The Fault of Mike Murder

Mike Murder came back last night.



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Well, not back exactly.

I spent the day in the library, not really doing anything other than write on my screenplay. I wonder if the stupid thing will ever be seen, much less read. When I finish it might end up the same place as my first novel with my brother, The Noise. Which is probably incinerated somewhere like so much trash. All that work, and all that effort, blown away like ashes in wind.

But I worked on it needless to say, largely because I had nothing else to do. The entire day was uneventful save for a new female security guard in the library. She is trying to make a good impression on her superiors so she is strictly enforcing all of the rules of the library, more so than the old timers. Somehow she latched on Electra. Probably because Electra likes to sleep in the library, as once we all did. I know I did.

Well, this new security guard caught her a few times, and from this point on is hovering around her, and therefore myself. She leaves for a few minutes only to sneak back in, trying to catch someone. From her entry point, I would say she is trying to catch Electra in the act. I myself, not thinking as usual, pop a Slim Jim. I'm there chewing like a cow in the field until this uniformed specter appears before me, wagging a finger. I take a bite out of my Slim Jim, but there is far too much left to go. I toss the rest of it into a nearby trash can. If only they made those things rounder, I could have choked it all down.

Now I've made matters worse, this security guard definitely has a hard on for the two of us.

But somewhere along the day she is called to another station and I am allowed to go nappy nap for a few minutes. It was just that kind of day today. Slow, lazy and dull. Earlier that day I got a hair cut to look somewhat presentable. A friend of mine from Florida had popped up on IM yesterday. She was coming up with friends and would like to meet somewhere in the city. So, to look somewhat presentable, I got a hair cut from Atlas Barbers, who easily and quite quickly made me nearly bald. In the hot weather, that's a good cut. Now all you need is a cap to keep the sun from beating on your head, but with air holes to let it stay cool under there.

I ended up in the Box at the end of the evening and found the bottle of unfinished Dr. Pepper in my bag. You know the one. The one that packs a motherfucking punch with every sip. Hmmm, drink it here? I looked at it and it looked at me back. I put it in my headboard. No Brown World for me tonight.

"Hey," Igor calls out to me, probably still not remembering my name. "Mike's back." I stand up and look in through the observation windows into the Tech office and Igor is right. Mike is sitting in the office arguing with Vanessa and Kimberly. There's something wrong. "What do you think it is?" Igor asks. "Why don't they just let him back into population?" Yeah, I nod, something is indeed wrong. "He must have fucked up," Igor postulates. "He must have been caught using again." Right after a twenty eight day jag? I reply. I don't think Mike Murder is just that stupid. Something else is wrong. "He fucked up," Igor continues. Igor can be such a tool sometimes. There is activity in the office, the girls walk about, Vanessa snatches up a phone, Mike looks up and notices us watching. He smiles, salutes, then his features drop, returning to the girls. "Something is wrong. He fucked up," Igor wont stop. He must have forgotten his discharge papers. You can't get into the building if you're discharged from a facility and don't have discharge papers. That happened to 'E' once. They let him out of the hospital and he left his papers behind, and the Techs would not let him in. He had to go back to the hospital for them. If the same thing happened to Mike, he was really shit out of luck. His hospital was upstate.

John, seemingly asleep in his bed, pipes up: "That's probably what the problem is. He came without papers. They're trying to have them sent now, but it's too late in the evening." I looked at my watch. He was right. It was nearly Eleven O'clock. I look at John, whose bed is next to Angel's. They are both lying on their backs, hands on their chests in the dark. A pair of corpses in twin coffins, on display during a wake before being interred. How strange my dormmates can be.

Suddenly Mike Murder lifts his gear and slings it across his back. He is disappointed and is escorted out of the office and to the stairwell by Kimberly. John continues an explanation in the dark: "He forgot his papers, that's all. He came here with someone else too. Pretty fucked up looking guy." He came here with someone else? "Yeah, probably from upstate with him. But it looks like Mike was the one that forgot his paperwork."

Some shit. I say. That's some shit.

And those are the rules, and how they impact us here in the Box. Silly, senseless stupid constructs to dictate our lives as if they are the gods of this country. And their only power over us is the intrinsic need for shelter.

What can you say about that?
No one loves it here. Don't make that mistake. This is just a waystation. A dot on the map that you step on the accelereator when you see you're entering the town limits.

Remember this when you become homeless. Believe nothing else.

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