were some I need to delete because the people were dead. Seeing their names reminded me. It was odd they were still in my phone but not on the earth. As if their numbers should somehow erase themselves.

Upstairs, floorboards creak as someone walks back and forth. Then I hear Tina's voice. She's telling me what she thinks works with my writing: the images, the darkness and despair. She sounds sad. Like she's reciting a eulogy. If I were to die, how long it will take her to delete my number? Maybe she'll get a head start and do it sooner.

"I have to go," she says.

"I know," I answer and reach for my phone.

Door closes. Room becomes darker. No one is touching me.

Background: television static. Time: 11:11 pm. Date: Sunday, January 10, 2010.

Fade to black.

A revised version of this post was published in Prairie Wolf Press Review - Premier Issue: Volume 1, Spring 2011

Things I Worry About

2009-10-22T11:06:00.000-07:00

I know my phone is ringing. I can’t see it. But I can hear it. For the last ten miles I’ve been hearing it ring – a non-stop, ring, ring, ringing. With one hand on the wheel I grope around with the other and dig the phone out of my bag. It isn’t ringing, and the touch screen is empty. There’s no “missed call” message, or even a voicemail. I toss it on the empty passenger seat and stare ahead down the gray expanse of Southern California’s highway system. Above me the sky is a light brown from all the smog and general crap that’s always in the air. The mountains, looming in the distance, are a parched brown and they seem to shiver in the heat of the afternoon.

I signal, then change lanes. A motorcycle careens by and I hear its engine whine. He’s got to be doing well over a hundred and ten to be passing me. Which is a little reckless in this afternoon traffic. But then I’m not exactly driving slow, so who am I to judge? Although for some reason this causes my thoughts to shift and I start thinking about my car. Wondering if that’s a new noise coming from the engine, and when was the last time I checked the oil, or even looked under the hood. Three months ago I had a fan belt adjusted to fix an annoying squeak I couldn’t fix myself. The guy at the repair shop told me one of my tires was going bald at a strange angle, like my alignment was off, or the tire defective. I asked him which one, and he just shrugged.

“Well, then how the hell do ya know?” I asked.

“The mechanic that worked on your car filled out this check list, and he put a zero for remaining tire tread. Or maybe it’s a six? I can’t tell, his writing sucks.”

“Can I talk to him?”

“He’s gone, he left for the day.”

So there it is. I may or may not be about to die. As my tire, any one of the four being the possible culprit, is about to, or in another year or two, is about to blowout and shred itself across the freeway. Sending me, and my car, end over end into an ugly scrunched up pile of glass and metal, and of course tires and a little bit of minced flesh. Not the best scenario for a small import convertible. Yet this doesn’t cause me to slow down. What’s the point? I’d rather just have that fact weighing at the back of my mind. Besides as soon as I get out of the car it’s forgotten, until the next time I’m on the freeway.

My phone is ringing. I know it is. I can hear it. Maybe it’s the mechanic finally getting back to me. He’s calling to say, “Hey fuck-head, that tire’s bald. Why are you driving on it?”

There’s a sharp turn in the highway, the traffic congeals as brake lights glow. I veer to the right into the empty slow lane to get around a bunch of idiots driving inexplicably under the speed limit. Through the trees and scraggly bushes on the embankment, I catch a glimpse of a mall and a couple of motels. A green station wagon materializes at the side of the road stopped with its hood up, and there’s a group of people standing off to the side. I change lanes to give them room and in a blur I see a woman in the center of the group, she looks worried as she clutches her child. I press down on the gas pedal, they’re in my rear view, and then they’re gone.

If I were a Muslim I’d probably ask Allah to be merciful and help them out. If I were a Catholic I’d make the sign of the cross and hope to hell one of the big three from the Holy Trinity would see fit to send down an angel or two, hopefully one that had auto mechanic skills. If I were a new age non-practicing wannabe Buddhist vegetarian I’d mediate for a few hours, sending them healing vibes, and then wish their fossil fueled polluting machine to wither into the dust from whence it came. Instead I continue driving, my thoughts lost in a whirl of rapid firing synapses. There’s a constant barrage of obscure and mainly useless information filtering through my brain: reported FBI surveillance using the GPS in cell phones, amp to ohm ratios and parallel speaker impedance, trace elements of anchovies rumored in cheese whiz, McCain’s daughter showing her tits on twitter, 97% of all paper money in the US contains traces of cocaine – it never stops, these thoughts never slow down.

In an effort to quiet my brain I concentrate on driving, feeling the road’s vibration through the steering wheel. Which works for a second until my hand itches and I start to scratch, but I stop myself. Yet it makes me think of that old superstition involving money and itching hands. Unfortunately it’s not my palm that’s itching, which is supposedly the sign money is coming my way. Well, actually it’s when the right palm itches, money is coming. The left is money going out. To stop the left palm from itching, you rub it on a piece of wood and you’re good to go. But there’s no wood inside my car, and besides I already know why my hand itches. Occasionally the skin gets really dry. The fingers get all flaky and peel and I think they’re going to fall off. They say it’s a slight case of eczema, or hand dermatitis, or… It doesn’t really matter, it’s safe to say my hands are real fucking dry, and I need this prescription cream to make it better.

Supposedly it’s a condition that’s very common, occurring in about 10% of women and 4% of men. So here I am once again suffering like a large percentage of women in the world. Over the course of my life I’ve endured various bouts of anorexia, bulimia, and rosacea. All of which the medical community considered primarily women’s health issues. So I guess I should’ve been born a woman with all the shit I’ve got going on. Maybe I was supposed to be a woman? But then I’d be a lesbian, which would be fine. Unless as a lesbian my skin was still dry, and then it would suck just as bad as being me with dry itchy hands.

But anyway, the shit had gotten bad again and I needed help. So earlier in the day I’d paid a visit to my nationalized healthcare threatened HMO. Only instead of being able to come right in and see a doctor I had to first deal with the administration and all its bureaucracy. With my recent move from San Francisco to LA I’d transferred my coverage and because of that I was considered a new patient. At some obscure office off to the side of the clinic I had to show my ID and fill out a ton of forms, and generally it was like the first day of college, or maybe more like central booking at county jail. When I finally did get to the clinic the nurse insisted on taking all my vitals and typing any history of past ailments into the computer. After checking my blood pressure and taking my temperature, she had me stand on a scale.

“How tall are you?” she asked.

“Five nine and a half,” I answered. Throwing in the half like a teenager padding his age.

“Five nine, a hundred and sixty seven pounds? You’re fat!” she said and pointed to a chart on the wall. It was a height to weight ratio chart and I was clearly in the shaded area, which wasn’t the dark area of impending death, but it wasn’t the bright white area of smug good health.

Being told you’re fat is always good news for someone with dueling eating disorders. Clenching my stomach muscles I mentally checked off every single fattening thing I’d eaten in the last year. I could remember a candy bar or two, that gelato I had last June, and a couple of deserts I’d eaten at restaurants. I felt my stomach growing, the fat cells multiplying. I was suddenly so overweight I didn’t know if I could move.

Then I looked over at the nurse. She was four feet tall and had to weigh a hundred and fifty or more. On her desk a giant cinnamon bun, and some frothy Starbucks drink that had enough fat and calories to feed a carload of crackheads for a week. Confused, a tad self-conscious, and clutching the yellow patient’s copy of my offending stats, I slunk back into the waiting room and sat down to wait for the doctor. Seated in the row of chairs in front of me were two gigantic fat women, across the room was a guy who had to weigh at least three hundred pounds, and he looked like a midget. A teenage kid walked in and he was the same height as me, but at least sixty pounds heavier, and he hadn’t even started shaving. I was the skinniest person there.

I looked at the ceiling to avoid staring at all these obese people and wondered why I was so fat. I exercise, I eat healthily, I… I could hear my phone ringing, even though I remembered I had turned it off before entering the building. But I knew it was Weight Watchers, or Curves, or that bitchy nurse in the other room calling to tell me I was fat, so I didn’t answer.

Gripping the steering wheel I nudge the car into the next lane, cutting off a BMW who honks his horn. Glancing in the rearview mirror I see the driver give me the finger and then change lanes to try and get around me. I’m not even sure why I cut him off. But I push down on the gas and make him sweat a little as he tries to pass.

My fingers still itch and I want to scratch my hand, but I know I’ll regret it if I do. It just irritates it more. So I suffer in silence, like 10% of the women in the civilized world. Which makes me feel like Buddha, or Gandhi, who both supposedly suffered a shitload. But then I’m thinking maybe it’d be better to indentify with Mother Teresa. Which isn’t that farfetched, as in her early days when she was just a sister, Mother Teresa knew a thing or two about bad skin. The poor woman had lepers crawling all over her. And I know leprosy really isn’t funny. It’s just that with my skin on the verge of mutiny, and my fingers threatening to fall off, I’m feeling like a borderline leper. And the truth is there hasn’t been a lot of advancement in curing leprosy. But still, I’m damn lucky not to have lived in the thirteenth century when lepers were considered the living dead. Civil tribunals declared them deceased, and all their possessions confiscated. The Catholic Church, in a rare display of compassion, would dispatch a priest to perform the Mass of Separation. In front of the entire village the priest would force the leper to stand in an open grave and then the priest would chant, “I forbid you to ever enter a church, a fair, a mill, a market or an assembly of people. I forbid you to leave your house unless dressed in recognizable leper’s garb. I forbid you to eat or drink in company, unless with lepers.”

The BMW is in the next lane over trying to pass me. I’m doing about a hundred and twenty, but I’m not really thinking about him. I’m busy thinking I don’t want somebody to get my laptop just because I’m a leper. And then after ten seconds of mentally checking off which possessions I’d hide, my attention wanes and because I got ADD like a motherfucker my mind wanders. Suddenly I’m thinking about the other day, which just happened to be my birthday, and please, no congratulations, as it has always been a day that sucked. Chock full of minor disappointments, ridiculous expectations, excess, excess, excess, and once or twice an arrest, and let’s not even mention incarceration. But anyway, I was walking to get my morning coffee and it was raining, and I had my umbrella, but it was coming down in pathetic bits – what they call rain in LA. And there was this huge ugly woman in a wheelchair screaming, “Sir! Sir! Sir!” So I looked at her and raised my free hand up in the universal gesture of what-the-fuck?

She said, “Please, please, please push me down the block. I’ll give you a dollar.”

I hesitated and looked at her. She was clutching a dingy wet blanket and there was a greasy sheen to her skin, like junkies have when they’re kicking dope, and I just didn’t want to push her wheelchair, or touch her, or even be near her. And it was my goddamn birthday and I really didn’t think this much of a present, or worse, who the hell knows where this would lead. What if she asked me to push her more than just the one block, or to be my friend, or if she could come over to my place for snacks and watch my TV? So I said, “no.” And kept walking and halfway down the block I knew my karma was now fucked and I turned around. But she had made the block in less time than it took for me to walk thirty feet, and was already turning the corner onto Sunset. So any chance I had to redeem myself was gone.

Of course as I stood there in the rain my phone started ringing, but I didn’t answer it, I didn’t even look to see who it was. Because I knew it was the Grim Reaper, The Toll Keeper, or Calcabrina – the one who walks on brine; calling to tell me the gig is up, it’s all over. That was your test dude. You fucked up, and on your birthday even. Karma, karma, karma – and now I’m going to be a leper, or worse, although, at this exact moment I can’t think of anything worse. What woman’s going to want to date a guy losing his skin?

The BMW has finally gotten past me, and I let up on the gas. Then he swerves, cutting into my lane and slams on his brakes. I stop thinking of lepers and the fat woman and the ninth circle of hell, and quickly change lanes and look over at this guy as I pull up along side of him. He’s red faced, screaming obscenities, and shaking his fist at me. “I’ll kill you,” he mouths above the roar of our motors, and then abruptly swerves into my lane. In the passenger seat is a little white haired old lady. She’s so small I can barely see her. But she’s giving me the stink eye like nobody’s business. I’m thinking like mother, like son, and step down on the gas and leave the grumpy couple to breathe my exhaust.

My phone is ringing. I ignore it. At this point I don’t even care who it is.

Ten minutes later I pull off the freeway at Los Feliz, and downshift as I circumvent Griffith Park. Rows of tidy apartment complexes line both sides of the street and I wonder if they manicure the lawns with nail clippers. At Vermont I take a left and immediately get stuck in slow-ass traffic as it crawls past the cafes and insufferably hip clothing stores. Stopped at a light I reach over and pick up my phone. There’s a missed call message, a voicemail, and a couple of text messages. I slip the phone back into my bag. When the light changes, I shift into first, and drive through the intersection towards home.

Scream

2009-08-27T11:49:00.000-07:00

Dude was screaming. At least I thought he was. I could see his mouth wide open and he was shaking, the cords on his neck taught with exertion. The rumble from the industrial air-conditioning units was drowning out the noise, but it was obvious he was screaming. Slowly he raised his hand towards me, like an opera singer does for effect. I looked at him, at his outstretched hand, and mumbled something like I ain't got no money, sorry, gotta go. Then I walked outside…

Saturday night. It was late. Hell, it was Sunday morning really. I hadn't been able to sleep and decided I wasn't going to watch a DVD, besides, there wasn't one I hadn't already seen. I couldn't look at another book, or read another word. The thought of getting on the Internet annoyed me. I wasn't the least bit hungry. As I lay in bed staring at the ceiling I thought of a million things, and nothing at the same time. The night was so quiet. The walls of my apartment were practically falling in on me. In the distance a dog was barking, a car passed in the street outside, the sound of its muffler fading away as it went. Even my neighbors weren't making any noise. It seemed I was the only one awake.

"Fuck," I mumbled, and got out of bed. "It's goddamn Saturday night."

I'm not even sure why I said that. It's not like it meant anything. Saturday night, Friday night, the entire weekend hasn't meant shit to me in a very long time. Even when I had a regular job the weekends were no big thing. Just another night as far as I was concerned.

Groping my way in the dark I walked to the bathroom to take a piss. Standing at the toilet next to the open window I noticed the neighbor's anti-crime security light was turned on, glaring in the run between my building and theirs. It's a crawl space really. Why it has to be lit up I have no idea. There are bars on all the windows. Huge six foot fences at either end. There's nothing there but a few yards of dead grass and a short chain link fence that separates the properties.

Except when I looked I noticed a dog staring up at me.

"Bark," said the dog and then he looked around rather sheepishly as if he was embarrassed and checking to see if anyone else had heard him.

"Bark?" I said back at him. "Why the fuck you barking at me?"

The dog looked at the ground. "Woof," he said, wagged his tail, then wandered off into the darkness like he had some pressing engagement elsewhere.

It was the fucking neighbor's dog. The one that barks all weekend when they go away and leave him alone to defend their property. Any noise and he goes crazy. There's been nights I've hated that dog. There have been more nights I've hated the neighbors for leaving him.

Searching for some clothes I stumbled around before turning on the lights. On the floor were my jeans, draped across a chair was a t-shirt. In a pile of disarray by the door were assorted pairs of shoes and boots. After lacing up my Converses I found my car keys and walked outside into the night.

The day's weather had been relentlessly hot and it was still warm, but at least the sun wasn't shining and there was almost a breeze. After checking the rearview mirror I backed my car out of the parking lot, and then gunned it down the alley towards Sunset Boulevard. Amazingly, even at this hour of the morning there was traffic and Sunset was packed – Los Angeles being one of those few cities capable of producing rush hour traffic twenty-four hours a day.

A Mustang convertible filled with blond haired teenage girls almost broadsided me as I slipped into the traffic. Honking my horn I waved as they all laughed and the driver gave me the finger. Stuck between a huge stretch limo and a tricked out lowered VW Bug painted an ugly Day-Glo green, I reevaluated leaving my apartment. But still, I wasn't the least bit sleepy, so what else was there to do?

Turning off Sunset I headed north to Hollywood Boulevard. The side streets were dark, but people were everywhere. Two women with incredibly long tanned legs stepped out of a neon doorway as a group of drunk jocks yelled tired pick up lines in their wake. At Hollywood and Vine the sidewalks were so packed with tourists and club hoppers I thought perhaps it was earlier than it was. But it was just another Saturday night in Hollywood.

As I continued east across Vermont, the traffic slowly thinned out and the lights grew dimmer. Tiny bars and restaurants with tables out front on the sidewalks lined the street. It was crowded with pedestrians, but not as insane as Hollywood. A giant pink 99¢ store on the corner loomed up out of the darkness as the hipness of Silver Lake faded, and Echo Park appeared. Instead of cafes and bars there were small dimly lit corner stores, transient hotels, and darkened strip malls, some boarded up and permanently closed. The sidewalks were pretty much deserted: Here and there a person pushing a shopping cart, a couple walking their dog, a group of winos on a bench yelling out to me in a language only they could decipher. When I stopped for a red light, a dude in shorts and a grungy wife-beater riding a BMX bicycle pulled up to my car and asked if I needed anything. His question hung in the air as the light changed and I drove away.

LA's really dark, I thought, as I approached downtown. Stopped at a red light I peered around trying to get my bearings. The meager glow from old fashion streetlights barely encroached on the night's gloom making it all seem so mysterious. Periodically headlights flashed as passing cars illuminated a vintage coffee shop to my right. An old decrepit cab roughly idled next to me at the intersection as we both waited for the light to change. Two tough looking guys shuffled across the street and headed into a sandwich shop, a woman on crutches hobbled a few feet and then stopped in the shadows as if hiding. I turned the car around at Union Station and hit the 101 back into Hollywood. A Highway Patrol passed me doing well over a 100 mph, its lights flashing across the walls of the underpass like a blue and red strobe. Pulling behind him I pushed down on the gas and watched as cars on either side slammed on their brakes in some sort of kneejerk response to the cop. Three minutes later at the Sunset exit I signaled and pulled off.

Suddenly I was incredibly thirsty and needed some water. A Walgreens sign advertising they were open twenty-four hours shimmered in the distance. But when I got there the parking lot was full, so I headed into what looked like additional indoor parking behind the store. It was one of those big-ass cavernous places, painted bright white with a grungy loading dock where the trash bins were and the building's industrial air-conditioners growled away in the corner. It could hold thirty cars at the very least, but there weren't any there. Just a couple of overturned shopping carts and a pile of garbage in the center.

I pulled into the nearest slot, killed the motor and got out. The roar of the air conditioners hit my ears as I locked my car and started toward the exit. Suddenly the pile of trash moved, it was a huge black man underneath garbage bags, cardboard boxes and food wrappers. In his hand was a half full liter of soda, which he waved at me like he was trying to get my attention. I looked down at the ground and noticed it was covered in bird shit. Then I saw there were pigeons everywhere. On the pipes and air-conditioning vents that crisscrossed the ceiling.

My first thought was of Legionnaires' disease, and without thinking I held my breath and moved toward the exit. The huge black man had his other hand out, like he was begging for money, and he was screaming. Or at least I thought he was. I couldn't hear him over the din of the air-conditioners. I just saw his mouth wide open, and his pained expression. I mumbled some kind of excuse and hurried to get outside. I don't know what freaked me out. I wasn't afraid of him. I just found the whole scene incredibly bizarre.

Outside, in the parking lot, groups of kids were hanging out yelling at each other, drinking sodas and eating the crap Walgreens sells. As I passed a bunch of Asian dudes standing around a hyped up Nissan with its hood open, I noticed I was still holding my breath and I let out a sigh. In the glare of the store's windows I watched a woman as she walked towards me wearing the tiniest halter-top and short shorts. I was staring at her silhouette, admiring her body, until she was right next to me and when she smiled I could see she was only a teenager and then I felt like a lecherous perv and looked away.

Up in the night sky a full moon shown down on everything, basking us all in its glow. I stopped walking and turned to look back at the parking structure and wondered about the giant black man in the garbage, surrounded by all that bird shit and bleakness. I wasn't sure that I had really seen him. I mean not like he was an apparition or anything. But it was just so strange and I really didn't want to go back to my car, then see him again, and know that he was real and sitting covered in garbage screaming his lungs out.

Checking my pockets for money I walked through the automatic doors into the cool of the air-conditioned store. It was 2:14 am and I still had to drive home to go to sleep.

On the Way to LA

2009-06-10T15:19:00.000-07:00

"You're movin?" asked the girl sitting on the stool next to me.

"Goin to LA," I said and then watched her recoil like I had spit in her face.

"LA! Why the fuck you want to live there?"

She was tall and sexy with long black hair and jet coal eyes, I'd been trying to get with this girl for years. But every time we met and I looked her way she'd avoid my eyes. The few times I'd actually made the effort and said something she'd answer terse, or act like she was too busy or too damn good to speak to me. Then word got around that I was leaving town, and last night she called me on the phone and asked what I was doing – I never even gave this girl my phone number – and just like that she told me to pick her up tomorrow night at the bar were she worked. And so here we were, only we hadn't gotten very far.

"I need a change of scenery," I mumbled.

"But it's so ugly down there."

"Yeah, hate to leave all this beauty," I said and pointed across the dingy barroom at a couple of hookers hanging by the front door. An old drunk sitting next to us laughed and snorted at the same time, a noise that wasn't too easy on the ears. A large woman at the other end of the bar fell off backwards and landed on the floor with a thud.

"Don't judge San Francisco by this shithole," she said, more to me then to the old drunk who was so interested in our conversation he was practically leaning over her to get a better purchase on our words.

"Ya mind?" I said and gave the drunk a little push.

"Hey, she my bartender," he said and looked at the girl with sad wet eyes. "She take care of me."

"Danny, it's alright," the girl cooed. "We're just talkin, you never mind now, okay?"

The old drunk got down off his stool and stood weaving back and forth for a few seconds before he grabbed the edge of the bar and leaned toward me. "Go fuck yourself," he said, then he smiled, adjusted the belt around his waist and shuffled off toward the darkness where the bathrooms were.

"Sorry bout that," said the girl. "Danny is actually a nice guy if ya get to know him."

"Sure, I can believe that," I said.

"He's just stuck drinking himself to death in this shitty neighborhood bar."

"It's good to have a hobby," I said and rolled my eyes.

"We all got something," she said with a giggle.

"Okay, so if ya don't mind me asking. You haven't had a drink in ten years but ya work in a bar. How come?"

"Girl's gotta have a job," she said as the bartender appeared and looked at our glasses of soda water sitting untouched on the bar. "Need a freshen up?" he said and managed to sound sarcastic just asking.

"You wanna get outta here?" I asked the girl, waving the bartender away.

"So why you moving to LA?" she said like she hadn't heard me.

"Just feels like nothing's going on here. Everyone's talking about what they're gonna do. But no one's doin shit. Like everyone's gotta a bunch a dreams but they're sleepwalking through life."

The large woman at the other end of the bar was having more trouble staying on her stool, but this time she'd slid forward onto the floor and was caught underneath the lip of the bar. Screaming she was stuck, she reached a hand out and waved for help. The girl looked down at the woman but didn't move, like this was just normal to her. When the bartender reached over and grabbed the woman's hand to pull her up, the girl turned her head back towards me. "I was going to be a dancer once," she said and then she smiled like she was remembering a secret.

"I was gonna be a failure, but I decided against it," I responded.

"What, there's no failures in LA?"

"Well, maybe not til I get there."

"When I got outta high school I was gonna go to art school and study painting, but instead I ended up majoring in drama at City College and then I realized I wanted to perform modern dance interpretations of life from a jazz perspective."

"I don't even know what that means," I told her and then looked up as two plainclothes cops came in the bar and sat down below the TV on the wall. When I looked back over at the girl she was playing with her hair, twisting a strand around her finger and then letting it go. When she raised her head, our eyes met and then I got weird and glanced at the ball game playing on the television.

"Why are you always staring at me?" she said and then smiled, letting go of another bit of hair wrapped around her finger.

"I stare at you?"

"Yeah, whenever you’re around I look up and you're staring at me."

"I'm attracted to you," I answered with a shrug of my shoulders.

"Attracted to me? You don't even know me."

"I guess I mean attracted to how you look."

"So then, you just wanna be with me cause I look good, not because you like me."

"I have moments of being shallow," I said and picked up my glass from the bar. The condensation that had formed on the bottom fell in drops onto my lap and down the front of my shirt as I raised the glass to my lips.

"I want somebody to love me for me," the girl said and continued to twirl hair around her finger.

"We're talking about love now?"

"Actually, we're still talking bout you moving to LA."

"Oh," I said and thought about the email I'd gotten from Karl, dude, heard you are moving to LA for greener writing pastures?! Visions of Disneyland and Skid Row collided in my mind and I had the sudden urge to live under a palm tree. "Sunsets through LA smog are beautiful," I absentmindedly said and tried to smile.

"Since when do you look at sunsets?"

"How you know I don't?"

"Stare at em like they're pretty girls?"

"Yeah, something like that. Already told you I was shallow."

"Wanna get outta here?" the girl asked.

"I just don't want to have any regrets," I said, ignoring her offer to leave. "If I don't go and try to make it as a writer, get work and learn to be a teacher, focus on what I want. Then I'll always wonder if I could have and someday I'll regret not trying."

"Life is full of regrets."

"Only if you let it be," I said and stood up. "Let's get outta here."

"You hungry?" said the girl, but she wasn't moving and I just stood there without answering. Down the bar one of the plainclothes cops looked my way and I thought I saw recognition in his glare.

"I could be," I said. "But I don't want to eat in this neighborhood. There's nothing but fast food, bad Chinese and greasy Tandoori joints and right now I'm not in the mood for any of that shit."

"Aren't you a vegetarian?"

One of the cops got up from his stool and walked towards me. I looked at him as he approached and dreaded whatever it was that he wanted.

"You Sean Murphy?" he asked.

"Sean who?" I said as I pulled my jacket on.

"Nah, you're not Murphy. Sorry. Must be the bad light in here."

"That's alright," I said and put my hand on the girl's shoulder. "Ya wanna go eat or what?"

"I want a hot dog," she said. "But you probably don't eat hot dogs."

The cop had gone back to his end of the bar and was now talking with his partner, pointing my way and shaking his head. I got this creepy feeling running down my neck, and I felt my muscles tense up. "We should go," I mumbled as I tried to look inconspicuous.

"I took ballet for six years when I was young," the girl said as she slipped into her black leather jacket. "Thought I wanted to be a ballerina but all I did was become bulimic and learn to hate the color pink."

"That why you eat hot dogs?"

"Hot dogs aren't pink."

"Show me a pirouette then," I said and smirked as I walked towards the front door. A tall blonde hooker with long false eyelashes looked past me, smiled and shouted, "Work it honey, work it." And I turned around to see the girl in the middle of the bar up on her toes, her arms stretched out, slowly spinning.

The room, suddenly quiet, the only sound the baseball announcer's voice from the TV. I glanced over at the two cops and saw they were looking at me. Everyone else was watching the girl.

"Hey Murphy," said the other cop.

"I already told your partner I ain't Murphy," I said and moved toward the girl. She had stopped spinning and was standing twirling hair around her finger staring at the floor.

"Come on, I think we should go," I whispered and tugged at her sleeve.

Outside the fog was thick and coming down the street. I shivered and buttoned my coat. The girl slipped her arm around mine and we started walking.

"I'm gonna miss you," she said.

"Why you gonna miss me?" I asked.

"Because when I look up there ain't gonna be no one staring at me."

"You could come to LA."

"You could not move."

"You could be a ballerina."

"You could fuck me before you go."

I held her hand as we turned the corner and headed down the hill toward Market Street. A crackhead in a wheelchair lit his pipe and took a hit as we passed. I looked over at the girl but she was staring off seemingly lost in thought. Above us the streetlights glowed yellow in the mist and I stopped walking and pulled her to me and we kissed as I thought about sunsets and ballerinas and all the times I never did what I wanted to do.

Big Food in the Heartland of America

2009-05-01T11:58:00.000-07:00

"Hi, welcome to Taco Bell. Hope you're having a nice day." said the girl standing behind the counter. Her monotone voice so void of emotion it could have easily been computerized.

