Sleepless in Penn Station

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I have another one of those nights where I get up over and over again to take a leak. Maybe that's because I took my stupid water pills earlier that night. I get up probably six or seven times over the span of the night. And every time that I use the bathroom, someone is in there. Washing up in the washbasin, looking in the mirror, taking a leak also, or a shower, someone is always in the bathroom. There is never any privacy here. Never.

I go to bed and drop off quickly each time. There is no restless state where I'm just laying in bed, staring at at the ceiling, waiting for sleep. No. The second that my head hits the pillow I am out cold. No ifs, ands or buts about it. I am out quickly. Only to awaken quickly enough. I'm grateful for the wake ups because the alternative could be wetting the bed. And I have come close.

Damn waterpills.

I wake to the lights at 6:00AM, my usual wake up alarm, but today I ignore it and go back to sleep. I'm out to fill myself with sleep, starting today. I drift off again and wake up around 8:00AM to the sound of an alarm clock. I roll over and notice Robert rolling over also. He rises tiredly, "Alright, who has an alarm going off?" He says. No one answers although the alarm continues. Paul the Stooge rises, frowns and yawns. "The person is not here," he says. Rob slides his legs off the edge of the bed and sits up. "HEY! Who's alarm is going off??!" He shouts up into the air. If I had any intention of going back to sleep, this alarm clock's incessant ringing put a stop to that.

Robert soon rose and walked to the other side of the partition to bed number one, who's occupant was sleep with his pillow over his head. Robert shook him awake and told him about his alarm clock. The dormmate, I don't know his name, thanked Robert and turned off the offending noise. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief. I rose at this point and got ready.

I hit the Way and rode up to 33rd street, reading my new library book, The Intelligencer and while at a stop, the overhead PA system states that the next stop is Fifty First street. What?? I jump out of the train at 42nd street. So engrossed was I in that stupid fucking book that I completely missed my stop. Now I had an ass long walk downtown to 36th street and Madison Starbucks. Pissed me off for certain.

I hung out there for a change. Yeah. And I didn't see any blonde women either.

From there I went to the libary. To my surprise, Electra wasn't there. Our seats were taken. That was interesting. Either she or I are present to hold our seats. Now normally this would be no big deal for you people with homes. But when you are homeless, it's not good to break routine without some advance warning. I mean, what else can she be doing other than to be here at her seat. Clean house? Take it easy on the sofa? Have company? Of course not. This is her 'house'. Sometimes she goes to visit friends or relatives up in New Jersey. Maybe this is the case. I push the more morbid thoughts from my mind and take my seat somewhere else.

I sent her an email afterwards, just to see what was up.

After the library I returned to Starbucks and called my mother. She wanted to know was I home. For some reason, she still doesn't get it that I'm homeless. My normalcy tends to cause her to forget the fact that I have no home. The Box is no home. It's more like a bed and no breakfast. In the day time, I'm out in the streets, just like when I was a streeter. The only difference is that I have a bed to go to at night.

That was probably the worst thing about being a streeter. When the sun fell it was always a chore finding somewhere to sleep. That was after we lost the Hotel. When we had the hotel, nights were fine. When we got tired, we went to the front of the library, gathered chairs, and stretched across them. In the morning you get up and put your chairs back. But after we lost the Hotel one winter, when the police began issuing out summonses and jail time, well, I had to find another home. I found Penn Station.

That's where every night was a fun night. You'd find somewhere to sleep this night, they the cops would roust you from it the next. There would be a waiting area that they patrolled thoroughly for months, and for one week they wouldn't. Every night it was something new, something different. Sleep was a crap shoot. This makes one miserable at sundown. You don't know what to expect. The blood drains from your face as you wait for the late evening where you get tired, and long for a bed to sleep in. What you get is a chair in a waiting room. Sleeping in the seated position whether on the floor on in a chair.

Yeah, those were the days. And now, here I am, sitting in Starbucks, waiting to go to the Box. Waiting until late, because, honestly, I hate the place. In comparison to Penn Station though, it's Nirvana. But Nirvana in East Hell, is still Hell. And the Box is still a Box of Nuts. There is no escaping the fact that there is something called home, and then there is where I am. It's somewhat easy to lose track of that fact. I am not in a happy home, I don't have the gift of privacy, everything that I own has been given me, even down to my clothes. I'm damn near destitute and am dependent on the rules of others to survive.

Fuck all that. OBSIDIAN and I have been receiving invitations to appear at numerous poetry readings, but I have had to decline many of the late ones. The ones at night that go too long. Simply because of curfew. I guess that's one thing that I'm rich with, and that's friends.

I leave my brother to head for the Box before curfew and stand, waiting a ridiculous amount of time on a line of just three people for my meds. I have nothing to do while I wait, so I weigh my backpack at a nearby scale. It comes out to twenty six pounds. TWENTY SIX POUNDS. I haul around twenty six pounds every single day, all day. Some shit, huh? I wonder, where the fuck are my muscles?

I finally get my meds from the slow as shit Nurse Gail and then head for my bed. I set up my laptop but it's a useless gesture. I grow tired quickly and begin to nod off. Vanessa soon comes to stand over me. "Why is your laptop still on?" I look up at her with bleary eyes, wondering the same question. I close down and crawl into bed. I try to read a little but that's moot. I pack up my shit and put it away. With a sigh I crawl into bed and call it a night.

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