Broken Pieces of Bone and Glass

Polish food is fun.

Hell, Polish cuisine is my most favorite. I can eat it all day. Stuffed cabbage, pirogies, polish sausages, hmmm, hmmm good. DJ asked would I like to hang out with him on Saturday. Sure. It's been a long time since I've seen him, so why not? I mean, I'm a little out of sorts lately. I haven't been going to any poetry readings, and so I haven't seen any familiar faces in awhile. I met DJ at our usual spot. The Starbucks on Astor Place. Hell, it was hot that day, and I was an entire half hour early. I could stand in front of the Starbucks until it was time for his arrival, but instead, I headed South. I walked among my native New Yorkers for fifteen minutes in one direction. The streets were packed with traffic, the sidewalks, filled with pedestrians. It was summer in the city.

The neatest thing about summer in the city is that New York women are dressed off the hook. Really. In high school, since I went to an all boys school, we used to have markers and words for women and summertime. Summer to us, in our teens, didn't begin officially until we saw our first bellybutton of the season. When we used to go to the all girls school some ways down the boulevard in Long Island City in search of dates and prospective girlfriends - otherwise known as girl watching - we used to call girls all dolled up for summer, 'plumage'. So a phrase among us would go something like this: "Hey guys, summer's here, lets go check out some plumage!"

And the plumage was out on Saturday. When I walked fifteen minutes out, I was sweating like a pregnant nun in confession. I turned up and around and headed North, for fifteen minutes, returning to Starbucks covered in sweat. My shirt sticking to my body as if I was drenched with a bucket of water. I felt so disgusting. Ugh. DJ showed up shortly after that, and we headed off to the Polish restaurant. It was air conditioned, which was good. I needed a break from the heat and the sweat. We ordered, and as usual I ordered my favorite combo platter.

DJ and I talked and talked and laughed and laughed until late. After leaving the restaurant we headed to Barnes and Noble at Madison Square park. I walked around the books, staring at covers, wondering, thinking, what if MY book could be here one day? Would I come to B&N just to stand around the stack of them to see who picks one up and looks at the back, trying to figure out if they want to make the purchase or not. I laugh to myself. I probably would, and when someone picked one up, I would walk up to them and tell them I was the author and will give them an autographed copy if they bought it. I'm just that crazy.

DJ said something interesting about writers and writing. When a writer gets the inspiration to work on a novel, they usually isolate themselves from others to complete it. It makes for a very sad and lonely social life. It takes time to finish a novel, and therefore it will be some time that an author is alone, finishing his work. DJ has since stopped writing novels and prefers short fiction and poems. He doesn't have to give up his life to be creative. I ponder this. July told me about a series of online videos from PBS about art called ART:21. I watched some of the videos and in one segment was a female artist who was very sociable at one time, but she could not get her work, her art done. Social interaction was a distraction. So, she packed up her life, and moved out into the barren mid-west, far from civilization. Really, she lived out in the desert, with tumbleweeds, cacti, and bleached white steer skulls. She isolated herself, all for her art.

Have I been doing this? I don't know, but I have been slowly withdrawing from life, and honestly, if I could, I would move up into a shack in the woods, like the Unibomber and never really return to humankind again. I feel like I have so many people crowding my mind, my thinking as is, that it would take me ages to sort them all out, understand them and their motivations, and move on to the next. I would be a city onto myself, packed with pedestrians and cars in the summertime. I shake my head, my thoughts scattering. That's crazy, right? Certifiable lunatic.

I bid DJ farewell and head back home where I simply putter around on the Internet, unable to sleep and yet somewhat tired. I watch the night melt and the sun rise. It takes a great deal of patience to do this. Life is like a river that one rides. To traverse it, you have to wait as it rushes downstream. You wait, and wait. The sun rises, the sun sets, and life, as a river, rolls on. On Sunday I clean and cook and take a short walk. I make it short because although I like fresh air sometimes, I don't really like the crowd and press of humankind in the city. I mean, don't get me wrong, I Love New York. It's just that there are some New Yorkers who are just rude and confrontational. I don't need to be mingling with them on any level.