"Define nice," I answered, and looked around at all the brightly colored plastic and brushed aluminum and wondered why this was what fast food corporations thought a restaurant should look like.

"That your world is wonderful and you're happy to be alive," she said with absolutely no enthusiasm as she stared at her pale pink lacquered fingernails. Obviously this part of the conversation wasn't the official Taco Bell greeting she was required to say.

"Can we just forego that statement?" I asked, and stared at the menu above her head.

An audible sigh escaped her lips as she slowly ran her hand back and forth over the face of the computerized cash register. She looked to be about nineteen, but the sadness in her eyes said her age didn't matter. Trapped in this shithole highway town working a stale-ass job, her future worse than bleak, she now had to deal with someone who wasn't going along with his part of the script.

I never eat at fast food restaurants. Or at least I try not to. Driving back from LA, I thought I could last the five hours without having to consume a meal. And then there I was just north of Bakersfield and my stomach started growling. It was four in the afternoon and I realized I hadn't eaten anything all day. Still I had a full tank of gas and really didn't need to stop so I pushed on and drank water instead.

But then the wind started blowing really hard across the highway and tumbleweeds attacked my car en masse – splattering their twig guts across my hood and getting stuck in the windshield wipers. I could only cringe at the thought of all those little scrapes in the paint finish, but what was I to do? Swerve into another lane and crash? I'd already seen a semi tossed on its side blocking the southbound lanes. Obviously this wind wasn't something to mess with. Then I looked across the highway and saw the oncoming cluster of gas stations and fast food outlets and thought why not, I'm hungry, how bad could it be?

"I need something vegetarian. You know, with no meat," I said and then realized how stupid that must sound.

The Taco Bell girl just looked at me and pointed to the menu behind her. More than slightly overweight, her plump arm hung in the air, the extended finger looking like the all American hotdog that was absent from the south of the border menu. Her long black hair crammed into the Taco Bell cap on her head appeared to be on the verge of escaping, while both sides of her face were covered with pimples – the obvious result of working around greasy fried foods. Wondering if she ever ate any of the stuff she served, I decided that of course she did. What the hell else was there to eat out her in the middle of nowhere.

"You got vegetarian nachos, right?"

"Three layer, or seven layer?"

"What layer?"

The Taco Bell girl lifted her chin towards a sign on the wall next to the soda dispenser that pictured three nacho specials. The regular nachos appeared to have ground beef and some kind of cheese wiz. Then there was one with sour cream, cheese wiz and refried beans. The last looked to be the same but with salsa and guacamole.

"Those the three and seven layer?" I asked as I pointed toward the sign. "And they don't have meat?"

"Uh huh," she said without looking at me.

"I'll take one of each."

As I handed her money and waited for my change, a rather large suburban couple came in the restaurant and stood in line behind me. "I love the beef burritos," said the women. Her male counterpart grunted as he looked at the menu. Holding my receipt I moved over to give them room.

The Taco Bell girl stared at them for a second before she said, "Hi, welcome to Taco Bell. Hope you're having a nice day." Then she looked at me and I could see the reality of her life smoldering in her eyes.

"Bunch ah beef burritos," said the man.

"How many?"

"I could eat a dozen," said the women, and then she giggled.

The man grunted again and I lost interest and turned to look at the passing traffic on the highway. While they were deciding on the quantity of burritos, the room went silent and I could hear the wind as it blew across the valley and slammed into the plate glass windows. An hour ago I'd driven past a giant industrial feedlot. Acres and acres of cows standing in their own shit staring off into space – the wind blowing the stench into my car so bad I actually gagged. I can't believe that it's come to people treating animals like this. But what can we expect in a world where there has been an Auschwitz as well as other inhumane concentration camps?

"Six," said the woman.

"Just for you?" said the man.

"No, three each, silly."

"Oh, and Cokes, we need large Cokes."

Outside a massive tumbleweed rolled across the parking lot and into the street. The gust of wind that was pushing it slammed into the windows and the side of the building shuddered.

"Oh my, that wind," said the woman as she and the man carried their large empty cups over to the soda machine.

"Your order," said the Taco Bell girl as she pushed a tray across the counter towards me – the two small cardboard dishes of nachos sliding forward.

"You hate this job, huh?" I said as I took the tray.

The Taco Bell girl stared at me and said nothing. There was no expression on her face or in her eyes. She's obviously let me see too much and now she'd closed it all down and called it quits for the day.

"What's there to hate?" she said as she splayed her upturned hand towards the restaurant's interior.

I took my tray and walked over to the condiments and grabbed a packet of hot sauce, a napkin and a fork. At a table sticking out from the wall I sat down and looked at my food. The guacamole, cheese whiz and salsa could almost glow in the dark. "I'm gonna regret this," I said and then took a bite. There was absolutely no flavor, and the cheese whiz stuck to my teeth like caulk. Grabbing the packet of hot sauce I tore it open and squeezed the dark red contents over both plates of nachos.

"Your burritos are ready," said the Taco Bell girl and the man got up from his table and walked to the counter.

"Get some hot sauce," said the woman and the man grunted as he grabbed the tray.

Another tumbleweed came screaming across the parking lot and smashed into the window next to my table and hung there pressed against the glass like it was fighting to get inside. Slowly the wind forced it along the wall of windows and with a final blast sent it around the corner and out of my sight.

I couldn't eat either order of the nachos. There was no taste to any of it, and the hot sauce just made it worse. Wiping my mouth with the napkin I looked up and saw the Taco Bell girl staring at me. When our eyes met she held my gaze and then she looked at the floor. I thought about what it must be like to live here, and then realized I had no idea what that even entailed. There wasn't a real town for a hundred miles in any direction. So I assumed she either lived in some farmhouse out in the middle of a field, or in one of the desolate trailer parks I passed a few miles back.

Grabbing my tray I stood up and walked to the trash container and flipped open the lid to drop in my uneaten food. Putting the tray on the shelf above the trash I turned to the Taco Bell girl and said, "Thanks, see ya later." Then I walked out the door wondering why I had said that. I'll never see her again and I sure as hell won't stop here to eat if I can help it.

The wind blew dust into my eyes as I opened the door to my car and got in. Wiping my face with my sleeve, I turned the ignition key and buckled my seatbelt. Through the windshield I could see the Taco Bell girl standing alone at the counter behind the cash register. Another portly couple with a bunch of fat kids got out of their mini van and started walking across the parking lot as I pulled away and headed for the freeway onramp.

This was published as "Desolation," in Two Hawks Quarterly, Issue 4, Number 1 (2010)

Saint Patrick's in North Beach

2009-04-01T23:22:00.000-07:00

After a late dinner with a friend, I say goodbye, give her a kiss, and head home. As I walk up the hill I see two kids sitting on my building's front steps, staring at me with goofy expressions, like they're wondering why I'm walking towards them. But then the girl's smile fades and she turns her head and starts throwing up. Greenish liquid splatters the bottom steps and splashes the sidewalk. The rancid smell of barf and alcohol hits my nostrils and I step back.

"She's sick," says the guy as he gingerly holds her long black hair away from her face, his gesture almost looking tender, except he can't keep himself steady and ends up falling into her, and they both slip in the barf.

"Excuse me, I live here," I say.

"Sorry," says the guy. The girl's head now cradled in his arm as he wipes her mouth with the sleeve of his sports jacket, which sort of reminds me of someone polishing a bowling ball.

"You're throwing up on my steps," I tell him, and then point to the splatters of barf, like I really need to.

"She's sick," he says again, as if this is a reasonable explanation as to why they're here making a mess.

"Okay," I say. "She's throwing up on my steps. Do you think you could get her to stop, or just move down the hill to one of my neighbors?"

The girl looks up at me, then at her friend, then lies down and closes her eyes. Her yellow sundress is stained and torn, and when she pulls her legs in toward her body going for a fetal position, I notice she has only one shoe.

"She's so beautiful," says the guy as he runs his slimy fingers along her cheek.

Stepping around the barf I make my way past them and up the stairs. Fumbling for my keys I look over my shoulder and see the guy stand up and steady himself on the handrail.

"Hey, can I use your bathroom?"

"What?"

The girl is now curled up against the wall, snug in a corner under the mail slots. Her hand pressed against the stair as if she's holding on. Turning my key in the lock I push the door open, then pause and look down at her.

Earlier in the evening I'd been a friend's house in the suburbs and had parked my car out front in the street under a tree. When it was time to leave I started the car and pulled away from the curb and halfway down the block noticed a spider clinging to the center of the windshield. As I sped up, it slowly started slipping across the glass, moving from side to side whenever I turned. At the freeway onramp I pushed down hard on the gas pedal expecting the spider to fly off. It flattened itself against the windshield and hung on.

The girl's hand reminds me of the spider. But she's clinging to the house, I can't speed up, and now her drunken boyfriend is asking if he can use my bathroom. I feel like turning on the windshield wipers and just wiping them off my front steps. Unfortunately the building has none.

"I don't know you," I say.

"Name's Bob," he says and holds out a slippery looking hand.

"I don't wanna know your name."

"Gotta take a piss," says Bob.

We stare at each other until the muffled ring of my cell phone breaks the silence. Slipping it out of my pocket I hold it up to my face trying to read the caller ID, but I don't have my glasses and without them I'm blind. A bit reluctantly I slide my finger across the touch screen and then hold it to my ear.

"Hello."

"Hello?" says the girl on the steps as she raises her head and looks around.

"Hello," I say again into the phone.

"Hi," says Alina, her voice sounding faint.

"Hello?" says the girl on the steps as she pushes herself up and looks at me. "Do I know you?"

"Who are you talking to?" asks Alina.

"No one. It's hard to explain," I say and back into my doorway.

"Hey Mister," yells the girl. "Can I use you bathroom?"

"Who wants to use your bathroom," asks Alina. "Where the hell are you?"

"Obviously I'm at home if they want to, ah, use my bathroom," I stammer.

"Can I use it?" asks the girl as she wipes her hands on the front of her dress.

"You gonna let them use your bathroom?" asks Alina.

"No!"

"I can't use your bathroom?" screeches the girl and then looks at her boyfriend as if she's just realizing he's there.

"I already asked," he says and shrugs his shoulders.

"You're both covered in puke," I say and gesture in their direction with my hand.

"They're covered in puke?" says Alina. "Who the hell are they, and why are you talking to them?"

"Told you it was hard to explain," I say and close the door.

Inside it's dark and there's a smell like fried collard greens or burning sage. I reach for the hallway light switch and then decide against turning it on. I'm afraid Bob or his girlfriend will take it as encouragement to come knocking. Better to leave the front of the house dark and hopefully they'll go away.

"What's up?" I ask Alina as I sit on the couch in the living room.

"I called to talk, but you sound busy."

"I'm not busy. I don't even know those people."

"Then why were you thinking of letting them use your bathroom?"

"Is that what you called to talk about? People who want to use my bathroom?"

"No, I just…" and then she pauses.

I've known Alina for twenty years. We go way back to the bad old days and then some. We hung out in the same circles, did a lot of drugs together, and on more than one occasion tried to rip each other off. A lot of our friends from those days are dead, or have disappeared. For some reason we're the two that made it out alive and today we're still friends.

"Have I gained weight?" she asks.

"What?"

"Have I gained weight?"

I'm not married. I don't presently have a girlfriend. But I've been in numerous relationships and I dread when a woman asks about her weight.

"Gained weight?"

"Yes. Have I gained weight?"

"Well, if you're asking me have you gained weight in the last twenty years, then yes, the answer would be yes, Alina, you have gained weight. Because we've all gained weight. I've gained weight. Everyone's gained weight. The whole freakin world has gained weight."

"Noooo, of course I know I'm bigger than when I was twenty years old and using drugs. No, I mean have I gained weight in the last few months?"

I am the spider slipping across the windshield of truth. I am clinging on for dear life, but I know that when the conversation reaches a certain velocity I'll be tossed off and splattered along the highway of indiscretion.

"Perhaps, if you feel you've gained weight than maybe you should, ah, think about your diet?"

"So I have gained weight," shrieks Alina.

"That's not what I said…"

"Is my ass huge?"

"Some guys like a big ass."

"You're saying my ass is big?"

"No, I'm just…."

"I'm so depressed. My ass has gotten so big I can't even get out of bed."

"Do you exercise?"

"I exercise. But it's hard when I'm draggin around something so big it should have its own zip code."

"You're exaggerating," I hiss.

"I can't believe you just said my ass is big."

"I didn't say… What's that crunching noise?"

"I'm eating cookies damn it. I'm depressed! I eat cookies when I'm depressed."

There's the sound of someone screaming coming from out in front of my building. I rub the bridge of my nose, close my eyes, and tell Alina I have to go.

"You just don't want to talk to me cause I got a big ass," she says and hangs up.

The hallway is dark and I run my hand along the wall as I make my way to the front door. Scrunching down the blinds that cover the front window I stare out through the gap and see Bob and his girlfriend in the street yelling at each other. Cautiously I open the front door and peer out.

"You don't love me!" screams the girl.

"But babe," says Bob.

"I hate you!"

"Honey, you don't mean that. It's the alcohol talking."

"Screw you," yells the girl as she pushes Bob and then stumbles backwards down the hill out of my line of vision. Then there's the screech of tires followed by a loud horn. A red minivan tears past on its way up the hill, the roar of its engine drowning out all the other noise. A bit concerned I step outside to see if she's been run over.

The girl is nowhere to be seen, but I can hear her shouting. So she must be okay and I suspect in someone else's doorway down the block. Bob stands in the middle of the street and stares at the ground. When I get to the bottom step he turns and looks in my direction.

"She's sick," he says. And then starts walking down the hill.

I stand on the sidewalk and look up into the sky. The moon is half full and glowing. In the upstairs apartment across the street there's a party going on. I can see people's heads through the window moving around the darkened living room. Their voices getting louder as some boring jazz plays in the background. When one of the partygoers looks out the window and our eyes meet, I turn away and look down the hill for Bob and his girlfriend. But I can't see either of them and then I remember the puke on the steps.

I open the garage door and walk inside to get the hose. I want to wash the puke off before it hardens. As I walk past my car I notice something like gauze on the windshield. When I take a closer look I see a small spider spinning a web inside my car.

This was published as "Late Night Q&A," in Word Riot, May Issue (2009)

Big Head Theory

2009-01-20T00:44:00.000-08:00

I have this big head. I was born with it. I see it in every damn mirror, darkened store window, even in the dull reflection of a car’s windshield. When I’m standing in line at a convenience store, I helplessly stare at the surveillance monitor hovering behind the counter and see myself squished up black and white– my head so goddamn big you can’t miss it. With all my blonde hair sticking out all over the place it almost glows in the dark like a plastic Jesus nightlight. Look at any photo that’s ever been taken of me and you’ll see. There’s this big block of a head on my shoulders – a big, big, big head just sitting there.

It’s so big only half my face fits on my driver’s license. My passport photo is all chin, nose and a couple of eyes – it could be any freckle-faced Irish guy named Patrick Sean O’Neil. My profile photo for MySpace sucks too. My head won’t fit in that little frame they give you. But what do I care? Damn near everybody in the entire universe is leaving sleazy MySpace for Facebook. Only Facebook blows just as bad. My goddamn big head won’t fit in their photo restrictions either. And don’t even talk to me about Twitter, flickr, Blogger, Gmail, Yahoo, goodreads, or LinkedIn. I really don’t need another social network, email address, or a place to post my writing, photographs, or résumé. But I’d be happy if just one of them was big head friendly.

“Fuckin big head,” I mumble, and then stare directly into your eyes and say, “my head look big to you?”

Back when he was still alive and just starting out his career as a big time media mogul, Merv Griffin did some studying and figured out television audiences loved people with big heads. He discovered they looked better than someone with a regular normal size head on the TV screen. What with the way bodies got stretched out and compressed, and everyone looked ten pounds heavier, a big head sort of anchored the torso down as it got projected through the cathode ray tubes. Plus, he figured people would trust someone with a big head because they’re brainy, or actually they appear to be brainy. One would hope a big head was full of brains, and not half vacant with lots of room to spare. So old Merv, whose own head wasn’t exactly petite, searched and searched until he found Pat Sajak and Vanna White with their big heads, and signed them up to host his game show, Wheel of Fortune. You can check this out if you don’t believe me, the man made millions. Hell, Vanna and Pat have been hosting that goddamn show for years – still successful as all hell – supposedly all due to the size of their heads. Not that I’m suggesting my head is full of brains, or I should host a game show. Hardly. I’ve just done a bit of research into this big head deal.

So, little Johnny comes home from school crying and says, "Mommy all the kids at school say I’ve got a big head."

And his mother says, "No you don't Johnny. You have a hideously deformed head. The other children are merely hiding the truth to protect your feelings."

And yes, that mild attempt at big head humor gently segues us into the other possibilities for my enlarged head. Horrible medical anomalies like Proteus Syndrome: a rare genetic disorder characterized by overgrowth of bones, fatty tissues and skin. Or Acromegaly: a hormonal disorder involving excess growth hormone production by the pituitary gland. Or even Hydrocephalus: a condition in which the primary characteristic is excessive accumulation of fluid in the brain. But I’m not experiencing any of the usual symptoms associated with any of those diseases: excess of fluids, headaches, vomiting, loss of balance, enlarged extremities, or bony skull prominences—the later of which sounds more like building an addition onto your skull than a symptom. Besides, as of just last month my doctor assured me I’m not suffering from any of these said abnormalities. Although he has requested I stop snooping around the medical libraries looking for any other ailments I might possibly be afflicted with. He mumbled something about that being his job and why don’t I get the hell out of his office before he put a world of hurt on my magnus caput capitis.

"Do you hear any noise when I think?" I asked him and then massaged my temple with a gummy bear – an organic vegan gummy bear. Because I like to go for the best when I practice holistic medicine.

Yet all the news isn’t bad. In the 19th century, Cesare Lombroso, an anthropologist from the Italian school of criminology, preformed numerous autopsies on deceased criminals in an attempt to outline the fourteen physiognomic characteristics, which he believed to be common in all criminals, the foremost being a small head. So Okay, past digressions aside, my big head doesn’t render me prone to common criminality, at least not in 19th century Italy.

"Yo mama head so big it shows up on radar."

I remember playing soccer in 8th grade and Anthony Fragamini wanted me to be goalie, and I didn’t want to be goalie. I hated being smacked by the ball, or having to dive for it and roll around on the grass. Besides, the field we played on was covered with broken glass, cigarette butts and beer cans. Every once in a while you’d find a used rubber because the local thugs hung out there at night and partied with the girls from the Catholic school.

So I said, "Ant, I don’t wanna be goalie."

And he said, "I’ll give you a dollar." Because Anthony was team captain and took that shit seriously, he always wanted to win, to beat the other team and run around the field like a fool.

"Man, fuck yo dollar," I yelled and started to walk to midfield to play halfback like I always did.

"But you ain’t gotta do shit," he yelled after me. "Yo big head’ll stop half the balls from gettin through the goal."

Seems like when I was a kid my head was even bigger. There’s a picture of me as a baby. Nine pounds, ten ounces, and the nine pounds was all head. I got this expression on my face, looking at the camera like an old man and I’m only a couple days old – the burden of a big head.

"I don’t know why I got this big head," I say. "No one else in my family has one."

I look over at my reflection in the full-length mirror, a tailor’s measuring tape wrapped around my forehead. I squint to read the numbers. Inches, metrics, I can’t tell, I forgot my glasses. Slowly I slump to the floor. The tape slithers off and curls up in the corner. A molting rabid cat comes running. I grab its tiny head with both my hands. Its mouth opens in a hiss. Teeth bared it screeches to the heavens above.

"It ain’t like I come from a long line of big heads," I say as I pull the cat’s claws out of my skin. "Or every other generation there’s a big head or two poppin up off the family tree like a freakin bobblehead doll. Shit, as far as I know none of my relatives have ever hosted a game show."

The cat licks its lips and eyes me like a can of sardines. I reach for the measuring tape, but it has inched its way further down the hallway. A telephone rings somewhere off in another room. The smell of gasoline is strong in the stagnant air. I wonder who could be calling this late at night. My fingers touch the stained carpet as I push myself up off the floor.

"Nope, this is my cross to bear," I say and realize I’m alone. The cat has run off and the only thing keeping me company is the reflection of my big head in the mirror.

This was published as "What-a-ya-looking at Bitch? " in Sunsets and Silencers, Vol. 1 (2009)

Vote Early and Often

2008-11-04T23:02:00.000-08:00

In San Francisco on Telegraph Hill the rich folk all use the "absentee" ballot - opting out for the actual hands on voting. So my polling place, a garage at the dead end of Montgomery Street with the million dollar view of downtown, the Bay Bridge and the hills of Oakland, which is usually deserted, was actually rather busy. The six voting booths were in use, and the three giggling Chinese girls that "man" the polling station were very apologetic. One of them stated that perhaps the large turnout was because both Starbucks and Ben and Jerry's had promised coffee and ice cream to anyone sporting an "I Voted" sticker. Perhaps she was right?

Either way I had to wait ten whole minutes in the sunny but windy 57 degree weather while six individuals took their sweet time connecting the center of the voting arrows with a black felt tip marker. The seventh voting booth, the computerized booth, which supposedly San Francisco is striving to install in all its voting stations, was not working and shoved off in a corner.

An older gentleman finally emerged from one of the booths but it was only to get another ballot. He had to do his over as he'd made a mistake. The giggling girls were not amused.

As I was waiting a woman arrived and was shocked she couldn't vote immediately.

"I have to be somewhere," she protested.

Then the old guy came back for another ballot. This time the girls told him he had to stop making mistakes and rolled their eyes as they handed him another ballot. I mumbled something about if only it were that easy. The impatient woman asked me what I had said.

"I said if only it were that easy to just stop making mistakes in one's life."

She stared at me as if I'd told her I smoked crack.

Then it was my turn. And even though I had brought a cheat sheet listing all the propositions and ballot measures and candidates for school board, judges and supervisor - I was still worried I'd mess up and incur the disapproval of the giggling girls, or worse not get my "I Voted" sticker and miss out on the Ben and Jerry's/Starbucks extravaganza.

One interesting note: absentee ballots are counted last. So for once rich folks are last....

A Question of What to Write

2008-10-03T12:03:00.000-07:00

Saturday sucked. I woke up late. I woke up anxious. I looked at the clock and cursed. Most mornings I can’t sleep in and now when I was supposed to be somewhere, I had. All the enjoyment I could’ve reaped from the subversive complacency of staying under the covers, ignoring the world, was lost to the fact that I was late.

With crusty bits of sleep clinging to my eyes, I scrambled out of bed and rushed through the morning necessities. And then without the proper beginnings, as in no time to get coffee, I ran out the door intent on doing things and being places I had promised people I would.

Unfortunately no one else appeared to know or seemed to care I was late. Traffic was bad. Buses, cars, pedestrians, bicyclists, and an unusual amount of women with kids in strollers blocked every intersection. Gaggles of tourists crowded sidewalks and street corners, pointing and ogling and taking pictures. And yes, I know the Euro is strong, and yes, yes, thanks so much for the needed tourismo cash and all. But isn’t there more to see and do in New York City? And why in hell is the entire EU in my neighborhood on a goddamn Saturday morning?

Without any of the usual screaming or rude hand gesturing on my part, I steered my car through it all, eventually making my way across town to my first destination on time and a little out of breath and full of anxiety. Which wasn’t that easy. I’m not used to dragging my pathetic un-caffeinated ass anywhere first thing in the morning other than down the hill to the café for my usual latte.

Still a bit sleepy, I picked up Barbara and drove to the meeting. We had committed ourselves to setting up the chairs and putting the illusive card table in the corner by the door. Last week when nobody else had raised their hands, we’d both sighed and took on the responsibility. Like good martyrs we’d volunteered to cover for a friend while he was away riding his bicycle across a vast stretch of land most people wouldn’t think twice about circumventing in the biggest arc possible. Yet after I had carried my tenth load of chairs across the large main room and up the stairs to the smaller meeting room in the back, I wondered if maybe he hadn’t got the better end of the deal. Although experiencing massive expanses of dirt with unrelenting sunshine and fresh air while riding a bicycle isn’t my most favorite of pastimes, carrying eighty some odd plastic folding chairs has got to be worse and decidedly less prestigious in the order of things to do.

With all the chairs set up in rows and the meeting about to begin, I ran to the nearest coffee shop and ordered a four shot latte. The woman behind the counter looked at me, shook her head and said, “No, three shots.”

“Excuse me?” I sarcastically asked lifting my hands palms up in the universal expression of “what the fuck?”

“Too strong,” she said. “It won’t taste good, only three shots.”

“Really?” I said. “Couldn’t you let me be the judge of that?”

“No.”

It would be a gross understatement to say that when I left with my lowly three shot latte I had only a slight resentment toward the woman behind the counter. I’m only too sure had I been some haughty Bulgarian dropping huge amounts of converted Euros, she would’ve happily poisoned me with the offending amount of requested caffeine. And yeah, okay, four shots may be a little over the top and yeah, I’m strung out. But I can quit anytime I want. Really. I can. I just don’t want to. Besides when I try I get this insane frontal lobe headache from lack of caffeine.

But enough of that.

On the way back, I ran into a friend with whom I’d made plans to discuss some of my writing after the meeting. But he said he was stressed out, didn’t feel all that great and asked could we get together another time when he felt better.

“Of course,” I said. “No problem.”

And he said. “Good, I’ll ring you next week.”

An overwhelming sense of anxiety prevailed as I walked up the hill, my three shot latte in hand. Couldn’t be helped, I imagined and mentally crossed that planned activity off my list of things to do as I gulped my drink. The hot liquid scorched the roof of my mouth as I climbed the stairs and took my seat in the rear of the room. For an hour and a half I stared at the back of some unknown person in front me and waited for the meeting to end—my empty stomach making gurgling noises as the acidic coffee churned away, the roof of my mouth peeling from third degree burns.

When the meeting finally adjourned I walked out front and met with the usual suspects. “Are we eating?” someone asked. And like every Saturday for as long as I care to remember, we all went off to breakfast at the café down the street. And as usual the place was crowded and very noisy. Raising my voice I’d tried to order—eggs over easy and home fries—and watched as the waitress blinked. Which caused me to stress she hadn’t gotten my order right. Then I figured it really didn’t matter and turned my attention to the seemingly endless and highly speculative conversation on the upcoming election and the economy. Only no matter where the conversation went, it returned to the same uncomfortable place because really they were all talking about their mortgages, or as in my case lack thereof due to ownership of shit-all, and so I really didn’t have much to contribute. But hearing how my friends’ lives were being affected made me tense and as the minutes slipped away, my anxiety increased until it became a pounding sensation that pulsated through my entire body. And it suddenly occurred to me that I was having a financial orange alert by osmosis.

Remembering some meditation techniques, I started concentrating on my breathing in order to calm my nerves. And while I sat perfectly still and felt the air enter my lungs, I halfheartedly listened to the conversations around me. Across the room an old man sat alone at a small table in the corner and slowly chewed his food while reading the newspaper. A couple in the booth next to him got up and left, a small child running in front of them. Outside the restaurant a bus pulled to a stop. The smell of exhaust blew in through the open front door and invaded my nose as I stared longingly up at what I presumed to be our plates of food on the counter getting cold.

Five minutes later, an eternity worth of breathing, our waitress reappeared and delivered a massive amount of food to our table. With my plate of coagulated eggs and tepid home fires in front of me, I reached for the silverware and began to eat.

“More ice water?” asked the waitress.

“Please,” I murmured through a mouth full of potatoes as I listened to my friends talk.

“Mmmm, that looks good.”

“I should’ve gotten that.”

“Mayo.”

“Mayo?”

“I’m craving meat man!”

“My mortgage is killing me.”

“No more talk of money while we’re eating.”

One look at Harvey’s salad and Beth decided she didn’t want her greasy starch laden home fries and scraped them off her plate onto mine. I really shouldn’t eat potatoes; relative of the deadly nightshade, their nasty lectins get deposited in the flesh tissues surrounding bone joints, which causes arthritis. But fuck it. I ate hers anyway, and then I ate mine, a double dose. I should be crippled for weeks.

