The clinic was quiet for a Friday. Usually there are a zillion people in the waiting room and I never have a cigarette to pass the time. This time I got there and got right in. They took me down the familiar hall and I answered a few questions, popped a few tablets of the test group formula 1, initialed some paperwork and they let me free. They said I should avoid operating heavy machinery. I told them not to worry and I walked home. The whole way all I could think about was getting something to eat.
The walk home was easy , all downhill. I made it up to my apartment and everything was just like I had left it, all organized. I grabbed the cordless and sat down at the computer. No emails. I tried to remember Ben Miller’s phone number so I brought it up with the phone directory. I got a hold of him but he didn’t sound too thrilled to hear from me. It sounded like he just woke up. It was 2:30 in the afternoon for Christ’s sake. I asked him if I could come over to see him. He said he was laid up and I thought it would be a nice gesture to pay him a visit so that’s what I set out to do. I told him I would be right over with something to cheer him up. I grabbed the guitar; I wanted Ben to hear the new stuff I was fooling around with.
I got there and buzzed his apartment. He has an ancient intercom. There is no privacy. Every room has it’s own numbered button and all the names that go with those numbers are listed right there next to the buttons except where tenants have opted to be listed as “Occupant”. I buzzed his room again. I gave my signature three quick buzzes. The Postman rings twice; I ring three times. That way he knows its me before he even has to ask.
“Alan...?”
“Yeah, Its me.”
I told him to drop the keys down to me and I managed to get it in the heavy lock in the door on the first try. The familiar smell of the air inside greeted me as I made my way into the building. Not a rancid smell. More of a musty dankness that just seeps out from all the old walls and floors and ceilings, every nook and cranny. I climbed the three flights of stairs up to his room and pushed open the door, already ajar.
Its not the Hilton but it suits him. The character given the building by its architect is fighting for prominence over this man standing before me. My best friend.
“How are you doing old man?”
“My foot hurts so bad I feel like cutting it off. I wanna just lop the sucker off, man.”
“Which one is it?”
“The left...oh what the hell does it matter? You aren’t a doctor!”
“Well I doubt its anything a beer or three won’t fix,” I said jokingly.
He was hobbling about picking up the stray litter on the floor and tossing it in the overflowing garbage can.
“Time to take out the trash, wouldn’t you say there Ben?”
“Be my guest. There’s so much crap in here its finally starting to feel like home.”
“Gee, I can’t wait...”
He started off on one of his rants and I made my way to the kitchen. He mentioned something about Broadway. All the while I was scouting out the fridge situation.
What I found in the fridge was just the basics. It was a pack of tortillas, a bottle of ketchup, a carton of orange juice, and a six-pack of Budweiser with three missing. I looked away and noticed on the cutting board was a half empty bottle of vodka. I grabbed a couple of brewskies from the fridge and brought them back out to the living room giving Ben one and popping the other for myself.
“Been hitting the hard stuff, eh Ben?”
“You mean the vodka? Well, I thought I would indulge. Its the weekend after all.”
“When is it not the weekend for you. You don’t have a job!”
That’s when I began to feel the effects of the pills.
The Twilight Zone Marathon was on Sci-Fi. Ben went off on some story brought on by something I had just told him about that had just enough of a shred of relevance to anything that I had to hear him out. He rambles on for hours about nothing sometimes. Nothing that means anything to me anyway. Things like what he’s been involved with, places he’s been, past affairs. Everything under the sun. I sat there ignoring him, fixed on the muted TV for a while.
Everything on the screen was pulsing to its own organic beat. The pills were making me hallucinate, a side effect I had failed to notify the clinic of because I rather enjoyed it. It was a break from reality. Some people go see movies, some people read books, I take pharmaceutical drugs.
Ben was still talking about the lack of funding for the space program and its projected effect on our economy. I listened to him for hours, tripping on the TV and sipping my beer. Occasionally I had to giggle. You can’t watch infomercials while high and not laugh. I’m sorry. It can’t be done.
I asked Ben what time it was. It was early. Like around 3am. He told me he would get some smokes from the Africans in the morning when they opened. For the time being he decided to smoke some hashish with me. It was tasty. From South America, I believe. Anyway, if I wasn’t intoxicated before then I was surely that way now. Nothing would stand still. Everything I saw was alive and was moving.
I was broke and cigarettes were a luxury. So that night I was smoking re-rolls. A re-roll is when you take a few of your cigarette butts and empty the tobacco out of them in order to roll a new cigarette with it. The tobacco you get is pretty well resinated from being the base of an already smoked cigarette. Some people call it “snipe”. When the snipe ran out, after I had rolled and re-rolled our initially large now dwindling supply of tobacco, I opted to head home for more butts to re-roll and to veg out for a while in my own space. Alone. In a controlled environment. I needed the peace of controllable surroundings. Everything was changing color.
“Can I borrow your rolling machine, Ben?”
“Uhhhhh...yes”
He obliged me though hesitantly. I asked for the rolling papers as well; he said yes. I gathered up my things and I headed out the door.
“Later, Ben”
“Yes but what is later but longer to wait?”
I knew what he meant just instinctively. I knew exactly what he meant. He was tired. Tired of doing. Tired of being. A tired old man with nothing to offer.
I left Ben’s at about 4:30 am Sunday morning. I left in just the nick of time, too. I had saved just enough tobacco to roll a thin cigarette from the papers, it was the only paper I had. It actually worked fine in spite of my doubts so I was pleased. I just had to have a smoke for the road. I would have been naked without it. I headed out into the dark and cold night with the burning ember of my cigarette to guide me.
