Carnival of Pain

I awaken pretty early in the morning. I get up, take a leak, take my pills, do all of that shit. I straighten up the room, do my exercise, which was a pain. I've grown noticeably weaker. I groan out twenty one push ups. Either I'm getting older or heavier. I believe it to be the latter. I get up and begin vacuuming food. This time, the cereal is the victim. I should just stick the bowl behind my lower lip like those African tribesmen and just pour the cereal in my face.

Pissed with myself I go over to NET- STUMBLER to find it quiet as ever. Then an eerie feeling creeps into my head. Reboot the system. Yeah, rule number one with technicians, when you are not getting the output that you expect from a system...when in doubt...reboot. My baby came back up and I threw up NETSTUMBLER immediately. The signals came back, whole and hearty, ringing off the walls. Damn.

I check out at @home. She is weak, crawling in like a bullet holed dog. There is nothing that I can do. I just look around at the other signals, my connection jumping from one to the other, like a jockey in a geriatric horse race, changing horses in mid-race. Nothing helps at all. Just as I grow bored of the motherfucker, up pops @home like a teenage erection. Her signal turns green all over the place, as if she was poked in the ass.

I jump on her and suddenly ride the shit out of a pretty strong Internet connection. Strangely though, all of the fireworks began all of a sudden, at 10:27:35, and she stays steady. I surf, but now it's so late that I have to get ready. It's time for me to call Social Services about the rent check for this glorious room. I know to expect shit, so I really don't care. I'm numb to the hoopla that I'm about to experience. It's going to be a long, hard day, and I am no help either. I have a way of fucking up myself at times like this. I dread today.

First step in the carnival of pain is to follow the instructions left me: "For Checks Infor- mation, please call the numbers below on 11/28/08 after 11:00am to find out whether your checks are ready on the first floor." I grab a shower in the wheelchair accessible shower, because it's nice and spacious in there. I think that I will make this bathroom 'mine', like the guy did the one on the left. I get dressed, clean up the apartment a little more, and then head downstairs to a phone booth on the corner where I make my first call of the day. I get an answering machine, which tells me to leave my name, case number and a number for them to call me back. What?? How the fuck am I going to do that? I have no phone.

Don't panic I tell myself. I head upstairs and find my case number in a bunch of papers that I'm continually handed by Social Services, which was a source of annoyance when one is a Streeter, because, really, where do you put all of that shit?? Then I rifle off an email to a friend upstate if I could use her cell phone number, and if she gets the call, can she email me back? My plan, go to the library, make the calls and monitor the Internet for the email. I'm going to get these checks today if it kills me. I should watch what I wish for.

I pack up my gear and head downstairs to the corner phone booth and try once more to call, but a nearby garbage truck comes alive with an inhumanly loud machine howl, drowning out the phone call. But it sounded like the damn answering machine again. Fuck it. I'm off!

I hop the Way down to 33rd street, and head for the library. Upon walking in, I remember that I have several books waiting for me on order. Three books and a video to be exact. I stop and pick them up. My new plan, leave everything with Electra as I run down to Duffield Street for the checks. To my surprise, Electra is not there. I then look for my brother OBSIDIAN, and he can't be found. Fuck. I go to a telephone booth and dial the number for the checks and sure enough someone answers. They tell me that my checks are ready.

Now here I am, a stack of books under one arm, and a heavy back pack. Par for the course, I say. I leave the library, stuffing the books into the backpack and head back to the Way. The ride into Brooklyn is torturous, as the MTA is working on the track lines, and getting into the largest borough is nothing more than a series of train switching and waiting until I make it to Nevins street.

To make a long story short, because you already know what happens when someone walks into the lovely Riverview Job Center, which I call THE NIGHTMARISH PIT OF DOOM!!! You wait on lines. You wait on lines and then lines that you don't have to wait on, because there aren't enough signs to steer you in the proper direction. Which is also what happened to me. But before I knew it, I was standing with two checks in my hand. One for one months rent, the other for furniture for my room. To you, probably not a king's fortune. Both checks no more than a hundred dollars apiece, but to me a pirate's treasure.

I was sent to the most seediest check cashing place to cash the checks, which should have been called the 'check robbery' place. All in the front of the establishment were these thug types, loitering; good for nothing men, doing just that, nothing. With great reservations, I enter in, and with even greater relief, I exit.

I shoot back uptown and the first thing that I purchase with my newfound furniture money? A broom and a dustpan.

Shit, you gotta sweep the floor you know.

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