After breakfast we’re all out front of the restaurant and it was good-bye hugs, and see you laters. Then I drove Barbara home. Parked in front of her house, I looked at the rows of nice single-family houses and wondered if everyone was going to lose their property and if the entire country was going into a depression like 1929. Black and white images of stern looking men in soup lines and in front of dingy New York tenements flashed through my mind as I rubbed my eyes and leaned back in my seat and thought about what I had planned for the rest of the day. For a brief moment I considered going back to the coffee shop, ordering a single shot of espresso, and drinking it in front of the woman behind the counter—thus proclaiming that I’d had my four shot latte and she could go screw herself. Instead I made a u-turn and started to drive to the other side of town. I had promised Anna Lisa I’d meet her at some art show/political benefit where her paintings were being shown.

When I turned off Folsom Street by the elevated freeway I thought I smelled burning plastic. Although I presumed it was coming from somewhere outside, or the car in front of me, I didn’t think much about it. Then that car turned and I still smelled burning plastic, only now it was much stronger. Thinking that wasn’t good, I stopped, got out, and looked underneath the car, worried that a plastic shopping bag had stuck itself to the muffler and was melting away causing the stink. But there was nothing. I opened the hood, peered around, touched a few leads to see if they were hot. The motor was warm, the oil level was a tad low, the radiator was full, everything seemed in place and working. So I got back in and started driving.

All the way out to the Richmond District the car continued to reek. The scorched plastic stench invaded my nostrils and I started to get a headache as my stomach felt a little unsettled. Then visions of my car bursting into flames assaulted my mind as I stressed over the possibilities: a melting tiny fuselage nozzle leaking fuel, a gas line filter ruptured from overheating, a miscellaneous malfunction of fused overheated wires under the dash. Any one the plausible cause of my death in a fireball inferno.

At the intersection of 7th and Geary I realized I was close to the benefit and pulled into the first parking spot I could find. Engine off, I sat with the window open as the burning smell slowly dissipated. As I listened to the passing traffic, my headache increased. I rubbed my temples and wondered if I’d caused myself to become sterile from inhaling the fumes. PCB’s, carbon monoxide, aliphatic hydrocarbons and naphthenes, all that shit could kill you, or at the very least cause brain damage and put a stop to any chromosome-laden sperm production. Not that it really mattered. There hasn’t been any immediate outcry for my sperm or someone wanting to sire my underlings. But who wants to cause themselves undue bodily harm and irreversible alterations to their reproductive organs?

After locking the car, I walked across the street to the fundraiser and went inside and looked for Anna Lisa. Only she wasn’t there and the place was filled with all these political types with agendas in their eyes. And I must have looked like fresh meat because they all wanted to talk to me about whatever political platform they were promoting. But it was a room full of people with similar beliefs and opinions as myself. So I told them all, “I agree with you, I just don’t want to talk to you.” Reluctantly they finally left me alone and I walked around and looked at the art and felt self-conscious and went outside and called Anna Lisa.

“I gotta go, these freakin people are driving me insane.”

“I’m on the bus,” she said. “I’m two minutes away. Can’t you wait?”

I looked in the doorway of the fundraiser. A somewhat cute tree-sitting-anarchist-vegetarian-for-Obama waved at me. I returned her wave, hissed “hurry” into the phone, and then looked at my car and realized I hadn’t put any money in the parking meter. Dodging traffic I crossed the street and stuffed what little change I had into the meter and then paced back and forth as I waited.

“What’s wrong?” asked Anna Lisa as she walked up behind me.

“My car is melting, those people are weird, I gotta go, I’m stressed outta my mind, I can’t deal with this shit right now.”

“Oh. Well okay,” she said as I walked her inside the front door of the benefit. A woman I hadn’t seen earlier rushed up to Anna Lisa and gushed glowingly about her paintings, then talked about some artists I didn’t know. Then she looked me up and down and said, “We’re asking everyone to donate to the cause. You can even do it online,” and pointed to a laptop on a desk just inside the door.

“Melting plastic,” I mumbled. “Gotta go.” Then gave Anna Lisa a quick hug and fled out the door.

Back in my car, the turn signal on, I pulled into traffic. With all the subtlety of a Bush-sponsored financial bailout my anxiety was back and attached to my chest like a frantic weasel. I couldn’t catch my breath as thoughts of the presidential race attacked my brain. Between visions of political talking heads, I stressed over my unfinished list of things to do. I needed mailing labels. I needed stamps. My electric toothbrush was on the fritz. There was no food at home. Maybe I should take what little money I had out of the bank and horde it under my pillow?

Driving along the congested city streets surrounded by useless fast food franchises and scary looking bars, I desperately looked for an office supply store while simultaneously trying to remember where a post office was, or a department store, or a place that sold vegetables. But all I saw were liquor stores and coffee shops and every time I stopped for a traffic signal, the smell of burning plastic enveloped me and all I could think about was the car dying and me stuck out here in the boonies. Or worse, it bursting into flames, my charred body fused to the synthetic fabric covered seats. After passing the fifth futon shop having a gigantic going out of business sale, I finally I gave up and drove home.

When I got to my house I pulled into the garage and held my breath as the burning smell was overpowering. Outside on the street, I breathed the fresh air and closed the garage door hoping the car wouldn’t continue to smolder, then burst into flames during the night. The afternoon sun shone on my face as discarded trash swirled around my feet and I looked around, thinking what a dump my neighborhood was. Then I climbed the stairs, went to my room and jumped in bed, pulled the covers over my head, and fell asleep.

Saturday night sucked. I woke up late. I woke up anxious. I looked at the clock and cursed. It was nine o’clock. I’d been asleep for hours. With my head on the pillow, I stared at the ceiling knowing I had to get up or I’d fall back asleep and then wake up at three in the morning and be awake all night – my Sunday screwed. But I really didn’t want to get up. So instead I continued to stare at the ceiling while thinking of past digressions and people I hadn’t thought of in a long time. Then their faces morphed into Bush and Cheney’s and then I was back with all those grumpy looking men in the soup lines of the Great Depression, which caused my stomach to gurgle. And I thought about food and remembered my breakfast and then I really felt ill. But for some reason that made me think of my writing and I started to think about my book, about what it needed, because it wasn’t working. Something was missing. That something that would pull it all together.

Then an idea came to me and as the thoughts swirled the idea progressed and I began to figure out the narrative my book so desperately needed. Still unwilling to get out of bed, I laid there tangled up in the comforter and thought about how it could work and played with the possibilities. There was a voice in my head and it was exactly the voice I heard when I thought of telling the story to someone else. When this same idea kept coming back and I felt I’d worked it out as far as I could, I got up and scribbled a quick outline on some coffee stained piece of paper I’d rescued from the trash. Feeling a bit smug, I went to the kitchen and scraped together some food, and watched an unremarkable DVD on the television in the living room and then went back to sleep.

Sunday morning I woke up calm. I woke up rested. I looked at the clock and didn’t give a shit what time it was because I knew what I had to do. I had to take it easy. I had to take care of myself – too much anxiety lately. It was messing with my mind and my creativity. I needed to calm down, relax, and come Monday I was going to fix my book.

With that purpose in mind I walked down the hill to get my coffee. At Café Trieste, I said hi to Paul who has been there for years making espresso, and as usual he didn’t say I couldn’t have a four shot latte. He didn’t say shit. He just made the drink, took my money, and then said, “Hi, how ya doing?”

Latte in hand I walked home with the Sunday paper. And then while sitting at my kitchen table I carefully ignored the financial section as well as the front page. Halfway through a ridiculous movie review, I put the paper down and thought about my car and decided I couldn’t deal with it either. It was too much stress to even think about what was melting and I didn’t want to go downstairs to the garage and spend all day under the hood trying to figure it out.

But I did need to do something. I couldn’t just sit around ignoring the news, trying to forget about fucking Bush so I could stop worrying about the economy being destroyed by his cronies. I needed to do something mundane yet healthy to clear my thoughts. The shit these politicians were doing in the name of democracy was not only messing with my writing, it was driving me insane. Which is exactly what they want. This doctrine of fear they’ve been producing to keep the American people agitated enough to accept all their lies was beyond ridiculous. Maybe another color-coded charting system was needed for listening to the media regurgitate the same old tired propaganda they’ve been paid to tell America in order to keep us under the government’s thumb? Like hey, it’s a green level bullshit alert; don’t forget to use your credit cards. And do you really want a Muslim for your next president?

But what was the answer? How was I to keep my sanity while the country was being destroyed? I had already instigated a cognitive change in how I perceived the lies my government told me. And I already knew there was shit-all I could do in the way of immediate relief. Yet I had to do something different, even if it was so small a change that it really didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things.

“I need a new toothbrush,” I said aloud as a sudden a sense of calm spread over my body.

The truth was I’d been stressed about this for a while. My current toothbrush was on its way out; the once finely honed brushing action now reduced to a gentle vibration that sort of rubbed my teeth and caused me anxiety as I wasn't getting the full tooth brushing experience I knew I should. Convinced I’d found the cause for at least some of my internalized apprehension, I searched the adverts in the Sunday paper and came across a huge twenty percent off sale for the exact toothbrush I wanted.

“Providence,” I mumbled and searched my pockets for my credit card.

Monday morning I woke up rested. I woke up feeling I had a purpose. I looked at the clock and asked myself why I had one by my bed. I never really needed it and I actually fucking hated it being there. In the bathroom I stared at myself in the mirror and wondered if people really saw me as I saw myself. Turning on my new toothbrush I felt the bristles vigorously messaging my gum, the plaque miraculously disappearing, the teeth becoming pearly white. And somewhat cheerfully I hummed along with the motor’s purr.

On my way down the hill I noticed the sky was a brilliant blue against the gray fog that hovered on the hills and thought what a beautiful place it is that I live in. When I got to the café I said hi to the artist guy in the leather hat, and tired to avoid the weirdo with Tourette's. Then I thanked Paul when he handed me my latte and left.

Finally home, latte in hand, I sat down at my computer.

“Okay,” I said. “I know what to write.” And then stared at the large flat screen as it glowed in my face. Outside a bus drove by shaking the house. A couple of parrots yacked as they flew overhead. A woman speaking Cantonese yelled to someone in the alley. The smell of fresh coffee wafted up my nose as a low rumble of sound coming from the neighbor’s TV in the room above me echoed in my mind.

At that moment, for some unexplainable reason my brain screeched to a halt and a small voice not unlike the voice of the narrator I’d hope to write said, “I give you nothing.” Then my head started to ache.

An overwhelming sense of defeat overtook me as I sat there. Pushing aside my latte, I leaned my elbow on the desk and scratched my chin. Was it possible my mind had finally unraveled? I really wanted to work on my book. I really wanted to try out the idea I had for the narration. But instead I just sat there and wondered if it was better to stay at the computer and force some mediocre writing out? Or was it better to throw up my hands in disgust and move on to something unimportant like doing shit-all nothing?

I didn't know the answer, but I tried to tough it out, and wrote two pages of crap. Only it felt like my heart wasn’t into it. But something said, "Do it, you have to keep writing." Only what I’d written wasn’t anything I’d ever want to admit to writing. And then as usual the self loathing that accompanies these moments of defeat came rolling through me and I worried if I was a fraud, that everything I’d ever written was a fluke and that I really didn’t have any talent and the truth was that I was just an unproductive loser.

Sitting at my desk, I stared at what I’d just written and asked myself what was worse: churning out some forced worthless crap and then beating myself up over it being crap, and then having to go through the ensuing self-inflicted mental barrage of the usual drivel? I can’t write, I'm a fraud, I suck, the last good shit I wrote was a fluke and being an unproductive loser is who I really am. Or not write at all and then beat myself up with the usual drivel? I'll never write again because I can't write, I'm a fraud, I suck, that last good shit was a fluke and being an unproductive loser is who I really am.

Ah, the choices.

Sort of anti-climactic of me to have figured out what my book needed and then be floundering in the doing. Maybe I’m just too close? I thought. Maybe I need to take an extended break? Maybe I need a hobby? You know, something to take my mind off the creative process and give myself a bit of breathing room. Maybe something mundane and simple like golf. I could putter around the fairways and wear argyle sweaters, and polyester slacks in vibrant colors. Maybe a whole "Fat Elvis" era jump suit/super hero costume while driving golf carts to the clubhouse and drinking frosty cold ones at the "nineteenth hole."

Or maybe I need a ghostwriter? One that plays golf, wears polyester and could write for me dressed as Elvis and then tell me to my face that I'm useless, a loser, can't write, or play golf.

It is always good to get a second opinion.

After saving my writing, I closed the computer and went to make myself some food. Then the phone calls started. Friends wondering if I’d seen the news, the stock market a floundering mess because Congress had refused to bail out the financial sector. Wall Street screaming that Marx was right and it was time for Socialism. Bush proclaiming it the fault of the Democrats influenced by foreign investors. Cheney silent as usual as he waited for his farewell bonus from the American people.

Hanging up the phone, I resisted the urge to check the Internet and jump right in with the rest of America as the fear factor was once again being turned up a notch. There was fuck-all I could do at this point and wrapping myself in anxiety wasn’t going to help. Somehow I knew the universe was going to right itself, even if that meant 1929 was back again for a replay.

Somewhere in the middle of my plate of rice and beans, I stopped thinking about the economy and remembered my writing and thought maybe I was being a little too hard on myself. Maybe it just wasn’t time to write and instead I should focus on the good in my life and worry about finishing the book when it comes, after all this morning's brushing experience had been nothing short of amazing. Afterward I felt those little areas, the one's between the teeth, deep in the gums, and I knew that I had been shorting myself on preventive dentistry maintenance, and I was a tad overjoyed at the prospect of future gum stimulation and shiny oh so white teeth.

Perhaps that is what I should write about?

“The Oral-B Vitality Precision Clean rechargeable electric toothbrush reduces up to 2X more plaque than a regular manual toothbrush which can cause gingivitis. It uses Advanced Cleaning Technology to surround each tooth and removes plaque for a clean feeling and healthy gums. Superior stain removal versus a regular manual brush means teeth are naturally whitened.

“Precision Clean brush head moves 7,600 times per minute, surrounding each tooth, for thorough cleaning that can help prevent gingivitis.

“And you can even interchange Oral-B Dual Clean or Pro White brush heads on your Precision Clean toothbrush handle.

“Plus, now you can enjoy a choice of limited edition Vitality handle colors to match your décor.

“Benefits:
• Helps you brush for 2 minutes
• Reduces up to 2X times more plaque than a regular manual toothbrush, helping to prevent gingivitis

“Features:
• Interdental tips penetrate hard-to-reach areas
• Indicator® bristles let you know when to replace your brush head
• Ergonomic handle and rubberized grip for comfort and control
• Two-minute timer pulsates to signal recommended brushing time”**

Yes, the simple pleasures in life…

Obama-Biden 2008. What the hell else we gonna do?

** lifted without permission from the Oral B website. (http://www.seizeoralbpower.com/us/mypowerchallenge/products/vitalityPrecision.asp)

A revision of this essay was published as "Barack and the Art of Dental Hygiene," in AUDEMUS, Volume 1, Issue 2, 13-21 (2009)

Sunday Afternoon

2008-08-27T22:51:00.000-07:00

The movie was French, promising subtitles and skinny women with petit breasts and complex dispositions. The theater was one of those art house independents that cater to the more affluent San Franciscans. The type that want an espresso with biscotti instead of a forty-ounce soda and tortilla chips covered with a slimy orange substance commonly referred to as nacho-cheese. The popcorn looked and smelled fresh, it was actually popping in the machine behind the counter as we entered the lobby. I glanced across the concession counter filled with boutique cookies and European chocolate bars and felt my stomach go queasy. It wasn’t because of the array of sweets and baked goods, although for some reason the stench of cooking oil from the popcorn wasn’t helping.

I touched my forehead, I was sweaty and my skin felt hot. I looked over at the usher standing by the door staring at his shoes. He was short with big curly muttonchops and greasy long hair. I was reminded of a lonesome cowboy and wondered if there were any French Westerns. A woman wearing sunglasses that covered most of her face pushed her way in front of us, her hand held out as though she was holding a dog’s leash. Perhaps it was just habit. Seems everywhere I go women are walking dogs and picking up shit with used plastic bags. Thoughts of whether she washed her hands slid through my mind as she shoved the ticket in the usher’s direction. He continued to look at the floor so I didn’t even try to pretend that I had a ticket to show him.

An overwhelming and seemingly unrelated sense of regret forced its way from my brain into the tightening muscles of my chest as we entered the dimly lit theater. Blinking to adjust my eyes to the darkness, I noticed there were very few people inside, the choice of seats immense. After a slight discussion regarding vantage points and vision we made our decision, the center two in a completely deserted row about halfway to the back of the room. Stepping sideways we made way to our seats as more people arrived, the rows in front started to fill, the noise level increasing with conversation.

Sitting down, I wiped my forehead with my sleeve and considered the possibility I was dying of TB or influenza. Once again another infection had taken hold of my respiratory system, a shallow wheeze accompanied my breathing as I labored to catch my breath. Turning to my friend, I remarked how sick I was; however I didn’t think it contagious. She looked at me with uncertainty, but she didn’t get up and run.

A tall man dressed in a dark suit took the seat next to mine, behind us a woman voiced her opinion on immigration laws and Salmonella in certain raw vegetables. Scrunched down in our seats we idly stared at the blank screen and talked about this and a little of that. She laughed at something, I wasn’t sure what. My head being so dull with an encroaching headache, I couldn’t remember if I had said anything that warranted it.

After a few minutes the lights went out, the previews came and went. Finally the movie rolled and we were introduced to the cast: a lumpy faced doctor who smoked; his wife, svelte and mysterious; the sister, a lesbian; and the supporting actor, an Algerian thug. All together they made no sense as the implied premise of their interacting relationships was tenuous at best and I dismissed the whole concept and settled into my seat to wait it out.

Periodically I coughed while reading the subtitles, then watched the smoking doctor wave his hands about—gesturing in that European fashion, which I found comical and laughed at apparently inappropriate places, the rest of the audience remaining silent.

The man next to me shifted his elbow, shoving mine off the communal armrest. I looked over at him. He stared straight ahead obviously uninterested in my thoughts on shared real estate. I tried to cross my legs and unintentionally kicked the seat in front of me and contemplated whether or not I should apologize, or whether talking during the movie was worse.

With no apparent reason, except showing incredibly bad judgment on the director’s part, the movie’s plot took a turn and ran off in a direction that rendered what little it had going for it uninteresting. Exhausted I leaned back and wondered if I died of lung failure would anyone notice. Or would my body just sit here through the remaining showings until the greasy haired usher came to toss me out with the popcorn and trash swept from the floor. With a resounding thud, like the first drop of dirt on a coffin lid, the movie mercifully came to its end. The last frame hung frozen on the screen, then faded to black before the credits creeped upward.

Rolling my eyes, I said what did you think? Sighing my friend muttered that at least she had gotten out of the house, she’d been going stir crazy alone on a Sunday afternoon. Do you want to go, or do you want to watch the credits, I asked. She said she didn’t need to as it wasn’t going to make it any better, and I answered let’s go then. Turning in an effort to stand, my leg slipped sideways kicking the armrest stealer in the shins. Before I could say anything, he leaped up, darted into the aisle, and disappeared amongst the dark outlines of people standing and putting on their coats.

I didn’t mean to kick that guy, I said, really, I didn’t. What guy, she asked and looked around to see if someone was injured.

Outside the fog was dense and the wind blew down the hill into our faces. You know, I mumbled, I think I robbed this theater a long time ago. You already told me that over the phone, she said. So I did, I said and wondered if I often repeated myself.

See you later she called over her shoulder and walked away while pulling her jacket tight, her purse hanging from her arm. Thanks for taking me to the movies, I wheezed and walked off in the direction of my car.

A woman in a hooded sweatshirt zipped past me, dragged by a large black dog—its leash taut as it hurriedly sniffed every inch of pavement. Clutched in her hand a white plastic grocery bag fluttered in the wind. That’s why I don’t have a girl friend I thought, they all have dogs to keep them company. As I crossed the street the smell of frying meat blew by on the wind, which caused me to gag, then hack up a large lump of green phlegm. The dog and its owner stared at me, and then down at my virid spit on the asphalt like they expected me to pick up my snot with a used baggy. It’s not shit, I said and walked up the hill towards my car.

Nighttime Strangeness in the City of Fog

2008-08-08T14:48:00.000-07:00

I was out last night taking pictures. It was foggy and cold, but the streets were busy. The sidewalks clogged with small groups of tourists clutching guidebooks and freezing in their shorts and t-shirts. Everywhere I looked there were dejected looking homeless people and inebriated panhandlers posted up on street corners looking for handouts.

At the Stockton tunnel’s entrance I stepped into the street and almost got killed by a city bus full of late night shoppers and tired looking office workers. The driver just didn’t seem to care as he steered wide around the pedestrian island and careened past blowing diesel fumes in my face. Balancing on the sidewalk’s edge I manually opened the shutter for a long exposure. The bus’s taillights burning a redline through the pixels as my camera caught the blur of movement and the oncoming traffic’s headlights burned blazing balls of white into the viewfinder.

All around me the city glowed. Streetlights and office buildings vaguely shone through the fog as it came pouring over the hills and down into the streets. Pulling my jacket around me against the cold, I slowly walked toward the tunnel’s entrance looking in the camera’s LCD trying to suss out another shot. A group of girls came running towards me, laughing and shouting. Seeing them approach through the camera’s viewfinder I backed into a brightly lit alcove to get out of their way.

“Waddya doin?” asked a voice. I glanced over my shoulder and there’s this little disheveled guy, really thin, scruffy head of hair, standing next to me smoking a cigarette.

“Takin pictures dude,” I said and then moved over a few inches as this guy was standing really close.

“Lemme see,” he said as he moved even closer.

Obviously this guy didn’t understand the concept of personal space. Like dude, you’re in my space, you’re creeping me out, go away, stop breathing my air.

A bit reluctantly I turned and showed him the shot I had just taken – the one with the bus and the tunnel and all the lights burning and blurring – holding the camera’s display up to his face as he squinted and puffed away on his cigarette. A gust of wind blowing through the tunnel sent a mixture of his stinky body odor and cigarette smoke rushing up into my nostrils and I stepped back and coughed.

“What the?” he said. “It’s all blurry.”

“That’s on purpose. I’m trying to, never mind,” I told him as I backed away.

“Hey man, hey. Take my picture,” he said, gesturing with nicotine stained yellow fingers. “Over here, up these stairs. It’s my spot.”

“Alright,” I said thinking it would actually make for an interesting shot and followed him through the alcove into this weird stairwell that climbed up off the tunnel’s entrance. A single row of bright overhead lights mercilessly shone down illuminating the aqua painted walls and there was some sort of insulating foam carelessly sprayed across the landing. The place felt confining and repressive, but again I thought its strangeness would lend itself to the image. So I continued up the stairs behind him.

“Right here,” he said. “This is my spot,” gesturing to a corner of the landing where there was absolutely nothing but greasy stained concrete and crushed cigarette butts.

I stopped and looked around. This was such a forlorn spot to be calling one’s own. Slowly I backed away, the stairwell too cramped to get all of him in the viewfinder. The skinny guy leaned against the wall and stiffly stood there staring at me like he was posing for a high school yearbook. Right before I took the shot I thought, how strange, why does this guy want me to take his picture, and why here? Hurriedly I snapped off a couple of shots, said thanks and then turned to leave, planning on walking up the next flight of stairs to the street above.

“Hey man. Lemme see it, lemme see it,” he screamed and lunged towards me. I put my hand out, told him to chill and held the camera up for him to see. He dropped his cigarette and quickly looked down the stairs behind him. Then he made a grab towards the camera with both hands as he moved in closer. I stepped back and looked in his eyes. He looked in mine, bit his lip and continued to reach for the camera. At that second we both knew what’s going on.

I quickly palmed the camera behind my back and moved up the stairs. He went into a crouch and looked at me wild-eyed. The dude only weighed a hundred pounds max. I could easily have stopped him from trying to take my camera. Probably just had to push him back down the stairs if he came charging. Then his left hand went into his back pocket. I’m thinking weapon, I’m thinking knife, I’m thinking I really don’t want to get stabbed over a goddamn camera. But then again, I really don’t want to just give my shit up to some skinny-ass crack head in a lonely deserted stairwell in the middle of downtown while tourist wander by and a block away the cable cars are creaking up the hill.

“I need money,” he screeched as his hand came out of his pocket holding some change, a few dimes and a penny, and he was holding them up towards me, begging.

“I don’t have any money,” I told him over my shoulder as I walked up the stairs. The last two I took in one stride just to get out of there and then immediately regretted it. For some unexplainable reason I didn’t want this guy thinking I was afraid of him, or that I was running away. Something from deep inside of me, perhaps from a long time ago, wanted to be sure that I wasn’t wussing out. Acting appropriately, doing the right thing as the situation called for. Although what the right thing in this situation was, I had no idea. I sure as hell wasn’t going to beat him up for trying to take my property. So why was I feeling strange?

A cold wind blew in my face and I looked over the railing. Down on the street below the traffic flowed in and out the tunnel as an electric sign for a message parlor bathed the sidewalk in an eerie green light. I looked back toward the stairwell, but the skinny guy was nowhere around.

Lifting the camera I took a picture of some dive bar’s sign and wondered if I had lost my edge. Fifteen years ago a crack head wouldn’t have tired to steal from me and I would have been less forgiving if he had tired. Could it be that my street credibility wasn’t showing any more. No pennyante snatch-and-grab thief would have come up to me like that in the old days. But then again I wouldn’t have had a camera. I would have already sold it for dope.

“Whatever,” I muttered to myself and turned down Bush Street towards the Financial District. The blurry illuminated outline of distant office buildings disappeared above me into the foggy night. A woman walked by with a dog on a leash. I looked at her. She looked at me, smiled, then said hello. I smiled in return, said hello and thought how civilized this all was. Then the dog yapped at me. If you could really call it a dog. It was about the size of a rat. Sorry, the woman said, and walked away scolding her rat-dog about not barking at people.

The Dark Knight

2008-07-28T23:32:00.000-07:00

There I am in line waiting for Batman and Stephan's all, "did ya get the pictures Lynne sent to everybody in the entire freakin universe askin if they think she looks good?"

"Ah, no I didn't," I said and immediately checked my cell phone's email.

"Hmmmm, she must hate you," he said and smirked his little "I'm Stephan and the bitches just love me," smirk of his.

And I was all "huh?" and stopped shoving popcorn in my mouth and said, "I guess so." Then I thought for a minute and said "she sent everyone in the entire universe pictures of herself?"

"Yup," smirk boy replied.

"Why does she hate me so?" I mused.

"I don't know, what did you do to her now?" he smirked, this time with the "I'm so cool only I know shit" smirk of his.

I suppressed the urge to slap the shit out of him and started eating popcorn again. "Fuck you man, you ain't getting any of my red vines."

"Awh come on," he pleaded. "I'll put in a good word, get her to send the photos. Come on man, don't hold back the vines!"

"Don't do me any favors you weasel," I told him, then shoved the red vines deeper into my pocket.

The entire time I was watching The Dark Knight I keep wondering why Lynne hated me so. The red vines were tasteless, the popcorn greasy and dull.

And Stephan, well he was Stephan, and every two minutes he'd check his iPhone and ogle her photos.

Many Recovering Alcoholics Depend on Coffee, Cigarettes - US News and World Report

2008-07-23T16:18:00.000-07:00

"Well, at least I don't smoke," he says - his hands shaking as he unfolds the morning paper. Feeling smug he grabs his quadruple Starbuck's carmel macchiato latte and gulps down a foamy slurp. "Losers," he mumbles and looks around for something to eat that contains at least 3000 calories, all of them from processed sugar. In front of him lies the crumb covered front page of the San Francisco Chronicle. FAT IS THE NEW BLACK IN 2008 reads the headline. "Like kissin a freakin ashtray," he says as he ponders which AA meeting he'll dine at tonight. "Dry Dock always has the best cookie selection," he muses.