I started out down the steps and onto the sidewalk. I was trying to avoid making the utility lids from banging. It was so early I didn’t want to make any noise and disturb the peace. I liked it better when it was quiet. I glanced up ahead and saw that there were a couple of troublemakers hanging out on the corner so I cut a right down a couple of blocks ahead of them. There was no way I was in the mood to entertain bums. They would see my cigarette and start hitting me up for one. They seemed to not notice me bug out down the side street. I wasn’t too worried about them following me and cutting me off on the block I was headed for. Then I was on Oakwood Avenue on the eastern sidewalk. I then remembered that I was headed straight for the bathhouse block. A few nights earlier I walked by and there were guys with tight jeans and cowboy hats with one leg up on the wall greeting folks as they walked by waiting for someone to take them home. I decided to cross the street in the middle of the block.
I was safe now, I thought. No sooner had I relaxed when I spied the cripple with the high whining voice. He was crouched down or sitting on the ground manipulating some object and highly fixed on it. It was some sort of foodstuff I believe. He was so intent on it he never noticed me creeping up. So I stayed to the left of the row of cars that temporarily separated us. It was all very strategic. I almost felt I was in a video game. He never saw me walking up and didn’t even give the slightest glance or glare in my direction. I was a good spy. I evaded the enemy even within close proximity. He just couldn’t have cared about anything but that sandwich.
His crutches were laid out in angles. It is that bum who has his leg amputated at the knee. He’s so old and tired that whenever he sees me he can’t even get the words out fast enough to hustle me as I approach in his direction out on the streets let alone make even a bit of sense. But he doesn’t have to. I completely understand what he is there for. He doesn’t have to speak a word in order to scream for help. I just don’t have the will to get involved with the poor guy. He’ll probably chump for change until he dies of some painful disease of the liver all alone. His crutches will fall to oblivion never more with enough energy to prop up their resident patient and user. He doesn’t hurt anyone that I can tell. He’s too fragile to give much care to. He’s more fragile than the guy who sells papers at the entrance to the bus tunnel. That old gray man has recently come up with some nasty looking cuts and bruises on his thin, bony, angular face. He looks somewhat seasoned and I am nice to him.
I wonder if he got jacked for his paper money, probably a couple of young punks that didn’t know any better. It’s true that all the violence in the media has an influential effect on the viewer. "TV Babies" just like James Fogle said. They only know what they’ve seen on the tiny flickering screen. Violence, hate, misogyny, all the ills of society find purchase in the imagination of the youth, perpetuating an attitude of greed, bloodlust, and selfishness. Its roots quickly grab hold of the souls of the weak-minded drones who choose to emulate the behaviors of fantastic characters playing the roles of Hell’s minions. They’re reckless abandon leaving a trail of destruction in their wake. Who will teach them the difference? What difference would it make when we accept our lack of control over anything real. There is this illusion of civility, which shrouds our animal instincts. We have no control over it. Most of the time we can’t even control ourselves. We can’t control what we do, what we think, what happens to us, where we will be, or what we like or dislike.
So on passing the gutter tramp I proceeded to take what was left of the sidewalk and found myself on the northwest corner of Oakwood and Vale. The bathhouse was kitty-corner from where I was standing. I looked both ways down the street and crossed the street heading home. I then noticed a temporary fence up ahead essentially closing the sidewalk that I was approaching. There really wasn’t much of anyone about. I had to cross the street again and started to feel a little fed up with this whole business of dodging these obstacles that littered my path and that were somehow surprising me into feeling vulnerable.
First, the need for a cigarette to walk with, avoiding hookers, evading the bathhouse area, and slipping past the intensive, crouching cripple to now having nearly a half-inch of cigarette left and I was taking puffs with a tense frequency and burning it down as far as my finger could stand it. Eventually, I couldn’t put my lips directly on it but I managed to keep it between my fingers and produce enough suction to take the most desperate drags from the unraveling roll. I finally gave up, partially because I needed to climb a hill, but mostly because I had smoked it to the extent of its usefulness. I tossed away the bits of paper and black bits that I now possessed which still burned slowly away as I flicked it away thereby scattering the components through the still air beneath the flood light.
Now I had a hill before me and I took it well. I was somewhat exhausted yet I took the hill well. I maintain a balance of breathing and physical movement in order to supply my working limbs with the essential oxygen needed to gently kill off the living cells. Oxygen corrodes the paint of automobiles yet we breathe a mixture of gas containing 21% of it. Not everything makes sense not does it follow any sense of logic. There is nothing I can control completely. Even myself. The only thing you can truly control is what comes out of your mouth.
I made myself some coffee this Monday afternoon because I haven’t slept yet and I felt like I was going to die again. I was getting a lump in my throat which made it hard to swallow. I felt a little pain in my arm and started to feel light headed. My heart was beating in my throat. Very frightening. I have been awake on these pills for a while now. I wish I could remember that. It almost never fails. Anyway, Marvin did the dishes for me today for some cash. He swept the kitchen and vacuumed as well. The apartment looks nice now. I’ve started to calm down. I think this scribbling is getting the bad feeling out.
All I know is that it has been a long weekend and there doesn’t appear to be an end in sight. And, with the coming doctor’s appointment, I fear there will be no time to sleep beforehand. I made some coffee to which I added Hazelnut syrup and creamer. Somebody is knocking on the door. I better see who it is.