On Monday, I get up and I wonder how I can get my IRS tax forms from 2001. I need to prove to the 9/11 commission that I was employed by Thomson Financial during 9/11 and worked at One Liberty Plaza, Ground Zero. I hope this will be enough proof for their services. It appears that my old workmates and my old accountant no longer want any part of me, and refuse to help. That's okay, life goes on. I think, and think, and let my mind stew. Today, I have a very big day. I shower and head out to the blood testing lab to have my blood drawn. What can I say? Those women are fucking vampires. They treat you and your arm as if it belonged to a manikin. This woman, with a nazi-like accent, yanks on my limb, literally stabbing me with the needle, missing the artery and then searches beneath the skin for it by pulling, pushing, twisting and turning the needle in my fucking arm as if I could feel no pain. I grit my teeth, and my other fist balled, and I swear if the pain continued for a half a minute more, I was going to punch her teeth out. Suddenly, she found the artery and blood poured out.

I nodded. I studied her face. I know I'll be back and when I do, if her ass calls me into the blood draw cubicle, I'm going to tell her to her face, I don't fucking want you drawing my blood. You suck. Get the fuck away from me. I want someone else. I mean that too. I don't take kindly to pain. I leave the lab grumbling, and strike out to Dr. A's office. I get a clean bill of health and I fix a small problem with his laptop. Then I head down to the library to see what the Hell was going on with my damn library card. I get on line and a crotchety old man behind the counter, looks at my card and tells me that, after scanning it, my account has been deleted from the system. How is that possible? He hunches his shoulders. Well, how can I get another one? He gives me directions and I proceed to create another account.

I search the library catalog after that for a book that I'm interested in reading, by a radical feminist. Don't ask me why, but I was looking for it. I could only find one copy in the tri-state area libraries and that was in the Big House. The Public Library on 42nd and 5th. You know the one, the one with the two lions in front, which used to be my home. We used to call the area, 'The Hotel'. Now, approaching my old home when I was homeless, I find that the entire entrance to the library is covered with construction barriers and boards. The front of the library has been reduced to nothing but one set of doors. Everything has been effaced. I enter in, and go upstairs to the Rose Reading Room, and request the book, which by the way, cannot be taken out of the library.

I take a seat and read. I'm there for almost half the day. I photocopy a few pages from the book. Honestly I find the book annoying and inciting to riot. I have never, ever, in my life, disagreed so vehemently with the ideas and opinions of a man in my life. I wonder what publisher would publish such a work and not feel regret or contriteness for its heartless and mean contents. It's the same weirdness that I feel when I think of the producers and record companies behind gangster rap, and it's violent, senseless messages to it's listeners. Don't these publishers and record companies feel any responsibility towards a functioning society? Do they feel that this poison is beneficial in any way to the furtherance of understanding and the toleration of the ideas and opinions and the lifestyles of others? Or is this just polarizing rhetoric, meant to divide and assault those not in agreement? I ponder over this as I return the book and leave for home.

I sit in my room, feeling life ebb with every tick of the clock. I have to make decisions soon. I have to take on a more proactive role in my life. Right now I'm on the defensive. I have to go on the offense if I'm going to progress. I look at the Internet and do a Google search for copies of previous tax forms. With much work, I find a tax form that I can fill out and mail to request transcripts of my tax forms and W2's from 2001. I fill and print out the forms, sign them, envelope and stamp them, and in the early morning dawn, post them.

I stop at a Dunkin' Donuts and order a half dozen doughnuts. I just had a hankering for them. I haven't had a doughnut in ages. I wait my turn, I'm the last guy on the line. There is no one else for miles, and I tell the counter jerk that I want a half-dozen, and this feeble minded fool walks over to the coffee- maker and starts two urns of coffee. I'm standing there, waiting for this ass to make coffee. Now here is my problem, after me, he has no one else to serve. He could take forever to make a few urns of coffee after me. But no, It had to be done on my time. Finally, this moron glances at me and I hold up my hands. He comes over, and I'm quite nasty to him. While he reaches to get the doughnuts that I request I look down at his tip bowl and there, sitting innocently, is a dollar bill. I smile. Should I tax this stupid ass a dollar for being a fool? I'm not telling you that the idea didn't cross my mind, but I didn't act upon it. Simply because I feel that life holds man in a balance. And what we do onto others will be done to us. As the old saying goes: What goes around, comes around.

I take my change, and hover my hand over his tip bowl, and then walk off, skipping joyously out the door. Hey, poor service, poor tips. Like I told you, what goes around, comes around. I go home, sit down, have a doughnut and coffee, and get ready for my day. I have to report to WECARE today for my final evaluation. I know what this is all about today. Just a dog and pony show for me to report to their Vocational program. The sick, fucking joke of an organization claiming to care for the well-being of those needing help. I hope they realize that I've been through this with them before. We will butt heads.

I look at the sun rise through my window. Another day.

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