Outside the sidewalk is full of people on their way to work, everyone of them enclosed in their own iPod earbud world. A man lays prone on the ground, a used Starbuck's cup in his raised hand. "Help me out with some change?" he repeatedly chants.

A well dressed woman stops and looks down at the man, a cigarette dangling from her mouth. "How do I know you won't just use it to buy drugs?" she asks.

"Well, at least I don't smoke bitch!" is his answer.

She drops a dollar in his cup and walks away.

Hesitation, the Phone Rings....

2008-06-18T12:45:00.000-07:00

“Hello?”

“Mister O’Neil?”

“Yes?”

“Hi. How are you doing?”

“Okay.”

“This is Mister Steinway.”

“Yes.”

“I was just calling to see if everything was alright.”

“Uh huh.”

“Is everything alright, Mister O’Neil?”

“Yeah.”

“Because we seem to have a problem. We haven’t received this month’s check.”

“You haven’t?”

“No sir. We haven’t.”

“I, ah.”

“As a matter of fact. We haven’t received a check for the last two months.”

“Ah.”

“I sent you a letter last week. I’ve been waiting to hear from you.”

“I never got a letter.”

“Well, whether or not you received the letter isn’t the point, Mister O’Neil.”

“Who is this?”

“Mister Steinway.”

“Steinway?”

“Your landlord, Mister O’Neil.”

“Oh.”

“Mister O’Neil, you are going to pay your rent?”

“Of course I am.”

“Any idea when?”

“I’ll send you a check now.”

“For two months rent?”

“Yes. I’ll make it out for this month and the last.”

“Mister O’Neil. If you don’t pay your rent I’ll be forced to evict you.”

“I understand.”

“I’ve never had to evict a tenant before.”

“Don’t worry.”

“I’m not worried, Mister O’Neil. It is just that I would rather not be
forced to deal with such unpleasantries.”

“I understand.”

“Please see that you do. Good day.”

“Yeah, good day. – Jesus mother fuckin Christ, I can’t believe that mother fucker.”

“Who’s that babe?”

“That was our fuckin landlord wondering where the rent is.”

“What’d you tell him?”

“I told him the check’s in the mail baby. The check’s in the mother fuckin mail.”

“What’d he say?”

“Said he was gonna evict us if we didn’t pay rent.”

“We gonna get evicted?”

“I don’t know, probably.”

“Babe?”

“Yeah what?”

“The phone’s ringing again.”

“Jesus Christ – hello?”

“Mister Patrick O’Neil?”

“Yes.”

“Hi. My name is Claudia Shappo. I’m calling in regards to your
account with California Master Card.”

“Uh huh.”

“Patrick your account seems to be in arrears to the sum of a two
thousand dollars.”

“And?”

“And you need to start making payments on your accrued debt.”

“Because?”

“Because that’s the agreement you signed when we issued you the
credit card.”

“Well, you guys fucked up.”

“Excuse me?”

“You fucked up. You trusted me.”

“We what?”

“Lets see. First off you people issued me a credit card, never asking
whether or not I had a job or any means of paying you back. Then you
set a limit of two thousand because you weren’t quite sure about me.
But you thought you’d take a chance. Like two grand isn’t that big a
deal, except now I’m not paying it back with your eighteen percent
interest, so basically your fucked.”

“Mister O’Neil. Do you have any idea what this will do to your
credit rating?”

“Misses, ah Snappo was it? Do you realize that I don’t fuckin
care about my credit?”

“If you don’t make good with a minimum payment of forty dollars by
Thursday. We’ll be turning your account over to our collection agency.”

“I’m sure they’ll be thrilled.”

“If you continue to ignore us, it will become a legal matter. With
further financial penalties and possible conviction of fraud.”

“Eeeek.”

“We can even garnish your wages.”

“That would be hard.”

“I don’t think you’re taking this matter as seriously as you should.”

“The next sound you hear will be silence because I’m hanging up.”

“Your in for a lot of trouble Mister O’Neil.”

“I’m afraid it’s a little too late to be sayin that. Good bye – Fuck,
I’m never answering the phone again”

He Write

2008-02-12T15:27:00.001-08:00

He started to write. Stopped. Highlighted the entire paragraph. Pushed delete. Stared at the monitor. A blank word document hung there in the pixeled space of the screen.

He felt numb and lifeless. As if his thinking had ground to a halt. Nothing was coming. Or, more to the point, no words were flowing from his mind to his fingertips, onto the keyboard, to be finally captured by the word processing program of the computer.

He closed his eyes and tried to reawaken the images he longed to write about from his past. Disobediently, they sat there, in the back of his brain, unwilling to budge. A slow throb in his right temple became his only focus.

He touched the side of his head, wondering if he’d possibly done himself some damage. His past behaviors hadn’t always been the healthiest of pursuits. When he pressed his fingers against his skin, it felt cold and rubbery, and he questioned whether he was actually alive, or dead.

He sat up straight in his chair, and put his fingers to the keyboard. Hung there, poised for two seconds. Relaxed. Looked up. Noticed that the picture hanging on the wall behind the monitor was crooked. Resisting an urge to stand up and straighten it, he stayed seated, and instead reached over and grabbed a pen.

He didn’t know why he grabbed the pen. Feeling self-conscious, and in order to not look foolish, even though he was alone, he purposely put the pen down, dead center in front of the keyboard – his personal homage to those suffering from obsessive-compulsive disorder.

He suddenly felt tired and decided he was hungry. He wanted something sweet, toast with jam perhaps, and maybe coffee. Yet it was getting late. The coffee worried him: it could possibly keep him awake. His left leg ached. His back felt stiff. The small clock on the upper right hand side of the computer screen displayed1:32 am and this made him even more aware of how tired he felt he had become.

He looked across the room towards the window. Realized he had closed the curtains earlier in the evening. Getting up, he walked over, pushed the curtain aside, and stared down at the cars parked along the street. Letting go of the curtain, he slowly exhaled, removed his reading glasses, and walked back to the desk.

He wanted to write. He wanted to be a writer. He wanted to be a published author. He wanted to make a living doing something he loved to do. The blank page on the computer screen told him different. It meant he was failing, unable to even write a couple of pages late at night. With his left hand he straightened the picture on the wall, and then sat down, placing his glasses on the desk. A sense of defeat permeated his thoughts.

He stared at the computer, then shut his eyes, and leaned back in his chair. A nagging sensation that he’d forgotten something overtook him. Memories of when he used to be an artist invaded his brain. Recalling when he used to paint, and draw, and sketch. The exhilaration he felt when he put pen to paper. Capturing the images he vividly saw in his imagination. There was a time he had to draw, had to create art, had to, or he’d lose his mind. Sitting there, with his eyes tightly closed, he wondered where that drive had gone. He hadn’t sketched, or drawn, or painted, or even wanted to, for many years.

He opened his eyes, picked up his glasses, cleaned them with the ends of his t-shirt, and put them on. Feeling cold, he considered turning up the heat. Instead he reached down for his long sleeve shirt that lay on the floor. He liked the way it fit, the material snug. The arms, almost too long, hung to his fingertips. Rolling them up, he thought about when he’d first started writing. He’d experienced that same sort of obsession to create, as before, when his need to draw was almost as essential as breathing. The act of expressing himself by piecing together words into sentences fulfilled his artistic desires.

He was suddenly struck with an idea and sat forward in his chair. He stared at the computer, hesitated, and then began to write about writing.

What I Do When I'm Not Writing...

2007-11-12T11:02:00.000-08:00

My new music project: ON-X.

Currently available for listening at Myspace Music.
URL: http://www.myspace.com/onxno
If interested, please either cut and paste the URL into your browser, or click on this post's title to get there.

CD now available on and other fine internet music outlets.

Unfortunately this project, life and school have kept me way too busy to post.
Maybe sometime in the near future I'll have more time.
Maybe...

Cheers,
Fromage...

Reflections

2007-09-26T23:31:00.000-07:00

Sitting slouched down on a park bench in Midtown Manhattan, it was all coming back to me. Romancing that first hit on a joint I’d taken fifteen years ago or beating that crusty gray cotton for the tenth time when I knew damn well that there wasn’t another hit left in the spoon. Of course, after a couple of futile-ass attempts at painting a rosy picture of my life, I was forced to look at the reality of it all and then unfortunately after that, I was left alone with myself, a place I hated to be, as once again there I was wishing that I was still unspoiled and a bit naïve.

Back when it really mattered, back when I actually thought about shit, back when I used to agonize over whether or not everyone in the entire world liked me. Hoping that all of them was wondering was I really one big incredibly lovable human being or was I just one of those dejected souls that gets jettisoned off into that space where loneliness rules and nobody even drops by to see if you’re still alive. And as I rushed to get to wherever it was that I was going, there’d be this distressing sensation that no one truly loved me, because no one was capable of truly loving me, because I was so adamant that I wasn’t the least bit lovable in the first place. Why even try?

There were even times when terror-stricken I’d stare into the mirror and contemplate which one of my various freckles, wrinkles or scars was the offending culprit that had turned the world’s love off, one adoring fan at a time, leaving me abandoned, unwanted and alone. This of course led to some rather odd behavior on my part, like avoiding being photographed by strangers, only exposing my left side to security cameras and worse: all those sneaked peeks at my blurry reflection in store windows, parked car windshields and occasionally those unforgiving three-sided dressing room mirrors that one always finds hidden obscurely off to the side of the men’s clothing department in repressive institutions like Macy’s and Sears.

The reality of it all is that I hadn’t even realized that I was doing any of those things as I was still mired in my fears honed by all the finely tuned phobias that I’d harvested from adolescence. And because of that, none of this even seemed the slightest bit relevant, sitting there uncomfortably on a dark green painted wood bench on one of those weird traffic island kind of parks that appear to grow right out of Broadway as the taxis rush by in a constant stream of yellow. Smoking a joint and staring at the ornamental crustaceans – that from where I was sitting appeared to be crawling up the gray granite side of the building across the street, I came to the undisputable conclusion that I was to be alone for the rest of my entire life.

Of course if I didn’t get up and move in a minute or two I wouldn’t be alone at all as down the block I could see that two blue uniformed police officers were making their way towards me, no doubt following the odorous trail of sinsemilla, a smell that New York was just not ready for. Too Californian in nature. It sure didn’t smell like Nathan’s hotdogs or some roasted indistinguishable meat on a stick or like any of the other indigenous to the street smells that you’d normally find floating around in Midtown Manhattan.

Quickly standing up with my right hand outstretched flagging a cab, I couldn’t help but notice my reflection, a very unflattering incongruously dark somewhat bloated shape, in the darkened plate glass window of the restaurant directly across the street. ”Can’t eat tonight, or ever, you gargantuan fat slob” I think to myself and then as the sounds of the cops’ running feet start to fill my ears, I’m closing the taxi door and giving the driver a destination in the Lower East Side as the taxi slowly slips into the incognito-ness of the day’s afternoon traffic: another cab, another passenger, another narrow escape from the un-manicured hands of the law.

“God I’m tired,” I mumble, rubbing my eyes as I try to remember what time I’m to meet Paco, whether it was supposed to be 11 am today or 11 pm tonight. Goddamn, how the hell should I know? I can’t even remember if today’s today.

Yet somewhere out of the void, creeping into my subconscious, I hear, “Hey buddy, you mind if I take Fourteenth?” Looking up, I’m greeted by this pair of bloodshot eyes staring at me from the rearview mirror and it takes a few seconds to comprehend just what it is that they are asking of me.

“Sure man, just get me there!” I say, talking to the mirror like that’s who I’m supposed to be talking to. Yet I gotta admit it’s a better choice than talking to a back of a head or to no one in particular as these eyes just might be able to get me where I’m going. And as the taxi shimmies and shudders its way across four lanes of traffic, I lean back seeing the reflection of my face in the passenger window.

“Jesus Christ, you’re one ugly mo-fo,” I mumble to no one in particular. Only the taxi driver hears me and once again his eyes, or actually their reflection, are looking in my direction. I really got to remember to stop just blurting things out loud.

“Sorry, I wasn’t talking to you,” I announce making sure that I am actually saying the words not just thinking them and then fumble in my coat pocket for a cigarette. Only to remember that I smoked the last one twenty minutes ago and I’m out and then all of a sudden I realize that I got something else to obsess about.

“That’s Ok, no offence taken,” the cab driver says before turning his head in my direction. “Sir, may I ask you a rather personal question?”

“Well, if it’s about anorexia, prenatal sex, osteocopic surgery, baseball, the whereabouts of my mother, dental hygiene, IV drug use, adult inertia or the use of certain transfats as oil substitutes in most of our society’s favorite snack foods, well, then the answer is no. And I do reserve the right not answer any inquires on numerous other as of yet unnamed subjects.”

“Does that mean yes?”

“Fire away my good man, fire away!”

“Are you that funny guy from the television?”

“Who?’

“You know, the one that plays the space alien on that sitcom?”

“Ah, no.”

“Are you sure?”

“Actually I have no idea what you’re even talking about.”

“Oh, I get it.”

“You get what?”

“You don’t want anyone to know that it’s you. Don’t worry, I won’t tell. Besides, who am I gonna tell anyway?”

“Honestly, I’m not who you think I am, really.”

“You look like ‘im.”

“I’m not him.”

“You sound like ‘im.”

“I’m not him!”

It’s hell to be mistakenly recognized as some celebrity, especially some insipid sitcom comedian when the truth is that there’s really nothing funny about the whole goddamn thing and secretly deep down inside I’m wishing that I’d be mistaken as some rock star or at least a really cool artiste. But no, it had to be a TV sitcom actor no less. Obviously I’m cursed, doomed to a life of being ugly, unloved and resembling second rate television celebrities, and you know in my book it just doesn’t get any worse than this. Every so often someone thinks they know me, thinks I’m that comedian, or some other actor. Makes me think I could have been something else in life, something other than a dope fiend watching the world go by. But with the first pangs of withdrawal thoughts of that nature generally dissipate rather quickly and I’m back here right where I am: chasing the bag, getting high.

Just past the Bowery on East Houston between Chrystie and Forsyth Street lies a derelict piece of cement and dead grass that carries the large and somewhat prestigious misnomer Sara Delano Roosevelt Park. It’s where I usually meet Paco to buy a bindle of dime bags filled with China white heroin, lactose, fentanyl and assorted barbiturates – not necessarily in that order. A bindle is an interesting proposition since the deal is that you get ten bags for the price of eight and then one of the bags is always empty, so in reality you get nine. Which is kind of an out right New York pay off, only you don’t get to tip the dealer yourself, like having the gratuity already added on to the bill, like some high class restaurants do.

Crossing Forsyth, I look up and see the edge of the park come into view. “It’s there on your right,” I tell the driver and he abruptly pulls over as I begin getting out the money to pay the fare. Unfortunately the morning sun is a bit bright and it makes for a mirror-like high-resolution reflection on the window of me handing him over the cash. I try not noticing myself while I’m doing it and in my haste I step out of the cab without looking. “Egotistical asshole,” I hear the driver say not so under his breath right before I close the door, and then I notice that the park is empty except for a bum or two sleeping away on one of the various unkempt park benches. So there I am standing alone staring off into space wondering if indeed the agreed upon time had been 11 pm and I am in fact twelve hours early for this drug deal. Of course there’s not a pay phone that’s unmolested and in working order in at least a good quarter mile radius and so calling Paco to find out when we’re to actually meet is at the present time out of the question.

“Hmmmmm, what to do, what to do…”

And then, as if in a vision sent by the gods, a man steps out of the tavern across the street and it’s obvious: I can go sit inside and wait or even just go in and see if they have a phone that works. Good. Things are looking up.

Stepping out of the daylight into the dark bar I’m assaulted with that depressingly familiar smell of stale alcohol spilled on dirty rugs mixed with crushed cigarette butts. From the looks of the insides of this place, it’s one of those dives that should be called Joe’s or Lou’s, but I didn’t bother to look at the name before I came in. In front of me is one long bar running the length of the room with a few booths off to the right and then what looks like a very well worn pool table in the back under a hanging lamp.

“Got a pay phone?” I ask the down syndrome looking guy who’s standing behind the bar.

“Phone fur payin cus-a-mers only” is his response and yeah, I’m in New York.

“Ok, Ok, jeez already, give me a fricking beer and then point me in the direction of the fucking phone!”

“Milla, Bud, McSorley, Guinea?”

“What?”

“Wha kinna beer youse wan?”

“How about one that you pour into a glass and it foams a little?”

“Tha, I kin do.”

Next to the pool table is one of those pay phones that looks like it’s from back in the days when a call only cost a dime and when I put my finger out to punch in Paco’s number I’m almost surprised to see that there’s not a dial.

“¿Hola?”

“Is Paco there?”

“¿Paco? ¿Paco quién? ¿Quien llama?”

On the other end of the phone line a television blares away and I really don’t know exactly what to say to try and convince this woman that Paco needs to talk with me. Hell, it’s of the utmost importance and here I am without a single phrase of Spanish to woo her confidence with. “Senoro, I needa speek wit Paco, el vantay!”

From somewhere behind me I hear some one say, “It doesn’t help to try and imitate a New York Puerto Rican accent man.” And when I turn to look, standing there staring at me, is Paco, dressed in what looks like a New York Yankees uniform, only it’s made out of silver lamé. He needs no more advertisement than that suit that he’s a drug dealer. Hanging off his neck are at least three strands of gold that I’ve undoubtedly involuntarily paid for. On his left wrist, loose to the point of almost falling off, hangs a matching gold Rolex watch, on his feet, bright red alligator skin Adidas.

“Why you white dudes always think that if you affect a Spanish accent that it’ll get you in good with the man?”

I hang up the phone, doing a little shake of my head that I’m certain would look cool if I was a badass gang-banger or at the very least wasn’t a hundred and twenty-pound spike haired junkie trying to cop dope in a dark empty bar. But when I catch a glimpse of myself doing it in the mirror behind the liquor bottles I immediately stop, making a mental note of what a fat slob I look like from the side, and unenthusiastically slip onto the barstool in front of my beer.

“How you find me man?” I ask him and then take a sip of beer.

“Word on the street is some skinny-assed-dope-fiend-looking-white-dude just got outta a taxi and bee-lined it for this bar. Hell man you know that this is my neighborhood. So now that we’ve established the fact that you’re here and that I’m here, what I can I do you for my man?”

Taking another sip off my beer I lower my right hand under the bar and ease out the small roll of money that I have in my pant’s pocket. A hundred and sixty is the price for two bindles. I, of course, being that dope fiend that wants to get the most for his money, got a hundred and fifty two: five twenties, two tens, five fives and seven ones, all neatly rolled up with the twenties on the outside so it looks fat like all the money’s there. Paco knows I’m going to short him, and I know that he’s going to short me the usual amount of two bags. It’s a mutual shortness transaction going on here. That’s just the way things work.

“Gimme two, and could you not short me this time? I’d really like to get what I pay for.” I tell him, and then involuntarily do that little shake of the head thing again.

“Is the money right?”

“Right as it always is.”

“Sure you right baby.”

The bags, the money, they all transact in a quick handshake and then Paco nods farewell and I go back to my beer, the dope now safely hidden away burning a hole in my pocket. Only now the question is: do I walk the eight blocks to the crib or try and do a quick shot in the men’s room?

Looking up, I see the bartender staring at me. Forget the men’s room, this dude already knows what I’m about. So I pat the two bindles of dope sitting in my pocket like they’re some sort of good luck talisman and get up off the bar stool, preparing to leave.

Out of the corner of my eye I catch a quick glimpse of myself in the mirror behind the bar. Startling sometimes to see myself – my real self, that is: tired, strung-out, a mere reflection that’s usually only good enough to critique my body weight or put a value on the unattractiveness that I feel. Only right now I got no time for such nonsense because I’ve got to go fix. It’s times like these that it’s a luxury, this low self-esteem, this poor self-image.

Pushing open the bar door, I peer into the daylight with squinted eyes. I know some dope fiends that once they score their drugs they’re cool, withdrawal’s all but gone, they’re almost physically well just having the drugs in their hands. But I’m not like that, never have been. Looking up the street I see is the sign for Katz’s Deli and knowing that that’s the direction I have to go I start walking.

A Block and a half later I’m standing in front of Sal’s pizzeria taking a breather and out comes Mikey, I’d guess I’d call him a friend or maybe it’d be a little more on the real side to just say that at times we’ve shot a lot of dope together. “Yo man, ya got a cigarette?” he says.

“Nah Mikey, I’m out.”

Mikey looks terrible, looks like somebody just ran over his dog. Come to think of it, Mikey always looks like that with this Bon Jovi New Jersey rocker persona that he’s been slowly cultivating into New York street junkie chic. Screwing up his face is just part of the whole deal.

“Did ya hear bout me an Darleen?” he asks and then stands there blocking my way, waiting for me to respond.

Darleen is Mikey’s girlfriend, been going out for years – one more depressingly cute junkie couple living in the Lower Eastside. Mikey always has a story about him and Darleen, and it usually ends up in tragedy with them losing their dope or getting evicted and then Mikey uses it as an excuse to put the touch on people, asking for money. But today it ain’t like I really got time to listen or even any money to lend out to pay for their habits instead of mine. Yet for some reason I still say, “No, man. What happened?”

“Thing been goin bad, stayin at the hotel, don’t got no money. Seems like it ain’t gonna get no betta. So we decided ta end it all lass night man. Went ta the dope man an gotta few bindles an said we was goin out. Made up our minds man. Fuckin life sucks.”

Mikey was either drunk, high on dope or wasted on pills. I could barely understand him as he slurred his words, but I was getting pretty impatient as he was seriously cutting into my getting high time. With a wave of my hand I urged him on, trying to get him to tell me the rest of his story even if I didn’t believe a word of it.

“Well, like I said, we’re stayin at the hotel, so we got up inta the room an Darleen, she cooks it inta two rigs. One fer me, one fer her. An then she says we gotta do it all at once an OD in each other’s arms. Only she said ta make it legit, really do it right, we got a write a note bout how we can’t take livin like this no more, how we hate this world an how we’re in too much pain to continue on. She says tha when they find us it’ll make it tha much betta – really show em somethin. So I write the note sayin all tha shit she toll me ta say – an then we shoot the dope – best high I had all year. Only I wake up this mornin and Darleen don’t.”

“Jesus Mikey,” I say when I finally realize what he’s trying to tell me. “Man are you all right?”

“Fuckin weirded me out a bit, it did. Wha wit Darleen layin there all blue an me sick as a dog. Beat the cottons an got well. Then I saw that goddamn note sittin there an it hit me like I was gonna be in trouble or sumpin. Crossed out all the we’s an changed them to I’s an stuck it back in er hand an left wit out sayin goodbye. Damn dude. Wha I’m gonna do now?”

It sucks when I can’t even empathize with my friend’s pain. It sucks when I really just want him to go away so that I can go get loaded in peace and be by myself so I don’t have to share any of my dope with him. It sucks that the entire time that he’s been talking my reflection in the window of the dry cleaner behind him has been adsorbing all my attention and I just can’t help looking at myself and thinking how large and bloated I look. Glancing away I notice that Mikey’s lips are moving and he’s saying something about being on his own and needing a place to stay.

“Sorry Mikey, I gotta go, I’m late,” I mumble and then leave him there standing with his mouth wide open and bee-line it down the block heading for Elizabeth Street. I always really hate it when people do that kind of shit to me, ignore my misery and make some lame-ass excuse just to get rid of me. But I had to do it, otherwise Mikey’d be tailing me around all day whining about Darleen and I really didn’t need to think about anything like that while I’m trying to get high.

That’s precisely why I don’t hang out with girls like Darleen. Who needs the drama? I’m perfectly capable of cultivating one-sided unhealthy relationships with women who don’t use drugs, are somewhat stable and go to work every day while I lounge around their apartment “looking” for work. Besides if Darleen wasn’t busy contemplating suicide she was cheating on Mikey or stealing his drugs and money. I couldn’t take that kind of rejection all the time. Hell, Mikey’s better off not being with her; besides with Darleen gone it’s one less arm to feed in the long run.

Turning left onto Elizabeth Street, I’m half a block away from the apartment. A couple of the local Latin Kings are standing in front of the bodega and as I pass by they ask me if I’m looking. Never buy dope right in front of your own house. It’s too close to home and then everyone’s going to know your business. Besides these guys use and because of that they cut the shit out of their drugs, so buying from them is a total waste of money.

“Naw, I’m cool.” I tell them and then cross the street to enter Jane’s apartment building. Walking up the stairs to the fifth floor, I can smell the mildew, the bug spray and the years of oil based enamel paint that’s been layered onto every inch of the hallway’s walls and woodwork. Three doors down the hall from the landing is Jane’s apartment and even though I know she’s not home I knock just to be sure. Jane’s sort of like my girlfriend. We’ve been hanging out together, drinking in bars when she gets off work, eating dim sum on Sunday, her only day off. She’s got no idea that I’m shooting dope. She’s got no idea that I’ve got a girlfriend in California waiting for me to come home. She’s got no idea of half the shit that I’m up to. But she still gave me the keys to her apartment and so I live there and while she’s at work I shoot dope and when she gets home I tell her that I’m looking for work. We both know it’s a lie, but it doesn’t matter. Then we go out to the bar and drink.

Locked in her bathroom, I get out my syringe, spoon and lighter that I’ve got hidden wrapped up in one of Jane’s washcloths under the sink. Taking out two of the glassine bags of dope, I carefully empty them into the spoon. Taking the rig in one hand, I turn the cold water on with the other, filling the cup that’s at the edge of the sink. Drawing some of the water into the rig, I then press it back out onto the dope that’s lying inside the spoon. With the backend of the rig’s plunger, I mix the dope and water and then shakily, I hold the spoon out with one hand while applying the lighter’s flame to the underside of the spoon.

A slight chemical smell hits the air, my stomach tightens. Pulling a Q-tip out of the medicine cabinet I tear off a small piece of the cotton and drop it into the spoonful of dope. Pressing the tip of the needle into the cotton, I use it as a filter as I draw up the liquid into the syringe. A quick tap to see if the air bubbles are gone and I’m looking around for something to tie off with, something I can use as a tourniquet to tighten around my arm and make my tired overused veins stick out like they used to so that I can stick the needle in them and get this dope in me.

Lying on the bathroom floor is a pair of Jane’s pantyhose and I grab them, wrap them around the top of my right arm, flex the muscle, pump my fist. Halfway down, in the center, in the crook of my arm, a dark blue green vein stands out and I press the needle into it. Silently a line of blood shoots into the syringe’s barrel as I register the vein; quickly I push the plunger down while letting the pantyhose loosen as I finish, pulling the rig out of my arm, a trail of blood forms and runs onto the white tile floor.

There’s that unmistakable taste in the back of my throat. There’s this sense of warmth invading my entire body. The side of my face itches, my stomach tightens and then I’m calm and everything’s all right. Eyes half closed, I’m thinking about a cigarette, I’m thinking about eating some food. I’m thinking that maybe I should actually call that dude about that job like I told Jane I would. Wrapping up my rig and spoon in the washcloth, I stuff it back up under the sink and look up into the mirror. Staring back at me, eyes pinned, like I’m looking through a haze, I see someone who appears to be normal who looks a hell of a lot like me. Strangely, nothing about how I look or what I appear to weigh bothers me. I know I’m skinny, I know I’m attractive. Yeah, I know the whole world loves me, really they do.

Wiping the blood from the floor with the pantyhose, I stuff them into the garbage can by the sink and unlock the bathroom door. Walking across the apartment, I notice the full-length mirror that I turned around this morning before I went out and I turn it back so that the reflecting side is now showing. Standing in front of it, I look at myself while I push my stomach out, trying to get it to go over my belt so that I can see what a fat man really looks like. My torso’s the size of most people’s thigh; my legs in these pegged-legged jeans look like black encased pipe cleaners. The skin on my face almost seems transparent; the tracks on my arms stand out like dark bruises on my pasty white skin. Turning my face, I catch my profile and I know that I look good.

