A New Place To Crawl To

Noise.

New York Noise.

New Yorkers.

I listened to a sermon through my window for much of the night. Not that I'm a religious man, I used to be very religious, but I lost the faith, and then lost my job, my home, my shit. So why not god? I never went back to believing. Well, if I didn't believe then, I was given my opportunity to believe now. A Jesus freak station pumped out into the narrow alley outside my window until about 1:00 in the morning. Not loud, just loud enough to be heard. I got all the churching I'll need for a Sunday.

Prior to that, my refrigerator started howling. Out of the clear blue sky, it just picked up, dropped its pants and started rattling. The compressor went and went with a whole lot of noise. I covered my ears with my hands and prepared to wait it out but even I have limits to my patience, and let me tell you people, do not bother testing your patience with machines. They can go on for far longer than you can. I turned down the temperature of the refrigerator, cutting out the compressor for the time being. Ahhhhhh.

Before that, the old man just stuck his drunk assed head out the window and started singing the Carpenters, Close to You. Maybe he was in love for Valentines day, got hit up drunk and decided to serenade us all from his window. And I could see if this motherfucker could sing, but he couldn't carry a tune if it was stapled against his back. Poor, lonely sonovabitch. Sitting around in a room in an SRO all by himself, on Valentine's Day. HEY! What the fuck am I talking about??! I'm sitting in an SRO by myself on Valentine's Day!!

But what am I getting here? All, with the exception of loud mouthed Paula, is expected. When you have lived in New York, as long as I have, and in an apartment setting, as I have, a little 'bleed thru' is not only expected but anticipated. That's why I have a set of stereo headsets that I wear when listening to Internet radio, so that I can block out the world outside my door. If it had not been for that, I would crazy glue Paula's door closed, effectively locking her in and sealing it up with bricks, making her tiny room her tomb. Much like my room is for me.

Yes, back to all of this noise. Like anything we should prepare. Like earplugs for all New Yorkers that need silence. I on my hand feel silence to be near to death. Many people need homes, because then they can't stand to hear their neighbors. There is a buffer space between themselves and their fellowman, but in New York, there isn't really an equivalent of that space. You have to learn to live on top of the next person, cramped into increasingly smaller spaces. Bunched up like minx in cages. You live one on top of the other, side by side, you even commute so pressed together that you should be naked and fucking.

I even know some scary shelter motherfuckers who ride the Way during rush hour to get behind women and rub up against them. No...It's true, I do. Some men are just that desperate. More like bent in the fucking head to me (although this character was a likeable guy. He just had a predilection for dry humping women in subways). I don't' even want to think about the dudes wanting to do it to dudes in the Way. But my point was not dry humping, my point was the lack of personal space in the city.

This is an emotional thing though. Being crowded, being packed, being drowned out. When you are homeless you live with this situation without the benefit of four walls to give you a little personal space at least some times during the day. When you're homeless there is none. So I appreciate the fact that I have no space, at least I have four fucking walls. And I appreciate that I had four fucking walls for three months, at least it was a run of good luck for a change.

But even this too I think will end, and like everything reaching atrophy it will cool and fall back to Earth. I realize this. The catastrophic end is just too great for me to take completely, if not entirely on the chin. I believe that this is just another door closing. Change is birth, or like birth. It comes with great pain, great turmoil, great tribulation. It comes with straining and pushing and pressure. After all of this struggle comes something new and beautiful. This is a birth pang, followed by birth pangs. I see others in this country reaching it too. They see the end of their unemployment checks quickly approaching, the pink slip of their job hovering over their heads, the tension of losing their homes and furnishings, the pain in selling off their things to make ends meet.

They see these things on the horizon, not really realizing that this entire thing, these events are a transition to something new. Probably quite different, but different nonetheless. Maybe one may not like the course that this path will take, but it will be a path taken. However, you will survive it...that's if you don't off yourself first. Everything is survivable.

Even if you are like me, hitting rock bottom, only to bounce up half way, to fall back down again. The next bounce may be even weaker, followed by another fall. Who the fuck knows? I sure don't. But sooner or later, all things reach a state of rest, and that's a good thing, I could use a break.

No worries though. I know that wherever the fuck I end up...that Jesus Freak, the old man, and that fucking refrigerator WON'T be going with me.

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