Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Bastards and other Young Children


    It is what it is.

    Morning. Before the sun comes up. I look around. It's nearly six O'clock. I'm not tired. I slept like a bear. I get on the Internet, check email, and work on a thorny email problem that I have been having, with no success. I'm also cleaning again, sorting clothes for the laundry, getting ready to take some slacks down to the dry-cleaner for hemming. I have trash to throw out in the morning and sweeping. I've gone shopping for shit, and prepped, you'd think the Queen of Sheba and the goddess Isis were coming over for the weekend.

    I did my exercises and took a nice long, hot shower. Afterward, I stared at my reflection in the mirror. My beard is heavy, my hair long. I've got to take care of this. OBSIDIAN is so well groomed this week, and I look like the ass end of farmer John's horse. I'll get a shave this friday, or sometime next week. I want to keep looking rugged just for a few days longer. Just in case it's time for me to sign my IPE, I want to freak them out upstairs on the seventh floor (the floor where you are called up to to sign) when I arrive.

    I go downstairs, my usual routine to pick up my breakfast/ lunch and lo and behold is Paula at the table with her crows. They do not speak to me, and I neither to them. I get my food and sail out of the door before any further interruptions. The Roach Motel is as gray as the skies overhead and I feel as if I'm walking into a tomb reserved for the living. We shamble in like a line of Skeksies for a meal. The horrible thing is that I am growing used to this drone-life. It beats sitting in a small room for hours on end, behind the computer, watching time die. This time, time gets the upper hand in watching me die.

    I slip the document lady my paperwork from the doctor when she arrives, and then I head to the lab in room 4F. I take my position across from the lab door and wait. Soon, others trickle in and stand around the door until finally something sounding like the squawk of thousands of seagulls flapping their way from a turn in the corridor. From around the turn come half a dozen of the Spanish speaking TIT attached Parade. They are loud and painful in the corridor, almost forcing me to cover my ears against their fusillade of sound. I wait and grit my teeth until the facilitator comes with her cup of tea and unlocks the door, allowing the urchin to scramble up and down the sides of the threshold. I, for my part, just stroll right in. I for my part, being so big, that standing in front of me is almost like standing before a tank. You either go about your business, get the fuck out of the way or get trampled underneath.

    The day is long. It's always long. I'm not doing well, my body is really starting to hurt now, around my ribcage, and I'm wondering what the fuck all this pain is coming from. Hopefully, at lunchtime, when I do my walk, I'll walk all of the kinks out of my body with a brisk one. Lunch is shortly called and I take my hour's walk, traveling farther and faster than I have been doing the past week. I am getting stronger, my endurance increasing. It begins to drizzle as I turn around to head back, and get to the Roach Motel hot, sweaty and wet. I be a damp dog.

    The body ache does not pass. It centers in the back, along the spine, and every time I inhale I feel it. Mother- fucker. I ride the Way home, staring at the passing tunnel, half asleep, half awake. I am tired. From the Way I make the mistake of stopping into Duane Reade to pick up my prescriptions. Why is this a mistake? Because upon walking into the building and waiting on the elevator the door opens and out pops Igor.

    "Hey! Hobobob?" He stops and does a turn around, following me back into the elevator. "Hey, I was wondering if I can drop by with my computer and you can install Skype for me." You mean, you have TWO laptops, both Macs, the easiest laptops on the planet, and you still can't install Skype on it? "Do you mind if I come to your room with it and you can install it there," he continues. Yeah, I mind. I'm tired. Look, I'll come down to your room later. "Oh! Okay!" He presses the button for the next floor, and when the elevator arrives he bolts off and down the stairs. Jezus...what did I ever do to deserve this shit. We weren't even friends at the fucking Box and now he's going to work a friendship out of me now that we're in the Spot?? He must be crazy, or desperate for a friend.

    I get upstairs and the pain is still bad. Maybe I did something wrong, maybe I zigged when I should have zagged? Pulled a muscle during exercising, maybe something during my push ups this....no...not the push ups. I went from sit-ups to stomach crunches! That's what I was. Strain from the stomach crunches, but fuck! This was becoming murder. I go into my cubbord for some extra strength Tylenol, the ones I keep for my occassional gout flareups. I only had one left. Shit! Then I remembered the bottle in my backpack! Yeah, a damn near full bottle. I pop three and sit back and relax. There will be no stomach crunches tonight.

    I feel better already. The pain had made me restless. I did dishes, swept the floor, made the bed, a string of things, mostly sorting through all the paperwork laying around the room. That's one thing about being caught up in the bureaucratic bullshit, which is that you build up paperwork like high tide. I put on a pair of slippers and slide downstairs to Igor's crib only to find him not answering the door. I move off, back upstairs and get online. The pain begins to subside, but my consciousness goes with it. My tiredness is turning into sleepiness. I'm nodding off, but I keep thinking that I should try to go downstairs to Igor's one more time.

    I slip back downstairs in my flip flops and find him not home. Well that's enough. I head back home, strip against the growing heat in my room, and crawl into bed. I am out pretty early but not for long.

    Hobobob
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