Grabbing a beer out of the refrigerator, I sit down on the bed with my back against the wall. September is ending. That sunshine I saw today was weak and winter is soon approaching. A junkie never gets warm during a New York winter and I shiver thinking about it. Closing my eyes, I can see California and I know that I’ll be going there soon.

Shallow Breathing

2007-08-09T17:56:00.000-07:00

7:30pm, the sun is setting. A passing siren breaks the silence. Outside, the wolf pack howls. Sitting on the floor of the warehouse, my mind wanders to the paper I’m supposed to be writing. I hear another siren approach. “Big fire,” I think, and then the wolf pack starts up again. There’s something about a siren that makes wolves howl. Maybe they’re imagining a giant wolf dog in the sky singing the canine blues and they just want to sing along.

Monday night, meditation group at Stevie G’s warehouse. Three doors down lives a woman with a half dozen slightly domesticated grey timber wolves. If a stranger appears in the alley out front, they bark and yap, baring teeth, straining at their restraints. Whenever an emergency vehicle passes with its siren blaring – close or in the distance, it doesn’t matter – they howl in unison, the pack mentality.

Sitting cross-legged on a zabuton, I want to howl along with them – although I don’t think the other members of the group would appreciate it. Ten of us, on mats, or in chairs, quietly meditate. Yet in this relative calm my mind races with thoughts and fears. I’m supposed to have a twenty-five page paper done tomorrow. I’m supposed to read a couple of books that I’ve no interest in other than they’re required for school. I’ve got unfinished client files piling up at work. I’m supposed to be sitting here meditating.

A sentence comes to mind. I want to get up, write it down before I lose it. I’m always getting ideas when I meditate. A wolf howls, my attention wanes, the sentence is forgotten. I go back to concentrating on my breath. Air filters through my nostrils as my lungs expand. Across the room, the wall clock’s hands continue to move.

I exhale. My left foot starts to tingle as it falls asleep.

I’ve written five pages so far – only twenty more to go. I should be home writing. I should be doing some more research. I should be knee deep in revisions – crumpled sheets of paper littering the floor. I may have to stay up late tonight to get it done. I’m thinking of caffeine, I’m thinking of a latte. I’m thinking I shouldn’t be thinking of any of these things.

Work was especially insane today. By mid-afternoon I’d had enough. I wanted to scream, “I quit.” Walk out the door. Instead I just held on, letting the tension go deeper into the muscles of my neck. In my office, sitting at my desk with the door closed, I waited for the day to end. As I watched that little clock at the bottom of the computer screen, the tension slowly crawled its way down into my back. If I stay at this job much longer I’ll be paralyzed by anxiety.

My entire left leg is now numb.

I open my eyes. The approaching twilight has filled the room up with shadows. Stealing a glance at the clock, I take note of the time. With one long inhale, I suck in as much air as my lungs can hold. I close my eyes. In the clouded darkness, a rather unpleasant childhood memory appears in a vivid Technicolor. I involuntarily flinch. The image mercifully fades.

An old soul song floats in on the breeze through an open window. There’s a sudden burst of static, then loud rap music pierces the air. Someone in the apartment building behind the warehouse must be listening to the radio. I remember the first time I heard that old soul song. Summertime: car radio turned up, driving across the Midwest, many years ago. Inexplicably I sense, or rather, I almost smell the scent of wet pavement after a hard summer rain.

The kind of writing that I need to do for this paper is totally different than what I normally write. There’s really no enjoyment for me in this type of writing exercise. It’s not that I can’t write in this manner, I just don’t want to. Consequently this paper has become more a self-imposed traumatic experience than just another writing project for school. Instead of addressing it like other assignments, I’ve made it into this big overblown ordeal. I’ve become totally self conscious, entertaining a host of negative thoughts: I’m a moron, I can’t write, I’ve irreversible brain damage from all the drugs I’ve done. I’ve even dredged up the fear that I’ve used up all the words I know and now I’ve nothing left to express myself with.

My right foot appears to be going to sleep as well.

The tension in my neck and back is becoming unbearable. I can’t feel either of my feet. The screaming voices in my brain seem to be getting louder. I hardly think that this is what qualifies as meditating. Try to quiet your brain they say. The “they” that meditates, the “they” that doesn’t work at a rehab, the “they” that isn’t in grad school, the “they” that isn’t me. My brain doesn’t really do quiet well. It does chaos well. It does uncontrollable obsession well. It remembers every screwed up thing, every unpleasant incident, every uncomfortable moment I ever lived through. But tonight, at least, quiet doesn’t seem to be on the agenda.

The meditation gong sounds three times, signaling an end to the 20-minute sit. I lay back on the mat, stare at the ceiling. There’s an electric conduit that runs up along the wall, across the ceiling, to the light fixture overhead. Last time this place was painted, nobody bothered to paint behind the pipe. Even in the darkness the old ceiling color peeks out. It’s sixteen feet above me but I want to reach up and finish the job.

There are people talking all around me, I know all of them, care about them too. These are my friends. This is a group I belong to. Yet tonight I feel more in tune with the wolves outside, and I want to howl. In another hour I’ll be home writing my paper. In the morning I’ll send it off. In a few days I’ll get a response from my teacher. Then I’ll start this same process all over again. Some day I’ll get another job. Next June I’ll graduate school. Every Monday, if I’m in town, I’ll be at Steve’s warehouse and the area behind the conduit on the ceiling will never get painted.

Miscellaneous Memory

2007-06-26T01:08:00.000-07:00

Splinters of wood, chunks of the doorframe, fly through the air as the door cracks in half and falls on either side of me. In shock, I stand there, immobile. Outside I see what looks like a hundred cops, some in uniform, some not, guns drawn, faces and bodies tense. A tall, heavyset blonde police officer steps forward through the doorway and smacks me in the face with the butt of her shotgun, knocking me down as more cops push past her to get into the apartment. I lie prone on the floor, a foot across my throat, a knee in my groin, the shotgun and a nine-millimeter automatic pistol leveled at my head.

“Where are the guns motherfucker!” shouts a plainclothes policeman. His badge, hanging loosely on a chain around his neck, swings back and forth over my face. “Are you alone?” asks another. Before I can reply I hear Jenny, oblivious, slurring her words, wondering what all the noise is about. A finger to his lips, the plainclothes cop points toward the bedroom. My stomach tightens, suddenly fearing what the cops will do to Jenny if I don’t try and make her understand what is happening. I put up my hand, palm out, motioning for him to stop.

“Jenny? Jenny!” I shout, “Could you come out here?”

“What for?” she asks, and then there’s the crash of breaking glass, furniture being shoved, voices shouting for her to get down on the floor. They must be coming in through the windows, I think. Then someone’s turning me over, handcuffing my arms behind my back, as I’m being lifted, half carried, half dragged, out the front door, through the alley, into daylight.

Out on the street in front of my apartment building are a dozen police cars, lights flashing, radios blaring. A small group of my neighbors, down the block, watch, talking amongst themselves, pointing, as I’m dragged to the nearest patrol car. Over my shoulder I can see my friend Dolan being searched, spread eagled, on the hood of another car. Tossed into the backseat, I try to sit up, ask the nearest cop for a cigarette, watch as he slams the door in my face. A minute later a man in a suit walks up, opens the door, apologizes for the other cop’s behavior, introduces himself as a detective. Calls me by my name, says he’s been watching me for some time now. Says, “I’ll see you down at the station later on tonight, Mister O’Neil.” Shuts the door, tells the driver to take me downtown, and stands there staring at me through the window as we drive away.

I keep thinking that this isn’t real. That none of this is happening. That the cop who’s driving the car will pull over to the curb, un-lock the handcuffs, set me free. Every turn of the wheel makes me lose my balance. I push up and off the seat with my elbows, the only way I can keep myself upright. The cuffs are tight, clamped onto my wrists; twisting, they dig into the skin. The monotone of the police dispatcher’s voice coming out of the radio is the only sound, piercing the oppressive atmosphere in the car. My heart pounds, the motor accelerates, an abrupt stop sends me crashing into the metal cage that separates the back from the front.

I feel helpless. I feel like screaming. I feel like crying, only I don’t know how. I want a cigarette so bad I can’t think of anything else. I start to get angry. I start yelling. I call the cop a motherfucker, tell him that this is all a mistake, that I haven’t done anything. I kick the cage, tell him he’s got to believe me.

Head leaning against the side window, I stare out. San Francisco passes by: the Ferry Building, the waterfront, the Bay Bridge, Harrison Street. We turn into a parking lot behind the Hall of Justice, pull into a space marked Official Vehicles Only. The cop opens my door and I feel the cool air against my naked chest. Without saying a word, he grabs my arm and drags me out onto the ground. Two more cops walk up; all three of them look down at me in silence. Menacing eyes dissect me. There’s a kick to the ribs, sharp pain in my shoulders as I’m raised up off the ground to my feet, shoved toward a large metal door.

One cop pushes the intercom button, then waves at the camera above our heads. The other presses my face against the coarse stucco wall, his gloved hand firmly on the back of my head. With a mechanized hiss, the sally port slides open and the smell of jail hits me: dirty feet, unwashed bodies, rancid food, exhaust fumes and human feces mix together in one inhalation. Pushed along by a hand on my shoulder, I stumble down a hall lined with empty holding cells. At the booking desk I just stand there as the cop signs a couple of forms before handing me off to the sheriffs that run the jail. So far my anxiety has been holding the heroin in check, but now the pills that I also took are starting to kick in and I’m fading. Slurring, I mumble my name, address, social security number as a woman in uniform types it all into a computer.

Herded through a maze of desks and filing cabinets, I lose my bearings. An older deputy, bald with glasses, tells me that it’s almost over and I wonder just what he means. Impassively I watch one of the sheriffs grab hold of my fingers, as if they weren’t attached to me, shoving them in black ink, pressing the tips to a sheet of paper, leaving smudged imprints on the appropriate squares. Someone hands me a brown paper towel. As I unsuccessfully try to wipe the blackness from my fingertips, my surroundings become more and more unfocused, the meaning of what is going on increasingly vague. A deputy gives me a shirt to wear; smells like sweat, the cuffs frayed. I open my eyes and a flashbulb erupts, temporally blinding me. I’m turned to my left: profile shot. I hear a door being closed, metal hitting metal. The bombardment of sound that’s constant in jail decreases to a low growl. Half crouched, my back against the wall, I feel down with my hand to a hard surface below me and I sit.

Unable to keep my eyes open, I nod off into a dream about a large Siamese cat that rubs against my body. Her fur is soft on my skin. She tells me she’s been starved for days and stands on my chest screaming for me to feed her. Our protruding ribcages mesh together, her paws embed themselves in my skin. I’m confused as to why she doesn’t just run away when she has the chance. When I reach to pet her I feel my own cold skin taut against my bones. Running my fingers along my ribs, I press the bottom of my sternum and hear it click. I try to light a cigarette with the cat’s face. Its claws tear at my arms and they start to bleed.

With a jolt I wake up freezing on a cement slab that sticks out of the wall, forming a bench. I look around for the cat but I don’t see her. Drool runs down the side of my face; my mouth tastes metallic, bad as the stale air I’m breathing. It takes a minute for me to realize where I am. I want a cigarette really bad, and I want to go back to sleep. I want to be anywhere but on this bench in this holding cell. Sitting up, I rub my eyes and look out through the wire-mesh reinforced windows. I can see Dolan in a cell across the hall. He flashes me a weak smile. I can tell from his eyes that he’s as worried as I am. Twelve years younger than me, he’s less experienced. But that hasn’t kept him from driving the getaway car for most of my recent holdups. Sitting upright makes my head hurt. I want a cigarette. I think about Jenny, wonder where she is, if she’s Ok. Last time I saw her she was in handcuffs being led to a cop car. I could see her head moving. Probably giving the cop an earful.
Thinking of her makes me think about home and I miss it, even though living on Fillmore Street is like living in an alternative dimension. It’s a ground-floor garden apartment in the back of a three-story building in the Marina District – once a nondescript upper-middle class neighborhood that, after the earthquake of ’89, reinvented itself as a yuppie stronghold. Not the most typical of locations to find an apartment full of dope fiends. Maybe that’s why we’d been able to go unnoticed for so long. Nobody expects us to be living there, especially not the landlord whose been lied to so many times about his rent check that he’s practically given up on ever seeing it.

I’ve been living there for about a year. Me and my girlfriend Jenny, nineteen, just as strung out on heroin as I am, beautiful in a pasty-face-walking-dead-junkie-chic sort of way. I’d met her two years earlier coming off a horrendous speed run, shooting speed so I wouldn’t shoot heroin. Hadn’t slept in months when she asked me if I could get her some dope, I immediately knew I was in for trouble.
A succession of nodded-out friends like Dolan had been living with us, using the walk-in closet as a place to crash. These days though, no one could stand staying with us. Even other drug addicts couldn't deal with our insanity, our demands for money. We smoked all their cigarettes and used up whatever else they might have. Besides, we fought most of the time, and when we weren’t yelling and screaming we were laid out side by side in the bedroom on the futon. Jenny, in a nod, continually burned herself or the bed with lit cigarettes; small fires and red welt burns on her skin were daily occurrences. Over on my side I’d ignore her until I felt flames, and then I’d roll over and put out whatever was on fire.

Jesus, Jenny, I wonder where you are. She’s never been to jail, never dealt with cops. I can only imagine the drama they’re putting her through. The cell door opens, the noise increases. “O’Neil!” yells a gruff looking deputy with a clipboard in his hand. I look up.

“Where am I going?” I ask. I know it doesn’t really matter. The look on the deputy’s face tells me that he doesn’t care either. We walk down the corridor to an unmarked elevator. “Against the wall,” he commands. I turn, face the wall, raise my arms. Taking my right hand, he circles the handcuff around my wrist, pulls the other down, cuffs it too. The elevator door opens. It’s dirty inside and smells like urine. The deputy motions for me to enter. When I hesitate he pushes me in against the back wall. I hear the door close, feel the elevator car start to rise.

“You a tough guy?” taunts the deputy. I stare at the wall and say nothing. There’s no point getting into it with this guy. I’m handcuffed, he’s not; I’m under arrest, he’s an officer of the law. And I’m not a tough guy, never said I was. The elevator shudders to a stop and he pulls me out into a corridor. Hand clamped around the back of my neck, he leads me through a door with Robbery Detail written across it in black letters with gold trim. Inside there are four or five empty desks. A man at a computer, his shirtsleeves rolled up to the elbows, looks over at us as he continues to type. “Put him there,” he says, pointing to a chair by a desk in the middle of the room.

Sitting down I’m suddenly very tired I can feel that familiar emptiness creeping in. It’s not that the drugs have worn off yet; more like my anxiety has kicked in full force. I can’t count the number of nights when I’d be asleep at home and then suddenly, so gripped with fear of this exact moment that I’d all of a sudden be awake, sitting up all in one motion, holding my chest as my heart fought to burst through my rib cage. Somewhere deep down, whether I wanted to admit it or not, I knew all this was coming. I knew someday I’d be sitting here, in handcuffs, under arrest.

I’m not really sure when I decided to start pulling armed robberies. There was a time when I tried selling drugs to support Jenny’s and my habits. Problem was we always end up doing all the drugs before I could sell them. Now and then I’d get a temporary gig working construction or painting houses, but I’d always screw it up. Dope sick and unable to make it to work on time, I’d get fired or stop showing up. Strung out as I was, I couldn’t hold down a regular job. Besides, your average nine-to-five doesn’t pay anywhere near the hundreds of dollars a day it takes to afford an extensive heroin habit, much less two. Faced with needing that kind of money, I had started taking chances, doing all kinds of stuff I never thought I’d do.

One rainy day, jonesing for a fix, out of options, half out of my mind, I walked into a movie theater with a gun someone had traded me for dope when I was selling drugs and robbed the ticket booth and the concession stand. When I got home I discovered that I’d netted six hundred dollars. It had taken me twenty minutes at the most to drive there, pull the job, drive back. After that it was even easier. I pulled off a couple of liquor stores and a 7-11. Then during a gas station holdup, the attendant grabbed a gun from under the counter and almost shot me. Made me think that before I got killed for a few hundred dollars I’d better set my sights higher, go where the real money was. I did my homework and pulled my first bank job.

Soon that’s all I was doing. I got creative and started going in disguise: fake beard and baseball cap with a phony ponytail out the back; dressed in a uniform as a security guard; posing as a businessman, complete with three piece suit and an attaché case. Drop a note in front of the teller, mention the gun, then walk right out the front door into a waiting car. Those days I had more people around me, dope fiends I thought I could count on to watch my back for a portion of the take.

Bank jobs, of course, take planning and a somewhat alert state of mind. And back then I wasn’t so scattered. I was able to bide my time, hang around outside, watch and take notes on what time the guards took their breaks, what time the armored trucks came by and delivered the money. What times the banks were crowded, when the managers were gone. I parked the car across the street, pulled out a newspaper, pad of paper, and a pencil; I’d smoke cigarettes, shoot some dope if no one was watching.

After a few years I started running out of banks to hit. However, I noticed shopkeepers coming in with bank bags to the merchant’s window, depositing the day’s take from their stores. I started following them from the bank to their businesses. Did the same sort of surveillance I’d done at the banks, figured out their routines, saw when their stores did the most business. I always had two or three alternative locations to rob. If one wasn’t ready another would be. I kept myself busy, working different neighborhoods with a driver, in and out quickly. Making it hard to be caught.

But lately, by myself, because everyone else was either scared, dead or in jail, I’d totally slacked off, settling instead for what was easily at hand. I now thought of every cash register out there being somewhat like an ATM machine – except that instead of a credit card, I used a gun. Now, every day first thing, I’d go out and hold up a liquor or grocery store, and that money would keep us in drugs and cigarettes for the next twenty-four hours. Every once in a while Dolan would show up needing cash and offered to drive, and I’d pull off a larger heist, like the movie theaters that I’d recently returned to robbing again.

Dolan was about the last person I knew who’d still do crimes with me. Usually I was so out of it that anyone else would be too nervous to even drive, let alone sit next to me with my loaded gun. Jenny couldn’t drive – she could barely leave the apartment – or she would’ve gone with me. Instead she just sat waiting for me to get home. Waiting for the dope man to deliver and then she sat there waiting while I cooked the dope, her arm stretched out, waiting for the needle to pierce her skin, waiting for that high.

There’s a tap on my shoulder. “O’Neil,” says the detective from before in front of my house. “Feel like talking?” he asks.

“I could use a cigarette,” I tell him.

“Can’t smoke in here. Not allowed to smoke in any State of California buildings.”

“Yeah, I’d hate to break the law,” I respond. That makes him laugh. He takes his jacket off and sits down across the desk from me.

“You know why you’re here, right?”

“I got a pretty good idea,” I say and immediately regret admitting even that much.

“You’re in a lot of trouble. When this is over you’ll be looking at doing some time in prison. I can help you, if you let me.”

I stare at him. He stares back. We sit there in silence. My stomach hurts, my eyes start to water, I sneeze. I’m going into the first stages of withdrawal from heroin. With my habit I have to shoot up every four hours. Taking pills like valiums and klonopins helps, keeps me loaded longer, but in the end it’s heroin I’m addicted to. That’s what my body craves.

“Want to make a statement? Get it over with, tell me about it? I’m going to know the whole story anyway.”

“I could use a cigarette” is all I say.

With a shrug he reaches for the phone on his desk, looks at me, pushes in a number, waits. “Tell the feds we’re ready,” he says, then hangs up and looks at me, stares into my eyes. “Feds are going to see if they want to pick up your case. See if they want to prosecute the bank robberies instead of us. You’re getting dope sick aren’t you?”

There was a time I’d claim to be a bank robber. This sure as hell wasn’t one of them. I looked down at my feet to avoid any more eye contact. In the back of my mind I kept replaying the last robbery. Kept thinking how I’d fucked it up. How I should’ve done things differently. The woman who owned that theater usually waited until Monday to take her money from the weekend to the bank. Arriving late, I’d missed her by minutes, only gotten what was in the till, a few hundred instead of a couple of thousand. Like an idiot Dolan, had parked the car in a bus stop and when I came running out, a bus was pulled up, boxing us in. As I pulled off the ski mask I looked over, and on the sidewalk, three feet away, screaming and pointing, was the woman who worked the ticket booth at the theater. For a few seconds we just stared at each other. Then the bus moved, the car pulled away and I closed my eyes.

Out in the hall there’s the sound of heels striking the floor. Two people walk into the room: a woman, tall with a severe haircut and an amazing figure, and a man, grey hair, thin mustache, carrying a briefcase. Both of them are dressed in dark suits, perfectly groomed. Emulating an air of superiority, they stride over to the desk; the man looks at the detective, the woman looks at me, then they look at each other.

“This O’Neil?” asks the man in disbelief.

“Yep, that’s your bank robber.”

“You a bank robber?” inquires the woman. Her quizzical expression fades to concern. “You don’t look like a bank robber. In fact, you don’t look like you could rob anything.”

I’d like to tell her thanks for the vote of confidence. That yeah, she’s right, I’m nothing but a loser. But even stressed out as I am, I can tell it’s just a ploy. She wants me to bite, take the bait, get angry, prove my criminal credibility by talking about all the jobs I’ve done. I don’t say anything. I don’t even ask for a cigarette. These two mean business and I’ve watched enough movies and television shows to know that you don’t offer information. Besides, I really don’t care what they think of me.

The man pulls a thick binder out of his briefcase. “We’ve got some photos we want you to take a look at,” he says, handing the binder towards me. Jerking my head, I point with my eyes at my shoulder, trying to convey that my wrists are still handcuffed together behind my back.

“Can we get the cuffs off this guy? He ain’t going nowhere.”

The detective looks at me, raises his eyebrows, puts a hand in his pocket. Says, “I haven’t got a key on me. Be right back.” Gets up, walks out of the room.

“You ever been to prison?” asks the woman, who’s got a couple of pages of paper in her hand that she keeps looking at.

“No one’s even read me my Miranda rights,” I say and then wonder if I should have mentioned that fact.

The grey-haired FBI agent spreads open the binder on the desk in front of me and starts slowly turning the pages. “Here, look at these while we wait for the key.”

Each page is a grainy blown-up surveillance photo. Most of them are black and white, some out of focus, some amazingly sharp. “Recognize anyone?” he asks.

After about fifteen pages, I see myself. Or rather, I see a really fuzzy picture of me in a suit and tie, carrying a gym bag, sunglasses, hair combed back, a stringy mustache. The photograph, taken from above is at an odd angle. I look short, distorted; although the top of my head’s in focus, I can’t see my feet. I’m fascinated and I can’t look away. I wonder how many more pictures of me he’s got. The next one shows a giant black man carrying an AK47 machine gun, wearing a rainbow afro wig, a huge grin across his face. I laugh. He stops turning the pages, looks at me.

“You find this funny?”

“Ah, no,” I say, “there’s nothing funny about any of this.” And I actually mean that.

“I don’t think he’s our man,” says the woman. Her face is expressionless as she hands him the papers she’s got in her hands. “I think we’d better reevaluate this.”

“Here you go,” says the detective, who comes back into the room holding a set of keys. Looking up from packing the binder back into his case, the grey-haired agent shakes his head. “We’re not going to be needing those.” He looks over at the woman, who pulls the detective to the doorway and whispers in his ear. They both look over at me.

Then shaking hands, the woman agent leaves with a nod, the grey-haired man follows her out. The detective walks to his desk and lifts the phone. “He’s ready. Come get him.” Sitting down, he rubs his eyes, looking tired; he pulls at his tie, drinks from a Styrofoam cup. “Looks like the State of California’s got you.”

I’m not sure what that means, and it doesn’t really matter. My stomach is starting to get tight. I taste that familiar taste in my throat that comes right before I start to get dope sick. Right before I start throwing up. Right before the diarrhea, the muscle spasms, the headaches, the cold sweats. At this moment I can’t comprehend that the State of California’s got anything in store for me as bad as what I’m about to go through.

Staring at the wall I wish I was anywhere but here. I wish I was back in my apartment, the television turned to some obscure cable network, the smell of cigarettes burning, forgotten in ashtrays. The broken window, dripping faucet, piles of junk, the bare, stained and cigarette burn covered futon, surrounded by dirty clothes. I miss the obscene beauty of its instability, the comfort of its mess.

The same angry-looking deputy arrives, motions me out the door, pushes me down the hall, into the elevator. Only this time, instead of going down to where we came from, we go up. “Sixth floor. Classification,” he says to me as if answering my unasked question. “They got a room with a view waiting for you.” I feel like throwing up, but I hold it in.

In the car coming back from the robbery I’d told Dolan how I had this bad feeling that my time was up, that any day now I’d get busted for a robbery, or shot by the cops. Told him how I couldn’t sleep at night anymore, woke up freaking out, short of breath. Instead of taking the usual precautionary measures of ditching the car outside of my neighborhood to throw the cops off we parked the car two blocks away because both of us were lazy and didn’t feel like walking any further than that.

Jenny was in the bedroom when we got home. Stressed out, full of anxiety, I grabbed the telephone and punched in Bonito, the dope dealer’s number. “How’d it go?” she asked, like we’d just come home from a hard day’s work or something. I ignored her. I knew we’d fucked up. I really didn’t want to tell her that we’d gotten boxed into a parking place by a bus. That the lady I’d robbed had followed me into the street shouting, pointing, making a fuss as her neighbors hurried outside to see what all the yelling was about. At least three or four of them had gotten a really good look at my face before Dolan was able to get us out of there, maneuvering the car through the afternoon traffic, running the red light.

Bonito’s paging service answered. I left my number and hung up, muttering about always having to wait for dope dealers. I was sweating now and took off my jacket and shirt, then sitting down my shoes and socks. The only piece of clothing left on was my pants, so loose they barely stayed up on my skinny waist. Dolan, nervous, sits down, lights a cigarette, stares at the floor. Standing in the doorway, noticing that we aren't exactly celebrating, Jenny asks me what’s wrong and I mumble that it didn’t go so well. The phone rings. It’s Bonito, says he’ll be here in ten minutes, asks how much dope we want, hangs up with a grunt.

“How long he say it’d take?” Jenny asks, referring to Bonito, and then as an afterthought, before I can answer, “What do you mean it didn’t go so well?”

“I blew it, babe” is all I tell her, and then I pull the pile of loose bills out of the bag I was carrying them in. A quick count tells me I’ve only snagged four hundred dollars, a hundred and fifty of which I hand Dolan. Between drags on his cigarette, he re-counts the money, folds it into a wad, stuffs it in his pants pocket.

Taking the gun out of the inside pocket of the jacket I’d left on the floor, I walk over to the closet and stick it in the hole in the wall behind the shelves. I turn around just as the doorbell rings. All three of us look up in unison. Jenny opens the door, then goes out to let Bonito in through the locked side door in the alleyway.

Within minutes the transaction is done. We’re back in the bedroom before Bonito’s even closed the door behind him. Open the bags, cook the dope, put a needle in my arm. It takes all of about two-minutes. Bought ten klonopins as well as the four grams of heroin. Popped three of those and walk into the living room looking for a cigarette. Dolan isn’t there and I say something to Jenny. Ask if she knows where he went. Standing there half naked, I look down, notice a trail of blood running down my arm from where I just shot up. Looking around for something to wipe it off with, I hear a knock at the door. Thinking it’s Dolan, I grab the doorknob.

A revised/edited version of this post titled: Last Day, was published in New Plains Review Fall 2010.

Miss You

2007-05-02T11:56:00.000-07:00

It’s late at night. I should be in bed, asleep. Instead, with more writing to be done, I’m laying on top of the covers, my head propped up against the pillow, the phone cradled haphazardly under my ear. I can hear her talking in that small voice of hers, saying the house is warm, the window’s open, lights are off – in the distance, a dog barking. “You ever smelled orange blossoms?” she asks. I can’t remember if I have. Can’t remember ever being in an orange grove. Time I spent in the valley was years ago and I was running too fast to have stopped to smell the flowers. Those days seem as far away as the sound of her voice faint in my ear.

I stare at the ceiling, move the phone to my other hand, push the pillows back with my elbow. Her words are coming slower, she’s sounding sleepy, quieter, making our conversation seem more intimate. And that makes me want to be there with her, instead of here – alone in my room. Outside I can hear the wind blowing and knowing that it’s cold out there I wrap the quilt around me and roll over on my side.

As we talk, there are moments of silence, comfortable pauses, time for one another to appreciate what’s being said. I can hear her breathe, the static of the cell phone, the emotions between us playing out in sighs. She’s miles away. And I’m not going to see her for awhile. How long, I don’t know, but right now I can’t think about it. Reluctantly I tell her I have to go. I’ve writing to do, school assignments to finish, online conferences to attend. Her voice gets smaller. I close my eyes. A blurred image of her face darts through my memory as we say our goodbyes. Sitting up, I shut off my phone. The room around me appears stark, the desk lamp illuminating the emptiness. Seems like I’m always alone, like everyone’s some place else. Half the people that I know are either away, gone, or doing something else, somewhere else.

My laptop sits waiting for me, across the room, glowing on the desk, underneath the lamp. I’ve got too much work to do tonight. Rewrite an essay, finish my semester evaluations, complete this week’s poetry translation. “Le fem, le fem, le fem….” So goddamn French, so foreboding, so futile. I can barely translate my own thoughts into English. Why I have to try and make my clumsy 7th grade French into pretty poetry I’ll never know. Gonna make me a better writer my teacher says. Gonna drive me insane is more like it.

It’s after 2am, the apartment’s quiet. The roommates are asleep. Outside the traffic has died down, the local drunks have left the bars, gone to bed. Even the upstairs neighbor appears to be asleep, or maybe he’s just not home. A lone moped drives by my bedroom window, struggling to get up the hill, the sound of its groaning engine loud, assaulting my ears. Abruptly it stops, then there’s a crashing noise, followed by a shout, then silence. Didn’t make it all the way up the hill.

A quiet night in North Beach is a rare commodity, one that I’m not quite used to, the noise of the inner city having been my lullaby for most of my life. Yet, for me, nighttime doesn’t mean sleep, it doesn’t mean time to watch DVD’s or sit down with a good book. It just means more time for writing, doing my schoolwork, sitting at the computer. Only tonight, as midnight merges into morning and the work sits there undone, I stare at the screen. Instead of writing, I’m thinking of her. Wondering if she’s thinking of me. Is she asleep, the smell of orange blossoms still floating in the breeze through her open window?

On the computer screen a page of writing stares back at me. I reread the last few lines over and over again. With a slight hesitation, I type in two words.

miss you

Then stare at the screen again, fingers poised on the keyboard. Miss you is hardly relevant to what I was writing. Yet there it sits, in the middle of the page: alone, defiant, incongruous.

We had started our phone conversation talking about Miracle Whip and macaroni salad. I joked about her not eating, living only on oranges for the last three days. She made fun of me eating french fries with mayonnaise and then we both laughed at the scary foods of our childhood. Tuna salad, spam sandwiches, government cheese, fried baloney. We made sick jokes, gagging sounds and tried to gross each other out. When she laughed it tugged at my heart. When I ran out of things to say, it didn’t matter.

Sitting at my desk I can hear the wind blowing outside. On the computer screen, in front of me, highlighted in the middle of the page, are the words “miss you”. Before I hit delete I pinch the bridge of my nose, close my eyes, and think of orange blossoms.

There’s a Crackhead at My Window

2007-04-05T23:24:00.000-07:00

I don’t mean there’s a crackhead outside that I can see through the window. I mean there’s a crackhead pressed against my office window. He’s up on the ledge, a few feet above the bushes, his face pressed flat against the windowpane, one eye staring down at me, the other wandering. I hear him talking, watch his lips as they move, his breath fogging the glass. I can barely catch what it is he’s saying – the noise of the passing traffic on the street below is loud. But when it subsides I can hear him describing, in detail, a litany of problems, talking about all the people who are out to get him: the police, the FBI, the terrorists and something about an unholy, immoral, Jesus-hating Jahad.

From the pained expression on his face, it’s like I’m looking at a cornered animal, only he’s the one outside, nothing but the sky at his back. I’m the one caught in a room with only one way out. His wandering eye stops moving. For a millisecond we make eye contact. Then he begins mumbling again.

My phone rings, I answer, it’s the front desk.

“Mister de Merde?” asks the receptionist, “is there somebody outside your window?”

There’s a crackhead at my window. I can hear his fingers beating an unhurried melodic rhythm against the glass, the rumble of this morning’s traffic accompanying him like a throat singer’s slow vibrato. I can hear the receptionist breathing in my ear, the phone receiver cold and impersonal against my face. There’s some sort of static, there’s an annoying hiss, there’s people talking in the lobby. I want to hang up. I want to ignore everything that’s going on.

“Hello?” she says, “you still there?”

“Yes. Yes, I’m still here.”

“A neighbor from across the street, actually the bartender who works at the bar on the corner, called to report someone lurking on the side of the building. Just to be on the safe side, I had someone from maintenance go check. He said that there’s a man on the ledge outside your office. Is that true?”

There’s a crackhead at my window. He’s busy drawing stick figures in the mist his breath leaves when he blows on the glass. The tip of his finger turns white as he moves it against the window in a circle forming the stick man’s head. I’m wondering if he’s drawing his life story, or maybe it’s a sketch of those people who are out to get him. Either way, before he can finish, the figures disappear, leaving small greasy circular marks.

He looks down at me. I look up and wave, point to the phone, mimicking that I’m busy talking. I get the feeling that he understands, because he goes back to breathing on the window while drumming his fingers. Tap, tap, tap, and then this little double da-da, like he's dashing out Morse code.

“There’s a crackhead at my window,” I say and listen as the receptionist holds her breath.

“A crackhead?”

“Yeah, I do believe he’s a crackhead. He’s certainly not a speed freak, definitely not a dope fiend, too spaced to be just a pot smoker, and way too coordinated to be a drunk. So yeah, he’s a crackhead alright.”

“What should I do?” she asks. I hear a phone ringing in the background. Apparently she’s too preoccupied wondering what to do about the crackhead to answer the incoming calls.

“What do you mean, do?” I ask.

“Do you want me to call the police, the firemen, the paramedics…?”

There’s a crackhead at my window. His shadow hovers across my desk blocking out the sun. With one finger he points at me, then he points at his head. There’s so much pain in his eyes, it’s unnerving. He shakes his head and repeats the same cycle, pointing first at me, then his head, me, his head – over and over again.

I put the phone receiver down, stand up, and walk closer to the window. “What? I’m in your head?” I ask.

He nods yes, blows on the glass, writes “hepl” on the mist his breath has left. I pick up a pad of paper and write the word help and show it to him. He breathes on the window, writes help backwards, and smiles.

I sit down at my desk, the pad of paper still in my hand. I’m thinking maybe I should be feeling all warm and fuzzy after having shared such a tender moment with a stranger, but I don’t. Looking through the smudged glass I see the crackhead’s scabby face, dried spittle forming lumps at the corners of his mouth, the whites of his eyes, bloodshot and yellow. Behind him the San Francisco skyline: the new federal building, the Holiday Inn, the high-rises of downtown.

There’s a crackhead at my window. He’s standing there and I don’t know what to do. After all what are my options? Give him money so he’ll go away, probably to buy more crack? Call the cops and let them deal with him? Keep smiling, waving, ignoring him until he loses interest, leaves on his own accord? None of these are feasible options, none of them the right thing to do.

The clock reads eleven forty-five. Fifteen minutes until lunch. Fifteen minutes of us staring at one another. I get up, face the window, shrug my shoulders and wave goodbye. The crackhead looks puzzled, like he’d never expected this to happen. I can’t sit here with him standing over me any longer. My office feels strange and I’m beginning to feel self-conscious. My window is now a mass of fingerprints and smudges.

Stepping out into the hall, I run into one of my co-workers. “How’s it going?” she asks.

“There’s a crackhead at my window” I tell her, then turn into the lobby.

This was published in Blood Orange Review, Volume 2.3 (June 2007)

Writing His Life Away

2007-02-22T11:25:00.000-08:00

He doesn’t really care any more. Was a time that all he thought about was making sure he posted, on time, once a week, Mondays, like clockwork. These days it’s enough that he gets out of bed. “Shouldn’t I be feeling guilty?” he asks himself and then rolls over, pulls the covers close, a pillow under his head, the alarm clock tossed into the dresser drawer to live with the socks.

Two months ago he shopped for curtains for his bedroom window. More for keeping the warmth in, the sun out, the room dark, than for aesthetic aspirations or a noise repellent. Now that he’d moved the incessant honking of neglected car alarms, once his nocturnal lullaby, no longer keep him up at night. The junkies, crack-heads, hookers and speed freaks that used to be his neighbors, now a faded memory. Saturday nights, on the sidewalk below his bedroom window, drunk yuppies, wandering home from the bars on Grant Street, holler, curse and cry, bemoaning their lot in life. Compared to the disquieting aftermath that follows a gunshot, the screams of the victim awaiting an ambulance, the usual nightly noises of his former residence, this slight weekly intrusion is almost music to his ears.

The curtains he chose were brown, dark brown. There weren’t any black curtains available at the store. What he had wanted was some kind of fur. Like a fake mink: dark, thick, warm. Make the tall ceilings and stark white walls of his bedroom more like a nest or an animal’s den. Fur curtains didn’t seem to be available either. The saleswoman had screwed up her face. “Fur, did you say fur? I’ve never had anyone ask for fur curtains before,” and then, with a new found urgency, quickly turned away, pouncing on an elderly lady whose question regarding lace curtain stays she apparently found more palatable.

His upstairs neighbor, an investment broker, seems to be awake all night, watching television, pacing, conversing with friends, or maybe he’s just talking to himself. Like clockwork at 3am, he abruptly turns the TV off, leaps down the front stairs to the garage, gets in his BMW, drives off and is gone for fifteen minutes or so. Then the automatic garage door opens, closes, feet on the stairs, the final drop of his body onto what must be the sofa, situated in the room above his bedroom, directly above his bed. In minutes he can hear the TV again. The broker, on the telephone, making deals in far away places, other time zones. A give away nasal tone accents his voice. A constant delicate chopping sound that rings of familiarity begins and stops with every exaggerated inhale. He had thought snorting cocaine passé. Besides, if you have money, can’t you get it delivered? Most people smoke crack instead of snorting. Meth is the current drug of choice, but maybe not for investment brokers. CNN, the sports network, echoes through the ceiling. Champion televised sporting events for an inebriated audience.

The broker’s BMW is starting to age ungracefully. It needs a good wash and wax, a touch up here and there on the paint job, some air in the right rear tire. Twice now the broker has knocked on the front door of the apartment asking for a jump start, the battery dead, the car, windows filthy, immobile, stranded in the middle of the garage. The last time this happened, while the broker fumbled with the jumper cables, he asked him what he was going to do that day. Like he had all the time in the world for leisure, the broker answered that he didn’t know, that he wasn’t sure. “How bout you go get a new battery dude?” was all that was said. The accusation, the recrimination, the annoyance hung in the air as he walked out of the garage and went back to bed.

Lying on his back, staring at the ceiling, he thinks about writing. Thinks about something that happened last week and how it affected him. Was it worth writing about? Did he even care? Outside, the 39 bus, passes by groaning in first gear on its way up the hill to Coit Tower. Down the block a trash truck grinds away as it picks up the containers left at the curb, the mechanical loaders dropping them back down to the sidewalk with a thud. It's easy to throw blame the broker’s way. Expecting the broker to be something he’s incapable of being is like waiting for fur curtains to materialize while the sun shines in your face as you try to sleep.

The muffled beep of the alarm clock announces that the day has started; with or without you, it is going to go on, uninhibited. Ignoring what he feels is an intrusion he picks through his thoughts, a word here, a slice of syntax there. He’s got a clever sentence in his head. Over and over he rolls it through his mind. Something he’d like to tell the broker. Only it isn’t something that you just blurt out in everyday conversation. Saying it out loud he laughs at its simplicity. The alarm’s beeping continues. The trash truck pulls to a stop in front of the building. Getting up he walks to the desk and searches for something to write with. In the Guinness pint glass with the scissors, pencils and ballpoints he finds a Sharpie.

Pulling on a pair of sweats, a faded t-shirt, he opens the door to his room, walks barefoot into the hall. At the front door he fumbles with the lock, grabbing the door by the ornamental molding because the handle falls off in your hand if you try to pull it. Outside, on the porch, he turns, standing in front of the broker’s door he first looks over his shoulder into the street, then, kneeling, begins to write in big block black letters. A few minutes later, finished, satisfied, proud of his penmanship, he surveys his work like a craftsman admires a job well done. A stroke of his chin, a smile, a nod of his head, recapping the pen, he goes back inside.

There are two doors on the front porch. Both of them painted red, both of them with glass panes for the upper half. Written across the center of the one on the right: “The stench of dysfunction washes off easily once you become present in your own life.” The left, blank, pristine, untouched.

Back in his room, under the quilts, in his bed, he thinks about writing. He thinks about words, about sentence structure, grammar and pronouns. It’s warm under the covers. It’s warm in his room. The curtains having done their job, keeping the light out, the heat in. The alarm clock has stopped beeping. The batteries must have gracefully died. Thinking that there’s much to write about, he slips into a dream. It will be a good day when he finally wakes up and sits at his computer.

This was published in The Sylvan Echo, Volume 1.2 (November 2007)

Tuesday Morning

2007-01-25T09:46:00.000-08:00

She sits there, across the table from me. Her eyes are glistening, she’s almost crying. I can’t tell if she knows how hard this is for me. Obviously she’s been hurt. Her voice stammers and I feel her from deep inside. I’m not good at this. I tend to shy away from confronting my fears around relationships and the past especially when one of them is sitting less than two feet away from me. I tried to tell her, six months ago, when we first looked at each other and did that eyes-meet-who-are-you dance – that I was challenged. Yet, actually I think that it’s more like I’m cursed.

Somewhere in the few times that we’d been together I’d freaked out and left without a saying a word. Writing a note instead – a collection of muddled thoughts laid out in two short lines and then I was gone. She says she read it and from what I’m hearing she thought that I was blaming her for all my ills. I couldn’t take who I was when I was with her. I couldn’t understand why I couldn’t be myself. I didn’t quite know how to act when it wasn’t just about me anymore. I felt so useless, so lost, like I was embracing my past and everything about it was still the same.

I’ve tried to avoid this moment. I’ve tried to avoid even thinking about this moment. Now it’s here and there’s nothing to do but just let her talk, let her say the things that she needs to say. Mercifully I don’t seem to have those feelings where I need to be right. I know that I handled it wrong. I know that I handled the entire affair, from start to finish, from birth to death, from conception to destruction as if I wasn’t really involved. As if everything was gonna come out all right without me even lifting a finger or saying a word.

Sitting here, listening to the sound of her voice, the inflection, the way she projects her vowels like she’s a kid in school learning the alphabet for the first time. I’m hearing her speak but I’m thinking of Gina. I’m thinking of Debbie. I’m thinking of Nadia and Stephanie. I’m thinking about how much I was in love with all of them, or at least how much I thought that I was. I’m thinking about the times we had together and I’m remembering them leaving, leaving me to go back to getting high. Leaving me after three years, after two, after six months, after I went away to jail.

When a girlfriend leaves you for drugs it isn’t the same as when she leaves you for another lover or the relationship just sort of ends, you both mutually calling it quits. When she leaves you to go back to getting high there’s nothing that you can really say or do. There’s certainly nothing that I can say or do, as many times in my life I’ve been guilty of this very same sin, the draw of using being so much greater than the bond of love. The only recourse is to wait. To wait for her to finish using, to get help, to maybe want be with me again. Only for me this has never happened.

Whether I like to admit it or not, these days, these past behaviors and fears is what I bring with me to a relationship. I carry the carcasses of former love affairs. I take all the pain that I have carried for years and present it like an offering of sorts. Here, if you want me, you gotta deal with all the internal chaos that I bring with me.

Looking across the kitchen at the microwave’s digital clock I vaguely remember that there were things that I had planned on doing this morning. There was a small list somewhere in my brain. It is now shoved away, lost, forgotten. I can’t even remember what time I had said I would show up at the studio. I think that maybe I should go work out or walk to the post office, drink some coffee, read the newspaper. I need to shower, I need to shave and get dressed, start my day.

Across the table she sits, silent now. Staring down she’s avoided eye contact the entire time she’s been here. Her gloves and sunglasses off to one side, a New York Times crossword puzzle sticking out of her tooled leather bag. Because of awkward moments like this I have avoided intimacy. I have avoided a whole section of my life and this morning I wasn’t able to avoid it any more.

Saturday, December 30, 2006

2006-12-31T12:03:00.000-08:00

I couldn’t believe it as I walked by the newspaper stand and there were the headlines HUSSEIN HANGED blaring out at me in two inch bold black letters. What, I thought, were we living in the Wild West again? This is totally ridiculous. There I was standing on Market Street where Sixth Street cuts across from the South of Market into the Tenderloin. Crackheads, junkies, pimp-daddies, baby’s-mamas and tired old bag ladies standing knee deep ten to a street corner as the dope runners plied their trade and the cops at the taqueria ate fat chorizo burritos and looked the other way. A one-legged woman in a wheelchair ran into my foot while asking for spare change. Across the street some speed freak dressed in pants too tight for a sixteen year old girl let alone him screamed about government x-rays bombarding his brain. While passed out on the sidewalk, a wino curled up in the sun looking like a poster child for some bygone era.

“Hey, Rod Stewart! Ya got some money for me?” screeched the woman in the wheelchair. I looked down at her arms covered in open sores as she held out a can of Arizona Ice Tea. “Thirsty?” she asked?

Suddenly I felt someone tap my shoulder and I turned just in time to avoid getting slugged in the back of the head with a dirty fist that now was passing just in front of my nose.

“Leave my woman alone mutha-fucker!” yelled Billy, a former client of mine that had seen better days. Like less then a week ago he’d been in a treatment facility boasting about having a year clean off of crack cocaine. Billy’s eyes weren’t quite focusing. After all it was somewhat close to the holidays and obviously Billy was celebrating. Looking up I noticed the cops in the window of the taqueria looking at me. Casually one of them wiped the sour cream and salsa from the corner of his mouth, sipped his coke and went back to eating his burrito.

From somewhere down below and behind me, I could hear a muffled voice squeal, “I ain’t yo bitch, bitch!” And though I knew it was the one legged woman in the wheelchair I really didn’t feel like being all polite not showing her my back as she talked. It was just that I was still pretty sure that Billy didn’t have a clue as to who I was, or maybe he just didn’t care? And I really wasn’t into getting sucker punched over some misunderstanding he was having in his head.

“I gotta go,” I mumbled and then slipped out from between the two of them and headed for the newspaper stand. Dropping in two quarters I plucked out the second to the bottom paper from the rack. Never, and I do mean this, never take the top paper. God knows who’s been rummaging around inside of those newspaper racks and worse where their hands have been.

Holding the paper up at arms length I read the first paragraph:

“Baghdad – Clutching a Quran, Saddam Hussein went to the gallows before sunrise today, executed by vengeful countrymen after a quarter-century of remorseless brutality that killed countless thousands and led Iraq into disastrous wars against the United States and Iran.”

Hmmm, talk about rewriting history. I looked up from reading in disbelief. Was anybody really buying into this drivel that the Associated Press was ladling out? I wish I had my glasses so that I could actually read the rest of this crap. Edging over to the side of building I tried to hold the paper up into the sunlight so that I could see it better.

“Rod Stewart, ya gonna give me some money or what?”

Obviously the one-legged wheelchair-bound woman had found me again and if she was close so was Billy. “Did you hear about Hussein?” I asked her, gesturing towards the newspaper that I had in my right hand as I looked around searching the faces of the people walking by in preparation for Billy’s approach.

“He that A-rab dope dealer in the Rose Hotel? What, he get busted again?”

“Na, he was a leader of a country that America overthrew.”

“Well, he probably come here and buy a liquor store like all the rest a them deposed leaders do. How about fitty cents? You got fitty cents don’t ya?”

I didn’t feel like telling her the rest of the story. I didn’t feel like it would really mean a whole hell of a lot to her. Certainly not as much as the dollar I gave her meant to her. And as she started to push her wheelchair away from me she turned and said, “Billy ain’t really bad. He just loves me too much.”

Maybe we should all have someone like Billy that loves us too much? Saddam could a used a Billy or two. Or maybe he did have a couple a Billys and that’s why he got hung. What the hell do I know, I thought and then opening the door to my car I looked up and saw them, Billy and the one-legged woman in the wheelchair: Him pushing her chair along the sidewalk while she talked away a mile a minute. Thinking that they looked kinda almost happy, I got in my car and drove away.

Two Times the Fun

2006-12-01T00:03:00.000-08:00

For some reason my brain seems to be a tad numb today. Like the synapses aren’t firing or my serotonin uptake is at an all time low. Although speaking less clinically maybe it’s from having just survived the holiday, or the rainy weather, or too much sleep or a few thousand other things that I can’t think of right now because, well, because my brains numb.

All day long I’ve been at a loss of what to do and of what to say. People talk to me and as usual I see their lips moving yet I haven’t the foggiest idea what it is that they are trying to communicate. When the phone rings I just pick it up and hold it to my face, completely silent as the person on the other end prattles away. “Hello? HELLO!!! Dude, are you there?”

This morning at my local coffee shop I signaled the guy behind the counter who’s named Pauli for my usual latte and then when he yammered on about his Thanksgiving weekend I just sort of stood there nonplused nodding at what I hoped were the appropriate intervals and thought about nothing, and I do mean nothing, until he handed me the latte and I was able to get out of there.

Usually there’s at least a tiny semblance of thought going on in my brain. Usually there’s at least this continuous barrage of those unwanted useless questions that plaque me whenever I’m bored, overstressed or my mind starts to wander. Incessantly asking things like am I going get shit for being late again for work or did I lock the front door to my house when I left this morning? Is my car’s roof gonna leak, are my clients still waiting for me at the rehab, am I going to make it to the dentist before this temporary cap splinters off and the nerve ending are exposed to the elements? But today, there is nothing, not even the dull throb of a headache, not even a repressed memory or two from long ago, not even the tiniest thought of what I’m doing or where I’m headed for.

It’s sort of like there’s this void in my brain – an empty space being set aside for a later date. Only I haven’t made plans for anything and if anyone called to invite me to go somewhere I’d just sit there not responding, a vacant look on my face, content with nothing planned, nothing scheduled – nothing, nothing, absolutely nothing...

After leaving the coffee shop latte in hand I walked to my car, got in, and just sat there. A bright yellow Lamborghini pulled up next to me and the driver honked. Obviously he wanted my parking place. I could see him through the window making these “are you leaving?” hand gestures and again I just sat there and stared at this person as he continued to make what looked like shadow puppets with his hands. After about five minutes of his going on with his fingers flashing in all directions he abruptly stopped, honked his horn for the second time and then gave me the finger as he drove off.

Looking down at my own hands I noticed that they were dry and a bit rough around the edges. This sudden change in the weather is raising havoc on my skin. My hands dryness makes doing things like typing and playing music hard. Sitting there staring at them made me self-conscious, made me feel aware of myself sitting there in my car, the moisture from my breath steaming up the closed windows as people walked by outside on the sidewalk.

Yet being there reminded me of just the other day when I was driving downtown as this latest storm was beginning and the traffic backed up and I sort of started to feel overwhelmed. Not like “go crazy insane” overwhelmed. But more like depression setting in as my self-esteem took a nose dive and it was all I could do to pull the car over to the curb and sit there, the engine idling, as I listened to the waves of raindrops hitting the roof directly above my head.

To be totally honest I had been out of sorts as of late exhibiting old unhealthy behaviors like eating badly all weekend and it had been at least two weeks since I had last worked out. For quite sometime now I’ve been avoiding all the things that I need to do for myself in order for me to stay sane. The day before, as I lay in bed staring at the ceiling, I’d kind of known that this moment was coming; like being in a car crash you just sort of linger, helpless, waiting for the impact.

Sitting there in my car as it stormed overhead a drop of water landed on my shoulder and I looked up and saw the worn area where my convertible leaks. I seem to remember that Danny left me a note telling me how to fix it. Like everything else in my life I just hadn’t gotten around to doing it yet. Some errant thought about the canvas top needing to be dry before it can be patched came and went, exiting my brain just as quickly as it entered. A distant and somewhat obscure memory about lowered imported sports cars having air intakes too close to the ground so that it becomes a problem when you drive through deep puddles flirted with my consciousness and was gone.

The windshield wipers were still moving back and forth as the defroster defogged the lower part of the windshield. In the middle of the street there was a homeless guy in a wheelchair weaving in and around the oncoming cars screaming his head off about god knows what. I could barely hear his shouts over the sounds of the rain and the traffic. Yet I could see him pushing himself forward, his mouth contorting as he yelled. His rain soaked body tense in his wheelchair momentarily visible between the passing cars, his arm periodically raised making threatening gestures towards the drivers in the vehicles that were swerving into the other lanes as they tried to avoid him.

A second later he was directly outside my window mouthing noises that sounded vaguely like words yet the intensity of his incoherency was so apparent that it really didn’t matter what he was saying as we both sat there staring at each other. His eyes bloodshot and yellow, his rain drenched hair plastered to the top of his head. As he reached out towards me I could see the nicotine stains on his fingers, but for some reason this guy’s flailing hands didn’t remind me of shadow puppets sticking out of the frayed cuffs of his jacket. The desperate pleading look on his face was all I needed to see to know that there was nothing that I could do for him short of dragging him out of his wheelchair and into my car to get him out of the rain. But then what? I’d have a screaming maniac in my car with me and nowhere to take him.

Pulling back out into traffic I looked up into my rearview mirror and watched as the guy in the wheelchair slowly disappeared into the traffic and the falling rain. Feeling my shoulder I noticed that my jacket was soaking wet. Turning up the stereo the thud of the bass reverberates, shaking the car, resounding in my ears as I drove home.

Yet today, sitting here at my desk, in front of my computer thinking about sitting in my car those couple of times I’m struck with the irony of it all. Lamborghini’s to wheelchairs as the rain continues to pour outside and my mood sinks. I guess my brain started working again. So maybe I’m not as numb as I thought I was. Another dark day of depression and I’m jonesing for sugar and a long nap in my warm bed. Only instead I’m getting off of my ass and walking over to the health food store for groceries and then when I get back I’m gonna do a few sit-ups and then some push ups and maybe, just maybe, if this rain lets up I’ll run down to Aquatic Park although if I patched my car’s top I could just drive down and back instead.

Cognitive Leaks Through Un-patched Holes

2006-11-18T19:04:00.000-08:00

Rain coming down, huge murky puddles forming outside on the sidewalk, as the clouds grow denser, gray sky turns to black, and all of a sudden the day seems to be over, looking like night. The cars passing by on the streets make that sizzling wet sound with their tires. Indirect light, coming off from under the overcast sky, like the sun is shining somewhere, but not here, not today. Luminescent, yellow, as if it was time for the sun to set, only I know it’s 8:30am and the day has only just started.

Outside in the parking lot, my car sits. In its convertible top are two minute holes. Both of which have been produced from years of when the top being down the collapsed frame bars rubbing against the cloth. The results: two worn marks, two small areas you can almost see daylight through. When the cloth gets saturated with water they start to drip, the holes directly above the seats. The upholstery underneath soaking up water, a gushy sound when you sit down, wet ass on your pants when you get out.

I could have left the car at home. Safe in the garage. Away from the rain. But then I’d a been forced to have personally faced the elements: the rain, the wet, the weather outside. Driving to work, P J Harvey on the stereo, I sipped my latte knowing that the rain was gonna leak in at some point during the day. A luxury problem at best. Something else to deal with later. Something to think about as I sit here semi-comatose at my desk staring at a dark computer screen.

Looking out my office window across all the morning traffic on Harrison Street I can see a cardboard box in the alley move, rise and then get flung into the street as a mortified crackhead awakes to start his day. Two transsexual hookers braving the rain, one with a pink umbrella and matching miniskirt, the other in a see-through clear plastic raincoat step around him with their stiletto high heels and stroll into the standstill traffic. The two of them must a been dropped off from a long night and now they’re making their way home. Either that or business was really bad last night and they’re trying to make up for it by hustling the morning commuters.

A siren sounds. Red lights flash. A cop car tries to nudge its way through the traffic. While a businessman, at the wheel of a large silver SUV, too intent on staring at the hookers looks up into his rearview mirror surprised to see that he’s being pulled over.

Life continues despite the rain. Inside my office, away from the storm, the radiator hisses out the heat as I stare out the window. In the hallway, in front of my office door, there’s a commotion going on. But I barely look up as where I work there’s always a commotion of sorts going on. A counselor is talking loudly. About what, I don’t know? A woman starts crying. Then there’s the sound of a door closing and I can hear the traffic outside my window again as for now things have calmed down.

My phone rings. I stare at it. Do I really want to start my day yet? I decide I don’t and listen as it goes to voicemail. Nothing in a rehab is that important that it can’t wait for me to finish my coffee, unlock my file cabinets and turn on my computer.

Behind me there’s the sound of someone tapping on my window. One of my clients, clearly breaking the rules, clearly going crazy, has climbed over the bushes and is on the ledge by my office window.

“Why aren’t you answering your phone?” He asks me through the glass. I point at my ear and shake my head like I can’t hear him.

“Why aren’t you answering your phone?” He screams, almost falling backward off the ledge, almost landing in the bushes below. I feel like closing the blinds. I feel like turning around, turning on my computer and opening up my email. I feel like I really don’t want to be here dealing with people like this man on my ledge screaming about my ability to answer the phone.

Slowly I get up and open the transom like part of the window. “Ah, just what are you doing out on the ledge?” I ask and then not really waiting for an answer I say, “maybe you should get down before you hurt yourself.”

“No, I’m Ok, I was worried about you.” He says and then he slips and falls off the ledge into the bushes. Looking down all I can see are his feet sticking out and then they slowly disappear as he slips through the hedge onto the ground below. Outside the rain is picking up again and as I close the window to avoid the drops that are starting to come inside I’m actually grateful that I’m not out there getting wet.

Reaching over I pick up the phone. “Front desk, how may I help you?” Says the voice on the other end of the line. “Anita, this may sound weird but there’s one of my clients laying on the ground below my office window. Could you please send someone out there to see if he’s Ok?”

Across the street the hookers are looking over and pointing at the bushes below my window. Looking up they see me and wave. I wave back until one of them blows me a kiss.

Behind me my phone rings. I reluctantly answer it. Anita tells me my client is unconscious and bleeding and an ambulance is on the way. I hang up the phone. I contemplate going outside to see how he is doing. I look at the sky. It’s pouring rain outside. Cats and dogs? More like cows and elephants. I look at my coat hanging in the corner. I look at the radiator and then out the window at the small crowd forming below. I think I can hear the sound of sirens in the distance as they are getting closer although they already seem to be very loud.

I open my eyes and it’s dark. I close my eyes and then open them again. I’m not really here. Or to be more precise I’m not really there. I’m still in my bed at home. The phone is ringing. The alarm is going off. It’s cold and I pull the comforter closer around me. There’s the sound of rain against my bedroom windows. There’s a car going by, in the street outside, making that sizzling wet noise with its tires. It feels like I just laid down to go to sleep. It feels like I’ve only closed my eyes for a second. There’s no way that I can go to work. I’m too wiped out. Besides there’s a hole in my car’s convertible top. If I drive it to work and park it outside in the parking lot it’ll leak. The upholstery will be ruined and my ass will get wet if I sit down.

I turn off the alarm and get out of bed, with a swift movement I shove the phone into my dresser drawer and close it, mingled with my socks I can barely hear the phone as it rings. With one hand guiding me along the wall in the dark I stumble toward the door and walk into the hallway. The apartment is cold, the urge to turn around and go back to bed is strong, the internal dialog a constant debate on whether or not to keep moving further away from the warmth of my bed. I hate the morning. I hate rain. I hate alarms going off. I hate people that call at ungodly hours of the morning like I really want to talk to them. I’m mumbling “this sucks” over and over like a distorted mantra. I’m starting to gain consciousness. I’m starting to think of my day that lays ahead.

Potted Foliage or Unwitting Hostage

2006-11-07T21:27:00.000-08:00

My roommate's girlfriend gave me some sort of potted palm plant for my birthday/house warming gift. It is sitting dejected in the still somewhat quite empty living room, a sickly yellow slowly replacing the vibrant green on its remaining leaves, a pile of dead brown ones accumulating on the rug below. I noticed it yesterday as I walked through on my way to the kitchen. We moved in three months ago, my birthday was last month, the house warming gift was bestowed on me somewhere in between. Like the good samaritan I am I gave it a drink from my glass of Pellegrino and ice.

Some of us are just not urban farmers. You should be thankful we’re not. Playing at farming maybe a nice distraction for some people, but not all of us care about sprouts and alfalfa and four legged creatures that drop large piles of dung for us to step in. Not all of us pine for the great outdoors, rolling planted fields and grub worms mulching soil. Not all of us grew up reading Charlotte’s Web and cried. I’d dare say a few of us are actually repulsed by spiders and pigs and things that go oink in the night. Not that we shouldn’t read about such subjects. After all talking pigs are a big part of American culture.

I wish my palm plant talked. It could remind me to water it. It could say things like “hey, there’s a war on in Iraq. Water me you selfish bastard!” But it doesn’t. It just sits there, like Buddha, and suffers. Luckily the rest of the palms in the world, the living breathing happy palms don’t have to rely on me to nurture them. Luckily for you I’m not writing a 400 page book filled with essays regarding the care of my palm and how I see indoor plant care as a metaphor for depicting all the world’s ills.

Years ago when I got out of rehab and rented my first apartment I bought a plant as I had hopes of brightening up my new environment. Ironically it too was some sort of palm or large fern-ish type green leafed affair. I can remember laying there in my bed looking at my new home: the TV in the corner, the small sofa by the window and the palm tree all energetic and green standing there looking so alive. Two months later the novelty of my new found freedom had worn off and I was again laying in my bed, dog tired from working a construction job, still in my soiled work clothes I looked over and my beautiful palm tree was a brown barren stem protruding out of a parched dry pot of dirt.

Obviously there are just some things that I don’t do well. Caretaking harmless animate objects such as trees and ferns and small fury animals that rely on me to nurture them through life appears to be one of them. Thank the gods the palm plant wasn’t a puppy.

Meanwhile not only is my lack of empathy for the needy starting to get me down but my empty living room is beginning to bother me as well. Although when I really think about it it’s not its emptiness that bothers me. It’s more the fact that there’s a room that I am paying for, well, renting actually, that I am not really using that bothers me. After all what can you really do in an empty room – besides kill plants?

My bedroom has my computer, writing desk, bed and stereo. I tend to spend most of my time in there. My kitchen has the oven, toaster and microwave and I’ve actually got some food bits in the refrigerator. Every once in a while I use one of my dishes to eat off of and then I put it in the near empty dishwasher, waiting for it to fill up with dirty dishes before I turn on the wash cycle. This kind of interaction makes me feel like I am utilizing the kitchen as much as I possible can. It is worth renting, it is a decent use of my money.

However the empty living room holds next to nothing. There’s a large TV in one corner of the room that sits dormant. The dying palm plant sits on a small end table by the opposite corner. Why it’s an end table instead of a plant table I’ll never know? Like the end of what? End of the palm plant probably.

It hardly seems logical to rent a room for a TV set that I don’t watch and a soon to be dead plant. Yet I do get to walk through my living room, so maybe that’s what it is good for. Extended space, more room to roam, the luxury of strolling in one’s apartment. Yet with more rooms comes more responsibility with more stuff to do, more things to remember, more plants to water, more dishes to wash. Because apparently rooms want furniture, plants want water, dishwashers want to be filled, turned on and then unloaded.

Everyday the mailman fills my mailbox with bills. Everyday I write a check and mail it back hoping that this will somehow stem the flow of the utility company’s wanting payoffs. Every month my landlady expects the rent. Every Wednesday morning the trash trucks converge in the alleyway to haul away my trash and in the end send me another bill.

Compared to my former one room studio apartment in the ghetto this new apartment is a palatial estate. There was no room for plants in my old abode. There was hardly room for me in that tiny room. There were no bills for the utilities because they were included in the rent. There was no heat because there was no ventilation. There was no trash trucks coming by to pick up my refuse because all you had to do was just walked on over to the “trash room” and tossed your garbage down a chute to the basement – who the hell knows where it went after that? If indeed it did go anywhere besides the basement.

I suppose I really should take care of my little palm plant. I suppose that it’s kinda like my civic duty for keeping the world green, the ozone layer safe, the environment in working order. I suppose that this is as close to farming as I will ever get. I wonder if palm plants like sushi?

A revised version of this essay was published in Weave Magazine 04 Edition 2010

18,262 Days and Counting

2006-10-20T16:45:00.000-07:00

It’s those age lines by the side of my eyes. You know the ones. Someone less squeamish might just outright call them wrinkles. They creep like crow’s feet, like little rivers depicted on maps, like branches on leafless trees left barren during the winter months.

They weren’t there yesterday. At least I didn’t think that they were there until I looked. And then there they were. Stuck to the side of my face, something new to look at when I’m brushing my teeth. Something new to agonize over when I’m standing there wondering what happened to my life.

I woke up 50 the other day. The night before I’d gone to bed an aging adolescent and the next day I woke up half dead with one foot in the grave. Although I really didn’t feel any different than I did the day before, or last week, or even last year.

It’s not like I’m an invalid, cane welding, get-out-of-my-way-you-kids-
I’m-gonna-fall-over-and-die-at-any-minute old man. But I’m fucking fifty for god sake!

Last Friday when I was bitching about getting old to my dad, he told me that people that don’t worry about getting old live longer. And then he asked me if I had a pension plan at work.

Today the kid who works at the liquor store at the bottom of the hill held the door open for me when I was about to leave his store. I just stood there and stared at him for at least a full five minutes.

“Why are you holding the door open?” I asked.

“Sir you’ve got a bag of groceries and the Sunday newspaper,” he answered, “I thought you could use a hand.”

“What, you think I’m too old to be able to manage out the door carrying a bag with one pint of Ben and Jerry’s and a freaking newspaper?”

“Just thought I’d help” was all that he could say.

I waited for him to close the door and walk back behind the counter. With my shoulder I pushed the door open and like an idiot stumbled into the street missing the one short step down onto the sidewalk. A grey haired old lady dressed in a bright pink Adidas tracksuit caught my elbow as I almost fell to the ground.

“Careful there tiger,” she said.

I wanted to ask her who tiger was, but I was afraid that she was talking to me, so I shook her vice like grip off of my arm and turned to walk into the street just barely missing being run over by a police car, the one that screeched to a halt, the one that I unfortunately made a somewhat vulgar hand gesture towards, the one with two rookie cops twenty years younger than me that got out and made me put my bag and newspaper on the hood of their car and show them my ID.

Apparently these days even the cops call me sir. Of course that is after they ran my ID, electronically viewed my past rap sheet, looked at each other, got a little uptight and then subsequently discovered that I haven’t been in trouble for the last ten years. Then they looked me up and down, re-holstered their weapons and said, “have a good day sir,” clearly relieved that I’m not that young troublemaker that I used to be.

Ten years ago when I turned 40, I told no one it was my birthday, except one of my homeboys as we were walking the exercise yard of one of California’s finer correctional facilities. Birthdays aren’t something you really celebrate incarcerated, behind bars, living in a five by eight foot cell, surviving on cup-o-noodles, wishing you were anywhere but there.

Back then I thought my life was over and it was. Well, at least the life that I had been living was over. Today I have to admit that my life has never been better, although it doesn’t take a lot to be better than doing time locked up and angry. But that’s beside the point.

Yet standing here staring at the lines on the side of my face, coming off the corners of my eyes, I realize that there’s more to life then worrying about wrinkles and people calling you sir. There’s next year to deal with when I’ll be fifty-one.

Auto Consumption

2006-10-11T19:59:00.000-07:00

I bought a car last weekend. It’s black and low and sleek and shiny with chrome bits. It’s a two-seater convertible lowered to the ground, black leather interior, silver-low-profile-mags with a CD player. I bought it off of Craig’s List from a guy in Santa Cruz. Like some clandestine drug deal I had to go meet him with cash on an unnamed street, the last house on the left, off the frontage road, next to highway 1.

As we pulled up it was sitting in the driveway and I knew that it was the car that I wanted, it was the car that I’d been searching for. I didn’t even haggle the price, the guy had three more buyers on their way over to look at the car. I happened to be first one to see it because I had been the first one to get in touch with him when he placed the ad.

Buying cars on Craig’s List is a strange affair. People leave cryptic descriptions and sometimes pictures of their vehicles with only an anonymous email address to respond to. Instead of an immediate conversation you send off a message and then patiently wait for them to get back to you and in the meantime anything can happen. They can decide that they don’t want to sell, they can answer their emails in some sort of haphazard order and inadvertently leave you out even though you might have been the first to respond. They can even have a “for sale” sign on the car as it sits in front of their house and some next-door neighbor decides to buy it and you’re shit out of luck having never been given the opportunity to see the car before it’s sold.

Still you scan the ads on your computer screen hoping that at least one of them is going to be a good deal, pressing your mouse to open the email links, jotting down a quick note, sending it off, hoping. I answered this one guy’s ad by leaving my phone number and he called me. “Are you a buyer?” He asked, “because I’ve shown the car ten times already and all anyone’s done is come out and kicked the tires.”

“I’m a buyer,” I reassured him. “Can I come look at your car?”

“I’ll get back to you,” he said and then never called me back.

Admittedly it may just be some erroneous elements from my past that have me seeing illicit transactions in all of this. But I really couldn’t ignore what I felt were the drug deal overtones to this whole buying a car over the internet thing and because of it I was starting to get nervous just making the initial contact. Sweaty palms I’d type in my response and then hit send, only to wait, some times days for the reaction. The people selling know they’ve got what you want, You know that they know that they’ve got what you want – the whole deal reeks of a power struggle, like a crack dealer has over his clientele, like the dope man has over the junkies in the street and all I’m looking for here is my car fix – something to make my life a little better, something to help me along my way.

After I bought the car, paying the man the money in small unmarked bills, I turned the key in the ignition and left rubber burning down the highway all the way back to San Francisco. Seems that it’ll do a hundred and ten no problem. Seems like all the cars I buy want to go fast. When I told my dad about the car over the phone a few days later he said, “didn’t you learn from the last one?” He of course was referring to the last car I owned, the one that I slammed head-on into an embankment during a rainstorm in Marin County.

But this car isn’t nearly as fast as that one and slowing to what now seemed like a crawl I turned off of highway 80 before the Bay Bridge. Dropping down the elevated freeway to the streets of SF, hitting every pothole, getting air on the cable car tracks, I pulled into my garage and scraped bottom on the hump in the sidewalk – lowered cars aren’t meant for San Francisco. Getting out I stood there looking at my car, admiring the sleek lines, the fine gloss finish, happy that I’d finally got what I wanted. Walking out of the garage onto the street I watched the bits of litter and leaves swirl around in circles moved by the wind. On my apartment building’s front steps were a weeks worth of delivered newspapers that my upstairs neighbor lets sit. Sticking out of my mailbox were all the bills for the former tenants who must of left town without forwarding any of their mail.

When I got upstairs to my kitchen and finally sat down at the table I felt a bit exhausted, I felt like something was over. I felt like I had achieved what I wanted, but I still felt empty. Buying a car didn’t fulfill shit, at least not like I had hoped it would. I was still who I was, inside and out, just maybe not a pedestrian any more. Although all that time that I’d spent in these last few months looking for that perfect car didn’t exactly feel wasted. But I had this “now what?” sort of feeling running through me, and it felt strange. Dejected, tired, a bit confused I walked down the hallway to my room and went to bed.

The next morning I got up and drove my new car to Best Buy and bought a vacuum cleaner. It’s black and low and sleek and shiny with chrome bits. It’s lowered to the ground, a clear bagless interior – no silver-low-profile-mags, no CD player. It does suck dirt however and after completely vacuuming my entire house I can honestly say that I am happy with what it does. The salesman at Best Buy threw in a microwave oven for twenty-five dollars as an incentive for me to buy the cool black model. Like there was any doubt that I wasn’t going to.

My Feet

2006-09-30T02:08:00.000-07:00

I still haven’t got a car. Doing the bus thing is starting to get old. Now that I went and moved away from my old neighborhood I’m on the other side of the city from where I work. What used to be a five-block walk getting there in the morning is now two buses and a bit of waiting in between. Commute buses suck. Doing the nine to five shuffle with the secretaries and businessmen tends to put me in a state of depression. And then I don’t want to go to work, don’t want to ride the bus or go out of the house. Even just getting out of bed seems like the hardest thing to do.

Pulled up Craig’s List on the computer. There’s thousands of cars for sale, some even sound like the kind of car that I can see myself driving. Sometimes there’s a picture or two, and sometimes there is just a description and an email address to contact. But every time I try and connect, the car is either gone, sold, or the seller’s too whacked to actually meet me to show the car.

It used to be that whenever I was driving or walking around the city I’d stare up into the windows of other people’s apartments and wish that they were mine. Now that I’ve moved it’s the cars that I see going by in the streets as I wait for the bus that stir that sense of envy in me. Seems like there’s always something else to want, something else to obsess about. But now it’s chrome rims, twice pipes and a flashy paintjob that fill my waking dreams.

It’s not like I can’t keep taking the bus, as a matter of fact it’s probably better for me as I’m doing a lot more walking – sort a like being healthier in a forced to be kind of way. Though don’t get me wrong about the health deal cause, I sure as hell ain’t contemplating getting a bicycle or nothing like that. Just that I notice that I’m not hacking my lungs out any more, thanks to not living under the freeway and maybe all this walking.

But even with this extra “health’ incentive, I still got to admit that public transportation is an unbearable intrusion on my life. Every morning while I sip my four shot latte – yes, four shots. I’ve gone up a shot from my usual three because I have to take a bus and be at work on time and… Sorry. Now where was I? Oh yeah. Every morning while I sip my, ah, er, latte I’m forced to rub elbows with disgruntled workers and worse, kids on their way to school. And instead of just relaxing on my way to work, I’m tense, feeling their vibes, feeling the bus jerk, sensing that everyone’s bugging out about getting to work or school. So that I’m exhausted before I even set foot inside the door of my office. And going home is no picnic either: rush hour traffic, crowded buses, tired angry underpaid over-worked people.

This afternoon, while the bus was languishing in bumper to bumper traffic downtown, and the woman sitting next to me was breastfeeding what looked like a dwarf, the drunk standing in the door well decides that now is the time to start urinating and everyone is too busy to notice, either talking on their cell phones or their iPods are blaring away in their ears through their headphones while they stare off into space with these vacant zombie eyes. I’m standing there clutching a greasy germ encrusted handrail trying to edge my way slowly down the aisle away from the spreading puddle of urine. Thankfully the driver pulled over and I was able to make it to the front of the bus to get off, right before he stopped everything so that he could extend the mechanical ramp to let a handicapped person in a wheelchair on.

Of course it wasn’t my stop. It wasn’t even anywhere near my stop. It’s just that I couldn’t take it any more. I had to get off the bus and it didn’t matter that I was in the middle of downtown during rush hour. And seeing that people were everywhere, going in all these different directions, some acting crazy, some acting like they weren’t there and didn’t exist and some walking into me like I didn’t exist, I decided that I had had enough and that I was just going to walk home.

After making my way past Macy’s and then Union Square, I’m cutting across Stockton Street when I notice all these kids along the sidewalk, sitting along the wall in lawn chairs or just standing there and I look up to see what store they’re all lining up in front of and it’s “Nike Town” – Nike’s flagship store. So I slow down and ask one of the kids who’s sitting there on a folding chair eating a McDonald’s cheeseburger just what it is that they’re all doing there? And he looks at me like I’m stupid and says, “The new shoe comes out tomorrow, man.”

“The new shoe?” I ask.

“Yeah man. We all come down here every time they release a new shoe and we’re the first to get a pair.”

“You stand in line to get a pair of shoes, ah, so you can be the first to wear them?”

Shaking his head, he looks me up and down and then his eyes stop when he looks at my feet. “Nah, we don’t wear them,” he says, staring first at my black cowboy boots and then at my face and then back at my boots. “We collect them.”

There are kids lined up along the entire block of the street the Nike store is on. They’ve all come for the “new shoe” and apparently I’ve learned from the cheeseburger eating kid that they’re going to be there all night until nine in the morning when the store opens and then they can be the first to buy a 200 dollar pair of shoes that none of them will wear.

“You got a lot of these shoes?” I ask him.

“Bout twenty pair,” he says and then crumples up the burger wrapper and tosses it into the street.

That’s four grand in sneakers, that’s four thousand dollars worth of Nikes that this kid never wears. That’s fucking ridiculous I’m thinking. Somewhere in the back of my mind I can hear Bob Marley singing, “My feet is my only carriage. So I’ve got to push on through.”

The Stockton Tunnel is full of traffic as I enter from the south end, breathing fumes, walking home, behind me are all those kids waiting for their sneakers, in front of me is Chinatown and then North Beach, the neighborhood I live in. A car horn sounds and echoes through the tunnel, off the tiled walls and fades away. There’s other people walking with me through the tunnel and when I look at their feet I notice that they’ve got ordinary shoes on. Looking down I see the points of my cowboy boots and reflect that I walk a little weird. As I return to the daylight I look up to see the fog coming in from the Bay and I’m feeling a little tired, wanting to get home, so I pick up my pace.

New Neighborhood

2006-09-19T10:36:00.000-07:00

Mid-afternoon, a warm September day, and it’s hard to get up off the bed. But I put my book down anyway and stand up, noticing that the sun is coming in through my bedroom windows, the blinds swaying with the breeze as outside a motorcycle struggles to make its way up the hill. Opening my front door I see a flash of green as the local flock of parrots flies by squawking. Picking up my clothesbasket, I walk down my front stairs, cross the alley, and into the laundry to retrieve my clean clothes. I’ve almost gotten used to the sounds of my new neighborhood. If I spoke Cantonese I’d be able to converse with the family next door. If I drove a brand new BMW and had a six-figure salary, then the woman that was also waiting for her clothes would’ve kept talking to me. Only while we were sitting there waiting for the dryers to stop turning, she asked me what I did for a living and when I told her, she gave me a questioning look and then went back to reading her magazine.

Staring at the ceiling I wished that my clothes were dry so that I could put them in the basket and leave. Only I had just put another three quarters into the dryer: even though the clothes had been in there for 40 minutes, they still weren’t dry. Seems that laundromats in nice neighborhoods like this one cost a little more than their counterparts in the ghetto. At two dollars and fifty cents for a wash and twenty-five cents every eight minutes for the dryer, you’d think that these machines would wash and dry your clothes in a timely manner. But they don’t and so like I said I’m left sitting here between this woman reading her magazine and this nosey old lady that keeps looking in my direction.

Out of the corner of my eye, I notice a rather disheveled fellow slip in through the side door and hurry over to the machines in the back. Obviously he ain’t here to do laundry, though he does have a large bag slung over his shoulder, which he drops to the floor after pulling out a long over coat that he suspiciously drapes over the open door of one of the dryers. Slyly he pulls a long thin screwdriver out of his back pocket and starts going at the coin box of the dryer that his coat partially covers.

Christ, I’m thinking, can’t I just get the hell outta here without all this drama jumping off? Fortunately the woman sitting next to me is oblivious, lost in her fashion magazine; however, the old lady on my right can’t stop looking at the guy as he works his screwdriver deeper into the coin opening.

“He’s breaking into the machines!” She says to no one in particular and then looks at me like I should do something about it.

“Yes, that’s what he’s doing,” I say. And then the other woman looks up.

“What’s he doing?” She asks – and rather too loudly if you were to ask me.

“He’s breaking into the machines and he’s acting like we don’t even notice,” says the older woman. Then she sort of stands up to get a better view.

And ya know at this point I’m not really that bothered by the fact that he’s trying to steal change out of the dryers. However what I am sort of bothered by is that these two are discussing him as if he’s not there, or worse, doesn’t even really exist, and he’s only ten feet away wielding a long, hopefully not sharp, screwdriver. And besides, just what’s this older woman going to do – confront him?

Where I used to live, people were jimmying the laundry machines all the time and it never really bothered me. It was kinda like the natural thing to do down there. Here of course it doesn’t appear to be a normal fact of daily life – hence the excitement in the older lady’s voice, the revulsion in the rich women’s face and my apprehension in even acknowledging that it’s actually happening.

Grabbing her cane, the old lady gets off the bench and makes her way towards the back of the building walking between the washing machines and the folding tables. “You’re not using those machines,” she says to the disheveled dude who’s now backing up, screwdriver in hand, a look of bewilderment on his face. “Why don’t you just get out of here and leave those dryers be?”

This is not good, this is really not good, this is exactly what I was hoping wasn’t going to happen. Why is it that those with the most to lose are always the first to try and lose it? Why is it that this frail 90-pound old lady feels she’s the one that needs to protect the dryers from being broken into by confronting a somewhat armed and no doubt dangerous intruder while he’s in the middle of committing his crime? Like this guy’s really gonna just stop what he’s doing, thank the little old lady for pointing out the error of his ways and then exit the building in safe and sane manner.

Slowly his surprised expression fades to what I’m assuming is anger. “People always mindin other people’s business. Don’t worry bout what I’m doin.”

It is only after he talks that I begin to detect that he’s not quite right in the head. Not the not-quite-right-break-in-and-steal-in-broad-daylight not right, but the maybe-mentally-retarded-sniffed-too-much-
glue-as-a-kid kinda not right in the head. And now I’m starting to get a little concerned, not for my sake mind you because I can run like the wind when necessary. No, now I’m getting a little apprehensive about the old lady possibly getting a screwdriver shoved in her ear and so I quietly slip out the front door and dial 9-1-1 on my cell phone.

“SFPD emergency. How may I help you?”

“Ah, screwdriver, whack-job, old lady gonna get a shiv,” I hesitantly mumble in the phone.

“Excuse me?”

Pausing for two seconds I regain my composure and with one eye on the front door just in case the glue-sniffing disheveled coin bandit prematurely finishes killing the old lady and then comes out to get me, I say, “Laundromat on Union Street, man breaking into the machines. Elderly woman confronting him, possibly going to get assaulted.”

“Please stay on the phone the officer’s on the way.”

Immediately I hang up not really feeling too good about calling as I’ve never really been down with being a snitch. But then again do I really want this uppity old lady’s blood to literally be on my hands for not going for help?

Meanwhile back inside they’re both still going at it; only now the would be coin bandit is pacing back and forth across the back of the store in such a way as it’s obvious that he’s feeling trapped by the old lady, because there she stands one hand on her hip, the other waving her cane a few feet off the floor, gesturing in as menacing a way as a four foot three inch frame can muster.

Suddenly an unmarked police car slides sideways to a stop in the street in front of the laundromat. Two plainclothes police officers push past me and immediately the glue-sniffing bandit drops the screwdriver and takes the surrender position: legs out stretched, hands above his head, facing the wall. It’s obvious that he’s had a bit of practice at this getting arrested thing before.

Opening the dryer I grab my clothes and stuff them into the basket and back out the door. Halfway across the alley my phone rings and I answer it.

“Sir, would you like to talk with the officers? They’re at the scene.”

“Ah, no thank you,” I whisper and then hang up the phone as two more police cars, three bike cops and an ambulance come storming up the hill, all with their lights on and sirens blaring. Damn in my old neighborhood, if you’d actually called the cops, it’d take at least a few hours for them to come, if they even came at all. Putting the clothesbasket down on my front steps I watch the cops hustle the coin bandit, now in handcuffs, out the door of the laundromat and into the unmarked police car at the curb.

Sitting on the bench by the front window, the rich lady looks up from her magazine and frowns. Standing out on the sidewalk, the old lady waves to the police and then turns to go back inside. Carefully, as if totally removed from any of this excitement, I carry my load of laundry up the stairs and slip into my apartment, shutting the door.

Off the Grid

2006-09-06T20:31:00.000-07:00

Slowly I caress my laptop’s keyboard, admiring its sleek design. Silently, with come-hither eyes, I stare into its extended blank screen hoping for a sign from the gods or at the very least a little taste of the stuff that it gleans off the Internet for me. Unfortunately tonight there isn’t going to be any web surfing; there isn’t going to be any fun times pressing ‘send’ and waiting for a response; there isn’t even going be those annoying errant bits of spam to complain about either, as A.T. & T. – that unholy money-grubbing-soon-to-be-a-monopoly-again-
telephone/internet company – still hasn’t seen fit to hook-up my new DSL/Internet phone line.

After haggling all day on the telephone, wasting an unbelievable amount of time on hold, listening to insipid muzak and getting disconnected at least three times after supposedly being transferred, I was left with no other alternative than to have to start the entire process over again by conducting numerous long drawn out breathless conversations with A.T.&T.’s new computer voice based customer service interface that apparently wanted me to talk dirty to it because when I finally got fed-up enough and told it to “blow me” it immediately connected me to a human – which was all I wanted in the first place. Eventually I did find out that they had upgraded my account to a newer faster DSL service – only they installed it at my old address. So I guess that it is probably safe to say that the new tenant/crackhead that moved into my vacated former apartment is happily enjoying really fast Internet service while I sit here in the dark in my new humble, yet somewhat empty, low tech abode.

Jonesing for the Internet is nothing pretty. It’s amazing just how much I rely on it these days and being without, I find myself laying in bed at night calculating stuff like missed emails, wondering what my fellow bloggers are up to or trying to remember what my next Netflick’s pick was gonna be.

Yet obviously I’m not that strung-out because I did go to the café down the hill from my house where they provide free Internet service. Only it’s always crowded with these weird jittery caffeinated people leaning into one another amid a sea of those small round tables covered with empty coffee cups. Every time I glanced over my shoulder there were these wandering eyeballs looking at what I was trying to write while the steam of the espresso machine was getting so heavy that it was fogging up my computer screen. I prefer my Internet in the privacy of my own home. It is not, as some people out there appear to practice, a communal effort. My emails are somewhat private and my blog postings are public, but the process of writing them isn’t. Human contact, especially while I write, is strictly forbidden. Human interaction any time I am trying to be creative is nothing more than a distraction.

Moving has got me off centered. Living without the Internet has just about sent me over the edge. A few more days of this may force me further into reclusion – so agoraphobic that I may never again show my face out in public.

I wonder of anybody notices my absence? I wonder if the incessant barrage of comments that I constantly leave strewn across the Internet have been missed? Do you think that there’s a support group for this kind of addiction? Do you think that I need help? I mean I can stop anytime that I want to – really, I can! It is just that I don’t want to stop and being forced to doesn’t help the issue in the least.

I got A.T.&T.’s 800 number on my speed dial. I’m fingering the Ethernet cables while shoving their male connectors into the wireless modem even though my laptop has a built-in airport card. A second ago I thought I heard that weird start up jingle that windows plays when a PC boots. Maybe my neighbors have a wireless router signal that I could “borrow” for a little while? Maybe I should order dial-up in the meantime? Yeah, I know its slow, but hey, at least there’d be some sort of action on my computer. Hell, my schoolwork is suffering. I haven’t been able to post regularly in weeks. I’m forgetting how to type for Christ sake.

By the side of my bed are the four books that I am reading. Two I’m more than half done with – that one really stupid one that I gotta read for school, I’ve actually only got a twenty page chapter left to complete and it’s through. Seems like I getting some things done. Seems like only my ability to write emails is at stake here. But I’ve grown so accustomed to having the Internet for the dictionary and being able to effortlessly research any subject that I want that I’m a little out of sorts when I try to write.

Lifting the phone up I press “20” and hear the eleven digit 800 number dial.

“Thank you for calling A.T.&T. All our operators are busy. Please stay on the line and the next available operator will be with you shortly. For faster more convenient service try online at att.com.”

That sound you hear is me beating my head against the freshly painted walls of my new apartment.

It is All in the Move

2006-08-29T23:35:00.000-07:00

Moving isn’t always easy. A few last minute items seem like they wanna drag me down. Every thing is packed and gone and I’m left here all alone in my empty apartment sleeping on a borrowed inflatable bed – waiting for the first to roll around. Gonna vacuum one last time and then close the door on this chapter of my life. Walk outta this neighborhood and not look back.

Friday can’t come soon enough…

The Feline Solution

2006-08-20T23:31:00.000-07:00

Cats: other people’s cats, the neighbor’s cats, cats you see on television, the ones in those cat food commercials, photos of adorable cats doing stupid things that adorn greeting cards and the walls of dentist offices, the stuffed animal like cats that act in movies and children have as toys. Those are the kind of cats that people profess that they adore, all the while telling you what great fun they are, almost making you think that owning one’d be a good thing to do. They are, after all: so frigging cute, so adorable, so prone to making you go “ooh” and “awh”. Yet unfortunately the actual truth is that living amongst them is nothing like what you might think you see on TV or occasionally witness while standing in front of a pet shop’s window watching a couple a the cute ones batting yarn balls around.

Unfortunately as luck would have it my mother has become one of those women that you read about in the newspapers; the ones that amass great herds of cats and then will their entire fortunes to them. Her house, nothing shabby and in a rather nice neighborhood, is currently being taken over, one tattered floor rug at a time, by marauding gangs of feral cats. So while she’s away on vacation revisiting the fjords and frozen tundra of my youth I’ve been enlisted, no, let’s be real about this, emotionally blackmailed into taking care of her beastly brood. As apparently my mother reads my blog and when she isn’t sending me emails inquiring if I’ve ever entertained the notion of seeing a doctor in the hopes of getting prescribed antidepressants she’s simultaneously offering alternative housing opportunities – read “cat/house sitting opportunities” – under the guise of helping clear up my current case of lingering black lung.

And that’s why, after kowtowing down to the pressure that only indentured offspring like myself can relate to, I find myself getting ready to leave my dismal soot incrusted neighborhood for the promised fresh air of San Francisco’s Marina District. After packing my bag with black clothes, iPod, laptop and jars of hair goo I head on over to the promised land driving in the un-aforementioned Toyota Prius – Ok, so not everything about taking care of mom’s house is bad. Driving up I notice a quick succession of little furry cat heads popping up in the building’s front windows. Getting out of the car I notice one large and rather possessed looking Persian hanging off the curtain trying to stare me down. Only once our eyes meet he leaps backwards in a blur of orange fur – his landing a resounding thud that can be heard from where I standing in the driveway.

While I insert the key into the front door there’s a thunderous uproar of what sounds like a stampede of, well, elephants, for a lack of a better example. And then there we are, face to face, twelve sets of beady eyes unblinkingly staring at me as I enter the foyer, luggage in hand, the taste of apprehension in my mouth. Obviously they we expecting someone else, obviously they were expecting my mother and now whatever it is that’s going on in those little kitty brains of theirs is making them loopy – though hopefully not as seemingly prone to violence and anger as the Persian one upstairs.

Suddenly, as if they were one animal, the entire tribe about-faces and b-lines up the stairs dispersing in different directions apparently fleeing for their very lives. Alone at the bottom of the stairs I’m left wondering if they’ve ever had a similar encounter as the one we’ve all just lived through – because from the way that they all acted they have and it apparently wasn’t very pretty. Obviously some stranger before me has dropped by unannounced and massacred half of them with a meat cleaver and now instead of trusting any humans that they don’t know they’ve become very very cautious. Although I’m pretty sure that my mother would have mentioned something about a cat massacre, especially if it had happened in her house, and especially if there had been a meat cleaver welding individual involved as well. Maybe they’re all just overly sensitive and prefer instead to be introduced properly before extending their little paws for a handshake.

As I climb the stairs I can still hear them scattering to the furthest corners of the house. Gaining the landing that leads into the main hallway I’m suddenly hit with the scent of kitty poo. At my feet is a flattened catnip mouse, its eyes torn off, a hole in its butt where a yarn tail might have been. There’s an almost Voodoo doll like quality to this somewhat trampled mouse and if I were one for heeding omens and signs of the devil I’d probably just turn around and go home.

Down the hall are the bedrooms, the one off to the left, the guest room, is mine. Stepping inside I put my bag on the bed while behind me I can hear what sounds like a mad dash of claws and paws as the little buggers make their way past my door on their way to the living room. A single meow causes me to turnaround. At my feet is a tabby kitten that looks so cute and angelic as he stares up at me with these big yellow eyes. Without even thinking about it I bend down to pet him but before I can even touch him he screams and tears ass backwards outta the room.

The agreement was for nine days of cat care, the agreement was for me to stay here while she’s away, the agreement’s starting to look pretty damn dismal at best. The sound of a loud crash reverberates down the hall toward me, just as abruptly the sounds of scattering feet, claws on hardwood, start to ensue. Somewhere there’s a high-pitched whiney squeal, from the bedroom next-door comes a series of loud hisses, from under the bed there’s a subdued “mew”. Quietly I move my bag of clothes to the floor while ignoring the chaos, I take the linens from out of the closet and make the bed, with one foot I sweep the mewing cat out the door, close it behind me, and then head for the bathroom.

Only to fine that when you have a million cats like this you don’t get any time to yourself and moments that used to be private suddenly become something a little closer to what I’d consider spectator sport. Because as I sit on the toilet I notice a grey paw come under the closed door and then there I am sitting there going about my “business” while three deranged and highly interested felines stare at me – waiting for god knows what to happen. It’s not like I go around staring at them while they fill the sandboxes with their piles of shit. And speaking of sandboxes, there’s three, count them three sandboxes strewn throughout the house while there’s only two human bathrooms. God forbid that one of these freaking cats would have to be more than one room away from going to the bathroom. God forbid that these cats would be forced to go outside to the backyard to take a shit.

Leaving the bathroom my audience disperses without much fanfare – obviously unimpressed. Turning the corner I walk into the kitchen where there seems to be even more cats. Everywhere that I look, on every flat service, there’s either a lounging cat or a sitting cat or a preening cat licking his paws. Off in the corner is the feeding zone: piles of bowls and water dishes sit, some upended and on their sides, others left standing, but all of them empty. On the kitchen table there’s a yellow legal pad of paper with what appears to be no less then 10 pages of instructions – illegibly written in my mother’s unique handwriting – with paragraph after paragraph detailing the intricacies of caring for each and every one of these cats: their current medicine regime, their current dietary do’s and don’ts, their current inabilities for socializing nicely with their fellow felines. Apparently some of them don’t get along so well, apparently some of them need to be fed separately, as in shifts. Yet what’s also becoming very apparent is that some of them are obviously gonna be starving to death because there is no way in hell that I’m going to be able to adhere to any of this as unlike my mother I’ve got to go to work during the day.

A cute little kitten with needle like claws starts climbing up the back of my pant leg. With a startled cry I disengage him as he starts to pierce my skin through the cloth and put him back down on the kitchen floor. He immediately starts to climb my leg again. I take him off. He climbs again. I take him off, resisting the urge to drop kick him into the dining room and slip him into one of the drawers that contains napkins and pot holders and quickly close it.

Turning the pages of legal pad I read a few of the paragraphs noticing that she wants certain cats to be fed in the kitchen and certain cats to be fed in another room – primarily I gather to keep them safe from having their food eaten by the larger stronger cats – and suddenly I’m getting an understanding of what’s going on here. Nature is being bested by my mom. The natural food chain pecking order, that survival of the fittest thing, is being circumvented because my mom wants all these cats to ignore their naturally inherent killer instincts and play nice instead. No wonder they’re all psycho hiding under beds screaming at shadows.

Picking up all the assorted bowls and food plates I rinse them off and stack them in the dishwasher. In their place on the floor I put one big bowl full of dry food and one big bowl of water. Next to that I place one large bowl full of wet cat food straight outta the can and walk away into my room to put away my clothes that are already unexplainably covered in cat hair.

The ensuing caterwauling, hissing and screeching sounds reminiscent of a few knife fights that I witnessed many years ago while kicking it with my homeboys on the yard of one of California’s finer correctional facilities. The thumps, groans and muffled yelps only confirm what I’ve already suspected. The survival of the fittest is now being played out and soon anarchy will be replaced by order as nature takes it course and the rightful order of things will prevail.

Exhausted I walk over to the bed and lay down on my back staring at the ceiling. The sound of a body being hurled against the room’s closed door makes me flinch. As I rollover into a fetal position I can only think that this is going to be a very long nine days.

Due to…

2006-08-15T00:41:00.000-07:00

An unfortunate misunderstanding I will not be here this week to celebrate my two years of posting Full Blue Moon Dementia. However feel free to leave comments and please come back next week when I will return. That is if I survive a week of living with feral cats. Then it looks like I’ll probably be moving. So who knows? But I swear I’ll be back. Like soon. Really…

Going Home

2006-08-07T18:36:00.000-07:00

The bus was down the street where it turns around, ten blocks away, shimmering in the sunlight. All over Chestnut Street couples were out walking with their children while the overdressed girls, parading in groups, filed in and out of the shops, saying shit was cute while checking their reflections in the windows, constantly aware that they were being watched by groups of young dudes who were sitting around in front of the restaurants or across the street standing in front of the bars.

Looked like another casual Sunday in the Marina and there I was just trying to get home. Seemed like I’d been waiting for that bus forever. Although nobody else apparently was: too many cars were driving by, too many people were walking the streets, but nobody was waiting for the bus.

Yet there I was standing and waiting, the bus coming closer, and then when it looked like it was just gonna drive by, I had to wave my arms to get the driver’s attention. Pulling up wide two car lengths past the bus stop, I had to run to the open door, not wanting him to take off again. Gave the driver a dirty look while I was putting my money into the fare-box. What dude? Never seen nobody waiting for the bus before? Hell, you new at this bus driver thing?

Back-a-the bus crowded with foreigners, sightseers, tourists, backpackers, day hikers, museum goers, helmet-headed skateboarders and little old lady’s with their hair wrapped up in handkerchiefs after a day by the Bay. Coming from the Presidio and the Palace of Fine Arts on its inbound/downtown run, the 30 Stockton Bus slices through about ten different neighborhoods: the Marina, Fisherman’s Wharf, North Beach, Chinatown just to name a few.

Hot as hell in the sun, the goddamn windows in the buses don’t open any more. Probably due to some kind of safety precaution to stop you from being able to stick your head out while the bus is moving. Leaving us with only those little ones that are above the main ones that slide back, almost letting the air in, but really not enough. Closing my eyes I could hear everyone talking: bits of Spanish, Italian and clumsy English made harsh with a Russian accent.

A jolt from the brakes wakes me up, almost sending me flying out of my seat as the bus pulls off of Van Ness onto Bay Street. A German tourist yanks the next stop cord and is rewarded with the bus continuing on, speeding up, passing a double-parked cab, running a red light. Voices start to chatter, terse words in various languages become louder, revealing what I sense is fear amongst a few of the passengers on the bus. Told you the driver was out of his mind. Although a good percentage of San Francisco bus drivers do get caught up in random drug testing, instead of getting fired, because they’re union, they only get warnings before they finally have to go to rehab. But it looks like they missed one today.

Somewhere along Columbus Street, by the foot of Russian Hill, across from the Cable Cars the driver suddenly pulls over and lets the worried and now somewhat tortured tourists out for Fisherman’s Wharf. The remaining few that stay on board exchange bewildered glances as the woman in the seat next to me mumbles something in Italian and crosses herself as she stares out the window longingly at the spires of Saint Peter Saint Paul.

With a shudder the bus heaves forward with such force that it feels like the driver is pressing down the accelerator like he was standing on it. North Beach is whizzing by on my right: earlier in the day I saw an apartment there that I’d like to rent, be nice if I survived this bus ride so that I could do that. Union Street’s a blurry vision, Washington Square comes and goes as it fades into the shadows of Chinatown. Halfway home but the traffic’s at a standstill, backed up through the tunnel, horns honking as the light changes and nobody moves. The bus swerves to the breakdown lane and enters the tunnel, honks his horn and takes on the two oncoming lanes of traffic.

My cell phone’s ringing, but it’s in my front pants pocket. Out of reach, because I’m sitting down, people looking at me because I’m ringing. I start coughing as the bus breaks free of the tunnel and hurtles into the sunshine of Union Square. Something about those exhaust fumes makes me want to gag.

Exhausted I get up and push my way through the tourists, hoping the driver don’t pass up the Market Street stop. Pulling the cord don’t seem to work so I just shout for him to let me off and amazingly he stops. Not at the bus stop of course but in the middle of the block in front of Macy’s. I just can’t stay on this bus any longer as I’m coughing up phlegm like an alley cat coughs up fur balls. Stumbling off the bus into the street I spit in the gutter and make for the curb.

Up on the sidewalk half a man on a skateboard is begging for change, his one hand balancing himself, the other holding a dirty paper cup that he shakes back and forth jingling the few coins that are inside. Covering my mouth as I cough, I go the other way avoiding his eyes cause the whole scene makes me uneasy. Joining the throngs of diligent shoppers, I cut through Macy’s past the makeup booths filled with painted women. A left turn and I’m in the sunglasses section: broke my pair last week, but still can’t find some that I like. Seems as though big is in this year and big just don’t go good with my head.

From inside the store Ellis Street looks clear and I make the doors at a sprint, probably freaking security out, thinking that I’m shoplifting or something. Right on Stockton, left on Fourth I’m almost home although from the looks of it I still got to push my way through the crowds of people coming out of the Metreon movie theater. You’d a thought that it was too nice a day for all these folks to have spent the afternoon inside watching a movie.

On the other side of Yerba Buena Gardens I cross Third Street in front of the museum, hardly anybody is there, the outside café’s tables are empty, the museum store deserted. With just two blocks to go I pick up my pace, the shortness of breath continues, the air in my lungs feeling hot.

On the corner of Harrison Street, across from my apartment building, I see an ex-client of mine walking on the other side of the street. As I come around the block and head for my front door he’s standing there punching in numbers on the security pad like he lives there. Opening the door he sees me coming and smiles as he holds it open to let me in.

“Hey man,” he says, “Ain’t this great, we’re neighbors!”

Suddenly I’m feeling very tired and like I’m in a dream I walk to the elevator and push the button to go up to my room.

Environmental Hazards

2006-07-31T23:50:00.000-07:00

The Doctor says my environment is making me sick. Only I didn’t really need him to tell me that. Hell, I’ve known for quite sometime that it’s killing me. Living in the underbelly of the city tends to get a little unhealthy at times – even on the best of days. Although what he’s talking about isn’t the results of low-income urban living. It’s all the crap that’s in the air of my neighborhood. All the construction dust, the exhaust fumes from the freeway, the fact that there’s no filtered ventilation in the building that I live in.

The concrete pillars that hold up the on and off ramps to the Bay Bridge are less then twenty feet away from my apartment building’s front door. Where a daily average of 280,000 cars, trucks and motorcycles travel five stories above on their elevated roadways. Spewing exhaust, microscopic bits of rubber, finely ground asbestos, rust, dust and a whole slew of other caustic shit that I’m so ignorantly unaware of into the air that my community breathes.

For the last two years the State of California has been demolishing the old bridge while simultaneously building a new one. In the hopes of not impeding the constant flow of traffic they tend to work all night: jackhammers pounding, debris trucks lining up waiting to be loaded, traffic backing up anyway as it’s being forced to merge from three lanes into two and then finally one. Where everyone’ll sit idling for hours with tempers flaring as the drivers scream at one another soon to be followed by the blaring of horns – the road rage mating dance in full force. While down below the locals like me are stuck living with all the noise and air pollution that seem to be the acceptable byproducts of this ongoing renewal process. Acceptable for those that don’t live here. Acceptable for the construction concerns that only see the costs of doing business and not the people whose lives are being impaired.

Walking through the alleyways going about my daily affairs I’m constantly emitting what sounds like a smoker’s cough. Some nights I go out and jog along the bridge’s edge to the Embarcadero’s waterfront. When the weather’s warm I tend to sleep with my window ajar. Weekday mornings at 8:30am you can usually find me hanging out at the bus stop trying to catch my breath as I wait for the bus to take me to work. Everywhere I look there’s a fine black grit settling in: building up on the window sills, coating the parked cars – a discolored grayish film on every flat surface.

A few months ago I got another infection in my lungs, second or third time this year. Sorta lose track between the colds and flues and bouts of depression. Had to go back to the hospital Friday. I was tired and listless, hacking up phlegm, waiting to breathe. Now I gotta few more pills to take, had an inhaler, but that’s gone. But I still keep coughing like I did when I smoked three packs of cigarettes a day though I’ve quit now for almost three years. Trying to stay healthy seems futile at best when it’s something as simple as the air that you breathe is what’s killing you.

Yet if you were to ask me I’d have to say that it isn’t just the air in my environment that’s killing me. As my environment isn’t just where I live. It’s also where I work, think, create and exist. And all of it, and I do mean all of it, is taking its toll. Physically, psychologically, take your pick, after awhile if I’m not incredibly vigilant in keeping myself in top shape then sooner or later the mortar of my foundation starts to crumble and the entire structure that’s called my life comes tumbling down around me.

Working in the recovery field takes a lot out of you. Add going to school full time on top of that, mix in a little dysfunctional living situation, a low salary and the high cost of living in a city like San Francisco and you’ve got a recipe that calls for a lot of stress as its main ingredient. There’s a reason that I haven’t had a meaningful relationship with a significant other for the past three years. It’s probably the same reason as why I don’t do much else in my free time except eat, sleep and write.

Yet these days I gotta wonder am I killing myself on the lay away plan? Meanwhile the moon is in Libra with all 39% of it shining away in the clear evening sky. Maybe that is why I can’t make up my mind? For a Libra such as I am I really don’t need more Libra vibes from the cosmos confounding my already challenged abilities to make a decision.

While on the other side of the world countries continue to confuse diplomacy with aggression. On the television and in the news the psychotic Religious Right is screaming about the Rapture – saying that the time is now. Over the weekend a dozen young men were needlessly gunned down throughout the Bay Area. The war in Iraq barely a paragraph on the front page of the newspaper.

Such world events make worrying about my neighborhood, my health, my job seem paltry in comparison. Yet tell that to all those crackheads living in the street; smoking their shit outside in the alleyways, under the bridge, at the edge of the construction site where they make their camps on folded pieces of cardboard. Tell them that their lives don’t matter, that they don’t matter, that nothing they’ve ever done or gonna do matters and I’m only too sure that they’d agree. And maybe that’s why I do what I do.

But I got to move.

No doubt about that.

And then maybe find a new job…

When Waking Dreams Become Memories

2006-07-24T18:09:00.000-07:00

The heat is unbelievable – it’s 2am and the window’s open. Behind me the fan sputters and groans, been on for the last three days straight. Pushing the thick air past me, back out the window, only to return again, warm and overly familiar like an abusive lover’s embrace. Otherwise it’s stagnant, no breeze, no wind, no hope of relief in sight like maybe San Francisco’s famous fog would save us all by suddenly appearing and settling in for the night. My apartment’s like a kiln and I guess that makes me akin to the clay pot that’d be baking away inside. The one window that’s across the room, gapping open on its hinges, is just a formality in that it really offers no reprieve from the heat, because there really isn’t any cross ventilation to speak of, because to get any kind of breeze you’d have to leave the front door wide open. But you just don’t leave your door open to the hallway unattended all night, because who knows who might want to come inside to hang out.

Tonight is so hot, the prevailing atmosphere so dead, that there’s none of the usual familiar noises coming up from the street like there regularly is. Obviously it’s too hot for hustling, too hot for crime, too hot for dope dealing, too hot for standing on the street corner watching the dust settle. Though the occasional car drives by with the stereo blasting, the thudding bass vibrating, someone shouts and then it’s quiet again, in the immediate vicinity no one seems to be playing music, not even a television set. Somewhere a dog barks, out in the hall someone laughs, a door closes, my neighbor bumps the wall again, and something falls down with a thud.

The phone rings. I stare at it as it sits there on my desk. Who’d be calling me at 2am? But even before I pick it up I know that it’s Nadia, close to tears, asking me questions: she wants to know why men suck, she wants to know why she gets treated the way she does by the men she picks to be in her life, she wants to know about a lot a stuff that I haven’t the foggiest idea why things are the way that they are. But reluctantly I gotta answer these questions, reluctantly because whether I like it or not I seem to have been one of those men that have made her life suck, reluctantly because she’s still my friend and sometimes telling her the truth sucks for me as well.

We talk for a few minutes. She seems to think that I moved to LA and though she is surprised to find that I haven’t she really wants me to meet her somewhere tonight. Like some neutral place, like a street corner, or… I’m not really sure where or even why. When we were going out she wanted me to tell her that I loved her. When we lived together in that crack hotel on Folsom Street we grew apart. Then by some strange coincidence she moved into my building, living in the apartment two doors down from me for two years. Now she’s with her boyfriend sharing a place over on Howard Street for going on 9 months and when she calls it’s usually isn’t for something good.

Outside there’s the sound of a gun-shot. Three times the resounding echo follows the bullets being discharged, the reverberations falling short in the dark, dead air. Sounding so close together like automatic fire, it’s over and done with in a few seconds and then the night is still again for a few minutes. Until the sirens start up, distant at first, followed by the sound of a car accelerating. Below my window, through the alleyway, I can see the oncoming flashing lights. With the screeching of tires serving as an intrusive introduction, the sudden sound of activity down on the street makes its way up and into my open window: the electric static of police radios, the sounds of running feet on pavement, the shouted orders of some one in charge echoing off the surrounding buildings.

With one ear to the phone I’m still patiently listening to Nadia giggling about some movie with pirates, asking if I’ve seen it. Then talking about old times between us, she seems like she’s starting to be Ok. Abruptly her voice changes, like someone just walked into the room, or maybe I’m just imagining this. Then she says she has to go, makes me promise that I’ll call, and hangs up without saying goodbye.

Blankly I stare at the computer screen, phone still warm in my hand, listening to the commotion outside. Within a few minutes I hear the cop cars pulling away as the alley’s walls go dark, the shadows and silence returns, the street light across from my window blinks to life and then goes dark again. Lethargically I turn my desk light off and close the cover to my laptop, putting it to rest. There’s no way with this heat that I’m sleeping tonight, although I am tired from writing on my computer all day. Eyes weary, my mind dull, a weird cabin fever-like sensation starts creeping up on me. On the floor by my bare feet is a liter of lukewarm water. Unscrewing the cap I drink a quarter of the bottle before putting it down, a circle of perspiration marking the rug where it used to be.

Over my shoulder the fan continues to spin. Sitting here I close my eyes. Abruptly the phone begins to ring again and with a practiced movement I turn it off and open my laptop. The glow from the screen eerily illuminates the room. Somewhere, very faintly, I can hear Marvin Gaye singing about the children. Moving my foot I knock over the bottle of water. The spilling sound almost wakes me up, my left foot splashes a soggy carpet, dreams of better days fills my mind and I am gone.

This was published as "Talking With Maria," in SoMa Literary Review, June Issue (2009)